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Getting my novel published
British author Eliza Graham, author of Playing with the Moon, on
her route to publication.
In June Macmillan New Writing will publish my novel, Playing with the
Moon. It's the story of two women, one old, one young, bound together by the
discovery of the body of a black GI, murdered in a coastal village in 1943.
It looked as though Playing with the Moon wasn't ever going to take off.
I couldn't interest an agent in it. Some liked one of the storylines but not the
other, and others liked one protagonist but not the other. I couldn't win!
Without an agent there seemed little hope of
attracting a publisher’s interest.
I'd almost given up hope when I read about the Macmillan New Writing (MNW)
scheme. I didn't need to have an agent and could submit the entire manuscript
electronically. Easy! So I winged off an email, not expecting very much.
Four months passed.
On a scorching day in July 2006, I received an email from Will Atkins at
Macmillan New Writing. I scrolled through his message looking for the familiar
"but we'd like to wish you luck in the future" line. His email seemed long for a
rejection and included editorial suggestions. Then my eye caught the bit
about being interested in talking to me about
publishing Playing with the Moon. At which point I shrieked, sending the
dogs running for cover.
Before making a firm commitment Will wanted some structural changes and
alterations made to a protagonist - meaty but not daunting changes, and I had
plenty of editorial support.
The book went through two sets of revisions plus a final tweak. Kind critique
partners reread the book for me in between drafts. Meanwhile the mercury rose so
high I worried the school would send the children home for the holidays early.
My fingers stuck to the keyboard. Then the summer holidays started and I was
still working on the rewrites.
Finally, in early autumn, we had a draft that satisfied Will, and the
contract came through. The book went off to the copy-editor, who pointed out
some discrepancies in locations and a few anachronisms needing attention.
Then came the thrill of seeing the cover and proofs and meeting the team at MNW
in their King's Cross offices.
At its launch Macmillan New Writing attracted some criticism because it doesn't
give advances and writers receive a fixed, royalties-only, non-negotiable
contract. Macmillan also has first option on any second novel on the same
terms.
None of this worried me. After five years of writing I was thrilled at the
prospect of getting a book out onto the shelves earning something and
hopefully getting my name known.
At the moment I'm doing all I can to boost the fortunes of Playing with the
Moon by going out and talking to bookshops and book groups, taking with me
the first four chapters in 'sampler' format. In 2008 the book will also come out
as a paperback, giving me another bite at the cherry.
It's certainly been an exciting year.
Eliza Graham's novel Playing with the Moon comes out on 1 June. She lives
in Oxfordshire in the UK with her family and has wanted to be a novelist since
she was at primary school. When she's not writing fiction Eliza works as a
freelance editor.
Macmillan New Writing
was launched in 2006 with the aim of discovering superb new novelists writing in
all genres. It publishes one novel per month and welcomes submissions from
unpublished novelists.
My Say 3
by Phyllis McDuff on
why writers need to get out there to talk about their work,
with
tips on how to speak effectively.
