‘Ripeness is all’

Getting your book published is all about timing and tenacity. Agent Clare Conville and publisher Francis Bickmore ask: is your novel ready to become a commodity?

In the words of Louise Welsh: “Writing is no job for grown-ups. We do it because not doing it makes us feel worse.” Before you put yourself through the commitment and challenges of trying to make money from writing, ask yourself why you write and whether your work is really for sale.

The old adage that everybody has a book in them may be true, but of the tens of thousands of unsolicited manuscripts sent to publishers and agents every year, only a handful get picked up, and then an even smaller proportion get published. Is yours the sort of book you can imagine you or anyone you know picking up and buying? Or is it more for your own satisfaction, enjoyment, therapy? Publication is not necessarily the only worthwhile outcome.

No second chances

An agent or editor will almost certainly only read your script once. Choose your moment. Edit like hell and get informed opinions about what further work is needed. If necessary, pay for professional help. There is a demand for specialist agencies that offer this service because objective feedback is hard to come by. Close family and friends will usually only tell you what you want to hear rather than what you need to know. If you can join a creative writing course or a local writing group so much the better.

If the book just isn’t ready yet, bide your time and do further revisions. Alasdair Gray’s Lanark was in genesis for 30 years before publication; Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White took 20. Ripeness is all.

Prepare your submission

A strong and hopefully successful submission to an agent or publisher takes work. It involves getting distance from the writing process and thinking about your book as a commodity. Lewis Hyde’s The Gift is excellent on the necessary tension between artist and salesman. Ignore what you’re trying to achieve creatively and think about the book from the outside. What would make someone pick it up? Study the cover copy for authors you admire.

Researching your submission is crucial. Publishers and agents can sniff out a generic letter within a few lines. It may be hard to get to meet people in the industry, but you can professionally stalk them through various means. Don’t get too personal – the letter should be professional – but do get a name of an individual within each company. Find out which other writers they work with and what they have had success with. Pick out the books on your shelf that you think most happily sit alongside your work. Look at the publishers on the spine. If there is an acknowledgments section, the agent and editor will usually be thanked. There’s your lead. And when you write, explain why you have chosen them and why you think your book might fit their list.

Entitlement

A world-weary editor or agent can be startled back to life by a strong title. The title for a first novel has to work on a number of levels. It must grab attention, be memorable, it must convey in part a substantial aspect of the book and it must resonate at an emotional level, whether it is comic or tragic or a mixture of both. Take time to make a list of possible titles and ask fellow readers for feedback, then rework the title accordingly.

The right one-line pitch cannot be underestimated either. It may compel the first reader to put your novel at the top of his or her pile. It may carry through into the agent’s submission letter, it may be subsequently taken up by the editor as a way of persuading his colleagues that they must back the book and it may finally appear as part of the jacket copy.

Who do editors think they are?

Remember, both agents and editors are specialists, whose job is to find books they believe in and which they can sell. A rejection is not personal, it’s a business decision – albeit a subjective one, and one motivated by passion.

Editors and agents are busy people. Reading generally happens after-hours and at weekends. Canongate receives around 1,000 submissions a year via agents and twice that come unsolicited. Of these we are looking to find around 30 new books a year. Perhaps only five are going to be from a debut voice. Conville and Walsh receives 4,000-5,000 unsolicited manuscripts a year and on average take on a maximum of five a year.

With all this in mind keep your letter professional, informed and typo-free. Also, keep it short. If you present your work well you can avoid putting people off before they’ve even begun reading.

Get out, don’t give up

Writing is a lonely occupation. Find your community. Creative writing courses, masterclasses, writing groups and online forums are fantastic for finding others who can offer support, advice, tea, wine, etc. Also, for technical writing advice, check out the Paris Review Interview anthologies – probably the closest thing you’ll find to a few hours in the pub with the greats.

Fail again, fail better

“We did find it of very great interest, but I regret to say that it does not appear to me possible as a publishing venture.” This rejection letter could have been written yesterday. In fact, it was TS Eliot rejecting George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London. Don’t let rejection, or reports of a difficult publishing climate, put you off. There are miracle stories every year. One of our favourites is that of Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams who self-published Tunnels (see chapter 11). By a process of sheer determination the book came to the attention of Chicken House and has now sold over 1m copies worldwide.

Clare Conville is a founding agent at Conville and Walsh; Francis Bickmore is editorial director at Canongate Books