Valuable advice on self-publising in ALCS News

Let me draw your attention to a very well-rounded article by Caroline Sanderson in the current ALCS News.

I'm not here to give advice about self-publishing (though I could, having done it moderately successfully myself). What I want to do is flag up this bit, because it raises some points I'd like to emphasise for all writers:

"At the Society of Authors day, an alarming number of self-published authors who had visited local bookshops expecting to have their wares welcomed with open arms, expressed shock that discounts of 40 to 50% were routinely required. Well, welcome to the world of traditional publishing. Bookshops have to make money too, and often they don’t. They might take a punt on a new self-published author, and do a supportive favour to a local writer, but it's the author who should be obliged, not the bookseller. I was astonished by the number of authors who felt that the fact that they had published a book gave them an automatic right of entry onto the shelves of any bookshop."

Here are the points that occur from that paragraph:

1. Bookshops only contain a tiny percentage of the books available. They have to choose the ones they think they can sell. Competition between books is huge.
2. Space in a bookshop costs. Things have to sell, otherwise they are taking space (and therefore potential income) from the shop. If the shop knows it can sell a pile of Harry Potter books easily but a pile of Nicola Morgan books with greater difficulty, it would be wise (though arguably short-termist)  to stock HP. Sadly.
3. Luckily, most booksellers are book-lovers, and they want a good variety, so they may choose to stock NM, but they must believe in the book. It's the job of my publisher to convince them.
4. Yes, discounts are minimum 40%. Usually 40-60%. Discounts to Amazon may be 80%. Discounts to book clubs such as the Book People will be at least that. (And, by the way, our royalty is on the revenue received, not the cover price...)
5. Most books don't make a profit, for the above reasons.
6. Every publishing contract is a guess. Publishers want to get it right and they take many risks along the way. If they didn't, we wouldn't stand a chance unless we wrote only relatively safe commercial sellers. 

If writers understood the bookselling business better, they might be less bitter when the rejections come. They might be more realistic. They might make a greater effort to give their books a must-read quality. And they might stop thinking the world owes them a living. We have to fight for our living, but we have to do it with knowledge and understanding, not naïveté. Same whether we are aiming to self-publish or to be published.

That's why I once wrote a post recommending that all writers should self-publish. (But please read that before reacting to the statement, as that title is misleading!)

Eyes wide open, dear writers. Eyes wide open.

I AM crabbit! I AM! *glares*

At the Festival of Writing at York last weekend, I was regularly accused of not being crabbit. I found myself having to defend my title of Crabbit Old Bat in the face of people rudely accusing me of being far too nice. I was mortally offended by this impertinence, so, just to make absolutely clear my credentials for being the first Google result IN THE WORLD for the title, let me explain why and when I am veritably crabbit.

I started this blog because I was seriously pissed off by what I call inexcusable ignorance by some [edited to add, in case it wasn't obvious from what I go on to say!] people wanting to be published. I have no problem with ignorance itself; we all start as ignorant and I certainly did. What is inexcusable is when, despite the massive efforts of many, many people generously giving good advice, and despite the terabytes of good information out there, neither of which things existed in my years of ignorance, a writer doesn't seek that advice, doesn't try to learn more, doesn't recognise that skills must be practised, will not have his eyes opened. I see this silly behaviour all over Twitter, at talks I've done about how to get published, on blogs by disillusioned and multi-rejected writers (of which I also was one) and sometimes when people collar me to tell me they've got a book in them and that they are planning to write it (one day, when they find time) and become rich. Just like that.

You know I want to help good writers become published with as few rejections as possible; I want to help not-so-good writers become better; I want to support those who understand how hard it is to create wonderful books; and I want to help those who don't know that but are willing to learn.

So, for further clarity, here are the main things wanting-to-be-published writers do that make me crabbit:

• Not taking steps to understand how publishing works - especially, not understanding that it is a business and that a publisher must make a business decision. A publisher, for example, might a) love your book or b) think it could well be a success but still legitimately reject it if that publisher does not have the resources or space on his schedule, or if the book is not the sort of book a publisher wants on his list. Think about this: I have an online shop; I know that Nessie monsters sell very well in shops; but I do not want to sell Nessie monsters from my shop because Nessie monsters are not right for my shop. The fact that someone else might make a fortune selling Nessie monsters does not make me wrong to refuse to sell them. Also, I wouldn't know how to market and sell Nessie monsters so I probably wouldn't sell many. Now imagine that only one shop in the country was allowed to sell them and supposing I turned down that opportunity. I would still be right to, because I wouldn't sell them well, or want to. In effect, when we pitch a book to a publisher, we are asking them to be the "one shop in the country" allowed to sell our book. 

• Not obeying the simple and easily found guidelines about submitting their manuscript. I see many submissions - either through my consultancy, or when I do critiques for another agency, or when publishers or agents tell me about them - and far too many are pitted with basic errors which reveal a failure to read the readily available and usually FREE advice.

• Thinking that writing a book is easy and that the first/second/third draft is good enough and refusing to write a fourth. Writing is hard. Good writers make it look easy. A 4* review for Dear Agent, on Amazon says I probably wrote it in a weekend. No, Dear Agent may only be 25k words long, but it took me months, because writing short things is often harder than writing long things. All good writing is editing. 

• Wanting to write for children either because they believe it's easier, or out of a desire to tell stories to their grandchildren without bothering to read the fantastic books being produced nowadays. Need I say more? It's ignorant and disrespectful.

• Not realising that they must write another book. Yup, being a writer does not mean writing one book. It means writing. Writing and writing and writing. It means loving it or at least being compelled to do it so strongly that the idea of stopping writing is intolerable. If you plan to write one book only, you're a hobbyist, which is great, but why would an agent or publisher publish a hobbyist? Writing can be a wonderful hobby, health-giving, inspiring, creative, worthwhile. Be proud of that but understand that writing for publication is not a hobby. It's a vocation. Work and passion together. 

• Not reading the genre they want to write in. This leads to so many horrible mistakes. I firmly believe that if you don't read the sort of books you want to write, you won't be able to write good ones. Can you imagine a musician who doesn't listen to music? 

So, there you have it. Those are the things that make me crabbit. Inexcusable ignorance. Delusionalism. Going round with eyes shut. Not asking questions. Not listening. And that's why I started blogging. Trouble was, it turned out that my blog-readers weren't delusional, or inexcusably ignorant. You wanted to know things, wanted to learn. Or you knew things already and you came to share. And the people I met at the York weekend were similarly willing to learn and therefore suppressed the crabbit in me. Also, there was wine. And I'd brought chocolate.

If you'd like to read the most crabbit posts, they should be here. Now tell me I'm not crabbit...

*glares and peers fiercely over specs*

Dear Agent: Extract 5 - What not to say

As well as containing step-by-step advice about how to write every part of the letter that you hope will catch you an agent and/or publisher, Dear Agent highlights many of the things not to do, the often-invisible pitfalls that so many writers fall into.

To coincide with the workshop I'm giving about pitching, today at Edbookfest, here are some of them, in the fifth of my free extracts from the book (before proof-reading):

A reminder of why toffee is not a way to get published

This has remained one of the most popular posts in the three years of this blog's life, so I thought I'd let you see it again. Although it's fun to read, there's a very serious point to it. Take note!

HAVE YOU BEEN TO OXFORD?

Because, apparently, if you haven't, you don't stand a chance of being published.

When someone said this to me the other day, I first ignored it, assuming it was a joke. Or a slip of the tongue. Maybe she didn't say Oxford; maybe she said, "the University of Common Sense and Jolly Good Writing". But then she said it again, more clearly. "No, seriously: if you go into Waterstone's and pick up ten books, five of the authors have been to Oxford and the other five have Creative Writing MAs. Literally. I'm not joking."

This is utter tosh, and I told her so. It's patently false. What I didn't say is that it's stupidly self-destructive, the sort of rabid excuse that multi-rejected writers use when they are scraping the barrel of reassurance. (Remember, I was a rabid and multi-rejected writer once. I know what it feels like and I hugely sympathise, but my ignorance now embarrasses me. I probably spoke from the wrong end of my body sometimes. Hell, maybe I still do. Please tell me when that happens.)

Besides, how do publishers know if you've been to Oxford when they ask to see your MS, eh? It's not as though you would say in your covering letter, "I didn't go to Oxford. Sorry. And I'm not bestest friends with Martin Amis, either. Boo hoo." You wouldn't mention your university because it would be as irrelevant as the fact that you once went on holiday to Lyme Regis or have ridden a yak, unless your book is about Lyme Regis or yak-riding.

