There are lots of popular complaints among paid writers (a put-upon species), but one of the most frequent is that when you tell people you are a writer, they immediately assume you are raking in the money. In recent years, this problem has particularly exasperated children's authors, who tend to earn peanuts and frequently encounter members of the public who believe they are Rowling in it.
However, I have to admit this has never happened to me once. It may in part be because I am not the most accomplished socialiser, and in part because the expanded phrase 'freelance writer and editor', my usual self-description, rather strips away the oak-panelling that the uninitiated might like to apply to the word 'writer'.
Perhaps this failure of my surroundings to deliver the due insult is the deathly clue that proves I really am not a proper writer. I look forward to my initiation with suitably mixed feelings.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
Dinosaur publishers? Love ’em!
My stint in-house at HarperCollins is up at the end of February, so I am again at that special time in a freelancer’s life that is either known as ‘flapping around looking for employment’ or ‘selecting one’s next assignment’, depending on whether panic or PR are in the verbal driving seat.
The CVs and nudge emails have been going out in the usual fashion. I have quite a number of leads and even if three quarters of them evaporate – a pretty standard proportion, unfortunately – something should firm up into work for March.
One CV produced an informal interview with a well-known figure in publishing who reported that he’d clicked through to my website and blog and been very impressed. I was suitably struck by our meeting as well – I thought maverick publishers of that vintage had all been taken out and shot with propelling pencils long ago, but I’m glad they apparently haven’t. Now running an imprint at a large house, he gave the impression of a grand old brontosaurus plagued by velociraptors with clipboards but well able, when necessary, to stomp good and hard.
The admirable dino publisher, who has a track record of digging up bestsellers, opined that he can’t find anything much to publish at the moment. He’s looking for stuff he likes – not necessarily loves passionately, because then you get too close to the material – pretty much regardless of genre. I really hope he finds it, whether it generates any work for me or not.
One of the downsides of being involved in today’s commercial publishing industry is that it can leave you feeling like individuality and a love of books are shameful onanism, good for PR puff but rather unprofessional in practice. I came away from the admirable dino feeling a bit better about myself on that score.
I am an editor and I like books!!!!!
The CVs and nudge emails have been going out in the usual fashion. I have quite a number of leads and even if three quarters of them evaporate – a pretty standard proportion, unfortunately – something should firm up into work for March.
One CV produced an informal interview with a well-known figure in publishing who reported that he’d clicked through to my website and blog and been very impressed. I was suitably struck by our meeting as well – I thought maverick publishers of that vintage had all been taken out and shot with propelling pencils long ago, but I’m glad they apparently haven’t. Now running an imprint at a large house, he gave the impression of a grand old brontosaurus plagued by velociraptors with clipboards but well able, when necessary, to stomp good and hard.
The admirable dino publisher, who has a track record of digging up bestsellers, opined that he can’t find anything much to publish at the moment. He’s looking for stuff he likes – not necessarily loves passionately, because then you get too close to the material – pretty much regardless of genre. I really hope he finds it, whether it generates any work for me or not.
One of the downsides of being involved in today’s commercial publishing industry is that it can leave you feeling like individuality and a love of books are shameful onanism, good for PR puff but rather unprofessional in practice. I came away from the admirable dino feeling a bit better about myself on that score.
I am an editor and I like books!!!!!
Monday, February 1, 2010
How to be a half-published author and do quite nicely
It sounds like a stupid question, but what exactly is a published author? And is becoming one always like flipping a switch from failure to success, or are there other ways?
It can be like flipping a switch, if you take the traditional approach of submitting and submitting and submitting some more, and finally getting plucked out of the slush pile and offered that dreamt-of deal. But lots of people take other routes; and the other routes are often more sustainable.
My books, for example, have sold over two million copies. So the chances are good that I am more published than thou. On the other hand, new writers dreaming of success don’t usually imagine a lift-the-flap book that doesn’t have their name in it, or even a hardback gift book that credits them in the indicia (small print). In the public imagination, a published author is very definitely someone with their name on the front of a book – with the large exception of self-published books, which won’t get you into the Society of Authors, and which the literary person in the street instinctively feels constitute cheating.
