FROM PITCH TO PUBLICATION - Everything You Need to Know to Get Your Novel Published - by Carole Blake

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.

AUTHONOMY

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?