There is an old commercial that I absolutely hate.  It went a little like this: the professor is browbeating his students by telling them that no matter how hard they try, most of them would never be published because publishing is a hard-core terrible business that is all about the money.  A smart-alec student stands up and eloquently delivers the argument that with the new technologies in printing everyone would soon have their chance.  Some one please taser him.

With the amazing number of technologies now providing all of us writer types an ever-expanding choice of publishing venues I believe we are drowning our readers in mediocre at best work.  As a part of my life with a publishing company, I see a lot of works destined for the infamous slush pile.  As a writer, the slush pile is where it takes lightning to strike your work twice before it has any chance of getting noticed.  If it gets noticed, it never fails to shock me when an editor sends a request for edits or to tell a writer this is their last chance to submit their best effort and they just send back in the same copy as last time.

Here is the terrible truth about publishing, most books, no matter how great, will never sell more than 500 copies in its life.  An extremely small number of books actually make money and an even smaller number become well known.  With the economy changing in ways that defy prediction and the core industry functions behind publishing and book selling in a state of disarray, let me tell you, good isn't good enough any more.  It isn't even close.  Your work has to be stunning to have any chance, no matter how small, to survive.  All the advertising in the world can't fix substandard work.

I remember back a couple of decades ago to a bit of advice that stuck with me.  If you show someone your work and the first thing they say is that "it is good" or that you are "such a good writer" – you have failed.  I know, that sounded really harsh.  Sadly, it is true.  If your reader noticed your typing skills and clever word choices then you failed to suspend disbelief and truly draw them into your work.  If you wrote a piece about growing strawberries and the reader doesn't first say something about their experience with their own strawberries, you have failed.  They can tell you how great a writer you are later.  First, they had better playing in the dirt with you enjoying a strawberry, then they can talk about your writing.  The words have to fade behind the content.  Reading is not about words; it is a personal experience of imagination.  If you don't deliver, it's not good enough.

I will never forget the first time I had a fictional work being reviewed and the reviewers walked up to me and launched into comments about the execution of my crime scene.  It took me a couple of comments to catch onto the magnitude of what had just happened.  My words had managed to deliver the goods confidently from the orchestra pit, unseen, allowing the story to take the stage.

If your story hasn't taken its first bow, you have work to do, it isn't good enough, yet.