What if no-one sees short story collections?

This was going to be another mini-rant in the style of last year's complaint about some literary agents who have a "no response means no" policy, but then I started thinking. Over the past 8 years or so I've been in touch with maybe 20 literary agents, in the UK, US and Canada, and heard about many, many more from writer friends, and the refrain is always the same:

[I really like your writing but] I can't sell a short story collection (or novella), publishers don't want them; come back when you've got a novel. 

This week I had a slight variation on that theme in a reply from an agent (to whom I am very grateful that she replied and so quickly!):

Come back when you have a full length novel. 

While I'm not exactly sure what the requirements are for a full-length novel, this is not what I wanted to discuss. The thought suddenly struck me that if agents are blocking us at the first hurdle, publishers never get offered short story collections (or novellas). They never even see them. So how are they supposed to know whether they want to publish them or not?

Of course, it may be that the publishers are sending instructions to the agents along the lines of: Don't bring us short stories, poetry, novellas, science fiction, paranormal detective fiction, novels under 150 pages etc..etc.. etc.. and the agents are just acting as their gatekeepers. But with such gatekeepers, who aren't prepared to even try and fight for something that's slightly off-message, what are we to do, and, more importantly, what does it say about the state of mainstream publishing?

Once again, I give thanks for the many amazing small independent presses - Salt and Tangent Books in particular, on a personal level - who publish whatever they like, whatever they love, with not much thought of breaking even let alone profit. But is this the situation the major publishers want to be in? Do they not want to be persuaded - and in turn attempt, using their marketing wizards, to persuade a public that does, it seem still remain hungry for some novelty - by something different, something that isn't a novel?

I would love to hear from literary agents and publishers here - please pass on this blog post and see if anyone will comment. Am I not thinking commercially enough? Where is my thinking going wrong here? Be honest with me, am I being clouded by my own failure to find representation?

Less hopeless, thank you

I feel better after writing yesterday's post. It wasn't journalism, it wasn't a post about how to get published/get an agent. It wasn't an objective post at all - it was just about how I was feeling. Several people in the comments thanked me for my honesty and really it was the first time I'd written a really honest blog post for a long time. It has become harder and harder to do that since people are actually reading my blog! (I'm very grateful, don't get me wrong, just a little shy.)

I try to stay upbeat here, but it's hard to be relentlessly positive when that's not what's actually going on. I think perhaps part of the "silence" of the blog title was my own silence about this and now that I've vented, got it out, I feel better. I did worry a bit that I was shooting myself in the foot, if any agents ever read the post that would be it for me. But sometimes you've just got to get it out.

And something certainly did get "out"! Yesterday, a few hours after the post went up and apparently completely unconnected to it, I heard from the assistant of the first agent I wrote to, 8 weeks ago, apologizing for the delay! I think she may have been overwhelmed by the gratitude of my response! So, what can we learn from this? That this agent, at least, is not in the "no response means no" business, and for this I am thankful.No guarantees, but the assistant liked my writing enough to pass them on to the agent.

Okay, that takes us back to some positive news. Here, on this very blog, tomorrow, I am hosting the almost-final leg in Jonathan Pinnock's mammoth "Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens" blog tour! Intrigued? Pop back tomorrow. And huge congratulations to my writer friend M on her book deal (more about that when I am allowed)! Good news all round!

The hopeless hopeful silence

I'm recovering from a packed ten days, first at the Cork International Short Story Festival and then this past weekend at the Small Wonder short story festival. Both were wonderful, but the reason I decided to treat myself and go to both is rather less wonderful. I've been feeling depressed about the short story. Not about the short story itself, good heavens no! How could I, when reading short stories brings such joy into my life and writing them might even have saved my life.

No, I've been depressed about the "business" of short stories, and more specifically short story collections. It's only so much we short story writers and lovers can take of being told the same thing again and again and again... No-one reads short stories...No-one buys short story collections...No-one wants your work.. Oh, I don't like short stories... Then came the BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Reading cuts, which I found out about on my birthday. Charming. Sign the protest petition here. At least the comments by signatories are really heartening.

Then a few days ago someone in the audience at Small Wonder even asked one of the speakers why they write short stories since short story writers are "in the graveyard of writing", or something to that effect. You can imagine how I was feeling hearing that. We're in the graveyard of writing? We're dead? Who's dead? We write for the dead?

