How I (Finally) Got Published

Tags

Fish Publishing, How I Got Published, HWA & Sharpe Books Unpublished Novel Award, London's Foundling Hospital Museum, The Historical Writers Association, The Servant, writing groups, Writing Magazine

 

Back in 2015 I visited London’s Foundling Hospital Museum for the first time. It is an emotive place and I couldn’t get the heart-breaking stories it told – about the tokens desperate mothers left in the hope that they might, one day, be able to retrieve their precious child – out of my head. My book, The Servant, is the result.

Founded by Royal Charter in 1739, The London Foundling Hospital came into existence after seventeen years of effort by retired sea captain, William Coram, to make ‘Provision for Foundlings’. His eventual success was due, to a great extent, to his gaining the support of sixteen ladies of high rank, headed by the Duchess of Somerset. Their signatures on The Ladies Petition was presented to George III in 1735.

Initially, it was a short story – The Gingham Square – sent off to a Fish competition which also offered the bonus of a critique of your entry. The story itself (fortunately, as it turned out) failed to be placed, but the feedback I received from their editor was more than positive. It suggested that while the scope of what I had written was overwhelming for the short story form, it had the potential for something larger: a book.

Reader, I set my shoulder to the wheel.

Producing The Servant been a tortuous process which would have been impossible without the support of the outstanding input of other members of ninevoices. Extracts were read out loud at our WIP meetings, red pencils were flourished over purple prose, tactful hints made about pruning my obsessive use of research material, with even the odd encouraging cartoon added in the margin. 

Finally, last September, I learned from the invaluable pages of Writing Magazine that the Historical Writers Association, in partnership with Sharpe Books, were promoting a competition to find an unpublished historical novel. The prize was £500 and a publishing deal. To my delighted amazement, after the excitement of being shortlisted, I discovered that I had won.

Our followers will know that I have been writing and submitting for years and, despite having a couple of short stories published and some encouraging feedback from agents, rejection was the absolute norm. Until now.

Please let me encourage all you other writers out there to keep going. To keep entering competitions. And to find some like-minded writing friends. Not to mention a few supportive beta-reading dogs to rest an encouraging head on your knee.

 

‘The Servant’ is available to buy on Kindle from today, at £2.99: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B087N8H9PB/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=the+servant+maggie&qid=1587807272&sr=8-2

 

Writing Competitions to Enter in March

Tags

BBC National Short Story Award 2019, Evesham Festival of Words, Fish Publishing, Flash 500 Flash Fiction Competition, Henshaw Press Quarterly Short Story Competition, Neil Gunn Writing Competitions, The White Review Short Story Prize, Writer's Forum, Writing Magazine

 

What better time than spring to begin a new short story, enter a competition, or perhaps create a children’s book about the creature whose magical home is under this tree…?

The White Review Short Story Prize is for ambitious short fiction between 2,000 and 7,000 words by UK writers who have yet to secure a publishing deal. There is a first prize of £2,500, with the winning story being published in the print edition of the quarterly White Review. Shortlisted entries will be published online and their authors will receive feedback from The White Review editors. The entry fee is £15 and the closing date 4 March. For full rules and entry details: http://www.thewhitereview.org/prize

Neil Gunn Writing Competitions. Short story: 2,500 words max. Poetry: 40 lines max. Prizes: £500; £300; £200 in each category. Entry fee: £8. Deadline 8 March. Details: http://www.highlifehigh-land.com/neilgunn

Evesham Festival of Words Short Story Competition for writers aged 16-plus. 2,500 words maximum. Prizes: £150 plus trophy. Entry fee: £5. Deadline 22 March. Details: eveshamfestivalof-words.org/competition

Evesham Festival of Words Junior Competition for a story of 500 words max (age 8-11); 1,000 words (age 12-15). Prizes: £30 gift voucher plus trophy in each category. Details: eveshamfestivalof-words.org/competition

Fish Publishing Poetry Contest for a poem of 300 words. Prizes: 1,000 Euros; week at Anam Cara retreat; 200 Euros; top 10 published in anthology. Entry fee: 14 Euros, then 8 Euros thereafter. Deadline 31 March. Details: http://www.fishpublishing.com/writing-contests

