Clueless, ink.

INTERVIEWS WITH AND NOTES ABOUT LITERARY AGENTS.

2011-07-08T07:03:00.002+02:00

If you are looking for a UK literary agent to represent you then you will want to check out this series of interviews with 6 leading agents in Myslexia magazine. Myslexia is an excellent resource – especially so for women writers.

If you are based in the USA write for children and/or young adults and are looking for an agent, then you'll want to check out this series of excerpts from interviews with 107 literary agents, and lots of other useful notes and pointers, painstakingly assembled by Casey McCormick and Natalie Aguirre on their very informative blog, Literary Rambles.

For future reference I'll put links to both series of interviews into the sidebar: UK Literary Agents Interviewed, and US Children and YA Literary Agents Interviewed.

WRITERS ON WRITING: Truth

2011-07-04T07:06:00.003+02:00

18 CANADIAN LITERARY AGENTS & 51 CANADIAN PUBLISHERS

2011-07-01T07:02:00.006+02:00

It's Canada Day today!

To mark the occasion I'll draw your attention to two new lists you'll find in the sidebar:
Canadian Literary Agents' Websites
and
Canadian Publishers Who Accept Submissions.

And, while rooting around in the sidebar you could check out Canadian Publishers' Blogs.

To be clear, if you do not reside in Canada then you will likely not have any success with approaching Canadian publishers and agents. If you have a UK or US agent and you feel need for some sort of presence in Canada then let them do the talking; they will likely have a preferred Canadian sub-agent.

A little over two years ago I penned some thoughts on Canadian literary enterprise HERE. From what I can deduce nothing much appears to have changed; a few publishers, such as Key Porter Books, have since gone out of business. The most significant change is the re-branding and re-invigoration of the Association for the Export of Canadian Books.

However, since writing the post I've learned a bit more about Canadian writing and, more importantly, have met 5 more Canadians, three of whom are writers, and of whom, Ellen Frith, had a novel published by Oolichan Books. Ellen also very helpfully posted a review of my novel, After Goya on Amazon UK. The book is also available at Amazon Canada (but no review and annoying typos in the product description) for only CDN$ 14.60.
And you can buy a secondhand copy of Ellen's novel, Man-S-Laughter HERE .

I was surprised to learn that according to the Association of Canadian Publishers, Canada only publishes 10,000 English language titles a year. That's really not very many in comparison with the UK (approximately 250,000 titles a year), and is on a par with Hong Kong and Argentina, though marginally more than Australia. With a population of a few hundred thousand over 34 million I would have expected a much larger figure - somewhere nearer the 86,000 Spanish titles that are published in Spain (pop. 47 million). Spanish publishers also feed markets in Central and South America. So, why isn't Canadian feeding markets in other Anglophone countries?

Given as it appears, from outside looking in, to have a well-developed network of support systems in place, given its linguistic diversity and possible access to French language markets, given its physical proximity to the US market, given its cultural links with the UK, and Scotland particularly, given its links via the Commonwealth, I cannot fathom why Canadian publishers are not more expansive in their ambition. Methinks someone (like the British Cheese Board!) isn't doing their job.

Perhaps, with so many agencies and organisations involved in Canadian book production and distribution, it's a case of everyone thinking someone else is doing something and leaving the task solely with Livres Canada Books.

Maybe someone HERE could be talking to this chap HERE if they want to get a bit of action going in terms of exploring the Scottish diaspora. And maybe, they could be talking to someone HERE if they want to explore French language links.

The Canadian Arts Council's site lists 28 different schemes specifically for literary production and distribution. 28 schemes! That's simply fodder for bureaucrats. And, that figure does not include support available through the Canada Book Fund, state and local government agencies.

Look at the opening page for the Canadian Arts Council's English language site. Not very welcoming is it? The very first thing is a notice pleading with people to not rip off any images. Agreed artists, illustrators, photographers should be credited and remunerated. But, come on ... Where is the happy smiling welcome? Where is the rallying call? The inspiration? Where are the links to the people and the faces in the organisation?

More encouraging news is in this extract from the Writers' Union of Canada:

"You do not have to have an agent in order to be published in Canada. About 70 per cent of the books published in Canada do not have an agent-assisted contract. There are also so few agents that it can sometimes be easier to find a publisher on your own. However, there are some publishers who will not accept unsolicited manuscripts at all and will deal only with agents."

You know the rigmarole and how to use this information. If not, spend time learning the rigmarole and apply it.

If you want to explore current Canadian literary endeavour in more depth then check out these sites:

And you should definetly check out places for writers - a very useful and informative site, well worth a visit.

And, if you want to get a better handle on why Canadian publishing is as it is, then check out this fascinating site, hosted by McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Happy Canada Day!

UK TOUR

2011-06-30T07:17:00.003+02:00

I'll be in the UK when you're reading this. Visiting the North to attend the wedding of a very good friend's daughter. Then hooking up with my son to visit Edinburgh and catch up with a friend and former colleague whom I've not seen for several years. Then flying to Bristol and meet with a dear friend who lives in Box, before moving on to Banbury to stay with two close friends and attend a meeting, as a guest author, of The Thin Ladies' Reading Circle. And I'll take a trip to Oxford to catch up with my daughter - who, though having finished her PPE finals, will still be at St. Hilda's.

After this excitement I'll be calling in on my mother and sister in Bishop's Cleeve and attending a birthday party for one of my two nephews before flying back home to Barcelona.

One of the organisers for the Thin Ladies' Reading Circle explained, "We are not called the Thin Ladies because we are undeniably slim and attractive. No. We are called the Thin Ladies because we prefer thin volumes. However, we've made an exception for you."

I've scheduled a few posts for you to read while I'm away.

395 U.S. LITERARY AGENTS

2011-06-26T20:26:00.003+02:00

I've added another 10 links to the U.S. Literary Agents' Websites sidebar - which you'll find when you scroll through the lists - bringing the total to 395.

I also spent a fair chunk of time testing the links and updating or repairing links. However, if you do find any broken links please let me know.

There are still, surprisingly, a good many literary agents both in the USA and the UK who do not have a website or a blog and rely on sites like Publishers' Marketplace, Agent Query etc. to maintain a presence on the web.

As always, if you are planning on contacting any of those listed first check they are members of AAR (though there may be a very good reason why they're not members; or they may be members but are not listed by AAR for some reason). Also, run a check on Writer Beware, Preditors & Editors and Agent Research & Evaluation.

Good luck!

77 U.K. PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS FROM WRITERS

2011-06-21T01:19:00.007+02:00

OK, excepting Penguin UK (which opened up for direct submissions for a limited time) there are now 77 UK publishers linked in the sidebar headed U.K. Publishers Who Accept Submissions.

I know there are more out there, but they're swamped, or taking a breather while they re-assess their situation in the scheme of things.

Again, I will remind you that those listed are not fly-by-night (love that expression) enterprises (however, should your experience tell you otherwise please let me know) but genuine outfits concerned to promote their vision of good writing in print format.

You know the ropes - if not, make it your duty to learn the ropes. Do not send stuff you are unconvinced is a match for the particular imprint. Doing so makes you look silly, gums up the works for everyone else thinking of approaching them and generally pisses people off.

Read the submission guidelines. Research the publisher, imprint, commissioning editor. Find their blog, if they have one. Familiarise yourself with their policies, their foibles, their needs, their desires. Then compile your submission package.

Among the new links you'll find The Fiction Desk, specialists in short stories lovingly bound in soft cover and offered on subscription. They have some brilliant writers on board. I may very well forward them some stuff, but only after I've done a bit more homework.

Indie Writers Provide Free Kindling for Amazon Kindle's Bonfire of Vanity

2011-06-19T18:00:00.013+02:00

I know you're fairly sharp-eyed, and I know you'll have noticed I've created a new sidebar - EBOOK FORMATTERS. There's only one link at present - but with your help - I'm sure it will grow.

This is the first post of what I envisage will be many discussing aspects of ebook production, distribution, promotion and sales.

It is a vast and rapidly expanding area of endeavour - though equally it is a rapidly settling, or maturing, sector of the publishing business.

Having achieved lift-off with the unpaid-for help of an army of not so cynical independent writers - whom have bug-tested Amazon's direct publishing platform, and have given the system a certain measure of credence - Amazon's Kindle programme (in the States) now seems to be turning away from the independents who fuelled its lift-off and is now courting what were termed until recently, Legacy Publishers.

Legacy publishers were those companies deemed too slow, too stupid, too cynical, too conservative, too stubborn, to sense the benefits of jumping from the cold shower of narrowing margins and the current fiscal crisis into the warm bath of growth, reduced overheads, increased margins and profits.

Well, having watched Amazon avoid a possible train wreck scenario, and having watched all the eager beaver independents experiment with pricing points and social networking driven sales campaigns, the larger publishers are now properly testing the waters - some still dressed in bathing suits and with water-wings - but they're wading in and in increasing numbers.

And, most importantly, Amazon are positioning themselves as a publisher.

Indie writers are already experiencing the impact of this. SEE Dan Holloway's (author of the bestselling The Company of Fellows) comments on this HERE.

Not convinced that falling sales of one title can be safely attributed wholly to the rising (discounted) sales of other titles - that's kneejerk analysis. I mention Dan's reaction only to illustrate how some indie writers perceive the bigger publishers' dabblings in what, until recently, had been seen as, if not level, then an almost even market.

In a future post I'll explore the differences between ebook markets in the USA, the UK, Europe and Asia.

I have a Kindle book available through Amazon UK, Amazon US, Amazon Germany. It is also available in several ebook formats through Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Diesel Books , Kobo Books, and Goodreads. Though as yet, for reasons I'll explore in a future post, not yet available through UK retailers, with the exception of Amazon.

50 U.S. PUBLISHERS WHO WILL ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS FROM WRITERS

2011-04-30T15:13:00.102+02:00

A common refrain you'll hear from many unpublished writers is, 'Publishers won't accept unsolicited manuscripts from writers - you have to go through an agent.' Which is nonsense, as I've shown in several previous posts.

These would-be paid authors are referring to the submission policies of what are referred to in the States as The Big Six - go HERE, to the very informative Fiction Matters, for a brief overview of The Big Six. And, of course, several large publishers outside the Big Six also maintain no unsolicited manuscripts policies.

However, in among the Big Six there are imprints and editors who WILL consider manuscripts submitted by writers - or unsols as they referred to in the trade.

If you write paranormal fantasy, science fiction and fantasy, horror, mysteries, thrillers, mainstream fiction, women's fiction, children's middle-grade and young adult fiction and want to be published under the umbrella of a Big Six publisher, go HERE.

If you write literary fiction, and want to be published under the umbrella of one of the Big Six, go HERE.

If you want to be published in the States, and do not want to be encumbered with finding an agent, then there are many, many opportunities to do so. If you go to the sidebar you'll see I've created a list of 50 U.S. publishers who will consider unsols. All of the publishers listed handle print editions exclusively or in addition to ebook editions.

Amid the list are several publishers that will only look at material for children and young adults:
Houghton Mifflin (a big publisher); Boyds Mill Press who publish work exclusively for children and young adults and have four distinct imprints; Beacon Press, the large, respected, long established (1854) publishing house based in Boston, will look at fiction that would likely interest young adults (but not general fiction at this time); Chicago based independent, Albert Whitman & Company, founded in 1919, publishes exclusively for children and young adults (from age 2 to age 16); Cobblestone & Cricket also cater exclusively for youngsters and teenagers; Harlequin is another very well-known large publisher who will look at work for teenagers.

Amid the rest of the list you'll find a good mix of genre fiction and general fiction and literary fiction imprints. This list is the first batch of U.S. publishers who accept submissions from writers. The list will grow, or, perhaps, diminish, over time. So, it could be worthwhile to check back now and then.

There are several U.S. publishers and imprints whom I know of who do accept submissions from writers but which are not listed here currently - this is because they are taking time out in order to deal with a backlog of submissions, or because they are taking time out to re-appraise their situation within a rapidly changing market.

And, please, when submitting your work to any of the publishers listed PLEASE read and follow their guidelines. You know the ropes - but, if you don't, or are unsure, do a little more research before you send your work off.

Wishing you the best of luck with your endeavo(u)rs.

ANOTHER 10 UK PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS

2011-04-14T01:41:00.011+02:00

I've added another ten publishers to the U.K. Publishers Who Accept Submissions sidebar. So, now, there are a total of 74 UK publishers listed.

Of the publishers I've added two are based in Wales: Gomer, Parthian Books; and two are based in Scotland: Linen Press and Floris Books. Linen Press will only accept submissions from women writers.

Of the publishers added three specialise in material for children and teenagers: Andersen Press, Floris Books (NOT teenagers) and Piccadilly Press.

The remainder: Fledgling Press, Pegasus, Strand Publishing and Tangent Books, will consider fiction for adults.

Parthian Books has a blog - which I've listed in the Publishers' Blogs sidebar HERE.

23 IRISH PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS FROM WRITERS

2011-04-07T15:21:00.004+02:00

If you look in the sidebar you'll see I've put up a list of twenty-three Irish publishers who will look at submissions from writers. This list supersedes the list I posted two years ago HERE.

I have not included publishers looking for material in the Irish language, nor have I included poetry presses and literary magazines.

All the publishers listed will look at fiction of one kind or another - by which I mean O'Brien, for example, will only look at fiction for children and young adults but not adult fiction. Be advised, too, that Hodder Headline will ONLY look at work submitted by writers who have already had work published - they will NOT look at submissions by unpublished writers.

To complement this list I have also opened up a new sidebar list of Irish Literary Agents' Websites where you'll find six different agencies listed.
And, remember, there is already a list of Irish Publishers' Blogs in the sidebar.

If you're looking to have any dealings with Irish publishers and/or agents I strongly recommend you go HERE (the Irish Writers' Union) first and read their FAQs.

Also, to get a current, upclose feel for the publishing scene in Ireland I recommend you subscribe to Eoin Purcell's blog HERE. Eoin not only writes about Irish publishing - of which he is extremely knowledgeable - but issues facing publishers, editors, writers and retailers globally.

And, to round off, if you're based in the States and looking for an in into Ireland you may want to check out Svetlana Pironko's Author Rights Agency HERE.

Oh, and if you're wondering, the photo is of Brendan Behan, tapping away in a pub.

MORE U.S. LITERARY AGENTS

2011-03-27T21:47:00.010+02:00

Sorry for not posting stuff as often as I should. Have been really very busy - proofreading and correcting and re-formatting both print and digital versions of a novel, visiting the UK, and researching the wonderful world of ebook creation, publishing and distribution. Fascinating stuff, and I'll probably report back on my findings at some point.

In the meantime, if you're interested in following developments around ebook distribution and sales then check out the inimitable J.A. Konrath's blog at A Newbie's Guide to Publishing and An E-publisher's Manifesto, the Self-published Authors' Lounge, and, for an interesting UK perspective, Lexi Revellian's blog.

All of which seems a strange introduction to announcing that I've added another 5 links to the U.S. Literary Agents' Websites sidebar and another 5 links to the Literary Agents' Blogs sidebar.

WRITERS ON WRITING: Kurt Vonnegut (Jr.)

2011-02-06T06:15:00.010+01:00

1.Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

The greatest American short story writer of my generation was Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964). She broke practically every one of my rules but the first. Great writers tend to do that.

CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION DEBUT DAGGER AWARD

2010-12-15T01:00:00.006+01:00

Sorry, have been meaning to let you know about the Crime Writers' Association's Debut Dagger Award for some time. Kept putting it off. Been busy. Disculpa.

The CWA's Debut Dagger is a competition for unpublished crime writers. Send them your first 3000 words of an unpublished crime novel and £25 before 12 noon on the fifth of February, 2011, and, if the judges like what they read, you may receive £700 and an invitation to a glitzy bash where, I'm sure, you'll meet lots of agents, editors and fellow writers. The prize includes a couple of nights' stay at a hotel - but not the travel costs.

Go to the site and sign up for the Debut Dagger newsletters. I did. Interesting stuff.

Ryan David Jahn, a visitor to this blog, won the 2010 Crime Writers' Association John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger award. Ryan picked up the £1000 prize for his novel Acts of Violence published through the Macmillan New Writing imprint. Go here to read what the judges said about his prize winning novel, and, if so impelled, watch a video of Ryan talking about the making of the book.

The Debut Dagger is the only award of all the Daggers open to writers on their own behalf.

The Debut Dagger is a truly international competition and attracts entries from most, if not all, anglophone countries. You'll find it linked in the sidebar under International Competitions.

No, I refuse, I will not say it's got to be worth a stab. Bugger, I just did, in a roundabout kind of way.

MORE ON MARKETS

2010-11-07T07:32:00.005+01:00

When you scroll through the sidebar you'll see I've re-organised the Markets information. I've created four new categories: International Markets, UK Markets, US Markets and Market Listings.

International Markets lists links to print and online publications which have, or aspire to have, an international readership and who will consider submissions from writers regardless of their country of residence.

UK Markets lists links to publications that serve a mainly UK readership and will ordinarily only accept submissions from UK based writers, or ex-pats, or who have not specified their preference regarding potential contributors' domicility.

US Markets lists links to publications that serve a mainly U.S. based readership and will only accept submissions from U.S. based writers or who, as above, have not stated any firm line on writers' residence status.

All the publications listed in these categories pay for contributions. Some pay on acceptance, some pay on publication. The starting rate for one of the outlets is a paltry $1 for a 150 word article. But, at least they pay something. Some of the publications pay up to 9 cents a word, and more for established contributors, for short stories.

There are a few prestigious literary heavyweights, such as The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly and Granta, amid the list of links. And, you'll find a good few established and respected genre publications, such as Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Asimov's Science Fiction, Interzone, and a few newer, though respected paying outlets such as Glimmer Train.

One of the more curious listings is Broadsheet Stories, a UK based publisher which welcomes inernational contributions, and which pays £25 on publication for stories up to 1900 words. Curious because it distributes free copies of its broadsheet to a network of cafés. Brilliant idea. Why haven't Costa Coffee, sponsors of the Costa Book Award , or its rival Caffé Nero, picked up on this?

Markets for short historical fiction seem hard to find so it's good to see Solander, the in-house magazine of the Historical Novel Society, paying $150 for stories up to 5000 words.
There are more than 40 paying outlets listed in the International Markets section.

The links in the above categories will direct you to the appropriate submission guidelines page.

Market Listings is where you'll find a list of links to useful directories where you can run your own searches for paying and non-paying publications.