Mind you, this same aspiring writer also told me that publishers and agents don't read covering letters. They do, actually, unless they have already said they aren't receiving submissions, in which case why should they even open it, let alone read it? I grant you that they might occasionally read the sample first, if they're feeling contrary, and the sample might be so bad that they don't read the covering letter - but trust me: if the writing's not shite, they'll read the letter. I grant you also that they don't always read the whole letter: sometimes they don't need to. Sometimes the first few lines tell them all they need to know. Honestly, I've seen covering letters where the first sentence was so rotten that to read the second one would probably be fatal. I'm not talking about marginal rot; more hyperboliferous shite.

But, back to Oxford, or your (and my) not having been there.

This attitude of ignorance about the reasons why agents and publishers make their sometimes unwelcome - sometimes even stupid, but not that stupid - decisions, is what made me start this blog. It is what keeps me crabbit. It is also not what I expect to hear from any writer who is going about publication the right way. This type of refusal to face the truth will blind you to it. It's also a sign of fear: you're too frightened to face the fact that your book may not be good enough or not publishable and you prefer to blame the foolish publishers and agents for ignoring you because you went to the wrong university, or not a university at all. As if they care. Honestly, they've got more moths in their muesli*  to worry about.

[*Sore point. Anyone know how to remove moths from cereal cupboards?]

Listen. Publishers and agents only care about three things:

1. Have you written a book they can sell?
2. Can they sell the book you have written? That's the same, by the way, but it's very important so I've said it twice. Deliberate tautology.
3. Are you a complete divot who will impede their ability to sell your book through your foolish behaviour and refusal to learn how publishing works? [NB many published writers are divots but it's recommended to hide such traits until after signing the deal.]

I have said it before and I will say it again: if you write a book which a good publisher believes will have sufficient readership, gain sufficient acclaim and/or sales, and make a half decent return on their fairly considerable investment, and if they have room for it on their list and budget, and an editor who loves it, they will publish it. Unless the stars are wrong.

Mind you, I did once spend a very happy weekend in Oxford some years ago, so maybe that thing about needing to have been to Oxford is true after all. Eureka! The answer to your publishing dreams: buy yourself a weekend return ticket to Oxford. WTH didn't I think of that before and save myself a load of heartache?

Alternatively, write a publishable book and work your butt off to make it so. And then submit it with a large dollop of common sense. And magic fairy dust.

PS Some clever people go to Oxford; others don't. One of the things that marks clever people out is that they have an unsurprising tendency to be clever. Clever people have this bizarre habit of succeeding quite often at some of what they set out to do. However, lots of equally clever people didn't go to Oxford. They, being equally clever, will be equally likely to succeed at what they set out to do. And if that's writing books, that's what they will succeed at.

PPS By the way, what's wrong with Cambridge?

PPS Cambridge is where I'm going to be this weekend. I hope to see some of you there at the lovely Cambridge Wordfest. If you're free at 10.30 on Saturday, head along to the Cambridge Union Dining-Room, on Bridge St. Booking here. Who knows? Maybe it's even better than going to Oxford.

SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND

I hope you would never do any of these things.

I have seen versions of all these awful query attempts so I know they are not exaggerated. Some people laugh at them - I tend to wince, partly because I have done similar things myself in the distant past.

Don't do it!

HOW NOT TO HOOK AN AGENT

There are many ways not to hook an agent but today we are talking about just one: the ill-considered use of a middle-person to make the approach for you, even if the approach includes a glowing report on your book. I have just had a message from an agent telling me about a submission she's just had.

First mistake: it began, "We write on behalf of our client..." NO! Avoid outfits that claim to offer your MS to a whole raft of agents and publishers together. Knowledgeable agents want to hear from YOU, not some cowboy crew who think they know about publishing. Your approach must be personal and tailored if you want proper publication with a real publisher and a great service from a genuine agent. The exception is if the agent already knows and respects the opinion of the sender of the letter, but they will attach no importance at all to the recommendation of strangers.

Second mistake: the website of the outfit sending the letter had basic errors. (Not that the agent got as far as looking, but I did.) Dodgy punctuation, dull writing, no evidence of real knowledge or passion, and a claim to use a "published author!" - their exclamation mark, as though finding a published author to help them was such a big deal. If the person making the recommendation writes such dull English and fails to understand how publishing works, why should the agent trust the opinion of said person?

Third mistake: before describing the MS, the organisation offered boring and irrelevant info about its "client's" background. When offering a novel, background is irrelevant unless it happens to be relevant. If the people in this outfit don't know that, they don't know anything.

Listen at the back, please. Stop fiddling and pay attention. If you're a writer and you have a publishable book, do not demean yourself by getting someone to present your book to an agent on your behalf. By all means quote a genuine endorsement if you have one that means something, but don't use a third party that the agent hasn't heard of. Using a third party may seem professional to a novice, but it isn't. It's just not how publishing works. Publishing works very simply: professionals (agent and / or editor) love your book, believe it can sell and know how they would sell it; said professionals sign you up, buy the rights (well, the publishers do) - and buy means PAY FOR - and put their company's money into marketing, distributing and selling your book, passing on a % to you twice a year. You do not need any other middle people. Yes, you can have other people helping by giving feedback, either informally or formally, but once your book is ready to send out, you must do this yourself if you want to gain respect.

Sometimes writing consultancies do offer to present your book, if they feel it's good enough, to agents or publishers with whom they have contacts. Sometimes this is OK, but only if the consultancy is a quality outfit with genuine connections.Unfortunately, too many are not, and some are now getting themselves a bad name for giving over-glowing reports on dud MSS.

My consultancy (Pen2Publication) does NOT offer to submit your work to agents or publishers for you. However, if I came across an MS which I felt was ready and suited to an agent or publisher of my acquaintance, I might create an opening and / or endorsement, but that would be all. I don't advertise that fact because it's rarely going to be the case and I don't want to raise hopes. Also, I know very well that most agents worth their salt want to be approached directly by the writer and if the work is good enough my opinion won't be needed. I certainly would never make the approach for a writer and I would not recommend any writer to use that method.

You're a writer: write your own letters. Get genned up on publishing and do your research. Write the best book you can and stand up for it yourself. Getting someone else to submit your work is NOT the best way to impress an agent or publisher. Trust me.

STANDARDS IN PRIVATE LIFE

Despite being a crabbit old bat, I have an unnatural sympathetic streak which cringes when people are found out for their bad behaviour. It's embarrassing.

BUT behaviour like this REALLY pisses me off. I have never read Dr Rachel Polonsky's books and therefore have no opinion as to their wondrousness, but she did not deserve to be rubbished by someone disguising the fact that she was the wife of a rival. If her books are bad, and if you think so, you should either say so under your own name in an accountable fashion or shut the hell up, frankly.

I have also had very weirdly vitriolic bad reviews on Amazon, from people saying things like "worst book I've ever read" and signed by "Bob Geldof", who, frankly, I think has more important things to do than review my teenage books. I'm sorry but if my books are the worst you've ever read, you haven't read many. Consequently, I now don't trust Amazon and other online reviews unless it's clear who wrote them. (Or if they're good, of course, and about my books - then I KNOW they're true! Erm, not...) I have had some good ones, btw, lest you think I'm totally crap.

That's irrelevant. I just want to make a stand for integrity. Yes, I could go and write a stinking anonymous review for a rival's book. But I wouldn't. Why?

Because I wouldn't be able to sleep at night, is why. OK?

Have some standards. Your soul is at stake.

DELUDED COVERING LETTERS

I am re-posting this earlier post to help those of you approaching covering letters / queries for the first time. Many of you, I know, are old hands at this, but there are new writers coming along all the time and terrible mistakes are being made. I want to save you, honestly!

The covering letter will give an agent or editor the first clues (and they may not look further) that either a) you may have a great book and really know what you're doing or b) you can't write and / or are going to be too difficult to deal with, perhaps because you have completely the wrong attitude or level of understanding. If you make too many howlers in the covering letter, too many agents or editors will not look at your work. There's just too much competition out there for you to be able to afford to get this too wrong. So, while you'll hear of people getting published even after doing things wrong at this stage, that diminishes your chances hugely, especially if your book is not 100% gloriously saleable. Perfection is unattainable, but most of what agents and publishers receive is horribly short of perfection, which is why almost all of it is rejected summarily. I aim only to protect you from this.

PARTY INVITATION

Even though I'm in a really bad mood for many reasons and completely fed up with the snow, I am generously inviting you all to my first birthday party. Yes, on Sunday 10th Jan, this blog will be One Year Old!

I was reading some of the first posts just now, and remembering how I felt getting my very first comments, and how extraordinarily quickly so many of you found me. Echo Freer and Tom Vowler were amongst the first commenters, and you and others are still here. I started with four posts that day, to get the thing going. I remember I had the idea that it would end up being a set of resources, more like a strangely-organised book than a normal linear blog. Well, I have a feeling it ended up being something akin to both. One problem now is that there's so much info on it [more than a quarter of a million words!] that it's now hard to find what you're looking for, and Blogger's search facility is useless for the older stuff, which is why I've had a lot of suggestions to turn it all into a proper book.

