DEAR CRABBIT: my book is too quiet and midlist

This raises some iteresting questions about debut novels and mid-list novels.

Dear Crabbit
I received a rejection from a literary agent. I would like your thoughts. That my novel is "too quiet" and "midlist" makes me wonder why all books have to be "in your face" to sell well, although I appreciate she was probably being kind and meant it was actually as dull as ditch-water. 

This was what she said: “I thoroughly enjoyed [redacted] which is an entirely compelling and enjoyable romance with excellent setting and characterisation. I have no criticisms of the novel itself but believe that prospective publishers will see it as being slightly too quiet, or mid list as they call it, to really be able to compete effectively, and at a high sales level, in a competitive market. For this reason I can’t offer to take things further. I’m really sorry."

I'm afraid I understand what the agent probably means. I've blogged on a similar topic here. That time, I was talking about how a debut novel needs to be a bit shouty, a bit "HELLO! LOOK AT ME!" because a debut author needs to be launched with a bit of a splash in order to be seen at all. (Actually, sometimes published authors need to be relaunched, to make a bigger splash, but this is another matter.)

The rejection doesn't necessarily mean the book is "as dull as ditch-water", by any means. It means that there is something about the book which makes it too hard for the sales and marketing people to find a hook on which to hang it. It will disappear before being read. Now, most books do that, but publishers can't afford to launch books that look like sure disappearers right from the start. Books that end up disappearing once had publishers who fully believed they could sell them; they were wrong, but they can't make too many mistakes like that.

The only way that publishing a no-hook, unshouty book can work is if it fits perfectly into an existing series or formula. But I guess this author's book doesn't. 

No, not all books or even all debuts need to be shouty, but they do have to have some clear power to create a reaction of "Oooh, that sounds interesting - I'd like to buy that." They need not to be obvious disappearers.

Yours could nevertheless be the sort of book that will do well as a self-published book, because you yourself will put enormous effort into the marketing, effort which the publisher simply can't/won't provide, because it looks too difficult to succeed. And if the book does do well self-published, that doesn't mean that the agent was wrong. It means you were able to do what a publisher probably couldn't have, given that the publisher as other books and finite resources. It's a fact that selling a large number of books as a self-publisher normally requires hours and effort that simply don't make commercial sense for a publisher who has to pay staff to do such work.

Given a well-written book that looks easy to sell and a well-written book that looks hard to sell, which would you choose if you were a publisher? And therefore an agent...

It's one of those sad-but-true reality checks. Sorry. :(

I also have to say that, even though Dear Agent has had terrific endorsement from literary agents, and even if you follow all the detailed advice in it and pitch your book as well as it can be pitched, once the agent has read your book and decided that it isn't what he is looking for, I'm afraid his answer will still not be the one you want. unless, of course, the true reason for rejection wasn't the book but something you said or didn't say in your covering letter. In which case, Dear Agent could save the day!

DEAR CRABBIT: rejections again :((

Another question about rejections for Dear Crabbit. Oh dear, it's a stressful life being a writer! (Not meaning to sound glib - remember, I had years and flipping years of this.)

Dear Crabbit,
I read your post last week, (DEAR CRABBIT: encouragement from this rejection?) with interest. I am also in the process of submitting my first book, targeted to 7-9 year olds, to agents. So far, I've sent it to 4 agents and for a writing competition. All have been rejections. Two were standard 'form' rejections, but 3 of the rejections (two of which were from agents who had asked to look at the full manuscript) contained some feedback on the work.

I've had some really positive feedback; Agent 1 said: 'Your tone is very sparky and enjoyable, and it's very fun'. Agent 2 said: 'It’s fun and charming'. The Competition Judges said: 'this was a very enjoyable piece... funny, with great warmth'. So there seems to be general agreement about what is good about my book...

...but there's absolutely no consensus about what's wrong with it. The reasons why my work was rejected were all different. The problems cited are:

• Theme: Agent 1 said that they already had a picturebook on a similar theme and they 'would struggle to give the book the 'push' it needs'. 

• Plot: Agent 2 said: 'I couldn’t get to grips with the story here. It feels like it pulls in quite a few directions and I found myself not really knowing where it was going'. 

• Language/Style: The Competition Judges said they thought that the vocabulary and sentence structure used was too advanced for the target age group. 

As there's no consistency in the feedback, I'm struggling to work out what I need to do to make my manuscript better. If the Competition Judges are right and it's pitched too high, why didn't the agents mention it? Agent 1 liked the plot, but Agent 2 couldn't get to grips with it. The 'subjectivity' of these readings of my work means I'm unclear as to what my next steps should be.

Is your advice to me the same as the previous writer? Should I submit to a few more agents and see if the same concerns crop up? Or should I try and address the criticisms before I submit the manuscript to others?

I'm really sorry but my answer is going to be short and not what you want to hear. The most likely reason for the differing reasons for rejection is simple: there are probably many or several reasons for rejection and each agent has picked one to mention. If they mention any more than one, a) it will take them too long, b) you are more likely to come back to them with a response (which they don't want) and c) if they are the only ones who give you detailed feedback the risk is that you then go and re-write to their specifications but other agents still don't take it.

So, if you get any feedback at all, it is likely to be one or two comments only. And they are pretty much a courtesy by the agent. Not meaningless, but hard to derive meaning from.

What about the competition judges' comments about age-range and vocab? Well, there are a few possibilities:

1. They are right but the agents chose not to mention it, because it wasn't the one crit they happened to pick as the easiest one to offer or the one that first came to mind.
2. They are right but the agents chose not to mention it because if it's only the language (rather than content) then you would simply need to say it was pitched at 8-10 instead of 7-9. Problem solved.
3. They are wrong. Competition judges a) often know less about the markets and possibilities than agents and b) are usually appallingly over-worked and underpaid for the task. (I will never do comp judging again - recently I did this, spent a vast number of hours giving detailed written feedback on every entry, was paid a tiny fee, had to travel and stay overnight to deliver the adjudication and got not one single word of thanks from any of the writers.)

So, I'm afraid that there's very little concrete that you can take from these rejections. My strong advice is that, if you can, you get a professional to read the first three chapters or so and see in detail what may be going wrong. I think that could be incredibly helpful to you, rather than floundering trying to make sense of contradictory comments. (I realise that getting a professional critique is outside the budget of many. There are other ways of getting good feedback. I thought I'd blogged about it but I can't actually find where; I do talk about it in Write to be Published, though. Could be the subject of another question to Dear Crabbit? In your hands...) 

I'm sorry I couldn't be more positive. There's no doubt that deciphering rejections is tough.

DEAR CRABBIT: encouragement from this rejection?

The latest question for Dear Crabbit is a tricky one:

Hi Nicola

I am currently submitting my first novel to literary agents and have had four standard rejections. The other day I received a personalised rejection from a prominent agent in one of the big agencies, enthusiastic about the premise of my book but briefly explaining why she didn't quite warm enough to the writing to represent me - and to quote her: 'I am sure another agent will feel differently, given how subjective reading is.' 

Am I right to take any encouragement from this, given that she did not ask to read the rest of the book? Or am I clutching at straws?

The unattractive core answer to this is: a) it depends what you mean by encouragement and b) it's impossible to say for sure.

On the one hand, certainly you should take encouragement from a personal rejection. It's good that the premise of your book is exciting, because that's a very important start. So, please do be encouraged by this.

On the other hand, "I am sure another agent will feel differently, given how subjective reading is" is somewhat trickier to take encouragement from, because it's too bland. It's also so common as almost to be a form rejection. Rather obviously, also, she can't really be sure another agent will feel differently enough to say yes; and rather obviously reading is subjective. You need to realise that this "reading is subjective" thing is one of the most common phrases used to soften a rejection. Yes, it does mean "I didn't like it enough" but it doesn't mean "I'm the only agent in the world who won't like it enough."

