WHY WASN'T I PUBLISHED FOR SO LONG?

What, you mean apart from the fact I wasn't good enough?

Well, time I explained this, I suppose, after several weeks of appearing to know it all. Because the truth is that once I knew a lot less than I do now. Obvious, really.

First, for those of you who have missed the tragic enormity of this failure, it took me twenty-one years of failing to get a novel published. At the time, that was more than half my life, and certainly all of my adult life. Yes, ALL my adult life failing to achieve the one thing I really wanted: to be a novelist. That's some bruising failure. And bruised I was. Badly. It affected my health and happiness and my sense of self. Luckily (for them) few people knew about my constant attempts at fame and fortune. Unluckily (for him) my husband did. He's still here. Still waiting for me to earn a lot of money, I guess. I'm trying.

OK, I did get some "stuff" published during that time, but it wasn't enough. Home learning books (which have done very nicely financially and which allowed me to say I was a published writer) and stacks of magazine articles. Oh, and talking of doing nicely financially: I regularly get money from a magazine I wrote for ten years ago which keeps using my articles and pays me every time, with me sitting at home doing sod all - would you believe that today I actually sold "36th rights" for three articles?? This means they have used them 36, yes 36 times. God, who needs to be a novelist when you get paid 36 times for something you can't even remember writing?

And there was the odd moment of relative success (relative to abject failure), like appearing in Reader's Digest with my photo and actually being recognised on a bus, and a story winning an expensive pen in the Ian St James awards, and a couple of times almost making it through an aquisitions meeting. But almost is not really good enough, is it?

Anyway, reasons for my abject failure:

1. I thought I was better than I was. I just didn't know what mistakes I was making. This was in pre-blog days, when people like me (as in me now, not me then - me then would have been pretty useless) weren't sharing and there were few relevant books and nice helpful things telling me what a load of shocking errors I was making.
2. I wasn't thinking of my readers. Couldn't give a toss about them frankly - yep, it was all for me. Moi, moi, moi. Self-indulgent beauteous prose, right up my own backside, just gorgeous (but over-written) plotless stuff that gave me shivers of gratuitous pride, and gave any potential reader a severe case of "where the hell's the plot gone or going and I mean why should we CARE about your drivellingly unlikely character who murdered her husband just because of some arcane psychological problem to do with Samuel Johnson which we are supposed to guess through the boring fog of your however-erudite turgidity?
3. I hadn't written the right book. As in a book with a concept which would grab the agent / publisher with its stupendous hook, draw them into a tightly-written and either original or genre-specific plot, written by an author exuding wisdom and knowledge of the market. (Actually, I thought woman who murders husband because he's fat was quite good hook-wise, but hey, that was then.) See here for my post on this topic. (Not murders of fat husbands: I mean writing the right book.)
   
4. I wasn't even following the rules of submissions to publishers, despite the fact that I roll my eyes at you lot for sending toffees to agents and being similarly foolish. In fact, once I even .... but no, I can't tell you that. It's too embarrassing. (For rules for submission, see the Writers and Artists Yearbook, publishers' websites and relevant labels on this blog. There is no excuse for not following these rules - there wasn't then, and there isn't now. Well, unless you actually want to beat my 21-year record.)
   

And so followed the rejection letters. Because yes, I've had a few. There were the occasional ones that said lovely things but which gave suggestions contradicting previous ones (like "we feel it's too short" after "we feel it's too long" and "the plot is somewhat avant garde" after "the plot is somewhat traditional"); there were the "not right for our list" ones (unhelpful but true); there was my favourite (though not at the time) which consisted of my rubbish covering letter with the word NO! scrawled across it in pencil and returned to me in an envelope without a stamp even though I HAD included return postage; and there was the one which arrived back the day after I'd posted it, something which defies the laws of both postage and Newtonian motion and I can only assume that the postman was an Orion employee sent to destroy the slush pile before it occurred.

So, if you are now in the position I was in then - one of soul-searing awfulness, when you feel that life will be utterly meaningless if you don't get that contract, when your whole belief in yourself is shaken daily - I feel your pain, I really do.

