Booktrade.info kindly pointed out an article in the Independent on Sunday which highlighted the trials and tribulations of a writer called Patricia Ferguson.
Patricia is a past winner of the Somerset Maugham award and a Betty Trask prize. Neither of these is an easy thing to win, and to win two constitutes a considerable achievement. Unfortunately, such achievements apparently count for nothing among modern publishers, who examine only the sales figures. And, since the sales of Patricia's earlier books were not impressive, she couldn’t find a mainstream publisher for her new novel, It So Happens.
Eventually, after a two-year search, a small firm called Solidus proved willing to issue the book. And now, to the author’s surprise, It So Happens has been longlisted for the Orange prize.
Solidus is a very small publishing house which works through POD. The web site states that they ‘specialise in publishing the work of established authors who want to make a break from their usual subjects, or to experiment with different ways of writing. Many writers find that traditional publishers require them to repeat earlier success and write within the narrow confines of accepted genres. We want to encourage writers to follow their own paths and to allow them to reach readers who may not have met their work before.’
All of which is precisely what I warned you about a few days ago. Publishers want you (a) to sell lots of books, and (b) to do the same thing over and over. Fail to do either of these and you will lose out.
Meanwhile Patricia is now getting a new lease of life, and good luck to her.
Amanda Craig,who reviewed It So Happens in the New Statesman, is quoted as follows: ‘I'm furious that the book wasn't picked up by anyone else. It wasn't as if she didn't have a really good track record. The trouble with publishing is that with the accountants running things, everything is dominated by how much your last novel sold. For middle-aged, mid-list authors, the result is disastrous.’
So three cheers, says the Indie, for one tiny publisher who was prepared to take a risk. And I add a fourth cheer too.
Other writers who are looking for a publisher should note that the Solidus web site says that the firm is not currently reading new submissions. But no doubt there are other publishers. You just have to keep searching.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
A note about comments
This blog makes use of Blogger.com facilities, and I have tried to set the Blogger options so as to make it as easy as possible for people to post comments.
I would like you to be aware that the Blogger system is set up so that, whenever someone posts a comment, I get a copy of it by email. You can later delete your own comment from the blog, if you wish, and the public will not be able to read it, but I will still have had the email.
If you expect me to reply, or hope that I will, probably your best plan is to send an email to me direct, rather than post a comment. You can find my email address through my Blogger profile -- use the link at the top of the right-hand column on this page. I cannot send a reply to you if you simply post a comment -- in other words, although I get an email containing your comment, the 'reply' facility doesn't work because the system doesn't have your address.
The only exception (I am guessing here) is if you are already a registered Blogger.com user yourself; then the email containing your comment does seem to contain your email address for me to reply, if I want to.
Hope that's clear.
Occasionally, if I felt it was sufficiently important, I have been able to trace an email address for a commenter via Google or some other device, but that is the long way round the houses; and it isn't always possible.
I would like you to be aware that the Blogger system is set up so that, whenever someone posts a comment, I get a copy of it by email. You can later delete your own comment from the blog, if you wish, and the public will not be able to read it, but I will still have had the email.
If you expect me to reply, or hope that I will, probably your best plan is to send an email to me direct, rather than post a comment. You can find my email address through my Blogger profile -- use the link at the top of the right-hand column on this page. I cannot send a reply to you if you simply post a comment -- in other words, although I get an email containing your comment, the 'reply' facility doesn't work because the system doesn't have your address.
The only exception (I am guessing here) is if you are already a registered Blogger.com user yourself; then the email containing your comment does seem to contain your email address for me to reply, if I want to.
Hope that's clear.
Occasionally, if I felt it was sufficiently important, I have been able to trace an email address for a commenter via Google or some other device, but that is the long way round the houses; and it isn't always possible.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
John Buchan: The Three Hostages
John Buchan is a now a largely forgotten writer. However, he retains a small group of admirers, and they have formed a John Buchan Society to preserve his memory; their web site contains a mass of useful information.
Buchan was born in 1875, in Scotland; he was the son of a Calvinist minister. At one time he had to walk three miles to school each day, and three miles back, but he eventually made it to Oxford University.
From then on Buchan had a varied and high-powered career in both public and commercial life. At various times he was, for instance, a government administrator in South Africa, a director of Reuter’s, and a Member of Parliament. He was briefly the head of the UK intelligence service, and when he died (in 1940) he was Governor-General of Canada.
Given such a record of activity at a high level, it is surprising that Buchan ever had any time to write anything, but write he did: over a hundred books in all, of which about forty were fiction.
In my youth Buchan was famous as a thriller writer, and it is one of his thrillers that I want to discuss today: The Three Hostages.
First published in 1924, The Three Hostages features one of Buchan’s regular heroes, Richard Hannay. When the book begins, Hannay is just turned forty years of age, not long married, with a young son. After distinguished service in the first world war, he has retired to the country to fish and shoot. Before long, however, a national crisis arrives, and Hannay is told that His Country Needs Him. Reluctantly, Hannay has to respond to the call of duty.
The plot of The Three Hostages is pure blood and thunder; it is a melodrama. It is, however, an exceptionally intelligent and well told melodrama, and the reader is effortlessly carried along.
The main reason for discussing the book today is that it reveals how remarkably percipient Buchan was about future developments. When he wrote the novel, Buchan was approaching fifty, and had mixed for years at the highest level of UK politics and business. He was a well travelled and widely experienced man. It is nevertheless surprising to find how clearly he saw the problems that were developing in Europe.
I have argued elsewhere that the two world wars in the twentieth century effectively made the English people at least partially insane. Buchan saw it too, even in the 1920s. ‘Have you ever realised,’ one character asks Hannay, ‘the amount of craziness that the War has left in the world?’
Later, another character speaks of the dangers of propaganda. ‘Dick, have you ever considered what a diabolical weapon that can be – using all the channels of modern publicity to poison and warp men’s minds?’ This, please note, was written ten years before the appointment of Goebbels as Hitler’s propaganda minister.
The rise of Hitler, or a fanatic like him, is also foreseen. ‘In ordinary times he will not be heard, because, as I say, his world is not our world. But let there come a time of great suffering or discontent, when the mind of the ordinary man is in desperation, and the rational fanatic will come by his own. When he appeals to the sane and the sane respond, revolutions begin.’
At one point, Hannay meets a German whom he knew in the war, but is on good terms with. The German tells Hannay that Germany is now (in the 1920s, remember) no place for a moderate man. ‘You foreign powers have hastened our destruction, when you had it in your hands to save us. I think you have meant well, but you have been blind, for you have not supported our moderate men and have by your harshness played the game of the wreckers among us.’
So, one way and another, The Three Hostages is in interesting and entertaining read. It borrows, of course, from the past: the villain of the book has a touch of Svengali about him. And Buchan himself was borrowed from by his successors: Ian Fleming learnt from him.
But one cannot, I suppose – and I say this with a deep sigh – one cannot leave Buchan without touching, briefly, upon his alleged ‘anti-semitism’ and racism.
It is perfectly true that the 2005 reader, who has had an awareness of political correctness injected into his veins, will wince a bit at some of Buchan’s throwaway remarks. There are references, for example, to a ‘nigger band’ playing in a nightclub. And there are indeed derogatory references to Jews, as in the description of the same nightclub’s clientele: ‘the usual rastaquouère crowd of men and women… mixed with fat Jews and blue-black dagos.’
Before we get too excited about this, we do have to remember that we are talking about the English (a term which in this instance includes Scottish) upper classes here. Buchan married into the aristocracy, and he mixed with the greatest in the land. It is undeniable that, in the 1920s and 1930s, such people were typically arrogant, and were dismissive of almost everyone on earth apart from those few who came from their own select background. See the film Gosford Park if you want to know how they treated their servants.
Furthermore, we need to bear in mind that words such as Frog (for Frenchman), and Wog (for an Arab) were in frequent use well into my lifetime. Indeed, when I was a boy we were sometimes cautioned that ‘Wogs begin at Calais’. In other words, you can’t trust anyone but an Englishman; and you can only trust him if he went to the right sort of school.
With the benefit of hindsight such attitudes are unattractive; but in their day they were commonplace, and it is a little hard to abuse Buchan for being a man of his time.
Once anti-semitism, in its virulent form, appeared in Nazi Germany, Buchan was quick to condemn it publicly; so much so that Hitler promptly added him to the list of men who, after the proposed German invasion of England, were to be imprisoned for ‘Pro-Jewish activity’. In due course Buchan realised the sensitivity of some of his earlier (and entirely trivial) references to Jews, and eliminated them from his later work. If you wish to know more, the issue has been dealt with in Roger Kimball’s valuable essay on Buchan.
It would be unfortunate, to say the least, if such a remarkable body of work, by such a remarkably far-sighted man, were to be ignored, or, worse, condemned, on the strength of a few lines here and there.
Should you be interested in the history and development of the thriller, The Three Hostages is a book you should read.
Buchan was born in 1875, in Scotland; he was the son of a Calvinist minister. At one time he had to walk three miles to school each day, and three miles back, but he eventually made it to Oxford University.
From then on Buchan had a varied and high-powered career in both public and commercial life. At various times he was, for instance, a government administrator in South Africa, a director of Reuter’s, and a Member of Parliament. He was briefly the head of the UK intelligence service, and when he died (in 1940) he was Governor-General of Canada.
Given such a record of activity at a high level, it is surprising that Buchan ever had any time to write anything, but write he did: over a hundred books in all, of which about forty were fiction.
In my youth Buchan was famous as a thriller writer, and it is one of his thrillers that I want to discuss today: The Three Hostages.
First published in 1924, The Three Hostages features one of Buchan’s regular heroes, Richard Hannay. When the book begins, Hannay is just turned forty years of age, not long married, with a young son. After distinguished service in the first world war, he has retired to the country to fish and shoot. Before long, however, a national crisis arrives, and Hannay is told that His Country Needs Him. Reluctantly, Hannay has to respond to the call of duty.
The plot of The Three Hostages is pure blood and thunder; it is a melodrama. It is, however, an exceptionally intelligent and well told melodrama, and the reader is effortlessly carried along.
The main reason for discussing the book today is that it reveals how remarkably percipient Buchan was about future developments. When he wrote the novel, Buchan was approaching fifty, and had mixed for years at the highest level of UK politics and business. He was a well travelled and widely experienced man. It is nevertheless surprising to find how clearly he saw the problems that were developing in Europe.
I have argued elsewhere that the two world wars in the twentieth century effectively made the English people at least partially insane. Buchan saw it too, even in the 1920s. ‘Have you ever realised,’ one character asks Hannay, ‘the amount of craziness that the War has left in the world?’
Later, another character speaks of the dangers of propaganda. ‘Dick, have you ever considered what a diabolical weapon that can be – using all the channels of modern publicity to poison and warp men’s minds?’ This, please note, was written ten years before the appointment of Goebbels as Hitler’s propaganda minister.
The rise of Hitler, or a fanatic like him, is also foreseen. ‘In ordinary times he will not be heard, because, as I say, his world is not our world. But let there come a time of great suffering or discontent, when the mind of the ordinary man is in desperation, and the rational fanatic will come by his own. When he appeals to the sane and the sane respond, revolutions begin.’
At one point, Hannay meets a German whom he knew in the war, but is on good terms with. The German tells Hannay that Germany is now (in the 1920s, remember) no place for a moderate man. ‘You foreign powers have hastened our destruction, when you had it in your hands to save us. I think you have meant well, but you have been blind, for you have not supported our moderate men and have by your harshness played the game of the wreckers among us.’
So, one way and another, The Three Hostages is in interesting and entertaining read. It borrows, of course, from the past: the villain of the book has a touch of Svengali about him. And Buchan himself was borrowed from by his successors: Ian Fleming learnt from him.
But one cannot, I suppose – and I say this with a deep sigh – one cannot leave Buchan without touching, briefly, upon his alleged ‘anti-semitism’ and racism.
It is perfectly true that the 2005 reader, who has had an awareness of political correctness injected into his veins, will wince a bit at some of Buchan’s throwaway remarks. There are references, for example, to a ‘nigger band’ playing in a nightclub. And there are indeed derogatory references to Jews, as in the description of the same nightclub’s clientele: ‘the usual rastaquouère crowd of men and women… mixed with fat Jews and blue-black dagos.’
Before we get too excited about this, we do have to remember that we are talking about the English (a term which in this instance includes Scottish) upper classes here. Buchan married into the aristocracy, and he mixed with the greatest in the land. It is undeniable that, in the 1920s and 1930s, such people were typically arrogant, and were dismissive of almost everyone on earth apart from those few who came from their own select background. See the film Gosford Park if you want to know how they treated their servants.
Furthermore, we need to bear in mind that words such as Frog (for Frenchman), and Wog (for an Arab) were in frequent use well into my lifetime. Indeed, when I was a boy we were sometimes cautioned that ‘Wogs begin at Calais’. In other words, you can’t trust anyone but an Englishman; and you can only trust him if he went to the right sort of school.
With the benefit of hindsight such attitudes are unattractive; but in their day they were commonplace, and it is a little hard to abuse Buchan for being a man of his time.
Once anti-semitism, in its virulent form, appeared in Nazi Germany, Buchan was quick to condemn it publicly; so much so that Hitler promptly added him to the list of men who, after the proposed German invasion of England, were to be imprisoned for ‘Pro-Jewish activity’. In due course Buchan realised the sensitivity of some of his earlier (and entirely trivial) references to Jews, and eliminated them from his later work. If you wish to know more, the issue has been dealt with in Roger Kimball’s valuable essay on Buchan.
It would be unfortunate, to say the least, if such a remarkable body of work, by such a remarkably far-sighted man, were to be ignored, or, worse, condemned, on the strength of a few lines here and there.
Should you be interested in the history and development of the thriller, The Three Hostages is a book you should read.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Honoré de Balzac: Lost Illusions
I had an email from Nassim Nicholas Taleb recently, in which he said that he had been re-reading Balzac's Illusions Perdues. Nothing, says Taleb, has changed in the book business in the last 150 years!
So I took at look at Illusions Perdues -- except that, not being clever enough to read it in the original French, I had to make do with the Penguin edition, in which the translation (Lost Illusions) is by Herbert J. Hunt.
Hunt's introduction to the book provides a necessary reminder (well, necessary for me) that the literary career was really quite well developed, at least as a possibility, in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Balzac was born in 1799 and died in 1850. In between he packed in an enormous amount of literary work and became both famous and (up to a point) financially successful; he certainly liked to live well, even if he didn't always pay his bills.
Lost Illusions was originally published in three parts between 1837 and 1843. It tells the story of a handsome would-be poet, Lucien Chardon. Lucien is ambitious but naive (sound familar?), and he leaves the provinces to make his way in the glamorous beau monde of Paris. But he finds -- dear me, how distressing -- that talent counts for nothing in comparison to money, intrigue, and unscrupulousness. The novel paints, it is said, 'a scathing view of the world of letters'; and you don't need much insight to guess that many of Lucien's experiences are thinly disguised (if that) versions of what happened to Balzac on his way to the top.
In 1835, a friend of Balzac's tried to interest him in a real-life Lucien Chardon, a young man called Emile Chevalet. Balzac took at look at this wannabe writer and sent his friend a brutal report. 'This young man is characteristic of our times. When one has no particular aptitude for anything, one takes to the pen and poses as a talented person.' Even for those with real talent, Balzac insists, long and patient effort is needed. This point is later driven home in Lost Illusions.
Chapter Nine of Part II of Lost Illusions is perhaps the heart of the book. Its title is Good Advice, and in it Etienne Lousteau makes it plain to Lucien that genuine talent is unlikely to make much headway in the real-life literary world. Here are a few of Lousteau's observations:
'If you reckon to live on what your poetry brings in, you have time to die half a dozen deaths before you make your name.'
'Don't imagine that the political world is much cleaner than the literary world: in both of them bribery is the rule; every man bribes or is bribed. When a publisher is bringing out a more or less important work, he pays me not to attack it.'
'The experience of the first person who told me what I am now telling you was wasted on me, just as mine will no doubt be useless to you. It's always the same story, every year the same enthusiastic inrush of beardless ambition from the provinces to Paris.... They all fall into the pit of misery, the mire of journalism, the morass of the book-trade.'
'In short, my friend, the key to success in literature is not to work oneself, but to exploit others' work.'
'The more mediocre a man is, the sooner he arrives at success.... It will be a fight to the death if you have any talent, for you 'd have a better chance without it.'
Hmmm. Now that's really encouraging, isn't it?
Balzac's story, as you will have gathered by now, is repeated perhaps ten thousand times a year. The ambitious young writers (whether male or female) travel to Paris/London/New York (either literally or they send a ms), and discover, to their total amazement, that the world does not read three pages of their masterpiece and go WOW! This is SENSATIONAL!
Young writers always find this hard to believe. Even when they know that it happens every year to ten thousand young hopefuls, and has done for 150 years and upwards, they still find it a bit of a shock when it happens to them.
So I took at look at Illusions Perdues -- except that, not being clever enough to read it in the original French, I had to make do with the Penguin edition, in which the translation (Lost Illusions) is by Herbert J. Hunt.
Hunt's introduction to the book provides a necessary reminder (well, necessary for me) that the literary career was really quite well developed, at least as a possibility, in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Balzac was born in 1799 and died in 1850. In between he packed in an enormous amount of literary work and became both famous and (up to a point) financially successful; he certainly liked to live well, even if he didn't always pay his bills.
Lost Illusions was originally published in three parts between 1837 and 1843. It tells the story of a handsome would-be poet, Lucien Chardon. Lucien is ambitious but naive (sound familar?), and he leaves the provinces to make his way in the glamorous beau monde of Paris. But he finds -- dear me, how distressing -- that talent counts for nothing in comparison to money, intrigue, and unscrupulousness. The novel paints, it is said, 'a scathing view of the world of letters'; and you don't need much insight to guess that many of Lucien's experiences are thinly disguised (if that) versions of what happened to Balzac on his way to the top.
In 1835, a friend of Balzac's tried to interest him in a real-life Lucien Chardon, a young man called Emile Chevalet. Balzac took at look at this wannabe writer and sent his friend a brutal report. 'This young man is characteristic of our times. When one has no particular aptitude for anything, one takes to the pen and poses as a talented person.' Even for those with real talent, Balzac insists, long and patient effort is needed. This point is later driven home in Lost Illusions.
Chapter Nine of Part II of Lost Illusions is perhaps the heart of the book. Its title is Good Advice, and in it Etienne Lousteau makes it plain to Lucien that genuine talent is unlikely to make much headway in the real-life literary world. Here are a few of Lousteau's observations:
'If you reckon to live on what your poetry brings in, you have time to die half a dozen deaths before you make your name.'
'Don't imagine that the political world is much cleaner than the literary world: in both of them bribery is the rule; every man bribes or is bribed. When a publisher is bringing out a more or less important work, he pays me not to attack it.'
'The experience of the first person who told me what I am now telling you was wasted on me, just as mine will no doubt be useless to you. It's always the same story, every year the same enthusiastic inrush of beardless ambition from the provinces to Paris.... They all fall into the pit of misery, the mire of journalism, the morass of the book-trade.'
'In short, my friend, the key to success in literature is not to work oneself, but to exploit others' work.'
'The more mediocre a man is, the sooner he arrives at success.... It will be a fight to the death if you have any talent, for you 'd have a better chance without it.'
Hmmm. Now that's really encouraging, isn't it?
Balzac's story, as you will have gathered by now, is repeated perhaps ten thousand times a year. The ambitious young writers (whether male or female) travel to Paris/London/New York (either literally or they send a ms), and discover, to their total amazement, that the world does not read three pages of their masterpiece and go WOW! This is SENSATIONAL!
Young writers always find this hard to believe. Even when they know that it happens every year to ten thousand young hopefuls, and has done for 150 years and upwards, they still find it a bit of a shock when it happens to them.
Monday, March 28, 2005
Far too much about me
A recent commenter on the GOB has asked for a little more information about me; in particular he requests info on how I started my publishing company, Kingsfield Publications.
Good grief.
Well, there is a bit more about me on my Blogger profile -- see column to your right. By the way, if you look at that page, be aware that the user stats are out of date (Blogger's problem, not mine), and the 'recent posts' aren't very recent; again, that is something that Blogger tell me they are working on.
Should you wish to know even more, go to the Kingsfield Publications web site, where you will find a Links page. And the first link there is to a site devoted to my 'career' as a writer. The information given on that second web site is intended mainly to be of interest or value to book trade and media professionals. General readers of the GOB will, I suspect, find more there than they could possibly wish to know.
Incidentally, I must do something about that photograph. It is ten years out of date -- or maybe fifteen. Of course it is standard practice for authors to use photographs which take ten years off them, but in this case it is the result of sloth rather than vanity.
Here are a few remarks about fiction-writing 'careers' in general, and mine in particular, which may be of interest to the ambitious ones among you.
First, be aware that, even if you fight your way through the thicket of indifference and find a publisher who wants to publish your stuff, said publisher is going to want you to stick to the same genre and style as were used for your first book. This is even more true if you have a big success.
What readers want (it is said, and certainly believed by publishers) is a brand name. Readers want to be assured that if they pick up a book by John Grisham or Danielle Steel it is going to be the same sort of book that they read by that author last time out.
