'TheTime Hunters' author Carl Ashmore asks: Dear Harper Collins, can I have my series back, please?

In September 2010, I was invited by the Strictly Writing team to write about my experiences on the Harper Collins writers website ‘Authonomy’. I had gained a gold star for my children’s book ‘The Time Hunters’, and a highly positive review from a Harper Collins editor. Here is a passage from that review:

'I really enjoyed reading THE TIME HUNTERS. You start off the action with a bang, drawing the reader in right away. Your writing is strong, and in places has a classic feel.... It has terrific potential.'

In October 2010, I decided to independently publish ‘The Time Hunters’ and made it available as print and eBook. Pretty quickly, the book gained a number of very positive reviews and began to sell well, generating a solid and loyal fan base. Since then, the book has gained 128 five star reviews across Amazon.co.uk and .com and sold twenty thousand plus copies. I have also published two sequels, ‘The Time Hunters and the Box of Eternity’ and ‘The Time Hunters and the Spear of Fate’ and they have sold equally well and maintained the same level of acclaim. I have also sold the foreign rights to a Brazilian major publisher, Bertrand Brasil, and ‘The Time Hunters’ is due to be published in that territory at some point in 2013.   

To sum up the plot, ‘The Time Hunters’ is about a young girl, Becky, and her brother, Joe, who, along with their time-travelling uncle and Will Scarlet, embark on a series of fast-paced adventures in a treasure hunt for powerful ancient relics.

Anyway, this month saw the publication of a new children’s series by Harper Collins. It’s called (I’m sure you can see where this is going) ‘Time Hunters’. And the plot – well, it’s about a boy and girl who embark on a series of fast-paced adventures in a treasure hunt through time for powerful ancient relics. Now, in many ways, that is where the similarities appear to end, but they don’t. In Book 5 of their Time Hunters they encounter ‘Blackbeard’ (I meet him in ‘The Time Hunters and the Box of Eternity’ (2011)).  In Book 4 of their series, they visit Ancient Greece, I do it in ‘The Time Hunters’ (2010). In Book 6 of their series they visit Ancient Egypt and battle mummies, I do that in ‘The Time Hunters and the Spear of Fate’ (2013).

I know full well you cannot copyright a title or idea, but this seems more than that. My series has been exceedingly visible across the Internet since 2010, so why on earth would anyone publish a new series under the same name, particularly when the general premise, some storylines and target audience are identical?

Like many writers, when preparing a new book, I spend countless hours considering titles, trying to find the most suitable one to reflect the tone, storyline, target audience and genre of the book. Upon crafting a list of candidates, I’ll Google what already exists. This is where I’m incensed by the actions of Harper Collins. ‘The Time Hunters’ (yeah, I know they dropped the ‘The’) is extremely visible whichever search engine you use. I also understand that some titles are common and will have multiple books attached to them. As an experiment, I Googled the term ‘Killing Time’ and found there were over twenty books from different authors with that title on Amazon alone. However, ‘The Time Hunters’ is a much less generic title. Plus, it is indelibly linked with an established and popular series that already exists … my series.

 

Furthermore, my frustrations are compounded by the fact the new ‘Time Hunters’ is published by Harper Collins - the very same company who said my book had ‘terrific potential.’

I have contacted the author and she (Chris Baker is a pseudonym) has pointed out she was working for a book packaging company, Hothouse Fiction, and that the name, concept, copyright etc. all belong to Harper Collins and Hothouse. She said she was merely a ‘hired pen’, that this kind of thing ‘no doubt happens a lot’ and I must find it ‘frustrating’. Well, in truth, there are other ‘f’ words I could use to more accurately describe my feelings about this.

And, in this case, I’m not sure this situation does happen as often as she suggests. As I said earlier, this is not merely the duplication of a title, or the similarity of the concept, this is a combination of the two that damages a brand (I hate that term) I have worked on since 2005. Clearly, if I approached another major publisher and pitched them a children’s time travel series about a boy and a girl that travel through time on a treasure hunt, then surely their response would be  ‘Well, hang on, Carl, a series like yours already exists and is published by Harper Collins.’

Let me just say I bear no ill feelings toward the author of the new TH series, whatsoever. She seems very personable and is just a writer trying to eke an income in a difficult publishing world. And I wholeheartedly believe her when she says she hasn’t seen my work. However, someone would have seen it, they had to have seen it - someone at Hothouse or at Harper Collins - and they still pressed ahead with their ‘Time Hunters’ series.

