I suspect that the kind of 'freaky' luck Lammi speaks of is the kind that happens only once you've done the hard work, both in mastering your craft and in getting your work and yourself out there (which to the shy, as I know from personal experience, is almost as hard). As Gary Player said (and now I'll stop quoting others, because I am capable of original thought, honest) 'The more I practice, the luckier I get'.

But yes, we could craft ourselves into fine writers and still find mainstream publishing closed to us. If that's so, if we're determined, as I say, I believe we'll find other ways to be read. As Dee says (damn, done it again), I don't believe we're hard-wired to give up.

Andrea

Anne, to me you would appear (from your WW profile) to have achieved a great deal! An agent, books published...

Frances

then I'll put it down to luck, not skill or sweat

Holly, isn't it a combination of skill, sweat and the luck to have produced a particular novel that at that moment an agent/publisher is receptive to, rather than the luck of fortunate contacts?

Andrea

I'm not mainstream published, Frances! But I can make the other options look better on the CV!!

Sorry if I didn't make myself clear before - what I meant to convey is that the skill and the sweat come in the writing, but you do need luck to be an extra factor with the publishing side. And the "luck" could be good contacts or any other number of combinations, I think.

A

Yes, I think if there is luck involved, it's not so much in meeting the right people: if the work's good enough and you get out there you will meet people who will support you and help you to go further.

However, I think there is luck in what you want to do happening to fit in with the zeitgeist. The luck I've had is that just at the moment we're in a golden age of history writing and historical fiction, where there's wonderful work for me to feed off, and the publishers are tuned into it, and they know how to sell it and that it will sell. I would always have written hist. fic. but if I'd been doing so 1976, when 'historical' meant feeble Heyer-imitators, and Catherine Cookson, and not much else, I don't think my MS would have met with nearly such enthusiasm, and if I'd got a publisher at all, they wouldn't have had a clue how to sell it.

Emma

Holly,

You're really not gonna back down on the contacts thing are you?

Well, not having a single contact or fortuitous circumstance to my name, I'm just going to have to believe it can be done despite not having them to begin with.

My first novel was appallingly written, shockingly characterised and hopelessly structured. However, it drew a far more encouraging and interested response from agents/publishers (although it was ultimately rejected) than my second novel has so far done (which has drawn precisely zilch interest). I know, because I progressed hugely as a writer between completing the first and completing the second, that the second is a far more accomplished piece of work. From that, I can only surmise that the idea-to-which-an-agent-will-be-receptive is just as important as the quality of writing. So this time I'm praying for a happy combination, with a healthy dose of zeitgeist thrown in.

Andrea

"annoyed by all those comedians who put out novels"

At the risk of wandering off-thread, this has been my pet bugbear for years, as some may recollect from past threads. I think it still is. There were a few years when I was almost a connoi ... sod it ... when I read quite a few of them - Max Bygraves's 'novel' being the first I read (but not necessarily the first "comic's novel" ever written and published - for all I know, Old Mother Reilly might have written some avant garde tour de force exhibiting masterly 'progression d'effet' in the heyday of early Modernism). I think Eric Morecambe's and Les Dawson's books were reviewed in the TLS - and at greater length than High John the Conqueror was ... and the TLS got the names of those authors right, whereas I appeared on the contents page as: Jom Younger. Satan having a laugh as usual, I suppose, the ultimate comedian. Try the Book of Job for the best "comic's novel" ever written.

Jom

Not at all, contacts is part of the luck, Andrea! If you have these, as some mentioned on this thread certainly do (in whatever context), then you are a lot luckier than those of us sad writers who don't.

Sorry to hear about your situation, btw - I know exactly how that feels! And if the novel's good, then I'd opt for one of the alternative routes and give the mainstream a miss.

A

If you have these, as some mentioned on this thread certainly do (in whatever context), then you are a lot luckier than those of us sad writers who don't.

Anne,

You make it sounds as if contacts drop from the sky! I made my so-called contacts by getting a job in the business. That's an option for most, surely, if as you say these contacts are so vital to opening doors.

As for 'us sad writers'...honestly! (insert winky smiley thing - never works for me so long-hand will have to do)

Emily

The work produced by a lot of published writers is not very good.

Many published books will not sell.

Most celeb writers will sell but only over a short period of time. Celeb books must be included in any assessment of the book publishing market - whoever the ghost writers may have been.

The definition of 'Celeb books' is changing all the time, primarily influenced by the media and the publicity around that celeb.

