David Weller Author Blogspot

Thanks for following my blog during 2016. Hoping you all have an enjoyable Christmas holiday and a happy and prosperous New Year.

I recently stumbled across an entry on Wikipedia for a brand new UK based literary agency. When I checked out their website I discovered they are also writers, editors and publishers. . Apparently they are willing to ghost write your novel for an undisclosed fee. I can't imagine how much that would cost, but you'd probably need to get onto the New York Times Bestseller List to recover the expenditure. With that accomplished their editors could help you produce a clean, well presented manuscript suitable for submission to an agent or publisher. For my word count that would be about £231. Once you've submitted the manuscript to one of their literary agents they'd probably place it with their own publishing division who would charge you for the pleasure of seeing your work as an e-book on Amazon. The cost? Well they'd charge me approximately £290. So who are these multi-talented people? Curiously enough they don't seem to want anyone to know their names. Pe...

A picture paints a thousand words. This phrase is attributed to Frederick R Barnard who used it in Printers Ink   (December 1921) while commenting that graphics can tell a story as effectively as a large amount of descriptive text. This is certainly an important factor to consider when deciding on a design for a book cover and why it's best left to a professional (unless, that is, you happen to be a very gifted amateur), which I'm not! With the text formatted and edited only the lack of a suitable cover stands in the way of publication for Truthseeker.

Let's face it. Amazon is saturated with self published books. Some can rival the best that traditional publishing houses have to offer, but thousands more could do with a substantial rewrite or some serious attention from a competent editor. Although self publication has always been an option, I've always been a little hesitant about throwing my own hat into the ring too soon. The best people to provide an unbiased opinion are those who are part of the publishing industry. Agents, editors and other authors are all in a position to provide constructive feedback. Realising this I decided to seek opinions in all three arenas. Once I'd completed Truthseeker I sent it out to a few agents to gauge their responses. The only replies I received were form rejections. Usually within days or a week or two at most. What I really needed was some constructive criticism and so I had a reputable literary consultancy read through my manuscript and write a report. My editor's advice...

I've yet to come across any diamond prospectors moaning about the size of their claims, but all too often I come across literary agents whining about the depth of their slush piles. These same agents tend to use this as an excuse to justify a no response equals no interest policy. In a technological age, where a system can be programmed to send out a form rejection, this smacks of arrogance and bad manners. It also seems a bit short sighted to me as it tends to cause offence and make authors reluctant to query said agents with any future projects. Although I've only ever queried one title, I have a second nearing completion and a third part written. Add to this other work I have plotted and several more ideas buzzing around in my head I, like so many unpublished authors, possess quite a sizeable claim to be mined for hidden gems. A couple of days ago I received a personalised rejection from an agent who said: "This was a difficult decision as I was really impressed ...

I've done a lot of research into the publishing industry whilst writing my novels. Publishers, literary agents and other authors have all received my scrutiny. One particular kind of publisher has come to my notice - the anyone can do this, let's start a publishing company type. These people simply set up a website, promote themselves on social media and try to get themselves noticed on sites like MSWL. They have about as much idea about publishing as I have of carrying out complex brain surgery. So how do they do it? The answer is, they get you to sign away your rights and download your work to Kindle, Createspace, Smashwords etc. So what does the author get out of this? Advance on future royalties? - You've got to be joking! Editing? - Probably a quick run through spell check. Interior formatting? Yes, but not difficult using a template from Createspace. Cover design? - Yes. Something cheap and cheerful. Either home made or bought from an on-line cover ...

Looking at the statistics for yesterday I could see that those who viewed my blog did so either late at night or early in the morning.

Discovering a blog on the internet is like finding a needle in a haystack. If you've read any of my posts, chances are that you sat on them by mistake. I can only hope the content wasn't too painful.

It's been a while since I posted an update so I thought I'd write one now and tell you what I've been up to. Apart from uploading excerpts from Truthseeker I've done very little writing. The nice summer we've been having is definitely responsible for any lack of desire to stay indoors and work. However, the past couple of days has seen progress being made. I've carried out some editing on Secret of Heathcote Manor and written the third chapter of Beyond Ragnarok. Both of these are aimed at MG readers. I'm still trying to decide what to do with Truthseeker. Every time I tell myself it's time to self publish I get either a request for pages or a personalized rejection. A couple of days ago I received one from an agent who said that whilst it wasn't for her, it was one of the strongest submissions she'd seen in recent months. So, do I carry on down the long road towards traditional publishing or just bite the bullet and download to Amazon?

At the last count this blog has attracted viewers from 21 countries around the world. The US accounted for 77% of views with 16% from the UK.  The other 7% was made up of views from the following countries: Portugal Germany France Sweden Russia Brunei Ireland Poland Netherlands Italy Ukraine Latvia Denmark Brazil Argentina Australia Singapore Romania Spain Many thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read my posts.

