Archive for the 'Getting Published' Category

This is a cross-post from my social media blog ZenGuide, where the post below came out yesterday under the heading “Simple Online Marketing”. I am posting it here as well as I would like to share with you the success stories of some of my Fusion View friends.

You may not have a blog or even a website. How can you market yourself online without these tools? A simple and effective way is to guest-blog on an existing blog run by someone else.

Here are some success stories of a number of people who were guest-blogged on Fusion View.

Case Study - Nicky Harman

Nicky Harman, translates books and novels from Chinese into English. She doesn’t have a website of her own for her books and translations although she is profiled briefly on her work website. I was curious to learn more about the process of translation and asked her to write a first person piece about her translation work and the Chinese author Han Dong whose book Striking Root she was working on at that time - and for which she was looking for an agent and/ or publisher. She produced the article very quickly over a weekend and I had it up on Fusion View the next week.

A few weeks later, I was contacted by a leading publisher in China who had come across the article on Fusion View, asking to make contact with Nicky. I forwarded her email and Nicky started discussions with her about publishing her book. Around the same time, a UK-based literary agent was told about Nicky’s work and Googled her. Up popped Nicky’s article on Fusion View and the agent invited her to submit her manuscript. Go Nicky!

Case Study - Pey

My cousin Pey Colborne is an aromatherapist and poet based in Bath. She doesn’t have her own website for her business. I interviewed her for a podcast on Fusion View, talking about her fusion life and how she uses her Western and Eastern experiences and interests in her poetry - and also in her aromatherapy practice, which incorporates Chinese herbal medicine as well as Western aromatherapy principles. She has gained at least one new aromatherapy client through that podcast - he specifically mentioned it as he had had a choice of therapists and decided on her after hearing more about her practice and healing principles on the podcast.

Case Study - Lucy Luck

I interviewed Lucy Luck, a UK literary agent for advice to writers hoping to find an agent in the UK - and specifically answering emailed questions from overseas writers. She talked about how to submit your work, how to write your covering letter and what agents re looking for. She also invited Fusion View readers/ listeners to submit their writing to her agency. I chatted with her last week and she told me that she has had over 30 submissions from potential new clients, mentioning the Fusion View podcast. The quality of their covering letters and submissions have been much higher than those who had not listened to the podcast, which has made the process of working through them much easier for her. She also feels that the podcast has raised her profile in the search engines, coming up just after her own literary agency website, and also generally for her business as the podcast was also featured in Mslexia, the UK journal for women writers.

Action point

So could you offer an article to a blogger you know? Here are some ideas to get you thinking:

• your article needs to be relevant to the theme of the blog you’d like to write for

• what you write about needs to be helpful, interesting or useful for the readers of that blog

• read the blog you would like to write for and read the About page

• think of the blog and its readers as a community that you’d like to be a part of

• does that blog regularly have interviews/ guestbloggers? If not, will your approach be appropriate?

• make your approach courteously

• remember that the blogger does not have to take your idea, so accept “no” gracefully

• how might you help the blogger in return, as part of his/ her community?

I am always on the lookout for interesting guestbloggers on both Fusion View and ZenGuide - please make sure you read my Guestblogger Submission Guidelines: click on that Category in the far right sidear. Email me first with an outline of what you’d like to write about, who you are and why you think the readers of Fusion View or ZenGuide would be interested in the story. If I like the idea, I can then invite you to write the full story. I may decide it’s not appropriate, in which case, I will let you know.

Pic: thanks to
www.dnrec.state.de.us

There are many other opportunities for aspiring writers than writing merely fiction books. The posts on Fusion View have generally focused on novels and so has the conversation in the comments section. It struck me that this does not give a very wide view of the book world. So, as part of the Getting Published series, I have asked Business Coach and Mentor, Nicola Stevens to share her experiences of writing business books.

Nicola heads her own company, Nicola Stevens and Associates, whose mission statement is “People excel in an atmosphere where they can communicate honestly and without fear” which, to me, is a very powerful statement indeed. She works with business on leadership and management in issues of Corporate Governance, Boardroom dynamics and change. I asked her for a short piece about her work, writing business books and her fusion background and she came back with five A4 pages of information. I was going to try and edit it but then decided that much of what she says is so interesting and useful that I have decided to keep most of her original text.