Anyway, what's this party, then? Well, it's a blog party, which means we're all going to come visiting YOUR blogs, bottles or chocolate in hand. The reason I'm warning you now is that you may want to do a bit of housework on your blogs and prepare a wonderful, witty and / or wise post for Sunday, so that your visitors can see you at your sparkly best.

If you don't have a blog, you can tell us about your book, if you have published one, or point us towards something that you've written somewhere on the internet. [You may not ask anyone to pay any dosh to read your words - this is a party, not a sales conference.]

When you turn up here on Sunday, I'll tell you exactly what to do, but it will be something like this: I will ask you to post a brief comment [on Sunday] telling us about your own blog / writing, to encourage people to visit you. Then people toddle over in their droves and leave a comment on your blog, and then you visit them. It should be a geat way for you to show people what you do.

NOW, however, I'd like to ask you something else: what would you like me to blog about over the coming year? I do want to focus more on the actual techniques of writing, within all the various genres and more generally, because I do think unpublished writers spend too much time worrying about submission details, rather than the most important thing, the actual writing. But I'm still happy to write about the process of submissions if there's still anything left that I haven't said. Comments below, please.

On Sunday, I will no doubt wax all sentimental about how much I like you all and how I have valued your company, but let's leave that till then, shall we? Today, as I say, I'm in a bad mood. Which is entirely as it should be for the Crabbit Old Bat, but still. Mind you, some remarkably lovely comments about Chicken Friend from that fellow crabby one, Proe, on my last post, have gone some way to smooth my brow. Thank you, Proe, you old curmudgeonely one! I value your compliments almost as much as your regular attempts to stir up my not-so-inner crabbit.

Meanwhile, you might like to read one of the posts from Day One of this blog, so you can see how little my advice has changed over the year... I may be crabbit, but I am at least consistent. Some might say boring. If they were very, very bold.

I hope to see you all dressed in your Sunday best, any time from 08.00 UK time, on 10th Jan! Spread the word - all are invited!

For now, your requests for topics, please.

WHY WRITERS MUST READ THE RIGHT STUFF

A recent blog post raised a question from a reader, which I promised to answer. Have I ever let you down yet? [There's still time, of course.]

The post was here and the question from Samantha went as follows:

 "Are you saying, Nicola, that one must be widely read in a particular genre before attempting to write for it? Up until now I have written humorous chick lit and very much enjoy reading this genre. But, all of a sudden, I am inspired to write YA, not so humorous, because the plot I really want to write about doesn't 'fit' an adult genre so well. So, am I supposed to read widely in YA before putting pen to paper?

... [removed bit] ...I guess it just niggles me a bit, because as writers we are always being told to 'write the story we feel compelled to write' - and now I  feel I'm being told, ooh, if you aren't well-read in YA, how can you possibly attempt to write it.

Aargghhh! I'm sure you'll put me right:)"

Oh, indeedly doodly!

[As an aside, the bit I cut cited Meyer and Rowling as two examples of writers that Samantha reckoned just "wrote the story they wanted" and weren't well-read in their genre. Actually, an Eng Lit grad and mother, JKR is well-read in her genres - fantasy / children's - and Meyer I haven't a clue about but in any case we don't learn anything if we use the very unusual to explain the ordinary. Besides, Samantha says - and I honestly know / care nothing about this but she may be right - that Meyer's publisher then "tailored the book for the market". Well, je reste ma valise: is that what normal authors want or can expect? No, it isn't. Thing is, both those authors hit a vein of success which cannot be predicted or planned and any attempt to use them to prove anything that relates to writing in general is unhelpful. Therefore, can we not [c]rabbit on about this in the comments below? I regard it as off-topic. We can talk about it another time if you must, and if you care nothing for my mood, especially since I gave myself three paper cuts opening Christmas cards this morning, as well as one Magimix cut.]

Right. Back to the point. Why did I say and why do I absolutely maintain that writers should be well-read in the books being currently published in the genre they are writing for? [And by the way, I'm not alone: Stephen King also says it in On Writing. Nor have I ever heard any published writer, agent or editor say anything to contradict it.]

First, why "CURRENTLY"? Why can't we just read old stuff? What's wrong with the good old days when people knew their split infinitives from their hanging participles?


If you are only reading bygone successes you risk one of two traps:
1) The Jane Austen Trap. Every couple of years there's a stupid fracas when a silly person sends a slightly disguised first chapter of a Jane Austen book to a publisher pretending that he /she wrote it; publisher returns it saying it's "not right for our list"; silly person jumps up and down in self-righteous glee, saying, "See how useless publishers are! They can't even recognise a classic when they see it!" No, stupid: Jane Austen is not right for their lists because publishers are not looking for Jane Austen, because if readers want Jane Austen they can read Jane Austen. Publishers want what readers want NOW, not what they wanted a million years ago.

2) The Enid Blyton Trap. There are, last time I counted, 5,739,841 aspiring writers out there who have decided that they'd like to write a children's book because they remember enjoying them so much when they were little. Well, all respect to EB, but she was writing in times of old-fashionedness, and, as well as writing in the style of those times, was unhealthily affected by the undesirable aspects of the day, such as classism, racism, sexism and Imperialism, as well as the more pleasant ones such as naiveté, absence of health and safety, and lashings of ginger beer. Things have changed, and the things you can, should, must, mustn't do are vastly different. So, if you don't read the modern stuff, when you come to write it you risk looking like some patriarchal buffoon who hasn't noticed that the Empire has fallen and there's gravy on his cravat.

So, why do we have to be widely-read in our genre? Samantha is widely read, but now she wants to write a YA novel and says she's not widely read in this genre. Can't she just go ahead?

First, I respect Samantha's reason for wanting to write YA  -  that the plot that she's thinking of fits YA. If she'd said she just fancied doing it, I'd have been more inclined to be crabbit: too many people simply think it would be easier than adult fiction. It's not. Just different.

However, I wonder how anyone knows the plot fits YA if they don't know much about YA books. It's common to think that simply having a teenage character makes the book YA. In that case, please read The Illumination of Merton Browne by JM Shaw. Or even the first chapter.  

On the other hand, Samantha may well be right and her plot may beautifully fit a YA format. But she won't know that until she reads some, and not just any: there are many types of YA, so if hers is "gritty realism" she'll need to read some [for example] Keith Gray or Catherine Forde. Etc etc for other types of YA. And I'm not only talking about YA  -  the same applies for any genre.

Anyway, speaking generally now and moving away from the personal. Here's what we all risk by not being widely read in our intended genre:

1)  not knowing the rules of the genre. Every genre has rules and if we don't know them we risk breaking them and looking silly [or not being published.] Rules are there to be deliciously broken or stretched but only intentionally and with reason. You can't do that if you don't know them.

2) not knowing what's already been done. It would be very easy for an author not to realise that a topic / voice / character has already been done to death or has recently been tackled in a high-profile book. You could look very ignorant. As Stephen King says in On Writing, "the more sf you've read, the less likely it is that you'll simply revisit the well-mined conventions...".

3) not writing in an original voice. Of course, not every story is or can be original in voice, but you could easily look very unoriginal or old-fashioned. Is that what you want?

4) not being passionate about what you do. And that dispassion will shine through. Stephen King again: "You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing unless it has been done to you."

5) not being able to show or feel total commitment to a career in this genre. After all, one book is not enough. Your agent or publisher will need to build a career with you and you will need to feel utterly comfortable with the genre if you are to write several books in it, consecutively.

6) failing to sell it to an agent or publisher because you cannot show knowledge and commitment in your covering letter, or because you appear shallow or ignorant in your approach. I agree that this would be easily overcome with common sense, but you would not believe the ignorance of this sort that I've seen in covering letters shown to me by agents.

7) remaining outside the world of your future fellow authors. Writers  -  real writers  -  read. I spend a lot of time communicating with other YA writers and I would quickly know if one of us wasn't up-to-date with what was being written. We recommend books to each other all the time - sometimes in criticism, sometimes in praise. I'd have a very low opinion of someone who couldn't join us in our own game and passion and yet who presumed to reap money from it. I'd call them a mercenary. What we read informs and redefines us; as readers and as writers. As a writer I want to be part of it, not outside looking in.

8) displaying disrespect for your fellow authors. So, you're saying their sort of writing is so easy that you don't need to learn anything about it? [Samantha, please don't take this personally: I am making a general point about risks for authors choosing not to read in genre. I am sure you're not disrespectful. Well, you'd better not be!]

