Last December I wrote a post about the Brit Writers’ Awards and a furious bun-fight ensued, so it is with some trepidation that I write about the BWA again. A couple of weeks ago I heard of an email sent out by the BWA, which contained this interesting snippet: During the last year, a number…
Category Archives: agents
Why Good Literary Agencies Don’t Charge Reading Fees
There are some agents who feel that the time taken to work through the slush pile is disproportionate to the benefit that it brings, as they find so few good new clients there; and that if they were paid to do this work, via a reading fee or similar, they might even be able to…
Agents Deserve Time Off
When I began to read this recent article from Alan Rinzler in Forbes, I was incredibly irritated by its opening paragraph. How do literary agents who blog, tweet and carouse online find the time to do the real work of agenting: reading, hobnobbing with editors, reading some more and making great book deals for their clients?…
Why Agents And Publishers Specialise
In order to be as effective as they can be, most agents*, editors, imprints and publishers work only in a few particular genres. And there’s a good reason for that. I don’t read much SF: but when I do, each SF book I read seems full of bright new stuff which I’ve never read about…
Why Sales Statistics And Quality Are Inseparable
Last year, a blog post of mine about the sales statistics of vanity-published books sparked a lot of attention (I’ll have to quote Victoria Strauss more often). First, Publishers’ Marketplace linked to the piece and a few hundred extra visitors found their way here as a result; then literary agent extraordinaire Janet Reid linked to…
They Had It Coming Indeed: Part V
This is the last in a short series of posts in which I analyse an article written by David Rozansky, publisher of Flying Pen Press, regarding literary agent Andrew Wylie’s decision to set up his own publishing house in order to publish some of his clients’ works exclusively in Amazon’s Kindle format. You can read…
Why Self-Published Books Don’t Automatically Impress Agents
Several agents and editors have blogged about how self-publication doesn’t impress them as a publishing credit and when Janet Reid did just that (mentioning my blog along the way), she ran into a little criticism from one of her readers who accused her of considering sales more important than quality. I thought it was worth…
An Odd Way To Get A Book Deal
When I read this story in the Daily Mail online last April I assumed it was some sort of hoax: a writer left her manuscript on Richard and Judy’s doorstep in the hope of getting herself a book deal and as if by magic, she landed herself a deal with Orion. But no: the article…
They Had It Coming Indeed: Part I
A few weeks ago I spotted a link on Twitter to an article by David Rozansky, publisher of Flying Pen Press. He had written about literary agent Andew Wylie’s new publishing venture, Odyssey Editions. I disagreed with a lot of what he’d written, and said so; and along came Mr Rozansky to ask me exactly…
The Truth About The 6 Year Old Boy With The 23 Book Deal
Last Friday, Twitter was awash with links to this story in the Mirror, which described how six-year-old Leo Hunter had landed an amazing twenty-three book deal. I was immediately suspicious, as was Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware, Lynn Price of Behler Publications, and many other writers and bloggers. No one gets twenty-three book deals, not…
The Writing Business: Part III
This is the final part of the talk I gave at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival. You can read part I here, and part II here. The Writing Business 44) So, once you’re sure your writing is as good as it can be, you have to work out where to submit it. How can…
The Writing Business: Part II
This is part two of the talk I gave at the Edinburgh International Book Festival this week. You can read the first part here, and the final part will appear tomorrow. The Writing Business 25) How hard is it to get an agent? Let’s look at some statistics. 26) At her talk at the Romantic…
The Writing Business: Part I
Two days ago I spoke at the Edinburgh International Book Festival (get me!), on the subject of The Writing Business. I’d never done anything like this before, so I was very lucky to share the stage with Keith Charters of Strident Publishing and to have the event chaired by the writer Eric Swanepoel, who was…
Wylie’s Odyssey
A few weeks ago the London-based literary agent Andrew Wylie announced that he was forming his own publishing company named Odyssey Editions in order to publish the agency’s clients in electronic book format; and that Odyssey had signed an exclusive deal with Amazon, so that those e-books would only be available for the Kindle e-reader….
Blake Friedmann Offering Feedback In Charity Auction!
Every year the Book Trade Charity raises funds through its action week which this year runs from 7 to 11 June. Publishing’s great and good take part, and this year is no exception: cake bakes, a pub quiz, and a spelling bee are among the many events planned. One of the highlights this year comes…
Fee-Charging Literary Agents: What’s So Bad?
Good literary agents earn their living through commissions on the sales that they make to legitimate publishers, while less scrupulous agents earn by charging fees to the writers that they “represent”. So, if an agency doesn’t charge its writers up-front fees, you’d expect them to be legitimate. Sadly that’s not always the case: the notorious…
How I Got Published: M G Harris
I’m pleased to welcome M G Harris, my Twitter-friend and author of The Joshua Files series, who concludes her Zero Moment blog-tour here. Ten Things That Helped Me Get Published 1 Writing Fan Fiction In the mid-1990s I took up writing as a hobby. I was a member of the online Blake’s 7 fan community…
Why We Have Gatekeepers
In fiction and in life there are often gatekeepers who guard the entrance to the castle or the enchanted kingdom. Consider St Peter, standing guard at the pearly gates, or those big blokes in dark glasses and wash ’n’ wear suits who stand outside the nightclubs and only let the pretty girls in. In both…
How To Find A Good Literary Agent
A couple of weeks ago, a thread began at Absolute Write about a new and as-yet unproved agent. Said agent rocked up; questions were asked; a magnificent bun-fight ensued. After a few frustrating days the uproar moved to a part of Aboslute Write’s forum which is not Google-cached (I doubt that the agent concerned realised…