And, remember, before you dive into the international links ... do you mean he dived or he dove? Was the body in the boot, or in the trunk? Did you use the elevator, or the lift?
What?!
If you're a native of the UK or Ireland looking to submit work to a U.S. based international publication it may be wise to first check whether they will accept British English spellings and usage. Some will and some won't. Some editors will leave spellings as they stand, others insist the writer amend accordingly, and others prefer to make necessary corrections themselves - thus ensuring/insuring (see what I mean?) a measure of consistency which may be beyond a non-native speaker.

And, if you are a native of the U.S.A. or Canada you may want to check with your targeted UK or Ireland based publication whether they are happy to accept American English spellings and usage.

My significant other is an American - I work on both American-English and British-English translations - I know of what I write.
"Fish-slice? What the fuck's a 'fish-slice'?"

THAT SNOWFLAKE GUY and other useful resources

2010-11-05T07:00:00.007+01:00

You'll see I've created a new sidebar category simply titled RESOURCES.

Heading the list of links is Advanced Fiction Writing, a blog and website published by Randy Ingermanson, "America's Mad Professor of Fiction Writing," also known as The Snowflake Guy.
Mr Ingermanson got lumbered with the mad professor tag because he is a PhD in physics, has published several novels, and has developed a series of classes for fiction writers. He is also the author of Writing Fiction for Dummies.

A couple of years ago I needed a bit of help with developing a novel I was working on; I couldn't seem to sustain any sense of forward motion. After months of tinkering, adding, chopping and tinkering again, I stumbled across Advanced Fiction Writing. And, I'm really glad I did.

I was skeptical, but also at the point where I'd try anything which might help get the whole shebang on the road again. So, I trawled through Mr Ingermanson's website and read and studied the free stuff. And, it worked. Through following the basic Snowflake model, one step after another, I managed to put the re-energised novel back on track.

Go here to read an introduction to the Snowflake method.

If you feel a need you can buy various essays, training exercises and creative writing course material. I can't vouch for these.

Mr Ingermanson is very open about his leaning on Swain, which he insists is, "quite simply the finest book ever written on how to write fiction. If you don't have this book, you are robbing yourself blind."

I like Ingermanson's warm, chatty tone. You may not.

Though knowing Ingermanson is a Christian writer, and thinking I may get spammed by bible bashers, I signed up for his email newsletter. I'm glad I did, it's very good, and need not have worried - I've had no spam and junk problems.

When you visit RESOURCES in the sidebar you'll find links to more than a dozen sites offering information, inspiration, tips, tricks and lots of other stuff to help or divert you.

If you know of any useful resources please pass on a link in the comments box. Thanks.

LIGHTSHIP COMPETITIONS

2010-10-05T11:47:00.019+02:00

Here are four competitions you may well be interested in:

Lightship Short Story Competition,
Lightship Poetry Competition,
Lightship Flash Fiction Competition
and the Lightship First Chapter Competition.

All four competitions have been organised by, yes, you guessed, Lightship Publishing, a new independent publishing company based in Hull, northern England, headed up by writer and creative writing teacher Simon Kerr.

Now, before you decode 'new', 'independent', and 'northern England' as 'flaky', 'under-funded' and 'provincial', be aware that Lightship has managed to corral some heavyweight support from literary luminaries, both as patrons of the whole endeavour and as judges for the respective competitions.

Remember Sir Andrew Motion, the former Poet Laureate? Well, he's involved as a patron, as are novelist Hilary Mantel and poet Christopher Reid. And, Lightship has managed to retain novelist Tibor Fischer, well-known agent Simon Trewin (United Agents), writer Toby Litt, poet Jackie Kay, publisher Alessandro Gallenzi, and Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner Kachi A. Ozumba as competition judges.

All prize-winners will be published by respected literary publisher Alma Books in 2011. The winner of the Flash Fiction competition will receive £500, while all the other prize winners will receive £1000.

But, that's not all, the winner of the First Chapter competition will receive three professional mentoring sessions over the course of a year from Tibor Fischer, Simon Trewin and Alessandro Gallenzi. They will also receive editorial support from author, and Lightship editor, Simon Kerr. And, if, after the mentoring process, the First Chapter winner's finished novel is as enthralling as the first chapter, Simon Trewin will represent their work and Lightship Publishing and Alma Books will publish it. Thus, the hope is that with a quote from Tibor Fischer on the cover, people will pick up your novel in a bookshop, and buy it.

The organisers say, "If your work is of the highest quality your mentors may become your champions. Winning First Chapter is a fantastic publicity platform to launch your novel and achieve the acclaim and sales that could secure you a career as a novelist in a highly competitive market."

The closing date for all entries for all competitions is June 30th, 2011.

The competions are open to all writers writing in English regardless of nationality or place of residence.

So, there you go, you have plenty of time and no excuses, except, perhaps, not being able to afford, or organise, the £15 Sterling online entry fee for the First Chapter competition, or the £12 for the Short Story competition, the £10 fee for Flash Fiction or the £8 fee for the Poetry competition.

Go HERE for all the details and rules etc.
Best of luck.

61 UK PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS FROM WRITERS

2010-09-25T18:17:00.004+02:00

Since putting up the post 52 UK Publishers Who Accept Submissions from writers, and creating a list in the sidebar, I've added nine more links to publishers.

I'll keep adding and deleting links to UK publishers who accept submissions from writers as and when I come across the information -- unless, of course, you come across the information first and generously forward a link.

As stated before - please be aware that not all the listed publishers are accepting submissions at the current time. Please read the submission guidelines.

In the meantime I'm continuing research on a massive, updated list of U.S. publishers who accept submissions from writers - but don't hold your breath. I check each link and read the guidelines before I post the information, so it will be some time before I'll publish the list.

TO HELL WITH IT

2010-09-21T00:57:00.061+02:00

Here's a competition you MAY be eligible for and which you MAY be interested in.

It's an interesting idea - a sort of bridging opportunity.
You've written the book, you've got an agent, but they haven't made the sale.

Shit. How are you going to get some action going?

Well, if you're a resident of the UK and you've got yourself a UK agent and you've got a marketable 'script, but you're still unpublished, the To Hell With It first novel competition could be a way to go.

Last year's winner, David Whitehouse, picked up the £5000 prize and a special limited edition print-run for his novel Bed. His agent, Cathryn Summerhayes of William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, then went on to sell the novel to Jamie Byng's Canongate Books.

Obviously, if they've done their homework, your agent will know about this competition and will have already delivered your finely turned, finely proofed typescript to the award jury for their assessment. If they haven't already done so you have until November 4th to get your act together.

The award ceremony is to be held in April 2011, immediately before The London Book Fair opens. The hope is this will further enhance the winner’s chances of securing a publishing deal.

All first works of fiction written by a UK resident will be eligible, but the author must be represented by a UK literary agency and be unpublished up until the point of the shortlist announcement in February 2011. Short story collections are not eligible.

Go HERE to download the guidelines and rules.

To Hell With Publishing will accept submissions from writers -- go HERE to check out their submission guidelines.

I've also put up a link to their site over in the UK Publishers Who Will Accept Submissions sidebar.

Best of luck.

Punctuation the Music of Language? The ART of PUNCTUATION or A DASH of STYLE by Noah Lukeman

2010-09-05T17:00:00.014+02:00

This post was first published March 9th, 2009.
Punctuation is not my strong point. I often hesitate before placing a comma in a sentence.

No, I mean ...

Punctuation is not my strong point and I often hesitate before inserting a comma into a sentence.

Or, maybe I mean ...

Punctuation isn't my strong point; I often hesitate before reaching for a comma.

I think you get my drift.

Here, Noah Lukeman writes almost lovingly about that set of signs and symbols, those indispensable marks, which, when inserted into a text, elucidate or obfuscate meaning and expression.

There are hundreds of books dealing with punctuation. What sets this volume apart is that it is aimed squarely at writers; as is set out in the introduction:

'This is not a book for grammarians ... This book is for the audience
that needs it the most and yet for whom, ironically, a punctuation book
has yet to be written: creative writers.'

When I read a (usually unpublished) writer declaring, 'Punctuation? No dealbreaker. The line-editor will correct it,' I often bring to mind a macho type, pointing Percy at the porcelain, missing the pot and saying, 'No worries, I'll have the missus clean it up.'

Laziness? Arrogance? Ineptitude? Or an uncouth mix of all three?

Setting aside apostrophes and slashes, Lukeman ably, and entertainingly, takes us through the most important marks, illustrating his points with telling examples, pointing up underuse and overuse, and setting us end-of-chapter exercises.

There's a lot of food for thought here:

'Why did Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver lean heavily on the full stop? Why did William Faulkner eschew it? Why did Edgar Allen Poe and Herman Melville rely on the semicolon? Did Emily Dickinson embrace the dash, Gertrude Stein avoid the comma? How could the punctuation differ so radically between these great authors? What did punctuation add that language itself could not?'

Such is tempered with practical, no-nonsense suggestions for improving one's work.

Ever wondered what your use of paragraph and section breaks reveals about you?

Do you want to know what F. Scott Fitzgerald said about the exclamation mark?

Ever thought why Cormac McCarthy avoids commas?

Excellent stuff. Every writer of English and American English should keep a copy within easy reach of the desk.

The U.S. edition is titled: A Dash of Style and is published by W.W. Norton & Co.
The U.K. edition is titled: The Art of Punctuation and is published by Oxford University Press.

If you're curious to learn what Lukeman writes about the period (or full-stop) go here for Part One, here for Part Two, here for Part Three and, finally, here for Part Four of an extract drawn from the U.S. paperback edition, posted on the very informative Writers Store website.

SUNDAY RE-WIND: The FIRST FIVE PAGES by Noah Lukeman

2010-08-29T07:02:00.002+02:00

Aware you may not have read popular posts from 2009 I'll be re-posting stuff every Sunday. Here's the first - my thoughts on Noah Lukeman's The First Five Pages.

The author of this handbook, Noah Lukeman, is a literary agent, writer and editor. As an agent he's sold over 200 titles to publishers. His client list includes Pulitzer Prize winners, and his clients' titles feature regularly on the New York Times bestseller lists. Interestingly, one of his fiction clients is Gene Hackman, the well-regarded Hollywood actor.

You can find out more at his agency's website . But don't get too excited -- he's not currently accepting queries. But it's well worth checking out the site because you'll find two very useful downloads: How to Write a Great Query Letter and How to Land a Literary Agent, both of which I strongly recommend you read.

After you've written, and re-written, your novel, put it up on a crit site for feedback, and re-edited, re-structured, and re-written accordingly, there will come a time when you'll want to start shopping it around agents. STOP. Read this book first.

The First Five Pages -- A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile is an excellent handbook for all writers, not only novelists, at all stages of development.

In two words this book is focussed on word economy; every single word in those first five pages (or first five sentences) has to really work to earn its presence.

Lukeman methodically (yea, forensically) dissects and examines, giving examples of enfeebling prose, every aspect of the writing-reading experience. Reading the book is akin to having a sharp editor sat aside you at your desk, talking you through the process of skimming a slush pile.

Each chapter is topped with a quote from a known writer and tailed with a practical exercise.

I enjoy Lukeman's prose; it's clear, cogent, eloquent, precise and sincere.

There's a lot of information and opinion here, and Lukeman manages to get it across in digestible style. One could say his tone is a bit humourless -- but, hey, do you still need sugar with your medicine?

The only advice in this book which I would advise writers to seek more specific advice is on the method used to consign work to a targeted agent. Here, Lukeman advocates using FedEx, or other guaranteed-signature delivery method. This will have some agents, such as the legendary Miss Snark, climbing walls.

I'm aware some writers find Lukeman's tone to be superior, or condescending. For others he's overly precious. What do you think?

Next Sunday: Noah Lukeman's The Art of Punctuation.

WRITERS ON WRITING: On Drafts

2010-08-28T07:00:00.008+02:00

Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it's the only way you can do anything really good.

William Faulkner
(September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962)

Go here to listen to a recording of Faulkner's Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

PENGUIN ON THE PICK UP

2010-08-27T07:00:00.005+02:00

Don't pick up a penguin -- have Penguin pick you up.

Penguin U.K. have announced that they are open to receive submissions directly from writers -- for a limited period until the end of October, 2010.

They are currently inviting writers to forward submissions to the following address: submissions@uk.penguingroup.com.

Submissions should comprise a brief covering note and a synopsis, NOT a full manuscript. Please do not send attachments. Write your cover note and synopsis in the body of the email.

They will not contact you with feedback on your submission and will only enter into email correspondence with you if an editor within Penguin is keen to progress your idea.

To check it out go here -- you'll find the information buried amid the FAQs at question number 11: How can I get my book published?

What are they looking for? Apologies, but I cannot give you any more information. It may be worth checking out their blog here to pick up a few clues.

Could prove to be a worthwhile opportunity. Must be worth a try. Before Picador paperbacks began publishing Penguin (and Pelican) were always my first choice for a good read. But I'm not so picky about publishers now.

Penguin Ireland will also accept submissions directly from writers, but, please note, NOT email submissions. To check out their submission guidelines go here. And, yes, they WILL consider work from writers living outside Ireland.

Penguin Australia is NOT currently accepting submissions for their adult lists, but they are accepting submissions for their childrens and young adults lists. You could keep an eye on their requirements here.

Penguin New Zealand seem a bit more ambivalent. Check out what they say here.

Penguin South Africa will gladly look at your submissions. Go here.

Penguin Canada trot out the usual 'thanks, but no thanks' guff here.

Penguin U.S.A. similar story, BUT they are accepting submissions for their DAW science-fiction and fantasy imprint. Go here.

Penguin India are not so standoffish and WILL look at submissions for English-language fiction (novels, novellas and short stories), poetry, general and narrative non-fiction, biographies and memoirs, current affairs, business, travel, cookery, religion, philosophy and self-help, reference and quizzing, photography and illustrated books. Go here to find how to present your proposal.

And, finally, Penguin China are NOT accepting any submissions.

SPECULATE and ACCUMULATE

2010-08-26T13:00:00.015+02:00

Here's a competition you may be interested in. And, you have plenty of time to get your act together.

(UnSir Michael Moorcock could knock off seven novels in the time available.)

Before you click through note that the competition is open only to writers in English resident in the UK and "other countries of the British Commonwealth and the Republic of Ireland".

So, what do the competition organisers, Transworld, a division of Random House, want, and what are they offering?

They want a complete and previously unpublished work of fiction of not less than 80,000 words and not more than 150,000 words aimed at adult readers and written in the English language. They also want a a synopsis of no more than 600 words delivered to their offices by December 31st, 2010.

They will offer the winner an advance payment against royalties of ₤20,000. The winner will be required to agree to license exclusive world publishing rights in all print, electronic, audio and any other media formats to the publisher. Shortlisted entrants may also be offered publishing deals with the publisher.

What kind of adult fiction? Speculative fiction.

Sir Terry Pratchett writes:

We will be looking for books set at any time, perhaps today, perhaps in the Rome of today but in a world where 2000 years ago the crowd shouted for Jesus Christ to be spared, or where in 1962, John F Kennedy's game of chicken with the Russians went horribly wrong. It might be one day in the life of an ordinary person. It could be a love story, an old story, a war story, a story set in a world where Leonardo da Vinci turned out to be a lot better at Aeronautics. But it won't be a story about being in an alternate Earth because the people in an alternate Earth don't know that they are; after all, you don't.

(I was never previously aware Jesus Christ went to Rome -- maybe he made it to Newcastle? Rumour or speculation?)

A shortlist of six entries will be announced by March 31st 2011.
The winner will be announced by May 31st, 2011.

More details here.

Best of luck.

WRITERS ON WRITING: On Drafts

2010-08-14T14:33:00.013+02:00

Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on.

— John Steinbeck

(February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968)

Click on the above image and make it large enough to view an interesting timeline of Steinbeck's career.

WRITERS ON WRITING: On Process

2010-07-31T07:35:00.006+02:00

"If the artist does not fling himself, without reflecting, into his work, as Curtius flung himself into the yawning gulf, as the soldier flings himself into the enemy's trenches, and if, once in this crater, he does not work like a miner on whom the walls of his gallery have fallen in; if he contemplates difficulties instead of overcoming them one by one ... he is simply looking on at the suicide of his own talent."

Honoré de Balzac

(May 20, 1799 – August 18, 1850)

TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER by Dwight V. Swain

2010-07-26T07:18:00.011+02:00

No writer in his right mind writes by a set of rules. At least, not by somebody else's rules.

Not sure why, but mention of this very useful how-to book - the best I've come across - seems to provoke much agonised ire among some would-be paid and published writers on Authonomy.

There's some very useful stuff in here. And it works. Or, rather, it works in so far as you'll likely feel sufficiently inspired and motivated to try the techniques discussed.

Swain makes considerable effort to impress on the writer-reader that the tips, tricks and techniques discussed are simply tools - and the learning of how to deploy them is easily acquired over time. More importantly for Swain is that you, a writer, understand the why behind the techniques.

Before getting into the meat of how to build a story Swain tackles word choice and arrangement, including healthy discussion of adverbs, active verbs, meaning, denotation and connotation, vividness and brevity.

The essential building blocks of Swain's approach are Scenes and Sequels. Scene is followed by Sequel followed by Scene followed by Sequel, in a chain, from first to last page.

Scenes are units of conflict unified by time; built around Goal, Conflict and Disaster.
Sequels are units of transition that link scenes; built around Reaction, Dilemma and Decision.

Another key concept of Swain's method is the Motivation Reaction Unit. A character receives a motivating stimulus and reacts. The character's reaction breaks down into three chronologically ordered components: Feeling, Action, Speech. Each Scene and Sequel is built on a series of Motivation Reaction Units.

Essentially, however, Swain makes vital that the whole of a (selling) writer's endeavours need be based on feeling; without it you die as a writer. After laying out his position on feeling in the introductory chapter - Fiction and You - Swain uses the 47 pages of Chapter Three: Plain Facts about Feelings to discuss the importance of feelings for the writer, characters and the reader.

Without feeling he (the reader) won't care what happens in your story.
If he doesn't care, he stops reading.
And you're dead.

The book is packed with extremely useful fodder for reflection and action. Though the book does not contain any exercises, (Exercises excite no one. Palpably artificial, only tenuously related to the difficulties that beset you, they turn writing into drudgery for anyone. p.20), most honest would-be writers, I think, will find it difficult to resist trying out a few of the techniques.

Given the book was first published in 1965 some writers will cavil at Swain's references and examples, and perhaps, its sometimes antiquated tone. I find such very much part of its charm.

Editors' and readers' tastes, particularly with regard to word-count, pace and point-of-view (especially the modish Deep POV), have shifted since the book's publication -- but not so far as to undermine any of the excellent advice offered here.

A final few words from Swain:
So buckle down and forge yourself a kit of techniques out of the iron of your own copy. Each story will give you more experience to translate into literary process. Each trick mastered will free you just a little more from your feelings of inadequacy and frustration.
Finally, your excitement soars, unshackled, and to your own amazement you discover that somehow, in spite of everything, you've turned out to be a writer.