So as a tie-in writer I’m definitely not as ‘published’ as Aardvark A. Author, who has sold two million books under his own name. My writing has to be good (as in fit for purpose, obviously, not as in elegantly refined), but readers are buying the books for the Rupert Bear and Ben 10 content, not for me. On the other hand, if Ben 10 stops selling, I can onto the next thing. If Aardvark’s fans lose interest in his work, he’s in trouble.
When I decided to Be a Writer a depressingly long time ago I definitely thought in terms of names on covers. But dreams modify themselves, and I’m not the type to accept living in a hovel while waiting to be discovered. I was aiming to get an original novel into print by the age of 30; in reality I got Gordon and the Tree, a Japanese-issue only board book containing a six-line story about a Thomas the Tank Engine character. Of course it wasn’t the pinnacle of my aspiration, either as a writer or an editor, but it did happen. A friend of mine, Jonathan Clements, who now is writing under his own name, started out with the resplendent ‘I Love My Tamagotchi’ by ‘Bronwen Komatsubara’ (book history here. Another friend, an academic who really belongs in an ivory tower if there were any left, reports that he has hopes of talking his latest project fee ‘up from peanuts to at least, well, Brazil nuts’.
‘Authors’ in the popular, study-dwelling, high-royalty-earning sense, make up a very small proportion of published writers. Editors who write on the side are a fairly common breed too; it’s not so much that editors are failed writers as that the skills are often complementary, and the income from editing is steadier. Even if you are not already in the industry as an editor, if you are serious about making a living from writing I would recommend starting by targeting a small area where there will be limited competition – it could be tie-in titles for something you are personally enthusiastic about – as a way of breaking in. It might take a while before you hit the right publisher with the right idea, but then you spend an awful lot of time in the slush pile, too. I haven’t submitted original fiction for a while, but when it will go straight in the ‘read now’ pile because of all the credits I can list (yes, contacts help too, but credits help much more).
I do know that when I’ve mentioned this to would-be authors, they don’t seem to be convinced. The SCBWI organiser I chatted to was sceptical about whether the subject would be of interest to members. I guess the issue is that nobody looks at me and thinks ‘Wow, I wish I was her!’ But there are people who wish they were Jonathan, and there are people who would wish for my freelance income – it’s far from stellar, but it beats what you get from royalties on a midlist novel.
I suppose the moral is to write anything you get paid for, and be creative in your search for those things.
By the way – got anything you want written (and will pay for?). Do drop me a line…
It can be like flipping a switch, if you take the traditional approach of submitting and submitting and submitting some more, and finally getting plucked out of the slush pile and offered that dreamt-of deal. But lots of people take other routes; and the other routes are often more sustainable.
My books, for example, have sold over two million copies. So the chances are good that I am more published than thou. On the other hand, new writers dreaming of success don’t usually imagine a lift-the-flap book that doesn’t have their name in it, or even a hardback gift book that credits them in the indicia (small print). In the public imagination, a published author is very definitely someone with their name on the front of a book – with the large exception of self-published books, which won’t get you into the Society of Authors, and which the literary person in the street instinctively feels constitute cheating.
So as a tie-in writer I’m definitely not as ‘published’ as Aardvark A. Author, who has sold two million books under his own name. My writing has to be good (as in fit for purpose, obviously, not as in elegantly refined), but readers are buying the books for the Rupert Bear and Ben 10 content, not for me. On the other hand, if Ben 10 stops selling, I can onto the next thing. If Aardvark’s fans lose interest in his work, he’s in trouble.
