Get a Book Published? The Road to Publication Might be Getting a Little Rougher

Is it getting easier or more difficult for an unpublished writer to get their first book commercially published? We asked nearly 60 literary agents about the outlook for the next generation of authors. Their comments are in quotes.

Agents do not envision a great deal of change on the horizon. They are mildly negative about the next 12 to 24 months. When asked the reasons behind their forecast, the most common responses were:

Industry Consolidation, Changes Within the Publishing Industry Itself

Changes in Book Retailing

Publishers are Becoming More Risk Averse

The Pessimists

The Optimists

The Impact of the National Economy

Industry Consolidation, Changes Within the Publishing Industry Itself

"Editors no longer rely on their instincts and passions as selection criteria; instead they go by such formulas as, Bad Numbers, Author has no Platform etc."

"Continuing consolidation and conglomeration of industry."

"For non-fiction works, in particular, publishers need credentialed writers, which leaves out the many individuals who have great ideas but nothing to back it up. With fiction, they are more likely to take a chance on an unpublished writer IF it is in an area (genre) they are seeking at the time and the writing is passable enough.

Changes in Book Retailing

"Because of the pressure of the chain buyers, publishers are increasingly locked into publishing only the brand new authors with no record, and best selling authors."

"Because as long as the retail market continues to consolidate in the hands of fewer and fewer retailers, the entire industry becomes dependent on the taste of a small handful of 'buyers' who choose which books get shelf space."

Publishers are Becoming More Risk Averse

"It just seems like it's getting harder and harder to get people to take a chance on an unknown."

"Editors are buying fewer books, they are reluctant to take chances."

"What does keep projects from being bought is the fact that lists are shrinking, and in a marketplace in which it's terribly hard to win anyone's attention - from buyers all the way to customers - everyone up the editorial chain is anxious about making the wrong bet ... more often than not, 'No' is a safe answer."

The Pessimists

"I base this on the number of rejection letters publishers have sent for well-written, well-plotted novels by new authors that would have sold if given the chance."

"I don't see the market picking up much, and if the current trends continue, it will only decline."

The Optimists

"Because I don't agree that the publishing industry is either for or against unpublished writers. They are FOR unpublished writers who have a brilliant first novel to offer or a nonfiction platform. They are AGAINST unpublished writers who are bad writers or (in the case of nonfiction, are not credentialed in their field, have a new original, high concept idea etc.)"

"The Industry is not a monolithic thing. Some genres (nonfiction especially, which more and more requires the author to have a major platform for promotion and media attention) will continue to become more difficult; some genres (upmarket fiction) exalt first-time writers. The "first novel" for literary fiction represents a unique marketing opportunity for the publisher; it's the second and third novels that tend to be far more difficult to publish well if the first novel doesn't take off."

"Some trends favor new writers and new voices, however the money is often discouragingly small, so there is not the sense of a career being launched."

The Impact of the National Economy

"Publishing is an increasingly tough biz in tough times--fewer people read."

So What Can a Debut Author Do?

1) Study the elements of a good query letter.

2) Make your contact letter succinct, positive, but not obnoxious. Stress that you understand the market for your book and how to address that market.

3) Learn what types of manuscripts individual agents are looking for and send yours out to the agents that match up the best with your topic or genre.

4) Don't give up.

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Let a Little Culture Into Your Life

Way back when ('when' being the mid-1980s), a young teenage boy came across a slim novella by a new Scottish writer, with the intriguing title of 'The Wasp Factory'. The writer was Iain Banks, the teen was yours truly, and thereby began a literary love affair that has lasted three decades (awww...).

Iain Banks, or Iain M. Banks to the Sci-Fi fraternity, was a breadth of fresh air and his first book, a disturbing, tongue-'n-cheek, twist-at-the-end chiller with at least one indelible image that this writer still finds upsetting to think about (if you've read the novel you'll probably guess the one), was a deserved best seller. Since then he has gone on to write some 12 novels, of varying success but extravagant ability, and remains one of the most highly regarded 'New Wave' of Scottish writers working today. However, so-called mainstream fiction aside, it his Science-Fiction that remains my greatest passion.