So here is Part One of Nicola’s exclusive advice for those who may thinking about writing business books and anyone who may be curious about excelling in business:

Beginnings as a Business Writer

As a Coach and Mentor, I have written many articles that have been published both in the Arts and Business world. As a result, I was approached by a business colleague, France Kay to co-author the book, which was published as Making Management Simple. The books publishers, Howto, then asked me to write Learn to Coach. I am currently finishing a book on The Art of Mentoring for the Property Sector for EG Books, publisher for the property sector, and just started a new project co-authoring with Frances again - the working title being Get a Grip Girls to be published later this year by Foulsham.

Making the writing work

To be a writer, I think you need to have that capacity to enjoy discovering the unknown and have an ability to know enjoy not being in control. Even writing business books, which in theory sound as though they are very organised and factual, are a roller coaster of ‘what happens when” and how to show and tell the story – the information – as a fictional work. Business books also need magic of readability, need to make facts into an interesting subject.

I learnt so much co-authoring Making Management Simple - about the technical process of writing. Where information needs to be, how the information flows for the reader. In a hotel lounge off the M4 near Swindon, Frances and I got together to divide the book chapters between ourselves and agreed some guidelines. We met a month later to see how we got on, raise questions we had and read each other’s work out loud. We refined our guidelines, finished our parts of the manuscript, and sent if off the publisher 3 months later

Business Expertise

I am the Director of Coaching and Mentoring in my own company. I work with the human dynamics of business or the cause organisations and individuals serve - the human side of competitive intelligence that makes them successful and sustainable

My background is in child development and psychology, but in between travelling in my twenties, I found myself working on projects for all sizes of organisations and different individuals that would say; “I don’t know what I need, but I need someone to help”. I worked with business leaders through “conversations on the sofa” ie asking questions to get the principles involved to clarify what was happening for them, the impact on others, their expectations, and how to move forward. I dealt with human dynamics in issues such as discharges of bankruptcy, entrepreneurs taking their companies for a flotation, merging organisational cultures and emergency succession planning. At the same time, they needed to continue to run the day-to-day business, often running old and new processes concurrently until transition had been fully implemented. Sometimes it was to take time out to reflect and plan the future.

I became known for dealing with difficult situations sensitively, being trustworthy and confidential coupled with the ‘irritating habit’ for remembering facts and wishes from past conversations and holding this information in a way that kept the person accountable and responsible for their actions, impact and leaning. I also got to know the organisation from the top – it was usually the CEO or owner who employed me - to the workers at the coalface of the organisation, euphemistically called the bottom. I usually had no job title, my work was project based, linked to the implementation of the organisation’s strategic aims and objects, planned and unplanned change. I was answerable to the CEO only………. Oh and I always used everyday language and did not get sucked into sector or management jargon so everyone understood what was needed.

Being a keen believer in continual professional development (CPD), I realised my work would come under the heading of the emerging profession of coaching and mentoring. I attended the first coaching course in City University to review, clarify and refresh my learning, which I continued for the next three years with the Coaches Training Institute. I continued my CPD as a mediator, working with families and chemical substance misuse, coaching and mentoring supervision and, of course, my own coaching CPD with psychology supervisors, business organisational mentors.

Current work

My work now includes issues such as re-building trust in the Boardroom, facilitating roundtables on matters of Corporate Governance, Social responsibility (CSR), cross sector collaboration on topical themes, such as, diversity and inclusion (D&I) responsibilities and sharing best practice. I also implement frameworks to achieve success through setting up internal and external mentoring programmes and skills training. This is the human side of organisational and competitive intelligence that responses to the professional skills of coaching and mediation to create and hold a safe and courageous space to allow these discussions, agreements and on-going action to make a positive impact – holding the players accountable and responsible.

Writing as a Business Activity

As a result I am asked to write about some of these themes – and sometimes I feel moved to capture the information and on-going debates to map thought leadership trails and processes for future reference and learning. I feel, personally, a strong motive to include writing as a business activity so that others coming behind on the same path will know what has gone on before. It is my contribution to cutting across silos of thought and stops wasting time re-inventing the wheel. Then others will be up to speed to contribute to the debate, bring their perspective and added innovative thinking to the discussion.