My first reaction is, No we're bloody well not, there are thousands of people worldwide who love reading short stories. Maybe even more than that. It was heartening in Cork to meet a wonderful Canadian writer, Deborah Willis, whose first collection was bought by Penguin Canada without an agent and was nominated for the Governer General's Award - and for her to tell me she is under no pressure to write a novel. Of course, in Canada you just say the words "Alice Munro" like a magic password if someone dares to suggest that you "graduate" from the little short story to the mightly novel.

Now, my rant here is not against novels - that would be utterly ridiculous. Some of my best friends are writing novels :) No, my rant here is that writers aren't being allowed to write whatever they want - and, more than that, what they are good at.

Second rant, and this relates to the title of this post and is more personal. I've been thinking it's about time I looked for an agent. I had a few meetings in 2009 when my book was commended for the Orange Award for New Writers, and everyone was very kind but I didn't have anything for them to sell. That made sense. Well, now I am 3/4 of the way through a new collection, biology-inspired fictions, funded by an Arts Council England grant, and so I thought this might be a good time.

I want to state categorically here that I fully expected the "I'm so sorry but we just can't sell short story collections at all right now". I figured there was a 0.0001% chance an agent would buck that trend. What I didn't bargain for was this: silence. Total and utter silence, from three agents. I wrote what I thought was a well-constructed query email, and I had a personal recommendation to each agent through writer friends and another agent. But... I was also completely honest about only wanting to write short stories.

No response. Nothing. And it's been 6 weeks or more...

And then last week I read about the new "no response means no" policy apparently being adopted by a number of literary agents. This equates to: if we don't write back, we don't want you. I am very thankful that I am not alone in find this quite shocking. You don't have a minute to even paste in a form reply saying "no"? Apparently, one agent said she employs the "no response" tactic because she doesn't like dealing with the "negativity" of having to reject people. Oh my.

I'd like to put my Short Review editor's hat on here. We receive a lot of queries asking if we might review a newly published short story collection, many more than we can, in fact, review (which is good news for short story collections). I have a form reply in which the first thing I do is congratulate the author or publisher - because, especially in this climate, I believe every short story collection published is a cause for celebration! I then explain how I will try and find a reviewer but it might not happen. It makes me sad, the number of collections we won't be able to review since we "only" review 10 a month. But I would never dream of ignoring an email. Never.

As editor last year of Southword, I had to pick 6 short stories for the issue. This meant rejecting hundreds of stories - a number of which were submitted by friends of mine. How did I feel? Sick. Because I knew exactly how it would feel to get that email, however kindly I worded it.

But to leave someone hanging, not knowing if the non-response is a sign that there is hope or not, is, frankly, cruel. I think it is deeply uncivilized. And if that agent thinks she is avoiding negative karma by not sending an actual rejection, she is mistaken. She should congratulate and applaud every single person who gets up the guts to write to her. Don't we all know how hard it is to move from "I'm trying to write" to "I am a writer", to take that leap into sending out your work to a publication, to then even contemplate the next step, the possibility of an agent taking you on?

Thankfully, there are a number of agents who have reacted to this "no reply means no" and said that they simply don't agree with this. I think we should vote with our feet - if an agent has a "no reply means no" policy, perhaps we should send them silence first, before they can send it back. And let's give ourselves a round of applause, for just putting ourselves out there.

It's not easy. I am trying to stop worrying so much about the "business" side of all this and get back into the writing. Thank goodness for all the amazing small presses out there who are publishing the books - not just story collections - that are the sorts of things that no-one thinks will sell. They are to be applauded too. As a very wise friend of mine said, mainstream publishing is a bit like Marks & Spencers  - they aren't going to agree to sell a limited edition of your hand-painted belts unless it's a very special occasion. And if what you're creating doesn't even really look like a belt... well then. 

 In the mean time, I'm getting down to some writing. I'm going to stop caring if I'm making the right kind of belts. I'm going to let it all hang out.


ADDENDUM
I forgot to mention that this also comes after hearing many many stories from fellow writers of non-responses, not just to initial queries like mine, which didn't include an MS, but after agents have requested an MS to be rushed overnight to them, they are so excited about it! And then.... silence. Is this a good way to do business?