WRITERS ON WRITING: On Characters

2010-07-17T07:15:00.003+02:00

"A 'living' character is not necessarily 'true to life'. It is a person whom we can see and hear, whether he be true or false to human nature as we know it. What the creator of character needs is not so much knowledge of motives as keen sensibility; the dramatist need not understand people; but he must be exceptionally aware of them."

Thomas Stearns Eliot
(September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965)

WRITERS ON WRITING: On Ambition

2010-07-10T17:35:00.003+02:00

"A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong."

Raymond Chandler
(July 22 1888 - March 26 1959)

WRITING COMPETITIONS

2010-07-05T07:04:00.005+02:00

I've only entered two writing competitions - one, many, many years ago for the first and last page of a novel; and, secondly, this year's Crime Writers' Association's Debut Dagger Award for the first 3000 words of an unpublished crime novel in English.

I finished as an also-ran in both.

Although I did win a prize (Tugs in the Fog, an excellent poetry collection by Catalan poet Joan Margarit) in a competition run by Barcelona, INK (no relation!) and whom, by the way, are actively seeking contributions for the next issue.

When seeking the attention of editors and agents is an unending competition, why volunteer, and pay, for more stress?

Seems the only competitions worthwhile winning - the IMPAC, the Nobel, the Planeta Prize, the Man-Booker, the (U.K.) National Short-Story Prize and the Costa Book Awards, are those you, as a lowly writer, are ineligible to enter on your own behalf.

Having said that, there are a crop of less remunerative competitions, such as the Bridport Prize, and the (U.K.) Forward Poetry Prize which offer winners a certain level of cachet or prestige which could be used to jumpstart, or re-position a writer's career.

The promoters of competitions win far more than the winners - every time, guaranteed.

However, a competition worth winning, and one you may be interested in, is the Provincetown (Cape Cod) Fine Arts Work Center Writing Fellowship program. You can enter on your own behalf and the prize could be considered much more valuable, in terms of creative practice, than any of the big money prizes.

If you scroll down the sidebar you'll see I've opened up another section of links: WRITING COMPETITIONS, it's situated below MARKETS and above POTENTIALLY USEFUL ORGANISATIONS.

I'll add links to writing competition entry guidelines as and when I come across them.
If you know of any competitions you think should be listed please pass on a link.

And, if you're a competition winner, or runner-up, or a serial competition entrant, I'd be very keen to read of your experience. Did winning change your life? Did winning, or simply entering, a competition have any impact on your approach to writing?

WRITERS ON WRITING: On Originality

2010-07-03T03:22:00.004+02:00

"I was surprised when a friend of mine told me he was going over a story he had just finished to put more subtlety into it; I didn't think it my business to suggest that you couldn't be more subtle by taking thought. Subtlety is a quality of the mind, and if you have it you show it because you can't help it. It's like originality; no one can be original by trying. The original artist is only being himself; he puts things in what seems to him a perfectly normal and obvious way: because it's fresh and new to you you say he's original. He doesn't know what you mean. How stupid are those second-rate painters, for instance, who can't but put paint on their canvas in a dull and commonplace way and think to impress the world with their originality by placing meaningless and incongruous objects against an academic background."

A Writer's Notebook - W.Somerset Maugham - (January 25, 1874 - December 16, 1965)

The SELLING WRITER

2010-06-26T17:09:00.003+02:00

Further to the items on markets for writers and the need for literary agents, the following few lines constitute the entireity of Chapter 9: Selling Your Stories in Dwight Swain's book Techniques of the Selling Writer:

A story is merchandise that goes hunting for a buyer.
This is going to be the shortest chapter on record.
To sell stories, do three things:

Study your markets.
Get manuscripts in the mail.
Keep them there.

And that's all there is to it.

***

What about agents?
An agent is a business manager for writers.
If you have a business to manage - one that makes a solid, consistent profit - an agent can be invaluable to you. If you haven't, why should he waste his time?
One agent, Paul R. Reynolds, has written a book called The Writer and His Markets. It covers the waterfront.
Read it.

***

WRITERS ON WRITING: On Success

2010-06-19T13:44:00.004+02:00

"I can't give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure: Try to please everybody all the time."

Herbert Bayard Swope
(January 5, 1882 - June 20, 1958)

UPDATES: 487 LITERARY AGENTS

2010-04-12T15:32:00.008+02:00

Been fiddling about in the sidebar this past week.

Weeded out a few suspect looking agents from the list of U.S. literary agents and added 84 more, bringing the total to 365.

Added 12 more UK literary agents, bringing the total to 122.

So, altogether you now have a total of 487 literary agents to check out before you start sending off queries.

As ever, though I do what I can to check agents' bona fides before posting links, if in doubt check 'em out - go to: Writer Beware, Preditors & Editors, AAR and Agent Research & Evaluation etc.

I've also added a couple of editors' blogs and a couple of agents' blogs and a couple of potentially useful organisations.

Hope you find the information useful.

52 UK PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS FROM WRITERS

2010-04-06T14:46:00.017+02:00

As you'll see over in the sidebar I've posted links to 52 UK publishers who will consider submissions from writers.

I have not included academic publishers, textbook publishers and publishers whose lists are exclusively based on hobbies, collecting and leisure interests and local history.

The links will take you to the appropriate submissions pages. If you come across any broken links then do please let me know.

Not all the publishers listed, Two Ravens Press and Tonto Books, for example, are looking at submissions at the current time - so do check the submission guidelines before wasting your time, and your targetted publisher's time.

There are some highly regarded and respected imprints among the list: Canongate, Headline, Myrmidon, Macmillan New Writing, Quartet and Snowbooks for example.

Please, do not even begin to form the impression that because these publishers are still open to approaches from writers they collectively represent a soft-touch route into print, that their editorial standards are not as exacting as the corporate publishers. It could be said that their standards are higher. Look at Jamie Byng's imprint Canongate for example, note some of the writers: Barack Obama, Philip Pullman, Yann Martel -- hardly newbie scribblers who couldn't place their work elsewhere.

Most of the companies listed are steered by strong, singular personalities whose aim is to put strong individual voices in reach of discerning, individually minded readers.

A point reinforced by Mark Hodkinson at Pomona Books (not currently accepting submissions) who says, "I think the best publishing houses are built on the taste of one or two people and to hell with committees or marketing strategies. If I love a book and believe in it, we'll publish it."

Similarly, Emma Barnes, Managing Director at Snowbooks, asks herself of every book they consider, "Do we love it enough to invest around £10,000 of our own money and eight months of our working life in it?"

MARKETS FOR WRITERS

2010-03-28T06:52:00.009+02:00

I've added a new category in the sidebar: MARKETS.

You'll find it listed after U.S. Publishers' Blogs.

MARKETS will feature links to sources of information regarding material editors are currently looking for.

Don't get too excited - I'm no mind reader - and I don't share the same executive restrooms as the big boys and girls use in London and New York. But you will find links to the kind of long fiction, short fiction, flash fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry and essays that print (magazine, chapbook, anthology) and online editors are looking for.

The first link in the MARKETS sidebar is: Places for Writers, a Canadian based site which has been posting submission calls, writing contests, occasional literary news and publishing information since 1997.
The site also has comprehensive lists of links to Canadian writers' and literary organizations.
In fact, I wish I'd known about this site before I penned my post about Canadian publishers here.

I've also put a link to Dark Markets - which carries useful market information for writers of horror.

And I've put up a link to an anonymous, (from the address I deduce it has been compiled by someone on the staff at Cambridge University), though comprehensive and up-to-date, series of lists of links to print and web based literary magazines and poetry publishers.

And, of course, there's the well-known and award-winning Duotrope's Digest, which lists more than 2850 fiction and poetry publishers.

I've also put a link to Fiction Factor's market listings.

You'll also find a link to WritersWeekly and their listing of current opportunities.

And, finally, I've put up a link to science fiction & fantasy writer Douglas Smith's Foreign Market List. Though, before you head off and start sending work out to publishers on this list YOU MUST read Mr Smith's excellent advice here.

Douglas Smith's website is an excellent, well-organised resource - especially for writers of speculative fiction - well worth a visit.

Please, if you know of any English language sites which list accurate and up-to-date opportunities for writers then do please pass them on - either through the comments box or email the links to haarlson phillipps at gmail.com. Thanks.

Happy scouting for outlets.

INVALUABLE RESOURCE for Writers of Historical Fiction

2010-03-21T06:35:00.012+01:00

A History of the Army Ordnance Services Volumes I, II & III by Major General A. Forbes, published by The Medici Society, London, 1929.
Volume I: Ancient History - (Medieval Age to Crimean War)
Volume II: Modern History - (Crimean War to the Great War)
Volume III: The Great War - (and including the War of Intervention, Russian & Siberian campaigns March 1918-October 1919).

These three volumes offer such a wealth of fascinating authoritative detail it really is very difficult to know how and where to begin an intelligent blog length summary.

I came across these volumes while staying with friends in Italy. I couldn't put them down. One of my friend's father was a general in the British Army and wrote a sort of sequel to these volumes - bringing the story of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps up to the Falklands War of 1982.

Any writer writing about any period in English history between the 12th century and WW1 will find something useful in these volumes.

These volumes together form a fascinating history of the English fighting man from the perspective of the efforts over centuries to clothe, equip and feed him.

With virtually every single page my preconceptions were challenged.

The author writes: “To make matters intelligible the reader should have some idea of what manner of man the soldier was, what sort of life he led, how he was treated by his country. In short we must try and breathe life into the lay figure, and convert it into a creature of flesh and blood.”

Drawing from sources such as the Commission of Array of 1132, through discussion of the Assize of Arms of 1181 to the Statute of Winchester of 1285 the author spells out in precise, arcane detail what each and every knight of the realm between the ages of 15 and 60 years old was obliged to own in terms of clothing and equipment. Fascinating stuff.

As the author painstakingly unravels the history of the various systems of English military supply, which finally coalesced around the notion of a national, tax supported procurement system, he reveals many, many interesting byways.
"The English cross was originally white." And we learn that in medieval times "Yellow was the distinguishing colour of the Jew".

We learn that in 1539, during the reign of Henry VIII, the London Trained Bands, then the nearest equivalent to a professional army, "... were dressed all in white, even their shoes, and the soldiers were often called 'White Coats'".

Along the way we learn that, contrary to the popular belief that the British Army adopted khaki service dress during the Boer War, soldiers fighting in Ireland during Elizabeth I's reign were kitted out with “convenient doublets and hose, and also a cassock of some motley or other sand green colour, or russet” … “... for the purpose of concealment.”

The red uniforms later adopted by the army, began as "... at first russet - dull, reddish brown, not scarlet." "... red was seldom worn at this time - a prohibitively expensive colour - and only after cochineal - an American product - came into general use in the mid-sixteenth century."

We also learn that "... the traditional British red coat made its last appearance in the Battle of Ginnis on December 30th, 1885."

As for the English Civil War the author says, "Despite the interest of the nation in this struggle for civil and religious liberty, it has been reckoned that the total under arms was never more than 2 and a half per cent of the population, whereas in the South African war the Boers had 25% in the field."

I've often stated that the real reason why the British government started building barracks across England in 1792 was not, as was taught to us in school, to defend the nation against invasion from France, but to placate the ruling class's fears of insurrection.

As it says here in Chapter VIII: "England was ceasing to be an agricultural country growing its own food, it was being industrialized. It was at this time that the modern trades union movement was born, in the form of secret societies. Riots were frequent all over the country, mills were broken up, ricks fired, and a standing army was wanted in England for police duty to maintain law and order; a civil police force not being created in London until 1829 (30 years later in the rest of the country). An Act of Parliament in 1792 created the Barracks Department to build barracks all over England. Fortescue, in his history of the British Army, describes them not as military barracks but police stations for the maintenance of law and order." Glad to have that question definitively answered.

"There were no barracks, however, in England, beyond a few small ones at permanent garrisons, till 1792", soldiers were "quartered in alehouses and taverns" or foisted onto, often unwilling, families.

And, what about the soldiers' families?
"Wives and their families had to be content with a curtained-off space in the barrack room, the number of women allowed by regulations being six per hundred men."

There's so much revealing stuff in here, especially relating to the American War of Independence, that I can only throw out a few hints.

In Chapter XVIII -- On the Origins and Uses of Uniform - the author goes into considerable painstaking detail about the changes of style and fashion in uniforms – discussing the design of buttons, the colours of lapels, epaulettes, headwear etc, even down to the type and patterns of lace used to adorn uniforms, and standard issue undergarments.

We learn the why and the how of how the modern form of army salute came into being in 1762. The author quotes from a letter issued to officers of the Regimental Order of Royal Scots: "As nothing disfigures the hats or dirties the lace more than the taking off the hats, the men for the future are only to raise the back of their hands to them with a brisk motion when they pass an officer."

Did you know that until 1806 the ordinary British soldier “was never taught practically how to aim and fire his weapons so as to hit a mark”? Neither did I until I read these volumes. That perhaps explains, in part, why the Brits lost the American Colonies. But read on, “All that was required was that he should be able to go through the motions smartly. In 1806 officers were ordered to see that the troops had practice with ball ammunition.” So, Britain had been fighting Napoleon's armies for 3 years before someone had the idea to organise target practice!

So, why? In a word – corruption. Regiments were then like businesses run for profit by the colonel. Infantrymen were issued with a basic amount of materiel (including flints, powder and shot). If the soldier used any amount of materiel beyond his allocation it would be charged against his wages. Trouble was by the time the colonel had taken his cut, and the quartermaster had taken his, the average infantryman would often have less than half of his initial allocation to begin with – though on paper he would have received it. We learn, for example, that the Duke of Marlborough, the hero of the Battle of Blenheim, amassed £63,000 (an incredible sum in the early 18th century) through bribes and kickbacks from suppliers and contractors.

But there again, the ordinary British soldier was lucky to have had a rifle – because of deeply entrenched opposition to gunpowder fuelled weaponry the Brits continued their fascination with the bow and arrow long after most European armies gave up theirs. “In 1776 a rifle with a spirally grooved barrel which loaded at the breech was actually invented in England – but the old school would have none of it. We clung to our smooth bores just as we had clung to the bow.”
Just imagine how useful that weapon would have been if deployed during the wearying skirmishes with Washington's rebels.

And then we learn that the last battle to involve companies of bowmen was the Battle of Leipzig in 1813.

There's so much revealing stuff in here, especially relating to the American War of Independence, that I can only throw out a few hints.

We learn how the need for gunpowder in the 18th century helped shape today's English landscape – with the planting of first willow, then alder groves, then, in 1845, walnut groves, to keep charcoal burners supplied.

There is some very interesting discussion on the impact of improved hygiene regimes during the Crimean War – leading to a documented 50% fall in the number of fatalities through wounds.

The final volume includes some very interesting fold-out maps of both operations on the Western Front, and, very much more interestingly, during the War of Intervention.

Did you know that shrapnel was so named after a major-general of the same name, who developed what is now known as the shrapnel shell in 1803? In fact shells had never before been fired from cannons until the Siege of Gibraltar in 1779. Until then shells were launched by mortars and howitzers.

Dragoons were first deployed at the Battle of Pinkie in 1547.

Need to know the rate of fire of a Baker rifle, and how it compared to a Brown Bess?
Need to know how the term dragoon originated and why?
Need to know exactly what a petronel was and how it was used?
Need to know what a focile was?
Need a quick history on the development of the bayonet?

In Volume II the author makes this observation: "It is a curious fact that so many inventions for destroying human life, including the machine-gun which proved the most deadly contrivance of all in the Great War, came about at this time from the United States, the country of all others which had least cause to fear invasion."

And I couldn't resist quoting this snippet from the author's preamble to a discussion of the function of uniforms:
" ... the fact that different races consider it indecent to expose different parts of the body; among Mahommedan [sic.] women the face; in China the feet, and the finger-tips in Central Asia, while in our own country at the present time (the 1920s) the ear is the extremity that ladies must take pains to conceal."

I cannot emphasis, or overstate enough, (without winging off into hyperbole) how, if placed in deft writerly hands, useful these volumes will prove to be.

These volumes contain a genuine wealth of first-class, reliable information, drawn from centuries' worth of ledgers, accounts and invoices etc. And the author quotes at length from letters written by Wellington discussing the costs and problems associated with supplying a standing army.

If I were an editor with, say, Osprey Books, or Pen & Sword, I'd be looking to acquire, re-wrap and re-issue this book. If I were on the executive committe of, say, the Historical Novel Society, I'd be looking to maybe partner a venture which would bring these volumes back into print and be made available to members at a discount.

391 LITERARY AGENTS

2010-03-14T06:43:00.008+01:00

I've added another 7 UK literary agents' websites to the sidebar here - bringing the total to 110.
There are probably more out there - I'll add the links as and when I come across them.

So, altogether there are now a total of 391 literary agents' websites listed on this blog.

It's as well to keep in mind that there are dozens of agents in the UK who do not have a public web presence.

When looking for UK agents' not listed here the best place to start is at the Association of Authors' Agents, where you'll find a comprehensive list of members.
You could also try Writers Services which maintains a list of agents' contact details.

Do you really need a literary agent?

2010-03-07T17:18:00.013+01:00

Do you?
Have you really considered the options?

It's perhaps too easy for would-be published writers to follow the herd and accept the false maxim that you have to have an agent to land a deal.

It is good practice to occasionally re-evaluate your goals and devise fresh approaches and strategies. Part of that re-evaluation should include challenging perceived common wisdom.

So, do you really need an agent?

You could try submitting your work directly to any of these UK publishers, and you could try Macmillan New Writing, or Quartet, or Solidus, and, if you write crime, you could try Crème De La Crime.
And you could try submitting work to these U.S. publishers.

In Chapter Eight of his How To Write Damn Good Fiction, which tackles the subject of a writer's timidity, James N. Frey holds forth, in robust fashion, on how to circumvent agents.
I quote the passage at length here:

Writers run away not only from conflict. They aso run away from editors and agents. ... Go to the bookstore. Find some books similar to yours. Jot down the publishers of these books. Go home and the call the publishers and ask for the editorial department. Tell them you want to speak to the editors of the books similar to yours. When the editor comes on the line, tell her or him how much you admire the book. Say that you have written one like it and ask whether they would take a look. Nine times out of ten they'll say yes. I was horrified. What -- call the Olympian gods? on the telephone? Me? James N. -- for nobody -- Frey?

