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Unpublished writers are always being advised to get an agent.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!

MICHEL FABER TALKS

Thanks to reader (and writer) Dayspring MacLeod, for passing this to me for circulation. Michel Faber is one of my absolute favourite authors and I was lucky enough to meet him once. (I told that story here, and it's one I'll treasure).

Anyway, here's the info about the free event in Edinburgh. I'm not sure if I can go but I'll try.

Michel Faber talks to Jamie Byng

6:30pm Tuesday 17 November 2009

Reference Library Reading Room

Edinburgh Central Library, George IV Bridge

A new series of literary events at Edinburgh Central Library focusing on the important relationship between writer and publisher: the series kicks off with prize-winning, celebrated author Michel Faber and Jamie Byng, his publisher at Edinburgh-based independent, Canongate Books.

Faber’s first book Some Rain Must Fall and Other Stories was published in 1998 by Canongate, who has published all his subsequent  seven works –  Under the Skin, The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps, The Courage Consort, The Fahrenheit Twins and Other Stories , The Apple, The Crimson Petal and the White and most recently The Fire Gospel, which was published  last year. This session will explore this successful, ongoing relationship and examine, amongst other things, the influence that author and publisher can have on one another.

There will be a reading from Faber, an audience Q&A session and a book signing. 

The event is FREE and complimentary drinks will be served. Booking is essential: email helen@bridgereadings.net.

WHO'D BE A (SMALL) PUBLISHER?

One of the most ignorant and annoying things that a frustrated unpublished author can say to excuse constant rejection is, "Kuh, publishers  -  they're only in it for the money, of course." What? So you thought they were in it for a free passage to heaven?

Publishing is a business. So is writing, though a weirdly unprofitable one. Yes, many of us are passionate about writing, so passionate that we do it for peanuts; and many publishers are passionate about publishing good books. But tell me why a publisher should deliberately pay to serve your passion?

Anyway. That's quite enough crabbit for one day because I would now like to introduce you to a woman who is passionate about publishing but who is learning just how difficult it is to survive in it, let alone become rich on it.

Her name is Lynn Michell and she is the woman behind one-woman band, The Linen Press. (Oh, for goodness' sake  -  I've just realised why Linen...) I'd like you to listen to her and then tell me that publishers are only in it for the money. The Linen Press has been running for two years and has published four books. I am not giving you Amazon links, though that would earn me some pennies  -  I'm just showing you the covers and if you'd like to buy one, or find out more, you could (I suggest) do so on the sales page of The Linen Press:

Right, let's talk to Lynn. (And do ask her questions or make comments afterwards.)

Me: How and why did you do this crazy thing called publishing  -  and on your own?

I had run writing groups for many years and had often mulled over the possibility of helping women writers reach a wider audience. The final push came when 92 year old Marjorie Wilson, wearing pink and purple and with three pairs of glasses round her neck, joined our group and I discovered a rare, lyrical voice.  Her memoir of Edinburgh at the turn of the century had to be published. I set up The Linen Press and Childhood’s Hill was its first publication.

Me: I wouldn't know where to start. How did you know or how did you learn?

It has been a huge learning curve for me.  I naively thought publishing was about reading manuscripts and choosing beautifully crafted, thought-provoking books which would sell themselves.  My role model is The Women’s Press.  Remember those striped spines that used to have a stand of their own along with Virago?  As a new writer I worked with Kathy Gale, then MD, for seven years. She always called manuscripts ‘projects’ because she worked painstakingly with her authors until she was satisfied. That is how I work.  I take on a manuscript that shows promise but requires a lot more editing and re-drafting than any big publisher would offer. But the book world has changed and now I dare not take on a writer unless her book has a strong selling hook and unless she can help with the publicity and sales. Stephanie Taylor, author of The Devil The Device and Me, is currently giving readings, talks, and approaching shops so it’s very much a joint effort between publisher and writer.

Me: What about the money side? People seem to think that publishers roll away with loads of profit. Can you spill the beans??

The financial challenge for a small publisher is formidable.  Let me give you some figures:

 - One book costs £4 to produce because I do small runs of 1000. I refuse to compromise on quality and I use environmentally friendly paper and ink.

 - I charge £10 a copy

 - Amazon takes 60% and I pay £1.75 to replace the book. If you do the sums, that's £6 for Amazon, plus £1.75 p&p, and the £4 production costs, so I am actually paying Amazon £1.75 for every book they sell. If readers ordered from my website I would make £6. [Good God  -  sorry, I can't help interrupting. That's horrible.]

- The big book stores charge me 50% mark up get a book onto one of those tables where people stop and browse. If I sell a copy, I make £1.

Me: if you're passionate about publishing, and you're certainly not going to get rich on it, you must have clear ideas about how to direct that passion. How do you decide what to publish?

Because we are the newest, smallest publisher on the block, I rely on my slush pile. So how do I pick the ones to read? First, despite the clear guidelines on my website, I get submissions from men, and children’s stories and chick lit and other stuff I say I do not publish. Second, I can usually tell from the introductory letter whether the accompanying chapters are worth reading. Third, I want a synopsis - not the plot chapter by chapter - but a synopsis, and if a writer does not know what a synopsis is then she too gets passed over. I am looking for writing which makes me think: ‘Ah I’m in good hands here. This person knows her craft.’

And when I get a professional letter, a good synopsis and some engrossing, beautifully written chapters I am fired with enthusiasm.  That excitement never goes away. I love the working bond that develops between myself and my writer.  I am personally involved at every stage of the production and am as proud as the author when I hold it the book my hands. The Linen Press has integrity and passion.  I hope we survive.

I am quite humbled by that, to be honest. It would be so much easier, wouldn't it, to focus on big-selling stuff, commercial books, the ones that tick all the boxes for flying off the shelves? But just as we don't all write those "commercially sensible" books, not all publishers publish them either. So, for all our sakes, and the sake of the future range of literature, we should support these small presses and spare a thought for the struggling publisher as well as the struggling writer.

Now, some of you will be thinking, "Struggling writer or struggling publisher: stop being so foolish and go and earn some real money! After all, no one's forcing you to do this." Well, then where would we all be? Getting Katie Price in our Christmas stockings, that's what. Euuwwww.

I am currently torn between buying Stephanie Taylor's book on The Linen Press website (because more money will go to author and publisher) and buying it from Waterstone's, (because then Waterstone's will be more likely to re-order it and notice it.) No, I'm not torn. Not at all. 

Do check out Stephanie's website. And the domain name that I want to kill her for.

I should declare a semi-interest here. I met Stephanie, Lynn's newest author, some months ago, though I had no idea she was published by Lynn who would later contact me through my blog. Stephanie is delightful and her book LOOKS stunning. I want it. And I am going to insist that neither Lynn nor Stephanie sends me a free copy, because the absolute least I can do is buy it.

Do you have any questions or comments for Lynn? I know she'll be happy to answer them. And I could very easily get Stephanie to drop by, too.

Good luck to both of them and very good luck to The Linen Press.

HAVE YOU WON 24 HOURS LONDON?

Thanks to all those of you who commented on my post yesterday and threw your names in the hat to win a signed copy of Blog Baby Marsha Moore's excellent book, 24 Hours London. You helped make her launch day a happy one.

Marsha has just emailed me to say:

The winner is (drawn totally at random out of my empty cupcake box from last night’s celebratory cupcakes): Karen Jones Gowen!

Thank you again, so much, for the chance to post my story on your blog. I loved all the comments – it was like almost as good as getting another pair of fuzzy pink slippers! You have wonderful readers (and yes, I realise I’ve just complimented myself, too, but anyway).

Apologies again for taking so long to get this to you! I hope I haven’t messed your posting schedule, etc!  You can ask Karen to email me (or you) her address, and I’ll send the T-shirt and bok her way!

So, Karen, email me (n@nicolamorgan.co.uk) your postal address  and I'll forward it to Marsha. And well done, lucky you!

If anyone would like to buy it (I have one and think it's ace  -  innovative, readable, and useful), you can do so by clicking the link below. Please buy lots  -  Marsha badly needs new slippers.



Tomorrow, I bring you an eye-opening story of life as a small publisher  -  I think it will surprise many of you. And not in a good way.

MY FIRST BLOG BABY

Introducing my very first Blog Baby! As I said a little while ago, I had a lovely email from a soon-to-be-for-the-first-time author, thanking me for giving good advice while she was trying to get published. Now, I'm not foolish or arrogant enough to think that I was responsible but I like to think I had at least a spectatory part in the birth and she did thank me so I must have been not entirely useless.

Anyway, less about me and more about her. Her name is Marsha Moore and below is her story. The bits in colour are where I couldn't resist interrupting. Imagine she and I are sitting in a bar drinking celebratory sparkly stuff and I've asked her to tell me what happened but I keep butting in.

(By the way, I have to warn you that Marsha has learnt absolutely sod all about shoes while reading my blog. Win some, lose some.)

Talking about winning: Marsha has a free copy of 24 Hours London AND a t-shirt to give away to one lucky reader of my blog. (For readers with an address in the UK, US or Canada. For others, you could always nominate a lucky recipient.) All you have to do is make a comment below, and Marsha will randomly pick one from a metaphorical hat and that person will be the winner. The deadline will be 24 hours after this post went out  -  so 08:00 (UK time) tomorrow.

So, here is Marsha Moore and the rather fabulous 24 Hours London. And I suppose at this point I should disclose that she's very kindly sent me a copy. But I'd already offered to host her so this cannot be described by any silly govt busy-body organisation as "undue pressure".

 

Marsha says:

"Whenever I dreamed about my publishing debut, I’d picture a pastel cover with my name written in large, whimsical font. I’d be the new (but Canadian) Sophie Kinsella of the chick-lit world, my masterpiece appearing straight at the top of the best-seller list (well, it is a fantasy after all!). I’d wear shiny Jimmy Choos (er, well you got that wrong, lady. See below, blog-readers, and be ashamed) and be on all the talk-shows. I could never have imagined that when I finally did get published, it would not be chick lit – it wouldn’t even be fiction – and I’d still be wearing my fuzzy pink (uncool) slippers in the confines of my flat. But do I care? Not a stitch!



Two years ago, when I decided to have a go at getting published, I was dead-set on writing novels. I’d worked as a journalist for both TV and newspapers, and I found sticking to the truth quite tiresome – and very limiting! Fabricating plot-lines and making characters behave any which way I wanted seemed like heaven. So did the thought of working from home, in sloppy clothes, [and slippers] with the fridge nearby.

The first novel I wrote was... well, I’ll call it a learning opportunity (although I can think of much worse things to call it!). I just wanted to see if I could do it; if I could sit still (and keep away from the fridge) long enough to write 80,000 words.  I had no story structure; I just went for it! [that'll learn you] After redrafting a few times – then getting around 30 rejections from UK agents – I decided it needed to be hidden away in a dark, dark corner, possibly never to see the light of day again. I was eager to  start another, anyway. [quite right] A few months later, I submitted my second attempt to American and UK agents. The responses were slightly more positive, [progress] but the end result was still the same: a big fat no.

It was at this point – 10 pounds heavier [thing is, I suspect you got the chocolate right but you weren't doing enough pacing around; all authors pace around, silly] and slightly worried about my sanity – that I began to seek help in the blogosphere. After reading up on story structures, editing techniques and agent queries, I felt buoyed enough to try again. Enter Novel Number 3. Another 80,000 words and desperate for some feedback, I scoured the web for a writing group in my area. I came across an advert from a woman looking to start a writer’s group in Kensington, got in touch, and we met up at a nearby coffee shop.

Here is where luck intervened: she wasn’t just another writer! She had her own publishing company and was looking for writers, particularly for non-fiction. While I wasn’t that enthusiastic about non-fiction, [no, often we're not, but it's a proper skill, easier than fiction and very very respectable, so do it, fools] I knew one thing: I really, really wanted to get published [oh hooray and hurrah, a working writer in the making] – if nothing else, to stop the pitying looks from friends and family! [thing is, now they'll pity you if you don't win the Costa Award for non-fiction or sell shedloads  -  the pitying looks never end, I'm afraid] I trotted home and wrote up a few non-fiction proposals (thanks to some great blog advice)... and several meetings later, we’d hammered out the concept of writing about all there is to do in London, hour by hour, in a guide book called 24 Hours London. I signed the contract, hardly daring to believe that I was going to be a published author! I semi-skipped down Kensington High Street (it’s hard to skip in high heels) [thank God it wasn't those slippers  -  you'd never have been signed in those] and went home to indulge in a celebratory feast of chocolate and wine with my husband. [Yay, a real writer through and through].

That was in April, and life has been a whirlwind ever since! Luckily, although I’ve only lived in London for five years, I love to explore and I’d already done a lot of research on what to do off the tourist track. I wrote the book in just over a month. Then, the hard bit began: marketing (shudder).

I never realised just how much marketing it takes to sell a book – or even to get bookstores to stock it! I’d just thought once you had a book deal, the book would magically appear on shelves up and down the country. I’d already begun wandering into Waterstone’s, picturing my travel guide nestled up against all the other lovely books that had made the cut. [Ah, we all did it. It's the steepest learning curve ever invented. It's where sheer determination and effort come up against the brick wall of chance.]

I’ve learned it’s not that easy; that there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work required by publishers and authors. I’d researched the front end of the publishing process; I just wish I had learned more about what happens after you sign the contract. [Thing is, nothing can prepare you  -  it's like childbirth, without the messy bits. Though actually it can get messy, too. There was the launch where...] Still, while it’s been a steep learning curve, [told you] I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how helpful and receptive people have been. From bloggers and my fellow expat writers to the Mayor of London’s [you're name-dropping already, dahling] press office, everyone’s been very supportive.   ‘There’s no harm in asking’ has become my new mantra!

So I’m not the new Sophie Kinsella (yet anyway – I still haven’t given up on my fiction dream! Fingers crossed for Novel Number 4). And my cover isn’t decorated with curlicues. But what the heck: I’m published! [And hooray for that!]

A big thank-you to Nicola and all the other bloggers out there who offer advice, humour and support to every kind of writer (even those with manky pink slippers!), everywhere."[well, frankly, I'm tempted to draw the line there]

 ______________________________________________________

Thank you, Marsha and good luck. By chance, I've just bought a flat in London so I'll never be stuck for things to do. [Obviously it was by chance  -  I didn't buy the flat just so I could check out the veracity of Marsha's book.] I should say, by the way, the book is a cracking idea and if there's any justice or reason it should do well. Trouble is, there is no justice or reason so you're going to have to rely on the old finger-crossing trick.

Anyone for a free copy AND t-shirt? Comment away. Anyone want to buy one? Click here.

Good luck Blog Baby No 1!

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.

STORY STRUCTURE AND SHAPE

(To the eagle-eyed among you  -  no, you have not gone mad: this is a post from last week. The reason for that is complicated, but then so is my life at the moment... So, yesterdays and tomorrows are misleading because yesterday is about four days ago and tomorrow was yesterday. See, I'm really making your brains work today. You may even need to go and make some Brain Cake.)

Yesterday, I had a sign. [Tomorrow I'm getting a sign too  -  but that's the one in front of my house saying For Sale.] Actually that's not as irrelevant as it might seem, for it was thanks to the imminent For Saleness that I was yesterday clearing out some stuff, of which I have too much, and came upon the sign which is the subject of today's lesson.

The thing I found was a large board covered in blue material, with pieces of white card pinned to it in vague lines. In fact, perhaps you'd like to see it now happily affixed to my office wall.

Those of you prone to serious plotting of your novels might recognise this thing. It is a storyboard. A board on which to plot stories. Or put your plumber's business card on, if you prefer. I don't normally use them [storyboards, not plumbers], which is why a) this was stuffed behind a sofa and b) I was surprised to find that it existed. But it reminded me that I did use it to help me plot my last novel  -  not the last one I had published: the last one I wrote, which is the next one that's being published, the details of which I won't burden you with because you'll hear way too much about it when the time comes.

Look closely at the pic. That is the state the board was in when I stopped using it and stuffed it behind a sofa: not when I'd finished the book, but when I'd got the idea of the plot of my story and didn't need it any more. My "system" is unorthodox  -  I plan as I go, never in advance, and use the board more as a reminder of where I've already been, rather than where I'm going. But enough of my unorthodox systems and back to the sign.

This was a sign of two things.
First, it was a sign that I should be plotting out my next novel. (Which I will, I will, o wondrous agent.) Second, it was a sign that I have never done a post on structure and that I fully intended to.

I fully intended to particularly ever since reading and bookmarking this v interesting article which appears to be about structure. Actually, it's not really  -  it's more about plotting, which is a) not the same though b) it's what my board-behind-the-sofa was all about. So, you see, it was a sign after all.

Today, on a two-for-one basis, I am going to say something about plotting AND  structure.

What I'm going to say about plotting is this: do whatever works for you. Or don't. As I've indicated, I don't do this plotting / planning / organised stuff. I just write and muddle along and sometimes do some backwards plotting but mainly I walk the dog and it all becomes clear. Honestly. So, can we leave it there?

But, structure, now that's seriously important. And you can't just do what works for you. You have to do what works for the story.

Your story must have a shape.
That's what structure is. That article that wasn't about structure did start to talk about it  -  the three act / five act stuff. And I remember long ago attempting to be taught about short stories and learning that you had to have a conflict, then an obstacle, then another obstacle, then a bigger obstacle, and then (if you had time) a really massive obstacle which seemed insurmountable, and then a resolution. Obviously.

Well, stuff that, frankly. Have as many obstacles as you like: obstacles create reader motivation and story-pull, not structure. That's the driving force, not the shape of the road. The shape of the road is important, but it's not as important as the driving force. [Though, as with roads, if you get a good shape, it helps the driving force.]

Structure is shape. 
I know I've had two glasses of wine this evening but I see shapes in stories. The shapes are spikes and curves. No squares. And they have direction, left to right. And though they move up and down (probably those are the obstacles getting in the way) they move upwards overall. And they always end way higher than when they started. But the last movement is downwards, after the climax, the outlet of breath, the sigh of relief.


Below, you will see why I'm not an artist. It is my shape-based impression of three stories:

The first one is Fleshmarket. Note the seriously major opening  -  that's the shocking surgery-without-anaesthetic scene, which causes people to faint; then we gear down (relatively) and then we gear up in stages towards the climax. And breathe out for the resolution, wiping away a tear.

The second one is Deathwatch  -  no shocking opening, just a build-up of suspense until the big climax and, again, the release and wiping of ubiquitous tear. [I do like the odd tear at some point, preferably near the end.]

The third one is a totally crappy structure such as I would never write. No tension, no shape, no driving force towards the end, either  -  just three boring car-chases. No wiping away of tear at the end, no outbreath of loveliness.

Talking of breath, breathing describes another form of structure: chapter structure. 
There are two ways of structuring your chapters, breathwise. Generally you want a mixture and the precise choice at any given moment depends on the pace and feeling you are trying to create.

Let me explain. [Thank God for that, I hear you say. What the hell is she wittering about now?] See, we breathe in and out. [You're still with me?] We breathe in before we breathe out, not the other way round. In, out. Not out, in. We breathe in when we're expecting something, getting ready for something, including something scary or dramatic. We breathe in before speaking, before jumping into water, before eating, before screaming, before dying. We breathe out when we've done those things. We breathe out at the end of something. So, if you end a chapter on a knife-edge, before the dramatic thing has happened, it's like ending after an in-breath, in other words mid-breath   -  and the reader cannot stop there: the reader must read on, in order to breathe out, to finish. So you drag the reader along. Whereas, when you end the chapter after the thing has happened, the reader can relax.

And the point is this [and it is the WHOLE point about writing]:
You, the author, god in your own world, get to control the reader's breath. Because sometimes you want your reader to relax and sometimes you don't.

How cool is that? To be able to control someone's breathing? That is power indeed.

Another thing about shape:
Of course, we also have to feel that the story is a rounded whole, however many spikes and peaks and troughs and prickly sharp bits there are. The whole thing has to feel complete, like an in- and out-breath, like a circle. So, beginning/middle/end, three acts of five, symphony or concerto (because music loves these shapes and structures too), it really doesn't matter  -  just as long as you know what shape you're creating and why, and as long as you are in control.

And then there are arcs.

You've probably heard of story arcs? Well, see, shape again. Told you. You can picture your stories like arcs, if you like. But I prefer spikes. What you could do is imagine an arc gently curving over those spikes  -  comes to the same thing: overall shape of the story, and the shape must be going upwards. A symmetrical arc would be like that boring car-chase story 3. 


Now I guess I'd better get to work on that storyboard. Because I must remember that finding it was a sign that I am supposed to be working out a new novel. Thing is, though: a storyboard doesn't really help with shape [or mine doesn't]: that's something you just have to feel. Feel yourself draw the reader upwards; feel where the points of highest drama should come; don't peak too early; remember your breathing.

Before you go back to your own storyboards, I thought you might like to see my desk, with the storyboard positioned above it. Until yesterday I had lovely glass shelves above my desk but, because of that For Saleness thing, I had to take them down and polyfilla the walls [and, er, cover the polyfilla with pictures]. Funny thing is, though: if I hadn't taken them down, I couldn't have put the storyboard up there. Clearly, then, a sign.

And then I thought you might like another picture:

Nothing to do with signs or storyboards, but very sweet. Because I'd like you to finish this lesson with an out-breath, a finishing, a resolution. But for goodness' sake, there's no need to wipe away a tear. It's just the Halloween chocolate judge, his dog, and a picnic. 

SUBMISSION SPOTLIGHT 8: picture book

This is the first picture book submission I've put up for a Submission Spotlight.

 (All illustrations copyright Beverley Johnston)


The 500 word rule doesn't apply for this, so I am showing you the covering letter, synopsis, and half* the text, along with some sample pictures. Please respect Beverley's copyright, particularly for the pictures: you may not reproduce them without her permission and she would be sensible not to give it except in certain circumstances!

(* Beverley sent me the whole text but I have chosen to reproduce only half  -  it's enough for you to judge, especially along with the synopsis.)

Beverley, says in her email to me: 

"The sample cover letter below is taken from the latest one penned for an agent who deals with both fiction and non-fiction. When sending to fiction only agents I obviously omit the proposals for non-fiction books. Looking back at it I'm wondering if it appears too pushy! But then I keep reading about 'self-promotion' so I'm keen to present myself in a positive light as an author/illustrator willing to go out and about delivering workshops and talks to both adults and children."

So, dear readers, what do you think?

________________________________________

Dear xxxxxxxxxx,

May I take this opportunity of introducing my work to you in the hope you will consider representing me as an author/illustrator. I would also like to present some additional information about myself and some ideas I have for developing a range of non-fiction children's art and craft books/sets, which I hope will convey to you my commitment to developing a career as an author/illustrator of both non-fiction and fiction books, and hence why I think you are ideally suited to represent me as my agent. 

As a founder member of the UK Coloured Pencil Society I have already had an art technique book published, The Complete Guide to Coloured Pencil Techniques (David and Charles 2003, which has since been translated into Taiwanese), and I have now started to write and illustrate children's picture books.

Due to the short word count I have attached a synopsis and complete manuscript for one of my picture books, Eddy's New Suit, plus 8 JPEGS depicting finished illustrations and photos taken from the fully working dummy book which is available to view.

Eddy’s New Suit (207 words) is a lift-the-flap novelty book for the 3+ year old age group. The inspiration for this book comes from the special relationship we form as a child with a favourite teddy or soft toy. The format for the book was inspired by the wonderful Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell. I believe the book would appeal to both parents and grandparents (especially Nannies who knit) and because of the resurgence in the ‘make do and mend' philosophy, and a new generation of knitters, the book is also very current in its subject matter.

 In addition to writing The Complete Guide to Coloured Pencil Techniques, I have also written articles for The Artist, The Leisure Painter, and The Artist and Illustrator magazines. I've demonstrated at the Artist and Illustrator Show (Olympia and the Business Design Centre, Islington) and taught coloured pencil workshops at Missendon Abbey Adult Education Centre, Aylesbury. More recently (since having my children) I have delivered a coloured pencil workshop to key stage 3 and 4 children at my local school. I have also exhibited with the Society of Wildlife Artists at the Mall Galleries, London.

Two aims of the UK Coloured Pencil Society include promoting the use of coloured pencils as a fine art medium, plus encouraging children to develop their artistic skills through the use of coloured pencils.  Coloured pencil manufacturers such as Derwent, Faber Castell and Caran D'ache etc are always open to marketing suggestions and often willing to work with artists to produce a range of educational materials, for both adults and children.

