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your first instinct will be to consider getting a solicitor to look over your contract with a view to wriggling out of it before spending the next 24 hours in a corner going wibble. Fear not, your journo work has survived many a back bench. Once you’ve made them, these changes will make your book read better, shine more brightly and sell more copies. Promise.


• The ’gram – and all social media’s works. Publishers do have marketing departments but they are usually so busy that all they can do is a few weeks’ intense promo before the next book comes along. Consequently, you’ll be expected to be all over your publicity like a case of new variant covid. Familiarise yourself with the scary sight of your face and voice on film by recording videos as you walk along, commenting on what you can see. Also, practise holding up your novel and talking about it to your phone’s camera. A little grip tripod and stand – they cost around £25 – are very useful here and so is the advice from Nicola Washington of the uber-helpful Too Much podcast for writers. She reassures that the cringe is real so I made my Insta-reluctance the focal point of several truly awful reels, which you can see @faitheckersallauthor.


• Casting the audiobook. Interestingly, publishers do seem to ask your opinion on this one. But, unless your yarn is predicted to sell millions, they probably won’t cast Hugh Grant as the narrator, even if the main character sounds just like him.


• Meeting your publisher. You will, but it may not be in person for a while. A successful writer friend told me he knew


Useful Adresses


• Creative writing courses/advice: jerichowriters.com; www.curtisbrown. co.uk; www.faber. co.uk/faber- academy; www. indienovella.co.uk/ writing-course (this one is free)


• Social media podcast for writers: https:// nicolawashington. substack.com/ podcast


• Industry news: thebookseller.com; bookbrunch.co.uk


•Agents: https:// agentsassoc.co.uk


he’d made it when, instead of imbibing coffee at the imprint’s poky annexe, he was invited to quaff champagne inside the main building on the top floor.


• Other writers. They are not your professional rivals but your potential friends. You’ll find them on Facebook, in your publisher’s WhatsApp chat group and on Instagram. Help them, review their novels graciously and they will reciprocate. Ditto bookstagrammers, the people who organise blog tours and the blessed souls who run independent bookshops. Make time for them and promote their work whenever you can.


• You’ll never really believe it. I don’t suffer with imposter syndrome because I know who did the work to get me here. But I still find myself wondering whether to enter competitions to find an agent – then remember I now have one. I still read tips on how to get published even though I have been. No one prepares you for that moment when, after decades of writing, honing, learning, disappointment and dashed hopes, you look up and accept that you really, actually are that magical, wondrous thing – a novelist with a book out.


The Body on the Roundabout by Faith Eckersall is published by Embla Books


How to up your chances of publication


• Research the market. Just read – books in the genre you’d like to write in, features about writing, all the advice dished out for free in newsletters by organisations such as Curtis Brown. Subscribe to The Bookseller’s socials to see what books and writers are being acquired and by whom.


• Write the damn book! According to a YouGov survey, 60 per cent of British people want to pen a novel. However, 2021 research revealed that


only 30 in every thousand – three per cent – who say they want to write a book finish it. Of those 30 writers who make it to The End, it’s thought a mere six go on to publish their tome. Therefore, the very act of completing a book puts you much nearer the winner’s enclosure. How to accomplish this? There’s only one way. Write. Every. Day.


• Enter writing competitions. They can be a great way to get your novel


noticed by the right people. Most offer at least a chat with an agent or a critique for the top three or five entrants as well as prize money, and some even offer publication.


• Get an agent. Stats around this vary but, essentially, agented novels are far more likely to be published. This is because agents now do a lot of the work in readying a book for submission (forget the old three chapters and synopsis malarkey for fiction – you’ll


need a fully polished novel to send to publishers). They also know what individual editors are looking for. According to Harry Bingham of Jericho Writers, a typical New York or London agent receives about 2,000 submissions a year and may accept around two or three. So make your novel the best it can be, noting the format in which your chosen agent likes to be approached and the genre they are looking for. If they reject, go to the


Association of Authors’ Agents, make a list of candidates and work backwards from the end of the alphabet – most writers begin with names starting with A. If that fails, remember that many publishers now accept direct submissions.


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