9) displaying arrogance. Yep, I'm saying it again. Again, I'm not saying I think Samantha is but I'm saying this is the risk. You may not feel arrogant, but it's what a potential agent / publisher will think if you show that you don't read in the genre. It displays a sense of, "yeah, well it's easy to do what these crime fic / YA / pic book authors do  -  I can do that, easy as falling off a bike."

Yes, well you can do yourself a nasty injury falling off a bike.

So, to anyone planning to write in a genre for which he or she does not have affinity, passion and knowledge, I say, don't. Unless you want to take a very very long time to become published. Or unless you want to rely wholly on luck. In which case, good luck to you because you'll need it.

Personally, I write for teenagers because I love teenage fiction and I feel very connected, through it, to teenagers, my readers. I don't know a teenage author who doesn't feel like that.

None of this denies the other truth: that we must tell the story that we burn to tell. I just question how would know how to write it brilliantly, if you don't properly know how that type of story works. And doesn't work.If you don't know the traps, how can you avoid them?

_____________________________________

PS for any putative YA authors out there (Samantha?) - if you tell me what type of story it will be I'll recommend you three YA novels to read. You don't have to read the whole canon!

PPS please don't forget the lovely offer of a doubly-signed book, signed to you [or a friend of yours] personally by David Robinson and Alexander McCall Smith. They are coming, at my request, to sign the copies on Thursday, so you need to order by tomorrow. In Cold Ink is a fabulously interesting look into the minds and lives of many of the world's best authors and if it's a well-read person you want, look no further than David R, Books editor of the Scotsman!

A PERFECT SCENE THROUGH DIRTY WINDOWS

I read an interesting blog post by one of you  -  Catherine Hughes, guest blogging on the Strictly Writing blog. [Well done, Catherine!] And it got me thinking.

Catherine's right: despite constant advice from me and many others to get your covering letter+synopsis+sample perfect before sending it to an agent or publisher, perfection is not always actually necessary. In other words,a beautiful view may still be recognisably beautiful even if seen through dirty windows. [I should know  -  I have some. I really wish the sun wouldn't shine, as it makes them worse.]

There are plenty of stories of writers being taken on despite the fact that they have not yet produced perfection, or anything like it. My own story is a case in point: my agent took me on, then we made the book better and then she sold it. Catherine provides examples of agents who did deign to read and give good feedback even though she hadn't produced [yet] a publishable book.

So, why am I still right as well? How can Catherine and I both be right? Why do I still urge you to clean your windows before inviting an agent or publisher to look through the glass?

• competition and harsh reality-  every reputable agent and publisher receives many, many MSS every week. Many agents / publishers will very understandably follow their first impressions. [And I mean first, as in first paragraph.] If you have made basic errors which look like carelessness, ineptness or lack of technique, and/or they have just read something else better, yours gets dumped. You want that to happen? So, some may painstakingly read everything (I doubt it); some may have received nothing good that month; but you simply reduce your chances by not getting it right.
• some sorts of error in covering letters matter much much less than others. Some don't matter at all. Experts make judgements that are much more subtle and powerful than simply noticing an error: they use that error to make detailed analytical judgements about you and your command of language.
  
• your book has to be EVEN more brilliant underneath if the dirty windows are to be ignored. Of course, you already think your book is brilliant. And let's hope it is. But there's a Simultaneous Equation going on: for every bit of imperfection, you have to have that much more brilliance in your offering.
• it is getting harder and harder to get certain types of book published, so the more perfect a state your book is in now, the more likely it is to be taken, because the less structural work it will require during editing, and the less of a risk an agent or publisher would be taking with you. If you think the editor will just do it all for you, read my recent post here.
• agents and editors are looking for potential as well as an existing state of publishability. This means that yes, they may well take you on if they see huge potential shining through the grubby glass; but, for all the reasons above, you simply lower your chances of looking like a great writer if you get too many things wrong in the first place. Because, frankly, potential is what you should be honing, before they get to it.
  

On the other hand, there is another way in which Catherine is right. There is, in this business as with so many others, no such thing as absolute perfection. Since there is no such thing as perfection, there's little point [you might say] in aiming for it. One person's idea of a perfect synopsis will not be another person's. [For example, independent publisher Lynn Michell's idea of a synopsis is different from some other UK publishers' ideas  -  see my blog interview with her here. She wants more of a "blurb", whereas some want more detail and chronology. Some agents are happy for multiple submissions; others are not. Some want your CV / writing background; others don't.] So, since your idea of perfection may be rejected as inadequate by someone else, you may wonder why you bother.

In answer to that I'd say that this is not a science but an art. There are several ways of approaching a publisher or agent that work in general and tick the necessary boxes. But there are absolutely some which don't work. Showing ignorance in certain ways will get you rejected; making certain types of error will get you rejected; but most of all, not having a beautiful view through the murky windows will get you rejected.

It's worth noting that Catherine is talking about that very important step of getting an agent / publisher to a) read and b) give encouraging feedback. The question of being accepted comes later and is different. She's right to notice that some agents and publishers will read and respond in unscary ways even if you haven't written the perfect book yet.

But it is also very important to remember that:

1. An expert reader [ie good agent or editor] can tell within a very few sentences / paragraphs how well you can write
2. And whether you've written a publishable book
   
3. Some of those experts readers have more time and patience than others
4. You are trying to attract all of them, whether or not they have patience
5. And you are trying to get published, not only to receive feedback [eg a "positive" rejection]
6. Therefore, I strongly suggest that you work your socks off to get your whole submission package as perfect as possible

Yes, you can make some mistakes and someone still might say nice things. You might even get published, if you have written an irrestistible book and your talent and your book's worth shine through the mistakes. But do you want to take the risk that your grubby-windowed package lands on the desk of a wonderful agent on the day she's just received a beautiful shiny one, or the day when she's feeling grumpy after too many grubby ones?

Don't get me wrong: I'd LOVE love love it if you all got published despite doing things wrong, but I believe you'd get there quicker if you tried to do everything right. This blog is about doing our very, very best to get it all as right as possible as often as possible. Don't let me down, please!

[Catherine  -  just to emphasise: I'm not disagreeing with you. I thought you wrote an excellent piece and I'm very grateful to you for making me think about it some more.]

Note to all: I'm away in Dublin doing talks from Friday and not back till Sunday so excuse my lack of replying to your comments. Please comment, though  -  you usually produce some very helpful conversations between you.

MYTHS ABOUT WRITING

When my life hits its stupidly busy phases, I fall back on the useful practice of letting other people do the work. And when I came across this blog post recently, I bookmarked it for just such an occasion.

In case you need to be convinced as to my definition of busy, I should perhaps mention that at the moment I am trying to sell a house, buy two flats, write a novel, start a new business, keep up to date with my blog, create a new website, prepare speaking engagements and have a life. One day, I will accidentally iron the dog.

So, that post from Upstart Crow, about the lies you'll hear in workshops, is highly useful. And pointful: not only do workshop members often tell accidental falsehoodery, but so do members of your writing group and, definitely, your family. And friends. And anyone else who knows you unprofessionally.

When you're unpublished it can be all too easy to fall back on advice and encouragement from unpublished authors. And very understandably so, because it's probably the case that only unpublished authors will read your stuff and agree to comment. I'm not saying don't ask for advice from each other; I'm not even saying don't listen to it, or don't feel nurtured by it. I am saying don't act on it unless you can corroborate it with advice from someone who is either substantially published (and preferably in the right genre or at least an appropriate genre) or else is "in the business".

Since many / most of you are unpublished, you may now dislike me and decide never to listen to me again. Honestly, your willingness to advise each other is wonderful, and the comments on this blog reveal your general wisdom and knowledge. BUT, generally speaking you would rather have advice from an expert or someone with proven knowledge, than from someone who hasn't, wouldn't you? I only ask you to be careful and ruthlessly analytical about the advice you receive, from any source.

As an aside, I would caution you especially not to take advice about writing for children from anyone without experience of writing for children, or of publishing that writing. Thing is, people think if they can write, they can write for children. No, no, no, no, no. It's very different and the markets are different. Whole different set of skills and knowledge.

So, rely on your friends and family for support and chocolate; rely on the professionals for advice. Please.

I've done a couple of posts about myths myself: here  and here. In fact, that second one reminds me that this was supposed to be the start of a series. Note to self...

And now, excuse me, please: I need to go and see a dog about a house, or stand for Parliament or something.

RESPONSE TO A DELUDED IDIOT

Some of you may hate me soon. Especially newer followers of this blog or people who have just come across me without warning. (There absolutely should be a warning before entering the world of one so trenchant and crabbit, I know.) You need to understand that I genuinely care for the interests, hearts and souls of unpublished writers; you need to know that I share your pain and that I can do so from the horrible 21 year experience of suffering the same struggle until I suddenly broke through the peculiar barriers; you need to know that such was my desperation to get published that each time I used to read of someone having a "debut" novel published, I wanted to kill them, preferably with my bare hands after a substantial amount of torture.