The real problem you have is that this answer cannot tell you whether the "didn't warm to the writing" bit is because it genuinely wasn't to her taste or because the writing simply and more profoundly doesn't do justice to the premise.

So, should you re-write or just submit to others?

Impossible to be sure. I think you need objective feedback as to what might be "wrong" with or lacking in the writing. You might consider paying for it - but be careful who you use. You might use your writing group of you have one - but be very careful who you ask to read it because you need to know what's wrong, not what's right. If you don't have a writing group, you could ask three friends for comments - but make sure they really do know what they're looking for and that they know you want to know what's wrong. And even then, you can only revise if you agree.

Or you might hope that another agent will tell you more. But, if it's the writing (as opposed to a character or plotline) then you need more than brief feedback from an agent.

I recommend you
a) send to two or three* more agents or publishers, in case it really was subjectivity that got you the rejection in the first place, and
b) get good quality feedback at least on the first three chapters and
c) see if you can work out for yourself where the writing might be lacking.

[*Edited to add: in response to a suggestion in the comments below of sending to many more agents, no, I don't advocate sending to too many all at the same time because what if the first three all give you the same piece of advice and you decide they are right and you want to make the suggested change? You've then got a problem because all the others have still got your first version. Yes, I certainly recommend sending your MS to loads of agents, but not all at the same time.]

I'm sorry that doesn't give you a yes or no answer - but I don't think you expected one, did you?!

Any more questions for Dear Crabbit? See here for details.

The rejection resubmission

A blog-reader asked me to say something about: "Resubmitting to agents when you've had a 'rewrite and send it back' kind of reject. What do you put in the covering letter?  Do you say what you've changed or just let them see? How much of previous correspondence do you mention? If you want to give them first shot and a reasonable amount of time to read but don't want to leave it forever what's the best way to suggest this?"

Good questions. This is when you get the kind of rejection that says, "I liked lots of things about your work but feel that x, y and z were weaknesses. The current market is very competitive and, in order to gain good reviews and uptake from bookshops, books of this sort need p, q and r. I wish you luck placing it elsewhere but if you were to revise it I would be happy to see it again."

So, imagine that you agree with the points made and are therefore more than happy to revise along the lines suggested. (You can't revise if you don't agree with the criticisms, or don't understand them.) And imagine you've revised and revised and really believe that your MS now sparkles in the way that the agent or publisher wishes.

"What do you put in the covering letter?  Do you say what you've changed or just let them see? How much of previous correspondence do you mention?"

Your task is relatively simple: you need to remind the agent that she's seen this work before (and when) and that she said she'd be happy to see it again after a rewrite. And let her know the main things you've changed, though I suggest that the synopsis is the best place to do it. Also, remember that the agent has a) quite possibly forgotten everything about your book and b) really needs to read it from scratch anyway, so does not need glorious details of your changes. I wouldn't bother mentioning too much or too much detail of the previous correspondence, to be honest. What counts is your new version, regardless of what you've changed.

Here's an example of your letter:

Dear "Name", (First name if the agent signed herself with first name in her correspondence; if you feel in any doubt, err on the side of formal and write Ms Surname.) 

In October last year you read my YA novel, MORTICIA RISES, and were kind enough to say that you'd be happy to see it again if I were to make certain revisions. I was very grateful to you for taking time to give me such constructive feedback, and I believe my book is far stronger now. I know you will have read many other manuscripts since then, so I have included brief notes on the revised synopsis, which will show you what I have changed. The new pitch for Morticia Rises follows. 

(Pitch para - no need to indicate what has changed. Just pitch it.)

Then my blog-reader asked, "If you want to give them first shot and a reasonable amount of time to read but don't want to leave it forever what's the best way to suggest this?"

I suggest (and you should obviously adapt to the situation):

Another agent also expressed a willingness to see a revised version. I'm sending it to you first, because [insert reason if there is one; for example, "I know you handle ***, and I'm a huge fan of her work" or whatever else is reasonable and true; but if there isn't a reason, no problem]. I wonder if you could tell me how long you would like to keep it for before I send it to the other agent? I know you'll understand that I'm keen to start sending it out sooner rather than later. Also, of course, I am on tenterhooks! [Never any harm injecting a little bit of relaxed cuteness at this stage!] 

I really hope you like the new version of Morticia Rises but even if you aren't able to offer me representation, I'm very grateful for your insight and for helping me turn it into a much better book. It has been a great learning experience.

I'm a great believer in injecting subtle personality into letters to agents. They are human and they want to work with humans. Never think of them as grim automata. They want your book to be fab. Now, go and make it so.

Need help with writing a great synopsis? You know where to go.

On rejection

I've just come across a useful and wise post on why agents so rarely give a reason beyond "It's not for us." It is written by Steve Laube, and agent AND author, so he knows of what he speaks.


I would draw your attention to this hugely important point which so many people fail to understand: "... even a morsel of advice can take considerable time to compose so that it is genuinely helpful." Oh boy, is this true! As you know, I have a writers' consultancy, Pen2Publication, and most of that work involves giving very full, detailed, honest appraisals of manuscripts. Clients pay a decent amount of money for this work but even that probably doesn't properly account for the huge amount of time I take over the report. Giving any kind of feedback is a great responsibility. I regard myself as enough of an expert (otherwise I wouldn't feel able to do this at all) but I know that, despite any expertise and knowledge of the market, I am still inevitably reading with personal response. The effort to ensure that personal response has not played too great a part, the effort to make sure that I don't make any suggestions that I can't explain and justify, the effort to make sure I don't send the writer off on a false path, the effort to ensure that I don't trap the writer into thinking there's only one way of improving the text - all those efforts are colossal. And that's one of the main reasons why agents - and other writers - can be so reluctant to play the feedback game. We want to help you but we know what it may cost us. And you.

What makes a debut a debut?

Well, duh, Crabbit fool. Surely a debut is just a first book, different from your second only by virtue of being first. No, not necessarily so. And if you think like that, you may never write one. Or rather, it may never be published, which makes it not a debut.

I recently wrote a blog post for Catherine Ryan Howard about debuts - on the subject of Mondays are Red having been my debut, although also not my debut. Do head over and read it and then come back and ask me a question or say what you think.

I think it may help you in your struggle with that awful agent response, "I like it but I don't love it enough." This phrase doesn't necessarily mean that your writing isn't good enough or that there's anything you can do to that novel to make it lovable-enough. It may "just" not feel like an idea or execution which is going to set the sales and marketing team alight sufficiently for them to take it.

Which, frankly, is very gah-inducing.

REJECTING THE GENRE NOT THE WRITING

A comment from a blog-reader recently needs answering. He said he'd been told during one-to-one feedback sessions (with an agent, I think), "No one can sell medical thrillers, so write something else." He went on to say that in some ways he preferred this to being told that his writing wasn't good enough and that he found it helpful because he had "a better idea of what I'm aiming at - something where they at least reject the genre rather than the writing."

Back to that in a moment.

This links to something else that happened recently. I was chatting with a senior commissioning editor at a major children's publisher and when she heard I was doing an event on how to write for children that day she said, "Tell them not to do anything with vampires. People are always sending us vampire stuff and we don't want any more."

So, obediently, I relayed this message during my talk. I thought I noticed one member of the audience blanche and when it came to Q&A she asked, "That editor who didn't want vampires - was that [name redacted]?" I replied that it was. She blanched further. She told me afterwards that she was actually seeing this same editor for a meeting later that day, AND it was a vampire story she was pitching. Anyway, when I saw her again later, she was beaming. "She's asked to see the whole thing," she said. "She's interested!" Yep, the editor who said she didn't want any more vampires was interested in a vampire story.

Which just goes to show a very important truth: publishers (and therefore agents) do not reject a genre, unless of course it's actually a genre they specifically don't handle. They reject the book or the writing. Almost always. You can overcome any amount of tiredness or disillusion with great, sparkling writing, a wonderful voice, a new take on an old theme. And the easiest way for an agent or publisher to reject a story they don't think has those elements is to say, "We're not publishing vampires any more," or "No one's selling medical thrillers."

