Day Three on the Road

Posted by Harriet Evans at 17:36 on 22 Jul 2010

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Hello! From the Malmaison in Birmingham, where Katie Espiner, Elinor Fewster (HarperCollins ladies) and I have just rolled off the train and are preparing for tonight’s How to Get Published event, after yesterday’s in Bristol and Tuesday in London.

It has been a blast so far though only two down and four more to go. Next week we hit Edinburgh, Leeds and Liverpool (why I’m making us sound like a rock group I don’t know) and possibly by the end we’ll be sick to death of conference suites in hotels and listening to each other’s speeches six times, but so far it’s been fantastic. What I’ve found most inspiring is talking to people afterwards, how nice they are, how positive they are about writing, how realistic they are about how very hard it is to get published these days, but willing to give it a try and push it as far as they can.

There have been some great women (and the odd man, there aren’t that many of them rather than the men all being horrible I mean) and good discussions afterwards. It’s really interesting seeing what people most respond to. I am trying to be as firm and brutal as possible with my advice, laying it on thick about how hard it is to get published, how chicklit is pretty much over for new writers, how everyone’s bored of books about vampires as they’re everywhere at the moment, how no one wants poetry, science fiction, translation, historical non fiction – we sit there, Katie (HarperCollins’ deputy publishing director) my agent Jonathan Lloyd, and Carla Bevan from Marie Claire, and we are firm and businesslike and quash the hope in their breasts – and then I sign copies afterwards and people say, that was really inspiring, and I’m genuinely surprised.

But thinking about it this morning (very hungover, as I had dinner with my cousin Rose at the Hotel du Vin afterwards and we drank a lot of red wine) I think people just want information on how to break into a difficult market, but they want realism as well. More than that, I think whether you want to be published or whether you’re just starting to write and wondering about it, to sit in a room with other people who want the same thing and allow yourself to dream about it for a while longer with them is great. I know, because I’ve been there too.

If you’re coming to any of the other events, come and say hi afterwards. I’d better start getting ready for Birmingham. Not sure whether to wear my TopShop playsuit or not. It’s a bit jaunty, and I don’t want everyone present to be distracted by my fashion faux pas while they’re trying to glean information on how to get their book published…

Harrie   
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