Eoin Colfer, the international bestselling author of the Artemis Fowl series, had words of advice for writers earlier this week.
"If you want to make a living at it, you need to get an agent . . . It's very important. We don't tend to get shafted by the publishers in Ireland but that's not the case everywhere," he told a group of established and aspiring writers at the Irish Writers' Centre in Dublin this week, at the launch of The Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2004.
At the beginning of his own writing career "I was amazed at the ridiculous standards that publishers demand", joked the Wexford writer.
"Manuscripts have to be typed - I couldn't believe it! They only want to see the first 50 pages. They don't want to see the full manuscript. . . and they also want a summary of the entire book. And finally," he said, "they want a letter about you and why you wrote this."
Also, the writing had better be brilliant, he added, because "if you dip for one page, they have another 100 manuscripts on their desks".
He warned writers not to expect publishers to "come parachuting down", as Colfer himself had expected when he sent off his first literary attempt.
He had waited optimistically for them to get in touch, "convinced of my own genius", but "I got one reply eight years later", he recalled, smiling at his own literary innocence.
Among those eagerly awaiting copies of the yearbook were poets Gabriel Rosenstock and Celia de Fréine, whose next book, Fiacha Fola, will be published by Cló Iar-Chonnachta; writer Liam O'Reilly; Patrick Kavanagh biographer Antoinette Quinn and illustrator Ed Miliano.
Literary agent Jonathan Williams said he was delighted to get his copy because "it's very handy, my last one is well-thumbed".