Vanity Agents
OK, so I lied a bit when I said I had nothing to say. So sue me.
Mr Stuart's latest blog got me thinking about the whole literary blog thing, and since I am not even about to be published, I thought I would share my own tale of woe with the world.
It concerns my first novel, Running Away, a catchy little SF number which I wrote in 1996 (god, was it that long ago?)
Flush with the heady feeling of having produced 120,000 words of more or less structured gibberish, I punted the thing out to many, many agents and publishers. Not surprisingly it came skidding back with little in the way of comment.
Then one outfit, going by the name of Millstone Lit, dropped a bombshell. They liked the novel, they thought it would sell, they wanted to represent me. Of course I bit off their arms up to the elbow at the offer. This was it, the first step on the road to eventual god-hood. I was made.
Now, the wise amongst you will realise that I am not yet a deity, neither have I secured any successful publishing deal. I have had a story published by 2000 AD magazine, but that was twelve years ago and it earned me the grand sum of £120. £10 a year is not much of a wage these days (if only I'd been born in the thirteenth century). To this day I remain a rather sad figure sitting on the sidelines watching the world go by and trying to note some of its more endearing eccentricities.
So what happened?
Well, Millstone Lit turned out to be something I had never come across before: Vanity Agents. They fobbed me off with half-promises for several months before finally coming up with an offer they really thought I couldn't refuse from a publisher called Hamiltons. Life's too short to go into the full details, but this was a vanity publishing deal of the worst kind. In return for an indecent sum of money put in by myself, Hamiltons would agree to publish an un-named number of copies of my book (but more than five), in a cover to their specifications - i.e. a half dozen ring-bound photocopies would have fulfilled the contract requirements. They agreed to market the book, but didn't say how much they would spend on that crucial activity. As a final insult, they insisted on retaining up to 75% of proceeds from sale of film rights, foreign translation rights and just about every other right on the go. I still have the copy of the contract on file - with a desperate red line drawn through each page as I read it.
Having been born a little earlier than yesterday, I rejected Hamilton's kind offer. Soon afterwards Millstone Lit decided that I wasn't really suitable for their lists.
It was a bruising introduction to the seedier side of publishing and I post it here as a warning to any who might stumble upon it. I don't have a problem with vanity publishing - if you've got the money and you want to spend it that way, fine. But if I can't find someone out there in the wider world who likes my work enough to invest time and money in it, then I will remain unpublished (except for the ebooks on my website, which don't really count).
There are crooks out there who prey upon the innocent and naive. With the growing popularity of the internet, their scope is ever wider.
Be wary!
Mr Stuart's latest blog got me thinking about the whole literary blog thing, and since I am not even about to be published, I thought I would share my own tale of woe with the world.
It concerns my first novel, Running Away, a catchy little SF number which I wrote in 1996 (god, was it that long ago?)
Flush with the heady feeling of having produced 120,000 words of more or less structured gibberish, I punted the thing out to many, many agents and publishers. Not surprisingly it came skidding back with little in the way of comment.
Then one outfit, going by the name of Millstone Lit, dropped a bombshell. They liked the novel, they thought it would sell, they wanted to represent me. Of course I bit off their arms up to the elbow at the offer. This was it, the first step on the road to eventual god-hood. I was made.
Now, the wise amongst you will realise that I am not yet a deity, neither have I secured any successful publishing deal. I have had a story published by 2000 AD magazine, but that was twelve years ago and it earned me the grand sum of £120. £10 a year is not much of a wage these days (if only I'd been born in the thirteenth century). To this day I remain a rather sad figure sitting on the sidelines watching the world go by and trying to note some of its more endearing eccentricities.
So what happened?
Well, Millstone Lit turned out to be something I had never come across before: Vanity Agents. They fobbed me off with half-promises for several months before finally coming up with an offer they really thought I couldn't refuse from a publisher called Hamiltons. Life's too short to go into the full details, but this was a vanity publishing deal of the worst kind. In return for an indecent sum of money put in by myself, Hamiltons would agree to publish an un-named number of copies of my book (but more than five), in a cover to their specifications - i.e. a half dozen ring-bound photocopies would have fulfilled the contract requirements. They agreed to market the book, but didn't say how much they would spend on that crucial activity. As a final insult, they insisted on retaining up to 75% of proceeds from sale of film rights, foreign translation rights and just about every other right on the go. I still have the copy of the contract on file - with a desperate red line drawn through each page as I read it.
Having been born a little earlier than yesterday, I rejected Hamilton's kind offer. Soon afterwards Millstone Lit decided that I wasn't really suitable for their lists.
It was a bruising introduction to the seedier side of publishing and I post it here as a warning to any who might stumble upon it. I don't have a problem with vanity publishing - if you've got the money and you want to spend it that way, fine. But if I can't find someone out there in the wider world who likes my work enough to invest time and money in it, then I will remain unpublished (except for the ebooks on my website, which don't really count).
There are crooks out there who prey upon the innocent and naive. With the growing popularity of the internet, their scope is ever wider.
Be wary!
Comments
On the other hand, Mr Stuart, you did put a great deal of time and effort into the whole project, which was much appreciated at the time and still is today. So yes, I have been published and I'm proud of it!