All posts by Michael Burge

Journalist, author, artist
Write regardless!

Writer, you must submit!

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“In this digital age, it’s never been easier to prepare your submissions and have have them all done and dusted in a very short time.”

IF you’ve ever really done the work on a manuscript in the manner outlined in Write, Regardless!, allowed it to absorb your imagination and your heart; lost sleep over it and swung from thinking it’s the worst thing ever written to moments of confidence that it says something, you’ll know when it’s time to give it a chance in the wider world. If you haven’t done the work, you’ll be full of doubt about your manuscript’s quality, tempted to ask everyone what they think, and so out of touch with your inner bullshit monitor that you won’t know how to sift the feedback. Here are some tips about finding if you’re ready to submit your work to publishers and literary agents.

Submitting season

In this digital age, it’s never been easier to prepare your submissions and have them all done and dusted in a very short time. After a standard three-month wait to see whether the marketplace, right now, is interested in your manuscript, if your work has not been picked-up you’ll have a choice: publish it regardless or shove it in a desk drawer and try to forget about it.

Publisher or agent?

There are plenty of pros and cons about whether writers need an agent. According to literary agent Alex Adsett, around 60 per cent of books get published in Australia without one. You don’t need a real estate agent to sell a house. It’s the same with selling intellectual property. Writers can research the various submitting opportunities and send our work in directly, or we can hand the process over to someone to do the work for us. The submission materials needed to approach an agent are the same as those needed to approach a publisher.

The agency pathway

Most literary agencies list the genres they will represent, so check their guidelines carefully before sending in your work. Writing programs also operate as agents by matching writers with publishers; and many writing competitions serve a similar purpose. Whenever your work is being represented by a third party between you and a publisher, it’s a literary agency-type process.

Be under no illusion, authors pay for agency support, usually at the ‘back end’ as a percentage of royalties. Literary agents are best treated like real estate agents: assertively and courteously, with everything in writing before the ‘For Sale’ sign goes up. Be cautious about what rights you’re signing away in the terms and conditions of writing competitions.

The shock and awe principle

I deal with the submission process by using a little military energy known as shock and awe, because it cuts through the crap. Writers can get stymied by business strategies, the main one publishers deploy being the ‘don’t send your manuscript out to more than one publisher/agent at a time’ advice. The ONLY person this principle benefits is the person looking at your great book submission. They have removed all competition by making you afraid to call the cavalry. When I submit a manuscript, I send it to all relevant publishers/agents at the same time, and I give the process three months maximum. This is how real estate has been sold forever, by creating that critical mass all property sellers desire. Intellectual property sellers have no reason to think or act differently. Literary agents certainly don’t act on this advice – they create bidding wars between publishers whenever they can.

Direct-to-publisher submissions

Right now, major publishers have open doors for unsolicited manuscripts, uploaded via their websites. Usually once-a-month, these opportunities have snappy names like Penguin’s Monthly Catch. They require writers to have a formatted manuscript, a synopsis and a writer’s biography; some idea of the target audience and similar titles on the market; a social media platform (don’t say I didn’t warn you about the need for one); some skill in public speaking and communicating, and a couple of contacts in the publishing/media industry (warned you about that one too).

Literary speed dating

It’s become increasingly common for book deals to be triggered by what’s known as a manuscript pitching session. I had my debut novel Tank Water picked up for publication after I paid to meet two fiction editors at a New England Writers’ Centre pitch event. I spent ten minutes with each, a chance to sell the ideas and themes of my book. It’s akin to speed dating – a bit hard on the nerves – but the great advice I got beforehand was to not spend the entire time banging on about my work, leaving space for each editor to ask me questions. Both wanted to see the manuscript afterwards, and one – Anna Solding of MidnightSun Publishing in Adelaide – eventually offered me a book contract.

Look out for such sessions at writer’s festivals, they’re a great way to meet editors you might not otherwise have the opportunity to get your work in front of.

“While there is still a publishing industry, writers who have done the work on our manuscripts should have a go and submit our books for consideration.”

