BOOK LAUNCH | QUIRKY CRIME | REVIEW

Death By Column Inches — Breaking All The Rules

I Became The Nightmare Author That All Publishers Try To Avoid

From a) the notebook of fictional 11-year-old Chantelle Fletcher and b) for copyright purposes, the mind & pen of the book’s author

This one was a long time in the making. I wrote the first draft of Death by Column Inches in the 1990s. I couldn’t get the structure to work, but had a strong story thread. During a chance encounter with a publisher, I became the nightmare author that they all try to avoid, and told him all about my mangled attempt to get my idea into shape.

Never send a draft manuscript to a publisher

Lucky break: they were actively looking for quirky crime and the idea appealed. He told me to send the draft. It wasn’t entirely a lucky break, by the way, I’d heard they were on the lookout for “something different”. However, although there are not many rules of writing that can be considered cast in stone, surely “Never send a draft manuscript to a publisher” is one of them. The trouble was, there’s another that says, “If a publisher asks to see your work, don’t delay.”