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WRITE NOW - HOW TO BE PUBLISHED Just Do It Many people talk about writing a novel but sometimes that's all it amounts to. Nothing beats sitting down at your home PC and putting tentative fingers on the virginal keyboard and actually producing something tangible on A4 paper. There's no need to think about an entire book on Day 1. Or even a chapter. Just write one scene or a thousand words for starters. Anything. Then leave it a week. Come back and re-read your first stab in the dark. See if you like it. Are you entertained by it? Know how you can make it better. The iterative process has begun. Get the Basics Right Ensure the novel's central character is someone with whom readers can sympathise and empathise. Remember the lawyer Mitch McDeere in Grisham's The Firm? Mitch is a young graduate, recently married, wants his wife to have the best, owns a beat-up car, is orphaned from his parents, is short of cash and has a wayward brother in jail. Feeling sorry for him already? Ensure all the conversation is in conflict. Learn from the experts again -take a look against your better judgement at the BBC's top-rated Eastenders TV soap. Ever seen a happy cheerful conversation between two of the characters? I think not. Or watch the conflict develop as Jon Snow grills some slippery Labour politician on Channel 4 News. Read the work of other authors in the same genre - you must believe that you can do better than they have done. Stick to those topics you know best for your first novel. I didn't pen a legal or forensic or cop or detective thriller because it was an uphill battle that I didn't need to fight. And lastly rewrite, rewrite and rewrite. Find a Publisher There's really no point looking for a publisher. Look for an agent instead. I sent samples of my writing to many leading UK publishers and got rejections from most, or nothing at all. Many publishers received hundreds of unsolicited manuscripts every week and dump them in a communal slush pile. You have to wonder about the inherent interest of any freelance or temporary staff who read these tomes. How can such a reader who likes literary fiction ever warm to a commercial thriller? Find a Literary Agent Invest in The Writers Year Book 2001. It's a snip at a mere £10. This book lists all literary agents and the genres in which they are interested. Read their individual requirements carefully and send your sample work to the right agents. I selected twenty agents from the Year Book and got five positive replies in as many days. Far more effective than chasing publishers. Meet the agents who are interested in you and see what track record they have in your chosen genre. Select the one you think shows the most enthusiasm, replies to your queries and is excited as you are about your work. Rely on your Agent Good agents know which publisher is looking for which type of work. Certain publishers who for example publish a range of legal thrillers won't want another competing author on their list in the same genre but another publisher may well be looking to compete with them. A good agent will present the sample chapters to the Editor in the most optimal fashion. A long liquid lunch at The Ivy followed by the handing over of a brown envelope and the utterance of the few words "You really must see this. There's so much interest in it." is much more likely to produce a £££ result than a blind mail shot to the world of publishing at large. A good agent will generate interest among a number of publishers. You in turn can salivate about a competitive auction for your work. Highest bidder takes all. The Upside When you do get published, remember that the upside is not just about money. The intangible stuff matters too. It is inherently satisfying to complete a book. It's even good to know that after you are dead and buried, your literary works will live on in the British Library for time immemorial. The promotional book tours overseas are enjoyable. The media interviews and TV appearances are insightful. The positive emails from readers and rave press reviews are encouraging. And yes, the up-front advances and sales royalties (currently tax-free in Ireland!) are an added attraction too. The Downside The only downside of writing, perish the thought, is a negative literary review in the media. We all get them and we all have to live with them. It's a fact of life when offering any finished product to the big bad world at large, be it a novel, a movie, a CD or even an industrial widget. But it's still depressing when you work on a book for a year or more to craft the plot, character development, dialogue, prose, pace and style, and then an unknown writes it off in a few paragraphs in a newspaper. All you can do is forget about it, remember that the good reviews outnumber the others and keep the best reviews pinned prominently over your desk for modest inspiration. Avoid Bookshops One of the hazards of being an author is the irresistible urge you get to visit every possible bookshop to "check out how your latest is doing". After a year of such wandering about in high streets, trains stations and airports, I have decided that it is an utterly pointless and fruitless exercise. Why? Say you walk into a bookshop and they have your latest work piled high on the shelves. Is this good news or bad news? Does it mean you are possibly going to sell lots of copies in the future, or has that same pile been there for weeks? Or instead, say you walk in and there isn't a copy in sight anywhere? Did the book shop even place an order, or best of all, have they sold every single copy they ordered and the frantic customers are in fact queuing at the rear cash desk to order a copy asap? Hard to tell.
(c) Copyright Eurobusiness Magazine My Writing Day A day wholly dedicated to writing is more of an aspiration rather than a reality. I have a day job from Monday to Friday. Friends and colleagues often ask how I ever find the time to write financial thrillers. The answer is that I make the time over the weekend. I write on Saturday or Sunday mornings when my mind is fresh and my imagination is most stimulated. Waking up an hour or two earlier helps greatly. I prepare well in advance with rough outline notes, try to fully immerse myself in the scene and think about nothing else. I work in a study with no distractions and usually write fast in discreet one thousand word segments. If I can write two good scenes in a morning, then I break. Sometimes over a long Bank Holiday weekend, or over Easter, Christmas or New Year, I can make a lot of rapid progress over a few intensive days of writing. And sacrifice. At any point in time I always roughly know the next five thousand words but I rarely plan further ahead than that. Writing for me is like running a marathon – no one wants to think about twenty-six plus miles when you are in the first few miles. If I ever hit the wall, a complete mental blank, I get up, walk away and return later. I don’t write during afternoons or evenings but take time to play tennis or get out. Other distractions are good. I include my home email address in my novels so I get many emails daily. Some are insightful. Others are bizarre. One bookseller in Australia told me that he was sent my book in error by a local distributor, but liked it so much he put in a big order. Another person emailed me on behalf of a newspaper vendor outside a West London tube station. He had spotted that he is indeed the same vendor featured in my first book. A more recent was from a writer in Hong Kong offering to get me a publishing deal with his local publisher. One was from the London News Editor of The Sun, not a huge job in itself perhaps? A thriller is about 120,000 words so half a year of productive weekends usually results in a good first draft of a novel. I think good fiction should gestate over time so I spend many subsequent weekends reworking the text so that it’s as readable and pacey as possible. With enough motivation and application I can finish a book in a year. I met a Dutch thriller writer on an Amsterdam book tour who takes a six-week holiday from his law firm to write novels in a single sitting. That would never work for me. A book is like a piece of software. It’s never truly finished and there is always one more bug. Yet the day eventually comes when the final copy goes to my editor at Hodder and then I know I am finished. Until next time. More Information on the Financial Fiction Genre |