Although in the ideas stage of development I am keen to produce a range of technique books for children. Including flowers, cars, animals (pets and wildlife), and the human form, my technique can be adapted to produce fine art or stylised pictures. Projects would be kept small to suit a child's ability and by using easy to follow step-by-step stages children would be taught how to use coloured pencils and improve their drawing skills. Examples could then be used to develop a range of workshops for schools (and to support the national curriculum would combine writing and drawing for both fiction and non-fiction projects).

I would also love to see Eddy's New Suit be developed as an activity knitting set. I appreciate this may sound adventurous (in light of the fact it's yet to be published!) but my research has shown there is an increase in the number of people, including children, taking up knitting through the choice of books and craft kits available on the market. How many of them could resist knitting such a lovely warm jumper for such a well loved bear?!

With regards

Beverley Johnston



EDDY’S NEW SUIT
(Available as a fully working dummy book)
A 16 page lift the flap novelty book aimed at 3+ year olds (could also be developed as a touch/feel novelty book).

Synopsis

Eddy is a favourite teddy who has been cuddled so often his fur has become patchy and worn, so his owner decides to make him a
new suit.

The reader lifts the flaps to discover what suit Eddy is wearing. The bubble wrap suit is, ‘too spongy and squishy’; the holly leaves suit is ‘too prickly and spiky’, and the silver foil suit ‘too shiny and crinkly’.

None are right until the last flap, when he receives a very special woollen suit from Nanny. Which is just perfect!

Text (first 8 pages  -  half the full book)

Page 1-2
Eddy the Teddy’s my favourite bear,
but I’ve cuddled him so often his fur’s all patchy and worn,
so I’m going to make him a brand new suit!

Pages 3-4
I make him a suit out of . . . cardboard and tape.
But it’s too stiff and sticky,
so I take it off.

Pages 5-6
I make him a suit out of . . . grass and string.
But it’s too scratchy and itchy,
so I take it off.


Pages 7-8
I make him a suit out of . . . feathers.
But it’s too fluffy and tickly,
so I take it off.

(final four spreads supplied, not shown)

Note from NM  -  this next pic is not the suit of feathers, but the final pic

Comments, please, expecially from any published pic book writers out there.

Meanwhile, the Blog Baby announcement cometh  -  be here on Nov 4th!

SUBMISSION SPOTLIGHT 7: adult readers

Another Submission Spotlight before I finally stop doing them and launch Pen2Publication. You should know the form by now  -  constructive comments, please. And remember that the synopsis is not actually included for the purposes of thise exercise, so you have to imagine that it is. Similarly, although the letter refers to "chapters", we only have 500 words here. You will see that some names have been redacted  -  this is because the author wishes to preserve their confidentiality for the purposes of this public critique.

The author is "Susannah".

____________________________________________________________

Dear ....

I am enclosing the opening chapters and synopsis for my 83,000 word novel, Stone Burial. Stone Burial  is the story of Georgia Fuller, and how her encounter with the apparently idyllic English countryside forces her to face up to what lies beneath – not only the bodies which lie buried under the soil but also the secrets of her own past.   The book explores how both history and our own lives are embedded in a particular place, and how forgetting can sometimes be easier than facing the truth.

I have previously written a novel which was accepted by an agent in 2001 but did not find a publisher.  Since then, I have also attended a number of fiction writing workshops and courses in the course of working on Stone Burial.  My writing has been described as ‘very strong’ by ***** of *****, and ‘very beautiful’ by *****.  Most recently, I have been mentored by the novelist *****, who feels that the book is very much ready for submission and has described it as ‘an intelligent novel and sometimes a lyrical one, imbued with a convincing feel for English landscapes and English history,’ and I am currently working with him on my next book.

My career to date has been as a tv producer, covering subjects as diverse as art and archaeology to interior design and gardening.  Before this, I have had a non-fiction book published (***** Fourth Estate 1992), as well as writing for the architectural magazine Blueprint.   And since then, writing – from scripts to programme proposals – has been at the heart of my work in television.

I have submitted the novel to a small number of literary agents, but will of course inform you if I get any interest elsewhere.

Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you.


Yours sincerely,

_________________________________________________

Stone Burial - first 500 words:


1943

The two men walked away from the field in the thick blackout night. Each kept silent, their faces shadowed, the moon now clouded and gone.  Words were no more use here. They had done what had been asked of them and it was all over.

But had they done enough, thought the poet.  How deep did you have to bury the dead before they troubled you no more?

The folded tarpaulin started to lift in the wind, and he clasped it closer to his chest.  Breathing in, he could smell the damp earth it had lain on, a scent of grass and dung, inert stone and everything that had once lived, flesh, fur and bone.  What else lay buried in these mute fields, he wondered.  Houses or churches, timber, brick and ashes, creatures of the hedgerows, beasts of the fields.  Then he stopped; he didn’t want to follow these thoughts any further, to come across what they had added, what they had done in the night.  Instead, he kept his eyes down, concentrating on the muddy furrows of the lane.

Ahead of him, the artist paused for a moment, turning back to look where they had been.  Behind them, the clump of beeches and the great barrow still loomed, dark on dark, a vast shadow against the drifting clouds of the night.

‘I can almost see it now,’ he said, half under his breath.

He’d always made a point of refusing the countryside, despising the nice pictures of hills and skies it brought into being.  He painted to make sense of other places, of cities and machines, of the whirling crowd caught up in their motion.  What could he take from this impassive stillness of grass and trees and earth?  But now it was a relief to stand outside history, to be in a place which took no heed of the works of men; the war and its dead were just one more thing for the valley to absorb back into its soil.
He turned to his friend, as though wanting him to understand.  ‘I mean, what he found here.  What he understood.’

For a moment he seemed about to speak again, to explain, but then his face fell.  ‘Not that this makes the slightest bit of difference of course.  After all, I am just a tool of the state, employed to draw factories and armaments and workers for the common good.’  He laughed, the noise too harsh in the darkness.  ‘So there is no point even imagining it.  No point at all’  For a moment he stared down at his boots, alien presences on the rutted e arth of the path.  He does not know that he will die in a plane crash in a few months time, on his way to see men building airfields in the rain, just one more of the piled dead.  He will never be able to say what it is that he has seen here.

He looked up at his friend.  ‘Got a ciggie?’ he said.

__________________________________________________________

INTERESTING QUESTION ABOUT GENRE-CROSSING

I had a question the other day from a blog-reader and I thought it might apply to several of you, or at least that you'd be interested in the answer. So I asked if I could reproduce it here. And of course the answer was yes.

The email started with all sorts of thanks, which I gratefully accepted, since it's frankly all I'm going to get except the occasional [too occasional] chocolate gift. And then it went on:

"But to the point: the reason I'm mailing you is because I have a question. It developed after reading your most recent post (A True Story of a Stuggling Writer), though I've had it for as long as I've been writing; I guess I just never thought of asking. If it's a ridiculously stupid question, then I'm really sorry, but nevertheless:

In your post, you said: BS is serious about her writing, as she should be. The fact that she crosses genres tells me so  -  she just loves to write and is doing it from the heart.

So let's say a published writer has three works in progress, and each is a different genre. One is horror, one is contemporary romance, the other is fantasy. And each is completely different from the last.

My question is, would a publisher be willing to publish all these stories by the same author? Aren't authors usually encouraged to write under a single genre. I'm thinking of most of the famous authors I know. Like Meg Cabot, for example, has written a multitude of books, but they all contain romance. Would it be possible for an author to go from complete romance to complete fantasy? Like jumping from Pride and Prejudice to Lord of the Rings?

Again, I'm sorry if this is an insanely weird question. Hopefully it won't get you crabbity."

Course it didn't get me crabbity. It takes a lot more than that.

Firstly, let me say that although I write for teenagers, my books very much cross genres  -  YA fiction includes the same genres as adult fiction. So, I have written historical, futuristic, psychological and crime thrillers, light-hearted (though that was for younger kids) and adventure. And let's not even go down the Thomas the bloody Tank Engine route. Or track.

So, on that basis it would appear not to matter. But before I go on let me say that sometimes even then (as in, even granted that I'm reasonably doing okayish with my skittery bumble-bee approach) it doesn't feel particularly sensible. The disadvantages are that someone who likes my historical fiction may be surprised not to like my other stuff and then decide not to try my next book. Now, this must not be a problem because my publishers seem to be equally happy whatever I produce, so I just say nothing and keep my fingers crossed. I rather like the fact that no one knows what I'm going to do next, but it may not be fabulous for my sales.

BUT, for adult writers it's a lot harder. When adult writers cross genres, they tend to do it after being successful in one genre, and / or may use two different names. Think of Iain Banks / Iain M Banks [not much disguise there, Iain...], and John Banville /Benjamin Black.

In view of that, it would be very inadvisable for an unpublished author to offer three simultaneous different genres. If the writing is utterly stupendous in all three, the publisher / agent may be interested, but no more so than if it was stupendous in just one: they still must build a brand / name for you and this can't practically be done in three different markets, because that's what it is. Even though many / most readers read in different genres, as an intended market each group is discrete. That's discrete, not discreet, before you become confused.

The fact that you write exuberantly and passionately is great and will stand you in good stead but you should, in my view, decide which is your most sellable one, and go with that. Then, when that's contracted, hit 'em with something else. They are most likely to say, "Hang on, we need to build you as hot-shot crime writer, first  -  give us a chance." But you can still do that other writing later, perhaps under a different name, perhaps for a different publisher. But possibly same agent.

Ah, I hear you say, you said "possibly the same agent". So, can't I hit the agent with all three to start with? I'd suggest not, not until you've hooked her / him with the brilliant saleability of one of your books. You could say that you've got two other books written which you'd be happy for her to see. But major on one.

Any input from anyone? Anyone disagree? Of course, there will be exceptions but exceptions don't prove rules: they are just very irritating exceptions. I hate exceptions. They are untidy.

SUBMISSION SPOTLIGHT 6: Adult Readers

Because I'm about to start my very own literary consultancy, Pen2Publication  -  gulp  -  I won't be doing many more of these Submission Spotlights. (So please don't send any more.) But I thought I'd try to use a small number of the backlog first.

If you haven't commented on one of these before and don't know the system, please go and read a couple. (Click on the label "Submission Spotlights" in the list of posts on the right.)

Remember: all I have asked for is a covering letter and first 500 words  -  NO synopsis or anything. (That's why the letter says there's a synopsis but there isn't, if you see what I mean.) Please ignore any errors of formatting  -  it will be my fault.

Comments should be constructive, honest and informed. If you are someone who doesn't normally read this genre, say so but DO still comment. And please, everyone, DO comment. Our brave author needs you!

____________________________________________________

Dear (name of Literary Agent)

Please find enclosed a synopsis and the first three chapters of my novel Filbert’s Mind Rooms (literary, 72,000 words) for your consideration of representing my work.

After a powerful dream, Donald Filbert wakes up in a wardrobe. He dresses as a woman then takes a train to his new job as a security guard of an empty office block. Filbert is mentally ill, a prisoner within his own mind. Due to his strange mental state, he mixes thoughts of the past and present with surreal fantasy, relating these to a recalled psychiatrist.

There are two tragedies in his life: the loss of his father and the loss of his wife Birnadette. His mental barriers which screen him from recalling those poignant memories are slowly eroded until he finally remembers the shocking truth.

I have written another novel entitled Stubb, A Gothic Tale (gothic/magic realism, 74,000 words) and I am writing my third novel called The Turquoize Traveller (magic realism, 20,000 WIP).

I would be glad to send you the complete manuscript of Filbert’s Mind Rooms for your review. Please note that my proposal is on submission to other agents.

Thank you for your time and consideration, and I look forward to your earliest reply.

Yours Sincerely

________________________________________________

First 500 words of Filbert's Mind Rooms (slightly over to a natural break):

The fisherman is coarse faced with rudder ears; he hoses down already slippery slats, moonlight painted. Restless knife-sharpeners: one touches an oilstone, engrains oil in whorls on his thumb. Spectators with white faces huddle and blink at whipping wind.

‘Let’s hold your hand.’ She is gazing at me and I ask: ‘When, then?’

That mournful horn answers from the ship shape ahead, ebony block against grey, avoiding spotlights from the quay.

A growling from the generator. Chains, powdered with rust, scrape up the slats and become taut in shifting shadows. For every link consumed on a winch reel, the waves give another.

‘See?’ Birnadette says, ‘not long,’ and this difficult watery birth (umbilical cords of iron) begins.

The tail fin first – as tall as I stand – then the body emerging with the sea foaming from the labour. Those tons of flesh keep on coming, gigantic and glistening. The harpoon is an obscene desecration of its flesh. The tip protrudes from the beast, gouging the slats. All is a scraping, rattling, creaking, until even the wind quietens and the generator stops.

This slaughtered and humiliated whale is longer than a train carriage. The bank of flesh builds from the flagging fin curled over those cruel chains.

The butchers sharpen their knives – hear the hissing steel. I shall visit this wondrous mammal. It shouldn’t be here under these cold stars and stares. Its place is the empire of the deep, its monstrous yet refined form surging within an ocean. What stratum of consciousness have we insolently wrenched it from? I have plucked one of the filtering bones and it is so pliable, I almost expect a tone to be produced, perhaps harp-like. I’m able to stroke the inside of that cavernous mouth. It’s like a fur and as soft to the touch. I’ll run my hand over its smooth leather blueish skin.

Step back to the side now. A fishermen has raised a curved knife. He is slitting the creature about its head with a honed experience, his yellow oilskins squeaking.

Birnadette is even-mouthed, breathy, chilled; I stand behind her and bring her to me. She pulls the sides of my coat around her while I lightly rest my chin on her head. I smell shampoo mixed with a stronger, alien odour from the air. Am I imagining the whale breathing so gently as to be barely perceptible? Now more chains slither like tentacles. Hooks are hasped to their ends then embedded into that slit. The sea is sending fingers of foam racing up the sloped slats, trying to take back her child, soughing and whooshing; never reaching.

The generator groans into life again. Those chains jerk on the hooks until the thick skin folds back from about the slit. It’s being pulled away with a loud ripping noise, exposing fibrous white blubber with the inner surface of skin looking like the pith of an orange. Clouds of stinking steam rise to reek this night air. Dancing, prancing mad shadows. No pause to allow remorse or mourning: the flashing knives have been plunged into the peeled animal. They are cutting sizeable chunks of red meat and laying them on a metal platform as though building blocks to some gruesome nightmare igloo.

_________________________________________________

Over to you all for comments. And thank you to the author "gyroscope". Good luck!

PS  -  yes, I have changed "course-faced" to "coarse-faced" as requested  -  sorry I didn't get to this as soon as gyroscope asked.

HOTEL CHOCOLAT COMPETITION WINNERS

The moment you've been waiting for is upon us: the announcement of the ten winners of the Hotel Chocolat Halloween Writing Competition. Ugh, I hate this. In fact, I hate this so much that I didn't do the judging at all but "out-sourced" it, which is the posh word for wimping out. Thing is, several of you have become friends and it wouldn't be fair. Oh, OK: what I mean is I couldn't take the strain of your potential disapprobation. Not to mention the fact that several of you actually tried to bribe me and do all sorts of inappropriate things to sway me. Many of which could easily have worked. So, I thought the easiest and most honest thing was to pass the buck, and I did. Buck-passing I can do.

So, do not blame me if you don't like the judgement. It wisnae me, as they say over in the west.

By the way, I am assuming that you all have the right to submit these works for publication here  -  in other words that they are your own words and copyright is yours. If they've been previously published somewhere, you need to make sure you have the rights. Paranoid, me? If you have any doubts, let me know.

I loved lots of your stories, including many that didn't make the list. If I'd been judging there might have been a few differences, though not many. As you can imagine, it's easy to come up with a larger list than we need and much harder to decide at the margins. I asked the judge not to give an order of merit, but he felt that one was outstandingly a winner. I allowed him that but when he also wanted to do a second and third, I told him to shut up and stop interfering.

Remember that there's not much objectivity that can be brought to bear when you get lots of stories of a high standard. (As we did.) Can you tell I find this difficult?? The judge tried to include a range of styles and genres, so that there's something for everyone. And for goodness' sake, it's ONLY chocolate!

Another thing  -  I was delighted to get a number of entries from teenagers. I think it was the chocolate that did it. I decided to reserve one prize for the best young writer  -  and I planned to judge that one, since I claim to understand teenagers and used to teach them, but the judge refused to let me. There was an amusing mother and daughter competition going on, and some witty rivalry by email, and I was so hoping that both mother and daughter would be winners. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, but I think you'll see that there was a happy ending after all...

OK, stop waffling. I'm going to do the runners-up first, in no particular order. Hooray for:

Sally Zigmond  -  who won my last creative writing comp so she's maintaining a v high standard. Sally's a talented short story-writer and I loved both her entries. This was the one the judge picked. It's mysterious and you can read it in different ways, but the description is intense:

The box alone was seductive. She ran her finger along the black velvet, the black satin ribbons. She teased open the lid to reveal, nestling within, ten dark mounds of pleasure; ten dusky, creamy mouthfuls of chocolate bliss. She savoured, licked; devoured.
      Soft and sated, she opened the note now revealed. “Your novels are my pleasure. They woo me. I am utterly yours. The next one you write will seal the bond. You are mine. Forever.
       Fear froze her. Her fingers were dust; her keyboard ashes. She would never write again. She had sold her soul for chocolate.

Julia Dalby  -  very chilling indeed and highly original. There's a lot going on in this story:

Crushed
"For you," he says. He takes the small lilac box, and smiles; her sweet beauty warms him, even after love.

She reaches for something. "Please. Post?"  

He takes the sealed envelope. 

"I pay back, for stamps." Her eyes hold his. "Please."

Downstairs, he opens it. Her language, but there, this address. Clever girl! She has eyes and ears, learns quickly. Near the door, men sit and drink. He hands the letter to one, slaps the shoulder of another. He won't return for a while; damaged flesh takes time to heal.

Upstairs, moments later, a box of chocolates is crushed underfoot.

Barb Ettridge  -  Barb's story is told from the POV of a chocolate bar, about to be eaten by a writer who always rewards herself with chocolate at the end of a chapter. Hmm, I identify with that! The chocolate bar has a real personality that comes out in this piece. And Barb nicely avoids over-writing  -  difficult when writing about chocolate...

She's writing again.
The clack of the keys has a determined sound, so she must have found a
way to write the cliff-hanger. I heard her muttering about it earlier.
How she was going to get them together, while giving a reason that
their love could never be.
A pause.
Please don't let her be finished. Writer's block, procrastination,
maybe her laptop crashed. Anything but the end of the chapter.
Footsteps.
She's here at the pantry.
Oh god, she's opening my foil wrapper.

Clare Donaldson  -  Clare is the mother whose daughter also entered. I really want to give her daughter, Isla, a prize too, not just because I liked her story but also for very humorous emails to me, in which she said that her mother had far too much chocolate and shouldn't win. (I've probably caused war in the Donaldson house now.) ANYway, I am going to give Isla an extra prize: any one of my books, signed. I know, not as good as chocolate but may last longer. Here's Clare's story, and I think that to have so much structure in a 100 word story is pretty clever. I cried, idiot that I am.

DEATH BY CHOCOLATE?
Remnants of chewed paper. Brown crumbs. Finn’s brown-smeared muzzle. He stands to greet me, but collapses, unable to bear the weight of his swollen body.
A note on the table. Kate’s writing, “A Hallowe’en treat.”
Ears buzz. Heart thumps. How much chocolate is fatal? How long before it takes effect?  Fumbling, I phone the vet. Engaged.
I sit on the floor and stroke Finn’s silky head. He gazes at me, his eyes like pools of melting chocolate – the irony does not escape me.
Redial. Engaged.
Text from Kate. “Hope you enjoy the treacle scones!”

David O'Connor Thompson  -  another previous winner keeping up standards! David doesn't mention fear explicitly but the story makes me feel fear. It's very chilling.

Dear Rose,
I’m very, very sorry. I promise on my life it will never happen again. Promise. Promise. Promise. It was all my fault. I just lost it but you know how I hate it when you ask me where I’ve been. I’ve told you again and again NOT to ever question me on where I go or what I do. But you NEVER learn. Anyway I’ve left you these chocolates. They all have soft centres so you can eat them. Or suck them. Will come to hospital again tomorrow and hope you’re awake by then.
Love you loads
Ben

Douglas Bruton  -  a subtle story which almost contains no ingredients of chocolate, fear or the written word, unless you look carefully.

ALEGRIA IS AFRAID
 The waitress, Alegria, carries his order on a tray - a cup of coffee and a plate of white chocolate alfajores biscuits. She checks the clock.
‘Good morning,’ she says, so quietly that Xavier de Rosas does not hear. He is reading, like always.
She sets the cup before him and, a little to the side, his plate of biscuits. Her hand shakes.
‘Enjoy your coffee,’ says Alegria, giving her words kiss shapes and small sound.
Today her hair is different and she is afraid that he might not like it. She waits for him to look up. She waits.

Gina Langridge, with a simple idea but with sparse and clear prose. The difference between the ecstasy and the shock of discovery is cleverly done, using pace to create atmosphere.

Lucy eased off the purple wrapper, savouring the moment. The silver foil was harsh against her fingers as she pulled it back to reveal the dark chocolate within. Snap! She broke off a single square and placed it in her mouth. Bitter flavours melted into sweet. She held it on her tongue, allowing the heavenly liquid to seep backwards and slip down her throat. Her eyes closed.
"Ahem!"
Her eyes flew open. Her heart raced as she saw the shopkeeper pointing to the sign: "Shoplifters will be prosecuted."
"Forty pence, please, and next time pay for it first."

Simon Kewin had two great entries, each very different from the other; one was a riotous werewolf / vampire story with a twist and a great modern edge. And the other this, with a cleverly inscrutable ending:

The waiter's face was expressionless as he set down the dark chocolate torte. Stephen sat still, hollow with fear. He had barely eaten anything all meal. The cake was between them on the cleared table, the words piped onto it in white chocolate. The question he couldn’t bring himself to ask her. He regretted the whole thing now, all the arrangements. It was a disaster.

He looked at her. There was confusion on her face. She hadn't wanted dessert. She was reading the words. There was a silence. Then she looked up at him. Her eyes were liquid with tears.

The teenage winner is Alexandra Brogan, aged 13, with a sinister story for Halloween  -  I particularly like the way she doesn't tell us what the drug was and leaves it to us to guess. Well done, Alexandra:

Slowly the final drop of liquid seeped out of the bottle and into the gooey mountain of melted chocolate...This would be the ultimate stage of Dr. Smithe’s  plan, all that had to be done now was to wait and watch the sweets be made and bought by thousands of unexpecting mothers. Which would in turn mean that hundreds of thousands of children will have these delicious sweets at the bottom of their trick or treat bags... This drug only did one thing and only Dr Smithe could make it so unpleasant. This Halloween could be the best yet....

AND the overall winner IS: Dayspring MacLeod. Well done!

Rose sat alone with her square of precious rationed chocolate.  The family were gathered round the radio, but Rose couldn’t hear anything.  Instead, she savoured things she could feel; things like the dull rich taste of the dark chocolate, the way it chipped off on her teeth and coated her tongue. 
    Mrs Jackson was getting up from her chair.  She wrote on a piece of paper and handed it to Rose.  More bombing in London.  So Mother was still in danger.
    For others, fear was the sound of German bombers roaring overhead.  For Rose, fear would always taste like chocolate.

I love the combination of war-time setting, deaf girl, and synaesthesia so I was very glad the judge also liked it so much.

Well done to Dayspring, Alexandra and all of you! And to the others, thanks so much for entering and for the very high quality of your work. I loved reading your entries and not a single one of them was badly written. There's some real talent out there, and NOT just amongst those ten winners.

Meanwhile, I need UK postal addresses for Gina, Douglas, Dayspring and David (asap, please) and then I'll let generous Hotel Chocolat know who to send the delicious Boo Boxes to.

Meanwhile, meanwhile  -  I just heard today that I'm about to have my very first Blog Baby! Yes, a blog-reader who was unpublished when she started reading this blog, soon landed herself a deal and the book is being published on Nov 4th. Even though it's obviously nothing to do with me, she was kind enough to thank me. More news when I interview her. (I wonder if she will have calmed down by then? Let's hope not.)

SIGNED BOOKS FOR SALE!

I'm having a clear-out because we're selling our house. And I thought it made sense, what with that and Christmas being veritably round the corner (marked by the fact that I've just eaten a mince pie and a satsuma), to offload signed copies of any of my books.

So, here's the deal:

Cost: cover price. (List below if you can't be bothered to look them up).

Delivery: to any UK address, at no delivery charge.

Bonus: each order (while stocks last) wins a "wee bonus", as we say up here. Well, I don't, because I'm blatantly English, but the true natives do.

 "What? A wee bonus? What exactly is this bonus to which you refer? You mean, like a freebie? Really?"