Researching a book

Well several stages happen concurrently at the beginning, and the time line for them has varied enormously from a matter of hours to months depending on publisher’s engagement with the project and the stimulus for the project. These all include research stage, interviewing people, case studies, structure of the book and writing stage

For instance, the latest book – working title ‘Get a grip girls’ – came together in a matter of moments. Frances and I were sitting on the train bouncing down to the London Book Fair and we simultaneously said we wished women would stop pulling the victim card and get a grip. As we finished the sentence together with the same words, we scribbled down a sentence to explain the idea to a publisher we were due to meet, pitched her the idea, wrote the synopsis on the journey home and each picked one of the chapters to write. In the next week, I found a box (essential equipment for my research and data gathering) scanned though all my archive files for relevant information and statistics and wrote the first draft of my chapter, using the framework we had discussed. On this occasion we wanted to start with a story or fable to sent the tone for each chapter and agreed we would add quizzes and exercises to stimulate the readers thinking, illustrate hypothesises and focus on possible solutions.

Professional grounding

Generally, first there is the idea or concept, which in my case is based in existing experience and knowledge but comes for a curiosity stimulated by a mixture of instinctive gut feel to an unresolved, changing or new influences that I experience. I am a great one for running a personal straw poll to test my thoughts and feeling by speaking to others, reading from lots of difference sources, collating relevant information and scribbling notes that are all thrown into a labelled box sitting in a corner of my office.

In the case of Learning to Coach I agreed to do write the book providing it was not just another coaching book, but actively seeked to examine the differing influences in the world of coaching, to lay out the fundamentals of the skills and processes and set a stake in the ground that there was a profession called coaching, this was how the reader could identify it and that it did not matter if you were a highly successful CEO, and trained psychologist or known as the best listener in the world, these experiences and talents did not make you a coach. You needed to be professionally trained to coach, although your previous experiences would still be an asset to you and your future clients.

Confidentiality issues

I gather my research and case histories from contacts, and any leads I am given or contact directly. In all cases I find most people like to their contribution to be anonymous. I also change names too in case histories. I find that people are more open and honest if they know there is confidentiality is assured.

The waiting game

Personally I prefer to write books that will be backed by a publisher. But however slowly or quickly the writer gets the idea, initial research and writing together, everything seems to stop as you wait for the OK from them and contracts are exchanged. During that period I am adding current articles, scribbling more notes and tossing them into the labelled box. After gently reminding the publishers I still exist, finally some months later they give the go ahead, we agree delivery dates and I start writing the whole draft, typing up the scribbled notes, adding resourced material, working out the diagrams needed creating what I call the Master first draft, which includes further reading list, bibliography and appendix. A lot of this reference information will have already been gathered in the labelled box, and I usually get my assistant to type in and check the facts.

Working with a publisher does mean that as a writer you need to be flexible around your idea and accept that they are taking your project because it will be good for their business. They do see your book as a product and will require that it is shaped to fit their business profitability. Don’t forget though, all publishers have a different stance in the publishing arena, so the same idea can be presented in many differing ways. So it is not so much finding a publisher, but finding the right one for you with which you can mutually collaborate.

I will state here that writing is a hard work, both physically and mentally. A writer needs disciple to complete the project and hit deadlines. Lofty thoughts, finding muses and living a life of French cigarettes, wine and anti social behaviour will not make you a successful writer. The writing stage means you block out all social contact, create writing shifts try to fit around your day job – so 5 – 7.30am slots before the day starts and 8 – midnight slots for the evening. Weekends disappear. You do need to look at the diary, and plan your writing time and give yourself mini deadlines and breaks. It takes time to work out what suits you best, and from personal experience, modes of writing might change. Do the best you can, and keep your co-writers, editors and anyone else involved informed of progress and challenges. Having co-authored and sole authored books I am happy to write in both ways as the each has it own advantages.