What this means for writers is that, even if they are able to make a living as a writer, they will find themselves forced to go on writing the same thing over and over. This can be very tiresome. Agatha Christie grew so weary of it that she took to writing occasional novels of a quite different kind, under another name (Mary Westmacott).
In my case, I had some success in writing crime novels under my own name (the Spence books). But after I had done three of them I found that I really didn't want to do any more. Until I retired, a few years ago, all my writing was done in my spare time, after a fairly demanding day in educational administration. This meant that any writing that I did in the evenings had damn well better be fun; and churning out the same sort of book, time after time, was not my idea of fun. Which is how I came to 'throw away' -- if you will -- a promising career.
What I ought to have done, if I was anxious for greater success in terms of cash and reputation, was to go on doing more of the same. I might then have been able to generate some television interest and might have become as famous and successful as, say, Colin Dexter, with his Inspector Morse books.
So be warned. Choose your genre early and well, and be sure that it is something that you would be willing to spend a lifetime at. In my own case, I have done all sorts and kinds of different books -- everything except a western. I haven't regretted it at all, but it has limited my earnings. I have not become rich and famous, but I've had more enjoyment from writing than I would have done otherwise.
As for how I began Kingsfield Publications...
Well, as part of my professional life in education I was involved in running a small university press, which published academic books. I also had overall responsibility for the management of the same university's internal printing department. These two experiences, over ten or fifteen years, meant that I developed a good working knowledge of printing technology and book publishing, in addition to what I already knew about writing books.
When I retired I intended to go on working in the traditional way, offering my work through a literary agent and being published by mainstream publishers. However, because of pressure of work I had not done any fiction for a good few years, and when I started again my agent found that modern publishers were not particularly interested in someone of my age: they were looking for younger talents, preferably ones who looked absolutely drop-dead gorgeous in a black mini-skirt.
At the same time, fortunately, I realised that huge changes in printing technology meant that it was now possible to print and distribute books in new ways -- what is called print on demand, or POD. So rather than continue with the frustrations of going the old route, I went down a new one.
Setting up and running a small press is theoretically a fairly straightforward business these days, requiring extremely small amounts of capital when compared with the costs of even ten years ago. However, before you rush into it, please remember that when I started I had the benefit of a good working knowledge of both publishing -- from the publisher's point of view -- and the printing trade.
Another point to remember is this. So far, everything that Kingsfield has published has been my own work, written under a variety of different names according to the type of book it is. In principle, I may one day start to publish work by other writers; but that day will not come soon. In the meantime, the KP site carries the following announcement:
If you really can't make any impression on agents and publishers, and are dead keen to see your work in print, the best option, I suggest, is not to set up your own press but to publish your work through one of the many firms which now offer to do the job for you at a modest cost. Of course, these firms vary from the fully reputable to the totally fraudulent, and you will have to spend a long time on research. But then quite a lot of the work involved in writing is sheer drudgery, so you should be used to it by now.
One UK-based firm which looks as if it offers a reasonable deal to authors is Matador. One or two writers who have done books through this firm have subsequently landed deals with mainstream publishers.
Good grief.
Well, there is a bit more about me on my Blogger profile -- see column to your right. By the way, if you look at that page, be aware that the user stats are out of date (Blogger's problem, not mine), and the 'recent posts' aren't very recent; again, that is something that Blogger tell me they are working on.
Should you wish to know even more, go to the Kingsfield Publications web site, where you will find a Links page. And the first link there is to a site devoted to my 'career' as a writer. The information given on that second web site is intended mainly to be of interest or value to book trade and media professionals. General readers of the GOB will, I suspect, find more there than they could possibly wish to know.
Incidentally, I must do something about that photograph. It is ten years out of date -- or maybe fifteen. Of course it is standard practice for authors to use photographs which take ten years off them, but in this case it is the result of sloth rather than vanity.
Here are a few remarks about fiction-writing 'careers' in general, and mine in particular, which may be of interest to the ambitious ones among you.
First, be aware that, even if you fight your way through the thicket of indifference and find a publisher who wants to publish your stuff, said publisher is going to want you to stick to the same genre and style as were used for your first book. This is even more true if you have a big success.
What readers want (it is said, and certainly believed by publishers) is a brand name. Readers want to be assured that if they pick up a book by John Grisham or Danielle Steel it is going to be the same sort of book that they read by that author last time out.
What this means for writers is that, even if they are able to make a living as a writer, they will find themselves forced to go on writing the same thing over and over. This can be very tiresome. Agatha Christie grew so weary of it that she took to writing occasional novels of a quite different kind, under another name (Mary Westmacott).
In my case, I had some success in writing crime novels under my own name (the Spence books). But after I had done three of them I found that I really didn't want to do any more. Until I retired, a few years ago, all my writing was done in my spare time, after a fairly demanding day in educational administration. This meant that any writing that I did in the evenings had damn well better be fun; and churning out the same sort of book, time after time, was not my idea of fun. Which is how I came to 'throw away' -- if you will -- a promising career.
What I ought to have done, if I was anxious for greater success in terms of cash and reputation, was to go on doing more of the same. I might then have been able to generate some television interest and might have become as famous and successful as, say, Colin Dexter, with his Inspector Morse books.
So be warned. Choose your genre early and well, and be sure that it is something that you would be willing to spend a lifetime at. In my own case, I have done all sorts and kinds of different books -- everything except a western. I haven't regretted it at all, but it has limited my earnings. I have not become rich and famous, but I've had more enjoyment from writing than I would have done otherwise.
As for how I began Kingsfield Publications...
Well, as part of my professional life in education I was involved in running a small university press, which published academic books. I also had overall responsibility for the management of the same university's internal printing department. These two experiences, over ten or fifteen years, meant that I developed a good working knowledge of printing technology and book publishing, in addition to what I already knew about writing books.
When I retired I intended to go on working in the traditional way, offering my work through a literary agent and being published by mainstream publishers. However, because of pressure of work I had not done any fiction for a good few years, and when I started again my agent found that modern publishers were not particularly interested in someone of my age: they were looking for younger talents, preferably ones who looked absolutely drop-dead gorgeous in a black mini-skirt.
At the same time, fortunately, I realised that huge changes in printing technology meant that it was now possible to print and distribute books in new ways -- what is called print on demand, or POD. So rather than continue with the frustrations of going the old route, I went down a new one.
Setting up and running a small press is theoretically a fairly straightforward business these days, requiring extremely small amounts of capital when compared with the costs of even ten years ago. However, before you rush into it, please remember that when I started I had the benefit of a good working knowledge of both publishing -- from the publisher's point of view -- and the printing trade.
Another point to remember is this. So far, everything that Kingsfield has published has been my own work, written under a variety of different names according to the type of book it is. In principle, I may one day start to publish work by other writers; but that day will not come soon. In the meantime, the KP site carries the following announcement:
A note for writers: To avoid disappointment, please be aware that Kingsfield has a full programme of books planned for the next two years and is not in a position to consider unsolicited submissions.Believe it or not, that means what it says. So please, for your own sake, do not send your masterpiece to me. I do not read and advise on mss, not even for money. For one thing it is a difficult job to do well, and for another I really don't have the time or the inclination.
If you really can't make any impression on agents and publishers, and are dead keen to see your work in print, the best option, I suggest, is not to set up your own press but to publish your work through one of the many firms which now offer to do the job for you at a modest cost. Of course, these firms vary from the fully reputable to the totally fraudulent, and you will have to spend a long time on research. But then quite a lot of the work involved in writing is sheer drudgery, so you should be used to it by now.
One UK-based firm which looks as if it offers a reasonable deal to authors is Matador. One or two writers who have done books through this firm have subsequently landed deals with mainstream publishers.
Plain speaking about Ms Bronte
The Book Standard provided a link to an amusing Guardian article entitled 'Reader, I shagged him.' Here Tanya Gold gives us the truth -- as she sees it -- about Charlotte Bronte.
Once upon a time, many moons go, I was required to read Mrs Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Bronte as part of my school studies. I found it passing tedious, but I do remember that even our careful teacher was obliged to admit that there was more to Charlotte than Mrs Gaskell revealed. In case we hadn't noticed, he pointed out that Charlotte's feelings for a married man, Monsieur Heger of Brussels, were not entirely chaste.
Tanya Gold goes further. Charlotte, she alleges, definitely had the hots for Heger, referring to him in correspondence as her master, and generally showing a masochistic inclination to grovel at his feet. She had a lot more passionate feelings for others as well, and, according to Tanya, had an orgasm while taking her father his spectacles.
I do have to say that I consider that last bit unlikely, if only for reasons of practicality. For one thing, the glasses would have been handed to the old man in a steamed-up condition, and he would have suspected the worst.
On balance, however, I reckon Tanya is far closer to the truth than Mrs G ever was. Mrs G was, after all, writing in the nineteenth century, and doubtless all those Bronte girls had very passionate natures indeed.
It is many years since I went to the Bronte museum at Haworth, and I have largely forgotten what was on show at the time. What I do remember is that, quite out of keeping with the general tenor of the place, loud popular music was being played somewhere in an adjoining room, causing a few raised eyebrows among the visitors.
I also remember finding evidence of the large number of Americans who then (and now, no doubt) visited the place: Haworth, a small Yorkshire village, featured a chemist's shop (pharmacy) which in those days must have been the only one in England to describe itself as a 'drug store'.
Once upon a time, many moons go, I was required to read Mrs Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Bronte as part of my school studies. I found it passing tedious, but I do remember that even our careful teacher was obliged to admit that there was more to Charlotte than Mrs Gaskell revealed. In case we hadn't noticed, he pointed out that Charlotte's feelings for a married man, Monsieur Heger of Brussels, were not entirely chaste.
Tanya Gold goes further. Charlotte, she alleges, definitely had the hots for Heger, referring to him in correspondence as her master, and generally showing a masochistic inclination to grovel at his feet. She had a lot more passionate feelings for others as well, and, according to Tanya, had an orgasm while taking her father his spectacles.
I do have to say that I consider that last bit unlikely, if only for reasons of practicality. For one thing, the glasses would have been handed to the old man in a steamed-up condition, and he would have suspected the worst.
On balance, however, I reckon Tanya is far closer to the truth than Mrs G ever was. Mrs G was, after all, writing in the nineteenth century, and doubtless all those Bronte girls had very passionate natures indeed.
It is many years since I went to the Bronte museum at Haworth, and I have largely forgotten what was on show at the time. What I do remember is that, quite out of keeping with the general tenor of the place, loud popular music was being played somewhere in an adjoining room, causing a few raised eyebrows among the visitors.
I also remember finding evidence of the large number of Americans who then (and now, no doubt) visited the place: Haworth, a small Yorkshire village, featured a chemist's shop (pharmacy) which in those days must have been the only one in England to describe itself as a 'drug store'.
Friday, March 25, 2005
More on the long tail
I have my son to thank for pointing out an interesting article in the Guardian about the Long Tail phenomenon.
The long tail is named after the type of graph you get when you plot such phenomena as the sales of CDs and books, or the popularity of web sites, and any number of other things. What happens in all these cases is that a small number of CDs or whatever sell in enormous quantities, forming a peak on the graph. After that you get a vast number of goods which sell in small quantities, and these form a 'long tail' on the graph, dribbling away to the right.
What has begun to be noticed is that some industries are only geared up to sell the big hits; in fact they can only sell the big hits. A cinema, for example, can only afford to show films which pull in biggish audiences. Films which attract tiny audiences are not economically viable.
However -- and it's a big however -- if you're selling films on DVD, you can have a million films in an online catalogue, and the 990,000 of them which sell only in tiny numbers will collectively add up to one hell of a lot of business. Perhaps they may be worth more than the big hits.
This is good news for creative people, in that, in theory at least, it provides a market in which they can offer goods and at least get some exposure. Low-budget movies may never get a full-scale cinema release; but they may nevertheless be seen by cult fans of that kind of movie, and they may build a reputation.
The same is true for writers. Someone whose face does not fit in big-time publishing can nevertheless get themselves into print somewhere, and in principle it is possible for followers of, say, science fiction, to find these small-time providers on the net.
There are many issues and problems associated with this concept, and the Guardian article does a pretty good job of summarising the chief of them.
The long tail is named after the type of graph you get when you plot such phenomena as the sales of CDs and books, or the popularity of web sites, and any number of other things. What happens in all these cases is that a small number of CDs or whatever sell in enormous quantities, forming a peak on the graph. After that you get a vast number of goods which sell in small quantities, and these form a 'long tail' on the graph, dribbling away to the right.
What has begun to be noticed is that some industries are only geared up to sell the big hits; in fact they can only sell the big hits. A cinema, for example, can only afford to show films which pull in biggish audiences. Films which attract tiny audiences are not economically viable.
However -- and it's a big however -- if you're selling films on DVD, you can have a million films in an online catalogue, and the 990,000 of them which sell only in tiny numbers will collectively add up to one hell of a lot of business. Perhaps they may be worth more than the big hits.
This is good news for creative people, in that, in theory at least, it provides a market in which they can offer goods and at least get some exposure. Low-budget movies may never get a full-scale cinema release; but they may nevertheless be seen by cult fans of that kind of movie, and they may build a reputation.
The same is true for writers. Someone whose face does not fit in big-time publishing can nevertheless get themselves into print somewhere, and in principle it is possible for followers of, say, science fiction, to find these small-time providers on the net.
There are many issues and problems associated with this concept, and the Guardian article does a pretty good job of summarising the chief of them.
Overnight success
Somewhere or other I came across a link to a site called Overnight Success. Here you can find some 40+ writers telling you how they came to write and sell their first book.
Some of these stories are definitely more interesting than others; and all seem to be on the short side. The site is a joint production of Mystery Ink and the Crime Fiction dossier, and so most of the writers are in the crime/thriller genres. Also, most seem to be American.
David Morrell tells how he went the classic literary route at first, writing literary short stories and obtaining a doctorate in American literature at Penn State. After that he taught at the University of Iowa (?creative writing or Eng. Lit.). And then after that he wrote the first Rambo book! Well, I guess somewhere along the line he realised that literary short stories were not going to pay the mortgage. He has churned out some 25 books since.
One or two of the author's accounts are not very interesting at all, I'm afraid. Perhaps the process of recalling that early struggle was just too painful.
And if you really think life is giving you a hard time you might read Robert Ward's story: he nearly got lynched in reverse, as it were.
Some of these stories are definitely more interesting than others; and all seem to be on the short side. The site is a joint production of Mystery Ink and the Crime Fiction dossier, and so most of the writers are in the crime/thriller genres. Also, most seem to be American.
David Morrell tells how he went the classic literary route at first, writing literary short stories and obtaining a doctorate in American literature at Penn State. After that he taught at the University of Iowa (?creative writing or Eng. Lit.). And then after that he wrote the first Rambo book! Well, I guess somewhere along the line he realised that literary short stories were not going to pay the mortgage. He has churned out some 25 books since.
One or two of the author's accounts are not very interesting at all, I'm afraid. Perhaps the process of recalling that early struggle was just too painful.
And if you really think life is giving you a hard time you might read Robert Ward's story: he nearly got lynched in reverse, as it were.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Plus ca change, as the Spanish say
I recently had an email from someone who wished to remain anonymous, providing an equally anonymous quotation from a grumpy old man of the past. (I could tell that the quoted author was long dead because of the nature of the prose.) Thanks to the miracle of Google I was able to trace the quotation if not the kind soul who sent it to me.
It turns out that the two paragraphs in question were written by Dr Samuel Johnson, and they originally appeared in a kind of eighteenth-century blog, called The Rambler.
Set out below, 255 years to the day after it first appeared, is Dr Johnson's take on the literary life. The prose is decidedly complex by our standards, but the messages, I think, are clear, and they remain valid today. First, those who fancy themselves as writers should take a long hard look at their qualifications for said career; and second, anyone who wants to be a writer is going to have a difficult time of it.
Here is what Dr Johnson had to say:
It turns out that the two paragraphs in question were written by Dr Samuel Johnson, and they originally appeared in a kind of eighteenth-century blog, called The Rambler.
Set out below, 255 years to the day after it first appeared, is Dr Johnson's take on the literary life. The prose is decidedly complex by our standards, but the messages, I think, are clear, and they remain valid today. First, those who fancy themselves as writers should take a long hard look at their qualifications for said career; and second, anyone who wants to be a writer is going to have a difficult time of it.
Here is what Dr Johnson had to say:
It may not be unfit for him who makes a new entrance into the lettered world, so far to suspect his own powers as to believe that he possibly may deserve neglect; that nature may not have qualified him much to enlarge or embellish knowledge, nor sent him forth entitled by indisputable superiority to regulate the conduct of the rest of mankind; that, though the world must be granted to be yet in ignorance, he is not destined to dispel the cloud, nor to shine out as one of the luminaries of life. For this suspicion, every catalogue of a library will furnish sufficient reason; as he will find it crouded with names of men, who, though now forgotten, were once no less enterprising or confident than himself, equally pleased with their own productions, equally caressed by their patrons, and flattered by their friends.Next week, Honoré de Balzac, writing in 1843, with the same message!
But, though it should happen that an author is capable of excelling, yet his merit may pass without notice, huddled in the variety of things, and thrown into the general miscellany of life. He that endeavours after fame by writing, solicits the regard of a
multitude fluctuating in pleasures, or immersed in business, without time for intellectual amusements; he appeals to judges prepossessed by passions, or corrupted by prejudices, which preclude their approbation of any new performance. Some are too indolent to read any thing, till its reputation is established; others too envious to promote that fame, which gives them pain by its increase. What is new is opposed, because most are unwilling to be taught; and what is known is rejected, because it is not sufficiently considered, that men more frequently require to be reminded than informed. The learned are afraid to declare their opinion early, lest they should put their reputation in hazard; the ignorant always imagine themselves giving some proof of delicacy, when they refuse to be pleased: and he that finds his way to reputation, through all these obstructions, must acknowledge that he is indebted to other causes besides his industry, his learning, or his wit.
Ken Follett: Hornet Flight
Ken Follett, for those that don't know, began his career in the 1970s. You can find a fairly complete biography on his official web site, and it is worth noting that he worked in publishing before becoming a full-time writer. While still doing the day job, he wrote eleven thrillers under other names, and then he came up with a book which was a big hit.
In 1978, Follett wrote a book which was originally called Storm Island, but it has since become more widely known by the title given to it by its US publisher, Eye of the Needle. This won an Edgar award and was made into a film.
Follett thus proves a point that I have made many times on this blog, namely that any and every sort of writer needs to write a considerable body of work before they can be said to have mastered the basic techniques. In Follett's case it took at least eleven books.
It was around this time that Follett began to work very closely with a New York literary agent, Al Zuckerman. Fortunately for those who wish to master the art and science of fiction writing, this collaboration has been well documented. In particular, you can read Zuckerman's book Writing the Blockbuster Novel. (Don't be put off by the title -- it is equally valuable whether your aims are pure and literary or out-and-out commercial.) In that book, Zuckerman provides a long and detailed account of how he and Follett together worked on the outline of Follett's novel The Man from St Petersburg. It is an object lesson in how to develop the potential which is inherent in an idea for a novel.
Now it so happens that I myself was represented by Al Zuckerman for about fifteen years, and at the beginning of the 1980s I too worked closely with Al on the development of a thriller. However, it was always clear to me, and to Al, that not even he could guarantee that the resulting book would be a big seller. As he told me at the time, at any given point he is probably working on about 20 books with writers, and with a bit of luck one of them might make some sort of impact. In my own case, the book (No Holds Barred) was eventually published but did not set the world on fire, and the last time I looked I couldn't even find a secondhand copy on abebooks.
Back to Hornet Flight. In this book, Ken Follett returns to the second world war era, a period that he has dealt with successfully before, notably in The Key to Rebecca. Basing his story partly on real events, Follett gives us a plot in which the British discover, in 1941, that the Germans have an experimental radar station on the coast of Denmark. For a variety of reasons it falls to a young Danish student to get the details of this radar installation back to England in time to ensure that the facility can be destroyed before it leads to the elimination of the British air forces.
Follett has not been a thriller writer for all these years without learning how to do the job. He is extremely skilful. We are therefore presented, for example, not with the usual one-dimensional bad guy but with a rounded character, a complicated man.
On the minus side, I found that there was rather too much background information for my taste; overall, the book is not as tightly organised as The Key to Rebecca, which I often recommend to people who are trying to write a thriller and want a model to study.
It is also the case that Follett manipulates the reader's emotions in ways which I find rather tiresome. Of course, creating emotion is what the craft of fiction is all about, as I said a few days ago, but after many decades of reading thrillers (and after writing a few) I guess I am resistant to writers turning up the tension in too obvious a way.
This criticism particularly applies to the last few chapters of Hornet Flight. Here we find our hero and heroine having to fly an old Hornet Moth aeroplane from Denmark to England. Well now, it would not be much of a story if our two lead characters simply wheeled the plane out of its hangar, got in, and flew safely to their destination. Dear me no. So Follett follows the usual commercial formula and creates problems for them.
I will not weary you, or spoil the book, by telling you what all these problems are. What I will say is that they go on and on and on. Nothing goes right for the hero and heroine. And when one of them has to go out on the wing and refuel in the plane in flight... Well, I just thought it was a bit silly, that's all.