They might mean it's difficult to sell more vampires or it's difficult to sell medical thrillers and that therefore the writing has to be even better, but if you get it right someone will buy it.

However, having your writing rejected does NOT necessarily mean that you're not a good enough writer, only that you didn't get it right this time.

It's all in the story.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

An awesome post over on Editorial Ass the other day had me cheering in my seat, somewhat inappropriately as I was on a train at the time. She (I always assume Ed Ass is a she) makes some essential points about the panic and stress that sets in while authors are submitting their work, warning that this panic and stress can cause poor decisions and end in inferior publication.

EA says:

"It's better not to be published at all than to get published in an inferior way. Doors begin to close if you try to take shortcuts. Instead, take your time to do things right. Accept no compromises. You will be much unhappier with a published book that has gone awry than with an unpublished book that still has potential."

Thing is, the zen which EA asks us to conjure up is nigh on possible, and she acknowledges that it is at least very difficult. As writers desperate to get our writing out there, we desire publication and we desire it NOW. Or sooner if at all possible.

But every bit of her advice is absolutely right. Difficult or impossible though it is, we must put that burning desire aside in favour of another burning desire: to get the right book published in the right way. Successful publishing is not just about this one book: it's about you as a writer, and you will carry your first book with you for the rest of your writing life. Yes, if you go on to be stunningly successful, you may not mind too much, but a poor first book nowadays can make it difficult to go forward, partly because poor sales figures can no longer be hidden. Thanks, Nielsen Bookbloodyscan.

EA says, crucially:

"Book publication is affected by many factors. A book may deserve to get published, but the market may be wrong. A book idea may be wonderful, but the execution may not be really up to snuff and need more work. The author may be a fantastic writer, but maybe this particular manuscript isn't the best book on its own, or maybe it's a good book but not a good debut. In all of these cases, if the author pushes, pushes, pushes for publication no matter what, they will damage both their future career as a writer and their relationship with their art."

Those are the very good reasons why your very good work may not have achieved publication. Yes, it's maddeningly, teeth-gnashingly, finger-chewingly, gut-wrenchingly horrible when we can't get published for these reasons. (Remember that I have been there: 21 years of anger and desperation gnawed at me while I failed to be published but somehow succeeded in smiling at the world and pretending nothing was wrong.)

The problem nowadays, more than ever, is that it's actually easier than ever to get published - if we include being published badly. What do we mean by "published badly"? There are two main ways:

• when a genuine publisher doesn't know what it's doing. Anyone can set up a publishing company and it's a very laudable thing to do, but it's a case of Author Beware. If it's brand new, what relevant background and back-up does the publisher have? How do they plan to get your book into shops? If it's not brand new, what sales figures, reviews and exposure did they achieve for previous publications? How aggressive are they in the industry? (They need to be. An example of a good small and newish publisher - about five years old now, I think - is Strident Publishing. Strident by name and strident by nature! I know Keith Charters well and he's tireless in selling his authors' books and has a business background behind him, as well as being an author himself.) Crucially, ask about copy-editing, proof-reading and design processes - does your proposed publisher outsource and pay properly for this?
• when a company masquerading as a publisher is actually part of the self-pubbing industry - there's nothing wrong with decent self-pubbing, as long as it isn't masquerading as something else. (Google the name of the company plus the word "self-publishing"; and, just in case, with the word "scam"...) Too many authors don't know the difference and then laud their "publishing deal" as though something more had happened than that they'd paid for a service. Note: if you pay anything for publication or have to sell your own books rather than receiving a % on each book sold by the company, you have not "been published"; you have paid for publication. This is not just a matter of semantics - I explain below why you should be careful.

But does this matter? Can't my first published book just be a toe-in-the-water thing, an experiment, a stepping-stone to future success? After all, it will show publishers that I'm serious, won't it?

Only if the book is a success. And I cannot tell you how unlikely this is. Have you any idea how hard the book-selling process is? It is hard enough for big publishers with their sales forces and marketing departments to achieve good sales, and often they fail. But it is far harder for anyone else. On the rare occasions when you hear of a runaway success from self-publishing or from a publisher who doesn't know what he's doing, there's always something untold in the story: for example, the author may have put many thousands of his own money, or at the very least had huge chutzpah, annoyed the hell out of every bookseller and librarian on the planet and had no time for writing or living. Or the author already had a background in sales / marketing and was perfectly willing to spend time and money using it. And certainly the author had some way of engineering many events to sell the book. Runaway success like this is enormously rare, which is why you hear the same-old-same-old few examples trotted out every time. I'm NOT saying don't self-publish, but I am saying go into it with eyes wide open because success comes rarely and at a huge price - if you're a writer, you are likely to love writing, not selling. And you're likely not to understand the business. If you do, and you do prefer selling to writing, and you have lots of money to invest in paying for help, fine.

But what if I don't mind about small sales? I just want my book out there. I need to see it between lovely covers, in a shop. Pleeeeeease!

I know, I know. Trust me, I do so know how you feel. But another aspect of bad publishing is that it probably won't be between lovely covers. It will be between crappy covers, looking all limp with cheap paper and print that goes too close to the edge because the publisher was cutting costs. It will be full of typos and weird fonts and widows and orphans and peculiar layouts. And the back cover blurb will make everyone laugh, for the wrong reasons. (I have several examples on my shelves, sent to me by authors furious at what has been done to them and their beloved books by unscrupulous companies masquerading as publishers.)

Oh, and it won't be in a shop. Most books published by most publishers are not in most shops. For self-pubbers, multiply that ten-fold.

And when you then write another better book, how you will wish that the first one wasn't published! I offer you Editorial Ass's wise words again:

"Some projects, however good they are, never need to see the light of day, because they've been stepping-stones on your road to self-development. They are what will train you to write the book that really matters."

The book that really matters. Isn't that what really matters to you? The thought that the book you are trying to sell now, that you have slaved and sweated and angsted over, may not be the book that should be published, is a terribly difficult thought to bear. But the moment when you come to that decision and start another book, gently wrapping the first one up and laying it to rest with an ausible sob, could be the most important and positive moment of your writing life.

You may be interested to know that I have two such novels, and about a week ago I realised that I am now ready to write them again, and properly. I have realised how to make them work. And gosh am I glad they were not published! I shudder at the thought.

I'd also like to you to read this older, excellent post from the Kidlit people here. Please. It underlines all the above.

Now, it could be that the novel you are writing or submitting now IS fabulous and will be published well and for all the right reasons. But it is statistically more likely that it isn't and that you are still at the practising stage. Think of it as being like wanting to be a concert pianist: you wouldn't want to go on stage before you were good enough, would you? You'd wait till your teacher said you were ready. Well, consider the distinct possibility that this piece of writing is not the piece that will happily launch your career, but that it is very usefully making you better, until you will one day be ready, and then you can launch your career, knowing that you really are on the way to success and that you will look at your first published book with pride.

It comes back to my oft-repeated "simple" theory of getting published: write the right book in the right way and send it to the right publisher in the right way at the right time.

And that right time might not be now because this book might not be the right one. But it will make you better.

DECIPHERING REJECTION LETTERS

Since I am not here, and am somewhat up to the proverbial eyes in "it", I am re-posting an old post. This is about deciphering rejection letters. I hope you don't have too much opportunity to practise...

Here it is. Do comment.

I found that each time I got a rejection letter, I would actually groan. The sound slid out as if someone had physically squashed me. It's horrible. I guess I'll get no disagreement there. At this point, you have some choices:

1. be delusional - take the view that you're brilliant and they don't know a thing. Perhaps read this post here to deal with that particular delusion.
2. be crushed - take the view that you're crap and they're right and you are not worthy to lick the stamp on the next submission
3. be practical - work out why you were rejected and do something about it

Most rejection letters fit into one of these categories:

1. No.
2. No, sorry, but our list is full.
3. No, this is not the sort of book we publish.
4. We thought about this carefully and it has many qualities, but we don't feel strongly enough about it.
5. We thought about this carefully and it has many qualities; however this, this and this are not quite right. We would be happy to see it again if you were to think of re-writing with those points in mind.

