Rules for submitting to awards

A question that comes up amongst writers (after an honest dose of vino), is whether or not they should enter competitions, such as the Australian/Vogel, and still submit the same work to either other competitions or publishers at the same time. With the Australian/Vogel, for example, it says,'It cannot be under consideration to any other publisher or award.' Whilst it is pretty clear what publishers would prefer, is it realistic to tie your work up for so long with only a snowflake’s chance in hell of actually winning that competition or otherwise being taken up commercially? In my case, it’s my last shot at the Vogel before I turn the dreaded 35. I did have a big publishing house editor ask for my novel when it was finished, but I get the gist from other posts on your blog that this isn’t necessarily a ticket to ride either (and it could take some time to find that out). If, at the time of submission, the entry isn’t under [serious] consideration (under offer, as opposed to sitting on a slush pile) anywhere else, is that sufficient? After all, if it looks like it might win a comp, one could withdraw the submission from other places, surely? The goody-goody in me says don’t do it, but the aging realist would like a second opinion.

Entry requirements like that are very restrictive for writers. My inclination would be to say that you should submit it to an award even if it's under consideration elsewhere, and if it makes the shortlist then you should withdraw it from the other place/s. Of course, there's a conundrum there too: if you don't win the award then you miss out on it being considered at the other place/s, with no chance of resubmission unless someone in-house really wants to champion it.

Award rules favour the ruling body - whether that's an award committee or a publishing company - so you should really use your conscience about what serves you best. If you're about to turn 35 then enter the Vogel, leave it at the other publisher for the time being and just see what happens. If you make the shortlist and whisk it away from the other publisher, it's unlikely that anyone at Vogel headquarters will ever find out it had been there all that time. Of course, if you get an offer from the other publishing house, you can withdraw it from the Vogel - and you don't have to say why.

Why assessors and agents should never live in the same body

I recently received my fiction MS back from an assessor. The assessment was favourable, and the assessor has offered to act as agent for my MS. I'm elated in one sense, but cautious in the other. Should I be wary of a 'part-time' agent, who, as far as I can tell, makes most of their living from MS assessments? A part of me wants to accept the offer, because I know that if I begin submitting to agents now, it might take up to 6 months to have my MS accepted - at least this person has read my MS and is enthusiastic about it.

You are right to be cautious - the agents who appear on Writer Beware's 'worst agents' are usually trying some combination of assessing, editing and agenting. These functions should never be contained in the one person or company - in your case, the assessor has taken money from you and is now offering to agent your book, which is tantamount to taking a fee for their agenting services. This is in violation of the ALAA guidelines. As tempting as it may be for agents to take money for manuscript assessment - it would help us cover the costs of the hours spent reading - we just don't do it, because it's too ethically tricky. How do you know if the assessor really loves your writing or is only offering to agent the book because you've paid them for the assessment? And are they a member of the ALAA? How many published authors are on their list? If they have none or only one published author, plus they're not known as an agent, it's unlikely they can do much for you anyway. You could spend the next six months - time you would spend waiting to hear from proper agents - believing that this assessor can help you, only to find out that they can't.

Certainly, it takes a long time to hear from agents - that's because we have clients, which means we're bona fide. Although I can understand that you're impatient to get things going, six months is really not much in the scheme of publishing cycles. But if you do want to go with this assessor, ask for their credentials - which publishers they deal with, which other authors they look after. If they're legitimate, you'll be given this information. You're about to make an important business decision, so treat it accordingly.

Do I or don't I?

I have been absent from the blog due to an eye-watering amount of reading - which I'm still trying to get through - but this question came in so I felt duty bound to answer it ...

Q: While I was finishing Version Two of My Tome, I was fortunate enough to attend a pitching panel where a senior editor at a prominent publisher said she would read it when it was finished. Fortunately she acknowledged that it might take me a while to get back to her. It did. I engaged a professional editor to do a structural report and consequently wrote Version Three. The editor reread My Tome and declared it ready. Okay, so it's now one the desk of an editor at a prominent publisher. They've had it for about two and a half months. I am waiting patiently. Yeah okay, not so patiently, though I don't even want to imagine what their workload looks like. So my question is this: should I be looking for an agent? No offence, but I considered that if a publisher said 'Yes!' that they would have a standard contract and therefore there wouldn't be much for an agent to do. Reading your blog, however, alerted me to the fact that perhaps this is not the case and give the time frames involved in these endeavours that perhaps I should begin my agent search sooner rather than later.