When I decided to Be a Writer a depressingly long time ago I definitely thought in terms of names on covers. But dreams modify themselves, and I’m not the type to accept living in a hovel while waiting to be discovered. I was aiming to get an original novel into print by the age of 30; in reality I got Gordon and the Tree, a Japanese-issue only board book containing a six-line story about a Thomas the Tank Engine character. Of course it wasn’t the pinnacle of my aspiration, either as a writer or an editor, but it did happen. A friend of mine, Jonathan Clements, who now is writing under his own name, started out with the resplendent ‘I Love My Tamagotchi’ by ‘Bronwen Komatsubara’ (book history here. Another friend, an academic who really belongs in an ivory tower if there were any left, reports that he has hopes of talking his latest project fee ‘up from peanuts to at least, well, Brazil nuts’.
‘Authors’ in the popular, study-dwelling, high-royalty-earning sense, make up a very small proportion of published writers. Editors who write on the side are a fairly common breed too; it’s not so much that editors are failed writers as that the skills are often complementary, and the income from editing is steadier. Even if you are not already in the industry as an editor, if you are serious about making a living from writing I would recommend starting by targeting a small area where there will be limited competition – it could be tie-in titles for something you are personally enthusiastic about – as a way of breaking in. It might take a while before you hit the right publisher with the right idea, but then you spend an awful lot of time in the slush pile, too. I haven’t submitted original fiction for a while, but when it will go straight in the ‘read now’ pile because of all the credits I can list (yes, contacts help too, but credits help much more).
I do know that when I’ve mentioned this to would-be authors, they don’t seem to be convinced. The SCBWI organiser I chatted to was sceptical about whether the subject would be of interest to members. I guess the issue is that nobody looks at me and thinks ‘Wow, I wish I was her!’ But there are people who wish they were Jonathan, and there are people who would wish for my freelance income – it’s far from stellar, but it beats what you get from royalties on a midlist novel.
I suppose the moral is to write anything you get paid for, and be creative in your search for those things.
By the way – got anything you want written (and will pay for?). Do drop me a line…
Monday, January 25, 2010
On Emmas
My name is Emma.
Well, it’s not in fact, but Emma is undeniably my category. Here’s a definition of the Emma phenomenon that dates from 2007 but is still entirely applicable today.
As an Emma, I’m female, white, young and work in publishing. On the other hand, I personally am working class by origin if not education, and I certainly weigh more than eight stone, so that makes me a bit deviant as Emmas go.
The sad thing is that the overall stereotype really is accurate enough for these minor features to make me stand out in a publishing environment. I am – mostly, but not entirely facetiously – worried that when I turn 35 in 2011 I will go up in a puff of smoke, disqualified from the world of books. You can escape that fate by becoming a senior manager, but that doesn’t really work for freelancers.
As the Guardian said, a lot of us Emmas are in fact very good at our jobs. But the homogeneity does create problems for publishers, over and above the obvious lack of non-white and male perspectives feeding into the books. Nobody will name names, but of course you sometimes get incompetent or vindictive managers in publishing like everywhere else, and the notorious cowering of Emmas en masse – each trying to be meeker than the other, in fear for her £20k job – gives the rotten apples scope to do what they like.
My downfall as an Emma has always been an inability to cower like that. I just know that if I forced myself to do it, I couldn’t face myself in the mirror the next morning. My approach on seeing a problem is to say “How can I fix it/help you fix it?” I do believe that this is actually a more valuable approach. It’s certainly one that fits with my decision to freelance. A sensible employer will value my contribution, but I also have the security of knowing that if an employer turns out not to be sensible (an experience, I must add, that I have luckily not had for a while now) I can go elsewhere.
I really love books so I am still working on them in spite of some of the things I have seen. And every industry has its nasty side, of course. But I do wonder how many of the most talented people – because the talented people are often the ones who will speak out against mediocrity and stupidity – are forced out of publishing by the kind of situation I’ve sketched above.
And that’s over and above the people who didn’t get an editorial job in the first place because they didn’t even look like they were called Emma.
Does anyone have any tales of Emmas or personal Emmahood? Anonymous responses welcome.
Well, it’s not in fact, but Emma is undeniably my category. Here’s a definition of the Emma phenomenon that dates from 2007 but is still entirely applicable today.