There is a subtext behind each of them. Sometimes, one rejection letter of a particular sort is not enough to go on. Several in the same vein should tell you something. 700 rejection letters of any sort should tell you a great deal ... (See the Behlerblog for this extraordinary story of idiot delusion.)

1. The subtext behind "No" is "this isn't a book we can publish/sell." There are many reasons why this may be the case.

• you may not be a good enough writer
• you may be a goodish writer or even a very good one, but your book is not right
• either because it doesn't fit a pre-existing category, or because it's not original enough (yes, I know - contradictory reasons there, but this is the real world, not Narnia); or because it's old-fashioned, or because it doesn't have a USP / hook / anything about it which will make it easy to sell in enough quantities to cover costs
• but, whatever, you have not grabbed them sufficiently for them to bother to encourage you
• (very often they are terrified of giving detailed feedback of any sort because far too often authors retaliate with vitriol
• but also because of the sheer size of the slush pile)

2. The "list is full" excuse is usually a red herring. Yes, the list may be full, but if your writing is good enough and it is the sort of book they'd have wanted if the list wasn't full, the publisher will not lose you in such a cavalier fashion. So, the subtext behind this is "this isn't a book we can publish/sell, and your writing isn't great enough for us to want to snap you up anyway." So, your book is not good enough - even though (and remember this) you may be a good enough writer; you just haven't shown your writing skills well or, perhaps more importantly, provided the vehicle of a good enough story.

3. The third category (the "not the sort of book we publish" one) indicates one thing: you're an idiot - you should have done your research and sent it to the right publisher. So, please go to the bottom of the class.

4. Obviously this one (the one about good qualities) is more positive. They wouldn't say this if it wasn't true, so pin it to your board and cover it with sparkly things. But, clearly, it's still a rejection... As briefly as possible, here are the things you need to consider.

• this is not about whether your book is better or worse than half the rubbish that IS published, so don't trot out that old chestnut. This is about whether a human being who is also an expert in selling books LOVES your book enough to fight for it in all the meetings that will have to happen before your book gets to market. See my post here and here and Lynn Price's here.
• it has to be not only a book the editor loves and believes in, but also one that fits the lists and the plans of that particular publishing company at that time.
• although "worse" books than your rejected one are often published, understand why I put "worse" in quote marks. It's not about "better" or "worse": it's about being right for an intended group of readers. Readers of chick-lit want something different from readers of Margaret Atwood. If a publisher sold chick-lit readers a Margaret Atwood, the readers would say it was crap and wouldn't recommend or buy it. So, your book might not be as "good" as a Margaret Atwood and therefore not "good" enough to be literary fiction, but much more "literary" than a chick-lit novel, and therefore not "good enough chick-lit". You have to know exactly who your intended readers are and write for them. So, you may well have written a "better" book than some of what you consider to be published drivel, but it's still not the right book for the right market.

5. The last one (the "re-writing" one) is obviously also very positive. And very, very rare. Take it extremely seriously, but be sure that you understand and agree with the suggested changes before you do anything. If you don't agree, you won't be able to do it properly. However, don't pester editors at this stage, since they have to deal with existing projects and the last thing you want to be is needy-seeming or irritating. It's fine to send ONE briefish email to check that you understand what they're saying, but after that you should keep quiet until you've done the work, unless they say they're happy to correspond more often. Often, a suggestion by the editor is a light-bulb moment, when you suddenly realise what's wrong with the book. A light-bulb moment is a wonderful thing and even if the publisher later turns you down, you will have improved your book.

Essentially, behind all these rejection letters is one message: you got it wrong. Sometimes you were just unlucky. But most often, it's simple: your writing is not (yet?) right.

Next up: a post on YA writing. Probably on Thursday.

WALK LIKE AN EDITOR (AND AGENT)

One skill that authors need to learn is the ability to see into the minds of the editors and agents who will read their proposals. (Another skill is the ability to understand sales and marketing departments, but I'm afraid this skill eludes me. There are some lovely people in them but their minds are beautiful mysteries.)

Since I am neither an editor or an agent, I bring you the words of some real-life ones, so that you can begin to hone your editor-whispering skills.

First, The Top Ten Questions Dutton Editors Ask Themselves. They are somewhat vague, but still a very good starting point. Absorb them till you think like that about your own work.

Second, for something even vaguer, but essential because it's about that all important gut-instinct, here is wonderful blogger and US lit agent, Rachelle Gardner on why she says yes or no to a book. It's worth highlighting the essential part of the post:

"You know how sometimes you're reading a book and you don't want to put it down, and you're really frustrated that it's time to go make dinner or put the kids to bed, and you just want everyone to leave you alone so you can read your book? And whenever you're doing something else, you just want to be finished so you can get back to reading your book?

"But other times you're reading a book, and it's easy to put down. You find yourself distracted. You go check your email, or see what's on TV. Or fall asleep. Not that you can really define anything bad about the book, it's simply not holding your attention. And when you have some time to read, you debate whether to go back to that book or not."

I believe that if we remember that the agent or editor has to love it that much, just like any reader, we will a) improve our work by working harder to capture and hold our readers and b) understand better why a tecnnically good piece of work may be rejected. One thing I tell my clients at Pen2Publication is that we should read our work aloud, imagining that our audience consists of people desperate to go to the beach / pub / bathroom.

Finally, here are two fascinating ones. Lit agent, Janet Reid, lists the reasons why she turns down MSS, with stats. And editor Betsy Mitchell [I think that's the right name!] reveals her own list of reasons for rejection. Some of these reasons are worth a whole blog post each. They may get one, later.

One the the most interesting reasons, I thought, was this one: "Writing quite good, but this isn't the story to launch an author with."

The reason that caught my eye is that it's another facet of the point I've often made: we don't just have to write well - we have to write the right book. Not just the right book for the market, but the right book with which to launch a career, to make a splash, to attract attention.

Open your eyes, writers: think like an editor or agent and you're more likely to hook them. Editors and agents are trying to think like readers, so what you actually have to do is think like an editor or agent thinking like a reader.

If only sales and marketing departments consisted of these readers, things would be so very simple.

NEW YEAR INSPIRATION?

Happy New Year! May 2010 not bring all you wish for. Otherwise, what would there be left to wish for in 2011? May it also not bring all you deserve. Then all that would be left would be what you don't deserve, and that would never do.

My wishes for you as writers in 2010 are that:

1. you make significant steps towards your dreams, with some well-deserved achievements
   
2. your writing becomes ever more beautiful, clear and effective and that you learn to see it as your readers do

To start the year, blog-reader Catherine suggested that I should blog about how I felt when I got my first publishing deal. And how that first deal happened. Recently, I was asked to guest-blog about my journey through grim failure to publication; that blog post hasn't gone out yet and I don't want to pre-empt that, so I'll omit the story of horrible struggle and take you straight to when I realised I was going to be published as a novelist. Having said that, if you want to know something of the 21 years of awful failure, and its reasons, I've blogged about it here. [Edited to add: as you'll see in the comments, lovely Jane Smith of How Publishing Really works is going to post the full story, which I've never written about anywhere else, next week.]

So. I got news of my first novel contract in August 2001. I need to tell you a little about how it happened - though the first bit overlaps with part of the story on Jane's blog. Anyway, earlier that year, I'd been excited by my new WIP - Mondays are Red. I'd only written about a third of it but I felt I'd cracked it with this book. So, I became impatient and broke a cardinal rule: I sent it to an agent and two publishers. The rule being: NEVER submit a novel before you've finished. The agent and one publisher wanted to see the rest. [Bugger - should've seen that coming. After all, wasn't that what I wanted???] I explained to the agent that I hadn’t finished it yet, and to the publisher that I had interest from an agent and would be in touch "soon". I then wrote like a madwoman and sent the completed draft to the agent. She said a) she loved it but b) she was ill and had decided to stop taking new clients. GAH! I told the publisher that and sent them the rest of the book. Meanwhile, the second publisher, Hodder, rejected it. [Hold that thought.]

