My Tortuous Path to Publication

I’m not sure exactly when I had the idea of writing a fantasy novel, though it must have been sometime after July 1977, because that’s when I bought and read Terry Brooks’ The Sword of Shannara.

It wasn’t the story that inspired me, though. I’d read a huge amount of fantasy by then and found the plot to be too close to The Lord of the Rings. My inspiration was the map – but not in a good way.

The map in The Sword of Shannara so irritated me (because it seemed so clichéd, and so wrong) that I sat down on the spot and began to create my own, based on what I believed a real fantasy world should look like. Here’s a small, early version, done in 1978.

This soon became an obsession. At a time when I was supposed to be writing my thesis, I redrew the maps in greater and greater detail, until they were the size of house doors, then began to work out 10,000 years of history (as one does), the politics and economies of some of the countries therein, the peoples and ecosystems.

And then, snatches of characters, many of whom would appear in The View from the Mirror a decade later – Mendark, Shuthdar and the Golden Flute, Yggur, Faelamor, Kandor (who became Rulke), Kyllian the bard, who became Llian the master chronicler, Karan, my favourite character, and Yfanna, who became Maigraith.

Finally, on June 25, 1979, on a train in Finland, I wrote the first snatch of the story – Kyllian leaving Chanthed for the mountain inn at Tullin. Not very good, is it? But at the time it wasn't intended as part of a novel. It was just a moment that occurred to me.

What with finishing my thesis, taking a demanding consulting job, looking after little children and renovating a lovely but decrepit Victorian house in Sydney, 8 years went by before I had the time to formally begin writing – in longhand. It was September 1987 and I figured if I wrote 3 pages a day, I’d have a first draft done by Christmas.

By the time I was halfway through the story, then called The Mirror of Aachan, I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life writing stories. I finished the first draft 5 days early but, to my astonishment, the story ended on a cliff-hanger with possibilities exploding out in all directions.

A month later I’d worked out that there would be four books to the story, now called The View from the Mirror, their titles and, in some detail, what would happen in each book. I did several more drafts of the first book then, in 1989, looked around for a publisher.

At the time, no Australian publishers were publishing science fiction or fantasy for the adult market – see my post on the Golden Age of Aussie Publishing, http://ianirvine.blogspot.com/2011/10/golden-age-of-publishing.html.

But I probably wouldn’t have sent it there anyway – I’d decided to try Unwin Hyman, in London, publishers of The Lord of the Rings and a number of other great fantasy novels. They knocked it back, but very kindly, saying that they’d be happy to see a revised version, or anything else I cared to send them. However when I sent a much revised version, months later, they had just been taken over by Harper Collins, who had closed their list.

Various other disappointments followed from the UK and US, sometimes after agonisingly long times – one NY publisher took 13 months to respond. I never sent the same manuscript out twice – I always revised it several more times, and kept working on the other three volumes of the story.

In the early 90s, Australian publishers, particularly Pan Macmillan, began publishing speculative fiction. By this time my story was complete – I’d done about 18 tough drafts of A Shadow on the Glass and even 4 or 5 of the final book, The Way Between the Worlds.

Unfortunately, by the time my manuscript of A Shadow on the Glass arrived, Pan had been burned by a number of failures and were pulling back. They wrote me a nice but painful rejection letter, to the effect that, ‘We agonised about whether to publish your book, but decided not to.’

However they also did me a favour by suggesting I commission Dr Van Ikin, the long-time speculative fiction reviewer for the Sydney Morning Herald, to assess the manuscript and provide suggestions for improvement. I did so, followed Van’s many suggestions to the letter and when he looked at the revised version he said, 'You've got it! Send it out.'

By this time (January 1996) Harper Collins had had a big success with Sara Douglass’s Battleaxe, so I sent the mss to them, along with a copy of Van Ikin’s effusive letter. They rejected it, saying they’d be willing to consider a revised version. They also included comments from an unnamed external reviewer who thoroughly disagreed with Van’s assessment, and made a series of what I considered to be ill-informed critical comments about the book.

I didn’t bother to send them a revised version; instead I looked for another publisher. My father-in-law, John Rummery, a former English lecturer who had enjoyed the story, contacted a friend and colleague, John Cohen. John Cohen has an encyclopaedic knowledge of fantasy and for many years had been the editor of Reading Time, the book review journal of the Children’s Book Council of Australia (and he still is).

John loved the book and contacted Nancy Mortimer, then the education publisher at Penguin Australia, who asked to see it. In May 1996 I sent her the huge manuscripts of the first two books – a cardboard box full of paper. After looking the manuscripts over, Nancy agreed and gave them to Kay Ronai, a vastly experienced editor who had also edited some fantasy authors, asking for a book report. Kay loved the story and recommended that Penguin publish it. However she didn’t think they would, because Penguin hadn’t published fantasy for the adult market before, and they would have to commit to 4 very large books.

Kay’s report went to Erica Irving, then the publisher for the Children and Young Adults Department at Penguin. Erica wasn’t sure, and asked Isobelle Carmody, one of their star authors who wrote fantasy for younger readers, to take a look. Isobelle read the first book and said, ‘If you don’t publish this, someone else will.’

That’s how I came to be published.

I signed a contract with Penguin in October 1996 and the four books were published between February 1998 and September 1999. Only 11 years after I started writing, and 9 years after I began sending manuscripts.

The View from the Mirror is still in print in Australia 13 years later, incidentally. And in the UK.

