An interesting idea, David. But are you aware this forum is open and searchable via Google? (Typing your name and Youwriteon gives 306 hits, most of which are for this forum.)

The publishing world is getting smaller. I suspect some of those responding to your submission might be surprised -- in a 'not good way' -- to find their letter aired in public.

More generally, approaching publishers consecutive with contacting agents does risk compromising the freedom of the latter to place the novel.

Anyway, best wishes for success with the novel.

Flash

"In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw."

(from "So Long, See You Tomorrow" by William Maxwell.)

Apparently there is an etiquette, that you approach agents first, and, if any of us ever live so long, one at a time. They get seriously disturbed if they discover you are mass-submitting and if that includes publishers as well, it does indeed compromise their ability to sell on.

My experience with an earlier novel was that it was the first question I was asked. 'Where else have you submitted?'

Last year I kept Messageboard informed about a major Australian agent who asked for the two books I had published through YWO to be written into one humungous novel and then told me I was a fool to have self-published, 'My God how could you? Has anyone never told you just what that will do for your career, it's laughable.' My answer was to tell her I didn't want to pursue her responses any further, that it had been a tremendous year of growth, that I would not withdraw my work from sale when she hadn't even signed me (yes, thast was one of her demands) and that I was concentrating on getting my latest book assessed in London by a major consultancy. Her response? 'On your head be it?' She was disgraceful. Fortunately she is a rare commodity and the rest seem far nicer.

Good luck, Dai Bach and think twice! http://www.pruebatten.com/

Good for you, David.

I spent a few months trying the conventional agent/publisher route, but quickly gave up. Unless you're serioulsy hoping to make millions as a best seller, why bother to put yourself through all that, when you can self-publish for peanuts, and, moreover, publish exactly what you want, not what some agent/publisher thinks will sell?

I have a nice little collection of rejections, all of them polite and most of them mildly encouraging. The only rude response was from (or rather, not from) an agent who is a friend of a journalist friend, who couldn't actually be bothered to reply. As for not publicising rejection letters for fear of antagonising these people - I kind of think the chances of any agent or publisher trawling the YWO Message Boards or googling an unpublished writer's name are pretty slender. And b****er 'em if they do and they don't like what they see.

I am currently working my rejection letters into a short story. It's nearly finished, if only I could decide whether it's a comedy or a tragedy.


Scias te fortasse Romanum esse si animal convivialissimum arbitreris esse caprum (Henricus Barbatus)


my website

Gosh, so many generalisations it's hard to know where to begin ...

My books are self-published because I can't be bothered (to put it politely) with going to conventional (make that old fashioned) route. And at my age, life's too short to waste any of it on kowtowing to agents and publishers when there's no need to do so to see my books in print.

My books fit quite well into several marketable genres - but I don't write with the aim of being marketable. I write because I love writing.

No vanity, no bitterness: though I freely admit to a certain amount of contempt for the conventional publishing process. You only have to look at the best sellers in your local bookshop ... apart from the cash benefits, would you really want to put your name to most of that stuff? (Mind you, I admit I am lucky enough not to need the cash - but I'd still despise Dan Brown's work even if I did need it).

Deep down? I'm deliriously happy with self-publishing - and I'm prepared to bet that whoever wrote that Guardian article has never tried it!

Scias te fortasse Romanum esse si animal convivialissimum arbitreris esse caprum (Henricus Barbatus)


my website

What is really interesting, to me anyway, are all the comments made after this piece.

However, I just thought it might be fun to swap 'rejection slips.' That's all. But this was picked up on and I was warned not to get on the wrong side of publishers and agents.

All of us on this website, some with more success than others are trying to be artists. We are trying to create something good, something special. Believe it or not, we are the direct descendants of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, Dylan Thomas, Hemingway, Capote, et al..

WE are supposed to annoy, WE are supposed to upset, WE are suppose to poke fun, deride. That is one of our chief functions.

We are the grit in the bland oyster that makes the pearl. And we should be proud of that, and not squirm around as lickspittles frightened of offending every jobsworth in an industry which has elevated money to be its sole concern.

And just as a reminder, I refuse to given any respect at all to a company which publishes, publicises and, no doubt, drinks champagne having published, this:-

As Mandy heard the taxi pull up she spun round in the hallway, making sure she had everything. She was always running late, but tonight was special: tonight was her night, and she just had to be on time.

She’d better tell the taxi driver to wait. She grabbed her copy of Grazia from the antique table to protect her head from the heavy rain.

‘Hi,’ she said to the taxi driver, smiling. ‘Can you wait five minutes? I need to lock up.’

‘No problem, love,’ he said.

She skipped down the stairs in her satin high heels, trying to avoid slipping in the puddles, and back through the door.

Mandy loved her home in the basement of a grand stucco property in Queensgate, South Kensington. As she walked into the entrance she checked herself out in the mirror. She felt good, more confident than she had expected to at this turning point in her life. She reached for her lip brush and added one final coat of luscious gloss. She cleaned any remaining stains off her teeth with her tongue and smiled at herself in the mirror. Her hair was dark as ebony and it fell in shiny waves over her shoulders; her skin was flawless, even and gleaming, her long dark lashes framing her beautiful big brown eyes perfectly. Her lower lip was fuller than the top and when she smiled she lit up the room. She grabbed her keys and her clutch bag and quickly squirted some perfume.

‘One last check,’ she said to herself, looking at her reflection. Tonight was a big night. She had to look great. ‘Have I got everything? Right, bag – check, lippy – check, keys – check.’

She grabbed her slightly sodden copy of Grazia again and headed out of her heavy black door, pulling it shut by its knocker. She fumbled with her umbrella: ‘Oh bloody hell, it never works, why do I bother?’ She ran and jumped into the taxi.

‘Ready, darlin’?’ said the cabby with a twinkle in his eye – he clearly found Mandy attractive.

‘Ready!’ she replied with a big smile, relaxing into the back seat. Mandy looked out at the rain, falling hard.

‘You look nice,’ said the cabby. ‘Are you going somewhere special?’

‘Yes,’ Mandy replied, ‘I’m off to the Wolseley.’

‘Ooh,’ the cab driver said, laughing, ‘very posh. Special occasion?’

‘Yes, actually. I’m turning thirty!’

The cabby looked at her in the mirror for about the tenth time in as many seconds, openly enjoying the view.

‘You don’t look it,’ he said with a grin. ‘I’d have you down as twenty, easy.’

Mandy laughed and rolled her eyes, knowing that, yes, she looked pretty good – but not twenty!

God, she loved London. Even in the rain, she found it romantic. As they drove past the Natural History Museum, Harrods and one of her favourite hotels, the Lanesborough at Hyde Park Corner, the old streetlights glowed a deep orange and fairy lights twinkled in the trees, building up the momentum for Christmas. She felt the driver’s eyes on her again. Now he was swerving over the wrong side of the road.

A car honked its horn with a loud beep, and the driver yelled, ‘Keep in your own bloody lane!’ as he sped past.

Mandy’s cabby just laughed and carried on with his friendly banter. ‘So who you meeting then, anyone nice?’

‘I’m meeting about ten lovely people actually,’ Mandy said, thinking how thrilled she was that so many of her friends could make it. They were colourful characters all of them, with fast-paced lives, and pinning them down wasn’t always easy.

Copyright Martine McCutcheon.

Thank you, The Rugby is starting now, so I have an emotional afternoon ahead of me.

Yours faithfully

DaiBach