The first publisher was very excited but wanted a few changes. She also said I should get an agent. Yes, well, I'd been trying... I contacted two agents that day, one by letter because I couldn't find an email address and one by email. I included some glowing quotes from the excited publisher.

The agent whom I’d contacted by snail mail phoned as soon as she received it, and said she was very interested and wanted to see the rest, with a view to representing me. Yay!

When I next opened my emails, I found a reply from the agent I’d emailed, apologising for not contacting me immediately. She was interested. Yikes!

I contacted the first agent, explained the situation and said I needed to know if we were definitely going to be working together. Yes, she said. So, I said No to the other agent. I will repeat that rather extraordinary remark: I said no to an agent! Very politely, of course.

My new agent and I worked on Mondays are Red, and got it how she wanted it; but the publisher wanted one change too many and my agent advised that we go elsewhere, as she knew others who would love it. She was right, thank goodness.

Which publisher took Mondays are Red? Hodder, the publisher who had turned it down when I’d sent it on my own… Useful things, agents, in case any of you were wondering why you'd want one.

But now comes the bit I've never blogged about, the bit where I actually heard I'd got a contract. Or rather, that several publishers were interested and my agent was negotiating between them to decide which would be best. That sounds like a fabulous situation to be in, doesn't it? You'd think I'd be starry-eyed with excitement? Skipping around the place drinking sparkly stuff?

Sadly, no. The news came in stages, during several phonecalls over a few days, mostly as I stood in the car-park of Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, while my mother-in-law, Alison, was dying of cancer. Apart from my husband, Alison was the person who supported me most vehemently. She railed against every rejection, bemoaned the blindness of publishers who couldn't see my talent [in her opinion!], and constantly praised my resilience. She was genuinely and enormously interested and more than anything she wanted to see a novel in print with my name on the cover. If she'd lived, I would never have needed a publicity department; the sales reps would have had their very own unpaid sales force in Scotland; every acquaintance of hers, and there were very many, would have been firmly instructed to buy copies for every teenager they knew.

Alison died about a day after we finally heard that Mondays are Red was sold. Although she was unconscious all that time, I like to think she'd heard, too. A day or so before, my father-in-law and I were talking at her bedside, with her having shown no signs of awareness for a while, and I said something to him along the lines of, "You know, I think this book is really going to be published." And she said, with her eyes still shut but with a definite smile, "And about time, too." It was the last thing I remember her saying.

So, despite ending my 21 years of grim failure, news of publication for me was not marked by happiness. I was standing there in a hospital carpark, with my lovely new agent talking about possible film deals and definite publication dates and that it had been taken as a "key title", and how everyone had huge hopes for it, and I had to go back in out of the August sunshine and sit in a neurosurgical ward and watch Alison lose her battle for life.

The dedication in Mondays are Red reads, "In memory of Alison, whose belief in me was everlasting."
Funny, no-one's ever asked me who Alison was. Family and close friends know, of course. And now you do too.

I hope you all have an Alison to keep you going. She'd never read any of my attempted novels, because I didn't show them to anyone - but she believed in me anyway, because I believed in myself. In her opinion, anyone who kept trying as hard as I did deserved to succeed. She was wrong, of course - trying hard and long is not enough: we have to be good enough as writers. But she couldn't judge me on whether I was good enough, only on whether I worked hard enough. And for her continued belief in that I am most enormously grateful. I wish so much that she'd been around to see the end of the story.

There's something else she'd have done if she was alive: remind me how lucky I am to have come so far. Sometimes we need to do that, I think. You will all have had successes and improvements last year, made new contacts and potential readers, had feedback that has inspired or re-directed you, written something better than the last piece, grown as writers and people. So, I'll ask you to start the year by reminding yourself how far you have come, how your writing has improved in the last year, and setting yourself a higher target this year, a target which will only be possible because of what you have already achieved.

Good God, and I was supposed to start the year being crabbit. Someone please annoy me, for crying out loud. Proe, where are you when we need you???

THE RIGHT BOOK...

Here I am, keeping my promise to you. I know: I've regularly said that the process of becoming published is simple [not "easy", note: "simple"]. I've said it so many times that some of you are in danger of suffering adage-fatigue. But let's say it one more time, all together now:

"All you have to do is write the right book in the right way and send it to the right publisher at the right time and in the right way."

After a recent post where I'd mentioned this again, it became obvious in the comments that there was some understandable misunderstanding as to what I meant by the most crucial part of this.

WHAT THE FLIPPING HELL DO YOU MEAN BY "RIGHT BOOK", YOU STUPID WUMMAN?

First, here's what I do NOT mean:

• a book which sells your soul, a book in which you have cynically or contrivedly ticked the boxes that you think publisher want you to tick, just to suit a market or gap therein. [You are most welcome to do this, and many people do with great success, but it's not what I do and not what many of you want to do. So, it's not what I mean.]
  
• a book which you have written because you have spotted a trend. [NB: the trend while you're planning your book is a bandwagon disappearing into the distance in a cloud of dust by the time your proposed novel is published two years later. So, vampires are out as a viable trend. If you want my opinion, angels are the next trend, but the books with angels in are being delivered to publishers NOW, so you've missed that one already. Maybe it'll be fluffy bunnies next. No, forget predicting trends unless your balls are genuine crystal.]
• any particular type of book at all. [There is no magic answer. Publishers are not looking for a particular book. So, no single particular book is the right book.]

WELL, THAT WAS INCREDIBLY UNHELPUL, YOU FOOL. IS THAT ALL YOU CAN SAY? NOTHING?

Oh no, no, no. When did I ever say nothing?

Here are some constructive thoughts about what I do mean by "right book". [When I say "constructive", please don't think that I'm going to tell you what to write, by the way, just how to think about the writing of it].

• The right book is that simple but elusive thing: a book that readers want to read.
• Publishers are the ones who have to invest the money into bringing your book to readers, and publishers have a great deal of experience in selling books [though of course they don't always get it right - this is art, not science], so they are the ones who have to make the decision. [Self-publishing is a whole other story  -  and, by the way, should be a choice, not a dump-bin for your sensibly-rejected poor writing].
  
• Although publishers need to sell books in order to recover their costs, they do not always look for the next best-seller. Most publishers will aim to have a number of big money-spinners and a whole load of books that break even or don't. Your book must fit somewhere in that range for them, depending on their financial situation, aims, and passion for your sort of book.
• All readers are different, so what is right for one group is not right for another.
• So, you might think, surely ANY book will fit into the above argument?
• No.
• Readers are a funny bunch. All of them. Even you. And me. A lot of us pretend we're very open-minded, but actually we have high and inherent need for believability, cohesion, patterns, flow - all the things which fire our neurons and allow us to reach the goal of all readers: narrative transportation. [I've written about narrative transportation somewhere  -  ah, here. It's my shortest ever post, I think, mainly because it's a link to some clever people who can tell you all about it properly].
  
• And this means we like / need our books to have certain ingredients, in the appropriate measure. [Which I will mention in passing below, though I've covered them all before in posts about voice, pace, structure, beginnings etc].
  
• This means that if you were hoping that I would tell you that the right book is, for example, a book about angels, or a historical adventure story set in Siberia, or a feisty chick-lit story with a wheel-chair bound heroine, or a crime noir novel with three disembowelled children in scene one, then I'd have to say: it could be any one of those or it could be any one of a million other possibilities.
• But that your book must do the following things in order to be the "right book":

1. Engage the reader from page one and never let him go till long after the book is finished. [Narrative transportation again.] We [all of us except the most desperate cynics or people who are forced to read books not of their choosing] choose to read this novel instead of that one because we hope we will enjoy it, nothing else.
   