However, no doubt Mr Follett was thinking about how the scene would play in the movie version. And a movie version there will probably be.
In 1978, Follett wrote a book which was originally called Storm Island, but it has since become more widely known by the title given to it by its US publisher, Eye of the Needle. This won an Edgar award and was made into a film.
Follett thus proves a point that I have made many times on this blog, namely that any and every sort of writer needs to write a considerable body of work before they can be said to have mastered the basic techniques. In Follett's case it took at least eleven books.
It was around this time that Follett began to work very closely with a New York literary agent, Al Zuckerman. Fortunately for those who wish to master the art and science of fiction writing, this collaboration has been well documented. In particular, you can read Zuckerman's book Writing the Blockbuster Novel. (Don't be put off by the title -- it is equally valuable whether your aims are pure and literary or out-and-out commercial.) In that book, Zuckerman provides a long and detailed account of how he and Follett together worked on the outline of Follett's novel The Man from St Petersburg. It is an object lesson in how to develop the potential which is inherent in an idea for a novel.
Now it so happens that I myself was represented by Al Zuckerman for about fifteen years, and at the beginning of the 1980s I too worked closely with Al on the development of a thriller. However, it was always clear to me, and to Al, that not even he could guarantee that the resulting book would be a big seller. As he told me at the time, at any given point he is probably working on about 20 books with writers, and with a bit of luck one of them might make some sort of impact. In my own case, the book (No Holds Barred) was eventually published but did not set the world on fire, and the last time I looked I couldn't even find a secondhand copy on abebooks.
Back to Hornet Flight. In this book, Ken Follett returns to the second world war era, a period that he has dealt with successfully before, notably in The Key to Rebecca. Basing his story partly on real events, Follett gives us a plot in which the British discover, in 1941, that the Germans have an experimental radar station on the coast of Denmark. For a variety of reasons it falls to a young Danish student to get the details of this radar installation back to England in time to ensure that the facility can be destroyed before it leads to the elimination of the British air forces.
Follett has not been a thriller writer for all these years without learning how to do the job. He is extremely skilful. We are therefore presented, for example, not with the usual one-dimensional bad guy but with a rounded character, a complicated man.
On the minus side, I found that there was rather too much background information for my taste; overall, the book is not as tightly organised as The Key to Rebecca, which I often recommend to people who are trying to write a thriller and want a model to study.
It is also the case that Follett manipulates the reader's emotions in ways which I find rather tiresome. Of course, creating emotion is what the craft of fiction is all about, as I said a few days ago, but after many decades of reading thrillers (and after writing a few) I guess I am resistant to writers turning up the tension in too obvious a way.
This criticism particularly applies to the last few chapters of Hornet Flight. Here we find our hero and heroine having to fly an old Hornet Moth aeroplane from Denmark to England. Well now, it would not be much of a story if our two lead characters simply wheeled the plane out of its hangar, got in, and flew safely to their destination. Dear me no. So Follett follows the usual commercial formula and creates problems for them.
I will not weary you, or spoil the book, by telling you what all these problems are. What I will say is that they go on and on and on. Nothing goes right for the hero and heroine. And when one of them has to go out on the wing and refuel in the plane in flight... Well, I just thought it was a bit silly, that's all.
However, no doubt Mr Follett was thinking about how the scene would play in the movie version. And a movie version there will probably be.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Blogging may damage your eyesight
Pay attention now, because this might get a little complicated.
Maud Newton's blog says that the day before yesterday, or thereabouts, Justin on the Beautiful Stuff blog transcribed part of a Literary Friendships conversation between Waldman and Chabon (I think you're supposed to know their first names), moderated by Garrison Keillor, in which Waldman argued that blogging is bad for fiction writing. Waldman says this:
Last autumn I had this flu-type infection, which gave me a temperature, and I had a dream about the story for a novel. And as I lay there, gently steaming, I began to work out the plot in more detail. And -- of course -- what happened was what always happens when you are struck by lightning in this way. I decided that my novel was going to be the best thing to hit the publishing industry since the Da Vinci thingy. (I was sick, please note.)
When I recovered I regained some form of sanity and realised that perhaps my novel would not be the Next Big Thing after all, so I put it aside. But over the last few weeks I've begun to wonder. Maybe it would be fun to do it anyway.
One thing is for sure. If I do write this book, it will be short.
Maud Newton's blog says that the day before yesterday, or thereabouts, Justin on the Beautiful Stuff blog transcribed part of a Literary Friendships conversation between Waldman and Chabon (I think you're supposed to know their first names), moderated by Garrison Keillor, in which Waldman argued that blogging is bad for fiction writing. Waldman says this:
Don't start, don't start; it'll suck you into the screaming vortex of the blogosphere, and then you will never get out.Er, right. Well now, see, the thing is this. It is perfectly true that I, the GOB, haven't written a word of fiction since I started blogging. But I was, kind of, thinking about starting again. As I was shaving this morning.
Last autumn I had this flu-type infection, which gave me a temperature, and I had a dream about the story for a novel. And as I lay there, gently steaming, I began to work out the plot in more detail. And -- of course -- what happened was what always happens when you are struck by lightning in this way. I decided that my novel was going to be the best thing to hit the publishing industry since the Da Vinci thingy. (I was sick, please note.)
When I recovered I regained some form of sanity and realised that perhaps my novel would not be the Next Big Thing after all, so I put it aside. But over the last few weeks I've begun to wonder. Maybe it would be fun to do it anyway.
One thing is for sure. If I do write this book, it will be short.
Patrick McGrath: Blood and Water
Here, at last, is a mention of some short stories that I have been reading. You will, perhaps, recall that on 16 March I provided an official history of the short story, closely followed (on 17 March) by the true history of same. And I said then that those pieces were provided as a preliminary to further discussion of the short-story art. So here's the first bit of further discussion.
Patrick McGrath is an English writer. He was born in London but grew up near Broadmoor Hospital, which is effectively a prison for the criminally insane. The patients who are sent there are the kind of people who kill their friends for fun and eat them for dinner. With such a childhood it is perhaps unsurprising that McGrath writes rather peculiar short stories.
McGrath's collection entitled Blood and Water contains some fine pieces. But be warned -- again -- that they are a bit on the dark side, at best. They are described by some reviewers as Gothic; which, I guess, means not out-and-out horror stories, but stories which are odd, peculiar, and vaguely disturbing without being disgusting (most of the time, anyway).
We begin with a story called The Angel, which is set on the Bowery, and which involves, as you would expect, an angel as one of the characters. A number of other stories also have a US background, which as far as I can tell is faultless.
A little further on in the collection, we have a story called The Black Hand of the Raj. This is set in India about a hundred years ago, and -- I kid you not -- it concerns a number of blameless, clean-living English chaps who end up with a hand growing out of the top of their head. Shocking bad luck, really, but then what can you expect if you live in foreign parts?
Towards the end of McGrath's book, The Boot's Tale is unusual in that it is told from the point of view of an old boot -- yes, the kind you wear on your foot. And it is as black a tale as you are ever likely to come across. The events occur post a nuclear holocaust, and I advise you not to read it either shortly before or shortly after a meal. Note: when I say this story is black, I mean it is middle of a moonless night, sixty feet underground in a cave in the middle of a thick primeval forest kind of dark.
And the last story, the title tale, features a knight of the realm, no less, who ends up being committed to Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum , as it was known in those days.
In addition to his short stories, McGrath has also written a number of novels. I have only read one of these -- Asylum. As its title suggests, this is set in what used to be called a lunatic asylum (and guess which institution it is based on).
Asylum is not only competent but is unusually well written (if we ignore the author's occasional practice of dividing two sentences with a comma). Why then do I hesitate to recommend it?
Well, for one thing the author tells us on the first page that he has a sad story to tell, and it's true; and I'm not all that keen on sad stories. For my money the book is a bit slow-moving and, up to a point, predictable. But it is certainly full of insights into the kind of madness which expresses itself as sexual obsession and passionate love.
By the look of things, Asylum is being made into a film, with a script by McGrath himself. He is married, by the way, to the actress Maria Aitken.
Patrick McGrath is an English writer. He was born in London but grew up near Broadmoor Hospital, which is effectively a prison for the criminally insane. The patients who are sent there are the kind of people who kill their friends for fun and eat them for dinner. With such a childhood it is perhaps unsurprising that McGrath writes rather peculiar short stories.
McGrath's collection entitled Blood and Water contains some fine pieces. But be warned -- again -- that they are a bit on the dark side, at best. They are described by some reviewers as Gothic; which, I guess, means not out-and-out horror stories, but stories which are odd, peculiar, and vaguely disturbing without being disgusting (most of the time, anyway).
We begin with a story called The Angel, which is set on the Bowery, and which involves, as you would expect, an angel as one of the characters. A number of other stories also have a US background, which as far as I can tell is faultless.
A little further on in the collection, we have a story called The Black Hand of the Raj. This is set in India about a hundred years ago, and -- I kid you not -- it concerns a number of blameless, clean-living English chaps who end up with a hand growing out of the top of their head. Shocking bad luck, really, but then what can you expect if you live in foreign parts?
Towards the end of McGrath's book, The Boot's Tale is unusual in that it is told from the point of view of an old boot -- yes, the kind you wear on your foot. And it is as black a tale as you are ever likely to come across. The events occur post a nuclear holocaust, and I advise you not to read it either shortly before or shortly after a meal. Note: when I say this story is black, I mean it is middle of a moonless night, sixty feet underground in a cave in the middle of a thick primeval forest kind of dark.
And the last story, the title tale, features a knight of the realm, no less, who ends up being committed to Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum , as it was known in those days.
In addition to his short stories, McGrath has also written a number of novels. I have only read one of these -- Asylum. As its title suggests, this is set in what used to be called a lunatic asylum (and guess which institution it is based on).
Asylum is not only competent but is unusually well written (if we ignore the author's occasional practice of dividing two sentences with a comma). Why then do I hesitate to recommend it?
Well, for one thing the author tells us on the first page that he has a sad story to tell, and it's true; and I'm not all that keen on sad stories. For my money the book is a bit slow-moving and, up to a point, predictable. But it is certainly full of insights into the kind of madness which expresses itself as sexual obsession and passionate love.
By the look of things, Asylum is being made into a film, with a script by McGrath himself. He is married, by the way, to the actress Maria Aitken.
Another English eccentric
Yesterday's Independent had a story about a more than usually eccentric Englishman: Mike Goldmark.
Mr Goldmark, until recently, had a secondhand-book business in a small town called Uppingham (where there is a famous school; Stephen Fry was expelled from it). The business opened in 1974, was later expanded with an adjoining art gallery, and has now closed; though the gallery remains open.
In addition to buying and selling old books -- in a somewhat eccentric manner, it has to be said -- Goldmark also did a bit of publishing. He published, for instance, Iain Sinclair's first novel, White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings, in 1987.
What happened was that Sinclair told Goldmark that he was planning to write a novel, and Goldmark said that if he did he would publish it. Later, Sinclair turned up and said that he had completed the novel, offered it around, and had had it turned down by everybody. So Goldmark said he would publish it anyway.
Sinclair asked whether Goldmark wanted to read the novel before making up his mind. And Goldmark said no, he didn't think that would be a good idea.
See what I mean about eccentric?
Turns out that Goldmark actually can read, but he finds it puts him to sleep. 'I just get extremely tired when I start doing it.' Yes indeed; I know the feeling.
Mr Goldmark, until recently, had a secondhand-book business in a small town called Uppingham (where there is a famous school; Stephen Fry was expelled from it). The business opened in 1974, was later expanded with an adjoining art gallery, and has now closed; though the gallery remains open.
In addition to buying and selling old books -- in a somewhat eccentric manner, it has to be said -- Goldmark also did a bit of publishing. He published, for instance, Iain Sinclair's first novel, White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings, in 1987.
What happened was that Sinclair told Goldmark that he was planning to write a novel, and Goldmark said that if he did he would publish it. Later, Sinclair turned up and said that he had completed the novel, offered it around, and had had it turned down by everybody. So Goldmark said he would publish it anyway.
Sinclair asked whether Goldmark wanted to read the novel before making up his mind. And Goldmark said no, he didn't think that would be a good idea.
See what I mean about eccentric?
Turns out that Goldmark actually can read, but he finds it puts him to sleep. 'I just get extremely tired when I start doing it.' Yes indeed; I know the feeling.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Profitability and size
A note from Mad Max Perkins draws my attention to a couple of interesting stories about the best size for a publishing company. The trend, over the last thirty years, in both the UK and the USA, has been for publishers to get bigger and bigger. Often the big publishers are themselves part of even bigger multinational conglomerates.
Only recently, at the London Book Fair, a fairly astute observer of the publishing scene, Tim Hely Hutchinson, was quoted as saying that he thought this trend was likely to continue. However, within a day or two of that, Viacom and Liberty Media have both announced that they intend to go against the trend and dismantle some of their huge empires into smaller chunks.
As if that wasn't confusing enough, there is an interview in the Financial Times (link provided by booktrade.info) with Peter Olson, the chief executive of Random House, in which he says the RH is managing to make good profits despite the failure of competitors such as Penguin. The word is that RH's success comes from modelling the business partly on the company's German parent. Costs and back-office functions are co-ordinated centrally, but publishing units, including Doubleday and Bantam, operate almost autonomously in their dealings with authors.
'We are a microcosm of Bertelsmann," says one RH insider. "We often have two or three of our own houses bidding for the same book. It means we get more than one look at it.'
At first sight it seems distinctly odd to have two or three bits of the same company bidding against each other, but perhaps the 'secret of success', if there is one, is to have these autonomous units within an umbrella. Go figure, it's beyond me. I suspect it's all random anyway -- and absolutely no pun intended. What I mean is, this year RH, next year HC, and so forth.
The FT article, by the way, will probably go into register-or-you-can't-read-it mode before long.
Only recently, at the London Book Fair, a fairly astute observer of the publishing scene, Tim Hely Hutchinson, was quoted as saying that he thought this trend was likely to continue. However, within a day or two of that, Viacom and Liberty Media have both announced that they intend to go against the trend and dismantle some of their huge empires into smaller chunks.
As if that wasn't confusing enough, there is an interview in the Financial Times (link provided by booktrade.info) with Peter Olson, the chief executive of Random House, in which he says the RH is managing to make good profits despite the failure of competitors such as Penguin. The word is that RH's success comes from modelling the business partly on the company's German parent. Costs and back-office functions are co-ordinated centrally, but publishing units, including Doubleday and Bantam, operate almost autonomously in their dealings with authors.
'We are a microcosm of Bertelsmann," says one RH insider. "We often have two or three of our own houses bidding for the same book. It means we get more than one look at it.'
At first sight it seems distinctly odd to have two or three bits of the same company bidding against each other, but perhaps the 'secret of success', if there is one, is to have these autonomous units within an umbrella. Go figure, it's beyond me. I suspect it's all random anyway -- and absolutely no pun intended. What I mean is, this year RH, next year HC, and so forth.
The FT article, by the way, will probably go into register-or-you-can't-read-it mode before long.
Tim Bete: making them laugh
Writing stuff that makes people laugh is never easy; humour is such a personal thing, and what is hilarious to one person can leave another stone cold. (The Americans, in case you haven't noticed, insist on spelling it humor; which doesn't make it any easier to write -- just shorter.)
Furthermore, if there is one thing harder to achieve than writing a funny book, it is writing a daily or weekly (non-fiction) column that achieves the same thing. Think what it must be like: you wake up one morning with a hideous hangover, and not only do you you have to go to work but you have to be funny as well.
Perhaps it's my imagination, and I certainly haven't done a statistical analysis, but I have the impression that the Americans have always been better at the ho ho ho stuff in journalism than have than the English. And if I had to pick the best of them all I would go for Art Buchwald. Having said that, Erma Bombeck would be a close second.
I was reminded of all this the other day when I had some contact with Tim Bete. Tim writes a column on parenting for various US outlets, and he is also the director of the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop. More to the point, perhaps, Tim is the author of a book entitled In the beginning, which brings together some of his columns. As you would expect, the material deals with the problems of bringing up kids, and has attracted some enthusiastic reviews.
Should you be looking for a present for someone struggling with the changing of diapers (nappies if you're English), your problem is solved. At present it is not available on amazon.co.uk, but no doubt amazon.com can send it wherever you wish.
Furthermore, if there is one thing harder to achieve than writing a funny book, it is writing a daily or weekly (non-fiction) column that achieves the same thing. Think what it must be like: you wake up one morning with a hideous hangover, and not only do you you have to go to work but you have to be funny as well.
Perhaps it's my imagination, and I certainly haven't done a statistical analysis, but I have the impression that the Americans have always been better at the ho ho ho stuff in journalism than have than the English. And if I had to pick the best of them all I would go for Art Buchwald. Having said that, Erma Bombeck would be a close second.
I was reminded of all this the other day when I had some contact with Tim Bete. Tim writes a column on parenting for various US outlets, and he is also the director of the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop. More to the point, perhaps, Tim is the author of a book entitled In the beginning, which brings together some of his columns. As you would expect, the material deals with the problems of bringing up kids, and has attracted some enthusiastic reviews.
Should you be looking for a present for someone struggling with the changing of diapers (nappies if you're English), your problem is solved. At present it is not available on amazon.co.uk, but no doubt amazon.com can send it wherever you wish.
C.J. Sansom: Dark Fire
A while back, I reviewed C.J. Sansom's first novel, Dissolution. Dark Fire is number two in this series of sixteenth-century crime novels, and it features the same lead character, the hunchback lawyer Matthew Shardlake. (A third book in the series is due next year.)
Sansom has a PhD in history, and has been a lawyer himself, so we can assume, I think, that the background is scholarly and authentic. In any case, it all seems to accord pretty well with what I remember of Tudor history from my own days as a student.
Dark Fire begins in 1540, three years after the first book. Henry VIII, though ailing, is still King. His first minister is still the arch-schemer, Thomas Cromwell. You had to be pretty quick on your feet to stay on top in Henry VIII's day, and Cromwell is quicker than most. To begin with anyway.
Shardlake finds himself defending a young girl on a murder charge. He is also sent on a mission for Cromwell. There are rumours that a government official has found the formula for Greek Fire, and Cromwell wants it, to strengthen his position with the King.
Greek Fire is mentioned by the ancients. It was a legendary substance which was used by the Byzantines to destroy Arab navies, but the Byzantines took such extreme precautions to keep its formula secret that eventually it was lost altogether. Shardlake has to find it again, while doing his best to prevent the execution of an innocent girl.
All in all the book is extremely well done. Some of the apparent creakiness of the plot turns out to be a bit of a double bluff, and the book rattles along quite painlessly for some 500 pages. I suspect that it helps if the reader has some background knowledge of Tudor England, but on the whole Sansom does a sound job of explaining what we need to know.
Recommended.
Sansom has a PhD in history, and has been a lawyer himself, so we can assume, I think, that the background is scholarly and authentic. In any case, it all seems to accord pretty well with what I remember of Tudor history from my own days as a student.
Dark Fire begins in 1540, three years after the first book. Henry VIII, though ailing, is still King. His first minister is still the arch-schemer, Thomas Cromwell. You had to be pretty quick on your feet to stay on top in Henry VIII's day, and Cromwell is quicker than most. To begin with anyway.
Shardlake finds himself defending a young girl on a murder charge. He is also sent on a mission for Cromwell. There are rumours that a government official has found the formula for Greek Fire, and Cromwell wants it, to strengthen his position with the King.
Greek Fire is mentioned by the ancients. It was a legendary substance which was used by the Byzantines to destroy Arab navies, but the Byzantines took such extreme precautions to keep its formula secret that eventually it was lost altogether. Shardlake has to find it again, while doing his best to prevent the execution of an innocent girl.
All in all the book is extremely well done. Some of the apparent creakiness of the plot turns out to be a bit of a double bluff, and the book rattles along quite painlessly for some 500 pages. I suspect that it helps if the reader has some background knowledge of Tudor England, but on the whole Sansom does a sound job of explaining what we need to know.
Recommended.
Monday, March 21, 2005
Gerard Jones: far from finished
Regular readers will know how much I admire Gerard Jones. Not only is the man a published writer (after some 14,000 rejections, and rising) but he is a good writer. Most of us, when we get mad, turn a nasty purple colour and begin to splutter incoherently. Not Gerard. When he gets mad he remains coherent and abuses his enemies not only fluently but amusingly.
Reproduced below, with Gerard's permission, is the full text of his latest email, which is being sent to '6,000 money-grubbing goons and giggly twits', a group from which, incidentally, he kindly excludes me, even though I got a copy of the email. The GOB, he tells me, is 'not very full of shit', which is the best news I've had in along time.
Reproduced below, with Gerard's permission, is the full text of his latest email, which is being sent to '6,000 money-grubbing goons and giggly twits', a group from which, incidentally, he kindly excludes me, even though I got a copy of the email. The GOB, he tells me, is 'not very full of shit', which is the best news I've had in along time.
Finished, finally, fhew...