When you have sent off the master first draft to the publisher, they will assign you an editor who will take you final process of editing, book covers and the final drafts, towards the exciting bit of seeing your book completed and in the bookshops.

Fact checking

The transfer of factual information is usually part of my assistant’s contribution to the project and she also checks details, for example website links and attributions. A good editor will check details to make sure the information is still current at the time of printing. Otherwise it is up to me as a professional to make sure information is correct, and highlight to differentiate what are my personal thoughts, experiences, and therefore subjective, so all the information is presented in the manner that it is meant.

The Business of Business Books

For me luck being asked to co-author – and then turning that luck into future opportunity to show evidence that I was professional and I could be trusted to deliver a book that was sellable. So far I have worked with four publishers but only had books published by three of them. The publisher who ‘got away’ approached me as they wanted to have a women on their publishing list – but although they were very appreciative of my ideas kept on putting decision date back. I later found out that they had had a Boardroom takeover and were suspending all new themes while they licked their wounds. I wish they had felt brave enough to tell me months earlier so I could have got on with other projects with a clear conscience. Although I advocate that as a writer you need to be regular and honest while keeping your publisher informed, lack of informative communication from your publisher is not unusual. As I said before, publishers are business people and reputations are at stake. Take nothing personally as they are doing the best they can and if you get stuck with your writing and deadlines in the future – you will find them, in my experience, to be an wonderful support.

There is a similarity of working amongst publishers and subtle differences. I have no agent – but am considering the possibility as my writing has taken a bigger role in my working life generally and I find a valuable addition to my work and for clients benefit. So far I have found little negotiation needed. In the non-fiction arena there are set fee structures. ALL Publisher has their own fee offer – as a new writer you take it or leave it. Later you can negotiate.

Contracts are basically standard – but read carefully and discuss directly with the commissioning editor anything you do not understand, or have a general query about. It may be useful for you to already have some idea as to how you want to use the information in future. With new technology there are many more opportunities available for promotion and use of material and this is something that is worthwhile you investigating with your publisher. In my experience they have always been very helpful and open minded, taking the view that all and any exposure to the material is positive and helpful to marketing the book.

Advice for Budding Business Book Authors

Most non-fiction writers are balancing a day job with it own set of targets and expectations. This means that particularly in the final stage of writing it can only be managed if other activities are postponed. My experience has revealed that:

1. Before you start writing do an enormous food and house hold shop to include all essentials from loo paper and tissues to headache, coughs and cold remedies, frozen and tinned ready-made meals. Don’t get too fussed about household cleaning materials – you don’t notice dirt and disorder while you in the flow. Oh and don’t forget the multivitamins!

2. Tell all your friends you will not be available for a while, but you will contact them again when you have delivered your manuscript.

3. Apologise to your loved ones for any bad behaviour, moodiness and general non-emotional interaction – this is normal for writer to blank the world and get cross if even the simplest worldly thing comes in to their orbit and nothing personal.

4. Create a space that is solely yours. Somewhere you can work and not have to tidy up after each writing session. A place that can have piles on the floor that make sense to you, notes on the wall if needed to prompt you and any other aids that are helpful.

5. Lack of sleep is normal – but please factor in some days when you are allowed to sleep for 8 hours or more and there are easy tasks, such as reviewing work or research to allow you brain in relax and reflect.

6. Best to book all writing time in your diary just like you would a work or social commitment.

7. Just do it. Writing nonsense is part of the process. There is nothing like having words on a page to lead to more words. It may all sound unclear, lacking in structure and often to be repeated in several different parts of the book. Put all content down first to get a first draft, for you then to edit and add into the Master first draft.

In Part Two tomorrow, Nicola explains what Mentoring is and talks about Cross-Cultural Mentoring and her own fusion background, growing up in Singapore.

Nicola can be contacted via her website http://www.proactivecoaching.com/

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I received a query from TK in response to my Writing Tips. TK asked: once a story is ready, who should a writer contact to get it published?

In some ways, the easy part is the actual writing of a story. Getting it out there and into publication is the challenge. So where do you start?