ADDENDUM 2

I am being told that 12 weeks is about standard for a response time, so it seems I was jumping the gun here. But this isn't just about me, this is about a principle which I do hope isn't becoming the norm. I've just had a response from an agent's assistant apologizing for the delay - it seems it's a complete coincidence that it came today, and I have thanked her profusely for just ending the silence. I don't mind waiting and waiting... not at all, I understand how large the slush piles are. I just needed to know that I hadn't sent my queries into a void! An autoreply, as mentioned in the comments here, would have helped immensely.

Wellcome collection guest blog

I am planning a longer blog post about my retreat experience, which was heavenly, but for the moment, a few links:

Part 2 of my guest blog post on science-inspired fiction is now up on the Wellcome Collection blog, (part 1 is here). If you don't know the Wellcome Collection, it is a brilliant place in London, a "free visitor destination for the incurably curious, exploring the connections between medicine, life and art in the past, present and future." My guest blog is about examples of "SciLit" that I like, what works for me and what doesn't. A taster:

The first fiction inspired by science that I came across, and still my favourite, is Einstein’s Dreams, by MIT physicist Alan Lightman. Published in 1994, this could be described loosely as a novel-in-stories, an imagining of what Einstein might have been dreaming about as he was formulating his theory of relativity. Each chapter or story conjures up a different theory of time – it moves slower at higher altitudes, disorder decreases with time instead of increasing, it works in a groundhog-day fashion where people are doomed to repeat the same day again and again. Einstein’s Dreams is not only thought-provoking but beautifully written...

Read the rest here.

Huge congratulations to my friend Sarah Hilary who has acquired a top-notch agent! Read her very insightful blog post on how to get an agent... or not. Really good advice, especially about perseverance and accepting critique. Heed it well.

More soon...!

Interesting short story discussion

There's an interesting discussion over at The Rumpus, where a blog post entitled "More Crappy News for Short Story Writers" brings us more of those quotes we short story lovers and writers have become used to hearing, from an agent writing in response to being sent a short story collection:

Publishers don’t like to publish short story collections in general unless they are VERY high concept or by someone very strange or very famous or Indian. In the current climate, it is harder to publish even those. Some of the authors I represent have story collections I have not been able to talk their loyal publishers into publishing. I can’t in good conscience encourage you to send them to me. It will just make both of us feel bad.

What is "VERY high concept"? And... he actually said "Indian"???!!

The writer of this post, Seth Fischer, argues wisely that

"The form of the short story collection is so uniquely well-suited to the Internet age. A good short story should grab you by the junk and make you yelp in that first line. So should good web copy. A good short story should be no longer than it need be. So should good web copy. I could go on. There are many very important differences between the two types of writing, but the publishing houses could be taking advantage of the similarities to develop a model that could turn a profit."

Exactly. He ends:

It seems to me that all it would take is a tiny bit of ingenuity to make money off the right short story collection. Why aren’t the publishing houses trying it?

I have been saying for a while that I see this attitude from mainstream publishing houses towards short story collections as a singular failure of imagination. If they have a marketing department that believes it is fairly talented at getting people to buy books, then why do they believe there is a whole swathe, no a whole world of books that they just cannot persuade anyone to buy?

The comments on this post are pretty interesting too, especially the comment that begins: "Could the problem be that many short stories are boring?" I encourage you all to go over there and weigh in....!

Updates - and The Short Review July Issue

First, apologies for my silence, it's been several weeks of no Internet or - gulp - dial-up, and not much time while we travelled to sit down and focus on writing a blog post. I had also hoped to be able to announce that nice news I keep blathering on about, but.... nothing yet!

I had a very promising second meeting with an agent yesterday, the upshot of which is that I need to keep writing but she likes what I've done so far. Good news, more work ahead. And we've found a lovely place to live in Bristol, which will be our new home from end August, with the ideal studio workroom for me already set up and separate. Even better than a shed - if I am allowed to say that!

Also:

The July Issue of the Short Review is out. First, congratulations to the six short story collections shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. See the Short Review blog for the shortlist.

