If you really want to make a name for yourself, publish comment insisting you’ve been silenced.

It happened again last week in a nationwide publication. Under a byline accompanied by a headshot and the covers of two of his books, an Australian author counted himself among those writers deemed “pale, stale and male” by the publishing industry, who “seem to have become cancelled because of our age”.

It’s a trope repeated so many times, it would be generous to describe it as cliche. Typical of the genre, evidence of discrimination is unburdened by statistics beyond the author’s disappointment that only one of six shortlistees in this year’s Booker prize is a dude.

It’s a missed trick. Stats surrounding gender representation in publishing perhaps gives authors – pale, male, stale or indifferent – channels for meaningful activism beyond seeking validation from notoriously fickle newspaper readers. In a world where fostering a false sense of cultural displacement is a trick cynically employed by sly political manipulators, practical solutions are perhaps of some value.

I shan’t name the author; the oeuvre of such pieces is to be indistinguishable. It’s some literary achievement, given the ubiquity seems to transcend the boundaries of nation, if not demographics.

Besides, I’m not here to bury the man but to help him, sharing the below strategies acquired on the bumpy journey of my own literary career. I’m committed to building a culture of excellence that looks like Australia. I can only presume that’s the shared goal?

1. Change your name

If you’re concerned your work is pre-invalidated by a gender prejudice, I personally recommend neutralising your name ahead of any literary submission. Back when I was Vanessa Badham, my theatrical interest in class politics, terrorism and macroeconomics didn’t open many doors. Within a year of adopting my dad’s nickname for me as professional moniker, the same plays were on stages all over the world – once, fabulously, with a letter saying how great it was to see a young man take on these subjects. Very affirming! Many times I’ve wondered that if I had’ve eschewed a headshot on this column, I may have sourced responses more constructive to my writing practice than the somewhat gendered “shut up, you fat witch” I got yesterday. Which brings me to …

2. Toughen up!

I understand how awful it is to be considered “a dinosaur”, even if no one’s said it to you personally and it’s just something you’ve come to believe is being said in general. As someone who’s had every inch of her body critiqued on the internet and rape threats delivered to her home, I understand negative comments are dispiriting. When the misogynistic online movement known as “Gamergate” took off in August 2013 and many female writers, like myself, got their first online death threats, the commentator Brendan O’Neill gave us advice that 12 years later I think everyone can appreciate was the right call: “The most remarkable thing about the frenzied national handwringing over Twitter trolls,” he wrote “is that anybody is taking it seriously. That people are buying into the harebrained idea that a handful of bedroom-bound blokes who tweet insults at women with one hand while doing God knows what with the other really do pose a threat to womankind, the entire internet, and the social fabric itself. It’s time we referred to this fretting over trolls by its real name: a moral panic.”

Don’t give in to moral panic, fellas! Public abuse has zero broader ramifications!

3. Embrace poverty

It’s true that as of 2022 65% of published authors in Australia are women. It’s also true that the median income from writing in this country is $18,200 a year. Research indicates that men leave occupations that become predominantly female, perceiving a reduction in occupational prestige and the onset of declining wages: it’s known as “occupational feminisation”, and it’s also happened in clerical professions, teaching/academia and pharmacy.

So don’t sweat about being invited to the right parties – given that most Australian writers work multiple jobs to subsidise their own writing, no one’s got the time to go to any!

If you’re not interested in taking action to increase wages in the sector and thus bolster its prospects for gendered equalisation, don’t worry: the men who write 35% of the books still get 45% of the reviews.

It’s also true that women do dominate the jobs (84% of them) in the local publishing industry, receiving wages below the national average and conspicuously below comparable jobs in professional, scientific and technical occupations – if only there was some pattern we could draw. The good news for men is that representation of women – just like in the US and Britain – mysteriously declines as industry positions become more senior.

4. Find an audience

Complex systemic factors shape opportunities in writing but, from fringe shack to content megacorp, one assessment determines them all: “Is there an audience for this?”. Once marginalised from the mainstream discourse, the dark, the female and the fresh built an audience for themselves – despite obstacles, despite prejudices – by speaking not merely of their communities but beyond them.

That’s the job. And it’s the same job Richard Flanagan, Tim Winton, Alan Wearne, John Kinsella, David Williamson, Rodney Hall and every other Australian writer was doing when they launched new work last year.

A lack of interest in this audience can’t be blamed on “silencing”. It’s an admission of the silence within.

• Van Badham is a Guardian Australia columnist