It was only later, after having attended a slew of writers' conferences and having met a lot of New York agents and editors, that it began to dawn on me that the reason editors are editors and agents are agents is that most of them are failed writers who haven't the guts to face the blank page and the rejection slip.
They do not have any magic ability. In fact, most of them are work-by-numbers kinds of people. They put on their pants or pantyhose one leg at a time. If you call them, they will not send hot lightning bolts over the phone lines to turn you into cinders.

In fact, they will your respect your boldness. They know if a writer believes in himself or herself, chances are the writer is at least a sure-footed one.

While you're at the bookstore, by the way, it might be a good idea to look through the stacks of new arrivals for the bad books that got past the Olympian gods. You'll be amazed to find that half the books are not only bad, but almost unreadable.

Are you brave enough to try the above tactic?

To be fair to UK based writers the opportunities for meeting editors and agents are very much more limited than they are in the States.

When researching the recent update on U.S. literary agents I came across a few articles discussing the value, or not, of having a literary agent.

The articles are penned by two writers, an agent, and a publisher.
Interesting if you're looking for a rounded take on the question - do you really need a literary agent?

Haven't yet come across anything by an editor discussing this question - when I do I'll post a link.

First up a thoughtful blog post by writer Dean Wesley Smith.
Second, an article by Russell Galen, agent at Scovil Galen Ghosh.
Third, a post from The Bookseller by Naim Attalah, head of independent U.K. publishers Quartet.
And, finally, a blog post from the always very readable David Isaak, author of Shock & Awe.

Something to be thinking about.

UPDATE: ANOTHER 117 U.S. LITERARY AGENTS

2010-02-28T17:00:00.001+01:00

Been busy this week updating the U.S. Literary Agents link list in the sidebar here.
I've added another 117 agents' websites - bringing the total number of U.S. agents' websites listed to 281.

The update is a very mixed bag, featuring some old, established agents, a few big hitters, a few relative newcomers and one or two talent agencies who also happen to represent writers.

I was surprised to discover that I had not previously listed Dystel & Goderich, especially given there's a link to their very informative blog in the list of Literary Agents' Blogs in the sidebar, and given that I queried them about two years ago.

Though I try to weed out sites I know to be scams, and sites that may be scams, I cannot vouch for the bona fides of all the agents listed here. If you have any doubts about an agent listed here then check their name with Writer Beware, Preditors & Editors, AAR and Agent Research & Evaluation etc.

If you do find that any of the sites listed here are scammers then do please let me know and I'll put up a warning post and delete them forthwith.

If searching the alphabetically ordered list for a particular agent it is always worth checking to see if they are lurking under T - for example, The Bent Agency or The Seymour Agency.

OK, the rest is down to you. You know the score - read and follow submission guidelines, don't forget to mention that your mom thinks you're the best novelist America has succoured since Harold Robbins, and don't forget to enclose the S.A.S.E.

Best of luck.

212 LITERARY AGENTS

2009-09-14T14:19:00.023+02:00

Yes, that's correct - if you look at the sidebar here you'll find links to two hundred and twelve literary agents' websites:

114 U.S. based literary agents
and
98 U.K. based literary agents.

Not a bad start if you're actively looking for an agent.

To help your quest you may want to check out Noah Lukeman's book How to Land (and keep) a Literary Agent.

You can download the first 20 pages of the book here before making up your mind to buy it.

While you're at it you could also download Mr Lukeman's very useful FREE e-book How to Write a Great Query Letter here.

And, of course, you could go to Mr Lukeman's agency's website - you'll note that he is not currently seeking new clients. And, you could go here and sign up to Mr Lukeman's very useful monthly email newsletter.

You can check out what I think of Noah Lukeman's The First Five Pages and The Art of Punctuation here and here.

That should keep you busy - though focussed on the task of finding an agent - for a while. Good luck.

I'm aware some visitors to the blog may not realise that the links to literary agents' websites are near the bottom of the sidebar, below Writers' Forums and above Useful Downloads.

If you look in the sidebar you'll also find links to 51 literary agents' blogs - ranging from the very current and very active Nathan Bransford to the archived, though very useful, Miss Snark.

DARLEY ANDERSON - Literary, Film & TV Agency

2009-08-12T07:30:00.002+02:00

If you scroll through the sidebar you'll come across an extensive, growing list of UK literary agents. And, if you scroll through the list you'll come across a link to Darley Anderson.

As you'll read, Darley Anderson represents Lee Child and Martina Cole among many other high flying authors.

Last week I came across an illuminating interview with Mr Anderson on Mr. Edit's website. If you're looking to pitch Darley Anderson it will be well worth your time to read this interview before you do; there's some really good, useful stuff in there.

You may also notice I've created another sidebar category: Editors' Websites, wherein I've placed a link to Mr. Edit.

MYRMIDON BOOKS

2009-08-10T13:40:00.015+02:00

The post 10 U.K. Publishers who accept submissions from writers continues to prove popular with visitors to the blog.

As a follow up I posted links to interviews with Will Atkin, the managing editor at Macmillan New Writing, and a link to a guest blog post by Emma Barnes at Snowbooks.

One of the publishers on the original list of ten is Myrmidon. Last week I stumbled across this very illuminating interview with Edward Handyside, publishing director at Myrmidon, over on Gary Reynolds's Concept Sci-Fi online magazine.

If you're thinking of submitting work to Myrmidon I strongly recommend you read this interview before you do. Interesting, invaluable stuff.

POTENTIALLY USEFUL ORGANIS/ZATIONS

2009-07-27T16:14:00.035+02:00

If you scroll down the sidebar you'll see I've put up two new link categories: Potentially Useful Organizations U.K. and Potentially Useful Organisations U.S..

This is where you'll find links to organisations such as the Association of Authors' Agents (U.K.) and the Association of Authors' Representatives (U.S).

The list will grow over time.

So, why potentially? Just to be straight, I'm not inferring anything negative about the listed organisations; they probably do a fantastic job for their members. However, I couldn't hand on heart tell you from experience if such is the case or not. I do not belong to any organisation.

I've just told a lie - I am a member/soc un soci of the Ateneu Barcelonès. If you go HERE HERE, HERE and HERE you'll see why.

I'm also an active member of a Barcelona English Writers' Group which meets every Thursday at 7.15pm at Bar Acústic, Carrer València 367, if you're interested.

I did try three times to join the National Union of Journalists. But they wouldn't have me.

Before attending college I used to edit an underground rag and contribute to others. The papers worked with N.G.A. printers and NATSOPA print operatives and were keen to regularize their contributors' position and prevent trouble. No way with the N.U.J..

Before attending college I took off for Afghanistan via Pakistan, with the intention of reporting on events over there. Despite encouraging words from staffers at the Guardian, they could not handle any material filed by a non-N.U.J. member. My application was refused again.

When doing my first degree in creative writing I found that the college owned the copyright on ALL creative work produced by students, including writing. Don't think this a problem? Well, you try selling photographs featured in your final-year exhibition only to find that the photographs you think you've sold have been retained by the college authorities for their collection.

I was outraged to find that the same rule applied to creative writing, i.e. any work we students sold to publications, and all revenue generated, could be rightfully claimed by the college.

The National Union of Students (bless 'em) were not interested. And our local students' union (affiliated to the Federation of Conservative Students) were beavering away trying their damndest to break the mandatory link to the N.U.S..

"We're not having this," I railed, and contacted the N.U.J. Basically they told me to piss off. They would only accept student members if said students were signed up to one of two officially approved journalism courses, or who were indentured to a newspaper and attending day-release or block-release educational courses.

The Society of Authors weren't much help either.

I was brought up within a very strong trades union background. My grandfather was, for many years, the treasurer of a branch of the Transport & General Workers' Union; my mother was a member of the Labour Party and a clerical workers' union; my step-father was a shop-steward for the Electrical Engineers' and Plumbing Trades Union, and I had been a proud member of the National Union of Railwaymen (sexist or what?). One of my proudest possessions is a Northumberland Union of Mineworkers badge given me by Ronnie Campbell M.P. as thanks for my efforts during the Coal Strike.

But I'm not bitter. I still believe solidarity, direct action and mutual aid is the way to go. And, if my command of spoken vernacular Spanish were better, I would likely join the C.G.T. or C.N.T.

Looking back it's difficult to believe, contrary to all Thatcher's spiteful rhetoric, how feeble, how moribund, how reactionary, and how very uninterested in social and environmental struggles the U.K. trades unions were at the time. Hardly the cauldrons of social revolution the Tories made them out to be.

I'm not bitter, I'm just a déclassé element who has become wary of joining any organisation which purports to promote and/or defend my interests.

I'd be keen to hear your experiences of being a member of, or trying to join, a writers', agents' or publishers' organisation.

p.s. And don't start me off on Equity!

ROGET'S THESAURUS - An Oxford Rival?

2009-07-10T14:03:00.013+02:00

Oxford University Press has announced it intends to publish what it claims as the world's largest thesaurus in the autumn, fall, dusk or sunset of the year.

Forty four years in the making, this new thesaurus will contain 800,000 meanings and provide a chronological history of words.

I've seen it reported, though not able to confirm, that the suggested retail price will be 150 nicker, quid, pounds, libras, beer tokens, spondulicks, units of a failed experiment.

The announcement prompted a flurry of stuff - check out this and this at the BBC website and/or this post over on HarperStudio's blog.

As you'll see, if you follow the links above, the BBC Magazine feature gives a sample entry from this new tome, followed with a selection of comments.

It's perhaps unfair, and maybe churlish, to form judgement on the basis of a single sample entry - but, if the 150 quid retail price is correct, then punters' expectations are going to be very high. However, I read the entry on trousers and very quickly, without thinking too hard at all, came up with 9 words describing trousers that are not mentioned in the entry.

Having read the comments I can see that I'm not the only person who straightaway thought of 'kecks'. And then there's 'duds'; a very common expression when and where I grew up. And then there's 'duns', less common, and I suspect a twist on 'dunnies', a shortened form of dungareees.

I was very surprised that the entry did not mention 'trewsers' (which I first came across when working in Lancaster City Museum in a hand-written note between the pages of a ship's log dated 1809) and 'troosers' which I'm fairly sure I came across in Sterne's Tristram Shandy. (But then I did a word search here and couldn't find it.)

And then there are 'strides' and 'slacks'. How can anyone assemble a thesaurus entry for trousers and not include 'strides'?

So, roll over Roget? No, don't think so, not for 150 smackers. I'll be sticking with a combination of a battered Penguin edition of Roget's and Merriam-Webster's New Book of Word Histories for a while yet.

What do you think? Will you be ordering OUP's Thesaurus?

A Dictionary of ART & ARTISTS by Peter and Linda Murray

2009-05-29T15:30:00.007+02:00

I really like art. I enjoy visiting galleries. I enjoy experiencing art.

I enjoy a good chinwag about art. I enjoy hanging out with artists and visiting their studios to talk about projects in progress.

I enjoy watching well-made TV documentaries about art and artists.

I can't draw but I can paint large surfaces -- walls and murals -- and I can paint miniatures. And I've made objects and sculptures.

When at college I situated my creative writing desk in a sculpture studio.

I've come to understand the fundamental relationship between poetry, sculpture and dance and architecture.

Some of my very best friends, like Stephen, are serious, accomplished artists.

I enjoy reading about art, though I don't do enough of it.
Thinking about it I really should get my act together and write about art.

In my novel After Goya I describe two fictitious miniature paintings by Goya and two miniatures created as pastiches of Goya. I gave the passages to Xavier Peralta, the book's designer, to read. I was taken aback and pleased by his response. He at first refused to believe the Goyas I'd painstakingly described do not exist.

Such would not have been possible had I not come across Peter and Linda Murray's
A Dictionary of Art & Artists right back in the early 70s.

Ironically A Dictionary of Art & Artists does not contain any illustrations, so, as you flick through the book, unless you have an exhibition catalogue or other images to hand, you are required to imagine the works or techniques being referenced -- good exercise for developing creative writing visualisation muscles.

And who can read an entry (chosen at random) like this:

FRANCIS, Sam (b.1923), is a Californian Tachiste painter. He served in the US Air Force 1943-45, and, after a long spell in hospital, became an abstract painter in 1947. In 1950 he went to Paris, joining the circle of American painters around RIOPELLE. He has painted murals for the Kunsthalle, Basle (1956-8) and, on a visit to Japan in 1957, for a School of Flower Arrangment there. His technique of dribbling paint differs from the more 'calligraphic' style used by many Americans. There are paintings by him in London (Tate) and New York (MoMA)

and not imagine all sorts of potential story threads?

A sharp-eyed art historian or contemporary art commentator will note I need a new edition -- Sam Francis died in 1994.

A Dictionary of Art & Artists is an invaluable first reference and an excellent source of inspiration for creative writers.

And, if the above entry made you curious, here's an image of one of Sam Francis's works:

(Click on the image to view a larger version.)

EDUCATIONAL TV

2009-04-23T12:36:00.004+02:00

Came across this YouTube video over at CompletelyNovel - made me smile, made me chuckle.

It conveniently answers many questions about the publishing process we're often too timid to ask.

SYNOPSES or Four Free Downloads and a Book

2009-04-22T13:32:00.030+02:00

If we're serious about selling a novel to an editor or agent there comes a point when we have to buckle down and write the damn synopsis.

What is a synopsis? Is it an outline?

"No." According to the UK Crime Writers' Association. "A synopsis gives a narrative overview of the story's progression from beginning to end..."

Whereas:

"An outline gives a breakdown of the story scene by scene, chapter by chapter, character interplay by character interplay from beginning to end. It is a blueprint constructed by the writer for their own use before they actually begin to write the book."

Not so, according to well-known New York literary agent Donald Maass, "...in publishing terms outline really means synopsis." So he says in his The Career Novelist - A Literary Agent Offers Strategies for Success (available as a FREE download - click here).

According to Maass, "...the best outlines are more than plot summaries. They are novels in miniature." Maass also suggests five pages is too short and fifty pages too long.

Back in the days before I had access to the web - and too much, often conflicting, information on synopses - I bought a copy of André Jute's Writing Proposals & Synopses That Sell.

It's an entertaining and useful read. Jute writes in chatty, knowledgeable, punchy style - covering synopses for novels, telivision [sic. p.177], film and radio, as well as non-fiction proposals. Jute supplies an extensive and varied range of working examples to amply illustrate his advice and strategies. Interestingly Jute advocates using snatches of dialogue from your work within the synopsis - other guides I've read are resolutely set against this idea.

Much of the front end of the book - Position and Power in Publishing - usefully discusses how and by whom our synopses will likely be received. Well worth a look at. You can buy the book via the Clueless, Ink UK Amazon store here.

In his How to Write a Great Query Letter - Insider Tips & Techniques for Success (available as a FREE download - click here then click on 'query' in the title bar) Noah Lukeman (SEE this post and this post) advises having ready two one-page synopses, one single-spaced the other double-spaced, an extended synopsis, between 2 and 5 pages in length, and, just in case, a chapter outline - essential for a non-fiction proposal.

So, who should we trust? Lukeman or Maas? A single page? 2-5 pages? Or somewhere between 5 and 50 pages?

Setting aside the predilections of New York agents two sources I have found to be very useful when it comes to the nuts'n'bolts of drafting a synopsis are:

The Synopsis - Don't Sweat It - put together for the U.K. Crime Writers' Association by Mike Jecks, Kay Mitchell and Edwin Thomas to help entrants to the C.W.A.'s Debut Dagger award. Go here and scroll down the page.

Writing the Tight Synopsis by Chicago crime writer Beth Anderson. (click here) Originally given as a talk at writers' conferences, pages 4-6 of this 6 page document constitute the most useful, practical step-by-step guide to the dreaded task of drafting a convincing synopsis I've yet come across.

Should you need to refer to the above at some point in the future I've put links to the downloads in a new sidebar category: Useful Downloads.

How do you set about the task of drafting a synopsis? Do you do it before you start drafting the work, or afterwards? Any tips? Any links to useful resources on this, the slipperiest of topics?

ANOTHER 10 plus U.S. PUBLISHERS WHO WILL ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS FROM WRITERS

2009-04-17T23:47:00.031+02:00

SEE UPDATE: APRIL 30th, 2011

Here's a list of more U.S. publishers who will look at your work:

Absey & Co.

Baen - only Science Fiction & Fantasy. But if you write SF you'd know that already.

Coffee House Press

Dalkey Archive Press

Glass House Press - espionage, mystery, and psychological/paranormal thriller genres.

Kirk House - be a bit careful here.

MacAdam/Cage - though be mindful they have submission windows.

Brown Ink Books - keep in mind that their next submission period is Fall 2009.

Small Anchor Press - love these guys, you will too. I've decided I want a book crafted, printed and published by them.

And, to finish up, you'll find the submission guidelines to another 5 imprints here.

Don't forget, before you set to with packing up your brilliant MS read these guidelines first:

The links posted here will take you straight to the appropriate page on the publisher's website detailing their submissions policy and instructions.

PLEASE read these carefully and do as asked.

While on any site browse around a bit and familiarise yourself with the publisher's list, seek out their blog (if they have one) and gather clues on their current acquisitions policy.

If the publisher has a newsletter, and seem as though they could be a possible home for your work at some point in the future, then sign up.

PLEASE, don't just smash, grab and send; give careful thought to your query and show consideration.

You know the drill - but if you don't, don't send, otherwise a few more doors may close.

WRITERS' FORUMS

2009-04-15T23:22:00.016+02:00

We all need a break during the day now and then. And, for some of us, having a break during a working day means hanging out on a writers' forum.

Why?
What do we hope to find?

Do we go there with the expectation of joining or, more boldly, initiating erudite discussion on the real grit of the nuts'n'bolts manouevres in the dark that is creating fiction and narrative non-fiction? Or, do we simply want to shoot the breeze with fellow dunces? Or, maybe expound on a pet theory? Or, maybe just remind the world that we're still here, plugging away?

Maybe we just want to connect.

Whatever your initial motivation there are dozens of sites out there where you can hang out, sound off, pick up tips, learn more than you ever wanted to know about a fellow writer's obsessions, and throw your still tiny voice around like confetti in a gale.

Here are a few writers' forums you may want to check out:

Absolute Write - Very much a U.S. site. Though it welcomes furriners, it's made pretty darn clear the regulars don't tolerate no Brit affectation when it comes to spelling, syntax and grammar; no way, not now, not today and not tomorrow.

Authonomy - Be mindful this is a competitive slushpile set-up. Possibly the most international of the forums I've visited.

Backspace - The Writer's Place (Thanks to Mags for the tip).

The Book Shed - By written application only.

The Red Room - Well worth checking out.

The Write Idea - Very polite, but useful, by comparison with other sites.

Writers Dock - Though you may want to check this out before you commit yourself.

Writers Net - Basic and straightforward.

Writers Wrule - Set up recently, welcomed a cohort of writers (including the racist) who departed Authonomy because of the Starcraft Caper.

