I’ve written this blog entry twice already. Both times I found myself ranting or rambling and getting lost down the track, forgetting about why I asked these questions in the first place. It came about after watching an interview with Tanith Lee at the recent World Horror Convention – a convention which didn’t go completely to plan for me (I came down with a man-cold that saw me laid low on the Saturday with a voice like Barry White and with the hearing age of a 100 year old). During the interview, Tanith Lee mentioned that she was no longer with a major publisher and I noted a little regret there. Her career path has not been so different to mine so far – albeit with more success from an earlier age. She started off with the same publisher, parted company for Byzantine reasons and is currently being published by the small presses. When it came to asking questions after the interview, my hand hovered, almost reaching up above the heads of the audience with one question in mind: “Do you regret not being published by a major now?” I didn’t ask it partly out of being shy, partly because even then my man-cold was kicking in and my voice was deepening to a croak, but I could imagine what her answer would be. It would be pragmatic, because at the end of the interview she said that all that mattered to her was her writing. The one time she did write something that was spurred by commercialism than artistic endeavour, didn’t write as well as she had hoped (though it was published – this is Tanith Lee, we’re talking about).
And so I thought about my own writing, and I asked myself that same question I would have asked Tanith Lee if the lurg hadn’t chosen at that point to impose it’s will on me. The result of that question was the
last blog entry which a few people have replied to (and thanks for the comments, including those found on the
Macmillan New Writers site).
In the main, the replies to the following three questions have elicited the standard reply of “yes, yes and yes again” but Eliza Graham’s and Len Tyler’s responses have made me think more about circumstance:
· If you knew you were never going to be published, at least by a major publisher, would you still write?
· Would you still be passionate about it?
· And if you have been published by a major but never would be again, would your enthusiasm take a knock?
It’s easier to shun something when you yourself have been shunned. I’ve read comments on blogs and forums from aspiring writers who have said “get rid of agents – why do we need them?” or words to that effect mainly because it’s those same agents who have turned down their work. Just as I’ve read comments on same forums or blogs from writers or agents dismissing the idea of ridding the publishing world of gatekeepers either because they don’t want to lose their livelihood, or because they have an agent and have done well out of it. So what I want to dispel is any hidden agenda, and the only way I can do that is to look at the three questions in context. Four contexts as it happens, marking the four times where my writing circumstances had changed.
So here goes…
1. I’m 18 years oldI’ve written my first book called
The Forever Chain and I’ve started approaching publishers and agents. In my naivety I believe I’m the real deal and that publishers should start taking notice. I’m not the real deal at all, but publishers take notice anyway and HarperCollins are impressed, though not impressed enough to make me a firm offer. After deliberating they pass on
The Forever Chain, but by that point I know I want to be a published author. It’s like fire in my veins and if I’m honest, it feels as important as the writing itself. Hence why I decide to write some projects I think would appeal to an editor – any editor. They all fail to get off the ground for the overriding reason that I’m not writing for myself but for someone else. To answer the three questions – well it’s inconceivable to me at that time that I wouldn’t be published eventually. I had unshakable belief back then that I would be.
Yet in all of that, the writing was the most important thing. I could only commit to writing what interested me rather than what interested someone else. I might write a dystopian fantasy that’s 250,000 words long when no one will publish books at that length from a new writer; I might write an apocalyptic anthology at a time when anthologies don’t sell. I don’t care.
I want to be published, sure. But I want to write more.
2. I’m 29 years oldI have had a cowboy agent for four months who doesn’t return my calls and who has done nothing with my book despite paying a fifty quid admin fee. I have a book which agents have a problem with: it’s a mixture of history and dark fantasy, and no one is publishing books like that. Agents want me to write history books, or they want me to write horror books. Not both. Each time I get a rejection letter I yell at the letter as though the agent or publisher can hear me. I tell them they’re short-sighted, they have no imagination and no idea what the public wants. I still have that unshakable belief in what I’m doing and I decide to quit my bloody useless agent and make a conscious decision to stop sending my work to any agents and publishers. At this point I no longer care about being published. To me the system is broken and I decide to write purely for my own pleasure and for my friends, because I get a real buzz out of writing.
Eight months later, a friend from work convinces me I should enter a Channel 4 writing competition that Pan Macmillan are running. I send in the first two chapters of a book called
The Secret War – the same historical fantasy all the agents and publishers vesaid as being “not marketable”. Out of 40,000 entrants I am short-listed by Pan Macmillan to form a new imprint called Macmillan New Writing.
