HB: Just got news today from one of our clients, whom we placed recently with a top class agent at a top class agency. The MS - a crime thriller - went out to all the usual suspects and was taken up by no one. The agent is now saying that he thinks that book won't get published at all.
I ought to be inured to this kind of news, but I'm not. The book was a cracker. Original. Tautly written. Novel setting. Good violent climax. There was nothing wrong with it, and plenty right.
If debut novels like this are being rejected, then God help us all. I suspect that if the book had only been a tad less original, a tad more formulaic then it would have been taken on. But why the hell should writers write to some narrow template of what's required? I tell you this book was good. I've read loads of crime novels recently and this MS was better than at least 80% of them. Better written, more tightly plotted, and a stunning central character.
The market has now narrowed to the point where it's asphixiating diversity and talent. The best of the material that does get published is still excellent, of course. But that's not the test. The test which matters is whether excellent books are being rejected - and they are, they are. Not just sometimes now, but routinely. It's awful. We should march on parliament, or raise barricades outside Waterstones, or kidnap Richard & Judy. Or something. But I don't like it. When I grow up, I want to be an accountant.
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6 comments:
What about Writers' Workshop setting up their own agency...or, better still, publishing house??!
Heartbreaking!
Now more than ever, people should write for the sheer love of it (or because they have no choice and would implode without it).
Writing for the sole purpose of getting published and finding fame and fortune is a recipe for terminal disappointment.
This makes for depressing reading.
I always like to discover new authors and originality in what I read. And I know I am not alone in that.
Formulaic is such a turn off.
I suspect you'd find accountancy boring, Harry.
The real problem is that some really terrible stuff is being published, and even being read by large numbers of people. Da Vinci spinoffs and Patterson clones get published while original work is bypassed.
I do hope the author does not give up or lower their standards in order to get published.
As in the music business, the publishing industry is run by people who understand business but not much more. In their eagerness to turn authors into brands, they have come to treat books like soup. Was Warhol on target with his Campbell's soup-can art or what?
New authors, with new ideas, they don't stand much chance. And yet, now and again one of them slips through... So I haven't given up all hope yet.
Tell your client to remember that even though his work had previously been published, James Lee Burke had to suffer 100+ rejections on his 'Lost Get-Back Boogie' novel before it was finally published by a small university press. It then snagged a Pulitzer nomination. So encourage your author to be persistent and never bend to give publishers what they think want.
How disappointing. I suppose you tried the smaller presses - eg SortOf books published Bad Traffic by Simon Lewis, a great debut I thought.
How about the author trying Lulu or other POD? Does not prevent a later book deal if one comes into view.
Agree with Uriah that there is terrible stuff being published, but also lots of good stuff - as readers we are spoilt for choice. But from the publishing angle, the smaller presses may be more likely to take the commercial risk of a new author?
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