EDIT, EDIT, EDIT. THEN EDIT AGAIN.

I just came across this very interesting piece by Jenny Diski in the Guardian.

In short, she was asked to guest edit a student literary magazine, and then the student editors disagreed with her editorial judgement. They didn't like the fact that she didn't effuse when she didn't think the pieces deserved to be effused over. They appear to have found her attitude of honesty to be at odds with their aim to make the magazine "an encouraging platform for new and developing student writers".

Those of us who want to be good writers, as good as we can possibly be, must be strong enough to allow (in fact welcome) professionals to judge our work. If we don't open ourselves to the notion that our work is not perfect, or is not even as good*** as it could be, then we don't deserve to improve. Or be published. Taking criticism is not easy, and I'm not saying we should always agree with it,. but we have to be open to it.

(*** corrected thanks to BuffyS's superior editing skills - but I'm not paying you BuffyS!!)

In primary school you might expect to be told you're doing brilliantly when you're not (though I question whether that's a good idea either ...) but by the time we're adults we have to face up to our short-comings.

Critique groups and writing groups are also often guilty of over-effusing and under-criticising; partly because when someone delivers negative crits, all hell breaks lose and the fall-out from deflated egos can be ugly to watch. So, if you can't take criticism in public, don't be published, because you'll sure as hell get it once you are. Instead, either find a trusted person and listen to that person's opinions or learn to edit your own work to within an inch of perfection. That inch is as close as any of us can expect to get, but we have to try.

If you remember only one bit of Diski's excellent piece, remember this:

"What surprised me most was how many of the stories felt unfinished, as if I were reading a early draft. Problems with structure, sentences that need to be worked on, far too many easy clichés not rejected - all of this normal for a first draft, even a second. For me writing is the editing. It's where the you make the story your own. Draft, redraft, let the thing sit, and then consider it again, read closely, carefully, cut away everything that you haven't properly thought through, and some things that you have."

It just about sums it up. Accept nothing less from yourself than intended perfection, even if perfection is rarely actually achievable.

EDITING DESTROYS THE CATHARTIC CREATIVE PROCESS

Sometimes I bring you stories of the things that happen to me as a writer. Sometimes these stories are funny. Sometimes they are not. This one is not.

Yesterday, I was happy until approximately 4.15pm. From 4.15pm onwards, I was not.

Until 4.15pm, I had been doing some lovely events in Dyce Academy near Aberdeen (yay for Dyce Academy, home to many people of taste and intelligence and general excellence in education). Then I got on my train at about 4pm, satisfied with a good day's work. After I had moved from my designated seat in order not to spend the journey sitting next to two men each with a six-pack of Special Brew (for transatlantic readers, this is not tea, but strong lager), I ensconced myself in a carriage the peace of which was spoiled only briefly by the extraordinarily loud voice of a man from Yorkshire (like Porlock but further north and with fewer palm trees), who felt it necessary that everyone in the carriage should hear him phone his secretary to ask how many loads of shingle they had sold that day and whether his wife had phoned to say that the plumber had come to fix the leaking tap yet.

Then, at 4.15, I opened an email. From a school which I was supposed to be visiting with a free visit.

The school has suggested cancelling because they feel the event is "commercial". If losing money is commercial, remind me not to apply for The Apprentice. Why have they decided it's commercial? Because book-buying is (always was) on offer - with fun activities provided for those who don't want to buy books. Fun activities with prizes paid for by me. Because I can't stand the thought that anyone should feel left out if they don't buy a book. I could weep. Actually, I pretty nearly did.

I cannot express how much of my time, effort and money has gone into this series of events. But I was enjoying the whole idea until 4.15 yesterday and saw no downside, except that I'll be exhausted. But exhausted and happy, I thought.

You know me well enough to know that there will be a learning point to this. Indeed. The clue is in the mysterious heading to this post.

That phrase about editing destroying the cathartic blah blah refers to an oft-derided (by me and others) view held by misguided vanity publishers and some self-publishers - anyone in fact who hasn't got the knowledge, wisdom or literary insight to understand the utter essentiality of a good editor for EVERY writer.

Well, you know, they're right after all: editing does wreck the cathartic creativity and all that stuff. I know. Because after I'd spent some time feeling upset and being completely unable to concentrate on the thing that I was supposed to be doing on that train journey, and knowing that it would be a bad idea to reply to the email immediately (not least because I can't type on my horrible little netbook), I took pen and paper and spewed it all out into the written word. My letter was eloquent and beautiful and free-flowing and incredibly cathartic and creative. Unedited. Yay! But completely unpublishable. And unsendable. And needing to be kept private. Frankly, the equivalent of bulimia for writers?

Anyway, it cleared my head and I was then able to focus on the thing that I was supposed to be doing instead. Which is the point of catharsis.

The point being that yes, editing does impede catharsis etc, and so thank goodness for editing. Because without it it's all just spew.

SELF-PUBLISHING - WHAT ABOUT IT???

