Working the line

For those interested in this sort of thing, a piece of mine has just been published over on Futurebook, The Bookseller's digital-oriented blog. It's mainly aimed at publishers, but might be of interest to some of you lot. Also good if you like old pictures of American prospectors.

Reader, I couldn't find him...

So yesterday I started looking for an ebook reader in earnest. D'you know what--correct me if I'm wrong here someone who knows better, but, in the UK, unless you're happy to use an iPhone (which I'm--screen's too small and I don't use my phone enough to warrant the expense), I'd say don't bother. Sony's Touch looks okay, but it's not wireless, and is stupidly expensive, and you have to buy a separate memory card. The Blackwells BeBook has an MP3 player--groovy, but looks like you shouldn't pay more than about twenty quid for it (stick a nought on that for the actual price) and the Kindle, which I'm sure is very nice, looks too big and has that hulking pointless keypad on it.

I know there's likely to be a Kindle DX (the wireless version) in the UK next year, but I'm sure that'll be a stupid price too. We appear to be at the stage that laptops hung at for years, overpriced and underperforming.

Anyone know of a decent wireless reader available in the UK for under two hundred pounds? Even the internet is coming up empty-handed.

Personally, I'd love for Philips to produce an EPUB-compatible Iliad that isn't at a stupid price. No doubt if they do it'll launch in the US a year before we get a sniff of it over here.

And how about those of you in America? Do you have a reader? Do you like it?

And Borders Charing Cross Road--shame on you. You had about twenty display models and none available to buy, and wouldn't even let me try one properly.

Freebies

Another little one - top banana item in Publisher's Weekly:

At NYU Event, Macmillan CEO Says “Free” Content Will Be Challenge for Books

Double agents?

I don't know how wise this is putting this up here, but still, this is supposed to be a journal of mine and Aliya's experiences, as well as detailing books with vegetables in them, so...

As regular readers of the blog will know, a while back I completed a short literary novel that weighs in at around 200 pages. Scanning the shelves of any bookshop will show you that these books aren't an extinct species, but they're not exactly reproducing at a bunny-like rate, so I know this one's going to be a tough sell.

Shortly after completing this book, I was kindly introduced to an agent who was willing to take a look. Her feedback was encouraging and useful, but still resulted in a no in relation to representation.

Regular readers may also be aware that sometime ago Aliya and I finished writing a SF novel together. I asked the agent if anyone at the agency would like to take a look at this, and lo and behold, yes there was someone interested. I sent over the co-authored manuscript, along with a short sample of a new SF book I've been working on--one inspired by a story Aliya and I wrote together that didn't end up going anywhere--to this second agent and in the meantime I set about addressing the concerns with the literary novel.

A little while later this second agent got back to me with an email of two halves. It was a no on the co-written novel, but a probably on the new SF novel, if it lives up to the expectations raised by the opening. Good news.

A few weeks later I finished my revision of the literary novel, but the agency isn't interested in that anymore. They want me to concentrate on the SF. Within the next week or so I'll have the SF work in progress to the stage where they'll hopefully be able to give me a firm yes or no on whether they'll be willing to represent this new book.

I firmly believe I can juggle the demands of building up a writing career that traverses two genres, and have invested so much in my literary novel--yes, even though it's only 200 pages--and a follow up to abandon them. In all honesty, I think they're a bit special.

So I've been weighing up my options for my more literary novel. Obviously the best result would be to have a publisher take it on. If this happened I imagine my potential agent would be willing to reconsider representing me for both genres. The more likely route to publication though appears to be finding a second agent to represent the literary me. In fact this is the option suggested by the original agent, but only after I had pushed for an answer.

My issue though is, say I find this second agent, and they're interested in representing both my styles of fiction. From the little I know already, I am very keen on my potential agent. Firstly, they came with a recommendation from a pretty successful author, and so far have been rather pleasant to deal with. I know from the experiences of others this isn't a given. Secondly, I can imagine having two agents could well be more trouble than it's worth.

I know I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit here, but has anyone had any similar experiences? And if so, what decisions were made and what were the outcomes?

Holt, who goes there?