Well, I have a number of books to give away, all written by yours truly. Most of them are home learning books, activity books for young children, focusing on fun ways to learn writing, reading or mathsy skills.

I also have, as a splendiferous treat for someone, both brain books in Turkish and several Blame My Brains in a language which I think is Serbian. I have already got rid of various other foreign editions, in case you wonder why my books are only translated into Turkish and Serbian. For your info, the Turkish for "stress" is "stres" and the Turkish for "depression" is "depresyon". So, frankly, I think you could read it even if you're not Turkish. Serbian is another matter. That requires a few lessons.

What to do?

1. Go to my website  -  www.nicolamorgan.co.uk  -  and see which book(s) you fancy. 
2. Then email me (n@nicolamorgan.co.uk) to order. PLEASE but "BOOK ORDER" in the subject line. Tell me what you want and who it/they should be signed to.
   
3. I'll tell you if I have any copies of your choices left, ask you what bonus you want, and we exchange addresses. 
4. I send books, personally signed, and you send payment. And everyone's happy.

So, that's Christmas sorted then. For you, if not for me.

PRICE LIST:

• Deathwatch  -  £6.99
• Highwayman's Footsteps, Highwayman's Curse  -  £6.99  -  (or £13.50 if you buy both)
• Blame My Brain, Know Your Brain, Fleshmarket, Mondays are Red, Sleepwalking, Passionflower Massacre  -  £5.99
• Chicken Friend  -  £4.99
• Leaving Home Survival Guide  -  £8.99
  

BUT CAN YOU WAIT FOR HEAVEN?

Well, we had the story of struggle; now we need a story of success.

First, though, I should pause a while and consider your feelings. Thing is, it's easy for me to jump for joy about another writer being published for the first time, but I remember how I felt when I was unpublished and heard about another bloody debut author laughing all the way to the launch party.

Pure

Red

Murderous,

that's what

So, if you have a tendency towards that, brace yourselves. And then, if possible, summon up the heart to say ahhhhhh and awwww. Because this is really very sweet.

What am I talking about? Here she is to tell you all about it  -  Cally Taylor with her new book Heaven can Wait (apt title)?? The post is from three weeks ago but now her book is actually out. And you can buy it here.

Hooray for success, because it can happen. And hooray for writers amongst you who can find it in themselves to be a lot nicer than I could have been....

And, most importantly, listen, learn, practise and hold onto your dream but with a very important dollop of knowledge and understanding.

(Do you want to know a secret? It doesn't go away, that feeling of wanting to stroke your new book. I stroke mine and hold them to my heart, a bit like a baby, and smell them and breathe them in. There's one thing I don't do, though: open them. God, you never know what you might find.)

FOR YOU, GENTLE READERS, SOME QUESTIONS

On the one hand, you could call me lazy. On the other hand you could take into account that I am working about as many hours as I can stay awake, I have just finished a hectic round of school events up and down the country, I am putting together the whole concept of Pen2Publication and ... WE ARE PUTTING OUR HOUSE ON THE MARKET, according to my beloved. Which means that I have to keep tidying and putting things away and pretending I don't have a smelly dog. And baking coffee and brewing bread and trying to make it look as though I always have a house full of fresh flowers.

All of which goes to excuse why I am now going to post TWO questions from Simon, one of my lovely readers, and hand over to you all with only the briefest of answers from me. (Brief? Me? God, there must be something going on.)

Simon says:

"Re overseas agents? Is approaching one a good idea? There are quite a few agents in the USA who I'd like to approach but I'm really not sure if it's a sensible approach. It's obviously harder to build up a working relationship with someone so far away. But, with all thecommunication technology available to us, perhaps it can work."

I say: assuming Simon is in the UK (?) there's not really a very good reason for doing this unless for some reason his books are particularly US-friendly and not UK-friendly. This is possible but you'd want to be sure of this. If you have a UK agent, he/she will try to sell to the US anyway, or your UK publisher will if said publisher holds the US rights. Personally, I'd have my agent in the territory* where I live. And let her organise sub-agents for foreign** rights. And very hoorayishly, she's just sold Hungarian rights for Deathwatch, for which I certainly didn't have a Hungarian agent, just a hungry one.

Edited to add (sorry  -  I was tired last night):
* I should clarify: I'm really talking about US as opposed to UK. Australia and NZ are so similar in relevant ways to the market in the UK that there's no disadvantage for an Australian author, for example, having a UK agent. It's not a matter of living nearby and popping round for coffee  -  it's a matter of having the same writer-reader mindset. And the US, much as we love you Americans, is just different. Gloriously so, of course, but different.

** by which I mean foreign language.

Then Simon said:

"The other question is to do with sample chapters of a novel. I'm wondering whether it is a good idea to post some chapters of my a novel-looking-for-an-agent-or-a-publisher. Is that a sensible piece of platform-building or is it dangerously close to self-publishing and/or using up first publication rights?"

OK. What does this platform-building entail? Because if it's a couple of hundred hits and 25 comments, this is not a platform. It's very very unlikely that you'll build a platform so powerful that it would make any difference to their decision. Also, yes, you do risk technically blowing first rights. If this is genuinely a taster, a sample, hmmm, possibly  -  but actually it's most likely that an editor would want to edit it anyway, in which case you haven't acheived anything except confuse your potential readers. Also, a taster is not going to work unless the actual book appears very soon afterwards  -  for example, when publishers offer taster chapters this is always very shortly before publication.

So, I'd say that posting your chapters online can do very little good and could do harm.

Edited to add: Sarah, in one of the comments below, reminded me about this excellent post on Editorial Ass.  

And now, you people full of energy and without houses to sell, please help me out with more answers on those questions.

Meanwhile, I am off to copy all the many Hotel Choc comp entries into a doc for my secret judge to judge. I am stunned by how many of you entered. I am going to need a substantial amount of fortification even just to copy and paste them all.

And thank you Simon for asking  -  you saved me having to dream up something new on a night when my shoulders are screaming with too much keyboard time!

YOU SHAMELESS CHOCOHOLICS!

Yes, you incorrigible people  -  SO many of you entered the Halloween Hotel Chocolat Competition that I have had to enlist help with the judging. It's quite remarkable (and wonderful) how many of you came out of the woodwork and got yourselves writing. I've had mothers and daughters in competition with each other, a number a very talented teenagers (all girls...) entering, and some genuine chocolate passions going on in your creative writerly imaginations.

THANK YOU and well done to all of you for being so inspired. Anyway, I'll announce the results in a few days. I'm not going to judge them myself  -  there are a number of names known personally to me and I thought I'd avoid controversy and the loss of friendship by passing the buck.

Meanwhile, Pen2Publication is proceeding apace. I hope to be able to announce its launch in a very few weeks.

A TRUE STORY OF A STRUGGLING WRITER

Recently, a commenter who calls herself "Beleaguered Author" and blogs as "Beleaguered Squirrel" (are you sympathising already??), told us this story. Italics in square brackets are my comments. Colours are my usual flamboyance:

"I'm in what I think is an unusual situation. My first book was published by a small-but-respected publisher who subsequently ceased trading. [Gah.] My second book was - via an agent (which I didn't have for the first) - published in a foreign country, translated into their language. Said country are not into making a big fuss of "first time" authors (apparently my first book doesn't count), so it has been rather non-eventish for me. [Not sure if this is a line you've been spun  -  on the other hand, actually, most books are non-eventish and it's all somewhat in the eye of the writer]. No author publicity, no big marketing bucks, and sadly the book hasn't made much of an impact. No reviews apart from two critical Amazon reviews: a one-star and a three-star. Personally I think it was a bad translation (I happen to speak the language concerned) and was pitched at entirely the wrong market. But then I would say that. [You could be right, though. And bad luck with the Amazon reviewers, who may or may not have been drunk at 3am when they wrote those reviews.]

"Unfortunately, at around the time the foreign book was published, I lost my agent. You'll just have to believe me when I say it wasn't my fault, [I do  -  though I'd give the anonymous agent the benefit of the doubt by saying that there are often one and a half sides to the story] as it wouldn't be professional to go into details. Whether they would ever have managed to sell the book into other territories is questionable, but we'll never know now.

"So here I am, my baby is out there but unreadable in its native tongue, and no agent will touch it with a barge pole cos it has already been flogged to death by the original agent. I - egotistic author that I am - am in a massive sulk about the fact that nobody I care about can read the damn thing, and the holy grail of publication hasn't involved a single piece of ego-stroking or validation, and it feels as though it may as well not have happened. [Ugh, this is painful.]


"Indeed, I'm so depressed that I've given up writing altogether. Abandoned the third novel in first draft stage and embarked on a new career.

"Don't worry - I'm not expecting you to tell me I did the right thing by giving up. It clearly shows a lack of backbone and an excessive degree of childish sulk, the kind which would preclude a successful publishing career. [I disagree most strongly.]

"Actually I don't know what my question is. I think it was going to be something along the lines of, "Do you think sometimes a writer just has to admit they are a bit crap, and give up?" [I will answer this.] which is only the aforementioned sulkiness in a very thin disguise... or maybe, "Don't you agree that I've had a particularly raw deal? [possibly but not certainly].You feel sorry for me, right?" - which would be more of the same...

"Obviously what I need to do is either (a) keep going and make each book better than the last, or (b) stop worrying about publication - just write for the sake of it, or (c) acknowledge that I've been writing for the wrong reasons, and have a break until I can think of some better reasons to keep doing it. But stop with all the whingeing.[can you do b) ??? If you can, then you should, anyone should, but if you can't.... a) is what we should all do if we believe in ourselves. Hmmm re c)  -  HAVE you been writing for the wrong reasons? What ARE the wrong reasons? But I'm not interested in your reasons and nor are your readers  -  we only want to know if you're good enough.]


"Hmmm. Thank you. That helped. [Er, really?!]

"Oh! I thought of a question! Here it is:

"Have you come across this phenomenon before? Writers who have a book which is only ever published in one other country, translated, and with no fanfare or success? [Frankly, I haven't come across this. But it may happen. I don't think it's the central issue. The central issue is that you came close  -  more than that, you were published, but it didn't deliver success. We think that success is being published  -  it's not.] Do they get sulky about it too, or am I just outrageously ungrateful? [Oh, trust me: we are all ungrateful because we are not megastars!] So far I'm the only writer I know who has experienced this thing."

This all raises several points, as well as a few tears, and I asked BS if I could use her story to highlight a few things. She agreed.

I asked BS a few more questions but I specifically did not want to know her real name or the name of her books. Because, just for now, I don't want to read her writing  -  despite the fact that it's whether her writing is any good that's the most important question.

I asked what genre she wrote in, because whether it's lit fic or not makes a difference, or whether it's a genre that's easy to sell.

"Genre: That's part of my problem. I've tried to write to a genre, but it just doesn't seem to be something I can do without losing my own identity in what I write. "Contemporary fiction" is the laziest description. [No, it's a good description if it's the right one.] My second was described as a comic thriller, which is vaguely accurate. My first had large dollops of suspense. The second was published in an imprint devoted to "urban fiction". Both can definitely be described as quirky. My third is definitely a comic thriller. They're all for adults."

BS lives in the UK but her second novel was published by a large publisher in Germany. Also, if you'd like more details  -  and it's a moving story  -  she's written about it here.

OK, here's what I think, apart from my italicised comments above.

• BS is serious about her writing, as she should be. The fact that she crosses genres tells me so  -  she just loves to write and is doing it from the heart; plus the fact that she's angsting so much about whether she's good enough. She's not a whinger; she doesn't sound deluded. She got published. From then on she was unlucky, on many counts. Now, her book(s) also may not have been fabulous  -  we don't know. But she got published and what happened then does not sound like her fault. (Unless she's spinning a complex tale and is in fact deluded...)
  
• Stuff happens: books are published badly; some agents and publishers are rubbish (hers may not have been but some are and you won't care when you sign the contract  -  you'll only care when "stuff happens".
• The Amazon reviews hurt. They may be right or they may be wrong. Personally, I think most Amazon reviews, even the positive ones, are suspect and I generally wouldn't trust them. But, when you get publshed you have to take them; you also have to take the fact that they can destroy you.
• listen to this: "the holy grail of publication hasn't involved a single piece of ego-stroking or validation, and it feels as though it may as well not have happened." Publication is often not the way to eternal happiness. You are all embarking on a journey which will contain many hours of heartache. Most of which no one else will ever see. Thank God. Beleaguered Squirrel has been movingly open about it. If you knew what screws me up at night you'd be surprised  -  I am often a mess of angst and failure.
  
• BS is so depressed that she gave up writing altogether. OK, that's awful but I hope it's not true. And in fact we know it's not, don't we? We know that BS will pull herself together and get back on the horse. I twice gave up writing during my 21 years of failure  -  or I said I was giving up. I was giving up outwardly. But I never really gave up. You can't. Not if you're a real writer. I don't know if she's good enough to get further than she already has  -  but gosh, I hope she is.  

Importantly, she asks: "Do you think sometimes a writer just has to admit they are a bit crap, and give up?" Yes, it would often be most helpful if that were to happen. But not if the writer is not crap. Which brings us to the important question: is BS a crap writer? I'm inclined to think that she isn't. I'm inclined to think that she hasn't written the right book yet. I'm inclined to think that she will not give up and that she will one day come up with the right book, if she carries on trying and learning and writing. I'm inclined to think that I've not got very many grounds for believing this but I do know that if I was an agent I would want to see BS's work. 

In fact, suddenly I really want to read it.

Why have I posted this? Why have I revealed the terrible heartache of the long-distance writer? Because you need to know. You need to know how good you have to be, how much you have to want it, and how even when you get it it may not be enough. In fact, if you're any good and if you want it so much, it probably won't be enough. Wanting more, being hungry, being greedy for success, being grasping and dementedly desperate are the things that will screw you up and carry you through. They will bring you heartsong and success and they will hurt you in the process.

That's the horrible paradox of writing.

ANYONE FOR NANOWRIMO??

Any of you participating in NaNoWriMo this year? Do you even know what it is?? To find out, and to find out about my experiences, read how I blogged about it after doing a private version with some other children's writers and then check out the official site.


When I did my Nanowrimo, I found it very positively challenging and interesting. It was tiring, sometimes frantic, but it energised rather than exhausted me. If you decide to join in the international one, PLEASE let us know how you get on. But do prepare for it  -  you must be at the right place in a piece of writing or idea and may need to make some alterations to your routines. You'll probably need to stock up on coffee and chocolate, too.

I'm not doing the official one, because I am not in the right place and, besides, one thing I learnt was that I could do it myself, or perhaps with a friend  -  a "writing buddy". What it mostly does is force you to find time to write, nagged  -  sorry, encouraged  -  by other people. It puts writing at the top of your to-do list (where it should already be for me but often isn't); it challenges your perceptions of what you can do, your habits and your entrenched beliefs in the writing process. All those things are good.

It's something you'll love or hate. It could change your life, or at least your writing life. And for many of us, that's the biggest part we want to change.

Even if you don't do a NaNoWriMo, do consider buying this fabulous book. It's genuinely eye-opening, and I say that as someone not addicted to self-help books or books that claim to sort out my life:

And if you'd like to swing
a few pennies my way
in doing so,
please buy it through this link.

ANDREW CROFTS - THE GHOST SPEAKS

You may have noticed that I've never had a guest post on this blog. I guard my territory jealously, you see. But I know what I don't know, and one thing I don't know about (but am fascinated by) is ghost-writing. So, imagine my pleasure and surprise when the UK's most famous ghost-writer walked through my walls recently and tapped me on the shoulder. After I'd regained my equilibrium and stopped shivering, Andrew Crofts and I got communicating entirely without the use of a ouija board, and he very kindly agreed to share his knowledge AND answer your (sensible) questions.

First, a bit about the man behind the ghost:
Andrew Crofts is one of the country's leading ghostwriters. He has ghosted over 80 books in the last 20 years, a dozen of which have been Sunday Times number one bestsellers. He is also the author of "The Freelance Writer's Handbook", (Piatkus), and "Ghostwriting", (A&C Black). The latter was quoted extensively by Robert Harris in his recent thriller "The Ghost", which has just been filmed by Roman Polanski with Ewan McGregor playing the ghost.

Andrew is currently writing a series of inter-related novels for Blake Publishing about modern fame and the price it exerts on those who pursue it. The first in the series was "The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride", to be followed early next year by "The Fabulous Dreams of Maggie de Beer".

Rather than do a full-scale interview, I decided just to focus on four things, aspects which I thought you might like to hear about.

ME: You had a background in business writing before you had your first ghosting commission  -  do you think it would be possible for an unproven / unpublished writer, however competent, to become a ghost-writer? And do you have some basic advice for how to go about building a platform from which to get that first contract? Maybe you could also say what specific skills a ghost-writer needs as opposed to another sort of writer. (I don't ask much, do I?)

ANDREW:

"I think any writer could learn how to ghost if they felt the role would suit them.

"From the day I left school I was doing any kind of freelance writing I could get, including business writing, women's magazines, fiction, the lot. The best way to start ghosting is to find someone who you think has a book in their head or their filing cabinet and then offer to write it for them and take it to publishers and agents on their behalf.

"You could start small. If, for instance, you know of someone who runs a particularly successful local garden centre you could suggest that they do a book on plant care. You then produce a synopsis, explaining what would be in the book and why they would be a good person to write it, (and maybe persuade them to agree to sell the book through their outlets). You then head off to the publishers with it. If that doesn't work there is always the possibility of self-publishing it for them.

"Once you have one or two books under your belt you can approach publishers and agents and tell them that you are a ghost and that you are looking for commissions.

"It will not happen overnight, but with perseverance it will eventually work.You could also start out by offering your services as an editor and then gradually take on bigger and bigger briefs until you are eventually writing the entire books.

"To be a successful ghost you need to be totally non-confrontational, endlessly patient and willing to get no glory at all. Imagine how you would behave if you were Barack Obama's speech writer; most of the same rules would apply."

ME: You are well known as being incredibly proactive on the marketing and platform-building front  -  is this something you happened to be good at or did you have to work at it at first? What were you starting points or skills / advantages that you built on?

ANDREW:

"I find marketing very interesting, (I used to write a lot for publications like Marketing Week).

"Imagine you are a skilled carpenter. You decide to spend a year creating a truly wonderful piece of furniture, an absolute masterpiece. All through the year you are starving, begging and borrowing just to stay alive long enough to finish your masterpiece. At the end of the year you are thousands of pounds in debt, which means you are going to have to charge a fortune for this one piece in order to recoup your finances. What if no one wants to pay that much? What if no one wants to buy it at all?

"So many writers take exactly that approach to their careers. They produce the beautiful novel that they want to write, and then wonder why no one else wants to pay them the going rate for the time they have invested.

"Supposing that you, the carpenter, took a different approach. Suppose you went round asking people what they would like you to do for them? Would they like a coffee table that will take you just a few days to make? How about a new front door, or a garden bench? Maybe they would like a complete fitted kitchen? That is marketing, as opposed to selling, and it is exactly the same approach that authors need to take if they want to make a living from their craft.

"Ask the publishers, (or anyone else you can think of), what they need and then provide it for them.

"Once you have a regular income you can then schedule in a bit of time to create your beloved masterpiece, and you will at least have made a few potential contacts when the time comes to try to sell it."

ME: And now you are writing your own fiction. The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride was published in 2008 and the Fabulous Dreams of Maggie de Beer is out early in 2010. Tell us how this came about  -  something you'd wanted to do for a long time or something that came to you one day? And tell us what sort of a writing journey that has been.

ANDREW:

"Every so often over the years I have had an idea for a novel which I have found irresistible.

"My current obsession is with instant fame. I have worked a lot with celebrities and with people connected to television shows like Big Brother, The X-Factor, EastEnders and Richard and Judy. I also have a daughter who is an actress. I find the whole idea of mass-media celebrity fascinating.

"I also wanted to write something that the actress daughter, (Olivia Grodd), could use as a showcase on YouTube. So I created the character of Steffi McBride, a young girl who almost accidentally becomes the nation's darling in a soap opera, only to have her life ripped apart by media revelations about her past.

"One of the revelations is that her mother is not who she thinks she is. Her real mother, (Maggie de Beer), is a show girl/vice girl/ page three girl from the seventies who sold her soul, (and gave up her child), in exchange for a shot at being famous. Maggie's story consequently followed Steffi's in a prequel coming out next year.

"Olivia made the video and appeared on the cover of Steffi McBride, which garnered us a few more column inches, and her younger sister, Jess Crofts, is now appearing on the cover of the prequel. 

"A few years ago I wrote "Maisie's Amazing Maids" which was a book with a ghostwriter as the central protagonist. Because I could talk about ghosting I was able to promote the book far more widely than you usually can with fiction, (chatting to Mariella Frostrup on Radio 4, that sort of thing)."

ME: Again, you're marketing the fiction incredibly proactively  -  and using your daughter's talents along the way! How is this marketing different from what you've done before? 

"This marketing campaign has really been an extension of what I have been doing all along. The idea is always to get a book talked and written about as much as possible in order to draw it to the attention of as many people as possible in the hope that they will be tempted to buy it.

"When I am selling the concept for a ghosted book to a publisher I have to use all the same marketing techniques.

"It took me a very long time, for instance, to persuade publishers that the public would actually like to read stories about children overcoming adversity, (the sort of books that are now taken for granted and dismissed by the very grand as "misery memoirs"). Each time a new story came along I had to go the rounds yet again, sometimes with an agent, sometimes without, trying to convince publishers that my subjects had a worthwhile story to tell. The marketing process always involved writing powerful synopses/selling documents.

"Thankfully, once you have had a few number one bestsellers, people become more willing to listen."

Andrew, that was fascinating, thank you!

OK, class, let me give you my observations about what Andrew said, and then hand over to you for comments and questions.

1. You will notice that Andrew has worked incredibly hard at all this. He has had to have not only writing talent and skills, but also determination, energy, intuition, adaptability, and (crucially) a very clever combination of confidence and yet absence of arrogance. He has learnt along the way, by listening and tuning in to what publishers want. And has in doing so carved out a very successful space in the writing world. This has not fallen into his lap.
   
2. The marketing has not become less as he has had more books published  -  this is an author who (very like me) loves and values his books enough to want to put every possible effort into their success. He has not expected people to do things for him.
   
3. Why did he write these novels? Because he's hugely interested in and fascinated by the topic. He used the word "irresistible". But he has also picked something which others may find irresistible too, because he's tuned into what people want. That's an essential combination and one which we'd all do well to remember.
   
4. Doesn't this sound like a man who loves his job?
5. What you don't know is how quickly, efficiently and helpfully Andrew sent in his answers to my questions. The point being: efficiency and professionalism impress. And impressing people with your efficiency and professionalism is always valuable. Not that I'm paying him anything...
   
6. Don't you just love this line? "Thankfully, once you have had a few number one bestsellers, people become more willing to listen." What can I say?!
   

On behalf of everyone, thank you so much, Andrew, for calling by. I'm now off to add Steffi McB to my wishlist.

Questions? Comments? Or are you all off to haunt someone?


(Andrew does have a fulsome website on ghost-writing and aspects of his own work, so I ask you to visit it before asking something, as we don't want to waste his time with things he's already said.) 

THERE'S ONLY SO MUCH A CRABBIT OLD BAT CAN DO

Dear Crabbit Old Bat,
You give such good advice on your esteemed blog (bows, scrapes and touches forelock) that I wondered if you could help me? See, I am really trying my very, very best to follow all your words of wisdom (more flattery, more, more) but I still don't quite seem to have managed to get published. So, please go on my website, where you'll see I have put loads of samples of my best works, including the much-loved (by me) fantasy trilogy, The Mega-Magical World of Gloom Valley and the Invasion of the Man-Eating Night-Birds. I just wondered if you could tell me what you think and give me some advice to get me published. Go on, you know you want to! I'd be really grateful. Anyway, I know you're not really as crabbit as you seem!

Yours in anticipation,
A Fan

OK, I know I exaggerate, but only a bit. See, I've been getting a few of these emails recently. In fact, more than a few.

Of course I'm thrilled. My heart melts with a warm glow. I am touched. Especially by words like "esteemed" and "wisdom" and "Fan". And by the idea that you think I can wave a magic wand and help you.

On the other hand, I am not thrilled. There are a few reasons why I am not thrilled and why I have a minor frisson of panic and meh-ness when you (lovely) readers contact me in this way.

Reasons to say meh on receipt of such emails:

1. I am very (very) busy
2. I should be spending much more time on trying to earn a living. (Ask my agent).
   
3. I spend hours giving free advice on my blog, which I absolutely love doing but which I kind of feel is enough at least in terms of the free part
   
4. It takes a lot of time to offer individual advice
5. And there can be a severe downside  -  especially if you didn't like my advice. It could get personal. I'm not very good with personal: it tends to keep me awake at night.
   