I'm pleasantly surprised no one has yet asked what I think of self-publishing. And I'm very glad no one has said, "But isn't self-publishing the future? Isn't "traditional" publishing dead?" If they had I might well have produced a major hissy fit and then you really would have seen the ultimate definition of crabbit.

One of the reasons I haven't talked about self-publishing is that I have so much to say that I'd hardly know where to start. Another reason is that Jane Smith, over at How Publishing really Works, speaks about it so clearly, regularly and eloquently that I hardly need to. If you scroll down her list of labels, you'll find 39 for self-publishing and 38 for vanity publishing. Go, Jane!

However, faced with a day in which I am supposed to be writing 5000 words of my own Nanowrimo-driven WIP, how can I resist the temptation of a major Work Avoidance Strategy by wading in with my own views?

Especially since I have just seen a blog post over on Writer Beware which you absolutely must read, because it hammers so many nails on the head. (And it most beautifully nails the reason why I put "traditional" in quote marks.) Do read it first, before going on to read my own scream.

Now, I'll take several deep breaths and then tell you where I stand on the subject of S-P and vanity publishing.

Vanity first, and briefly. Briefly because frankly I couldn't give a toss about vanity publishing except when it pretends it's not, and then I get really angry at the way it manipulates unwary authors and cares nothing about books. Essentially, with vanity, you lose money and control but you get a pretty (if you're very lucky) book at the end of it. It's pure vanity. No doubt I should force myself to say more, because of the obfuscation sometimes created by companies pretending not to be vanity presses, but to be honest, Jane covers it so well. Buck neatly passed.

Random musing: aren't we all pretty vain to want to be published? No, actually, though of course some authors are vain, like anyone else. "Vanity" is emptiness (think about the derivation), a pointless gazing at oneself, a vacuous and selfish preening. Wanting to write and be published is wanting to connect, to create, to share and to change people's worlds.

OK, what do I think about self-publishing? Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Another coffee and some Green & Blacks. And then ...

(Ooh, first - delaying tactic - I've thought of a phrase to replace "traditional" publisher, since the latter is, as Victoria explains on Writer Beware, misleading. I'll call them "book-led publishers". I know it's not elegant, but it reflects the fact that a real publisher leads on producing the books it believes add to the existing body of books out there. Whether a book-led publisher publishes art books, academic books, lit fic or chick-lit or whatever, it selects them because of something about the books and nothing else. So, book-led is what I'm going to call them.)

No more delaying ...

1. Some books are appropriate and even ideal for self-publishing and I have nothing but respect for the right authors going about this for the right reasons: niche non-fiction, memoir, and poetry are examples - books where either there really isn't enough market for a publisher to do justice to the book; or where the author has existing marketing/production/editing/design skills or is prepared to outsource these tasks to genuine professionals; or where an author has an existing fanbase, perhaps through a blog or other medium, and the skills and time to publish. Even a children's picture book could work, given exceptionally enormous talent and effort on the part of the author/illustrator and the facility to dedicate every waking moment to selling it.
   
2. Self-publishing, print-on-demand (POD) and vanity presses are often guilty of being very unclear about what they do. It is easy to tell whether you are dealing with a book-led publisher: ask yourself how the company makes its money. If it makes its money from readers, by selling books to them, it's a book-led publisher; if it makes its money from the author (even a tiny bit, even a penny/cent) then it's not and if you use it you are not being published: you are paying for publication. Which, as I said, could be perfectly sensible but you should be under no illusion.
   
3. Most self-published material, especially fiction, is dire. DIRE. There is no point in searching my vocabulary for a better word. (Yes, I KNOW a lot of published stuff is dire too, but self-published direness takes direness to a whole new level - trust me. I've talked about WHY CRAP IS PUBLISHED and I will again. You know the dire published book you're thinking of? Well, imagine if that had only been edited by the writer's six-year-old child while in bed with flu and with the family cat sitting on the MS? That's halfway to the direness of some self-published stuff. I get given it on my unlucky days, so I know.)
   
4. Nearly all self-published books sell in minuscule numbers. How many friends do you have? How many could you persuade to part with cash? Well, that's how many books you will probably sell. Unless you are a seriously brilliant and dedicated salesperson and are prepared not to write any more ever again because you will be selling, selling, selling. You will lose hair, weight (hmm, good idea), self-esteem and years off your life; you will gain wrinkles, bags, and new respect for book-led publishers. You will probably not make any money but if you do, you will be rightly proud of it. But too tired to do it again.
   
5. Whenever someone tells you that publishing is "broken", ask yourself who is saying this and why. Is it a published author? Is it an author who has won awards, received good reviews, has a genuine fanbase? Or is it someone who has either failed to get published or who has decided to make money out of other people's failure to do so?
   
6. When you hear about a self-published book becoming "successful", (and this does occasionally happen, but much less often than you are led to believe) realise that this success nearly always happens when a book-led publisher takes on the formerly self-published book. So, is that a self-publishing success or proof that publishing is neither dead nor the future?
   

