(Founded 1998)

All copyright of all published information is retained by authors and interested representatives of publishers and literary agents should contact authors direct by e-mail (included, below, with information about a particular book).

Likewise, Poets are invited to submit samples of their work (to a maximum of five poems) to the:

Rowse Poetry Anthology

This book includes e-mail addresses for many publishers and literary agents so a possible strategy could be to send those you wish to target an e-mail giving brief details of your book and including a hyperlink to the Rowse Literary Agency at:

http://homepages.which.net/~j.fish/rowsela.htm

informing them that a synopsis and sample chapter of your book (which is usually the initial information about your work that they will require) can be found there.

Remember, if it is your ambition to become a professional author then what you are really doing is attempting to establish a business, based on your writing, from which you can earn your living. Though in your dreams you might hope to win the lottery and settle for a millionaire's existence in the South of France! So to keep your feet on the ground it is essential to have two things: a business plan and a financial forecast.

Many authors begin with an extremly simplistic business plan: somehow if they get published somewhere then they'll end up with loads of money. Are your ears burning? Because what you are really after is a publishing agreement with a major publishing company. Many years ago now, before the internet compatible desktop computer revolution, writing books was something few people did. It was an extremly laborious thing to do, the author would write the book long-hand, a typist would then type it up, the author would then re-write the book and the typist etc. This was a process which could go through many iterations because even to change a sentence, let alone a paragraph or introduce a new chapter, could mean that the book needed to be completely re-typed.

Nowadays, it's easy with the word-processor software we all have installed on our computers (the industry standard being Microsoft Word) since you can make as many changes as you like incorporating new paragraphs and chapters even. But is it easy? Because in the old days the author would physically rewrite their book from start to finish at least two or three times, sometimes double figures even. The result being a finished manuscript (or Camera Copy as it is known in the trade) which was highly 'polished', which was the work of a professional rather than an amateur. So a challenge you face is to produce a Camera Copy with a professional finish. That is, of course, if you would like your work to be taken seriously, more seriously than all those others who are also writing books and the simple truth is that there are 'more bums than seats' available.

So how are you going to achieve that professional finish? Once you've decided that your book is finished print it out, make a hard-copy. Then read it, and re-read it, incorporating any changes into your book on the computer and printing new pages as you go along. So eventually you've finished re-reading your book and you end up with two identical Camera Copies: one on your computer and the other in print. And your book is finished: you will know in yourself when that point is reached. You are then ready to begin submitting your work.

There are three stages to the publishing process: the author writing the manuscript, the publisher producing from the manuscript a mass-produced book and lastly not least, the marketing of your book. Believe it or not, marketing is what will determine whether your book is a commercial success. Believe it or not, marketing is best described as a black art and even chucking loads of money at the problem does not guarantee success.

Marketing is the reason why many people advise against self-publishing but it has to be said, that with Microsoft Word you can type-set your book yourself (first step is to decide on a page size) and when you've finished doing that you are in a position to ask a printer for a quote - the basic information a printer will need to know is page size, number of pages in the book, number of books to be printed. If you decide to go ahead then one way of doing it is to give the printer a printed out hard-copy of your type-set Camera Copy which the printer can then scan into their computer system, since the Microsoft Windows operating system of your computer could well be incompatible with the operating system of the printer's computer system. The cost will be in the region of several thousand Pounds.

So to begin with your Business Plan is get into print and your Financial Forecast is that unless you get into print you won't make any money. So think of your writing as a hobby. Remember, ambition is a wonderful thing but only if you keep your feet on the ground otherwise you'll end up with your own private version of the Millennium Dome.