Blinded by the Light by Paul May

‘Hi, nice to meet you.  What is it you do?’

‘I’m a writer.’

‘Ah, very good.  Have you had anything published?’

I think most writers have experienced some version of this conversation. So far I have managed to resist the obvious reply— ‘Why would I tell you I was a writer if I hadn’t had anything published?’—because I think they’re trying to be polite and, to be fair, everyone knows that for every published writer there are dozens more tapping away on their keyboards in garrets and garden sheds and cafés, all of them desperate to see their work in print.  

I was one of those people once, and I want to explore how the lure of seeing one’s name on the cover of a real book, a proper, published book, means that authors like me have no idea what they are getting into.  

I was a teacher.  When I sat down one summer holiday in the early 1990s to write a children’s book I knew almost nothing about the business of publishing.  I had a few not very good and not very original ideas that I soon abandoned, and one or two interesting characters who stayed with me and eventually did find their way into books.

I gave up my full-time teaching job and started working part-time.  I wrote two days a week while the children were at school.  I kept at it for several years, sacrificing quite a few trees in the process (I printed everything I wrote back then) and eventually I finished a novel.  One thing I thought I knew about publishing was that I should try to find an agent. So I sent off three chapters of my book, and waited.  Three months later a letter arrived asking for the rest of the book, and six weeks after that came an invitation to lunch.

Blurred, headless photo, taken by his young
 son, of the author with an
 encouraging letter from a literary agent.
(My family had already opened it!)

So, there I was having lunch in a swanky London hotel where it turned out I hadn’t quite got an agent yet, because although my writing was ‘lively and entertaining’ I had written a book that was twice as long as it should have been—for the market.  I told you I knew nothing about publishing. 

But now, suddenly, the glamour and the fame and (why not?) the riches, were almost within touching distance, dazzling me.  ‘No problem,’ I said airily over the petit-fours and coffee.  ‘I’ll remove a couple of those unnecessary sub-plots.’  

I didn’t ask how much I might get paid for all this work.  I didn’t ask about the chances of actually finding a publisher.  I didn’t consider what my hourly rate might eventually be.  The distant, sunlit uplands were in sight, beckoning me on.  It took three months to rewrite, and it was a few more months before a publisher expressed interest. But there was one small problem.  My young heroine was a girl who dreamed of becoming a professional footballer.  The publisher thought my sales would improve if the girl was a boy.

Living the dream - first book.

I did as they asked.  What was a few more months’ work, after all?  My agent was now my agent, thus reducing my hourly rate by 10%.  (I know—only 10%!  Those were the days.)  I was going to get an advance and it felt like a lottery win, albeit one that wasn’t paid all in one go.  A year later the book was published. I started looking for the piles of my book stacked up in the bookshops, but I couldn’t see them. Where was my book? ‘What’s it called?  By who?  Ah, yes, we had a copy last week . . . but we sold it.’

I was starting to learn.  My friend who was already a ‘published author’ had warned me, but I hadn’t been paying attention.  ‘If you want a launch party, you’ll have to do it yourself,’she’d told me.  And she may have said, ‘It’s not how you think it’ll be.’ I knew now that when a bookseller sold the last copy of a book they didn’t automatically order another, because more new books by other unknown authors would, by then, be jostling for attention.

But I was dead keen and working hard and I’d already finished another book and they gave me a two-book deal, which seemed great.  And don’t get me wrong, I was happy.  I had learned that if I wanted publicity from the local paper I had to ring them myself, so I did.  I did interviews on local radio.  My books were reviewed decently and my first book was shortlisted for the first Branford Boase Award. 

Three of us from the publisher were on the shortlist.  None of us won, but we had a little celebration anyway.  The publisher had brought along a well-known picture book illustrator who said, as we downed the consolatory champagne: ‘Enjoy it while it lasts, guys. When your sales start to fall they’ll drop you like a hot potato.  Only joking!’ he added quickly, as the publisher looked daggers at him.

It may have been a joke, but it stuck in my mind.  No one ever said anything about sales.  And I felt it might spoil things if I asked.  When the royalty statements started to come in I could see the numbers but I had no idea whether they were good or bad and neither my agent nor my publisher ever talked about them.  I sometimes wondered about this, but I was far too busy writing to investigate. Conversations with my agent and the publisher were always about my writing and almost never about money.  No one told me about PLR or ALCS or the Society of Authors. I’d imagined that the form I’d signed to do with registering my books with the British Library meant I’d automatically get PLR.  It was only a chance remark from another author that put me right.

When I got my first advance I could have sat down and done some sums.  Those sums would have told me that I’d earned about £1 an hour for that first book (the movie options never did roll in).  But that wouldn’t have stopped me.  I enjoyed writing (most of the time), and I used to tell people it was better than buying a lottery ticket, financially speaking.  The next book could always be the breakthrough book.

My agent did give me a little advice at one of our early meetings, after she’d asked me if I wanted to be a full-time writer.  If I did, she said, it would take me ten years to build up enough income.  I think she may have been optimistic.  She also advised me not to give up the day job and, thanks to that advice, I have a teacher’s pension that provides me with the time to write this.  She couldn’t have predicted that, had I carried on teaching during those two days a week, I would have earned roughly twice what I earned from writing in that time, and would have added several hundred pounds a month to my pension.

Better than the staffroom

But I don’t regret any of it.  Teaching full-time was slowly driving me crazy anyway, and I always enjoyed doing the school run and having lunch in the garden under the apple trees.  I’ve had the best of both worlds and I’m very grateful, but wouldn’t it be lovely if, when you signed up with a publisher or an agent, and you were contemplating with shining eyes the dazzling future ahead of you, a fairy godmother could appear through the glittering smoke and hand you a little book outlining all the things you might need to know in this new job you’ve just begun?

Paul May's website is www.paulmay.co.uk

PS If you're interested in Enid Blyton, who I've mentioned once or twice in previous posts, you might like to look at a couple of pieces by myself and by librarian Nazlin Bhimani from the Institute of Education over on the Newsam News blog.