I've not written too many blogs this month but there is a reason for that. At the end of February I had a literary agent take an interest in my second novel, Nothing Ventured and I gave them time to read the whole novel to see if they wanted to take me on as a client. Obviously I couldn't really say anything about that so there was little to write about.

Sadly they contacted me last Friday to say they wouldn't be representing me; which was a big disappointment; especially as they've had a lot of success with one of their other clients. She wrote a series of novels about a boy wizard, I can't remember her name at the moment...

Anyway, they told me they weren't sure the tone and concept of the novel were commercial enough for what they were currently looking for.

It made me think about my genre of writing in general. I've mentioned before about the lack of agents willing to look at humorous fiction for adults. They either want funny children's books or non-fictional humour; something written by a celebrity who has a large enough following for the book to sell widely.

I think the number of celebrities who "write" books these days is making it harder for new voices to be heard. Obviously there are some who are very good writers but there are plenty who put their name to something that has been written for them by a ghost writer. But then again writing & publishing is a business like any other so why wouldn't an agent/publisher focus on a project that has a guaranteed success rate. I suppose I could try and become a celebrity myself either by having a few singing lessons or dropping my trousers in front of Theresa May as she delivers Article 50 and get myself on the ten o'clock news; but I don't think that's right for me.

I still believe humorous fiction can be as popular as other genres. How many comedy films appear in cinemas each year? How many sitcoms are there on the TV? Look at how stand-up comics fill arenas these days, rather than just performing at small comedy club venues. Comedy novels are getting published by established writers but it's still mostly crime/thriller/mystery submissions that agents are requesting on their websites.

I think the problem may be that people think humour subjective; which it is. We all laugh at different things; but then again; aren't we all subjective when it comes to books we read in general? Take crime as an example, not everyone reading Val McDermid will want to read Agatha Christie. There's a plethora of crime writers out there catering to everyone's tastes. Humour is just the same.

I don't want to sound like I'm whinging, I'm just stating a fact. I'm not deterred from continuing with my own writing career. After all, a successful literary agent did just think my writing good enough to take a closer look at. As an agent receives, on average, 150 submissions each week mine stood out among the many so I can only take that as a positive thing. I think my first two novels are good and, judging by the ratings and reviews on Goodreads and Amazon, so do a lot of others.

The recent experience has made me rethink my next novel though. The one I was writing was another humorous novel that did have a crime story in it (it was about a woman using her developing psychic abilities to help the police solve a murder. I can tell you that now as I'm not continuing with it) but it was definitely more a humorous crime story, rather than a crime story with an element of humour in it (if that makes sense).

For me personally, I've never wanted to be an 'indie' author; someone who goes it alone, but I've had to become that and have tried my best by self-publishing my first two novels and trying to market them as much as I can. I still feel the best way forward is to have an agent. For others that's not the right path but it is for me and that's why I'm going to make my next novel appeal to as many of them as possible. The new characters of the crime novel are already forming and there will still be humour as they each rub up against each other (metaphorically speaking. I'm not writing "that" sort of novel. That would mean a whole different research path!!)

So I now have a private detective character forming and a missing person mystery that takes him back to the case that got him sacked from the police force.

Mind you, the way I've casually abandoned two novel ideas in the last six months that could all change by next week!