Fab formatting

There is a basic manuscript style in the English language, which is generally a one-inch page margin, plain font, page numbering and double-spaced text. This is not publishers being picky, it’s a format that is easy on the eye for people who read a lot. There are international variations and your state or national writers’ resource centre will tell you what is standard for your part of the world. There are no excuses for writers who don’t adjust their manuscripts to a publisher’s specifications. Sent a single-spaced manuscript of 250,000 words when they wanted 80,000 maximum, double-spaced? Whoosh! There goes your book back into the slush pile! Make it legible, plain (no sample cover art by Uncle Brian), with a decent working title and give it to them in the format and file type they ask for.

Super synopsis

A synopsis is not a blurb on the back of a published book, taunting the reader with hidden details about the story, it must allow a publisher to appraise your plot at a glance. If you’ve done the work plotting your book, a synopsis will be very easy to write. If you cannot write one, chances are your manuscript is not ready to submit. Explain your exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and denouement, and do it in the word-count they ask for.

Brilliant biog

Publishers are seeking background information about you as a writer, not necessarily where you went to school or your employment history, unless these relate to the manuscript you’re submitting. Write your biog in the third person, show them your stuff as a wordsmith, and stick to the word-count they ask for (are you seeing a pattern here about not pissing them off?).

Insider knowledge

Many submission opportunities ask writers to name a few existing books that are similar to ours. Don’t get on your high horse and claim you’ve written something so original there is nothing like it in the history of literature. The chances are there’s a few similar titles out there in the hundreds of writing genres. This is sometimes referred to as a commercial comparison, or a ‘mash up’ – ‘think Godzilla meets Bambi’ – and has become a publishing industry shortcut to understanding your manuscript quickly. You’ll be asked to nominate a genre and a format. Is it a long-form memoir? Is it a narrative non-fiction novella? Is it a short story collection? Be real and be honest.

Screen-savvy author

Agents and publishers have been known to request authors submit audition-style videos to see if we are media-friendly. Don’t panic! If you need to create a short audition video, you can film yourself on your mobile phone camera. Choose a quiet, well-lit but shaded location that prevents the sun directly hitting your face, hit the front-facing camera symbol and select video. Next, hold the camera up horizontally like you’re taking a selfie, pause, breathe, and introduce yourself before reading your writer’s biog in the first person while looking into the camera lens. This will make it look as though you’re addressing the viewer right in the eye, and give you a confident air. Email or message the clip to your desktop, then upload it with your book submission. Keep it simple and keep it short.

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BE COOL It’s only a contract.

The fast response

Be prepared to have an agent or a publisher interested in your work very quickly. Like enthusiastic house hunters, they can act fast if they want to get your work off the market. This is not the moment to tell all your other prospects your work has been picked up. No real estate agent cancels further inspections on the strength of an enthusiastic potential buyer… no way! Some publishers/agents will ask for a few weeks to read and consider your work because they like the sound of it. If so, calmly tell them you have made other submissions, but say that you have not been offered any contracts. If they are genuinely interested, they’ll get reading and perhaps send you one. If you need help interpreting it, contact your writers’ centre or arts-law centre for advice.

Be cool about contracts

Good publishing contracts are not lengthy – they don’t need to be. If you’re offered a contract, it should never ask you to assign copyright of your work to another party, but it should require you to warrant you created the work you have submitted. You should be allowed to negotiate a timeframe to submit your final drafts, and you and the publisher need to agree on the date the book will be published. They can set a time limit (and perhaps a fee scale) on author changes to the manuscript ahead of publication. This is to ensure you’re a proactive, organised collaborator… if you’re a literary vacillator, you’ll pay for the privilege (remember when I warned you getting to grips with plotting would serve you even if you’re traditionally published?). The contract should stipulate an advance against royalties (which is getting extremely rare in publishing these days) and a royalty percentage of book sales for the author.

Silence is the new no

If you haven’t heard back from a publisher/agent after three months, they’re telling you no. It’s not courteous, it’s not commensurate with the effort you have put into submitting your work to them, but it’s the truth. They have rejected that manuscript and you’ll never know why. Accept this and move on. Here are some tips on dealing with literary rejection.

Having another go

If you’re keeping your eyes and ears open to publishing opportunities, you are sure to find a few more publishers/agents to submit your work to while you’re waiting for a bite from your first round. When I do, I always submit. If you have your submitting materials ready to go, it takes a few minutes and keeps another ball in the air in your juggling act. After two rounds (over six months) it’s likely you’ll know if you’ve had enough silence.