As an Emma, I’m female, white, young and work in publishing. On the other hand, I personally am working class by origin if not education, and I certainly weigh more than eight stone, so that makes me a bit deviant as Emmas go.
The sad thing is that the overall stereotype really is accurate enough for these minor features to make me stand out in a publishing environment. I am – mostly, but not entirely facetiously – worried that when I turn 35 in 2011 I will go up in a puff of smoke, disqualified from the world of books. You can escape that fate by becoming a senior manager, but that doesn’t really work for freelancers.
As the Guardian said, a lot of us Emmas are in fact very good at our jobs. But the homogeneity does create problems for publishers, over and above the obvious lack of non-white and male perspectives feeding into the books. Nobody will name names, but of course you sometimes get incompetent or vindictive managers in publishing like everywhere else, and the notorious cowering of Emmas en masse – each trying to be meeker than the other, in fear for her £20k job – gives the rotten apples scope to do what they like.
My downfall as an Emma has always been an inability to cower like that. I just know that if I forced myself to do it, I couldn’t face myself in the mirror the next morning. My approach on seeing a problem is to say “How can I fix it/help you fix it?” I do believe that this is actually a more valuable approach. It’s certainly one that fits with my decision to freelance. A sensible employer will value my contribution, but I also have the security of knowing that if an employer turns out not to be sensible (an experience, I must add, that I have luckily not had for a while now) I can go elsewhere.
I really love books so I am still working on them in spite of some of the things I have seen. And every industry has its nasty side, of course. But I do wonder how many of the most talented people – because the talented people are often the ones who will speak out against mediocrity and stupidity – are forced out of publishing by the kind of situation I’ve sketched above.
And that’s over and above the people who didn’t get an editorial job in the first place because they didn’t even look like they were called Emma.
Does anyone have any tales of Emmas or personal Emmahood? Anonymous responses welcome.
Monday, January 18, 2010
What editors think – the truth
As any fule kno, editors think profound thoughts about the mysteries of the market. They make and break careers, not on a whim, but as part of their grand vision.
Sometimes.
With apologies to all those very sensible blog posts that tell writers they must think like editors in order to get published, here, with commentary, are some classic editorial thoughts.
1) “Yes! YES! I found a typo in the Commissioning Editor’s prize project!”
It is a truism that the first time a representative from the publisher opens any newly-printed book, they will find an error. It is – ignobly – reassuring to be the person who finds the error in a book edited by someone senior to you.
2) “OMG, that woman from Production is coming – hide under the desk!”
The Production department are the bearers of such uncomfortable revelations as, ‘If you don’t give us finished files for that book tomorrow, it won’t get printed.’
3) “What the hell did Fred from Sales and Marketing mean by telling me to give this football book a ‘classic, Peter Rabbit-y feel’?* Was that one of the things he meant to say, one of the things he’ll deny ever saying, or one of the things that’s true every alternate Wednesday after he’s had a meeting with the Early Learning Centre?”
*Not a verbatim example, but an accurately representative one.
Editorial departments are generally staffed by introverts. Sales and marketing departments are of necessity staffed by people who are good at enthusing and/or giving the hard sell, and, as part of keeping their ear to the ground, they are often heavily influenced by what was said at their most recent client meeting. Communication between the two parties can consequently be difficult – if vital.
4) “I hate this author. I hate this author. They are rubbish. They are arrogant. I have to be nice to this author. I have to be nice to this author.”
Frequently accompanied by an undercurrent of wondering how to rewrite the book without the author noticing.
5) “I love this author! I love this author! What’s their next project?”
No, really, this reaction is not hard to achieve by being sane, punctual and courteous.
6) “OK, so on a print run of 10,000 … 75% retailer’s discount for Massive Supermarkets Inc on [£4.99 - £1 off (ref deal struck by Sales department)] = £1.00 minus royalty at 10% = £0.90 minus PPB, shipping, warehousing costs as provided by Production = 66p minus standard percentile deduction to cover cost of running building and employing me = profit of … -7p per copy. Oh, ****, I don’t think the author is going to get that hand-tooled gold leaf they wanted.”
