Author: John Barlow

John Barlow writes both fiction and non-fiction, publishes occasional food journalism and also works as a ghost-writer. In addition, he is a translator, and has a side-line in eBooks for language learning. His John Ray / LS9 crime thriller series is currently exclusive to Amazon. If you'd like a review copy of The Communion of Saints, please contact John through his website.

Juggling

John Barlow
Author John Barlow

I gave up my college teaching job because I was sick of trying to juggle a regular job with writing. It wasn’t so much the lack of time, because I never worked very hard at teaching anyway. It was the lack of big blocks of time, the long stretches of uninterrupted time needed to write. In fact, my first published book only got finished because I got a three month sabbatical from work. If only it could be like this every day, I said to myself…

So I made it happen. I ditched the teaching job (and the generous pension scheme, the free laser printing and office supplies, the free secretarial support, phone and internet access, shit, shit, shit…) and moved to Spain to become a full-time writer. At last I would have days full of nothing but ‘the work in progress’, interrupted only by a stroll in a tree-lined park or a cafe con leche on a sun dappled terrace…

Okay. So, eight years later and I’m still here. And I’m still more or less a full-time writer, if you count being a now-and-then translator and literary dogsbody-for-hire. This was my schedule yesterday: Continue reading “Juggling”

Agents – who’d have ’em?

John Barlow
Author John Barlow

There’s been some interesting discussion about literary agents recently, not least following the letter from the AAR to the DoP, which got a good old fashioned mauling from Joe Konrath.

For a decade I had a New York literary agent. I recently switched to a London-based agency, although having decided to give indie publishing a try I have yet to produce anything that she might actually sell, and clearly this puts us both in an awkward position.

The question for indie writers, given the current state of the literary market, is how exactly an agent might fit into your plans. Do you need an agent at all? Let’s be clear: Joe Konrath has not sacked his agent, and Barry Eisler is married to his. The role of agents might be changing, but I don’t think they’re going away any time soon. Continue reading “Agents – who’d have ’em?”

A Perfect Rejection

Author John BarlowThis post is about rejection. More specifically, it is about a rejection letter that I received from an editor at Mulholland Books, an imprint of Little, Brown (Hachette).

My noir mystery What Ever Happened to Jerry Picco? was submitted to Mulholland by my (then) agent because it seemed to fit the imprint’s profile for intelligent, inventive crime. The book involves the disappearance of a midget porn star. However, it is not an explicit book; it’s about a missing pornographer, a sort of noir-romp with a few references to Shakespeare and fairy stories. NOT sexually explicit. Bear that in mind. Here’s the letter:

Thanks so much for the chance to consider WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO JERRY PICO? I took this under very close consideration; there’s much to like here. The writing, throughout, is pitch-perfect; Flores* is clearly in command of a masterful, thorough knowledge of the genre, and it shows in both his prose and in the bizarre, fringe characters with which he populates this well-executed novel of investigation (Pico’s wounded, needy and binge-drinking bombshell of a lover is especially appealing). Continue reading “A Perfect Rejection”

Trad. vs Indie, a Personal View by John Barlow

Author John Barlow
Author John Barlow

I’ve been lucky as an author. Without ever making it onto the bestseller lists, I’ve managed to keep going as a free-lance writer since I quit my day job in 2004. Work as a journalist and ghost-writer has helped to make ends meet, but writing books for traditional publishers has been the main focus of my energy.

However, I recently began to ask myself whether it still made sense for a mid-lister like me to keep chasing traditional book deals as part of the professional mix of a free-lancer? As the indie revolution gains momentum, more and more writers are thinking of jumping ship. Last year I indie-published a humorous novel to test the water, using a pseudonym. The experience was strangely enjoyable, so with my latest serious work of fiction, a crime mystery, I’ve gone totally Kindle (and Kobo etc.). Here are a few thoughts on my experiences on my trad-to-indie switch. Continue reading “Trad. vs Indie, a Personal View by John Barlow”