We like to think that 'good writing' exists only in 'proper books'. However assessment as to the quality of the writing come down to a matter of opinion.

This means that a whole lot of really good writers get overlooked. Who you know CAN matter. If you are lucky then you are fortunate. The pathways for getting your work into print are many - for most it is a hard road.

Slush piles will go on increasing in numbers because it is so easy to make lousy writing 'look' professional. As TV introduces more and more people, ideas, soaps, appalling entertainment that (because it appears on TV) gives the mistaken impression of what are 'acceptable' standards, countless numbers of people who write think that they can easily become 'Writers'.

The number of published books that fail to meet the most conservative of sales estimates is a very high figure, so, because a book becomes published it does not mean that the bookseller and his public will buy. The Publisher gets it wrong more times that right.

Where does this put the unpublished, serious and
dedicated writers? In most cases it doesn't change their position - they must continue to create, seek to improve their work and -in my opinion - tell everyone how marvellous they are!

Len

Contacts may also be made through WriteWords, of course. A very kind and supportive WW member, who shall be nameless, recommended an agent to me and spoke to the agent on my behalf. The agent quickly read my children's novel and gave me a response - a negative one, unfortunately - but I know that another WW member, recommended to this agent by the same person, was taken on.

Frances

Of course, we are all missing the obvious solution. Writewords also sets itself up as a literary agency.
Whoever heard of a literary agency nurturing its own talent and submitting only from its own pool of writers? Maybe that would take the publishing world by storm...Any volunteers to sift through the slush pile??

Casey

I think that's a very interesting idea Casey...

JB

This is a real issue, and in many ways I feel even more indignant on their behalf. It's much more brutal and does much more damage to their lives to take someone on and then drop them than it is not to take them on in the first place. I'm busy trying to develop a second-string career, in case this happens, but it will still hurt like hell if it does.

Emma, this is what happened to me, and the damage it did to my life was pretty dramatic. The last few months have been especially tough, and that's part of the reason I haven't been on any forums for a while - real life was getting very hard to handle.

Some of you may remember the novel I was shopping last year, The Last of the Sugar Gods - a few of you gave it quite good reviews. Well, it went the rounds and nobody took it on, My ex-publisher didn't think it was commercial enough to make up fopr mediocre sales on my last book and so dropped me - this was my option novel. My agent wasn't prepared to shop it to other publishers because the subject matter - it was a historical novel set in Guyana - just wasn't commercial; nobody would want it, she said. India, now that was a different matter. Write about India, they all told me. India is sexy!

I decided to go it alone, look for a new agent. I had some interesting responses. Darley Anderson, who was recommended to me by an author friend who is his client, actually rang me up and chatted for half an hour. He agreed that Guyana was not trendy enough. He recommended Rogers Coleridge and White.
Bloomsbury, one of the few big publishers that take unagented mss, sent me a wonderful letter. An editor there really loved it but didn't know "where it would fit in on our list". She suggested looking for a more commercial publisher. So there I was. Not commercial for some, too commercial for others.

I tried American agents, but the interest there was very low.

After a while I dropped it and decided to rethink the matter.

My ex-agent always told me to "play the game". I never liked that concept. I can't write Indian fiction, or vampires, or erotica, just 'cos that's trendy right now, yanno.

But I realised I had to make a compromise, somewhere. I need to write from a Guyana background. That's where I grew up, and a rich and colourful setting it is too. I have so many stories to tell about growimg up in a British colony. This is part of British history, a corner totally ignored. Andrea Levy's Small Island only begins to touch on it. That's what I HAVE to write about. But if Guyana just isn't trendy enough for readers (according to the publishing top dogs) what am I to do?

Anyway, I was determined not to give up. What happened is that I got an idea. A high-concept, blockbuster, jaw-dropping premise; but one I could not only relate to but weave a story around with characters I love and human issues I can explore in depth; but most of all, SET IN GUYANA.

That seemed to do the trick. I wrote the book and began by querying American agents, and I got 11 manuscript requests, including two from the WIlliam Morris Agency - both in the US and here in London. A couple of rejections later I signed with an agent from Writers House - that was last week. That's one of the very big US agencies.

Ok that's just a first step, but a huge one, and the relief is great. My life went seriously off track due to being dropped by HarperCollins, or, seen from their side, my refusal to play the game.

So now I'm waiting for the next step forward, and it's scary. It's great to have an agent again, but every time she doesn't mail me for two days I feel sure she's changed her mind and wants to drop me! Total paranoia.

Aruna, I would say 'well done', but the words seem wholly inadequate.

Frances