After more than six months of making submissions to literary agents, in all the varied forms required. I have had no takers, a few comments of support but mostly my work has been ignored.
It is dispiriting to face indifference and negativity. I have questioned myself. Re-edited many times. Reflected and sought advice. I have established a world, populated it and given the history it is set in life. I have plotted and told the story, a first chapter in the grand events that shaped early Britain into the lands and cultures we can still recognise today. I have much more to tell and have started the second volume of the endeavour.
I refuse to be cowed by the indifference and remain positive about the project. I can now view the first book as an apprenticeship and a portfolio piece. I have defined the people and times. Characters and stories are known, the next steps in the grander scheme sketched out to be told through the characters themselves.
I can see myself with an unpublished library of works. A personal triumph without the recognition. A hermit in a personal cave, no interaction with anyone. I am out of kilter with the publishing world. Walking around bookshops I see much being promoted but hardly anything in the genre I am contributing to. There are some books, a few multi-million sellers in the last few decades but they are few and far between. Mostly there is ‘vacuous slop’ using a name as a means to shift volume with little merit or mode chasing Amazon like endorsements (if you read…etc.) crowding out the bookshelves and promotional material. The diversity of writing is still there because there are so many good books still in print. It is the new editions that are so narrow in their focus and market pitch. Blinkers are impervious to other views.
It is instructive. I know I have more to learn but I also remain true to myself and my goal. Making that attractive will be the trick needed.
Sardonnick's View 