The Word Cloud

Hi guys,

This is just a quick note to let you know that we're aware some of you have yet to receive feedback from David Smith and other agents who on short notice were unable to attend the festival. We want everyone to be happy with every aspect of the festival, so we will do our best to resolve any issues related to this.

We have recently heard from David, who does intend to honour his commitment to you. Here is the note we just received from him:

Things have been extraordinarily busy since Easter, and I haven't wanted to do things piecemeal. What I propose is that I will give each of the Festival attendees a written report as a basis for a telephone discussion - that way they'll have some of my ideas to think about before we speak and therefore be able to have a more focussed discussion. I'll try to make a start on these reports this week, but I hope you will pass this on to those who have been asking. Please ask them, too, to bear in mind that dealing with so many writers in the context of a busy working week is rather different from a concentrated weekend out of the office. I intend to give serious feedback, but I need time to give it.

Thanks for your understanding.

Best wishes
David

As I've said to anyone who's approached me about this issue, if you are (understandably) tired of waiting, we'd be more than happy to get you some feedback from a different agent than you already signed up with, or to offer a free publishing consultation with Harry, our editorial director (who would not ordinarily do these at all without a recommendation from another reader). Just get in touch with us on info@writersworkshop.co.uk and we'll help you sort the situation out.

All the best,

Tommy,
The Writers' Workshop

Just saw this, and thanks for posting the information from David. I'll happily wait to hear from him. Time isn't an issue, the main thing was simply not knowing what was happening. Now I do, I'm more than happy to wait for his feedback! :-)

That sounds really good - considerably better than the standard rejection I was sent from the agent's assistant!

So has anyone heard from David Smith then?

Or from Tim Bates? Or even from Tommy? Watching too much World Cup, maybe. I can only assume that anyone clouding at the moment is either not all that keen on soccer or their team is out of the running? Non?

Hey all... Just wondering if anyone has heard anything from David Smith yet? As I've said a few times, I'm happy waiting, if I know it'll happen eventually, but at this rate we'll be at the next festival lol! ;)

I don't mean to be cynical and I'm sure he's a really nice guy - but I came to the conclusion he just wasn't going to have the time. And once you get into summer there's holidays and people away and then the mad rush when you get back. The pressure doesn't let up, so if he hasn't found time by now he quite possibly won't.

I think with some of the agents, the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. Simon Trewin wasn't able to read anything before the session and promised to review everything afterwards. However, when it came, his review consisted of sending out his standard rejection letter - bit of a waste of time really, I could have got that by sending stuff in the normal way!

Welcome to the real world. Law of supply and demand. Too much supply. Only way prices stay high is to rely on established writers.

"Welcome to the real world. Law of supply and demand. Too much supply."
Certainly, on the surface, it seems to be true that writers are increasingly throwing themselves at the feet of agents or pre-agents or pre-pre-agents, begging for their 'slush' to be moved a step closer to publication. But stephen, isn't it true that the Laws of Supply and Demand rely on a situation of fair competition?

"Only way prices stay high is to rely on established writers."

Do you mean the price of books? I would have thought the demand for good quality, original and entertaining stories is almost limitless, but is it true that the general public are being deprived of this due to a system which is controlled by greedy agents, publishers and retailers?

Hi Ron - long time since I did Economics. I think it would be reasonable to say that good agents and publishers do get inundated with M/S - or so I'm frequently told. That would indicate that supply is buoyant. We are told that it is difficult (but not impossible) for a new writer to 'break-in' - in some cases publishers actually promote such talent via comps etc.

Demand, per se, is less tangible - and that's the risk area. Any one who can crack that is on a winner.

Put yourself in the place of an agent or publisher. Your bread and butter comes from established writers - ones where demand is known to make money. If you have time (ha, ha) you may look at some new material - can't afford to miss out on the next JKR.

It's a competitive market; only that it is skewed, and prices of books are determined by book length (so I am told).

Anyway it's tautology - we both know that this thread criticises agents who 'talk the talk' but don't deliver. And we know why - they're too busy servicing their established writers to promote unsung talent. The wife and kids syndrome - hungry mouths to feed.

Sorry to rant and rave - my soapbox is groaning under the weight of rhetoric.
stephen

"they're too busy servicing their established writers to promote unsung talent. "

Hi stephen. That attitude seems to apply to The Society of Authors too. They claim to support writers, but only let you join once you have been published. For new writers, there seem to be several barriers to entry.

