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.
Friday, 16 October 2009
Cool news - part one
A month? Has it seriously been a month since we last met? That is very remiss of me, and I don't even have an excuse. Well, not one you'd believe, anyway.
So what's been happening? We're close to finishing the design on both the Arbory School book and the first issue of the Vertigo anthology. There's another week or so of work to do, but we're close. I can almost smell the print.
There have been a few things happening behind the scenes these last few weeks - three cool snippets of news, in fact, but I'll just tell you the first for now. Always keep something in reserve, Quirky, that's what my old cross-country coach used to tell me. (And I did. It was a bag of cakes. And very nice they were too)
The first news is that author Chris Ewan has kindly agreed to pen a foreword for Vertigo. Chris is the creator of Charlie Howard, the cool novelist/thief/reluctant hero of The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam and its sequel, The Good Thief's Guide to Paris. If you've not experienced Charlie Howard yet, give them a shot - they're fast, entertaining capers, with some deliciously dark and violent moments.
With the first issue of Vertigo almost in the bag, attention is turning to the second issue, and we'll be opening the floodgates for submissions soon. Watch this space.
For now, it's on with the design. Stay tuned for cool news part two and three...
So what's been happening? We're close to finishing the design on both the Arbory School book and the first issue of the Vertigo anthology. There's another week or so of work to do, but we're close. I can almost smell the print.
There have been a few things happening behind the scenes these last few weeks - three cool snippets of news, in fact, but I'll just tell you the first for now. Always keep something in reserve, Quirky, that's what my old cross-country coach used to tell me. (And I did. It was a bag of cakes. And very nice they were too)
The first news is that author Chris Ewan has kindly agreed to pen a foreword for Vertigo. Chris is the creator of Charlie Howard, the cool novelist/thief/reluctant hero of The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam and its sequel, The Good Thief's Guide to Paris. If you've not experienced Charlie Howard yet, give them a shot - they're fast, entertaining capers, with some deliciously dark and violent moments.
With the first issue of Vertigo almost in the bag, attention is turning to the second issue, and we'll be opening the floodgates for submissions soon. Watch this space.
For now, it's on with the design. Stay tuned for cool news part two and three...
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
Give us all your money...
One of the many dilemmas facing any new small publisher is how to get your name out there and generate submissions, from which you hope to find projects with real potential. It's a catch-22 situation - if you have no reputation to speak of, how can you expect writers to submit their query packages to you; but without those submissions, how are you going to build that reputation?
Many small publishers use competitions to generate submissions. You know the ones - advertised as the XYZ Publishing's Debut Novel Competition, or something similar. They are looking for previously unpublished writers and ask for the first several thousand words or first three chapters, and promise to launch the career of the winning entry. So, writers bundle their packages up, or attach them to emails, and off they go, accompanied by the entry fee.
That's right, entry fee. £10 usually does it, sometimes lower, sometimes higher.
This is where I have a problem. This kind of competition has potential, and we're considering it. But to charge a fee? I understand the so-called reasoning behind it - to cover administration etc. And some publishers might even suggest that charging a reasonable fee will weed out the serious writers from the fair weather scribblers.
I'm not convinced. If you charge a tenner a time, and generate, say, fifty entries, that's five hundred quid in your back pocket. A nice little earner, I guess. But it doesn't sit right with me.
If it is a 'writing competiton', with prizes etc, then entry fees go towards generating, or supplementing, the prize fund. No problem.
But what is this tenner actually for? Reading time? We're publishers. Reading submissions is part of the job. Administration? A few stamps for letters to tell all but one of the writers that they're out of luck? Most entries, I imagine, will come in by email these days.
So I'm still not sure what writers are forking out for. Maybe I'm missing something. Will we opt for such a competition? Very possibly. We'll keep you posted on this blog, and on the website, which, all being well, should be live by early to mid-October.
So, writers - have you entered these competitions run by publishers? Did you hand over any cash? Do you think we should charge an entry fee for a similar competition...? Okay, redundant question, perhaps. But I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
Many small publishers use competitions to generate submissions. You know the ones - advertised as the XYZ Publishing's Debut Novel Competition, or something similar. They are looking for previously unpublished writers and ask for the first several thousand words or first three chapters, and promise to launch the career of the winning entry. So, writers bundle their packages up, or attach them to emails, and off they go, accompanied by the entry fee.
That's right, entry fee. £10 usually does it, sometimes lower, sometimes higher.
This is where I have a problem. This kind of competition has potential, and we're considering it. But to charge a fee? I understand the so-called reasoning behind it - to cover administration etc. And some publishers might even suggest that charging a reasonable fee will weed out the serious writers from the fair weather scribblers.
I'm not convinced. If you charge a tenner a time, and generate, say, fifty entries, that's five hundred quid in your back pocket. A nice little earner, I guess. But it doesn't sit right with me.
If it is a 'writing competiton', with prizes etc, then entry fees go towards generating, or supplementing, the prize fund. No problem.
But what is this tenner actually for? Reading time? We're publishers. Reading submissions is part of the job. Administration? A few stamps for letters to tell all but one of the writers that they're out of luck? Most entries, I imagine, will come in by email these days.
So I'm still not sure what writers are forking out for. Maybe I'm missing something. Will we opt for such a competition? Very possibly. We'll keep you posted on this blog, and on the website, which, all being well, should be live by early to mid-October.
So, writers - have you entered these competitions run by publishers? Did you hand over any cash? Do you think we should charge an entry fee for a similar competition...? Okay, redundant question, perhaps. But I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
Friday, 14 August 2009
It's crunch time. Big time
It's been a long gestation period for Nemesis. Three years, or thereabouts. Sometimes feels like ten. We've had to wait for the right moment, taking work, weddings and babies into account, but we've kept beavering away behind the scenes.
