CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION DEBUT DAGGER AWARD

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The CWA's Debut Dagger is a competition for unpublished crime writers. Send them your first 3000 words of an unpublished crime novel and £25 before 12 noon on the fifth of February, 2011, and, if the judges like what they read, you may receive £700 and an invitation to a glitzy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.

52 UK PUBLISHERS WHO ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS FROM WRITERS

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?"

Do you really need a literary agent?

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.