Recap

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BUY NOW

While there is still a publishing industry, writers who have done the work on our manuscripts should have a go and submit our books for consideration. Be efficient with your time by preparing your work and submitting to all publishers/agents you can find accepting work. Follow their submission guidelines to the letter. Mark a day in your diary three months from your critical mass of submitting. If you have not heard back from any of your submissions, it might be time to move on and publish your work, regardless.

An extract from Write, Regardless!

© Michael Burge, all rights reserved.

LGBTIQ Equality

Australia’s marriage equality in chains

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After many years trying to interest the Australian media in my story, particularly the LGBTI media, it was only in the wake of another tragedy that a European mainstream media source published this op-ed on Australia Day. 

AUSTRALIA has long traded on its relaxed ‘fair go’ approach when spinning friendly, down-to-earth slogans to sell our easy-going holiday locations to the world.

But for one pair of British newlyweds who recently honeymooned in South Australia, a crucial danger lay completely hidden.

Why would the same-sex legislation of South Australia be of any concern to David and Marco Bulmer-Rizzi when they planned their romantic getaway?

“Between all the wine tasting and surfing, it’s easy to miss the inequality of this sun-soaked nation.”

We’re an enlightened, first-world society, aren’t we? Neighbours and Home and Away have their share of same-sex attracted characters; South Australia even has a proud record of LGBTI equality, being the first state in Australia to decriminalise homosexuality in 1975. It’s all good, right?

Wrong. Between all the wine tasting and surfing, it’s easy to miss the inequality of this sun-soaked nation.

Hearing about the South Australian legal system’s treatment of Marco Bulmer-Rizzi, who was subjected to the indignity of seeing his husband’s relationship status recorded as ‘never married’ in the wake of David’s accidental death in that state last week, I felt a familiar and frustrating pang of grief.

The international outrage was loud and justified. South Australia’s Premier Jay Weatherill quickly apologised, offering a guarantee that South Australian law would be changed to amend David’s death certificate. In an acute state of grief, Marco gave an interview, expressing his ardent hope that this kind of thing never happens again in Australia.

At that point I got very angry, because I have wanted exactly that ever since my partner Jono died in New South Wales more than a decade ago.

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LIFE PARTNERS Michael Burge and Jonathan Rosten in 2002.

In 2004, despite NSW’s same-sex de-facto laws having been in place for five years, my deceased partner’s death certificate was issued to his blood relatives without my name on it or any reference to our relationship.

You read that right: Sydney’s Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages broke the state law to disenfranchise me.

The complicity of the funeral company I’d contracted meant the illegally issued document took me two years to fix. Despite lobbying the NSW Attorney-General, no apology was issued by the state government, and no assurances were given that training would be put in place to prevent anything similar happening to others.

For 12 years, I’ve been communicating the dangers for LGBTI couples and death certification to anyone who would listen. In 2015, I wrote a book about my experience – Questionable Deeds: Making a stand for equal love. My motivation was to increase our awareness about how vulnerable LGBTIs are in Australia, with inconsistent state and federal laws that allow surviving same-sex spouses to fall between the cracks.

But death is a hard sell. Same-sex death is even harder. Too many Australians are unwilling to believe such unfairness and homophobia in our organisations and government departments.

Even more difficult to communicate is the homophobia that leads some families to deny the existence of same-sex spouses. At least Marco Bulmer-Rizzi was spared discrimination at the hands of homophobic in-laws, who were the driving force behind my disenfranchisement.

Whatever the reason behind the silence about my story, right now, there are generations of LGBTI in Australia who remain completely invisible on their deceased partner’s death certificates and were thereby blocked from their spouses’ estates.

Who is to blame for this legal lottery that has been erasing LGBTI stories in Australia for decades?

Politicians, sure, but it has long been painful and depressing to me how slow Australia’s media and publishing industries have been to recognize and disseminate the message about this disconnect. It’s impossible to argue they’re reflecting audience sentiment, when all polling on marriage equality places community support at over 70 per cent.

The solution is staring Australians in the face: a free vote of federal ministers on the floor of the nation’s parliament could enact marriage equality here in less than a week.

Yet national legislation that would sweep aside state anomalies is considered so controversial it put us in a holding pattern on marriage equality years ago.

