Musings from an author.

The book contained 535 pages and was easy as I knew the subject matter extremely well. The story was based on a particular period of my life and took place mainly in the early 60's and covered one particular area of my life in that period. One third of the story was fiction and the other two thirds were based on fact.

As I mentioned that was the easy part!

The real hard work then began and I started this by buying the Artists and Writers Yearbook from Smiths, and I began with the first agent and wrote to three of them at a time.

I had written a synopsis of the story, which I felt was rather good (!!!) and with each letter sent the first 3 chapters. (Expensive on postage!).

I received three rejection letters or slips as they are called and immediately wondered how dare they, who did they think they were,etc.etc.and sent off a further three and again received three rejection letters.

I have to say they were all very polite and nice, but still said ‘"No thank you"!

I went through all the agents and then started on the publishers and again the same thing happened and it wasn’t until the 65th attempt on the publishers list, that I got a bite and I thought that was it!

What a very naive attitude to have!

A different type of hard work then starts as after about 8 weeks I received the manuscript back and had to read it all over again, checking for spelling mistakes and punctuations and again after a further 6 weeks, back it came again and then after 12 weeks.The only difference being that this time it was in the format of the finished article and again I had to read it from front cover to the back!

I also had to provide a cover photograph for the book at this stage. I was also asked if I wanted a short resume about myself to be entered into the book. I agreed!

Then a massive problem, the Foreign Office advised that we had to get rid of Chapter 13. I thought they were joking and was ready to give up but the Publishers said not to, so I persevered, scrapped Chapter 13, and tried to change Chapters 12 and 14 to fit in with the story. Not too well I have to admit!

Page 2 contd.

Musings.

Anyway back came the manuscript with a further note from my editor, advising that this was the last chance I had to change or alter anything at all and to read it very carefully indeed for one final time!

Which I did of course but I have to admit that by this time I began to wish I’d never thought of writing, let alone finding a publisher for my story!

I finished the story as I mentioned on the 20th of December 1995 and the book was published in June of 1997 and the thrill I received when I saw it on the bookstands of Hatchards, Waterstones, Smiths etc.etc. was absolutely tremendous.

In fact l am ashamed to say that when I first saw it in Hatchards, I walked up and down just looking at it, for about half an hour!

The book did not do too badly as it went into a second print run and is still available from Amazon!

I have since written two other stories, but decided against seeing if I could get the second published until about 3 weeks ago, when I decided to have another go, so have done exactly as I did  with the first and bought a Yearbook, to have another ‘go’.

I believe that you have to have a certain amount of self-belief to start, especially for a second time, unless of course you are someone like Dickens or Forsyth, although I understand it took both of them some time to find publishers!

An Editor can be and is the most important person during the print process and it is highly advisable to listen to and heed his/her advice as they are in the know and also are the experts on selling books and sometimes their advice can be exactly opposite to how you, the writer feels, but accept their advice, they know what they are about!

Anyway, the first three letters went off last week and I now await the one publisher that has the common sense to grab my second story and get it onto the bookstands, where I feel sure it will be a best seller!

I hope this helps some of you would be authors and if you want any further help or advice, please ask.