WRITER'S FORUM

A client, not unusually, gets writer’s wobble and wonders if her book is worth plodding on with. It is a novel about the seamier side of life in Glasgow’s sink estates. It is quite a revelation to me. I think, like the TV blockbuster Cathy Come Home, it carries a message that could change society’s attitudes towards the drug epidemic. I thought my reply merited a wider audience as my take on it applies to all new authors.

Dear Sharon,

Had I thought it didn’t have merit I would have told you before you spent the first €200. I do tell people if their story isn’t marketable. I suppose I accept about 1 / 5. To do otherwise is a waste of my time - and theirs. I have enough honest work (too much if you include journalism) that I don’t need to gild the lily.

I can say that all of the books I have ghosted are as good as the top 20 percent.

This brings us to something else I repeatedly advise. No one, not even Wilbur Smith or Jeffrey Archer, knows what is going to strike a chord with Joe Public. Ironically the key isn’t in the quality or lack of it; as with all things it is the marketing - and luck. A good example; the Spice Girls. They wouldn’t have got a second booking in a Liverpool pub! Marketing achieves miracles.

The harder you work at pushing it when it is online the better your chances of a publisher putting his weight behind it and helping you up there. Book writing is an act of faith. As one put it; ‘a successful author is the amateur who didn’t quit.’

Sharon, the book’s okay; stop re-reading it as this doesn’t help. Go on gut instinct (and faith).

Worst case scenario; it isn’t a blockbuster but you DO sell copies and you get all the trimmings that come with being a successful author (authoress). There isn’t a famous one who didn’t get the wobbles, and confronted failure. None of us have crystal balls. I will do my best on it, to make everyone proud of you; me included.

Hugs! Mike.

www.michaelwalsh.es