So are agents a product of the law of supply and demand you mentioned? In order to filter the number of writers approaching publishers the 'agent' was created? An alternative way of dealing with the excess supply of writers would be for more publishers to be created, which would have been better for us writers. I wonder why that hasn't happened?

Hi folks, a few things seem a bit off beam to me here.

The Society of Authors is a trade union representing the interests of professional authors - just like the National Union of Miners is there to represent the interests of actual, current miners, not people who would one day like to dig coal. I don't think you can blame the SoA for acting as it does. It's a jolly good outfit, actually.

Nor is it quite right that payments are made according to the length of the book. Nothing of the sort is the case. Advances are determined by the market: the more publisher reckon a book is worth, they more they'll pay for it. I'd say length has almost nothing to do with it. (My shortest book earned the most, for example).

Also, can we quash this myth that agents don't take on new authors? They do! They do! The thing is they only take on authors whose work they think they can sell. Given that, according to recent government statistics, there are exactly one gazillion manuscripts produced for every one that is published, agents have to be very, very picky. This is a business where publishers are reducing their lists; where average advances are falling (from levels that were never high to begin with); and where JK Rowling and gang are utterly exceptional.

In the end, the advice is always: make sure your manuscript is strong enough. If it is, it'll sell. There are a few footnotes and caveats to add of course, but none of those are as important as the major headline. If your MS is good enough, it'll sell.

Hello Harry - thanks for the update. It mirrors my experience - the difficulty is getting the M/S read! Many agents/publishers just say the story doesn't fit our current profile - without giving any indication of what that might be... If I was an established writer with a track record - I'd at least have my M/S on the table.

So while I hear what you say - it's still a skewed market.

You mention payments - my comment relates to the book's published retail price being determined by length, not the publisher's advance. I am very encouraged to hear of your success with your shortest book - that's really good news, and my biggest concern that a 70k detective novel could be turned down owing to brevity!

"I don't think you can blame the SoA for acting as it does."

Hello Harry,

Of course the SoA are under no obligation to help anyone if they don't want to. But they were mentioned as an organisation that might battle to get a fair deal for writers. Do you think they would benefit from accepting subscriptions from unpublished writers? Could they not follow the excellent Word Cloud's example and encourage all writers, both unproven and proven, to rub shoulders?

I've heard one or two published writers express the view that the industry would benefit from having fewer writers, who would then be in a better position to make a living from it. Is that view widespread on the other side of the fence? Obviously, as a new writer, I would prefer there to be a united front working together to get a fairer deal for all writers. I'm sure that's what Arthur Scargill would have wanted too.

Ron

Another point is that you don't have to be published to become a member of the SoA: you have to have been offered a book contract or an agency contract (you don't even have to accept the contract), or to have had several (I think it's usually six, but I'm not sure) contracts for shorter pieces, or to be self-published as a commercial business, however small. In other words, anyone who has or is about to have a financial relationship with the book trade can become a member. A trade union doesn't have as a member anyone who's ever re-wired a light-switch who feels like joining to get the benefits: it represents bona-fide members of the trade with a certain set of professional skills and related professional needs.

And Harry's right, advances are totally unrelated to the length of the book. They're related to the publisher's best guess at what the likely royalties will be, if the book sells as well as they expect. Of course, if they feel that a chunky beast of a book will sell better than a slim volume, then that will be reflected in the advance. But that's because of the effect of perceived length on sales, not payment-by-the-yard.

Thanks Emma. I may have got the wrong end of the stick with their eligibility criteria. Are the SoA able to help writers get their first book published? This would seem to be a fairly critical point in the life of an author.

I mentioned the Fair Read idea to some people who read books. Having explained that not all authors are rich, they seemed quite prepared to pay a little extra if necessary to support the author, in the same way that Fairtrade works. Authors clearly lack clout within their industry and it's easy to see why. I'm simply trying to discuss how they might be able to achieve more clout.

By most definitions you're not an author till you're being paid for your work (or an agent thinks you will be) and it's people who are being paid for their work that the SoA represents. You can decide you're a writer whenever you like - you can even tell HMRC you're a writer before you've any earnings - but it's the Society of Authors, not the Society of Writers. The SoA isn't a training organisation for aspiring writers - there are plenty of those - it's a trade union of professionals.

The drawback we have, in wanting more clout, is that writing isn't a closed shop. There will always be someone else who can do the job - the only clout you can have is to do that job better than other people.