I’m just the little guy and they’re a major corporation. I write from my kitchen in a terraced house in Crewe, my four-year old daughter doing everything she can to stop me writing a word, whilst the people that have created this situation probably swan around Soho quaffing goblets of Viognier. The two stories are probably different enough for them to argue there has been no plagiarism, but I can’t deny this situation smarts, somewhat - no, as a matter of fact, it stinks…

Furthermore, as using the same title and concept of an existing series is clearly not an issue, then the next time I write a children’s series I’ll make sure it’s about young wizards and call it ‘Harry Potter’. No better still, I’ll call it ‘Ziggy Waggabobble and the Mosphorous Flagdulaters’, a story about heroin-addicted frogs that pepper their conversations with swear words. Let’s see if the Viognier quaffers want to nick that, too …

If you have any thoughts then my email is carlashmore@mailcity.com

What being published has taught me

So, after a hiatus of several years, I put out another book this year, and was reminded of the following… so for the newbie, here are my lessons, I hope they save you some pain.

My universally acclaimed book - oh, wait...

 

You won’t get the support you think you’ll get: getting published – or, indeed, self-publishing – is a huge deal for any writer. It’s likely one of the most exciting things that ever happens to you, and you expect all of your friends to be swept away on the same tide of excitement as you, and you console yourself that, hey, whatever the reaction of the wider world, you have rock solid support from your nearest and dearest, right? Um, not quite. While hopefully at least some of your friends will be excited/pleased/supportive, the most common reaction is an initial ‘well done, you’ followed by a crashing wave of apathy. This can be disappointing, dismaying and downright hurtful, but really, it’s natural: just like every new parent thinks their baby is the centre of the universe, to almost everyone else it’s a piece of good news to slot into an already hectic life (I can already hear certain writers thinking ‘bah! A baby only takes 9 months, my book took years!’). People have their own stuff going on, and there’s a whole list of reasons  hy they may not be (or be able to be) the cheerleaders you hoped they’d be: they’re busy, they’re stressed, they're skint, it’s not professionally appropriate for them to publically endorse you, or, and this is a tough one, they actually think your efforts are shockingly poor and you are not to be encouraged to continue in any way, and they won’t be hypocritical. The thing is, you’ll never know which of these reasons applies, because the only acceptable response to this apathy is to accept it and move on (OK, you get to rant to a supportive friend – but only in person, never online, and only once or twice. That’s your lot).

Everybody I know bought this book! No, wait...

 

Not everyone will like you: to re-use the baby analogy, you might think your precious is the cutest thing in the world, everyone else might think it looks like Gollum. Nobody gets published to universal acclaim and there are a whole load of people out there who will mightily detest whatever you have done, no matter how good you believe it to be. Agents, publishers, reviewers, readers – lots of them will think you suck. Again, the best thing to do is to rant to a sympathetic friend (never online!) and move on: though it is worth trying to be at least partially objective, as if a theme is repeated throughout the criticism it might be something you need to work on and improve (if you are left feeling the whole world doesn’t understand you, then you have to face the fact that you might be incomprehensible). But bear in mind that if you created a perfect, flawless and beautiful piece of work, someone, somewhere on the internet will still hate it.

 

EVERYONE likes Christmas, right? No, wait...

 

Ask – and you will be dazzled by the support you do receive: see, you thought I was going to be all negative, didn’t you? But honestly, put yourself and your work out there and ask for feedback and support and you will be amazed by what comes back to you. People will astonish you with their generosity and enthusiasm and acts of kindness and assistance, even if often these are not the people from where you would expect such support. Be grateful, and open, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

And remember – enjoy the journey…

Now for the shameless plug: if you fancy being one of those people who are surprisingly supportive, please consider downloading my new short story, A Vampire Christmas. Yup, it’s as trashy as it sounds. I'm expecting everyone I know to buy it. No, wait...

Whatever happened to the Strictly Writing Award Winner? Carys Bray returns to tell us all!

I wanted to be a writer when I was a little girl, but I married young, had several children in quick succession and the dream got buried somewhere - probably under a big pile of dirty nappies. I started writing again as soon as my children were at school. I did a writing module during my Literature degree with the Open University and then I decided to do a Creative Writing MA.

I entered one of my early MA stories in the Strictly Writing Award competition and I was tremendously excited when I won. I was just beginning to think that perhaps, one day, when I’d had a lot more practice, I might actually be able to call myself a writer.  

I kept writing stories after I’d finished my MA and I soon had enough to make a collection. I heard about Salt Publishing’s Scott Prize, the only international prize for debut collections of short stories written in English, and I decided to enter. I was delighted to be shortlisted and over the moon to win.

My collection, Sweet Home, is full of stories about family and the things that go right, and wrong, when people live together. Some of the stories are sad, some are funny and some are best described as fairy tales. 

