Traveller you sound utterly jaded about this industry - and no doubt that's because you've tried to so very hard to get a publishing deal.
But blaming the industry for not spotting your genius isn't the way forward. If you are even half as talented as you say you are, your time will come.
But disappointment is one thing, when it tips over into bitterness it will just swallow all your dignity and creativity.
Just keep on, keeping on and good luck.
HB x

The other risk with bitterness, and/or the conviction of ones overlooked merits which give rise to bitterness, however well-founded, is that it so easily spills over into how one deals with the trade, and that is seriously bad news.

Fundamentally, publishers and agents would sign Beelzebub himself, if they thought s/he will sell. But for a borderline case, how easy that author will be to deal with can tip the balance, and they'll make that judgement based on your pre-contract dealings with them. How willing are you to take editing; to accept covers you don't like but Tesco do; to be friendly to booksellers of all stripes and seniorities - who are the ones who really matter; to perform without arrogance; to stay sober and turn up on time; to cope with grace and humour with not-winning-prizes and stroppy/stupid festival questions and thick-skinned journalists and non-appearing book stocks. You don't have to be everyone's best friend, and you don't have to be a doormat: it's actually in everyone's interests that you're enabled to do your best. But no author is indispensible, and it's important to make sure they don't feel that you're more trouble - or more dislikeable - than you're worth to them in sales. Particularly at the literary end of things, sales are small, so the maths is obvious.

Emma

You say on another thread, Traveller, "when I had my first agent" which implies you've had more than one and since lost them.
To quote Lady Bracknell: To lose one...may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.

Ha I like that Naomi. Yes, it was carelessness. My agent wasn't replying to my emails for a while and he didn't really like the direction of my new work. After a while things built up and I started getting annoyed. Then, one day, in a quite inebriated state I sent an email terminating our relationship saying how I had found another agent and didn't want him to represent me. He wiped my name off his website and said he was happy for me that I had found another agent. But these things happen for a reason, don't they?

Yeah, EmmaD - you're right. But I would've thought that agents are used to temperamental writers. After all, we're meant to be creative people not robots. IMO agents are just as creative and confused as writers. I suppose I do romanticize this aspect of the writerly life - in reality, people are so serious! I mean, why on earth would an agent seriously listen to something written by someone who wasn't sober when they wrote it? It's absurd. But in hindsight quite funny.

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Incidentally, I wrote to him again recently to ask whether he wanted to submit my book to the small presses. I decided to go it alone but had a couple of emails from independent publishers saying that they only accepted submissions from literary agents. My ex-agent said that because of the stormy relationship in the past he wasn't interested in taking up my offer. I don't blame him really. But I do sometimes wonder whether there are any smaller outfits out there who might be interested...my book went to all the mainstream publishers..and just two indies, Serpent's and Portobello Books. I thought the rationale behind that was the smaller presses wouldn't give the agent much income. The thing is, I still believe, that once I have my breakthrough moment, everything else will fall into place. It's just getting my foot in the door. I do create problems when really none should exist and make things more difficult for myself. Sorry, this must be extremely boring for you all to listen to my rants - but I have to let off steam somewhere!

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And I should say thanks for the constant encouragement from Writewords members.

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PS I'm not even looking at my other thread I started last night...makes me cringe to think what I've caused there! Computers+drink is not a great combination. Maybe I should follow Stephen King's example and move on to cocaine (joke).

Yeah, EmmaD - you're right. But I would've thought that agents are used to temperamental writers. After all, we're meant to be creative people not robots.

I always think outbursts/tantrums have to have a direct and level correlation to talent/reputation. For example Picasso could call everyone a c**t in a drunken state and we'd still think 'Guernica' was worth a squizz.

However for the rest of us the excuse of 'creativity' is a bit of weak one. I have doubts about anyone who has a certainty about their own genius. Most massive talents are driven by insecurity not self satisfaction.

I liked your thread from last night traveller BTW - it had a certain rage that appealed!

There are a number of small preesses who allow submissions without a literary agent - often agents don't bother submitting to them because the companies don't have the funds to pay an advance, so monies are earned direct from royalties which are dependant on sales. They are good because some publish books that would not suit the mainstream. Saying that, they have been swamped with mss from mid-list authors who have been dropped by their publishers in the current credit crunch.
Snowbooks is one small press you can submit directly to - although they do make it plain from the start that they're not looking for the next Man Booker literary fic prize winner.


- NaomiM

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Also you have to be sober and friendly and professional. They need to make a profit so they don't want submissons from authors who are too precious about their work.

