First-time authors

A refreshingly honest account of the realities of the book trade in The Independent.

It's by Simon Trewin, an agent with Peters Fraser Dunlop.

"One author told me that selling her book was rather like 'being courted by an impossibly handsome and desirable suitor. He rings all the time. He writes you emails. He seems too good to be true. Your instincts and all your friends tell you to beware. But he is so flattering and so insistent that in the end you begin to believe that maybe he's telling the truth. So you lower your defences (metaphorically speaking) and just at that point he never rings again. Total silence.'"