You have to have written a million words before your first publication

Does it matter what those million words are? If not, I could flog you a piece of software that will generate that random 1,000,000 words in a jiffy.

Alex

Brilliant! So lovely and easy. None of yer ackcherall learning to write rubbish.

A bit like that "buy yourself a degree spam"...

Emma

When my agent started trying to sell my novel I was 38, and she asked me if I'd consider lying to the publishers and saying I was 35. Apparently, 35 is the perfect age for a first-time novelist, as far as publishers are concerned. She also told me a dreadful story about a first-time novelist she had taken on. This writer was 55, and her book was, according to my agent, "absolutely brilliant". It didn't sell, because the publishers thought she was too old for a first-timer. I found this incredibly depressing.

(The novel didn't sell, and I don't have an agent any more ...)

With age, no, they won't know how old you are when you submit. But they will by the time they're considering taking you on. And I bet experience tells them something, when it comes to voice and subject, or even just name and address...

Name and address? That sounds like straightforward snobbery.

When my agent started trying to sell my novel I was 38, and she asked me if I'd consider lying to the publishers and saying I was 35. Apparently, 35 is the perfect age for a first-time novelist, as far as publishers are concerned. She also told me a dreadful story about a first-time novelist she had taken on. This writer was 55, and her book was, according to my agent, "absolutely brilliant". It didn't sell, because the publishers thought she was too old for a first-timer. I found this incredibly depressing.

It sounds like the running of publishing houses has been entirely handed over to marketing departments. Are the editors and publishers all gagged and bound in the basement? Who really cares, when they pick up a novel in a bookshop with a view to buying it, whether the author is 35, 38, 48 or 60? A literary novel, at least. And even children's or YA, where you could argue a younger person can relate to young people better, has some pretty 'old' faces writing it! I don't get it.

I'm sorry you didn't sell your book but perhaps a more assertive agent would have succeeded for you?

And any publisher who turns down an 'absolutely brilliant' novel needs their head examining. Perhaps it just wasn't their thing, and the agent was blaming the woman's age on their failure to place it and should have tried elsewhere?

Still, one must remember that, in life, anything is possible and that there's 'always room at the top'. If you can come up with the goods, I still find it hard to believe that your age would bar you from publication.

But, then, maybe I'm dreaming. I am, after all, a writer not a marketing executive.

Jan

Catkin, that's such a depressing story - sorry to hear that.

FWIW, though, I sold my first novel when I was 41, and my age wasn't mentioned once, by agent (older than me), editor (younger than me) or anyone else. Though I was fairly pissed off not to be eligible for the Betty Trask, the John Llewelyn Rhys, the Sunday Times YW and assorted other prizes...

It sounds like the running of publishing houses has been entirely handed over to marketing departments. Are the editors and publishers all gagged and bound in the basement?

No, but the non-publishing firms which bought all the publishers in the 1980s they not only raised the bar of how many books on the list were expected to be how profitable, and kept in print for how long. They also had the bright idea of asking the sales department to join in the conversation about what sells and what doesn't at the sharp end in the bookshops.

Which is not unreasonable, in a commercial business, and there's no denying that the market for books expanded once the Net Book Agreement broke and the supermarkets came into the act, to put books under the noses of the 70% of the population which never sets foot in a bookshop. So although agents and editors do fall for books passionately (and they need to, to transmit that passion through the system) they also have to take account of what the rest of the system will think of your book's sales potential.

These days it's extremely rare for an editor to be able to acquire a book without publicity, sales and marketing also all being persuaded that it will make money.

Which is why the teenty publishers are often the places where the left-field successes come from: only one or two people need to have faith in it. On the other hand, they can be very wrong. Chris Hamilton-Emery at Salt has published one title which they loved and which has sold NO copies. No, nada, zero. And not a few which have sold under 50 copies. Which even in his territory of poetry and literary short fiction, is dire.

Emma

Emma, what do you think of Salt's "Just One Book" campaign? I supported it, bought a few ... and then along came the "Just One More Book" campaign. Part of me thinks it's OK: a small independent publisher is worth supporting. Part of me is rather worried by this idea of writing as a charity.

Jan, yes, there could well have been other reasons why the publishers didn't pick up the poor 55-year-old writer's first novel, but her age was the main reason they gave. I got to know my agent very well (she's retired now and has left that agency, but she became and remains a very good friend, and I think she tells me the truth). Even if there were other reasons, it's sad that they chose this one as their reason for refusal.

She was very "assertive" with mine; by which I mean that she did the job properly. It was a very commercial, big-time agency. I once had a part-time job in a small and much less successful agency, and I saw the difference between "assertive" - fully professional - and less assertive from the inside. The less successful agent just sent books out and then followed up with a letter exactly a month later. No lunches, no chasing-up phone-calls, no networking, nothing. She used to moan that she wasn't doing as well as she thought she would when she decided to go it alone ... and I sat there not saying anything, and thinking, "And that surprises you?"

Your tale is very depressing, Catkin - but I'd really say it's probably a rarity. I was 42 when I sold my first novel - and that to a very mainstream, very hard-nosed commercial publisher. The issue of my age came up at the lunch to celebrate signing that first contract, and my editor said that being in your forties or fifties when you start out was no problem at all. She did think that if you were in your late sixties or seventies then it would become an issue, in commercial fiction where the aim is to publish a book a year, build a readership and a brand... But surely , anyway, it must be different in lit fic where the book is the thing, and stands alone much more?

Rosy x

"buy yourself a degree spam"

I like the idea of buying a degree using tinned meat as currency. A non-vegetarian barter economy is well worth trying, don't you think?

