Neil Randall is the author of the unpublished novels The Butterfly and the Wheel, The Holy Drinker, and Trust No One, the short story collection Tales of Ordinary Sadness (available through Ether Books), and a volume of poetry The Careless Loves of a Casual Nazi.
When was the first time that you received a nibble on one of your books and how did this interest in your book eventuate?
My first positive response from an agent was a bit of a horror show. After sending off sample chapters, exchanging emails and a few phone calls, I was offered representation for my first novel. This came on the condition that I paid the agency a fee up front to cover their administrative costs. Thinking it was a small price to pay for what seemed like the Holy Grail at the time – literary representation – I paid the fee, and waited for the offers to roll in. Every few months, I received an email with a list of quotes from various rejection letters, ‘sorry not for us’ etc. This went on for nearly a year, before the agent told me he hadn't been able to place the novel with a publisher. When I delved a little deeper into what he'd actually done on my behalf (and I dearly wish I'd have been far more savvy and asked more questions, rather than going along with everything that was said), I discovered his correspondence with publishers consisted of a copy and paste version of my original letter/email to his agency, and that they hadn't edited or polished my manuscript in any way. So, in effect, he'd done less than the bare minimum for his ‘admin fee’, other than fire off a few cut and paste emails. Since then, I've been told that a writer should never pay any kind of fee to an agent. More importantly, they should check everything out, what's being done for them, who's being contacted etc before signing a contract.
My most recent positive response from an agent came via an email query, which after hundreds of rejection slips from posted submissions over many years left me thinking all those stamps, ink cartridges and paper might have been a waste of money, after all. In this instance, I contacted around a dozen UK agents who accepted email queries. An hour later, said agent requested the whole manuscript. Around ten days after that, she contacted me again, praising my writing skills, but with reservations about the plotline of this particular novel, and suggested we meet in London to discuss the matter further. A few days later we met at her office, had a really interesting and productive conversation about the direction of the book. I left mad excited, with a head full of ideas, and over the next three and a half weeks wrote around 50 additional pages, which, I felt brought the whole novel together. I emailed the agent the new section, with a list of other changes, a new synopsis, and waited. Around a month later I received a brief email. None of the changes were mentioned. She'd just decided to pass on the novel. This was the last thing I was expecting, having built up a bit of a rapport. At worst, I thought the new part of the novel might need more work, or rewriting completely, not a thanks, but no thanks.
How do you manage your excitement when you receive interest in your work?
It's hard not to get excited by the fact that somebody in the publishing industry (after so many rejections) has finally sat up and taken notice of your writing, especially when they're so positive and full of praise. But I think, over time, you learn to keep yourself in check. Writing and disappointment go hand in hand. If you get an agent, there's no guarantee you'll get a publisher, get a publisher, and the book might not sell or the critics might savage it. I think things these days are driven by artificial buzzes. If something is successful, something similar is sure to shift x number of copies, which creates a bit of an unhealthy, samey market place, where everybody is trying to write, champion or sell very similar ideas.
If you haven't heard back from an agent or a publisher by a certain date do you follow up and how do you follow up? And do you think this works in your favour at all?
I know some agents encourage writers to call after a certain time if they haven’t heard back, but I've never done that. Whether chasing people up works or not I don't know. I just feel that if the book is of interest to a publisher or agent, they'd be the ones getting back to you, the writer.
You have been receiving some nibbles on your books. Have you got any plans for what you are going to do next?
With my book Trust No One, I recently had a New York agent request, first, the opening 10 pages pasted into the body of an email, then the opening 50 pages, then the whole manuscript as an attachment. The entire process took over 3 months before they eventually passed on it.
Soon I’ll be sending my new novel The Holy Drinker to agents that accept email submissions, but I don't hold up much hope, and am thinking more along the lines of self-publishing a few things, either via the English Arts Council and/or in e-book format. I've had quite a few shorter pieces picked up by magazines and online publishers and I really want to get them out there in a collection as opposed to having them sitting on my hard drive for the next 20 years!
In regards to The Butterfly and the Wheel, I've had absolutely no interest from any agents in the UK or New York. One publisher who specialises in historical fiction requested the full manuscript but never contacted me again. And with a novel that size (it runs to around 600 pages) I'd really like to place it with an agent or publishing house interested in that type of novel, to give it the chance of becoming the best book it can possibly become. And I think that's what any unpublished writer should be focusing on, beyond agents and getting published, beyond success.
Neil Randall