People wonder why I went to all the trouble of making Everyone Who's Anyone in Adult Trade Publishing and Tinseltown Too, an online directory of 2,500 of the top literary agents, editors and publishers in the US, UK and Canada and 3,500 Hollywood literary & talent agents, studio executives and independent film company boys and girls. Now that The Fourth Edition, April 2005 is finally finished, I'm gonna tell you why.
For fun, that's why. To crack myself up. And because it's a new kind of art—a new kind of literature, an approximation of the truth for a change. EWA's got more useful information in it about the book business and the movie business than anything else you can get for free, that's for sure, and it's gonna stay free like the rest of the best things in life.
I also made this whole huge 4.57 MB website to make it easier to get my beautiful books rejected some more. My goal is to be the most rejected writer of all time. I reached that goal clear back at fourteen thousand or so, but I wanna keep adding to the record so no one will ever break it. When I get done with this round of "querying" I'll be up to around 150,000 rejections, give or take. I'm proud. I'm happy. It's only fitting that one of the best writers who's ever lived should be far and away the most rejected writer who's ever lived. Virtue is its own reward.
But the main reason I made the site was so that I could sit down one fine day like today and send all 6,000 of the shortsighted, money-grubbing goons and giggly twits in the book business and the movie businesses an e-mail telling 'em exactly what I think of 'em. If you're reading this, you're one of those selfsame, shortsighted, money-grubbing goons or giggly twits who has rejected my beautiful books in one way or another going on a hundred and fifty thousand times over the years and here, briefly, is what I would like to take this opportunity to say to you, if I may:
I write great books, books that would make great movies, and you reject 'em, how stupid is that? You produce crappy books and crappy movies for money, I tell the truth for free. Who would you rather be, you or me? Wait, wait, you've already answered that an astronomical number of times but, what the heck, go ahead and answer it again. Ignore this e-mail like you ignored the others I've sent you. Prove yet again how truly ignorant you really are. Go on about the oh so very important business of making money buying and selling lousy books and lousy movies, live your lies, make your piddly piles of nickels and dimes and Deutschmarks—die, rot, be forgot, that's fine with me, but my little website's gonna give you some measure of immortality whether you want it or not. Ha!
Your children and grandchildren are gonna see your name among the thousands of money-grubbing schlock-peddlers and giggly twits who dismissed my beautiful books and chose instead to go gaga over the unspeakably inane, mind-numbing twaddle that will become known as American literature and culture of the early 21st Century. And you picked it. Wow. Should you feel good about yourself, or what? It's kind of cool being one of the best writers who's ever lived but how cool can it be to have ignored one of the best writers who's ever lived?
You may never know what you've done due in large part to having your head buried all the way to China in the dirt of your own giggly greed, but posterity will. You'll be lumped among book review editors and their idiotic ilk who have (with the single exception of Linda Richards who picked Ginny Good as the editor's only choice for the best nonfiction book of 2004) neglected to read or review the coolest book published anywhere in the world so far this century. Oh, well. I wouldn't want to be one of their children or grandchildren, either.
The thing that really cracks me up is that then y'all have the gall to call what some wide-eyed, innocent Saudi kid gets taught in a madrasa "brainwashing." Oh, my gosh. To love God instead of Money? Yikes. What kind of an absurd, subversive notion is that? Those towelheads ought to be bombed back into the stone age. Naturally you know what matters. Money. That's it. You love money. You adore money. You worship money. You eat, sleep, drink, breathe and take baths in money. Money isn't everything, it's the only thing. Whoever said "the love of money is the root of all evil" must be some kind of terrorist, some kind of whacko Islamic-fundamentalist.
You won't ever realize any of that either, of course, but future generations will. Your children and your grandchildren will be shunned because of you. They'll be embarrassed, they'll be afraid to play with other kids, they'll get teased, they'll be made fun of, laughed at; no one with any brains will have anything to do with them because it will be widely assumed that they were born with your moron genes.
Take heart, however, it may still not too late! You might be able to redeem yourself. You may still have a chance to make life a little easier for your otherwise ill-fated progeny. Take a look at Ginny Good. Buy the hardcover rights. Buy the Brit rights. Translate the sucker into Dutch. Get me to read it into a microphone so it can be an audio book. Future generations will treasure the sound of my glorious voice reading the gorgeous words I wrote back during that time when literature and culture was at its lowest ebb and you'll be revered for "discovering" me. Your children and grandchildren will be honored, flattered, sought-after instead of shunned...and
all because of you! Whoopdeedo. What better legacy could you possibly leave them than that?
Or better still, do it for yourself. Make a movie out Ginny Good so you can say you did one thing worth doing in your life. Or take a look at any of my other beautiful books. Buy or sell or make movies out of one or two or three of them while you're at it. Be a hero to your heirs. If you wanna find out how, click this: Manuscripts for Sale or Rent. You'll thank yourself. Your children will thank you, your grandchildren will thank you, your great-grandchildren will thank you, I'll thank you, but I'd thank you anyway whether you're a demonstrable idiot or not.
Thanks.
Gerard Jones
p.s. I know there's a fine line between delightful cynicism and bitterness. I cross it on occasion but I'm basically pretty pleased with myself and with the books I write and with the objectivity with which I see things. If you want to see more delightful cynicism, bitterness, bravado and the way things are, click this: Rants, Diatribes, Etc. I gotta go play golf in the rain. G.
Key concepts for writers
Yesterday's papers had a couple of pieces which provide our thoughts for the day.
First, in the Sunday Times, there was an article about a blues singer (white, female) called Mary Gauthier. Mary, it turns out, has led a thoroughly rackety sort of life. Now aged 43 or so, she has been in jail, overdosed on a heroin and alcohol mixture a couple of times, and has never been able to hang on to 'a relationship'. She didn't start writing songs until she was 35.
The key paragraph in the article is this: 'I couldn't sing,' admits Mary. 'My songs weren't that good, and I couldn't really play, but I knew that if I kept going, I'd get better. When the day came that I made grown men cry, I knew my songs had something that spoke to the heart.'
Now, here we have a number of key concepts usefully encapsulated, concepts which apply every bit as much to fiction writers as they do to singer-songwriters.
First, you need to practise to develop your technique, which is unlikely to be much good to begin with. And second, the business is all about creating emotion. Making grown men cry is what you're trying to do -- or should be trying to do. Either that or making young girls laugh. Whatever the audience, creating emotion in that audience is the ultimate objective. To those who can deliver such emotions, as and when wanted, great prizes will be delivered.
And how do you learn how to do that? Well, you do some research, do some thinking, and practise. It's not a difficult procedure, in principle.
The research you do by reading up on literary technique. And here's a tip: ignore anything written by an academic; it is a waste of space. Instead, read anything and everything written by a reasonably successful writer or an agent.
Second, do some thinking about what the research tells you, because there is no such thing as a book, or a shelf full of books, which will provide the answer to all your problems; some of it you have to work out for yourself.
And third, practise. Practise, practise, practise. Produce stuff. If it isn't any good, chuck it away and so some more.
Yesterday's Observer, linked by booktrade.info, had an article by Robert McCrum, with the heading Who are you writing for?
McCrum's comments on this issue are not, frankly, very illuminating. He reads as if he is still recovering from a last-night-of-the-London-Book-Fair party. But the question he asks is a crucial one. Because until you decide who you are writing for, you can't really design your piece in a way which will match the needs of the reader.
For example, a book written for middle-aged or elderly working-class women living in the north of England (aka a clogs and shawl saga) will of necessity have different characteristics from a young-adult book about magic.
If you want to write for an audience of one, i.e. yourself, that's fine. But don't be surprised if no one wants to publish the result.
First, in the Sunday Times, there was an article about a blues singer (white, female) called Mary Gauthier. Mary, it turns out, has led a thoroughly rackety sort of life. Now aged 43 or so, she has been in jail, overdosed on a heroin and alcohol mixture a couple of times, and has never been able to hang on to 'a relationship'. She didn't start writing songs until she was 35.
The key paragraph in the article is this: 'I couldn't sing,' admits Mary. 'My songs weren't that good, and I couldn't really play, but I knew that if I kept going, I'd get better. When the day came that I made grown men cry, I knew my songs had something that spoke to the heart.'
Now, here we have a number of key concepts usefully encapsulated, concepts which apply every bit as much to fiction writers as they do to singer-songwriters.
First, you need to practise to develop your technique, which is unlikely to be much good to begin with. And second, the business is all about creating emotion. Making grown men cry is what you're trying to do -- or should be trying to do. Either that or making young girls laugh. Whatever the audience, creating emotion in that audience is the ultimate objective. To those who can deliver such emotions, as and when wanted, great prizes will be delivered.
And how do you learn how to do that? Well, you do some research, do some thinking, and practise. It's not a difficult procedure, in principle.
The research you do by reading up on literary technique. And here's a tip: ignore anything written by an academic; it is a waste of space. Instead, read anything and everything written by a reasonably successful writer or an agent.
Second, do some thinking about what the research tells you, because there is no such thing as a book, or a shelf full of books, which will provide the answer to all your problems; some of it you have to work out for yourself.
And third, practise. Practise, practise, practise. Produce stuff. If it isn't any good, chuck it away and so some more.
Yesterday's Observer, linked by booktrade.info, had an article by Robert McCrum, with the heading Who are you writing for?
McCrum's comments on this issue are not, frankly, very illuminating. He reads as if he is still recovering from a last-night-of-the-London-Book-Fair party. But the question he asks is a crucial one. Because until you decide who you are writing for, you can't really design your piece in a way which will match the needs of the reader.
For example, a book written for middle-aged or elderly working-class women living in the north of England (aka a clogs and shawl saga) will of necessity have different characteristics from a young-adult book about magic.
If you want to write for an audience of one, i.e. yourself, that's fine. But don't be surprised if no one wants to publish the result.
The dead hand of subsidy
Joel Rickett's latest round-up of news from the UK publishing industry reports that, 'since 2002, the UK Arts Council has paid out some £5.4m to literary causes: publishers specialising in translated, regional or ethnic minority books, festivals, literacy groups and poetry presses. But after the government's tough budget settlement, it will close its doors to new funding applications. The current "literary portfolio" will continue to be supported; other hopefuls will have to wait until 2008 before they can apply.'
Well thank God for that, anyway. What a pity that the government didn't have the balls to get out of literary affairs altogether; with the possible exception of 'literacy groups', which sound as if they might be useful, government has no business meddling in publishing. If money is to be spent on books, I'd much rather spend it myself, thank you, rather than have the government spend it on my behalf.
If a business can't survive without subsidy, tough. It's not as if huge money is required: these days, you can start a publishing company with almost zero capital (see, for example, my own small press, Kingsfield Publications, which has cost me less than a week's holiday somewhere warm). Of course, what you can't do is copy the big four or five and spend £100,000 on advertising. But with the right book, and access to the internet, you can certainly find readers and you can get books into libraries.
The real problem with subsidy is that it encourages writers (and artists, actors, et cetera) to futher indulge in the me-me-me philosophy to which they are already too much inclined. Creative people need to be encouraged to think far more about their audience's needs, and far less about their own preoccupations. Subsidy does the precise opposite.
Well thank God for that, anyway. What a pity that the government didn't have the balls to get out of literary affairs altogether; with the possible exception of 'literacy groups', which sound as if they might be useful, government has no business meddling in publishing. If money is to be spent on books, I'd much rather spend it myself, thank you, rather than have the government spend it on my behalf.
If a business can't survive without subsidy, tough. It's not as if huge money is required: these days, you can start a publishing company with almost zero capital (see, for example, my own small press, Kingsfield Publications, which has cost me less than a week's holiday somewhere warm). Of course, what you can't do is copy the big four or five and spend £100,000 on advertising. But with the right book, and access to the internet, you can certainly find readers and you can get books into libraries.
The real problem with subsidy is that it encourages writers (and artists, actors, et cetera) to futher indulge in the me-me-me philosophy to which they are already too much inclined. Creative people need to be encouraged to think far more about their audience's needs, and far less about their own preoccupations. Subsidy does the precise opposite.
Friday, March 18, 2005
Naked girls warning
Michael Schaub, on Booklsut, has rightly drawn attention to the fact that publishing is about to sink to a new low. Leonard Nimoy, the guy from Star Trek with the funny ears, is about to publish a book featuring photographs of naked fat-bottomed girls.
Look, it was bad enough when Queen (back in 1978) wrote a song about fat-bottomed girls. The lyrics were utterly disgraceful, with references to various perverted desires over which we will hastily draw a duvet. And there was a video too, which I saw once. I don't think I've ever been quite the same since. There are reports that 50 naked girls were hired to stage a bicycle race for said video, and there are some even more disgusting stories about the aftermath of that event. What is more, I seem to remember that when the video was being filmed, press photographers were in attendance, so there may even be some still shots somewhere.
And now Nimoy is going to produce a new book of similar photographs. This is absolutely intolerable. If anyone can tell me who the publisher is, how much it costs, and where I can get a copy, I shall be extremely grateful, as it will enable me to issue an even more detailed warning at a future date. How fortunate you all are that clean-living chaps like Schaub and myself are around to ensure that you don't come to moral harm.
Look, it was bad enough when Queen (back in 1978) wrote a song about fat-bottomed girls. The lyrics were utterly disgraceful, with references to various perverted desires over which we will hastily draw a duvet. And there was a video too, which I saw once. I don't think I've ever been quite the same since. There are reports that 50 naked girls were hired to stage a bicycle race for said video, and there are some even more disgusting stories about the aftermath of that event. What is more, I seem to remember that when the video was being filmed, press photographers were in attendance, so there may even be some still shots somewhere.
And now Nimoy is going to produce a new book of similar photographs. This is absolutely intolerable. If anyone can tell me who the publisher is, how much it costs, and where I can get a copy, I shall be extremely grateful, as it will enable me to issue an even more detailed warning at a future date. How fortunate you all are that clean-living chaps like Schaub and myself are around to ensure that you don't come to moral harm.
Jonathan Stroud: The Golem's Eye
On 4 February I wrote about Jonathan Stroud's The Amulet of Samarkand, which is volume one in the Bartimaeus trilogy. Volume two is The Golem's Eye.
You need to be clear at the outset that the Bartimaeus trilogy is a series of books for children -- or at any rate young adults. I mention that because, while some mature readers (me, for instance) are quite content to read books which are aimed at young people, others are not. Also, I have to say, The Golem's Eye is a bit more obviously designed for teenagers than was The Amulet of Smarkand.
What we have here is another book about magic. And if your heart sinks at that, tough. It's like saying that it's a book about crime, or romance. Either you dig that stuff, or you don't. Mind you, you should certainly avoid my mistake, which was to read this soon after reading Susanna Clarke's wonderful Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. The inevitable comparison had the unfortunate effect of making Stroud look very second-rate. Which of course he is -- because everyone is second rate when compared with Susanna Clarke. Judged on his own, he is pretty good.
The Golem's Eye, like the previous book, is set in a parallel-universe London. Bartimaeus is a 5,000-year-old djinni, or demon, and he is once again he is summoned to work for the teenage magician Nathaniel. But here there is a shift of emphasis from the first book, a shift which Stroud, in my opinion, handles very well. In the first story we were directed to sympathise with Nathaniel, and to be on his side in any of his adventures. To some extent that is still true now, but we are also led to sympathise with Kitty, a teenage girl who is definitely not a magician; indeed she has a genetic resistance to magic.
Kitty is a member of the Resistance movement, which seeks to bring an end to the magicians' domination of society and to restore freedom to the ordinary people. But the star of the show is still, perhaps, Bartimaeus, who has seen it all before, and who entertains us with his sardonic commentary on the foolishness of magicians and ordinary folk alike.
The Golem's Eye is not, perhaps, quite as tightly written as vol. one, but I recommend it anyway. I shall certainly look out for vol. three.
By the way: the Independent, a while back, invited 100 literary luminaries to nominate their favourite characters in fiction. This feature generated much interest among readers, who proceeded to nominate their own favourites. One reader from Somerset put forward Michael (sic) Stroud's creation Bartimaeous (sic), describing him as 'excrutiatingly (sic) witty, engaging without being attractive, awesomely intelligent but lacking self knowledge.' Well, I guess we should give this kid some credit for being a reader, but his teachers get about 3 out of 10 for their spelling lessons.
You need to be clear at the outset that the Bartimaeus trilogy is a series of books for children -- or at any rate young adults. I mention that because, while some mature readers (me, for instance) are quite content to read books which are aimed at young people, others are not. Also, I have to say, The Golem's Eye is a bit more obviously designed for teenagers than was The Amulet of Smarkand.
What we have here is another book about magic. And if your heart sinks at that, tough. It's like saying that it's a book about crime, or romance. Either you dig that stuff, or you don't. Mind you, you should certainly avoid my mistake, which was to read this soon after reading Susanna Clarke's wonderful Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. The inevitable comparison had the unfortunate effect of making Stroud look very second-rate. Which of course he is -- because everyone is second rate when compared with Susanna Clarke. Judged on his own, he is pretty good.
The Golem's Eye, like the previous book, is set in a parallel-universe London. Bartimaeus is a 5,000-year-old djinni, or demon, and he is once again he is summoned to work for the teenage magician Nathaniel. But here there is a shift of emphasis from the first book, a shift which Stroud, in my opinion, handles very well. In the first story we were directed to sympathise with Nathaniel, and to be on his side in any of his adventures. To some extent that is still true now, but we are also led to sympathise with Kitty, a teenage girl who is definitely not a magician; indeed she has a genetic resistance to magic.
Kitty is a member of the Resistance movement, which seeks to bring an end to the magicians' domination of society and to restore freedom to the ordinary people. But the star of the show is still, perhaps, Bartimaeus, who has seen it all before, and who entertains us with his sardonic commentary on the foolishness of magicians and ordinary folk alike.
The Golem's Eye is not, perhaps, quite as tightly written as vol. one, but I recommend it anyway. I shall certainly look out for vol. three.
By the way: the Independent, a while back, invited 100 literary luminaries to nominate their favourite characters in fiction. This feature generated much interest among readers, who proceeded to nominate their own favourites. One reader from Somerset put forward Michael (sic) Stroud's creation Bartimaeous (sic), describing him as 'excrutiatingly (sic) witty, engaging without being attractive, awesomely intelligent but lacking self knowledge.' Well, I guess we should give this kid some credit for being a reader, but his teachers get about 3 out of 10 for their spelling lessons.
Carlos Ruiz Zafon: The Shadow of the Wind
Carlos Ruiz Zafon was born in Spain and has just turned forty. He moved to Los Angeles in his late twenties, and wrote four books for young adults before turning out his first novel for old adults, The Shadow of the Wind.
Despite living in LA for some years, Zafon apparently wrote his first grown-up novel in Spanish; it was translated into English by Lucia Graves, daughter of Robert.
For whatever reason, and they are sometimes hard as hell to figure out, The Shadow of the Wind has been a big-time hit in mainland Europe. It was the traditional runaway bestseller in Spain, and in Germany it made number one. In the UK, after a slow start, it gradually made its way up the charts; the chief boost to sales came about when the book was selected for Richard & Judy's book club. (R & J are hosts of a UK daytime TV show; their book club is a less effective sales tool than being chosen by Oprah, but it's still a big help.)
So, what kind of a book is The Shadow of the Wind? Well, it's principally a literary novel, in my view, though there are also some bits of this and bits of that: some mystery, some romance, and so forth.
And what's it about?
Technically it is, I believe, what is called in some quarters a metafiction: a book about a book. Set in Barcelona in 1945, the story begins with an eleven-year-old boy who is given a copy of a book called The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julian Carax, and he sets out to find the rest of the author's works. He soon discovers that someone is trying to destroy every copy of everything that this author ever wrote... And so on.
Personally I feel exactly the same way about this book as I did about Kate Atkinson's Case Histories: that is to say, it's not particularly well structured, because the author is still relatively inexperienced as a writer. Despite what some critics will tell you, no one can write a totally successful novel first time out; not even Susanna Clarke. It just isn't possible. And although Zafon has written fiction before, this is his first adult book. It shows.
The consequence of this inadequacy of technique was that I started to skip through the pages fairly early on in the book. In fact, but for knowing that this novel had certainly struck a few chords here and there, I would have given up altogether. After a couple of hundred pages or so, although I was still skipping, I rather wished that I had paid more attention earlier on. Or, to put it more accurately, I very much wished that the author had been sufficiently skilful to persuade me to absorb what he wanted me to know in every detail.
The book is just plain too long, of course, like everything else nowadays. There are some 400 well-covered pages. But by the end I had had a few glimpses of what had caused a number of people to praise it.
If you want to see the publisher's blurb, and have access to an interview with the author, and other material, you can find it here. And for a very handy summary of worldwide critical opinion, courtesy of the Complete Review (a most useful service, by the way -- well done to those who provide it), click here. The Complete Review decides that there is no critical consensus on this book. Some like it, some are less impressed.
My own take, for what it's worth, is that this book achieved its success in the UK through limited word of mouth but, most of all, by virtue of the buzz generated by the Richard & Judy seal of good housekeeping, or whatever they call it.
If you want to know more about the R & J book club, there was a useful article in the Independent last summer. It answers a question that I've been wondering about for some time, namely: How much does it cost a publisher to get a book listed on Richard & Judy?
