What you’ll find more often than not is that you can’t get a publisher unless you have an agent. I don’t have an agent so I might be screwed. But there are authors who do have an agent and they’re still screwed.

You’ll also discover, if it hasn’t been thumped into you, if you aren’t dissuaded by millions of articles and tips from publishing houses, and other public safety warnings, that publishers rarely have time to read anything, that there are tens of thousands of unpublished manuscripts clogging up their drains (if they haven’t been burned or binned, or vomited on), that even if they do get to your manuscript, if it doesn’t grab them within a couple of sentences, if that, it’ll be skimmed across the room, if it isn’t too much of an effort.

What you’re also dealing with, if the impossible does happen and you get your work read, is someone with an agenda. The agenda usually follows ‘Can we make any money from this?’, ‘Is it original?’, ‘If it isn’t original, is there a trend for this kind of crap?’ Although this seems cynical and harsh you can, to some extent, understand it if you consider how many loonies are out there in the world, sending poor Barbara Cartland-esque novels in to any old publisher, thousands of sub-Terry Pratchett, thousands of gothic horrors about teen vampires, thousands upon thousands of books about aspirational young women who love shagging. There’s no end to it. If you don’t believe me just join a local writers group, open mic poetry night or something and try work out the lame ducks for yourself. It also doesn’t help that many of them won’t have heard of a dictionary or even a word processor, or that they won’t pay the correct postage and wonder why they haven’t heard anything for 15 years.

Some advice you may get in the Writers and Artists Yearbook is to get other people to read your manuscript and get their honest opinions, because somehow it will reflect the real reading experience. While this might sound dandy and reasonable it’s not always a good idea. Only YOU know the work more than anyone. Although it’s good to distance yourself and get some outside ideas, YOU will be able to take on board the constructive stuff. Also other readers may be too close to you. Familiy and friends as readers is not a good idea.

Because;
1.They’ll either love it unreservedly
2.They’ll hate it unreservedly.
3.They won’t be arsed reading it.
4.They’ll love it unreservedly to your face (but hate the book and you in secret)
5. They’ll be indifferent
6.They’ll lose it.
7. If they love it enough they may nick it.

Having said that, my girl, is often brutally direct about what she loves and doesn’t love about my work. Anything I disagree with I will defend but after having a think about it, will often come to the same conclusions. In fact if there’s a mistake in this post, a typo or something she’ll let me know.

You might also be tempted to buy or borrow books which try and teach you how to be a writer. These are often cons. I won’t claim for a minute that my experience and opinion on this will get you published. It probably won’t. Such books, often by bitter, failed writers who teach minor modules at Uni, or run night courses, will have tips, will promise the world, will state the obvious and attempt make money from your lack of confidence, from you not actually getting published. There’s tons of books like this, tons of adverts which ask ‘Why not become a writer?’ as if any jerk could do it. Yep, you can teach certain formulas, techniques, styles and structure but you can’t teach imagination. So yes, be original, but be aware that being original or different or techically fantastic might not actually be marketable. Actually being original is not thinking of writing something that’s never been written about because every conceivable subject has been. It just means to really, really, honestly or dishonestly emphaise that special thing that makes you, you. That’s your voice, your style, your tone, your hang up’s, your quirks…That can be difficult if you’re a carbon copy of everyone else, watch the same things, do the same things, go to the same places on holiday, have the same opinions…again, all very difficult in this post-modern day and age. But you know what I mean. You should still have an outlook based on your own experiences, background and observations. This waffling is important as it will inform your writing and perhaps crucially it could be that 1% that gets your manuscript read, rather than filed under ‘Boring. Cliched. Drivel. This writer is a cunt.’ Think like a publisher. To an extent.

The best thing would be to not bother. Don’t waste your time. Get a real job. Seriously no-one is interested unless it’s gonna make them loads of cash. You will have more chance entering writing competitions (some of which are still entered by established authors) or writing for Porn magazines (The latter which is someting I’ve considered.) Wait a minute, I don’t want to leave you feeling negative and worthless. There are ways to get your work read, like blogs, publishing your work as an ebook and getting out there, writers groups, etc. But they have their own problems. Which I’ll write about later.

Right now I’m fucked off because Virgin Media are hopeless. This blog will have to be copy and pasted at a later date because Virgin Media have no idea how to solve connection problems, let alone know how they are caused. I’ve called them three times, had the indignity of having to get down on my knees to connect, disconnect wires, check modem lighting, plug it back in, book an engineer, cancel an engineer because it seemed to work again and now the engineer has been cancelled, this fucking thing, fucks up again.