Nifty tip: I forget who suggested this (I think it was someone commenting on a blog but I don't think it was this one - reveal yourself if it was you!) but I came across a really good reason for using Lulu (or any other similar POD service). When you've finished your MS, get a copy printed on Lulu as your own proof copy: then you get to see your book as a real book, at which point it suddenly becomes so much easier to spot all its horrible errors and general unpublishabilitiness.

In short: please do yourself a favour:
do not even contemplate going down the s-p route unless for the right reasons and with eyes wide open. If you do have the right reasons and eyes wide open, I have enormous respect for you and wish you lots of luck. I certainly do not look down on those few s-p authors who produce an excellent book.

If you do decide that self-publishing (in any form) is your way to go, please follow this advice from a well-meaning, crabbit old bat:

PAY as much as necessary for:

1. editing - authors should never never never consider editing their own work (apart from the obvious stages of self-editing that we all do before submitting to an editor)
2. proof-reading
3. design (unless you are a designer) - you need a fab cover, because we do judge a book by the cover, in the sense that we won't pick it up if it looks like a piece of piss; and you need the words set nicely on the page with decent margins, which s-p books never seem to have because they're scrimping on paper
4. medical insurance, for when you have a nervous breakdown; not to mention child-care, house-keeping, and one hell of a lot of high-quality chocolate and quite possibly a gin or two ...

So far on this blog, you have all been very genteel and freindly with your comments. But I've noticed that when a blogger dares to criticise self-publishing/vanity he/she tends to receive vitriol in return. So, in advance of any of that I am going to arm myself with chocolate and write the 5000 words that I'm supposed to be producing today, for my completely "traditional" publisher ....

THE ACQUISITIONS MEETING - AT LAST

It has not escaped my attention that this is supposed to be a serious, adviceful blog and that you are meant to be serious about getting published. Remember that burning desire bit? Hmm, well, I am disappointed in you. You are like schoolkids who think it's so funny to let their teacher go off at a completely self-indulgent tangent about turquoise boots and Klingons, instead of following the statutory curriculum. You'll get me sacked at this rate. So, today we are going to behave and we are going to discuss Acquisitions Meetings. "At last," I hear the swots in the front row mutter.

Also, my editor and agent both believe that I am working flat-out to meet the looming deadline from which my novel currently suffers. They will not be best pleased about yesterday's advice on Work Avoidance Strategies, ("WAS", as we call them, which even those of you at the back must know by now) so, for their benefit, I would like to point out that obviously I was working yesterday - all talk of WAS was merely artistic licence. Of course I don't vacuum behind the fridge, ever. I've never heard such a ridiculous idea. Nor would I be so stupid and time-wasting as to take a dead mouse to the vet - arranging for Pest Control to scour the house with sonic detectors occupied quite enough time, thank you very much.

So, the Acquisitions Meeting. This part of the process cannot be underestimated, ignored or wished away. Of course, it is not as important as writing the right book in the first place, but I believe that understanding it is a surprisingly crucial part of writing the right book. It is my guiding principle that if all authors understood exactly what goes on in and leading up to the AM, they would a) understand why a well-written and worthy/beautiful book may easily still be rejected and b) be better able to write, pitch and sell a book that won't be rejected.

In the old days, the process of acquiring your book was simple. An editor, wearing a tweed jacket and brown suede shoes and taking an old-fashioned attitude to personal hygiene, would read your manuscript over a glass of port at his club, be bowled over by the beauteousness of your prose / piercing insight into the life-cycle of the Lesser Galapagian monkfish, finish his dinner at the Groucho Club, totter to bed, totter out of it, make a quick phonecall to the office and tell them that he'd acquired a book and that he'd tootle along to tell them all about it once he'd finished a long lunch with his new best friend, the author. If a marketing department existed, which it probably didn't, the editor would never have met anyone in it, and if he did, he wouldn't talk to them because they would most likely pass the port the wrong way round the table.

Lest that paints an unfairly negative view of the old days, let me also properly point out that very often, especially in the more recent old days, an alternative process involved a passionate, inspirational and knowledgable editor (very often wearing turqoise boots, if a woman, or a red bow-tie, if a man - though these roles may perfectly easily be reversed or even combined without detriment to the acquisition process) falling deeply, madly, dippily in love with your book and being allowed to make the decision over a muesli breakfast, often to the benefit of all concerned.

Occasionally, but decreasingly so, the above still happens. But don't rely on it - the vast majority of publishing companies, whether large or small, now follow the process below (or at least something intrinsically similar), and you would do well to understand it absolutely. In fact, forget the above two paragraphs: they are the product of a nostalgic and over-caffeinated mind.

