Novel tips
Your muse
Write the novel you want to tell, not the novel you think will get published. I used to be a romance reader and decided to write romance novels because this was a lucrative market to get published in and one of the few genres that writers can make a living from.
After spending three years working on a romance novel that I lost passion for very early on, I finally realised that I wasn’t cut out to be a romance novelist. I slapped on an ending, hid the novel in my bottom drawer and started my next project.
While some writers can write in a particular genre for mercenary reasons, most of us need to feel passion for the work we’re doing. Writing a novel, submitting a novel, getting a publishing contract and revising a novel for publication are all demanding components of the writing business.
You need to ask yourself-if I died tomorrow is this the novel I want to stand for me? I believe that you can overcome unpolished writing as long as there is passion behind the project, but you cannot overcome a perfect draft that lacks heart.
Workshopping
As a writer I’ve had my novel workshopped by other students in my writing course, friends, and writing groups. It is a necessity for other people to read your work and provide constructive criticism. Your parents, husband, and pets do not count. Friends are good, but only if they have a writing background. Ideally you need people who are readers and thinkers to go through your work and deconstruct it in a way that you know what works and what needs to be worked on.
I found my writing course invaluable for learning the building blocks to becoming a writer. I then moved on to a writing group and while this provided feedback and support, I found it ultimately not useful because I needed people to critique my novel in its entirety, rather than in bits and bobs.
Feedback is a necessity to grow as a writer, just find the right medium that will give you what you need.
Self-promotion
Some writers focus on developing an internet presence through a website or blog, collecting as many My Space Friends as possible, creating business cards etc. These types of activities are necessary once you have a publishing contract, but until that time their only purpose is to distract you from your writing.
Donald Maass, a renowned New York literary agent, once referred to blogs as scratching the itch. That is by writing a blog a lot of writers then neglect their writing. This is a very real danger because when we start out as writers the hardest thing to develop is self-discipline. We get good a procrastinating and all these extra activities make us feel like we’re writers, even though writing becomes the smallest component of our time used.
If you do choose to pursue some of these self-promotional endeavours to network or express yourself creatively-be vigilant in your time management. Ensure that you spend as much time writing as you do on these activities. After all the whole point is to get a publishing contract and the only way you can do this is by completing a book.
Blogs
These days a blog is the easiest form of self-expression for a writer, but there are a few things to consider.
1. Decide how the blog content will compliment your literary work. I began a blog for the purpose of self-expression but when I was pursuing publication for my young adult novel I realised I had to delete some entries that were inappropriate for young people to read.
2. If your blog is an avenue of self-promotion, get a url that reflects this. Think of your blog as a brand promotion and avoid a blog url that has a cute name. When people do a google search or come across your blog they should easily be able to discern your name, profession and what work you are promoting.
3. Update your blog on a regular basis. There’s no point creating a blog and having it atrophy in cyberspace with no new content.
4. Be part of a blog community. Visit and comment other people’s blogs and exchange links. This is all part of self-promotion and who knows what opportunities will develop down the track. Through my blog community I’ve had the opportunity to be published in on-line magazines, a journalist read an on-line interview and requested a radio interview, journalists have used my blog as research for interviews, and I have received review copies of novels.
5. Make a decision about what you will blog about. The best blogs are those that have a purpose and readers know what to expect.
6. Be careful with how much personal information you will divulge and make a decision as to how open you want to be about your real life. You will be surprised to find out who will read your blog so be careful you don’t get into trouble in your real life from your cyber life.
7. Be careful about posting your fiction on your blog. Firstly, because this can be considered publication and can prevent you placing your work in the future, and secondly, if it is not published then you are at risk of someone plagiarising your writing and submitting it as their own.
Literary achievements
The best thing you can do as a novelist is develop your literary achievements. There are so many would-be-writers out there that if you approach an agent/publisher in a professional manner with a literary track record that illustrates your commitment as a writer you will immediately rise to the top of the pile.