2. Fit the genre or type of book which the reader expects  -  so it must follow the rules, though not necessarily rigidly, and when it breaks the rules it must do so with reason, confidence and style. Experimental writing is wonderful and commendable, but if the experiment fails, you have to ask yourself why and take responsibility for not having engaged readers.
   
3. Have a voice which is consistent, appropriate, genuine - not seeming contrived, never slipping from narrator to author or one character to another except in ways which follow the rules of voice. [And these rules are not arbitrary: they go to make a book, instead of a person putting some pretty words down for their own benefit].
4. Have something about it which makes it sound like something we'd like to read. This is the "hook" that I've often mentioned. The hook is the brief, fabulously irrestible description of a book which makes everyone want to buy / borrow / read it. Why is this important? Because the right book is not a book which will sit and wait for readers to come to it: in order for it to reach readers at all, in the vast mountain of other books which may also be good, it not only has to BE good, it has to SOUND good. 

Remember: no one is obliged to read your book. You have to make them want to. You think it's hard getting a publisher? You wait till you have to please paying readers, too.

So, have you written the right book? If it sounds good when you describe it to me [or an agent, publisher, bookseller or reviewer] then that is a very good start indeed. But it will also have to be well written, following those rules that are necessary, breaking those which can be gloriously broken with good effect. It has to feel as though it was written by someone who:

1. has a burning passion to engage the reader from the first word till long after the last word
2. has the technical skill to do so

In short: the right book is the book a publisher believes he or she can sell to an appropriate number of its intended readers. And that he can have faith in, loving it himself. Faith is pretty much what it boils down to: you have faith, now you have to make the publisher have faith, and the publisher has to make the readers have faith. The book that does that is the right book.

See, it's simple. But it's not easy. Oh no, no, no. And I never said it was. From the very first day of this blog, back on January 11th, this blog has been headed by that quote from Thomas Mann. Go look. Not everyone agrees with me that writing is hard  -  Susan Hill doesn't. Well, she's lucky. I find it hard. I love it, especially when it's been hard and I eventually crack it. Frankly, if it was easy I wouldn't bother to do it.

So many unpublished writers don't focus enough on the fact that their book may not be good enough yet, preferring to blame rejection on the other stuff, such as not having sent the right number of pages, or having put toffees in with the submission without realising that the agent had a toothache.

Remember how I said in my last post that I once write a covering letter in rhyme? Well, it wasn't the covering letter that got me rejected: I hadn't written the right book.

FAILURE TO BE PUBLISHED: HARSH REALITY

This may seem lazy but I'm going to re-post an old post. This blog has become so big that it can be hard to find the bits you need at the right time. [I will be doing some house-keeping over Christmas]. This post below is one I want to re-offer, partly because many of you are new to the blog and may have missed it, partly because I know there's at least one person out there who needs to be reminded about it, and partly because a brand-new reader has just emailed me to say that after a morning of trawling through my words, this was one that stuck in her mind. [Thank you Kirsty, and do stay with us  -  I really enjoyed meeting you yesterday and was hugely impressed by your questions and attitude!]

Here it is [slightly shortened]  -  and, for the benefit of any of you who wonder why you've followed all my advice and still aren't published, please note that Point 3 is in your hands, not mine...

WHAT DID I TAKE SO LONG TO BECOME PUBLISHED?

First, for those who missed the tragic enormity of this failure, it took me twenty-one years of failing to get a novel published. ALL my adult life failing to achieve the one thing I really wanted: to be a novelist. That's some bruising failure. And bruised I was. Badly. It affected my health and happiness and my sense of self. Luckily [for them] few people knew about my constant attempts at fame and fortune. Unluckily [for him] my husband did. He's still here. Still waiting for me to earn a lot of money, I guess. I'm trying.

I did get some "stuff" published during that time, but it wasn't enough. Educational books and stacks of magazine articles. I still get money from a magazine I wrote for ten years ago which keeps using my articles and pays me every time, with me sitting at home doing sod all - would you believe that today I actually sold "36th rights" for three articles?? Who needs to be a novelist when you get paid 36 times for something you can't even remember writing?

And there was the odd moment of relative success [relative to abject failure], like appearing in Reader's Digest with my photo and being recognised on a bus, and a story winning an expensive pen in the Ian St James awards, and a couple of times almost making it through an aquisitions meeting. But almost is not enough.

Anyway, reasons for my abject failure:

1. I thought I was better than I was. I didn't know what mistakes I was making. This was in pre-blog days, when people like me [as in me now, not me then - me then would have been pretty useless] weren't sharing and telling me what shocking errors I was making.
2. I wasn't thinking of my readers. Couldn't give a toss about them - yep, it was all for me. Moi, moi, moi. Self-indulgent, beauteous prose, right up my own backside, just gorgeous, over-written plotless stuff that gave me shivers of pride, and gave any potential reader a severe case of "where the hell's the plot gone or going and I mean why should we CARE about your drivellingly unlikely character who murdered her husband just because of some arcane psychological problem to do with Samuel Johnson which we are supposed to guess through the boring fog of your however-erudite turgidity?
3. I hadn't written the right book. As in a book with a concept which would grab the agent / publisher with its stupendous hook, draw them into a tightly-written and either original or genre-specific plot, written by an author exuding wisdom and knowledge of the market. (Actually, I thought woman who murders husband because he's fat was quite good hook-wise, but hey, that was then.) See here for my post on this topic. (Not murders of fat husbands: I mean writing the right book.)
   
4. I wasn't following the rules of submissions to publishers, despite the fact that I roll my eyes at you lot for sending toffees to agents and being similarly foolish. In fact, once I even .... but no, I can't tell you that. It's too embarrassing.

And so followed the rejection letters. Because yes, I've had a few. There were occasional ones that said lovely things but gave suggestions contradicting previous ones (like "we feel it's too short" after "we feel it's too long" and "the plot is somewhat avant garde" after "the plot is somewhat traditional"); there were the "not right for our list" ones (unhelpful but true); there was my favourite (though not at the time) which consisted of my rubbish covering letter with the word NO! scrawled across it in pencil and returned to me in an envelope without a stamp even though I HAD included return postage; and there was the one which arrived back the day after I'd posted it, something which defies the laws of both postage and Newtonian motion and I can only assume that the postman was an Orion employee sent to destroy the slush pile before it occurred.

So, if you are now in the position I was in then - one of soul-searing awfulness, when you feel that life will be utterly meaningless if you don't get that contract, when your whole belief in yourself is shaken daily - I feel your pain, I really do.


Thing is, I wasn't good enough. And maybe ... sorry ... you aren't either. But maybe, by listening and learning and improving, you can become good enough. But remember too that it's not just about being good enough - it's about writing the right book at the right time and sending it to the right publisher at the right time. I've said it before. I could even become boring. (If you need a reminder, use the label "right book" on the list of labels to the right.)

The trick, and the one which this blog tries to help with, is to work out whether:

1. you are good enough but haven't written the right book yet
2. you are good enough and have possibly written the right book really beautifully but haven't sent it to the right person in the right way
3. you aren't good enough but could become so, with time, practice and/or help
   
4. you aren't good enough and won't ever be published satisfactorily
   

Thought for the day: actually, a lot of published writers aren't good enough either. Some of you may well be better than some of them. It all boils down to what a publisher thinks will sell. And I've already done a post on Why is crap published? But you're not writing crap, are you? Please say you're not. Though I have to be brutally honest and say that if you ask any agent or editor they will tell you that the vast bulk of the slush pile is crap, of a meaningfully finger-in-the-throat boggingness.

After that brutality and after all these weeks of listening to me seem to know it all, you deserve to know that embarrassing thing I did. I can trust you now. Please don't laugh.

Here goes. Deep breath. Will you still respect me? I was young then. Young and really stupid.

The thing is ...

