Okay, there are actually only two new contracts but the rule of threes works better and, besides, excitement levels require it. Rejection is part of a writer’s staple diet, so when you have two big wins in the space of a week it’s time to splash champagne around like a rock star and happy dance everywhere.
Note: If you have children they will be embarrassed by said happy dance and will likely roll their eyes at you. What’s more, after picking my three kids up from school and telling them about book contract 1 their response was: ‘That’s cool, Mum. What’s for afternoon tea?’ Did not miss a beat.
Book contract 1! So I’m thrilled to share with you, dear reader (who does not require me to provide afternoon tea), that I have been made an offer for my debut novel! I can’t give you a title yet as my working title will likely change. I care about this novel so deeply and I’m so glad that I’ll be able to share it with you soon. Well, not that soon. Publishing moves at a glacial pace, so it’ll be out August 2021. But when I finally have that book baby in my hands I can assure you that I will be drinking all the champagne (again — any excuse). And I will not be making afternoon tea.
Book contract 2! Just a few days after the excitement of book contract 1, I received word that my fifth picture book, Where the Heart Is, had made it through acquisitions. It’s based on a true story that is so extraordinary that I began writing a first draft immediately after hearing it. The illustrator, Susannah Crispe, has her own personal experiences that link so incredibly to this story — there couldn’t be a more perfect person to partner with. More on all that closer to release because, again, it will be June 2021 before it’s sitting on bookshop shelves.
In order to make a living most writers take on a range of different work, and Nigel Featherstone may have one of the best jobs in the biz. Managing the HARDCOPY program, he works with emerging writers and industry professionals — agents, publishers, editors — from around the country. Having been involved in a very minor way (speaking on a panel of authors one year, assessing applications another), I’ve seen firsthand what a unique and transformative program HARDCOPY is. So I asked Nigel to share the top ten things he’s learned from spending time with so many industry greats.
Although I am lucky enough to spend the majority of each week writing, and primarily writing literary fiction, I am also lucky enough to spend a day each week at the ACT Writers Centre delivering HARDCOPY, a national emerging writers program funded by the Australia Council for the Arts. Having been involved in every element of the program — behind the scenes and as well as facilitating some of the sessions — I have had the opportunity to meet many key figures in the Australian publishing industry and authors, as well as get to know almost 120 new Australian writers, some of which have work that has hit the bookshelves or are about to. Needless to say, I have learned a huge amount, and in a moment I’ll share with you the ten key things I have learned from coordinating HARDCOPY.
But first, what exactly is HARDCOPY?
Established in 2014, HARDCOPY is a six-months-long national professional development program that helps build the capacities, aptitudes and resources emerging Australian writers need to reach their potential. The program is the flagship initiative of the ACT Writers Centre.
By creating an environment that is educative, vigorous and nurturing, HARDCOPY helps writers develop their manuscripts; increases industry knowledge; facilitates relationships between writers and publishing professionals; and breaks down the barriers of location and geography. HARDCOPY aims to develop writers who will have longevity as Australian writers, and the program is underpinned by the principle of pragmatic optimism: being aware of the challenges, but also being positive about the future.
There are three key stages to the program: a three-day manuscript development intensive with Nadine Davidoff, in May; a three-day series of industry presentations and panels, in September; and one-on-one feedback sessions with prominent Australian agents and publishers, in November. Each year, thirty emerging writers are selected to participate in the first two stages, with ten of the thirty then being selected for the agents/publishers feedback sessions.
So what have I learned about writing from coordinating HARDCOPY?
A ‘failed’ novelist went viral recently when she wrote about giving up writing after her two literary fiction manuscripts were rejected one after the other. The comments make for interesting reading and broadly fall into two camps. The first is advice to self-publish, which I disagree with. (Hold the hate mail and let me explain.) While certain genres can potentially do well (emphasis on potentially), self-published literary fiction sells poorly. So unless you’re happy being read only by family and friends, it’s not a great option. The second is empathy, based on recognition of the current publishing climate (more on that in a moment), and encouragement to continue regardless of her lack of success to date.
Eliza Henry-Jones
The fact is, behind any successful novelist you’ll find a bunch of rejected works. Before Eliza Henry-Jones published her debut novel, In the Quiet, she wrote ten manuscripts which were all rejected. But she persevered, and now her second book, Ache, is due out next month. ‘It took me ten years to get a publishing deal; ten manuscripts; rejections from nearly every publisher in Australia,’ Henry-Jones says. ‘Rejection can feel like a physical wound, it can stall you and hurt you and stop you in your tracks—but if you are able to frame it properly, it has the capacity to both steady you and focus you.’
So how to survive knock back after knock back? Common advice is to remember that it’s the work being rejected, not the individual, but that’s a fairly arbitrary distinction. Novels take years to complete, and require absolute investment, so rejection is never going to be easy to navigate. What’s more studies have shown that rejection activates the same areas of the brain as physical pain. As Isaac Asimov said, ‘Rejections slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil.’ Yet every published author has been lacerated and pushed on. Henry-Jones says, ‘Rejection reminded me over and over that I loved writing. That there were reasons bigger than a career or money or recognition to keep hunching over my keyboard to write stories, one after the other.’
The truth is, writing a book is hard. The process is messy and complicated and reaching the finish line is an achievement in itself. Sometimes a book is rejected because the work isn’t ready yet and needs further refining. Then it’s possible to reframe rejection as an opportunity. But sometimes it’s rejected because the work just hasn’t found the right publisher, or the industry has decided that this particular kind of book won’t sell enough copies, or any number of other seemingly random reasons. Dr Seuss was told that his work was ‘too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling’. Stephen King’s Carrie was rejected by 30 publishers, with one telling him, ‘We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.’ (It sold in the millions.) And Sylvia Plath received the following rejection: ‘There certainly isn’t enough genuine talent for us to take notice.’
Indeed history is littered with the rejection slips of now celebrated books. In other words, publishers get it wrong. All the time. There is nothing about publishing that even vaguely approaches an exact science. Despite the fact that sales and marketing now hold great sway in determining whether or not a book will make it past acquisitions, predicting what will and won’t sell is all just an educated guessing game.
Rebecca James recalls how her bestselling debut, Beautiful Malice, was ‘rejected so many times I lost count. It was rejected by literary agents and publishers. It was rejected because the characters were too young, because they were too old, because they were neither one nor the other.’ Eventually it netted a $1 million book deal and sold in 52 countries. ‘Amazing and wonderful things do happen,’ she concludes.
In short, rejection is part of the business of writing. Writers have to be simultaneously thin-skinned (to write) and thick-skinned (to publish). In a Writers on Writing podcast, author Lisa Cron (who has also worked in publishing) quotes the statistic that 96% of novels are rejected. She goes on to say: ‘[But] I was talking to my agent about it and we were going, that’s way too low a number, it’s actually more like 98% or 99% of novels are rejected.’
Depressing, right? All writers can do is continue to forge ahead in spite of it all. To write about the things that won’t let them go, and make the words the very best they can before sending them out. Saul Bellow says, rejections ‘teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, To hell with you’. Or as the kids say these days, whatevs.
I hope that ‘failed’ novelist can get to the whatevs stage. It might just be her third book that makes it.
This post first appear on Noted Festival’s blog, NotedBook, here.
Book contract 1!