When I first submitted The Good Daughter I prepared a cover letter and then pitched to my agent Curtis Brown Australia over the phone. I knew by the response on the other end of the phone that my pitch was pretty weak, but there were two sentences that struck a chord:
1. The fact that I likened my novel to two very successful young adult novels because of its theme and content.
2. My literary achievements.
These two facts are what led to a request for the first three chapters. At this time I’d been published in two well-known anthologies, had review mentions from these publications and had some media exposure. I also had short stories published in a variety of other mediums, but I focussed on the most noteworthy and attention grabbing achievements.
I was also required to submit copies of my achievements. The lesson is don’t fudge on your achievements. You will be required to back up this up and if you’re found to be less than truthful, you will lose your one chance to make a good impression.
Developing your literary portfolio
When embarking as a professional writer and seeking publication opportunities your first goal is to go through the process of publication, as well as to develop your literary portfolio.
Initially be flexible about publication opportunities. While becoming a professional writer is about getting paid, becoming a writer is about publication. Seek opportunities in school magazines, your local newspaper, organisations you are a member of. While these might not involve payment, your initial goal is to have some achievements you can list in a cover letter when submitting work.
As soon as you have some achievements to draw on you will find that editors will be more eager to give you the opportunity to submit work and this will then lead to more publication opportunities.
Networking
Attend all literary events like book launches, writing workshops, literary festivals etc as much as you can. This will give the opportunity to meet other like-minded people and familiarise you with the movers and shakers in the writing industry.
Also network on-line by exchanging links, commenting on other blogs and posting on social network sites you’re a member of.
When you read a book you enjoy email the author to let them know. Firstly it’s good karma, secondly you never know when you’ll have the opportunity to meet said writer and this can be a conversation starter.
When networking remember that the purpose is in meeting like minded people, not about only pursuing friendships with people you think will benefit you. If you’re too coldhearted and are only interested in what someone can do for you, your efforts won’t succeed. People will see through you and you will be known for all the wrong reasons.
Submitting
In Australia we’re pretty fortunate because there are still opportunities to submit directly to publishers. You still need to do your research and ensure that your novel is suitable for the publishing house you are submitting for. Always check the submission guidelines and adhere to them.
You usually will need to submit a cover letter, synopsis and the first three chapters. If the editor likes these then the publisher will request you submit your whole novel. Do not submit unless you have a completed manuscript. You don’t want to be in the fortunate position of having an editor request your manuscript, only to not be able to follow up.
Synopsis-is a two page description of your novel. While you will have many secondary characters and subplots featured in your novel, focus only on the main character and their journey. Ensure that you describe the ending of your book. The editor needs to know how the book ends in order to decide whether they want to read the whole thing. If you think that you need to keep the ending a secret so they get the same surprise that a reader does, you’ve ensured that they don’t request your novel.
Cover Letter
Your cover letter should only be one page and needs to be succinct.
The format should be:
• Your contact details
• Date
• The contact person’s details
• First paragraph should contain the title, genre, word count and descriptor of your book.
• Two to three paragraphs describing your novel
• One paragraph highlighting your achievements
• Courtesy line
• Salutation
• Enclosure list
One of the most important things you can do is to research the market you are submitting in and describe your novel against other novels in the market. My novel has the cultural clash of Looking for Ali Brandi and the Muslim aspect depicted in Does my head look big in this? Also these two novels are best-sellers in the young adult market and both broke new ground so I had the interest of the person I was submitting as soon as I did this.
On reflection I should have been briefer in my description of my novel, but still I get across the main plot points.
I have many literary achievements to draw on, but I focussed on the two most impressive. Again, I think I could have been briefer in this too.
Make sure you mention that your novel is completed. This gives the editor/agent confidence in requesting the full manuscript.
List the enclosures in your letter so that if your submission package goes astray, they can figure out what belongs in your letter.
Your letter should be one page only. As you can see I played with the margins and font on my letter to ensure if fit on one page. Still make sure your margins are not less than 1 cm and your font 11 point. It should still be readable and look professional.
My Novel Submission Letter:
My Contact details
Date
Contact Name
Curtis Brown (Australia) Pty Ltd
Address
Dear Contact person
I pitched my young adult novel The Wog Manual on Tuesday 24 October 2006 via the phone. As requested I am sending the first three chapters. The Wog Manual, 86,000 words, is set in Melbourne in 1994. The best way I can describe The Wog Manual is by saying it is like a cross between Melinda Marchetta’s Looking for Ali Brandi and Randa Abdel-Fattah’s Does my Head Look Big in This?
