As someone that would one day like to wear the big-girl published author pants, I found Jim Hines’ survey results fairly interesting. Particularly the way he takes a Mythbusters-esque approach to looking at certain “common widsom” about getting published – like that you have to have an in, or the way to do it is to write short fiction1.
And of course, something that makes my inner science fair judge smile – he has a section at the end on sources of error/survey flaws. Awesome work, Mr. Hines!
Overall, I found it very interesting and I’d encourage anyone who’s wanting to become a published author of novels to take a look. It’s obviously not definitive, but there’s a lot of food for thought when you get the hint that just maybe the people who are telling you to self-publish are pushing you in a unhelpful direction. Or that it’s okay if you don’t get published before you’re 30. As someone set to hit 30 this year, that last one makes me feel a whole lot better.
1 – My reaction: “You mean I don’t have to write short stories? WOOHOOOOOO!” Mostly because I’m terrible at short stories. Other than the extremely rare ideas I come up with that a small enough for the format, trying to write short form fiction just fills me with seething frustration.