Hello, I am new to this site.
I have two completed books, a third almost finished and am about to get the ideas of book four down on the computer.

I have synopsis and first 500 words of each on my own site -

Book-Works

Please visit and nose around - have a read and be honest in your appraisal!

I'm desparate to get published and start earning a bit of money from the hard work I've done. Any advice and suggestions would really be welcomed.

Thanks

Hi Bob, welcome to the site.

Have you ever sent any of your work out?

The best way to get feedback is to join one of the groups and upload a section, normally around 2000 words - you'll also learn a lot from critting other people's works.

The bible, in as far as learning about publishing and how to submit your work, is

The Writers' and Artists' Yearbook - it is brought out each year and the 2008 version, listing all publishers and agents, has recently been published. Usual form is to submit the first 3 chapters of your book and a synopsis.

Of course you may already know all this! In which case there's a lot to learn from this site about self-publishing, competitions, ways to improve your writing,etc etc.

Good luck

Hello Bob, and welcome to WW. Dee and NikPerring are the Site Hosts, so ask them if you need any steering, or just post a cry for help!

Casey's said what I would have about the how best to use the site, so I'll just second her.

It sounds as if you don't need telling how hard it is to get published, but if you've got this far with no results (particularly if you're getting standard rejections, with no hints as to why) you could consider getting one of the editorial services to have a long, hard look at one of your novels. They're not cheap, at least for a full report, but you can learn an awful lot about your writing in general, as well as how to improve that particular novel.

Emma

If I can reply to both Emma and Casey together - thank you for you kind replies, they are much appreciated.

Yes, I did send out the first three chapters of one book, with a synopsis, after a business associate read it and spoke to his friend at Penguin, I sent it to 12 agents named in the Artist's and Writer's Yearbook 2006, one read it I think the others I know did not (a little trick I learned in a specialist job I had once - can't divulge the methods) - but all sent the same letter. I am not deterred, JK Rowley was rejected time after time, and even the guy who took on her first book advised her to get a day job as "you won't make any money with children's books" (oops!). Generally they simply said they were not taking anyone new on at this time. Now - if they hadn't read it, how could they know whether it might be their next big one?

It's a great pity that we have this hierarchy system - the man from Penguin was really impressed but said that he has no jurisdiction to take on anything direct, it has to be approved by an agent......

Up until now I have tried to get it in front of agents, but they must be inundated with new material daily. I think I am as good as Robert Ludlum or Wilbur Smith, and that's not big - headedness, that's confidence, based upon the comments of people who have read the book "Let Sleeping Lions Lie".

I will take your advice and use this site, I wish I'd discovered it sooner!
I may go for self publishing, I have all the equipment to print a paperback and a friend has the binding equipment - it's just the marketing part that stumps me - a bit like making one's own record and then trying to get a DJ to play it.... hmmm!

Thanks once again for your help, it is much appreciated.

Hi Bob, and welcome to the site.

I see you’ve already uploaded some work – you’ll probably find it attracts more interest and feedback if you cut it down to a more manageable chunk (keep it under 2000 words if you can). At the moment it’s nearly 14,500 and most of the members who read and comment on uploaded work simply don’t have the time to read such long pieces.
If you're not sure how to cut it, just click on Owner Edit at the top.

Incidentally, agents can usually tell from the first page if something isn't what they want, so if they didn’t find your trick it doesn’t mean they haven’t looked at it.

Dee

Agents know all the tricks anyway, by what I hear, and find them extremely annoying, and take a lot of trouble to replace the upside-down page upside-down, the hair in p.247, whatever. They then write you a rejection letter.

Emma

Thanks Dee, will look at that later.

I don't have a 'trick' - agents, you, the guy next door, no-one - would know how, except someone forensically trained - and I am saying no more than that - but can tell you they didn't even read beyond the synopsis - or at least they only handled the synopsis page.....


Thanks again - all your comments are helpful..

So does that mean you can actually fingerprint pages, like the police? Sounds a bit more advanced than the old stick-the-pages-together-with-a-blob-of-pritt-stick trick. (Which, incidentally, someone advised me in all seriousness to do!)

Anyway, welcome Bob - this is a really useful site and I hope you find it a help.

Bob, if you're finding that agents didn't read past your letter and synopsis and on to the actual sample of your novel, then you might want to think about joining the Outline & Synopsis group: they can help with covering and enquiry letters too.

A good agent may get 1000 scripts a year, from which they'll probably find one author they want to take on, so they're pretty ruthless in reading submissions, and getting the right tone to the cover letter can be crucial. And Dee's quite right in saying that agents don't need to read the whole thing to decide it's not something they want to handle - the first paragraph is usually enough, and only if that shows something special will they persevere for a page or two.

Emma

An excellent resource for down to earth advice about how to approach agents (with minor adjustments for US habits) is Miss Snark's blog. She's not adding to it any more, but it's still up, and the archive is searchable.

http://misssnark.blogspot.com/

And you're right about self-publishing - the publicity and marketing is the hard bit. I think most self-publishers of fiction would agree that you don't make money, it costs you, and the value of it is in the satisfaction of getting your work out there.

Emma

Caro55 wrote: "So does that mean you can actually fingerprint pages, like the police? Sounds a bit more advanced than the old stick-the-pages-together-with-a-blob-of-pritt-stick trick. (Which, incidentally, someone advised me in all seriousness to do!)

Anyway, welcome Bob - this is a really useful site and I hope you find it a help."

Well I can't say, sorry, the job I was in involved national security and I've said too much already!

Thanks for encouraging words.

Steve (Bob Curby)

EmmaD wrote:"Bob, if you're finding that agents didn't read past your letter and synopsis and on to the actual sample of your novel, then you might want to think about joining the Outline & Synopsis group: they can help with covering and enquiry letters too.

A good agent may get 1000 scripts a year, from which they'll probably find one author they want to take on, so they're pretty ruthless in reading submissions, and getting the right tone to the cover letter can be crucial. And Dee's quite right in saying that agents don't need to read the whole thing to decide it's not something they want to handle - the first paragraph is usually enough, and only if that shows something special will they persevere for a page or two.

Emma"

Well thanks Emma - that's good advice, there has to be a 'hook line' some phrase that just catches - I'll work on that and move on to that group. The first two paragraphs in the work are pretty catchy, the synopsis isn't though, I'll admit - if you haven't seen the synopsis, it's on the website BOOK-WORKS

Thanks again - and I will look at that blog site you mentioned in the next reply note you added.

Thanks.

Got to get to bed now - my day job starts at 6:00 a.m. and I work for..........
AMAZON.CO.UK - surrounded by BOOKS!!

Hi Bob, I have just been to your website and taken a look at your synopsises and I have to honest and say these are bookcover blurbs, not true synopsises, and as such I am not surprised the agents did not get any further than them.

All the questions you raise in your synopsises concerning the plot and your character MUST be answered in a synopsis, including the ending. And, ideally, all within one size of A4 (single spaced) - preferably not more than two.


- NaomiM

Thank you Naomi - that's what I had worked out - the 'synopsis' are very weak - I need to join a group on that and work on something that will do the trick. Being here has been a great help so far, no comments will ever be taken the wrong way because I know everyone's being honest and only saying what the agents did not.

Thanks again - I will have a look at doing that over the next week..