The Shop Is Closed

As I am sure it is the same for many other aspiring author's out there, my writing is very important to me. Due to having a young family and a full-time job, it may not come as a surprise that 'The Boy Who Saved Billy Bremner' took over four years to write.

Once completed, proof read, re-written and re-written again, I went in search of an agent willing to represent me. However, it did not take too long to discover that for certain authors from certain backgrounds, with certain types of work, the shop is closed.

What do I mean by this? If you care to visit a particular agency online, it will quickly become apparent how drenched in white middle class profiles it is. It would be interesting to look closer at the last ten people the agency took on. To look closer at the type of person, their background, their education and to look closer at the type of work being chosen. It is all well and good to write about the lower classes and their issues but not if you are actually from this environment. One cannot risk you turning up and running off with the family silver. 

It is this closed shop, this narrow minded protective world of the middle classes that hinders so many novelists from the wrong side of the tracks. Agencies will not take risks, will only select certain types, a sense of cultural industries, only prepared to promote a product that is guaranteed to make a profit. To put it simply, certain types that do not fit the profile are not economically viable

If only I hosted a quiz show, or maybe if I was a weather forecaster, a TV chef, a well-known athlete, because as we all know it is easy to write a well crafted novel. Then maybe an agency would look at my work, be interested in my work or will it actually be my name and not the quality of the work that would make me economically viable.

Sour Grapes! No, not really, I do not think so. look for yourselves, see how many times, how many agencies will reject struggling authors out there. They all talk about finding something that captures their imagination, that excites them. What they really mean is something that is a safe bet from the right person and will make a profit.

So I, like many authors out there are now trying to go it alone, trying to be a successful self-publisher. Which brings me back to the purpose of this blog, to record the journey, the attempt to fulfill the dream. My next post will outline the next few steps of this process and will hopefully confirm when my first novel will be available in digital form on Amazon.