Great news for anyone, like me, who was tearing his/her hair out about Serpent's Tail's 'agents-only' policy.

According to the latest issue of <I>Mslexia</I> (Oct 2006), Serpent's Tail are once again looking at unsolicited submissions. The following is a quote from them:

DO SEND: First two chapters, synopsis, bio. Crime/noir; novels that reflect the changing face of multi-ethnic Britain; lesbian/gay novels; literary novels dealing with difficult ideas and themes.

DON'T SEND: Entire manuscripts. Chick lit, romance or anything with an obviously mass market appeal.

I like the slight contradiction between welcoming crime but fending off mass market - can anyone think of anything more mass market than crime?! I guess they cover that when they say 'We don't do bland'.

Good luck to anyone planning on submitting.

Tiger

Thanks for this, Tiger! - I've sent an email to my agent to remind him to chase S's T - they've had my gay crime/noir novel, "Maloney's Law", for a good while now, with zilch response. Deep and frustrated sigh ...

==:O

A
xxx

Good luck, Anne! Surely with both 'crime' and 'gay' you're ticking more boxes than most.

Sarah

Thanks, Sarah! - I may be ticking some of the boxes, but somewhere along the line they still turn out not to like the shape of the pen.

Also, I think I'm the wrong gender for the novels I like to write - that's been raised several times in rejections. Not much I can do about that though!

A
xxx

Yes, good luck Anne.

Thanks for passing that gem of wisdom on, Tiger. The picture I get is that there aren't many UK publishers interested in new gay writers at the moment (please let me know if I'm wrong, anybody!) - so that's great news. Definitely worth a shot.

Mermaid

I do think it's nonsense, Anne, that you're told you're the wrong gender to write about gay men. Look at Mary Renault's books! Look at the hundreds and hundreds of women writing 'slash' (many of them lesbians by the way, just to skew the demographic even further). Stick to your guns.

Sarah

Thanks, Mermaid! - and Tiger too! Oh to be Mary Renault - I wish! I soooo love her books. Wasn't there a recent thread about her wonderful wartime one, "The Charioteer"? That's my complete favourite of them all.

And, yes, I think the gay genre in general does better in the US? JB's done well over there - or is about to do well - isn't he? Or am I behind the news again?? I think he's got a novella coming out soon (as it were - sorry, JB!) which I think is UK - can you confirm?

A
xxx

I used to know one of the chaps at Serpent's Tail. You couldn't ask for a nicer guy to be your publisher and from the impression he gave me of the company they're all first rate, down to earth people with a passion that goes way beyond just knocking out commercial lit.

I once passed him a embryonic copy of my Ms for Feeling Gravity's Pull which he'd asked to have a look at.

Never got back to me, though I suspect it was something to do with the fact that I rather stupidly got myself involved with his best friend, only to find out later that he had a bit of a thing for her!

Geoff

Ooh-err, Geoff - that sounds very exciting! Sounds like another novel to me - at least ...

Hope it all worked out in the end and he's not still weeping on your doorstep.

==:O

A
xxx

Geoff - oops.

SP are just down the road from me. I used to drive past them every now and then and think, if only if only... I think I thought it would have been very convenient to have a publisher on my doorstep.

It's great that they've opened the door again.

ohh! this makes me wish I had actually finished my novel (and the edit). Damn, must get cracking!

Very useful news - thanks for posting!

I'm going to send them a sample of Unrequited, just to see what they make of it. My US publisher is happy for me to find a UK one for the novel, so why not?

JB

<Added>

Their website appears to still be in development.

Good luck, JB! Keep us posted.

Tiger

Yeah, well, it's been edited up the kyhber now, and when I spoke to someone at Serpent's Tail three years ago, they sounded pretty interested even if they did have a strict agent-only policy. I better get onto this this week - does anyone know if they accept email subs? Sending hard copy is always such an expensive load of cobblers.

JB

<Added>

Oh and thanks Tiger. :)