Editors are responsible for costings, i.e. working out in advance that it is financially feasible to publish the projects they are responsible for. Generally they have to show a certain margin before managers will greenlight the project. A common editorial response to completing a costing is to wonder how the publishing business is still functioning.
7) Oh dear, the pigeon holes have collapsed under the weight of slush and buried the editorial assistant again. Now I can help her out, and deliver some nurturing advice at the same time. At least I’m not her, eh?”
Everyone needs something to feel good about, you know.
8) Right, just three hours of meetings this afternoon, then I can go home and maybe read a manuscript or two.
If you work in young children’s publishing, you are generally lucky enough to avoid this syndrome, given the length of manuscripts. If you’re in adult fiction, not so much.
9) I really, really, need that revised cover from the Design department. I have a choice of threats, flattery, complaining to the manager or doing it myself in Quark. Hm. Best go and talk to them.” [an hour elapses] “OMG, what has happened to this file? I only tweaked the text box and the file’s gone mad. Help, help call IT!!!
This is an ever-present temptation if you think you know your way around basic design functions.
10) “OK, I can just about afford to stay in my job if my husband/partner/hamster gets a pay rise.”
The publishing industry is notorious – if editors were any lower paid, they’d be writers.
***
There you have it. Think like an editor… at your peril.
Sometimes.
With apologies to all those very sensible blog posts that tell writers they must think like editors in order to get published, here, with commentary, are some classic editorial thoughts.
1) “Yes! YES! I found a typo in the Commissioning Editor’s prize project!”
It is a truism that the first time a representative from the publisher opens any newly-printed book, they will find an error. It is – ignobly – reassuring to be the person who finds the error in a book edited by someone senior to you.
2) “OMG, that woman from Production is coming – hide under the desk!”
The Production department are the bearers of such uncomfortable revelations as, ‘If you don’t give us finished files for that book tomorrow, it won’t get printed.’
3) “What the hell did Fred from Sales and Marketing mean by telling me to give this football book a ‘classic, Peter Rabbit-y feel’?* Was that one of the things he meant to say, one of the things he’ll deny ever saying, or one of the things that’s true every alternate Wednesday after he’s had a meeting with the Early Learning Centre?”
*Not a verbatim example, but an accurately representative one.
Editorial departments are generally staffed by introverts. Sales and marketing departments are of necessity staffed by people who are good at enthusing and/or giving the hard sell, and, as part of keeping their ear to the ground, they are often heavily influenced by what was said at their most recent client meeting. Communication between the two parties can consequently be difficult – if vital.
4) “I hate this author. I hate this author. They are rubbish. They are arrogant. I have to be nice to this author. I have to be nice to this author.”
Frequently accompanied by an undercurrent of wondering how to rewrite the book without the author noticing.
5) “I love this author! I love this author! What’s their next project?”
No, really, this reaction is not hard to achieve by being sane, punctual and courteous.
6) “OK, so on a print run of 10,000 … 75% retailer’s discount for Massive Supermarkets Inc on [£4.99 - £1 off (ref deal struck by Sales department)] = £1.00 minus royalty at 10% = £0.90 minus PPB, shipping, warehousing costs as provided by Production = 66p minus standard percentile deduction to cover cost of running building and employing me = profit of … -7p per copy. Oh, ****, I don’t think the author is going to get that hand-tooled gold leaf they wanted.”
Editors are responsible for costings, i.e. working out in advance that it is financially feasible to publish the projects they are responsible for. Generally they have to show a certain margin before managers will greenlight the project. A common editorial response to completing a costing is to wonder how the publishing business is still functioning.
7) Oh dear, the pigeon holes have collapsed under the weight of slush and buried the editorial assistant again. Now I can help her out, and deliver some nurturing advice at the same time. At least I’m not her, eh?”
Everyone needs something to feel good about, you know.
