This Morning 'Wow Factor' Writing Competition
Wed, 2005-07-06 11:58
#1
This Morning 'Wow Factor' Writing Competition
Did you see the competition they're running? Send in the first three chapters of your children's book, and the winner will become the next JK Rowling.
It's such a crock. Listen to what GP Taylor has to say:
'This competition is fantastic because the publishing world, frankly, is a cartel; you can only get in there if you're in the know. And for the first time ever, a publisher is going to offer someone totally unknown the chance to be published. I and JK Rowling were discovered by accident. Most people are in the club, and it's a mafia. Sometimes people send their books in to the publishers and it doesn't even get read.'
What bollocks! That guy is so full of shit. '...for the first time ever, a publisher is going to offer someone totally unknown the chance to be published...' As an ex-vicar, I'm sure he's used to bullshitting, but that's even more ridiculous than claiming some dude came back from the dead after three days!
The winner gets a thousand quid, and bog-standard royalties. A thousand quid? That's completely bobbins. It's just a cheap, tedious way of making a fast buck off muppet kitchen-table writers who think they can string a sentence together. Has anyone here read GP Taylor? I bought Wormwood, and have to say, it's utterly dire - practically unreadable.
[/bitter griping]
RichardW
Ah, but ye huff tae allow submishins frae the scoats! Only two people make money out of writing above the Brum meridian, Don thingy and thingy Burnside, and they aren't publishers. Considering how disproportionally talented we are, this is a crime.
In any case, Hen, what happens if you are a writer who hates other writerly types? How do you get your work seen?
Hen
Well that wouldn't be a problem, because my scouting would be undercover - and away from obvious writing 'scenes'. I would also try not to rely on regular 'methods', less they be uncovered and exploited. For example, if it was known that I hung out in strip-bars on the look out for people taking notes, or prowled certain websites, someone would write a book telling all the wannabees that's where it's at. This is why we have the problem with mass submissions in the first place. And the only reason we aren't *literally* drowning in piles of self-published books is that someone had the foresight to advise kitchen-worktop-hacks that self-publishing was really hard and wouldn't make them any money.
Unfortunately, all these new publish on demand companies are trying to overturn the boat!
RichardW
Tsk, I go to strip bars for the exact reason only to avoid talent scouts, damn their eyes. Very few places can we now go to sidestep the advances of POD cock-shaftery.
jude
this kind of tosh is one very good reason why I don't have a TV.
fish
i will be entering ...
yours
kitchen table muppet
x x x
John
And why I rarely watch TV.
david floyd
"Most people are in the club, and it's a mafia. Sometimes people send their books in to the publishers and it doesn't even get read."
Does he include similarly logically unrelated sentences in his books? If so, it really was an accident that he got published.
What a complete tosser! One of the stupidest outbursts since Prince Edward claimed Britain's elitist society was preventing the recognition of his film-making genius but far less funny.
jude
How many people who won the "Stars in your eyes" series, or "pop idol" have gone on to become seriously recognised musicians?
Fish...you can enjoy success whatever....at least you are a talented kitchen table muppet.
kjheritage
Foot in the door...I'll try ote to get in. There's no place for pride in trying to get published.
david floyd
Pride's not the issue.
When I was a young poet, I shamelessly entered quite a few ridiculous competitions on the grounds that youth poetry contests generally have very few entries and therefore your chances of winning either publication or in some cases cash prizes were very large.
I did get published, I did win cash, it was great.
My problem with this thing is that Reverend Taylor's premise, that you're more likely to get published through a TV competition than through conventional methods is just plain wrong.
He is misleading struggling writers for his own benefit. He is a tosser.
Bob Luvvie Roberts
*wearing Noel Coward silk morning coat*
Darlings - Has anyone entered Channel 4's The Play's The Thing ?
*chews on cigarette holder*
Hen
"He is misleading struggling writers for his own benefit."
Gasp! What strange behaviour for a published writer who isn't selling as many books as he'd like to!
All the same, enough with the silly indignation. He's only preying (ha! geddit?) on the feelings of pretty much every writer who's going to enter the competition. That's how you flag up competitions, isn't it? You reach out to the people who you want to enter, and engage their attention. It's just a poorly worded variation on 'Written a novel? Think you've got what it takes? Now's your chance!"
When I start some kind of publishing/writing competition doojit, I'm going to beging the manifesto with something like, "Big publishers are shit! They're incapable of creative marketing - or even competent marketing for that matter - and make all their money out of Plot-By-Numbers thrillers and dead people's back catalogues whilst losing it all again paying huge advances to authors who's agents bought them a cappucinno in Pret a Manger! We're better because we actually have to make money out of *YOU*, the author, or else we're screwed!"
That'll bring them in. *And* it's true to boot.
Rokkitnite
Well, to be fair, the people who'll be attracted by GP Taylor's spiel aren't likely to be the dilligent, self-critical perfectionists of this world. They'll be disillusioned hacks who think the world owes them a favour and a book deal. So in that sense, I suppose they deserve to be conned.
And weirdly, I find myself agreeing - at least in part - with Hen's somewhat jaundiced assessment of the publishing industry... though I'm not convinced he could do any better.
Hen
'Better', in my view, would actually involve some degree of talent-scouting, rather than faffing around London waiting for agents and authors to plug their manuscripts to you, and occasionally turning up at MA courses. For one thing, the publishing industry's methods of obtaining new material must waste even more paper than their failure to sell most of what they print. Thousands of authors sending huge, double-spaced, single-sided manuscripts to places that just throw them into the incinerator.
So, just for a start, I'd actually be closed to all submissions, and only publish stuff I scouted out. Then at least it would be a question of how good a nose I had for talent, rather than whose jib I liked the cut of.
The next stage would be to market books as something exciting, rather than relying on huge letters for the author's name, obscure cover paintings and uninspiring quotes from wine-quoffing Guardian hacks.