K.J. Bennett's Blog, page 7

That's not real publishing (Part 2)

"You can't sell books to thirteen-year-old boys."Clearly I was doomed to obscurity.

In Part 1 I detailed, in rather tongue in cheek fashion, my overall view of thepublishing industry. Now I am going to reveal what happened in my contact withpublishers. I must add that prior to any personal meetings I showered indisinfectant and then dressed in sterile clothing and surgical face mask so thatI didn't pass on any writers' germs to this highly precious and protected species.
In February 2008 I met Barry Cunningham atthe Verulam Writers' Circle 'Get Writing' conference in Hertfordshire, England.
Barry owns the publishing company The Chicken House and is the man credited with signing JK Rowling to Bloomsbury. I hadthree minutes to pitch my novel to him: he bit. A few weeks later he asked tosee the full manuscript, but I hadn't finished writing it. He agreed to waitand a few weeks later off it went and great expense.
Iwaited.
And waited.
And phoned.
And three weeks after my call I received mymanuscript and a polite rejection letter. Barry liked Pike's Quest but thoughtthat the word play and humour was too complex for his readership. This was bothgood news and bad: Baryy Cunningham, discoverer of Harry Potter, liked my writing!The Chicken House publishes Young Adult (YA) material, and having written a60,000+ YA novel I was being told that it was too complex for my target group.
In February 2010 I met Marlene Johnson, Managing Director, Hachette Children's Books. I had five minutes to pitch to her. Bythis time, Pike's Quest was not only complete but substantially revised andedited. Marlene listened intently and laughed a lot as I gave her an overview.
"How old is the hero?" she asked.
"Sixteen."
"So the book would be suitable for boysaged twelve to thirteen, then. They are inspirational, you see. It sounds hilarious, butyou can't sell books to thirteen-year-old boys."
And that was that: you can't sell books to thirteen year-old boys. Clearly I wasdoomed to obscurity.
The only other publisher I managed to getto read Pike's Quest was Proxima. They were brand-spanking-new and primarily ane-publisher. The response time was very fast and Steve Haynes, the editor, hadclearly read it all. Although he had some nice things to say, he just didn't get theoverall joke. What I regarded as a light-hearted adventure he regarded ashaving an ecological them that may put readers off. He didn't like the factthat two of my comedy characters had specific speech patterns – Gran speakswith a Somerset accent and is the only person in her village to do so (ratherlike Samwise in the LOTR films) and Lord du Well has a pronounced lisp. Anyway,it was a rejected.
Thus I continued my hunt for an agent.
I continued sending off batches of three –four chapters, a synopsis and a biography: some came back within four to sixweeks, some took longer. One took nearly a year and had only a scruffily hand-written note saying, "Not this time" (Mic Cheetham agency, be very ashamed). That was unusual though, as most hadquite positive comments but firm a 'no' attached.


I began to wonder if these agents were reading the same material that I had submitted: the material that I had written, finely honed and read out to others, and which had them in fits of laughter.
It was during this period that I hadsomething of an epiphany. And that shall be the subject of Part 3. However, the next post on this site will be on the 9 December, and is an interview with Canadian crime writer, Carolyn Arnold.




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Pike's Quest only 99 cents or 86 pence from
Smashwords for Kobo, Sony Reader, et al, or via Amazon for Kindle on these links - UK - USA - DE - FR - IT - ES   Now also available at 

iBooks (UK) - iBooks (US) - Barnes & Noble - Kobo - Diesel (prices may vary)  

To read the blurb, click HERE  

That's not real publishing (Part 1)

"Oh, it's an e-book." She gave a knowinggrin. "That's not real publishing, is it?"
The decision came to me after months ofconsideration and years of disappointment: I would self-publish my work onKindle. It wasn't a something I did lightly.
I've been writing seriously (as in,seriously writing stuff that had an amusing edge) for twelve or more years andI have spent a small fortune in posting material out to publishers and agentsin the hope that first they would read what I sent, and secondly that theywould be impressed enough to read more.
In 1999, when I sent out samples of my firstcomplete novel, a fair number of publishers were still accepting unsolicitedmaterial directly from writers. Between then and now that's all changed. Nearlyall publishers accept only that which has been submitted by a literary agent.This is very bad news for writers, and even worse for readers.
Literary agents are the self appointedguardians of the publishing world. They are the experts in what the publicwants to read, and experts in what the public ought to be reading. Their wordis the word of the publishing God. What would the great reading populace of theworld do if it were not for the literary agent standing steadfast against theflow of inventiveness of writers? Literary agents know full well that if aparticular style of writing was popular in one book by one author last year,then every other author submitting material to them MUST, OH YES MUST, write inthat exact same style and on the exact same subject. Or else!
Publishers, of course, must bow to theknowledge of these literary Gods, because if they don't, it is they who have todo the hard work of reading new material direct from an inventive author.Heaven forbid that a writer, urgh – A DIRTY,HORRIBLE WRITER, no less – should submit directly to the very sensitivepublisher. Lordy, lordy, lordy, that would never do. Ye gads: authors have GERMS.
As a writer I was in a situation wherefirst I had to identify which agents represent my genre, and then which onesare willing to receive submissions. Recently I have been writing what couldloosely be termed young adult fantasy, but it crosses the age boundaries andalso crosses over into adventure and comedy. Try finding an agent that acceptsthat combination in the Writers' & Artists' Year Book !
I identified around twenty that might beinterested, and sent samples out in batches of five. Take into account thepostage (return), packaging and printing costs, and each batch of submissionscosts about £25 - £30. Only a few will accept submissions by e-mail, and thosewho do probably use e-mail as an excuse not to actually read what has beensent.
One of the things agents want writers toinclude in their covering letter is the names of other authors to which theycan be compared. At the same time, agents state they are looking for new andoriginal voices: what do they want? "Dear Agent ... my writing is like a crossbetween J K Rowling and Alfred Hitchcock, yet I retain an element of starkoriginality ..." The real problem is that agents really don't know what to dowhen someone with a new and original voice does come along, so almost invariablythey reject it.
Over 12 years I have had rejections ofvarying quality: some were complimentary, some less so. More recently I havehad rejections for Pike's Quest that were downright glowing – so much so that Iwondered why the work was rejected. One agent was thoroughly impressed with thewriting, but after three chapters she wasn't so sure about the story. She sentme the best rejection ever. But hang on: who is she to judge the story? If mywriting was as good as she said, that should be enough to strike up a workingrelationship. I'm petty damned sure that she doesn't like everything that her existingclients send to her, but I'm pretty sure she attempts to place it with thepublisher. She did ask me to submit future work to her, but gave not a singleclue as to what she was looking for.
Writers employ agents, agents don't employwriters. But agents often refuse to work for a writer. This is understandable ifthe writer is crap, but where is the sense when the writer clearly is not crap?Without any intentional arrogance, if I chose an agent to grace with my work,he/she should be honoured that I have done so.
The frustration comes by knowing that thework is of a publishable standard, yet I've only been able to get two publishersto read it.
In future posts I shall reveal theoutcome of those two readings, and I shall delve into some of the pros and cons of selfpublishing.

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Pike's Quest only 99 cents or 86 pence from
Smashwords for Kobo, Sony Reader, et al, or via Amazon for Kindle on these links - UK - USA - DE - FR - IT - ES   Now also available at 
iBooks (UK) - iBooks (US) - Barnes & Noble - Kobo - Diesel (prices may vary)

To read the blurb, click HERE