The BBC National Short Story Award 2019, with Cambridge University, is open for entries until March 11. This prestigious award has a first prize of £15,000, and four shortlisted authors will each win £600. All winning stories will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in an anthology. Stories should be aimed at adult readers and up to 8,000 words. However, to enter writers must have a previous record of publication in creative writing (prose fiction, drama or poetry) with an established book publisher, newspaper, magazine, journal or periodical in the UK, or broadcast by a UK national broadcaster or content provider. Self-published work is not eligible. Entry is free, and each author may submit just one story. Full details from https://writ.rs/bbcnssa2019

Flash 500 Flash Fiction Competition for 500 words maximum. Entry fee: £5 or £8 for two. Prizes: £300, plus publication in Words with Jam; £200 and £100. Details: http://www.flash500.com

Henshaw Press Quarterly Short Story Competition for short stories of 2,000 words. Prizes: £100; £50. Deadline end March. Details: henshawpress.co.uk

Not a vast field, but there are always other, themed, competitions run by Writing Magazine and by Writers’ Forum which you can enter – some of which are open to non-subscribers.

As always, please remember to double-check the latest entry details before pressing that ‘send‘ button.

[My picture, incidentally, was taken last Tuesday, at Scotney Castle, in Kent. Bravo for our wonderful National Trust, and the wit they show in the notices displayed for visitors…]

How Proust can change you into a best-selling author

Tags

Marketing, Proust, Social Media, Writing Magazine

It seems that self-promotion is now part and parcel of being a writer, whether self or traditionally published. But where should the line be drawn?

Discovering that Marcel Proust, the creator of the iconic In Search of Lost Time, cunningly wrote a critic’s review citing the first volume Swann’s Way as a ‘little masterpiece … almost too luminous for the eye’ will hardly shock anyone in the business today. Proust was just ahead of his time.

Authors are bombarded with advice on how to promote their books, especially on social media. While it isn’t ever suggested that posting fake reviews of their own work is a good idea, the advice to authors is relentless, even ruthless, enough. There is no room for shrinking violets in this game.

Readers certainly like to be informed about a new book by an author but they may well begin to feel annoyed and manipulated if the chasing is too hard-boiled. Like ‘an insane cuckoo clock’ was the expression describing it that caught my eye when researching the subject on the internet. Is this what marketing on social media can turn into? The last thing many writers feel like being part of.

But I can feel Proust egging me on. Maybe not to write a lyrical review about a ‘little masterpiece’ of my own, but to point to a couple of prize-winning short stories in ninevoices’ writings. Maggie Davies’ Till Death Do Us Part won a Henshaw Press competition and Tanya van Hasselt’s Marshmallow Truth won the subscribers ‘Changes’ competition in Writing Magazine. Whilst the writing style in the latter story is nothing like that of my two self-published novels, it was both fun and fulfilling to try something new. Thank you Writing Magazine for this encouragement. 

Competitions

Tags

The Book Guild, Writing Magazine

There was an important omission from our recent Competitions to Enter in January post for those keen to see their book in print.

The Book Guild, in partnership with the excellent Writing Magazine will pick one winning book, which will be published by The Book Guild later in 2017, subject to the winner signing a contract with them.

They need:

• The first chapter
• A one-line elevator pitch, or tagline
• A 500-word synopsis of the entire story
• A brief account of your publishing/writing experience to date
• A 500-word plan of any promotional opportunities and how you see your book fitting into the marketplace.
• Your novel manuscript to be ‘finished and ready to go’ at 60,000-100,000 words

The closing date is 31 January 2017.  Entry is £5.  So, only two weeks in which to get your act together.

The Book Guild will provide a copy edit, cover design, full text design and layout, one set of proofs for the author to check, ISBN allocation, bookshop sales representation, marketing to the trade and media and distribution to the trade for one year.

Whew! Too good an opportunity to miss. PLUS the winner will also receive £1,000 in cash, courtesy of the David St John Thomas Charitable Trust.

Paste each of the five required texts into a single document and enter through the website: http://www.writ.rs/winabookdeal which gives full details. You do not appear to need to be a subscriber to the magazine.

Time to hit the keyboard – though you should maybe use something more up-to-date than this old typewriter, photographed on a freezing pre-Christmas visit to Knole, where it sits in the office of the estate’s agent.