6. Another downside is that unless we have a formal agreement at the start, you could turn round and accuse me of stealing your idea. Now, I know I wouldn't do that (I have enough of my own) but can I afford the time to explain that and get it cleared up before I read your tome?
7. Advice that might seem to you to be easily accessible in my head, all ready to be spewed out onto the keyboard, actually takes some time to sort out and set out and check
8. You are asking me to give professional advice for nothing. Would you expect a lawyer to do this? Or an accountant? Or a plumber? Or frankly, any self-employed person. Now I know that I'm not really crabbit but actually pathetically generous, and often say yes to things I shouldn't, but I have to draw the line, and the line is here.
   

In short, I have to ask myself the ruthless question, What's in it for me?

Now, there is an answer to this question which might help both you and me: next year, I plan to start offering individual advice, in the form of a professional critique service, talks and workshops. The planned name is Pen2Publication. At the moment I am thinking through the details with a partner. (While also doing my existing writing, if you're listening, o wondrous agent. And yes, that novel will get written...)

Ideas include:

• critiques at various levels
• individual advice on submissions
• residential weekends / days with around 20 aspiring writers, where we focus on "how to make a publisher say yes". I'd do the weekends in partnership with another writer.
  
• talks around the theme "Hurdles and Hooks  -  your road to being published"  -  I already have some events lined up for university Creative Writing MA courses, but I'll also do talks open to the public, or to existing writers' groups. (If your group might be interested, let me know).
  

So, what do you think? (See, there's me asking for free advice now!) I'm trying to assess demand and see what people would want. But it has to be secondary to my main writing work.

Meanwhile, to those of you who want to ask for individual advice, please bear in mind the downsides for me.  I can't / won't read your work for nothing  -  not even if you try to persuade me with boots, Hotel Chocolat or sparkly wine.

HOWEVER  -  if there's a small question of possibly public interest you'd like me to answer, do ask me and I'll blog about it if possible. (Email n@nicolamorgan.co.uk) I'll do it with or without naming you, at your instruction.

It's the "please read my work and tell me what you think" that's the problem. You may think, "she's a successfulish writer so she can afford to do these things." Unfortunately, successfulish only happens if I try to be balance free stuff with paid stuff. My agent  -  who reads this blog, so I should watch what I say  -  thinks I'm writing a novel. I am. I am.

Meanwhile, I hope you're all working hard on your entries to the Hotel Chocolat Halloween competition. Flash fiction is a genuinely great opportunity to hone your writing skills and write for a public audience. And with ten prizes, the odds are good.

WORDS +COMPETITION +HALLOWEEN +HOTEL CHOCOLAT = hooray!

Look, I know: I'm a tart. I'm easy. Throw me chocolate and I'm yours. I don't much mind if your chocolate is shaped like ghouls or witches, little devils or a cabbage. But, taste-wise, I have my standards: it can't just be any chocolate. So, when the divinely luxurious Hotel Chocolat people offered me TEN Boo Boxes as a Halloween gift so that I could come up with a competition that combined Halloween (that's the BOO bit) with chocolate and writing, how could I refuse?



Well, to be honest and accurate, I did refuse. Look, I thought, my readers are the hot-shot writers: let them do the creating and the writing. Not me. I am too ...er...busy.

So, here's your task:

Flash fiction. A very short story, up to 100 words, which most gorgeously, elegantly, poignantly, creatively, wittily or movingly (or any combination thereof) includes three ingredients in any proportion or combination: chocolate, fear and the written word. Any genre, any age-range. 

Deadline: midday, British time, on October 21st. That's 21st, NOT 31st...  

The method: by email  -  NOT comment box  -  with your name and address (which will only be sent to Hotel C if you're one of the winners and will not be kept by me after that) to: writingtutor@hotmail.co.uk. Please put "HALLOWEEN HOTEL CHOCOLAT COMP" in the subject line of the email.

A rule: each writer may enter up to two entries.

A point of info: each writer retains copyright, but must allow me to post any of the winning entries, duly credited, on my blog on Oct 31st.

The judgement: to be delivered by me, in consultation with a ghoulish fiend  -  sorry, I mean friend  -  in time for you to claim your Halloween chocolate prize by the appropriate date.

Dastardly proviso 1: these Halloween gift chocolates can only be sent to a UK address... SORRY! Of course, writers from other countries may enter, and nominate a UK recipient, who will no doubt be endlessly grateful. You get the glory and they get the chocolate. Tough call... [Edited to add: following Marisa's generous / devious offer, please do not nominate your intended recipient until you've been told you've won!]

Devious proviso 2: please (if you haven't already) join this blog as a follower if you possibly can  -  it's free and has no downside. It does not mean that I send you things. It helps me to know that you're out there and I'm not just whistling in the wind.

Obvious warning: follow those submission guidelines, consummate professionals that you are.

Please also comment below as normal, for example to tell me how much you will love me if you win. (I am always open to bribes, despite the interference of some US organisation which calls itself the FTC, which wants to stop such things amongst bloggers. At least I am open about my bribability.)

But, most importantly, take this as a serious writing task: ask not how much Halloween gift chocolate you might win but how beautiful your words might be.

Hang on: don't you feel sorry for me, not being able to win this scrummy prize myself? Weep not, because the gorgeous people at Hotel Chocolat have said that I deserve some Halloween chocolate too. Me! Hooray for asking and receiving!

I don't know how to spell the sound that has just come from my mouth. I am like Homer Simpson contemplating his fifth burger. I am like an oyster-lover about to prise open the juicest oyster in the Southern Seas. Or wherever oysters grow most succulently. I am in anticipatory chocolate heaven.

Mmmmmmmmmrgrmgrmmrmgrmmrmgrrrahhhhhhh.

I love Hotel Chocolat. (Obviously). You have to try it. There's even a catalogue and home delivery and everything  -  crikey, you don't even have to get out of bed!

Write, damn it, write and dream  -  and if you're an idiot who doesn't like chocolate, do it for the glory of the writing.

And now, I must calm down. Thank you, lovely Hotel Chocolat people.

Btw, do you think there's really a Hotel Chocolat? Could I stay there? Would it be a case of "you can stay there any time you want, but you can never leave?" (And are the Eagles now going to sue me for breach of copyright or is that "fair use"? Would I care as long as I had chocolate?)

WHAT NOT TO EXPECT FROM A PUBLISHER

As a hilarious antidote to the info in my previous post (below) about what to expect from a publisher, do read this piece in the New Yorker. Actually, if this did happen, you should be rather grateful. This is attention of the highest order. (Thanks to various twitterers who tweeted it.)

Then, do come back here this evening for details of a chocolate + Halloween themed creative writing competition, on this blog only: a chance for you to hone your chosen writing voice / genre in a piece of flash fiction, with TEN prizes generously donated by Hotel Chocolat. Yes, Hotel Chocolat. Thank you, lovely chocolately people.

WHAT TO EXPECT AROUND PUBLICATION

Let's get positive today. Imagine you're about to be published  -  hooray! I see the frisson of excitement rippling across your face. You can't stop grinning!

Of course, you'll grin when it happens. You may well do some leaping too, but ideally in the privacy of your garret, since an author leaping is not usually a pretty sight. But what else can and should you expect on P-Day? Specifically, what should you expect from your publishers?

This post was prompted by a question in the comments after Networks and Platforms  -  Must I? David Griffin asked about advance copies and who was responsible for these, author or publisher? That's a simplish question (answered below) but it leads to other issues about expectations. 

So, what should an author expect? That is not to say that this will always happen, but you should expect it, with details and extent depending on the nature of your book and publisher. And how useful the activity would be. (Not how much you'd love it to happen...) 

Important things to get into your head:

1. Publishers want to sell as many copies as possible. Obviously. They have borne all the cost and they want to recoup it, quickly and fully, and more than fully. So do you. You are both on the same side. Never forget that, even in the dark moments when you wonder what the hell they're doing. (Note to lovely Walker Books: of course, I have never wondered that in your case.)
   
2. That does not mean that money will be thrown around. Nor should it be. Every book has a marketing budget. That budget may be zero. A zero budget does not mean zero publicity / promotion, however. Also, some things must be done regardless of marketing budget. (Advance copies being one).
3. The budget and effort expended will relate to a judgement about how useful that spend will be for THIS book. It will be pointless to chuck masses of dosh at a TV campaign which your potential readers won't see. Yes, it will make you feel glorious, but that feeling will soon fade when you sell no books and your publisher makes a loss and stops liking you. 
   
4. You must work with your publisher. Take a look at some of the stuff I did around the publication of Deathwatch in June this year. (There are also two posts above and one below that one, but that gives you a reasonable idea.) I worked my butt off, broke a world record, made two videos (myself, at zero cost, though using a fab screensaver which my publishers made in-house), sold loads of copies and generated goodwill. I nearly died. Everyone was happy because we squeezed every ounce of value from the budget and we worked together perfectly. This is not always easy  -  it requires tact and respect, on both sides. I am lucky. But I worked. Boy, did I work ... Chocolate supplies in Scotland dipped that month.
5. You don't ask what the budget IS  -  you ask what it will allow. "Do we have a budget for...?" And if we don't, go back in your box and think of something cheaper. Cheaper is not less good.
   
6. Marketing costs money, but publicity and promotion need not. Clever people don't need lots of money to sell something. So, don't measure your potential success by the size of your marketing budget.

 What's the minimum you should expect  -  and ask for if it doesn't seem to be there?

1. A structured plan. My main publisher, Walker Books, sends every author, at least six months before publication, an outline of what will happen at each stage. One of these stages allows the author to meet the marketing team. (If it's a very "small" book, say part of a publisher series rather than an author series or stand-alone, this won't happen. But you should still be able to be involved.) If you have an agent, make sure he/she is there at the meeting and has seen the plan.
   
2. A request from your publisher for you to provide relevant info  -  list of contacts, ideas, things you feel happy doing (eg talks)
   
3. Six-three months before pub date, your publisher should decide the details of promotional activity. Eg, lists of newspapers, magazines, events. At this point, contribute your ideas (tactfully ...)
4. The publisher will provide, at their cost, a certain number of copies of the book to send to potential reviewers and booksellers. These will be Advance Reader Copies (ARCs). They may be "proof" copies  -  ie not the real version but a cheaper one, usually with a plainer cover, and not proof-read. But proof copies are expensive and don't always cover their costs  -  if yours is a book that hard-pressed reviewers are unlikely to choose to read, for example. So, publishers may produce a version more like an MS (so, a pile of A4 sheets vaguely bound  -  I hate this. I have done a lot of reviewing for the Guardian newspaper and I only once chose to review a book sent in this format  -  it's just not compelling when you've got 200 beautiful books to choose from). Or the publisher may simply order lots of real copies of the book extra early  -  my publishers ordered hundreds about 6 weeks before publication. These advance copies can be used when appropriate and costs tailored to demand. As to how many  -  it depends how many they can use. A hundred to a thousand. In answer to David J Griffin's question about this, wonderful Lynn Price helpfully replied with the US perspective:
   
   

   David, any trade publisher - small fry like me, or large like Random House - sends out about 100 - 200 ARCs (Advance Reader Copy) to reviewers, bookstore managers, and media.
   
   Any publisher over here in the US who says the author must do this is more than likely a Print On Demand company. ARCs are an upfront expense that PODs can't risk because trade magazines won't review them.
   

   NB: What you should absolutely NOT expect is your publisher to ask how many copies you plan to buy  -  see the excellent recent Writer Beware post here. You may buy them at author discount, and you may give those away, but a) you should never be encouraged to and b) you should never, ever, ever, be asked to sell them. That is not your job (though, by agreement with your publishers, you may choose to. I think I need to do another post about selling author copies  -  it's not simple...).
   
   
   
   
5. The publisher will send them out, at their cost. Whatever the size of your publisher, it's worth asking to see the list of who has received advances. And add to it  -  you give the publisher the names, they send them out. Obviously, you can't just use this to get your friends free copies  -  this is all solely to generate sales. Remember that. Be canny.
   
6. The publisher should work hard to get you any relevant media coverage. But be realistic  -  is your book important enough as a story? It's not enough that you've written a great book  -  what's the story behind it? An example I've used (often...) is the story of a school helping me promote or write a book. Think about it: AUTHOR WRITES BOOK is not a news story, but AUTHOR TRUSTS KIDS WITH BOOK LAUNCH is. 
7. You should also expect inclusion in the publisher catalogue for that season/month/whatever.
8. And a press release to go out with review copies. (I strongly recommend that you ask, very tactfully, to see this and perhaps have some input. You are unlikely to be shown it otherwise, and it will have been written by someone who very possibly hasn't read the book... I have seen some terrible, truly terrible press releases. (Not you, lovely Walker Books  -  don't be paranoid!)
   
9. Events  -  again, this will depend on your book and you, but the publisher should make an effort to get some "gigs". Any help you can give will be crucial. Events will probably be local, at first. Your publisher should, where possible, pay travel expenses for these peri-publicational events  -  but you will need to ask. And they may not be able to, or offer you fewer gigs if they see you'll need expenses  -  so, think about what you can do yourself at minimum cost. At the very least, they should organise all the book-selling (including supply) at these events.

Things you can't take for granted but could discuss:

1. Marketing materials  -  expensive and not always well-used. Posters, for example  -  where are you going to put them? Children's and teenage authors like me can use posters very well, as schools love to paper decaying library walls with them. But other authors may not use them well. Bookmarks  -  again, expensive and not always going to generate sales. (Consider getting your own postcards or small cards / stickers made with a cheap on-line company such as vistaprint.)
2. A launch party? Not necessarily. Again, they don't usually convert into enough sales, though they make authors happy. You'd be surprised how many launches are organised by the author, though with support from the publisher. Organise it yourself and ask for a publisher contribution.
   

In your dreams:

1. Flowers, sparkly wine, chocolate? Dream on! Of course this sometimes happens. A card signed by the whole team is one of the loveliest things to get on pub day, and is quite normal. But don't be offended if it doesn't happen.
2. Anything expensive if it's not likely to translate into sufficient sales. Be realistic. It may sound reasonable to say, "But the more you do, the more books we'll sell." Yes, but a) that doesn't mean that the more money you spend the more likely you are to recoup costs and b) the publisher has other authors and other books and you are not the only fish in the sea.

(For your interest, but at a slight tangent, blogger and author, Caroline Dunford, blogged here at the weekend about her very recent launch and publication. It is an eye-opener for those of you who are dreaming of your launch and signing! A great insight into the mind and emotions of each of us in this position.)

Also, do take a look at this vg post from the BookEnds literary agency. 

In short: all writers have to promote their work, and knowing what to expect from publishers is the important first step. It's not just debut writers: if you want to know how enormously successful writer, Andrew Crofts, goes about working with his publishers to sell as many books as possible, come back on Oct 16th, because I have an interview with him. Andrew is the UK's top ghost-writer, with many huge best-sellers  -  being known at all as a ghost-writer speaks volumes for his success on the platform-building front! He contacted me recently and introduced himself. By chance, I'd been wanting to do a post about ghost-writing (not something I know about, though it fascinates me) and wouldn't have had the courage to contact him, but there he was, contacting me and saying nice things (fortunately). In his interview he gives fascinating advice about the business of being a writer and talks about his move from ghosting into his own fiction. If you think that getting that elusive first deal is the end of the story, mountain climbed, sigh of relief time, you're in for a surprise... 

Andrew's interview is going out on Friday 16th, 8pm UK time. Can't be earlier as I'm away doing more talks again and my train doesn't get back till then. I don't want to miss your comments and questions for Andrew. Join us there, and if you have any questions, he's most kindly agreed to answer them ...

SUBMISSION SPOTLIGHT 5: Adult Readers

We have another brave writer willing to submit herself to the rigours of a Submission Spotlight. (Apologies to others who have sent in submissions  -  I'm getting there, and promise to produce a few more soon.) Her name is Lynn Michell and she is looking forward to your feedback to help her on her way.

If you haven't commented on one of these before, please look under "Submissions Spotlights" in the labels column and see what sort of commenting we expect. The standard of commenting is high, and we want constructive, considered points. Most of you are not professional editors or agents, but readers, and readers' reactions are very important. But "professional" readers do have a different eye and look for different things  -  therefore, please say whether you do have a professional role or not. (I know some publishers read this blog and like to remain in disguise  -  no problem if so!) Also, if this submission is not a genre you normally read, please say  -  then the writer knows how to interpret your views.

Comments must be constructive, whether positive or negative. You may make broad, general points, or focus on tiny details. Please be respectful and consider the writer's feelings  -  but consider even more how you can help her move towards publication.

Note that there was a specific brief which was different from a "normal" submission: to write a covering letter and the first 500 words. Also, this is a UK-style covering letter, rather than a US-style query which would not be accompanied by any material and would therefore be longer. HOWEVER, on this occasion, I have also included the synopsis, because the author kindly sent* me one, and because I think it is worth your looking at. (*And don't criticise her for not following the brief  -  this came about slightly differently!)

Ignore any formatting issues  -  this was a function of me transferring the text to blogger. Assume we're looking at double-spaced type.

Dear Nicola Morgan

White Lies  -  by  -  Lynn Michell

I saw on your website that you are calling for synopses and outlines to critique.  I very much appreciate this opportunity to send you the synopsis of my debut novel White Lies which begins in Liverpool as the second world war breaks out and moves to Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising of the 1950s. It is a slow burning love story which is played out against the backdrop of the desperate, bloody attacks on white colonials by the land-hungry and dispossessed Kikuyu tribes of Kenya.

White Lies was short-listed as a work in preparation for Edinburgh's Robert Louis Stevenson Award in 2007 and again as a finished novel by an emerging writer in 2008. It is literary fiction and roughly 90,000 words.

I have published six non-fiction books with HarperCollins, Longman and The Women's Press and have won a number of prizes for short stories. This is my first novel.

I do hope that you want to read more.

Yours sincerely

Lynn Michell

(500 word sample)

White Lies
Chapter One
Folkestone
2001

From far away they look like a rock group posing for a publicity shoot, neither together nor apart, facing all ways. A tall middle-aged man with hair as wild as the wind. A woman holding the arm of an old man; a second fairer woman leaning in on his other side. A beautiful, skinny youth with a shaved head who remains a little apart, perhaps because he is young and feels things keenly. And a young man in his twenties holding the cardboard box as carefully as if he were carrying a child. Close to though, it is obvious that they are not posing at all. This is for real.

It was late afternoon when the two cars pulled up in the car park above the beach. Like other beaches on the stretch of English coastline between Folkestone and Dover, it was a chill grey, bleak and disheartening. In the front seat Eve's son Alex held a square cardboard box on his knee. It was Alex who had sat with his grandfather round the clock until the others had raced to him from motor-ways and airports. Alex who always wore jeans had bought a new black suit and a black tie and black shoes because he knew appearance meant a lot to his grandfather.

The old soldier, so much older now than five days ago, stumbled when he set foot on the cobbled stones above the beach. Eve grabbed him and held him steady as they squeezed their way two abreast down the pedestrian path which was wide enough only for one. A wet wind soaked their faces and stormy clouds whipped across the sky. Each one was thinking, How do I do this? I have never done this before.

It is hard enough to walk across shifting stacks of stones when fit and young, but how to manage when you are eighty-nine and giddy with grief? The old man comes to a halt too far from the sea and rests for a moment, wanting to shake off the two women who prop him up, wishing to be alone with his thoughts. Earlier that afternoon, walking behind the coffin over the strip of red carpet, he had reached out his hand to touch the wood and said, I want to see her again, and Eve had whispered, Father, you can't. It's too late now.

We are dressed inappropriately, thinks Eve. Here we are in our funeral finery when we need our wellies and waterproofs and hats. Glancing at her husband Max, she worries that the men will be frozen in their thin white shirts and suits. They gather together to wait for a lull but the sea has never-ending reserves of energy while they are drained of theirs. It scores each time it rushes up to froth around their ankles and shoes.


SYNOPSIS + PLOT


‘By 1950, Kenya was on the verge of one of the bloodiest and most protracted wars of decolonisation fought in Britain’s twentieth century empire.’  Britain’s Gulag. P 28.

White Lies is about different kinds of war and different kinds of loving.  It explores the fragility and partiality of memory, the political and personal interpretation of history, and our need to re-write the past so that it does not jar with the stories we tell ourselves.

An army family is posted to Nairobi in 1952.  The Mau Mau rebellion, currently in the news again, is both central and peripheral to the different family members who live through the Emergency.  Looking back, the old soldier reflects on the differences between the conventional warfare of the second world war and the hit-and-run tactics of an invisible, unreadable enemy.  His is the accepted colonial account. He experiences military action against the Mau Mau as dutiful service and personal fulfilment. His wife Mary’s story of the same period comes to light only after her death.  While her husband finds satisfaction in being a leader of men, she falls in love with an Intelligence officer who understands Kenya’s history, sympathises with the country’s dispossessed tribes, and shows Mary a kind of loving she has never before experienced.  While their father is out on armed patrol and their mother is keeping trysts with her lover, their two little girls recount fragments of their time in Nairobi as well as earlier memories of their safe days with their grandparents in a Dorset village. Their ghost-like voices break into the adult narrative, recalling images remembered with wide-eyed innocence.

This is a slow-burning love story set against a political backdrop. The plot twists and turns, gaining momentum, towards its unexpected ending.

PLOT

When Mary Dell dies there is no-one left to mourn her except her husband, David, her two daughters, Eve and Clara, and their sons, yet amongst the flowers is a wreath from someone called Ann.  Their father, giddy with grief, remains silent on the subject.  When they clear their mother's room, Eve and Clara find a shoe-box of papers which Clara offers to take home.

Unable to look after himself, David Dell moves close to Eve.  While as a child Eve found security in her father, now their roles are reversed as the old man leans on his daughter. While the present is a challenge, the past is vivid and sharp.  He tells Eve his stories, over and over, until one day she suggests he writes his memoirs.  And so they begin, David talking and Eve typing.  Where do you want to start? Eve asks.  Nairobi, he replies without hesitation. 

Part way through his story David stuns Eve by telling her that something terrible happened to Mary one night when he was out on patrol.  Too upset to continue, he walks out leaving Eve without further explanation. Why does she not remember?  Nor Clara?  They recall nights of fear locked in their bedroom while their mother barricaded herself in her room with a loaded revolver.  But something worse?

While her father is talking, Eve recaptures images from the past and in remembering, questions his version of events, both the public and the private. Sometimes she interrupts him with fragments of her own story.

In London, Clara is caught up in the terrorist bombings of July 2005.  Reminded of Nairobi and curious to know how her mother coped with a similar kind of fear, she opens the shoe-box of papers. There is a diary and a letter, recently dated, to Ann. 

Now we hear Mary's story of her courtship and marriage, her war years followed by stultifying village life, and her time in Nairobi. In the background, colonials and Kikuyu are killing one another and David is out on patrol risking his life but Mary is lost in a passionate relationship that dominates the present and shapes the future.

David turns up on Eve’s doorstep one day to finish his memoir and to write about what happened to Mary one night in Nairobi. As Eve types, she discovers that her father's and her mother's accounts are different and irreconcilable. 

A middle-aged woman boards a plane to Nairobi to trace her past and find her roots.

NECESSARY TALENT REQUIRED, SORRY

Briefly (because I'm away doing talks this week and next) I bring you a short but to the point (and poignant) post from the inimitable Editorial Anonymous.

This is a really important though tough message. Just wanting a story to be told, even needing it for one's own healing, is simply not enough to make a publishable story that will cut the mustard in a market where people must want to spend money and time to read it. It's not going to happen without talent.

Moving away from that specific example and onto the more general subject of people thinking they need / deserve / ought to tell a story ...

We need to understand a few things (well, a lot, but a few for starters):

• just having a story you burn to tell does not mean your story deserves to be published  -  passion is not enough: only the writing matters. I have blogged about this trenchantly here.
• children's writing is very much harder than it looks. Everyone thinks they can start there but it's probably the hardest place to start and I can tell you that the most delirious drivel on the slush-pile consists of writing by people who thought they'd start with children's writing because it looked easier. I've seen it. Trust me: it's frequently shocking. 
• that what an editor does is not about spotting a few missing commas or spelling mistakes. God, if I have to explain how it's not...

Grief can be a powerful motivator to write. Unfortunately, if you're not a great writer, your grief won't thrust greatness upon you.

That's a tough message. I'm sorry. Really sorry. I'm sorry mostly because to compound the grief, some writers are going to be rejected, again and again. Which is not going to make them feel one bit better.

