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Offer number 1

March 16, 2011

It's good news. But, probably, not good enough news.

The offer is essentially a self-publishing offer. Or what publishers might like to call a "co-publishing" offer. They offer to publish your book, but you have to make a "contribution". What you get in exchange is much better distribution and marketing than you could do alone, plus you get a higher percentage of royalties.

It's not quite what one dreams of. The fantasy is that publishers fight over your work because it is so devastatingly good and the world cannot do without it and they all fall at your knees and beg and plead and offer to shine your shoes and kiss your feet while they're down there. The reality is that some illustrious writers have gone this route. I can't think of names right now, but I've seen them, and they're illustrious.

Actually, I looked briefly into printing costs and it came to about R30 000 for a thousand copies, I think. But then I'd have to put those copies in my boot and drive around the country trying to flog them. Which I wouldn't have to do with this UK publisher. Except the contribution is £5700. At current rates that's almost 65000 ZAR. 

Hmmm.

They also said what a good idea it would be for me to come over to the UK to do book visits and readings. I got all excited. Plane tickets and other costs for 2 weeks... R10 000? R15 000? R20 000? How long would a good length of time be to come for, I asked, thinking they'd say 2 weeks. Oh, say, 6 to 8 weeks? they said. So on top of all those other costs I would have to add lost income for 2 months.

Hmmm.

I'm thinking maybe I should hang in there to see if someone else makes an offer that won't actually cost me money, even if it doesn't make me any?

Thanks, though.

Posted by sasha sanders. Posted In : Publication Pursuits 

 

Rejections 5 and 6

March 14, 2011


11 Jan 2011:
We're sorry but your story is a little too old and sophisticated for our readers.

13 Jan 2011:
We're sorry but your story is a little too young and patronising for our readers.  

Huh?

 
 

Posted by sasha sanders. Posted In : Publication Pursuits 

 

Rejections 2, 3 & 4

March 8, 2011

 

I have to say, sometimes even rejection can be encouraging. The next three "NO"s, between September and November 2010, all seemed legitimately, sincerely sorry not to say yes. They were all South African publishers, and they were all extremely complimentary, and they went to great pains to say how it pained them to have to say no but with the children's picture book market being what it is in SA (teeny tiny weeny winy) they tend to publish books of local interest, which The Illustrious Mr. Blimp isn't, but I should really try to find a publisher overseas, where I might have more success.

It might sound like either grandiosity or denial, but that's what I was thinking. I mean what's the point of publishing a book and selling ten copies? Sure, you get to say you're a published writer. But I'll be honest, my ambitions are to sell at least a hundred. A thousand would make me happy. And a few thousand may even get me 15 minutes of fame and $15, if not a fortune. As a friend of mine once said, "I'm an artist, but I'm also a businessman".

So I bought me a copy of The Writer's Handbook, as suggested by one of the rejectors and as recommended by JK Rowling, and I began the unexpectedly time-consuming task of going through every publisher in the UK and quite a few in Ireland, Australia and America, and asking whether they'd be interested in seeing my humble offering and, if the answer was vaguely affirmative, sending it to them.

Some are happy to receive it by email. Others are surprisingly old-fashioned and environmentally insensitive and insist on hard (paper) copies of the manuscript. I must say, though, that it is rather nice receiving a snail-mailed letter to say "we have received your manuscript and will be in touch in due course" (which generally means 3 to 6 months but can be up to a year, or never).

So the rejections that followed, I'm proud to say, come from publishers in a country where people actually read. And where the English language was invented, so to speak.

By the way, anyone know what the deal is with using pics found on the web? Can I get into all sorts of trouble? And if so, do you have any suggestions?

 

Posted by sasha sanders. Posted In : Publication Pursuits 

 

Rejection number 1

March 3, 2011

 

And so it began. On 22 January 2010 (was it really that long ago?), I got my first rejection letter. It was from a local (South African) publisher, whose name is not important. Okay, it was Tafelberg.

I should mention that this first rejection is probably still the least positive one of all the rejections received thus far. I should also mention they were extremely complimentary, as has every publisher been, about the illustrations. They were less complimentary about the story, and about the idea of having text in two sizes (the brilliantly unique, never-been-done-before concept referred to in a previous blog, and which you can see for yourself in the books section on this website). I recall them saying the ending was, well, unfinished. And they didn't see the point of the two-size text.

Not that they were rude or unfriendly. In my experience of rejections, which is accumulating quite nicely, thank you, publishers are never rude or unfriendly. They are nice and sweet and diplomatic and try very hard not to hurt one's feelings, which I find nice and sweet and diplomatic, because those qualities are generally absent in the advertising industry, where I earn most of my money and which has supported the life to which I have been forced to become accustomed for the last fifteen or sixteen years. I suppose publishers are more sensitive to what has gone into writing a manuscript.

Maybe it has something to do with the money, or lack thereof, in writing books. At least in advertising you get paid a salary. There's no money in writing books, so it would be doubly unkind to be rude to writers. 

Anyhoo, no worry. All I'm saying is I could take it. If my book really sucked. I'm used to it.

 

Posted by sasha sanders. Posted In : Publication Pursuits 

 

Publishing Pursuits of The Illustrious Mr. Blimp

February 28, 2011
I have a friend, Paige Nick, who wrote a novel (her first), called A Million Miles From Normal. (She also has a hilarious blog by the same name.) She gave it to two publishers. Both offered to publish it. In fact, she got a two-book deal. So that sort of thing does happen.

More common is a long litany of rejections, such as I am starting to compile.

I wrote a children's story, called The Illustrious Mr. Blimp. I think it's rather sweet, and has a clever little idea around which the story is written. You can have a look at what I mean in the books section on this website. I asked the talented Katrin Coetzer and Charl Edwards to help me illustrate it and lay it out, and then I started sending it to publishers. It's probably two years since I wrote the story, eighteen months since it was illustrated and just over a year since I started looking for a publisher.

You can follow the success (or lack thereof) of that pursuit in the posts that will follow. Any sympathy, criticism or words of wisdom are welcomed.  

Posted by sasha sanders. Posted In : Publication Pursuits 

 

First Time

February 28, 2011
A virgin blogger writes his first post and sends it out into the big, wide, virtual world, wondering if anyone will read it. 

No one does. 

Posted by sasha sanders. Posted In : Very, very short stories 

 
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