On the question of involving various people other than editors and creative people in the decision whether to publish a book: personally, I would not involve a sales department in any decision other than, "how do we flog as many of these as we can, now we've got them". In my experience, sales people have too short an attention span, and too short-sighted a view of the world, to make a contribution prior to this point. I might involve a marketing department, as their remit is more long-term and planning-oriented than sales. Even so, I would only involve them on the basis that others would make the decision about whether to attempt to market the book at all. I.e. they would be there to plan the marketing given that the book was going to be published, not to rule on whether it should be published.

I wonder how Stephen Hawking's publishers managed it? Or did the fact that he's already a celebrity trump all other considerations?

Alex

Hi Catkin, I didn't mean to insult your friend, I thought you were talking about an agent who was no longer representing you for professional reasons, not because of retirement. Sorry if my post seemed impertinent.

The issue of my age came up at the lunch to celebrate signing that first contract, and my editor said that being in your forties or fifties when you start out was no problem at all.

Hi Rosy, thanks for posting something so positive about 'older' writers, I'm feeling so much better, now!

But surely , anyway, it must be different in lit fic where the book is the thing, and stands alone much more?

I think this must be true, mustn't it?

Jan

<Added>

I agree with your opinion of the role of sales/marketing, Alex.

<Added>

However, if that's the way it works, it's sensible to accept it than kick against it, I suppose.

<Added>

rather than

Yes, I'd agree that the age issue is a rarity. The age of protagonists, now...

Catkin, re Salt, it's a complicated question, I think. I don't know the ins and outs of their particular operation, so this is general thoughts:

Imagine a publisher who sets out to publish work of unarguable quality, but which is marginal in commercial terms. By definition, doing things (royalties, contracts, publicity, marketing, distribution etc.) by the normal commercial model isn't sustainable for these books.

So they have to do things according to a different model.
In which case, just how far are they 'entitled' to go with that different model, ethically speaking (obviously, legally speaking it's much less stringent).

We'd all accept that, say, telling authors that the bulk of the publicity/marketing/promotion/getting-it-int-bookshops is going to be up to them. But are they entitled to ask for more help from readers, if it's that or go under, or at least publish many fewer weird and wonderful and possibly loss-making titles and stick to the safer bets? Does it make a difference whether or not they have Arts Council funding, for example? (You could argue we're already paying for help if they have) Are they entitled to offer writers contracts which are less advantageous than (still pretty low) standards that the Society of Authors have fought for for so long? Is saying, 'Sorry, it's this contract or no contract,' merely honest and realistic, or exploitative?

I dunno the answer to any of these. As someone once said, a publishers first duty to literature and to authors is to stay in business...

There's a fantastic book called The Garden by Elsie V Aidinoff, which was written when the author was in her 80s, I believe. It was her first novel, and it's a re-telling of the Adam and Eve story, from Eve's point of view. So publishing a first novel late in life can be done. But it's rare, I'd say.

She was very "assertive" with mine; by which I mean that she did the job properly. It was a very commercial, big-time agency. I once had a part-time job in a small and much less successful agency, and I saw the difference between "assertive" - fully professional - and less assertive from the inside. The less successful agent just sent books out and then followed up with a letter exactly a month later. No lunches, no chasing-up phone-calls, no networking, nothing. She used to moan that she wasn't doing as well as she thought she would when she decided to go it alone ... and I sat there not saying anything, and thinking, "And that surprises you?"

First time poster here, just read this on assertive/non-assertive agents and I'm compelled to pose the following:

I have a published factual work which sold reasonably in a down market. Had a shoe-in for a second book, which then got cancelled by the sales dept of publisher. Had two more factual pitches in the offing one with TV interest, one based on a very saleable (mutliple edition) idea that hasn't been done in the UK yet. Both got turned down after six months. When I quizzed my agent for updates at month three on the two pitches she told me 'I don't want to pester as then they just say no.' And after six months, 'The ideas are dead.'

I'm now just finishing a novel and wondering how to approach their effectiveness. Based on the above quote I think I should be asking:
1. How do you pitch, email, letter, etc?
2. How and when do you follow up?
What else could I be asking?

From my own experience of developing TV ideas and working in advertising/news media I always had to do more than simply email, then sit and wait. I could do that myself.

Your feedback is appreciated.

Right, back to editing!

Personally, I thyink a good agent has to do far more than just subbing your book/proposition by letter or email.

They need to be well known enough to get face to face meetings, or at least have their phone calls taken.

If all they do is put in a sub...well you could do that yourself.
HB x

I never heard this age thing either - I sold my teenage novels when I was 48 and 49 and no one mentioned my age.

Rosy, that's really positive (about the age thing not being so bad) and good to hear.

Jan, don't worry, I didn't take it as an insult to my ex-agent/friend in any way. I'm more or less impossible to offend, anyway (I'm from Huddersfield originally: we tend to be very straightforward). I thought you thought it was just a professional relationship - it's the natural assumption.

Emma, I can't really decide about the Salt "please buy our books" method, either. I sort of think that's fair enough; but I do have a feeling that perhaps they should publish a few fewer weird and wonderful titles. They do seem to be very ambitious, which is great, but I worry that they are trying to do too much too fast.
... and oh dear. There's an issue about the age of protagonists? I didn't know that. That's depressing. Very depressing.

Alex, I don't think that the marketing departments should be involved in the decision about whether or not to take a book on, either. Or at least, not very involved. My novel didn't sell because no one believed there was a big enough market for it - and I think there are other people here who have had the same experience.

Shooter, yes, I'd ask those questions. One of the things I found out by working in literary agencies is that all agents are not equal. Nothing like equal. Some are great big successful organisations, and some, like one of the ones I worked for, are just one person in a back bedroom, with very little clue. I would also ask which publishers they have a contact at, as not all of them have a good personal contact with every publisher. (That's a depressing story by the way. You have my sympathy.)