Writing is a wonderful way of expressing oneself, the best in my opinion. However, expecting people to pay money and spend their own valuable time in the cause of reading it, when there's so much to read and so little time, is quite another thing. Whatever your motivation, whatever your passion, your writing must be good enough. While we're unpublished, we work to get better and better and we can't look to editors until we're good enough to be edited.

Ugh, I hated saying all that. I am so losing my crabbit touch.

MYTHS ABOUT WRITING: 1 - I CAN LEAVE IT TO EDITORS

Here begins an occasional series of short posts on Myths about Writing. The first one concerns a serious and oft-expressed misconception amongst writers when sending a submission to an agent or publisher.

MYTH 1: It doesn't matter if it's not perfect because an editor will want to suggest changes anyway and a copy-editor will pick up any minor errors. Oh, AND there'll be a proof-reader.

Both bits in blue are true; the bit in red is the mythical conclusion. I regret that nowadays the green bit may not be true either. Not using a proof-reader is a modern cost-cutting exercise and a very bad idea, in my view. Authors beware.

Let me tell you very briefly what those three people do, before explaining my main point.

AN EDITOR will make general comments and argue for changes relating mostly to fairly major things. For example:

• the pace  -  too fast here or too slow there. Here's a post I did on pace.
  
• voice slippages  -  see my post here for a lesson on voice control for authors
  
• characterisation issues
  
• plot structure, believability and consistency  -  things that don't ring true or don't work
  
• many other things she/he feels prevent your story being as strong as it could be
• smaller things that she/he happens to notice (including all those on the copy-ed's list below), but the editor is not required to pick up small errors when a copy-editor and/or proof-reader will be coming along afterwards
  

A COPY-EDITOR comes along once you and the editor have agreed all the changes, and looks for smaller problems such as:

• continuity errors  -  eg contradictory clothes / weather / personality traits / statements that you've made
• other inconsistencies and glitches
  
• odd / wrong usages of words
• sentences that would be better rephrased
• punctuation, spelling, grammatical errors and typos that the editor had not mentioned
  

The copy-editor usually doesn't have direct contact with you, but is instructed by the editor. The editor looks at the copy-edits first, then passes them to you with comments; you go through them and make such changes as you agree with, and then pass them back to the editor.

(Some publishers, particularly smaller ones, may not use a copy-editor but go straight to proof-reading. If, however, there is only an editor, with no recourse to either copy-editing or proof-reading, I'd be worried. Then it's down to the author to have the eagle-eye.)

A PROOF-READER is the final reader, working after the book has been type-set (because new errors can creep in during type-setting) and looking for:

• anything at all that the editor, copy-editor and author have missed
• any new errors that have crept in, however small
  
• errors of layout, such as incomplete lines, extra spaces, widows and orphans, instances where a paragraph is broken in an unattractive place when a page ends (the copy-ed may also have spotted these, though things change after copy-edits have been inserted)
• inconsistencies of house-style  -  eg single or double quote marks, en- vs em-dashes
  

I can understand that you might be thinking, "So, if they do all this, it doesn't matter if I submit my work to an editor or agent with a few errors in. In fact, isn't it a waste of time on my part to bother with such details at this stage?"

NO, NO, NO.

No.

Here are a few reasons why:

• while all these editing experts will bend over backwards to work with an author who is already with the publisher, they won't wish to do so for a complete unknown. There is good reason for this: they know that their existing author will deliver. For example, my editor knows exactly what she will get from me when she suggests changes: an intelligent response, a listening ear, a professional reaction. She knows [I like to think] that I am worth making effort for. But my editor does not know any of that about you  -  you might respond with crappiness or a blank look. You might fail to make the required changes because you may have made the errors in the first place through uselessness rather than oversight. Sorry, but that's how it is. Thing is, I and other published authors can get away with things that you can't.
  
• the editor does not actually make the changes: you do. The editor simply points out the problems. This means that you have to be good enough to understand exactly what is being asked and why. Again, the editor doesn't know this about you yet.
  
• if you send in a document full of glaring errors, this tells them that you are at best lazy and careless and at worst not a good writer. This is very different from sending in something that is beautifully written and structured, and perfectly laid out and punctuated (etc) but has a few things the editor would like you to do differently. If you send in the latter, the editor will want to work with you to perfect it; if the former, not.
• in short, you have not proved yourself worth investing in  -  so why should a publishing company risk a lot of time and money editing you to hell and back?
• first impressions count.  If in the first few pages you have even a couple of errors that indicate lack of brilliance of language, this may be enough to stop the agent or publisher reading on.
  
• brilliance does shine through errors, yes, and allowances can therefore be made. But think of this as an equation: the more errors and problems you reveal to your potential editor, the more stunningly brilliant your book must be in order to capture her confidence. Of course, you believe your book is stunningly brilliant, and you could be right. However, if you are so professional and determined to succeed, do you not want to show your best work to your potential backer? Because that's another thing an editor does: backs you and your writing, not just now but throughout your career with that publisher. And sometimes for longer  -  my first editor moved to a different publisher, and I moved with her. [Funnily, she's an old bat too. The attraction of bats, I think you call it.] 
• we are in a recession which is hitting publishing and authors hard  -  this means you have to raise your game higher; although perfection is unachievable, it should be aimed at more now than ever. That is a Good Thing. Published authors are also finding we have to raise our game in first drafts, too  -  some publishers are taking any chance to pull out of contracts and turn us down. Gah, it's a scary world out there  -  arm yourselves with the Shield of Stupendousness.
  

In short, do not contemplate offering your work to an agent or editor if you think you could make it better.

However, there's a caveat: it is possible to get so hung up on perfection that you never have the courage to send the damned MS. All I will say is that if you don't send it, you won't get published. So, aim for perfection, work hard to achieve it, but at some point make the decision that you have done the absolute best you can.

Then send it.

From that point, do not look at it again. Leave it and get writing your next book. You must not look at your first one again until a lovely editor wants you to make some little changes, which you will be absolutely thrilled to do...

I am going to blog soon about how to be edited and enjoy it. Most authors are only too happy with the idea of someone helping sort out their weaknesses, but a) a few are strangely reluctant to admit that they need it and b) even those who want it are often not sure how to deal with it when it happens.

TWITTERING IS NOT JUST FOR BIRDS

It would be possible (though not for me) to write a book about Twitter. However, it would be pointless, because it changes so fast. There's also plenty of help on the internet, so I'll just select salient points from an author's perspective. I am a fairly new Twitterer, or at least newly converted to its value, and I am sure there are other ways to use it. But I don't want Twitter to take over your life or mine  -  remember, we are artistes, dahlings, not birds; and our real writing must come first.

I know from your comments on my post about blogging that many of you are sceptical about Twitter anyway. I won't evangelise about it, just tell you why I like it and how I do it.

If you haven't read my recent post about whether and why authors need platforms, please do. And the one on blogging was part of the same trio of posts on author pre-, post- and peri-publicationary marketing. (Yes, I did just invent that word, but you are welcome to use it if you can get your tongue around it.)

WHY TWITTER?

It's free, fast, instant, and doesn't have to be time-consuming. It's perfect for the self-employed who want to keep up-to-date with what's going on in their industry, who want to make contact with people of similar interests, and who want to raise their "platform".

Your experience of Twitter will be determined largely by the people you choose to "follow". If you follow 500 people who tweet boringly 50 times a day, you will see hundreds of mind-numbingly dull tweets and gain nothing. If you select people who have interesting things to say and who come up with useful links, thoughts and blog posts (which they link to), you'll have a great time, make contacts and learn loads.

SOME STARTING THOUGHTS:

1. If you don't use Twitter, your life will continue unabated. By avoiding Twitter, you are not condemning yourself to obscurity.
   
2. Twitter is a tool to make contacts and keep up with what's going on in your chosen areas, but it is not the only tool. There is no rule that says authors must Twitter.
3. I find it very useful, fun, and not at all time-consuming. It is much less time-consuming than blogging, and is in some ways easier. (Yes, and completely different.)
   
4. You can do it just on your computer or also on your mobile. Doing it by mobile/cell-phone certainly opens up more use for you, but obviously it depends on your tariff and internet allowance. I use an iphone which makes it stupendously easy, but then the iphone makes life stupendously easy ...
   

FACEBOOK OR TWITTER?

If you use Facebook, you may wonder why you need Twitter. I use Facebook purely socially, for fun and friends. I use Twitter for professional reasons. It's part of my working day. A small but important part. You can link Facebook to Twitter, though I don't because it can be annoying for FB friends who have chosen not to be involved in Twitter.

Think of a dog. Facebook is the equivalent of a dog lying on its back by the fire being scratched between the ears and luxuriating at the end of a hard day's squirrel-chasing. Twitter is the equivalent of a dog going for a quick walk and sniffing at absolutely everything to see what's been going on in the neighbourhood since its last walk. Twitter, one might say, is about pissing and sniffing. Apologies for that but I can't think of a better way to put it.

TWITTER BASICS  -  really basics (skip this if you already know what Twitter is):

• People follow you and you follow people.
• If you follow someone, you automatically see their "tweets". (A tweet is a message, up to 140 characters long). Twitter consists of nothing but tweets. 
• Tweets can contain links and pictures. These are formatted in a special tweety way.
  
• People who follow you see all your tweets.
• If you follow someone, you and that person can also send each other Direct Messages (DMs). No one else can see a DM. (I hope...) No one can send you a DM if you aren't following that person.
  
• Unlike Facebook, anyone can follow you without your permission. (Though you can block people.)
• Twitter is very quick to access  -  much quicker than sending an email. You can choose to have it on in the background while you're working, or just access it when you want. There are various Twitter platforms or "clients" to choose from, and I'll speak about one (Tweetdeck) below.
• Spambots (robots) have invaded Twitter; so, some people who follow you will be trying to sell things  - don't follow them back. Block them.
  

HOW TO START and how to continue

• go to www.twitter.com and sign up. It's free and you can change your profile later.
• you'll see an option saying "find people"  -  one option is for Twitter to trawl your email address book. It will come up with all your contacts who are on Twitter.
• you're started!
• you choose which of those names to follow; then you can find who they follow, and follow them in turn
• on your Twitter page, explore the small number of options on the right  -  particularly the one where it says @your name  -  here you can choose to see all tweets with your name in  -  there won't be any yet because you've just started, but there soon will be!
  
• now, consider choosing a better "client" than the basic Twitter page. There are many but the one I use is Tweetdeck, which I explain a bit about below. Those of you who prefer something else, tell us about it.

The wonderful Bubblecow people (Gary and Caroline Smailes) have fantastic advice about Twitter for authors and they know much more than I do. Also, if you follow them (look for @BubbleCow) you'll instantly be able to tap into other excellent Twitterers. A lot of my own followers came after @BubbleCow linked to a blog post of mine.

Here are three of their most relevant posts:
For very clear instructions for beginners
For advanced instructions on everything to do with Twitter (and other things)
For other info, go to their blog and use the search box at bottom right. But please come back.

TWEETDECK  - www.tweetdeck.com

• this allows you to use Twitter more easily and fruitfully than the basic page. It has columns, which you can add or remove. The ones I have are the default ones: "All friends"  -  tweets from everyone I follow; "Mentions"  -  any tweet that mentions my username, because when someone uses your name in a tweet they want you to see it, and it's how someone I don't follow can get my attention (because they can't DM me); and DMs. There's also "Twitter recommends" but I deleted that because I don't care what Twitter recommends.
• I have Tweetdeck open most of the time in the background on my computer but with the sound turned off, otherwise you get a stupid birdsound every time a tweet appears. There's an iphone Tweetdeck App, which is free and I like it, though no doubt someone will tell me about a better one and then my life will be perfect.
  
• Tweetdeck also (automatically on the new version, by request on the old version) shortens any URL so that it only uses a few characters  -  important since many tweets contain links to webpages and links which would make the tweet too long. (I am sure other clients do this too).
  

OTHER LESS BASIC BASICS

• when you first sign up to Twitter, you will wonder why you did. Most first tweets say, "Well, here I am. Now what? Arghhhhhh!!!!"
• so, it's all about getting some people to follow and to follow you. Take your time. Once you are following someone, you can go to that profile and see who they're following  -  and follow them too. As soon as you follow someone, their tweets will appear on your home page. On Tweetdeck, they'll appear in the "All friends" column
  
• think about what sort of things you're going to say. I do not say "good morning all" as a tweet  -  some people do ... Gah. I like it when people have a healthy mix of fun/personal tweets and useful links to relevant sites or bits of writing/book-related news. As well as interesting individuals, I also follow things like the Bookseller, Bookbrunch and Book2book, and people like Scott Pack (@meandmybigmouth). I follow lots of you, too. If you're on Twitter and I'm not already following you, let me know your @name and I will, unless you're incredibly annoying or boring or try to sell me things.

HOW TO ANNOY ME (AND OTHERS)

That previous point brings me to publishers who Twitter. Publishers and publicists who Twitter need to be careful. So does anyone else trying to sell things. Especially to me. It brings out the most crabbit in me. (You should hear me when someone phones me trying to sell something.) On Twitter, I get completely sick of people who do nothing other than tell me how wonderful they or their clients are. I have stopped following people for that reason, and am very much less likely to buy their books. If you are going to occupy even a few seconds in my Twitter-life, I want you at least some of the time to interest me, amuse me, entertain me, or inform me in a way I need or want.

Although tweeting is like standing on a street corner and shouting, it is worth remembering that a) there are a lot of people standing there shouting too, so why would I hear you? and b) people standing and shouting tend to get eggs and things thrown at them. I would be the person throwing eggs.

THE CRUCIAL @SIGN
@  -  the @ immediately before a username (no space after the sign) means that that person will see your message in their "Mentions" column on Tweetdeck or equivalent on other platforms. So, you never just use someone's name, because they may not see it. For example, if you mention that Nicola Morgan has just said something fascinating on her blog (it happens) you say Brilliant piece by @nicolamorgan and then you'd insert the URL to my marvellous post. All your followers would see you'd done it, and I would too, even if I wasn't your follower already, because the @ would mean that it would appear in my "Mentions" column. When I saw that you'd done that, I would love you and probably follow you. It's all mutual back-scratching.

THE VITAL #SIGN
#  -  hashchats. Very good idea to get into some hashchats. At designated times, there are worldwide chats on particular topics, such as #writechat, #pubchat (publishers, not pubs, silly). It's a great way to get to "meet" more people with similar interests. You get more followers after joining a #chat. Some #chats are, I think, continuous  -  I have a feeling that an example is #amwriting, where people tweet about what they're writing, but I haven't looked at this yet.

An example of one I have experienced is #litchat, which is Mon/Wed/Fri, 9-10pm London time. You go to www.tweetchat.com, register and follow instructions. Then, the screen changes to a dedicated chat about books, hosted by #Litchat, and (until you choose to leave) the only tweets you see are people all in the same conversation, even if you weren't following them. Like the old-fashioned chat-rooms. Can be a bit mad, can be dead boring, can be stimulating. You'll usually find me, Jane Smith (@hprw), Maggie Dana (@MaggieDana) and Miss Pitch (@pitchparlour) there. We sometimes go off-topic and start bringing wine or chocolate into the conversation, for which we risk being ticked off by the moderator. Bit like being back at school, in my case.

RETWEET (RT)
When you like someone's tweet, you "retweet" or "RT" it by either (eg on Tweetdeck) choosing the RT option on the person's icon (avatar) or by copying and pasting it and adding RT + @name to the beginning. This then becomes a tweet of yours. People like to be RT'd but remember to make sure their @name is there, which is how you credit someone with having done or said something interesting.

RETWEET blog posts with a TWEETMEME button  -  or not...

I have been nagged by Jane Smith (sorry, @hprw) to add a Retweet button to my blog posts. It means that a blog-reader who is on Twitter can automatically send the post to Twitter. Trouble is, I failed. Or, I should say that I failed for an hour and gave up. I followed lots of different instructions but every time the button ended up in a weird place and I started to feel ill. And please do not tell me how to do it  -  I am quite happy having failed because at least I have a life. See, I know where to draw the line. One day, I'll ask Jane or someone to sort me out, but meanwhile I have some actual work to do, as in dosh-earning work.

LINK YOUR BLOG TO TWITTER using Twitterfeed

A really useful thing to do. It means that a) every time you blog, your post automatically goes onto Twitter shortly afterwards and b) IF YOU ALSO insert the html code as a "gadget" on your blog, every time you tweet, your tweet goes onto your blog, so that your blog-readers can see your recent tweets even if they aren't on Twitter. I had some problems setting this up on the two occasions I had to do it, but I persevered and succeeded.

How? Go to www.twitterfeed.com and follow the instructions relating to the blog platform you use. I use blogger and it's straightforward once you get the correct RSS feed address. I can't advise in any way other then to say: persevere. Also, it doesn't work instantly, so don't worry if you seem not to have got it to work: wait an hour and then do a test post.

FABULOUS #FOLLOWFRIDAY

Every Friday is "FollowFriday". This means that if you've liked someone's blog or tweets, you put a tweet saying something like #ff the wonderful blog of @nicolamorgan 4 sensational advice + wit - www.helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com and then, because it had @nicolamorgan in it, I'll see it, love you for ever and probably #ff you back.

WILL THIS TAKE OVER MY LIFE?

If it does, you're doing it wrong. Well, you can do it wrong if you like, but unless you're a sad idiot you won't want something so ridiculous to take over your life. Because it is in many ways ridiculous. But ridiculously useful and more than occasionally fun too. I spend maybe 20 minutes day on it, split into 30 seconds to a minute at a time.

Bit like my dog sniffing and ...

SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
Twitter is changing fast and anything I've said here may be out of date in five minutes. It's a matter of holding your breath and leaping in, panicking a bit till you come up for air, treading water till you see where the pretty fish and treasure islands are and then just going with the flow. And never, ever labouring such a mixed metaphor again.

Meanwhile, all you Twitterers, do please add any of your favourite tips or clients or #chats in the comments below. What I don't know about Twitter could fill a lot more than a day's worth of tweets, so do add to my paltriness. And correct anything I've got wrong. I'm finding my way, too.

Also, in the comments, tell us your own Twitter name (@.........) so that we can follow you.

Now I must go and sniff around Twitter and see what's been going on in my absence.

(PS  -  remember that I'm away most of this week  -  commenting is tricky from Tuesday onwards, but I'll be reading yours.)

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.

IMPORTANT POST ON WRITER BEWARE

In my own absence, I though I'd point you towards the fabulous Writer Beware bloog, where Victoria Strauss today posts a very important piece about why writers need to be careful when using the internet to look for and find information about publishers.

Far too often, I come across writers who think they've been "published" - in the sense that they believe a publisher has loved their work enough to invest in it and publish it, when in fact the writers have been confused by the various forms of self / vanity / print on demand publishing. So, they have a book, which people can buy, and in that sense are published, but actually no one has had faith in their writing at all, because all the cost has been borne by the writer. (Which is rightly the case when a writer deliberately and with eyes-wide-open goes down that route for good reasons.) And in these cases, where the writer has not had control, the editing, type-setting, production and design are usually terrible, making the book very hard to sell.

Luckily, there are blogs such as Writer Beware and How Publishing Really Works to sort out the various differences.Which means that I don't have to. Phew!

Now, go and read that piece and keep yourself informed.

Meanwhile, I'm going to have another look at the accidentally self-pubbed book I have just been sent, and weep silent tears of frustration on one poor deceived author's behalf.

THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Although you're reading this on October 1st, I'm writing it on September 26th , and I've just read this in today's Guardian. You can read it if you like but the point relevant to my post is that today (Oct 1st), 800 new titles will be launched. In the UK alone.

Now, this is obviously more than on most days, for reasons that aren't relevant to my point but which the article nicely explains. My initial point is that in any one week / month a hell of a lot of books are being published. Around 120,000 a year in the UK, though that number is somewhat skewed by odd things like maps and reissues of Chaucer or whatever. And Thomas the Tank Engine books by idiots like me. Sorry.

After a recent post of mine, Marion Gropen, host of the Publishing for Profit blog, added a comment giving the equivalent US figures. She allows me to quote it here:

"Here, we had more than 400,000 new books published last year alone. So, if you took a quite large bookstore (you know the kind that cover most of a block, and have two or three floors), you'd have enough to fill that store 8 times with those new books. And then you'd have to fill it a 9th and a 10th time with the older titles still selling (we call it backlist) and the imports.

"There are 2,000,000 manuscripts floating around looking for a home each year here."

Very scary.

The main point of this post is to ask you to think a bit logically about why publishers often turn books down. (Not often enough, some might say, in view of the fact that such a ridiculous number are published. That, however, is an argument which you will not like and which I will therefore shield you from, kind old bat that I am becoming.)

This is what I'd like you to think about. I warn you: it does not make pretty reading. Forget the depressing (or exciting, if you're worried about books being dead) figures and think of some others.

How many books do you read a month? 
How many books does the average person read a month?

Now, I don't know the answers to either of those questions. But let's guess. I guess I read 3 - 4 books a month  -  I mean properly read, having bought or borrowed from the library. Ignoring people who never read a book, and then leaving aside those at the extreme ends of the reading spectrum, including professional reviewers, I guess that perhaps 3 - 4 books a month is average for average readers? I think I read somewhere that 40 a year was an average and that pretty much supports my guess. (Young children will read / have read to them more, granted.)

So, let's say, for the sake of argument, that a "normal" reader reads 40 books a year. Factor in the fact that a normal reader won't read just any 40 books, but 40 books that tend to fit his or her preconceived ideas of personal reading tastes. So, I'd be unlikely to read chick-lit, or romance, or manga. Factor in some gender differences and some age differences.

Now factor in those 120,000 new UK books every year. And factor in all the 000000s still on the shelves from previous years.

Finally, factor in the fact that the vast majority of those new books are obviously not debut books.

Now take a deep breath, especially if you are unpublished or otherwise struggling to get a contract, AND if you are self-publishing ...

Now tell me why you think that your Work in Progress is so compelling that a total stranger should pick it to be one of the 40 books he or she chooses to read in a year? Not only pick it but pay for it, invest money and time, precious time, engaging with the words you happen to think are worth reading.

Finally, tell me that you don't understand why your book has not been snapped up by an agent or publisher.

But what about all the crap that is published? I know: I've tackled that before, here. Thing is, publishers know that there are plenty of people who love to read what you call crap.

I am very sorry. I should have warned you that this was going to be a tough one. Now, please, pick yourself up, go and have some chocolate and then get back to your keyboard and make damned sure that your beautiful blood- and sweat--stained MS is as wonderful as it can possibly be before you send it out there into such a cruel world. Because it will have to be.

REASONS TO BE BLOGGING

Two days ago, I talked about whether and when authors need "platforms"  -  see here. And I explained what I meant by that prosaic and commercial word. Don't shy away just because you don't like the word. That would be ostrichesque.

There is no doubt that a very good way to start to build a platform is to blog. Many of you already do. Many of your blogs were mentioned and visited during the Blogoffee Party on Friday.

But, newbies, or those who haven't found their blogging way yet, must remember:

1. There are other good reasons for writers to blog, not just platform construction
   
2. You have to blog properly for it to have effect
   

Good reasons for writers to blog, in no particular order:

1. The opportunity to make contacts  -  thereby creating a possible platform and leading to unpredictable things, such as an influential person happening to like what you do and promoting you in some small way which could lead to a big way. (You can't/shouldn't be contrived about this  -  just let it happen).
   
2. The opportunity to follow other blogs about writing and by writers and industry professionals  -  thereby increasing knowledge of the whole business, making you more publishable and better prepared
3. The opportunity to make friends amongst other writers  -  an excellent reason and result 
4. The opportunity to write  -  when you blog you are writing; and writing, writing anything, is GOOD for a writer. More than good: essential
   
5. The opportunity to get instant feedback  -  the book you are writing now, even if it is snapped up, won't be published until perhaps two years from now. Your blog posts are published with the click of a finger and read seconds later.

But, how do you blog properly? (By properly, I mean if you want people to read what you write. If it wasn't, you'd just write a private diary. So, "properly" means at least slightly publicly. Of course, perhaps you do just write your blog for private consumption  -  fine, but that's not what I'm talking about here.)

Here are my rules for successful and happy blogging:

1. have something to say  -  content is king. What you had for breakfast is not interesting unless it is interesting. We all have breakfast  -  why would I spend time reading about yours? People need a reason to read you and people are busy. There are countless blogs they could be reading. If you haven't got something that will hold an audience for a long post, be brief  -  a lesson I should really learn myself...
   
2. be yourself  -  since you need to develop a voice and since you have to blog often,  spontaneously, and over many months, being yourself makes it much easier to sustain. 
   
