“Oh, it’s an e-book.” She gave a knowing
grin.
“That’s not real publishing, is it?”
The
decision came to me after months of consideration and years of disappointment:
I would self-publish my work on Kindle. It wasn’t something I did lightly.
I’ve
been writing seriously (as in, seriously writing stuff that had an amusing
edge) for twelve or more years and I have spent a small fortune in posting
material out to publishers and agents in the hope that first they would read
what I sent, and secondly that they would be impressed enough to read more.
In
1999, when I sent out samples of my first complete novel, a fair number of
publishers were still accepting unsolicited material directly from writers.
Between then and now that’s all changed. Nearly all publishers accept only that
which has been submitted by a literary agent. This is very bad news for writers,
and even worse for readers.
Literary
agents are the self-appointed guardians of the publishing world. They are the
experts in what the public wants to read, and experts in what the public ought
to be reading. Their word is the word of the publishing God. What would the
great reading populace of the world do if it were not for the literary agent
standing steadfast against the flow of inventiveness of writers? Literary
agents know full well that if a particular style of writing was popular in one
book by one author last year, then every other author submitting material to
them MUST, OH YES MUST, write in that exact same style and on the exact same
subject. Or else!
Publishers,
of course, must bow to the knowledge of these literary Gods, because if they
don’t, it is they who have to do the hard work of reading new material direct
from an inventive author. Heaven forbid that a writer, urgh – A DIRTY,
HORRIBLE WRITER, no less – should submit directly to the very
sensitive publisher. Lordy, lordy, lordy, that would never do. Ye gads: authors
have GERMS.
As a
writer I was in a situation where first I had to identify which agents
represent my genre, and then which ones are willing to receive submissions.
Recently I have been writing what could loosely be termed young adult fantasy,
but it crosses the age boundaries and also crosses over into adventure and
comedy. Try finding an agent that accepts that combination in the Writers’
& Artists’ Year Book!
I
identified around twenty that might be interested, and sent samples out in
batches of five. Take into account the postage (return), packaging and printing
costs, and each batch of submissions costs about £25 - £30. Only a few will
accept submissions by e-mail, and those who do probably use e-mail as an excuse
not to actually read what has been sent.
One of
the things agents want writers to include in their covering letter is the names
of other authors to which they can be compared. At the same time, agents state
they are looking for new and original voices: what do they want? “Dear Agent
... my writing is like a cross between J K Rowling and Alfred Hitchcock, yet I
retain an element of stark originality ...” The real problem is that agents
really don’t know what to do when someone with a new and original voice does come
along, so almost invariably they reject it.
Over
12 years I have had rejections of varying quality: some were complimentary,
some less so. More recently I have had rejections for Pike’s Quest that were
downright glowing – so much so that I wondered why the work was rejected. One
agent was thoroughly impressed with the writing, but after three chapters she
wasn’t so sure about the story. She sent me the best rejection ever. But hang
on: who is she to judge the story? If my writing was as good as she said, that
should be enough to strike up a working relationship. I’m pretty damned sure
that she doesn’t like everything that her existing clients send to her, but I’m
pretty sure she attempts to place it with the publisher. She did ask me to
submit future work to her, but gave not a single clue as to what she was
looking for.
Writers
employ agents, agents don’t employ writers. But agents often refuse to work for
a writer. This is understandable if the writer is crap, but where is the sense
when the writer clearly is not crap? Without any intentional arrogance, if I
chose an agent to grace with my work, he/she should be honoured that I have
done so.
The
frustration comes by knowing that the work is of a publishable standard, yet
I’ve only been able to get two publishers to read it.
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Pike's Quest
To read the blurb, click HERE
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