YouWriteOn - Another competitive slushpile set-up. A shadow of what it once was.

There are, of course, many, many more general writing forums out there. And then there are more focussed forums. I'll keep an eye out and report back as and when I come across them.

In the meantime please let me know your favourite forum and I'll put up a link.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

2009-04-10T06:28:00.001+02:00

If everything has gone to plan I'll be in Italy today.

Back to Barcelona on Tuesday, April 14th.

Wherever you find yourself this Easter weekend here's wishing you a happy holiday.

A SUMMARY

2009-04-09T06:37:00.008+02:00

Before we all get sorted for the holiday weekend I thought to post a summary of the links you'll find here if you take the time to nosey about in the sidebar:

99 U.K. Literary agents' websites

50 U.S. Literary agents' websites

46 Literary agents' blogs

21 blogs by editors of various descriptions

23 U.K. publishers' blogs

40 U.S. publishers' blogs

2 Canadian publishers' blogs

3 Irish publishers' blogs

15 Blogs about independent and self-publishing

4 Outstanding examples of writers' blogs

13 Blogs by writers of general contemporary fiction

6 Childrens and young adult writers' blogs

10 Crime writers' blogs

5 Historical writers'blogs

1 Blog by a narrative non-fiction writer

7 Blogs by Romance writers.

12 Blogs by writers of Science-fiction and Fantasy

7 Thriller writers' blogs

2 Travel writers' blogs

3 Poets' blogs

5 Expert review and critique websites

12 Peer review and critique websites

18 Literary festivals.

And the lists grow longer every week.

Please, if you know of any online resources which you regard as being essential reading for emerging writers then please pass them on. Or, drop a note in a comments box offering to write a post about a resource you would recommend.

Have a good Easter weekend.

SNOWBOOKS

2009-04-08T18:44:00.023+02:00

In an earlier post about U.K. publishers who will accept submissions from writers I listed Snowbooks. Here's a link to Snowbooks' submission guidelines.

I check into Snowbooks' blog most weekdays, as I have for the past two years or more.

It's a chatty, friendly, open blog which doesn't fall prey to simply plugging their stable of writers.

I've explored lots of little diverting byways on the net I would never have discovered - steampunk sites, techie sites, and John Cusack's interview with Naomi Klein, for example - through following Rob Jones's and Emma Barnes's posts and links.

Emma Barnes comes across as a friendly, honest and open workaholic who spends a lot of time designing and refining business systems, always with the intention of increasing efficiency and selling more books more effectively.

Emma freely shares a lot of her knowledge with her peers in the publishing industry.
And, very commendably, has opened up access to Snowbooks' monthly sales figures for anyone who is interested and who applies for a password.

Rob Jones (aka as writer Robert Finn) is more the thinker-at-large, opining on topics as diverse as techie gadgetry, exploitation in the Third World, vegetarianism, Dr. Who, screenwriting and Joss Wheedon.

Snowbooks' efforts have been recognised with a clutch of industry awards.

Their stable of writers is a rich, diverse mix of contemporary fiction, non-fiction and a couple of volumes by luminaries such as Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster.

Yesterday I followed Emma's link to Strictly Writing where she posts an honest assessment of why Snowbooks rejects work , even work they believe to be 'outstanding'. Emma says, "If you have written a novel which is destined in the future to win the Booker, chances are that we at Snowbooks will reject you. We have an editorial policy driven primarily by our own entirely subjective tastes, combined with a forecast of what we think we can sell."

Emma also says, "We've turned down books in the past which fit our editorial plans perfectly but the author seemed to be the sort of person we'd rather not work with."

Interesting, invaluable stuff. Well worth checking out.

ANOTHER MACMILLAN NEW WRITING UPDATE

2009-04-07T15:48:00.024+02:00

My original post about Macmillan New Writing stirred a lot of interest.

This led to another post picking up on comments Will Atkins, MNW's commissioning editor, left on a thread on the forum over at Authonomy, HarpernotCollins' online slushpile.

In the original post I referred you to Macmillan New Writers' blog.

Well, if you did check it out (Whaddya mean, 'I've got no time for that nonsense'?) and bookmarked it as you should have done, you'll have seen an interview with Will Atkins orchestrated and conducted by two of MNW's authors, David Isaak and Tim Stretton.

I have never read such a revealing insight into the thinking behind a contemporary imprint.

There's no flim-flam, no self-aggrandizing twaddle, just straight honest answers to plainly wrought questions.

Go there. Read it. Consider your options.

And, while you're making up your mind whether Macmillan New Writing is for you or not, go buy some of their writers' books. Read them. Enjoy them. Then reflect on the care that's gone into producing them.

CANADIAN PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS FROM WRITERS

2009-04-06T06:36:00.005+02:00

I'm almost embarrassed to admit that, to date, I've knowingly met only two Canadians.
One was an actor-writer, self-consciously modelled on Sam Shephard and determined to break into British theatre; he had a thing about kayaking though hated the outdoors.

The other I met last summer on the A.V.E. (Spain's high-speed train) between Madrid and Barcelona. He was an ideal journey companion - keen to impart his impressions of Europe, share his food and drink, and answer naïve questions about his home country.

Two very good friends did their post-grad research in Canada, and a distant cousin, possibly three or four times removed, was former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's wife.

I can name twenty Canadian musicians, including one of my favourites: Glenn Gould, I can name ten Canadian film-makers and animators, ten Canadian scientists and thinkers, ten Canadian choreographers, dancers and circus acrobats. But writers?

All I can confidently name are Margaret Atwood and Marshall McLuhan.

Does it matter?

Well, based on the cursory research undertaken for this post, it obviously matters to a number of Canadian publishers, particularly those in receipt of financial assistance from Canadian government sources. 'Canadian writers only' and, as a subject, 'Canadiana', bely a supposed frailty or lack of confidence at the core of Canadian literary enterprise.

Perhaps these generous support systems for writers as they exist in Canada and Catalunya, (and England, Wales and Scotland at both national and regional levels) are too tipped in favour of playing to the home crowd and only encouraging a pretence to an international readership.

Given the complex, and possibly fraught, nature of the relationships between common tongues and distinct cultural differences in Canada, the timidity of its cultural administrators is possibly understandable. However, I would argue that same rich diverse mix of cultures could be Canada's strength.

Given its linguistic proximity to both Anglophone and Francophone literature and its physical proximity to the U.S. market, Canada could build a useful role as an entrepôt for European writing.

A strategy could yoke the import-export of content, talent, skills and experience to themed support for works based in the experiences of French settlement, the Scottish diaspora, Aboriginal displacement and new wave Asian settlement. Canadiana certainly - but Canadiana of an ilk that could find markets in Europe, and beyond.

And where is Canada House in Madrid or Barcelona? We have Casa Asia (which did an excellent job of promoting Australian cultural stuff a couple of years ago), the Goethe Insitut, the British Council, and French, Italian, Portuguese et al equivalents. Unfortunately Canada House is better known in Spain as a chain of shops selling trendy clothes for kids.

I would genuinely like to read the views of Canadian writers, publishers and readers on this.
Do you think Canadian agencies should offer more or less, or more focussed, support for Canadian writers, translators and publishers? Please share your experience and views.

So, here it is, a partial list of Canadian publishers who will look at work submitted by writers.

I repeat again the preamble to the U.K. list below. PLEASE READ IT:

The links I've posted here will take you straight to the appropriate page on the publisher's website detailing their submissions policy and instructions. PLEASE read these carefully and do as asked.

While on any site I strongly recommend you browse around a bit and familiarise yourself with the publisher's list, seek out their blog (if they have one) and gather clues on their current acquisitions policy.

If a publisher has a newsletter, and they seem as though they could be a possible home for your work at some point in the future, then sign up.

PLEASE, don't just smash, grab and send; give careful thought to your query and show consideration.

You know the drill - but if you don't, don't send, otherwise a few more doors may close.

Acorn Press - about Prince Edward Island by Prince Edward Islanders.

Alire - in French.

Anansi

Anvil Press

Arsenal Pulp Press and here's their blog.

D & M Publishers Inc.

Dundurn Books, and here's their blog.

Insomniac Press

Kids Can Press

Orca Books

Talonbooks

Turnstone Press

Ravenstone Books -an imprint of Turnstone Press as above; mysteries, thrillers, hard-boiled crime.

And, while we're here, here are a few potentially useful Canadian organisations which could further illuminate the literary scene in Canada:

The Writers' Trust, and here's their blog.

The Writers' Union
and CanLit Publishers - who have a useful database of publishers and who are in the market for well-written articles and reviews; here are their submission guidelines.

MARCH HARES & MONKEYS' UNCLES - Origins of the Words and Phrases we use Everyday - by Harry Oliver

2009-04-03T18:00:00.012+02:00

A good test for any fiction is how convincingly the author uses not slang, nor cussing, but idiomatic words and expressions.

How many times have we read otherwise enjoyable fiction only to have a 'foreign' character pop into a scene with a Dick Van Dyke* like, "Gor blimey guv'nor", or its U.S. equivalent?

This chirruping of cod dialect, usually the result of misplaced effort to add tang to the tongues of lesser characters, is both irritating and condescending. But what to do?

Well-wrought, well-timed and well-placed idiomatic language can enrich the story experience, even immortalize characters. Dickens was a master of idiom, but even he got it wrong at least half as many times as he got it right.

March Hares & Monkeys' Uncles attempts to give the origins to those phrases us crazy limeys use every waking hour of the day; and throws in a chapter titled Across the Pond and attempts the same with a selection of the better known U.S. expressions such as 'whippersnapper' and 'paint the town red'.

It's perhaps unfair to bring too much critical weight to bear on this slim, diverting book, but I think the publisher has missed a trick with this volume. A bit more substantive research, a few citations, a more expansive inventory of words and expressions, a judicious bit of editing and a re-design could produce a valuable reference work for writers.

The book doesn't really tackle idiomatic language, (and doesn't claim to) more gives the most credible or most popular explanation for a range of stock phrases such as, 'a pig in a poke' and 'know your onions'.

Ultimately though it failed a real test. When writing an e-mail to an American acquaintance I'd written, "wouldn't touch it with a barge-pole". Though the context rendered the phrase self-explanatory I thought to look up the expression in case explanation were needed. I couldn't find any reference to barge-poles in the book.

Similarly you will not find: 'scrubber'; 'slapper', and the phrases, 'don't get your knick(er)s in a twist' and 'take the piss out of.' All very common in British English usage though likely to wrinkle many an American brow.

So, in summary, a diverting and sometimes amusing book for an occasional dip but not one to rely on as a reference work.

* Viz. Mary Poppins

HOW TO WRITE DAMN GOOD FICTION - Advanced Techniques for Storytelling - by James N. Frey

2009-04-02T17:40:00.008+02:00

Originally issued as How to Write a Damn Good Novel II in 1994 this handbook was re-issued in 2002.

As with More About How to Write a Mi££ion this is a follow-up. However, it's not more of the same.

The author James N.Frey (that N. is very important) uses the opportunity not to expand on or extrapolate previously aired discussion, but to challenge his own prior stated thinking regarding what he terms here as the 'pseudo-rules' and the effective principles of creative writing.

Frey disarms the reader with his honesty from the off:
'... pseudo-rules are taught to beginners to make life easier for the creative-writing teacher.
...
I believed in the pseudo-rules fervently, and in turn, years later, inflicted them on my students. Now, I realize there's a difference between pseudo-rules and effective principles ...'

So, how does the repentant Frey tackle his subject?

Well, he promises to demonstrate, 'how viewpoints can be switched effectively within a scene, how the author can intervene almost at will and how you can achieve total intimacy no matter which viewpoint you choose.'

Does he succeed? Yes, though he could have been more succinct getting there.

Frey writes with a muscular tone; very much like a hale and ruddied uncle, claw-hammer in one hand, a fistful of tacks in t'other, keen to share his experience of clumping a few bits of wood together to make a cabinet and enthusing his nephew or niece.

His love of the subject often leads Frey to deploy seven examples from actual texts when, perhaps, two or three would suffice. But his heart is in the right place - he just so wants you to get it.

His chapter headings, viz. Don't Promise a Primrose and Deliver a Pickle, are effective if affected - they do make you look.

It's a good book. There's a lot of good stuff in here. And it's an easy read with a useful bibliography.

I picked up a copy at a remainder store for 50 pence - but I would have paid more.

How useful is it day-to-day? Well, it's not in the toolkit, but I look at it about six times a year. It's earned its keep on the shelf.

Worth picking up if you see it in a second-hand bookstore.

APRIL FOOL

2009-04-01T07:00:00.000+02:00

The initial team includes former sports publishing supremo Alan Parsons; Rachelle Ingrams; Lydia Farnsworth; Olly Ovspensky as well as Lunt.

Fond regards.

LOKI PRESS - $500 FOR YOUR SENDING YOUR MS

2009-04-01T06:30:00.004+02:00

Here's an imprint you may not have heard of before: Loki Press.
Launched just last week Loki Press has been financed by art collector Anatoly Ovspensky. Apparently Ovspensky, well-known here on the Med for his lavish parties and influential connections, sold a few works by El Lissitzky by private treaty to raise the necessary to float his new hobby horse.

New York imprints have no need to worry - most of Ovspensky's forays into fashion and culture have not exactly cut the mustard. His daughter's cutesy fashion house - Miloka Ma - is mired in protracted bailout negotiations, while his son Olly has had his fingers burned more than twice with dodgy health-fitness-resort schemes in Albania.

Ovspensky has appointed former East German health and fitness publisher Oskar Lunt as his C.E.O.

At the glitzy launch an ebullient Lunt said, "They tell me its all about the Long Tail - well, at Loki, we believe it's about the well-made, well-told tale."

The initial team includes former sports publishing supremo Alan Parsons; Rachelle Ingrams; Lydia Farnsworth; Olly Ovspensky as well as Lunt.

Given the new-found zeal for daring new business models Loki Press - if their P.R. kit is to be believed - have turned the whole pre-production supply-demand model on its head. Eschewing agents and packagers they are offering writers who submit MSs $500 each.

That's right - the first 50 writers who forward a complete and thoroughly polished MS will receive a no-strings $500.

The catch? Well, there isn't one as far as I can see.

Lunt insists this bait to catch and queue talent, and position themselves as the writer's best friend, has been fully costed into their ambitious launch and development plans.
"$25,000 in terms of an R&D budget is peanuts. We believe in talent and we know we can turn that $25,000 investment in talent into a ten, maybe twenty, fold return on investment. New York publishers have lost faith in talent, and most talent has lost faith with New York. Our $25,000 will float Loki on a huge swell of goodwill."

So, what happens after they've got their 50 scripts? "We'll close submissions while we work with the authors to develop their scripts and negotiate global rights sales," says Lunt.

So, what do they want? "Fiction only. No queries, no proposals, no cutesy resumés, just the complete polished MS."

Interested? Details here.

B.B.C.WRITERS' ROOM

2009-03-31T07:00:00.011+02:00

I've been keeping an eye on this site for seven or eight years.

When it first started out it came across with a patronising tone - 'Think you can write? Have YOU got what it takes? Set your brains on fire with these simple exercises you can try at home ... '

Since then the Writers' Room has shaped up into a more focussed resource with a more professional tone. (Though I still sometimes come away from the site feeling as though I've been patted on the head for the past twenty minutes.)

Still ... for writers wanting to break into radio and TV drama it's an extremely useful first-stop resource.

Every year the BBC has to fill around 400 hours of air-time with original TV drama. According to John Yorke (see this post about the peer-review site ProfWriting), Controller of Drama, " The BBC is endlessly looking for new writers."

The site is packed with information - interviews with TV sit-com and drama series writers, producers, commissioners for radio, tips for writing, FREE downloads of screenwriting software, and writing tips, etc. etc. etc..

The most useful resource is probably found under Opportunities in the sidebar - a very useful up-to-date rolling list of links to, yes, you guessed, opportunities for writers.

And the BBC is not just interested in drama - they also broadcast short-stories and monologues, as well as serialised versions of contemporary published fiction and non-fiction.

Writers in English in the States, or Ireland, or outwith the Commonwealth, may think the BBC will not be interested. Well, I'm not so sure.

For example today is the deadline for the International Radio Play Writing Competition (2,500 British units of a devaluing currency to the winner, plus a paid-for visit to London to sit in on production). I've been through the rules and there's nothing there I can see which would disbar you from entering next year. You have exactly a year to to find out any different and put an entry together. [A savvy writer could include this as an objective within a strategy to build presence within a global English reading audience. The selected play is broadcast on the World Service - 183 million listeners - you can't buy advertising like that.]

And, in a video slot, John Yorke refers to the BBC gradually adopting U.S. TV drama series production values and practices. This video is probably a good place to start if you need an overview of the BBC's demand for quality TV drama.

What else? Well, best thing is go there and check it out. Have fun. Please let us know how you get on.

Sorry, couldn't resist putting this up.

IRISH PUBLISHERS WHO WILL ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS FROM WRITERS

2009-03-30T06:30:00.006+02:00

SEE NEW POST.
Every writer must have an Irish writer among their favourites. Who's yours? Swift? Wilde? Joyce? Behan? Beckett? G.B. Shaw? W.B. Yeats? Flann O'Brien? Brian Friel? Or Heaney? Or maybe John B. Keane - author of The Field (published by Mercier Press featured in the list that follows)?

Or perhaps Cathal Ó Sándair, who wrote over 100 novels, including westerns and the Réics Carló Irish language detective series?

Or maybe, all you urban fantasy-vampire writers out there, it's Bram Stoker. Yes, that's right, Bram Stoker. Until undertaking a little research for this post I'd never known that Bram Stoker was Irish. Silly me.

Putting this list together was a very interesting exercise, almost a pleasure. The welcoming and helpful tone used in the submission guidelines you'll find here is markedly different to the tone used by U.K. and U.S. publishers (if they have any submission guidelines at all).

This list isn't definitive - I'll update as and when - and if you know of any Irish publishers who will accept submissions from writers then please pass them on via the comments box below this post. Thanks.

I repeat again the preamble to the U.K. list below. PLEASE READ IT:

The links I've posted here will take you straight to the appropriate page on the publisher's website detailing their submissions policy and instructions. PLEASE read these carefully and do as asked.

While on any site I strongly recommend you browse around a bit and familiarise yourself with the publisher's list, seek out their blog (if they have one) and gather clues on their current acquisitions policy.

If a publisher has a newsletter, and they seem as though they could be a possible home for your work at some point in the future, then sign up.

PLEASE, don't just smash, grab and send; give careful thought to your query and show consideration.

You know the drill - but if you don't, don't send, otherwise a few more doors may close.

