The double-handicap struggling author

I don't know how practical this will be, Grumman, but my first thoughts were two:

One, why not translate it into Finnish and sell it in that market?

Two, how about posting a chapter at a time in Share Your Work here, in whatever genre it is, to see if your fellow writers can help you edit any silly stuff right out of the manuscript? It's entirely possible that you may entice an amateur editor or critique-er who will agree to go over the whole novel as your beta reader.

Your English reads pretty smoothly to me, BTW, so I don't know that tweaking it to sound more American is going to entail a lot of change.

Anyway, welcome to the boards!

Maryn, glad we warned you away from PA in time

I may not be offering my advice from a sound vantage point, as I'm newly entering the magazine market, but a few simple practicalities pop to mind:

Don't be apologetic in your queries and cover letters. Your mail may come from Finland, but so what? As with a resume, completely skip anything about what you don't have: who hires a guy who says "I am inexperienced in IT, but I took all these classes . . ."? Focus on what you do have.

And write with the same fresh, witty verbiage you've got here, because if I were a publisher I'd certainly ask for your book.

Mind you, this means you might also want to try British publishers before hitting America: I like stuff that sounds British better, so if I take an immediate liking to your style, that could be indicative.

Grumman, if you're a Finn, you're a Finn. Don't think of it as a handicap. Figure out a way to either make it irrelevant, or use it as a selling point.

Bombarding random publishers is a waste of time, postage or bandwidth, and energy. You're going to need to figure out how to find publishers who put out books similar to yours, and target your queries to them. Maryn's suggestion that you post some of your manuscript in Share Your Work is a good one, as not only will it give you the opportunity to have your work critiqued, but will also give you the chance to hear from others what books yours may resemble, and so give you a place to start with your research.

Good luck!

Welcome Grum,
could you please tell more finnish girls to move to America, they are gorgeous!

Simple. Write a book in English that Anglophone readers want to read. If you can do that, it doesn't matter that you're Finnish -- or Martian, or carbon-based, or anything else.

Maryn said:

One, why not translate it into Finnish and sell it in that market?

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Seesh! That'd be like selling a book only in Maryland.

Judging by your posts, you're fluent in English. Has your work been rejected or are you assuming that it will be, because you're a non-native speaker?

If the Finnish industry doesn't like it, that's their loss. Send it to American agents, or what not, and let the English speaking world benefit from your great writing, and then translate it for your native language later through the large English-language house. That'll open the eyes of the publishing industry in your country. Besides, American readers are always intrigued by novels set in places they have never been to, or in customs they don't fully understand. Be aware, though, rejections will be many, and are just a way of wading through the junk and finding the people who can properly represent your work.

Dear Grumman, being a Fin is immaterial to the situation and unless someone else wrote your post it is clear you can handle English very well. Having established this there are several things you should do and a few options you may wish to consider.

• If you haven’t had your MS professionally edited you need to do that. By a professional I mean someone with verifiable credentials (i.e. university connections) that will impress an agent/publisher. An editor’s job is to help you produce not only a fine work but one that will sell. In your case, your editor should be as fluent in English as you are.
• If you decide to approach a traditional publishing house rather than a POD (Publish On Demand) company, then you need an agent. Don’t be misled by stories of writers who broke the publishing wall without one. As it stands today those breaches have been repaired. So get an agent—one who can represent you in the EU as well as in North America.

Now as to your path forward, that’s your call. You can shelve your work. You can locate a reputable and versatile agent and try for a traditional house or you can pursue a POD option. If you opt for POD product you’ll still need an editor for that—one who can format your MS according to the publisher’s requirements; that goes for the traditional house as well. Agents do not do that for you.

There are pros and cons to both routes. Learn what they are.

I happen to be a POD customer. My reasons are varied and I won’t list them here, however, if you want to discuss these out of group you may email me directly from my website.

Best of Luck,

Michael

Michael Halfhill
Author of Bought And Paid For & Scimitar

http://www.michaelhalfhill.com

citymouse said:

If you haven’t had your MS professionally edited you need to do that. By a professional I mean someone with verifiable credentials (i.e. university connections) that will impress an agent/publisher.

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No, no, no, no, NO. It is neither necessary nor desirable to have your manuscript "professionally edited." If for some reason you do go that route, for the love of God don't say so to agents or publishers. It will not impress them. It will, in fact, make them assume you're a clueless amateur, and your manuscript will thereby start under a handicap.

