If you’re keen to discover exactly what a literary agent does, take a look at Andrew Lownie’s website.
He’s a fabulous agent and has written several very candid articles about his work, in which he discusses his reasons for rejecting submissions, details his daily routines, and reveals his submissions statistics. It’s funny as well as informative: I laughed out loud as I read his descriptions of his slush pile. He regularly invites other publishing professionals to contribute (although quite what he was thinking of when he requested this piece I cannot imagine); and if you subscribe to his newsletter you don’t even have to visit his website to read all of this wondrous information as he’ll send it straight to your inbox.
Just remember to come back here when you’re done with him, because I do want you back.
Showing posts with label advice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advice. Show all posts
Monday, 9 February 2009
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
With Apologies To Angelas Everywhere
There’s a certain sort of writer that I’ve met a lot of over the years: I’ll call her Angela.
Writing means a lot to Angela. She considers it a form of high art: an expression of her true nature. She keeps her writing secret for a long time and when she finally lets her friend Beverly read it she’s reduced to tears when Beverly suggests that it might need a little revision.
Angela still has confidence in her work, and after much thought she decides that the problem lies with Beverly, for making such hurtful comments. Beverly has to be wrong, Angela insists: especially when Angela discovers Caroline’s writing group where everyone tells her how wonderful her work is.
So when Angela starts to submit her work to professional markets and gets form rejections (or, worse still, rejections which tell her that she’s just not good enough), she knows who to believe: her friends from Caroline’s writing group who have told her, over and over, that mistakes don’t matter, and that unknowns never get published unless they’ve got connections.
The one thing Angela never hears from her friends at Caroline’s writing group is that her work isn’t good enough. Which is a shame: because if she understood that she might put the effort into improving it, and eventually get it published.
Writing means a lot to Angela. She considers it a form of high art: an expression of her true nature. She keeps her writing secret for a long time and when she finally lets her friend Beverly read it she’s reduced to tears when Beverly suggests that it might need a little revision.
Angela still has confidence in her work, and after much thought she decides that the problem lies with Beverly, for making such hurtful comments. Beverly has to be wrong, Angela insists: especially when Angela discovers Caroline’s writing group where everyone tells her how wonderful her work is.
So when Angela starts to submit her work to professional markets and gets form rejections (or, worse still, rejections which tell her that she’s just not good enough), she knows who to believe: her friends from Caroline’s writing group who have told her, over and over, that mistakes don’t matter, and that unknowns never get published unless they’ve got connections.
The one thing Angela never hears from her friends at Caroline’s writing group is that her work isn’t good enough. Which is a shame: because if she understood that she might put the effort into improving it, and eventually get it published.
Monday, 26 January 2009
Why Work Is Rejected
Over the last three days I’ve read commenters on several blogs and message boards insisting that the race, gender or political affiliation is the single reason certain writers get rejected, regardless of the quality of their writing.
Under the current submissions system, writers send their work in to agents and/or editors; then their work is read, and accepted or rejected because it’s either good enough or it isn’t. Being good enough includes all sorts of things: the quality of the writing, the story, what competition is out there, and the likely market. And unless the submission was made to a niche publisher, this judgement has nothing to do with the age, colour or gender of the author concerned.
Last Autumn, one of my books was rejected by a Muslim editor. Did I react by ranting that this was religious discrimination, because I’m non-Muslim? Or racial discrimination, because I’m white and the editor wasn’t? Or discrimination because I’m a woman and the editor is a man? Nope: his gender and religion had nothing to do with the rejection. I thanked him for his time, had a look at my writing and realised that he was right: my work wasn’t suitable for publication by the company he worked for.
Writing is judged purely on its quality by editors, sales teams and publishers, who themselves belong to all ethnicities, religions and genders. They have little or no idea of the ethnicity or religious beliefs of the writers they’re considering unless the writers choose to tell them: so how can anyone logically insist that that’s why they reject some writers and accept others?
When submissions are rejected by all who see them, chances are the writing, premise or story just isn’t good enough to be published. It’s not good to hear that about something you’ve worked hard on for a long time, but you can learn from the experience: write something better that won’t get rejected. Move on. And for goodness’ sake, don’t try to blame others for your own weak work.
Under the current submissions system, writers send their work in to agents and/or editors; then their work is read, and accepted or rejected because it’s either good enough or it isn’t. Being good enough includes all sorts of things: the quality of the writing, the story, what competition is out there, and the likely market. And unless the submission was made to a niche publisher, this judgement has nothing to do with the age, colour or gender of the author concerned.
