All those different fragments

[dolorosa_12]

Early on in the pandemic, my friend thecelticist wrote a letter to her students (she's head of the department of the Department of Early Irish at Maynooth University) on her blog. What happened next was a weird kind of lucky serendipity that feels almost unbelievable: a literary agent somehow stumbled on the blog post, and was so entranced with what he read that he signed her — on the basis solely of the blog post — to write a memoir. This memoir then went on to sell for a six-figure advance to Penguin. Over the past two years, I've kept up with the progress of the manuscript, and, later, the various publicity and marketing activities organised by the publisher, as Lizzie has shared her experiences extensively via social media.

The book got the kind of feverish marketing push that only comes along when major publishers feel they have a bestseller on their hands — blurbs from Hilary Mantel and other major literary figures, huge amounts of publicity, vast quantities of money splashed on getting the book prominently displayed in all the major British and Irish booksellers (I saw a photo from today of the book in Grafton Street in Dublin in a display next to Colm Tóibín's latest, to give you some idea). The whole thing is like a fairy story, even more so given that Lizzie has published extensively — but only academic books and journal articles on medieval Irish history and literature, the sort of things where you certainly don't get paid, and basically no one reads it other than a small handful of fellow scholars.

I've picked up my copy of the book, but haven't read it yet. This review in the Irish Independent should give you a rough idea of what it's about: part pandemic memoir, part elegy for her father (who died in January 2020), part wide-ranging musings on her own tumultuous life, interspersed with allusions from everything to medieval Irish literature to black metal. I'm intrigued to read it, and still kind of astonished that someone I know could have this kind of publishing good fortune.

Comments

[nerakrose]

He could’ve been actively looking! It’s very common to look at blogs and opeds and literary magazines (short form writing) to ‘scout’ for book potential. most agents/agencies delegate that kind of work to agency assistants (it’s also a good way to train them to spot good writing etc.), and some agents/agencies scout more than others, and based on my anecdata I’d say SFF agents do it more because there’s a lot of short form SFF writing outlets. “Stumbling over by chance” is a better story as it implies a lot of things like discovering diamonds in the rough/elevating somebody from obscurity/etc all of which can be useful marketing tools - not that it’s not true, he very well might have come across it by accident. Either option is equally likely, and I should probably make clear, value neutral.

Related, I think if one has an interest in something or other, intentionally going into online rabbit holes can sometimes lead to a lot of interesting stuff. I can’t count the number of times I’ve wound up on somebody’s blog because I started on Wikipedia idly looking up something I was curious about…

[dolorosa_12]

Oh yes indeed, stumbling on a hidden gem makes for a much more compelling publicity story, and having spoken to my husband (who has a better memory of Lizzie's exact path to publication) I may have skipped a few steps in the process.


Related, I think if one has an interest in something or other, intentionally going into online rabbit holes can sometimes lead to a lot of interesting stuff. I can’t count the number of times I’ve wound up on somebody’s blog because I started on Wikipedia idly looking up something I was curious about…

I totally agree!