With this month's issue, we bring you the most authors we have ever reviewed - with anthologies containing stories from up to 50 authors outnumbering single-author collections. There is a plethora of criminal behaviour, nostalgia for the era of punk, tales of those in waiting, a little erotica and more. Interviews with Daniyal Mueenuddin, whose collection we reviewed in last month's issue, Mary Akers, Jason Allan Cole, Mark Illis and Alex Keegan. Find something to read.

Also on the blog: Ailsa Cox takes us behind the scenes of the Edge Hill Short Story Prize, whose winner will be announced on July 4th. Read more.

Happy weekend of short stories! More from me when we get back home on Sunday.

Of agents and other delights

Coming to the end of my very short trip to the UK, here is a quick round up and what I hope is interesting information from my experience of meeting two literary agents.

First, two of my flash stories were shortlisted for the FISH One Page short story competition, but alas once more it was not to be! Congratulations to the winners.

Second, it was my grandmother's 100th birthday yesterday (this is a pic of me and her a few years ago), and the party held in her nursing home, complete with cupcakes with her name on (!), felt like a truly historic event. There was the card from the Queen (no telegrams any more), and many family members, some I had never met. And my grandmother, Zara, beaming from her wheelchair. And this is book-related: My aunt and uncle had made Zara's dream come true by producing a beautiful, hardback book with extracts from the memoirs she has been working on almost as long as I've known her, complete with photos. Totally wonderful, I look forward to getting my copy - and was astonished to be summoned by some cousins and shown a photograph of my grandmother in 1927 which really did look like me. Genes, eh! When I get the book in digital format, I may post the photo here and see what you think. I don't really look strongly like either of my parents, so this was something quite lovely.

Agents. OK. Buoyed by the Orange Award commendation, which gave me the feeling that the world was open to me in a way that it hadn't been before, I had set up two meetings in London with agents who had been personally recommended to me. I was excited yet unsure: how would the meeting go? Who would speak first? What would I say? I realised I do have something for an agent to sell right now: the foreign rights to The White Road & Other Stories. But I have only small pieces of future projects, and I feel that some of what I am writing now is very different from the stories in my collection. How would it all work? I really feel the need now for someone to be waiting for me to produce something. My journalistic training means I thrive on deadlines, and I have had no deadlines for the past few years, no-one waiting for me to do anything. But how long would an agent wait?

So, the first meeting on Friday afternoon took place in a cafe near the agent's office, at her suggestion. She was lovely, very friendly, and when she immediately said she loved flash fiction, I was delighted! We talked about short stories, about my writing etc.., about ideas for future projects. But she had to go after less than an hour and as I walked back to the station I realised that I had been left with more questions than answers, quite possibly because I hadn't known what to ask. I also was unsure how it was left between us, a bit like a first date after which you wonder if they'll call you!

I was much better prepared for today's meeting with Agent 2, having made a list of questions. We met in her agency's offices, beautiful and book-filled, which created a great first impression. And although we met for the same amount of time as my first meeting, I felt that all my questions were answered and I got a very clear and good impression of what she and her agency do and could do for me, and what she would like from me in order to see if we could work together. (She gave me two short story collections to take home, which I won't name since that would give it all away, but which is always a way to my heart!) Bumping into a rather well-known author in the reception also made a great impression :) I would suggest that if possible, you always meet an agent at the office, just to get a sense of the atmosphere. And - do write a list of questions! I didn't do that for the first meeting, and that was a mistake.

So, we will see. If one of these agents really likes what I am working on now, then we could move ahead and I will have someone nudging me and spurring me on! Flying home tomorrow, back to work, back to writing and thinking. Will keep you updated.

Coming back down to earth + some deadlines

I'm still floating, still grinning to myself, scaring the cats, still wondering what on earth this all means, how to integrate it into my life. I have asked some trusted advisers for their advice, regarding an agent for example. This makes me more attractive, right? (In publishing-speak only!). Even if I am that dreaded short-story-writer-no-not-planning-to-write-a-novel! But I would like to have an agent, someone interested in my writing, someone nudging me a little every now and then, someone who knows what the next steps might be. There is so much here that is a mystery to me. When I tell people I studied physics, they look at me with wonder, as if it is another planet whose language is known only to the select few. Well, I feel that way about the publishing industry: I don't know the culture, don't know the signs and symbols. A great agent is a translator, explaining what certain gestures mean, what the words and phrases stand for. I would be very happy to have that in my life. Will keep you updated.

