Friday 7 March 2014

A little rant about the publishing world

As I sit and suffer manfully with a sore knee after surgery on Tuesday I have been heartened by yet another review for one of my books (Arapaho) on Amazon:

'This is a 5 star read - full of continual action yet with a specific story line. Descriptively written so you can picture being there. Easy and enjoyable reading. I will certainly look for more books from this author.'

In fact I have a total of 67 reviews for  my books, most are 5*, none are critical.  On top of that my sales are steadily increasing - no doubt because of the number of good reviews.  Now I contrast this with the reaction I got from the mainstream literary agents I have sent my books to.  On two famous consecutive days, I got one rejection saying that the story was good but I couldn't write, the next day I was told that I write well but my story was rubbish.  In November, just before I published 'Arapaho' I approached the publishers of Andy McNab directly (I am outselling most of his books at the moment if the Amazon sales rankings are anything to go by).  I rang them and they said to send details which I did.  Two days ago I finally got a response saying they only deal with agents.  However if you speak to the agents they will say that if you are self published, you should go directly to the publishers.  Another can't win situation.  I was told that when Scott Fitzgerald was finally established he used to go around to literary parties with all his rejection letters in his pocket which he would wave under the noses of those who had written them.  So to the dinosaurs in the publishing world I only have one thing to say:


Rant over - and I definitely feel better, even if my bloody knee is still sore.

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