The Engineer ReConditioned by Neal Asher

Unfortunately, small publishers are really up against it trying to succeed in a world dominated by huge publishing consortiums.

But then they, like so many small press publishers, went to the wall. After another five years I was getting the occasional cheque - about enough to pay for a toner cartridge a year - then in the following five years finally gained some notoriety through the publisher, Tanjen. For my short stories my reward was a copy of the magazine and some complimentary letters (mostly).

After that slight boost (and it was a boost someone had actually wanted my work) I managed to get more and more stories published, the occasional novella serialised, and a one-off novella published for a single cash payment. It took me five or more years to get my first short story accepted and then that magazine folded before publication. Writing is hard, getting work published is hard, and if you want easy money, your best option is to become an estate agent. There is, unfortunately, a lot of truth in the image of the writer struggling away in his garret then drinking himself to death. Too often, we read of someone getting the x-thousands advance on a first book and hearing this lose sight of the fact that it doesn’t normally happen that way. I spent many years in the wilderness of non-publication wondering if I’d made the right choice of vocation while I wrote the inevitable fantasy trilogy (still unpublished), then I was published in the small presses over many years, and finally… Macmillan. It has been a struggle up the ladder, missing not a single rung, quite often stepping back down some, and every now and again having someone stand on my fingers. that particular night was over twenty years long.

The Engineer ReConditioned by Neal Asher