Novels

If you’ve written a novel and want to get it published in the UK, the first step is to get a literary agent. You can find agents listed in the Writers Handbook and the Writers & Artists Yearbook (both published annually - so get the most up to date ones). They will act on your behalf in submitting to publishers. This gives you the strongest chance of getting your work noticed by a publisher. For a more detailed insider’s view of what a literary agent does and how they can help you, listen to my podcast interview with a UK literary agent Lucy Luck - click here.

If you’re trying to get your novel published in Malaysia, I believe that the way you do it is submit it direct to the publisher. Eric Forbes, the books editor for MPH Books in Malaysia, gives useful guidelines at his blog - click here.

Short Stories

If you’ve written a short story, you should try and get it published in magazines and journals first before hoping for a book deal in the UK. It is much more difficult to get a collection of short stories published in the UK than a novel - especially if you have no track record of published work. Readers here tend to prefer novels so that is the primary market. Check out magazines and journals in the Writers Handbook and the Writers & Artists Yearbook and submit your story to them - make sure they are interested in short stories first, obviously. Payment is likely to be minimal. Once you have a published body of work, then you could try to get a publisher to put together a collection - the editors of the magazines you have published in may be able to suggest the best route for that. I do not have any experience of trying to publish a collection of short stories but I suspect that the process is the same for novels - ie to get a literary agent first.

There may be publishers who are actively looking for short stories to put into collections arranged by theme and featuring a range of different writers. You could try to seek those out. I do not know where or how you would find them but the Writers Handbook and the Writers & Artists Yearbook may be good places to start. Also literary / writing magazines and journals may publicise or advertise such ventures.

I believe that it may be easier in Malaysia to get short stories published in book form as that is the primary local market. I have no personal experience of this process but you might like to check out Ted Mahsun’s blog at http://tedmahsun.blogspot.com to see how he’s got his stories published - Ted is a regular Fusion View reader and commentor based in Malaysia, who is a great example of a tenacious and focused writer. For ages, he has been writing stories, sending them out for publication, getting rejections, picking himself up again and keeping writing. Last year, he had his first two stories accepted for publication and is starting to make a name for himself as a book reviewer, too.

Other Countries

These tips focus on the UK as that is my area of experience and I’ve mentioned Malaysian opportunities for publication based on what I’ve gathered from others.

If you have any tips about the publication process in other countries, please do add a comment or email me (see the Email Me link on the sidebar).

Or, if you have anything to add to what I’ve said here that could help emerging writers, do get in touch as well.

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Photo: thanks to wrtehereinfrance

Thanks to everyone who emailed me to let me know that the article about Fusion View came out in StarMag on Sunday. I’ve had great feedback from StarMag readers by email and comments - and it looks like The Star Online has fans from all over the world, including the USA as well as those in Malaysia (and London - I catch up with Malaysian news regularly by checking out The Star online).

Many would-be authors from Malaysia have emailed me since the article came out and asked me for writing tips and if I could give feedback on their writing. While I would love to help everyone, I am busy with my own writing and projects as well as my day job and if I took on the role of editor for everyone who asks, I won’t have time to sleep either! But what I can do is give some general tips which you may find useful - specifically picking up some of the common themes from the writers who emailed me.

# Write from your heart - feel what you are writing about.

# Don’t try to write in a high literary style - keep it simple. Write in your own voice.

# Work on your use and mastery of language - whether you are writing in English or any other language. How many ways can you find to say the same thing? How many words can you use to describe an emotion or an object or a colour?

# Have in your mind your reader - it could be someone you know or just a person sitting with you as you write or a crowd. Address your story to them.

# Keep reading - all kinds of writers and genres. Keep learning from other writers. You may not naturally like romances or thrillers or literary fiction. Try them all out. What can you learn from them? Read actively - ask yourself why that sentence is so good, why that paragraph really works. Then try writing something of your own in several different ways - eg as if it were in a romance or thriller or literary fiction.

# Join a writing group or start one of your own, go to creative writing classes - helping someone else with their writing hones the editing skill. You know what works or doesn’t work in someone else’s writing - now apply that to your own.

# Try writing poetry - the old-fashioned kind that rhymes and has rhythm. I find it helps to remind you of the beauty of the language and also stretches your vocabulary (how many words rhyme with “orange”?)