 

 

 

The Rejection Diaries

Tags

Henshaw Press, Norwich Writers, Olga Sinclair, rejection, The Bridport Flash, The People's Friend, To Hull & Back, Women's Weekly, Writer's Forum, Writing Competitions, Writing Magazine

I’ve written more short stories in the last year than in the previous decade – and doing so has curiously somehow increased my productivity. As well as the short stories, I’ve managed to draft a pretty awful poem (my first since primary school), finished my romantic comedy novel (Douglas Dodd’s Women) and written the first 6,000-words of another, in a very different genre.

It was a fascinating exercise. Entering 9 competitions earned me: 1 first prize, 2 short-listings and 1 commended, as follows:-

Bristol Short Story Competition – no placing
Writing Magazine Crime Story – no placing
Writer’s Forum Competition – no placing
To Hull & Back Humorous Short Story Competition – Commended
Headway 500-word Competition – no placing
Bridport Flash Fiction Competition – Shortlisted
Henshaw Press Competition – 1st Prize
Writer’s Forum Competition – no placing
Norwich Writers Olga Sinclair Competition – Shortlisted

In addition, I sent a short story to, firstly, Women’s Weekly, and then to The People’s Friend. Both bombed.

I have four other entries ‘out there’ with results due in February/March. In case they are all rejected – which might stop me writing for days/weeks/months while I lick my wounds and whine about my work being only fit for the recycling bin – the plan is to send out a handful more in the next weeks, to keep the pot boiling.

As my husband tells me, if you fall off a horse you’ve got to climb straight back on and keep going.

Stop Press

Tags

Stories for Children, Writing Magazine

Have just seen from the December edition of Writing Magazine that our Sarah was short-listed in their Short Story for Children Competition.

Very well done, Sarah. All these short-listings have to mean something…!

Writing Magazine Shortlist

Tags

crime story competition, T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, Writing Magazine

Ninevoices were delighted to discover that our Sarah was recently shortlisted in Writing Magazine’s crime story competition with her dark tale of murder on Tunbridge Wells Common: Oh, Keep the Dog Far Hence.

Well done, Sarah! It’s a tremendous story and must have only missed out by a whisker. The thing about being shortlisted, of course, is that you are now free to enter it somewhere else.

The title, by the way, is a quote from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. (Embarrassingly we didn’t recognise it, either…)

Literary agents: don’t waste your time?

Tags

Agents, self-publishing, Writing Magazine

You need to get a literary agent because publishers won’t look at unagented submissions. This is what you were always told. It didn’t occur to you that things could be any different.

So you embarked on a time-consuming process of researching those agents most likely to be interested in your novel and meticulously followed their instructions. This usually meant a covering letter, a synopsis (the agony of this will need a post of its own) and the first three chapters. Then you waited, biting your nails, for their response requesting the full manuscript…

Sometimes rejections came by return of post or same day email  (suspicion: had anyone read a word of your submission?!) sometimes several months later. Or never.

Given that some agents request no multiple submissions, in theory a new author might spend years working through a target list. A little dispiriting if you are in your prime…

Or even more frustratingly, an agent once landed can spend months failing to sell your book to a publisher.

A strong-minded piece in the November issue of the ever-helpful Writing Magazine comes as happy light to the weary. It overturns the old advice. In a Q & A section, it’s suggested that nowadays other routes to publication (CreateSpace, Smashwords etc) are as valid and may be more effective than the traditional one.  The rewards can be instant, in both financial and publicity terms. No agent fees, and commercial publishers might come knocking at the door. In short, searching for a literary agent can be a waste of time.

Get an agent and get published? Maybe not.

 

 

All rejections are equal …

Tags

Writing Magazine

It’s easy to get discouraged by publishers’ rejections so Writing Magazine addressed the problem in a recent issue.  A member of ninevoices responded with the following letter about how one of the greatest novellas of the last century fared:

The year was 1944 and a respected author and journalist was trying to find a publisher for his 30,000-word ‘fairy story/political allegory’.  After several rejections, he tried Jonathan Cape who looked set to take it on, then changed his mind, citing advice from an ‘important official’ in the Ministry of Information.  That official was later uncovered as a Communist spy – who evidently didn’t want to upset his boss (and Britain’s wartime ally) Joseph Stalin. Thankfully, his influence didn’t extend to Fredric Warburg – who, after a few hold-ups, published the book in August 1945.  The initial print run of 4,500 sold out within days.

And Orwell’s Animal Farm just keeps on selling.