100 days of happiness taking a serious bashing today with the first agent rejection of which promises to be a trend, I feel. I'm not the most optimistic person at the best of times, but when you already don't have a great feeling about something, it's hard to talk yourself out of feeling despondent. Disappointment is such an horrible, crushing feeling that is much underestimated as a source of pain. And yet it leaves one feeling drained and bruised and full of failure. It's hard not to compare yourself to other who've had agents banging on their doors and just think that you're a talentless has-been who never even was.
But I've been down the road before and I know that it's a very long one with no guarantee of success at the end, even if you get the agent, and then get the publisher, and then get the book out there. People still have to buy it, read it, like it, tell their friends and I'm better placed than anyone to know what a thankless trek the whole thing is.
Every day the in-boxes at work are full of stories, good stories, great stories, and many, very many adequate stories. Let's forget the bad ones for a second, and concentrate on those others that are all easily publishable. But they aren't.
They are dismissed by page five, or even not read at all. Why? Because we can only publish a few books a year and there has to be some type of criteria for filleting them out and it’s often as vague as a dopey sounding heroine, or a plot you don’t like the sound of in the submission letter. Or it can be spelling mistakes on the first page that put you off, or something that by page 5 hasn’t grabbed you. It’s as random as that. So someone who has spent a year writing a book, editing, and changing, and getting their friends to read it, and tweaking the plot just so, is dismissed in a second.
Does this mean that the book isn’t any good. No it doesn’t. It just means that it’s not one that jumps off the page and ensnares you, and just like men, if you’re lucky enough to meet them on the bus, there are few books that do that. There are many that are perfectly fine, and even enjoyable, but with such a narrow space to publish them within, fine, nice and enjoyable, don’t cut the mustard.
And then you get to the books you do publish. Several people have liked these. Several people have read them in their own time and decided they were worthy of the next step forward. They are copy edited, and desk edited, they are sent to printers, covers commissioned, typeset, printed as proofs, printed as final copies, and touted round the bookshops and Amazon. And then the orders come in – 10 from Waterstones, 20 here, 100 there – even Amazon don’t order big if you’re a first time author, or indeed just an author without any marketing spend behind them.
But if your publisher believes in you enough there will be a marketing spend – and basically they’ll pay a bung to Amazon to promote it, or another to a supermarket to put it on the best seller list at no 6, or another to the highstreet to put it in a certain place on a certain shelf, or to add it to a ‘summer read’ promotion – if it is lucky enough to be picked.
People still have to buy it. And people are annoying. They don’t.
The number of lovely books we publish at work, with lovely authors, and lovely artwork, and lovely stories, and poof 1000 copies sold.
This is what the writer is up against. Why bother?
I’m not sure I can answer that. As a person who has spent the last year and half writing a book and a half that I think probably nobody wants, I’m really not sure why I bothered?
Not for the pain of rejection and the sting of failure that inevitably follows somewhere along the line.
Not for the feelings of inferiority when other people do better
Not for the embarrassment of ‘working’ in publishing but not being able to get my own book published.
Just because, well I like writing, and I like stories, and I really would like someone else to like my stories to, to be my audience, to be entertained. To engage with me, albeit second hand.
For us Amazon, the demon Amazon, with it’s possibility of self-publishing is probably the only option left.
So as I flick through the latest submission that’s sent round the office and think, ‘ach, it’s a bit ordinary’, or ‘I didn’t like the writing’ or as I toss the unsolicited manuscript into the wire basket behind my desk with nary a glance at it, or if I have glanced at it, a dismissive shrug when I read ‘I was abused by my stepfather’ or ‘I spent many years teaching in Lewisham/Burma/Borstal’... I can’t help think that I’m getting back my own bad Karma.
I’m the author nobody wants to read.
I should probably give up and put my time to better use, feed the homeless, or do a degree in physics (despite not being able to count).
But I’ll keep on churning the words out, because I like the sound of my own voice on paper. And I’ll give myself my own pep talk.
Life, Marion, is not about success or failure, it’s about living it, doing what you’re good at and enriching yourself with your endeavors. I’ve published a book before that people liked and it didn’t change my life one iota. I had no more friends. No more confidence. No more opportunities. What I had was £30K (very nice too) and a book in a shop (even nicer).