I
once
wrote
a
covering
letter
in
rhyme
...

People! Don't do it!

ADDED ON DEC 6th:
I cannot say this often enough: writing the right book is far more important than anything else. The right book is a book that a publisher thinks can sell sufficiently [which does not have to mean millions]. If you focus too much on whether the font should be Georgia or TNR, or whether it should be stapled or paper-clipped, you are focusing on the wrong things. Write the right damn book in the right damn way and send it to the right damn publishers in the rightish way and it will eventually be published. And don't tell me you followed all the rules and failed so the rules must be wrong. Nope, because you missed the most important rule: writing the right book. And my whole point in banging out crabbit words on this blog for nearly a year is this:

I do not want you to take as long as I did. But I cannot write the book for you.

Maybe I need to say more about what makes the right book. At last, the Crabbit Old Bat has a brainwave!

Meanwhile, if any of you want individual feedback on your own books or Works in Progress, there is Pen2Publication. I can do quite a lot to show you if you have or haven't written a potentially right book".

THE REALLY VERY SIMPLE THEORY OF BEING PUBLISHED

A blog-reader commented recently, "The more I read the more confusing it all gets". Yep, there's all this conflicting info about how to write and how to get published when all we really want is the answer to this simple situation: "I've written a book and I'm prepared to do anything to get it published; you publish books  -  so, whaddareyouwaitingfor?"

The commenter's life was simpler when she thought it was simpler, when she didn't know much about how to submit work, or the things that people might complain about, and could just send it off on a wing and a prayer, instead of angsting about all the faux pas she mustn't make and all the invisible boxes she must tick. After all, if you just think, "The agent / publisher wants a great book and I've written one, so I'll send it to her and she'll love it," it's so simple, isn't it?

This situation isn't helped by the fact that you'll read some rules, decide to follow them, and then immediately hear that so-and-so [insert name of extraordinarily successful writer] broke those rules and became an instant best-seller. The bastard.

Nor is it helped by the fact that Agent A thinks a synopsis must be about four pages, with biogs, and Agent B says a synopsis should never be more than two pages and what's with the biogs? And Publisher Q thinks a writer is ignorant if she doesn't understand that a synopsis is not a chronological outline while everyone else seems to say that a synopsis is a chronological outline. [Basically, it is. But with bells on. And some bells removed. See? Meh!]

At this point, you're with my confused commenter who wished she was still in ignorance.

OK, now let's unpick this a bit. It's like physics. [Don't leave me now.] Let me reassure you: I gave up physics and chemistry at the age of 12, after a school report that said, "Nicola has no aptitude for science subjects." Teachers can be wrong: years later, I became fascinated by science, and not only started reading everything I could find about chaos theory, randomness, mathematics, time, quantum theory, brownian motion ... but also ended up writing two books on the human brain.

And what did that mostly teach me? That there was far, far, far more out there than I could ever completely know, and that it was all horribly weird and certainly confusing, but that the more I knew the stronger I felt and the more respect I had for the real experts. I mean, how is a person like me supposed to get her chocolate-filled head around the idea of six dimensions? Or the fact that the faster you move the slower you age? [Or is it the other way round? You know, the physics that says if you took identical twins and put one in a spaceship and sent him as close as possible to the speed of light, and left the other one on Earth, they would be different ages when the first one had finished his journey? WHAT??? Blimey, give me publishing any day.]

Yep, it was all a whole lot less confusing when I didn't know any physics. When I just thought that if the Earth wasn't flat it made a pretty good job of seeming like it, except in Scotland where it's more hilly, especially when I'm cycling. Ignorance wasn't exactly bliss, but it at least wasn't difficult to manage. After all, the world continued to spin without my knowing why or with what effect on my molecules.

The analogy between the science and the writing/publishing knowledge holds in another way, too: even the flipping experts disagree about things. Hell hath no fury like two scientists disagreeing about The Theory of Everything [or TOE, as they quaintly call it]. So, just as the physicists disagree about whether string theory holds the key to Everything, so publishing "experts" will disagree about whether a synopsis should be two pages or one. Or four with biogs.

But the most important way in which this analogy works is this:

It doesn't bloody well MATTER! [Pun intended.] See, whether the physical world has six dimensions or the more visible three, whether string theory explains what Newtonian physics and Einstein's relativity theories couldn't, whether the Hadron collider is going to tell us anything, or not, we ordinary people will carry on waking up and eating breakfast. So will the physicists, actually, and though they may think their cereal is in a different dimension, it still gets soggy when you leave the milk on too long. And whether agents want synopses that fit these rules or those rules, readers [including agents and publishers] still just want great books.

See, the hoops we authors have to jump through are only there to make life easier  -  easier for the agent and publisher to find the books they can sell most happily to the readers who are there waiting for them. Trouble is that the hoops make it all look so damned hard.

Remember how I said earlier in this post:  

After all, if you just think, "The agent / publisher wants a great book and I've written one, so I'll send it to her and she'll love it," it's so simple, isn't it?

Well, it's true. It is simple. If you have written a great book, and if you send it to the right agent or publisher in a sensible way and happen to hit lucky with your timing, it is that simple. There are, amongst all the weird and conflicting advice, only a very few rules that you need:

1. Be a reader: so that you know how books and readers work.
2. Write the best book you can. Write it for readers and think about your reader while writing it.
   
3. Submit your work sensibly and reasonably. Don't over-analyse or over-complicate the situation: just like any reader, agents and publishers are looking for a great book. They don't really give a damn whether your synopsis is one page or three, as long as it demonstrates that you've written a book that they can sell and enough readers can love. 
4. But try, please, please, to make it easy for them to like you and the book. Don't do silly things like putting toffees in with the submission. Just be normal, for crying out loud, like the sort of person you'd like to have a business and personal relationship with. Because that's what it will become.
   

So, do the best you possibly can and keep trying to improve your writing and your pitch, learning as you go along. Meanwhile, hold this thought: the longer you fail to get published, the more practice you are putting in. You'll be brilliant by the time you get there!

I do have one final piece of advice: read Stephen King's On Writing. I have only recently [er, yesterday] read it and it has confirmed and elucidated so many things I already vaguely believed or intuitively knew but wanted to confirm. I'm going to talk more about this book over the next weeks and months. King is a master story-teller and he has managed to write a book on writing that reads like a story itself. There's nothing he doesn't know about narrative drive, and a whole load more besides. If you only read one book on writing, read On Writing.




It won't confuse you more, I promise. In fact, the more you read of it, the less confusing the whole thing will be. If someone could do the same for physics...

A DILEMMA OF AGENTS

Unpublished writers are always being advised to get an agent. You're constantly told how important it is, and how the agent must be a good agent, and how to spot crappy ones and attract wondrous ones [hooray for mine!]. I have myself waxed* lengthily about the virtues of wondrous agents.

[For clarity: I didn't mean that I have myself waxed...]

Frankly, you must be sick to death of hearing about the glorious importance of agents. And here's another article saying the same thing, and very rightly and persuasively, too.

There's a problem with us banging on about this, though. In fact, there are at least two problems.

Problem 1: It's not easy to get one.

Problem 2: For some types of writing/writer, it's absolutely impossible, to the extent that even those of us who say agents are necessary will agree that you shouldn't bother to try. We'll shake our heads and say, "Oooooh, nooooo, an agent won't look at you, I'm afraid." And then you quite understandably want to knock our contradictory heads together.

Before we come to solutions [hooray for solutions], it may help to understand the reasons for both these problems:

• agents only earn a % of your income, so while you're wondering how the hell you can survive on a £3000 advance, they're wondering the same about a much smaller amount. Therefore, they can't be expected to take you on unless they've good reason to expect not just a book but a career out of you. Also, all the work they do for you won't be recompensed for ages. [You might say the same about your own writing, but that's your choice; it is also their choice.]
  