The most Bosnian thing about Sabiha Omerovic, 15, is her name. Raised by her single mother outside of her community Sabiha is yanked into the Bosnian way of life when her grandfather and aunt come to Australia as refugees during the Balkan War. To the Bosnians she’s Australian, to the Australians she’s Bosnian, while all Sabiha wants is for her life to return to the way it was before the war.
Since the war began Sabiha’s suburb has become a mini-wog land and her house sees more traffic than Tullamarine Airport. Her mother is acting like a Born-Again-Muslim and is trying to teach Sabiha how to be a good housewife, while Sabiha thinks of new ways to resist.
School was the one place where she could drop the wog tag and be normal, but after she’s bullied she’s forced to change schools and now she faces a whole new set of problems. Usually the invisible nerd she becomes Ms Popularity with girls using her to get close to her spunky cousin Adnan. But things are about to get a lot more complicated as Sabiha learns about the meaning of friendship, love and family.
I have placed in short story competitions, been published in magazines, journals and in anthologies. My short stories Siege and Fuck Me Eyes have been appeared in the 2004 and 2005 Best Australian Stories published by Black Inc and edited by Miles Franklin Winner, Frank Moorhouse.
My short story Siege has received review mentions in Australian Book Review “a powerful and moving story of family dissolution and the suffering, deprivation and terror of war,” and in Bulletin “Amra Pajalic’s Bosnian Diary is a masterpiece of broken elegy.” Fuck Me Eyes has also received a review mention in Australian Book Review as “briskly narrated” and “interesting and original writing.”
As requested I am attaching copies of the reviews. You can view all my publication achievements with links on my webpage. The Wog Manual is complete and ready for submission. Thank you for your time and attention.
Yours Sincerely
Amra Pajalic
Enc The Wog Manual first three chapters
Synopsis
Copies of reviews
SSAE
Agents
When submitting your novel you have to decide whether you will submit directly to publishers, or whether you will seek an agent who will submit your novel on your behalf. In Australia we are fortunate because we have the opportunity to submit directly to most publishers so you can bypass the agent.
The benefit of an agent is that they know exactly which editor to submit your novel to, they have the connections to have your novel read immediately, they have know-how to negotiate you the best deal possible, they will provide feedback about your novel so you can undertake revisions before submitting to publishers and they can navigate your way through the murky world of publishing. You do pay for this service and they take 12.5 % of your income.
In Australia there aren’t many agents and in most instances they frown on multiple submissions so you need to submit to one agent and wait for a response before submitting further.
If you submit and are rejected from publishers then there is no point in submitting to an agent because they will not submit your novel where it was already rejected. If however, agents reject representing you then you can submit to publishers, but I would recommend that you revise your novel before doing this.
I chose to submit to an agent and made a list of the order in which I would submit. Top of my list was Curtis Brown as they were one of the big agencies in Australia and had a partnership with America.
My agent submitted to five publishing houses. I had two publishers make an offer and we accepted the one I preferred.
Publishers
Most publishers in Australia accept unsolicited submissions. Before submitting to a publisher ensure you do thorough research about whether your novel fits into their list. Ensure you follow their submission guidelines and most importantly, be patient. If you are sending in an unsolicited submission it could take a while for your novel to be read.
If you are a member of a writing organisation like your local writer’s centre or another organisation, you might have the opportunity to make contact with editors through their events or workshops.
If you do have the opportunity to talk to an editor ensure you do your research so you don’t waste their time with something that has no relevance to them. Prepare your pitch and practice it so that you can make the best of your time to impress them.
I would highly recommend that you do not submit your novel until it is completed. The worst possible scenario would be that you have an editor interested in your work, and you can’t submit. By the time you do complete the novel you will have missed your moment. You only have one chance to make a good impression so be patient and make the best of your opportunities.
Self publishing
Self publishing is effectively vanity publishing. You pay for your book to be published. I think this is a more viable alternative for non fiction books that are for a specialist market. If you do self publish your novel you have a problem in finding a way to distribute your novel and get people to buy it. As a result you can lose money in pursuing this option.