Lancashire Writing Hub guest editor Sarah Schofield reviewed Carys Bray’s Salt Scott Prize winning short story collection Sweet Home here: she says "...The collection is titled after the third story in the book. This decision is well measured. ‘Sweet Home’ is an updated twist on Hansel and Gretel. Playing on the original narrative, it highlights discrimination, racism and small community gossip. Refering to the foreign woman’s gingerbread home, one zenophobic character states: “She should have used an English recipe… Victoria sponge… You can’t get more English than that.” It seems more than appropriate that the Hansel and Gretel narrative, so ingrained in family life and read to generations of children, should have a re-evaluation and hold an important place in this collection. Challenging established expectations of what ‘family’ looks like...."

I get inspiration from everyday things. A couple of the stories are set in shops; one in a surreal store where people can buy children, and another in a midnight supermarket during the rescue of a group of Chilean miners. I read a lot of parenting books when my children were small and, over time, I developed a hatred of them. The opening story in the collection deals with that hatred - it is interrupted by ‘helpful’ quotes from fictional parenting books. I really like fairy tales and I think they have fuelled my love for short stories where impossible things happen. In one of my stories an old lady builds a gingerbread house and in another a carpenter sculpts a baby out of ice.

I like to read stories that are funny and sad, probably because real life is often both of those things. I like beautiful language and I also like to be surprised. Some stories I have really enjoyed recently are ‘Sports Leader’ from Jane Rogers’ new collection Hitting Trees With Sticks, ‘Sometimes Gulls Kill Other Gulls’ from A.J. Ashworth’s debut collection Somewhere Else, Or Even Here and ‘Tamagotchi’ from Adam Marek’s new collection The Stone Thrower.

I’m still writing short stories, although at the moment I’m mostly concentrating on a PhD and novel. I’m nearly at the end of my first draft of the novel. It doesn’t have a name yet, but it’s about the sudden death of a small child and it’s full of fairy tales and misplaced faith in the miraculous. It’s sad, but I hope it’s funny too, just like real life. 

To find out more about Carys, you can find her blog here:  http://carysbray.co.uk

To win a signed copy of 'Sweet Home', simply tell us which traditional fairy story YOU'D like to give a modern twist and why.  Leave your idea in our comments box  and we'll announce the winner next week on Strictly Writing.

Many thanks to Carys for coming back and telling us all about her rise to publication fame - we're so proud that we were able to play such a meaningful role in her success story.

Introducing Red Button Publishing

Today I'm delighted to welcome Caroline Goldsmith back to Strictly, talking about new publishing venture Red Button Publishing.

What exactly is Red Button Publishing?
Red Button Publishing is a brand new digital fiction imprint. We are looking for new and exciting writers to work with us. Just like a big red button, we want fiction that is irresistible. We are currently accepting submissions via our website and we hope to make our first writers’ works available this Autumn.

What services are you offering writers? We believe that it takes a team to make a book work. My business partner, Karen Ings, and I have nearly three decades' worth of experience in trade publishing and this is what we can bring to the mix. We can offer full editorial support and collaboration. We will give your book a great cover design and create imaginative marketing material. We will work to promote our titles through our website and via social media, ensuring that every Red Button book has the best chance of meeting the right reader. We also understand that many writers dream of seeing their books in paper format, and we recognise that digital publication can often be a stepping stone to a conventional publishing deal. With this in mind, we will act as literary agents for any of our writers if approached by mainstream publishing houses. We are passionate about fiction, and unlike other companies, we will not charge any upfront fees to read or publish your work.

For writers who prefer to self publish we can offer bespoke services including editorial feedback, proofreading, cover design and digital marketing material and advice on digital publishing and marketing.

What sort of books are looking for – any particular genres or types?
We are happy to consider fiction of any genre. We have already received a variety of submissions including thrillers and literary fiction. Give us a try!

What made you want to set it up? Karen and I have known each other for over ten years, having worked together previously. We are passionate about fiction and about publishing. The digital market opens up a wealth of opportunity for writers but we think there is still a real need for the skills and experience of those who have worked in the publishing industry and really understand what makes books work. We want to use our skills base to make some really great reads and get more writers to their audiences.

Tell us a little bit about your background and that of your business partner?
Karen has worked as an editor in trade publishing for fifteen years, commissioning for the last ten. Recently she has worked freelance for companies like Quercus and Penguin. My background has been in a variety of roles, including sales, marketing and publicity for companies like Aurum Press and more recently Dorling Kindersley/ Penguin Group.

How do you see the company progressing?
We want Red Button to become synonymous with great fiction and we want the writers associated with our brand to realise their full potential.