Also in fact: if a publishing company nowadays does not follow a similar procedure to the one I am about to describe, ask them exactly what it is that makes them so much wiser than everyone else. If they insist that they don't need to think about such unpleasant things as projected sales figures or marketing strategies, ask them about the sales figures and/or positive review coverage for their last six books. Then ask them what happened to the second books of each author. Remember: being published the first time may seem difficult but being published a second time on the back of a book that has done a passable impression of Lord Lucan is immeasurably more difficult. And much harder to explain to your friends, who will absolutely not understand. Remember: your friends think writing is easy. After all, everyone's got a book in them and you just happened to be lucky enough to have time to write it. (See Dealing With Taxi-drivers ...)

BEFORE THE ACQUISITIONS MEETING CAN HAPPEN
First, as ever, the editor must fall in love with your book, or at least be bowled over by its commercial potential. (Both would be nice, but let's not get too carried away.) The editor must also have an informed intuition that this is the right book for this publishing company and that he/she will be able to persuade marketing and sales departments that it will be easily marketed and sold.

Second, the editor will often pass the book/proposal to another editor for a second opinion. This may be a junior editor (if the editor is quite senior) or a senior one (if not).

Third, if the editor continues to be sure, having read your book probably twice and done some more informed intuition about marketing and sales, he/she begins to work out an acquisitions proposal, or something which may have a different name or be slightly less formal but essentially does the same job. (You can probably see already why the process of accepting/rejecting your book is rarely quick, unless your book is absolute rubbish, in which case you need only wait the amount of time it takes for the postman to deliver it back to you - once, a book of mine was returned to me 36 hours after I'd posted it, which almost defeats Einstein's special theory about the impossibility of anything travelling faster than the speed of light. I would have been impressed if I hadn't been so insulted.)

Fourth, the editor begins the difficult process of preparing the acquisitions proposal. This will have to be presented at the Acquisitions Meeting (henceforward AM in the pages of this blog). The proposal outlines things such as:

1. The book - why is it so good? Why does the ed love it/what does he/she feel about it? Unique selling point? Genre? Likely page length and actual word count? Price point? Timing of publication, to fit the publisher's existing plans? Likely print-run? Why right for this publisher? Gap in market? How does it fit on list (qv in Common Words You Should Know). Who is the readership?
   
2. The author - who? Publishing history? Marketable life-story? (Penniless single-mother writing wizard fantasy series in café with small daughter in buggy because can't afford heating bills has been done ...) Likely to be presentable to the public or better hidden away under the pretext of being related to Salinger /otherwise hermetic /possessing a tragic illness/life-story/prison-sentence?
   
3. Finance - what advance is needed/possible, based on all the above, incl likely sales figures? When might this be recouped? Costings at desired format/print-run etc.

Are you daunted? Do you feel sick? Are you saying, "Ah! Now I understand what I'm doing wrong and why they haven't said yes yet"? Because you should be all those things. And more. You should have hit the chocolate big-time and while I would never recommend over-indulgence in alcohol, I wouldn't blame you if you succumbed briefly.

Then, you should pick yourself up and say to yourself, "Well, if the editor has done all that in preparation for the AM, then surely my book now stands a great chance. She/he must really really like it, and that's hopeful, isn't it?"

You would be right, because now your book does stand a great chance. And yes, it is hopeful, or, to be more accurate, you are.

THE ACQUISITIONS MEETING
This is much more scary for the editor than it is for you. After all, you're at home twiddling your thumbs. (No, you're not - you're at home writing your next book. You are not indulging in any WAS, no, not at all.) But it is seriously scary for your editor, because he/she has already invested significant time in preparing the proposal and now has to run the gauntlet of those hard-faced, pointy-lapelled, French-polished people in Sales and Marketing (S&M?) who have MBAs and keep going on assertiveness courses when that's the last thing they need. (They often wear great boots, I have to say, because being more stylish than authors is part of the job spec. And not the hardest part, believe me.)

Remember, importantly, that at this stage the people in the pointy lapels have not read your book - the most they'll have seen is a synopsis and small sample, but often not that.

Essentially, the AM is simple: the editor presents the proposal, passionately, coherently, inspiringly. And there follows a conversation which may be very short (a good sign) or fairly long (not). Between them they have to answer three questions:

1. Can we spend thousands of pounds (in staff salaries, editorial input and redrafting, advance to the author, design, type-setting, printing, marketing), knowing that we won't get anything back for at least a year (if the book is already ready to be published) or maybe much more, on the basis that this editor thinks it's a good bet?
2. Is this the sort of book a book we can sell?
3. Is it sufficiently different from everything else on our List and yet sufficiently similar? (Is it right for our List?)

When they say yes, they are taking a gamble. It's an informed one but it's a gamble nevertheless. If they lose, they lose money but they also lose whatever book they could have taken if they didn't take this one, because they can't take all the good books that cross their desks. They are also taking a punt on you, the author, and hoping that you will be as good for them as they will be for you, and that there's every chance of a long career for you with them (unless this is a celebrity memoir we're talking about, in which case all common sense evaporates and gibbering lunacy enters left field.)

