Try again, fail again, fail better

[Declan Burke]

“Try again, fail again, fail better,” is the motto I have framed above my desk – most of you will recognise it as one of Samuel Beckett’s epigraphs. I have others – “When you leave your typewriter you leave your machine gun and the rats come pouring through.” – Charles Bukowski. “If you’re out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.” – Albert Einstein Here’s another: “If you can’t enter the publishing world through the front door, try the back door – if that door is locked also, there is almost always a window open.” Jennifer DeChiara Jennifer DeChiara, of course, is a literary agent. For that one sentence, she’s my hero.
A couple of years back I was sitting on an uncomfortably comfy cushion, given that it was stuffed with rejection slips from U.K. publishing houses for THE BIG O, the gist of which said, ‘Likeable – but not commercial enough.’ It’s never nice to get a rejection letter, but I didn’t take it personally – big houses have economies of scale, and need a commercial project to be very commercial.
So I decided that as my economies of scale were more modest than theirs, I’d go ahead and self-publish THE BIG O. A short time later, I happened to bump into Marsha Swan, who had edited my first novel, EIGHTBALL BOOGIE, and had since started up a boutique – i.e., tiny – publishing company, Hag’s Head Press. She asked if I was working on anything, I gave her THE BIG O, and a few weeks later she came back to ask if I’d be interested in co-publishing it with Hag’s Head. That meant paying half the costs and entitled me to half the profits.
At the time I was recently married and had just lost my job as a magazine editor. Aileen and I had in the previous couple of months bought what we planned to be our family home. So it took a bit of a leap of faith to say yes. Happily, Aileen was the one who gave me the idea for THE BIG O in the first place, so she was optimistic.
THE BIG O was published in Ireland in April 2007, with a grand total of 850 copies printed for the grand sum of (roughly) €3,200.
Tomorrow, September 22nd, it will be published in hardback in North America by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The reviews, with the notable exception of Publishers Weekly, have been pretty good. So now I’m optimistic too – fool that I am. If you’re interested in finding out more, drop on over to Crime Always Pays. Anyway, I tell you all this not to brag or to soft-sell you, but because I know there’s a lot of writers on Crime Space who are in exactly the same position as I was a few short years ago. In fact, I’ve only made a quantum leap onwards from where I was a few short years ago. But the point, for what it’s worth, is this – if you’re having trouble getting a publisher to take notice, don’t give up. Listen to everything they have to say, except when they say no. Keep on keeping on. Keep punching, keep writing, and keep believing.
I’m here to tell you, it works.
Or, as Jennifer DeChiara has it: “If you can’t enter the publishing world through the front door, try the back door – if that door is locked also, there is almost always a window open.”

[Grant McKenzie]

I luvs me a happy ending ;-)
Good on you, Declan. It's very true in this field that it's not enough to just love writing, you also have to be stubborn as hell. There's no way my piles of rejection slips would have fit into a lone pillow (try a mattress) before I landed my deal.

[Declan Burke]

Thanks for that, Grant ... Yep, you really need stickability. Fair play to you, coming through after a 'mattress' worth of rejections ... Makes it all the sweeter when it happens! Cheers, Dec

[carole gill]

Great advice, which I need now!
Working hard on my fourth draft and feeling bleak and fed up (today).
LIke I'm thinking what's the point? You know? I mean when I get all through with it, then what? etc!
anyway, I couldn't have stumbled upon a better discussion than this!
Locked door--a window? Anybody see an open window for me TO CLIMB INTO, NOT OUT OF?!

[Declan Burke]

Carole, you'll have days like that ... it's all part of the gig. You can't have peaks without troughs ... all you can do is keep on keeping on. As for locked doors and windows ... you might need to bring dynamite too. Publishers don't always know what they want, or what's good for them ...! Cheers, Dec

[carole gill]

thanks, Dec.
I'll keep keeping on, great choice of words!

[John McFetridge]

And if anyone in the Toronto area wants to meet Declan and pick up a copy of the excellent Big O (and even Eightball Boogie), he'll be at Sleuth of Baker Street Books, 1600 Bayview Ave., on Sunday, October 5th from 1:00 to 2:30.

[Declan Burke]

That's right ... John and I are having a play-date. I like his beard ... Cheers, Dec

[John McFetridge]

The new grey beard is even better. I hope Adrian is reading this...

[Dana King]

THE BIG O strikes me as a classic example that, in publishing, nobody knows nothin'. I was lucky enough to review it, and how publishers passed on it is utterly beyond me.

[Declan Burke]

You're right, Dana, no one does know nothin' in publishing ... including the writers. Although I've worked with a few editors who seemed to know what they were at ... Marsha Swan who picked up on The Big O in the first place, at Hag's Head Press, and Stacia Decker, who picked up on it for Harcourt ... Anyway, let's just see how it goes before we start blowing any trumpets, eh? Cheers, Dec