So, how was November?
Well, my Unbound submission was rejected in about three days, so at least the agony was brief. Looking at it logically, I’m not that surprised. Unbound is really for people who already have a following in another profession or sphere (social media) who have decided to write a book and can motivate their existing following to pledge their support.
It sounds like I’m humble-bragging, but I believe that it’s sometimes a barrier for me that my books are so “commercial”. They’re traditional genre fare, and so if a mainstream agent or a mainstream publisher aren’t interested, why would an indie publisher be?
“So,” I hear you ask, “if your books are so commercial, and they’re good, why does no one want to publish them?” To which there can only really be two answers:
- They’re not good
- They’re not commercial
Sure, you could argue that agents don’t know their own business, loads of agents turned down the Harry Potter books, but most do. Most know their business well and aren’t going to turn down the opportunity to make 15%.
So, if my books are good (which I like to think they are), then they can’t be commercial. Not really. I think it’s telling that I don’t read a lot of books that were published in the last twenty years. I like old books. As a result, my books are written in a somewhat old fashioned style.
I freely admit that I have no idea what would make a book sell a million copies, I just write the kind of books I like to read.
All of which makes me doubly grateful to have found a dedicated core of readers, such as yourself. Clearly, we like some of the same things, and I plan to continue writing books that you’ll enjoy.
Just wait until you read The Florentine, it’s by far my best work, and by far the most entertaining and enjoyable book I’ve written. I was giving the handful of agents who are still considering my submission until the end of November to get back to me, and they haven’t, so this month I’ll be starting work on the cover and getting the self-publishing wheels turning. I particularly like this cover Thomas did for Raylan, so might chat to him about that in our initial discussions.
You won’t hear from me again until after Christmas, so have a good one!
Tom
One more thing…
If you’ve never read it, I really recommend reading A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin. It’s quite an obscure book these days, but will teach you more about writing than any course, and it’s a darn good yarn. I love it so much, it’s close to supplanting The Lady in the Lake as my favourite book. If you’ve never read it, why not give it a go.
Here’s an article I wrote about Levin last year:
The moment(s) when I realised Ira Levin was a genius — tomtrott.medium.com
I love Ira Levin’s novel, The Boys from Brazil, about Nazi expats in South America attempting to resurrect the Third Reich. It’s…