# Oh, and keep writing that novel … just keep going, one word after the other.

So, you’ve got your contract with a publisher and you’re working hard on your re-writes. And you’re being paid - yippee, you’re a professional writer now!

And, finally, you get to plan the dust jacket of your book. Of course, you’ve been planning it probably from the time you started writing the book - or maybe even before. Or perhaps from the moment you decided to be a writer. What writer - or would-be writer - hasn’t stood in a bookshop and imagened their book there on the shelves, their own name beaming out from the best cover design ever in the whole world?

And this is exactly the reason why all new writers arriving at this point in their careers will need to navigate with caution. All your blood, sweat and tears and hopes and ambitions for your beloved book, your baby, will be tied up in the dust jacket. After all, for the first time, you are handing control over to other people - it will be these other people who will dress your baby and present it to the public. It is an alarming moment for Mommie Dearest.

My sense of it is that publishers don’t really want a bug-eyed, frothing, hysterical mother on their hands trying to tell them how her baby should be dressed and presented to the world. For this reason, they are hesitant to let their first-time authors authors go anywhere near the design process.

In my podcast conversation with Lucy Luck, the UK literary agent, I described the negotiations over the dust jacket for my first novel “The Flame Tree”. I was not too happy with the first design for the cover - it was staid and dull, I felt. I spoke to my agent, who agreed that it was too un-thrilling for a thriller. On her advice, I played it cool and let her handle the discussions. She was able to negotiate a re-design. This time, I got the chance to talk to the illustrator and give him my take on what elements the cover could show. I was also invited to watch the photo shoot - “watch” being the operative word: I was careful not to do the whole fussy, interfering mother thing. The result was a brilliant cover that captured the essence of the novel.*

In contrast, I heard the story of a first-time author who was unhappy with the cover design of his book - it had a “Boy’s Own” feel to it, signalling the action/ adventure genre of his novel. Unfortunately, in his mind, he had written great literature and he had expected a cover to denote that gravitas. He had a row with his editor that lasted for weeks - against the advice of his agent, who shared the same view as his editor - and worst of all, he completely lost his cool. The publishers retained the “Boy’s Own” style cover and subsequently, rejected his next three manuscripts. Now, it may be that those later manuscripts lacked merit in their own right. But, in my mind, I don’t think the tantrum over the first dust jacket helped.

Would you have a head to head row with your colleagues or boss in your day job, complete with the chest pushing and going red in the face? Not the greatest career move if you did, I’d suggest. So, too, with navigating your way through the business of being a professional, published author. It can be very difficult especially as one’s life and soul can be bound up in one’s literary baby. So, if you’ve managed to get this far on a bit of luck and a lot of talent, do leave Mommie Dearest at home….

* This first edition of the book is now out of print. “The Flame Tree” is now in its second edition.

The story so far: A couple of weeks ago, you got a call from your agent saying that your manuscript has been accepted by a publisher.

It’s your dream come true! You’re a real writer - it’s official! You ring round and tell all your friends. Your mum is so proud of you.

And then they start asking you: “So, how much is your advance?”; “I bet you can retire now, huh?”; “When are you going to buy your own Lear jet like Patricia Cornwell?”

The sensationalist stories in the press about authors being paid millions do the rest of us a huge disservice. Most writers don’t find themselves in the thick of a bidding war; most writers are lucky to get into five figures. In the moment of your crowning glory - you’re going to published, for god’s sake! - you are deflated by your well-meaning friends whose questions only serve to emphasise what you CAN’T buy with the money you’re being paid.

Some big name authors started with £500 for their first book and worked their way up the same way you might do in your day job - with long hours, commitment and striving for excellence. The more books you write, the more you become known and the more you become known, the more valuable you are - so your fee can go up.

What was my advance? For a two book deal from a first-time novelist, I was pretty lucky - I got into five figures - but not high up enough in those figures to keep me in the style I’d imagined (a ranch in Montana or some other vast American landscape a la John Grisham…)

How does an advance work? It’s an advance against royalties. Essentially, the publisher is taking a punt on you and your book and giving you some money up front. When your book hits the bookshelves, you get a royalty ie a percentage of the sale price. The publisher recoups the advance they’ve paid you by keeping your royalties until it breaks even and pays back what they’ve advanced you. The good thing for you is that if the royalties don’t break even, they don’t ask for the difference back from you.

