Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Australian Rebecca James, author of YA novel, BEAUTIFUL MALICE, is being hailed as new J K Rowling. Seventy rejections, then M$1 offer from Unwin UK. Psychological thriller dealing with the negativate malipulation of friendship. Released 1st May.
Very motivating!

It is definitely motivating on the writer side of things. The whole never-give-up-no-matter-how-many-rejections-you-get thing.

I do worry though, when the industry types (this goes for movies, music, television -- not just publishing) try to predict the next so-and-so. Sometimes hearing that type of fanfare in advance can backfire. People may tend to nitpick at it far more than they normally would, BECAUSE it was deemed to be right up there with their favorites.

Hope it all works out for her!

How did they go to J.K Rowling? Because she also got many rejections? They don't even write in the same genre.

I did read this week Bloomsbury only published HP because the 8 year old daughter of the CEO begged her daddy to do so... imagine that!

yeah, I remember reading about her a while back. Here's the story about her in the WSJ, which I think got the "next JK Rowling" ball moving. I'm no expert, but it probably had something to do with the headline - From Down Under, the Next J.K. Rowling?

This excerpt from the story was amusing:

Kate Miciak, editorial director of Bantam Books/Delacorte Press, imprints of the Random House Publishing Group, said, "You had only to read the opening sentence -- 'I did not go to Alice's funeral' -- to know that you had instantly fallen under the thrall of a strong narrative voice, which was going to hold you in its grip and keep you there."

Not sure why that opening sentence was a jaw-dropper. Maybe it's just part of the sentence and the rest of it is beyond incredible. Not saying this to disparage the author, just curious what Kate Miciak would say if I had an opening sentence like - "I bought a can of reduced fat Pringles instead of original."

I hate reading that "So-and-so is the new Rowling/Meyer/Collins/Whatever" Usually the comparison is only about its break-out, money making potential and has almost nothing to do with writing style, voice, craft, story, even genre. I think comparisons are a disservice to the original and the new So-and-so who shares some random quality or potential quality with them. They are never the same, even if they are similar they aren't the same, and usually it takes a while before So-and-so will even know whether they are the new Whomever. Like, ask 10 friends when they started reading Harry Potter. I am willing to bet money that 8, maybe even 9 of those 10 people didn't start reading it until book 3. That seems to be the magical number when word of mouth caught up with the masses. I have only met a couple of people in my life who started reading Harry Potter with the release of book one, and all of them work with kids books in some capacity.

I think it is impossible to know whether an author is going to break out until it has already happened. Predicting is impossible and sometimes insulting. The readers will decide whether the hype is warranted and to be perfectly honest, the readers are the ones who create the real hype. It is almost never a publicist or marketing plan that does it.

That being said, I hope this Aussie writer is really great and does well. I'm really loving some of the Aussie YA I've gotten my hands on lately.