First things first: you did the right thing in finding an editor for your manuscript, as it increased your chances of a publisher paying attention - you'd be surprised how many authors do not take such a step and it usually means they don't ever get published.

Now to the agent thing. There are a few little issues here ...
1. In my experience the contracts offered to agented authors are substantially different to those offered to unagented authors at most (not all) publishing companies. You could ask an intellectual property lawyer to look over your contract if you're concerned, although that may end up costing more than an agent's commission. You may also feel that you're really happy to manage the business side of writing as well as the creative - some authors love doing it. Those who don't usually have agents.

2. If your novel is fantastic, maybe more than one publisher would be interested in it. Just because this particular publisher is keen, are they necessarily the right publisher for your book? The right publisher is not always the first publisher who says, 'I love it!' or the publisher who offers you the most money. If you've written historical romance, say, and the editor you've been dealing with personally loves it enough to persuade everyone else at the Acquisitions meeting to publish it but the company has never done historical romance before - they specialise in thrillers and crime novels - are they really going to do the right thing by you? What happens if the editor leaves and your champion is gone? (This does happen and can have a huge effect on some authors.) There may be another publisher who is better for you.

3. For me, at least, taking on a new client means managing their career, not just one book. If you're a first-time novelist, it's crucial to get things right - or as right as possible - for that first book or your career can be over before it begins. (If you don't intend to write more than one book, though, you can ignore this bit ...) You may be able to get advice from someone you trust and that person can play the same sort of role I do for my authors - which is, truthfully, more about giving advice on career/writing/life than negotiating contracts - so you wouldn't need an agent. It is important, though, to have someone to talk to about the business of writing and things that come up in the creative process, regardless of whether that person is an agent or not.

Fundamentally, it can't hurt you to submit to agents at this stage - and in your cover letter you should mention that your manuscript is being seriously considered at a publishing company (name the company). If an agent wants to take you on then you can still say 'no' if you ultimately decide you don't need one. The one thing I will stress is that you need to put aside the excitement of thinking you may get published and look down the long road of your potential writing career. Think about what you need to do to have a career - what will be required to keep you happily productive for years to come. If handling the business side of things seems like it would be too much work and would distract you from your writing, you need an agent. If not, you don't.

The tyranny of distance

I'm a Tasmanian novelist and short-story writer. A few years ago, the Tasmanian Writers' Centre brought an agent down and asked for submissions from authors for her to consider. As I had already had a book published I was not surprised to be shortlisted. Unfortunately, it turned out that the agent was unable to offer any of us representation due to factors beyond our control. Thus, the whole thing turned out to be a disappointment and a waste of time. It is really difficult for us in Tassie, as we do not have the networks available to other people. Do you have any suggestions re agents who might actually follow through with forming relationships with Tasmanian writers?

I explored the issue of regional writers in this post so I won't go over too much of that ground, except to reiterate that I really don't think it matters where you live - if you find the right agent, then your relationship will work regardless of where you're placed. I have writers in Tasmania, as well as several other states; most agents would. Agents in the US certainly have writers from all over the country - most writers do not live in New York City, which is where the bulk of the agents are.

In the case you mention above I suspect it was more to do with what was happening with that particular agent than with the fact that you were in Tasmania. We really don't discriminate if you're not from Sydney or Melbourne. The greatest difficulty I find is the perception of writers outside the two largest cities - there is an idea that Sydney and Melbourne writers are hooked into some kind of publishing grid. They're not. The networks available to them are also available to writers elsewhere. Twenty years ago, this wasn't the case. The Internets have changed everything.

I've probably mentioned this before too but, if not, Varuna's LongLines program can provide opportunities for writers who are feeling geographically isolated.