Many people see the current publishing industry as in decline – do you agree? How has the market changed since you started out and how do you think it will change in future?
We’ve seen so many changes to our industry during the span of our careers. Digital has certainly been the biggest change for some time and has already changed the way the industry functions. The direct relationship between reader and publisher is becoming more important and more open. What you should realise about the publishing industry though, is that in the most part, it is run by people with a real passion for books. It’s not the industry to join if you want to make your fortune! These people have skills, creativity and experience that are crucial to the production of quality literature. Publishing will adapt and change but as an industry, it will survive in one form or another.

What is the number one piece of advice you would give to writers who are trying to get their books out there, either through a publisher or on their own?Always, always work with an editor.

Caroline Goldsmith
@redbuttonpubs
redbuttonpublishing.net

 

On putting down your pen - Guest post by Neil Ansell

I am writing this from the midst of a perfect storm of promotional activity for my first book. My life just now is one long round of interviews, feature commissions, public appearances and photo-shoots. It is exhausting, but of course I have to seize the moment; it will all be over before I know it. I thought that perhaps the story of how I got here might be of interest to other writers; it has been a long, strange journey.

As a young man I wrote compulsively, every day, and largely just for the pleasure of it, probably for the best part of twenty years. I must surely have accumulated the 10,000 hours that Malcolm Gladwell speculates you have to dedicate to any activity in order to achieve proficiency. Most of my work I showed to no-one. Occasionally I would send something off to an agent or publisher, but a single rejection would be enough to convince me that I was clearly not ready yet. Any ability I have as a writer was honed by the quest for self-improvement; a self-doubt that never goes away, and probably never should. I am rather in awe of those who have such confidence in their own abilities that they will self-publish after a slew of rejections, assuming that the problem must surely lie with the short-sightedness of the gatekeepers.

And then my life changed. I found myself working full time to support a young family, and later I was to become a single parent too. Something had to give, and what gave was the writing. The years passed. Two years ago I quit my job to go freelance, and saw a window of opportunity. I wrote a single chapter of my memoir Deep Country – an account of five years I spent living alone in a remote cottage without services in the mountains of Wales, and a meditation on the relationship between man and nature, and the psychological impact of extreme isolation.

I sent this chapter to the agent of my choice, and received a contract the following day. Everyone she showed it to seemed to want it, and my unwritten book went to auction. These are straitened times insofar as advances are concerned, but I still received enough that I wouldn't have to worry about other work for a year or so. It appeared that I had found my voice in the years of silence.

The book seemed almost to emerge onto the page fully-formed. It was a joy to be writing again, and it was as if I must have been writing it in my subconscious mind for all those years, while I was sleeping. So, my advice to those who have yet to achieve what they want through their writing would be that it may just be that their time has not yet come. And that sometimes it may be no bad thing to put down your pen for a while, and live a little.

Deep Country was published on 7 April and is available in hardback and Kindle editions. To hear Neil talk about his book and see the landscape that inspired it, have a look at his YouTube video.

Why do we write? - Guest post by Alice Turing

A year ago, I decided to jack it all in and turn my back on writing. It was ten years to the month since I’d started writing my first novel. I’d been through many writing stages, but they’d all had one common theme.

I was trying to get noticed.

I love the stage, have always been quick to say, “Look at ME,” but have always felt slightly ashamed. And then stubbornly proud, then self-consciously indifferent, then ashamed again - on a life-long cycle. And that’s what publication is: One long look-at-me treadmill.

I sent the first three chapters of my first novel to 30 publishers and 15 agents before I finished writing it.

“Look what I’ve done!”

and

“Look what I’m doing!”

At first the process of packaging myself and my work was exciting. Until the rejections started to appear, and with it the angst. Was I too forward? Not forward enough? Too informal? Too previous? Too unpolished? Too bad a writer?

Twenty-eight of those 30 publishers said no, as did all 15 agents. But then, ten months after I sent it out and (weirdly, and coincidentally) two days after I finished writing it I got the phone call from the 29^th publisher, saying YES. And then there was a new kind of packaging. The publisher was only small: If I wanted to set the world on fire I had to hawk my own wares. I splatted myself across the internet, organised two multi-media-performance book launches, got interviewed on Woman’s Hour, tried to display myself in a way that would MAKE PEOPLE NOTICE ME.

Part of my schtick was that I was honest and open about myself and my work. Self-consciously self-aware. It was supposed to be charming, beguiling. And there’s the thing. It was still an act. It was still a Look At Me, and the Me I wanted people to look at was a very particular me. I wasn’t allowed to admit too much doubt, or be too boring, or too conventional. I had to be upbeat. I was Selling, and salesmen never cry.

