Like many people, having a novel published had always been a dream for me but in the past I’d always stumbled after the first few thousand words at most. Then, early in 2006, I decided to persevere. As a barrister, I’d figured on doing a legal thriller, John Grisham style. But as I started writing, I discovered for the first time characters and voices which were more comedy than conspiracy and found that rather than drying up the writing was actually gathering momentum. I wrote it as a blog and once I’d hit a few thousand words I put it online and back-dated the posts to make it seem like the blog had been going for months. With the story flowing and the characters taking form, I’d overcome the first obstacle. But this immediately brought to the fore an even bigger one: finding a publisher.
The only message I got from the big publishers’ websites was that they didn’t accept unsolicited manuscripts. ‘Go get a literary agent and don’t even waste our time’ was the message. But before I went down that very long road, I decided to persevere with the idea of going direct, at least with a few smaller publishers. After this I was given an email for one or two larger publishers and a few google searches brought up the email addresses for many others. So I took a deep breath and spammed a bunch of them with an email entitled ‘Book by a barrister’ and quoting The Lawyer magazine which had said that if my blog was fiction, it was, er, ‘genius’. To my surprise, rather than getting snotty replies, or worse still, silence, I started receiving very polite responses wanting to know more. One of these came from Bloomsbury and eventually led to the book deal I’d been seeking.
Now don’t get me wrong, I know full well that this was a rare bit of luck and that the usual advice of getting an agent still holds true. But what it does show is that publishers are very much awake to the need to be flexible in their approach and above all are always on the look out for new opportunities. Two things at least, which might give heart to other writers facing that same brick wall.
In the next post I’ll cover the question as to why I decided to take on a literary agent even after I’d hooked a big fish and how we eventually came to close the deal.
Tim
Tim Kevan’s second novel, ‘Law and Disorder’ is published on 3rd May by Bloomsbury and is availably at www.amazon.co.uk
That's a brilliant story. It just goes to show that you take pot luck, whatever advice you follow. Best of luck with the new book.