But here I am five years later and one and a half books under my belt and I’m actually further behind since the agent I had then has totally lost interest in me, and it seems, I may not find another.
But I still have the stories and the invisible people in my head.
Oh and Amazon Kindle Self Publishing.
But I've been down the road before and I know that it's a very long one with no guarantee of success at the end, even if you get the agent, and then get the publisher, and then get the book out there. People still have to buy it, read it, like it, tell their friends and I'm better placed than anyone to know what a thankless trek the whole thing is.
Every day the in-boxes at work are full of stories, good stories, great stories, and many, very many adequate stories. Let's forget the bad ones for a second, and concentrate on those others that are all easily publishable. But they aren't.
They are dismissed by page five, or even not read at all. Why? Because we can only publish a few books a year and there has to be some type of criteria for filleting them out and it’s often as vague as a dopey sounding heroine, or a plot you don’t like the sound of in the submission letter. Or it can be spelling mistakes on the first page that put you off, or something that by page 5 hasn’t grabbed you. It’s as random as that. So someone who has spent a year writing a book, editing, and changing, and getting their friends to read it, and tweaking the plot just so, is dismissed in a second.
Does this mean that the book isn’t any good. No it doesn’t. It just means that it’s not one that jumps off the page and ensnares you, and just like men, if you’re lucky enough to meet them on the bus, there are few books that do that. There are many that are perfectly fine, and even enjoyable, but with such a narrow space to publish them within, fine, nice and enjoyable, don’t cut the mustard.
And then you get to the books you do publish. Several people have liked these. Several people have read them in their own time and decided they were worthy of the next step forward. They are copy edited, and desk edited, they are sent to printers, covers commissioned, typeset, printed as proofs, printed as final copies, and touted round the bookshops and Amazon. And then the orders come in – 10 from Waterstones, 20 here, 100 there – even Amazon don’t order big if you’re a first time author, or indeed just an author without any marketing spend behind them.
But if your publisher believes in you enough there will be a marketing spend – and basically they’ll pay a bung to Amazon to promote it, or another to a supermarket to put it on the best seller list at no 6, or another to the highstreet to put it in a certain place on a certain shelf, or to add it to a ‘summer read’ promotion – if it is lucky enough to be picked.
People still have to buy it. And people are annoying. They don’t.
The number of lovely books we publish at work, with lovely authors, and lovely artwork, and lovely stories, and poof 1000 copies sold.
This is what the writer is up against. Why bother?
I’m not sure I can answer that. As a person who has spent the last year and half writing a book and a half that I think probably nobody wants, I’m really not sure why I bothered?
Not for the pain of rejection and the sting of failure that inevitably follows somewhere along the line.
Not for the feelings of inferiority when other people do better
Not for the embarrassment of ‘working’ in publishing but not being able to get my own book published.
Just because, well I like writing, and I like stories, and I really would like someone else to like my stories to, to be my audience, to be entertained. To engage with me, albeit second hand.
For us Amazon, the demon Amazon, with it’s possibility of self-publishing is probably the only option left.
So as I flick through the latest submission that’s sent round the office and think, ‘ach, it’s a bit ordinary’, or ‘I didn’t like the writing’ or as I toss the unsolicited manuscript into the wire basket behind my desk with nary a glance at it, or if I have glanced at it, a dismissive shrug when I read ‘I was abused by my stepfather’ or ‘I spent many years teaching in Lewisham/Burma/Borstal’... I can’t help think that I’m getting back my own bad Karma.
I’m the author nobody wants to read.
I should probably give up and put my time to better use, feed the homeless, or do a degree in physics (despite not being able to count).
But I’ll keep on churning the words out, because I like the sound of my own voice on paper. And I’ll give myself my own pep talk.
Life, Marion, is not about success or failure, it’s about living it, doing what you’re good at and enriching yourself with your endeavors. I’ve published a book before that people liked and it didn’t change my life one iota. I had no more friends. No more confidence. No more opportunities. What I had was £30K (very nice too) and a book in a shop (even nicer).
But here I am five years later and one and a half books under my belt and I’m actually further behind since the agent I had then has totally lost interest in me, and it seems, I may not find another.
But I still have the stories and the invisible people in my head.
Oh and Amazon Kindle Self Publishing.