FICTION

Brandon Books

Guildhall Press

Lilliput Press

Mercier Press

New Island

O'Brien - NO adult fiction, poetry and academic works. Children's fiction, children's non-fiction and adult non-fiction only.

Penguin

NON-FICTION ONLY

Blackhall Publishing

Blackstaff Press - NO FICTION at present.

Currach Press

Gill Macmillan - and acdemic textbooks.

Liberties Press

The Liffey Press

Woodfield Press - Biography, local history, women’s history/studies, social history.

Maverick House - here's their blog.

POETRY

Dedalus Press

The Gallery Press

Salmon Poetry

Best of luck - and if you do find a publisher from the above list please come back and share your experience. Thanks.

MACMILLAN NEW WRITING UPDATE

2009-03-27T07:21:00.006+01:00

The post about Macmillan New Writing prompted a lot of interest.

I posted a link to the post over at Authonomy. People chipped in with comments and then Will Atkins, commissioning editor at Macmillan New Writing, posted an update:

"... Yes, we publish people like Brian McGilloway, who, miraculously, write a novel a year (Brian's third crime novel is about to come out from Macmillan, MNW having published his first two); but we also publish the likes of Ann Weisgarber (just long-listed for the Orange prize), whose debut took seven years to write. MNW has acquired, to date, eight second novels from its debut authors, with three of those authors, so far, going on to be signed up by Pan Macmillan on a multi-book contract, on conventional terms, with an advance. More will follow this year."

I think the fact Will Atkins took time out to post the information is an indication of the values which impel the MNW imprint.

So, there you have it:

8 second novels
3 novels from Brian McGilloway, of which the first two published by MNW
3 MNW authors achieving multi-book contracts with PanMacmillan

Ryanair? Sounds more like a space shuttle to me.

To get a good bit of the background to MNW see this post by Richard Charkin, then CEO of Macmillan, and this book by Mike Barnard.

Have a good weekend.

AUTHONOMY AGAIN

2009-03-26T17:26:00.034+01:00

In an earlier post about the HarpernotCollins site Authonomy
I wrote:
"The forum can be a veritable viper's nest of vituperation, snark, nark, nay-saying, bullying, fawning and faint praise -- some of it wittty and amusing, though most of it dull, plodding and self-serving."

Had I over-egged the pudding? Well ...

Writer George La Cas, a regular over at Authonomy, left a comment and suggested I re-visit the site, which I did, and sure enough things did seem to have quietened down since the days of Joe Ridgewell. I mooched about a bit in the Forum, left a couple of links to this blog, browsed a few books, and then ... and then ...

Things got really out of hand with insults - and racist abuse - flying around on a string of threads. I spent a good few hours reading the main thread and a few spin-off threads, and chucked in my two ha'pence worth.

It was all good fun, but it wasn't easy; the site was up and down, and the electricity supply and ADSL service here was on and off all day.

Nathan Bransford, literary agent for Curtis Brown in California, posted his thoughts on the issues which prompted several comments from a few of those involved in the fracas.

Finally the administrators of Authonomy issued two statements: here and on the Authonomy blog here. When you read the blog post you'll see that yours truly has been quoted. Yes, that's right, Clive at HC lifted a quote from one of my two posts on the debacle:

'Harlson Phillips (my grandfather used to go ballistic if people spelled the family name with only two 'pees') wondered on authonomy's role in preparing authors for publication:

"If Authonomy is a testing-ground for would-be writers then surely it's equally valid to use it as such for testing other aspects of the professional writer's package than simply the text…there are dozens of other online critique sites, some general, some genre specific, where any of us can hone skills if that's what we want/need to do. But there are no sites I know of wherein you can properly practice promotion and marketing writing and writers in real time with a real audience. Here, on Authonomy, we have an opportunity to test a complete skillset before launching ourselves and our work into the 'real' world."'

HC's blog post prompted another 67 comments for, against and indifferent to HC's ruling.

If you're curious you can read the complete version of my post here in which I ramble on a bit, throwing in references to Damien Hirst, Dalí, Isadora Duncan, Michael Clark, The Beatles and Salman Rushdie, before getting to the point above.

All good fun.

It has quietened down now, but a few resentful members of the 'old guard' refuse to let the matter go, and pop up now and then to poke the slumbering bear.

Prompted by events a good dozen or more Authonomy regulars (including Fred Limberg who made the racist insults) have, if not wholly migrated, set up accounts with a fairly new peer review site, Writers Wrule, one of a dozen peer review sites you'll find links to in the sidebar here.

It all reminded me of why I avoided working with writers' groups when I worked as an arts development officer.

Tomorrow I'll be posting a very authoritative update on Macmillan New Writing.

And on Monday I hope to post an interesting list of a dozen or more publishers based in Ireland.

Stay tuned.

·3 eyes as well as 2

2009-03-25T07:02:00.006+01:00

Sincere apologies to all the talented photographers over at Flick'r whose images I appear to have filched without credit.

Sorry. It's not ingratitude, it's not ignorance , it's more a case of ineptitude.

I've been having problems persuading Blogger's HTML editor to accept code for the tags.

My bad.

I think I've cracked it, and I've begun re-tagging photos with credits.

Thanks for your patience and understanding ... and thank you all for your wonderful, inspirational images.

WISE WORDS

2009-03-24T00:39:00.008+01:00

Disculpa. On Friday gone I posted a few words of wisdom by a well-known U.K. writer and invited you to post your best guess as to their identity. I promised to let you know their name on Monday (yesterday).

No excuses - except to say a series of powercuts, or outtages (which seems to be enjoying increasing currency in good ol' Blighty), coupled with intermittent interruptions of Telefonica's ADSL service, outflanked me.

It was Philip Pullman - author of the His Dark Materials trilogy.

10 PLUS U.S. PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS FROM WRITERS

2009-03-23T07:05:00.006+01:00

SEE UPDATE: APRIL 30th, 2011

Last week in the post 10 U.K. publishers who accept submissions from writers
I promised to put up a list of ten U.S. publishers.

Well, here it is.

I repeat the preamble to the U.K. list below. PLEASE READ IT:

The links I've posted here will take you straight to the appropriate page on the publisher's website detailing their submissions policy and instructions. PLEASE read these carefully and do as asked.

While on any site I strongly recommend you browse around a bit and familiarise yourself with the publisher's list, seek out their blog (if they have one) and gather clues on their current acquisitions policy.

If a publisher has a newsletter, and they seem as though they could be a possible home for your work at some point in the future, then sign up.

PLEASE, don't just smash, grab and send; give careful thought to your query and show consideration.

You know the drill - but if you don't, don't send, otherwise a few more doors may close.

This collection is a mixed bag, PLEASE read the notes, not all the publishers listed are fiction publishers, (there are some interesting non-fiction imprints here) do not assume any of the publishers acquire the kind of fiction you produce.

Before getting your hopes up, run a check on those publishers you are not familiar with; perhaps run them through Writer Beware and/or Preditors & Editors.

OK, first up, five imprints from the US Macmillan stable: Tor, Forge, Orb, Sevens Seas and Farrar, Strauss & Giroux .

Newmarket Press, has a fiction list which includes the actor Gene Hackman's novel Wake of the Perdido Star, which I alluded to in this post.

Sourcebooks has guidelines for general submissions and specific guidelines for romance here.

Beaufort Books

Gibbs Smith. Utah based outfit. (Would not be my first choice. I'd be a bit circumspect here and do some thorough research before getting too involved.)

Sterling Publishing - a wholly owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble.

Llewellyn Publications deals mainly with New Age, spritual growth type stuff but they do have a mystery fiction imprint - guidelines here.

Melville House - PLEASE make it your duty to read their guidelines.

Soho Press

Soft Skull

OK, here's a sub-list of publishers that may interest writers of kids' stuff:

Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin, writers for younger readers only.
Boyds Mills Press - four imprints (including Rotterdam based Lemniscaat for the European market) for younger readers.
Albert Whitman
Charles Bridge
Beacon Press, based in Boston, also has a childrens list, and will look at illustrated books.

As you'll likely know, despite efforts to revive the form, seriously published short-stories have just about died in the U.K. so it's always a pleasure to come across publishers who are still on the lookout for well-written collections of short-stories: Cantara Books is one such, and, interestingly, are positively interested in novellas. OV Books, an imprint of Dzanc Books, is another and will only look at collections of short-stories. Black Lawrence also look at short-story collections, translations from French and German, and poetry, as well as creative non-fiction, but take note of their submission windows.

Here's one just for CANADIANS.

Here's one for Black American writers - fiction, non-fiction and educational texts: Asabi Publishing.

And, to round off, two interesting non-fiction imprints:
Quirk who are looking for entertaining (not necessarily entertainment) non-fiction.
The New Press.

How many did I say? Not counting individual imprints there must be twenty two publishers here.
Best of luck with your queries. Let me know how you get on.

WISE WORDS FOR THE WEEKEND

2009-03-20T19:13:00.006+01:00

"Don't listen to any advice, that's what I'd say. Write only what you want to write. Please yourself. YOU are the genius, they're not. Especially don't listen to people (such as publishers) who think that you need to write what readers say they want. Readers don't always know what they want. I don't know what I want to read until I go into a bookshop and look around at the books other people have written, and the books I enjoy reading most are books I would never in a million years have thought of myself. So the only thing you need to do is forget about pleasing other people, and aim to please yourself alone. That way, you'll have a chance of writing something that other people WILL want to read, because it'll take them by surprise. It's also much more fun writing to please yourself."

I'm not offering any prizes, but do you know which very well-known UK writer uttered the words above?

Please post your best guess in the comments.

ANSWER ON MONDAY.

What do you think? Do they have a valid point?

Have a good weekend. I'll be back next week with more stuff.

10 UK PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS FROM WRITERS

2009-03-19T16:13:00.015+01:00

The post about Macmillan New Writing generated a fair bit of interest so I've put together a list of ten UK based publishers who WILL accept submissions directly from writers.

The links posted here will take you straight through to the appropriate page on the publisher's website detailing their submissions policy and instructions. PLEASE read these carefully and do as asked.

While on any site I strongly recommend you browse around a bit and familiarise yourself with the publisher's list, seek out their blog and gather clues on their current acquisitions policy.

If a publisher has a newsletter, and they seem as though they could be a possible home for your work at some point in the future, then sign up.

PLEASE, don't just smash, grab and send; give careful thought to your query and show consideration.

You know the ropes - but if you don't, don't send, otherwise a few more doors may close.

I've indicated which publishers are e-mail query friendly with a big YES.

And I've indicated hard-copy submissions only with a big NO.

And I've indicated publishers who have a blog link in the sidebar here with an asterisk.

I intend to post a list of ten U.S. publishers who accept submissions from writers next week.

Alma Books * - NO -
Canongate * - NO -
Carcanet - NO -
Constable & Robinson - NO -
Legend Press * - YES -
Myrmidon - NO -
Monday Books* - YES -
Robert Hale * - NO -
Snowbooks * - YES EXCLUSIVELY -
Two Ravens Press * - YES EXCLUSIVELY -

Best of luck.

WHAT DO EDITORS DO?

2009-03-18T11:27:00.014+01:00

What editors do depends on who hires them to do what they do.

Regardless of the detail of what an editor does it is axiomatic that at least one editor, in whatever guise, stands between you and your readers. (Even if you opt for self-publishing you will, at some stage, have to play the role yourself or ask someone else to do it.)

In our collective eagerness to find that elusive perfect literary agent, we writers too often forget that it's editors we really should be looking for and talking with.

I have two very good friends who are editors. One works for the Oxford University Press and is responsible for acquiring academic textbooks; the other is the former founding editor of an influential international art journal, and is now best described as an editor-at-large.

The only real commonality is that they spend a lot of their time in Business or Club Class, at someone else's expense, jetting between continents. My OUP friend has considerably more air miles, having logged visits to the Caribbean, Germany, Holland, Jordan and Spain as well as the States.

My OUP friend spends a fair proportion of her time talking with writers and educationalists; my art journal friend spends most of his time hustling, and negotiating with managing editors, proprietors and board members of publishing houses, foundations and galleries.

I could describe myself as an editor - my main role in producing the translations our partnership (WordBirds o Pajaros de la Palabra) undertakes is to ensure consistency with our house-style, or the style parameters defined by our clients. However, our contact with the writers (Spanish, Catalan and South American media academics, media-literacy activists and medical researchers) is usually mediated through a representative of the organisation responsible for publication of the material. Although we do work on the galleys with designers and printers to further ensure consistency.

We usually meet the writers post-publication - and it's always a pleasure to hear their praise for our efforts.

A quick scan through the range of editors listed here in the Editors' Blogs sidebar will demonstrate the diversity of roles and tasks editors take on during the publishing process - and should convince you that it's they, not agents, you should really be spending time and effort getting to know.

But how? Well, the easiest way is to become an editor yourself. You will have noticed (please don't say you haven't ...) that a large proportion of agents were once editors, or have remained editors, or will become editors and/or writers.

From the outside looking in it often seems that publishing is a closed loop, with editors for one set of publishers offering their writing to editors working on behalf of another set of publishers, sometimes directly, sometimes via an agent who used to work for .... you get the picture.

Still confused? It is a bit of a tangle.

Here's an interesting article from Salon which should help untangle some of it for you.

Are you an editor? If so, it would be good to hear from you.
Have you had experience of working with an editor? Please share.

More about HOW TO WRITE A MI££ION - The Essential Guide to Becoming a Successful Author by Wood, Reed & Bickham

2009-03-17T18:41:00.032+01:00

Some writing handbooks are inspiring as well as instructive. Noah Lukeman's The Art of Punctuation is one such. After reading a chapter from the book I feel a need to write a few passages and play around with the placement of punctuation - to test how subtle changes can alter rhythm, pace, cadence, emphasis and meaning.

More About How to Write a Mi££ion is more instructive than inspiring.

Having said that it's still useful - in parts.

With a foreword by novelist Michael Ridpath (who was plucked from the slushpile by agent Carole Blake at Blake Friedmann) this is actually three books - Description - Revision - Setting - wrapped in a single cover, issued as a follow up to the original How to Write A Million.

I find the discussion of telling detail in Description useful.

Some of the stuff in the section Revision is useful - but overall I feel it a bit laboured. Most readers of this blog would, as the writer suggests, skip straight to Chapter Three: Kinds of Revision.

I did find a lot of the stuff in the Setting section very useful. And I have to say I believe my use of settings did improve after reading and studying it. Many readers/reviewers on YWO, for example, have commented positively on my ability to describe setting and atmosphere economically and convincingly in my novel After Goya.

The book reminds us that the same physical settings can have a radically different feel and appearance depending on the time of day and time of year. These changes in the mood of a place are often caused by local custom or byelaws, local geography and/or weather patterns; details often overlooked during research.

Here, in Barcelona, for example, most shops outside the tourist zones close every Saturday afternoon; and a good proportion of businesses close down for the whole of August. Visitors from the States and the UK find this difficult to understand; non-visitors likely assume commerce continues all year round. Any novel set in August in Barcelona would not ring true unless it alluded to the fact that Barcelona is very much a ghost of itself every August.

Again, on New Year's Eve in Barcelona the locals traditionally wear red underwear. You may be pressed to find that information in a tourist guide, but then maybe not. But you get my drift.

So, when visiting an actual location make notes on every aspect of civic and street life. If you've done your job properly you'll find a few telling details amid your notes (e.g. the colour of local taxis, the time of the last metro train, the fact that every other Tuesday in May, June and July the locals indulge some crazy custom, like slapping each other with a certain type of fish [but then, that is the sort of info you would find in a Lonely Planet guide]) that you can use to add not colour but verisimilitude to your work-in-progress.

The section Setting contains a handy chart to use when researching a place, with boxes to note your first impressions through to the political complexion of the local administration.

In summary More About How To Write a Million is worth a look at, if only for the section on settings. I picked up a copy for 50 pence in a remainder shop - so, I didn't feel ripped off - but I'm not convinced it's worth the 9.99 cover price.

Do you have any ideas for dealing with settings? How do you set about researching a place?

SIDEBAR ALERT: Critique Sites

2009-03-16T12:38:00.026+01:00

If you look at the bottom of the sidebar here you'll find a list of 15 critique sites. I've already mentioned Authonomy, with an estimated 3000 uploaded texts, and YouWriteOn, its message board still down as at writing, the two most popular peer review sites based in the UK. And I pointed up the USA based Flogging the Quill in an earlier post.

For me, the main problem with Authonomy is that a reader cannot print the texts (well, you can, but it's a fiddly, long-winded process). So, it's not possible to read the texts in situations (on the tube, on a train, in bed etc.) where you would ordinarily read a book. Whereas it is possible to print texts on YWO.

Authonomy's popularity is largely due to its links to HarpernotCollins and its promise to 'beat the slushpile' - but that is exactly what it has become.

Notwithstanding the prize of a read by a HarpernotCollins's editor many Authonomites claim they're not interested in climbing the pile and simply value the feedback. But if that were the case why then do they not post their work on a site such as ProfWriting? There's no prize as such, but there is the possibility that the work may be read by one of the Editorial Panel and Friends who include:

* Patrick Gale, novelist

* John Yorke, Controller BBC Drama Production

* Victoria Hobbs, literary agent, A.M. Heath

* Ljiljana Baird, Publisher, Spruce, an imprint of the Octopus Publishing Group

With far fewer participants then surely, if your work is as good as you think it is, it will make a greater impression, no? Or, is my logic faulty here?

My question could be phrased:

Would you prefer to have your work linger in a publisher's slushpile 3000 deep, waiting inline for a quick skim from a hard-pressed, overworked assistant, or, if very lucky, a grown-up, harder pressed and more over-worked, editor?

Would you rather your work had made it to a slushpile with only 12 other texts, confident it will receive a tough but thorough appraisal by a competent editor?

ProfWriting will not provide that (it is a peer review site) but it is something to think about. We all need to target our work.

Anyway, you may have noticed that I've split the list of all critique sites into two discrete lists:

Peer review critique sites

and

Expert review critique sites

to help you more easily find the kind of torture you'd prefer to undergo.

If you know of any peer review sites or expert review sites that I haven't yet listed please do let me know or pass on a link. Thanks.

SIDEBAR ALERT: FESTIVALS

2009-03-13T12:00:00.044+01:00

Just a quick note to let you know I've started flagging up festivals in the sidebar here.

How useful are literary festivals for writers?

I'm not sure. Yes, great if you're paid to appear. And they're great for readers, and publishers (if they have their act together) and retailers ... but us ordinary, slugalonga writers?

When an earnest newbie in the 70s I used to trek along to Cheltenham Literature Festival; by the mid-80s I was on the board of Lancaster Literature Festival.

How?

Well, I moved to Lancaster principally because of its literature festival. When an undergraduate on the Creative Writing course at Alsager the tutors organised annual visits to the Festival.

