Authors Electric

A couple of months ago I got a bee in my bonnet about how outrageously writers are treated by many organisations who solicit for submissions.   Why ask for them and then ignore them, was my question.   Perhaps they get too many to handle?   But then why not just close their submissions process for a time until the backlog of responses has been worked through?     As Katherine Roberts said to our call for advice, ‘yes is brilliant, no is good (because you can cross that publisher/agent off your list and move on), but silence is torture’.   I was determined that we would establish a submissions process which shows respect for writers, and perhaps start a new trend out there – setting the bar higher for all those organisations who seek direct manuscript submissions.     So I asked for views on a submissions code of practice for Fairlight Books and received many helpful suggestions and comments from Authors Electric et al.   I’m plea...

What feels like a lifetime ago (but was actually only last year), I used to work in the energy sector. We specialised in selling gas and electricity to business customers.   There!   I see you turning away already.   It’s dull, isn’t it?   Before, at parties, when people asked what I did and I told them, this is what would happen: First, their eyes would glaze over, then they’d look down at their wine glass and discover they were in urgent need of a top-up, and then they would scurry away.   Nowadays of course, I can tell people I’m a writer and a publisher, and that creates an entirely different reaction.   For everyone either loves reading books, thinks they can write a book, has written a book, or knows someone who has and who needs help getting it published.    (As a little side note for my old friend, Valpy – I still don’t think I have scope for publishing Pylon of the Month, but if there are any other commissioning editors out th...

See-saw, Margery Daw, Johnny shall have a new master; He shall have but a penny a day, Because he can’t work any faster. It will be no surprise to fellow writers that life can be a bit up-and-down.   Since my last blog, mine has been absolutely Zebedee/tart’s knickers/ W.H.Y.   You’d think that, at my age, and after all these years, the highs and lows would have flattened out somewhat. Not so. A piece of work accepted, a nice review, any small pat on the back, and I’m soaring with the skylarks. A non-response, a rejection, a fewer –than- 5- stars rating, and I’m in the murky depths. The Slough of Despond. The Pit. I am Finished as a Writer. Was I ever any good? Was it all just a fluke? As March turned towards April and the first botanical tulips brightened the kitchen windowsill, the bleurghh of that long grey winter started to lift and so did my spirits and energy – and optimism. I went into submissions overdrive: poems, a monologue ,   short plays. Noth...