I submitted the first 50 pages of Truthseeker to a 'reputable' literary agent in London last October. In early December I received a request for the full manuscript. Great, I thought. Progress! Three months passed without any response. I gave them a polite nudge and waited patiently. Still no response. Might have been filtered out as spam, I thought so I sent another polite email. Guess what? No response. Whilst I can understand that no response equals no interest for unsolicited queries, I do believe an inquiry regarding a full manuscript deserves some form of reply. To completely ignore an author's request for information is, quite frankly, rude. Mind you, I shouldn't have been surprised. A thread on Absolute Write regarding this agent is filled with complaints of this nature. The sad thing is that this kind of behaviour appears to be fairly widespread. I submitted material to an an agent in the US in February 2015 and received a request for the full manus...

It's now three calendar months since I sent off the full manuscript for Truthseeker. I gave a polite nudge after 12 weeks but still haven't received a reply. Of course this could be nothing to worry about. On the other hand it might be a case of no response equals no further interest. Sadly, this kind of scenario seems to be fairly common when dealing with literary agents and I've come across numerous complaints of this nature. I recently read an article by a reputable agent who condemns this kind of behaviour and cautions against working with people who engage in it. As she points out, this might be a sign of problems further down the road. I'm inclined to agree and would not be comfortable working with any agent who is unable to treat me with even a basic level of courtesy. Agents might be busy people, but not so busy that they are unable to respond to an author whose work they have requested. A part of me says give them the benefit of the doubt. They might be...

When I began the editing process I had little trouble finding things that required improvement. Four major rewrites, and hundreds of editing hours, later I was beginning to struggle. After I received a request for the full manuscript, in December, I put it aside for three months. Over the past couple of weeks I've read it again and found things which my tired eyes missed on previous passes. Although minor in nature it's still irritating that I missed such glaring errors. Most were to do with punctuation and I found a missing full stop in one chapter, an unnecessary question mark in another and a few commas which I really had to think about. I also found a few phrases in the narrative which needed tweaking. Having been through the whole manuscript, and rectified these things, I'm left wondering what else I've missed. I'm also left wondering how many more times I'll need to go through it again.

It was sad to hear that Samhain publishing is closing its doors after just over a decade in operation. Established in 2005 it had some 600 authors and 3000 books in print. In its heyday it was turning over some respectable numbers. However, according to the article I read, e-book sales have dropped dramatically over the past two years and Amazon wouldn't give them a higher profile on their site. Consequently the business is no longer viable. So what implications does this hold for the multitude of digital first publishers springing up everywhere? Only time will tell, I suppose. My gut feeling is that the bubble on this particular kind of enterprise has burst and most new start ups will disappear very quickly.

Querying a literary agent can be a daunting prospect, but it needn't be if you keep things in perspective. The fact of the matter is, there are a great many agents looking for suitable manuscripts and an author only needs to get lucky once. This, I suppose, is the reason why I never sweat on any submission at the initial query stage. Rejection is a fact of life and, for the reasons outlined below, an inevitable part of the process. A great many agents, particularly those based in the United States, ask a prospective client to submit just a query letter. This is the most problematic as they will make a decision on whether to request further material based solely on this. You may have written a potential best seller but if the query letter doesn't grab them that won't count for anything. A lot of first time authors shoot themselves in the foot by not researching agents throroughly enough or submitting query letters which don't conform to an accepted format. If an auth...

It's been a couple of weeks since my last update and I'm still waiting to hear back from a prospective agent on my full MS. As it's still less than three months since I sent it off I'm not that concerned by the lack of response. In the meantime I've been trying to keep my mind occupied with other things. None of them, I might add, writing related.

It's just over nine weeks since I sent off the full of my latest completed MS. Seems like a long time, but in the publishing industry that's just the blink of an eye. How much longer will I need to wait to get an answer? I might as well ask 'How long is a piece of string?' There was a time when I used to fret over such things. These days I take a much more relaxed approach to the issue. The agent concerned obviously enjoyed reading the first 20% to make a request. If they like the remaining 80%, they might make an offer. If they don't it isn't the end of the world. When I set out on this little journey I did so with the intention of self publishing. I could have done so long ago but was held back by self doubt. When I compare the latest version with the draft I had a year ago I'm glad I did. This time last year I received a request from another agent based on a fifteen page sample. To cut a long story short, I increased the word count by 20K, at their ...

Not that much going on at the moment. I sent off the full manuscript of Truthseeker just over a month ago and don't really expect to hear back anytime soon. In the meantime I'm taking full advantage of the situation and having a well earned break away from the keyboard. Apart from the occasional post on my blog that is. If you haven't seen the little video trailer I made, please check it out on one of my earlier posts or on my Twitter page  @DavidWeller06.