What Having a Thick Skin Is…And What It Isn’t

I’m sure we’ve all heard that publishing industry phrase, “You need to have a thick skin.” And I’m sure we all assumed it was being uttered by a person who was using it as an excuse to be a dick. No? Just me, then? Well, anyway.

Given that a thick skin really is essential if you intend to pursue a career in publishing, I thought it would save us all a lot of therapist’s bills if we took a minute to deconstruct the bullshit—ahem, myths—behind this popularly used phrase.

Having a Thick Skin…

Is NOT: Getting negative feedback and thinking, “Yay, they hated my book!”

“They didn’t connect with my main character and thought my plot was flimsy and didn’t notice the stakes…oh my! This is just the moment I’ve always dreamed of!”

I know you were all hoping there was a mythical “thick skin” place you could get to where negative feedback only brought you joy and energy, but if such a place exists, I’ve never seen evidence of it. You can have a thick skin, you can be a professional, and you can do both without being absolutely fucking delighted that someone thought your book needed big changes.

IS: Understanding that revision isn’t indicative of failure, it’s the process of improvement.

You think your favorite author doesn’t have to revise? Wrong. To create your favorite book, they probably wrote “more than I want to admit in public” number of drafts. I know a lot of people like to say that all first drafts are garbage but I think it’s possible to write a damn good first draft. Of course, that means that your second draft can hit an even higher bar because you had the time and space to reflect even more and deepen the accomplishments of your first.

Having a thick skin means being able to see something use-able in feedback and act on it, despite any disappointment or hurt you might (probably) felt at first.

Is NOT: Taking all feedback without question

It’s important to read and consider all feedback. It’s important to take probably more of it than you want to. But if you try to take all feedback from all people, you’re going to get confused really fast. Even if you have thick skin, that doesn’t mean you have to swallow all feedback like it’s sugar-laced propaganda.

Also consider that sometimes people’s negative feedback is a positive thing. For instance, if someone tells you “This scene makes me uncomfortable, maybe you should change it.” Then consider if you wrote the scene to make the reader uncomfortable. If that’s the case, should you really change it?

IS: Separating your opinion of yourself from your work. Believing there’s value even without perfection.

Look, I don’t give a lot of books 5 stars. Of the ones I do, I have a hotly contested Top 5 Favorite Books. Even amongst those, the hard-fought pinnacle best of thousands upon thousands of books that I’ve ever read, I could still list flaws in all of them. Things that could have been expanded or polished or revised to be more purposeful. But does that mean I didn’t love them? No. Does it mean they didn’t move me? Definitely not.

Even if your book isn’t be perfect, it can still have an impact on people. It can be memorable and emotionally moving and maybe just help them a tiny step forward in the journey of their life. So if you ever become paralyzed thinking of everything you need to change, or all the ways your book could be better, think of that. What if it could reach people, and it just needed the chance?

Hey, I don’t think my husband’s perfect. But he’s brought a hell of a lot of joy to my life anyway. I’m very glad no one kept him under wraps because they just needed to make “a couple more tweaks” before I could meet him.

Is NOT: Not having feelings

Okay, bottom line. You’re going to have feelings. If you’re putting enough into your writing, you have emotions about it and about other people’s opinions of it. That’s perfectly normal and frankly unavoidable. Developing a thick skin means that you don’t just have emotions. You keep going to all the interesting territory past that point.

IS: Resilience

The greatest gift experience and a “thick skin” can give you is to move ever faster through the process of “Oh God you hate me and I should never write fiction again” to “Hey, I bet I could do what they said only it would make it really cool if I…”

To have resilience means truly believing you have talent. You have hard-won skills. And you can take this feedback and use it to make your book better. Hey, maybe you can even enjoy it. A little.