So the financial risk lies entirely with the publisher and you can see why they tend to be cautious when doling out lump sum payments. They have no way of knowing if your book will make them anything back on their investment. All they know is that subjective gut feeling that your editor and her team has that they loved your book and they think it could sell.

Which is why in these competitive times, publishers prefer to take a punt on sure-fire successes like celebrity books. It’s like if you’re investing in the stock market - you’re more likely to invest in a strong well-known brand name multinational that’s safe like Boots or M&S than One Man and His Van Plc.

Here we are, we writers, thinking we’re creating literature and art. And at one level, we are - and those in the publishing industry do get excited and passionate when they come across great writing. Yet, at another level, it’s just economics.

So, don’t take it personally - whatever your advance is. There’s one thing that’s certain, at any given moment, somewhere in the world, there is a writer who’s just got a book deal and been told the sum of their advance and in that writer’s mind, it won’t be enough!

Last week, in Waiting for Publication (Part 1), we were interrupted by a phone call that may or may not have been from your literary agent and which may or may not change your life…. The story continues.

It turns out the call is from your agent. But it’s good news and bad news. The five publishers she sent your manuscirpt to all loved it, she tells you. They all gave such lovely feedback. “That writer can really write.” “Some lyrical passage of prose.” “I laughed, I cried. It was beautiful.” And all these from those mythical names that you see on your bookshelf - Random House, Penguin, HarperCollins… These giants of the book world loved your book!

But.

“But it’s just not for us.” “But we’re not looking for rural romances right now.” “But the main character isn’t quite convincing enough.”

You’ll do anything, you say. You’ll fix it. You’ll make the main character convincing. You’ll change the Dorset farmyard location to New York. Whatever it takes. You’re so close!

But a but is a but.

Your agent resolves to send it out to five more publishers. “They all say they are confident that you will be published and they will live to regret the day they turned you away.”

So you go back to your nail-biting and waiting. They’ll regret it, you think. Yes, they will. You are suddenly Eliza Dolittle marching around your living room imagining all manner of doom for those fools who rejected you. “Just you wait, ‘Enry ‘Iggins, just you wait, I’ll be published and famous one day!”

I know a number of writers who have reached this stage and not got any further. Most put aside the dream of being a novelist and pursue writing in some other way - through poetry or writing creatively for pure pleasure or working on short stories. One writer has reached this stage with five different novels. And he has re-worked each one several times and they’ve submitted them to further rounds of publishers a year after the initial failed stage. Still nothing. And still he perseveres. I think he is on novel number seven now. And it’s about fifteen years on from the day he first started on novel number one.

I remember those phone conversatons with my agent. I remember standing at the window with the phone to my ear and feeling an icy chill creep all over me. I had come so far and now, we had received some beautifully generous let-downs from a number of publishers. How could this be happening? Things had gone so well. I couldn’t believe that I had come so close and it could all just fizzle out.

In my case, I had panicked before the last few answers had come back. Hodder & Stoughton was among them. And they offered me a contract.

There is something mad and tragic about being a writer sometimes, I think. Writer/ blogger Mark Pettus described it as being like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, waiting for the bridegroom who will never come amid the cobwebs and mouldering wedding cake. For me, my “prince” did come and saved me from being a mad old maid and I shall forever be grateful.

If you are a writer and you’d like to share your story of waiting for publication - whether your experiences have been good, bad or ugly - please add a comment or email me. I’d love to hear from you.

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?

Following on from my post Blind Date with a Literary Agent (Part 1), I had made dates to meet three literary agents.

On the appointed day, I went to see Agent No. 1 in her office in Central London. It was a bright spring morning and I felt like I was in a dream. Sitting in her booklined office, I realised I was “on the inside” now. I had got beyond the door that was closed to so many would-be writers and I was actually in a literary agent’s office meeting face to face.

She took out my manuscript and said, “Well, it’s not Wild Swans, is it?”

This did not sound good. “Ummm, no.”