Two years later,
The Secret War is published by Macmillan New Writing – a book that I said I would never compromise on, a book that I would defend in the face of rejection letters that said simply “this isn’t a book or genre we think we could sell”. And a book that is picked up by Random House Germany one year later for an advance that would – and I quote Mike Barnard – “have many established writers popping the champagne corks”.
3. I’m 34 years oldI’m a published author. I have two books published, one in paperback, and one in hardback. I’ve sold rights to Germany and Spain. I’m writing a Victorian thriller and have plans for a third book in the
Secret War series that’s a little different to the first two.
If someone told me I would be leaving Pan Macmillan by the end of the year, I would have laughed at them. I have a great relationship with my editor. In their words they want to “grow me”. I’m writing what I want to write and in the words of MC Hammer “you can’t touch this.”
My publisher passes on the Victorian thriller - The Black Hours - because it goes against my “author branding”. Then they pass on the third
Secret War novel because it does not return to the same themes of the first two novels – which was the point. It needs to be fresh, I tell them. They want another
Secret War or
Hoard of Mhorrer novel.
This is the first time in my writing life that I have considered publishing above my writing instincts. So I tell them fine – I’ll give you a book like the first two.
4. I’m 35 years oldIn the past ten months I’ve become a little jaded with the publishing process and my third book is turned down. I want to write what I want to write. A close writer-friend told me they believed that my publisher had already made a decision to reject my third book – the book they wanted me to write - even before I sent it to them. It’s possible they did. To be honest, it’s academic, because
I made the decision to leave my publisher. After all, if they don’t want the next three projects I’m writing, why stay? I’m certainly not going to ask them what they want, because it won’t be what I want to write, and I already do a well paid job I don’t want to do, so why spend all my free-time doing the same thing without any commitment to being paid? I sound like a petulant child – but when the dust settles I realise that my feelings still remain. I want to write for myself.
So now I’m without an English language publisher. And when anyone asks me if I’m okay with that, I tell them “well, put it this way. Since I announced I would be quitting my publisher I haven’t sent a single submission or letter of enquiry to an agent or any other publisher.” In fact, last weekend I spoke to my first agent in four months since parting from Macmillan. People look bewildered when I say this, especially the writers. But to me, it’s just not a priority. The writing is.
And always has been.
Most of the comments to the last post have said the same thing: they would still write - though the implications of being dropped or not being published would have varying impacts on their writing. What this blog post has shown me is that there isn't a straight forward answer to my questions, and everyone will have a different take on it. Some may aspire to the "yes, yes and yes again" approach but cannot break from the fear of not being published comfortably. Being published by a major house is a shot of confidence and one that might be all smoke and mirrors, but it felt prestigious then and would do again. Other writers might not give a monkeys having not been comfortable in the first place (would they change their tune if offered a six figure advance? It would be a struggle not to).
I love an audience, what self-respecting author wouldn’t (why do we tweet and blog if that’s not the case?), but it’s not as important to me as putting words down on paper. I’m not an actor, nor a comedian – I don’t do stand-up, and I when I write I play to an empty house. To answer my own questions in a more succinct way (other than yes, yes, and yes again), I am still writing and writing is not a job to me. It's a joy. The tedium is everything else that's not creative. But that's not to say I'm procrastinating. The writing is what gets me there in the first place, and if I don't find an English publisher this month, or next month or next year, well that isn't the end of the world either. Eventually I will. I'm not bothered if that’s a major publisher or an independent/small press – but I do want to be published in my own country at some point. But while it would feel a bit farcical to be only in print in German and Spanish, if that never happened, I would be disappointed, but I would still write.
I would still write and I would probably self-publish because there is an audience out there and self-publishing isn’t as back-breaking as it used to be and given a little work you can still reach someone, anyone. There is still an audience out there.
Being a part-time writer - more importantly, one that doesn't have to rely on the income I make from writing - I have the luxury of believing that publishing is a pantomime, but one that is necessary in whatever guise you find it (major, minor, indie or self) if you want an audience that is. I believe that what matters most is what you bring to the table, not whose table you're sitting on. A writer who worries about who their publisher is or will be, is a diner who arrives with an empty plate or a cook who forgets to turn the oven on. There are more important things to concentrate on because writers are writers. It's what we do. It's all that counts.
For me it always has.
As of this blog entry I've written 15,000 words on The Traitor of Light - good words, words that I'm happy with and words I won't have to change much come the 2nd draft, which is unusual for me. The first chapters of a new book are always the hardest, but surprisingly in light of the content and circumstances (being a parent gets no easier even after 12 months) these have been relatively easy chapters to write.
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