The answer is nothing. The reason being that Ofcom rules make it impossible for the producers of the show to charge for this service. I have to say that that seems a bit silly to me, because this is commercial television we're talking about, but there we are. It turns out that, in order to get listed on the book club, you have to impress the producer's team of readers. Simple as that.
Despite living in LA for some years, Zafon apparently wrote his first grown-up novel in Spanish; it was translated into English by Lucia Graves, daughter of Robert.
For whatever reason, and they are sometimes hard as hell to figure out, The Shadow of the Wind has been a big-time hit in mainland Europe. It was the traditional runaway bestseller in Spain, and in Germany it made number one. In the UK, after a slow start, it gradually made its way up the charts; the chief boost to sales came about when the book was selected for Richard & Judy's book club. (R & J are hosts of a UK daytime TV show; their book club is a less effective sales tool than being chosen by Oprah, but it's still a big help.)
So, what kind of a book is The Shadow of the Wind? Well, it's principally a literary novel, in my view, though there are also some bits of this and bits of that: some mystery, some romance, and so forth.
And what's it about?
Technically it is, I believe, what is called in some quarters a metafiction: a book about a book. Set in Barcelona in 1945, the story begins with an eleven-year-old boy who is given a copy of a book called The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julian Carax, and he sets out to find the rest of the author's works. He soon discovers that someone is trying to destroy every copy of everything that this author ever wrote... And so on.
Personally I feel exactly the same way about this book as I did about Kate Atkinson's Case Histories: that is to say, it's not particularly well structured, because the author is still relatively inexperienced as a writer. Despite what some critics will tell you, no one can write a totally successful novel first time out; not even Susanna Clarke. It just isn't possible. And although Zafon has written fiction before, this is his first adult book. It shows.
The consequence of this inadequacy of technique was that I started to skip through the pages fairly early on in the book. In fact, but for knowing that this novel had certainly struck a few chords here and there, I would have given up altogether. After a couple of hundred pages or so, although I was still skipping, I rather wished that I had paid more attention earlier on. Or, to put it more accurately, I very much wished that the author had been sufficiently skilful to persuade me to absorb what he wanted me to know in every detail.
The book is just plain too long, of course, like everything else nowadays. There are some 400 well-covered pages. But by the end I had had a few glimpses of what had caused a number of people to praise it.
If you want to see the publisher's blurb, and have access to an interview with the author, and other material, you can find it here. And for a very handy summary of worldwide critical opinion, courtesy of the Complete Review (a most useful service, by the way -- well done to those who provide it), click here. The Complete Review decides that there is no critical consensus on this book. Some like it, some are less impressed.
My own take, for what it's worth, is that this book achieved its success in the UK through limited word of mouth but, most of all, by virtue of the buzz generated by the Richard & Judy seal of good housekeeping, or whatever they call it.
If you want to know more about the R & J book club, there was a useful article in the Independent last summer. It answers a question that I've been wondering about for some time, namely: How much does it cost a publisher to get a book listed on Richard & Judy?
The answer is nothing. The reason being that Ofcom rules make it impossible for the producers of the show to charge for this service. I have to say that that seems a bit silly to me, because this is commercial television we're talking about, but there we are. It turns out that, in order to get listed on the book club, you have to impress the producer's team of readers. Simple as that.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
The true history of the short story
Continued from yesterday. Today we deal with the true history of the short story -- the short story, that is, as read and enjoyed by the man in the street, or the woman looking down on him from the top deck of the Clapham omnibus.
In summary: the short story began, for all practical purposes, about the beginning of the nineteenth century. As more and more people became able to read, and as the print media became cheaper, the short story grew in popularity. It reached its peak readership from perhaps 1880 to 1920. Thereafter the short story lost ground: first to cinema, then radio, recorded sound, television, and today 515 different forms of entertainment.
Details follow. But first, a little background.
Over the years, I have come to the view that the ‘official’ histories of the arts often tell us only half the story. Or less.
Suppose you were to go to the library and find a book called British Theatre Since 1950, or something similar. This book would almost certainly be written by an academic or a professional critic; and in terms of the year 1955, to take one at random, our official history would faithfully record that this was the year in which an ‘important’ and ‘influential’ play called Waiting for Godot was premiered.
Which is true. But what this scholarly book is unlikely to mention is that 1955 also saw the first nights of such popular plays as The Reluctant Debutante and Sailor Beware. Also open for business in 1955 were The Mousetrap (which is still running), Separate Tables, and Dry Rot. These were all long-running successes, attracting big audiences.
And why are these popular productions not mentioned in our official history? Because they are not ‘important’, that’s why. To academic historians they were ‘mere entertainment’ – just mindless pap for gormless morons. But that is not, as you may have gathered, my own view.
I readily accept that plays such as Waiting for Godot and Look Back in Anger, which appeared in 1956, were written about at length, both at the time, and since, by people who might reasonably be called intellectuals: members of the intelligentsia (if you are prepared to stretch the meaning of the word ‘intelligent’). But what reason is there for supposing that plays which are appreciated by intellectuals are more ‘important’ and ‘better theatre’ than those which entertain a more middlebrow audience?
No reason whatever, in my view. I know of no rational argument which convinces me that plays that are enjoyed and discussed by intellectuals are any better than plays which entertain a middlebrow audience. As far as I am concerned, they are not ‘better’ either morally, technically, emotionally, or in terms of any other criterion. They are not better at all – they are just different. They are different kinds of plays, which appeal to different kinds of audiences; these audiences approach the plays with different frames of reference and different sets of expectations.
What is true of the theatre is also true of the short story. In yesterday’s post, I gave you a brief rundown of the ‘official’ history of this form of fiction. But, as in the theatre, there is another history, the true history, which runs in parallel. It is a history of the short story as it has been read and enjoyed by the average person in the street.
Such a reader is not highly educated and has not travelled the world, and is not, thank you very much, at all interested in symbolism, stream-of-consciousness techniques, or having to work out what the hell is going on from a minimalist description. Such a person wants a story told in plain English, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. And in my opinion it is no sort of crime for a reader to want to have things explained clearly.
I shall now provide a history of such short stories, though like yesterday’s history it will be a much condensed version of the facts.
What we have to remember, and what is so easy to forget, is that, in the nineteenth century, magazines and books did not have much competition. There was live theatre, of course, but that was only available in towns. And there were certainly no radio programmes, no television sitcoms, or films.
Compulsory schooling in England was introduced in 1870. This meant that more people were learning to read, and, as printing technology also improved, the short story and the novel were widely disseminated, widely read, and highly prized.
It should never be forgotten that the most famous fictional character of the entire nineteenth century, Sherlock Holmes, has his existence mainly in the form of short stories; to be precise, there are four Holmes novels, and five major collections of short stories. When the stories first appeared, in magazines such as The Strand, sales of the magazine markedly increased.
Conan Doyle, however, is not often mentioned with much enthusiasm in the official literary histories. Anthony Burgess, for example, in his 1984 essay on the short story in English, refers to Doyle’s ‘triumphant success’. But then he goes on to tell us that he (Burgess) has ‘never been satisfied that... the stories of Conan Doyle are literature, in the sense that Shakespeare is literature.’ So there. That puts Sherlock in his place.
We can be quite sure that in the nineteenth century, and ever since, there has been a constant flow of fiction aimed at middlebrow or lowbrow readers. In the twentieth century, it became known as pulp fiction – so called because the magazines which published it were printed on the cheapest possible paper.
In the 1930s, popular fiction magazines often appeared weekly, and they were endlessly demanding of product, particularly in the United States. I see from my file of notes that I once read a book called Pulpwood Editor, by Harold Brainerd Hersey. It was published in 1937 so is probably unobtainable now (though you could try abebooks), but it was a marvellous autobiography by a man who edited pulp magazines. He had a number of extraordinary stories about writers who, in some cases, apparently churned out a million words a year.
Some British writers were also amazingly productive. Consider, for example, the career of Charles Hamilton, who is perhaps best known for writing the Billy Bunter stories under the pen-name Frank Richards. Hamilton used around thirty pseudonyms, and is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s most prolific writer; he is credited with a lifetime total of 70 million words.
When I was a lad, in the 1940s and 1950s, there were still many boys’ comics, as they were known, which appeared weekly and regularly featured the same characters in short-story format (not pictures). The Rover, Champion, Wizard, and others, were famous for the exploits of such heroes as Wilson, the wonder athlete, Rockfist Rogan, the ace pilot who was also a boxer, Alf Tupper, the athlete known as the Tough of the Track, and dozens more.
A similar situation could be found in the magazines which were read by women – titles such as Woman’s Weekly, Woman, Woman’s Own, and so forth. Throughout my lifetime, all these magazines for women (and more like them) have been printing several short stories a week, and achieving circulations which are currently above half a million copies in each case.
Do the people who write stories for these women’s magazines ever get a mention in the official histories? Do they heck. Why not? Because they are writing for an audience which is mainly working class or middle class, of average intelligence or less, average education, largely unsophisticated, and of course, female. Such an audience simply does not count – indeed it barely exists – in the eyes of our official literary historians. The intelligentsia assume that anything which is enjoyed by readers of such modest abilities must, by definition, be absolute rubbish.
I do not accept this view myself, and I suspect that anyone who tries to write for the lowbrow market will soon discover that the job is by no means as easy as it seems.
Exactly the same state of affairs exists if we go up a notch on the intellectual scale. In the first half of the twentieth century, by far the most famous and financially successful short-story writer was Somerset Maugham. He wrote hundreds of stories, and some of them were made into films, such as Quartet in 1948 and Trio in 1959. Another of his stories, Rain, was filmed several times, most famously as Miss Sadie Thompson, with Rita Hayworth in the lead.
Maugham was a middlebrow writer to his core; almost anyone could read and enjoy what he wrote. And how is Maugham treated by our official historians? He barely rates a mention, naturally, and when he is mentioned he is sneered at. Here is Anthony Burgess once again, from the essay referred to above: ‘The first thing I wrote... was one of those cheating kind of short stories which Somerset Maugham indulged in: not a word of invention at all, but the mere recounting of an anecdote.’
Later in the same text, Burgess has another go: ‘With some shame, I have to mention the name of William Somerset Maugham, the most successful practitioner of the short story we’ve ever had in England.’ (Success is equated with shame.) Maugham, according to Burgess, was just repeating stories that he had heard on his travels in the Far East.
Maugham himself seems to have got the message about what the literary elite thought of him. In his autobiography he says: ‘It is a misfortune for me that the telling of a story just for the sake of the story is not an activity that is in favour with the intelligentsia.’
Burgess, and the other commentators who grudgingly mention Maugham’s name solely in order to denigrate his achievements, seem to me to be offering a less than fair assessment. Whatever else may be said, Maugham was a man who communicated successfully with a wide audience.
Not only do academic writers tend to overlook whole areas of fiction writing, but they are also likely to ignore the economic facts of life.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, magazines were a popular form of entertainment, and the stories printed within those magazines were often the feature that readers enjoyed most. As the twentieth century advanced, however, other forms of entertainment rapidly took over, and the readership of magazines declined.
The cinema, radio, television; gramophones, tape recorders, video recorders; 78s, 45s, LPs, CDs, DVDs – new sources of entertainment appeared almost year by year. As a result, the markets for short stories shrank to the point of vanishing entirely. H.E. Bates, in his book The Modern Short Story, first published in 1941, noted that even in the 1920s and ’30s it was said that the short story was unwanted, unprinted, and unread.
It was at this point that the literary magazine was invented. These subsidised, low-circulation journals exist for one reason only: to provide fodder for the great Eng. Lit. and creative-writing machines. Hence the prime requirement of anything published in such a place is that it should give any reader a sharp pain between the eyes. The more tedious the story, the better it suits the purpose of the professors, and therefore the more praise that is heaped upon it.
Back in the real world, there was, for all practical purposes, almost no commercial demand for short stories of any kind from about 1960 on. True, there were some crime and science-fiction magazines, such as Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Analog; there were a few glossy magazines, such as The New Yorker and Playboy, which used occasional pieces of short fiction; and there were the women's magazines. But these were exceptions, and the likelihood that they would publish anything by a previously unknown writer was close to zero.
A few writers, mostly those who also wrote commercially successful novels, still managed to persuade their publishers to put out collections of short stories: Stephen King, Jeffrey Archer, and Maeve Binchy among them. These, of course, are again names which are ignored by the official historians of literature, because they are popular, easy to read, and therefore (it is said) valueless.
Some writers did manage to swim upstream, and make an impact primarily through their short stories, rather than by means of full-length fiction. Stanley Ellin made his mark in crime fiction; Harlan Ellison in science fiction and fantasy; Roald Dahl in mainstream fiction.
Not that any of these names was ever given any credit for his achievement by the intelligentsia. Here is Anthony Burgess on Dahl: he is ‘not a very good short-story writer, not a writer that you would study in a university course, but well known... His stories... have a point; they have a twist in the tale; something happens in them.’
Roald Dahl's stories were not the sort of thing that you would find yourelf studying in a unviersity course, precisely because they were readable and popular. But they were good enough to form the foundation of an enormously successful writing career. Twenty-five of the stories were used as the basis of a long-running television series called Tales of the Unexpected. One of Dahl’s books for children, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was chosen by readers of The Times as the most popular children’s book of all time, and was adapted into a hit movie. Dahl also wrote the script for the James Bond film, You Only Live Twice. Most of us would regard that output as the record of quite a good writer.
Today, the situation as regards the market for short stories is changing rapidly: the advent of the internet has led to the creation of new ways to reach new audiences. Dramatic changes in printing technology have also made it possible to produce books at a small fraction of the cost which would have been incurred in previous years.
These changes mean that there is now some point in writing short stories, where previously there was little point. I myself, for example, wrote a few short stories in my youth, but then never bothered to write any more for forty years, because there was almost nowhere to send them! In 2003, however, I published a book full of them: King Albert’s Words of Advice, available from amazon.co.uk at a bargain price. The only review that I have ever seen thought that they were pretty good too.
The internet, I suspect, will change the whole position as regards the short story. It will now be possible for a talented writer to make a reputation in her genre of choice in a relatively short period of time. Whether it will be possible for that writer to make any money out of the business remains to be seen.
In summary: the short story began, for all practical purposes, about the beginning of the nineteenth century. As more and more people became able to read, and as the print media became cheaper, the short story grew in popularity. It reached its peak readership from perhaps 1880 to 1920. Thereafter the short story lost ground: first to cinema, then radio, recorded sound, television, and today 515 different forms of entertainment.
Details follow. But first, a little background.
Over the years, I have come to the view that the ‘official’ histories of the arts often tell us only half the story. Or less.
Suppose you were to go to the library and find a book called British Theatre Since 1950, or something similar. This book would almost certainly be written by an academic or a professional critic; and in terms of the year 1955, to take one at random, our official history would faithfully record that this was the year in which an ‘important’ and ‘influential’ play called Waiting for Godot was premiered.
Which is true. But what this scholarly book is unlikely to mention is that 1955 also saw the first nights of such popular plays as The Reluctant Debutante and Sailor Beware. Also open for business in 1955 were The Mousetrap (which is still running), Separate Tables, and Dry Rot. These were all long-running successes, attracting big audiences.
And why are these popular productions not mentioned in our official history? Because they are not ‘important’, that’s why. To academic historians they were ‘mere entertainment’ – just mindless pap for gormless morons. But that is not, as you may have gathered, my own view.
I readily accept that plays such as Waiting for Godot and Look Back in Anger, which appeared in 1956, were written about at length, both at the time, and since, by people who might reasonably be called intellectuals: members of the intelligentsia (if you are prepared to stretch the meaning of the word ‘intelligent’). But what reason is there for supposing that plays which are appreciated by intellectuals are more ‘important’ and ‘better theatre’ than those which entertain a more middlebrow audience?
No reason whatever, in my view. I know of no rational argument which convinces me that plays that are enjoyed and discussed by intellectuals are any better than plays which entertain a middlebrow audience. As far as I am concerned, they are not ‘better’ either morally, technically, emotionally, or in terms of any other criterion. They are not better at all – they are just different. They are different kinds of plays, which appeal to different kinds of audiences; these audiences approach the plays with different frames of reference and different sets of expectations.
What is true of the theatre is also true of the short story. In yesterday’s post, I gave you a brief rundown of the ‘official’ history of this form of fiction. But, as in the theatre, there is another history, the true history, which runs in parallel. It is a history of the short story as it has been read and enjoyed by the average person in the street.
Such a reader is not highly educated and has not travelled the world, and is not, thank you very much, at all interested in symbolism, stream-of-consciousness techniques, or having to work out what the hell is going on from a minimalist description. Such a person wants a story told in plain English, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. And in my opinion it is no sort of crime for a reader to want to have things explained clearly.
I shall now provide a history of such short stories, though like yesterday’s history it will be a much condensed version of the facts.
What we have to remember, and what is so easy to forget, is that, in the nineteenth century, magazines and books did not have much competition. There was live theatre, of course, but that was only available in towns. And there were certainly no radio programmes, no television sitcoms, or films.
Compulsory schooling in England was introduced in 1870. This meant that more people were learning to read, and, as printing technology also improved, the short story and the novel were widely disseminated, widely read, and highly prized.
It should never be forgotten that the most famous fictional character of the entire nineteenth century, Sherlock Holmes, has his existence mainly in the form of short stories; to be precise, there are four Holmes novels, and five major collections of short stories. When the stories first appeared, in magazines such as The Strand, sales of the magazine markedly increased.
Conan Doyle, however, is not often mentioned with much enthusiasm in the official literary histories. Anthony Burgess, for example, in his 1984 essay on the short story in English, refers to Doyle’s ‘triumphant success’. But then he goes on to tell us that he (Burgess) has ‘never been satisfied that... the stories of Conan Doyle are literature, in the sense that Shakespeare is literature.’ So there. That puts Sherlock in his place.
We can be quite sure that in the nineteenth century, and ever since, there has been a constant flow of fiction aimed at middlebrow or lowbrow readers. In the twentieth century, it became known as pulp fiction – so called because the magazines which published it were printed on the cheapest possible paper.
In the 1930s, popular fiction magazines often appeared weekly, and they were endlessly demanding of product, particularly in the United States. I see from my file of notes that I once read a book called Pulpwood Editor, by Harold Brainerd Hersey. It was published in 1937 so is probably unobtainable now (though you could try abebooks), but it was a marvellous autobiography by a man who edited pulp magazines. He had a number of extraordinary stories about writers who, in some cases, apparently churned out a million words a year.
Some British writers were also amazingly productive. Consider, for example, the career of Charles Hamilton, who is perhaps best known for writing the Billy Bunter stories under the pen-name Frank Richards. Hamilton used around thirty pseudonyms, and is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s most prolific writer; he is credited with a lifetime total of 70 million words.
When I was a lad, in the 1940s and 1950s, there were still many boys’ comics, as they were known, which appeared weekly and regularly featured the same characters in short-story format (not pictures). The Rover, Champion, Wizard, and others, were famous for the exploits of such heroes as Wilson, the wonder athlete, Rockfist Rogan, the ace pilot who was also a boxer, Alf Tupper, the athlete known as the Tough of the Track, and dozens more.
A similar situation could be found in the magazines which were read by women – titles such as Woman’s Weekly, Woman, Woman’s Own, and so forth. Throughout my lifetime, all these magazines for women (and more like them) have been printing several short stories a week, and achieving circulations which are currently above half a million copies in each case.
Do the people who write stories for these women’s magazines ever get a mention in the official histories? Do they heck. Why not? Because they are writing for an audience which is mainly working class or middle class, of average intelligence or less, average education, largely unsophisticated, and of course, female. Such an audience simply does not count – indeed it barely exists – in the eyes of our official literary historians. The intelligentsia assume that anything which is enjoyed by readers of such modest abilities must, by definition, be absolute rubbish.
I do not accept this view myself, and I suspect that anyone who tries to write for the lowbrow market will soon discover that the job is by no means as easy as it seems.
Exactly the same state of affairs exists if we go up a notch on the intellectual scale. In the first half of the twentieth century, by far the most famous and financially successful short-story writer was Somerset Maugham. He wrote hundreds of stories, and some of them were made into films, such as Quartet in 1948 and Trio in 1959. Another of his stories, Rain, was filmed several times, most famously as Miss Sadie Thompson, with Rita Hayworth in the lead.
Maugham was a middlebrow writer to his core; almost anyone could read and enjoy what he wrote. And how is Maugham treated by our official historians? He barely rates a mention, naturally, and when he is mentioned he is sneered at. Here is Anthony Burgess once again, from the essay referred to above: ‘The first thing I wrote... was one of those cheating kind of short stories which Somerset Maugham indulged in: not a word of invention at all, but the mere recounting of an anecdote.’
Later in the same text, Burgess has another go: ‘With some shame, I have to mention the name of William Somerset Maugham, the most successful practitioner of the short story we’ve ever had in England.’ (Success is equated with shame.) Maugham, according to Burgess, was just repeating stories that he had heard on his travels in the Far East.
Maugham himself seems to have got the message about what the literary elite thought of him. In his autobiography he says: ‘It is a misfortune for me that the telling of a story just for the sake of the story is not an activity that is in favour with the intelligentsia.’
Burgess, and the other commentators who grudgingly mention Maugham’s name solely in order to denigrate his achievements, seem to me to be offering a less than fair assessment. Whatever else may be said, Maugham was a man who communicated successfully with a wide audience.
