Over the past ten months I’ve been submitting my latest novel to literary agencies – learning and honing my synopsis, and my approach, as I go… But it looks like I’ve been wasting my time – once again, I’ve drawn a blank, and it’s been a truly soul-destroying experience.

The role of a literary agency is, obviously, to represent writers, and promote their books to publishing companies. I know they like to complain about the volume of submissions they receive. But in what other profession does the product you need to sell arrive fully-formed through your letterbox (or rather, into your in tray) without you yourself having to do a thing? Okay, so they get too much product, and much of it isn’t up to standard, but all they have to do is to choose which ones they want to accept, and send the others back. Surely they’re blessed? You wouldn’t think so from the way they treat the authors who send them a potential product to sell, for free. Do they have any idea of how much time and skill goes into writing a good novel? However many submissions they get, can they really not find the time to thank those authors they choose not to represent. Isn’t that just common decency?

I submitted my manuscript to seventeen agencies. Each were very specific about what and how I should submit, which meant a lot of work producing a separate offering for each agency. I received five replies. Yes; that’s five out of seventeen who had the manners to say thanks (but no thanks).

And of those who did reply, none were prepared to give me any feedback. Although one did say my extract didn’t grab them to the extent they might have hoped. I’m inclined to think I’m up against the short-attention-span generation; people who need an instant hit, without having to think too hard. All of the agents do, on their websites, try to give an idea of what they are looking for. Which is generally formulaic storytelling to match what’s out there already. They seem more interested in their narrow idea of what they think they want, than in looking for something new, and keeping an open mind.

I know what you’re thinking; ‘or could it be, Graham, that your book, just isn’t good enough?’ It’s possible (because it isn’t possible for me to be truly objective). On the other hand, the few trusted readers I’ve given it to tell me it’s every bit good enough. And then there’s the quality (or rather, the lack of it) of what does get published (present company excepted, of course). My reading history is, among others; Marlowe, Austen, Huxley, E.M. Forster, Hardy (Thomas, not Oliver), Wyndham, Burgess, and A.S. Byatt. But when it comes to contemporary authors, with a few exceptions, I’ve always struggled – I really have. Too much repetition, unlikely plot twists, unlikely behaviour, characters that don’t ring true (or are positively two-dimensional), lack of consistency, continuity errors and clumsy phrasing.

There are more people writing novels than ever before; partly because computers make it so easy to get your novel down, and partly because, well… there are more people than ever before. You would think that among all those new books there would be quite a few that were top quality. All it needs is for the publishing industry to choose the best. Apparently they’re failing (because I can’t believe there aren’t still a lot of really good writers out there).

That’s what really hurts. If agents and publishers were putting out great novels by highly talented writers I could happily (well, perhaps not happily!) accept that perhaps my book isn’t quite good enough to compete. But based on the low standards of almost all the contemporary novels I’ve encountered, I’m left thinking ‘is mine really worse than these?’ I’m confident it’s them; the industry experts (is that ‘ex’ as in has been, and ‘spurt’ as in a drip under pressure?) rather than me. But then, I’m not a confident person. And then there’s that inescapable subjectivity…

What to do? Maybe I should try to get more opinions, from impartial readers… I’m inclined to think that in publishing, as in so many other areas of life, if you want a job doing right – do it yourself. In other words, I’m going to self-publish my book. More about that next time…

Image by Enrique Meseguer from Pixabay