“I was expecting another Wild Swans. That’s what’s hot at the moment.”

“Oh.”

How was I going to explain that the whole point was that this was the anti-Wild Swans. No bound feet, no sob stories: just a feisty, modern Chinese heroine in a battle of wits against gangsters in a John Grisham-esque plot.

“It would be hard to sell,” she went on. “But if you want me to represent you, I can do that. You’ll need to do some work to this draft, though.”

She thought Jasmine was unsympathetic and I needed to make some changes to soften her hard edges.

I left somewhat deflated. Could an agent who didn’t “get” what I was trying to do really represent me properly?

Agent No. 2 was more enthusiastic. She loved it, it was marvellous, I wrote well. etc. But Jasmine needed softening again.

“OK, what needs changing?” I was too close to Jasmine and the settings I had placed her in to see clearly what I needed to do. I needed someone to give me clear guidance - someone to say: here, in this scene, do this; over here, when she says that, show her emotions behind it…

I took out my notebook and paper, poised to take some notes. Agent No. 2 talked around the first few chapters in what seemed like a cloud of sensibility but there was nothing specific I could write down. I left with a blank notebook.

I had a couple of hours before I was due to see Agent No. 3. I went home and lay down on the sofa with one arm over my eyes. This was not turning out how I had imagined. I felt vague and befuddled by Agent No. 2’s suggestions - I had no idea what she wanted me to change. I felt depressed by Agent No. 1 who had been hoping to sell another Chinese hard luck story.

“It all hangs on Agent No. 3 now, ” I said to Angie as I left for Westbourne Park. The sky had turned grey. Spring had shrunk away.

Agent No. 3 had a clear, clipped voice and no-nonsense manner. She reminded me of a lawyer. She asked me precise questions about who I was, where I’d come from and where I was planning to go with my writing. She set out clearly what she was going to do for me and what she wanted from me. She told me I had to rewrite the whole of the first chapter and put Jasmine in context. We needed to see her feelings and her conflict about her past in contrast to her apparently gilded present. I took notes.

This was my kind of agent. A lawyer-type agent. It turned out she came from a long line of lawyers, including some judges. I left her office that evening with a jaunty swagger and a spring in my heart. This blind date was the one for me!

It was going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

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If you take away one thing from this tale of blind dates:

Give yourself the chance to find the literary agent that clicks with you and your style.

Following the advice from UK literary agent Lucy Luck, I thought I would share my personal experience of the submission process for the manuscript of my first novel, The Flame Tree.

I was about three-quarters of the through writing the novel when I got a voicemail message from a friend. She had mentioned to some her friends at a dinner party that I was writing a book set in Malaysia with a Chinese heroine. One of the people there was a literary agent. The agent had said “Book by Chinese women are hot right now. Tell Yang-May to send me her manuscript when she’s finished.”

My friend’s voice crackled out of my answering machine, “So, are you finished yet?”

As you can imagine, I didn’t do anything but write like crazy the next couple of months till I had finished the book and polished and re-polished it. When the time came to submit the manuscript, though, I decided to send it to two other agents in addition to my friend’s friend. It was a risk because it might upset my friend’s friend (let’s call her Agent No. 1). But I wanted the option to see a selection of agency styles, personalities and portfolios.

So with the input of my friend, I chose two more agents. Agent No. 2 was younger and just starting to build a portfolio of her own within the agency where she had been a junior agent. She was likely to be “hungry” and work hard to promote my book. Agent No. 3 was a highly respected and influential name within the industry, specialising in high-brow literature and quality thrillers.

I sent out my covering letter, first three chapters and synopsis. And waited.

The calls came within two weeks. They all wanted to meet with me. They were all a bit miffed that I had submitted to other agents besides them. But that was good, because it put me in the driving seat. They all loved it but they all advised it needed work. “Fine,” I said, “Let’s talk and whoever I go with, I’ll make whatever changes you want.”

I made appointments to see them all, one after the other on the same day.

Who would I choose? Agent No. 1 who had come to me first? Agent No. 2 who was young and hungry? Or Agent No. 3, established leader in her field? Who would be my “Blind Date”?

Read more next week…..