The book didn’t do too badly, given the size of the publisher. But the Woman’s Hour appearance had no effect. There were no broadsheet reviews. A few people Looked At Me, but not as many as I’d hoped, and not as enthusiastically or for as long as I wanted.

The next book was hawked - by a shiny new agent - to a great deal of publishers, large and small, around the world. The Germans published it. Nobody reviewed it there apart from a couple of disgruntled Amazon users who seemed to think they’d been promised the opposite of what they got. I said “Me, look at me” in as many ways I could think of, until finally I snapped. Nobody was looking at me. Nobody was talking about me. No-one was interested, and the fact that I wished they were only made me hate myself even more.

When I’d fielded enough rejections, when I’d swallowed a bucket-load of jealous lumps toward those who succeeded where I had failed, I gave up.

My kernel of self loathing (“Look at me, I hate myself, aren’t I interesting?”) said that I only ever wrote to get noticed. To say to the world, look at how clever I am. Love me, praise me, idolise me. But there were other reasons. I wrote because I love words. Because I like to play with them, toy with them, put them together and pull them apart. And I wanted to make something lovely. But the loveliness existed when no-one could see it, as well as when it was tarnished by my pushing it under the world’s nose like a beauty-pageant mum.

I wrote this piece because I wanted you to notice me. But publishing as a look-at-me contest makes me feel nauseous. Makes me phobic of defining myself as a writer. Makes me use a pseudonym. Makes me commit Writer Hari Kiri by vanity-publishing my second book and ensuring that no proper publisher will ever add it to their list.

Look at me, I’m an idiot. Look at me, I failed - and that was my final success.

Dance Your Way to Psychic Sex is available exclusively from danceyourway.co.uk

Not the be-all and end-all?

'People who have what they want are fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they really don't want it.'

Ogden Nash never did an email submission only to realise in the nanosecond after pressing send that he'd typed 'Dera Ms Agent...', but his words reflect the experience of many a modern unpublished writer.

Every famous or not-so-famous author has been through the uncertainty or downright agony of being unpublished. But, for some, publication results in a sudden change of tune. It's like someone who desperately wants a baby and then gives birth to one and starts complaining that it cries a lot and actually needs quite a bit of attention. Getting published can have the same effect.

After years striving at their ambition, honing their craft, coping with frustration, crying over rejections, picking themselves up and somehow grasping the determination to keep going, a writer gets published and soon they're saying:

Being published isn't the be-all and end-all, darling!

It doesn't suddenly sort your life out!

We published authors still have problems, don't you know!

It was OK for them to work hard towards their goal, but if you work towards yours, you must be a deluded wannabe who thinks a book deal will make your bank account groan with a million quid and your letterbox collapse with invitations to soirées with JKR. You sad little person, you – sitting there in your crappy job and dreaming of being famous enough not to have a care in the world. If only you knew the difficulty of being a published author!

To be fair, authors are usually just saying these things because they're knackered and worried like everyone else, and because there's a British inclination to play down success and not to look as though they're showing off.

This is understandable. It's still bloody annoying.

Serious unpublished writers know darned well that life will go on pretty much the same but with a book with their name on it on the shelf. This does not make publication something that isn't worth aiming for. All right, the well-meaning author might only be expressing concern that you're making yourself unhappy over the submissions/rejections process, but this is none of their business.

You can give up trying to get published any time you like. No one will care. But if you want to go for it, it will require a bit of obsession and probably a lot of angst. If you're determined to carry on, what's the big deal to anyone else?

I've never read the slushpile so perhaps I'm naïve about the level of delusion and crapness out there, but I think if you’ve got the wherewithal to write something and send it out on submission, and to be with-it enough to engage with blogs like this one, chances are you are not dur-brained enough to think that a book deal will bring you permanent health and happiness, resurrect your dead hamster and stem the BP oil spill. Serious ‘aspiring’ writers are grown up enough to know that what they're aiming for is just publication, not a key to eternal sparkly youth.

Being published is actually pretty cool, and I say that as someone who is not exactly hitting the big time... or even the slightly-bigger-than-absolutely-minuscule time. Being published is several million times better than trying to get published. It's worth aiming for. So, if publication is your goal, I say: keep aiming, and politely ignore people - even the well-meaning ones - who try to put you off.

Writing when there's no time to write

There were many things I didn't expect to gain from being published. I didn't expect riches. I didn't expect to become famous or to get invited to glitzy parties. I didn't expect life to become perfect – in fact, I didn't expect it to change much at all. I can't, however, be smug about this lack of X-Factor-style delusion, because I must confess that there was one thing I thought would be different.

