Writers Amongst Dragons, Sharks, Tigers and Publishers - Andrew Crofts
Why does the fate of the applicants on Dragons’ Den , (or Shark Tank if you are in the US or The Tigers of Money if you are in Japan , where the show was first conceived) seem so familiar? Because that programme’s format is what every professional writer’s life is like from the day we complete our first manuscript and go looking for a publisher to the day we finally give up the struggle. Just like the Dragons’ Den hopefuls we start with our brilliant ideas, which always seem to us like the most original things ever. We believe they are guaranteed to be bestsellers because if we didn’t we would have trouble getting through the work needed to bring them to life. They are our babies and we pour months and years of toil into their creation. Then we realise that we need someone else to see the potential that we see, someone with money and, hopefully, expertise in the design, marketing and selling of books, someone who will take our precious ideas, package them be...