like Harbour Books in Whitable, one of my favourite places in all the world. It’s caught the attention of yesterday’s Observer newspaper here:
“We try to bring the community together with our events. We often host book launches and discussions with our wonderful local authors and they support us in turn. We also have a monthly poetry and prose night called Words on Waves,” says bookseller Olivia Rosenthal.
Congratulations to Keith and all his lovely staff – you do a wonderful job.
Congratulations. An agent or publisher is showing enough interest to want to speak with you.
There is usually a slow process of meeting each other, to see if you will get along. The agent or publisher will shower your story with praise, then probably suggest changes to your script and see how you respond. Sometimes they are slight tweaks and can be fixed in a week or two. Other times, you can be asked to do substantial redrafts that take months. Throughout all this, they are looking to see how you handle the situation.
They want someone who responds quickly and takes advice well. If you let yourself be distracted by other pressures 
or decide now is the time to close your laptop and take a gap year, 
you risk losing their attention.
Agents first
Do not expect a contract at an early stage although it can happen. Agents are more likely to be prompt about contracts than publishers and will send you a standard form of around a single page. In July we looked in detail at what agents do.
If a contract does come your way, keep breathing and think about it. You do not have to accept it straight away. You can ask for thinking time if there’s another agent/publisher you’re hoping to hear from. And it’s a good idea to consult the UK’s Society of Authors or a lawyer about the legal terms. There’s usually little you can renegotiate in standard provisions but it helps to be clear about what they mean.
As soon as the agent is happy with your script and has taken you on, your script goes out to chosen publishers. It came as a shock to me that agents get rejections too but it does happen. Maybe someone just pipped yours to the post or the heat has gone off a particular genre in the space of weeks. I have met an author whose agent was passionate about his thriller and spent five years hawking it around the world, but could not place it. There is a long history of classic novels being rejected many times. Rejection does not mean your agent is incompetent or that your novel is worthless. Stay calm, polite and positive – and keep writing the next thing.
The upside is that, at this level, you know your work will have been carefully read and that your agent will sift and report on feedback. If not, go elsewhere.
A publisher says yes
With undying thanks to your agent, you are sitting in the offices of a real, live, smiling publisher who has your work on the table. (In July, I posted detail about what publishers can do for us and when. My first post is here, and part 2 is here.) The publisher’s editor has put you through yet more rewrites and has satisfied the marketing and money people at the new acquisitions meeting that this deserves a chance. You’ve got a deal!
Congratulate yourself again – very few new writers reach this stage. Most publishers take at most one first-time novelist a year. A publication date is set and the cover’s agreed. You have more work to do now:
They’re asking you to buy some of your own books?
Your publisher will probably offer you the chance to buy some copies of your book yourself, at discount. The idea is that it encourages you to market it, hence all the ‘meet the author’ signing events. Events are tricky if you’re shy and they steal your writing time but the discount (paying 40% of the full price is not uncommon) means that if you sell at 80%, you are still making more profit, more quickly, than waiting for royalties.
Fame and fortune at last?
Most first novels sell fewer than a thousand copies. That’s why the Booker Prize was invented, to help literary novels reach a wider audience. Publishers and agents hope that by the time they publish your third or fourth, preferably in a series or the same genre, the public will have noticed you and the whole exercise will become financially worth their while. They are gamblers at heart. You may be one of the lucky ones who has a substantial advance from a big publisher who is going to flog your book with a great big publicity budget. I hope so. 
Even if you’re not … You have become a strange new creature, a published author. That can lead you to other ways of making money (coaching, talks, radio and television appearances). It means too that people see you differently. Instead of the friend they are used to, the one who spends most of the time alone and gives a slightly dejected shrug when asked how the writing’s going, they see a new, confident you with a book in your hand. That book has your name printed on it and they are being asked to buy copies. After all the years of lonely scribbling, there is no finer sensation than welcoming friends to your book launch and watching them queue, smiling and laughing, for you to sign copies for them.
Congratulations, you’ve made it. It has all been worthwhile.
I wish you the very best of luck and happy writing!
It’s time to make a diary note about chasing in three to six months’ time. Meanwhile, let’s get busy doing other things.
