You've probably never heard of Hilary Johnson, although I'll bet you've heard of Katie Fforde, Christina Jones, Kate Harrison or many of the other authors to whom Hilary has given a lift on the road to publication. For the past 20 years, Hilary has advised aspiring authors on how to polish their manuscripts to perfection, and so boost their chances of success. Her authors' advisory service also sees her acting as a scout for a leading agent, presumably freeing up their time for gala luncheons.

A former magazine editor and writing tutor, Hilary's service grew from support she'd given to the Romantic Novelists' Association's New Writers' Scheme, which despite having an inordinate number of possessives in it's title, is itself an invaluable service for would-be scribes. Her solid reputation has grown quickly, which is invaluable in a market awash with other ‘advisory services' of dubious merit.

We caught up with Hilary to ask her about her role, and the kind of things that make new novels float to the top of the slush pile.

Great Writing: What's the role of an agents' scout?

Hilary Johnson: I can't speak for others, who may well operate differently but, so far as I am concerned, this activity is closely linked with my Authors' Advisory Service. I work mainly with one agency. Any typescript which, during the course of the appraisal process, is found to be both of superb quality and commercially viable - unfortunately, these days the two do not necessarily go hand-in-hand - is shown to this agency. I am also regularly approached by published authors who maybe don't have an agent or are seeking for some reason to change agents and I can, where appropriate, introduce them to ‘my' agent.

Sometimes I suggest other agents to authors to try for themselves, usually when I feel that a particular agent would be more suitable for those authors' specific needs.   

GW:  advantages would an author have in using your service, rather than approaching agents directly?

HJ: There are two clear advantages, the first of which is that by having a typescript undergo the scrutiny of a professional editor any problems or flaws in the work can be identified and the author given an opportunity to deal with them before submission. Neither agents nor editors, inundated with material, have the time to work with unpublished authors of promise who may, but who may not, come up with the goods. This is a gap which ‘book doctors' increasingly fill. (As a Ph.D., I am one of the few in this business who can truly lay claim to the title of Doctor!)

Also, because there is such intense competition for a limited number of slots and editors are necessarily selective in the extreme, decisions to reject can be made on the basis of very little. Our aim, idealistic, perhaps, is to enable authors to provide editors - and before these, agents - with no reason whatsoever to turn a typescript down.

And, very obviously, the author who is introduced to the agency by me has more than a head start against all those taking their chances among the unsoliciteds.    

GW:  How did you get started in the business?

HJ: You could say that I was born into it. My father, a journalist, ran a well-known correspondence course for writers from a period between the end of WWII until his early death in the sixties and I grew up with books, writers, conversations about writing technique, markets and so on.

However, I began seriously on my own account as a natural consequence of experience gained in a diverse range of writing-related areas, including editing the magazine, The Writer, reviewing, teaching creative writing, working as a tutor for The London School of Journalism and becoming involved with The Romantic Novelists' Association as organiser of their New Writers' Scheme. Something which started in a small way grew as I gained a reputation both among those I advised and people in the publishing business, until the Authors' Advisory Service became the well-regarded organisation which it is today.

GW:  How has the market changed in the 20 years since you started your service?

HJ: Twenty years ago it was generally thought that publishing was a highly competitive business and recognised how tough it was for the new writer to get into print, whatever his/her objective: magazine articles or stories, novels - in truth, just about anything.

Now, looking back, those were golden days in comparison with the present. The competition is much, much fiercer. Magazine editors are more likely to commission both fiction and articles than used to be the case, making it harder for the newcomer to find openings. Several publishers have either disappeared or been absorbed into larger companies. For large publishing houses, substantial profits and commercial considerations are paramount. Many hopefuls are insufficiently aware that they are seeking to enter an industry which is tied in to the dictates of the bookshop chains and, increasingly, supermarkets and other non-traditional book outlets and that sometimes being good enough to be published simply isn't enough.

Still on the depressing, another feature of our times is the virtual disappearance of the mid-list, where general fiction of the kind which once enjoyed respectable but not board-room-satisfying sales traditionally belonged. There is, too, the wretched proliferation of the ‘dropped' author, the writer who, after two or three books, even though s/he may be an excellent writer has made little impact in terms of sales and is therefore dumped. In this situation, it is extremely difficult for the author to get back into publication, far harder even than it is for the newcomer to make a start.

On the other hand, all these things are fluid. We have in recent years seen some interesting independent publishers appearing on the scene, some of whom have produced admirable lists and on occasion a few quite unexpected best-sellers. Just recently, more than one senior figure from mainstream publishing has embarked upon such an enterprise.

There is a move even as I type to regenerate an interest in the short story. Magazines of all kinds come and go; new publishers and new lists within established houses appear on the scene: the opportunities are there for the alert and the determined.      

GW:  Do your ties to 'a leading literary' agent limit the types of work you're able to pass along?

