Are You Doing It for the 'Gram?

Hey friends,

I went to a concert last weekend. I'm getting a little old for concerts, but I'm not out of the game yet. As much as I enjoy sitting, it was fun to dance and sing. We met up with friends, I heard some good music. We drank overpriced drinks. Bernie Sanders and AOC showed up and the Strokes played "New York City Cops." That's hard to top for this Xennial, or whatever I am.

It was also fun to step back and watch all the other people have fun at this show, especially younger people. This was their Saturday night, maybe they looked forward to it all week. So many women wore going out tops. There were dudes in Strokes tshirts rocking out. That was as much a part of the show for me as was the bands on stage.

And of course, everyone had their phone out. I took a picture or two, but I don't tend to record shows I'm at, or take pictures of every painting I see in a museum, or document every meal I eat. I'm not better for it; I just got tired of doing it and never looking at those pictures or videos again anyway. Still, while I was at this concert, I thought of a good post I wanted to put on Bluesky, and the specific people I thought would like it, and I turned that sentence over and over in my head for like half an hour. It was almost time for us to leave and relieve the babysitter, and I didn't want to spend those last minutes on the fucking internet when I was at a concert in real life, on a beautiful night, with my husband and some of my oldest friends, seeing a band that younger-me would have lost my mind seeing.

So I waited until I was on the train and posted it. It is a mildly funny post. That's it. Such a short sentence for how much of my attention it took up.

I have, in my youth, wanted to go viral online, only good-viral, of course. Online attention has taken up a lot of my brain space, as much as I hate to admit it, and I was proud for a long time of being verified on Twitter before you could pay for it. (Bluesky, call me.) I don’t shy away from attention (cf, this book) and it’s taken me a long time to get a handle on the good and bad ways I seek that out. I still get a pang of jealousy when I see other agents post big deal announcement, even when I have one for my own client just waiting for the greenlight to announce. I want to post some news! posts every day. I want all the congrats and likes and all that stuff.

But I don't get that every day, because good stuff doesn't happen like that every day, and if it did, well, I probably wouldn't need validation from some dumb algorithm because I would be getting it from a constant stream of good news. What does this have to do with writing, Kate? Well, you may need to ask yourself if you're just doing things for the 'gram, for the posts, for the attention, and if the 'gram is stressing you out. Are you anxious to hear back from agents and editors because you see other writers posting about their 27 full requests or 5-way auctions for 7 figures? Are you seeing lots of I have an agent! posts or Book deal news! posts and then ping-ponging between that and your empty inbox, feeling deflated? Do you think something must be wrong with you or your work you because it feels like everyone else is hearing back about things and they sent their work after you did?

The internet, especially social media, is full of good information and potential new friends, and sources of inspiration, but it could also be ruining your query and writing experiences. When someone else hears back from an agent, even the very same agent you queried, it has nothing to do with your submission. Yours is in the queue where yours is and that other person's is in the queue where theirs is and you have no idea what's in between, how that agent is approaching their inbox that day, and what reason (good or bad) they are not answering your query.

You may have written 1,087 words this week, ten times what you wrote last week!!!, and here comes someone saying they wrote 10,087 and it was a slow week for them. Your 1,087 words are amazing! They are not chump change just because someone else wrote more! You are not behind! They are not ahead! You and that other writer are on completely different tracks and will be for the rest of your careers. That's one of the problems with publishing and writing–there are infinite tracks and you don't know which one you're on until the end.

This is not to say you shouldn’t share your experience, good and bad. Publishing is too opaque as it is and you don’t need to hide. But are you sharing to share or sharing for the likes? Are you striving for each goal just to make a fun graphic in Canva? Do you want to write or do you want to tell people you have written? What would you do if no one was watching?

Comparison is the thief of joy. What someone else gets, that you do or do not get, is none of your business. If you're in the query trenches right now, please step away from Query Tracker, trying to analyze when, how, and in what order an agent reads or does not read your work. (Tbh, this feature bothers me so much I would turn if off if I could. Why are you watching me do my job??! It's creepy!) Please, save your sanity and your creative spirit and don't spend too much time comparing your experience to others', trying to gauge your own success off your incomplete and incorrect assessments of someone else's success. I know this is easier said than done, but the more you practice, the better you get at it. Like writing. Keeping your eyes on your own page is as vital a skill as any self-editing technique. Ask me how I know.

I know because I have been in this industry for twenty years, and a writer for much longer, and a published writer for merely a millisecond of that time. I know because I had to go through the pangs of professional jealousy myself before I figured out it wasn't serving me to endlessly compare myself to other writers and agents. I'm not perfect at this. I'm not meditating on a sunny cliffside like Don Draper. But I can more easily recognize when I do it and can then stop myself, and protect what's left of my good mood that day. With practice, you can, too.

I believe in you. Get off the internet and go write your book.

OXOXOXOX,

Kate

Who am I and what is this? This is Agents & Books, a twice-weekly newsletter about writing, publishing, and the creative life. I've been an agent for 20 years, most of it at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency, and I'm the author of two books: Write Through It: An Insider's Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life (Simon Element, 2025) and a picture book called Pay Attention to Me!, with illustrations by Rob Justus (Sourcebooks, 2026). If you haven't already, become a subscriber today. $5 a month or $50 a year. Same price since 2019! Need to unsubscribel? Look here.