Last Autumn, one of my books was rejected by a Muslim editor. Did I react by ranting that this was religious discrimination, because I’m non-Muslim? Or racial discrimination, because I’m white and the editor wasn’t? Or discrimination because I’m a woman and the editor is a man? Nope: his gender and religion had nothing to do with the rejection. I thanked him for his time, had a look at my writing and realised that he was right: my work wasn’t suitable for publication by the company he worked for.
Writing is judged purely on its quality by editors, sales teams and publishers, who themselves belong to all ethnicities, religions and genders. They have little or no idea of the ethnicity or religious beliefs of the writers they’re considering unless the writers choose to tell them: so how can anyone logically insist that that’s why they reject some writers and accept others?
When submissions are rejected by all who see them, chances are the writing, premise or story just isn’t good enough to be published. It’s not good to hear that about something you’ve worked hard on for a long time, but you can learn from the experience: write something better that won’t get rejected. Move on. And for goodness’ sake, don’t try to blame others for your own weak work.
Saturday, 3 January 2009
Do Your Research!
If you want to be published well, you have to start off by doing plenty of research.
Do your research before you start writing, so you know if your book has commercial potential and if you really know what you think you know, or if it's actually all assumption and myth.
Do your research before you start editing, so you can distinguish between things like ellipses, dashes and hyphens, and know when and how to use them: otherwise your work will be sloppy and unpolished, and it won't impress anyone.
Do your research before you start submitting, so you only send out to reputable agents and editors and avoid the ill-intentioned and ill-informed who will mislead you, and cost you time, money and tears. Remember that nice isn't the same as good, and that in publishing, experience counts.
Do more research before you start submitting so you only submit to agents and editors who work in your genre and are accepting submissions.
Do your research before you agree to anything, to make sure you're not restricting yourself uneccessarily: I particularly dislike unlimited exclusives.
Do your research before you sign anything, so you don't end up committed to an inappropriate agent, or tied to a poor publishing contract.
Do your research before you take anyone's word for anything, especially on the internet, where new self-appointed experts (like me!) pop up every ten minutes.
And finally, although it's wise to be cautious and research is invaluable, not everything is black and white and just like writing, publishing isn't a one-size-fits-all, yes-or-no endeavour. There will always be exceptions to every rule: just make sure that you learn to separate the new-and-exciting from the old-and-scammy, and the creative-risk-taking from the foolhardy-and-dangerous.
Do your research before you start writing, so you know if your book has commercial potential and if you really know what you think you know, or if it's actually all assumption and myth.
Do your research before you start editing, so you can distinguish between things like ellipses, dashes and hyphens, and know when and how to use them: otherwise your work will be sloppy and unpolished, and it won't impress anyone.
Do your research before you start submitting, so you only send out to reputable agents and editors and avoid the ill-intentioned and ill-informed who will mislead you, and cost you time, money and tears. Remember that nice isn't the same as good, and that in publishing, experience counts.
Do more research before you start submitting so you only submit to agents and editors who work in your genre and are accepting submissions.
Do your research before you agree to anything, to make sure you're not restricting yourself uneccessarily: I particularly dislike unlimited exclusives.
Do your research before you sign anything, so you don't end up committed to an inappropriate agent, or tied to a poor publishing contract.
Do your research before you take anyone's word for anything, especially on the internet, where new self-appointed experts (like me!) pop up every ten minutes.
And finally, although it's wise to be cautious and research is invaluable, not everything is black and white and just like writing, publishing isn't a one-size-fits-all, yes-or-no endeavour. There will always be exceptions to every rule: just make sure that you learn to separate the new-and-exciting from the old-and-scammy, and the creative-risk-taking from the foolhardy-and-dangerous.
Monday, 8 December 2008
Tess Gerritsen On Writing
New writers often wonder if they're doing things right. Should they write in longhand or type straight to screen? Should they revise as they go, or just get their first draft down? Should they make it up as they go along, or plan everything out before they write a single word?
Where writing is concerned, it seems that Tess Gerritsen agrees with me (not that she realises, but hey...). She wrote,
You can read the rest of her post here. Now go and write something, and try not to worry too much about the rules.
Where writing is concerned, it seems that Tess Gerritsen agrees with me (not that she realises, but hey...). She wrote,
Experienced writers will find my advice a no-brainer because they’ve already figured out what works best for them, and they’ve learned to accept what may seem to others to be a uniquely quirky process. But for beginning writers, the writing itself may fill them with anxiety because they’ve heard there’s a “right” way to do it, and they think that success is all about the process. It isn’t. Success is all about creating a great story with unforgettable characters, and whatever way you do it is the right way.
You can read the rest of her post here. Now go and write something, and try not to worry too much about the rules.
