Getting Published - 8. Waiting for Publication (Part 1)

Following on from my podcast interview with Lucy Luck, a UK literary agent, and the posts Blind Date with an Agent Part 1 and Part 2, we are now at the stage, where all being well, you have found yourself an agent.

So, all you have to do is sit back and let the agent find you a publisher, right? Not so fast.

It is likely that your agent will ask you to change a few things in your manuscript. Like you, they will want your work to have the best chance of impressing an editor so they’ll want you to polish it till it shines. So your apprenticeship as professional writer begins. Can you view your work objectively? Can you cull your favourite, beautifully crafted prose with ruthless determination? Can you accept that some of what you’ve written can actually be improved?

Throughout these series, I’ve harped on and on about the re-writing and amending and re-working process. Yes, it makes for boring reading - oh no, I hear you cry, there she goes again, banging on about re-writing, enough already. Well, if you’re bored just reading this, then think about how you’re going to deal with actually having to do the re-writing time and time again, long after you excitedly finished your last chapter all those months ago. Aah, you’ll start to think, I was so young and naive back then, so full of energy - I never thought I’d have to go back to this wretched paragraph and this wretched chapter and this wretched character motivation all over again. And again. And again. Shoot me now.

I heard a story about a new novelist who fell at this hurdle. She was thrilled to get an agent - and a pretty prestigious one, too - but when the agent suggested changes, the writer got into a head-to-head row with him. This was her novel, her work, her art, she cried and flounced out of the agency. Well, that was that. Almost seven years on, her novel remains unpublished today.

But, I suppose there is something admirable in that kind of artistic integrity.

So. Assuming you do what it takes to make your novel shine, the real nailbiting stuff begins. You agent will most likely send the manuscript to their top five chosen publishers. And you wait.

Every time the phone rings, your heart is in your mouth. Will it be good news or bad? If you’re very lucky and talented, you might find yourself in an auction situation where two or more publishers duke it out over you in a bidding war. These are the deals we read about in the press and they are generally few and far-between - which is why they make the news. (Do you ever see headlines like “Accountant earns hundreds of thousands of pounds”? No? Well, that’s ‘cos they do so routinely. “Author paid hundreds of thousands of pounds” - now that’s rare. Remember that when you dream of retiring off the proceeds of your first novel….)

For most writers, they will be very, very fortunate to secure the interest of one publisher, who will be willing to pay even a modest sum.

And yet, you wait and hope and bite your nails. You ask yourself: why am I doing this to myself? Why did I ever start this in the first place? You try to get on with your life, love your family, have fun with your friends, focus on your day job. But it’s all useless.

Wait, is that the phone ringing…?

Next week: Will that phone call bring news that will change your life?