One year, when attending a day-long workshop with playwright-screenwriter Trevor Griffiths (excellent, one of the very best events I've ever attended) I took a stroll during the long lunch break. I wandered through the old Market Square up to the Castle/Prison and down to the Quayside.

Before the following year's festival I re-visited the town* (for an event at the regional film-theatre) and discovered the canal and the Whittle (aka The Golden Lion).

I became enamoured with the place. It had a repertory theatre, a youth theatre, a theatre-in-education company, a regional film-theatre, an upcoming contemporary dance company, a lively music co-op, an artists' studio collective, a bit of a gay scene, and a wholefood store. And John Angus's distinctive posters splashed around the streets made it seem like a happening place. And chatting with Kurt Vonnegut in the theatre bar heightened that sense of possibility.

And so it went ...

With no ties, and wanting to experience life in the North, I sort of half made my mind up to re-locate to Lancaster when I finished college. Then, unexpectedly, I was invited to apply for the MA Creative Writing course at Lancaster University.

I stayed on in Lancaster for five years after completing the MA, helping form a gang of artist-activist-makers, conjure up performances and spectacles, agitate and irritate, and along the way, convene the first ever Lancaster Arts Forum, which went on to successfully lobby for better and more co-ordinated support for the arts and artists in the town, leading eventually to the creation of the arts development section within the City Council.

All good fun.

And so on it went. And somewhere along the line I was asked to join the board of Lancaster Literature Festival.

At the time practical co-operation with the University was non-existent. There was, I recall, a board member who was regarded as the University representative, but they worked in the Drama (not English and Creative Writing) department, and only attended meetings when looking for contributions towards sending their theatre company to the Edinburgh Fringe.

A few members of the board wanted to steer the festival in a more populist direction, while others complained (I'll never forget the phrase) that the Festival was beginning to "lack bottom, or gravitas".

Publishers too were a bit slack with their efforts. Most publishers just let the writers get on with it, often refusing to supply additional books for signings etc, while others would send Jacintha and Tabitha to micro-manage 'their' writer.

And so on it went.

It was all good fun.

Part of my job was to chaperone writers to the venue and, usually via a bar or restaurant, to their hotel afterwards. Thus I had the privilege and pleasure of meeting a good many talented, personable writers (as well as a few pompous fuckwits).

My favourite person? Liz Lochead. We'd met a couple of years previously, when she was the resident writer at a weekend retreat I'd attended. A lovely, bubbly person. She missed the train and, being the very personable person she is, got talking to a stranger while waiting for the next train, and missed that one as well. She missed her slot. Carol Ann Duffy, who was imminently due to give her reading, graciously agreed to double up with Ms Lochead. It was a good, memorable, gig.

And there was Henry Normal (then a Goth and a great laugh) performing with Ian McMillan, (a really nice bloke) under the Circus of Poets banner. And Melvyn Bragg, Tom Paulin, and the late Edgar Wilson. All decent, hard-working, human beings.

At the time Salman Rushdie was a patron of the Festival so a colleague organised an after-hours cabaret venue called Salman's Hideaway. (The Gravatii were horrified)

All good fun.

With festivals such as the Hay (on Wye) Festival - things have certainly got a lot more corporate since the 80s.

If you have a literary festival in your area - and you've got skills and/or ideas to contribute - it's always worth asking if there's a space on the board - a good many arts organisations are keen to recruit new blood.

What's your experience of literary festivals? Good, bad, indifferent?
Are there one or two you could recommend for writers?

I went to a really good festival, BCNegra '09, here in Barcelona, just a few weeks ago. Sparked me up a bit. I wholeheartedly recommend it to crime fiction writers. Check out the links in the Festivals sidebar.

And so it is as was, tempered with the why of it, still restless with the way of it and how it could have been.

* Although it is officially a city Lancaster is really a large market-town - which adds charm to its character.

WRITING A THRILLER by André Jute

2009-03-11T19:00:00.012+01:00

I can't remember precisely what prompted me to buy this book in 1995. I was working on a thriller - but why this particular book and not another handbook? I can't remember. But I'm glad I did.

It cost me a tenner - my MA cost me fifteen hundred quid - I wish I'd had this before, during or even instead of the MA.

First published in 1986 it's been through a few editions - I bought the 1994 edition - and was on sale at this years's BCNegra festival, so someone else must think it's worthwhile.

This book proffers good, no-nonsense basic advice that holds good for writing in any genre. However, its tone will irritate and alienate sensitive types. Tough love drives this book.

The book takes writers through the process of writing and publishing a thriller, from fleshing out the concept to checking the contract. The text is littered with anecdotes such as:

'A Nobel laureate once told me that, within a six-block radius of the bar we were in, there were a hundred better writers than either of us. ... The difference between us, as published writers, and them, as unpublished writers (perhaps not even knowing what fame they could be missing), was merely that we sat down and wrote a page every day or ten pages or some other immutable number, and didn't stop until we reached that number - and they didn't.'

Why do I rate this handbook as highly? Well, it gave me a kick up the arse when I needed it, and I found the chapters Breathing Life into Characters, Writer's Blues: breaching the blocks and The Power and the Pain: cutting and re-writing especially useful.

'A writer writes - it's axiomatic.'

I keep the book within reach and refer to it when I'm experiencing problems with flow or forward motion.

This book prompted me to buy André Jute 's Writing Proposals & Synopses That Sell.

Do you have any how-to-write a thriller handbooks you would recommend? If so, please leave a note of them in the comments. Thanks.

The Flogometer - Flogging the Quill

2009-03-10T00:51:00.011+01:00

Fancy a whipping?

Do you feel in need of a public flogging?

Seriously, if you feel a need to have someone (who knows what they're talking about) give you a steer on your opening lines, then here's a critique site you may not have come across before: Ray Rhamey's Flogging the Quill.

Like all the best critique sites it's a simple premise: you upload a sample of your work (first chapter or prologue plus first chapter) and Ray will critique the first couple of pages.

Visitors to the site are invited to read and vote on whether they would continue to read your text or not, and then Ray sets to.

After Ray has had his say visitors to the site can chuck in their tuppence/two cents worth.

Be warned, Ray is focussing on your opening 16 lines. Yep, sixteen lines.

Go there, have fun, make notes, leave the guy a tip, get out of there and get back to work.

What do you think this writing business is? Fun?

Craaack!

Feel that whip. Embrace the sting.

Punctuation - the music of language? The ART of PUNCTUATION or A DASH of STYLE by Noah Lukeman

2009-03-09T07:37:00.013+01:00

Punctuation is not my strong point. I often hesitate before placing a comma in a sentence.

No, I mean ...

Punctuation is not my strong point and I often hesitate before inserting a comma into a sentence.

Or, maybe I mean ...

Punctuation isn't my strong point; I often hesitate before reaching for a comma.

I think you get my drift.

Here, Noah Lukeman writes almost lovingly about that set of signs and symbols, those indispensable marks, which, when inserted into a text, can elucidate or obfuscate meaning and expression.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of books dealing with punctuation. What sets this volume apart is that it is aimed squarely at writers; as is set out in the introduction:

'This is not a book for grammarians ... This book is for the audience
that needs it the most and yet for whom, ironically, a punctuation book
has yet to be written: creative writers.'

When I read a (usually unpublished) writer declaring, 'Punctuation? No dealbreaker. The line-editor will correct it,' I often bring to mind a macho type, pointing Percy at the porcelain, missing the pot and saying, 'No worries, I'll have the missus clean it up.'

Laziness? Arrogance? Ineptitude? Or an uncouth mix of all three?

Setting aside apostrophes and slashes, Lukeman ably, and entertainingly, takes us through the most important marks, illustrating his points with telling examples, pointing up underuse and overuse, and setting us end-of-chapter exercises.

There's a lot of food for thought here:

'Why did Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver lean heavily on the full stop? Why did William Faulkner eschew it? Why did Edgar Allen Poe and Herman Melville rely on the semicolon? Did Emily Dickinson embrace the dash, Gertrude Stein avoid the comma? How could the punctuation differ so radically between these great authors? What did punctuation add that language itself could not?'

Such is tempered with practical, no-nonsense suggestions for improving one's work.

Ever wondered what your use of paragraph and section breaks reveals about you?

Do you want to know what F. Scott Fitzgerald said about the exclamation mark?

Ever thought why Cormac McCarthy avoids commas?

Excellent stuff. Every writer of English and American English should keep a copy within easy reach of the desk.

MACMILLAN NEW WRITING

2009-03-06T15:30:00.013+01:00

If you're looking to take a break from the never-ending circus of finding an agent then here's a publisher's imprint you may be interested in - Macmillan New Writing.

A simple concept, and a straightforward process. You're a writer with a polished MS, they're a publisher with a list to fill. You send them your MS, they read it then let you know.

It seems a long time ago now, but when the scheme launched in 2005 it prompted Hari Kunzru, author of The Impressionist, to describe the scheme as the Ryanair of publishing.

To read WriteWords's interview with Macmillan New Writing's editor, Will Atkins, go here.

And, if you're really interested you could seek out Mike Barnard's book on the scheme.

And writer Faye L. Booth gives an illuminating account of her experience with Macmillan New Writing on the Hags, Harlots, Heroines website.

I am surprised and not surprised more publishers have not explored this route. Surprised because it seems an all-round win-win scenario:

Writers - reduced decision time
Editors - direct access to writers and a much wider range of material

Adding up to savings in the three largest overheads in the creative writing business:

Time
Ink
Paper

Not surprised because it eliminates interlocutors from the process:

Agents
Marketeers

Will Atkins has posted some of his thinking on the dreaded slush-pile over at Picador here.

From the outside looking in one of the attractive features of the scheme is that it seems to have fostered a camaraderie among its writers and, if interested, you may want to visit the group blog before submitting your work.

If you live in the US, then you might not think that Macmillan New Writing would be interested in you. But you'd be wrong. Go check out Tomorrowville.

In 2006 I submitted an earlier version of my novel. About four weeks later I received an e-mail telling me I had sent a zipped or compressed file which couldn't be opened. Odd, I didn't then know how to create a compressed file. I think the problem arose because I'd created the file in an early version of OpenOffice and Macmillan could only accept .docs. I converted the text to Word, using OpenOffice's onboard file converter, intending to re-send, but the resulting text was a right old mish-mash, way beyond re-formatting. (The most recent version of OpenOffice Write features a much more reliable converter). I haven't yet re-sent.

It's encouraging to see a UK publisher embrace e-working but disappointing to find they only embrace the Microsoft version of e-working.

Now the novelty has worn off, and things have calmed down, I think Macmillan New Writing has proved itself a useful ally to debut writers.

Have you checked it out yet?

Projects & Products: An Introduction to Self-publishing blogs & sites

2009-03-05T07:30:00.015+01:00

In June last year my partner, her son and I visited the Prado. We visited the great art museum for three reasons:

We love the place.
My partner was keen for her 16 year old son to get a good dose of kulcha.
I needed, again, to look at a few of Goya's works (research for my novel After Goya ).

Mission successful -- and a bonus. While wandering the galleries, Cris, my partner's son, bought me a 1€ pocket-guide to Goya's cuadros negros (black paintings). It's a good little guide. I was taken by the all-round quality of production; interesting, well laid out text and drawings, and, of course, details from Goya's works, and only 1€. Before we left the museum I bought another copy for a friend in the UK -- and dead cheap and easy to post.

On the train back to Barcelona I began to ruminate on the possibilities of publishing my novel, After Goya, as a series of pocket-sized books in a very similar format to the Prado guide.

The novel is in three parts. I could, I thought, publish Part One - perhaps even persuade the Prado to stock it - and test the market.

The more I thought about it the more the idea seemed right - there was a kind of poetry to the idea. But did it make sense?

Advantages

Relatively small outlay for an initial print run of 1000 (or 2000 if running with simultaneous Spanish edition).
Small size = reduced stock storage problems - the whole run could be delivered in just four medium-sized boxes.
Cheap and easy to pack and post - could perhaps absorb cost of shipping for direct sales to UK, USA and Canada.
Low-cost risk to buyer -- if they don't like it, well, they haven't lost much. And if they do like it, then I have them on the hook for Part Two.
Small, lightweight, durable and easily portable format could make it an attractive stock item for non-book outlets e.g. , newspaper kiosks, tourist offices and vending-machines.
Translating 30,000 words for a Spanish language edition didn't seem as daunting as translating 95,000.
Pocket-size = I could use it as a sampler for agents and editors I meet at parties.
Light weight and small size = practical freebie for UK air passengers to Málaga on the day the novel begins, or rail passengers (a cover-mount for on-board magazine?) on the exact same RENFE (Spanish National Railways) train the main protagonists take .
If Part One successful, and Part Two and Part Three followed, the revenue stream (both gross and net) could be potentially greater than a single product.
And, if it didn't sell, and I couldn't give it away, well, no big loss - and I'd have a pretty good clue from readers (not agents) whether my writing was any good or not.

Because the novel is essentially an art caper it could sell through gallery and museum shops - and not just in the UK (the name-checked Bowes for example) but in Spain: the Prado, the Goya Birthplace Museum in Fuendetodos, Goya related museums in Zaragoza, and name-checked museums and galleries in Barcelona, Córdoba and Málaga.

I liked the whole idea of a part series -- sort of harking back to the penny dreadful (the 3€ dreadful?) notion. Part One does end on a cliffhanger, and readers cannot resist turning to the next page -- surely my readers would buy Part Two?

Offloading a thousand of these, through giveaways and sales, would be a cinch I thought. Or would it? And then I thought, "Hang on, I'm a writer, not a publisher."

So, I ...

...to be continued ...

SIDEBAR ALERT: Writers' Blogs

2009-03-04T07:30:00.005+01:00

If design is an elegant solution to a problem -- art is one person's interim solution gone looking for trouble.

When I started building this blog I filed all writers' blogs, irrespective of genre, in a neat list. "You're not stupid," I thought. "You're a writer, you'll recognise the names, or titles, and take it from there."

But then I thought back to my original intention of creating a user-friendly resource for creative writers and asked myself the question, "What do writers want?" The answer is money, or failing that, market information. I can't give you that -- but I can, and will, signpost sources for such.

So, what else do you want from this blog?*

Lacking any research data I have assumed that you are a writer** and want a site that's easy to use, that clearly signposts links to information you need when you need it, points up potentially useful resources you hadn't previously known about. And, perhaps, if you have the time, and are in the mood, somewhere you can sound off about your experiences, or otherwise throw in your two ha'ppence or two cents' worth.

This led me to trip over another question:

Why do we read writers' blogs?

What do we want, what do we need from them? Inspiration? Tips 'n' tricks? Insider gossip? A sense of connection? Daily commentary on the struggles and joys of wrestling with a work-in-progress? An introduction to their editor or agent? Possibly a mix of all the above plus.

Non-writing readers' needs are different; they're possibly looking for giveaways, signed copies, dates and venues of appearances, news of re-issues and future projects, movie and TV spin-offs, or the opportunity to ask the author a question, or thank the author for their efforts. Most of them are satisfied with access to a well-designed website.

And bookblog reviewers visit writers' blogs possibly in search of background, or in lieu of one-on-one interviews.

Should I be more discriminating when linking to writers?

After considerable thought I came up with the following:

I will genrify*** writers – other than those writers (such as David Isaak and John Baker) whose blogs I consider offer something of value for all writers. I believe this will make it easier for you to link up with other writers in your genre, and make it easier for you to find writers in your genre you may not have encountered before.
I will only link to writers who are already published, in the process of being published, or unpublished writers I think have something interesting, intelligent, useful or witty to say.
I will invite writers to post guest blogs.
I will consider hosting visits by writers on blog tours.
I will link to writers writing in languages other than English.
I will not categorise writers by gender, age, ability, nationality, creed, sexual orientation, diet preferences or star-sign.
I will not link to dead writers, unless their name is Eric Blair or Manolo.

I have spoken - though I can always be persuaded (but not bribed or bullied) to change my mind on any or all of the above.

All of which is a long way round of saying, "Expect to see changes in the writers' blogs sidebar as of now."

*This isn't a rhetorical question -- please let me know your thoughts.

** Long and short fiction writers of all genres, creative narrative non-fiction writers, including travel writers; poets, dramatists, screenwriters, et al.

*** vb. to classify, to categorise, or to pigeon-hole, a product of imagination or artistic endeavour, or an entertainment product, and the creators of such, by assigning certain characteristics to the product or person, thereby aligning the product and creator with other product and creators, in order to sell such product to distributors and consumers.

SIDEBAR ALERT: Publishers' Blogs

2009-03-03T12:49:00.004+01:00

Why do we read publishers' blogs?

What do we want, what do we need from them? Market information? Formatting tips for submissions? Marketing ideas? Insider gossip? A sense of connection? Daily commentary on the struggles and joys of wrestling with writers, printers and distributors? An introduction to their editor or agent? Possibly a mix of all the above plus.

Non-writing readers' needs are different; they're possibly looking for giveaways, signed copies, dates and venues of appearances, news of re-issues and future projects, movie and TV spin-offs, or the opportunity to ask the author a question, or thank the author for their efforts. Most of them are satisfied with access to a well-designed website.

And bookblog reviewers visit publishers' blogs in the hope getting their hands on advance copies, or lining up an interview or a guest blog post by a writer.

CORRECT ENGLISH by J.E. Metcalfe & C. Astle

2009-03-03T07:30:00.012+01:00

I often chance upon newbie writers in forums* calling for help with various aspects of the craft of writing.

If they need advice about punctuation I refer them to Noah Lukeman's The Art of Punctuation (A Dash of Style in the U.S.).

If it's grammar, spelling or syntax then I move on, leaving other writers to pile in with their helpful suggestions to consult Lynne Truss's remarkably successful Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

I hesitate to recommend Fowler's Modern English Usage for fear it may intimidate. If all you really want to know, right now, this second, are the correct uses of 'lay' and 'lie', then Fowler's is not your best immediate ally.

When using Fowler's you can be too easily sidetracked chasing up references. It's all very diverting, and very educative, but when you have a job to do, a deadline to meet ...

As in a street brawl - you need additional brawn, not brains, at that tense, eyeballing moment when you want to avoid a scrap. Fowler's is your trainer, your coach, not your sidekick. Fowler's will talk you through six rounds of a sparring bout, but will not come to your aid on Las Ramblas at 2.45 a.m. when confronted with a bottle-wielding drunk.

With Correct English you can get in, get it, get out, and get on with whatever is you're working on.

If you don't need a micro-treatise on a, b and c, and you need to know x, y and z, right here, right now, then Correct English is a guide to have within easy reach of the desk.