Not only do academic writers tend to overlook whole areas of fiction writing, but they are also likely to ignore the economic facts of life.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, magazines were a popular form of entertainment, and the stories printed within those magazines were often the feature that readers enjoyed most. As the twentieth century advanced, however, other forms of entertainment rapidly took over, and the readership of magazines declined.
The cinema, radio, television; gramophones, tape recorders, video recorders; 78s, 45s, LPs, CDs, DVDs – new sources of entertainment appeared almost year by year. As a result, the markets for short stories shrank to the point of vanishing entirely. H.E. Bates, in his book The Modern Short Story, first published in 1941, noted that even in the 1920s and ’30s it was said that the short story was unwanted, unprinted, and unread.
It was at this point that the literary magazine was invented. These subsidised, low-circulation journals exist for one reason only: to provide fodder for the great Eng. Lit. and creative-writing machines. Hence the prime requirement of anything published in such a place is that it should give any reader a sharp pain between the eyes. The more tedious the story, the better it suits the purpose of the professors, and therefore the more praise that is heaped upon it.
Back in the real world, there was, for all practical purposes, almost no commercial demand for short stories of any kind from about 1960 on. True, there were some crime and science-fiction magazines, such as Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Analog; there were a few glossy magazines, such as The New Yorker and Playboy, which used occasional pieces of short fiction; and there were the women's magazines. But these were exceptions, and the likelihood that they would publish anything by a previously unknown writer was close to zero.
A few writers, mostly those who also wrote commercially successful novels, still managed to persuade their publishers to put out collections of short stories: Stephen King, Jeffrey Archer, and Maeve Binchy among them. These, of course, are again names which are ignored by the official historians of literature, because they are popular, easy to read, and therefore (it is said) valueless.
Some writers did manage to swim upstream, and make an impact primarily through their short stories, rather than by means of full-length fiction. Stanley Ellin made his mark in crime fiction; Harlan Ellison in science fiction and fantasy; Roald Dahl in mainstream fiction.
Not that any of these names was ever given any credit for his achievement by the intelligentsia. Here is Anthony Burgess on Dahl: he is ‘not a very good short-story writer, not a writer that you would study in a university course, but well known... His stories... have a point; they have a twist in the tale; something happens in them.’
Roald Dahl's stories were not the sort of thing that you would find yourelf studying in a unviersity course, precisely because they were readable and popular. But they were good enough to form the foundation of an enormously successful writing career. Twenty-five of the stories were used as the basis of a long-running television series called Tales of the Unexpected. One of Dahl’s books for children, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was chosen by readers of The Times as the most popular children’s book of all time, and was adapted into a hit movie. Dahl also wrote the script for the James Bond film, You Only Live Twice. Most of us would regard that output as the record of quite a good writer.
Today, the situation as regards the market for short stories is changing rapidly: the advent of the internet has led to the creation of new ways to reach new audiences. Dramatic changes in printing technology have also made it possible to produce books at a small fraction of the cost which would have been incurred in previous years.
These changes mean that there is now some point in writing short stories, where previously there was little point. I myself, for example, wrote a few short stories in my youth, but then never bothered to write any more for forty years, because there was almost nowhere to send them! In 2003, however, I published a book full of them: King Albert’s Words of Advice, available from amazon.co.uk at a bargain price. The only review that I have ever seen thought that they were pretty good too.
The internet, I suspect, will change the whole position as regards the short story. It will now be possible for a talented writer to make a reputation in her genre of choice in a relatively short period of time. Whether it will be possible for that writer to make any money out of the business remains to be seen.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
More Maschler
On Monday I referred to a number of reviews of Publisher, by Tom Maschler. And today there is another review of the book in Private Eye.
Tom Maschler, we are reminded by the Eye, played a pivotal role in post-war British publishing of the literary kind. For somewhere near three decades he presided over the affairs of Jonathan Cape, a firm which he modestly describes in his memoirs as 'the greatest literary house in England.'
There is, however, a problem with the memoirs of this great man. Every reviewer seems obliged to point out, despite the cosiness and mutual-back-scratching nature of the UK book world, that the memoirs reveal a crass, insensitive individual, who continually states the obvious, tells us nothing remotely interesting or new, and seems obsessed with celebrity. Overall, as the Eye reviewer puts it, 'Maschler has no idea what might interest his audience and what might not.'
Well, of course, I haven't read the book, so I am not in an ideal position to judge. But it is certainly true that Publisher was written by a man who for decades made the key decisions about whether to publish certain literary novels or not. And so it follows, inevitably, that he cannot possibly be the clueless moron that the reviews suggest. The only possible conclusion from these facts is that Maschler's book is some sort of postmodernist joke. It is a super-sophisticated parody of the publisher's-memoir genre.
Yes, on reflection I'm quite sure that that is the answer.
Tom Maschler, we are reminded by the Eye, played a pivotal role in post-war British publishing of the literary kind. For somewhere near three decades he presided over the affairs of Jonathan Cape, a firm which he modestly describes in his memoirs as 'the greatest literary house in England.'
There is, however, a problem with the memoirs of this great man. Every reviewer seems obliged to point out, despite the cosiness and mutual-back-scratching nature of the UK book world, that the memoirs reveal a crass, insensitive individual, who continually states the obvious, tells us nothing remotely interesting or new, and seems obsessed with celebrity. Overall, as the Eye reviewer puts it, 'Maschler has no idea what might interest his audience and what might not.'
Well, of course, I haven't read the book, so I am not in an ideal position to judge. But it is certainly true that Publisher was written by a man who for decades made the key decisions about whether to publish certain literary novels or not. And so it follows, inevitably, that he cannot possibly be the clueless moron that the reviews suggest. The only possible conclusion from these facts is that Maschler's book is some sort of postmodernist joke. It is a super-sophisticated parody of the publisher's-memoir genre.
Yes, on reflection I'm quite sure that that is the answer.
The official history of the short story
Later this week – or possibly next week – I want to talk about some short stories that I have been reading. But first, let us devote a little thought to the history of the short story.
(Such thoughts as I have to offer here were written a couple of years ago for a book which I have not yet got around to publishing; but they will, as I say, serve as a useful introduction to some later reviews.)
The short story, it turns out, has two histories, not one. There is the official history, and then there is the true history.
The official history of the short story is written by the professors of English Literature, God bless their little cotton socks.
The Scottish universities were the first in the world to establish literature courses, as early as the eighteenth century, but the business did not really catch on until the twentieth century.
What you need to understand is that the establishment of formal courses in Eng. Lit. is a classic example of people creating a very cushy berth for themselves. Somewhere around the beginning of the twentieth century it suddenly dawned on a few bookish and idle people that, if they were to establish a course in Eng. Lit. at university level, they would enjoy a comfortable salary, long holidays, and would have not much to do even during term-time. True, they would have to give a few lectures; but the lectures could be the same every year.
However, it also dawned on these people – since they weren’t complete fools – that they would not look ‘respectable’ and ‘learned’ and ‘scholarly’ if they went around reading the same books as everyone else, and talking about them in much the same way as people do in pubs.
So – cunning devils that they were – the early professors of Eng. Lit. took two steps.
First, they began to lecture about, and write about, stuff that everyone else found pretty much unreadable and dead boring. And second, they began to write about this ‘literature’ in a language all of their own: its name is EngLitspeak, aka gobbledygook.
What I ask you to remember is that the official history of the short story is written by people of this kind – people whose (very comfortable) living depends on churning out ‘research’. No one, apart from a few bemused students with an essay to finish, ever reads any of this research or takes the slightest notice of it. Its practical value is zero; unlike research in the hard sciences, it does not produce valuable technological spin-offs. But it is the professors who churn out this unreadable material about unreadable source material who have invented the official history of the short story (and the novel too, of course) for their own purposes.
Their own purposes, I repeat, are principally the need to look knowledgeable and important when they come to teach Eng. Lit. to all those attractive young ladies who flock to the liberal arts colleges and universities which are so dear to us all. The professors are ever conscious of the fact that Eng. Lit. has to look serious. It cannot possibly be allowed to be fun. If it did look like fun, how could the parents be persuaded to pay little Deirdre’s college fees? And if there were no students then the professors would actually have to work for a living, which would be a catastrophe.
The Eng. Lit. industry did not really get under way until perhaps the 1930s, and it began to gather pace from about 1950 onwards. What this means is that even the official historians of the short story are stuck with the fact that, prior to about 1950, the short stories which are famous and readily available in print are the short stories which people actually read and enjoyed. Post about 1950, however, the Eng. Lit. guys were able to make their own rules; and, true to form, and consistent with their own devious ends, they saw to it that the short stories which were then held up as models, lectured about, and generally praised to the skies, were stories which were obscure, tedious, boring, dull, pretentious, and generally tiresome. You have been warned.
Here, however, is a brief summary of the history of the short story as conceived by our literary masters. The early stories that I mention are, of course, those which ordinary readers found memorable. The first part of the official history is therefore reasonably reliable; the second part, which I will keep extremely brief, is wholly unreliable, because it was invented for purposes explained above.
The short story was invented as soon as human beings could talk. One day, one of the first hunter-gatherers went out and had a close encounter with a sabre-toothed tiger. When he came back he gave his family a lurid account of what had happened, no doubt with a little exaggeration thrown in. Later, his wife told the story to some of the other men’s wives while they were doing the cooking. And so on. In other words, the short story began as a tale told orally, often around the campfire.
As soon as civilisation invented writing, stories began to be recorded on paper. The Bible, of course, contains numerous parables and stories which offer moral lessons and judgements.
The Greeks had the fables of the slave Aesop, dating from about the sixth century BC.
The Arabian Nights is a collection of stories from Persia, Arabia, India, and Egypt, which was compiled over hundreds of years.
In the fourteenth century, Chaucer gave us his Canterbury Tales, which are effectively short stories in verse.
Boccaccio’s Decameron (1353) is definitely a collection of short stories, by any reasonable definition; one hundred of them. The book relates how a group of young people fled from Florence to avoid the plague. While they waited for the disease to burn itself out, they entertained each other with racy stories about wicked priests and randy nuns.
Boccaccio, by the way, constitutes a bit of a problem for the Eng. Lit. guys. These stories about randy nuns et cetera look like fun – and many of them are. So Boccaccio is usually ignored. Fortunately he is Italian, so that makes it easier. If in doubt, you can always declare him grossly improper. Burckhardt, writing in the nineteenth century in his Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy, simply said that ‘the character of the tales forbids lengthy description’, and moved hastily on.
In the eighteenth century, The Spectator published many semi-fictional sketches of characters.
Generally speaking, however, the accepted view among literary historians is that the short story, as we know it today, began in the early nineteenth century; that is to say, it appeared as a literary form slightly later than the novel, which is usually held to have emerged in the eighteenth century.
According to some authorities, the first short story of any significance, by a writer of any standing, was The Two Drovers, by Sir Walter Scott. This was published in 1827.
Grimm’s Fairy Tales, in the 1820s, was a famous and influential collection of folk tales, and before long the Americans got into the act with Hawthorne’s Twice Told Tales (1837) and Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840).
In England, Thomas Hardy’s Wessex Tales (1888) was the first volume of short stories to enjoy a major success.
Other masters of the short-story art who worked during the nineteenth century include Anton Chekhov in Russia and Guy de Maupassant in France.
The term ‘short story’, incidentally, is said to have first been coined by Professor Brander Matthews, of Columbia University, in 1901.
Once we enter the twentieth century, any orthodox history of the short story soon presents us with a long list of ‘respectable’ authors. The professors of Eng. Lit. identified these authors as worthy of study precisely because they were not read and enjoyed by ordinary people. You had to be ‘an exceptionally good judge’ – otherwise known as a person with an intense desire to hang on to a sinecure – in order to appreciate them.
I am not going to list all the so-called ‘styles’ or ‘movements’ which the professors of Eng. Lit. claim to have identified in twentieth-century short-story writers: realism and modernism and minimalism and so forth. It is all too wearisome to think about. If you really want to know more, visit any well-stocked academic library and you will soon find some lengthy (and extremely dull) treatises on the subject.
Tomorrow we will turn, with a great sigh of relief, to something a bit more interesting and useful: namely, the true history of the short story, which is an account of the short story as favoured by readers. Readers who, praise the Lord, don’t give a monkey’s thumbnail what the professors of English Literature think about anything.
(Such thoughts as I have to offer here were written a couple of years ago for a book which I have not yet got around to publishing; but they will, as I say, serve as a useful introduction to some later reviews.)
The short story, it turns out, has two histories, not one. There is the official history, and then there is the true history.
The official history of the short story is written by the professors of English Literature, God bless their little cotton socks.
The Scottish universities were the first in the world to establish literature courses, as early as the eighteenth century, but the business did not really catch on until the twentieth century.
What you need to understand is that the establishment of formal courses in Eng. Lit. is a classic example of people creating a very cushy berth for themselves. Somewhere around the beginning of the twentieth century it suddenly dawned on a few bookish and idle people that, if they were to establish a course in Eng. Lit. at university level, they would enjoy a comfortable salary, long holidays, and would have not much to do even during term-time. True, they would have to give a few lectures; but the lectures could be the same every year.
However, it also dawned on these people – since they weren’t complete fools – that they would not look ‘respectable’ and ‘learned’ and ‘scholarly’ if they went around reading the same books as everyone else, and talking about them in much the same way as people do in pubs.
So – cunning devils that they were – the early professors of Eng. Lit. took two steps.
First, they began to lecture about, and write about, stuff that everyone else found pretty much unreadable and dead boring. And second, they began to write about this ‘literature’ in a language all of their own: its name is EngLitspeak, aka gobbledygook.
What I ask you to remember is that the official history of the short story is written by people of this kind – people whose (very comfortable) living depends on churning out ‘research’. No one, apart from a few bemused students with an essay to finish, ever reads any of this research or takes the slightest notice of it. Its practical value is zero; unlike research in the hard sciences, it does not produce valuable technological spin-offs. But it is the professors who churn out this unreadable material about unreadable source material who have invented the official history of the short story (and the novel too, of course) for their own purposes.
Their own purposes, I repeat, are principally the need to look knowledgeable and important when they come to teach Eng. Lit. to all those attractive young ladies who flock to the liberal arts colleges and universities which are so dear to us all. The professors are ever conscious of the fact that Eng. Lit. has to look serious. It cannot possibly be allowed to be fun. If it did look like fun, how could the parents be persuaded to pay little Deirdre’s college fees? And if there were no students then the professors would actually have to work for a living, which would be a catastrophe.
The Eng. Lit. industry did not really get under way until perhaps the 1930s, and it began to gather pace from about 1950 onwards. What this means is that even the official historians of the short story are stuck with the fact that, prior to about 1950, the short stories which are famous and readily available in print are the short stories which people actually read and enjoyed. Post about 1950, however, the Eng. Lit. guys were able to make their own rules; and, true to form, and consistent with their own devious ends, they saw to it that the short stories which were then held up as models, lectured about, and generally praised to the skies, were stories which were obscure, tedious, boring, dull, pretentious, and generally tiresome. You have been warned.
Here, however, is a brief summary of the history of the short story as conceived by our literary masters. The early stories that I mention are, of course, those which ordinary readers found memorable. The first part of the official history is therefore reasonably reliable; the second part, which I will keep extremely brief, is wholly unreliable, because it was invented for purposes explained above.
The short story was invented as soon as human beings could talk. One day, one of the first hunter-gatherers went out and had a close encounter with a sabre-toothed tiger. When he came back he gave his family a lurid account of what had happened, no doubt with a little exaggeration thrown in. Later, his wife told the story to some of the other men’s wives while they were doing the cooking. And so on. In other words, the short story began as a tale told orally, often around the campfire.
As soon as civilisation invented writing, stories began to be recorded on paper. The Bible, of course, contains numerous parables and stories which offer moral lessons and judgements.
The Greeks had the fables of the slave Aesop, dating from about the sixth century BC.
The Arabian Nights is a collection of stories from Persia, Arabia, India, and Egypt, which was compiled over hundreds of years.
In the fourteenth century, Chaucer gave us his Canterbury Tales, which are effectively short stories in verse.
Boccaccio’s Decameron (1353) is definitely a collection of short stories, by any reasonable definition; one hundred of them. The book relates how a group of young people fled from Florence to avoid the plague. While they waited for the disease to burn itself out, they entertained each other with racy stories about wicked priests and randy nuns.
Boccaccio, by the way, constitutes a bit of a problem for the Eng. Lit. guys. These stories about randy nuns et cetera look like fun – and many of them are. So Boccaccio is usually ignored. Fortunately he is Italian, so that makes it easier. If in doubt, you can always declare him grossly improper. Burckhardt, writing in the nineteenth century in his Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy, simply said that ‘the character of the tales forbids lengthy description’, and moved hastily on.
In the eighteenth century, The Spectator published many semi-fictional sketches of characters.
Generally speaking, however, the accepted view among literary historians is that the short story, as we know it today, began in the early nineteenth century; that is to say, it appeared as a literary form slightly later than the novel, which is usually held to have emerged in the eighteenth century.
According to some authorities, the first short story of any significance, by a writer of any standing, was The Two Drovers, by Sir Walter Scott. This was published in 1827.
Grimm’s Fairy Tales, in the 1820s, was a famous and influential collection of folk tales, and before long the Americans got into the act with Hawthorne’s Twice Told Tales (1837) and Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840).
In England, Thomas Hardy’s Wessex Tales (1888) was the first volume of short stories to enjoy a major success.
Other masters of the short-story art who worked during the nineteenth century include Anton Chekhov in Russia and Guy de Maupassant in France.
The term ‘short story’, incidentally, is said to have first been coined by Professor Brander Matthews, of Columbia University, in 1901.
Once we enter the twentieth century, any orthodox history of the short story soon presents us with a long list of ‘respectable’ authors. The professors of Eng. Lit. identified these authors as worthy of study precisely because they were not read and enjoyed by ordinary people. You had to be ‘an exceptionally good judge’ – otherwise known as a person with an intense desire to hang on to a sinecure – in order to appreciate them.
I am not going to list all the so-called ‘styles’ or ‘movements’ which the professors of Eng. Lit. claim to have identified in twentieth-century short-story writers: realism and modernism and minimalism and so forth. It is all too wearisome to think about. If you really want to know more, visit any well-stocked academic library and you will soon find some lengthy (and extremely dull) treatises on the subject.
Tomorrow we will turn, with a great sigh of relief, to something a bit more interesting and useful: namely, the true history of the short story, which is an account of the short story as favoured by readers. Readers who, praise the Lord, don’t give a monkey’s thumbnail what the professors of English Literature think about anything.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Why zebras don't get ulcers -- and writers do
On the recommendation of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, I have been reading Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, by Robert M. Sapolsky. First published in 1994, the book is now in its third edition (2004).
Sapolsky is a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University -- which is about as respectable as you can get in academic terms -- and he is one of those rare scientists who write stuff that ordinary people can read.
The blurb on the back cover provides, for once, a pretty fair summary of the book's contents. Sapolsky, it says, 'combines cutting-edge research with a healthy dose of good humor and practical advice to explain how prolonged stress causes or intensifies a range of physical and mental afflictions, including depression, ulcers, colitis, heart disease, and more. When we worry or experience stress, our body turns on the same physiological responses that an animal's body does, but we usually do not turn off the stress-response in the same way -- through fighting, fleeing, or other quick actions. Over time, this chronic activation of the stress-response can make us literally sick.'
Now what, you may be wondering, does this stuff about stress-responses have to do with writers?
More or less everything, I would say. Sapolsky is giving us scientific evidence to back up a statement that I made back in 2003. The very first paragraph of my book The Truth about Writing runs as follows:
The first chapter attempts to give us an overview of the general human situation. For the vast majority of beasts on this planet, stress is a short-term crisis. You are attacked by a lion. You run like hell and get away. Or you're dead.
For human beings it isn't like that. We just sit around and worry. And in doing so we turn on the same physiological responses as would occur if we were attacked by a lion. Our body floods with chemicals to help us to run like hell. And we don't turn off the response by using up those chemical resources. On the contrary, we worry for months on end: we worry about our relationships, about the mortgage, about our jobs, and -- of course -- about the rejection of our novel.
Sapolsky goes on to describe this basic mechanism in great detail, and in relation to specific illnesses. There are chapters, for instance, on strokes and heart attacks; ulcers and the runs; sex and reproduction; stress and memory; and so forth.
The book is a long one -- it runs to over 500 pages -- and I don't think that many readers are going to read every word. I certainly didn't. But if you suffer, for instance, from insomnia, constipation, indigestion, or any one of half a dozen other minor ailments, you might take a look at what Sapolsky has to say before matters get any worse.
The good news is that there is a final chapter on managing stress. The bad news is that the simple answers to coping with stress 'are far from simple to implement in everyday life.' What you have to do, apparently, is find a means 'to gain at least some degree of control in difficult situations.' (There is more to it, of course, but that's a key principle.)
Now, just ask yourself for a moment. How could you possibly have less control than is experienced by a would-be writer, as yet unpublished, who is sending out a ms to agents and publishers, in the forlorn hope that someone is going to pick up the phone and tell you that you are a genius?
