The nice kind of no

I said a few months ago that I was on a 'want to get an agent' swing (you know, from my to self-publish or not to self-publish conundrum). I'm still on it and it doesn't look like I'm coming back down anytime soon. Well, not until I've exhausted all possibilities. I've given myself to 20.

A long time ago (read 'when the first draft was finished'), I sent the manuscript to 3 agents. I can't remember if I've ever mentioned this. I didn't really tell many people at the time. I was more testing the water, I suppose, which is a really stupid way of burning a lot of bridges. But I was young and naive in the ways of publishing (hum...). Anyway, needless to say I only got rejections.

Then in September I contacted 4 agents. I got nos one by one, and hadn't heard from the last one so this weekend, having some free time, I contacted 6 more. So that's 10, half of my target, but also probably the ones I had the best chance with.

Then this morning I got the answer from the 4th agent I had never heard from. Quite a coincidence!
Anyway, until now all the rejection emails I'd received had been fairly bog-standard, a polite "thanks but no thanks."

The one I got today was slightly better, and so far the nicest no I've received. I know I shouldn't put too much stock by it - at the end of the day, agents can be nice people too, even when they're rejecting you, so it doesn't mean my novel is any good - but it does feel like the comments are personal and part of me is hoping. Hoping that this is a good sign.

Anyway, this is the email:

Dear Soizic,

Many thanks for sending me the first three chapters of your novel to me. I thought this was imaginative, well-written, gripping with strong and original characters – it was an entertaining read with plenty of pace and had a good commercial premise. Lacie was a nicely empathic character with a good voice and strong narrative drive.

However, while I did enjoy this and think it an engaging read, I’m afraid I didn’t love it quite enough to take it any further. That’s not to say another agent may not totally disagree.

I do wish you all the best with your writing and thanks you again for sharing your novel with me.

Best wishes,

Look! "Good commercial premise", she says. "Nicely empathic character with a good voice", she says. As nos go, this one has got me quite excited! I just need to stop myself from over-analysing and getting my hopes up. After all, she did say no.

Gosh, this agent thing really is like dating, isn't it?

The Masterplan

So, world, long time no see. It's been so long in fact that my URL bar autofill had forgotten blogspot and *shock horror* I had to type it in myself.

But now I am on holiday and I have at least 10 days before going anywhere, which means writing is back on the agenda! Hurray!

I had promised about a thousand years ago that I would reveal my masterplan for my book. That was when there was a masterplan, which was in 3 stages:

Stage 1: become part of the community
- get my book out on Wattpad so my friends/ family and even hopefully random strangers can see what I've written. In other words, build an audience. I'm happy to report I have 8 followers, 12 comments, 24 favourites and 216 views. Which is really pathetic in Wattpad stats, by the way, but makes my gratitude for those 8 followers all the more heartfelt.
- be active on Twitter (which has happened, like, twice).
- connect with online reviewers by reading their reviews and the books they recommend (note to self: add to to-do list).

Stage 2: crowdfund to self-publish
I've always thought a crowdfunding campaign would be really fun. Also really embarrassing to beg people for money, since I am aware that most people who know me and read my blog are not actually that interested in reading high fantasy adventures for teens. Still, it would have involved making videos and promotional material and thinking of perks (the stuff you give to people who donate), all of which sounded exciting. My idea was to raise enough money to get an editor, a cover design, making the book (typesetting, printing, etc.) and promotion. Possibly pay for some of that myself (goodbye exotic holidays!), depending on the success of the crowdfunding.

Stage 3: self-publish
This would have meant going through all the steps mentioned before, which as I understand it involves the following:

- line editing: making it sound better, fixing dodgy sentences or unclear paragraphs, etc. It might sound like something you can do yourself or ask a friend to do for you, but this is the one thing that everybody says you should not skimp on.

- copyediting: fixing typos, grammatical mistakes, etc. I have become totally blind to my typos, so I definitely see the need for a copyeditor.

- typesetting: getting the file ready with the correct font, spaces, etc. so it can be printed.

- formatting for ebook or print format

- cover design and formatting. One of the tips I received at the London Book Fair is that a book has to be a beautiful object for booksellers to want it. I particularly like the ones with foil blocking.

I love foil blocking! (That's the gold stuff on here.) This is not my book, obviously, but I love this cover I had to ask some guys to move so I could take a picture of it on the tube.

- printing: does what it says on the tin. Printing can be 'on demand', which is more expensive per copy but is the only option for very small print runs, or it can be for a particular print run, usually over 200 copies, which is then cheaper per copy.

- distribution: for ebooks, there's a variety of platforms from which to distribute the book, all of which seemed achievable as an indie author without paying anyone for it. However to reach the printed book market (and how cool would that be!) you need to go through a distributor. Distributors and bookships don't usually accept indie books if you contact them directly so I thought that was the end of the story, but there are some publishers which, for a fee, will place your book with distributors, and tehrefore bookshops. I know that you have to be very careful, though, with vanity presses, and I have heard of many a horror story of people paying through their nose for services they never received and gave up their copyright for their work in the process. I think, though, that with the rise in self-publishing, a few The one I was the most impressed with at the London Book Fair was Matador, which is a self-published imprint of Troubador (and from my little research, doesn't seem to be fleecing writers in exchange for hot air). They were upfront about the costs, had some legit endorsements and very helpful advice booklets. And because they are part of an actual publishing house, it didn't seem like a fraud (though that's not always a guarantee). Anyway, as you can see they did a good job of convincing me they were the best in town for my purposes, because I had my heart set on them.

The reason this needs to be paid for is that a publisher would pay for it. And if you want your book to look professional, it needs to be done by professionals.

Some self-published authors also pay for marketing, but I was mostly keen on doing that myself: blog tours (blogs publish a piece about you or your book on different days within a week/ month - like a tour, but online), twitter presence, entering competitions, doing giveaways on Goodreads...

From this point on, my path was set for glory, right?

But like I said, this WAS the masterplan. And now... well I have fallen in love, and it's changed everything.