Writers' & Artists' Blog

This is my last real post here. At the end of this week I’ll be responding to the questions you guys have sent in, but beyond that, it’s back to my blog and to normal writing for me. It’s been great fun, great seeing so many people comment and respond, and a good exercise for me too, in thinking about how writing works.

This post is less pragmatic than some previous ones – on editing or queries – and more to do with how writers see themselves. Writing itself sits in that weird grey area between being solely an occupation and solely a hobby.  Plenty of folk do write just because they like to do it, and they never want to get published. Like artist, ‘writer’ is a title that anyone can claim if they want – which is good, don’t get me wrong – and with no official marker. Doctors have medical degrees, vicars are ordained, but writers just have to decide ‘Hey, I’m a writer! Or, at least, I want to be.’

Professionalism in this case is as much a way …

I'm off to the London Book Fair today.  I've got some people to meet up with, and there's a few seminars and a book launch that sounds interesting.

To the aspiring author, it can seem like the perfect event to attend.  Pretty much every editor and agent in London will be there, along with a healthy proportion of the international publishing community.

The trouble is - the author is bottom of the list.  A few glossy well-fed authors will be trotted out to add colour to a publisher's stall, or to push an amazing new bestseller, but the vast majority of the work done at the LBF revolves around rights and sales.

Publishers go to sell the rights in the books that they own and that they won't use themselves - such as foreign language editions.  Agents go to dangle their new lists in front of hungry editors to see who bites.  Sales managers and directors go to see if they can get great new deals with distributors or in new markets.

I used to work in rights and would …

In his penultimate blog post for Writers' & Artists, Simon P. Clark discusses where you should go with your finished masterpiece - and how to finally get past the literary agent's front door.

With your manuscript finished – finished and polished – it’s time to start looking for a literary agent. No, you don’t have to – you could choose to self publish, or submit to a few of the independent publishers who accept unsolicited queries. But for the sake of ease and brevity in this post, I’m only talking to authors who are looking to go down the traditional route.

A quick summary: to get your book in front of an editor at a traditional publisher, you need to have a literary agent. Most publishers nowadays only accept books from agents, who act as a kind of first test of quality. Submitting directly to a publisher is possible at a few companies, but you’re really limiting your pool of potential editors if you limit yourself so much. Agents, in return for taking …

After a very tough deliberation process, the winner of our Flash Fiction challenge has been decided by judge and author Roshi Fernando.

As mentioned when the shortlist was posted, the standard of entries has been extremely high. All who entered should be proud of themselves for really capturing the feeling of alienation in such a limited number of words.

However, there can only be one winner....and this time, it is Jane Roberts, for her entry 'Silent Space'!

Roshi Fernando said of her decision to award the prize to 'Silent Space'; 'The winner manages to use so many literary fiction techniques - and paints a beautiful picture.'

The winner will receive a bundle of short story collections plus two tickets for George Saunders and Jon McGregor’s event at the Southbank Centre.

The second prize, which is a collection of signed copies of books by Jon McGregor, D W Wilson & Roshi Fernando, goes to Louis Malloy, for his entry 'All The Way From Sorrow Mountain.'

Finally, third prize, a signed …

This is a blog about the impact a blog can have on your life. And while that might sound over-introspective, the issues involved are those all writers today need to think about.

Three weeks ago, The Guardian asked me to speak at a conference they were organising on self-publishing. Of late this has become my specialist subject. I became fascinated about four years ago, and since then have researched and written a book on the subject (The Naked Author) before embarking on second stage research with an expanded cohort of self-publishing authors.

The findings were significant, and have been made available in a series of articles in academic journals, but in brief:

• Far from being the sad losers that they're widely assumed to be, self-publishing authors are motivated and well prepared for the process they are taking on; 


• They are educationally well qualified. A staggering 44% of my cohort had a postgraduate degree; 


• They were very satisfied by self-publishing, process and final …