The reason you need to know this is because you will otherwise think (in a few moments) that I am just laughing at unpublished writers. I am not. What I am laughing at is the worst of the appallingly misdirected, miswritten and misguided covering letters which still find their way onto the laptops and doormats of unlucky agents and editors. I am laughing partly because it is funny and partly because it is unnecessary  -  there's no excuse nowadays for this level of crappiness, now that good advice is out there. (Including on this blog, I venture to say  -  please see what I've written about covering letters here and here. And elsewhere, but that will do for now.)

May I now get on with appearing cruel? And will you forgive me? Please? It is all in the cause of education.

Right. Thing is, one of the perks of writing this blog is that agents and editors show me examples of the worst submissions they receive. And I feel I can't quote from them unless I disguise them a bit. Or a lot. So, I came up with a better idea. I decided to imagine I was an agent and to write an imaginary response to a generically awful covering letter.

So, I have written such a response. Every bit of it refers to an error that I have seen myself or know from a trustworthy source to have been made, mostly very often. BUT, nothing in it relates to anything you have sent me for Submissions Spotlights. Trust me: I'm a novelist. So, seriously do trust me.

Anyway, on behalf of agents and editors everywhere, here is that letter. (In a moment or three.) And for those of you who have yet to see me wax spectacularly crabbit, please sit down, get some decent chocolate out and prepare yourselves.

You should also know that I toned this down (thereby sadly removing some humour) from my first version. I preferred my first version, but I should never use humour cruelly and I should maintain where possible a professional appearance. It's very like choosing the right shoes for the occasion. Essential.

I really think I should get on with it now, don't you? Chocolate at the ready? I'm thinking Hotel Chocolat, maybe the Milk and White Fusion? Rocky Road Milk?

Dear Writer,

I am afraid that I cannot offer to represent you, even for ready money. There may be people out there who would appreciate the "special" presents you sent, but I am afraid I am not one of them. In addition, I found your offer to visit my house and demonstrate your unusual talents somewhat off-putting, especially as I do have a young family.  It is obviously sensible for a writer to have another career to provide an income, but I did find your supporting photos rather disconcerting and I suggest you restrict your personal information to relevant details.

As an aspiring writer, you made a number of errors in your approach. I hope you will not mind my pointing some of these out to you. You sneered at the potential readers of your work; you patronised an entire age group and showed your contempt of their reading power; the words "stupid" and "pathetic" do not sit well in this context; you similarly disparaged every author who has managed to become published through sheer talent and hard work; in short, you laid bare your contempt for readers, writers, and publishers. You appear not to understand the reasons why people choose to read at all and your utter ignorance of every step of the publishing process shone through as brightly as your lack of command of what I presume is your own language.

You do not need to tell me that your novel is "fiction"  -  I have yet to read a novel that wasn't. Yes, in answer to your question, I have heard the phrase "urban fantasy" and therefore do not need you to explain it to me. Nor do I need to be told what "YA" means, since that describes my specialty. Leaving that aside, "6 - 18" is not a valid age group. Please allow me to decide whether your work has film potential; moreover, I think you are being somewhat premature suggesting actors who might take lead roles in the film version. There isn't going to be a film version, really. In fact, there isn't going to be a version at all.

You have a misguided view of your own writing ability. Normally, I would strongly recommend that authors did not tell me that they had shown their work to their children and that their children had loved it; in your case, on the other hand, I recommend you do show it to your children  -  it is entirely possible that they will be able to show you where you have gone wrong. No, your book is not going to "make us rich". No, we are not going to "take the publishing world by storm". No, they are not all waiting with "baited (sic) breath" for the arrival of your grim little tale on the bookshelves. No, you are absolutely not the "next sensation in British literature". You know how on the X-Factor there are always some deluded individuals who make complete fools of themselves and can't see how bad they are? I hope you get my point.

There are certain basic errors in your letter. You should always send the first three chapters, not random middle ones just because you are "working on something even more grity (sic) and exciting at the moment and just can't face typing the first chapters". You do need to obey the rules of apostrophes and avoid street slang in a formal letter. If you halved the number of clichés in one page, you would have improved the impression you made. Slightly. In this and many other ways, you failed to display even a vague competence in written, or indeed any, language.

I confess that I did begin to read your story, mainly because I had had a hard day and needed some light relief. I was not disappointed. I called my elderly neighbour over and we displayed signs of being extremely amused for at least five minutes before we got to the hand-written bit. I thought you said you'd sent this part of your MS because it was typed? Seriously, "Sir/Madam", (to use your own phrase), your story is probably the worst thing I have ever read, and that's including during the time when I was a Year 1 teacher. I am tempted to ask that perennial question: where do you get your ideas from?

In any case, your attitude to me, your readers and the rest of humanity leaves me with the vague impression that you and I would not get along. Having said that, even if you were charming, it would not alter the more important fact: you cannot write for toffee. I suppose I should give you credit for not having sent any toffee in your submission. It was about the only mistake you did not make. If you do not know what I mean by referring to toffee, I suggest that you read the excellent blog of Nicola Morgan. She has been lucid and persuasive on the subject of the risks of toffee in submissions to agents, and her blog contains many other perceptive gems which you would do well to note. She does go on about chocolate rather a lot, which I find a little trivial, but she is still worth heeding.

Yours bleakly,

Desperelda Blogs.

There, that's got that off my chest. Of course, being a charming person who is kind to animals, I would never write such a letter, even if I were an agent, but it was fun to imagine, as long as I didn't have to imagine a real person receiving it.  Really, if you ever see anyone about to make these mistakes, please stop them. You'll be doing everyone a favour, including the poor writer.


The wonderful thing for you, though, is that such rubbish makes it that much easier to get to the top of the slippery slush-pile. So, maybe you should keep this wisdom to yourself...

Edited to add: Marion Gropen put this link to a blog post of hers in the comments below and I thought I'd add it in. A couple of the things in it are things I've scheduled blog posts for. Thank you, Marion.

COMPETITION RESULTS

In my arbitrary way, I hereby declare the "You must be joking" competition closed. You may have noticed that I forgot to say what the prize would be. So, I am now happy to announce that the prize for getting both answers correct within my time-scale would almost certainly have been a vast amount of money. Sadly, no one got both answers correct. I am devastated.

The correct answers

Many of you guessed that one of the sentences I'd made up was No 22:

"The Extremely Envious Elf: Ernie is an Elf. Even though he has lots of possessions, he's always envious of everyone. One day, he meets a Pixie, (Percy) who is crying and Ernie learns that actually he's a very lucky Elf and he stops being envious. This is, I feel, a lesson which children do need to learn these days. Also, I have chosen names for the characters which will help children learn the sounds of letters, thus helping them improve their reading. For example, Envious Ernie and Percy the Pixie. There are others."

Now, ok, it might have seemed obviously rubbish. As Rik cleverly pointed out, it couldn't actually have been genuine because it would be too identifiable and I'd hate to ruin the chances of the brilliant author of such a stunning idea by enabling all of you to steal the concept, as I'm sure you would love to do. Seriously, though, this is just the sort of "plot" that is offered to agents and publishers on a regular basis. I have been sent several Percy the Pixie ideas myself and I'm not even an agent or publisher. And such authors always labour the moral message and all the "learning potential" of their stories. These are the sort of stories Enid Blyton might have written as a joke when suffering from a very high fever at the age of 8.

I am very proud of the fact that NONE of you guessed my other made-up extract. It was No. 4:

"I recommend that you also try to sell Animation Film Rights as I feel that my story has real potential in that area. I am happy to offer these rights to you for your use, subject to an agreement between us, which I am confident will be forthcoming."

Again, this is something that aspiring authors very often do talk about. Which is why you obviously didn't realise I made it up. Hehe. As you very well know, giving professional advice to the potential agent or publisher is absolutely not the right thing to do.

I noticed that vast numbers of you thought it was No. 6:

"I know you ask for a synopsis but I've found that such a thing rather defeats the purpose of sending sample chapters and tends to be an unwelcome exercise for all concerned."

Yep, hard to believe, but true. I've seen similar excuses for not writing synopses. And things along the lines of "I know this is what your submission guidelines say but I have decided instead to ..."

A lot of you also thought that No 18 must be made up:

"I have printed a copy of the book, complete with 289 illustrations, from my Toshiba Satellite with Windows Vista with an Hewlett Packard all-in-one printer (jpeg prints)."

I know - the mind boggles as to what this person was thinking at the moment of writing that. We'll never know.

