Have you been on a theatre tour?

Afternoon gang,

It's been a while I know but now I'm back. Forgiven? Cool.

Lots going on here at HB towers. We went to The Grand yesterday for a free tour with one of our nieces. Here's the twist. They'd made a mistake with the time and the chap had left. Oops. But about a dozen folk turned up wanting a tour. So a volunteer who just happened to be there for a rehearsal of Carrie's War stepped in and did an impromptu tour. Full marks to him. We got to go on the stage, underneath to the dressing rooms, learned about the history etc and it was very interesting. Needless to say elements of the tour will feature in my upcoming book.

Quick blog traffic update. 7116 views from countries including Sweden, Germany, Latvia, Hungary and Malaysia. I've also done 156 posts!

Anyway, this is another brief post in my ongoing agent adventures series. Last time I'd received my first rejection letter from Random House. That was May 29th.  July 10th brought rejection from Transworld the reason being "there's too much out there" but despite this they said "it was an enjoyable read, your style is accessible and you have a good eye for detail."

July 23rd was marked by rejection from Headline. Marion Donaldson, editor, said "I enjoyed the novel and I think Jamie writes well, but in the end I didn't love it quite enough to want to make you an offer."

My agent, Vivien, went on holiday then and returned in august. August 28th brought rejection from Little Brown. The following weeks saw rejection from Orion and Piatkus.

By this point Vivien felt she'd exhausted all avenues and just like that the dream was over. From April where they had asked to see the book, signing with the agency in May, by the end of August apparently Playground Cool, my debut novel, my MA book, was not up to scratch.

It hit me quite hard but I was convinced it was easily fixed. Book two would stun everyone, Vivien would sell it and I would be back on track. I was very wrong and I didn't react well.

More next time...

I've got an agent!

Or at least I did in 2001.

Evening gang.

So, to carry on my recent theme of thrilling you all with my literary adventures, let's pop back to 2001 again.

We had established that I received interest in Playground Cool from two agencies. I can only assume that Sheil Land responded quicker or with more enthusiasm. I received a letter from them on April 20th thanking me for the manuscript and asking more about me.

By April 24th I received a two page letter. Here are some highlights:

"I'm glad you're a fella because I think there are just too many women writers out there writing this sort of book."

"Because it is an overcrowded marketplace I can honestly only think of about five or six realistic places."

Then there are a couple of editorial advice type paragraphs suggesting tweaks and then the agent, Vivien Green, asked how I knew Kate Elton. The answer was I didn't but I had met her once via Sophie Hannah at university. She was, from memory, an editor at Arrow books so Vivien suggested approaching her as an option. Made sense to play on the link I suppose.

I must have made the necessary changes because by May 9th to say she liked the changes and that the book works well. More highlights:

"...there are a mass of contemporary living books out there and whilst I do think yours is very good for a first novel it isn't SO very different from all the others,"

"I'm selling books from £1500 to six figures. To be brutally honest I don't think yours will be at the latter end of that scale. It isn't that there is something wrong with yours it's just that there is a mass out there."

She then describes her strategy which includes saying "I genuinely enjoyed it and that you are a good writer and that this is hopefully the first of many and that both Sophie Hannah and Michael Schmidt think you are talented and promotable."

She enclosed the contract for signature and that was it. I had an agent for my first book, at the first attempt and I thought I was amazing. Next time we'll cover the rejections...

How close have you come to achieving your dream?

Evening gang,

This is going to a slightly different blog post. It might even end up being a bit of a series. Here at Sinclair Towers we've been decorating and moving things round. I found a pile of old rejection letters amongst the crap. But I also found several letters proclaiming interest in my books and my letters from the Sheil Land Agency where they agreed to represent me.

Reading these made me realise how close I came to a totally different path. Had just one of these letters led to a publishing deal then the following ten or eleven years might have been very different.

So let's jump back to the beginning, almost. In April 2001 I was about to graduate with an MA in Creative Writing from Manchester. I had written my first novel, Playground Cool, and I was utterly convinced a book deal was mine to have. I was 24.

I remember asking Sophie Hannah, now a very well respected crime writer, how to approach agents. I sent off a few letters and some extracts of the book. Straight off the bat I received a letter from Viven Green at Sheil Land.

"Thank you very much for the chance of reading your sample material. I'd be very happy to read the rest of it if you'd like to send it in with return postage - just in case"

That was April 11th. I was over the moon. Then on April 17th I got another letter from Sarah Molloy at the AM Heath agency.

"Thank you for letting me read the opening chapters of Playground Cool. I'd be happy to read the rest of the typescript and look forward to reading the rest of the material in due course"

Short, to the point, interested in my book. It only fuelled my youthful arrogance.  Two agents interested in a week and everyone at the university in Manchester was telling me my book was great. After all I'd just got an MA for writing it.

I'll tell you what happened next in another post.

But it was all good, at least at first!