Secrets, Blurred Lines and Outright Lies: Getting Published in the 21st Century

Understanding the Dirty Underbelly of the Industry

Question: What do these three stories have in common?

1. I just rejected a good-enough first novel from a retired diplomat.

2. A Claret Press author is putting his first book up on discount ebook platforms for 99p.

3. A friend recently shared some happy news with me: after many rejections her first novel had just been accepted for publication.

Answer: They are all examples of how publishing works in the 21^st century. The first is a secret of the publishing industry. The second is of a blurred line. And the final is of an outright lie.

It’s like those medieval maps with serpents coiling around ships in unknown waters. Here be monsters, it proclaims.

Publishing should have the same warning. It’s an industry full of murk. Plus, lies.

Let’s unpack these examples. As a small indie, if a good-enough novel passes my desk, I judge it. Is it a diamond in the rough that I can scrub up? Will it then sell enough? And here’s the key question: What offsets those risks?

I rejected the novel from the retired diplomat for reasons that have nothing to do with the novel.

The diplomat has contacts, strings he can pull to make sure his novel gets a review quote or two, maybe even in a newspaper. And that’s fabulous. But that’s where it ends. He’s not going to do more than ask a mate for a review. As a diplomat, he went to the right schools and knows the differences between the ties. Typically, that kind of man doesn’t do local fairs and TikTok; that kind of man doesn’t flog.

And then there’s his age. There’s a joke in the publishing industry: How do you sell your first book? You publish your 7^th.

But time is always against you. It takes 15 years to write 7 books of high enough quality that people who stumble across the latest then work their way through the backlist. Does this retired diplomat intend to write for the next 15 years?

Case in point: Hilary Mantel published her first novel in 1985 when she was in her early 30s. She didn’t make anyone any money until Wolf Hall in 2009 (although in fairness she did get awards along the way). For 25 years she was carried by her publisher and agent.

NOTE: The agent and the publisher were not complaining about the long haul. That’s the publishing industry for you. You get someone in their early 30s, and maybe, just maybe, the gamble pays off big time. Publishing is not for the faint of heart.

It is typical that publishers won’t take an author once they have hit 40 years of age. I don’t think I have ever published anyone that young, or even under the age of 50. But I do think: hmmm, does this writer have it in them to write for another 15-20 years?

If the retired diplomat had been in his early 30s, I would have taken the book. If he’d had a superior marketing plan that suggested he could sell a fair whack of copies, I would have taken his book. That calculation is pretty typical of the publishing industry.

The secret of why some books get published and others don’t: it’s not about the book.

In the second example, one of my authors has four titles out. So he put his first title up on a discount ebook platform, as a promotion for the other three.

Publishers use discount ebook platforms in the month before an author’s next book comes out because it reminds everyone of the author’s existence. Publishers use it if there are books in a series. Let’s say the publisher is putting together Book 6 for publication, editing Book 7 and has seen the outline for Book 8. Books 1 and 2 might be free on a discount ebook platform. Books 3 and 4 might be £0.99. And the rest don’t go on these platforms because they are sold for full market RRP.

In the case of my author, he publishes some of his titles with me and he self-publishes others. Not all of his books are in a series. I am not certain what his plans are going forward. Claret Press? Self publishing? Both or Neither? I am not sure he knows either. Given this reality, I have no incentive to list his Claret Press titles on a discount ebook platform.

But he has. He’s hoping this will get his name out to a new audience, and sell more copies to the long run. He is investing in his own future, which will pay off whether or not he publishes with me or self-publishes.

So this is a blurred line, deeply contextual, about who should do that form of promotion.

And then you get the outright lies. My friend who finally got her first novel published paid almost £5,000 to a “hybrid publisher” which offers her royalties on books sold through Amazon and a bookstore.

I went through her contract. Do I really need to tell you what I found?

My friend is no dummy. But her disappointment at not getting an agent and not getting published, her dream of having her name in print, overshadowed her thinking. Why didn’t you come to me first, I asked her. She said, I didn’t want to put you in an awkward position of having to reject me so I did it all myself.

This is how gentle souls get taken advantage of by outright liars who sell them the dream.

There’s nothing wrong with self-publishing. I am not against it. But don’t call it one thing when it’s another. That’s just wrong.

And that’s why writers need to better know the treacherous waters they are sailing through. Here there be monsters. Beware indeed.