Hmm? Care to tell me?
If you are determined to press ahead with a writing 'career', just don't say you weren't warned, that's all.
What is more, even if, by some miracle performed by the goddess Fortuna, you find yourself an agent, get published, and have a success, you will still not be in control of your own fate. You may doubt that, but it's true. In the biography of Dean Koontz, written by Katherine Ramsland, the author relates how, after 54 novels and a US hardcover bestseller, Koontz still had trouble in persuading his editor (the lovely Phyllis Grann) to publish his next book. And in my own modest life, one of the main reasons why I gave up using an agent, in 1999, was because I wanted to regain control of how my work was handled.
In the course of this brief post about the health risks to writers, I have tried to adopt a fairly lighthearted tone, but the truth is, this is not a joking matter at all. If, on top of all the other multiple stresses of modern life, you impose the additional burden of (a) trying to find the time and energy to write a novel, and then (b) try to cope with the frustrations of offering it around, you are seriously pushing your luck. Your system will be strained to its very limit.
'In our privileged lives,' says Sapolsky, 'we are uniquely smart enough to have invented these stressors, and uniquely foolish enough to have let them, too often, dominate our lives.'
Couldn't put it better myself. Good luck to all you as-yet-unpublished writers out there. And even to those of you who are published.
Sapolsky is a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University -- which is about as respectable as you can get in academic terms -- and he is one of those rare scientists who write stuff that ordinary people can read.
The blurb on the back cover provides, for once, a pretty fair summary of the book's contents. Sapolsky, it says, 'combines cutting-edge research with a healthy dose of good humor and practical advice to explain how prolonged stress causes or intensifies a range of physical and mental afflictions, including depression, ulcers, colitis, heart disease, and more. When we worry or experience stress, our body turns on the same physiological responses that an animal's body does, but we usually do not turn off the stress-response in the same way -- through fighting, fleeing, or other quick actions. Over time, this chronic activation of the stress-response can make us literally sick.'
Now what, you may be wondering, does this stuff about stress-responses have to do with writers?
More or less everything, I would say. Sapolsky is giving us scientific evidence to back up a statement that I made back in 2003. The very first paragraph of my book The Truth about Writing runs as follows:
Writing is an activity which can seriously damage your health. It can consume huge amounts of time and energy, and it can lead to frustration, rage, and bitterness.Some years ago I came to believe that emotions, particularly strongly negative emotions, have a profound effect upon our physical as well as our mental health. And Sapolsky provides chapter and verse of how this reaction works.
The first chapter attempts to give us an overview of the general human situation. For the vast majority of beasts on this planet, stress is a short-term crisis. You are attacked by a lion. You run like hell and get away. Or you're dead.
For human beings it isn't like that. We just sit around and worry. And in doing so we turn on the same physiological responses as would occur if we were attacked by a lion. Our body floods with chemicals to help us to run like hell. And we don't turn off the response by using up those chemical resources. On the contrary, we worry for months on end: we worry about our relationships, about the mortgage, about our jobs, and -- of course -- about the rejection of our novel.
Sapolsky goes on to describe this basic mechanism in great detail, and in relation to specific illnesses. There are chapters, for instance, on strokes and heart attacks; ulcers and the runs; sex and reproduction; stress and memory; and so forth.
The book is a long one -- it runs to over 500 pages -- and I don't think that many readers are going to read every word. I certainly didn't. But if you suffer, for instance, from insomnia, constipation, indigestion, or any one of half a dozen other minor ailments, you might take a look at what Sapolsky has to say before matters get any worse.
The good news is that there is a final chapter on managing stress. The bad news is that the simple answers to coping with stress 'are far from simple to implement in everyday life.' What you have to do, apparently, is find a means 'to gain at least some degree of control in difficult situations.' (There is more to it, of course, but that's a key principle.)
Now, just ask yourself for a moment. How could you possibly have less control than is experienced by a would-be writer, as yet unpublished, who is sending out a ms to agents and publishers, in the forlorn hope that someone is going to pick up the phone and tell you that you are a genius?
Hmm? Care to tell me?
If you are determined to press ahead with a writing 'career', just don't say you weren't warned, that's all.
What is more, even if, by some miracle performed by the goddess Fortuna, you find yourself an agent, get published, and have a success, you will still not be in control of your own fate. You may doubt that, but it's true. In the biography of Dean Koontz, written by Katherine Ramsland, the author relates how, after 54 novels and a US hardcover bestseller, Koontz still had trouble in persuading his editor (the lovely Phyllis Grann) to publish his next book. And in my own modest life, one of the main reasons why I gave up using an agent, in 1999, was because I wanted to regain control of how my work was handled.
In the course of this brief post about the health risks to writers, I have tried to adopt a fairly lighthearted tone, but the truth is, this is not a joking matter at all. If, on top of all the other multiple stresses of modern life, you impose the additional burden of (a) trying to find the time and energy to write a novel, and then (b) try to cope with the frustrations of offering it around, you are seriously pushing your luck. Your system will be strained to its very limit.
'In our privileged lives,' says Sapolsky, 'we are uniquely smart enough to have invented these stressors, and uniquely foolish enough to have let them, too often, dominate our lives.'
Couldn't put it better myself. Good luck to all you as-yet-unpublished writers out there. And even to those of you who are published.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Publishers' memoirs
For several decades I have made it a practice to read the memoirs of any publisher who has decided to offer us an account of his life. Usually this has been a rewarding experience, but not always; and I can offer warnings about two publishing memoirs to avoid. One warning derives from my own experience, and one comes by courtesy of other reviewers.
Tom Maschler is a well-known name in UK publishing. He was a commissioning editor at Jonathan Cape in its alleged 'glory days', and he was the first publisher to sign up such 'stars' as Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, and Julian Barnes -- all of whom, in my opinion, are dull enough to make your teeth ache. Maschler was later chairman of Cape.
Now he has produced an autobiography, called Publisher. It was reviewed in yesterday's Sunday Times by John Carey, a man who has been, in his time, Merton Professor of English at Oxford.
Carey is not too impressed with Maschler's effort, despite the fact that Maschler is definitely a literary sort of publisher. Carey's overall view seems to be that it is a pity that, 'with so many friends in the literary world, none of them persuaded him [Maschler] not to publish this book.'
On at least one point, however, Carey's review is wrong. He says that Maschler, through the firm of Jonathan Cape, was the first publisher to introduce Kurt Vonnegut to British readers. Not so. It was actually Victor Gollancz, via The Sirens of Titan.
Anyway, despite the fact that Publisher is mercifully short (208 pages), Carey reckons that it is not worth your time.
Other reviews of Publisher appear in the Sunday Telegraph and the Observer (links provided by booktrade.info). The former repeats the claim about Maschler being the first to publish Vonnegut in the UK, so it's presumably in the book, or on the back cover, or something, but you only have to look up Vonnegut on COPAC to see that the claim is unfounded. So what we have is just a typical example of a publisher claiming credit for something he had nothing to do with. Anyway, the Tel reviewer, Claudia Fitzherbert, doesn't like Maschler's book much better than John Carey does.
As for the Observer, there Tom Maschler's memoirs are reviewed by Robert McCrum, who rather to my surprise declares that he doesn't know Maschler. Or at any rate not well. As a result he is able to be as lukewarm as he likes about the book, without causing a breach of friendship.
All in all, I get the impression that you will not be missing much if you avoid Publisher, but by all means read the reviews and decide for yourself.
Another set of memoirs, to be avoided at all possible costs, is Pursuit, by John Calder. This book is ghastly beyond endurance.
John Calder, now aged 77 or so, is also big name in UK publishing, and again he is a literary heavyweight. The publishing firm which carries his name, Calder Publications, modestly proclaims that it publishes 'the most significant literature of the twentieth century.' The list of authors includes such avant-garde persons as Alain Robbe-Grillet, Marguerite Duras, Samuel Beckett, William Burroughs, and so forth.
Anyway, in 2001 Calder published his autobiography, Pursuit, and this, as I say, is one to miss. It comes in at 621 pages. And these pages are big, covered in small type, whichis set in long lines, and with perhaps one paragraph break per page if you're lucky. The wordage must be about 250,000, at least. Probably 300,000. No normal publisher would have touched the text, but it was, of course, put out by Calder's own firm.
I tried to read this book, but soon gave up. It is immensely detailed, and immensely tedious, and when not tedious is faintly disgusting. At one point, Calder tells us about going to bed with two women, one of whom introduces him to the joys of anal sex. This quite put me off my tea.
It is hard to find reviews of this book, perhaps because no one in the media could face the task of reading it, but here is a link to an article in the Guardian which in itself will tell you all you really need to know about John Calder.
By the way, if you look up Pursuit on Amazon, you will find that, although the book is published by Calder Publications, no one at the firm has bothered to ensure that the Amazon entry for the boss's book includes even the briefest description of it, let alone any warm encomiums from old pals or favourable quotes from reviews.
That's pretty amazing, really, isn't it?
On the other hand, since this is British literary publishing we're talking about, perhaps such incompetence isn't very surprising at all. More like par for the course. Calder, it is said, has lost a lot of money in publishing, and it's not hard to see why.
Tom Maschler is a well-known name in UK publishing. He was a commissioning editor at Jonathan Cape in its alleged 'glory days', and he was the first publisher to sign up such 'stars' as Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, and Julian Barnes -- all of whom, in my opinion, are dull enough to make your teeth ache. Maschler was later chairman of Cape.
Now he has produced an autobiography, called Publisher. It was reviewed in yesterday's Sunday Times by John Carey, a man who has been, in his time, Merton Professor of English at Oxford.
Carey is not too impressed with Maschler's effort, despite the fact that Maschler is definitely a literary sort of publisher. Carey's overall view seems to be that it is a pity that, 'with so many friends in the literary world, none of them persuaded him [Maschler] not to publish this book.'
On at least one point, however, Carey's review is wrong. He says that Maschler, through the firm of Jonathan Cape, was the first publisher to introduce Kurt Vonnegut to British readers. Not so. It was actually Victor Gollancz, via The Sirens of Titan.
Anyway, despite the fact that Publisher is mercifully short (208 pages), Carey reckons that it is not worth your time.
Other reviews of Publisher appear in the Sunday Telegraph and the Observer (links provided by booktrade.info). The former repeats the claim about Maschler being the first to publish Vonnegut in the UK, so it's presumably in the book, or on the back cover, or something, but you only have to look up Vonnegut on COPAC to see that the claim is unfounded. So what we have is just a typical example of a publisher claiming credit for something he had nothing to do with. Anyway, the Tel reviewer, Claudia Fitzherbert, doesn't like Maschler's book much better than John Carey does.
As for the Observer, there Tom Maschler's memoirs are reviewed by Robert McCrum, who rather to my surprise declares that he doesn't know Maschler. Or at any rate not well. As a result he is able to be as lukewarm as he likes about the book, without causing a breach of friendship.
All in all, I get the impression that you will not be missing much if you avoid Publisher, but by all means read the reviews and decide for yourself.
Another set of memoirs, to be avoided at all possible costs, is Pursuit, by John Calder. This book is ghastly beyond endurance.
John Calder, now aged 77 or so, is also big name in UK publishing, and again he is a literary heavyweight. The publishing firm which carries his name, Calder Publications, modestly proclaims that it publishes 'the most significant literature of the twentieth century.' The list of authors includes such avant-garde persons as Alain Robbe-Grillet, Marguerite Duras, Samuel Beckett, William Burroughs, and so forth.
Anyway, in 2001 Calder published his autobiography, Pursuit, and this, as I say, is one to miss. It comes in at 621 pages. And these pages are big, covered in small type, whichis set in long lines, and with perhaps one paragraph break per page if you're lucky. The wordage must be about 250,000, at least. Probably 300,000. No normal publisher would have touched the text, but it was, of course, put out by Calder's own firm.
I tried to read this book, but soon gave up. It is immensely detailed, and immensely tedious, and when not tedious is faintly disgusting. At one point, Calder tells us about going to bed with two women, one of whom introduces him to the joys of anal sex. This quite put me off my tea.
It is hard to find reviews of this book, perhaps because no one in the media could face the task of reading it, but here is a link to an article in the Guardian which in itself will tell you all you really need to know about John Calder.
By the way, if you look up Pursuit on Amazon, you will find that, although the book is published by Calder Publications, no one at the firm has bothered to ensure that the Amazon entry for the boss's book includes even the briefest description of it, let alone any warm encomiums from old pals or favourable quotes from reviews.
That's pretty amazing, really, isn't it?
On the other hand, since this is British literary publishing we're talking about, perhaps such incompetence isn't very surprising at all. More like par for the course. Calder, it is said, has lost a lot of money in publishing, and it's not hard to see why.
Friday, March 11, 2005
Poddy mouth
Now here's a new blog (mentioned by Publishers Lunch today) that you ought to keep an eye on. It's called Poddy Mouth -- or POD-dy Mouth. The point being that it deals with self-published books issued through Print On Demand (POD) companies.
Now don't switch off. Pay attention, please.
Poddy Mouth is new. It's written by an anonymous lady who is a self-confessed midlist novelist; her second book is coming out soon from Penguin Putnam in the US. Why then is she troubling to read and write about POD books?
Damn if I know, but she is. And good luck to her. She takes the view that there is some good stuff out there, and intends to spread the word about it when she finds it. Her motto is Finding Needles, Discarding Hay.
Now, before you rush off and post your magnum opus (PublishAmerica, no less) to her, just read the following:
Now don't switch off. Pay attention, please.
Poddy Mouth is new. It's written by an anonymous lady who is a self-confessed midlist novelist; her second book is coming out soon from Penguin Putnam in the US. Why then is she troubling to read and write about POD books?
Damn if I know, but she is. And good luck to her. She takes the view that there is some good stuff out there, and intends to spread the word about it when she finds it. Her motto is Finding Needles, Discarding Hay.
Now, before you rush off and post your magnum opus (PublishAmerica, no less) to her, just read the following:
Whoa, Nelly. ...Do not send me copies of your POD book for review. Let's be honest - I have no place to put them. I'd need to get a self-storage locker if I accepted unsolicited books (sound familiar?) I will, however, gladly accept an email with a description of your book so that I can research whether or not to read the thing.And also, read the following for good sense and information:
I am not a great advocate of POD. It's overpriced, slow and has a scent just this side of Roquefort. If you ask your Barnes and Noble sales rep if they have Slap Happy, Arkansas, he'll look it up in the store database, then curl his lip and flare his nostrils as he grunts, "That's a POD title. We don't carry those."
Furthermore, I am not saying that all POD titles are as good as what HarperCollins releases; the vast majority of PODs should not see print. But there are titles that are worthy of note -- and some are better than what HC releases. There are plenty of folks who wrote books -- good books -- who did not know how to get them to a traditional publisher. And then there are the folks who managed to find a respectable literary agent (one who might have been an editor herself at one time) but could not get an editor to acquire the thing. What about all of those books?
My opinion: If one or more industry professionals found your book an intriguing and delightful read but couldn't get it there themselves, then it should be in print. Because the editor your agent submitted to happened to have PMS or lost last week's pay in a bout with March Madness is irrelevant. In a perfect world, serendipity would not play a role in publishing. So, for you folks that have a gem on your hard drive, do what you have to do. You can certainly trash it. Or you can find some way to get into the hands of readers on your own.
As for the rest of you -- for the love of God, please stop.
Even grumpier than me!
Hey you thought I was grumpy, right? Wrong. At least by comparison.
I have mentioned before, once or twice, that I do try on this blog not to indulge in ad hominem, or, even worse, ad feminam criticism. For all kinds of reasons. The chief one being that I am a coward and I don't like the idea of people coming round here with a group of friends and beating me up. (And don't think it couldn't happen, just because it's books we're writing about.) Also, I avoid being too vitriolic and personal because I think we always have to remember that it's only novels (mostly) that we're talking about. We aren't dealing with anything really important, so we don't need to get our knickers in too much of a twist.
However, there are people in this world who are braver than I am. And also, says he, gritting his teeth, smarter. And one of these is a fellow called Dan Schneider. (Known to his intimates as Dan 'the Rottweiler' Schneider.) Compared with Dan I am not grumpy at all; I am the soul of tact and discretion; I also fall a bit short in the insights department.
You probably won't have noticed -- no earthly reason why you should -- but my piece on MFA degrees attracted more comment than most of my posts, and one of them came from Dan Schneider. He explained that he was the original publisher of Briggs Seekins's essay on poetry workshops, and he went on to suggest that he, Dan, had written an expose of a lady poet.
Now, as it happens, poetry is not remotely my thing. But I was intrigued by Dan's comment, so I googled him, as you do, and had a look at some of the things he's written. And this is how I came to start this post by suggesting that, if you really thought I was grumpy, you just haven't been reading some of these other guys.
Dan Schneider seems to be the driving force behind Cosmoetica. I haven't explored every inch of the Cosmoetica site, but it appears to be mainly about poetry (and hence not of much general interest to me), but it has a good deal of other stuff thrown in too. And Mr Schneider, believe me, is one of those guys who, if you've offended him, will not only come round to see you, but even without any friends to help him will punch you on the nose, kick you in the balls (if appropriate, because women are not excused his treatment), and probably piss on you while you're unconscious. He takes literature personally, and he takes strong exception to bullshit, of which, as we all know, there is an abundance. And the further you go towards the literary end of things, the more bullshit there is.
I will mention here just a few of the amiable Dan's pieces, and give you a flavour.
Let us begin with Dan's essay The Unseemly Rise of the Modern Magalog. This is an analysis of what passes for criticism in modern (American) poetry. (Tip -- make the frame of your web browser much narrower than usual and you will find the article easier to read on screen.)
Dan is not impressed by what he finds on the poetry-criticism scene, and, on this showing, neither am I. He demonstrates, with considerable force, that much of modern criticism is composed of cliches strung together at random, and he does not flinch from naming names.
Dan says, for instance, of one poetry-review magazine, that it has 'exhibited the most unabashed ass-kissing in its attempts to curry favor for its band of mediocre-bad writers.' He goes on to take apart, sentence by sentence, some of the sillier reviews from said magazine. And it's impressive stuff.
Dan's main point, of course, is that the reviewers he is criticising are all part of a you-scratch-my-back, grant-obtaining, don't-rock-the-boat racket which is, unfortunately, well established in literary circles in the United States and shows every sign of coming into existence here in the UK.
Later in the essay Dan moves on to comment (unfavourably, you will not be surprised to hear) on the standard of book reviewing in general. And most of the time what he has to say strikes me as being true.
His conclusion: 'Critics must weed out the crap that gets through, etc. For far worse than pornographers are the well-intended dolts that foist bad art on the public; & worse yet -- those who refuse to call it so!'
Powerful stuff. But there is more.
Having recently written a review of Life of Pi myself, I was interested to see what Dan had to say about it. And, er, it turns out that he wasn't too impressed by it. He points out that the book 'comes in at 354 pages, yet is, at best, a solid-good short story of perhaps 25-30 pages, consisting of perhaps five of its first part's 103 pages, twelve or so of its 215 page second part, and eight pages in its final 36 pages. Add in a few pages to connect and there you'd have it.'
Now that is a very cogent criticism. It goes a great deal further than my own rather feeble comments, but I hear what he says all right, and I can see the force of the argument.
Another thing about Dan Schneider is that he is not only extremely thoughtful, and exceptionally forthright, but he has actually read what he criticises; and not merely read it, but looked at it carefully and thought about it. This is not true of every reviewer, by any means.
Dan has done his homework on Life of Pi, and done it thoroughly. 'It took,' he tells us, 'just a quick online search to find out that Martel ripped off his plot from a South American novelist named Moacyr Scliar, who wrote a book about a boy on a lifeboat with a jaguar, called Max And The Cats. Martel acknowledged this steal by claiming he hadn't read the book, but said he got the idea from a negative New York Times book review by John Updike, although the claimed review never appeared. Yet, oddly, almost all the blurbs for the book declaim its "stunning originality".'
And so on. All in all, the most thoughtful and interesting review of a novel that I have read in many a long year. And it makes my own comments on Pi look distinctly superficial. Well, there you go.
Back to poetry and a final example of Dan Schneider's outspoken style. In On American Poetry and Other Dastardly -Isms he deals with several contemporary poets at great length and in great detail. And, once again, he is not impressed with their work, and can say why in a most articulate, if brutal, manner. Having clashed with one well-known poet at a public reading he declares that he has a 'possible bias towards this nasty & hypocritical woman.' Several other poets are also beaten up and dumped in a back alley.
All in all I am glad to have made the acquaintance of Dan Schneider. He hates bullshit, he feels passionately about his subject, and is not afraid to speak his mind. He reads stuff in great detail, thinks about it hard, and is totally undeterred by PC. All of these, in my book, are virtues.
I have mentioned before, once or twice, that I do try on this blog not to indulge in ad hominem, or, even worse, ad feminam criticism. For all kinds of reasons. The chief one being that I am a coward and I don't like the idea of people coming round here with a group of friends and beating me up. (And don't think it couldn't happen, just because it's books we're writing about.) Also, I avoid being too vitriolic and personal because I think we always have to remember that it's only novels (mostly) that we're talking about. We aren't dealing with anything really important, so we don't need to get our knickers in too much of a twist.