On the one hand, this is all too horrible to think about for you, the hopeful author. And exactly the same process applies to every single book, however many times its author has been published - though of course the published author stands a better chance, though only if previous publication has been successful .... Indeed, it is painful to think of your dreams being deconstructed in this way by strangers.

On the other hand, it should also be a source of comfort to you: because when you are rejected, it may not be anything to do with the quality of your writing. It may be that your book has fallen down for one of those many perfectly valid reasons. In which case, understanding the reasons can help you submit a publishable book in future. Getting to the AM is a huge hurdle and says a great deal about your potential. It doesn't say everything - "yes" would say everything - but it is genuinely important.

But we also have to end on a very sombre note: at some point you may have to force yourself face a gut-wrenching understanding - that it may be the case that you have not yet written the right book. You may have to start again. I will say that again, as it is something that we all have to consider sometimes (or if we don't, we should): you may have to start again. The next sentence comes with a health warning, for what I am about to say may shock you: it took me 21 years of rejection before I wrote the right book. Since that moment, yes, my life has changed beyond belief and I have had moments of joy that I only dreamt of, but much more important to me is not how my life has changed, but how much I have learnt.

If you take that very, very difficult decision to start a new book, and gently lay your previous efforts to rest with a few elegaic words, I can tell you one thing for certain: you will not regret it, for what you write next will be better. You may, like me, come to thank those publishers and agents who have decided not to unleash your writing on the undeserving public. Yet.

After such a serious and professional lesson, with admirably few tangential and self-indulgent diversions by me, and with you all listening so attentively, I think we all deserve coffee, chocolate, and pretty much anything else that activates the brain's reward centres.

Anyone for shopping?

TIPS FOR SUBMISSIONS: PART 2 - COVERING LETTERS

Having written a previous post with a title containing the words Part 1, I suppose I set myself up for having to write Part the Second, didn't I? Actually, it being such a gorgeous sunny day here in Scotland and the recessionary gloom engendering an unaccustomed what-the-hell type abandonment, I'm going to lay my head on the line or stick it above the parapet or something and say that I am sure there'll be a Part the Third. Scary stuff.

For readers who have recently joined this journey to success, I do suggest you read Part 1 first, because I will otherwise blithely assume that you are up to speed. You will remember that I banged on about how important the covering letter was. Well it is. And this post is going to focus entirely on it.

Oh and by the way, I should warn you: I am majorly in crabbit-old-bat mode today, despite the afore-mentioned sunshine (about which I was in fact lying).

1. Why is the covering letter so important? Surely it's the sample material that's important because surely it's the book and not me that's the main thing?
But if you can't write a brilliant letter, how come you think you can write a brilliant book? If you care so little for your book that you would send it out dressed in thin rags, why should a busy editor/agent care more about it? Or if you think it's so damned fantastic that you need say nothing about it, then why don't you self-publish it and see what happens when you can't persuade anyone apart from your parents to buy it?

Your covering letter is your shop window - it's the only way anyone's going to see what you're selling. Would you walk into a shop that had a load of rubbish in the window? Or a shop that gave you no idea what was in it? Or the wrong idea? And, for crying out loud, it's a FREE shop window. What's not to use? Trust me, only a complete idiot would not try to do the very best covering letter possible. Or someone who didn't fully appreciate the power of words. And if you do not fully appreciate and also bow down in abject worship of the power of words, then you don't deserve to be published.

If you don't believe any of that, believe this: many publishers and agents simply will not read on if you have not a) impressed them and b) whetted their appetites with the beauteousness of your covering letter. So, write a rubbish letter, and your utterly astonishing novel will never be read. Write me a rubbish letter and I will simply refuse to open the first page of your utterly astonishing novel. Your novel can be as secretly astonishing as it likes: I won't be reading it and, anyway, there are many other genuinely astonishing novels waiting for me to read, written by authors who care enough to spend a bit of time writing a little letter.

OK, I think I've made my point. And it's still freezing cold outside so the crabbit mood continues. Why don't I live in Australia? (Ebony, was it Melbourne where you said your chocolate-loving writing group hangs out? I have been known to reduce my already-reasonable speaking fees for warm climates.)

2. What should I put in this amazingly brilliant covering letter then?
You should put you in it, that's what. And your book. The covering letter should be the essence of you and your book, in fact. Distilled, purified, perfect, alive, compelling, capturing you both. My agent told me that another agent told her (sorry, brain frozen and have forgotten name but will get it to you when the sun comes out in a few months' time) that the covering letter should contain the book, the cook and the hook. (qv in COMMON WORDS YOU SHOULD KNOW)

If you look on the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook website (see list on the right somewhere) and click on the advice section, you'll find a sample covering letter. Because the W&A Yearbook is a serious, straight-down-the-line book and because they are giving very general advice, this letter a) technically ticks most of the boxes but b) lacks inspiration or "voice". To be honest, if I was a busy agent or editor I would probably find a surprisingly large number of much more interesting things to do than reply to it, let alone hang around waiting for the postman to deliver a synopsis / sample of such an unzingy-sounding novel. I might find myself suddenly desperate to enter a cream cracker-eating competition or something equally fun.