I expected publication to legitimise my writing. No longer would it be a self-indulgent little hobby clutched at during lunch hours and evenings. As a real writer, I would be able to assert my right to have time to do my job.

It didn't work out like that. A year after publication, while trying to balance gainful employment with toddler care, I'm running out of spare moments to devote to what those around me still regard as an eccentric hobby. I'm sure the same is true for many writers, published and unpublished, so I thought I'd set out how I'm trying to grasp at brief moments of opportunity.

1. Don't be a mug.
I used to be very conscientious, wanting to get involved with stuff and help people out. But not any more. I've given up all voluntary activities. I've ditched my mobile phone and I don't answer the landline without checking caller display. I don't get back to anyone who only ever contacts me when they want something. Emails might have to wait several days for an answer. The possible downside to this is that people stop liking me when I'm not sorting out their stupid crap for free. Oh dear. How sad. Never mind!

2. Seize every opportunity.
It's very easy for me to feel that because I only have three minutes free, it's not worth starting anything. But that could be three minutes of writing. Even at a modest 40wpm typing speed, that's still 120 words. 800 lots of three minutes, and that's a book! I've given up the need to get my bearings and settle in to a writing session by reading over what I did last time – now I just jump in and get on with it.

3. Always keep some writing handy.
I use Dropbox so that I can access my files from any computer – so if I'm at work and have a chance at lunchtime, I can go straight into my novel without the hassle of emailing different versions to myself. This also syncs with my iPod Touch so I can have a quick read-over of scenes wherever I am.

4. Write or Die.
For first drafts, the Write or Die software is brilliant. By promising dire consequences if you stop writing, it makes you concentrate on getting words down – and I don't know about you, but my writing is no worse when rushed than it is when agonised over. Write or Die helped me finish the first draft of my WIP. It's less obviously useful for the next stage – chopping and changing, sacking redundant characters, scrapping cool but pointless scenes – but I still find it helpful to maintain a Write or Die mentality. Setting a timer for, say, 10 minutes has made me focus on the importance of that 10 minutes – often there'll be interruptions, but it's amazing how much it's possible to do in that space of time.

What I've discovered is that these tiny pockets of time really add up. It's easy to despair that other people are keeping me from writing, but that's a cop-out. It's up to me to take responsibility and make the most of every second of writing time. If that means I haven't answered your email about something you could have Googled in five seconds – well, tough!

Living in the past

I subscribe to Literary Review; if you don’t, you should. The writing is sparkling and I’ve learnt more about the yays and nays of how to knock up a novel from their reviewers than from many of the how-to books crowded on my shelves. Much of LR covers non-fiction books which can lead you down interesting research paths for fiction. Even reading the reviews can throw up ideas for stories. The only danger is that you spend all your money ordering sacks of books using the readers' offer. Well, that’s my review of Literary Review, but this post is not about that: it’s inspired by LR in a different way.

Today, let’s flick forward through the May edition to the fiction section; that’s what we’re into here at Strictly Fiction. We find ten novels reviewed last month, including the latest release from the truly amazing Colm Toibin, ultimate master of characterisation – his stories exist in the spaces between the characters. But, enough of him, the survey we are conducting is about temporal setting. How many of the ten novels would you expect to use a contemporary versus historical setting? Half? A third? One?

You were wrong; the answer is . . . er, not sure, possibly none. Of the ten fiction titles sweating under the precision eye of LR, there are eight historical offerings, one that was actually written in the 1930s and one that might be contemporary. Hoorah, there’s one. It’s included as one of the short pieces in their monthly Four Debut Novels page (my ultimate fantasy, but never mind that). In fact, for the one – possibly – contemporary novel we aren’t actually told when it is set, and this researcher wasn’t painstaking enough to find out. Nine out of ten would be a striking enough ratio, so who needs facts?

I bet the story you are slaving over right now is historical. Notably, the possibly contemporary piece receives, perhaps, the harshest treatment of all the books on trial, but surely that can’t be because its setting is contemporary. No, no.

So, there is a trend; you’ve noticed it too. Contemporary fiction is history. Setting your work in the present is so last year.

As you might have guessed, the novel I’m limbering up to submit is set in the halcyon days of 2008. Do you remember that period in history? So long ago now, the last of the salad-summer afternoons just before the world got crunched. I researched that period constantly while I was writing it, by staring out of the window. Since then it's been laid out on the editing table. Now I’ve come to realise the thing is unpublishable simply because it isn't hist fic. That's the only acceptable genre.

Before I press the delete key, are there any other rational explanations? Perhaps the readers of Literary Review are a load of old farts who only read historical fiction and regiments of contemporary novels are preening themselves on the bookshop shelves, blissfully ignored by LR. Frankly I doubt it. Every recently published book I can find in the Ealing branch of Waterstones harps back to days of yore.

