My book has gone to Kindle for publishing

After two days of intensive work at the prompting of ‘M’ (you know how you are!) I finally submitted my manuscript to Kindle last night!

At last, I have written a book and sent it for publication.

I’d like to say that it was easy but it wasn’t. Even going down to the last wire I discovered some formatting problems that I had not expected, but I got them sorted in the end...I hope!

‘The War Wolf’ is not sitting on my Kindle bookshelf with ‘Publishing’ written underneath it, even seeing that leaves me with a great feeling of satisfaction! It feels better than I had expected to be honest, but then I began this project with the idea of following the traditional route for publishing a literary work. That did not work out, got a lot of rejections to prove it, but as the book developed the idea of e-publishing became more and more attractive.

Some might see it as an easy option but I do not think that that is necessarily true, at least not for the dedicated writer. The reason why I spent two days working until late each evening was because I wanted my manuscript to be right. I did not want to see any silly spelling mistakes or careless grammatical errors in the finished article. I wanted people to concentrate on what I got right not what I got wrong.

As a result I feel more closely bound to my manuscript than maybe I expected. I am very proud of it. I think that it is a story that is worth telling; in fact I know it is. It no longer matters to me that I could not get a literary agent interested because I know that that really does not signify anything. A literary agent is just another person expressing a subjective opinion bound by the parameters of commercial success. If they did not see The War Wolf as being a commercially successful book then they are not likely to accept it. I understand this point and move on.

The real litmus test is not the literary agents and, perhaps not even the critics, it is the reader. Obviously the critics can have a massive impact upon a book, I don’t discount that, but you have to stop and think who did you write this book for? It was not for the critics, it was people who enjoy a good story, empathise with your characters and want to know what happens to them. Of course critics are such people, so they figure in their anyway!

Now I wait for Amazon to tell me that my book is out in the wide public domain, it’s like waiting for Christmas morning!

Flippin’ ‘eck – that’s brilliant!!

I was talking my wife last night, something that we are prone to do over a glass of wine, and she pressed me on when is my book going to get published? It was a good question that has been frequently asked over the many, many months I have been working on it and, as on previous occasions, I had no definite answer.

We then discussed why I did not have a set date in mind. Now obviously it is impossible to set such a date when you do not have a publisher, never mind not having a literary agent, especially if you are trying to go down the traditional route of publishing.

As she pointed out, however, I had made another submission; why not set a date in consideration of that fact?

This was a good point, in my wine drinking estimation. I knew before hand that the odds are stacked against me when it comes to getting a sympathetic viewing from an agent. I made my submission on Sunday muttering to myself this ancient adage; hope for the best, expect the worst, and take what comes!

Glancing back at my pre-submission notes I confirmed that there was approximately a 6 week wait before I could expect to hear anything from the agent. 6 weeks would put me in the middle of July. That might be a good time to e-publish? However, we have a family holiday booked for August; I don’t want to be away after the launch because getting the word out each and every day is important if you want to succeed. Then my muse hit me with another brilliant idea; why not launch your book on the anniversary day of the battle it chronicles?

Flippin’ ‘eck – that’s brilliant!!

Tying the two in together would give me time to build up my social media network, iron out any manuscript problems, develop the website more, research e-publishing fully and be ready on the big day!

So, if my latest attempt to capture a literary agent alive and kicking does fail here’s my plan-b. This book is going to take its’ first steps into the big bad world one way or another, I mean, it’s not as if we write these things so that no one else gets to read them other than us is it?!

Submission Time!

While I am tending towards e-publishing there is still a part of me that wants to explore the traditional publishing route of contracting a literary agent and seeing my book in hard print. I have no doubt that writers already know how difficult this process is. In fact I would go so far as to say that it is the torture of submitting your work to a literary agent that fuels the current explosion in e-publishing. 

I started submitting my work in 2011 and I have not had one favourable response. In some cases I just did not get a response whatsoever, and in one particular instance an agent wrote a rather curt “no thanks” on my own covering letter and sent it back to me in the self addressed envelope that I had provided.

Also, there is the fact that no two agents seem to want the same thing in terms of what to submit. Some, but not all, want a covering letter, a biography, a synopsis, and the opening chapters. Well that doesn’t sound so bad! It would not be except that the format is not universal. My previous experience has shown me that some want the biographical detail in the covering letter, that the synopsis can range from 1 to 5 pages, that the chapters can be the first three or just 3000 words. Also, some agents want hard copy, along with the ubiquitous SEA, and some prefer e-mail submissions; some even accept both! Very few actually give any clear guidelines of what they actually want from the author as if it were some kind of test of comprehension on their part.

Do not get me wrong, I am not slating literary agents here, just making observations based on experience. I value the role of the literary agent or else I would not be going to the trouble this week of preparing yet another submission, it is just that the whole process is so lengthy and, in many instances, so lacking in response.

I know that agents get plenty of submissions every day, I am not the only person who thinks that they have written the best thing since the last big seller, it is all a question of perspective. For the literary agent mine is just one of a large number of submissions and treated accordingly. For me my submission is a labour of love.

Could agents make it easier for themselves and writers too? I think that they could. It would be great if there was a standard form for submissions to take. It would be encouraging to know exactly what to put in the covering letter, what facts to include in the biography, for the synopsis to be of a certain length and format (line spacing, font, etc.,), and, finally, exactly which chapters to submit; I find the arbitrary 3,000 words off-putting because my opening chapter is 5,000 long and it seems silly to submit it incomplete.

I wonder if the industry did adopt a universal submissions procedure whether or not this would make it easier for the literary agent because writers, that is genuine writers who work at their craft, hone their work, and believe in what they are doing, would be able to provide submissions that meet the criteria at the first attempt. Unfortunately this, to me sensible, situation does not exist. I will have to adapt my submission for each and every agent that I want to send it to and every time I make a change in line spacing or font or word count I will have to review it all again to make sure that I get it right, which just makes the whole process tortuous.

It’s a good job, I suppose, that I believe in my work and that I am happy to put myself through this to get into print, either that or I am a masochist and never knew it?!