A serious writer is supposed to be able to edit his own work. That's part of learning the craft. You will, naturally, in the course of publication, reach a point where a developmental editor employed by the publisher, not by you, will work with you (your agent may also suggest developmental work), and the manuscript will be copyedited (another service provided by the publisher) and proofread (again, a service provided by the publisher). This is because several eyes going over the same manuscript help catch nearly all errors. But honestly, if you can't produce a publishable-quality manuscript without hiring someone to fix what you produce, you need to spend time improving your craft, not throwing money at the problem.

An editor’s job is to help you produce not only a fine work but one that will sell. In your case, your editor should be as fluent in English as you are.

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Any editor of your work had damned well better have much better language skills than you do, or your book's in trouble. And university-associated "professional editors" often don't have the skills or experience to know how to make a book commercially viable, since they're not working, commercially published authors themselves.

If you decide to approach a traditional publishing house rather than a POD (Publish On Demand) company, then you need an agent. Don’t be misled by stories of writers who broke the publishing wall without one. As it stands today those breaches have been repaired. So get an agent—one who can represent you in the EU as well as in North America.

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This is really not true. Many, many publishers--some quite large--accept unagented work, although some of the major houses no longer do. I agree that it's best to have an agent before you sign a publishing contract, but it's not a disaster if you don't have one when you start submitting. If you get an offer before you have an agent, you pick up the phone and call your top-choice agent, and say, "I have an offer from X Publishing, and I'd like you to represent me. Are you interested?" In the highly unlikely event the agent says no, you do this for your second choice. If you have to go on to a third choice, you probably aren't saying something right.

Now as to your path forward, that’s your call. You can shelve your work. You can locate a reputable and versatile agent and try for a traditional house or you can pursue a POD option. If you opt for POD product you’ll still need an editor for that—one who can format your MS according to the publisher’s requirements; that goes for the traditional house as well. Agents do not do that for you.

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Oh, God. There are so many things wrong here that I'm just going to direct you to the How Real Publishing Works thread in the Bewares and Background Check board here on AW. You'll find threads listed in the Index on finding agents and publishers, too. I really recommend you read those, because you have a highly inaccurate model of how publishing, agenting, and editing work.

Best of luck to you.

1. Can I do the "argument from authority" thing here?

I'm an editor at a trade house. I've worked for a number of publishers over the course of my career, so I'm comfortable making a general statement about the industry:

We emphatically do not require that a manuscript be "professionally edited" before we'll look at it or be impressed by it.

That's a meme spread by scammers who refer authors to book doctors for fleecing. It sometimes gets passed along sometimes by innocent parties who don't know any better. It's still wrong. Stop spreading it.

If it's fiction, all we care about is the book. If it's nonfiction, the writer's credentials may matter too, but no one cares about those unless it's first a good book.

2. An editor who isn't terminally fluent in English is in the wrong job.

3. Anyone who thinks it's particularly desirable that a freelance editor have ties to academia isn't familiar with academia's prose. You may dismiss that source's authority along with their advice.

Grumman, you've gotten some very good advice here.
Follow it and you won't go wrong.

Michael

Hyvää Grumman,

I'm in a somewhat similar situation though I've never seen it as problem. I'm a German writing in English. It just happened.

Contrary to literary fiction in Finland, historical fiction is very popular in Germany and I could find a publisher here. But then ya'll would never be able to read my books. Why?

Well, ever heard about Iris Kammerer, Rebecca Gablé, Iny Lorentz, Tilman Röhrig, Wolfgang Serno - to name just a few German hist fic writers? No? I would be surprised if you did, because foreign literature, esp. genre fiction seldom gets translated into English (Nobel prize winner Günter Grass is a different case). But lots of English books get translated into German, not only big names like Stephen King but also midlisters like Holly Lisle. Hey, I know one writer who got a three book deal with the first book just out, and already sold German rights. So, if I'll manage to get published, chance is there will be a German translation.

I edit myself, though I post some chapters in a writer's forum for critique. I also participate in a chat where I can post snippets and ask about grammar problems. I should be able to polish my manuscripts well enough to not get rejected for bad English.

What I'm going to do is to submit to UK agents and publishers, and maybe to Tor (they do hist fic and accept unagented submissions). I'm not going to refer to "German writer who writes in English," but simply submit a 130K Historical Fiction novel taking place at the Hadrian's Wall in 122 AD. They'll see by my address where I come from.

Good luck with the Nobel prize and Bookner.