8) Right, just three hours of meetings this afternoon, then I can go home and maybe read a manuscript or two.
If you work in young children’s publishing, you are generally lucky enough to avoid this syndrome, given the length of manuscripts. If you’re in adult fiction, not so much.
9) I really, really, need that revised cover from the Design department. I have a choice of threats, flattery, complaining to the manager or doing it myself in Quark. Hm. Best go and talk to them.” [an hour elapses] “OMG, what has happened to this file? I only tweaked the text box and the file’s gone mad. Help, help call IT!!!
This is an ever-present temptation if you think you know your way around basic design functions.
10) “OK, I can just about afford to stay in my job if my husband/partner/hamster gets a pay rise.”
The publishing industry is notorious – if editors were any lower paid, they’d be writers.
***
There you have it. Think like an editor… at your peril.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Rhyming picture books - what's the problem?
Three facts:
1) An agent I was in talks with complimented my picture book MS Ponder the Robot. then concluded: “It rhymes, so I can’t sell it.”
2) A quick google revealed this quote from an editor: “Rhyming books don’t sell.”
3) There is a certain recent book called The Gruffalo. And an older one called The Cat in the Hat. And, well, quite a lot of the content of your local bookshop’s picture book section…
Can I get a ‘huh’? This sort of thing confuses me, and I’m in publishing. But there are some good reasons why editors don’t like rhyme.
A certain amount of instinctive recoil arises from the fact that tin-eared pseudopoetry is a form favoured by the very worst no-hopers. That doesn’t mean rhyme can’t be executed skilfully, but there is also a sound business reason for avoiding it where possible, namely the question of co-editions (translations done by foreign publishers). The UK is a very small market, and picture books – which can effectively double the usual advance/royalties bill by involving an author and an illustrator on equal terms – are costly.
For a picture book to work out financially, the publisher has to be confident of selling the book on abroad. If it says ‘Julia Donaldson’ on the cover, that provides an incentive to overlook the linguistic awkwardness of dealing with rhyme. If it says ‘Julia Bloggs’, that probably doesn’t. I’ve published rhyme for children, but mostly in my capacity as couplet writer for the Rupert Bear Annual. So I’m demonstrably competent, but not personally saleable.
“So why,” the sane and hapless might ask, “is there such a lot of crud on the shelves? It’s not all The Gruffalo out there.”
This is another very good point, and the reason is the usual one in young children’s publishing: a lot of the uninspired stuff is churned out by editors with no budget for commissioning text. Some of those women are editor-writers, but some of them, understandably, just signed up to do fulfil their job description.
Then there are reasons why editors do sometimes like rhyme. These are best summed up under the all-purpose reflection that editors often have no clue what they like until they see it, and then they pounce on it, cooing. It’s not impossible to sell a rhyming picture book by a newcomer. It’s just that anyone trying to do so has even more than the usual number of obstacles to jump over.
What writers will know and agents and publishers probably won’t care about (unless it coincides with commercial necessity) is that sometimes a story just demands a certain format. That was the case with Ponder needing to be in verse; when I rewrote him in prose he lost his charm. I knew it was self-indulgence to write a verse picture book, but I did it anyway, because even writers of mass market novelty books have souls. Or I believe that I have one.
What I haven’t done is make huge and futile efforts to sell Ponder. I needed a sample for my website, and my relevant published writing is all copyrighted to other people, so Ponder has come in useful there, in a rather literal illustration of the truism that nothing you write is ever wasted.
It all comes down to the writer’s mantra: “Do what you have to do, but never forget what will and won’t sell.”
I wonder, do you have a rhyming picture book in the desk drawer? Is it there because it was an embarrassing beginner effort, or because of market conditions?
ETA: As Thomas Taylor points out below, and I should have put in originally, there's one more reason for editors being reluctant to take on verse books - and that's the editing process. It's so much harder when you've got to unpick and resew someone else's metre and rhyme!
