Macmillan New Writing Cultivates Fresh Talent
How Writers' Scheme Is Helping New Authors to Get Published
Mar 31, 2009
Macmillan New Writing in the UK released its first six titles in April 2006 and has gone on to publish another 32 authors since then.
The scheme was initially criticised for being too good to be kosher by some, offering no advance and modest deals for new authors. But it has gone on to prove itself as a launchpad for talented writers frustrated by agent and publisher slushpiles.
Why MNW Wants Unsolicited Manuscripts
MacMillan stopped accepting unsolicited manuscripts many years ago, relying totally on agented submissions. But then, fed up with paying advances that were never earned back, and realising that authors could be denied time to build a reputation by these economic constraints, it reverted to accepting manuscripts directly from writers through the New Writing scheme.
This invites email submissions of finished manuscripts, around 50,000 to 150,000 words, at newwriting@macmillan.co.uk. These must be works of fiction for grown-ups with a short synopsis and biographical note (submission information can be found here).
Macmillan Success Stories
If MacMillan is interested in publishing the book, they will try to contact the author within 12 weeks and an editor is assigned to the job.
The scheme is certainly achieving Macmillan’s aim of finding excellent new writers who can be developed for Pan Macmillan’s mainstream imprints.
Will Atkins, Macmillan commissioning editor, gave this writer three examples of the scheme’s standout successes. ’We expect Irish crime writer Brian McGilloway to become a major brand author for Pan Macmillan, and he has already enjoyed considerable success critically and commercially. L.C. Tyler is a brilliant Wodehousian comic novelist whose Elsie and Ethelred crime series is gaining an incredibly loyal following. And Eliza Graham is an author of compelling literary fiction, whose Playing with the Moon sold 100,000-plus copies in German translation.’
Surreal Moment When Macmillan Said, 'Yes'
Brian McGilloway told this writer that he had a series of rejections for his first novel, Borderlands. 'I decided to give up. Then a friend said, "Look, that's one person's opinion but doesn't mean everyone will think the same way." And I thought, that's one person's opinion and about 30 or 40 publishers all thinking the same thing. So I sent it to Macmillan in November and they came back the following March. That was surreal. It's hard to describe. It's very pleasing to think that a publisher like Macmillan thinks enough of your writing to invest in it. I had been writing since I was quite young so it had always been a dream to get something published.
'The book got a massively thorough edit and there were a lot of suggestions. Will [Atkins] would say, I'm not sure what this means, can you clarify this. There was a lot of batting it to and fro, which I really enjoyed and found the most useful part of the exercise.'
McGilloway's second and third novels in his Inspector Devlin series are being published in April 2009.
Film and TV Deals
From their MNW debuts all three new authors have been offered deals with Pan Macmillan, which has sold rights from the scheme’s successes in all main foreign territories, as well as film and TV options.
MNW is attracting 100-150 manuscripts a week and has looked at 11,000 works to date. Of those, they publish one a month. So, it still requires a lot of talent and probably luck to be selected, but it is a great opportunity for those who make it.
‘Over the next year we expect a growing proportion of MNW authors to move on to long-term contracts with Pan Macmillan,’ says Atkins, ‘as well as seeing the likes of Brian McGilloway breaking into the mainstream in a big way.’
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