Hi,
Just joined and this is my first post.

I'm a new novelist, with my first being published in September by Macmillan New Writing. It's called Blood and Water and I've left details on my Showcase.
You can also go to my website - http://www.lucymccarraher.com .

I'm writing a second novel, Kindred Spirits, taking the same characters on into a new situation, and blogging the process on http://www.lucymccarraher.blogspot.com.

Happy to join any relevant discussions, share experience etc, but feeling a little overwhelmed by the size of the site and number of forums. Any suggestions on which I should join gratefully received.

THe only familiar face (well, name) I see is Roger Morris, one of the first batch of MNW novelists. He's doing brilliantly with getting his novel "Taking Comfort" out there - any suggestions for marketing, publicity etc would be welcome.

That's it for the moment - not even sure where I should look for any responses to this, but will search around tomorrow perhaps.

Lucy, welcome to WW, and congratulations on being part of MNW. WWers have had a ringside site to watch it developing, thanks to Roger; it's such an exciting initiative.

As far as the site goes, you might like to take the Site Tour listed on the home page, and then dive in! Everyone's friendly, (things occasionally get a bit heated in the Lounge, but it's rarely anything personal!) and all of us are fundamentally interested in the same things. Also it's worth remembering that the Lounge (and of course private WWmail) isn't visible on the Internet, but the other forums are.

If you want sustained commenting on your work and relevant discussion the best thing is to join a suitable group, where members all follow each other's work. The forums are visible, so you can get a flavour before joining, or while waiting to join if there's a queue. You can of course dip into the archive to comment on others' work generally, and post your own work there - with an alert on this forum - but it's a bit more hit-and-miss.

There's quite a lot of discussion one way and another of how authors can market their books, which a bit of site searching might throw up. HollyB, aka Anne of Goldenford Books, is a bit of a guru on this subject, but any discussion about self-publishing overlaps with the kinds of things that would be relevant to you. And you could always start a thread, asking for people's experience!

Emma

Hi Lucy, welcome to WW! Just dig around, you'll get the hang of it eventually. The lounge is a good place to start. Click on the extreme right tab at the top - writers' forums - then you'll see a list of forums reveal themselves. Some of the workshopping ones you have to apply to join. Lots of others you can just pop in and out of as the fancy takes you.

Roger.

Hello, Lucy and welcome.

Nik.

Hi Lucy
Welcome to WW and many congratulations about MNW. Everyone else has explained things very nicely, but I found it easier to navigate once I joined a group (Novel II - new members welcome!). Hope you enjoy the site anyway - it's a great place, although I warn you, it's a little addictive......!

Hi Lucy,
I read your post with interest and wanted to know about your experience in getting your first work published (congratulations on that, by the way!)
Every internet site I've visited has basically advised how hard it is to get published, how difficult it is to find an agent to take you on etc etc.
I don't think I've found one encouraging piece of information for an unpublished, first time writer.
I would love to hear how you got to this stage and any problems you encountered on the way.
rgds
kitkat

Hi Kitkat,
I'm afraid my story was one of luck and/or perhaps synchronicity. I had written the start of a novel a few years ago and left it, discouraged. Then a friend encouraged me to submit the abandonned fragment to the Richard and Judy "How to get published" competition the year before last. I didn't win, but Macmillan, who were sponsoring the competition, developed the Macmillan New Writing imprint as something of a response to all the submissions they received, contacted me afterwards and said that they would like to see the rest of my novel. There was no "rest", but with that encouragement I wrote the final three quarters of Blood and Waterin three months and submitted it. Three weeks later they rang to say they liked and wanted to publish it.
It launches in September and I'm now two thirds of the way through my second novel, Kindred Spirits, which I hope they might also like and publish!
I still don't have an agent (no point - it's a non-negotiable contract with MNW for the first two books), but am doing as much work as I can on promotion and publicity.
All I can say is, if you have a finished novel, submit it to Macmillan New Writing (you can do this electronically, don't need an agent, in fact they don't take submissions from agents) - it will be read and you could be lucky. They publish approximately 12 first novels a year and are absolutely great to work with.
Don't know if this helps at all, but best wishes,
Lucy

Lucy, that's an encouraging story, and I think you're doing yourself down to say that it's luck and synchronicity. I think you made your luck here, and well done for doing so:

first by having a great piece of writing. It amazes me how many aspiring writers ignore that basic necessity, and talk as if it's all about meeting the right people and catching the trend and so on, when it's actually about writing a terrific book. If it's good enough, someone somewhere will fall in love with it, and all you've got to do is find them.

second by getting it out there. It's easy to be daunted by the big competitions, or by not knowing where to send work, and so on. But your example shows that these things often pay off even when they appear not to have worked, and that can't happen unless you get the work out there in the first place.

Good luck with the new one.

Emma

Thanks for that endorsement, Emma!
It is a point. Without wishing to blow my own trumpet, the first letter from Macmillan did say, "out of the 47,000 entries, yours was one of a dozen (other than the five winners) we were interested in...."
And because it's as much about the perspiration as the inspiration, I might also add that I'm 51, I've been editing and writing all my life - everything from journalism, ghost writing, radio plays, television scripts, business and research reports, even a self-help book - and although this is my first novel, it's taken a lot of practice to hone the fundamental skills. And a lot of living to provide sufficiently interesting subject matter!
Another thing is I read voraciously, and I think that's an important part of developing the writing skillset.
Cheers
Lucy

Hi Lucy,
Welcome aboard. The good ship 'WW' offers a motley collection of writers who quickly become friends and acquaintances all of whom have the love of the written word close to their hearts.

You'll have a very enjoyable cruise I am sure.

Len