1) An agent I was in talks with complimented my picture book MS Ponder the Robot. then concluded: “It rhymes, so I can’t sell it.”
2) A quick google revealed this quote from an editor: “Rhyming books don’t sell.”
3) There is a certain recent book called The Gruffalo. And an older one called The Cat in the Hat. And, well, quite a lot of the content of your local bookshop’s picture book section…
Can I get a ‘huh’? This sort of thing confuses me, and I’m in publishing. But there are some good reasons why editors don’t like rhyme.
A certain amount of instinctive recoil arises from the fact that tin-eared pseudopoetry is a form favoured by the very worst no-hopers. That doesn’t mean rhyme can’t be executed skilfully, but there is also a sound business reason for avoiding it where possible, namely the question of co-editions (translations done by foreign publishers). The UK is a very small market, and picture books – which can effectively double the usual advance/royalties bill by involving an author and an illustrator on equal terms – are costly.
For a picture book to work out financially, the publisher has to be confident of selling the book on abroad. If it says ‘Julia Donaldson’ on the cover, that provides an incentive to overlook the linguistic awkwardness of dealing with rhyme. If it says ‘Julia Bloggs’, that probably doesn’t. I’ve published rhyme for children, but mostly in my capacity as couplet writer for the Rupert Bear Annual. So I’m demonstrably competent, but not personally saleable.
“So why,” the sane and hapless might ask, “is there such a lot of crud on the shelves? It’s not all The Gruffalo out there.”
This is another very good point, and the reason is the usual one in young children’s publishing: a lot of the uninspired stuff is churned out by editors with no budget for commissioning text. Some of those women are editor-writers, but some of them, understandably, just signed up to do fulfil their job description.
Then there are reasons why editors do sometimes like rhyme. These are best summed up under the all-purpose reflection that editors often have no clue what they like until they see it, and then they pounce on it, cooing. It’s not impossible to sell a rhyming picture book by a newcomer. It’s just that anyone trying to do so has even more than the usual number of obstacles to jump over.
What writers will know and agents and publishers probably won’t care about (unless it coincides with commercial necessity) is that sometimes a story just demands a certain format. That was the case with Ponder needing to be in verse; when I rewrote him in prose he lost his charm. I knew it was self-indulgence to write a verse picture book, but I did it anyway, because even writers of mass market novelty books have souls. Or I believe that I have one.
What I haven’t done is make huge and futile efforts to sell Ponder. I needed a sample for my website, and my relevant published writing is all copyrighted to other people, so Ponder has come in useful there, in a rather literal illustration of the truism that nothing you write is ever wasted.
It all comes down to the writer’s mantra: “Do what you have to do, but never forget what will and won’t sell.”
I wonder, do you have a rhyming picture book in the desk drawer? Is it there because it was an embarrassing beginner effort, or because of market conditions?
ETA: As Thomas Taylor points out below, and I should have put in originally, there's one more reason for editors being reluctant to take on verse books - and that's the editing process. It's so much harder when you've got to unpick and resew someone else's metre and rhyme!
Sunday, January 3, 2010
My website is go
Happy New Year! I have been working a lot over the holiday, because I’m like that.
One result is that my website is up and running! It will be a while before search engines index it, but I hope people will start linking to it.
Mainly it’s designed to set out information about the services I offer, but there is also some content from the blog and some original content about publishing. Plus, of course, a small cartoon hippo.
I have particular areas of expertise within publishing, such as novelty formats and writing in different character voices, and I hope this will make me an obvious choice for certain kinds of work.
Oh and if you visit the site and find something doesn’t work, please tell me!
One result is that my website is up and running! It will be a while before search engines index it, but I hope people will start linking to it.
Mainly it’s designed to set out information about the services I offer, but there is also some content from the blog and some original content about publishing. Plus, of course, a small cartoon hippo.
I have particular areas of expertise within publishing, such as novelty formats and writing in different character voices, and I hope this will make me an obvious choice for certain kinds of work.
Oh and if you visit the site and find something doesn’t work, please tell me!
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