3. but, while being yourself, have a theme, a feel, a "brand". (Sorry to go all markety  - call it a personal style instead, if you like.) It is possible to blog about a range of things, but people need to know what to expect when they come to your blog. For example, you expect me to give publishing advice in a more or less crabbit way; in the process, you expect me sometimes to sound off vaguely amusingly and certainly trenchantly, and to go gooey over chocolate, boots and sparkly wine. That's my "brand"  -  it's also utterly me.
   
4. have links to relevant blogs on your blog. Do keep them relevant though, or sort them into topics. Again, it's about people needing to know what to expect and therefore why they should spend time with you. Why should they visit? Will they have fun, learn something, connect with others? Or what?
   
5. if stuck for something to say one day, post links to relevant things you find  -  videos, articles or pics. You don't need permission to link to anyone else's blog but quoting substantially from another person's words is breaking the law, so ask. Chances are they'll be delighted. A short quote (and there's no definition of short ...) comes under "fair use " (US) or "fair dealing" (UK) and requires no permission, though you must always credit the writer, provide the source and quote 100% accurately. Some bloggers include a message about what permission you need  -  see mine in the bottom right column.
6. keep your blog tidy and well-organised so people can find what you want them to find
   
7. blog regularly. Two to three times a week is good; once a week is acceptable but is probably the minimum if you want to keep your readers growing.
8. link to Twitter  -  I'll be talking about Twitter next Monday.
   
9. your blog should not just be about you, unless you are completely fascinating. Or even, frankly, if you are. A blog has to be more giving than that. This is so important that I will now elaborate:
   

If you create a blog purely to promote yourself, you will fail. Or at least you will only succeed in promoting yourself as a selfish bugger full of your own self-importance. Blogging is a shared activity, something which should give as much as it takes. If you blog selfishly and self-importantly, you are like those irritating people who stand around at parties a) looking over my shoulder while talking to me, in case there's someone more interesting / useful they could talk to and b) never asking questions because they only want to hear their own voices. Also, these ugly characters may seem very confident and successful but, trust me, their pride and arrogance will destroy them in the end, or at the very least they will make enemies who will snipe at them behind their backs and not buy their books. I have on many occasions not bought the book of an author who behaves like that. 


This sharing aspect means that you must visit other blogs, comment and get involved. What you can't do is go to someone else's blog and jump into the comments with a plug for your blog. This is very bad blog form. If by chance you've just blogged about the same thing, it would be acceptable to mention this, but give due credit and praise to the blog you are visiting. Be very polite. You wouldn't turn up at someone's house uninvited and start telling them about your success. I hope...


I've read (can't remember where) a paradigm of the rules of promotion in this context, which states that there should be 60% take and 40% give. I'd put it the other way round. If you give more than you take, I think this is better in the long run, makes you more friends, and allows for a slow-burn of success. It feels better too. Maybe that's just me but I'd absolutely hate it if people thought I was doing any of this cynically or selfishly.

There's a thin line between promoting your work and showing off. Of course, not everyone will agree where the line is...

But this brings me to a personal point: those who don't know me well may be thinking, "What, so all this apparent generosity on Nicola Morgan's part, all this providing of info for free, actually is all about creating a platform for herself? She's not really a chocolate-loving, sexy-boot-wearing, sparkly-wine-loving, pseudo-crabbit old bat  -  this is just a persona she has built in order to promote herself as a brand?"

Believe three things: 

1. I really am that person  -  there is nothing contrived here at all
   
2. I started the blog for one reason only  -  I wanted to help writers not approach agents and editors in really stupid ways, because I kept seeing them doing it and it really bugged me. I woke up one morning, early, and started, spontaneously, after a particularly annoying incident where some unpublished writers had shown inexcusable ignorance.
   
3. I have continued blogging for one reason only  -  I love doing it, absolutely love it. I hope that shines through. But I love meeting people in all sorts of ways  - parties, dinners, meetings, events, festivals. I am, frankly, a communication and contact junkie. It was only once I got going that I realised that I was inadvertently (but happily, I admit) developing some kind of "platform".
   

None of this is difficult. I only started eight months ago. I knew nothing, just made it up as I went, learning from others, and making generous contacts. I owe a huge amount to two fellow bloggers in particular, Jane Smith and Lynn Price. I think the way we all respect each other and share ideas, where in a non-blogging environment we could be rivals ready to kill each other with our stilettos, is a beauty of blogging. So many other amongst you have contributed too, and I am grateful to you all. I think we have a great community of people serious about writing, at all different stages of our careers.

Still not convinced of the practical point? In the last two weeks alone I have been contacted by seven very decent bloggers who wanted me to do interviews or guest posts on their blogs. Two of the results are here (no need to see both, as they are the same interview on two different blogs). America Reads and What are Writers Reading? Another is going up in a few days and was amusing to do  -  it was Coffee With a Canine, in which my dog gets to eat biscuits on the sofa and tell squirrel-chasing stories. The others are in progress.

But wouldn't a marketing person want to measure increased sales? Maybe they would, but me? Nah, I'm having way too much fun just writing. Yes, if I could be bothered, I could list positive things that have happened, but I'm not going to. I will just say that I have learnt a lot and that value the conversations we've all had here. And if I hadn't sold a single extra book, I honestly wouldn't mind, though I know very well that I have. You've told me.

So, thank you for allowing me to blog at you so lengthily. (Yes, I know, often too lengthily.) And now, get back to your blogs and prepare for publication...

Meanwhile, I'm off to blog about Twittering, to be posted next Monday. And be aware that I'm away all this week so can't easily reply to your comments, but I will be reading them. I have eyes everywhere.

NETWORKS AND PLATFORMS - MUST I?

The more you talk to people, and listen, the more you know and the more you think. And that  -  knowing and thinking more  -  is the real reason why "social networking" is much, much more about the rather self-centred notion of "building a platform to improve your career." It is about making contacts, and making contacts is about being human. We are social creatures and we rely on networks, whether it's the family, tribe or whole population of like-thinking individuals.

Social networking grows your outlook, widens your knowledge base and thereby opens your mind. And we certainly social-networked at yesterday's blogoffee day, didn't we?!

So, when we wonder and worry about the need to "build a platform as an author", we should think of it in this positive light, rather than running from it in a flurry of negative emotions and then being disparaging when other people do it well.

In the next few days I'm going to focus on the potential of blogs and Twitter  -  in other words the "how" of this question. But now, let's talk about whether authors need a "platform" before they approach publisher or agent.

I was reminded of this topic the other day when, as so often, I was reading a sensible blog post by that whirlwind of good advice, Jane Smith. I joined in the comments and said something about a platform not being essential in order to sell a book to a publisher or agent. [Jane agreed.] This was in response to someone implying that without the author having some kind of status or existing readership a pub/agent wouldn't look twice. In reply to my comment pointing out that many authors, including myself, had no contacts and no platform on first publication, wonderful US editor Lynn Price from the Behlerblog countered with this, [and I'm assuming she won't mind my quoting it  -  lovely Lynn? I'll buy you a margharita]:

"Here in the US, platform is very important in the course of selling books to the bookstores. They always ask our sales folks, "what is the author doing to promote?" When considering offering an author a contract, I always look at their platform. If they have a direct tie to their subject matter, this makes it easier to get booksellers excited about how the author will show their pretty face.

If they don't, then I still must feel comfortable that they have good ideas on how best to promote their book. This means understanding their readership and knowing how to find them. [my bold]

When I fall in love with a book, my brain is already kicked into high gear as to how I plan on promoting their book. I need to be sure the author is on board with me and is ready, willing, and able, AND has a tie-in with their book.

We have to cover a wide amount of real estate in the US, and the bigger splash an author can make with author events, the easier it is to excite a bookseller. They want to know if the book will sit on the shelf gathering dust or will fly out the door."

And this got me thinking further. [Remember I started this post by saying that social networking, all the time we put into blogging and reading other's blogs and making contacts, is useful and thought-provoking and beneficial, and far from being a waste of time?] And I came up with these conclusions. They are remarkably simple and succinct for me, and I offer them to you to think about yourselves. As I said, I will go into some actual ways to put the ideas into effect very soon.

But first, what do I mean by "platform". I mean anything which gives you a) either an existing readership or network of relevant contacts from which potential book-buyers could come b) and/or some visibility or recognised expertise in your subject area. In other words, the opposite of being someone who is only known to friends, family, neighbours and work colleagues. In the old days, either you were only known to those groups or you were famous. Nowadays, creating a platform gives you a position in the middle of that.

So, my thoughts on whether you need a platform before being accepted by a publisher or agent:

1. There are some differences between the US and UK approach, but it is likely that in the UK and elsewhere we will tend towards the US approach sooner or later. Be prepared.
   
2. Certainly, an author will have to engage in a range of promotional activities when the book comes out. This is unavoidable and needs to be thought about well in advance. 
3. There are countless ways in which one might promote a book and an author  -  but it would be a) impossible and b) undesirable to engage in all these possibilities. Therefore, we should not panic but should think carefully about what works best for this author [us] and this book. After all, if you throw everything into promoting yourself, you are not writing, you are merely reacting and panicking.
   
4. Although it will certainly be essential to start to create a platform at some sensible point, that point does not necessarily have to be before you approach an agent or publisher. Not having a platform now does not mean the publisher or agent won't take on your work.
5. However, having a platform now is going to help. How could it not? So, do note the bit that I bolded in Lynn's comment.
   
6. At the same time, I do think that in your first approach to agent/publisher, your description of whatever platform you have must be clear, realistic and calm. I saw a covering letter once in which the author's only claim to a platform was his one-off appearance as an audience member who happened to ask a question on the TV programme, Kilroy. By the same token, spewing ornate self-aggrandising lists of blogger-networks and half-baked promotional videos and the times when you ran down the street naked in order to promote your self-published book is really not going to help. Be professional. Don't claim to be able to do the marketing department's job  -  be there to work with them rationally.
   
7. Also, if you are writing non-fiction, I'd venture to say that a platform is essential before your book is likely to be taken on. With a few exceptions, it is hard to see how an author could be sufficiently expert or passionate about a subject without having gone out there and talked and written about it and garnered followers and future readers.
8. If you do not have any platform at all just now, I wonder what is stopping you? Is it fear, paralysis or just not knowing where to start. Don't panic, don't rush into things that are not "you", don't worry. Take your time to think what would be your best way to show a professional approach to how you would expect to help market your book. 

Think about it: by reading this blog and connecting with its readers and the blogs I link to, you're already starting. Hooray for your existing platform! Your train is ready to depart.

I'll be back early this coming week** with a post or two about using blogs and Twitter as simple and free ways to start and extend your platform. Before you know it, you'll be a veritable Grand Central Station.

** Edited to add: blogging one coming Monday 28th Sept; Twitter one Mon 5th Oct. Other musings in between. I'm actually going to be a away but I have scheduled posts for you. I couldn't let you down. There's also an emotional outpouring on 7th oct, unless I think better of it. If I'm hit by a bus in the meantime, it will have to go out as my epitaph.

BLOGOFFEE-MORNING-DAY - ALL WELCOME

Welcome to my humble blogabode for coffee, chocolate, cake, shoes, and anything else that will help your day flow. This is now an official part of the Biggest Coffee Morning in the World, organised by and for Macmillan Cancer Support. you may well find the normal seriousness of this blog has come adrift. I've had a hard day. ["Today" being yesterday, technically].

By the way, apparently it was National Punctuation Day "today". I'd like to register my contribution to a subsidiary, [National Bracket Day]. [I find I'm using them more and more]. 

In honour of Blogoffing, I have just baked my own patent and trademarked [literally] "Brain Cake TM." If you would like the recipe, please go here. [Oh bugger  -  I just looked at that recipe again and realised that I forgot the linseeds. I've made it hundreds of time but I was making curry at the same time so things were not simple. Oh well, if you make it, don't forget the linseeds. They're the bit that especially make your brain work. In fact, if I'd had some first, I wouldn't have forgotten them ...] It is the only cake in the world which no one can make you feel guilty for eating. Research shows [my research] that eating two pieces makes your brain work twice as well as eating one piece. I admit that this rule cannot be continued indefinitely and that there will theoretically come a point at which one more piece will make your brain work less well than one fewer piece.

In the pic, you can also see Harvey Nicks coffee, but don't be decieved  -  it's just a tin; and you can see something in the background for later, much later.

Anyway, we haven't got all day.

What are we doing today?
Not doing the usual thing, which is listening to me pretending to be crabbit while revealing the mysteries of how to persuade publishers that your book is really what they have been looking for all their lives.

No, today we are having a blogoffee day. And this is what happens. And I warn you, it is not well organised or throught through. I'm having a difficult week and juggling too many things and not enough linseeds.

Choose one or more of these activities

Writers and book-loving bloggers  -  tell us about your blog or website. Give us a short (because brevity is a very important skill in a writer, and one that I have spectacularly not mastered) description of / plug for the blog/website, and its address. Ideally, give the address as a live link but if that is beyond you, no problem.

Anyone  -  and/or tell us about someone else's blog, ideally not one that someone else has just mentioned. Educate us, enlighten us. We'd like to know about booky or writery blogs, please.


Readers  -  what do you look for in a book? We're writers and we write for you, so tell us what you love and what you hate. As long as you don't hate anything I've done.

Everyone  -  THEN, because this is about sharing, read everyone's comments and promise to visit at least three of the other links that you've never visited before, or not recently, and leave comments there.If you're here early in the day you won't find so much choice, so COME BACK.

Twitterers  -  twitter away all day. Tell the world about interesting bloggers you met today. Retweet and tweeteme and all that stuff.

And finally  -  join a collaborative story.

Collaborative story RULES:

• It's entirely optional, of course.
• The starting sentence is below. Read the comments to see what others have added and then add one sentence.
• When I say ONE, I'm not actually being literal. I don't want a story with loads of really long sentences. So, if you do a lovely brief sentence, you can have TWO. If you do really really short sentences, you can have THREE. The integrity and flow of the story is paramount. You're an artist, not a show-off. Yes?
  
• You can take the story in any direction you like EXCEPT explicitly erotic (sorry!) or completely boringly stupid. Absurd, in the literary sense, is fine. But it must flow from the previous sentence and not illogically contradict what has gone before. I don't mind if it becomes absurd, gothic, amusing, tragic. I just want to see good writing and I want to be interested, gripped or entertained. What it does to the rest of you, I don't really care. This is my party and I can be entertained if I want to.
  
• Story contributions should start with the word STORY in caps, just so we don't think you're recommending some bizarre blog
  
• NB NB NB Story contributions should be in a separate comment from your other contributions
• Because there's a danger of cross-posting (where two people follow the same sentence simultaneously) it's going to be chaos  -  who cares? We can deal with chaos.
• copyright issues  -  I got quite tangled in the abstract possibilitieis of this so I have decided that this is the situation: we each have copyright on our own contributions, of course; however, if anyone would like to quote any part of the story other than his/her own (you know, because the story is going to be so incredibly amazing ...), anyone may, though not for financial reward, on condition that the extract is always credited as "a collaborative exercise on helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com where individual authors can be found". If you can actually credit a person's name for your extract, please do. I am not responsible for any plagiarism or theft of ideas  -  this is a game and by entering you indicate that you are relaxed. You can't sue me and anyway, I don't have any money. Any doubts, please ask.
  
• please do not defame or offend any living person; obviously do not offend the taste of decent people  -  I am a decent person and prefer the f-word and similar not to be used on my clean and tidy blog; each writer takes responsibility for the legality etc of his/her own words.
• basically [do you sense my panic?] I do not take any responsibility at all for what comes out of this. You're all grown-ups. More or less.
  

I'm regretting this already but your starting sentence is:

"Taking a deep breath and giving the wood-burning stove a quick anticipatory prod, Marilynne Wainwright, literary agent par excellence, opened the refreshingly clean and professional-looking package and pulled out the double-spaced, single-sided, A4 sheets within, sighing with relief and surprise as nothing untoward fell out: no extras, no photos, no sticky toffee gifts."

Where does Macmillan Cancer Support come into it? Well, if you've had fun, learnt anything or feel for any other reason inspired to recognise the wonderful work that Macmillan do, then do consider making a donation directly to them by clicking here. It's entirely up to you.

Now, I'm off to start the comments going. [Which is impossible until I've posted this, so if you are visiting in the first few monutes, you'll find no comments and you can picture me frantically trying to come up with something while drinking first coffee of many]. Don't let me be alone  -  that would be really embarrassing.

DEALING WITH JOURNALISTS

To encourage you to focus on your goal of publication [you were wavering, I know you were], I thought we'd have a little look at that thorny issue: controlling journalists. Or at least from the very one-sided POV which is the one I am choosing to take today.

Journalists are lovely, of course, or, even if they're not, they're only doing a job. And that, dear readers, is the crux: they are doing a job, and their task is NOT "How will I publicise this gullible author's book?" Their task is: "How will I get my story? Specifically, how will I get the author to provide one sentence to support the story I need and have already written in my head?"

This task is simple for the journalist, for two reasons:

1. The author is so hopelessly delighted to be interviewed that he/she will eventually say anything
2. The journalist will talk to the author for an hour or more, during which time the author will probably have spoken 8,000 words, of which the journalist only needs 20.
   

I was reminded of this today when a newly-published novelist and reader of this blog  -  hooray!  -  emailed me and said she'd been asked for an interview by a Sunday paper which wanted to photograph her at home, with family members if possible; and that she knew that some of the topics behind the book could touch tricky ground, because of connections with mental health issues; but that the reporter seemed genuinely kind. What advice did I have? Should she do it?

This was what I said, plus a bit more:

1. Do it  -  almost never say no to an interview unless you're so successful you don't care
   
2. Be aware that the reporter, however kind she seems and is, knows the story she wants to write and she will go all out to get you to say the thing that supports her story.
3. Ask her to tell you in advance what line she's interested in and what areas she wants to cover
4. If there are things you don't want her to ask about, SAY so very very clearly, or say it's "off the record"  -  point out that printing such a thing would cause distress to family members, particularly younger ones. I have always refused to talk about my kids other than to state their age and gender.
5. She will leave out 98% of what you say and just include the 2% she wants. Therefore, simply do not say anything you don't want said.
6. If you accidentally say something you wish you hadn't, explain that it would be misleading and untrue to record your erroneous comment. "Off the record" ought to be honoured and nearly always is.
   
7. Do not fill a silence  -  that's for her to do. Less is less and less is best. Say too much and it will be paraphrased, often weirdly.
   
8. If your family don't want to be in the pics or talked about, make that clear
9. Talk about your book a lot, much more than the background stuff that she wants
10. Talk about your book again
11. Prepare in advance a very succinct and memorable way of answering these two heart-sinking questions a) so, what's it about then, this book? b) why did you write it? [When I say memorable, I mean memorable in a printable way ...]
    
12. Smile and be friendly; offer cake; be human and lovely. She'll still shaft** you if she wants to but she'll feel worse about it. But don't gush and flutter  -  be professional. Appear to have done this loads of times before. 
13. Think about how you dress  -  you can dress any way you want, but think about it. How do you want the journo to remember you? The fab shoes? The clean open-necked shirt? The greasy hair and non-designer stubble? Soup on cleavage?
    
14. Realise that however you are quoted in the article, you will probably cringe when you read it afterwards anyway
15. And remember that even if you end up being uncomfortable about how the article comes out, no one else will remember the negative bits  -  they'll just remember you and your book

Because remember: you just got free publicity for the book you are so proud of. Hooray for lovely journalists!

**Edited to add a PS re "shafted"  -  quite right Flixton Mum, that was a cruel word for me to use! But I only said "if she wants to", and of course there are hardly any journalists who would twist your words maliciously, unless you had behaved very unpleasantly in the interview ...

And that pretty much sums up dealing with newspaper interviews. Are you ready for the Bloggoffee Day tomorrow? Get baking.

BLOGOFFEE MORNING INVITATION

I promised I'd give you proper warning about the blogoffee morning which I'm holding on Friday. I have now rather foolishly registered it as an official Macmillan Cancer Support coffee morning event so I hope to goodness I don't regret that. Or, more likely, that they don't ...

You are cordially invited to join

The Crabbit Old Bat

at Help! I Need a Publisher!

on Friday 25th September

from 9am British time

for our blogs, our books, and Macmillan Cancer Support

It's going to have these features:

1. the ability for you to plug your own blogs and get new blog readers to visit and comment on them. For this reason it would be helpful [to you] if you arranged to have a post on your blog that day so that people can comment when they visit you. And because you may have brand new visitors, you may want to tidy the place up before they arrive ...
2. the ability for readers [as in readers of books] to say what they look for in a book  -  what sort of things do they like/hate? A great way for us to hear their voices and listen [or ignore the buggers]
3. the chance for everyone, readers and writers, to contribute one sentence to a potentially chaotic collaborative story. I have absolutely no idea whether this will work brilliantly or be completely pointless and boring, but nothing venture, nothing gain. At the same time, it's a chance for you all to show off whatever gorgeous writing you most love doing. What an idiot I am.
4. the entirely optional opportunity to donate online to Macmillan Cancer Support. There will be no pressure at all.
   

So, that's it. Now, get your thinking caps on for ways to plug your blogs and entice people to them.

I should have said  -  you bring your own cake, coffee, chocolate etc etc. I would provide it if I could but even the mighty Microsoft haven't found a way to pixellate cake and still have it tasting good.

THAT WASN'T MEANT TO HAPPEN + THANK YOU

Further to my last post about permission not to write and motivation and stuff, my agent has lost her normal excellent judgement and decided that my reluctant first two chapters of my very difficult WIP are "bloody good writing". This is very bad news as I had hoped to doss around for the next few months. I'd suspect she'd been drinking if it wasn't for the fact that it was rather early in the morning and that she's never shown any other signs of a drink problem. Maybe that's the problem  -  not enough.

Also, I'm going to even busier because Mrs Smith and I have plans for world domination. Mind you, her most recent suggestion indicates that she's been drinking, too. Does this happen to everyone I have dealings with? It's really rather sad. There's me remaining stoically sober and everyone else is hitting the bottle.

But I really wanted to say thank you to all you wonderful blog readers because, as one commenter [Rebecca] on the last post said, "I love that the commenters provide a fascinating discussion even after the post is done." You all help to make this blog worth writing, and I hope worth reading. See, I'm going all sentimental in the extremity of my stress. That and having had an accident yesterday while out walking and coming into painfully close contact with the branch of a tree which really shouldn't have been there. I now have two large cuts on my forehead and two on my scalp, which took a bit of explaining and ouching when I had my hair done today.

But, wonderful as you blog-readers are and contributory as you may be to the value of this blog, I warn you, if I ever make any money from it you're having none of it. Not a sou.

Meanwhile, I would like to give you advance warning that in recognition of your collective wondrousness and that there seem to be no deluded idiots amongst you now that the troll has gone back in its cave, I am going to invite you to a virtual coffee morning this coming Friday  -  25th Sept. It's unofficially part of the Macmillan Biggest Coffee Morning in the World and is in aid of Macmillan Cancer Nurses.

I'll tell you about it tomorrow [when I've worked it out]  -  and any of you with blogs are hugely welcome to join in and do the same or similar.

Meanwhile, meanwhile, I hope my agent is having a large glass of wine this evening. She doesn't deserve it but I prescribe it for her. Gah, agents!

WHY DO I WRITE AT ALL?

Look, I know Emily Gale and I are both YA authors but does that mean she gets to read my mind?? She's just blogged in partial response to my blog post [below] about writing habits, which was in response to her blog post about writing locations, and her new post is about writing and not writing, and permission not to write, which is what I was going to blog about next.

The question of whether to write at all (which is not exactly what Emily is talking about) is something close to my heart at the moment as I've been thinking about why I write. One thing's for certain: it's often so damned painful that you'd think we'd only do it if there was a huge reward.

In a recession which is hitting all forms of written word, and in which it's harder and harder to make a living, the question of why we write becomes more crucial and more practical. Because it's sure as hell the case that the reward is most unlikely to be financial. It never was a safe route to financial stability but I hardly know an author who's already small writing income hasn't fallen. Mine has and it's really getting to me and leading to some soul-searching.

Why do we write?
A mixture of things, of course, and different motives for different people. Different at different times of our careers, too. Which brings me to myself. I tell you about myself not because I think I'm interesting but because I'm the only person I'm fully qualified to talk about. Maybe some of these things will resonate with you. If you're at a different career stage from me, maybe you can look ahead [or back] and see if you're on the same road.

When I was struggling for years and years to get published, writing for money was no part of my motivation. Not that I was going to rip a cheque up, you understand, but I'd have done it for nothing. In fact, when I did get my first [unagented] contract I wept for joy while they walked all over me in pointy shoes.

What did I want from my writing then? Why did I wreck my mental state just to pursue the dream?

It couldn't have been simply that I loved writing, needed it to feed my soul, though both those were true. I was already writing, a lot, and easily - if it was just about writing, publication wouldn't have mattered so much.

