"Personal" question(s) to John Jarrold

It'd be good to get more major publishers involved, too. Orbit, Bantam, HC Voyager, Gollancz, Tor UK, all in London...
 
John Jarrold said:
It'd be good to get more major publishers involved, too. Orbit, Bantam, HC Voyager, Gollancz, Tor UK, all in London...
Click to expand...

John, hi. I do agree with what you say above, in theory. The difficulty - and I can only speak for my own crew here - isn't that we don't want to get out and talk to people, it's that there just aren't enough hours in the day. I'll resolve to try to be seen around here - though do by all means give me a prod if there's something that I've missed which might be of interest.

George
 
Good man, George!

For those who don't know, George is one of the head honchos at Orbit UK...
 
Thanks for that, John. I must confess that I haven't yet encountered George.

Welcome to Chronicles, George. Hope you find the time (from somewhere!) to stop by occasionally, and that you find your visits here enjoyable and worthwhile when you do.
 
And FYI, here are the other major genre publishers in the UK:

Gollancz - now part of the Orion Publishing Group
Voyager - the genre imprint of HarperCollins UK
Tor UK - the genre imprint of Macmillan
Bantam - they don't have a separate imprint, but publish Terry Pratchett, Steven Erikson and others

You should be able to google their websites.
 
yeah, always interesting to read stuff like this.

funny that indeed the writing industry, when one thinks of it isn't that different from any other industry (well of course I'm talking about the basics then). Take a company that makes cars (main editors), they usually buy parts from other compagnies (agents), who in turn have subcontractors and freelancers working for them (writers). A market shift will affect the pyramid from top to bottom and have major consequences for the lowest level of the pyramid. So those subcontractors (writers) should be aware of the market too, because sooner or later the shift comes and you'll be sitting there with your specialized parts that no one will want.

So it made me wonder John: How permanent are market-genre changes?
I can imagine Lotr and harry potter movies giving fantasy a boost, but does this last? I see things like Eragon and such following it up (in the field of movies), but there is still a difference with the lord of the rings movies.
So how permanent are things, how stable do the sales figures in each genre stand?
 
Fantasy has outsold SF four or five to one since the late 70s - since Brooks, Eddings and Donaldson came along. There is no direct comparison between books and films...over most of that time SF was much stronger than Fantasy at the cinema. And if that didn't increase SF's market share in book terms, there is no reason that the LotR and Potter movies should increase fantasy's. Other than some more people reading those specific books. As I said in one of those interviews, Fantasy and SF makes up just under 10% of the UK's paperback fiction sales. That has been solid for well over a decade.

Trends often last years or decades - post-Tolkien fantasy was the market leader from 1977 until recently. Now epic fantasy is still the market leader for the genre, but it's more varied. And in the UK, newer SF authors like Grimwood, Reynolds, Asher, Morgan and Stross are working well commercially, not just getting critical recognition. SF is stronger than it has been for well over twenty years. Iain M Banks and Peter Hamilton are still market leaders in that sector. National top 10 bestsellers, both.
 
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John Jarrold said:
Orbit is one of the longest-serving SF and Fantasy imprints in the UK, having been created in 1974. I used to be its Editorial Director, from 1988 to 1992. It's part of Little Brown UK. And Orbit US is launching this autumn.

Here is their website:

http://www.orbitbooks.co.uk/orbit
Click to expand...

Thanks for the plug John. We've just launched a new website at www.orbitbooks.net which covers both US and UK - anyone visiting the old site at www.orbitbooks.net will be redirected to the new, but wanted to mention it anyway.
 
Just FYI, there is a definite rise in interest in supernatural fiction in the UK.

For over ten years it has been difficult to sell anything on this front unless the author was a long-term bestseller, or it worked for the Buffy/Laurell K Hamilton 'supernatural thriller' market. Several UK publishers have now approached me positively asking about intelligent, sophisticated supernatural horror. Of course, this doesn't mean that everyone will be rushing to launch new imprints and publishing a dozen horror novels a year, but it is far more positive than it was even twelve months ago in London...
 
Nice to see you make it to chronicles, George. :)

Apologies your post didn't show up originally - the anti-spam filters automatically flagged it for approval, but let me know if you experience any further issues. :)
 
Ah John, I don't know if this has been posed before. But I was wondering:

How do agents usually react upon unfinished manuscripts? Can you send in the first few chapters of a book while you are still writing on the very last parts?
I ask this because I know that immanion press just asks to include your planned deadline in that case, but they tend to be the odd one out and really want to encourage new writers.

Use for example someone who is writing a novel of approx 350 pages, he or she is at 270 pages and things are looking good. Could that person decide to edit the first part and then send it off and while waiting for replies finish the novel?
I can imagine that if it takes for example about a month to get responce, that a writer may see an opportunity to shorten the time between the finishing of a manuscript and the responce from agents/publishers, but wouldn't it on the other hand be like trying to sell a house that is not finished yet? Would you buy a house that they are building right now?
 
It'll depend on the agent, but in general I'd say finish the book before you approach agents. Some only want the first few chapters on an initial submisions, but others want the entire book - this applies to publishers, too.

For myself, I ask for the first six chapters but if I love them I want to read the whole book immediately and hopefully move forwards...

And of course, no editor will acquire an unfinished book from a new writer - no matter how much they love what they have seen, the sales director and others will insist that they read and love the full work before offering, to ensure the author can actually finish it as well as they have started it! Many can't/don't...
 
Sorry, meant to say something else too (the phone rang!) - I don't believe a novel can be properly edited until it's complete. You can clean up and line-edit, yes, but structurally speaking events from later in the book can affect events and characters earlier and necessitate changes - you need to finish it, put it away, read it again, edit it and repeat as necessary before submitting.
 
I just wanted to ask about word counts again. I'm writing a contemporary YA fantasy, and I'm anticipating that it will end up around 80-85,000 words. Is this an okay length for a first novel, bearing in mind it's for ages 12 and upwards?

I was quite surprised that you are recommending 120k+ for novels, as a lot of the information I've read suggests that anything over 120k+ is prohibitive for a first time novelist. At the same time I recognise most online information I've found applies to the US market rather than UK, and things aren't necessarily the same across the borders. I just wanted to make sure I'm not writing myself into a corner here. I know the first HP was about 76k words or so, so I would like to think 80-85k would be fine. Please let me know if you have any thoughts on this. It would be much appreciated.

As a side note, we need more UK-based publishing professionals on the internet - it's so hard to find any! :)
 
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