Update: OK, that was quick, the universe works in scary ways: just got a message from my lovely publisher, Jen, that an "agent scout" has been in touch to ask for my book. Exciting! Something about "if she writes a novel...". Ah yes. No comment!

In the meantime, a few deadlines for you:

Comps

Extended to April 30th: Short FICTION Third Annual New Writer competition: Prize is £300 plus publication in Issue 3 of Short FICTION (due out September 2009). Writers without fiction book publication (of novel or short stories) are eligible. Entries must be of previously unpublished work (in magazine or online). Submitted stories must be under 5000 words. There is no theme restriction.

May 11th: Commonwealth Short Short Story competition: Commonwealth citizens only. No entry fee, up to 3 entries, 600 words. Prize is £2000 for the overall winner, and £500 each for regional winners. I can personally recommend this competition (!). Free entry!!

Some paying lit mag submission deadlines (coincidentally, both are Australian!):

April 15th: Etchings: Theme: From Dusk til Dawn. Fiction, personal & creative essays, poetry, art, and photography for issues 7 and 8. Payment AU$75.

May 31st: Going Down Swinging: Poetry, short fiction or non-fiction, flash, comic art, graphic art. GDS pays contributors AUS $75 per short poem / comic or graphic art; $100 per short story / poem / comic over 4 pages. These fees are subject to funding, and may change without notice.


And thanks to Tom for this, in honour of National Poetry month. Love it.

Helen Simpson: Pat Kavanagh: My friend, the perfect agent

A wonderful tribute by Helen Simpson in the Independent. I never met Pat Kavanagh but several of my tutors on the MA in Creative Writing were her clients, and she was spoken of in such reverent tones. It sounds like a great and tragic loss to the literary world, she does sound like ever author's ideal agent and advocate. Helen Simpson says:

Pat would get you the money, but she was much more interested in your writing. Some might call that old-fashioned but I was completely behind it. I had absolute confidence in her. If you wrote as well as you could and Pat knew what you were on about and was enthusiastic about your work, then she could sell it.

Full article here: Pat Kavanagh: My friend, the perfect agent The Independent

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Agents and writers Part II

And if the YouTube video in the previous post wasn't enough, the Literary Rejections on Display blog drew my attention to this post by writer Steve Almond on his website, entitled "Are Agents Necessary?". He says:

after all, the role the agents play is fundamentally parasitic. They do not do the dogged, lonely work of writing, or editing. They merely usher art into the gilded halls of commerce. They broker.

Thus, agents profit by the illusion that, without them, writers would be helpless; and, whether consciously or otherwise, they foster this illusion.

These words speak to me, as someone who "had" an agent for almost two years, but that agent did not do anything for me. She was very nice, she seemed to enjoy chatting to me whenever I was in England, but it appeared that the only topic she didn't want to discuss was my writing. So in the end I sent my work to a publisher myself. And, incredibly, I got a book deal, a fact I am still having trouble accepting. However, I can't get it out of my head that I somehow need an agent. Writers have agents, right? Well...
Almond goes on to say:

My own sense is that the publishing industry would be better off without agents, that young writers would spend more time focused on their characters, and following their instincts, rather than taking the counsel of people who—this must be said—see them, at least in part, as potential revenue sources.

They would, in addition, be compelled to learn more about the economic realities of the publishing industry, and to demystify the process by which a manuscript becomes a book.

Likewise, publishing houses would be forced to deal more directly, and candidly, with writers, about everything from contracts to marketing strategies to royalty statements.

To be clear: I don't view agents as willfully harmful. The best of them work hard on behalf of their clients, and earn their cut. As noted, there are many writers who, understandably, seek to insulate themselves from the business side of publishing, who have no phone manner, or don't want to worry about getting ripped off. They are happy to surrender fifteen percent of their hard-earned dough to agents, and well they should be.

But the bottom line is that agents do not serve an essential function in the creation of art. That burden resides with writers and editors. And it is the creation of that art—not its sale—that we should celebrate.

Amen!
(Full article here.)

Agents and writers

And I thought I wanted an agent??