Re: how to get published
Colin (colin@cpink.demon.co.uk)
Fri, 24 Sep 1999 13:45:17 +0100
In message <000301bf05fa$3b4e18c0$da927dc2@elite-customer>, Scottie
Bowman <rbowman@indigo.ie> writes
>
> I was given very much the same advice thirty years ago -
> yet when that unforgettable letter arrived from Longman's
> it was out of the blue & without benefit of any 'inside'
> contacts whatever. I can't believe that things have really
> changed all that much.
You couldn't be more wrong. 20 years ago I wrote a novel and everyone I
approached was willing to take a look at the manuscript. In those days
I gave up a lot easier than now and after 4 agents had seen it and not
wanted it I put in the proverbial bottom drawer.
I recently finished another novel, infinitely better quality than the
kind of stuff I wrote 20 years ago, and I approached 38 agents and
publishers and only one publisher was prepared to even look at the
manuscript. That's how much things have changed.
Since you published your book most publishers have been absorbed into
large corporations where the spreadsheet rules. It is well known that
virtually all publishers have, over the last few years, drastically cut
what they call the 'mid-list' e.g. books which they don't think will
become instant bestsellers. That is where a new unknown writer would
usually be placed. Publishers these days are only interested in already
established writers with a high sales record and celebrity writers whose
work (no matter how appalling bad it is) will sell because they are
already famous. In fact even established writers are having a hard time
with many of them being 'sacked' by their publishers, e.g.
HarperCollins.
The odds on being published without the right contacts must be very
similar to those of winning the lottery. And it doesn't matter how good
your work is if no one will look at it they'll never know.
--
Colin