Today I’m over at the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild talking about when to send your novel writing out into the world:
Why is it that we only realise how bad we were at writing novels… once we’re finally good at writing them? When I finished writing my first novel, I honestly thought it would be a simple matter of promoting it to the right agent or publisher, then that would be that. I lived in London at that time. Surely one of them would take it?
Not so, younger more-amateur Zena!
When I started writing my second novel, I knew it wouldn’t be that simple – I figured I’d have to at least pay for a manuscript assessment this time, you know, to really polish it off. So long as the manuscript assessment didn’t identify any major plot flaws, I figured I’d use the feedback to make my novel shine, then it would be ready to send out.
Not so, younger more-amateur Zena…
To find out when the time is right, read more of that awesome post over here.
Since I was added to an international database of book reviewers, I have been sent a lot of self-published work. And unfortunately too much of it is nowhere near ready to be released and wouldn’t have been picked up as-is by traditional publishers. And it just puts me off even looking at them. My Popsicle Award (for only having a Popsicle stick keeping their ears apart) goes to the individual who sent me what was practically a demand that I review his book, in poorly spelled and grammatically rubbish prose. I keep referring people to Rachel Thompson and her alterego, Bad Redhead Media. One of her regular themes is hammering people about the great need to get your work edited, reviewed, fine-tuned before sending it out or self-publishing. Hemmingway got away with being a terrible speller but it’s a very different publishing world now.
It is indeed a different world. More people are writing all the time, and writing well – so we have to ensure that what we publish is at a competitive standard.
Thanks for stopping by, Ross!