Any writers out there?

Wot ho Phoenix

Have you started your blog yet? Have I missed it?

GrannieGrimble - where do you find these free writing competitions, please? They mostly seem to require an entry fee. I recently paid £10 to enter a short story competition.

I have written about three novels and thrown two away. I have also written a children's book. I have received encouraging letters from publishers such as "you write really well but your work is not commercially viable" and "not for me but do try elsewhere." I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to do a Creative Writing Course. I am a graduate so not unfamiliar with study. I am getting on a bit and wondering if it's worth going on with trying to get published. (Late 60s)

For those of you who are really keen to get your work published here are a few suggestions.

Match the genre of your writing to the publisher who publishes your style of writing.

Find an author who writes in a similar style, topic, to yourself and then google who their Literary Agent is. Then look on the agent's website and see how they want a manuscript presented. It is crucial you follow exactly what they require.

My son said he wouldn't be where he is today if he hadn't of had an agent who knew the publishers personally and more importantly presented his manuscript to the correct potential publisher.

If you have had some work published it is worth considering joining The Society of Authors who hold meetings around the country where authors support and help each other.

Creative Writing courses are great for keeping your writing momentum going.

I write a lot of poetry, but am not interested in having it published. I write sometimes for friends, though, at times of great joy or sorrow, and have done some performance poetry when I was working. Oh, and I can write doggerel at the drop of a hat, as I have done on here. Love it.

Writing is therapy, and is good for us - you can write that letter, express all your feelings, never post it, of course, and feel so much better!

Oh, and meant to say - we do have several published authors in our midst, but it is up to them to reveal themselves. Their very articulacy on threads might suggest them...

Thanks NanKate.
Can you still find out who the literary agent is if the person is a celebrityish person or well known?

What about a competition? How many of us can get a letter published in one of the National Dailies by the end of March?

Get a copy of the Writers and Artists Yearbook. There are lots of useful articles in it about getting published. Don't go for a big agency, try the smaller ones, they are more hungry for new work.

Well it depends Soontobe I have just looked up Stephen Fry and easily found his Literary Agent, then I tried David Walliams and was unsuccessful there.

Thanks.

NanKate is right about presenting your work exactly as asked for because if you don't it gets rejected immediately. I bet they miss a lot of good stuff that way but it just demonstrates how many manuscripts they must receive.

For about 2 years my son worked for a publisher and his job was to read the first chapter of all the manuscripts that came in. If he thought them worthwhile he passed them up the chain of command.

I asked him how many of the books he recommended where actual published and he said about 4 or 5!

I don't want to put people off but only a very tiny percentage are taken. I think self-publishing is a good way forward.

But self publishing earns even less pennies than the other way?
On the whole it actually costs the author?

I agree Soontobe but I think it is sad when people write books and either don't publish them or destroy them, as it takes such a lot of effort to write them in the first place.

I am sorry if I am delivering negative information about getting work published, but it is such a precarious occupation.

As it is so very difficult to have manuscripts accepted for publication sometimes it is the only way to see your work in print. My friend wrote a book which included details of a hotel in Devon, she took the self published books to them and they bought a few off her to put in their foyer. She also persuaded a charity shop to let her do a mini book launch there.

Having said that one or two people who have self-published and got their books on Amazon have been discovered this way.

Don't give up.

I had been going to follow the traditional route via agent to poss publisher but was put off by another writer: he pointed out that sometimes, even if your book makes it off the slush pile ,they pay you maybe £200 then its theirs. If they decide not to bother after that its your hard lines and you can't get it back to try elsewhere. Don't know if that's true but it certainly made the self publishing route look more attractive to me.

I endorse everything Nankatehas said, the most important of which is to choose an agent or publisher who actually wants to represent or publish the genre in which you write. It sounds obvious but do your research really well,and if you have written,say, romantic fiction don't send it to an agent who only represents sci-fi. Yes, I know it's not rocket science but it is surprising how many would-be authors just fire off their Ms's to all and sundry and then sink into a black hole of depression when they keep receiving rejection after rejection.

There is loads of information on the internet, and it's so much easier than a few years ago when all we had was the Writers Year Book which was/is pretty costly for a reference book which only has a 12 month life span.

Jane10.. .. if a book makes it out of the slush pile (an achievement in its own right)it will not make you a six figure success,despite what the DM says! (Unless you are J K Rowling). BUT you should never,ever sell a work for something like £200 full rights. I think your writing friend is either being disingenuous, or naive because the author should always retain full rights and a respectable agency/publisher would not expect anything else.

Don't be inhibited by age!! It's never too late but the road to publishing is frustratingly slow, so E-publishing can be a viable option especially for family memoirs. It's cheap, can be very professional looking, and ideal as a permanent record for future generations. So get writing all you Gransnetters before it's too late!

Thanks for your supportive comments Absentgrandma. If prospective writer follow the rules they up their chances of publication.

A friend of mine ran a creative writing class - it was so useful as she gave out lots of info on how and where to contact when the manuscript was ready for the next stage. She encouraged her students to write short stories and articles and to take a step by step approach to get their work in print.

There was an article in one of the major newspapers last year that said the annual salary of the majority of full time authors was about £13,000, hence a lot of authors have a second job to bring in sufficient money to exist.

All very useful info. Thanks. I'm not in it for the money -more for the satisfaction. Will bash on open to all possibilities.

Best of luck Jane.

I once taught a creative writing class for adults - very mixed ages. What I found very hard was that some people, often very keen, produce writing that was almost incomprehensible and couldn't accept that they needed to study and employ basics like maintaining their objective in a paragraph (or, indeed, how to use paragraphs) writing clear, grammatical English so that their readers could understand and all the usual, basic techniques. In fact, even the concept of writing for a reader was a new idea for them.

Some people could see this, and worked hard at improving, and did, but there were always one or two who thought they were God's gift to literature, and that I, and the publishers who had rejected them, were part of some sort of conspiracy.

I did have some lovely, talented students too, who listened, worked and blossomed, and that made it worthwhile. But I would much rather teach sixteen year olds, any day. Or not teach at all, like now!

I agree Ariadne some people can be very precious about their writing and so defensive at constructive feedback. They think they know best when they patently do not.

I'm not sure about self publishing. It's expensive and would you feel the same satisfaction? Two years ago I edited a book about our family. It contained parts of the family tree which I have researched over the years but mostly it was memoirs of older family members, photographs and reminiscences. I also included entries from family diaries, especially the funny ones, ancient receipts for laughably low amounts and post cards sent before WW2 ('don't worry, Flo, there won't be no war' - sent to my grandmother by her sister in 1939). I only needed four copies for the grandchildren plus one for me and one for my sister, so I took the draft to a local printer who produced six very nice spiral bound A4 copies for me at a cost of £60. Not peanuts but reasonable I thought since some of the draft was only cut and paste and he had to tidy it all up. I did the same this year with some books I wrote for the younger grandchildren.

I think, novice that I am, that it partly depends on an individuals' reasons for writing.
If you want to see your work in print, and have enough money to do so, then self publishing may be the way to go.

Might is also lead on to a publishing house contract if the books are successful enough?? I dont know the answer to that one.

I now realise that some books I found on Amazon must have been self published. They were gems and I'm so glad I found them. Many were diaries eg of a young teacher in the war. Fascinating detail. Maybe not perfectly to the standard of a creative writing class but to my mind they were the better for that. Unpolished and authentic. How did all the great writers of the past manage? Are we at risk of becoming formulaic in writing if we all have to write to set standards presumably related to economics? Oh no. Sounds like an essay title!