sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

5 Ways to Increase Your Chances of Getting Published

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Yesterday I talked about some realities of publishers existing to make money, rather than existing just to publish your book/s.  But if you’re a writer, what you want is for a publisher to want to make that money from publishing your book. So I thought it might be useful to share some simple ways you can increase your chances of getting published.  So, here goes:
1.   1. Write. A lot. If you have written one draft of one book and are putting all your energies in to getting it published, you are probably on the wrong track.  You need to write and keep writing. Multiple drafts of every story, and definitely more than one. And lots of stuff that will never be published but helps you refine your writing.
2.     2.  Before you submit your work to a publisher make sure it is the best it can be. Write, rewrite, critique, rewrite again. This should happen before you start submitting – not after it is rejected. Let it rest before you send it out so you can reread and be really sure it’s as good as you can make it.
3.  3.  Seek and listen to feedback on your writing – from reputable sources. NB – your friends, your parents, your children and your next door neighbour’s children, and especially your spouse are NOT reputable sources, even if they are very nice people.  A reputable source is someone else who knows stuff about writing – a critique partner, perhaps a paid manuscript appraiser, a writing tutor. Note though that this feedback is for you – not for the publisher. Saying n your cover letter “My critique buddy thinks this is great” will not help your cause.
4.     4.  Constantly improve your craft. Musicians practise away from the stage. Athletes train away from the arena. Writers must work to improve their skills by learning and by experimenting. Take a course, read a book, learn online, have fun with writing exercises.
5.   5.   Lastly, know the industry and the market. Don’t submit to a publisher you haven’t taken the time to learn about. Don’t just google ‘publisher; and then submit to the first name that comes up.  Before you submit your bookbaby to a publisher you should know what sort of books that publisher publishes, why they are a good match for your story and what their submission guidelines are. 
Getting published is hard. Very hard. But  submitting the right, well written, well-polished story to the right publisher will increased your chances of getting published immeasurably.

5 Quick Truths About Publishers

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Yesterday I read a comment on Twitter that said something like: “Publishers do not exist to make your dreams come true”. I wish I’d  made note of who tweeted it, but was busy nodding my head in agreement, and doing a dozen other things.
Anyway, as my weekend progressed I found this little quote kept coming back to me.  And while I can’t remember who said it, it resonated with me so much that I wanted to blog today on a similar vein. So, here goes – five quick home truths about publishers.
1.     1.  Publishers want to make money. They are businesses and, like every business, a publishing house aims to sell goods and make a profit.
2.      2.  Publishers want to publish books. Good books which sell well (see number one above – if their books sell well, their profits increase).
3.  3.   Publishers have staff whose job it is to select, polish, publish and promote books. Books which they hope will sell well (see number one above).
4.   4.    Publishers DO occasionally make mistakes (just like the rest of us). For example, a publisher may reject a book which goes on to be published by another publisher and sell well, making publisher B a lot of money, but publisher A no money.  (The most quoted example is the innumerable articles, comments blah blah blah that quote the publishers which rejected the first Harry Potter book and must have lived to regret it. BUT, what is often overlooked is that the publishers who rejected Rowling may not have had the right blend of staff, or branding, or whatever to make that series the big seller it was. And there are probably many more untold stories of  books which were rejected by one publisher, and published by another and flopping. ) But back to my point – publishers do sometimes make mistakes, but that is something outside your control as a writer.  And in the end, the decisions the publishers make are based on their desire to publish the best possible books for their list – and hence make money (see number one above).
5.   5.    You want your book published so it can make money. Publishers want to publish books to make money. You are on the same page, really. You both want the same thing, except you are convinced YOUR book is the best one and the publisher may disagree.  But in the end there is no plot to keep you from being published, no secret club, no ulterior motive. Even though sometimes it feels like it. A lot.
Tomorrow  I’ll say some things about what you can do to increase your chances of getting published. In the meantime I’d love to hear your reactions to what I’ve said here. Agree? Disagree? Talk to me.

Wiggling Into Your Own Style

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Almost 20 years ago I remember watching ABC TV with my toddler daughter when a clip of four weird men in skivvies singing ‘Rock a Bye Your Bear” came on.

I remember thinking the song was clever, and Murphlet 2 enjoyed it too. Little did I know that those men, who were The Wiggles, would go on to become a huge international phenomenon – or that for years to come, long after my youngest grew out of their music,  I would find myself randomly signing D-O-R-O-T-H-Y, or “Toot, toot, chugga chugga”, or other similarly catchy lyrics.