• For more about me and my books: http://www.ian-irvine.com/
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• My blog about the novels I write, and the writing life: http://ian-irvine.blogspot.com/

The Golden Age of Aussie Publishing

I dare say some writers, especially those struggling to get published or republished, will take issue with what I’m about to say, but I’ll say it anyway. The past decade and a half have been the golden age in Australian publishing and, over this time, it’s never been easier to get published – and to succeed as a writer.

Let me take you back to the late 1980s, when I started writing. The Australian publishing industry was dominated then, as it is now, by a small number of international publishing houses. But back then, in their fiction departments at least, there was scant interest in publishing fiction by Australian authors unless it was either literary fiction or fiction for children. Or crime fiction, though there wasn’t much of that either, apart from Peter Corris.

I write mainly fantasy and science fiction, mainly for older readers, and at the time I first started sending my manuscripts out (1989), no Australian publishers were publishing SF, fantasy or horror by Australian writers for the adult market. This was curious, since Australians are keen consumers of speculative fiction and some UK publishers were shipping nearly half of their print runs here. There seemed to be a presumption that Australians couldn’t write this kind of stuff – or perhaps publishers preferred to import their proven big name international authors rather than risk the investment of time and money to develop local authors.

This situation began to change when Pan MacMillan started publishing Martin Middleton’s fantasy series, Chronicles of the Custodians, in 1990. The first book, Circle of Light, sold exceedingly well, as did the second, and this spurred a brief flowering of speculative fiction publishing in the early Nineties. Other authors published then included Shannah Jay (AKA prolific novelist Anna Jacobs who mainly writes historical sagas) and Tony Shillitoe (fantasy), and Graeme Hague (horror), though by the mid-Nineties, in the face of declining sales, publishers were dropping authors and pulling back.

Then, in 1995, along came Sara Douglass, whose first novel Battleaxe outsold many of the big name international fantasy authors, and this began the Australian speculative fiction Renaissance which continues to this day. Over the next few years a dozen or more Aussie writers had big sales or critical success, or both, including Caiseal Mor, Traci Harding, Kim Wilkins, Sean Williams, Kate Forsyth, Ian Irvine and Juliet Marillier and, for YA readers, Garth Nix, until, around the turn of the century, 10 or more new authors were being published a year.

Even towards the end of the Nineties, though, it was rare for Aussie SF writers to be published internationally, one exception being Garth Nix, whose charming YA fantasy Sabriel was a big success in the US in the mid-Nineties. Then suddenly, between 1998 and 2001, virtually every Aussie author successfully published here was also being published in the US, UK or in translation. Many authors, including all of those listed above, were being published in 8, 10 or more countries, and the deluge of Aussie novels was making a big impact internationally.

Now, in late 2011, more than 80 (and perhaps as many as 100) Aussie speculative fiction authors have had novel length science fiction, fantasy or horror published, not including children’s authors. Many, but by no means all, are listed in the following articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Australian_fantasy_writers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_science_fiction

Quite a few of these authors have had major international commercial and critical success, including John Flanagan, Matthew Reilly, Garth Nix, and Lian Hearn, each of whose sales are known to exceed 4 million copies. Trudi Canavan, Sara Douglass, Juliet Marillier, Ian Irvine, Isobelle Carmody, Fiona McIntosh, Jennifer Fallon, Kate Forsyth, Sean Williams and Karen Miller (and probably others I’ve unintentionally left out) have also had big sales extending over many years in Australia and internationally. Aussie authors who have garnered great critical acclaim include Margo Lanagan (4 World Fantasy Awards for her short fiction) and hard SF writer Greg Egan.

It’s not just speculative fiction writers, of course – the world has opened up to our crime, thriller, saga and romance writers, and children’s and YA writers, as well. Emily Rodda’s Deltora Quest children’s fantasy series has sold more than 15 million copies. Kate Morton’s three novels have been published in 38 countries and garnered sales of 6.5 million copies in five years. Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief has been a No 1 international bestseller and translated into 30 languages. And in the past few years, two Australian writers, Sonya Hartnett and Shaun Tan, have won the Astrid Lindgren Award, one of the richest and most prestigious literary awards in the world.

Would these successes have been possible without the Australian market for Aussie authors opening up the way it has? I very much doubt it – in the majority of cases, it’s success in an author’s local market that opens doors internationally.

So what about those formerly reluctant publishers? They’ve done very well out of Aussie authors over the past 15, making good profits in most or all of those years, and many of them now publish more local authors here than they do international ones. Hurrah for us! They bow before our altars every day and give thanks for having known us (LOL).

What of the future? Is the golden age passing? With so many local authors being published, these genres are much more crowded than before and, save for those lucky few who already have a substantial following, it’s going to be hard for most authors to sell as many copies of a book as in the early days. The demise of the Borders and Angus & Robertson book chains hasn’t helped, either. I suspect it’ll be much harder to get a print edition of a book published in future, though it’s likely to be easier to be published in eBook form. EBooks still have to be designed and edited, but since there are no printing, warehousing, shipping or return costs, and no damaged copies, the financial risk from publishing this way is far lower. But that’s a topic for another post – or ten.

Interesting times –

And all the very best for your writing.

• For more about me and my books: http://www.ian-irvine.com/
• To say Hi or talk to me about books and writing: http://www.facebook.com/ianirvine.author
• To follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/ianirvineauthor 
• My blog about the novels I write, and the writing life: http://ian-irvine.blogspot.com/