Or was it simply seeing my name in print? Not exactly, because I could have self-published or gone down the vanity route.

It was two** things. First, I wanted to be able to say those words, "I am an author." Second, since I thought I was a good enough writer to be published, I needed to be publicly affirmed as that. I suppose, on my dreamy days, I was also attracted to the idea of a little bit of "fame", [really just a little bit - so I could still be grumpy and poorly dressed in Sainsbury's]. You could also say that since I'd been a very shy child who hated performing, but that I'd loved it when someone else read my words and was moved by them, then being published was my way of performing.

(** or three, as I just realised this morning, and added at the end of the post.)

But now? I've got all that - I got published; I wouldn't call myself famous, but in my own genre I'm sufficiently known, I think; people recognise me for my shoes, which was beyond my wildest dreams; I even love performing in public now and am established enough that I get as many invitations as I want; and I am proud enough of what you might call my "body of work" - apologies for pomposity but I'm being honest here. I have probably done better than I had ever thought I could, though I don't think I thought much beyond the first dreamed-of contract.

I could give up now, couldn't I? Recently, I've considered it. Because, you know what? Writing, writing novels, is damned hard. Sometimes I think it's too hard. "But it's what you do. You can't afford to give up now, can you?"

Can't afford to give up? God, if I only earned from my fiction writing, I couldn't afford to continue! The money for my kind of novel-writing is seriously rubbish. I'd tell you how rubbish, except that I'm ashamed. Yep, I earn a reasonable amount altogether, but that's from speaking, not writing, or it's from writing other things, not fiction.

I moaned about this to my long-suffering agent the other day. "But money isn't the only reward, is it?" she said. "If you imagine yourself not writing, does that conjure up a picture of a creatively satisfying life?"

No, but not being valued for what I write doesn't conjure up that picture either. How much does "creatively satisfying" have to cost in time, effort and money [because I could be earning sensible money doing something else]. And, like it or not, when someone pays you for something, they attach a value to it. I know that by saying that I risk undermining the work that wonderful people do for charity - and I do some myself actually - but this is about my living, my career, my profession. It feels like a pathetic one if I can't earn from it.

So, now, I guess you'd say I am motivated by money. I may not have cared before but now I do. Maybe it's one of the differences between being unpublished and published. We think we write for the glory of writing, the pleasure of being heard, but when we've got that we want something else.

Greedy bastards who spend our lives looking at the grass on the other side, aren't we, we humans?

But you know something? We're back to the excuses for not writing, which was the point of my last post and which I was still struggling with when I started writing this post.

You see, I've worked out what's wrong with me at the moment.

My agent was right, as bloody usual: it's not about the money. The problem is that writing novels is damned difficult, no easier than it was when I started, possibly even harder, and I'm looking for an excuse not to do it. I want, in Emily's words, permission not to write novels. Because there are a load of other things I can write, like this blog, and non-fiction, and articles, and short stories. And I will write them, but if I run away from the difficult one then I'm letting myself down. How "creatively satisfying" would that be?


I do have one more let-out though, one more thing that could legitimately stop me writing the bloody novel. See, yesterday I steeled myself to send my agent the first two chapters of the new WIP. And I'm seriously more than half hoping that she'll say they're rubbish and that I've come up with an unsellable idea. That would be a truly fabulous reason not to write it, wouldn't it? Absolute permission not to write. Then instead of spending all my days struggling to write a novel and earning sod all I could spend all my days blogging for you lot and earning sod all.

Unfortunately, she's already said she loves the title, which was not meant to happen ...

Aghhhh! Nooooo! I'd forgotten the real reason I keep writing. How could I have forgotten? The real reason I write is because every time I get a new contract I get a new pair of boots.

Elizabeth? Are you still there? It's OK, really - you're allowed to say the first two chapters are completely brilliant and compelling and definitely worth continuing. As long as the advance is enough to cover a decent pair of boots, that's fine. I'll write, I'll wear my fingers to the bone, I'll burn the candle at both ends [how does that work?], I'll do anything, anything, anything for boots.

Edited to include:

But, no, I've just remembered something. I've woken up this morning and remembered the real reason why I loved writing fiction in the first place and why I would hate to stop, even though sometimes, like now, it feels horribly difficult: power. The power to move people, the power to create worlds in other people's heads. How can I give that up? Compared to the power of creating worlds, changing minds and stirring hearts, boots, chocolate and sparkly wine are trivial.

Good God, did I just say that???

BREAKING WRITING HABITS

Something for the weekend, as they say. A little thing to get you thinking, inspired by blogger, Twitterer and YA author, Emily Gale - read her post here first.

It got me thinking about something I've recently learnt: the things we believe are habits are just that - habits. And habits can (and very often should) be broken.

We say things about ourselves which sound like truths, but they may not be. Here are some things I've said about myself and which turned out not to be true when tested:

• I can't write fiction when other people are in the house. [Yes, I can if I negotiate untouchable space. I learnt this when my husband was home for six long months of "gardening" leave. We agreed that if I put a scarf on the door handle, he would never come in. That was a great way to get some secret chocolate eating done. But I did write. I had to.]
• I always write on a computer. [Not if I don't have access to one. I learnt this when I travelled to the Isle of Wight to stay in Alfred Noyes' house as the guest of his grandson and at the suggestion of his daughter; my laptop spookily stopped working on the train down there and didn't start working again until I was nearly home. Spooo-ky. Now I quite often write on paper, with a pen. It feels very wonderful. It doesn't look very wonderful but I can learn to deal with that too.]
• I can't write on trains or in hotel rooms. [I tried it and I could. Simple.]
• I couldn't write fantasy. [I just did.]
• I don't like short stories. [Until I read Tania Hershman's The White Road, published by Salt. For some reason, I can't do Amazon links any more but you can find her somehow.]
  

We do two things wrong, I think. [Well, I do many things wrong, but in this context just two.]

1. We make excuses for ourselves for why we don't write more, more often, more easily. "I can't write on trains" is so much more valid than "I find writing really difficult and sometimes even boring and sometimes even quite impossible."
2. We create perfect imagined situations for writing - little routines, mascots, mantras [such as tidy desks, or cups of coffee, special pens, silence, chocolate] and then spend far too long getting everything just right instead of getting on with the task in hand.

Crikey, I've even said that I can't write until I've hoovered behind the fridge. Leaving aside extreme work avoidance such as fridge-hoovering [and I've written about essential Work Avoidance Strategies here - no, silly woman, NOT essential, entirely optional] there are plenty of things we do before we write. I'll check all my email addresses, put the laundry on, tidy my desk, stuff that takes so long that I need another cup of coffee just to recover.

And so I have a challenge for you. Next time you have a time when you're meant to be writing, as in proper writing, the difficult stuff, the real important meaningful stuff, do this:

EITHER [see, I'm so kind that I'm giving you a choice]:

1. Write down all the things you normally do before you'll write; include the conditions you think are ideal, whether it's the silence, the tidiness, the coffee or whatever.
2. Refuse to allow yourself any of them. Create for yourself the opposite, if possible - the noise, the untidiness, the tea instead of coffee [yuck]. And then write - and don't stop until you've written 1000 words. Doesn't matter what the words are like, just write them.
3. Eat chocolate

OR
1. Go and write somewhere you've never written before. Anywhere: a café, another room, the park, a station, the kitchen, lying on your stomach on the floor, in the bath. Write 1000 words.
2. Eat chocolate.

That [chocolate-eating] is the only habit you should never break. After all, you couldn't write without chocolate, could you?

This is a picture of me actually in Alfred N's house, reading The Highwayman. What you can't see is that in the background I am also listening to his voice read the poem on an ancient cassette lent to me by his grandson.

PS - if you're interested in my personally epiphanal experience of that trip, here you are. Something else for the weekend.

STARTING YOUR STORY

""Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."" Lewis Carroll makes it sound so simple.

Thing is, where is the beginning? Where does any real story start? And in fiction, where should you choose to start it?

Although it was a blog-reader or two who asked me to talk about beginnings, it's also a sore point for me because I've been struggling with a beginning of a new novel. Sometimes the beginning is the easiest bit - in fact, we'd probably agree that usually the beginning is the easiest bit. It's certainly the most important bit, because if it's not good enough no one will get to read the middle or end.

I think there are three aspects of beginnings that we need to look at. [God I sound serious / pompous today.]

1. When to start
2. How to start
3. Things to avoid

1. When in the story should I start?

Simple: start at the point of the story which will hook the readers and draw them in quickly.

This could be with a flashback or a much earlier event which triggered the main narrative. Examples are Kate Atkinson's brilliant latest novel, When Will There Be Good News? and [if you don't mind my mentioning my own books but they are the ones I seem to know most about] Fleshmarket, by me. Both start with a shocking event which happened years before the main story. Both also enable a childhood event to be related, with a child's POV, but then for the main narrative to be from a more interesting and sustainable viewpoint than a child's.)

Or it could be a flashforward, but only if relevant. You can't contrive a flashforward: it must be intrinsic. And, you have to be careful because you risk giving the game away. I used this device in The Passionflower Massacre and it is also how The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein, my favourite book in the world, starts.

Or it may not be an earlier event, but simply "in medias res". Jump right in with a compelling episode; get right to the point. This is the method with fewer drawbacks. Perhaps the most common way to start and one which readers find most comfortable?

Or you might decide to begin with backstory /scene-setting straightaway. Clearly this has got to be very carefully done and the back story has to be compelling enough. Never start this way just because you feel the need to explain things - only start this way because you think that's what's going to draw the reader in most compellingly.

2. How should you start? Method / style /mood etc

The options are:

1. shock - I like this option, though you can't do it all the time. I did it with Fleshmarket and its shocking opening became notorious. (Even Ian Rankin was shocked ...). I think Kate Atkinson's opening is more shocking. But I'm planning to surpass both of us with my new WIP.
2. mystery / intrigue - hmm, wonders the reader, that sounds really spooky / fascinating / intriguing. I must read on to see what's actually happening. This was my choice with Mondays are Red, where the opening shows a boy waking from a coma. (In medias res). I did it in The Passionflower Massacre, too, with several things to wonder about: "Who is the old woman? Will the weird religious guy get out of prison? Why is she visiting him? Is he going to manipulate her? Why is she not afraid of him?"
   
3. scene-setting / portrayal of main character (MC) doing something relevant but not shocking - just don't overdo the static scene-setting: we do need to have a reason to read on. Remember: you are interested in your MC, but we are not until you give us very good reason. Is your MC interesting enough or do we need serious action as well?
   

Things to avoid

• playing with the reader too much. The reader doesn't trust you yet and readers hate to be messed around with. Give them enough to keep them happy yet hungry.
• too much back-story. The reader may well need some in order to understand, but it must never feel false, never feel as though the author is prepping the reader full of info, never expect the reader to remember too much too fast. Drip-feed the back story. Give the minimum.
• the rather clichéd opening of shocking Chapter 1 followed by huge dollop of gentle backstory /history lesson in Ch 2, followed by the story getting going again. You've lost half of us by then.
  

Simple, really.

If it's all as simple as that, why did I have trouble with my new WIP? Actually, I'd written the shocking first chapter quite easily, but this is only part of the beginning, because it doesn't introduce my MC. Chapter 1 is very short, a brutal act that happens to a secondary character. But Chapter 2 needed to introduce my MC. And that's the proper start of the story. It's certainly the start of the main story, the MC's story. And I had a strong feeling that since Ch 1 was so brutal I wanted to lighten things so that the reader wouldn't think he was going to be battered by awfulness throughout the book. But I still needed it to be dramatic and compelling, because you have to be thrown straight into the MC's life, without too much back-story. Or even without any.

I knew a lot about the MC's back-story, though I had no plans to tell the readers yet. Certainly not in Chapter 2 as that would have been a real let-down after Ch 1. What I also knew was that there was something missing, something that would motivate him to do something quite out of character. Why would he help the girl horribly attacked in Ch 1? I needed him to. But he wouldn't.

Unless something happened. And then I got it. Yesterday. It was a eureka moment and the dog got a bit of a fright. Suddenly I knew what happened. Something that would shock the character and throw him out of his helplessness and inevitable life of crime, something that would be morally ambivalent (because I don't do twee and cute and this is gritty YA writing I'm doing). I'm afraid it wasn't gentle at all - it was shocking again. But it wasn't bleak. And now, the readers will root for him, this street-kid who you'd not want to meet on a dark night, or even a sunny day.

So, now, the story is rolling - the beginning was the sticking point and from getting the right beginning everything else will follow.

There are two lessons here:

1. work on it, walk on it and it will sort itself out - stories have a way of doing that if you give them space
2. once you get the right beginning, everything flows from that - for both reader and writer
   

An extra tip, if you still can't get your beginning:

Just write A Beginning, any beginning. Start anywhere. Because guess what? You can always change it. There's a delete button on your computer and pages can be ripped from notebooks. Just get started and the true start will sort itself out later. In some ways, that's what I did - because as well as thinking and walking to try to sort the problem out, I also started writing a character description and back-story (not to go in the book, but for me to get to know this MC properly) and it was while writing that that I realised a) what was missing and b) how to fill the gap. I suddenly realised that I'd inadvertently started writing the episode itself - and I rather quickly had to shut that document and start a new page entitled, gloriously, CHAPTER TWO.

Hooray for Chapter Twos! Because from them follow Chapter Threes. And then when you get to the end, you stop, as the King said. But where to stop? Endings, you mean? That's for another post, and about time too, I hear you say - one of you asked me ages ago to do endings. But I had to do beginnings first. Of course.

APPEARANCE + PERSONALITY MATTERS

Let me start by offering huge congratulations to successful author and reader of this blog, Daniel Blythe? Why? Well, partly because he sent me the link that is going to inspire this post. And partly because I see that his newest book, Autonomy, is .... sound the trumpets .... No 1 in Tesco! Hooray in spades! (NB - that's a link to the live chart and the trouble with being No 1 is that ultimately there's only one way to go, but he WAS No 1 in Tesco and that's more than I can say.)

Now, this well-deserved success of Daniel's got me thinking about the link that he'd sent me a while back, suggesting I blog about it. And, though he didn't say so, I'm guessing he imagined I'd blog about it in a crabbit way, throwing my hands up in horror and in support of the irritated Guardian reviewer who wrote the article. (Sorry, can't see the name of the writer.)

Go and read it if you haven't already, and then come back.

Are we talking about the appalling prospect of books being sold / reviewed on the basis of how good-looking their authors are? Which would be, clearly, an appalling prospect. If it was the prospect. As the author of the piece points out, none of the books offered on the basis of author videos was reviewed, for one reason: they weren't good enough.

Or are we talking about marketing people using any angle to get books noticed even if the angle is tacky? Which is, er, not very surprising. Nor new. I'm pretty sure that Byron overcame some of his badness, madness, and dangerousness with more than a hint of Byronic gorgeousness. Frankly, anything that can get an author noticed will be used.

Thing is, I think the author of the piece was over-reacting a bit. First, the authors are described by their publishers in terms such as "endearing, intelligent and attractive" and "very personable". For all we know, the "very personable" one was personable solely because of a charming smile, with no other classically beautiful features. Now, I don't have a charming smile: I have a twisted one and an asymmetrical face because I had my jaw joint removed, but I don't have a problem with those who do have charming smiles having attention drawn to them, because I'd hope instead to score in the "endearing and intelligent" stakes, or possibly the "serious and piercing" or even "blonde" (it costs me to maintain, but blonde I can do reasonably well).

With all respect to my fellow members of the Society of Authors, who are all published authors, a rather large number of us do not fall into the obviously gorgeous category. Yet we manage to be published.

Also, as one of the commenters on the piece says (and the comments are worth reading), no one was saying the authors were "young and beautiful". Even the word "attractive" can mean many different things. And very definitely depending on the beholder. An "attractive" author can mean all manner of interesting and various things. As we all know, attractive does not have to mean picture-postcard perfect. Plastic surgery is absolutely not required or desired.

Seems to me we all do whatever it takes to create an "appealing" public persona, especially in this visual age and born as we are into a visually-biased species, and if "dark and sexy" fairly describes you, then what do I care if your publisher says that? Our websites give a whole load of info that you'd think no one would really want to know and which on the face of it has no bearing on our books - how interested are you in the fact that I love anchovies, for example? Well, my website gives you that info. You can ignore it if you want. You'd be surprised how many people find it fascinating - so fascinating that when I removed it and other silly stuff, a school teacher complained that there was no "personal" info for her pupils to use for a project.

When I read someone's work, I confess I am interested in who they are - how old, male or female, something about their background, why they write. Doesn't make me listen more or less, but I'm interested. I don't want them to be perfect, just human. They are talking to me, after all, and I like to know who is talking to me. I read the little biogy bits at the front of books; I am hungry for author info.

Which brings me to our hero, Daniel. (Apologies, D - I didn't warn you about this! You can get me back on Facebook, if you like. Besides, it's a small price to pay to see your latest book plugged, wouldn't you say?)

See, as all good authors do, and especially authors for young people, Daniel has a website. From which we are to learn the things he wishes us to learn about him. He will have selected the info in order to portray a certain picture - no doubt a true one, but it won't be a complete one. He does this not, I presume, because we might fall in love with him (I should warn you that DB has a wife and kids and he is presumably precious to them, so hands off, please, blog-readers) but because he'd like us to read his books and he thinks (rightly, imho) that the more we know about him, within reason, the more we might do so.

On his website we learn all sorts of things, many of which have nothing to do with whether the words in his books are any good. There's his wife and two kids, the fact he lives near Sheffield - let's hope he has real electricity, unlike poor Jane Smith. He is younger than me - the bastard. (Does this make me not want to read his books? Nah, I'm bigger than that.) He likes tea. And he lives in a place which some people think was the birthplace of Robin Hood. Yeah, right. He got an annoying number of O-levels and A-levels, speaks a ridiculous number of languages and went to the wrong university. Am I beginning to hate him? Well .... No, of course not. I am beginning to know him, or at least that part of him he wishes me to know, which is fair enough. And probably far enough.

As to whether he's good looking or not - well, a) that's for his wife to say b) we don't care and c) I would hate to embarrass him further. He looks personable, relaxed, on holiday. He's wearing shades so either a) he's got something wrong with his eyes b) he's very cool c) it was a sunny day or d) any combination of the above.

Thing is, what we know is that Daniel has a personality and, being human, we respond to that. Of course, we could be being deceived; everything on his website could be a lie. In which case, way to go, Daniel!

So, I disagree with the Guardian blogger. I respect the viewpoint but I disagree. I do want to know something about the authors whose books I read. Including what they look like, not to judge their attractiveness but to begin to connect.

Which reminds me. Must go and buy Autonomy. But not from Tesco, if you don't mind - I'd like to see it No 1 in my local independent. Vanessa - do you have it? If not, why not? He's good-looking, for crying out loud.

BIG MISTAKE 3: OVER-WRITING

Thing about writers is we're passionate about words. (If you're not, bugger off, please).

Trouble with being passionate about words is we sometimes don't know when to rein in our passion. I admit that I'm guilty of this quite often. There are people in my life who do their best to stop me, and very grateful I am to them.

They are, in no particular order:

• my husband - "Shut up: you're banging on."
• my editor - "OTT" / "suggest omit?"
• my internal editor - "do you really need both those descriptions you're so horribly proud of? Would you consider killing one of the babies? No? Well, I'll do it for you and it won't be pretty."

Personally, I blame it on primary school teachers. (With all respect to them for the otherwise wonderful job they do and all the nasty things they mop up.) See, when kids start to write stories, they're told to use adjectives, and adverbs, and detail, and the five senses; and then they get onto similes and metaphors and other devices. Whenever children use these techniques, they get praised. So they use more. And more. Some children don't and they don't get praise, so they fade into the background and become the ones who don't consider themselves writers. Meanwhile Arabella and George have their stories read out in class to demonstrate the richness of their language and the vividness of their imaginations. And so Arabella and George gorge on more and more adjectives and clever-clever literary devices and get carried away into some kind of ecstasy as they sit in their teenage rooms and pour their hearts out into their diaries by moonlight.

Other kids are asleep, but Arabella and George are floating on moonbeams and diving into liquid worlds and sherbet dreams and the parts of their brains that are good with words become passionate about words and lo and behold, two hopeful writers are emerging.

Thing is, no one tells them to stop. No one tells them that just because an adjective is beautiful, five adjectives are not necessarily five times as beautiful. No one tells them that words are valuable, that they need to be chosen perfectly, that effort goes into the positioning of each word, and, crucially, its removal if it is not the absolute best one for the job.

So, grown-up now, Arabella and George begin to write novels. They write for themselves, because they must be true to their souls. They put everything into their oeuvres, their whole beings, all the power of language that they can muster. They read their work aloud to themselves, over and over again. They make themselves cry and shiver with the piercing anguish of their prose.

One day, they are ready to send their oeuvres off to publishers. They visit a well-known blog, called Help! I Need a Publisher! - though, in fact, they believe that they should really be on a blog called "Help! I'm a Publisher and I Really Need You, You Fabulous Writer!" And they follow all the stunning advice about covering letters and synopses and sample chapters and tailoring the submission properly to the right publisher. They don't even include any toffee, or glitter, or naked photos of themselves, though George is tempted because he has a kind of Byronic air of which he is more than faintly proud.

And they are rejected. Because you can bet your bottom dollar that their work is over-written. Thing is that A & G, potentially talented though they may be, are totally up themselves with the beauty of their prose and they have forgotten that this is not about them: it's about the story / work / book /reader. Of course, we must write from the heart and I would never advise selling out at the expense of the quality of your writing - though you may earn more if you do - but if you put yourself and the pleasure YOU derive from your own words above the work itself and the pleasure the reader will take from it then you may as well talk under water.

Help! How do I know if I'm doing this horrible over-writing thing?
So far, I've suggested a cause and a result, and you'll have gleaned something general about what over-writing is, but I haven't shown you how to spot it in your own work. It's easier to spot in others' work, because it's damned irritating. It's like seeing someone a bit over-dressed for the occasion - you know, when someone has just gone that little bit too far to show off the gorgeous legs and Manolo Blahniks when all we're doing is digging a ditch; or perhaps like wearing two diamond necklaces - very vulgar, dahling. It's showing off, preening, and no one responds well to it. When we find over-writing in someone else's work, we may mutter under our breath, "Ok, ok, you really fancy yourself, don't you?" and it gets in the way of the story that we were trying to read.

And this is the main point about over-writing: it gets in the way. It ends up hiding the true beauty underneath, covering it with glitz and frills.

So, on the basis that you are looking carefully at every word you use, because I know you are, here are the questions I think you should ask yourself when checking your work for over-writing. Ask yourself these things especially when it's a piece of description, high emotion, or when you are feeling particularly proud of yourself:

• have I paced the surrounding sentences so that this bit has enough space to work? So, if my gem is surrounded by loads of other gems, is it going to be noticed? No? So, bin some gems. Give the purple sentence some space. You can't see purple on a background of purple
• have I said the same thing twice? (I do this a lot. I even do it quite often.) Or if not exactly the same then is half my description more powerful than the other half?
  
• have I used three adjectives where one (or a different phrase altogether) would have worked harder and maybe ended up being more meaningful?
  
• is this in fact a bit of action where the reader doesn't want to be held back by description anyway? Will the reader be tempted to skip to the action?
  
• is this actually beautiful or is it in fact absurdly flowery? Am I being like a child who thinks that My Little Bride Pony is genuinely tasteful? Am I being greedy and deluded?
  
• if it is genuinely beautiful, is it in keeping with the rest of the work / section? Am I "in voice"?
  
• have I been guilty of "showing, not telling"? (This is often over-used as a crit - sometimes, telling is the right thing to do, but only if it's the right thing to do. I've written about it here and here.)
• have I overdone the adverbs? Especially in dialogue tags - eg. "she said, resignedly" (because it would be much better and more skilful if you showed in other ways that the person spoke resignedly - otherwise [think about it] the reader won't know how to read it until after reading it and getting to your adverb, by which time [if you're a crappy writer] the reader will have read it excitedly or poignantly or something quite differently.
• if I cut this paragraph by 25% would it be even better? (Yes, it would, trust me.)

One trouble is: over-writing is all relative. What's beautiful prose to someone is self-indulgence to another. You have to work out where you want to be on the spectrum. Michel Faber is my writing hero - his prose is gorgeous, his imagination extreme and his vocabulary and imagery rich and rolling, yet he thinks about every word (or he seems to) and every word works. You have to read every word because there are clues everywhere and you can't afford to miss them. That's how I'd love to write. But everyone's different and I'm not saying other styles aren't just as valuable. Just make sure you're clear about what you want and whether your readers want the same.