The short and short of it

I teach writing and I have a student who is in a South-east Asian jail for life. He writes short stories and they are the most beautifully written, thought-provoking stories. He has given me permission to try to get them published. I’d really like to help him, to give him something to live for. Do you know if any publishers in Aus would be interested in something like that? I couldn’t help thinking that if some of the Bali Nine contributed to an anthology it would be more marketable and an important thing for young people to read. I must stress I’m personally not interested in making money out of this, but I feel these are important voice to be heard.

Here's the bad news: short story collections are the orphan children of Australian publishing. They have a couple of foster parents (Scribe and the University of Western Australia Press) and 'Aunties' (the Girls' Night In collections) but have largely been abandoned by the tribe. It's hard to know why - short stories are great for bus trips and the like. Many great writers of recent times cut their teeth on short stories; I fell in love with Truman Capote's writing through his short stories, which I discovered in the local library while I was researching a school essay on Plato and Son of Plato. And I just completely digressed ...

If you're looking for an Australian publisher, try submitting to one of the two I mentioned. Americans love short stories more than we do, though, so if you're serious about getting this collection published, try submitting the stories to American agents.

Here's the other news: Australians may want to read about the Bali Nine but I suspect they wouldn't want to read anything written by them. Schapelle Corby was the only Kerobokan prisoner whose own story was going to sell books, and it did, but she also had a co-writer. Schapelle was also famous enough for her publisher not to have to worry about the fact that she couldn't do publicity for the book, which is a concern with your student. This will sound quite cold and businesslike, but publishing is a business.

If what you really, really want is to get these stories out into the world - if money is irrelevant - then set up a website to publish the stories and then look into ways of getting publicity for them, starting with telling your other students.

Things that make you go hmmm ...

This afternoon I sent aside some time to go through submissions, because they've been neglected for a while. Generally this is a 'nice' job because I can read different types of manuscripts and sometimes I'll find something I want to read more of. Every now and again I'll come across a submission that violates one of my What Not to Do When Submitting rules. Today is was No 2 that was flagrantly flouted - specifically, the writer in question not only declined to follow the submission rules but decided to tell me that I was an idiot for imposing them because they were clearly in existence just to make life difficult for him and easy for me. So what do you think happened to his submission? If you guessed 'auto-reject', you would be correct.

I understand that submission rules can be frustrating but they are there to help give agents and publishers points of comparison between writers. They are also there to gauge the professionalism of the writer - if you cannot write a cogent letter in support of your manuscript, how are you going to be able to survive the editing process, when you may be required to explain or defend your writing choices so that someone other than you can understand them? Instead of using his cover letter to tell me what I needed to know about his manuscript, this writer used the space to lambast me for having submission rules. So my initial impression wasn't good, and it would have cast a pall over his manuscript if I had had the inclination to read it - which, strangely, I didn't.

So in case you're tempted to not follow submission rules and then tell the agent that you're not following them just because they make the agent's job easier, please remember this: being an agent is not easy. The hours are long, the personalities involved often challenging - and that's just our clients. On top of that there are thousands of people a year wanting to be new clients and all asking why we haven't read their submission in two days. We do this job because we believe in books, we believe in writers, we believe in writing and, usually, we get to work with lovely people, and that's what keeps us going on the days when we want to hide in a cupboard because it seems like we'll never, ever get through our manuscript pile. So when someone has a go at me for trying to make life easier by imposing submission rules - well, I guess I write a rant. It's one of the many uses of the Internets.

Reasonable expenses

If dealing with an overseas-based literary agency is it normal to be charged for expenses incurred directly on the writer's behalf such as long-distance telephone calls, postage and handling, messengers, copying and approved legal expenses? And if so, how is it possible to gauge how many of these expenses are actually legitimate?

Agencies usually absorb the phone calls and postage & handling within the country; if they're incurring expenses such as messengers, overseas postage and legal reading on your behalf, they should be asking you first if you're happy to bear that cost. Most agencies will charge for photocopying but it should be clear in your agency agreement that this will happen. In fact, every possible charge to you should be contained in your agency agreement. If it's not, the agency really shouldn't be sending you a bill for anything you haven't requested or approved. And that's how you work out whether the expenses are legitimate or not.

There's a good checklist of what agents should and shouldn't be doing, plus a list of the top 20 dodgy US agents, on this website: http://www.sfwa.org/beware/twentyworst.html. You may also want to check out Preditors & Editors.