Good points about that letter: it's short; it's addressed to an actual person; it gives useful facts (eg length) about the book; it identifies what sort of book it is (contemporary, characters downmarket of Joanna T - hmm, sounds fab, I don't think - where was that cracker-eating comp?); it's polite; it tells the recipient a bit about the writer (incl that she has two other novels in mind, which is a useful place to keep them).

Bad points about the letter: it gives absolutely no reason to suppose that the writer can write (other than the ability to string some words together and spell/punctuate - which is a good start but only a start); there's no character, no voice; it makes it far too easy for the editor to ignore it and have a cup of coffee, during which time I am 100% convinced he/she will forget it and go off to find a cracker-eating .... Yes, I know, I'm labouring the point.

I urge you to read this recent post on the excellent and expert Behlerblog. In fact, you should have the blog on your regular reading list. In that particular post, you will see exactly what I mean by voice in a covering letter and a very good paradigm of how not/to do it.

3. Hang on a sec - didn't you once say we were supposed to send sample chapters + synopsis as well as covering letter? That's not what the W&A Yearbook letter is saying ...
Yes. Or even possibly no. Again, the W&A is trying to be very general and careful and to follow all the rules. My more specific and daring advice is that you should either a) follow exactly the guidelines of the specific publisher / agent whom you are approaching, if you are a rule-follower and/or like the rules they give or b) otherwise not. My advice on this is clear: all rules are there to be broken if you are clever and bold enough. Picasso didn't get where he is today (yes, I know, he's dead, but at least he's dead famous) by following rules. So, what I'd do is follow this clear 4-step plan:

1. Closely research which publishers take the sort of book you've written
   
2. You need two envelopes. One bigger than the other, but the smaller one big enough for 30 pages of A4, unfolded. In the smaller one, which has your address and sufficient stamps, but is unsealed, you place the first 30ish pages of your brilliant novel, and the brilliant synopsis (which is ideally one page long and never ever ever more than two - and no cheating by using tiny print).
   
3. You put this smaller envelope inside the bigger one.
4. You also put the brilliant (yep, you're getting the hang now) covering letter inside the larger envelope. This covering letter is so brilliant that it makes the recipient drool and gasp and cry out for more. The letter includes this : "If you are interested in reading my work, please consider opening the enclosed envelope, in which you will find a synopsis and the first ___ pages. However, I do understand how busy you are and that your list might be full - if so, I would be very grateful if you would post the envelope back to me." If your covering letter is brilliant enough and if you have targeted an appropriate publisher/agent, the smaller envelope WILL be opened.
   

4. For those of you who like rules and templates, here's mine: short para saying why you are contacting her/him; para selling/describing/distilling your book; shorter para saying who would the readers/market be, eg "readers who love Sophie Kinsella / Ian Rankin / Steven King (no, NOT all three); short para about you, including only info relevant to you as potential author - eg anything you've had published, other things you've written, how long for, whether any other ideas; snappy end para which shows that you understand the system and how busy the editor/agent is, thanking them etc etc etc and being polite and professional.

5. Are there some things I really really mustn't do in this covering letter? I'm so glad you asked that. Yes, indeedy, there certainly are. First, please do read COMMON MISTAKES and THINGS NOT TO SAY. From that, you will learn, for example, about not being arrogant ("I've written an astonishing book"), or naive ("my grandchildren laugh out loud when I read it to them and are always saying, Oh, please read it again, Grandad"). Essentially, you mustn't be long-winded, boring, old-fashioned, hectoring, whittering, sycophantic or unnecessarily and irritatingly funny, though appropriately and delicately witty is fine if that's what your book is like. You mustn't negatively criticise published writers (unless you are the non-writing celebrity who apparently said she wanted to write a children's book because she thought children's books were all rubbish - and you wouldn't beLIEVE the slating she got on author message boards. If vitriol could be bottled ... Anyway, don't let me get carried away.)

Oh, and although it IS helpful for the editor / agent to know what sort of book / author is landing on the desk, here are some other things which do not go down at all well (except when the agent/editor meets up with other agents/editors and they all fall about laughing while regaling each other about the extraordinarily useless submissions they've received):

• Some people have compared my writing to that of Norman Mailer.
• My novel is Moby Dick meets On the Road meets Lord of the Rings. With, I feel, the occasional hint of an early James Joyce.
  
• This could be the next Harry Potter. But even better.
  

That just about covers covering letters. However, it's really important that you've also read THINGS NOT TO SAY. And I'm betting some of you haven't. No, I'm not psychic but I used to be a teacher and I am a crabbit old bat who is still in quite a bad mood because of the cold weather and chapped skin which makes me look older and drier and grumpier than I'd like to. So, if you wouldn't mind, please go and read it now if you haven't already and then, as a reward for your diligence and patience, you can have some chocolate.



