Publishers - Novels

[rico]

Hey

My flatmate is just putting the finishing touches to a novel he's written. It's an espionage thriller so fiction.

Any pointers about where he should go next? Obviously an agent or publishers is the first call but without a history of published work what can he expect?

Is it easy to get work read?

Should he submit work to lots of different publishers/agents or just try one at a time?

Any tips for getting an agent to take an 'unknown' author seriously?

He's written it as the book he's always wanted to read and from what i've seen its a great storyline.

Thanks for any advice,

Rico (on behalf of Iwan)


>>> Edited by rico on Saturday 19th June 00:34

[JohnL]

Get a copy of the "writers handbook" - about £10 - £15 from most big bookshops. That lists all - or virtually all - the agents and publishers in the UK.

And - this is the important bit! - it lists the areas of interest for all of them, they tend to specialise a bit. So obviously approach an agent or publisher who's interested in the type of work you're doing. It will also tell you whether they like a phone call first, whther they will want to see the whole book or just a synopsis plus a few sample chapters, etc etc.

Also www.bloomsbury.co.uk (or maybe ~.com) has a lot of useful advice.

[groomi]

YHM

[D-Angle]

Second the Writers Handbook, great book to have. Generally he should speak to an agent first as most publishers won't look at anything sent straight to them by an author.

[rico]

groomi said:

YHM

Thanks a lot groomi. Very helpful email. I've replied and will forward the details to my flatmate.

[steviebee]

All good advice, one more here:

Avoid "vanity publishers"!

These are basically printers who will print as many books as you like and charge you for them. You then have to hawk them round bookshops flogging them.

If your friend does as has been suggested above but no publisher takes the book, then he can resonably expect that it is not likely to be a seller.

[hughjayteens]

steviebee said:

If your friend does as has been suggested above but no publisher takes the book, then he can resonably expect that it is not likely to be a seller.

Didn't a certain Miss Rowling get years of rejection before someone published a story about young wizards?!

[steviebee]

hughjayteens said:

steviebee said: If your friend does as has been suggested above but no publisher takes the book, then he can resonably expect that it is not likely to be a seller. Didn't a certain Miss Rowling get years of rejection before someone published a story about young wizards?!

Yep, there are excpetions but then we don't know what processes she used to persue her aim.

There's also the issue about timing - some subject matter will always be more in vogue at certain times than others. This is quite a subjective and an indefinable thing to identify so there will always be an element of being in the right place with the right people at the right time.

But whilst one waits for that, other avenues should be explored.

The harder one works, the luckier one gets!

[Billsnemesis]

JKR has just set up her own website which gives the true story of how Philosopher's Stone was published and it has all the hallmarks of the right way to do it - find an agent.

She did get a lot of rejections but that was after she got representation. The agent was fighting her corner and eventually got her a good deal.

Don't forget that getting published is only part of the problem. JKR has immense control over most of her material because she was well advised at the time. Publishing contracts are as much about what you retain for yourself as they are about what you hand over to the publisher (eg film rights, merchandising, serialisation, geographic limits, sequels, character development).

I don't know if the story of her refusing to allow Steven Spielberg to direct Philosophers Stone is true but the fact that she is even involved in the process is a testament to the deal she struck - maybe that was why it took a while to get a deal in the first place, she held out.

At the opposite end of the spectrum Alan Moore (who wrote "From Hell" and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen") has refused to have anything to do with any more film versions of his work because of what was done to his stories without him having any control over the process.