It’s time to give this blog a kick in the guts, by making it useful.

I’ve been digging in at work and making the most of the cold summer I was welcomed with, and I’m ready to start soliciting book proposals or manuscripts, maybe, depending on the proposal. In particular I’m interested in challenging non-fiction by young, emerging writers, so if you have an idea for a book, please read on.

Soon I will post some more specific ideas about my ideal book proposal, but for now I want to put it out there that a book proposal is more than just a few sample chapters and a synopsis: it is a document that conveys a comprehensive concept of what sort of book the manuscript could become, and how the book might be brought to the attention of its potential readership. And I’d like to get a bit of discussion happening about a trend I’ve noticed.

I don’t know if it’s like this in the big houses, but we usually like it when an author shows the sort of initiative that might help to sell the book. Authors have to sell their books too, and this may as well start early.

While it’s difficult to predict the sales of any given book, and I don’t expect a sales-projection spreadsheet, a little demonstrated awareness of the life of your manuscript in book form will go a long way. That’s because in the independent sector there seems to be a dearth of marketing, sales and publicity personnel – probably because there’s not a lot of cash flowing around to pay for the sort of people whose natural inclination is to sell things – and the result is that authors need to get on board in the sales department.

What do you think of this?

Actually moving units seems to have become a subset of tasks in the process of producing and publishing literature. Marketing is almost a dirty word in some literary circles. And this troubles me immensely because I don’t see the point in slaving over a book (as either an author or an editor) if you can’t be bothered getting it to readers who aren’t already tuned in to the value of reading literature.

I want to find an amazing work of literature, see it through the production process, and then sell the fuck out of it. For shame?

Back to the other point of the post.

Wakefield Press Books

To save you some of the trouble of researching our list: Wakefield publishes primarily non-fiction, and of that, primarily history, memoir, gastronomy (including the unfortunately labelled ‘gastro memoir‘) and DIY books. We also publish literary fiction, something that began to be called life writing (extraordinary stories of ordinary people), and poetry. Oh, and art books – such as those published as part of SALA Festival.

My Interests

To give you an idea of the sort of book I’m looking for, those of my interests that align with Wakefield’s publishing program include: progressive thinking about popular culture, politics, economics, religion, philosophy, tangential history and real-life curiosities; vegetarian cookbooks, especially those that function as part treatise, part guidebook for adopting the lifestyle; youth literature, by which I mean literature by young writers, as defined by this blog; adventurous fiction – so, no landscape fiction or novels about art hoaxes; biographies of outstanding ordinary people; satire and parody.

I worked on most of those linked books above – except for Amore and Amaretti, the DIY books and most of the SALA books – and I enjoyed them all immensely, if that provides another indication of the sort of books I’d like to consider.

Submitting your Proposal

Check out this link, where you’ll find our submission guidelines (which are pretty basic, and mostly common sense) and a postal address. Do not email your proposal. Wakefield is not currently accepting unsolicited manuscripts, but if you’ve read this then, well, yours is not exactly unsolicited. Feel free to contact me at Wakefield with any queries you have. I prefer to answer phones than emails.

In the same week that I gored myself, I accepted a job offer from Wakefield Press. I’m visiting Brisbane for Christmas, then I’ll be heading to Adelaide to resume a seat at my old desk, to make books full time again. I won’t be needing any presents this year.

This may come as a surprise to many of my friends and colleagues in Melbourne, but it’s been on my mind and in the works for a couple of months. I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and working with the wonderful people at Wakefield. I’m looking forward to having an occupation again.

For seven months after Voiceworks I drove aimlessly around Queensland in my campervan, Delilah. For the last five months in Melbourne I have found it difficult to shake my holiday habits – in particular my tendency to start the day by sitting down with a computer and/or a book and chasing miscellaneous ideas down rabbit holes, which is fun, but not conducive to gainful employment or paying the bills or saving the world.

A lot of these ideas have related to agency and social entrepreneurship, as I have dallied with the idea of starting up a literary agency. The loftiness of this ambition has dawned on me only recently – along with the fact I am wildly under qualified. So I’ve deferred these aspirations for the short term. I will spend the next couple of years gaining experience of other areas in the industry – rights and contract management, hopefully. I will knuckle down and get to New York, where I hope to gain a placement with an agency – as a reading assistant or general work-experience lacky.

Wakefield, blessedly, are aware of my long-term ambitions. They always have been, even as I fumble about figuring out exactly what they are. When they originally employed me as a typesetter, they knew about and supported my aspirations to work as an editor. I took manuscripts home to work on in my spare time, and gradually worked up to the point where I was typesetting half the time, and editing the rest of the time, or thereabouts. I will do the same again.

Because this work aligns so perfectly with my own work, I don’t baulk at working overtime to advance my skills and experience. So I’ll continue to work with the writers I have been building relationships with, to the extent that I can in my spare time or within my new in-house capacity. I hope to bring my new networks and experience into this equation.

This decision also has ramifications for this blog: the new focus in my life will inevitably be reflected here. It’s early yet, but I have plans to move this away from a blog where I ‘empty my thoughts … on literary culture, philosophy and interesting things that happen’, and develop a focus on my exploits going into bat for young writers, as a book editor, aspiring agent and location-independent social entrepreneur.

Wakefield Press are incredibly supportive employers – such that Michael and Stephanie, as well as various members of the long-term staff have continued to be inspirational mentors and friends during my years at Voiceworks. I look forward to upholding their motto: ‘We love good stories and make beautiful books.’

I’ll be having short-notice farewell drinks at Prudence this Friday, from 5pm if you want to come.