Sorry, not much left, but for me it's a case of Chocolate in a Cold Climate.

COMMON WORDS YOU SHOULD KNOW

Your lesson for today, children, is vocabulary. There are certain words and phrases which you will come across in your journey and of which you may not ask the meaning without looking foolish and unpublishable. Some of them you may already have met in rejection letters.

Many of them may seem as though you won't need to know them until you have a contract, but a) I believe that the more knowledge you can have of all stages, the better chance you have of that contract and b) many of you have already been published once or even more often, and have discovered the inconvenient truth that being published does not mean that publishers will tripping over themselves to sign you up for the wonder that is your second /third etc book.

My teachings come in no particular order, as usual. You must by now be beginning to know the haphazard "creativity" of which my brain is capable. Some might say I should make such lists alphabetical but alphabeticalisation is the domain of librarians, who are incredibly good at it.

1. List - as in "your book is not right for ours". A publisher's list consists of several lists. There is the entire list of its publications and there are lists within lists, such as the literary fiction list or the mind/body/spirit (MBS - there's another "word") list. One day, a publisher might have a literary MBS list, but this is hard to imagine - though I guess the Bible might be a contender. Anyway, the point is that the editors for that list know what they want on it. And, sadly, that is not your book. (Remind me to do an article on "What rejection letters are really telling you" - in fact, I'll put it on the list right now.) Thing is, suppose you had a shopping list - would you include an item "do tax return"? See? On the other hand, the item "anchovies" is a perfectly valid thing to put on a shopping-list and for you to say it's not right for your shopping list would be simply to say you don't like anchovies. Similarly, to say that your book is not right for the list can sometimes be a way for the editor to express not liking it.
   
2. MSS - were you listening in the early lesson on "Inexcusable Ignorance"? MSS is in fact a misnomer, because your manuscript is not really a manuscript - ie hand-written while lying on a sofa eating peanuts and drinking nicely-matured grape juice - but a typescript - ie beautifully and clearly typed. (Please don't tell me yours really is a manuscript because if it is you'd better get it transmogrified asap). Pedants among you will want me to point out that also MSS strictly stands for manuscriptS, and that MS is a singular manuscript. But although agents and editors like careful authors, they don't like pedants, so please get with the lingo even if it's wrong.
3. Agent - a person who quite rightly takes a % (10-15 and more like 20 for foreign/TV/film rights) of what they earn for you. (See the article on To Be Agented or Not ...). If you grudge this, don't have one. Trust me, they are not coming looking for you - it's up to you to show (show not tell) them that you are going to be so very successful that they will want their % even though it will be a long time till they get it.
4. Acquisitions meeting - (forthcoming article alert) the crucial meeting held by your publishers, at which the editor who likes your book has to persuade everyone else to like it equally, and that it is perfect for their list (qv). In the US, I have heard it called a Decide meeting by by US publishers, but a comment (No 10 - thank you, Marissa) from one of you helpful expert readers suggests that this might not be widely-used. Mind you, the US is quite a big place, she says, with gentle understatement. And "Decide meeting" would be a very sensible term. Go for it, US, I say!
   
5. Advance - an amount of money which is always much less than the papers will say. If the papers even mention it it means it was a lot, but still they are exaggerating. You don't get it all at once either. A common system is to get 1/3 on signature of contract, 1/3 on final delivery of MSS (pay attention at the back), and 1/3 on publication day. Or half on signature and half on publication, or some other system agreeable to you and your agent, though not as agreeable as getting twice as much twice as soon.
6. Royalties - elusive things which only come when your book has "earned out" its advance. Most/many books never actually earn any. You have a royalty percentage (say 10%, but this varies hugely and for very good reasons depending on whether hardback, paperback, ebook, audio, serialisation etc etc and nothing to do with how amazingly brilliant you are) and essentially you get that % on each book sale (usually based on the publisher's receipts and not the cover price, which is where high/low discount (qv) comes in). I know, you've switched off but don't worry: only sad people understand their royalty statement.
   
7. Returns - ugh. Bookshops buy your books "sale or return" and when they are returned they appear unpleasantly on your royalty statement and their previous earnings are deducted. And the books don't get sold again because too many customers had jam on their fingers when they picked up your baby - sorry, book - and fingered it before not buying it. (Please can we not talk about returns any more?)
   
8. Publication day - OK, you you know what it means but do you know what it really MEANS? Often, it means two years from now. So I hope you've got some writing to do in the mean time. Or a paper round or something, because you're going to need it.
   
