One of the good guys of publishing, Noah Lukeman, whose The First Five Pages is indispensable advice for a writer has given away three of his books as a PDF.
They are: How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent, How to Write a Great Query Letter and Ask a Literary Agent.
Assuming that you’re chasing a publishing deal, having netted a slippery literary agent, which book company do you favour?
Publishing is dominated by the Big 5: Hachette, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group/Macmillan, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. These companies publish 60% of English language books. Each is part of a parent company, a conglomerate with other interests. For example, Penguin Random House is 75% owned by Bertelsmann, a German multinational corporation that offers not only books but also television, radio, music, magazines and business services.Such reach looks appealing to an author trying to place their book, for it might lead to a television series or film adaptation.
But what if your title falls through the cracks, not getting the attention and promotion it deserves from one of their many staff? If your book performs poorly, compared to other authors, it’ll be shuffled aside. I’ve looked at Big 5 websites, feeling lost in the maze of books they handle, and the army of authors whose profiles appear with headshots, as I attempt to work out who at the company actually represents their interests.
I’d rather sign with a small publisher, who offered one-on-one support. As a tiny cog in a massive corporation, I’d be dispensable, but as one of a roster of 100 authors at an indie publisher personal relationships would flourish.
It’s worth remembering, that in recent years, independent publishers have done well in gaining their clients publicity by being shortlisted and longlisted for literary prizes. One of the problems for a small publisher is the entry fee charged by the prestigious Booker Prize, the Bailey’s prize for women’s fiction and the Costa books of the year, which edges them out.
This tactic hasn’t stopped small presses winning awards, and there are also awards aimed solely at books published by indies.
It’s noteworthy, that smaller book companies are more prepared to take a risk on unusual projects and ‘difficult’ authors. The same thing can be said of small, recently-founded literary agencies. I’ve made 650 queries since 2104, receiving personalised replies from just four agencies, saying why they were rejecting my submission—all of them were small agencies.
I recently ran a third campaign of return of querying literary agents and have started to self-promote by blogging and posting on social media, but I’ve been keeping an eye on which publishers I like…even allowing myself a few flights of fancy about how they’d produce a printed version of my Cornish Detective series.
On my wish list are these four independent publishers:
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2012 with Alison Moore’s The Lighthouse and long-listed in 2016 for Wyl Menmuir’s The Many.
Beastings by Benjamin Myers won the £10,000 Portico Literature Prize 2015 and was also shortlisted for The Jerwood Fiction Prize 2015. He went on to win the £25k Walter Scott prize 2018 with his novel The Gallows Pole.
Strong in publishing crime novels, from hard-bitten detectives to mild-mannered vicars. Awards won include the (Man) Booker Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Orange (now Bailey’s) Prize, the Samuel Johnson Prize and the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger.
Longlisted, shortlisted, and the winners of over twenty of the world’s most prestigious literary awards, including the Women’s Prize for Fiction, The Wellcome Book Prize, The Goldsmiths Prize, The Desmond Elliott Prize, The Jan Michalski Prize, The Folio Prize, The Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and the Frank O’Connor Short Story Prize.
Do you have any preferences for who publishes your book?
As I neared the end of writing my fifth Cornish Detective novel last year, I had a rather sardonic thought—that I’m about where I thought I’d be five years after returning to creative writing in 2013. What prompted this bit of reflection was literally a reflection, for the screen of my laptop monetarily darkened, turning it into a mirror, so I had one of those ‘Aargh’ moments when you catch sight of your ageing self going about your business! Here was I, researching a fact about forensic medicine, for a crime novel that had taken me nine months to gestate—that may never be read by any fan of the genre.
It made me wonder how determined or maybe delusional an unknown author, in particular, has to be to keep their nose to the grindstone. Doing writing because you love it is great motivation: anyone who chooses becoming an author as the road to riches, in a J. K. Rowling way, is going to find it’s a rocky track with deep ditches either side.
All of this musing reminded me of something that noted writing guru Noah Lukeman has said several times in his books—that realistically, a new author should plan on it taking several years to get anywhere with their stories—to adopt a mindset that it’s going to be long haul. In answer to a question from a newbie author on how to query a literary agent when you have no proof of your writing ability, Lukeman advises:
You can attain major credentials on your own, but first you must prepare for a sustained effort. Instead of a three or six month plan to attain all the credentials you need, why not give yourself a three or six year plan? With that kind of time, you can attend writing programs, workshops, conferences, colonies; spend extensive time networking and build an endorsement list; get stories published in magazines and online; begin to build a platform; and most importantly, hone your craft extensively. This doesn’t mean you need to refrain from approaching agents before you accomplish all of this; on the contrary, as I said, there is nothing wrong with approaching agents with no credentials whatsoever, and you can work to achieve all of this concurrently with your approaching the industry. But you should always be working to this end, regardless. There are many specific, concrete steps you can take to help get you there (which I explain at length in my book How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent), but perhaps the most important step of all is your willingness to devote a sustained, multi-year effort to building your bio on your own.
(From Ask A Literary Agent (Year One)…a free pdf download.)
Despite this salutary advice, I still harboured the hope that I could earn a few quid from self-publishing my early writing as e-books on Smashwords and Amazon. I was right—I made a small amount—about $40!