The youngest Murphlet is now 11, and it’s been a long while since I bought a Wiggles CD or DVD, but I am eagerly awaiting my chance to do that in a few weeks. Now don’t jump to conclusions – there’s no grandchild or other new baby coming my way. Instead, there’s a new Wiggly offering that even my hard to please teens are going to like. 
The Wiggles are turning 20 this year and, to celebrate, ABC Music is producing a new album featuring Wiggles songs covered by contemporary bands. Rewiggled will feature groups such as Jebediah, Washington, Oh Mercy and the Living End  singing classic Wiggles tunes.  For a taste, you can see the Oh Mercy number, Big Red Car, on Youtube.

What a piece of marketing genius!  Songs that kids grew up with, being covered by the bands they now listen to. 
This got me thinking about writing, and how as writers we often look back to the books we loved as children. I still feel a tingle of joy when I think of Mandy or of No Flying in the House, two of the earliest novels I remember loving. And I still adore reading Horton Hatches the Egg (my all time favourite Dr Seuss book) out loud to anyone who’ll listen. I wish I could be like Enid Blyton, with hundreds of books still in print over 40 years after her death (funnily, until I looked this up just now I’d never realised Blyton died  the same year I was born).

There’s nothing wrong with any of this, but, whether it’s a contemporary author, or one we grew up loving, every writer needs to avoid the pitfall of trying to replicate another author’s work.  Is it possible to write a new story in the exact style of Dr Seuss? Possibly. But why do it? Seuss’s works are still in print (including, of course, the new release of The Bippolo Seed) . Is it possible to write a Blyton-style adventure in a magical forest, or on a windswept island with lashings of lemonade? Again, possibly. But it’s been done – and again, those books are still in print. Publishers aren’t looking for another Seuss, or a another Blyton. They are looking for new, fresh voices, doing new, fresh things. I always cringe when a writer (or worse, a publisher’s press release) tells me that their work is ‘like Matthew Riley’s’ or ‘in the style of Dr Seuss’, or  (shudder) ‘the next JK Rowling’.
If you’re tempted, take a leaf from Oh Mercy’s book. They haven’t donned coloured skivvies and replicated the Wiggles performance style or arrangement. They’ve taken the song  and given it their own touch. That’s what you need to do. Sure, be influenced by your favourite authors – but don’t try to reproduce their work. Find your own style, your own stories, your own voice.
You can do it.

Why Write in Verse: My Thoughts on the Verse Novel

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Tomorrow I am off to the Mundaring Arts Centre and then on to the KSP Writers Centre to present two workshops to young writers. As a result, I have spent the last hour or so thinking about what I might be asked about my choice to use the verse novel form.
I must admit that I didn’t so much choose the form as it chose me. From the time I read my first verse novel (It was Jinx, by Margaret Wild), I had been fascinated with the form, and knew that eventually I would try my hand at writing one. However, Pearl Verses the World (my first verse novel) came like a bolt from the blue, insisting it be written, and be written in verse. There was no conscious decision to try to write a verse novel – rather a story came to me, as a series of poems, and I sat down and wrote it down. Along the way I did a lot of thinking  about what would happen to this very insistent character, but there was never any question that her story would be told in verse. And I think it works.
My second verse novel, Toppling, was similar. This time there was a wee bit more intention. I’d finished writing Pearl, and when the idea for a story about a boy who topples dominoes came, I hoped that it was story which would lend itself to the verse form. Fortunately for me, it did.
It is a form I love to read, and a form I love to write, and I hope I shall write many more verse novels. However, I won’t write exclusively in verse form, simply because it is not a form which lends itself to every story.
For me, a story will work well in verse if:
1.        It is a character-driven story, rather than plot-driven. Yes, of course a verse novel needs a plot, too, but it is the characters of Pearl and John which drive my own verse novels. For this reason both are told in first person, a voice which works well for verse noels.
2.        It is high on emotion. The verse form is wonderful for exploring emotions in a way which  takes the reader close into the emotional vortex of the character. It is also excellent in allowing the reader to imagine the emotion for themselves rather than needing to be told how the character feels.
3.        Setting can be simply defined. For me (and remember every writer is different) I cannot imagine being able to write detailed descriptions of setting in the verse form. My poetry is about emotion, and so the feel of Pearl’s home, or John’s school is far more important than its physicality.
4.       The plot is not overly complicated. Lack of complication does not mean lack of depth. What  I do mean is that the story in a verse novel tends to be fairly linear – with subplots kept to a minimum or forming  part of the main plot. Both Pearl and Toppling have subplots – the friendship between Pearl and Mitchell, for example, and the uncovering of Ky’s story in Toppling, but these happen against the backdrop of the main plotline.
5.      Lastly, the key consideration when choosing to write a verse novel is whether the story can be better told any other way. If a story can be told in prose, it probably should be. Why? Because the verse novel is hard to write and hard to sell. I confess to having unsuccessfully tried to rewrite one of my prose novels as a verse novel following the success of Pearl – and failing. The story needed to be told in prose, because it could be. Could Pearl’s story – or John and Dom’s –  have been told in prose? I don’t think so. But that of Garth (the hero of the unsuccessful attempt) needed a level of dialogue and of description which the verse novel couldn’t lend.   I’ve since worked on that story back in its prose form – which is where it started out. But two other stories have been written since Toppling which began their lives as verse novels – and will stay that way. Hopefully one day they’ll even be published.
If you are interested in the verse novel form, you might like to see what some other verse novel enthusiasts have to say, at the following blog posts:

