Well, the moment fast approaches to see whether this beastie can survive in the wild, so…
To celebrate the publication of his debut novel, Empire in Black and Gold
ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY
will be signing copies of the book at Waterstone’s,
United Reform Building, 89a Broad Street, Reading RG1 2AP
SATURDAY 5th JULY, 3-5pm
For those wishing to attend, it may be wise […]
So the call comes at last that I should meet with my agent and my editor in London for lunch.
The publisher’s lunch is rightly famous, to the extent that the name graces a trade magazine for the industry, and Douglas Adams incorporated a homage to it in Life, the Universe and Everything (1). In a world […]
I’ve stressed the fact that waiting comes into this business with distressing regularity. The truth is that the beginning is all wait: you write, and you wait. If you return to the writing board, the waiting continues. Many years go by waiting for that first moment of contact, like a forgotten spy checking the same […]
Noel Coward said (1) “I love criticism so long as it’s unqualified praise.” My own relationship to criticism has been long in developing. As an unread author, to start with, you tend to be short of any actual constructive feedback. It is a curse, and it is also a shield. Whilst the only criticism you […]
So, I’d sent the completed manuscript of Empire off to my agent, and another of these habitual long waits ensued. Mind you, if by this stage you’re not able to deal with long waits, then, well…
Actually, that’s bunkum. Hope is a curse. It inflames the senses. Sentence a man to ten lashes, and the eleventh lash […]
After the writing and the re-writing,
After the striving, and the despicable cost of postage,
After the rejections and the resubmissions,
After all of these things, and so ad infinitum,
And if your gods favour you,
You may hear the Call.
The Call should, if there was any poetry or justice in this world, come to you in the sound of a great bellowing horn blown on […]
So, what would be the point of submitting the same book again? I myself have tended to drift on to new work following each round of rejections, but I know that other people continue to cut and prune their magnum opus for resubmission at a later date. There is a hidden calendar involved, and it […]
Suddenly… nothing happened. But it happened suddenly. (1)
You’ve dispatched your sample chapters to agents and/or publishers. Now what?
Well, very little. Wait for the little rejection slips to come fluttering to your door. As mentioned, even that can take some time. When you finally strike gold you’ll know about it but,before then, you’ll live in an agony of […]
With that suitably insect-bound quote, on to pillage: The perils of publishing parasites (2)
This is actually a serious bit, somewhat more suited to arousing anger than cavalier treatment of arthropods by the BBC or genre snobbery. Basically: be warned.
You have sent out your book chapters to all and sundry. The road has been long. Oft it is […]
You can submit direct to publishers, it’s true. In fact publishers may at first seem the more approachable. There are generally more of them, and they are more likely to be open for business as far as unsolicited manuscripts go. A lot of agents you talk to will tell you that they are, at that […]
