The reject pile
Perhaps confirming that agents and publishers have their own rules (not based on writing skills ...), this article was in the Sunday Times today:Publishers toss Booker winners into the reject pile
What jolly japes :-)
posted by Alex Bordessa @ Sunday, January 01, 2006
10 Comments:
Great article. Sometimes I feel a bit sorry for agents and publishers who get set up like this. They must be sitting ducks, because literary taste is so subjective. It does underline that getting commercially published is not synonymous with writing well.
Carla
It's a real lottery! I don't feel in the least sorry for the agents and publishers; they're a hard-nosed bunch and this won't really ruffle their feathers. They take on what they think they can sell. Fair enough.
I wonder how the odds compare with winning the National Lottery or the Premium Bonds? Probably not dissimilar, in the qualitative sense of 'it could be you, but let's face it, it won't be'. In the companion piece the Sunday Times got some of the agents to comment and they don't seem unduly ruffled. They don't need to be; it's a buyer's market and if they do miss something good they can be confident there'll be another one along in a minute.
And I've had some kind letters from a literary agent, so they aren't all hard-nosed.
Carole Blake hits the nail on the head when she says she gets 50 submissions a day. The problem is that there are far too many people writing novels nowadays who don't realize that it's a vocation, not a casual pastime, no matter whether it's genre fiction or literary stuff. Remember that old cartoon of a brain surgeon and a novelist at a party? N: I'm a novelist. BS: Oh, really? I'm thinking of knocking off a novel when I retire. N: What a coincidence. I'm thinking of dabbling in brain surgery." These people are clogging up the works for talented writers (I'm thinking of thee and me, Alex, for example) who are prepared to put themselves through a gruelling apprenticeship process.
Agents simply can't cope with the current volume of stuff. So now we have "book doctors" who, for an upfront fee, will try to get mss into publishable shape for submitting to an agent. One of these BDs, Hilary Johnson, spoke at last October's Historical Novel Society Conference. In the Q&A someone asked her if she ever told a hopeless client the truth about their writing. "No," she said, "I wouldn't want to disillusion them." Wouldn't want to deprive herself of raking in the readies, more like.
Oh dear. So what on earth is the point of paying a book doctor? I'd suspected there wasn't any, but hadn't expected anyone to admit it.
I'm not the sort that wins lotteries (actual or any other sort, such as having a proper archaeological career), so that's me b******d from the outset.
Cripes about Hilary Johnson not being prepared to disillusion someone if they can't write for toffees! Indeed, what is the point?! Entering the occasional competition (one that provides feedback) is probably just as good, and cheaper.
Even then there are inherent problems such as what genre the judges themselves write in. Mind you, it can work in one's favour when the moon is blue - the panel in the writers' group competition I won was headed by a chap and I think the adventure aspects in my piece won the day, if I correctly picked up on what he said. My stuff has got nowhere (I'm not meaning winning, but regarding feedback) when I'm pretty certain the judges have come from a 'women's fiction' angle. Genre rules OK?
Carla, I do hope the agent takes your novel on and sells it as I'm game to read anything set in the Dark Age. There's too little of it around.
I've found swopping informal critiques with other writers is a good way of getting feedback. It doesn't cost anything at all and you only have to bite your nails for a weekend waiting to hear back. You get the same variability as with writing competition judges and their tastes, but as both of you are unpublished writers it's a discussion between equals rather than a judgement by a superior being.
As for the novel, thank you for your kind words :-) I'll see what the lottery has in store, but if I don't draw a winning ticket, I'll set up a website and put it up to be read for free. I've had sufficient feedback to know I'm not writing utter drivel. The number of people who'll enjoy reading it may not be large, but it's not zero.
Ah well, I'll be mentioning critiquing in another blog ...
I hope I didn't cause alarm and despondency with my jaundiced views, above. It's just that as a staffer on various HNS publications I've been on the receiving end of too much depressing rubbish written by people with far more ego than writing talent. It makes me angry that these people are queering the pitch for serious practitioners of the writing craft, like Alex, Gabriele, Carla and others.
I hope, Carla, that you never need to resort to posting your novel on a website, especially as you've had encouraging letters from an agent. That's a fascinating period you authors are writing in. Maybe Bernard Cornwell's new series will open up more possibilities for success. I do hope so.
Alarm and despondency, no. Being absolutely dependent on overworked agents as the only route to ever getting my writing read makes me despondent. The idea that I can do it independently on a website if I choose actually feels rather liberating :-)
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