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...to the author the book may be a work of Art, but to publisher it's simply a commodity. Like milk.

I always think outbursts/tantrums have to have a direct and level correlation to talent/reputation. For example Picasso could call everyone a c**t in a drunken state and we'd still think 'Guernica' was worth a squizz.

Unfortunately, being foul may be a side effect of genius, but the reverse doesn't work: being foul won't make you a genius if you're not. And there's all the difference in the world between cultivating outbursts and bad behaviour because it's part of the character, like the beret or the drunkenness, and having outbursts because your artistic vision is truly uncompromising (but it had better be right). When you talk, for example, to backstage people about the stars, they'll put up with a lot from really great actors, but usually don't have to. Even if there are tantrums, they're directed at the common goal of making the show even better. It's the not-quite-great who throw their weight about through insecurity, who crews see through, can't bear and, yes, have been known to be less than helpful towards...

Emma

Just wanted to add my two-pen'th

I've been interested in small print publishing for years now, and although I've considered in times of stress, I don't think I would ever really self publish. If I went down that route, I would prefer to publish someone else.

But if you are still thinking about it, take a second to consider the difference between self publishing and vanity publishing because it's becoming a very grey area. Self publishing is pretty much self described. You become the publisher, take control and do the work your SELF. Sending your script out to a third party, in order to buy copies of the finished product, is vanity publishing. Some vanity publishers rip you off for thousands, some offer a good deal. Still vanity publishing.

To self publish you need to consider yourself as a publisher, so you register the ISBN number yourself. Not exactly rocket science. To produce the book, however, you need to either have, or to employ someone with graphic design skills. As soon as you start paying, you start losing. You need the cover art too. Same skills really. Next you need a decent printer - and check the quality of their products. Loads of printers can produce a bound paperback that look great, but fall to bits because their glue is rubbish. Getting a self published book on amazon is easy, but as has already been discussed, they demand 40% retail, so your unit cost better be pretty good or you price YOURSELF out of the market (nothing to do with Amazon's opinion on self publishers!).

Check out your local supermarkets too, because in the ones round here (ASDA in particular) there are several self published novels by local authors. So you can get into shops, but again, the prices are quite high for a paperback (the authors pricing themselves out of the market - ASDA don't offer them cheaper, just the jacket price, but do you really want to spend £9.99 on a thriller when there's a well known name thriller going for £3.83?).

But, it can be done. Check out Myrmidon books for a good example of a small press who are making big waves.

Colin M

Thanks Colin. No, I've decided to sit tight and send out a new round of submissions to publishers directly. I still have faith that agents and publishers are necessary filters. I've given myself a target though of 7 years from the time I wrote my first novel - 2004. If I haven't done it by 2011 I will consider self-publication (hopefully by then I'll have written an even better novel that nobody will be able to refuse!)

I think it's a very good idea to set goals, but you're probably a better writer now than you were in 2004, so why not start the clock again and set it for four novels, rather than a time span. While one novel is out there, work on the next and the next, so when the time comes for an editor to take an interest in novel #1, you're in a stronger position than the competition by being able to say you have other material ready to consider.

The reality of your situation, as with my own, is that you've made an agent or an editor sit up and take interest. That's got to be a good sign. Times are a bit tough at the moment, but the industry has to turn out product, so it has to offer contracts to new writers.

Colin M

Thanks, Colin. Actually since I wrote my first novel in 2004, The Messiah of Green Street, I have written several others. These include Vilnius, The Buzz, Diaries of a Writer, Art Block. So, technically, I'm on my sixth novel which is partially set in the nineteenth century around the time of the Indian Mutiny...the first seems to have the strongest premise and contains all the themes that echo in some form or another in all my other works. I don't know whether this is common in writers. Unfortunately, agents and publishers haven't shown as much interest in my later works. I am not sure why this is but I must conclude that my first work had the most potential and subsequent works are inferior. It concerns me, because it suggests that my other works do not have the same literary merit and I worry that I cannot produce a work which has the force of my first novel, or as you put it the ability to make people sit up and take notice. I'm aware though that people like EmmaD got published on their seventh or eighth novel. I live in hope. I've been close to giving up recently but one thing as an Aries I have is an extraordinary reserve of determination.

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Another thing that gives me hope is that Marquez apparently took 7 years to get One Hundred Years of Solitude published - something I find unbelievable and I'm sure this must be one of those publishing myths because he is an author I respect so much and admire for his brilliance.