In 1987, in his first Sci-Fi novel 'Consider Phlebas', he introduced us to his greatest creation: the Culture. A peace-loving, galaxy-spanning civilization whose technology is thousands of years in advance of our own, with unlimited resources and an ultra-ultra-liberal society and culture, guided or watched over by sentient machines or 'Minds', it has become the playground for his imagination over the last twenty years.

In many ways the Culture is a sort of high-tech Utopian vision of a typical Scottish, 1970s leftie socialist, and it shows, but Oh My God, what a welcome contrast to the uptight, folksy American Sci-Fi that dominated the shelves of the Forbidden Planet and other purveyors of all things SF in the 1970s and '80s. The Culture is just so damned European, informed by liberal or centre-left European ideals of personal freedom coupled with social responsibility, that it is hardly surprising many American readers found it uncomfortable stuff (as one friend commented to me, 'It's just so damn socialistic...!'). But don't let that make you think Banks' books are some sort of political pamphleteering - there is no hidden agenda here. Far from it. They are invariably big style space operas, with bells and whistles attached, that simply outshine, outdo and out think most other contemporary Science-Fiction.

None of you George Lucas or Gene Roddenberry rehashes in book form here. Banks takes his fiction to the most fantastic places, far away yet always familiar. He works on the grand scale and the entirely human. His Culture books feature stories inspired by topics as diverse as superpower rivalries, terrorism, genocide, racism, socieo-economic struggles, feminism, colonialism. You name it in the real world and Banks has probably addressed it in one of his countless worlds and eerie echoes of our own global history rebound throughout his science-fiction. Yet none of this is at the expense of damn good stories with damn good characters. Everything is grist to the literary mill and it is turned with an expert hand by someone who is a natural proponent of his art.

Iain Banks is not just a great Sci-Fi writer, he is a great writer full stop, and that makes all the difference.

If you want to try his SF then the place to start is of course 'Consider Phlebas', a typical Banksian space opera (with brains and a message), with the best spaceship chase sequence you're ever likely to read in your life. It has all the basic ingredients that come to maturity in his later works and is the perfect place to dive into the Culture universe.

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A Million Little Truths: One Good Horse, a account by Tom Groneburg

Memoir, of course, is a venerable genre. It's been around a while. The
first guy to hunker down and scratch a few words in the dirt, ten to one
he was writing about himself. Here's what I saw, here's what I felt.
Judging by recent headlines, however, the breed is in the midst of taking
a beating. Poor James Frey in his million little maligned pieces, the
latest bad-assed spoiled rich kid to bleed all the way to the bank. What
is it about telling our own story that makes us want to
oversensationalize, inflate our own egos with endless puffs of hot air?
Augusten Burroughs, running with the scissors that his foster family
swears up and down were fabrications. Is it insecurity? Maybe our own
lives really aren't that important. Even here in Montana, Judy Blunt
probably should have thought twice before writing that scene about her
father-in-law going after her typewriter with a sledgehammer.

In this cynical atmosphere, the new memoir by Tom Groneberg, One
Good Horse, (Scribner, $24) is a kind of palliative. It's like running into a
buddy you haven't seen for a while, arguing about who can buy the first
round. Ostensibly the story of a novice cowboy's first foray into horse
training, it's rather more the portrait of a life, a cross-section of the
quotidian struggles that make up the human condition. Like another
instant Montana classic of memoir, Fred Haefele's Rebuilding the
Indian, Groneberg uses his narrative armature, his horse training, as an
entrée into considerably larger issues. For instance: What does it mean
to be a father, a husband, a friend? What are the duties that we bring to
our lives, and what are our rewards?

