New life for past novels?

With a publishing contract pending for one of my recent novels, I’ve been wondering what to do with old ones, written years ago. They mostly ‘did the rounds’ of rejection by agents and publishers, to an embarrassing degree, and are now committed to dusty drawers and forgotten files. I recognise that these novels probably demonstrated the faults and shortcomings listed as reasons for rejection by literary agents and individuals. For example, Gary Smailes: 'What to do if your novel was rejected' website here provides a comprehensive account of reasons for rejection, as well as a step-by-step strategy for moving on from this. Jericho Writers also has plenty of advice here. However, I haven’t found much about what writers could do with novels that haven’t made it to publication but might still be a good read.

When one or two of my novels started attracting agent interest and were longlisted and short-listed for competitions, I thought there might be hope of publication. Looking back at two in particular, I considered that they might still be worth a read, in spite of their failure to make it to the marketplace. I love telling stories and devising plots and my main motivation for seeking publication was to provide readers with entertainment, perhaps an element of escapism and a little insight into particular historical periods and events.

With this in mind, I decided to offer my novel TheBookbinder’s Daughter freely on my website. It was produced after much research, multiple drafts and edits, expert input and was short-listed for the Historical Novel Society International Award in 2013. Now as it gathers dust, I have nothing to lose and hope that others might enjoy the story. And perhaps readers might help me discover the reasons it was continuously rejected. Please let me know!

http://www.clarehawkins.co.uk/

 

Timeline of Lawn House Blues

 Lawn House Blues by Philippa Hawley

With just 2 weeks until the official launch of my new book, Lawn House Blues, I recently emailed a writing friend, Kathy who lives in America, to tell her the news. In my email I commented the book had taken two years to write and she replied, ‘Two years really isn’t bad for getting out a novel. I think James Joyce took ten’.

     I worried that, having promised myself I wouldn’t, perhaps I had rushed it (because looking back I knew I had hurried my last novel). This set me thinking about the timeline of this book’s creation.

November 2014 – first ideas about the novel; working title The Treehouse.

May 2016 – first chapters saved on to my computer after months of thinking, planning and making notes.

July 2016 – early manuscript sent to professional editor through Writers Workshop (much too early as it happened). One certainly learns by one’s mistakes - she was not impressed.

August - December 2016  - manuscript put away in a drawer!

***

December 2016 – The real Lawn House Blues began. I removed it from the drawer, took a deep breath and started a major re-write, with a new beginning and a change of point of view.

     Wivenhoe Writers (wivenhoewriters.blogspot.co.uk) were a great help at this time and have been ever since. We had fun finding a new name and eventually settled on Lawn House Blues.

May 2017 – I attended a symposium on ‘Finding an Agent’ run by Writers Workshop (now called Jericho Writers at jerichowriters.com) after which my sister and my husband graciously took on the roles of copy-editors and beta readers to help me prepare for the next stage ...

  

August 2107 - I submitted the manuscript to numerous literary agents in batches of ten. Each individual required research into their requirements, a personalised letter, a synopsis and a different number of words to be sent. This took months.

     I also entered three novel competitions, run by Lucy Cavendish College, Retreat West, and Good Housekeeping respectively. The competitions brought no success but it seemed a good exercise at the time. Most of the agents did reply after 8-12 weeks, with a kind ‘no thanks’ rejection letter. A couple were quite positive but said it wasn’t for them and wished me luck. One even forwarded the manuscript to a colleague she thought might like it, but still no plan emerged during a long and frustrating winter.

January 2018 – I was summoned to an afternoon of tea, cake and critique by the Wivenhoe Writers. That afternoon they picked the novel apart, allowing me to rebuild it for the third time, over the following weeks.

April 2018 – I approached Spiffing Covers(spiffingcovers.com.) who agreed to help me self-publish. One of their freelance editors, Kimberley Humphreys performed the final edit and the manuscript was finalised, while Stefan Proudfoot created a beautiful and relevant book cover.

July 2018 - All I had to do was produce the back page bumpf and an ISBN while Spiffing Covers sorted the typesetting, ebook conversion and distribution, ready for the official launch date of 21 September 2018. That's a total of 2 years and 8 months.