Brit Writers Publishing Programme

By
Georgina Kamsika
– February 16, 2011


As most people who know me already know, I’m part of the first ‘Brit Writers Publishing Programme’.  Fifteen writers selected for a number of things – their story idea, their writing talent and their platform.

Last Friday was the second main meeting, (I missed the first as I was gallivanting around India for my birthday, though I have had a number of individual meetings to catch up), and my first real taste of just how good the Brit Writers team are.

I knew I’d be meeting the other fourteen participants (well, thirteen, one was ill), and we’d be sharing our recently-polished pitches.  What I didn’t know was that there’d also be a number of experts from the publishing industry – editors, publishers, literary PR experts – so much specialised knowledge in the room, I barely had time to absorb it and ask questions before even more information was shared with us.

And, to be honest, they were just as intrigued with us – asking what we were learning about – all highly impressed with our pitches – and keen to be involved.  We were told that ‘you are the luckiest fifteen writers in the country‘ and it does feel like it.

It was amazing to hear the breadth of novels among our group, I’d happily read all of them (and will, when we’re all published).  But the piece of information that’s stuck with me the most?  That came from the publishers themselves – the fact that publishers (and a number of them agreed about this) will pick a novel using three factors.

  • Story
  • Author’s platform
  • Writing skill

In that order. I must admit, years of writing workshops, (all great) and working with incredible authors (even better) honing my own skills – and no-one told me a huge part of the deal is actually having a story and selling myself, selling that story.   Nice to know.

Anyway – the really clever part – to me – is that the Brit Writers selected us fifteen on just those criteria.  Seems like they really know what they’re doing, eh? :)