The submission process for the Vertigo anthology brought in 40-plus stories, which were whittled down to ten, followed by edits for each, meetings with the authors, rewrites and more editing. Meanwhile, we agreed to publish a book marking the 175th anniversary of our local school, Arbory, which the young fella attends, and Mrs Q has been heavily involved with the school's PTA to gather the extensive research together. I guess 'facilitating' would be a better word than publishing in this instance; we're looking after design and printing, but all profits from the book will go to the school.
But now the waiting is almost over. Both Vertigo and the Arbory book have to be with the printers by mid-October at the latest (although Vertigo can probably wait a little longer) and there are just two months to go.
Work on Vertigo is, generally, on hold until I've finishing writing the final draft of The Manx Giant, which is being published by the Manx Heritage Foundation. However, there have been a couple of cool developments in recent weeks.
First, the template for the Nemesis website has been agreed with the designers, and it looks excellent. Once the pages have been created, they'll be handed over to us to insert the text ahead of the site going live. I'm hoping that will happen by mid-September at the latest.
Second, an up-and-coming author who is creating some serious buzz with a series of crime novels has provisionally agreed to write a foreword for Vertigo. He's asked to see a couple of the stories to give him a taste of what the anthology is about, and they should be with him in the next week or so after further edits. But I'll keep our power dry until then as to his identity...
It's an exciting time. And also a bloody daunting one. There's no time to waste now. For the next two months, it's going to be all hands to the pump. Late nights and early mornings. And yet finishing the design and getting the manuscripts to print is only half the battle - the publicity campaign for both books will start to roll into action over the next month and gather pace towards Christmas.
Meanwhile, we still have one eye on next year, and how to follow up what we hope will be a successful end to 2009. Watch this space.
The submission process for the Vertigo anthology brought in 40-plus stories, which were whittled down to ten, followed by edits for each, meetings with the authors, rewrites and more editing. Meanwhile, we agreed to publish a book marking the 175th anniversary of our local school, Arbory, which the young fella attends, and Mrs Q has been heavily involved with the school's PTA to gather the extensive research together. I guess 'facilitating' would be a better word than publishing in this instance; we're looking after design and printing, but all profits from the book will go to the school.
But now the waiting is almost over. Both Vertigo and the Arbory book have to be with the printers by mid-October at the latest (although Vertigo can probably wait a little longer) and there are just two months to go.
Work on Vertigo is, generally, on hold until I've finishing writing the final draft of The Manx Giant, which is being published by the Manx Heritage Foundation. However, there have been a couple of cool developments in recent weeks.
First, the template for the Nemesis website has been agreed with the designers, and it looks excellent. Once the pages have been created, they'll be handed over to us to insert the text ahead of the site going live. I'm hoping that will happen by mid-September at the latest.
Second, an up-and-coming author who is creating some serious buzz with a series of crime novels has provisionally agreed to write a foreword for Vertigo. He's asked to see a couple of the stories to give him a taste of what the anthology is about, and they should be with him in the next week or so after further edits. But I'll keep our power dry until then as to his identity...
It's an exciting time. And also a bloody daunting one. There's no time to waste now. For the next two months, it's going to be all hands to the pump. Late nights and early mornings. And yet finishing the design and getting the manuscripts to print is only half the battle - the publicity campaign for both books will start to roll into action over the next month and gather pace towards Christmas.
Meanwhile, we still have one eye on next year, and how to follow up what we hope will be a successful end to 2009. Watch this space.
Monday, 3 August 2009
What's that, authors? You want to be paid, as well?
I had the rather cool pleasure to be a guest panellist on the Litopia After Dark podcast at the weekend, alongside Martin Daniels, who, amongst other things, blogs for The Bookseller. There's not a whole lot he doesn't know, or have an opinion about, in the world of publishing.
If you’re not familiar with the podcast (and if you’re serious about books, you should be), each panellist raises an issue they want to talk (or rant) about. The ebook phenomenon has been a regular feature in recent months, and Friday night’s show was no exception.
We started with a look at the threatened boycott of Amazon's Kindle ebook reader by independent publisher Antellus, who has been riled by the fact that ebook editions published for the Kindle, and subsequently retired and taken off-line, are still being sold, not to mention claims about Amazon's seller agreement, which it says allows Amazon to modify and sell books from its suppliers in whatever format it chooses.
Martyn then weighed in on the issue of royalties from ebooks - and whether authors are being screwed. With advances going down, at all levels but the very top, and with a market where the recommended retail price often has little relevance, where is an author's money coming from - and how will authors be paid for ebook sales?
He suggested that, rather than an across the board contract between publisher and author, a publisher could have separate digital rights for each sales avenue - eg Amazon, Google - and on renewable contracts, allowing for changes. On the face of it, these suggestions sound reasonable.
The whole ebook industry remains an entirely unpredictable business. Its share of the book market is advancing year-on-year, but quite how that growth is going to continue over the next five, ten or twenty years is difficult to predict. The likes of the Kindle are increasing in popularity, yet I've yet to speak to one person who would ever consider going for an ebook over a traditional slab of paper, other than some agents, who like the flexibility of being able to take a couple of hundred manuscripts to the gym with them for a good read on the treadmill.
One thing is sure - as a new publisher, it's an area in which we need to keep our eye on the ball, starting now. I'm woefully ignorant about ebooks and their implications for the publishing industry, and I don't think I'm alone. It's going to mean a tonne of research and trying to understand an area that is complex to say the least. And we'll be considering Martyn's suggestions for when we enter the ebook market.
But it's equally important for authors to keep abreast of developments, to ensure they understand the implications for their profession. If ebooks are here to stay, then it's better to be in from the start than trying to play catch-up when the ebook industry is well and truly cooking.
It won't hang around for you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