Apart from my sneaky No. 4, there were several others which none of you opted for. You are obviously becoming wise to the extent of absurdity of some unpublished authors and it no longer surprises you that anyone would do any of the following:

• write nonsense badly: "I have put my properties in approximate order of commerciality, I hope this is as convenient as your stated preference"
• not be able to write a proper sentence: "I feel with a little investment by an agent could really have an impact on the Children's writing world."
• criticise a whole swathe of published literature: "I have not enclosed any synopsis but I will say that my work does not include any monsters or magic or cruel adults, unlike all the other children's books you see nowadays."
• write a drivellingly powerless reason for reading on: "My writing activates pure imagination and fun and I have tested them on some children and they have really loved them. A few adults have too."

Now, there were no winners and no prizes but I hope you had fun and you deserve some points for effort. I'm going to bestow some special (and very covetable) Order of the Crabbit Old Bat awards on some of you.

The worthy recipients are:

• Rik - for perspicacity (see above)
• Melinda - because I liked her explanation for her choices: "because they were well written and made sense so were obviously fake"
• The Proe - for the irony in his response: "I know you asked for a tie-breaker recommendation but I've found that such a thing tends to be an unwelcome exercise for all concerned and would not truthfully convey the full impact of my choices and liverwurst."
• Catdownunder - for choosing to recommend one of my own books ... ( I did expect a lot more crawling from the rest of you actually, but there we go - you'll know for next time)

Huge thanks to everyone for entering, for recommending your favourite books, for providing me with almost endless fun and for not winning the prize. I don't know about you but I think we've really covered covering letters now and should all go away and do some actual writing.

Next, I am going to be going on and on and on and on and on and on about a topic dear to my heart: over-writing. That's when writers go on and on and on when they should have stopped long before. And when they get above themselves and full of themselves and up themselves and think that everyone really wants to hang around listening to their glossy, sensuous, gorgeous, sinuous prose and they play with similes like a siamese with a shrew, and load their sentences with alliteration and assonance and all aspects of authorial artfulness.

And their readers couldn't give a damn and just want to know what happens.

PARTY AND COMPETITION!

Time to celebrate. House-warming for my new address and a big thank you to all those of you who have stuck by me. Oh, and lovely follower Brenda has an agent! See comments after this post.

So, a competition, don't you think? Because parties must have prizes and games and all manner of fun. I'm providing chocolate and sparkly wine. Well, I'm consuming it anyway, and you're welcome to join me if you can find a clean glass. Jane Smith is going to make a cake if there's enough wind in Yorkshire to power her electricity or enough peat in the bogs for her aga and Lynn's beagle is getting the blender ready for the margharitas.

The competition is called: YOU MUST BE JOKING!

Here's how it works. I extract some bits from real covering letters that I've seen. (None written by any of you, I hope.) And amongst the real extracts I insert TWO made up examples. Your task is to guess which two I made up. And, in case of more than one correct answer, there's a tie-breaker.

Tie-breaker:
Because one of the most important things a writer can do is read and be inspired by books currently being published within the relevant genre, your task is to pick a book you admire and recommend in your writerly genre and say why it's so wonderful / paradigmatic / inspirational for you. Your answer should begin:

I recommend writers of ... [YA / literary fiction / crime / whatever]... to read ............ by ............... because ...[no more than 15 words here]

(Secret: we won't actually need a tie-breaker because I predict that no-one will get the answer. Thing is, a whole load of wrong answers is going to be very amusing for me but teach us nothing. Whereas, you writers all sharing your knowledge and love of books will be useful all round. Sneaky? Me?)

Here are the extracts. So, which did I make up? Should be so simple .... Just give the two numbers and your tie-breaker in the comments box below.

1. I feel, that to only send some some sample chapters, for which you ask for in your guidelines would not truthfully convey the full impact of my work.
2. My story is aimed at children of all ages, including adults.
3. Dear Ms [name redacted] or Sir or Madam,
4. I recommend that you also try to sell Animation Film Rights as I feel that my story has real potential in that area. I am happy to offer these rights to you for your use, subject to an agreement between us, which I am confident will be forthcoming.
   
5. I have put my properties in approximate order of commerciality, I hope this is as convenient as your stated preference
6. I know you ask for a synopsis but I've found that such a thing rather defeats the purpose of sending sample chapters and tends to be an unwelcome exercise for all concerned.
7. I have a Dream, it's different than others.
8. I'm Irish.
   
9. I would appreciate you take on my work by criticising the structure.
10. It's an "Idea," Weather you belief or not.
11. I have had interest in my stories from professionals in the Literary World.
    
12. The children's market is as much writing for adults as it is for children and I believe my writing satisfies both.
13. A little about me: I believe that coolness is emotional constipation.
14. I feel with a little investment by an agent could really have an impact on the Children's writing world.
15. (sorry, can't include this one - just too ridiculous ... please ignore number 15. There is no number 15. Honestly. My health is at stake here. I have gone quite mad. It gets worse ...)
16. All pages are included but will probably need some alterations for the Publishing stage. This will be your prerogrative to advise.
    
17. It is with great pleasure I include my synopsis's below as a small portion of the many manuscripts I have written.
18. I have printed a copy of the book, complete with 289 illustrations, from my Toshiba Satellite with Windows Vista with an Hewlett Packard all-in-one printer (jpeg prints).
    
19. I have not enclosed any synopsis but I will say that my work does not include any monsters or magic or cruel adults, unlike all the other children's books you see nowadays.
20. My writing activates pure imagination and fun and I have tested them on some children and they have really loved them. A few adults have too.
    
21. Here is my first synopsis'.
    
22. (And here is one of the synopses:) The Extremely Envious Elf: Ernie is an Elf. Even though he has lots of possessions, he's always envious of everyone. One day, he meets a Pixie, (Percy) who is crying and Ernie learns that actually he's a very lucky Elf and he stops being envious. This is, I feel, a lesson which children do need to learn these days. Also, I have chosen names for the characters which will help children learn the sounds of letters, thus helping them improve their reading. For example, Envious Ernie and Percy the Pixie. There are others.
    
23. Many professionals have called my stories "quite delightful" and "show lots of potential".
24. If you don't agree, no problem!
    
25. I also have another style of writing entirely and I would be happy to show it to you if you don't like it.
    

Answers in the comment box. One entry per person.

And now, I need something stronger than coffee.

YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE HEARD

Certain readers have dared to say that I've lost my crabbit touch. (Catherine, are you quaking?) Feedback is all very well, but that's plain insulting.

Well, see if you say the same after this one. (Not to mention the fact that I am very very close to spilling the beans on some SHOCKING covering letters I've just seen. But that's for another time. You don't believe the direness of the slush pile? Hang around.)

Back to the point. Thing about being crabbit is I need people to be crabbit AT. Deluded idiots, for example. Unpublished authors who display inexcusable ignorance. People who write to publishers or agents while they (the writers, not publishers/agents) are on hallucinogenic drugs or in the throes of untreated mania or have just been dumped by their psychotherapists. But none of these people seem to read my blog.

Where have all the deluded idiots gone? Surely I haven't scared them off? That was my original intention but I never intended it to be so easy. There were NONE in my audiences at the Edinburgh Bk Fest either. This is plain weird. There are always deluded idiots and fruitcakes in my audiences. Well, not any more, apparently. In fact, I put a status thingy up on Facebook, saying "I did a workshop today and there were no nutters." No one believed me. The fact that the conversation degenerated into a discussion as to whether I have ever worn lurex flares kind of suggests that all the nutters have followed me to FB, but there we go.

So, since there are no nutters, deluded idiots or inexcusably ignorant readers left on this blog, I must ask you to go out and find them. Seek them here and seek them there. You must know some. They may lurk in your writing groups or something. And when you find them, please tell them this:

On the subject of whether you deserve to have your voice heard, NO, you freaking well don't.

Or, more precisely, you may use your flimsy, boring, inexpert voice if you wish but the rest of the world is entitled to refuse to hear it. In other words:

No, not everyone deserves to be published.

Let me elucidate.

Things that really bug me - No 1:
"But I didn't have the chance of a good education / I have dyslexia / no one taught me grammar / I'm from a family that doesn't read / blahdy blah ... so it's not fair that I'm not allowed to be a published writer like you people with your university degrees / middle-class education / natural talent. You're just lucky."

Things that really bug me - No 2:
"Everyone has the potential to be a writer if they're just given the opportunity. The publishing industry conspires to keep such potential hidden."

Lest I be accused of seeming "elitist" (that frequently mis-used word), I'm not being elitist, but life is. We're all born and/or grow up with different advantages and disadvantages; we're all dealt different cards, and some hands are easier to play than others. But this (ie whether all people who put pen to paper have a right to be "heard") is about who deserves publication; this is about merit. This is about readers. And the real world. Yep, we're lucky if we have the talent, and so in that sense success is elitist because it's not just down to hard work - but elitist is too often used to say something about class, about conspiracy, about unfair oppression by one group of people of another. And this is not what's happening.