People aren’t interested in now. They want then. We have to face the truth, forsooth!

Here’s an idea. I’ll tuck my novel under the bed for forty years and wait while it grows in value like a fine Margaux. If I’m still alive, I’ll then cast it into the gaping maws of the publishers, pretending I wrote it as a historical piece. Everyone will marvel at the startling recollection of the period just before the end of civilisation, the death of global capitalism. In the meantime I’m starting a new one set in the Mesolithic period; an extract is linked here. It’s called Hist Fic, to leave agents and publishers in no doubt that it’s the sort of stuff they are looking for. It's the only chance for publication to an escapist readership who can’t look today in the mirror.

Let’s extend this research a little more.

So, when is your story set?
	It's historical, of course, like all the rest.
	I'm breaking the trend and risking a contemporary setting.
	In the future: you forgot to mention sci-fi, you muppet.
	What story?
pollcode.com free polls

Just Post It

Writing a book is one thing. That only takes a few years of dreaming, scribbling, typing, banging your head on the desk and waking up in the middle of the night with the most original idea ever, only to discover in the morning that your bedside notebook is scrawled with stuff like “elephant – maggots – how many?”

Making it fit for anyone to read is quite another thing – more months of editing, editing again, polishing, re-editing, re-polishing. Maybe even giving the manuscript to a friend for their opinion, only to have them say ten weeks later, “Sorry, I've been, like, really busy. I'll read it soon, promise.”

But then comes the difficult bit. If you want your book published (though there's certainly no law forcing you to want that) you have to pluck up the courage to submit it somewhere. OK, so you could spend the rest of your life shifting commas about because you're scared of rejection – that's no skin off anyone else's nose – but if you want to see it in print, you have to send it out.

So... let's say you've written a book, agonised over the synopsis, constructed an elegant covering letter, formatted your first three chapters to perfection and printed them off, because lots of agents still don't take email submissions. Next comes the most important part of the process:

• Go to your office stationery cupboard when no one is looking and select two good-quality envelopes.
• Print one of them as an S.A.E. or, better still, write it out with a lucky pen.
• To be on the safe side, consult a graphology website and ensure your handwriting makes you look artistic, intelligent, a delight to work with, and not insane.
• Address the other envelope, put your submission into it and seal it up.
• Unseal it to make sure the S.A.E. is definitely there.
• Stick it back down with a piece of sellotape, because the glue now doesn't work.
• Oh, God, what if the agent really hates sellotape? Check their website in case they mention it.
• Affix postage, go to the postbox and nervously walk up and down for a while, worrying whether you have put the synopsis in the right place. You put it after the letter and before the sample chapters. But what if it should have gone at the end?
• Approach the postbox. Discover that it was designed before the advent of A4, so you have to bend your pristine envelope in half.
• Oh God, what if the agent really hates creased envelopes? What if she sees the creases and just slings it straight in the bin?
• Gormlessly stand there for a while with your hand halfway into the postbox.
• Will yourself to let go. Think: Just post it. Drop. The. Envelope. Go on, just drop it. Seriously. Drop it. No, seriously. Arrgh! Just POST IT! Just let go! NOW!
• Wait! The S.A.E. is definitely in there, isn't it?
• Of course it is. You checked.
• But what if, when you checked, you actually took it out and forgot to put it back in?
• FOR GOD'S SAKE, JUST POST IT!
• Someone behind you coughs impatiently, so let go and listen to the envelope flopping into the darkness, beyond your control. Go pale as you have a sudden flashback to proofreading the submission letter.
• Rush back to your computer and open up the file. See that it begins “Der Ms Bloggs.”
• Go very red and start to weep.
• Correct it and send to the next agent. And the next, and the next, while writing another book.

And if you really, really want to be published, keep sending until you get an acceptance or you die. Whichever comes first.

The Eve of Publication

Tomorrow is the day. My début novel will be released and I will finally be able to prove to the world that I am not an unemployable waster.

Well, actually, I am, but at least I managed to write a book at the same time.

Publication day has long been a date to focus on; a distant point up to which I can maintain the excitement of Being A Writer without reality kicking in. After tomorrow, will the excitement falter in the face of smirky questions about how many copies I've sold? (Erm... I'm not sure ... I, erm... haven't had any sales figures yet.) Will my Amazon ranking obsession intensify as it plummets into the millions? (Millions? That's an idea - maybe I could tell people it means the number of sales!)

As Becky said when her book came out last month, publication day is no huge explosion. Because, well, what can possibly happen? Crowds of paparazzi at the door? Broadsheets festooned with glowing reviews? Bouquets arriving from secret admirers?