I'm currently going through my next novel, Wasted, with my ruthless internal editor's hat on. The novel is done and dusted and my editor wants me to release it for copy-editing, but I'm convinced there are more things wrong with it. One of the things I'm looking for, because I tend to get carried away, is over-writing.

I thought I'd give you three extracts that I picked up and thought about at length:

1. "Their heads tell them that this is fake, ordinary, or has a boring explanation - Farantella is ill or messing around with them."

There's an example of "the cliché of three": fake, ordinary, boring. I realised that ordinary and boring are too similar to be useful, so I changed it to, "Their heads tell them that this is fake, or has an ordinary explanation." No frills, no fancy stuff. No showing off.

2. "For they both feel it: that there is something heavy in the caravan, something thickening the air, a chill breath of strangeness."

This one I haven't finished with. It feels over-written, though it occurs at a moment where I am wanting the reader to pause and savour the atmosphere. But it's that "cliché of three" again, and I'm not sure I'm happy. I'll have to think about it. It may get to stay. Or it may not. I'd rather think of something with one or two phrases, otherwise it looks as though I'm struggling to find the right phrase.

3. "Soon, but not very soon, disentangled but still with the blush of him hot on her skin, Jess goes into her house and smiles goodbye to Jack, standing there, watching her."

This gets to stay. This baby lives. Jack and Jess are passionately in love and every touch is almost unbearably electric. I need to show this, even though I have not described their kiss. I am "showing" the effects of the kiss, the parting of their skin, rather than "telling" you about the kiss. (Frankly, showing and not telling with kissing is often preferable - the imagination can fill in the details without feeling as though the author is being a voyeur ...) So, I judge it not over-written but strong. You may disagree! Of course, all this is about context, and you haven't seen the contexts, but I wanted to show you a little of how I go about trying to be ruthless about over-writing. And sometimes failing.

Do remember that in the end you have to judge this yourself. Some genres require and tolerate greater or lesser levels of prose; different books and different topics require a different treatment.

For example, my first novel, Mondays are Red, is heavily loaded with description, which in a different context you might call over-writing. But it shows a boy waking from a coma, hugely disorientated and with an acquired and exaggerated version of the sensory condition, synaesthesia. So, you get pretty over-the-top description and a deliberately confusing multi-sensory layering - it's a book you either love or hate, depending on whether you can let yourself go with the strange descriptions. Whereas Wasted has whole pages with virtually no adjectives and adverbs at all, completely pared back, interspersed with the occasional sentence suddenly rich in description. The intention there is that you will notice the description much more starkly, because it will stand out.

It's that thing about not being able to see purple against a purple background.

But, whatever you're writing and whoever your reader, it is worth considering whether you can apply these adages to your work:

Less is often more
Flowery is not good - delicately floral is.
Over-writing is in the eye of the beholder - and you do care about your beholder
It requires much greater skill to say something in a few words than in many

And finally, that old chestnut:

If in doubt, leave it out.

If you apply that last one correctly you cannot be guilty of over-writing. It's the most important task of the internal editor: to ensure that every word works and earns its place.

Finally, finally, newbies to this blog, or people with duff memories like mine, may be wondering what Big Mistake 1 and Big Mistake 2 were. They were, respectively, Voice and Pace. And the greatest of these is voice.

Voice defines you and defines your book. It's the hardest thing to teach. Compared to voice, over-writing is a complete doddle. So, no excuses now and no pressure. Go and seek out your over-written passages and where you find them, cut them out. And watch how something much stronger appears.

17 REASONS WHY MANUSCRIPTS ARE TURNED DOWN

On the other hand, emerging from a migraine (see below) doesn't mean I can't push you towards someone else with wise words and no headache. Here are 17 reasons why manuscripts are turned down. It's nearly a year old, but some things don't change. "The Adventurous Writer" has other useful lists of tips. As with most lists, they're not exhaustive but a good start.

Maybe over-writing is number 18. Actually, it's kind of number 10 on that list, but number 10 doesn't quite cover what I have to say about over-writing. Over-writing is a subject close to my heart, since it's something I can be guilty of myself and also something that stopped me being published for so long.

By the way, why did some loser send me two crappy comments with weird personal abuse? OK, I don't think I deserve a medal or an award but I also don't think I deserve crappy ignorant abuse. I don't get paid enough. Er, actually I don't get paid anything, so please piss off with your anonymous cowardice and let me get on with engaging with real writers trying to get published. And maybe consider not being drunk or stoned before you send your pathetic weirdness. Because of you, I have had to eliminate the option for anonymous comments, which is a shame because some decent people have perfectly valid reasons for being anonymous. You, you're just a loser.

Told you I had a headache. Most of you don't even know what I'm talking about because I removed the pathetic comments. Disagreement I welcome; inane loserness I don't. If you don't like me, don't read my blog - I don't ask you to. Haven't you got better things to do? go and hang out with the other nasty people - they'll make you feel so much better.

I've said my piece. And now I feel much better, too.

HIATUS

Apologies for my absence. There is a post planned, about over-writing, but crabbit with a migraine, cold and daughter in hospital (fine, tonsils out, yuck) is not something that would add to your lives in any way. I've been crawling from my bed between doses of syndol to do necessary things, and then crawling back again. I am now surfacing and have had my first glass of wine since Monday so things must be looking up.

I will be back.

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!

OF BOOKS, MAGIC and YURTS

I only have a few minutes to bring you a post today, as I'm about to go to lunch with my agent to celebrate the start of September (I know: I don't need much excuse for lunch); the end of the Edinburgh Book Festival; a glorious sunny day; and the fact that I have a new novel brewing and the shocking first chapter is tantalisingly poised to be written but I am holding myself back.

So, just having a few minutes, I'm being lazy and bringing you a post that went out today for a collaborative blog I'm involved with - the Awfully Big Blog Adventure. Or ABBA, as we misleadingly call it. And no, Gillian, for the record, I have never worn lurex flares and I am still considering proceedings for defamation.

Anyway, here it is, my wistful report on the book festival and, most especially, the Glory that is the Yurt.

But, as a little extra just for you, I bring you the real heroes of my last few weeks:

And now, allow me to remind you (if you haven't already) to change my blog address in your list of links and to rejoin as a follower if you'd like to. It commits you to nothing. In fact, I haven't a clue what it means, but I do like to see you there. It makes me feel I'm not whistling in the wind.

GAH

HELP  -  I need a technical person! 

I have just noticed that my posts are not automatically updating in the blog-rolls of those nice people who link to me ... This happened once before after I'd set myself up with Twitterfeed. On that occasion, I spent hours sorting it but have inevitably forgotten what I did ... It's something to do with RSS feeds, I think.

Anyone know?

On the other hand, if this does appear automatically in your list, ignore me. I must have sorted it.

CRABBIT OLD BAT MOVES HOUSE

The Crabbit Old Bat has moved her blog to this almost identical house in the same street. I'm ready to welcome visitors though I may need to ask to borrow a cup of sugar.

I know, it looks frighteningly similar to the old one (some decorating is in progress in order to make it fully functional) but all you need to know is that the ADDRESS has changed. Everything else will ultimately be the same. The list of links will take me a while but I hope it will be better. Even better, I hear you say.

So, please do the following:

• bookmark the new address (www.helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com)
  
• delete your old bookmark so you don't get confused
• add yourself to the list of followers. Please!
  
• continue on this new blog with its much more sensible address (because it matches the name.)

If you notice anything wrong, please let me know. Any suggestions also welcome.

And now I am going to meet my lovely agent in the Yurt and try not to wince when she tells me about her recently broken tow. Ouuuuoooch.

YOUR WIP IS DEAD - LONG LIVE YOUR WIP

After my last post (excuse the pun), you all shared so much about your dead / dying / comatose books (and I loved Donna's image of divorcing her WIP, citing irreconcilable differences!) that I thought I'd reply in a separate post and pick up your points.

First, though, Bookmaven - thank you for your flattering suggestion that I turn the blog into a book. I have sometimes thought about it a bit but have pretty much decided that I love the blog format. (Shame I can't earn any money through it ...) Penny Dolan made the point too. Thing is, I feel that this blog is more than just my words or voice - if this blog is any good at all it's all your voices that have helped make it that way. I think the quality of commenting on this blog is outstanding. I'm delighted to have well-known authors such as yourself (Bookmaven, for those who don't know, is the very successful Mary Hoffman), as well as editors and agents, and a fabulous standard of unpublished authors who seem to be doing all the right things to propel themselves towards publication. I think that blogs sometimes have the edge over books - the sacrilege! - because they are moveable and malleable and mutual. More like a guided group sharing thoughts and knowledge than a figure on a stage lecturing and then disappearing without taking questions.

(Candy - of course I need your comments, and not like a hole in the head! And yes, I know I haven't replied to your email - I'm on the case. Thank you!)

So, no plans for a book (though I wouldn't turn down a fabulous offer ...) but I am thinking of doing some talks around the country. I'd be happy to hear from anyone who'd like to set something up. Crabbit Old Bat on Tour? Crabbit Old Bat Comes to a Town Hall Near You? (Note to self - could be an excuse for serious investment in shoes. Definitely tax-deductible. Note to Penny Dolan - jealousy is an occupational hazard of a writer so if you're only jealous of shoes, you've getting off lightly).

Meanwhile, your excellent comments on 222ing books.

I am in awe of how you've all taken positivity from rejection. (As Caroline said, rejection is information. I like that.) Your thoughts are worth quoting from. And literally everyone was positive.

So, Ebony McKenna (recently published - yay!):

"I finished six manuscripts (and didn't finish others) before I found my groove with Ondine. Two of those manuscripts *might* be fixable, but if they never see the light of day, that's fine with me. They were not a waste of time because I learned so much in the process." Exactly!

Juliet Boyd:

"I find the best way to deal with it [rejection] is to quickly open the envelope and see reject. Then put it away for a week to let yourself accept the rejection. After that, you can go back and read the feedback given with a rational mind and if you're honest with yourself, you will often agree with what is said." Juliet, If you can put it away for a week, you're a stronger woman than I am ...

Iain Broome said...

"I've been lucky so far and managed to get an agent at the fourth or fifth attempt, but I know plenty of people who have struggled and struggled with their novel. I think it's made all the more difficult because our work came out of our time on a Masters programme (Sheffield Hallam), so the investment, in a sense, has been financial as well as emotional, time-related etc." Iain, I wonder if it's not so much the financial aspect but the fact that going on an MA course is a fairly public statement that "I am going to be a Writer" so any "failure" to achieve that is a more public failure. When I was struggling to get published, I didn't tell many people so the anguish was more private.

Donna expresses it perfectly, even though she hasn't got to the point of submitting, let alone rejection! Great attitude, Donna. She says:

"... I do understand the reality that maybe, just maybe, this best book that's ever been written in the history of the world may not ever be published. Do I have the strength to sign a DNR form? Probably not. But I think I could bring myself to sign divorce papers (citing irreconcilable differences, or course). That way, I can officially move on... but I can entertain the dream that maybe a long way down the road we can reunite. It's a slim-to-none chance, but I'm the kind of person that needs the "slim."

The important part of Andy Duggan's experience is highlighted in red:

"I've been through all this as well, but maybe I can give some figures that might help: I've got a collection of approx 50 rejections from agents and publishers. In spite of this, my novel 'Scars Beneath The Skin' was eventually published by Flambard Press. There was a major rewrite somewhere amongst those 50 rejections, though - prompted by constructive criticism from a writing group."

Focus on the red high-lighted parts of Suzie F's comment, too. This is what I mean by the quality of comments. Her point about self-doubting voices is crucial - these are the voices we have to learn to listen to. They so often speak sense. (Except that she had doubts about whether to write at all - the more important doubts are the ones about THIS book, Suzie. Always continue writing if you love it enough - though if you're not good enough, you may not be published ...) Suzie says:

"Today's post hit home with me as I'm currently facing the fact that my current WIP isn't going anywhere. Well, maybe somewhere, like a deep, dark desk drawer. This is actually the second time - my first attempt at a novel was dropped at approx. 10,000 words but I was heading into NaNoWriMo with a fresh idea. ... I was infatuated with my two MCs but got myself into a plot jam. I've been stuck ever since. Then the self-doubting voices began whispering in my ear and I struggled with whether or not I should continue writing at all. Instead, I decided to use this WIP as a learning experience. Editing, rewriting, tightening, researching and reading a ton of books in my genre (MG and YA). I love the process so much and am starting to develop two new ideas." Hooray and triple hooray!

David Griffin gives an insight into the anguish of the writer, and many of us will identify:

"I had the services of an agent for just over a year, quite a while back now. And because the agency were unable to place my novels, we parted company. ... Since then I've tried only a handful of agents over the years, in a sort of half-hearted fashion, really. (i.e if one reputable and well-known London agency didn't want to represent me anymore, why would any other? Silly, I know, but it's taken a long time to get over that thought)." David, silly but understandable - thing is, you are probably a better writer now, writing different things - perhaps you are more publishable now. You have to try.

"So in a way, lacking confidence and motivation in trying other agents, I've attempted to "smother my children" by simply not getting them out there." God, we're into murder now! Eeek, what did I start?

"I'm developing habits of a writer who is committed to writing now, writing every day .... I'm going to try agents with determination and give it up to maybe 20 rejections. Only then will I occasionally read from the POD versions of my novels, with the odd sigh, knowing that not many other people will read them; and try the third one (when it's finished). "Grief, who would be a writer? (Millions of us, I know)."

Indeed ...

DanielB said...

"I have had to "slap a 222" on a novel in the past when the publisher who I thought would be "my publisher" (a reasonable assumption, as they'd published two of my novels) turned it down. ... It's still in cryogenic suspension, awaiting that revolution in medical science. Parts of it have been siphoned off and used for stem cell research to grow bits of other novels." So, not wasted at all. Excellent! And I'm partly including your comment because it's interesting for people to see that even successful writers like you can have temporary probs with publishing and [see next para] with writing ...

"That's the second situation Nicola mentions - and I am a little worried that I may also now be facing the first as well! Damn it, I'm supposed to be one of those "experienced writers". It isn't meant to happen to us..." Ah, yes, unfortunately it does, but I am confident that you've spotted it earlier and stopped yourself sooner than if this was your first. For info of others, the second situation Daniel refers to is when you're halfway through a book and you become aware that it's going towards a dead-end fast.

Sue Hyams and Rebecca Knight seem delightfully happy at declaring the deaths of their beloved works. They say, respectively:

"Oh, how timely! Just yesterday I decided that 222 was the only way forward - only I didn't have a name for it then - for the novel I've been working and working and working on for the past 18 months. The decision had been whacking me on the back of the head for some time but I tried to ignore it. Now, it almost feels like a relief. Almost. Great post - thank you!"

And:

"This is a fantastic post ... I've had to do this with my book, and it was all for the best :). I received two rejections that got me thinking, stopped querying immediately, and got to work! I can safely say that what I have now is 10 times better than my previous book, and all because of the criticism I received. Thank God for rejection!"

To be honest, I'd say thanks to the writers who take rejection so constructively and leave God out of it, but I know what you mean ...

I want to finish by referring to Catherine Hughes' comment. I'm not putting it in full here because this post is already long enough. Do go back to it on the post below this and see what you think because she's asking you all a question. My instinct is that she should be writing another book, because she has been told she can definitely write, but this vampire book (even if it is really really really different from other vampire books) has not been taken. I think we deserve better than another vampire book and I think Catherine can do it!

However, I also want you to notice that Catherine discovered (from the rejections and feedback) that she has a fatal flaw in her writing: not knowing at which point of the action to start the story.

I have two things to say to that:

1. I'm going to do a post about starting stories. (Catherine, you will have discovered from your search that I haven't talked about this yet). It's a great idea for a topic.
2. I have good news for the patient: this is not a fatal flaw. There is a cure! Hooray for illnesses with cures!
   

Catherine (and others who may be tempted) - you want to revoke your 222. I suggest you don't, at least yet, but I do suggest you take DanielB's suggestion and opt for cryogenic suspension. You may still eventually decide to turn off the life-support but on the other hand a) you may find the cure in time and b) vampires may be back once more. Yes, I do think the agent is referring to you writing something else, but yes you should also hang on very tightly to those words of praise. They don't come often or easily.

Meanwhile, you and we all simply need to remember the most important point of my orginal post, and one which none of you commented on substantially: that whether our WIP is curable, mildly rheumatic, terminal, comatose or cryogenically suspended (or awaiting divorce proceedings) we should be doing one thing regardless: writing and falling in love again.

Because that's what being a writer is.

CERTIFYING THE DEATH OF YOUR BOOK

Recently I noticed that my blog has 222 followers (now increased, which slightly spoils the point but please don't go away). I noticed because it's a cute number but then it got me thinking. "Not for 222" is (apparently) the medical code for a hospital patient so close to death that he should not be resuscitated in the event of heart failure.

It got me wondering how a writer decides his beloved book is "not for 222". How many times can you allow it to be rejected? At what point do you decide there's no possibility of life? Is your unpublished book terminally unpublishable?

Strikes me there are two situations where you might have to make the dreaded 222 order on your book.

1. Your Work in Progress (WIP) is not progressing. It's stuck. What started with an appealing idea and hook has ground to a halt. You have begun to force the plot-line; you know that it all now hangs on an episode which doesn't completely ring true, even to you, but you're determined to make it fit and you pile in more and more things to force the reader to believe in your story. You're starting to bite your nails in your sleep. There are bits of your book that you love and you keep reading them aloud to yourself, marvelling at the gorgeousness of your talent, but you know in a secret and painful part of your heart that your book has been built on sand.
   
2. Your finished book has failed (and failed and failed and failed) to find an agent or publisher. Some have given glimmers of hope, which you have clutched at and possibly exaggerated in your mind; your friends and family love your book (duh) but no agent or publisher seems to care about that; your writing group keep telling you to carry on trying - they mop up your tears and tell you you are brilliant and that publishers don't know what they're talking about or are "only in it for the money". (Well, yes, actually, if you mean that they can't afford to make a loss on every book they take on and they do have to eat like the rest of us.)

In each of these cases, a brave decision must be made.

Situation One is an occupational hazard of writing. It's an often fatal illness that happens much more often to books written by inexperienced writers. As you become more experienced, you'll spot the symptoms earlier and treat the cause before it becomes terminal. I have just done this with an idea that I was utterly gripped by until I began to look ahead and think the plot through. I foresaw fundamental problems in motivation and development, so I killed my baby before I'd developed a relationship with it.

(Note: we talk about the importance of "killing our babies" in writing and it strikes me that killing babies is a lot easier than killing adults. Metaphorically, I hasten to add. If you let your book grow and invest huge amounts of time in it, it's much harder to let it go. Whereas, spectacularly unlike real babies, an idea being stillborn is just a pinprick, something you have to get used to. Apologies for the unpleasant analogy.)

Situation Two
"How many rejections should I accept before giving up?" I was recently asked after a talk on how to get published. It's not the first time I've been asked it. Obviously, there is no answer, or not in terms of a number. In theory, you could send it to every agent and publisher who takes that sort of book, which might only be 20 or it might be 100.

But there are two more useful questions you should ask:

1. How many rejections should I accept before doing some radical re-writing of my work?

Answer: not very many, frankly. IF you have submitted your book to the right people (ie you have researched carefully and only sent it to agents and publishers who handle this sort of work) and IF you have followed all the guidelines so far given in this blog and the submission guidelines of the agents and publishers you've approached, and IF your writing is good enough and IF your book is sellable, then it is likely either to have been accepted or to have attracted some specific feedback, even if not an acceptance yet. So, IF the feedback has alerted you to a problem, you should be re-writing now. IF the feedback has either been inconsistent or has suggested nothing, you should consider getting (perhaps paying for) a professional critique of your work. But be careful to research very carefully the "professionalism" of this critiquing ... (Future post topic.)

What do I mean by "not very many"? Well, you ask me for a figure and figures don't really figure in this game. But let's say, for the sake of argument, not more than ten. No, eight. Seven?

"Only seven? Or even ten?" I hear some of you say. Ah, I don't mean you'll only send it to 7-10 agents/publishers; I mean you'll only send it to that many before taking a long hard look at what you've written (another long hard look because of course you've already given it dozens of long hard looks - I mean a long, hard, critical and objective look). Somehow, you must get a good opinion as to what's wrong with your book which means that you haven't yet hooked anyone.

Thing is, if you send it to 25 and they all say "no way" and then you decide you could have written it better, that's 25 publishers you can't really send it to again when you've improved it ... Well, you can, but it's tricky and needs some careful handling.

But I said there were two more useful questions and the second one is even more useful:

2. What should I be doing while my book is out there being read by an agent / publisher / anyone?

And the answer to this is dead easy: you're a writer, aren't you? So you should be writing. You should be throwing yourself into your next idea. If you're not, you're no writer, just a one-book wannabe. And no agent or publisher wants a one-book wannabe. No reader wants a one-book wannabe.

So get writing. Be fickle - turn your back on your beautiful slaved-over book and fall into bed with a new lover.

When you do that, you learn several important things:

• that your first book may not be as good as you thought it was
• that you can fall in love again
• that the death of a book is not the end of you as a writer
• that being a writer is about striving to be better all the time and that this happens with practice
• that if your first book is not good enough you actually don't want it to be published
• that actually you can postpone the 222 decision and wait for new technology to come along (in the form of your new knowledge gleaned from writing the second book) which might cure the disease
  
• that if at some point you decide to slap a "not for 222" on your first book, this will be a positive moment in your career as a real writer. And that you will (I promise) get over your apparently tragic loss.

Don't get me wrong: it's tough, it hurts, and even grown men cry. But if you have another WIP, it's not so bad. And you will not regret it. Ever. I don't know a published writer who hasn't got unpublished work in a drawer. And I don't know a published writer who really wishes that that unpublished work was published. God, I'm glad mine wasn't.

And a happy corollary that comes from all this is that resurrection and reincarnation both exist in a writer's world: it can sometimes happen that an idea or a book that died can rise again, later, when you are grown as a writer, and become something so much better and stronger and more beautiful than it first was.

We have to love our books with a passion but sometimes we have to let them die; or leave them lying in bed while we look ahead to the next one to love. Call yourself fickle, call yourself callous - it doesn't matter as long as you are writing.

If you have more than one book in you, let's see it. If you don't, give yourself a 222.

WANTED: SUBMISSIONS FOR PUBLIC OPINION

Newcomers (and there are many - hello!) to this blog won't know about the occasional Submission Spotlights, so I thought I'd flag up these opportunities to have your Work in Progress mauled in public by readers from all over the world. "Hold me back," I hear you say. Yes, it's a scary thing to do - but here's a thought: getting published is scary too, because then your Work is no longer in Progress but horribly fixed, and real readers will throw eggs and wet sponges at it. So, better get your humiliation in while you've still got a chance to improve the response.

Also, a nice man came up to me after a recent talk I did and was asking about his non-fiction proposal, and I realised that my Sub Spotlights don't give an opportunity for non-fic writers to be abused. This is not right - non-fic writers need to be able face the music too. So, I am going to amend the submission guidelines.

(If you have already sent one in, don't change it. I'm not that much of a bat.)

NEW SUBMISSION SPOTLIGHT GUIDELINES

• for fiction (whether children's or adult writing): submit your covering letter and the first 500-600 words of your novel / children's story. In other words, submit almost exactly what you would really submit, except omitting a synopsis and ignoring the "3 chapters or 10,000 words rule". Covering letter should aim (as with real covering letters) to hook the agent or editor by encapsulating your book in a succinct but expressive way, following the guidelines in my recent posts on covering letters. See here, here and here. You would normally be enclosing a synopsis (although you are not for the purposes of this exercise) so don't give details of the outcomes of your plot/sub-plots - just give enough so that we can tell just what sort of book this is and why it is so compelling. As with a normal fiction submission, your novel should be finished before you submit.
  
• for non-fiction (again, could be for children or adults): I want to see almost the whole proposal that you intend to send to an agent or editor. HOWEVER, please do not enclose your CV - instead, your proposal should include a para showing why you are the person to write this book. Also, for the sample, please only send me the first 250 words, without any intro. We want to get a sense of the writing style, voice and pitch.
  
• please email your submission as an email attachment in a Word doc (not pdf) to writingtutor@hotmail.co.uk Make sure it's not read-only. Previously I asked for the submission in the body of the email - I discovered this is more of a nuisance. Again, if you've already sent a submission, don't worry - if I'm going to use it, I will.

Notes to all:

1. if I don't use your submission, don't take this as a rejection! I'm simply trying to offer a range of different genres
2. there is no deadline (thanks to Dan H for pointing out that I didn't make this clear) - it's an ongoing thing
3. please specify if you're contacting agent or editor
4. you are welcome to use a pseudonym - make it clear what you want me to use

QUESTION - Anyone got any more children's / YA submissions?