That not being good enough thing? In a way it's true, I wasn't good enough. And maybe ... sorry ... you aren't either. But maybe, by listening and learning and improving, you can become good enough. But remember too that it's not just about being good enough - it's about writing the right book at the right time and sending it to the right publisher at the right time. I know, I've said it before. I could even become boring. (If you're new to this blog or need a reminder, use the label "right book" on the list of labels to the right.)

The trick, and the one which this blog tries to help with, is to work out whether:

1. you are good enough but haven't written the right book yet
2. you are good enough and have written possibly the right book really beautifully but haven't sent it to the right person in the right way
3. you aren't good enough but could become so, with time, practice and/or help
   
4. you aren't good enough and won't ever be published satisfactorily
   

Thought for the day: actually, a lot of published writers aren't good enough either. Some of you may well be better than some of them. It all boils down to what a publisher thinks will sell. And I've already done a post on Why is crap published? But you're not writing crap, are you? Please say you're not. Though I have to be brutally honest and say that if you ask any agent or editor they will tell you that the vast bulk of the slush pile is absolute utter crap, of a meaningfully finger-in-the-throat boggingness.

After that bit of brutality and after all these weeks of listening to me seem to know it all, you deserve to know that embarrassing thing I did. I think I can trust you now. Please don't laugh.

Here goes. Deep breath. Will you still respect me? I was young then. Young and really stupid.

The thing is ...

I
once
wrote
a
covering
letter
in
rhyme
...

People! Don't do it!

WHY HAS A PUBLISHER NOT SAID YES (YET)?

You will find the answer in one or more of the following:

1. You have not written the right book.
2. You have not sent the right book to the right publisher.
3. You have not sent the right book to the right publisher in the right way.
4. You have not sent the right book to the right publisher in the right way at the right time.

So far, so glib. But so true. The whole essence of being published is contained in those four lines. Most of it involves talent; some of it involves learnable skills or information; and some of it (but less than you might think) is luck. The less talent you have, the more luck you need. Some people have the most enormous amount of luck (and no talent) - I prefer people with talent and determination.

What is the right book? The right book is any book which the editor can convince the marketing department that they can convince the sales department that they can convince book-sellers that they can convince readers to buy. The right book is a great book or a popular book or a fresh-voiced book or a book on a topic so sensationally interesting that lots of people (or enough people) would want to buy it. Not in the opinion of you or your grandchildren or your best friend's friend, but in the expert (though not infallible) opinion of the professionals in the publishing industry. What you think doesn't matter - it's what you can make them think that does.

What is the right publisher? The one that publishes or wants to publish the sort of books you've written. Supposing you go to a bookshop to research which publishers publish books like your fantasy series about dinofairies, and supposing you find that Edgar Allen Pickles & Co never have, do NOT think to yourself, "Ah, they don't, so maybe they should - I know, I'll send them mine and they'll LOVE it." No they won't, because if they wanted to publish fantasy they would. So, research which publishers like your genre. This applies equally whatever type of book / reader is yours.

What is the right time? Ah, that's when luck comes in a little bit, though do try to avoid bandwagons when they've already passed in a flurry of dust. (And remember that your book if taken today is probably up to two years from hitting the shelves). You can be unlucky and send something to a publisher which has just filled its list, taken something similar to yours, decided never to touch dinofairies EVER again. Or you can be lucky and send just what they're looking for.

What is the right way? That's easy. That's the bit (see the piece on Inexcusable Ignorance) about reading all the stacks of advice on the topic, in places like the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook and publishers' / agents' websites. Rules may be made for breaking but don't break their rules, except one: when they say they're not taking new submissions or unagented work, ignore them - if yours is great, they want it. I'm adding an article on submitting work soon, which will add to your knowledge. But get genned up first.

Many unpublished authors think that their work is brilliant and that the agents/publisher who have rejected them are stupid and ignorant. No, they're not. They can be wrong but even if they don't want your book, for good commercial reasons, they'll spot your talent if you've got it and they'll make suitable nice noises. If you haven't been accepted yet, you simply haven't written the right book (etc etc) or shown your talent, or perhaps found your voice, and you have to face that and decide what you're going to do about it. You have to deal with it, not by moaning about ignorant publishers but by ruthlessly and analytically working out what you are doing wrong. And putting it right. And if it can't be put right, you won't be published.

I strongly suggest you read the article on COMMON MISTAKES BY UNPUBLISHED AUTHORS.