Friday, 14 November 2008
Recovering Data From A Failed Hard Drive
This week I've read of several people whose computers' hard drives have failed: most of them ended up losing their work or paying someone a lot of money to recover their work, but when it happened to me I didn't lose a single bit of work and it only cost me £20, thanks to my lovely computer supplier (who is not Fujitsu Siemens and is helping me sort out my current problem).
About six months ago I had a big computer meltdown. My hard drive had failed completely: I couldn't boot it, and couldn't do anything but watch it do... nothing.
I'd not backed up for over a month.
Luckily the person who supplied me with my computer told me what to do. Here's what I learned from him. If you're careful it should work for you too: but you can't blame me if it doesn't work because I am only a writer, and not an electrician or a computer expert: this is what I did, and it worked for me.
The first thing to do is nothing. Do not attempt to repair the hard drive! This is very important, because that repair might well end up reinstalling Windows which will overwrite everything on the disk. Turn your computer off and go and buy a USB hard drive caddy. There are different kinds: Maplins sells a universal caddy for about £40, but if you know what kind of hard drive you have, you can find them more cheaply: my two hard drives are SATAs, but you can also get IDE drives (apparently). I bought a SATA hard drive caddy for £20 from my local computer shop.
Open up the computer box and look for the hard drive: mine is about four inches wide, six inches long and half an inch deep and is connected to everything else by a ribbon cable about two inches wide. If you're not sure what the hard drive is, it might help you to look at the connections in the caddy and see what you've got inside your computer which will fit those connections.
Right. Whip out the hard drive, whack it into the caddy, and then plug the caddy's USB connection into a different computer which is switched on. Then all you have to do is use Windows Explorer to copy everything from the old, damaged hard drive onto the other machine. I found it really easy: it took less than an hour, and I didn't lose a thing.
Once you've got all your data peeled out of the damaged drive you can put it back into its original computer, phone your supplier's technical support, and follow their guidance to repair or reformat the drive as required.
Honestly. It was not difficult. If I can do it then so can you all. But it would have been easier if I'd have backed up. Point is, back up as often as you can but if you forget and your computer goes into meltdown, make sure you retrieve what you can before you try to mend the hard drive.
About six months ago I had a big computer meltdown. My hard drive had failed completely: I couldn't boot it, and couldn't do anything but watch it do... nothing.
I'd not backed up for over a month.
Luckily the person who supplied me with my computer told me what to do. Here's what I learned from him. If you're careful it should work for you too: but you can't blame me if it doesn't work because I am only a writer, and not an electrician or a computer expert: this is what I did, and it worked for me.
The first thing to do is nothing. Do not attempt to repair the hard drive! This is very important, because that repair might well end up reinstalling Windows which will overwrite everything on the disk. Turn your computer off and go and buy a USB hard drive caddy. There are different kinds: Maplins sells a universal caddy for about £40, but if you know what kind of hard drive you have, you can find them more cheaply: my two hard drives are SATAs, but you can also get IDE drives (apparently). I bought a SATA hard drive caddy for £20 from my local computer shop.
Open up the computer box and look for the hard drive: mine is about four inches wide, six inches long and half an inch deep and is connected to everything else by a ribbon cable about two inches wide. If you're not sure what the hard drive is, it might help you to look at the connections in the caddy and see what you've got inside your computer which will fit those connections.
Right. Whip out the hard drive, whack it into the caddy, and then plug the caddy's USB connection into a different computer which is switched on. Then all you have to do is use Windows Explorer to copy everything from the old, damaged hard drive onto the other machine. I found it really easy: it took less than an hour, and I didn't lose a thing.
Once you've got all your data peeled out of the damaged drive you can put it back into its original computer, phone your supplier's technical support, and follow their guidance to repair or reformat the drive as required.
Honestly. It was not difficult. If I can do it then so can you all. But it would have been easier if I'd have backed up. Point is, back up as often as you can but if you forget and your computer goes into meltdown, make sure you retrieve what you can before you try to mend the hard drive.
Monday, 18 August 2008
The Society of Authors
I’d advise anyone with the offer of a contract but no agent to negotiate it for them to head straight for the Society of Authors. Once you have that offer in your hand you can join for a relatively low fee (£90 at the time of writing) and once you’ve joined you can send your contract in for a completely free review. The last time I used this service I got four or five closely-typed pages back from them which advised on several revisions I should request, and gave the reasons for those revisions. If I had paid a solicitor for this service it would have cost me several hundred pounds, which made the cost of joining the Society well worth it.
They run lectures on many aspects of publishing, publish a fantastic magazine which is only available to members, always seem to have on hand appropriate statistics and information about the industry, and are very valuable in all sorts of other subtle ways.
They run lectures on many aspects of publishing, publish a fantastic magazine which is only available to members, always seem to have on hand appropriate statistics and information about the industry, and are very valuable in all sorts of other subtle ways.
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