Hi everybody. I've been visiting this site on and off for a while, but have finally plucked up the courage to join!I finished my first novel (after 30 years of not daring to write it down!) in December, and have just started the terrifying process of submitting to agents. It's the part I have been dreading - especially the bit where people say 'don't take it personally' :-)Now I think I am going to ask a very silly question, but I guess if you all laugh it will help to toughen up my skin a bit. I'm trying to classify the work, and every way I look at it, it comes back as 'Fantasy' - I have a horrible feeling I have just given myself the literary kiss of death! I am finding it more or less impossible to work out whether my novel falls into the category of an agency or not. Having read Elspeth's comments following her list of what she is accepting in the slush pile, I still can't work it out! Are some kinds of fantasy treated as just plain 'general fiction', or 'commercial fiction'? Or is it wise to put in brackets (Not LOTR/HP type)? Sorry - couldn't help reading that - LOL. I guess I am just very new to this side of things, and feeling a tad all alone having nightmares about SAE's coming through the door!
Sorry for the long intro - sort of hoping there are others out there feeling that trying to get published is significantly shortening their lifespan!!

Good luck with it Heather. You've achieved something already by just finishing your book. How many people don't ever get that far? "I could write a novel if only....." So you've done well already. With regards to which agency, I think Terry could comment on that. I would put a list of potential agents together and then go through the list very careful, reading all the criteria they set out in the Writers and Artists Yearbook, or the Writers Handbook and priorities your list that way. You would always phone and ask the receptionist who the best person would be to send your letter to. Now to rejections - they are going to come. I've been very stoical about mine. Mostly they are written in a very kind way - "not taking on new writers", "very interesting but not right for us". You just have to put them away, and keep trying.
Best of luck!
Sue

Personally, I find the idea that an agent or publisher might turn down a potentially world-shattering novel siomply on the basis of genre insulting and discriminatory.

The publishing field these days is dire. What gets published? Established authors churning out books for up-front cash (lo Tom Clancy), angsty women writing about how all men are scum, bar one, who isn't interested, and B-Z list celebrities cashing in on the lack of interesting reading material by swamping the shelves with their dull and uninteresting childhoods.

Pah!

Heather,

IB has succinctly summed up the current state of play in the publishing world. But if you’re still not put off, there are lots of things you can do towards working out what to do with your book. If you want to be sure it’s fantasy, then do some research on what constitutes that genre. There’s a very good book on writing sci-fi and fantasy by Orson Scott Card (check it out on Amazon). There are also two excellent websites, Locus Magazine and the Science Fiction Writers of American (links below).

If you decide your book is adult fantasy, you’d be well advised to try the US. I spoke to the editor of the biggest UK fantasy publishers recently and she convinced me that it’s now extremely difficult for new UK fantasy writers to get published in the UK. Which is crazy when you think it shouldn’t matter when the subject matter is made-up worlds! But certainly the US is where it all happens in fantasy (well, in more ways than one). I’ve also spoken to UK fantasy writers who have found agents and publishers in the US. These days, it’s not so difficult to approach them – some even let you email your query letter/first few chaps. If you decide to go this route, I’d strongly recommend subscribing to a US writers’ site – Writers’ Market (link below). It’s only about £2 a month (and you can cancel any time), and is very easy to check out all fantasy agents and publishers in the US (and some in other parts of the world). Entries include up to date info on what a particular agent/publisher is looking for at present, and quite often a percentage breakdown of manuscripts they accept from new, established and agented authors.

If you decide to try the UK, as Sue says, the two writers’ handbooks will list agents and publishers. A good idea is to look at the client list for an agent then check out each author’s books on Amazon. This will give you a good idea of what that agent looks for. For instance, they may list ‘fantasy’ as one of their areas, but you might then find that there is a heavy bias in the clients’ books towards, say, dark fantasy whereas yours might be high fantasy (genres within genres!).

Finally, it’s worth joining the British Fantasy Society. It’s a pretty chaotic bunch but they do have regular get-togethers (usually in London) where you can meet other writers, editors, etc. And they hold an excellent convention once a year (in Stafford last time) where, for instance, top fantasy editors hold free workshops. There is of course quite a bit of snobbery against genre writing, like fantasy. But in terms of writing support, writing classes, conventions, etc, I’ve found it to be streets ahead of ‘proper’ literature, whatever that is.

Good luck.

Terry

http://www.locusmag.com

http://www.sfwa.org/

http://www.writersmarket.com/index_ns.asp

http://www.britishfantasysociety.org.uk/bfsindex.htm


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If you live near Colchester, there is an excellent independent bookshop on the high street - Red Lion Books. It stocks all kinds of books but specialises in fantasy. Terry Pratchett and David Gemmell have done signings and talks there. Have a chat with the owner, Peter Donaldson, who very knowledgeable and helpful.

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I forgot the most obvious one of all: put some of your work on this site! You'll not only get excellent feed-back on the writing itself, but I'm sure people will be able to tell you what genre it appears to be in.

Many thanks folks for the advice and support. I guess I really am sure that it is in essence a fantasy novel - however it is a fantasy novel that is also in part a contemporary detective story, in part a romance and in part a thriller, just to make life interesting :-)If i had to give a very loose comparison, I would put it somewhere around Stephen Donaldson but not quite so dark with a tad of Anne Rice but not quite so overt, and at the same time nothing like either - wow - what a useful despription!!!. What I am finding disheartening is the lack of apparent interest in even having the thing read - if someone wants to say to me 'Don't worry dearie, you are just really not up to it' thats fine - I can cope with honest appraisal. What is so frustrating is the 'list full' and 'not accepting new writers' before the MS sample has even been sent. But seeing that I am not alone in that frustration is helping a lot, and keeping my spirits up - that, and the obsessive urge to get on with the second book which is around 10000 words in! I would love to upload a sample for you guys to comment on - give me a while to pluck up the courage and I will put a sample chapter up there (as soon as I have found my way around the site!)
Thanks for the links too - as for trying for the US - are there any potential problems to look out for - like copyright etc? So far my thought has been to exhaust the UK possibilities first.