This week’s article by British author Jo Parfitt recounts the story of her early writing success and extracts the elements of that success for others to emulate. Getting a book published does not have to depend on who you know (although publishing contacts are always helpful, of course!) and if you graduated from a writing program or had teachers who told you that you could write. It depends on your idea and your tenacity in getting feedback and presenting your idea to those who might be interested in publishing your book.

The state of publishing IS in flux these days and the larger publishers ARE suffering restricted budgets. However, they are all still looking for the next “hit” and there are scores and scores of independent publishers and ways to access them online. Queries can be made by email speeding up the process.

It was only a few days ago that a friend and former student of mine called to bat her idea for a book around. She and her sister had begun the project ten years ago and abandoned it because life “got in the way”. Now life has given them even more to write about, and the public is probably hungrier for their kind of book because its subject matter is now more in the news than ever.

It is never too late to resurrect a book idea and get to work. Jo Parfitt tells us how by showing us what she did and what she advises.

The Greatest Block of All
by Jo Parfitt

I’m one of the lucky ones. When I was still at university, before the cynicism and negativity that comes with maturity struck, I had an idea for a book. I was studying for a French degree and spending a year living in France as an integral part of the course when the title ‘French Tarts’ hit me right between the eyes. It would be a cookbook and I would fill it with the recipes that I had been enjoying in the homes of the Normandy people with whom I spent my time. The fact that I could not cook myself, nor that I had did not even possess a kitchen did not cross my mind. That I had never been published before and had no English qualifications did not enter my head. I knew I had a good idea. I thought I was the first to write on this subject and the generous Frenchwomen who donated their recipes believed in me too.

Two years later I graduated, spent a short morning in a small bookshop checking out which existing cookbooks looked a bit like the idea I had in my head for mine and picked one. Then I asked my mother to teach me to type, wrote a short introduction and a contents list, provided two sample recipes and sent it to a publisher called Octopus, based in London. They accepted my proposal within weeks and in 1985 my book was published, translated into French and was selected as an example of one of the best French cookbooks of the year for a Paris exhibition. I had not written a single recipe in the book myself.

Today, 26 books and 24 years later I love nothing more than to inspire new authors to follow their writing dreams too and run many workshops a year. I begin these sessions with the story of ‘French Tarts’.

 ‘So, then,’ I begin. ‘Why do you think I made it? What did I do right?’

‘You had a good idea,’ they begin.

‘A witty title.’

‘You were the first.’

‘Your timing was right. People started eating quiche in the mid-80s, didn’t they?’

‘You did your research?’

‘You had a clear idea of what you were trying to accomplish, you know, you had looked at other books and could picture yours.’

‘You had focus.’

The list grows on the flipchart as the participants offer valuable suggestions and I agree with them. Then the room falls silent for a while and I wait for the question. The same question comes every single time. And it always come last, after they have exhausted all the most obvious answers.

‘But wasn’t there something else?’ they ask, beginning to shuffle slightly in their seats. And I smile and return to the flipchart with a red marker pen to write one more thing.

‘Self-belief,’ I write. ‘I believed in myself. I believed in my idea. It never once occurred to me that being a 22 year old with no writing portfolio and no cooking experience would be a problem. I was innocent, naïve maybe, but it worked.’

It is my theory that the older we become the harder it is to believe in ourselves. The harder it is to believe that we will also have a lucky break. We become affected by the hundreds of stories we hear of manuscripts that lie in drawers, of Freddie Forsyth’s 55 rejection slips, of JK Rowling’s 35 or so failed attempts to find a publisher. We think of how the school English teacher used to only give us 8 out of 10, or how our parents considered the poetry we used to write to be drivel. We remember how we never got first prize in the school short story competition or that maybe our spelling was never that great. The longer we go on without a success the more our self-belief dwindles. We start to blame writer’s block and even as we write stories, articles and novels that fill us with unutterable joy as we type, there is a part of us that niggles constantly, telling us that maybe we are deluding ourselves. Maybe we really aren’t that good. Even now, despite being published by mainstream publishers such as Macmillan and McGraw-Hill, despite having hundreds of articles published and paid for my international newspapers and magazines, despite editing magazines and being asked to speak at conferences, I still have my battles with self-doubt.

‘So, what do you suggest?’ my students ask. ‘How do you overcome self-doubt?’

Research
Luckily, I have found a solution that works. First of all, way back in the 80’s I learned the value of researching the market before putting pen to paper. Back then I went into that bookshop to take a look at other cookbooks almost by accident, but now I realise that it was a very wise move. If you want to be published you need to absolutely sure that you know you are filling a gap in the market, have a new idea and that there is a publisher out there who is a perfect fit for your book. Today, you can do this research without leaving your desk thanks to Amazon and its Look Inside feature and the fact that publishers have their catalogues available online.

Feedback
But the other way to develop self-belief is this: get feedback. Ask other people to read your work, ask them to give you constructive criticism. That means that you need to stipulate that they do three things:

1. that they tell you what they liked;
2. that they tell you what they would like to know more about;
3. that they make suggestions for improvement.

Receiving criticism in this way is much easier to swallow and will leave you feeling hopeful rather than hopeless.

Support Group
The best way to get this kind of valuable feedback is from a writing class, where the teacher and other students critique each others’ work, from a writing tutor, or from members of a writers’ circle. In my experience, asking your mother or your partner to take a look will either result in a ‘that’s nice, dear,’ or too much nitpicking. There is no doubt that writers need a support group of some kind, a safe environment where they can share their work-in-progress. It is remarkable that many people whose manuscripts lie forgotten in drawers never showed their work to a living soul. Constructive criticism gives you a boost, useful advice and keeps you motivated.

How to be lucky
I began this piece saying that I was one of the lucky ones. Not only because my first idea was accepted by the first publisher I approached, but for another reason that goes back to this self-belief issue. My father has always told me, and the majority of his friends, that I am wonderful, clever, beautiful and talented. This is simply not true. I was a grade B student, got a mediocre degree and never managed to hold down a real job for more than 18 months. I never won a single school writing competition and my careers advisor told me not to attempt a career as a writer. My father’s constant crowing about his children, and now, his grandchildren, has become a bit of a family standing joke. However, it is, I believe, thanks to this that my self-belief was intact enough at 22 to allow me to approach Octopus with my idea.

Throughout the writer’s life, lack of self-belief is, without doubt, the biggest obstacle to overcome. I continue to struggle with this but every time I hit a roadblock I return to my writers’ circle with a sheaf of papers in tow to get their useful, perceptive, motivating, esteem-boosting and ever-constructive criticism.