Last week Douglas received a letter from Headline (Hodder & Stoughton) saying thanks but no thanks for ENTER ANTHONY. At least they were fairly quick, a month, and at least we have heard from them even if it is a rejection. Something after all these years I am so used to anyway that it no longer comes as a disappointment. Funny how these letters so often end with “we do hope you find the right publisher for this.” We sent it to you, my dears, because, looking at what you do publish, we thought you would be the right publisher. Sorry, our mistake.
Three publishers have had ANGEL It was sent first to Hutchinson in January 2008 and we have never heard a word. Presumably the manuscript was trashed and they never bothered to inform us. The second publisher was Littlebrown to whom it was sent in July 2008. Some time later we received an e-mail saying no thanks, despite Glyn being a “really persuasive writer”. The third publisher was Harper Perennial who have had it since December 2008. It was only sent to them after Douglas had to batter on the gates of hell in order to find out who to send it to in the first place. Sadly after six months I must presume the manuscript was trashed, possibly even on arrival and without being looked at. That would not surprise me in the least
Is there a lesson to be learnt from this? I should say so. Forget mainstream publishers unless you are a sportsman or actor of renown, a politician, a celebrity no matter how minor, you have written a misery memoir or you write chic-lit or woman’s own romance, Mills & Boon maybe.
So we have had a long discussion as to the future and have decided Douglas will go ashead from now on and publish on his own. There are two reasons to go for a mainline publisher and they are (1) An advance, healthy or otherwise, and (2) They have the finance to publicise, to push your book for all it’s worth. But were we to continue sending manuscripts to them we would be (a) spending a great deal of money on postage – even three chapters of a book weigh an awful lot the way publishers want it presented and (b) wasting a lot of valuable time, time in which you can (a) publish the book yourself at very little expense and (b) even if it doesn’t make money or hit the top ten at least it is out there and available and that is not five years down the line or more. So there will be no more submissions to publishers, no more waiting, no hoping, no more rejections, no more disappointments. They can all, to put it in the vernacular, go fuck themselves and I hope they enjoy it.
JUST IN CASE is now available from Amazon.