Re: how to get published

Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@hotpop.com)
Sat, 25 Sep 1999 15:43:36 +1000 

OK  .... all very well, all very well. But do you really want to hear a sob
story?

About four years ago now I won an award of national significance for
writing. Woo hoo. The three of us who won all got a heap of money and
accolades. All were unknown. This is what happened to them (I won't say
who's who):
1) Studying screenwriting at the Australian Film Television and Radio
School.
2) Eking out an existence writing radio plays and tearing hair out.
3) Just signed a six figure deal with Bloomsbury for worldwide rights to
first novel. Won every award in sight and thank God has now moved overseas
and will give us all a bit of breathing space.

P.S. 3) isn't me.

Camille
verona_beach@hotpop.com

> >    I was given very much the same advice thirty years ago - 
> >    yet when that unforgettable letter arrived from Longman's 
> >    it was out of the blue & without benefit of any 'inside' 
> >    contacts whatever.  I can't believe that things have really 
> >    changed all that much.  
> 
> You couldn't be more wrong.  20 years ago I wrote a novel and everyone I
> approached was willing to take a look at the manuscript.  In those days
> I gave up a lot easier than now and after 4 agents had seen it and not
> wanted it I put in the proverbial bottom drawer.
> 
> I recently finished another novel, infinitely better quality than the
> kind of stuff I wrote 20 years ago, and I approached 38 agents and
> publishers and only one publisher was prepared to even look at the
> manuscript.  That's how much things have changed.  
> 
> Since you published your book most publishers have been absorbed into
> large corporations where the spreadsheet rules.  It is well known that
> virtually all publishers have, over the last few years, drastically cut
> what they call the 'mid-list' e.g. books which they don't think will
> become instant bestsellers.  That is where a new unknown writer would
> usually be placed.  Publishers these days are only interested in already
> established writers with a high sales record and celebrity writers whose
> work (no matter how appalling bad it is) will sell because they are
> already famous.  In fact even established writers are having a hard time
> with many of them being 'sacked' by their publishers, e.g.
> HarperCollins.
> 
> The odds on being published without the right contacts must be very
> similar to those of winning the lottery.  And it doesn't matter how good
> your work is if no one will look at it they'll never know.
> -- 
> Colin