Most self published books suffer from no editorial input and are a difficult read because of the poor quality. If you do choose to undertake this option make sure you do proper research and employ an editor to work on your book.
There have been success stories using this option. Matthew Reilly originally self published his book. His success came though because he was able to talk his way onto a bookshelf where an editor saw his book and offered him a publishing contract.
Electronic publishing
These days there is a new publishing option with electronic publishers that make your book available through the internet. Your book is available to download for a fee and you get a portion of royalties.
There are certain genres that are more represented in this area-erotic and science/fantasy fiction. You will get an editor to revise your work, although the editorial input can also be poor.
Romance novelists I’ve known who did publish their work electronically did eventually give up writing for this market because the effort versus the reward did not pay off.
Writing Awards
There are awards that can provide publishing opportunities.
The Australian newspaper runs the Vogel award where the winning prize is a publishing contract and $20,000. Usually the novels picked are literary so do some research to see if your book fits in with this.
Most states have annual Premiers’ Awards and one of the categories featured are for an unpublished manuscript. In Victoria the prize is $15,000 and this category is a shortcut to publication. Usually the prize winner always gets a publishing contract because of the publicity generated, but a good portion of writers shortlisted also get published.
I was shortlisted in 2007 and had two publishers approaching me requesting I submit my manuscript, while the other person shortlisted and the winner were also published.
Varuna Writers’ Centre has a partnership with Harper Collins whereby five authors get the opportunity to workshop their novel and possible get published.
My publisher Text Publishing runs an annual young adult competition with the winner receiving $10,000 and a publishing contract.
Acceptance
My experience has been that publishers and agents want to meet with the author before signing. I had meetings with three editors and during these meetings they discussed their vision for the book and revisions. The purpose of these meetings was to see if our visions for the book gelled and if I was receptive to their ideas for revision.
I found these meetings interesting because I walked away from each meeting with a completely different idea of my book.
The best preparation you can do for these meetings is to understand that your book will need to be revised and you need to welcome editorial input. Have a think about you future writing career and where you see yourself after this project is published. Try to relax and be yourself. This meeting is like a job interview, but instead of discussing your qualifications and skills, the purpose of the interview is to see if you and the editor fit and can work together.
Revision
Usually a novel will go through three stages of revisions, but each book/publisher will work differently. I’m going to talk about the process I went through to give you a general idea, but your experience might be completely different.
Usually the first draft will be the editor reading your submission and giving you general pointers about what they think needs to be changed. The focus is on the structure of the book. While the editor might have some general pointers, they are trying to flag big picture issues and leave it to you as how to resolve these.
The second draft will get more intense where you might actually workshop together revisions and ways the novel need to change. And the third draft is dealing with the nitty gritty of line editing, cleaning up things that haven’t been flagged because of the focus on structural edits.
Rejection
When my agent submitted my novel I received an offer first up, then I received three rejections, and then another offer. While the offer I had on the table cushioned the blow of the rejections, I still felt a sting.
Rejection sucks. Anyone who has submitted work knows this. But the fact is submitting work at all is a big achievement. Through my journey to becoming a published author I’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of would-be-writers. Some of them had amazing talent, yet have not been published for one simple reason, they do not submit your work.
While rejection stings, you should try to think of these as a badge of honour. At least you are working to achieve your dream. You also need to use rejection in a positive way. Take on board any feedback you receive as an opportunity to grow and learn to be a better writer.
Most importantly, keep writing and keep submitting. All it takes is one acceptance for your life to change
This is a great post, Amra. I am always curious about how people get published, especially as the road here seems so much different than what the Americans walk.
Glad you got that offer, loved your book.
This is such useful information! It’s nice to see an author who doesn’t want to keep the information a secret. Sometimes it feels like there is a ‘secret formula’ that everyone published knows about except you, but this is straight-forward, and you’ve given sensible instructions.
Thanks Amra, a lot of helpful information enclosed. Every little bit helps and it is always great to have someone published share part of their journey with you.
Enjoyed hearing you at Victoria University!
Cheers,
Kate