Pushing Publishing Boundaries.

Greeting, Again :)

I have been looking for a Literary agent for some time now and I think they have all tightened their belts in regards to new authors. Many of them are refusing to accept new manuscripts and when you find one accepting it is rarely in the area of publishing that is suited to your style and genre. I can only offer the comments that I recieved following a talk hosted by Legend Press' managing director Tom Chalmers. See their website for more details on submission.

http://www.legendpress.co.uk/

I think his comments are really useful in regards to the publishing industry and his company remain one of the few still accepting unsolicited manuscripts. He mentioned that Literary agents are becoming more like editors as during the recession the bigger publishers are cutting back editors positions whilst keeping sales staff.

This is an eye opener as it makes one wonder why we need literary agents in the first instance, they are just a rung on the ladder into the publishing industry. They don't edit as the publishing houses have editors on hand to do this... So then why do we need editors? Yes they are useful but if we are writers and writing is a passion for us then the quality of our prose is shown in the editing process and grammar and punctuation are second nature to writers.

So I seriously began to question the need of these elements in the industry.

Literary agents do have benefits, they have contacts in the industry and experience negotiating with the publishers enabling them to haggle for a better price however there is also an opportunity to be siezed in self publishing. I am not talking of Vanity publishers who will publish anything regardless of quality but of the e-book format.

Vanity publishing is a print on demand service which is purely financed by the author which is a costly process. Whereas the E-book revolution is taking the generation by storm with Kindle sales continuing to rise at a phenominal rate and this is already being utilized by other writers. I believe it to be a fairly cost effective way of publishing your own work and the profits are entirely your own. Minus a small percentage fee on the Market place.

I have read the Writers and Artists yearbook and the information it contains about self publishing is pursuasive to this mentioning famous writers who have self published in thier careers. I have emailed some prestigious institutions and important people in the Viking field. I hope they will provide some reviews I can use when marketing my e-book.

If you want to submit to publishers a Literary Agent is needed and the yearbook has a list of these. Also industry standards need to be adhered to.

When I asked Tom about e-book publishing his comments were that a good marketing head was needed and a consistent level of editing throughout. If any other writers are considering this then please let me know how your experience goes.

Thanks for reading

Stephen

Historical Fiction. Publishing and Review.

Greetings Readers,

I am an ameature novelist considering E-book publication. I have been writing for a long time now and my interests centres on historical fiction. From a young age I have been fascinated by ancient civilisations such the Romans, Greeks and Vikings.

I began writing my Nordic narrative about 10 years ago as an adolescent who mistakenly believed the arrangement of the story was great. Since developing and maturing somewhat I have reworked the first chapter of 3000 words into two chpaters each 3000 words and with a balanced mixture of indepth research into the Scandanavian era and sharpened writing technique I hope soon to publish it to the Kindle store.

As an avid reader myself I wanted the book to be authentic and I hope to achieve this by using a world map to contextualise the surrounding world and as such the scope of the narrative spreads over three novels. You may be thinking it is sounding a bit like Lord of the Rings, and although I took inspiration from the completely fictional maps of middle earth I believe that a more authentic account of progression can be communicated using real places. Also I have been researching Nordic language and as there are no real sources of this ancient tongue, I have used the nearest equivalent. Faroese. This is the closest to old norse that is available.

Coincidentally I have two wonderful neighbours who are from the Faroe Islands, I am gradually learning bits of the language and it all culminates in the novel. The blurb is something that I have been working on and looks something like this:


The crisp cold air catches his breath as his eyes gaze solemnly into the distance. Surveying the icy fjords, all around him he sees death. Behind him and infront, in his past and in his future. Drawing on his pipe the smoke-whisps evaporate spiralling upwards toward the sky and he remembers Hildur. Her beauty and charm lost to history, forgotton but for his memories. He recalls too his Grandfather Ragnar, a great and fiersome warrior who died centuries before.

Exhaling he tasted the sweet tobacco as it left his mouth. His long shadow stretching out through time casting a pallor on existence itself. It was the only thing that remained human . Reminded him of the days of old, where Vikings raided coasts and Kings warred to the brink of destruction.

The world had changed since 250A.D; religion, war and humanity. Land fell to the west and guns and bombs became the ultimate choice of weapon. Baldr run his hand over the pommel of his sword. Blóð he was reliable and had never failed to take a life where bullets had gone awry from a trembling hand.