Waiting for the right stuff

With Vertigo out later this year, and one or two other non-fiction and short fiction collections in the pipeline, our thoughts recently turned to the big one – the first published novel. With the website in development, it would be ideal to have details of our first novel ready for when the site goes live.

We’ve received several manuscripts, which is pleasing, considering they arrived before we’d started putting our name out there. Some have been better than others, although at this stage there’s nothing which jumps out and screams ‘Publish me!’ One or two could be interesting with some work, but right now we have nothing ready to go.

As a new publisher, it’s a bit of a chicken and egg – with no back catalogue, you have no track record with which to convince writers that they should be submitting to you. However, if you go too early and publish something which isn’t up to scratch, you run the risk of soiling whatever reputation you may have.

So what to do? How long do you play the waiting game? Do you hold out for something utterly brilliant to thud onto your desk? Or do you take a chance on something that you think could work, having asked for rewrites and edits and the like?

With this in mind, I sought out the advice of Lynn Price, editorial director of California-based Behler Publications and resident editor within Litopia. If I had a pound for each time I’ve seen Lynn thanked by writers for the advice she offers, I’d have… hell, I don’t know, but I’d be damn rich.

‘You're certainly right that books build your reputation,’ Lynn told me. ‘And it's smart to have a bang-on book to open your gates. In my case, I knew a lot of writers, so I came out with several books at around the same time.

‘As to how long to wait till you're sure? That's hard to say. It's a gut feel in your radar that pings because you feel confident about promoting the book, the author has a good platform, you have a solid, identifiable readership, and the content is unique to everything currently in the store shelves. Fiction is hard to sell, and it's vital to understand the fiction marketplace.

‘My litmus test is, it has to be beautifully written, and I know I can sell it, given all the other parameters. I won't take something that needs a lot of work because it's too easy for the work to fall apart during the editing process. I'll make recommendations to the author about what I love and what I feel needs work. If they want to fix it and resubmit six months later, I'm good with that.

‘I won't/can't take something that I feel I'm taking a chance on because it's too expensive. I have to feel 100% committed. I wouldn't worry too much about not seeing great manuscripts yet; you haven't put your company name out there. Once you begin publicizing your company, you'll have a lot more to choose from.

‘The most important thing is not to make a round hole fit a square peg. Wait for the right book to come to you.’

Quite often, when you ask for advice, you already know the answer – you just can’t see the wood for the trees. Reading Lynn’s words, it became blindingly obvious.

So, the challenge to all you writers out there is this. We’re waiting for the ‘right book’. Get writing, get editing, get polishing and get submitting.