Unlike Fowler's, Correct English is unafraid to discuss regional variants; it contains a succinct couple of pages on "Scotch, Scottish, Scots", and examples of Yorkshire usage.

And, if you're keen to practice, Correct English contains a useful series of tests on grammar, punctuation, spelling and vocabulary.

Do not be tricked by its lack of a respected colophon, or its seeming 'Ingerlish for Dummies' appearance, Correct English is a useful tool.

* forums not fora? Go here and here.

FROM PITCH TO PUBLICATION - Everything You Need to Know to Get Your Novel Published - by Carole Blake

2009-03-02T07:00:00.023+01:00

I think we all have a bit of a twinge, bit of a cringe, when we recall our first efforts of getting our work onto a publisher's editor's desk.
Yes, publisher's editor, not literary agent. Because, before we knew any different, we didn't even query -- just composed a confident covering letter bundled it with our typescript (or handwritten ms) and winged it off to a publisher.*

Yes, we had the Writer's and Artist's Yearbook (first published in 1906), but it didn't offer many clues about prevailing markets.

Today, apart from publishers such as: Alma, Canongate, Constable & Robinson, Monday Books, Myrmidon, Macmillan New Writing, Snowbooks, and Two Ravens Press, we all know, personal connections notwithstanding, we need a literary agent to broker our introductions to commissioning editors.**

And, today, we can call on the generous advice of J.A. Konrath, Miss Snark, the Query Shark, the Frugal Editor, and the Evil Editor, and consult Noah Lukeman's The First Five Pages and How to Write a Great Query Letter, to help us craft a killer query. They are all useful, reliable and recommended sources. However, their expertise is in helping you with specific, technical aspects of the query process.

From Pitch to Publication by Carole Blake is a good, solid source of advice and information which discusses the query hurdle within the context of the whole process, from deciding what to write, through to deciphering royalty statements. It should be considered the standard work for U.K. based commercial fiction writers. And I'm sure a good many U.S. based writers will find it very useful. The index is excellent.

Carole Blake, co-proprietor of Blake, Friedmann Literary, TV & Film agency, (where singer-songwriter Dido once worked as an assistant) knows what she's writing about, and she's a popular speaker at several writers' get-togethers.

I know some writers cavil at some of her advice, such as: "You shouldn't send manuscripts [to prospective agents] that smell (As a life-long non-smoker I have sometimes reeled at the smoky smell given off as a manuscript is unwrapped from its envelope. I could never take a cigarette-smelling manuscript to my home to read, I would find it too unpleasant.)." But I regard that as useful information.

I will stress that Carole Blake's formula (p.31 in the 1999 edition) for an ideal submission (query) package is very much her own, designed to meet her needs when considering material -- you should always format and package your queries according to the wishes of the specific agent you are approaching. Always check -- even individual agents within the same agency have their own preferences.

* I did exactly this with a collection of short-stories way back in 1973 - and it worked - prompting dialogue with an editor at Macmillan which lasted several months.

** Browsing around I turned up quite a few (so far U.K. based only) publishers who will accept submissions from writers - so I'll research this, and post a list of links to publishers who will accept submissions from writers.

The EVIL EDITOR

2009-02-27T17:00:00.011+01:00

Doesn't look very evil, does he? Don't be fooled.

The Evil Editor set up shop in 2006 and, largely thanks to plugs from Miss Snark, quickly gained sufficient followers and material to begin publishing a series of books -- collations of online contributions. He also sells mugs.

The site is based on a simple premise -- writers forward draft query letters to the Evil Editor and he runs his eyes over them, marking emendations, corrections, and often wickedly witty observations, in a different colour, and then presents a clean version.

These Face-Lifts, as they're called, also incorporate an element called Guess the Plot, where readers are given the title of a writer's text, a half-dozen tag lines, and asked to pair the tag with the title. All very amusing.

Then there are New Beginnings -- contributors are invited to supply the first 150 words of a work and allow site visitors (minions) to write a continuation.

The Evil Editor also invites writers to forward synopses of up to 400 words for analysis and surgery.

Then there's Book Chat, a monthly invitation to minions to chat about a book.

And there's Cartoon Caption, where minions supply captions to cartoons.

Back when I was really clueless I submitted a query letter to the Evil Editor and received a public make-over. He was very good. His assessment made me laugh. He did a really good job of untangling what was a right old minestrone. I tweaked his cleaned up version a little and used it -- didn't work though. But it was all good fun.

I used to hook up to this blog every day -- though now, it's probably just me, it all seems a little too pally and smug (too many in-jokes maybe?). Having said that, an occasional visit to the Evil Editor always prompts a smile.

If you have time to spare, a healthy sense of humour, and want join the fun and games go here.

Jack King - Author of Suspense

2009-02-26T23:39:00.022+01:00

I like Jack King.

I like it when he says, if ever in a position to do so, he'd:

"...make it mandatory for everyone who turns 18 (preferably younger) to be involved in some form of an exchange program such as living abroad, not necessarily working for some goodie-goodie causes, but simply living among other cultures. This should be government sponsored, fully paid for.
...
more importantly it would help understanding and appreciation of the differences and distinctiveness of peoples of the planet. I'd say if you can spend millions to train a soldier then you can spend a few lousy bucks to send kids to learn about other cultures."

I've been saying the same for many years. (I can hear my friends and family yawning.)

I like Jack King and I like his website.

I like the fact he's assembled a very useful A-B-C- of terms used in the business of espionage and intelligence.

I like the way he describes his experience of contacting 423 literary agents, receiving only 196 replies, firing off a query to a publisher and getting a deal.

I like the fact that he's assembled some very useful links including Aljazeera and The Tribune and loads of other useful stuff.

I like the fact he posts recipes, and links to the slow food movement.

I like the fact he links to John Baker.

I like the way he goes about attempting the balance 'tween life and writing and his love of the outdoors.

You'll find a wealth of very useful stuff over at his website. Go there, check it out. Browse around a bit. You'll be glad you did.

SIDEBAR ALERT: UK LITERARY AGENTS

2009-02-25T18:22:00.040+01:00

A few notes concerning the list of more than 90 UK agents over in the sidebar here.

The list is NOT definitive. There are still numerous UK agents without a presence on the web.
As far as I am aware none of the agents listed are scammers. Aside from those with whom I've had contact* I cannot vouch for any of them.

Not all the agents listed are members of the Association of Authors' Agents. (For U.S. readers the near equivalent of the Association of Authors' Representatives.)

Not all the agents listed handle fiction.

Not all the agents listed handle children's and teen fiction. A couple of the agencies listed only handle children's and teen fiction. (I'm not promising, but if I get time I may create a discrete list of agents which specialise in children's and teen/young adult fiction.)

A few of the agents listed only handle theatre, film and TV scripts.

A few of the agencies listed are talent management agencies; as such they represent actors, after-dinner speakers, motivational speakers, theatre and film directors etc etc etc as well as writers.

As ever DO YOUR HOMEWORK before making contact with the agents listed. And by homework I don't mean making sure you've spelled the particular agent's name correctly; make sure as best you can that they will be interested in your area of work.

Use this information wisely. Where you can, back it up with what you've gleaned from the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook and/or the Writer's Handbook.

I've tested all the links and have not encountered problems. (I haven't listed sites that require downloading apps before allowing access.) I'll maintain and update the list as best I can, but if you do encounter problems then do please let me know. Thanks.

Keeping the list together is an interesting, if laborious, exercise; years of browsing notwithstanding, I still turn up agencies I've never heard of before. And I've 'scoped out one or two that looked a good fit for my novel - I'll let you know how I get on.

When maintaining the list I've been surprised by the growing number of agents based in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and other English speaking territories. At present I only have lists of UK and US agents. Would it be helpful to you if I created a list of agents in other English speaking territories? Please let me know. If I get a few positive responses I'll set to.

Happy querying y'all, and keep the faith.

*Blake Friedmann, Mic Cheetham, Rogers, Coleridge & White, Gregory & Company, Caroline Davidson, Futerman, Rose & Associates and David Higham.

AUTHONOMY

2009-02-24T07:00:00.018+01:00

I first became aware of UK based Harper's not Collins' Authonomy critique and plug site through the Grumpy Old Bookman. In a spate of enthusiasm I signed on. Months rolled by with no discernible signs of life on the site before re-surfacing in my purview through an invitation to test a beta version which had come via YouWriteOn. So, I visited again --- Woah! By comparison with YouWriteOn's more straightforward approach the Authonomy site at first seemed unnecessarily over-complicated and more than a tad intimidating.

If YouWriteOn's message board is a schoolyard then Authonomy's forum is a sixth-form common room, or a JCR at a Midlands university, cluttered with a rude mix of earnest fellows, smartarse slackers who routinely mistake mordant comment for wit, sensitive types who've spent too long reading de Beauvoir and Sartre, look-at-me airheads dancing on the coffee tables, and the occasional genius lurking in the corner taking it all in while jotting notes for tomorrow's seminar.

Contributors upload work for critique then roam the site to find, read and comment on others' efforts in the hope that this activity will garner sufficient positive regard to bring the attention of an editor from one of Harper's not Collins' imprints.

If reviewers like what they read they can back it by putting the title on a virtual bookshelf; if undecided, or wish to re-visit the work for closer appraisal, they can put it on a watchlist. There's no scoring; titles are positioned on the chart in line with the number of bookshelves they have appeared on. But it's not quite so straightforward, some reviewers' bookshelves count more highly than others.

On the last day of the month non-fiction as well as fiction titles which make the top 5 of what's called the Editor's Desk, join a queue for a critique from one of Harper's not Collins' editors.

There's no minimum and maximum word count for comments/critiques, so these vary wildly between 'brilliant' or 'crap' and 2000 word, in-depth essays.

The site also features an ongoing book chart based on titles' cumulative support from reviewers, and a blog featuring invited editors and writers.

There's a lot of coralling and caballing, backscratching and game playing involved. A private messaging system reinforces the networking aspect of the site.

Some contestants in this beauty pageant have confessed to spending 16 hours a day on the site.

The forum can be a veritable viper's nest of vituperation, snark, nark, nay-saying, bullying, fawning and faint praise -- some of it wittty and amusing, though most of it dull, plodding and self-serving.

There are some good people on the site, and a few very good writers, but be prepared to wade through much idle, bland natter masquerading as wit to find them.

What are your perceptions of Authonomy? What's been your experience of uploading your work?

Fowler's MODERN ENGLISH USAGE (Second Edition)

2009-02-23T06:00:00.011+01:00

This is the Big One. Desert Island Discs? No doubt whatsoever -- forget the Bible -- take this instead. As far as UK writers should be concerned this is the Bible.

If you did happen to find yourself stranded on a desert island with Fowler's, and read a few pages everyday, by the time neighbouring islanders found you, you'd be so well-versed in the fundamentals of written and spoken English they'd probably offer you a job heading up the Foreign Languages department of their only university.

With a copy of Fowler's, Oxford Shorter or Concise Dictionary and Roget's Thesaurus you're all set - all you've to do is read, understand, practice a bit, re-arrange all the words; and then you'll be a writer.

What makes this book so engaging is that you'll probably develop several quibbles with Fowler and his subsequent editors. It will challenge your thinking and your years of practice.
One quibble I have is Fowler's lack of regard for legitimate, upstanding regional variants (there isn't even a topic Regional Variants); for example retiral, the preferred Scottish form of the English retirement; or the word presently, which has a distinct and different meaning in Scotland. On this point Fowler adds insult by placing such discussion under the heading Needless Variants. But then again, it is titled Modern English Usage.

For all UK based writers in English this is a must-have; stands head and shoulders* (ouch!) above all other guides. I am constantly surprised by the would-be writers I encounter who neither know what a *hackneyed phrase is, nor care to learn the difference between such and a cliché.

Fascinating. Idiosyncratic. Erudite. And, in opposition to much contemporary opinion, not a manual for pedants and Nazi grammarians -- indeed, it is the opposite -- an entertaining, episodic treatise which aims to liberate the English language.

"He has had his reward in his book's finding a place on the desk of all those who regard writing as a craft, and who like what he called 'the comfort that springs from feeling that all is shipshape'." Sir Ernest Gowers in the Preface to the Revised Edition, 1965.

If you write for UK readers and you don't already own a copy -- buy it now and stick it on your desk or as near to as possible. You'll be glad you did, a quick dip into its pages provides much more entertainment than sharpening pencils or re-arranging the desk when living through those procrastination moments.

YOUWRITEON.COM - Part One of Three

2009-02-20T06:00:00.013+01:00

A UK based, free to join, writers' critique site for long and short fiction in English which accepts submissions from anywhere in the world.

YouWriteOn have helped a few writers get published one way or another -- among them Douglas Jackson -- author of Caligula

I used to* like YWO and found it very useful.

YouWriteOn's message board often comes across as a schoolyard wherein kids of all ages and backgrounds, and the occasional troubled school-leaver (i.e. published author), wander around making friends, shouting the odds, falling out, making up again, ganging up on a geek or a nerd, otherwise causing mischief, or sucking up, like teachers' pets, to good ol' Ted (Ted Smith the site's erstwhile host).

But Ted is not so much a Headteacher as a harried and harassed form teacher subbing for the Deputy Head while negotiating with the caretaker, catering staff, visiting teachers and inspection teams -- often forgetting he's left a class unattended.

It's all good fun -- especially when someone stomps off site and you're left wondering whether they're going to return -- a la Columbine -- armed with a gun and a gang recruited from another crit site. That said, the message board can be a useful source of information.

The process of uploading work (minimum 6000 words) is a bit tedious (it's dissuaded me from uploading more work more frequently) and doesn't allow much latitude with formatting.

The quality of the crits varies wildly from dim witted, incoherent, or opaque nonsense to very precise, thought provoking, insightful and encouraging commentary. I've not yet read any rave reviews that are as gushy as some I've read on Authonomy.

Having signed up and been assigned a text (which can be accepted or rejected) you are allowed four days to post a minimum 1oo words review to earn a credit which can then be assigned to your own work in order to get a review.

Reviews are scored across 8 categories from 1 to 5 and then processed using standard deviation to position the title on a chart. The five highest placed titles on the last day of the month are put forward for a critique from someone who is employed by Random House, or by one of YouWriteOn's regular retainers. Members also have the option of saving time and hassle and paying for a 'professional' critique.

Members can also use YouWriteOn as a route to a POD edition of their work (but more on this aspect in another post).

If you are looking for an anonymous critique from someone whose skills and experience may exceed your own, or who, conversely, may have only started writing in earnest last week, then YouWriteOn is probably a good place to visit.

What's been your experience of YouWriteOn?

[*see Part Three]

MISS SNARK

2009-02-19T12:28:00.012+01:00

What's there to say? New York literary agent and genuine legend in her own lifetime, Miss Snark left us the richest treasure trove of wit, wisdom and hard-assed advice about the business of pitching agents available in cyberland. Nearly 3 million hits on her blog.

Go there, trawl those precious archives, and wonder at the spirit which fostered such remarkable generosity.

Famed equally for her prodigious capacity for work (see the Crap-o-meter files) and her coruscating, razor sharp wit, Miss Snark became every would-be writer's most honest best friend -- unafraid to tell you you had bad breath just seconds before your big date, and always first to offer her mouth spray and a big splash of Bombay gin.

Dressed in stilletoes, armed with only a clue-gun, and accompanied with her faithful poodle sidekick, Killer Yapp, Miss Snark took on the rabid battalions of Newbieland and won -- converting the heathen, ignorant mass into devoted Snarklings, and better hook and query letter writers to boot.

Though I never submitted stuff to the crap-o-meter I'm proud to say I was snarked twice, and parried a little with her in a comments trail, and survived, stronger for the experience. She also sent me an e-mail thanking me for asking an intelligent question. Where did she get the time? *

Newbie writers were invited to go at her with any stupid question they wanted ("Which scent should I use to perfume my lilac coloured, embossed, curly fonted, letterheaded notepaper when I send my query to William Morrow?") and she would come back at 'em, clue-gun blazing, pumping out precious silver bullets. ("Givenchy? That's so last season. Go for a classic, try 4711.")

What a deliciously entertaining roller-coaster ride it was.

The blog spawned the Crapometer critique site, which is surprisingly still extant, and gave the Evil Editor blog a big heft at its inception.

At times as acerbic as Dorothy Parker, though with more poise and purpose, Miss Snark always found a way to soften the blows she rained down on the clueless, the nitwits and ninkompoops. Tough love indeed.

Though it did get a tad psycho-sycophantic toward the end, it was always fun to hang out in her company every single working day. I too hearted Miss Snark.

Alas, no more, we are left to ponder a great mystery:

Why has she not done the deals for the book, the movie, and the memorabilia?

What about yourself? Were you a Snarkling? Did you submit your work to the crap-o-meter? Please share.

*A: On Rabbitania there are 48 hours in every day and 10 days in every week.

The FIRST FIVE PAGES

2009-02-19T00:28:00.012+01:00

The author of this handbook, Noah Lukeman, is a literary agent, writer and editor. As an agent he's sold over 200 titles to publishers. His client list includes Pulitzer Prize winners, and his clients' titles feature regularly on the New York Times bestseller lists. Interestingly, one of his fiction clients is Gene Hackman, the well-regarded Hollywood actor.

You can find out more at his agency's website . But don't get too excited -- he's not currently accepting queries. But it's well worth checking out the site because you'll find two very useful downloads: How to Write a Great Query Letter and How to Land a Literary Agent, both of which I strongly recommend you read.

After you've written, and re-written, your novel, put it up on a crit site for feedback, and re-edited, re-structured, and re-written accordingly, there will come a time when you'll want to start shopping it around agents. STOP. Read this book first.

The First Five Pages -- A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile is an excellent handbook for all writers, not only novelists, at all stages of development.

In two words this book is focussed on word economy; every single word in those first five pages (or first five sentences) has to really work to earn its presence.

Lukeman methodically (yea, forensically) dissects and examines, giving examples of enfeebling prose, every aspect of the writing-reading experience. Reading the book is akin to having a very sharp editor sat aside you at your desk, talking you through the process of skimming a slush pile.

Each chapter is topped with a quote from a known writer and tailed with a practical exercise.

I enjoy Lukeman's prose; it's clear, precise, cogent, eloquent and sincere. There's a lot of information and opinion here, and Lukeman manages to get it across in digestible style. One could say his tone is a bit humourless -- but, hey, do you still need sugar with your medicine?

The only advice in this book which I would advise writers to seek more specific advice is on the method used to consign work to a targetted agent. Here, Lukeman advocates using FedEx, or other guaranteed-signature delivery method. This will have some agents, such as the legendary Miss Snark, climbing walls.

I'm aware some writers find Lukeman's tone to be superior, or condescending. For others he's overly precious. But what do you think?