To quote the book trade journalist Danuta Keane, at the Edinburgh Festival just now, when the panel she was on was asked what people could do to support authors, the unanimous answer was, NOT to buy books second hand online. And I would add, not buy heavily discounted books. Full price, in an indie bookshop, is the best support you can give us, because it supports the indie bookshop too, and we need them.

I gather from your reply that SoA don't help writers get their first book published then. From the website, it seems ambiguous, but if that's the case it's a shame. An author is a writer of Books. There is no requirement to have made loads of money in order to call yourself an author. Even if your own excellent first novel hadn't sold a single copy you would still be an author, EmmaD. But you would be an author of a book that was rubbish or non-commercial or simply misunderstood, rather than the author of a really interesting novel that loads of people want to buy.

Retailers, publishers and agents all have a vested interest in making new writers believe they are 'slush' or 'ten-a-penny'. But, thankfully, people who read books don't think that about authors and could be prepared to pay more to ensure you get a fair cut. You may feel that becoming a member of the SoA means you have 'arrived' but there are lots of people making lots of money from your books who probably still consider you a mug.

Hi Ron, I've been reading this thread with interest and just had to drop in to ask a question. How would the Society of Authors go about helping writers get their first book published? Wouldn't that actually make them a literary agency?

So when I buy a second-hand book from Cancer Research or similar - and they do sell online before anyone nit-picks at that - I'm starving an author but helping a cancer patient. Blimey, what a moral dilemma! And of course even starving authors get cancer.

Maryluv, yes, it's a perfect little moral dilemma, isn't it - one to keep the school debating society happy for hours! So whaddya do? You could always restrict yourself to buying only out-of-print books, of course. Or just donate to the charity...

It's not the online-ness per se, of course, it's the fact that on say Amazon the new and 2nd hand are in direct competition. Generally speaking charity shops/normal 2nd hand bookshops are a different market - people tend to browse there and impulse buy based on what's on the shelf, rather than setting out to find a particular book. And many will be o/p anyway, so it doesn't matter. The problem with, say, Amazon online is that the 2nd hand copy is in direct competition which the new one which the author would make a royalty on, which makes it very easy for people to buy the one that's 1p... And in many cases Amazon make more money from their cut of your book selling through a dealer in the Marketplace (whether it's new or secondhand) than they do in selling a heavily discounted book direct to you themselves. So they're not bothered which buyers do - they make money either way.

Ron, people have been thinking writers are mugs since the beginning of time, but only people who don't understand how writing works, so it doesn't bother us; we know that if we want readers in any numbers, the book trade is the only way to reach them.

Emma

Hi Leila. The SoA appear to help authors negotiate contracts, but I wondered if they also helped vulnerable new writers get their first book published. I see your point, that they would be replacing one of the roles of agents, but wouldn't you prefer to have the backing of an influential, non-profit making organisation, than rely on an individual profit-oriented agent?

EmmaD, I've also looked at the Writers Guild as you recommended. They are open to unpublished writers, but do they have any clout in the book-writing industry?

I'd also agree with Maryluv. I don't see any reason for people to feel guilty buying second-hand books, or second-hand anything for that matter. Having said that, I'd usually only buy a book second-hand online if it wasn't available new, but that's a personal preference rather than an ethical decision.

Writer's Guild are more oriented towards broadcasting, film, stage and so on, though of course there's a big overlap in interests and experience; some writers are members of both, and WG and SoA work together on many issues, and often with the Association of Author's Agents, as the voice of writers to government and the industry. The WG are much more expensive to belong to, mind you, though they also have a well-thought-of pension scheme and as you say a new-writer category of membership, though I haven't looked into that in detail. I don't know that it helps you to get published (or rather, the broadcast equivalent), beyond the kind of support that the SoA also supply.

In the Society we're basically a group of professional authors who need to collect our experience and expertise together, and to have a collective voice in what is a very fragmented and individualised profession. So we employ a small group of administrators to help us gather that expertise and get that voice heard. That's the job of the Society: it's not an Arts Council or a Training Council or a literary agency or a consultancy, it's a trade union.

As Leila says, I don't actually see how an organisation such as the Society could help to turn writers into authors by getting them published. How? What would they do, of a Monday morning, for a would-be author asking for help, beyond the advice and contract-checking they already offer? How would they choose who to help, of the one million manuscripts in circulation? And how would it be paid for? Would the writer pay more for the work they do on their behalf, than an author who doesn't use them?