After foolishly querying about 350 agents with my first Cornish Detective novel, that was an unfeasibly long 179,000 words, I edited it down by 40,000 words. I also wrote a new opening story at the acceptable length of 80,000 words. I queried another 100 literary agents and publishers with open submission windows, getting more favourable responses and learning how to target specific agents, stalking them on social media to find their likes and dislikes. One large agency, that handles writers, musicians, television programme-makers and actors, asked me if my first novel was part of a series—as it would be easier to pitch to a publisher or television production company.
That had always been my intention anyway, to write a series of crime novels, with a view to them being adapted into a television drama, along the lines of Inspector Wycliffe—which is also set in Cornwall, though it pre-dates the computer age, making it rather creaky.
This sounds ambitious of me, but why not aim for the stars? As Michelangelo said:
The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.
Accordingly, I’ve now built a solid body of work, but in all honesty, how can I know whether it will appeal to anyone? Writing is full of uncertainty: no one knows what will work until it does!
Pride is an emotion I don’t exactly trust, as I’m more stoical in my approach to life, but I am proud of my Cornish Detective stories—and also of my bloody-minded determination to get them written—sacrificing most of what normal people consider essential, such as a social life and a love life. It’s helpful that I’m a reclusive old geezer!
The writing has been joyful to me, but what I’m not looking forward to is returning to the self-promotion trail. Navigating the world of publishing is like stumbling through thick fog with only a candle for illumination, banging the instruments of my one-man-band hoping to attract attention. That’s the feeling I get whether I’m chasing a traditional publishing contract or if I go back to self-publishing. No one else much cares what I’ve created—a hard fact of life every author should quickly realise—so it’s up to me to big myself up.
I’ve sometimes thought, that the best preparation for becoming a writer is to get everyone that you know to say “No” to you, when you ask them something, as it’s a word you’ll be hearing a lot when it comes to trying to sell your book. At least 500 times would be good preparation for growing a hide as thick as a rhinoceros!
How long have you been writing?
How thick is your hide?
Does being an oft-refused author help you cope with rejection is other parts of your life?
Do friends and family admire your determination—or think you’re just a bit mad?!
Most of us are still in the unpublished manuscript stage of being an author unless we’ve self-published an ebook online.
I’m a member of The Colony, on the Litopia website, where we’re fortunate to be able to get our writing critiqued by fellow writers, including Agent Pete, in a calm, considerate and constructive way. But, nastier criticism may erupt should your book ever be published, to be reviewed by hired guns working for newspapers and journals, as well as by everyday readers posting their comments online.
Ambling around the internet recently, I came across this well-considered article on bad reviews.
(The link in the article to Alice Hoffman’s meltdown is broken, so try this one.)
Writer of the article, Canadian novelist Emily St John Mandel has previous form as an astute commentator on publishing trends.
I think that the best attitude to have with reviews is that of Joanna Smith-Rakoff, who doesn’t read any of them—good or bad.
I have a jaundiced attitude towards reviewers, born of experience and an enquiring suspicious mind. Recently, I was puzzled by a favourable review of a novel, which had been panned by other critics, and a bit of research showed that it was printed by the same publisher that handled the reviewer and that both were represented by the same literary agent!
As for reviews and comments left by members of the public on sites like Amazon and its book review arm Goodreads, some are thoughtful, while others are the demented rantings of trolls. I helped to manage a community centre for four years, which had a free computer suite. One of the regular users was a creepy dude who spent a lot of time posting inflammatory comments online—he hadn’t even read the thread concerned. Eventually, he was banned for trying to access prohibited sites. I could never work out how his mind worked, for he lived in a world of hate, trying to drag everyone down to his pitiful level.
Some brilliant observations of critics have been made over the years:
*Gene Fowler: Don’t be dismayed by the opinions of editors, or critics. They are only the traffic cops of the arts.
*Anonymous: Critics are like eunuchs at an orgy.
*Channing Pollock: A critic is like a legless man who teaches running.
*Christopher Hampton: Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post how it feels about dogs.
*Kenneth Tynan: A critic is a man who knows the way but can’t drive the car.
*Erin Andrews: I think what I try to do with all of the naysayers, negative comments, or even people that think you can’t do it, is I’m trying very hard to use it as motivation and to add that chip on my shoulder.
I think, that if a book reviewer is also an author, then their opinion might have more validity, though there have been plenty of literary feuds.
My attitude towards self-doubt, while writing a novel, and towards any criticism that may come my way when it’s published, mirrors the advice given by Hilary Mantel:
The most helpful quality a writer can cultivate is self-confidence—arrogance if you can manage it. You write to impose yourself on the world, and you have to believe in your own ability when the world shows no sign of agreeing with you.
I decided long ago, that there is zero point in beating myself up. Such an attitude is ideal for being a writer. In five years, I’ve been told “NO!” 650 times through rejected queries, so my already thick hide is now bulletproof!
It may be because I’ve gone through so much shit in my life, that I’ve developed a mindset where I really don’t give a toss what people think of me—apart from a few valued friends. I’m more concerned with pleasing myself, by producing stories that are of high quality. What I’m finding hard to come to terms with, is that I’ve actually entered a Popularity Game, in which I have to appeal to lots of people—agents, publishers, potential readers, actual readers who’ve bought the book + all of the attendant publicity twerps, like journalists and media reporters who I’m meant to cosy up to in an attempt at favourable publicity.
As for critics, I really don’t have the time for them. I’m reminded of something that Edgar Rice Burroughs had his hero Tarzan of the Apes say when he was criticised:
“Does a lion listen to the yapping of the jackals?”
What is your attitude to being criticised?
Does it destroy you, or do you use it as a basis for improving…or, do you dismiss it as jealousy?