All writers, all readers, celebrate good writing in all its forms, wherever it comes from. What do we mean by good writing? Overall, taking all readers into the equation, we mean "writing that we like to read enough to invest time and/or money into reading it."

Frankly, if you can't write well enough, you don't have the right to publication. The act of publication is not a free psychotherapy session. You have the right to write, but not the right to be read because you do not have the right to require anyone to read your words or listen to your voice. This may seem self-evident to many of you, but you would not believe how often I've seen comments on blogs (and occasionally, in the early days, on this one) about how it's not fair that people who didn't have the advantage of a good education and "therefore" [sic] can't use grammar can't become published. (And, btw, if you self-publish your crappy writing, it won't be read. It's got to be damned good to sell, as many hard-working and good self-publishers know.)

Being able to use grammar is being able to use language. If you can't use it, you will be used by it. You will not be able to express yourself clearly or beautifully; you will not be able to say what you mean. This is not about whether you write in a modern style which sometimes breaks rules - oh, I'm all for breaking grammatical rules and I regularly do it, as you may have noticed. "Sentences" without finite verbs, for example. This is about being in control of your tools. And your tools are words and how they work together. You have no other tools worth using.

I couldn't give a flying frig what your educational background was. The writing world is more democratic than many people trying to get into it think: it doesn't actually care whether you learnt latin and ancient Greek (though that helps many, including me), or whether you went to private school or state; it doesn't care about you being dyslexic - I know several successful writers who are; it doesn't care whether you were brought up in a booky family - I know successful writers who weren't. The writing world cares only if you can write, connect, inspire, and if you have something to say. The writing world cares only if you might have enough readers to be worth the shelf-space.

Being able to write well comes from many things: innate talent, hard work, thinking the right thoughts, dreaming the right dreams, reading, reading, reading, loving books, immersion in words, practice. And then all those things over and over and over. And desperation, passion, need. You can't buy it.

"But I want to write; I'd love to see my book in a bookshop; and I've worked really really hard; I've been to writing classes and all that. And I love writing."

Yeah, well, if you're not good enough, or you don't write what someone wants to read, you'll have to carry on loving writing, for yourself. Personally, I love singing; I'd love to sing in the Albert Hall; and I sing a lot, in the shower; I've practised Faure's Requiem and sometimes it sounds quite good; if I'd had singing lessons at school I could have been a singer but I wasn't lucky enough to have them. It's not fair that I can't have my voice heard.

Thing is, it wouldn't be fair for the rest of the world to have to listen to me. I'm not good enough. Yeah, it's bad luck that I don't have a good enough voice to be a singer (that and the fact that professional singers have usually spent years practising - like professional writers). It's also bad luck that I'll never run in the Olympics - though wouldn't that be lovely? I was a fast runner at school - hey, if I'd had the advantage of good training, and keen coaches, and a club, and if my parents had pushed me and if I'd been BETTER, I could have been an Olympic runner too. Life's so unfair, isn't it?

If life was fair, I'd be famous, beautiful, two inches taller, an inch or so thinner. My legs would be straighter. My hair wouldn't require to be blown dry every morning, which takes a lot of time which I could be using to practise my singing. Or my drawing - because I'd love to be an artist. Just wasn't allowed to do art at school because I did latin and Greek. I was so unlucky that way.

If life was fair, I'd have great hand-eye-foot-anything co-ordination - then I could be a professional dancer. And I wouldn't be crap at tennis. It's not fair that those Williams sisters have all that talent and I have none. I'd have a good memory too, if life was fair. Oh, and if I'd been lucky enough to have a good maths teacher, I'd be brilliant at maths and then I could have had a job in a merchant bank and I'd have a lovely salary now. I'd live in a bigger house and have staff and a swimming-pool and sparkly wine every day.

Life's a bitch, eh? And I'm a crabbit old bat instead of a cuddly teddy bear. But bitch or not, you still don't have the right to be published or have your "voice" heard. None of us does. We've got to be good enough, see?

If that's not crabbit enough for you, you perhaps need to know that I decided to resign as a tester for the Brownies' Writer's Badge, because I insisted on failing someone and the head Brownie people (owls or vultures or something) didn't like it ... Yay for standards!

(Added on Nov 30th - PS after a lengthy and excellent comment thread, I have now got to stop comments after a sudden series of spam  -  no idea what it was about as it was in Chinese, which I do not read!)

THE PERFECT COVERING LETTER

I promised that I'd post this at the exact time of my workshop on the subject at the Edinburgh Book Festival. Think of us, eating chocolate and having fun!

(Btw, sticklers for correct language among you will have noticed that that last sentence can be read in two ways. It's deliberately ambiguous: either you or we are eating chocolate and having fun. And I'm not telling you which. It would be unprofessional.)

Now, those of you who have come late to this blog - where have you been all my life? - will need to go and read two posts first, as today's relates to all the ideas that came from them and also the competition I set up. Here's the first one, and the second is here. Or click the links to Covering Letters Part 1 & 2 on the list of articles on the right.

Your task was to guess what two improvements my agent said could be made to the sample letter. No one got both of them but one clever person got one of them. And the congratulations go to .... DOT! (Another reader, "D", got this later too, but a) it was later and therefore not first and b) he over-analysed the reasons and ended up not pinning it down in an objective, market-led way.)

DOT said "I believe your opening sentence, 'Wasted is a story of love, choice and the science of chance' is the weakest. From the description you write of your book, it is more fraught than that sentence implies." Spot on! It is indeed way more fraught. It's damned knife-edge bone-shivering skin-crawling stuff, with a load of passion thrown in. So, you win the prize - please visit my website and choose a book. Then email me (n@nicolamorgan.co.uk) with an address to send it to and a name to sign it for.

But, let's go through that letter now, because loads of comments came out of it, some of which reveal misconceptions and others which are valid. I'll go through the whole letter, explaining my rationale behind each bit. After that, I'll give a list of MUSTs, MUST NOTs, and MAYBEs.

THE NEAR-PERFECT LETTER

Dear Ms Hathaway,

I enclose the synopsis and sample first chapters of my 67,000 word Young Adult novel, Wasted. I also attach my CV, as requested in your submission guidelines.

It is normal and correct to say what you are enclosing. I am indicating that I have read her submission guidelines. Because she's asked for a CV, I don't have to give details of my pedigree etc in the the letter. I have given the word count, implying that it is complete (which it must be) and showing that it is an appropriate word count so I am not an idiot or ignorant. I have identified the genre /age category, so that she knows immediately what she's about to read. I have given the title. I have not waffled, boasted or been obsequious Yay for me!

----
Wasted is a story of love, choice and the science of chance. Jack and Jess meet by chance, and fall powerfully in love. Jess - beautiful and talented singer - and Jack - impulsive, fascinating, intense, drummer in his own band, Schrödinger’s Cats - are on the eve of leaving school; freedom beckons. But Jess’s mother is an alcoholic and Jess, only child in a single-parent family, feels responsible. As for Jack: his mother died long ago - twice. After such unlikely bad fortune, he is obsessed by luck, chance, fate - whatever you call it. Jack calls it something to be controlled and so takes deliberate risks, playing a game with a coin, challenging chance to beat him. Chances are that, one day, it must. Events come to a dangerous climax in the heady, alcohol-fuelled beach party after the Leavers’ Prom, when life or death hang on the toss of a coin.

As DOT says, that first sentence is not strong enough. My agent said it's too soft "for the current market". My preferred sentence would be something like: "Wasted is a novel of danger, risk and Fate, entwined in a passionate love story." (But I still haven't quite got it right - luckily I don't need to, as the book is being published anyway, but I'll need to work on it so I can enthuse people easily.) Several people commented on the need for more detail - but this is quite sufficient for a covering** letter. Remember: there is a synopsis in the same envelope, which there would not be in a US-style "query", and therefore a query would need more detail. The covering letter can be intriguing, AS LONG AS you have answered any questions (eg re motivation) properly in the synopsis and as long as the letter sounds confident. So, we don't need to know why Jess feels responsible, or how Jack's mother could have died twice.

----
An unusual voice - present tense, omniscient, vivid - is not the book’s only defining feature. Twice within the story, I write alternative versions of an event, versions which turn on an almost unnoticeable chance difference, but a difference which has vastly different consequences. I then toss a coin and the story continues with one version, depending on the result. Finally, I write two alternative endings and challenge the reader to toss a coin to “choose” the ending. How the coin lands affects which possibility becomes reality. And it’s a life or death difference.