HJ: No, other than drama scripts. These apart, the agency handles most types of material, with the exception, of course, of items such as poetry, which few or no agents are normally interested in handling because they represent a great deal of work for little or no reward. In the case of screenplays, TV scripts, etc. there are specialist agencies which it is best for writers to try.
 
GW:  Are there particular genres you're more comfortable with or feel more qualified in assessing?

HJ: My own area of expertise is mass market fiction. I know a fair amount about most other types of writing, but in order that our clients should have the best possible advice in their specific area, we have specialist readers who are experts in, amongst other things, writing for children, science fiction, poetry and so on.

GW:  What makes you excited about a submitted work? Conversely, what makes you cringe?

HJ: The most exciting typescripts are those which from the first few sentences transform me into an ordinary reader, desperate to turn the page to find out what's going to happen and completely forgetting to make notes as I read. The cringe-makers? Well, I suppose these can be summed up as the work of authors who give every appearance of never having read so much as a page of the kind of book they are trying to write. But, you know, it's almost better to be made to cringe than to be bored.

GW:  Are there differences between 'well-written books' and 'books that will sell'?

HJ: Many. But it usually boils down to the perception of likely sales. (Which is not to say that publishers don't sometimes get this wildly wrong.) The market may be over-crowded with a certain kind of book; this is especially the case with some non-fiction subjects. Some books will probably sink without trace if written by a relative nobody, but fly off the shelves if there is other media exposure. Similarly, I see marvellous autobiographies by so-called ordinary people, but they are practically impossible to sell in a climate where it's celebs' life stories which are wanted. In fiction, there is a raft of subjects - or historical periods - which have been overdone, are known to be unpopular with readers, or have very limited appeal. I won't list them here because, ultimately, if a book is a real page-turner or has some great charm of its own, then it can overcome the usual negatives. It's up to authors to produce irresistible novels!  

GW:  Have you ever had to fight for a book that you believed in?

HJ: I don't fight, I persuade! But yes, especially when I was a publisher's reader - and it's important to bear in mind that everything I read was pre-selected, almost always submitted by agents and often already published in America, so no slush pile stuff - there were maybe two or three books which warranted serious arguing of their cause.

GW: Many people have been burned by appraisal services that have turned out to be scams. What do you make of this, and how can an aspiring writer tell the good services from the bad?

HJ: Since the philosophy on which my service based is that honesty is the only policy, be it with regard to money matters or the nature of the appraisals, I view any bad apples in the business with mystification. I don't understand anybody who deliberately sets out to deceive, as the word ‘scam' suggests. It's not as if there are huge amounts of easy money to be made from ripping off clients and word soon gets around. Over the years I have seen that some people start off with good intentions but things go wrong when they find themselves, for instance, overwhelmed with work. This is more inefficiency than an intention to deceive, though the people who I consider dishonest in another sense are those who overpraise and thus mislead authors or who do not themselves understand the realities of the contemporary publishing/bookselling industries while presuming to advise others.

On the whole, the services in which authors can have confidence are those which advertise in the writing magazines. There may well be others to which this does not apply, but at least an author can have reasonable confidence that the magazines will soon cease to take advertisements from organisations about which too many readers complain.  

GW:  Increasingly, first time authors are considering the self-publishing route. Do you think this will disrupt the traditional path to publication?

HJ: If it does, it won't be for a very long time, or unless something changes radically with publishing as we know it. Few self-publishers have the means either financially or in practical terms by which to promote and distribute their books, something which commercial publishers take for granted.

Many will be familiar with a handful of staggering success stories from self-published authors, stories which show that taking this route can, very occasionally, work. What seems to happen in most of these cases is that the book is picked up by a mainstream publisher and then the author's career takes the more usual course. Self-publishing is often a good option for non-fiction, if the author has a niche market and some kind of direct access to his potential readership; it is for many poets or autobiographers the only option and in these times of inexpensive short print runs I'm all in favour; and two or three children's authors have created quite an impact in this way.

So far as adult fiction is concerned, the real problem is that there are so many mediocre self-published novels. Without a selection process, the bookshop or indeed Amazon browser, because self-published novels are more likely to be promoted on the internet in some way than make it on to the bookshop shelves, is likely to be so bemused that s/he will anyway go for those authors with whom s/he is familiar.

GW: At what stage in their writing should authors look for an appraisal?

HJ: When they are ready! It depends upon individual need. Some authors will write two or three typescripts before they feel their work is good enough to show to anybody. Others like to have an opinion after they have written the first three chapters and synopsis of their first novel. What we can't work with is material which doesn't exist other than in the mind of its author, so we don't take on authors in the very early stages, before they have written something of reasonable substance.

Also, we regularly work with published authors, whose requirements may be various. In these cases, there are no set guidelines appropriate to this question.

GW: Do you fancy becoming an agent yourself?

HJ: Not, as they used to say, on your nelly! My maths aren't good enough.

For more details on the services Hilary offers, and the successful authors she's offered them to, visit her website.