“There has just never been enough outrage about marriage equality in this country.”

We have a sitting prime minister – Malcolm Turnbull – who supports marriage equality, but the political deal-making when he ousted Tony Abbott saw him sign away the parliamentary vote he once publicly backed. Instead, he has a plan for a divisive referendum at a time and in a manner he’s reluctant to reveal.

In the fallout of the Bulmer-Rizzi case, South Australia’s highest-profile conservative politician, Christopher Pyne, was quick to call for overseas same-sex marriages to be recognized in Australian states and territories.

But his approach illustrates the problem in a nutshell. Although he is a supporter of marriage equality, Pyne would rather advocate for a piecemeal solution that would protect visiting international LGBTI couples long before Australians.

When our leaders start to campaign for the human rights of guests instead of residents, they have lost touch with exactly who they represent in parliament.

Pyne’s words also imply he thinks marriage equality in Australia is so far away we’d best jet off to countries that support our relationships and benefit from a legal loophole.

MARCO BULMER-RIZZI
DISENFRANCHISED SPOUSE British citizen Marco Bulmer-Rizzi.

This behavior is far from isolated in Australia. Our tendency to overlook our creatives in favour of international artists – our ‘cultural cringe’ – is cast into the shade by this even stronger legislative blind spot for all domestic human rights. It’s only ‘bad’ if it makes world news. It only warrants a state premier’s apology when it happens to a foreign national. Fix it by sorting out the laws that the world is watching.

We were caught out treating Marco Bulmer-Rizzi with the heartlessness of our penal-colony roots, and, putting his confidence aside, Jay Weatherill will come up against plenty of homophobic politicians and public servants in his journey to amend David Bulmer-Rizzi’s death certificate. I’m anticipating the British media will track this Australian story closest.

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BUY NOW

Despite all our ‘fair go’ slogans – or perhaps because of them – there has just never been enough outrage about marriage equality in this country to drive the issue from a statistic into a legal reality. That we got a kick along only as the result of the untimely death of a young gay tourist is shameful.

This op-ed was first published by Gay Star News.  

It also appears in Michael’s eBook Creating Waves: Critical takes on culture and politics.

Write regardless!

Writer, join your tribe!

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MANY writers struggle alone with the task of marketing. Writing an entire book is enough of a challenge for even the most experienced wordsmiths, so when we’re expected to run the marathon of multiple drafts, then turn around and create a publicity campaign for our work, we tend to stick our heads in the sand and hope like hell that something about our work will render all marketing efforts unnecessary. Here’s a refresher on how you should already have started marketing if you’re writing a book, and the good news is it involves interacting with other people.

Marketing from day one

Write, Regardless! has one fundamental message on marketing: to sell your book, you need to be actively promoting while you’re writing and packaging it. This process takes a degree of multi-skilling which is akin to juggling, but adopting it removes the terrible feelings of exhaustion that result from completing a manuscript only to find you’ve run less than half the marathon. Marketing starts on day one of writing a book, and, for as long as you want others to buy and read your work, it never ends. Break through this mental obstacle and you’re halfway to an effective marketing campaign.

Accessing word of mouth

The simple act of one person reading your book and recommending it to their friends is the oldest form of marketing in the world, and it’s still (relatively) free. Entire advertising industries are built on convincing people they need to part with their money in order to generate word of mouth, but the good news for independent publishers is that the social media is built to facilitate infinite word-of-mouth experiences. If you’ve come this far in Write, Regardless! and somehow decided not to build your social media web of fabulousness, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

Going tribal

It’s time to take your social media up several levels and find your tribe. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter offer sophisticated search engines. Take some time to seek out others who think like you. This could be political groups, social networks, or book clubs… anyone gathering for a common cause which relates in some way to the subject and/or genre of your writing. Sometimes these are closed groups, and you simply apply to join. Sometimes, these groups allow participants to post without permission, following a set of group rules and guidelines. Other groups are managed by an ‘admin’ person or persons, who you can send messages to, requesting they ‘share’ one of your posts. Admins have replicated the role that editors fulfil for news sources, aggregating content for group followers, and they are often hungry for relevant contributions. This is where you come in, providing articles that relate to, mention, provide extracts of and links to, your books. Never do the hard sell in these forums. The soft sell is generally more persuasive. Don’t tell me you can’t do this because you’re not a journalist: you are, and here’s how.

