First Rejection

I’m calling this post First Rejection because I expect a few more to come; Underminers is not exactly the most reader-friendly of books, and certainly on a par with the more radical publications to come out of even the anarchist press in the last few years. So, I won’t be going to Penguin or HarperCollins because I know what the outcome will be. But I suppose I thought I stood a slight chance with my current publisher, Green Books.

Alas, it was not to be. Green Books have been good to me, but even by their standards Underminers is a step too far in terms of radicalism. I won’t post their response here as we have a working relationship, a good one, but if and when you do see my second book published by another publisher then you will at least know we didn’t have a big falling out.

So, what’s next? I made a first offer to Green Books because they were the incumbent, but won’t be making another offer until real progress has been made: most publishers require the first three chapters of any draft, but in the case of Underminers the first three chapters don’t tell anything like the whole story – it will take at least 6 chapters to do that. Maybe I’ll get there before the snow melts away for the spring…