• So, if you're a one-book wonder or, er, in the twilight zone of your writing life, you may not be a viable proposition. [I know this sounds harsh. I'm simply stating what has to go through an agent's mind, as opposed to a publisher's. A publisher can still be very interested in you. And in certain circumstances an agent may be, too. I'm talking about likelihoods, not certainties.]
  
• And if your genre is a low-earning one (such as memoir, poetry, academic or specialist writing), again, you're simply not worth the effort. Don't take this personally: agents have to earn a  living.

So, solutions. In other words, if you are someone who can't have an agent, by virtue of the type of writing you do, or if for some other reason you decide to do without an agent, how can you make sure you don't sign your life away and miss out on all the wonderful opportunities that good agents find for authors?

LEARN ABOUT HOW PUBLISHING WORKS

If you're to persuade a publisher to take your book, you must see the world through their eyes, know how they think, know why they do what they do. How? Luckily, I have a few suggestions. Otherwise that would be a pretty silly point to make.

• read this blog. Oh, you already are. Well, keep reading it, then.
• read these blogs too, all of them, every single post: Editorial Ass, How Publishing Really Works, Writer Beware, Stroppy Author, Editorial Anonymous, The Behler Blog, and agent Rachelle Gardner's blog Both the latter two are US based but also useful for UK and other writers.
• learn all this stuff before you ever submit anything  -  of course you could strike lucky as a beginner, but it's most unlikely

READ THE RIGHT BOOKS

Carole Blake's book, From Pitch to Publication. 

Carole is a director of Blake Friedman, leading UK literary agency.


The Writer's Handbook  -
a must for all writers both before and after publication


KNOW YOUR RIGHTS
Research your rights and responsibilities with regard to things like copyright, intellectual property right, digital rights, ebooks, territories. Every writer should know about the first two; unagented writers need to learn about the others. Why? Because otherwise, when you're offered a contract (happy day!) how will you know whether it's acceptable or the best you could have?

JOIN THE RIGHT ORGANISATIONS
Fortunately, being offered a contract usually allows you at least associate membership of the Society of Authors (in the UK  -  and also, I believe, the separate organisations in NZ and Aus). This means that the experts there will look at your contract and advise you  -  free. No unagented writer should pass up this opportunity.

Other organisations which can be useful, at least for meeting others who may know more than you, are SCBWI (The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators), PEN, Scottish Book Trust, Book Trust, Literature Training, NAWE (National Association of Writers in Education) and regional writing groups. Some of them (eg Literature Training, Book Trust and Scottish Book Trust) don't require membership and are there to offer advice to all interested people.


FOLLOW PROFESSIONAL ADVICE
There's a vast amount of advice on the internet or available from friends and acquaintances. Some of it is fantastic in the sense that it's excellent; some of it is fantastic in the sense that it's based on fantasy. The human temptation is to follow the advice that we like the sound of  -  it's called confirmation bias. We ignore what we don't like at our peril because the truth is often unpleasant or difficult. So, be ruthless in your analysis of what advice you will choose to follow.

As you know, I am starting a literary consultancy, Pen2Publication, in order to offer professional (ie not free) advice. I am doing this because I think that if you want good individual advice you have to pay for it. I and my fellow bloggers, devoted as we are to your success, can only give general advice and can't be expected to analyse each individual situation in our own time. And good advice does need to analyse the individual writer's situation and writing. So, if you want the best advice for you, and you don't have an agent, you will need to pay for it. Unless Mother Theresa has reincarnated herself without my knowing. Mind you, I don't think she'd be the best person to advice on publication.

FIND A PUBLISHING PARTNER(S)
This is an idea I had five minutes ago. It struck me that when I was struggling to become published, I knew no one who was trying to do the same, and certainly no one who had succeeded. So, I had no concept of what was acceptable or normal. Nowadays, it's easy to find other writers in the same position as you, or a little way ahead. The blogosphere is full of them. So, get down with the bloggers and Twitterers, find fellow writers who seem to have the same goals as you and join together to support each other and share information.

One of the best ways to make the right contacts for this and to get advice coming your way would be to blog. I blogged about blogging here and Twittering here. I love Twitter and it's a veritable joy to see conversations going on between several of you who are there too, sharing info and support in a fabulous way.

IN SHORT
I suppose that all of this can best be summed up like this: get informed and get connected. It's important for all authors to do this, but for the unagented it's utterly essential.

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.

KILLING YOUR DARLINGS - SELF-EDITING FOR SOFTIES

One of my favourite writerly activities is editing my own work. Which is lucky, because it's also the most useful. It's also the skill that I know I've developed considerably since becoming published  -  I am much better at knowing much earlier what needs to go and how to rearrange what's left. I am becoming rather embarrassingly good at killing my babies. When they're misbehaving, anyway: obviously, sometimes my babies deserve to live. Then I dress them up and coo over them proudly (in private).

I suspect that this self-editing skill is very hard to acquire before you've been taken on by an agent or publisher, and before you're published. And thereby hangs the horrible Catch-22 situation: you can't fully learn the art of self-editing until you've been edited, and yet you won't ever be edited until you've self-edited your own work sufficiently to be taken on by an editor.

Don't get me wrong  -  I'm not for a moment saying I now don't need to be edited. Gosh, ask my editor if you're not sure about that. I still fail to spot things and I still need that expert outside eye. I plan to need an editor all my writing life  -  the day I think I don't need an editor is the day I become too arrogant to deserve publication.

Perhaps at this point you are thinking, "Never mind: I've heard that the editor will do it all for me so it doesn't matter if my work's not good enough when I first send it." If so, please a) stop right there and b) read this blog post about that.)

Perhaps at this point you are also thinking, "Pah, editing! Editing is censorship. Editing destroys the cathartic process of writing. Editing destroys the soul of my master-piece." If so, a) prepare to remain unpublished and un-read for a very long time and b) read this blog rant here.

Somehow, if you want to be published (or to self-publish successfully) you have to learn to look hyper-critically at your own work. You have to learn to see it through your readers' eyes (if you want any readers, that is). You have to learn what they will be thinking and which aspects of that you care about. You have to learn to spot, in your own work, the moment at which you risk losing a reader. And that's the baby you have to kill.

Luckily, instead of listening to me become crabbit on this subject, you can read this excellent post here from Editorial Ass. Please do read it because it really is excellent and there's no point in my repeating the advice. And do read the many useful comments below it. Lots of different ways to edit and some inevitable areas of disagreement -  this is not science, but art, remember. But lots of sense and practical advice. Work out what works for you, matched to your genre, as there are different requirements for each.

Edited to add: have just seen this great post from BubbleCow: Tips on Writing a Great Second Draft.

There's a reason why I think self-editing is so hard before you're taken on by agent or publisher: until that moment, you have to think that any negative comment is wrong. It's called cognitive dissonance: the inability to believe something that conflicts with an entrenched belief. Your entrenched belief is that your book is publishable, NOW. If an agent says, "Yes, I'll represent you because I think your book is publishable, but you'll need to change this, this and this," you think, "Hooray! they're right!" and you willingly change this, this and this. But when an agent says, "Sorry, I like lots of things about your book but it's not strong enough because of this, this and this, so I can't represent you," your inclination is to think, "Nah, just an opinion," and send it off to another agent.

Similarly, once you're taken on, you happily allow yourself to be guided because you trust this person. You trust this person because they agree with you: that your book is publishable. So editing becomes easier, you become open-minded instead of stubborn and blind, scales fall from eyes: suddenly you can see into your work like a reader, not just a writer. And self-editing becomes easier.

Trouble is, the actual writing doesn't...

www.pen2publication.co.uk
This may be the time to tell you that Pen2Publication is almost ready to go. I'm going to do a "soft launch" in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, you, my lovely blog-readers, are welcome to visit the website at www.pen2publication.co.uk and have a little look. I've got some great people interested in working alongside me, too, so we'll be able to cover more genres than I could manage on my own. You can email me if you like but I'm not taking clients quite yet.

Off to do some editing of my own work. Hooray!