Anyone work in U.K. publishing? I have a question?

[starfish2000]

So I’m currently writing a stand alone thriller. As I’m not of that world I’ve been doing a lot of research into modern criminality. I recently bought a very useful biography by a guy who’s a former soldier, drug dealer & con.

Anyway it arrived and it’s been an excellent resource. However, out of interest I tried to look up who the publisher was and its self published.

This makes me beg the question. If I’m finding out that credible source material is being self published. That would indicate the authors background is of far more importance to the agent/publisher than the content.

 

[Pickman's model]

So I’m currently writing a stand alone thriller. As I’m not of that world I’ve been doing a lot of research into modern criminality. I recently bought a very useful biography by a guy who’s a former soldier, drug dealer & con.

Anyway it arrived and it’s been an excellent resource. However, out of interest I tried to look up who the publisher was and its self published.

This makes me beg the question. If I’m finding out that credible source material is being self published. That would indicate the authors background is of far more importance to the agent/publisher than the content.

please could you make explicit the question you're asking

 

[starfish2000]

please could you make explicit the question you're asking

Are working class writers excluded no matter how good or credible their content?

 

[A380]

Basically self publish or get an agent.

You won’t get a publisher to pick you up without an agent. And getting an agent isn’t that straightforward.

Self publishing is much easier now, in the world of e-books - and if you are both good and lucky you can break out. See Andy Weir or EL James both of whom started as e-book self publishers.

 

[A380]

Are working class writers excluded no matter how good or credible their content?

All writers without an agent are excluded. It’s how the industry has worked for the last 30 to 40 years.

 

[Pickman's model]

Are working class writers excluded no matter how good or credible their content?

not really no. for example, it sounds like the biography you're talking about might have found at home with eg mainstream publishers (that's the name of the publishers) for example. i don't know what efforts they put into publishing it or if they simply said 'it'll be easier to issue this myself'.

 

[Pickman's model]

Basically self publish or get an agent.

You won’t get a publisher to pick you up without an agent. And getting an agent isn’t that straightforward.

Self publishing is much easier now, in the world of e-books - and if you are both good and lucky you can break out. See Andy Weir or EL James both of whom started as e-book self publishers.

yeh and stuart christie self-published his autobiography in the hopes of getting a mainstream publishers to issue it in a mass-market paperback - which he did.

 

[Brainaddict]

From my observations of the publishing industry, yes, it helps if you went to school with Bunty, but class probably isn't the biggest barrier. Firstly it's extremely competitive and there's an element of luck in getting published, and even if you get published, most books don't make money - it's important to understand that grim reality. But in terms of barriers, the big thing publishers like to see now is that you already have an audience, which they want you to have drummed up on social media and so on. They rarely want to take a risk, they want a safe bet. It is possible to publish without that, and by all means go ahead and try, but be aware you'll often be competing against people who have got themselves a following - and can therefore guarantee to the publisher a few thousand sales at least. If you can get yourself in that position I don't think class per se would be a particularly big issue.

 

[Sue]

What Brainaddict said. There's a timing thing too. If x type of book is currently flavour of the month, they'll want more books of that type as there's clearly an audience for them. If your book is decent but type y, could be they're not interested as that's not 'in' right now and they're not sure it'll make them any money.

(Obviously if Ian McEwan or someone writes a book of type y, it'll get published whatever as he's a name and his stuff sells.)

 

[Brainaddict]

Yeah, publishers are slaves to fashion to a depressing extent. It's understandable in one way but the 'guaranteed sales because there's an audience already' argument has diminishing returns. At some point everyone gets sick of x type of book and wants something different. You've got to be very lucky to find the agent/publisher combo that decides your thing is that different thing though.