After a month long hiatus (I was on holiday from 22nd July through to August 8th and have been up to my eyes with other things since my return), there has been too much going on in publishing to trawl through everything.
At a time when I am about to commence work on my second book, which will be aimed at children aged from 9 to 99, and which I hoped may be published commercially, I read today much to my dismay, that children's authors are increasingly turning to self publishing in order to break into the market as it is becoming more and more difficult to secure an agent, bearing in mind that most publishers refuse to even look at work that has not come via this route.
It seems that it is becoming increasingly the norm to utilise the services of peer review sites (notoriously closed to non fiction writers, and so little used up to now by myself) as a means to get their work noticed. Several agents openly acknowledge that they use such sites in order to scout for new and upcoming talent, especially where potential exists for the sale of TV and film rights, as I believe is the case with my own idea. It is up to the author of course to do the hard work of showing this, so I have a lot of work ahead of me - just as well I only work part time ... Of course I also now know why I self published the first book, so that I could lay the groundwork for the second book and knew what to do differently - and this book will be very different!
At a time when I am about to commence work on my second book, which will be aimed at children aged from 9 to 99, and which I hoped may be published commercially, I read today much to my dismay, that children's authors are increasingly turning to self publishing in order to break into the market as it is becoming more and more difficult to secure an agent, bearing in mind that most publishers refuse to even look at work that has not come via this route.
It seems that it is becoming increasingly the norm to utilise the services of peer review sites (notoriously closed to non fiction writers, and so little used up to now by myself) as a means to get their work noticed. Several agents openly acknowledge that they use such sites in order to scout for new and upcoming talent, especially where potential exists for the sale of TV and film rights, as I believe is the case with my own idea. It is up to the author of course to do the hard work of showing this, so I have a lot of work ahead of me - just as well I only work part time ... Of course I also now know why I self published the first book, so that I could lay the groundwork for the second book and knew what to do differently - and this book will be very different!
1 comment:
June,
I am delighted to hear that you are moving on to your next book. It is strange, but in all the time I have followed your site I have always imagined at heart that you are a children's writer, even withstanding Genesis of Man.
Maybe its all the Lundy escapism, but a children's fantasy aged 8 - 14 seems perfect!
Hell, what do I know, it could be 'Genesis' for teens.
Good luck anyhow.
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