9. Sales and marketing departments - two parts of a publishing company that sometimes might as well have offices on different planets, and on different planets from the editorial dept. And absolutely in a different universe from the author. (Note to my publishers - this is hearsay: of COURSE I don't mean you - you all communicate stupendously well.)
10. AI - not A1, which is a very dangerous road between Scotland and more southerly parts of the UK, but AI (pronounced AY - as in May - EYE) - stands for Advance Information. This is a document which in the ideal world would tell that world accurate details about your book, and you, and why everyone should buy said book. Of course, this is not an ideal world, and as I mentioned in a previous article, the AI may be written by a 12-year-old who lurks virtually unpaid in a cupboard somewhere and who bases her description of your book, understandbly from her p.o.v., on your description of your book before you wrote it. Therefore, one of the first things you should do once you've signed your contract, is enlist your editor to ensure that what ends up on Amazon is something you can be proud of and that has a close resemblance to the truth. Otherwise you will have a hell of a lot of explaining to do when you are asked to talk to the Bognor Regis Women's Institute and they discover that the book they thought was an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery of a whimsical and traditional nature is in fact a post-surreal pastiche of American Psycho with shades of In Cold Blood.
    
11. Hook - every book needs one. The sales and marketing departments need a quick phrase that sells your book, tells the potential buyers what it is in a pithy way that makes it different from anything else in the world and yet exactly like a book they'd love to read. I once went to speak at the publisher's sales conference before the publication of my historical adventure, The Highwayman's Footsteps - (that's called a plug by the way, which is a very important word and should always be preceded by shameless and yet performed with a pleasant smile so people don't hate you too much) - I had to speak for 10 minutes to the sales team, to enthuse them without teaching them their job; so, I wanted to make them want to sell the book and also give them something that would make it easy. They won't remember anything else I said that day except for my hook: "Robert Louis Stevenson on caffeine." My agent tells that story as an example of a hook that works. So, get yourself a hook for your book. (If you want to know a secret: actually, caffeine wasn't the word I used. But I write children's books so let's keep this appropriate, please.)
    
12. Prelims - the pages at the front of your book before your actual words start. So, the title page, any foreword and acknowledgements, list of your previous books, little biog. Not a dramatic word but at least now you can respond sensibly when your editor asks you if you've got anything you'd like to add to them. (Your name is the most important bit, by the way.)
    
13. Trade publishing - publishing of books that you can reasonably expect to find in a good bookshop. As opposed to eg educational or academic books, which will be sold in different ways and not usually through high-street bookshops.
14. Trade paperback - I confess I've always been a bit mystified / bored by this distinction because it really only refers to the size/format of the book, which is a pretty boring thing to get too involved in. Essentially, your book will either be published as a hardback and later "go into" paperback (once the publisher thinks it's squeezed enough higher-profit sales out of it); or it will be published as a "paperback original" and not be in hardback. Sometimes the publisher will publish as a hardback while simultaneously (or almost) bringing out a "trade paperback" which is always for some odd reason fatter and bigger than the pb (paperback) original would have been. Absolutely fascinating, I am sure you agree.
    
15. High discount - publishers sell books to retailers at high or low/normal discount. A powerful volume retailer like Amazon, or a big high-street chain, can command a higher discount, especially if they are going to put your book in a price promotion. And it matters, because you get less dosh out of it. But it also doesn't matter, because a) you can't do a damned thing about it and b) you're just ecstatic that anyone is buying your book at all.
    
16. Editing / copy-editing / proof-reading - these probably need an article to themselves, but briefly: your editor is the one who helps you mould your book in major ways. He/she will suggest that a character isn't developed well enough, or your pace is not varied enough, or this bit doesn't work, or that bit was too short / long / shocking / boring. This then becomes a dialogue that you hope doesn't become an argument. Who has the last word? Hmmm. I play a tactical game with mine - I give way on things I don't care about so much, or which she might even (it happens, Chris) be right about; and I reserve the full power of my persuasion for the rest. I reckon I have the last word; she probably reckons she does. Which is a happy conclusion. Then she passes it on to the copy-editor, who picks up small things - not as small as punctuation but things like sentences that she / he doesn't understand, places where I've forgotten I said it hadn't rained for weeks and then have sunlight sparkling on the wet road (not that I would, as that would be a cliché) or I said someone was riding without a saddle but then I mention stirrups. Copy-editing can be a very painful process if you get a lousy copy-editor who thinks she/he knows best or a great process if the c-ed picks up really embarrassing things which an annoying reader might harangue you about in the distant future. Then, when all of those glitches are sorted, comes proof-reading, and you know what that is. It's skilled and picky and you REALLY want a good proof-reader because by that stage you've read your damned MSS so many times that you're starting to sleeptalk it and worms crawl across the page every time you look at it. Also by this time you hate your book and think it's rubbish and you go into a decline to which the only solution is chocolate. Luckily, chocolate solves everything.

Which seems like a good time to go and have some because I see that it's six minutes past midday, which is one of the many perfect times for chocolate. Also, I feel that on the one hand this article is too long and on the other I expect I've forgotten loads of useful words. If you have any others you'd like me to mention, please tell me - and if you are worried about seeming foolish in public you can email me through my website - www.nicolamorgan.co.uk (spot the second shameless plug of this article) - and I promise not to name and shame you or even make you feel slightly embarrassed.

Trust me: I'm a novelist. No, seriously, do.

Need chocolate badly.