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There’s been lots of mirth at my house tonight as the Murphlets (my offspring) see me enact new control techniques I learnt today. See, in my day job I’m a teacher, and I have spent today (as well as a day last week and another set for next week) learning classroom management strategies. Some of these are things I’ve known and used for years, others are new, but either way I have come home full of these strategies and ready to try them out. So the Murphlets have been privy to the stare, the minimal verbal command, the gesture, and even the square-off. They’re on to me and know I’m trying out new techniques – so there has been lots of laughter – but at the same time every time I have tried one of these techniques I have reinforced the things I learnt today – and it’s been fun.
You see, whenever we are taught something, we are certain to retain only a portion of what we learn.  But research (and common sense) shows that the sooner we put that learning to use into practise, the more we will retain. So, home from a day of Professional Development (PD), I’ve been busily using those skills so that they stay with me.
Why am I telling you this? Because, if you’re a writer, or an aspiring writer, chances are you are regularly learning new skills – through reading blogs like this one, or attending writing workshops, or reading books on writing. But are you using those skills? All of them? Online especially it is really easy to click on links and read blogs and articles and writing advice. And when you read them you probably nod in agreement or have lightbulb moments when you think “ahhh – THAT is what I need to try.” But do you then sit down and put those things into action? Do you actually write after you read? I know I don’t always do it. Sometimes I think will use the skills  later, but other times, if I’m really honest, I am quite happy to just keep clicking and reading because I can pretend to myself that I’m learning when what I’m really doing is avoiding a deadline, or even avoiding facing the fact that I’m not writing.
Having admitted this so publicly, next time I learn a new writing skill, I’m going to attempt to use it straight away. Because I need to keep expanding my skills base in writing as much as in teaching – maybe more. What about you?

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Strange Dinners – and the Lessons they Contain

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We had a bit of a strange dinner at our house tonight. My youngest had rugby training, so I didn’t get dinner started until 6.30, planning a simple meal of satay chicken and rice. I boiled the kettle, and got the rice on the stove, then went to dice the chicken. Blehhhhhhh. The chicken had a funny smell. It should have been fresh but it didn’t smell that way, and I don’t take chances with chicken. Straight into the bin went the chicken, and I was left with a pot of rice and no other meat in the fridge (it’s shopping day tomorrow).

I won’t bore with you the details of the umming and ahhing that ensued, but Murphlet 4 found two pizza bases in the freezer and offered to whip up pizzas. Meanwhile, I had enough ingredients to turn the rice into fried rice. Twenty minutes later and dinner was on the table – a choice of pizza, fried rice, or some of each. The Murphlets ate with gusto, and I must admit I quite enjoyed the rice, though I drew the line at combining it with pizza. But no one went hungry and I must admit that the kids didn’t seem to find the dinner as strange as I did. The team from MasterChef would have been horrified, but the Murphlets – teenage boys – were happy.

So, why am I sharing my story of culinary failure with you? Because, as I sipped a glass of red afterwards and wondered at the way a planned meal of satay chicken and rice, became the odd combination of fried rice and pizza – yet satisfied my audience of teenage boys. And I realised that this is just like writing. Sometimes you sit down to write a story, and you know what you want to write – the style, the twists and turns, the character development. It’s all there in your head, maybe even in your written plan, but as you write, something strange happens. The characters won’t behave, or the plot develops a mind of its own and heads off in direction you hadn’t foreseen. But, as you write, you see some hope, some new sense of direction. And, when you finish you realise you don’t have the story you set out to write, but in its place you have something equally satisfying – or even better. In effect you have turned satay chicken and rice into pizza and fried rice – and your young readers may well gobble it up.

So yes, satay chicken is delicious. But if your chicken smells funny, don’t risk salmonella poisoning. Throw the chicken out and try making fried rice. If your love story develops a vampire, go with it. If your feisty heroine develops a foible, explore it. You just might end up with something better – and if not, well, you can always go get some takeaways – or some fresh chicken.

sallymurphy.com.au