1 Mercutio: {looking over Will's shoulder} Oh. You write fiction?
2 Shakespeare: Yeah, I'm trying to get published. I have a stack of reject letters this high.
3 Shakespeare: So many people think they can write these days. It's almost impossible to get that first break.
4 Shakespeare: It would have been easier hundreds of years ago. Any hack who could write - at all! - back then was regarded as a literary genius.

When you're one of the first to do something, you don't really need to be particularly good at it to get noticed.

When you're one of millions, even if you are really good, it's hard to get noticed.

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2022-04-16 Rerun commentary: If only I'd started making webcomics just 5 years earlier.

At least you don't get reject slips when you self-publish on your own website.