"Personal" question(s) to John Jarrold

[Daniel Ionson]

Thank you both for the information.

I'll be sending in a submission to you "sometime", John... Begrudgingly forcing myself to be more patient.

Daniel

[John Jarrold]

Thanks what it's about, Daniel. I've said it before: it took Iain Banks ten years from his first submission to get a publishing deal, and he wrote and submitted several books over those years, which were turned down all over London. Patience is an important part of working towards publication...

[John Jarrold]

Just reading and thoroughly enjoying Dan Simmons' new novel, THE TERROR. Recommended.

[Chacha]

I have a quick question. Say if you Query an angent and he/she wants the first five pages along with a Query letter, normally what is the typical response if they want to see more? Do they usually want to see a bit more of the manuscript, say 50 pages, or do they normally want to see the full thing?

I'm just curioius. I'm not sure if it differs by size of the manuscript, but for this, let's say it's 170,000 words.

Thanks!

[John Jarrold]

If an agent only aks for five pages initially, they might well want further chapters, rather than the entire script. It's a personal thing. I ask for the first six chapters, then the entire novel if I want to read more - which doesn't happen very often, to be honest.

And no, I don't think it should depend upon the length of the typescript!

[John Jarrold]

Here is an interesting article about UK publishing and first novels from the website of the daily newspaper, the Guardian:

That difficult first novel | By genre | Guardian Unlimited Books

[SJAB]

That is a very interesting article, John.

This caught my eye

"The average sale of a hardback book by a first-time writer is 400 copies"

It is a rather frightening figure, hard to really believe. All the effort, not only by the author, but the agent, publisher etc... and only 400?? What is more frightening is that the figure is an average, so some must be selling less!!

[John Jarrold]

I've seen SF hardbacks that sold 200 copies...

[John Jarrold]

It was the fall-off in hardback sales that saw the rise of the large-format paperback in the UK in the late 80s. The bookselling trade were more willing to take a paperback at (then) £7.99 than they were to take a hardback at £13.99. Now, some books are launched in both formats simultanously, with the hardback going to the library market (which is much shrunken) and the specialist retailers, and the trade paperback going to the high street chains. This still allows authors and publishers to have two bites of the cherry, with a mass-market paperback following some months later, while not leaving a bad taste in the chains' mouths because of a failed hardback, which could wreck their order for the paperback.

[John Jarrold]

I put a link to that Guardian article on my Live Journal page, which received this comment (as he says, it's a personal view, but very accurate) from George Walkley of the SFF imprint Orbit in London:

I have to say that this is the sort of article which really irritates me. I'm going to put the boot in three times.

1) "First-time novelists divide into those paid small sums by their publishers . . . and a lucky minority who secure flamboyant advances . . . What seems to be missing is a middle ground."

Horsefeathers.

2) The article ends: "According to the latest edition of Private Eye, first novel The Thirteenth Tale by ex-teacher Diane Setterfield (author's advance £800,000) has sold 13,487 copies to date. Only 516,129 to go and the book's paid for itself..."

At first glance this looks pretty parlous. But both Private Eye and the author of the Guardian piece should look beyond these numbers. First, as far as I can tell, the 13k copies sold to date are hardbacks and export Cs. The B-format paperback, for which one would expect greatest sales, isn't published until September this year. Secondly, one also has to bear in mind rights income against the £800k advance in addition to book sales. Thirty seconds on Google found an article from The Independent, dated 24 December 2005, which stated that the UK publisher, Orion have sold rights to Germany, Holland, Italy, France, Norway and Brazil. Given how out of date that article is, I'd be willing to bet they've sold more since. Of course, an advance of that size is a stupendous amount, but I'd bet that the financial position isn't as bad as Private Eye and the Guardian would have us believe.

Right, declaration time. I work in publishing, and indeed am part of the same publishing group as Orion. I don't know the people involved in publishing this book, and have had no access to any privileged information on it - just what I can find on Google. Nor is this an official statement of any sort. So I might be completely wrong. I just think that wherever large advances are concerned there is often, dare I suggest, a touch of jealousy result in journalistic standards flying out of the window - it wasn't difficult for me to find enough evidence to suggest an alternative financial picture.

3) And finally, I hope on this LiveJournal of all places, I can be forgiven for a mild amount of genre irritation over her description of Tom de Haan's book as "a fairy tale for adults". Reading the reviews of it on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Princes-Tom-Haan/dp/039456359X, it sounds like Fantasy with a capital F to me. Oh, but it can't be, because it's published by a literary imprint . . .

[Wayne Blackhurst]

All interesting stuff, John. I'm off now to check the original post on your LJ, see what folk made of it over there...

[Daniel Ionson]

John,

Your site indicates that you do freelance editing as well. So, if a submission you receive has marketable value, but which needs a good deal of your doctoring, do you sometimes approve that submission and then charge an additional percentage on the commission? Do most submissions you approve need only a little editing? Or, do you keep your editing and agency jobs separate?



Daniel

[John Jarrold]

I keep them completely separate, Daniel. I think that's the only way to do it.

Publishing is a very subjective business - you choose books to publish or represent that you love both personally and professionally - whereas freelance editing is a business, pure and simple. So I can edit books that I don't want to publish or represent. That's what all freelance editors do, of course. And having started the agency relatively recently I need to keep up my freelance work, since no agent made a huge amount of money on day one (or day one thousand, in the great majority of cases!). The agency income is paying my taxes, so far! And in many cases, that edit is only the first step towards publication - it may be that it shows a new writer the areas (both general and specific) they need to entirely re-think. I also remind people that the first novel they write or submit is not usually the one which MAY - if they are really lucky and in the right place and the right time - be taken on by a publisher.

[Leisha]

So what does your book doctoring actually involve? Do you look through the manuscript and basically point out plot inconsistencies, overuse of adverbs, poorly written description, that sort of thing? And how does this differ from a four-chapter edit? For the shorter doctoring, would you mainly focus on bringing the best out of the opening chapters and creating more of a 'hook', or is it the same as the full manuscript service, only shorter, to give the author an idea of their writing ability?

Just curious, you see. I've been considering having my manuscript looked at -- if I can save the money, that is, since I'm signed off work at the moment, ill!

[John Jarrold]

I take a look at the book and decide whether it needs a full line-edit and some notes, or a full set of editorial notes with one line-edited chapter to show my thoughts 'on the page', so to speak.

If it's the latter, there are general notes about plots, pacing, characterisation, writing and so forth, then a much longer section of specific notes relating to a page, paragraph, line or word. That is basically what I did for fifteen years working in London publishing, but it usually goes deeper, because less than thirty per cent of the writers I work with are anywhere near ready to be published.

With the four-chapter work, it's the same thing, to give writers an idea of the areas they need to address in their writing. And sometimes they then come back to me when they have taken that on board and finished or re-written their book, for a full edit.

Adverbs? Hate 'em. Only use if ABSOLUTELY necessary. Same goes for adjectives.