Waiting by Degas, 1880-2
This will be harder than you think. Our inner writer longs for approbation and needs it fast. Do you remember the feedback stage, how hard it was to let your readers take their time? This sensation can be even more powerful now that your work is in the hands of professionals. Please be patient.
Take a break. Celebrate having reached this stage, you’ve done well! Get out among friends again and enjoy the real world. Then get stuck into writing something else. Make yourself a tight schedule of writing and research and stick to it. If a positive answer does come, they will want to know what you’re working on now.
Sometimes an agent/publisher’s submissions page will let you know how long they usually take. Allow them at least three months anyway – that’s the blink of an eye in publisher/agent time. Then a gentle reminder checking that your submission has reached the right person will be fine. Keep it calm and professional.
In my experience an outright rejection comes pretty swiftly. If they like what they see, they will read and re-read, share it around the office, have a word with marketing and accountancy, and so on. If they’re taking a while, it might be good news…
Rejections first – let’s get them out of the way. Some rejections are about you and some aren’t.
Reasons for rejection you cannot avoid:
Reasons for rejection you can avoid:
When agents and publishers come to the slush pile, what buoys them up is the hope of finding the Next Big Thing and making their fortune. They may not know exactly what they’re looking for but they know what they don’t want. Let’s help them out by avoiding the following:
Rejections take many forms:
Sometimes you will receive no answer at all. Considering how many people are sending out submissions these days, this is understandable. Some websites even declare this is their policy. Never mind. The silence could be for a multitude of reasons that have nothing to do with you.
A standard form reply is common, without your name or a personal signature. Try not to be downhearted, as above.
A personal rejection with your name on it is a big step forward. It might say your submission doesn’t ‘chime’ with what they are looking for but at least they have bothered to look and might well remember what you’ve done. Try to be pleased.
With all of the above, there is no need to respond. Be patient and detached about these rejections and keep studying your craft, looking for ways your submission and script might be improved. This ‘rejection stage’ is your most important learning stage too.
Hard as it is not to take a rejection as a personal slight, it is vital that you stay professional and do not bother anyone who has sent you a rejection. At all costs do not telephone to argue the toss and above all do not call on them in person in their offices. Not only will you ensure that they never look at your work again, neither will their friends and loved ones who may well work in the business.
Buoying up the spirits
This stage can take years and leave you feeling low from time to time. This is normal. So in one of my writing groups we found ourselves talking about how to keep the spirits buoyed up through rejection times.
Good rejections
Are there such things? Oh yes, and if I can do one thing to help you through this stage, it is to lift your spirits when you receive a good rejection and see it for the gold dust it is.
It means you have been noticed. It’s time for a kindly thank you and a close look at the feedback. Your inner writer might feel rejected but to have professional advice at this level is a huge step forward. Next time we’ll look at why agents and publishers reject. Meanwhile, I wish you the very best of luck and happy writing. Good luck!
Harbour Books is a fantastic independent book shop in Whitstable and it gave us writers space for something magical last night. Since July, the shop’s monthly Words on Waves events have given local writers a place to read their work in progress as well as published work, with a broad range of subject matter and styles of writing.
Last night it was mostly the poets’ turn and the air hummed with marvellous words from all over the world. An accidental common theme emerged about the roots of our upbringing and the considerable pleasures of living where we choose.
Mostly that was (of course) Kent. Our magnificent line-up included The Scatterlings (Sue Rose from Herne Bay, Mark Holihan, a Californian now settled in Broadstairs and Geraldine Paine from Ospringe, near Faversham), novelist Malcom Walton, prize-winning poet Christopher Hopkins (from Wales, now living in Kent), Annie Harrison, Clair Meyrick and, from London, Nancy Mattson (originally Canadian) and Mike Bartholomew-Biggs.
The combination was outstanding and, as host, I had the pleasure of watching waves of hilarity, excitement and shared grief sweep over us all. The evening was a sell-out so if you’d like to join us next month – Thursday 4 October – it would be wise to contact the shop to save your place. Please call 01227 264011 or drop by.
Enormous thanks to everyone at Harbour Books – Keith, Olivia, Arthur – for everything they do to make these events such a pleasure and success. It’s a privilege for me to be involved.
Rosie Johnston 