I’ve written this fantastic novel. Can you help me find a publisher?
This question is asked frequently and the simple answer is no. However,
many of the magazine’s contributors and editors have worked in London book-publishing
for several years, and the following is their best, and most blunt
advice on how to go about getting your novel published. We hope it helps and,
given the fantastic response we’ve had to earlier versions of this section of
the OAQ, we’ll be updating and expanding it frequently with more information
about the realities of book-publishing – and the minimum of soft-soap. You may not
like some of what you’re about to read, but we make no apologies for telling the
truth as we see it
The Realities as We See them
If your novel really is fantastic, you will almost certainly find
a publisher for it – eventually. If your novel is not as fantastic
as you think, which is probable, there is a significantly lower,
though unfortunately far from negligible chance that you will
find a publisher for it anyway. There are potentially some billion
living novelists on this planet. It’s not feasible to think that
they will all be published, but the market for novels is far larger
than the real talent-base can sustain – that’s why so many lousy
novels are published and why there’s some, very small reason to
hope your lousy novel could be among them
Prepare Your Typescript
There are a number of things you need to do whether your novel
is fantastic or not. Firstly, the typescript of your novel should
be clean – printed in a sensible typeface, double-spaced,
on one side only of a sensible paper (white A4 80gsm general purpose
paper is just fine; letter quality paper is contraindicated),
with as few manual corrections as possible and bound only with
one or two elastic bands. Any other form of binding, even a cardboard
folder, is inconvenient to the publisher’s or agent’s reader –
the first, probably only person you have to impress. Take a copy
or two of the typescript and select two or three sample chapters
– usually the first two or three will be adequate – and take some
extra copies of these and bind them with a paperclip. Write a
300-500 word outline of the novel
Decide Where to Send It
Obtain a directory of publishers and agents (in the UK the Writers’
and Artists’ Yearbook [W&A] is ideal). Decide whether
you wish to try to sell your work through an agent or directly
to the publisher. This is not an entirely simple decision to make
and we offer no opinion except to say that if your novel is fantastic
you should bear in mind that a publisher will be paying you in
order to exploit that novel for their own purposes, but
you will be paying an agent to serve your own best interests.
A good agency will serve your interests at the expense of their
own (or stop acting for you), but an effective publisher may exploit
your novel at your expense and burst into tears if you have the
temerity to question their actions. Good agents are slightly less
rare than effective publishers and treat weeping publishers, no
matter how effective, with the contempt they deserve. There are
many bad agents and many ineffective publishers. At some stage
in the future we may be able to advise on the quality and effectiveness
of given agents or publishers, but at the moment you’re on your
own
Choose which agents or publishers you think might be interested
in your novel. This choice is easier if you wish to submit directly
to a publisher as their typical output will be obvious. Finding
out what type of writing a given agent handles is less easy. The
W&A does provide thumbnail information but this often
reflects an agency’s ambition as much as their track record. You
could try sending various agents an S.A.E. asking for a
copy of their client list, but don’t hold your breath. If they
tell you they don’t maintain a client list, they’re lying or incompetent. In
any case, if an agent is asking for a reading fee, you should
probably give them a miss; if a publisher is asking for money
from you for any reason whatsoever, you should almost certainly
give them a miss
What to Send and Where to Send It
Whether you choose to submit to an agent or a publisher, the practise
is the same: don’t send a copy of your full typescript
unless you’ve been asked to do so. Don’t be put off where an agency’s
entry in the W&A says "no unsolicited mss"
– they mean the full typescript, not the outline and sample
you’re about to send them. Send your outline, three sample chapters
and a brief covering letter (at least one London publisher
has a "submission letter of the week" noticeboard where
particularly extravagant literary pretensions are posted for the
entire staff and any visitors to see) to the agents or publishers
of your choice. Also send a stamped, self-addressed envelope for
the return of your material. Some authors, who are particularly
convinced of the brilliance of their book, feel that this last requirement
is below them; it’s not: it’s good manners, plain and simple
Both agents and publishers prefer that you only submit to one
agent or publisher at a time, and this may be partly for legal
reasons. We’re not lawyers and we don’t know the legal
issues involved, so we’ll just say that agents frequently submit clients’
works to more than one publisher at the same time – a "multiple
submission" – and publishers rarely seem to have a problem
with this (the exception being where they have been promised an
exclusive first look). Normally an agent will state that the submission
is multiple, but agents do also make under-the-counter submissions
if they think it’s in their clients’ interests. Given that an
agent or publisher is likely to take three months or more to respond
to a submission, submitting consecutively could become a long
process
What Happens Next?
Your submission will be placed on the "slush
pile". If you don’t like the idea of your fantastic novel
being described as "slush", tough. Get used to it. The
name has stuck for the same reason that "eat shit" is
generally regarded as a derogatory imperative. 99.9999% of unsolicited
submissions to agencies and publishers are garbage, no matter
how fantastic their authors think they are. More to the point,
they’re unsellable garbage, and neither publishers or agents are
interested in taking on garbage unless they think they can sell
it
Despite the statistics, a good agent or an effective publisher
will always make sure every submission is read and given due consideration
– the key word being "due". Often a professional reader
will be employed and it’s worth assuming that this reader will
actually be reasonably good at their job and extremely conscientious
– one significant find will ensure that reader’s salary for a
year or two; missing a great book will result in redundancy. It
is because that reader is probably good at their job that
when your submission is rejected, the publisher or agent will
either make a genuinely encouraging comment, or issue a standard
rejection and, in either case, decline to enter into any discussion with you about
the merits of your novel. Learning the difference between a "standard
rejection" and "genuinely encouraging comment"
can be one of the most difficult tasks for a new author, and comes
only with experience
Most submissions are not worth commenting on, a very few merit
brief words of advice, a tiny, tiny proportion result in the typescript
being "called in". Here’s the good news if your typescript
is called in: you don’t need to send return postage with it. More
importantly, someone apart from you thinks your writing shows
promise. Here’s the bad news: even if your typescript is called
in, there’s still only a 5-10% chance the publisher doing the calling
will want to publish the book – and a slightly higher chance the
agency will want to take you on. More good news? The fact that
a publisher or agent has called in your typescript at all suggests
a massive 10-15% chance that you will find an agent or a publisher
for the novel you submitted at some stage in the future and a
truly gargantuan 15-20% chance that you’ll find an agent or publisher
for your future output (figures invented for effect). This really
is good news – thrive on it, enjoy it, gain confidence, but never
forget you’re still in low-odds territory and it still doesn’t
mean your novel is as fantastic as you think it is. Humility is
a valuable quality for any artist to possess
You think it’s improbable that your fantastic novel could be judged
on the basis of the first three chapters alone and that this judgement
could be more or less correct? Your novel is probably not fantastic.
A good reader could probably judge your novel on the basis of
three paragraphs – asking for three chapters is just an extravagant
way of a) making absolutely sure and b) letting you down lightly.
If you don’t understand that every sentence in a fantastic novel
is, well, fantastic, you should give up writing for publication
altogether
Alternatives
Apart from getting famous for something else, there aren’t many alternatives
to the submission/rejection grind, but the increasingly popular ‘electronic slush pile’,
where a sample of your work can be posted for the wired world to see is worth considering
– there are several of these now, some even run by publishers (which means Jack Shit when
it comes to whether anything on them will actually get read)
Good luck!
