Past, Present and Future


CWWW Founder Barry TigheBarry Tighe

Past

I began writing in 2001. Brought up on Wodehouse, Hitchhiker’s Guide, Flashman  and the like, I have always been a lazy though avid reader who hates to go to the trouble of discovering new worlds when the ones I already know are still full of fun. It seems so wasteful for authors to create great characters only to wave them goodbye after just one story. In this spirit I created the Spawater Chronicles. This is a seven-book series – well it worked for JK Rowling – chronicling the lives and adventures of the good and not-so-good citizens of Spawater; home of the legendary Spawater baths, last outpost of the Romans in Britain. All I needed now was to write the seven books and get a publishing deal. Not necessarily in that order. By 2003, and halfway through my third story, I was an old hand at opening rejection letters. I no longer needed wallpaper. By then I realised that agents and publishers don’t go a bundle on offering seven-book deals to unknown wannabes. The rejection letters mentioned the possibility that the Spawater Chronicles might not deliver seven bestsellers, and that agents/publishers were not born yesterday. Not that I could blame them. Looking back on my early, optimistic amateur manuscript submissions, I shudder at how hopeless they were. I made the common mistake of believing that the Chronicles were so good I need not bother presenting nor summarising them properly for busy recipients. I hadn’t considered what it’s like arriving at the morning desk to find it buried somewhere underneath a slush pile of old toot calling out, ‘give me your time, commitment and money’. Through trial and much error, research and interviews, I learnt just what the publishing industry wants. Dividing my sympathies equally between frustrated authors, overworked agents and beleaguered publishers, I also learnt what it doesn’t. One thing led to another and on 4th July 2004, backed by two local dragons, I launched an independent business dedicated to getting publishing deals for budding authors: Can Write Will Write. We filter out the fame-seekers and trust fund chick-litters, and offer advice to those with ten percent inspiration plus ninety percent perspiration, but who are in the dark when it comes to presentation.  

Jane Smith Editor

Present

Beginning with just three people, we now have proof readers, an expert cover designer and technicians. Run as a cooperative, we all have our say in an open environment. We will consider publishing any well-written book, no matter how off-beat, including but not restricted to those that mainstream publishers have rejected. Without mainstream resources to blanket-promote new books, we rely on the authors to blow their own trumpets to maximum effect. As a budding author, you may well have an offbeat trumpet of your own to blow. If so, check us out.

John Adison Editor
Future

That’s up to You

 

 

Mark Omara


Managing Editor