The launch of a book is not so much a sudden event as a process. Like... er... death. Thinking about it, that might not be the ideal comparison, so let's move on... Instead of a fixed date with people queueing up at midnight outside bookshops, the average publication trickles gradually into the world. My book already exists – not just in the sense that it wormed into my imagination ten years ago, or that it took up thousands of hours of writing, re-writing, editing and honing – I mean that now it exists in a physical, aesthetically pleasing form. My author copies are just across the room from me as I type.

When other writers receive their author copies, they stroke them, kiss them, put them under the pillow, even compare the experience to holding their baby for the first time. I don't feel like that at all. I took a quick look at my books and thought “phew, they look great,” then I went about other things. My feelings have constituted quiet satisfaction rather than raucous celebration.

But that quiet satisfaction has been a boost to my confidence. My book looks beautiful, and at last I feel I can really be proud of it.

It looks like a normal book by a proper author. It's no longer a figment of my imagination, but a product. A lump of paper to be sold for cold hard cash. Perhaps for some writers that would be a depressing thought, but for me it's liberating. I can now talk about it at a distance – it's a tangible article that I can promote without feeling self-indulgent, because other people have put such a huge amount of care into editing it, designing it and above all believing in it.

Now it's over to the readers, and whether or not they like it almost feels like none of my business. I'm glad to let my book go and make its own way in the world.

.

.

www.carolinerance.co.uk

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9780955861345/Kill-Grief

The Slush-Pile Experience

I've often thought it would be fun to volunteer as a slush-pile reader for a day. When I say fun, I've no doubt I'd lose the will to live after about three manuscripts, but I do like the idea of gaining an insight into how publishers and agents feel about unsolicited submissions. Are 90% of them really crap, or is that just an urban myth? Are 90% of them actually pretty good, now that writers have internet communities on which to share advice, research markets and get feedback on their chapters?

Though I sympathise with the common lament that agents reject work without reading it, I must admit that even if I started out giving careful consideration to everything, this wouldn't last beyond the first covering email that said: “This is teh next harry potter. Tell me how much u r going 2 pay me lol.”

I can see myself whizzing through the submissions going:

Nope.
Nope.
Hmm, pretty good, but... nah.
Nope.
Aww, this one has a picture of the author's puppy... but the book still sucks.
Hmm, nice writing, but it's the end of the first page and no one's died yet, so nope.
Huh, this author has the same name as a loser boyfriend I had 15 years ago, so... nope.

We writers know we must make sure our work is better than the rest of the pile, that our plot isn't the same old chestnut as everyone else's, that we spot the typo we've supposedly proofread a million times, and that we time the submission so that its position in the Leaning Tower of Envelopes corresponds to the ten-second window when the agent is in a good mood. The only trouble is that, as industry outsiders, we've got no way of knowing what the rest of the pile is like. What exactly are those clichéd plots and first-page no-nos? We don't get to see them because... well, they don't get as far as a bookshop. Without access to much unpublished fiction, it's difficult for a writer to appreciate the all-important (and perhaps subtle) differences between a standard rejection and a request for a full.

I think a bit of mutual understanding between agents and not-yet-published writers would be a good thing. Therefore, I have a bright idea. (Yes, just the one.) Agents and publishers could offer exciting Red Letter Days-style activities, like so -

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The Slush-Pile Experience!
The perfect gift for the writer in your life.

Whether you've always fancied yourself as a top London agent, or whether you want to know once and for all how much worse a writer you are than the rest of the world, here's the chance to fulfil your dreams!
Your special day will start with five cups of strong black coffee and a couple of paracetamol (included) before your instructor shows you to your desk for the experience of a lifetime! Are you up for the challenge of trying to break into gaffer-taped Jiffy-bags? Can you last more than two paragraphs of a 500-page political rant in free verse? It's a race against time to read and reject 200 manuscripts by the end of the day! You'll learn all the terminology (including “What a load of crap,” “Oh God, please not the first chapter of Pride & Prejudice under a different title again,” and “This is brilliant, but I just don't love it enough.”) After your exhilarating fourteen-hour shift, you'll be treated to a witty email from a bitter author telling you why he is rejecting you.
A fun and original way to re-discover your sense of adventure!

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Agents would get their slush-piles dealt with and writers would get first-hand knowledge of what really makes a submission stand out from the rest. The submitting writers would have their work read within a year by someone who didn't have thousands of phonecalls to answer and bestselling authors to look after. Everyone wins!

www.carolinerance.co.uk

Thank you to Ali Farid on Stock Exchange for the "Rejected" photo.