We’re not playing that game anymore.
Some of you really won’t like what I’m about to say because you want to think you’re so in charge of your own behavior all the time (and Godspeed to you, my friend). But the reason Strengths work as an alignment tool, or the reason Enneagram works as an alignment tool, is because someone did the hard work to discover the rules underlying human behavior.
There are rules to the way we behave because each of us, individually, are a system, and all systems are governed by rules. It’s how they exist.
When a person makes a decision, some of the motivation is physiological, and some of the motivation is psychological, but no decision happens in a vacuum. And no decision happens without a reason.
I was having a conversation with someone the other day who is, by nature (and by trauma), defiant. I told him he wasn’t going to like what I had to say, and it was going to make him crack a joke, and then, when he pushed back, I said, “your brain right now is trying to decide between defying my expectations because you like to be defiant, and engaging your coping mechanism of humor.” In that moment, he was caught between two competing internal drives that were so strong, they would be almost pre-cognitive.
But he did make a joke.
We really want to believe that our behaviors are so under our control. That we “choose” to be the way we are, or that we make decisions intentionally, but SO MUCH of our activity on a conscious and subconscious level is governed by the rules of our internal systems.
It’s not a bad thing. It’s just a thing.
But those rules are visible to me because I watch for them, study, and understand them. They’re visible to someone like Claire (who does Enneagram work with authors) because she studies them and understands them. In fact, many of you make comments like, “how are you in my head, Becca” and “are you watching me,” and I just smile and say to myself… no, I just know the rules.
Those aren’t the only rules we play by, though. And this is where it starts to get frustrating.
We play by rules in everything we do. We don’t realize it. But it’s the way our world works. Once we do something enough, it creates a system with rules that will self-perpetuate, and those rules govern everything.
Even when you make a choice to be unpredictable, you’re doing something because you have a motivation to be unpredictable. (That motivation might come from many different places, but the cause is under there.)
Every system has rules. Publishing is no different.
And every set of behaviors we execute as authors comes from a subconscious understanding of those rules. Many of us are still trying to understand the rules (some of us, so we can break them; some of us, so we can bend them; some of us, so we can make the game fair; some of us, so we can live by them without having to think about the rules). But we’re all existing in them.
Problem is, especially in the author industry right now, the rules are changing. There’s a lot of destabilization and that causes anxiety (we don’t know what to do to get the outcomes we want). Some people are actively fine because they’ll adapt quickly to the new system. And others are really, really not fine.
What’s important to know is what rules do you “have” to play by, and what rules do you not have to play by.
You do not have to play by New York Rules anymore. (Unless you are submitting to New York, and then… until you either get published or decide to stop querying, you’re playing by New York Rules.)
New York Rules are the rules of venture capitalism. They are, “you get one shot at this, because we can move on from you very quickly if we have to.” (This is not a diss on New York. It allowed a LOT of people to be published when those were the rules, and I was one of them, so I’m forever grateful for being “picked” and given a chance in that way.)
Then we had the Gold Rush Rules for awhile. They were “put out as much content as you can as quickly as possible, and it can even be subpar if it needs to be, because the water is blue.” Plenty of people were still taking their time and publishing slowly, because we’ll always be playing by the rules of Reader Expectations and when your brain dictates your publishing speed, you have to play by Your Brain Rules first.
Now, though, we are in the transition between the Gold Rush and whatever is coming next. (I choose to think it’s the Golden Age of Publishing, because no one gets to tell you that you have to quit. But others might think other things. You’re all entitled to your opinion.) And transitions are generally destabilizing.
This is why we’re doing our new Author4Life program. Because when we’re looking for stability, we need to return to the rules of the game we’re playing. (Also, just on a side note, if you haven’t read the individualized rules of the “silly games we play” that Claire wrote about each of our Enneagram types, you need to read them.)
The Rules in the new age are going to be: learn, retrench, learn, retrench, learn, retrench.
This is good news because:
1) No one can take away your ability to publish. That will always be yours now, thanks to the openness of the market.
2) No one can take away your ability to learn. You can always try new things, make mistakes, learn from them, and then get better. That opportunity will never go away.
3) No amount of not-having-success-in-the-past is indicative of never having success in the future. (As long as you are willing to learn, retrench, and not give up.) Only you can stop your publishing business, in other words.
4) The market is so saturated already, more saturation is just more. There will always be an availability of readers, somewhere, and every saturation point will pass.
5) The market will always course-correct. Anytime there’s been a problem in the past, someone solves it. If you aren’t the person to solve it, then bide your time until someone does.
But the bad news is: it’s going to be work and it’s going to take patience.
We’re going to address this in our digital con more this year, and in the Author4Life library (coming in January). But I woke up and chose to post this morning because I see a lot of hope in the future. And I think we need hope for the future more than ever.
You have all the agency, my friend. You are the main character of this story. The happy ending can still be in front of you, as long as you learn, adapt, change, and move forward.
I’m here to help however I can.
But the Golden Age is here. Let’s play by those rules.
– Becca