Someone commented on the present tense, saying that many people are put off by it. Yes, this is a risk and one which can only be taken in the covering letter if you feel that the story is so strong and intriguing that the agent (who may also be prejudiced against present tense) will read on. Thing is, in Wasted it absolutely is a defining feature, not just its present-tenseness but other aspects of the voice. By claiming that it is "unusual" and "vivid" I aim actually to draw attention to it and almost challenge the agent to try it. Someone commented on the repeated use of "difference" - it's deliberate and each use is mutually referential. This is an important pargraph, and this feature of alternative versions is crucial.

----
I have worked very hard to make this novel as ready as possible for publication but I am also very used to welcoming editorial guidance.

Interesting points from this. Someone said, "But shouldn't it be perfect?" It's a fine line I'm treading here. I want to convey that yes, I have worked very hard and am not submitting something that is not the best I can make it. At the same time, I want to convey some understanding that whatever I produce will need to go through editing. So, I am being neither arrogant about my work nor ignorant of the process of publishing. At the same time, I have not committed the cardinal sin of saying "I know that an editor will want to work on this, so I have deliberately not made it perfect." DO NOT DO THAT!!! Some writers think that it doesn't matter about grammar/ punctuation etc, because "it will be sorted at editing stage." It DOES matter - because it shows whether you're a good enough writer.

----
I have had a few pieces published in other fields, as you will see from my CV, but I am ambitious to become a successful author for young people and am prepared to work as hard as necessary to achieve that.

Here, I'm conveying that a) I have some writing experience b) I hope to have a fruitful career ahead of me and c) I know it will take hard work. All of this labels me (I hope!) as someone with whom an agent and editor will enjoy working. Ambition without delusion, confidence without arrogance, and always a determination to do better. What more could anyone want???

----
The high quality YA market may be relatively small, but it’s one I love and would be so proud to work in.

Here, I am indicating a knowledge of the market that I'm aiming to write for. I'm also conveying that the reason I want to write this type of book is that this is the type of book that I love. So, I'm conveying a connection with my intended readers. It shows that I know exactly what I'm doing and why. And that my reasons are good.

But this is where my agent suggested another line should be added. She pointed out that it would be even better if I named a couple of my favourite YA authors, who write in the same sub-genre as Wasted. This would show even greater knowledge of and passion for the genre. I wouldn't say that I am trying to emulate them but I would say something about my respect for their work.

----
I have already submitted Wasted to the Tanya Highbury agency and, although she gave me some very positive feedback, she did not feel that it was right for her at this time. Otherwise, yours is the only agency which I have approached so far.

Several of you were doubtful about this. Why am I admitting that she was not the first agent I approached? It's because you have to be up front - that's being professional and good to work with. An agent is not stupid: think about it - how likely is it that one particular agent was the first one you approached? They don't mind not being the first - though I wouldn't confess if she was the 50th ... - but they do mind very much if you're not up front about sending your submission to others simultaneously. (Some agents specifically ask you not to, in which case you mustn't.) I also have no problem with saying that Tanya Highbury knocked me back for that reason - again, I'm showing honesty and realism; also, by naming the other agency, I'm even giving my potential agent the opportunity to check. (Agents talk ...) By admitting this situation, I reveal that I understand the ins and outs of getting an agent.

----
I know how busy you must be with existing clients but you will understand that I want to approach other agents fairly soon; therefore, I would be most grateful if you could tell me what your position is on my approaching other agents or indeed some publishers.

Ebony pointed out, rightly, that Janet Reid's post, which I'd linked to, said she hated it when an author said something about knowing how busy she was blahdy blah. However, we have to remember that agents are just like other people, ie different and full of individuality. Personally, I believe this sentence of mine shows common courtesy and respect and portrays me as the sensible and aware person that I am. Frankly, if the agent I'm writing to is going to knock me back because of it, I am maybe not suited to her. More importantly, my comment is part of a wider and crucial strategic point: I am asking her to tell me whether she's happy for me to contact other agents. This is a 100% professional attitude that reveals a good understanding of an agent's work. I am also showing that I want to get on quickly and that I am finding a way to do so which does not mess anyone around. Agents understand this.

----
I very much hope that you will like what you read and that you will want to see the rest of Wasted.

I don't think anyone had a comment about this bit. One point though: you should never say, "I know you're going to love what you read..." Because no, you don't know that.

----
Yours sincerely,

Because, obviously, you know about sincerely for letters where you've used the name and faithfully for when you don't know the name. BUT, you should always know the name. Never do a Dear Sir or Madam

Modest confidence, unobsequious respect and clear professionalism - that's what we want to convey. Simple!

So, my trusty lists:

MUSTS

• be very clear about genre, and age range. If for kids, exactly what age range - 5-7? 12+?
  
• give length of book to nearest 100 words
  
• follow individual submission guidelines to the letter - and show that you know exactly what THIS agent/editor wants
• thereby show that this is a personal approach and NOT a mail-shot
• briefly describe what the book is about, sufficiently for the recipient to know a) that you can write b) that you understand the market and c) that this is a fascinating book that the agent will want to read
• give the right amount of detail: so, in my letter, I did want to say that Jack's mother has died (twice) but I did not need to say why Jess feels responsible. Becasue the first thing is really important to the book but the second thing isn't (but is answered in the book)
  
• show professionalism
• show knowledge of and passion for the specific market you're aiming for
• follow the traditional rules of writing letters, including layout, signing off, including date
• include proper contact details
• be honest
• be respectful
  
• be 100% accurate grammatically
• follow manuscript layout guidelines available from many places on the internet - ie A4 white paper, black ink, TNR 12pt, decent margins, double-spacing, one side of paper, page number+name+title on every page
  

MUST NOTS

• absolutely no submission services/agencies/companies who claim to send a perfect covering letter to zillions of agents and publishers. See Jane Smith's post on the subject.
  
• no typos or crossings out. If you make a mistake and don't notice till after printing it, reprint it
• if for children, don't say it's for 8-18 year-olds - be precise
  
• no sycophancy or creepy compliments
  
• no boasting; no value statements such as "exciting" or "brilliant". Things like "fast-moving" are fine.
  
• no claims that anyone in your family / circle of friends / acquaintances has read and loved it
• no comment about how much you love writing and how long you've been writing for - see Rachelle Gardner's post on Aug 11. She's talking about US query letters, but the same principle applies
  
• no tacky email address or one borrowed from husband/friend
• no "extras" - such as toffee or a photo of you dressed as a koala (or even not dressed as a koala)
• no "I know you're going to love this"
• no use of the phrase "fiction novel" - what is a non-fiction novel?
  

POSSIBLY MAYBEs

• gap in the market - with fiction, don't say there's gap in the market: there isn't. With fiction, all we need is a great story to fit within (even if pushing the boundaries of) an existing area. With non-fiction, gaps in the market are useful - but consider whether there's a gap because there are no readers. So, be careful.
  
• mentioning other authors represented by the agent / published by the editor - if relevant
• length of letter - not too short and not too long. Just say what you feel needs to be said - and hope that the recipient feels the same. Sorry, but there are obviously elements of the "perfect" approach that are subjective. Just follow the all-important rule of making every word count and not putting in anything without first evelauting its effect.
• future projects - yes, if you're at an interesting stage of a similar project (ie one that could be the second novel orf your two-book deal), mention it briefly. But don't let it get in the way of this submission.
  
• comparing your style to another author - this is very tricky to get right and, frankly, I wouldn't do it. It's sometimes a tad arrogant-sounding and risks putting the agent/editor off if they happen not to like that other author (which would be fair enough if your style was really exactly like the other author's, but that is usually not the case). Also, you don't want to sound derivative. But occasionally it can be helpful to mention, done properly.
• giving reason for writing this book - hmm, well, yes, OK, possibly relevant, in fact often so. BUT be very very careful not to indicate that this novel is overly personal experience, because then I might worry where your second one will come from. So, yes, do it if it's relevant but do it carefully
  
• cross-over potential - hmm, tricky one. It's pretty much not for you to say, even though you may think you know. So, be very aware of exactly what it means.
  

And that's about it. Go write that perfect letter, even though perfect is subjective ...

Sorry for the lack of my normal crabbit humour in this post. I'm writing it a couple of weeks before posting and I'm feeling serious because I'm surrounded by lists and lists of lists. I have also lost (temporarily, I hope!) my creative spark, as I have put novel-writing aside to prepare for Edinburgh Book Festival stuff. As well as six events and a few chairings, I've got the Soc of Authors in Scotland AGM and summer party for 200 in a marquee to organise and it's slightly doing my head in. I am feeling like an event manager, not a writer. (But by the time you read this, the event will be over, which is a strange concept for me right now.)

One day, I will be properly back. meanwhile, please don't go away.