Ooh, look, shiny book site:

http://www.holtuncensored.com/hu/

Book cover designs for the modern era

Here are some contemporary book cover designs here. Fortunately they're not real. Unfortunately, they very well could be. I particularly like the Dostoevsky one.

"...not editing your work is akin to buying a new gown and turning up at the ball without make-up or brushing your hair." This quote is from Sam's latest A-z post. She's on E, on editing.

Not to go on about it too much, but this is such a good series of posts, and this is the best yet. Every writer, would-be writer and would-be book editor should read it.

Sesame Street was brought to you...

In case you hadn't noticed, Sam Hayes is doing wonderful things with the alphabet and the writers' life over on her blog.

Fantasies of the fairer sex

Ekaterina Sedia and Catherynne Valente, along with Prime Books and PS Publishing, all get name-checked in this article on women in SF&F up on GuardianUnlimited. Go them.

One in every three novels is published

Here are two statements about writing novels that we will put to the test:

They are published
You get paid for them

Now I know it’s not that easy to get published. I have done a bit of slush reading in my time, and for a very short while for a mainstream fiction publisher. It’s true, there are lots of books that are great, and should be published. The thing is, and the thing most people don’t tell you, hoping to persuade you to keep going and not deflate your dreams, is that most of these are published. It’s the dross that—for the main part—isn’t.

Out of say twenty manuscripts I read in a fortnight from the ‘slush pile’ for this mainstream F&SF imprint (which included those submitted by agents), there was one I loved. Okay, enjoyed, relatively. One if I had my own publishing house I would have been happy to see the light of day. One. Out of twenty manuscripts. Vetted by agents. The rest were poor, mediocre, middling or okay. So I was doing this for a couple of weeks. Twenty manuscripts a fortnight. Say the editor, publisher and editorial assistant between them got through the same amount in the same time.

That’s eighty manuscripts a fortnight. 160 a month. 1,920 completed novels a year. Sounds a lot. And it is. But if there’re only two books a week that are great, that someone would be happy to publish, that’s not so many. Especially when you need consensus from, say, three of the four editorial staff reading them; a hit rate, even with like-minded readers, of maybe seventy five per cent. Six books a month. Seventy two books a year.

That’s still quite a few books from submissions if you consider existing authors with series to manage and contracts to honour. Then you have to convince the marketers that this can work. The book I read, that was great, in comparison to the others, was maybe not entirely appropriate for a mainstream F&SF audience. Not safe enough for the already high-risk business of fiction publishing. But it did get published; had already been published in the US and possibly other places too. It was this book by Cory Doctorow. A really fabulous book. But I can see why it was passed on. Even had the editorial staff liked it, it would be a tough sell to a marketing department.

Marketing Manager: What’s it about?

Editor: Well the main character is called Alan, although sometimes his name changes, but it always starts with an A. He’s got quite a few brothers. All initialled alphabetically: Brian, Colin, Edmund, Freddie. Their names change too.

Marketing Manager: Right.

Editor: I’m not explaining it too well. Listen, the Dad is a mountain and the mother a washing machine. And there’s this sub-plot about everyone getting free wireless Internet and then there’s this girl with wings that get cut off…

Marketing Manager: [Walks away shaking head]

Editor: That’s a no then is it?

So from seventy two great books that will probably get published (and probably see numerous publishers throughout the pitching process), not all, for whatever reason, will be appropriate for mainstream publishers. With even those that are, it might be the wrong financial quarter when a manuscript with a fifty-fifty chance comes in. Or five brilliant books come in at once and there’s only room on the list for three at a push. Let’s take a quarter of that estimate of great books. That leaves just under nineteen titles suitable for mainstream publication. Now if you had eighteen and a bit books to read, I’m sure you’d have your favourites? If you only had six slots to fill for new authors for the year, and you got the best of those eighteen and a bit books in there, job done, right?

I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you have a truly great book, a proper book, you have a one in three chance of getting it published. So write three great books; get the first one published, and then when the creative well runs dry, you’re still sitting on two great books.

Just once that happens, don’t expect the money to start rolling on in. I’ll leave Aliya to fill you in on that bit.