Publish and be dumbed?

[chopper]

Originally Posted by Montague

Is this the point my head turns into a jack-ass á la Looney Tunes?

My genre? fantasy in a historical setting.

no, i don't think so. there are tales i've read of people who have gone with the vanity presses andcome off worst, andyours isn't one of those. i've been tempted by them before - though the fact that i don't have a single finished ms has saved me the humiliation.

there is no easy route into the publishing industry, but these guys act like there really is.

s

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by Overread

2) it might be me being a beginner but those last two points - are they more US specific or are they common throughout pubishers world wide?

You're right. I was being US-centric. Sorry. But you need to find out what the equivalent is in whatever country the publisher is based, and then make sure they meet those criteria.

[Tirellan]

Originally Posted by Montague

All taken on board Teresa, and my thanks for your time.

My 'difficulty' (if indeed there is any), is that I have approached those few publishers who take unsolicited material and not had much luck: I know this will be nothing new to anyone reading this, but responses were very, very poor in detail (form letter, if that), so I have no idea whether I suck big time and should just go back to dreaming, or whether I'm not getting through the slush pile.

I have revised and edited as every writer should, but finding anyone in the UK taking unsolicited material is, as you'll know, hard in the first place. Most big publishers do not. This leaves the smaller publishers. I do the research and I have winnowed out what I believe to be the baddies.

Then I've had a couple of good responses. All very exciting. I send off the full MSS and... please can I contribute. I say no to what has been a con job, but given my track record I wonder if it's worth responding to anyone who wants a small contribution. Actually I wonder if I should wean myself from an addictive past time that is mentally cruel. I have considered going to literary agents, but then I read forums saying 'go to the publisher direct! Why should you let literary agents take your money?'.

So I don't know, and I find I'm whining to a bunch of strangers who have probably got better things to do.

So how many other people have read your novel and offered critique?
Are you a member of a writing group (preferably one whose members know what they are talking about)?

[Culhwch]

If you want an idea of the quality of your work, post an excerpt over in our Critiques section. We won't bite, and on the whole the responses tend to be honest, helpful, and insightful. It doesn't have to be long - about a thousand words will at least give us an idea of the competence of your prose, and a hint of your style and voice.

[Troo]

From the top:

Publisher who asks you for money = BAD. STAY AWAY.

Agent who ask you for money = BAD. STAY AWAY.

Finding an agent or publisher who isn't the spawn of satan = Amazon.co.uk: The Writer's Handbook 2008: Barry Turner: Books

Does your writing suck = Join a writer's group and get feedback, or post to the critique section of this forum.

I think that covers it.

[Teresa Edgerton]

And aim high. Don't accept a questionable deal just because you're thrilled that someone is actually interested in publishing your book. Somebody else might be interested, too -- someone who is willing and able to offer you much, much more.

You can always lower your expectations later.

[Montague]

Hi

Thanks for all your advice on this - it's greatly appreciated. I found Pegasus and Austin Macauley in the Writers' Handbook. Both their modus operandi included avoiding discussing anything regarding fees until some way into communication.

[lathark]

This was an interesting thread. I'm self-published, 1400 book sales later, I still don't have a deal.

Stop taking on 'poor-publisher-taking-on-all-the-risk' burden, getting on with the writing and making it better, or as was suggested earlier, if you just want your name out there, go to a reputable publish-on-demand.

As for paying, you might as well do it yourself at that stage...I didn't crack the barrier with the first, but maybe, if I'm a good boy and better writer, I'll do it with my second, which has just gone off to an agent.

So, on the whole, I have to agree with the majority of the comments above.
cheers

[Montague]

Hi Lathark

Thanks for your thoughts, and indeed to everyone else. I wouldn't go as far as to say I was burdening myself, I was just wonderinag about the setup: certainly contribution / 'partnership' is a mark of other, legitimate, business areas so I wondered whether it applied in publishing. I have been thoroughly corrected!

[Montero]

In terms of finding out how good you are, there is one service worth paying for - John Jarrold's critique of manuscripts. I would start with the on-line critique on SFF - they will tell you if you really suck (but nicely) (and its free).

I've seen in other threads people saying that they'd had feedback from Writers Groups/SFF etc, then they'd sent a sample to JJ for paid professional critique and the comments that came back were in a different league.

As you will learn all over this forum there are two important things for getting published:
Writing well (prose, storytelling, characterisation etc, etc)
Writing a story that falls in with what editors are looking for at the moment.

When you have a moment, if you haven't already, try reading through some of the threads here in publishing - especially "Questions to John Jarrold" that'll cover most things. So should start you towards finding out why you've been getting "no"s.

[Montague]

Cheers Montero

[chrispenycate]

When I saw this title I thought it was about an equivalent to a story that was commissioned from me, I wrote, and was told "It's too difficult for Americans, simplify it, take out the long words"

All right, perhaps I do tend to... no, I definitely tend to. So I simplified, and it came back, same instructions, too many long words, too many long sentences, our target audience can be seen as a fourteen year old male.

Three times it came back, reduce paragraph length, dumb it down, eliminate subordinate clauses, until I felt it had come close enough to the "Run, Spot, run" level they apparently desired that anyone who couldn't follow the structure couldn't follow the concepts either, and informed them of the fact. Strangely enough they didn't argue, but sent me my cheque for fourteen cents, and took it away; I only hope not to rewrite themselves.

I still wonder how much of that simplification was really for the readers, and how much for what the editor thought the readers were.

Still, I'm probably never going to be a published author (apart from this) because I'm writing the words I want to read, not our hypothetical pimpley adolescent.

[Grimblade]

That seems very unfair chrispenycate. Not on your part, obviously, but theirs. Surely a member of an audience you aren't targeting isn't worth worrying about? Very few writers, I hope, would put their heart and soul into a project only to have it chopped up and dished out to whatever illiterate needs a bookstop.

I understand the need for sales, of course, but surely an author should get final say on how complex the language in their own work is?

[chrispenycate]

Fair? You've been taught to expect fair?

You think that it's talent decides sales, rather than a rather large amount of luck, and a gift for self promotion? (admittedly I'm in the music business rather than printing, but it seems to me there is a fair resemblance between the two.)

No, I don't consider it fair. They requested, essentially commissioned, a story from an unknown author, about a subject I knew, for a collection for mass market publication. They requested changes in the presentation to better suit their audience (and I'd be the first to admit I'm not always the most comprehensible of authors.) They have put the book out as an electronic volume, and it should soon appear as a hardcover. (when it comes out in mass market paperback I'll buy myself one) And they actually sent me a cheque for the work.

No, that's not fair – I'm sure there are many more deserving writers out there. But I'm damned if I'm going to complain about it when "not fair" goes my way.

Their target audience is their problem, and my target audience should have been the editor who asked for the work; I suspect it was far too much myself. Still, I know there are several people on this site who would have accepted the deal if it had been offered by a ruddy gentleman with cloven hooves, rather than a polite American who said "don't you think that this might be a little bit difficult for your readers to understand". Several times.

[Jon George]

Originally Posted by Troo

From the top:

Publisher who asks you for money = BAD. STAY AWAY.

Agent who ask you for money = BAD. STAY AWAY.

Finding an agent or publisher who isn't the spawn of satan = Amazon.co.uk: The Writer's Handbook 2008: Barry Turner: Books

Does your writing suck = Join a writer's group and get feedback, or post to the critique section of this forum.

I think that covers it.

LOL ... and absolutley right, as well.