"I think, perhaps for the first time, that I should have my own horse. If I
walked out into a pasture with a halter, it would nicker and trot toward
me. I wouldn't have to decide which horse to saddle, which animal to
trust. If I had a good horse, I could give it my life. I could ride it for years.
We could grow old together. Then I would give it to Carter [his son]. His
own horse, to ride, to have, because I know I will not always be there for
him."

Superficially, it's true that the average, page-flipping and blurb-reading
browser might waffle over One Good Horse. The veneer of it is all about
karaoke bars and job hunting, mornings spent feeding out bales of hay
and an evening or two with the in-laws. Dig a little deeper, though, and
you come to see, within these familiar totems, compelling reductions of
all our days. As opposed to the over-sensationalized, truth-hedging
memoirs that now top the bestseller list, Groneberg's narrative quietly
communicates a real sense of generosity, a vision of simply doing the
best you can, making a hand out of the cards you've been dealt. It is,
more than anything else, a calm meditation on relationships: A man to
his horse, his friends, his family, his community.

Still in the midst of resetting his dials after losing both his ranch and then
his job, he writes, "Maybe I can get a colt and remember what it is I love
about being out in the west. The pieces of my life will fall into place
again and everything will make sense." Shortly thereafter, he comes
across another memoir, Teddy "Blue" Abbott's We Pointed Them North.
One of the tent poles of Montana's literary canon, Groneberg uses
WPTN as a counterpoint, describing its narrative to us in pieces, subtly
couching his own experiences in the larger, historical context of Teddy
Blue's example. Groneberg aspires to being a cowboy in a long line of
cowboys, a writer in an established tradition of western writers, and
Teddy Blue gives him a place to hitch his figurative horse. "What can't
be reclaimed is the hole in my story, the empty space on that line that
used to read 'cowboy' or 'ranch hand' or 'man with horse.' I need a new
story."

And so we've begun with these two narratives threads, first one and
then the other - Groneberg's horse training, and now Teddy Blue's tale.
We're shortly given a third: The premature birth of Groneberg's twin
sons. "I phone grandparents and deliver the news. Carter watches
cartoons. Jennifer nods off. Time disappears. In the tiny kitchen across
the hall from Jennifer's room, I raid the refrigerator for little packs of
chocolate pudding, cups of ice chips, half-sized cans of lemon-lime
soda and ginger ale. Just before dinner, I scrub my hands and put on
another gown and visit the boys again. Someone has taped a card over
each isolette, one reading Avery, the other Bennett. This is me, I think.
This is my life."

The pediatrician, "a confident doctor, reassuring, with short strawberry
blond hair and a warm smile," says, "'I'd like to do some tests on Avery."
She explains that "there is a particular crease in his palm that she is
concerned about, and that his ears seem to be set a little low on his
face." As privileged readers, we discover, together with Groneberg and
his wife, that their beautiful new son has been born with Down
syndrome. "Jennifer and I hold each other and we cry. We grieve for
Avery, for his future. Or maybe our sadness is for ourselves, for the loss
of who we thought we were. We thought it didn't matter, this notion of
perfect children. At less than a week old, Avery has been labeled,
limited, his life foreclosed on, his future told by a crease in his tiny palm."
It is a measure of the strength muscling through Groneberg's
deceptively simple prose that our hearts break right along with theirs.

In tackling memoir, it's not enough to say that one has simply lived, that
you were here next door, microwaving leftovers and filling parking
spaces. You're asking a complete stranger to spend time with your life,
after all; you need to convince them that something here is important.
Fame does the trick, á la Bill and Hillary Clinton, George Carlin.
Travelogues have wheels as well (although less so now than before,
what with all the deserts having already been explored). Harrowing
experiences (drugs, sexual abuse) and professional expertise both
usually suffice. But it is, to my mind, much more difficult to write a
compelling story out of the bare bones of the unexceptional. Here is a
view of the world from where I'm standing, and it's one I'd like to share.

A slim enough book (considering the roiling issues in the subtext), and
conversational, adept in its voice, One Good Horse is finally that rarest
of literary creations: It's true.

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