There are too many writers in the world, just as there are too many actors, too many musicians and not enough nurses or good teachers.
Unless you are already famous for something else, your chances of becoming a published author in the usual sense are very small. Not as small as Graham’s number is large, mind you, but still terribly small. There is just too much competition. The arithmetic is not in your favour.
This, surely, is why agents have so far responded negatively to suggestions that they represent my novels and screenplays. Could there be another reason? Maybe. I just can’t think of one.
But - damn it! - you deserve to have access to this stuff; so, while I’m waiting for an agent to make the correct and noble decision, I’m going down the Substack route. In my account are such delights: serialised novels, short stories and what I suppose could be called essays, though having been a journalist since the age of thirteen (yes, really) I think of them as articles. There is no theme running through those. They are simply on subjects which interest me, including but not limited to motoring. Perhaps they will interest you too.
You can find the above simply by dropping in to Substack every so often, or, for extra convenience, you can take out a subscription and have it emailed to you mere moments after publication. Some of it - the first chapter of each novel, most of the essays and a fragment of a book my father started to write many years ago - is available for free, because I’m nice like that. The rest of it - later novel chapters, the short stories and more essays - comes at a moderate cost, because Poppa needs new shoes.
Reader’s voice: How moderate a cost, exactly? Myself: For a monthly subscription, just £3.50. Good luck finding anywhere you can buy a decent coffee for much less than that. And while we’re making comparisons . . .
Why you should buy a coffee instead of a subscription to Stories Of Many Kinds: Coffee enriches the body, and is delicious. Neither of these things can be said of literature.
Why you should buy a subcription to Stories Of Many Kinds instead of a coffee: Literature enriches the soul, and will always be there. Once you’ve drunk your coffee, it’s not coming back. Not in a form you’d want anything to do with, at least.
BUT! Instead of buying a monthly subscription, you can opt for the bulk purchase option and buy an annual one, which costs £35. That works out at £2.92 per month, which I think we can all agree is less than £3.50 per month. In your face, coffee!
No matter which option you choose, if you choose one at all, I hope you enjoy the modest scribblings which lie herein. That is the most important thing.
David Finlay
