Hi,
I have a general question that's been bothering me for a while. I live in Ireland, which, while being an OK place and all that, is not so hot on publishing and agents and whatnot.
I tried to get a list of Irish agents and got maybe four names, only one of which accepts my genre and who subsequently did not respond to emails when I tried to contact them about their submission guidelines. Did I mention I couldn't find their guidelines online? Oh, the frustration...
Publishers here don't seem to be interested in any work unless it's very... Irish culture orientated, I suppose. It makes sense, because the non-Irish market is well served by UK and American books. It's not for me though - I've no interest in writing those kinds of books right now, not when I have other good ideas.
(I don't even know if I'm getting the right impression of the state of agents and publishers in Ireland. I can't find anything online. It took me months to stumble across the Behler Publications blog and finally learn some solid information about the industry - but how much of it applies here? I really can't tell.)
So my question is: how does one get an agent in the States or the UK if you're not living there? What does that mean for the publishing rights or marketing efforts? Hell, what about face-to-face-meetings?
There must be at least one other Irish author here who can help me. I'm also looking for any other Irish writing groups, because either my group in Cork is the only one in the country or the rest of you are just very, very well hidden!
Totally-not-bitter Aetheric
I have a general question that's been bothering me for a while. I live in Ireland, which, while being an OK place and all that, is not so hot on publishing and agents and whatnot.
I tried to get a list of Irish agents and got maybe four names, only one of which accepts my genre and who subsequently did not respond to emails when I tried to contact them about their submission guidelines. Did I mention I couldn't find their guidelines online? Oh, the frustration...
Publishers here don't seem to be interested in any work unless it's very... Irish culture orientated, I suppose. It makes sense, because the non-Irish market is well served by UK and American books. It's not for me though - I've no interest in writing those kinds of books right now, not when I have other good ideas.
(I don't even know if I'm getting the right impression of the state of agents and publishers in Ireland. I can't find anything online. It took me months to stumble across the Behler Publications blog and finally learn some solid information about the industry - but how much of it applies here? I really can't tell.)
So my question is: how does one get an agent in the States or the UK if you're not living there? What does that mean for the publishing rights or marketing efforts? Hell, what about face-to-face-meetings?
There must be at least one other Irish author here who can help me. I'm also looking for any other Irish writing groups, because either my group in Cork is the only one in the country or the rest of you are just very, very well hidden!
Totally-not-bitter Aetheric
