conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about takes, Publishing, News with the genre: Reference, Writing, Research & Publishing Guides?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'Writing a Novel and Getting Published For Dummies'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first five paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Writing a Novel and Getting Published For Dummies
  Think of the rights in your novel as a big apple pie. You can divide the pie between as many people as you like. If you sell the whole pie to one party – your British publisher, for example – that party pays you more than if you only sell them a couple of slices, which can be tempting.
  However, one person wanting to eat the whole pie is unlikely, even if they buy the whole thing. The buyer is likely to sell pieces on to third parties, licensing the large-print rights to a large print publisher and the German rights to a German publisher, for example. The big pie buyer gives you some of the money earned from these deals and keeps a proportion of it (you don't get your share until they earn back what they pay you for the pie – that's called earning out your advance).
  Sometimes publishers rely on the income from the sale of other rights to help fund their publication of your novel, and therefore they refuse to make a deal at all unless you agree to sell them most of the rights. Sometimes, when you sell a publisher a whole pie of rights, they get very excited, and their inevitable extra involvement and investment in you and your novel can be very valuable in building a positive long-term relationship with them.
  However, publishers call all rights other than the right to publish your novel in their home territory subsidiary rights or subrights. This is because selling them is literally subsidiary to their core business. Some agents think that this is reason enough not to license those rights to your publisher.
  Translation rights: All reputable literary agencies have specialist agents to sell these rights on their clients' behalf.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Many inexperienced writers make the mistake of telling their reader everything instead of simply showing them. If you tell the reader something, they can only agree. If you show them something, you let them come to their own conclusions.
  Showing rather than telling helps a reader to get involved in a story. The popularity of detective novels points to the fact that readers like to work; they want the satisfaction of participating in the story.
  Through showing, you allow readers to use their own interpretation and standards. Beauty, for example, is always in the eye – or imagination – of the beholder. Showing the effects that a character or an object has on the surroundings also allows you to surprise the reader – if a character brings the room to a halt just by walking into it, and you later reveal that she's decidedly plain, you say something about her without having to spell it out.
  Showing rather than telling also brings characters and situations to life. 'Joanne was beautiful' is vague and unhelpful, as well as being lazy. You need to work to keep the reader's attention. Showing the reader things rather than telling them is one way to achieve this aim.
  You can use your own experiences and knowledge in a similar way. Think about your life, the things that have happened to you, the things you've done, and the things that you know about. Two main areas are sure to come in useful for your writing:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: This is a historical novel about Julian, the last pagan Emperor of Rome, written entirely as an exchange of letters between two old men. The novel is a clever mix of history and gossip, intercutting information about events that have taken place with complaints about bodily infirmity and the correspondents' attempts to one-up each other.
  Writers are by nature usually quite sensitive souls, which is why we need agents, to be tough for us and with us sometimes. If it hadn't been for strong and practical agenting, I would have given up after my last novel and done something else; feedback from my editor was poor and sales of the novel I had written before were so uninspiring. The great thing about having an agent is the feeling that there is someone on your side, no matter what. There is also someone who has the guts to go and tell the publisher that you hate the jacket when you're too afraid to say anything in case it makes everyone loathe you. And there is someone who will tell it like it is, even when it's not necessarily nice to hear, and who will hopefully always return your call and read your script quickly. Editors can go AWOL for weeks on end when they are busy and stressed. If you are lucky enough to have an agent whose editorial judgement you trust, you are doubly blessed.
  For my second deal I had to wait several months for them to come back to me with a decision about whether to re-sign me. After the wooing, trumpeting, and fanfare of the first deal I felt invisible and spent months not knowing what was going on. They did offer me a deal in the end but it was a disheartening and difficult experience, and I was so grateful to have an agent for professional and emotional support.
  Make yourself available for absolutely anything that can help sell your novel. Offer to write for the publisher's Web site and so on.
  If all else fails remind yourself that lots of people want to write a novel but few do, and even fewer are published. As Peter Cook used to say when people told him they were writing a novel: 'Neither am I.' But you actually did it. This novel may or may not be published one day, but either way, the next novel you write is going to be even better.