A submission pinged in our inbox yesterday, with synopsis and first three chapters attached. All looking good so far. Then I started reading the covering letter and had to pull hard on the reins after a couple of lines. This, the author said, was his novel. Which he wanted us to consider for publication. And then he dropped that immortal line: 'I'm in the process of editing it...'
Chaps and chapesses - given the size of our little enterprise, and the fact that we're still relatively new to this publishing malarkey, we can afford the luxury of indulging this author, at least for the time being. There will, we hope, come a time when I'm having to pull all-nighters just to keep up with emails and submissions. At that point, 'I'm still editing it' might be struggling.
No doubt there are a few agents and publishers out there who are happy to accept submissions that aren't yet polished and shiny, trusting their instinct as to whether they can work with the author to produce a knockout book. I can think of one agent who does this, and it is something that we might be prepared to do, at least while the business is growing.
But if you're a writer firing submissions out into the world, the vast majority of agents and publishers will reach for the polite rejection stamp the moment they read 'I'm still editing'. If you're not submitting work that you think is as good as it gets, then they won't want to know.
Get it polished.
Monday 25 January 2010
Sunday 17 January 2010
Regular spot on Litopia
Thanks to literary agent Peter Cox, who runs the Redhammer agency, our antics here at Nemesis Publishing will be catalogued over the coming months on the Litopia Daily podcast.
Peter has kindly invited me, on a monthly basis, to talk all things publishing and to chart how the development of Nemesis is progressing. We recorded the first piece this evening - watch this space for details on when it will air.
As with all these things, the moment the Skype call ended, I thought of several points I didn't mention, or should have explained better, but I' ve been a semi-regular guest panellist on the Litopia After Dark podcast for a while now, and know that Peter is very skilled in editing and preventing me from sounding like a halfwit, or at least a complete halfwit.
One thing I didn't touch on, but hopefully will in future updates, is the influence Peter's Litopia writing colony has had on me during the last two years. It's fair to say that, if I hadn't stumbled across Litopia, and made a cracking bunch of friends and contacts, and digested the advice and info they impart, Nemesis wouldn't be anywhere near the stage that it is now.
So, thanks Litopia, and thanks to Peter. If you have any interest in developing yourself as a writer, you could do a lot worse with an hour or so of your time to register on Litopia and spend a while finding out whether it is the kind of place for you.
Now, back to editing....
Tuesday 12 January 2010
Cool news - part two
As with all the best sequels, there's been a bit of time between our last post and this follow-up. Call it being a tease. Call it building suspense. Call it being downright slack...
But we're back now, folks, with this, our first blog post of 2010. To be honest, I've held off for a reason. The back end of last year was stupidly busy, with us publishing our first book, me finishing writing and then doing publicity for The Manx Giant, and then there was a short break away, the usual Christmas panic and mayhem. You know the sort of thing.
However, the overriding thing was this - we needed to wait for confirmation on cool news part two, and indeed, cool news part three.
Part two is now in, and here you have it. We have been approached by an acquaintance who is very supportive of what we're trying to do, which, for new readers of this here blog, is get an indie publishing house off the ground from a standing start. Absolute ground zero.
Anyway, this acquaintance/benefactor has offered to support us financially on a project by project basis - which means, in a nutshell, that as and when we need it, we can call in extra funds. This might be to secure a larger than usual print run, should we feel it warrants it; or it could be to secure a book where the design and print work is complex.
It's a good position for us - we retain full control of the business, including the decision on whether or not to publish a book, and the only proviso is an obvious one - if we put a particular project to our benefactor, and they aren't convinced, then they step away from it. No problem.
Ultimately, what this does give us is a bit of flexibility. Without it, we would have had to work from the ground up, with each book (potentially) having to do well before we could move up a grade in publishing terms.
With the benefactor in place, we can climb a couple of rungs on the ladder, which is what we are doing for our third book, which will follow the first issue of Vertigo, now set for an Easter launch.
Book three will be a biography. And that, of course, is where cool news part three comes in. But you'll have to wait for that. It won't be as long a wait as it was for this post, I promise...
And don't get me started on cool news part four. That's just too much.
But we're back now, folks, with this, our first blog post of 2010. To be honest, I've held off for a reason. The back end of last year was stupidly busy, with us publishing our first book, me finishing writing and then doing publicity for The Manx Giant, and then there was a short break away, the usual Christmas panic and mayhem. You know the sort of thing.
However, the overriding thing was this - we needed to wait for confirmation on cool news part two, and indeed, cool news part three.
Part two is now in, and here you have it. We have been approached by an acquaintance who is very supportive of what we're trying to do, which, for new readers of this here blog, is get an indie publishing house off the ground from a standing start. Absolute ground zero.
Anyway, this acquaintance/benefactor has offered to support us financially on a project by project basis - which means, in a nutshell, that as and when we need it, we can call in extra funds. This might be to secure a larger than usual print run, should we feel it warrants it; or it could be to secure a book where the design and print work is complex.
It's a good position for us - we retain full control of the business, including the decision on whether or not to publish a book, and the only proviso is an obvious one - if we put a particular project to our benefactor, and they aren't convinced, then they step away from it. No problem.
Ultimately, what this does give us is a bit of flexibility. Without it, we would have had to work from the ground up, with each book (potentially) having to do well before we could move up a grade in publishing terms.
With the benefactor in place, we can climb a couple of rungs on the ladder, which is what we are doing for our third book, which will follow the first issue of Vertigo, now set for an Easter launch.
Book three will be a biography. And that, of course, is where cool news part three comes in. But you'll have to wait for that. It won't be as long a wait as it was for this post, I promise...
And don't get me started on cool news part four. That's just too much.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
