Copy-Edit: "Covenant"

Not much has happened over the past few weeks, hence the lack of posts since the middle of December. The holiday period intervened, obviously, but also I've been working away on the first draft of my second novel, "Elixir".

However, yesterday the copy-edited version of Covenant arrived. It's quite exciting to see how another professional editor views the work. The document is peppered with seemingly small but on reflection very astute observations, where the editor has recognised that I've used a particular word twice in two pages, or that a character has accquired a small piece of information twenty pages before they could possibly have. None of the adjustments required are at all labour intensive, usually requiring either deletion or a simple tweak to make everything fit together seamlessly.

It's been an understanding of mine that many authors ( at least in the past ) have resisted with some effort the work of editorial teams and their advice. Many, apparently, have not achieved new contracts, or have seen 'uneven' sales due to their reluctance to alter details in their work. I fail to understand why they do not see the advantages of following editorial advice: my novel was, if I blow my own trumpet, pretty good as it was, and both my editor and agent stated so. But it's so much better now for all of the tiny tweaks, the polishing of each and every page, and I've even identified one or two little bad 'habits' of mine as a writer that I can watch out for in future work, thus making the next editorial easier for all.

My advice; take all editorial notes, and act on them. Throw yourself into it and put aside any pretence that you're already an 'experienced' author. Everyone's work can be improved, and the better it gets, the more an audience will enjoy it. And that means they'll buy your next great best-seller!

The first meeting with a literary agent.

Now that I’ve calmed down a little, I thought that aspiring authors might appreciate a more detailed breakdown of what happened during my meeting with Luigi Bonomi at LBA. It’s extremely rare for unpublished authors to find themselves in the office of a well established agent, and there was little on the Internet describing such meetings before I had my own. So, here it is.

Luigi was interested initially on how long I had been writing, what about, and what my day job was ( I’d also been asked to send a brief C.V. in advance of the meeting ). The reasoning behind this was to give Luigi a feel for where I was in my life at the time, and also to see if there was anything about me that might help to sell my novels to potential publishers and the public. Many authors write about subjects similar to their occupations, and such expert knowledge helps to encourage readers that they are going to learn something from an authority figure as well as be entertained. ( I am not in that position, but it obviously doesn’t hinder an author if they’ve done what an agent considers to be a good job of their novel ).

Then we got down to business. Considering the sheer volume of material Luigi handles, he recalled a great deal of detail about ‘Genesis’, and was able to sketch out where he felt things were letting the story down. Chief among these was pace, along with his feeling that, having started with what he called “a terrific premise”, I had failed to capitalise upon it during the rest of the novel.

What followed was an hour talking over how to re-write about half of the novel in order to take full advantage of my premise, whilst trimming the novel down from its existing 150,000 words to around 110 – 120,000 words ( not a small task in itself ). This was to promote swifter pace within the story, and also no doubt to keep potential publisher’s costs down, making the title a more appealing accquisition.

Luigi made a point here of remarking that one of his reasons for being willing to work with me was my own willingness to make changes based on his experience and inside knowledge of the publishing industry. We had exchanged e-mails before the meeting, where he had highlighted the novel’s strengths and weaknesses, and my positive responses were what prompted his invite to the LBA offices in London. He then went on to detail how he felt that male thriller-fiction was beginning to move into new directions, and that I should consider following, something that I will definitely be bearing in mind as I get down to re-writing my novel to make it as commercial as possible. I should point out that at no time did Luigi dictate what he felt I should do with the novel – he made suggestions and then we talked them over, bouncing ideas off of each other until we found a compromise that really fitted the work. It was the first time that I’ve been able to do that alongside a publishing professional, and it left me bursting with new ideas.

After a hugely productive hour, Luigi told me that he would send me a standard agency agreement by e-mail that day. I was overjoyed, as you can imagine. He then cautioned me that getting publishers to buy novels, especially in these economic hard-times, was immensely difficult even for established agents, and that nothing might come of this. I accepted that, but between you and me, Luigi doesn’t sign an author unless he has high hopes for them, and he also said that if this novel doesn’t work we’ll have to find something else that does, suggesting to me that we’re in a business partnership that he hopes will last.

So do I!

Why have one when you can have two?

Well, it's as if time is repeating itself almost. I have two major literary agencies asking to see the full manuscript of my novel 'Genesis'. One is already considering the work, whilst the second got in touch recently.

After last time, when two agencies had full manuscripts of mine and both turned them down, I'm a little less excited. Once bitten, twice shy and all that. None the less, it's very encouraging and at least I know that the story itself is strong enough to grab the attention of very capable ( and very busy ) agents. Once again, however, I'm wringing my hands over whether the rest of the novel lives up to the promise of the submission package.

I've been very fortunate in being in e-mail contact with a successful author represented by one of those agencies: Matt Hilton, author of the Joe Hunter series of thrillers and a top chap, who's been giving me a great deal of advice, inside-knowledge and encouragement on what may happen should things go my way. Having been writing alone for so long, it's great to hear from somebody who's already been through the mill, so to speak, and realise that once upon a time, they too were where I am now.

Two agents, one good novel.... Fingers, legs and eyes crossed that this time things go my way.