On Friday I spent the day on a course appropriately titled "The A-Z of the publishing industry." Along with many other hopeful faces we were witness to the words of wisdom from some heavyweights in the publishing industry. The panel moderator was Angela Meyer aka Literary Minded and we heard from everyone ranging from Mandy Brett from Text Publishing through to Emma Morris, a publicist from Scribe.
What I heard was both insanely depressing and wildly exciting. Mainly because I like a challenge. And believe me, the message coming through loud and clear was that getting work published these days is next to impossible. Not totally, but close. Two points stand out from the day amidst the many gems that were littered throughout it.
a) You need to get an agent. Which is incredibly hard, on a par with removing wisdom teeth without using anaesthetic, but there are ways to do it.
b) There is a new(ish) step you need to take before submitting your ms to an agent or publishing house. You should have it structurally edited first.
Session 1: Where do you start?
Meredith Curnow from Random House was first up and was amazing. The kind of person I would have loved to have lunch with. Unfortunately when I later did see her at lunch and stuttered how fab I thought she was, her reply was: "I thought you were all supposed to still be in the lecture!" Er, no, we weren't. And clearly I won't ever make it through her slush pile ;)
Her advice however, was both sound and sensible.
Soundbites included:
-write in an area you are comfortable writing in
-the first thing that strikes me is 'the voice'
-nothing more exciting than finding a new voice, then comes the story and the plot
-authors are now expected to work a lot harder than before
Mandy Brett from Text Publishing was next and was frank in her assessment of the situation:
- most people don't get published, it's a long odds game
-Text Publishing however, does take unsolicited manuscripts and they take them very seriously
-at Text you have to get two no's on an ms before it gets rejected
HOWEVER, and here's the kicker. Really you need to get yourself an agent. Books get a great deal more attention when they are submitted by agents.
By now you would have though we were sobbing into out little notebooks. But we weren't. In fact the delightful Alecia who was sitting next to me and I, were scribbling and tweeting harder than before.
The final person for this panel was Clive Newman of Fremantle Press. He was a soothing presence and told us the apocryphal tale of Elizabeth Jolley who had been rejected 57 times until they took her on. Good call Clive.
His advice was:
-where do we see the readership of our book? A book needs to attract a readership to make it a success. (And no just because your family and friends read it and think it's great does not a bestseller make)
-what is our marketing plan?
- and it doesn't get any easier, but by golly it's still good.
The rest of the session revolved around the importance of would be authors reading MS submission guidelines carefully before submitting.  You only get one shot so essentially make sure you do everything in your power not to stuff it up. We were also warned of the danger of investing too much in the synopsis to the extent that it doesn't relate to the plot. And if, IF the publishing house takes you on *cue champagne corks popping* that's just the start.
Part 2- I'll talk the how to of getting an agent. This includes having the ability to be a dogwalker apparently. And I'll talk numbers. How much does an author actually earn? You may need to bring alcohol to the next post.

A few months ago I had a vague idea for a novel.
Vague to the point of being a haiku really.
But I started writing it anyway.
For the next four nights I drove my husband berserk in bed (not like that) by sitting bolt upright in the middle of the night exclaiming loudly: "THAT'S a brilliant idea!"
According to my husband nothing is a great idea at 3am.
I kept merrily writing away in the moments and occasional hours I had free to concentrate.
I told an infinitely wiser friend what I was doing and she warned me of the following.
A manuscript takes 6 months to write.
Watch out for the 40,000 word wall.
Your manuscript is not your novel.
I blithely agreed with her knowing with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that I would have the ahem, novel finished in four weeks tops and it would be in shops in time for Christmas.
As one does with the arrogance of never having attempted to write anything longer than 700 words in recent years and the certainty that it would be "too easy."
I was further buoyed by the support and encouragement of some very generous writers who read my initial three or four thousand words and told me to keep going with it. Thank you so much ladies x
I had even organised three days where I would be child and husband free so I could get into lockdown and, you know, finish it within the four to twelve it was a taking a bit longer to write than I had thought week time frame.
Within two days of that conversation my husband was struck down with flu and I slammed into the wall with my story at 25,000 words. No matter about the 40,000 word wall. I was peaking early it seemed.
I had absolutely no idea where I was going with it all. I had a clearly mapped out plan but at the time it all seemed too hard to keep going.
I came down with the flu myself 24 hours later and left the initial print outs of my story in a drawer to gather some dust.
It became a stand-off situation whenever I entered my study. I refused to open the drawer and that way I could co-exist with what had become THE STORY THAT WILL NEVER BE FINISHED.
And so it remained.
Until a couple of weeks ago when, at the gentle but persistent urging of Husband I took it out of my drawer again. He has much more faith in my ability than I do.
And I started writing.
The break was good for both of us, me and my manuscript.
Yesterday I spent the day in the serenity of my parent's house writing uninterrupted for several hours. My mother would occasionally tiptoe in with cups of tea served on delicate china and delicious little snacks. She'd back out of the room almost reverentially and I would just keep going.
And I'm halfway there now.
Halfway there means I still have a long way to go. But I will finish it.
Even if it ends up only being my mother who reads it in the end.