Road Block

A couple of rejection letters recently have indicated that whilst the agent liked my work they didn’t think they could place it with a publisher.

I don’t know if this is just a gentle ‘let down’ or a genuine concern about the nature of publishers.  It implies they are risk averse and market followers not market makers.  They have lost the pioneering championing of new writing and are cow-towing to shareholders instead and churning out commercial celebrity ghosted slop.

I was asked by one literary agency in their submission criteria to say where I thought my book would be in a bookshop?  I was unsure about that and just said ‘fiction’.  I have since thought about it.  Most fiction on the shelves is either ‘classic’ i.e. been around for a while and still sells or is contemporary.  There isn’t a specific ‘historical’ fiction section though there are large science fiction/fantasy sections.  Pondering this I have since revised my response and would now say ‘new books’ and avoid the bear pit of trying to classify for others what I have done.

On that thought it occurred to me that the ‘new books’ table in Waterstones is a small one compared to the thousands of titles on offer and has fiction and non-fiction.  It is at the front of the shop near the door and catches the eye of customers on entering but is that the best place to be?  Its not exactly a clear marketing pitch.  Other possible descriptions might include adventure, historical, fiction, fantasy or romance but would be misleading.  My book is all of these and doesn’t fit in any pigeon-hole.  Perhaps that is why literary agents and more likely publishers have struggled to get a grip and know they could market it.  That might imply they are not very good at marketing…