Tasting the spam

Platforms like Facebook and Twitter can be used autonomously by writers marketing books – you simply post material about your titles whenever and however you like. A small warning: many social media participants are wary of spamming; and you don’t have to do much for people to think you’re a spambot. Endless sales tweets or filling your Facebook timeline with posts about your books is a big turn-off for many social media consumers. It’s the social media, remember? The emphasis is on being sociable. You can market like those who hand out business cards at birthday parties, sure, but you’ll start to notice your number of followers dropping. Selling all the time is very one-note. Mix it up with content that is not about your latest book.

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PERFECT PAPERBACKS Penguin’s paperback brand has been a publishing success since the 1930s.

Branding like an expert

Independent writers can tend to overlook tried and true marketing tools, such as brand management. It sounds a bit cold and corporate, but writers who publish our own work need to keep half an eye on how it sits in the marketplace. Ever since independent publishing began, centuries ago, writers have published work in serialised form. Think of the success of Mills and Boon and Penguin Books as a publishing brands: readers know exactly what they’re buying (and they buy it often) plus they know how much they’re paying; there is a consistent look, length and format, and there will be more of the product to purchase in the future. Think about what you want to achieve with your writing. Do you have a series in mind? Could you visually link different titles with a similar design palette? Can you position yourself as an expert in the field you’re writing about?

Reading the marketplace

It’s easy for writers to forget about reading and consuming in the same marketplace we plan to sell product within. If we avoid bookshops and book reviews, we can quickly lose touch with publishing basics, such as the current price of eBooks and paperbacks, or the evolution of publishing genres and writing styles. Keep your book-lover’s antennae attuned for shifts in the book trade, and check the date of online articles you stumble across – years have passed since it was claimed eBooks would knock printed titles into oblivion, a prediction that turned out to be incorrect. The publishing industry, like all industries, moves the goalposts annually. What worked three years ago may not work now. If you want to write and publish, join the publishing industry and consume.

Hiring help

For some writers, running a marketing campaign is too much of an ask. They decide they have neither the time or the energy to promote their own work, and they seek to hire a publicist to generate sales. There is no standard fee for publicists, and the scope of their role varies, but expect to pay thousands of dollars. Some believe this scale of fees is justifiable since publicists are effectively selling access to a network of publicity that they’ve built over many years; but, as always, the onus is on you to be upfront about the cost, the terms and the outcomes. Do your homework and ask for references and testimonials before paying for a publicist’s services: you may well be hiring someone who is an independent author like you making a sideline income. Always create a contract with a publicist, laying out the parameters of the agreement, and hold them to account.

Deciding what ‘success’ means

It’s been my experience that independent publishing success means different things to different readers and writers. There are few benchmarks outside the usual ‘bestseller’ lists, so it’s helpful for independent publishers to set the bar for ourselves by deciding what we view as successful outcomes. For me, gaining independent reviews and mainstream media coverage for my titles means I have succeeded in doing all that I can to promote them in the marketplace. When I have placed my paperbacks with major city bookshops, I feel I have succeeded in putting them in the pathway of readers. Anything less, for me, does not feel like success. Work out what success will mean for you, and keep it realistic and measurable. This will help when you’re feeling challenged by what you have started, and I assure you there will be many such moments.

Bookish friends

Many aspiring authors get onboard the book trade with a literary side hustle that can generate word of mouth about their publications. Some create a podcast, platforming authors and their books. Others (like me) start a writer’s festival. Many writers are the brains and heart behind a local independent bookshop. Why limit your involvement in literature to merely writing? Dive into another facet of the industry. It will lead to business and personal connections with other authors, publishers, distributors, festivals and publicists.

Recap

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BUY NOW

Independent publishers do not operate in isolation, we are part of an international network creating product for a hungry audience that is increasingly diversifying the ways it accesses books. Replicate what has already worked for that industry through branding and word of mouth. Join the club by ensuring you buy, read and review books. Participate in social media groups and networks, not just by promoting your work, but by promoting the work of others too; and develop a literary side hustle. Decide what will make you feel successful, and share that with your readers – they love knowing when the risk they took on you pays off!

An extract from Write, Regardless!

© Michael Burge, all rights reserved.