However, there are people in this world who are braver than I am. And also, says he, gritting his teeth, smarter. And one of these is a fellow called Dan Schneider. (Known to his intimates as Dan 'the Rottweiler' Schneider.) Compared with Dan I am not grumpy at all; I am the soul of tact and discretion; I also fall a bit short in the insights department.
You probably won't have noticed -- no earthly reason why you should -- but my piece on MFA degrees attracted more comment than most of my posts, and one of them came from Dan Schneider. He explained that he was the original publisher of Briggs Seekins's essay on poetry workshops, and he went on to suggest that he, Dan, had written an expose of a lady poet.
Now, as it happens, poetry is not remotely my thing. But I was intrigued by Dan's comment, so I googled him, as you do, and had a look at some of the things he's written. And this is how I came to start this post by suggesting that, if you really thought I was grumpy, you just haven't been reading some of these other guys.
Dan Schneider seems to be the driving force behind Cosmoetica. I haven't explored every inch of the Cosmoetica site, but it appears to be mainly about poetry (and hence not of much general interest to me), but it has a good deal of other stuff thrown in too. And Mr Schneider, believe me, is one of those guys who, if you've offended him, will not only come round to see you, but even without any friends to help him will punch you on the nose, kick you in the balls (if appropriate, because women are not excused his treatment), and probably piss on you while you're unconscious. He takes literature personally, and he takes strong exception to bullshit, of which, as we all know, there is an abundance. And the further you go towards the literary end of things, the more bullshit there is.
I will mention here just a few of the amiable Dan's pieces, and give you a flavour.
Let us begin with Dan's essay The Unseemly Rise of the Modern Magalog. This is an analysis of what passes for criticism in modern (American) poetry. (Tip -- make the frame of your web browser much narrower than usual and you will find the article easier to read on screen.)
Dan is not impressed by what he finds on the poetry-criticism scene, and, on this showing, neither am I. He demonstrates, with considerable force, that much of modern criticism is composed of cliches strung together at random, and he does not flinch from naming names.
Dan says, for instance, of one poetry-review magazine, that it has 'exhibited the most unabashed ass-kissing in its attempts to curry favor for its band of mediocre-bad writers.' He goes on to take apart, sentence by sentence, some of the sillier reviews from said magazine. And it's impressive stuff.
Dan's main point, of course, is that the reviewers he is criticising are all part of a you-scratch-my-back, grant-obtaining, don't-rock-the-boat racket which is, unfortunately, well established in literary circles in the United States and shows every sign of coming into existence here in the UK.
Later in the essay Dan moves on to comment (unfavourably, you will not be surprised to hear) on the standard of book reviewing in general. And most of the time what he has to say strikes me as being true.
His conclusion: 'Critics must weed out the crap that gets through, etc. For far worse than pornographers are the well-intended dolts that foist bad art on the public; & worse yet -- those who refuse to call it so!'
Powerful stuff. But there is more.
Having recently written a review of Life of Pi myself, I was interested to see what Dan had to say about it. And, er, it turns out that he wasn't too impressed by it. He points out that the book 'comes in at 354 pages, yet is, at best, a solid-good short story of perhaps 25-30 pages, consisting of perhaps five of its first part's 103 pages, twelve or so of its 215 page second part, and eight pages in its final 36 pages. Add in a few pages to connect and there you'd have it.'
Now that is a very cogent criticism. It goes a great deal further than my own rather feeble comments, but I hear what he says all right, and I can see the force of the argument.
Another thing about Dan Schneider is that he is not only extremely thoughtful, and exceptionally forthright, but he has actually read what he criticises; and not merely read it, but looked at it carefully and thought about it. This is not true of every reviewer, by any means.
Dan has done his homework on Life of Pi, and done it thoroughly. 'It took,' he tells us, 'just a quick online search to find out that Martel ripped off his plot from a South American novelist named Moacyr Scliar, who wrote a book about a boy on a lifeboat with a jaguar, called Max And The Cats. Martel acknowledged this steal by claiming he hadn't read the book, but said he got the idea from a negative New York Times book review by John Updike, although the claimed review never appeared. Yet, oddly, almost all the blurbs for the book declaim its "stunning originality".'
And so on. All in all, the most thoughtful and interesting review of a novel that I have read in many a long year. And it makes my own comments on Pi look distinctly superficial. Well, there you go.
Back to poetry and a final example of Dan Schneider's outspoken style. In On American Poetry and Other Dastardly -Isms he deals with several contemporary poets at great length and in great detail. And, once again, he is not impressed with their work, and can say why in a most articulate, if brutal, manner. Having clashed with one well-known poet at a public reading he declares that he has a 'possible bias towards this nasty & hypocritical woman.' Several other poets are also beaten up and dumped in a back alley.
All in all I am glad to have made the acquaintance of Dan Schneider. He hates bullshit, he feels passionately about his subject, and is not afraid to speak his mind. He reads stuff in great detail, thinks about it hard, and is totally undeterred by PC. All of these, in my book, are virtues.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Oranges and lemons
Last Sunday's Observer carried an article on the Orange prize (link from Bookslut) which is worth commenting on in part.
For those who don't know, the Orange is one of the big three UK book prizes (the Booker and the Whitbread being the two others). It is awarded annually for a full-length novel written in English by a woman of any nationality. There is a longlist of 20 and a shortlist of 6, and the judges are all female too.
Over the ten years since it was established, the Orange prize has attracted all sorts of comment, much of it unfavourable. There are those who say it is just what women need, those who says it insults and demeans women, et cetera. All slightly tiresome.
What I want to do here is draw attention to a few points in the Observer article. For example, Anita Brookner, a Booker winner, is 'against positive discrimination', and argues that 'If a book is good, it will get published. If it is good it will get reviewed.'
Neither of these statements, I fear, is true. I have elsewhere provided lots of evidence to show that 'good' books (however you care to define 'good') are frequently rejected by publishers. We know this because some books which are rejected ten, twenty, or even more times eventually make it into print and are then highly acclaimed. But what of the 'good' books whose authors get fed up with sending out their ms? There undoubtedly are some, and those books never appear in print.
Neither is it true that all 'good' books get reviewed. There are plenty of excellent books which never get reviewed in the places that matter (hell, I've written a few myself). And there is reportedly a statistical bias in favour of reviewing books by men. As the Observer piece points out, in the week when the Orange prize was launched, back in 1996, one broadsheet newspaper carried 20 reviews; 19 of those were reviews of books written by men, and yet women write 70% of the novels published in the UK.
Another interesting comment is provided by Joanne Harris. 'As a reader,' she says, 'I often find the books on some prize shortlists impenetrable.' Join the club, darling. 'I think,' she adds, 'there may be a certain kind of reader/critic who is quite keen to announce his intellectual superiority to everyone else.' Dead right there, Joanne. You just have to be confident enough to ignore the blighters, and treat them with the contempt they deserve.
And finally, at the risk of sounding like a cracked gramophone record, I do have to repeat some obvious truths. The novelist Kate Mosse, who was one of the founders of the Orange prize, is quoted as saying that the winner 'only reflects the feelings of one group of people at a particular moment.' Which is just another way of saying that the winner is in no absolute sense 'better' than any of the other books entered; it just happens to be the one that the judges like best.
All of which is correct. But that's not the way the world sees it. There is a winner-take-all mechanism which is wonderful for the top lady, but not perhaps quite so good for other authors. Why? Because the world proceeds to behave as if the winner is somehow magnificent, while the runners-up, and the longlist, and all the other books entered, are somehow unworthy of anyone's attention.
For evidence, look at what happened to the first winner of the Orange prize, Anne Michaels. Anne Michaels took ten years to write Fugitive Pieces. Prior to winning the Orange prize, it had sold 1,000 copies and had received no reviews. Today it has sold 15 million copies worldwide. But what of the books which came second and third in that year? Does anyone remember their names?
For those who don't know, the Orange is one of the big three UK book prizes (the Booker and the Whitbread being the two others). It is awarded annually for a full-length novel written in English by a woman of any nationality. There is a longlist of 20 and a shortlist of 6, and the judges are all female too.
Over the ten years since it was established, the Orange prize has attracted all sorts of comment, much of it unfavourable. There are those who say it is just what women need, those who says it insults and demeans women, et cetera. All slightly tiresome.
What I want to do here is draw attention to a few points in the Observer article. For example, Anita Brookner, a Booker winner, is 'against positive discrimination', and argues that 'If a book is good, it will get published. If it is good it will get reviewed.'
Neither of these statements, I fear, is true. I have elsewhere provided lots of evidence to show that 'good' books (however you care to define 'good') are frequently rejected by publishers. We know this because some books which are rejected ten, twenty, or even more times eventually make it into print and are then highly acclaimed. But what of the 'good' books whose authors get fed up with sending out their ms? There undoubtedly are some, and those books never appear in print.
Neither is it true that all 'good' books get reviewed. There are plenty of excellent books which never get reviewed in the places that matter (hell, I've written a few myself). And there is reportedly a statistical bias in favour of reviewing books by men. As the Observer piece points out, in the week when the Orange prize was launched, back in 1996, one broadsheet newspaper carried 20 reviews; 19 of those were reviews of books written by men, and yet women write 70% of the novels published in the UK.
Another interesting comment is provided by Joanne Harris. 'As a reader,' she says, 'I often find the books on some prize shortlists impenetrable.' Join the club, darling. 'I think,' she adds, 'there may be a certain kind of reader/critic who is quite keen to announce his intellectual superiority to everyone else.' Dead right there, Joanne. You just have to be confident enough to ignore the blighters, and treat them with the contempt they deserve.
And finally, at the risk of sounding like a cracked gramophone record, I do have to repeat some obvious truths. The novelist Kate Mosse, who was one of the founders of the Orange prize, is quoted as saying that the winner 'only reflects the feelings of one group of people at a particular moment.' Which is just another way of saying that the winner is in no absolute sense 'better' than any of the other books entered; it just happens to be the one that the judges like best.
All of which is correct. But that's not the way the world sees it. There is a winner-take-all mechanism which is wonderful for the top lady, but not perhaps quite so good for other authors. Why? Because the world proceeds to behave as if the winner is somehow magnificent, while the runners-up, and the longlist, and all the other books entered, are somehow unworthy of anyone's attention.
For evidence, look at what happened to the first winner of the Orange prize, Anne Michaels. Anne Michaels took ten years to write Fugitive Pieces. Prior to winning the Orange prize, it had sold 1,000 copies and had received no reviews. Today it has sold 15 million copies worldwide. But what of the books which came second and third in that year? Does anyone remember their names?
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
What can one possibly say?
Perhaps only that Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is an awesome piece of work. You may find a book that you enjoy more, and which you consider more memorable -- those things are a matter of taste and temperament. But you will not, in these ten years or more, come across a more impressive work of sustained imagination and narrative power.
Further superlatives are unnecessary.
I think I must have had an argument with a large book when I was very young. Perhaps a big thick book fell on my head when I was in my pram. In any event I have been resistant to the things ever since. When faced with a slab of bound paper three inches thick (which is what Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is), my heart sinks. I usually avoid them.
However, in the case of Susanna Clarke's book I somehow felt an obligation to have a look at it, to see what all the fuss was about.
And fuss there was. I deliberately have not reminded myself of the details, before writing this, but I began to hear about this book before it was published: as did everyone else with even one ear to the ground. I dare say that Bloomsbury, the UK publisher, paid a substantial sum for it, and in such cases there is always early drum-beating. And, as in all such cases, I remained profoundly sceptical.
When the book was published (at the end of September 2004) I don't think I read any of the reviews or accompanying interviews. If a big sum of money has been paid in advance, it is inevitably the case that there will be many reviews and interviews. They are no guarantee of anything. But I did, eventually, reserve the book at my local library and recently a copy turned up.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a work of fantasy. It is a story about two magicians, Strange and Norrell, and it belongs in the tradition of Tolkien, Pratchett, and a hundred others. It is set about two hundred years ago, at the time of the Napoleonic wars; the action takes place mostly in England. And, as with all such stories, it is perhaps helpful to think of it taking place in a parallel universe.
If any of the above makes you think that the book is not for you... Well, you may be right. But at least give it a try. I doubt that you will feel that your time has been wasted.
You probably have no further need of my comments, but here, for the record, are a few thoughts as they occurred to me while I was reading.
The author occasionally makes use of some unorthodox spellings: scissars for scissors; any one instead of anyone; chuse for choose, and so on. In other writers this might seem a boring affectation, but somehow, in this book, it feels quite right.
As mentioned above, the book is fearful long. And the pace is leisurely. But while, at some early stages of my reading, I thought that I would eventually have to say that the book is too long for its effects, I soon abandoned that heresy. True, economy of effect is not one of Susanna Clarke's virtues. But why worry about economy when you have the power to give the reader a full account, and still hold that reader to the page?
We discern early on that Mr Norrell is far from being a typical hero or protagonist. It is quite difficult to admire him, or to sympathise with his plight. In other hands this would be a serious shortcoming; but with Susanna Clarke in charge it is somehow not a problem. This, I think, is one measure of her formidable talent and skill.
Mr Strange does not appear for some time -- over a hundred pages in -- and he too is definitely a hero with some limitations.
The book is by no means without humour, albeit somewhat black.
Jonathan Strange is perhaps a little slow on the uptake in realising that he has a powerful enemy (the man with the thistle-down hair). But this is, I suppose, Strange's tragic flaw.
In the past, having an elegant prose style was considered a great virtue in a writer. This circumstance led to much straining after effect and originality, to no one's advantage. Susanna Clarke, however, manages to write in an elegant style without the slightest sign of effort and no self-consciousness whatever.
Finally, one of the marvellous things about this book, to me, is that it is all about England. Of course, Americans and Australians et cetera might not be too keen on that, but you guys will just have to force yourselves to read it.
The physical design and layout of the book, by the way, are as good as they possibly could be, given its great length.
I deliberately wrote all the above before venturing on to Google to find out what others might have said.
The first site that came up on my search appears to be a reasonably official one: in any event there is lots of good stuff on it. I particularly enjoyed the account of the author's shortcomings which is allegedly written by Mr Strange himself -- an amusing little conceit, as I believe the literary people say.
From the publisher's biography of the author I learn that she is Oxford-educated (I would have expected no less) and seems to have worked in UK publishing. Which, I must say, is something not to be sneezed at if you are a would-be writer. (See the penultimate paragraph of my post of 25 February.) She has previously published a number of short stories, which I will now try to trace.
The official site also offers an interview with the author, in which she reveals that she is a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So am I, after a fashion. I once saw an episode in which Buffy said to her Mom, 'Mom, I'm a vampire slayer, and that's all there is to it.' I admire writers who can produce a line like that, and get the producer/director to film it.
The interview reveals something that I had already picked up from elsewhere, namely that this novel took ten years to write. I am not remotely surprised, and one can only admire the discipline, the stamina, and the determination which kept her going. Only if you've done the job yourself, I suspect, do you really appreciate what is involved.
The site also offers lots of reviews, should you be interested.
Enough said, I hope.
Perhaps only that Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is an awesome piece of work. You may find a book that you enjoy more, and which you consider more memorable -- those things are a matter of taste and temperament. But you will not, in these ten years or more, come across a more impressive work of sustained imagination and narrative power.
Further superlatives are unnecessary.
I think I must have had an argument with a large book when I was very young. Perhaps a big thick book fell on my head when I was in my pram. In any event I have been resistant to the things ever since. When faced with a slab of bound paper three inches thick (which is what Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is), my heart sinks. I usually avoid them.
However, in the case of Susanna Clarke's book I somehow felt an obligation to have a look at it, to see what all the fuss was about.
And fuss there was. I deliberately have not reminded myself of the details, before writing this, but I began to hear about this book before it was published: as did everyone else with even one ear to the ground. I dare say that Bloomsbury, the UK publisher, paid a substantial sum for it, and in such cases there is always early drum-beating. And, as in all such cases, I remained profoundly sceptical.
When the book was published (at the end of September 2004) I don't think I read any of the reviews or accompanying interviews. If a big sum of money has been paid in advance, it is inevitably the case that there will be many reviews and interviews. They are no guarantee of anything. But I did, eventually, reserve the book at my local library and recently a copy turned up.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a work of fantasy. It is a story about two magicians, Strange and Norrell, and it belongs in the tradition of Tolkien, Pratchett, and a hundred others. It is set about two hundred years ago, at the time of the Napoleonic wars; the action takes place mostly in England. And, as with all such stories, it is perhaps helpful to think of it taking place in a parallel universe.
If any of the above makes you think that the book is not for you... Well, you may be right. But at least give it a try. I doubt that you will feel that your time has been wasted.
You probably have no further need of my comments, but here, for the record, are a few thoughts as they occurred to me while I was reading.
The author occasionally makes use of some unorthodox spellings: scissars for scissors; any one instead of anyone; chuse for choose, and so on. In other writers this might seem a boring affectation, but somehow, in this book, it feels quite right.
As mentioned above, the book is fearful long. And the pace is leisurely. But while, at some early stages of my reading, I thought that I would eventually have to say that the book is too long for its effects, I soon abandoned that heresy. True, economy of effect is not one of Susanna Clarke's virtues. But why worry about economy when you have the power to give the reader a full account, and still hold that reader to the page?
We discern early on that Mr Norrell is far from being a typical hero or protagonist. It is quite difficult to admire him, or to sympathise with his plight. In other hands this would be a serious shortcoming; but with Susanna Clarke in charge it is somehow not a problem. This, I think, is one measure of her formidable talent and skill.
Mr Strange does not appear for some time -- over a hundred pages in -- and he too is definitely a hero with some limitations.
The book is by no means without humour, albeit somewhat black.
Jonathan Strange is perhaps a little slow on the uptake in realising that he has a powerful enemy (the man with the thistle-down hair). But this is, I suppose, Strange's tragic flaw.
In the past, having an elegant prose style was considered a great virtue in a writer. This circumstance led to much straining after effect and originality, to no one's advantage. Susanna Clarke, however, manages to write in an elegant style without the slightest sign of effort and no self-consciousness whatever.
Finally, one of the marvellous things about this book, to me, is that it is all about England. Of course, Americans and Australians et cetera might not be too keen on that, but you guys will just have to force yourselves to read it.
The physical design and layout of the book, by the way, are as good as they possibly could be, given its great length.
I deliberately wrote all the above before venturing on to Google to find out what others might have said.
The first site that came up on my search appears to be a reasonably official one: in any event there is lots of good stuff on it. I particularly enjoyed the account of the author's shortcomings which is allegedly written by Mr Strange himself -- an amusing little conceit, as I believe the literary people say.
From the publisher's biography of the author I learn that she is Oxford-educated (I would have expected no less) and seems to have worked in UK publishing. Which, I must say, is something not to be sneezed at if you are a would-be writer. (See the penultimate paragraph of my post of 25 February.) She has previously published a number of short stories, which I will now try to trace.
The official site also offers an interview with the author, in which she reveals that she is a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So am I, after a fashion. I once saw an episode in which Buffy said to her Mom, 'Mom, I'm a vampire slayer, and that's all there is to it.' I admire writers who can produce a line like that, and get the producer/director to film it.
The interview reveals something that I had already picked up from elsewhere, namely that this novel took ten years to write. I am not remotely surprised, and one can only admire the discipline, the stamina, and the determination which kept her going. Only if you've done the job yourself, I suspect, do you really appreciate what is involved.
The site also offers lots of reviews, should you be interested.
Enough said, I hope.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
On the Survival of Rats in the Slush Pile -- Part 5
Continued from yesterday. Here is the last part of my new essay on writing and publishing. Please remember that, if at any point you decide that you would like to have all of this essay available in one lump, you can go here and download the whole thing as a PDF file. You can then print it out, pass it to friends, et cetera.
Part 5: Strategies for slush-pile contributors (writers)
Should writers be in this business at all?
Part 5 will broadly follow the pattern of Part 4, and so we begin by asking ourselves whether writers – specifically novelists – are wise to be in the publishing business at all.
The evidence assembled in Part 4 demonstrates that publishing is not a business that anyone in full possession of the facts should go into unless there are special circumstances: such as the possession of a private income, or an overriding desire to be involved with books. I am not going to repeat the argument here. What is instructive, I suggest, is to compare writing with other potential careers, even those of a modest kind which might be thought to be below the dignity of someone capable of writing a novel.
Consider, if you will, a possible career in the motor trade for a young man; and, for a young woman, a career in hairdressing. For either of these two forms of employment, it is easy to obtain suitable training at modest cost. The job can be done by anyone with average intelligence. There are thousands of firms throughout the UK which offer job opportunities. And in order to remain in employment all one has to do is turn up on time and perform to a minimally demanding standard. Given hard work and a little initiative, you could end up with your own business and do rather well. There is no winner-take-all mechanism in the motor trade or hairdressing. Randomness will undeniably play a part in a career in either field, but that role will normally be a minor one.
None of these happy circumstances apply to a young person who wishes to earn a living as a novelist. For a novelist it is not easy to obtain adequate training (I am not impressed by what I have seen of degrees in creative writing). The job of being a writer requires exceptional ability and aptitude, plus years of practice. Job opportunities are limited and the competition is huge. Randomness is the dominant factor in determining any degree of success which may be enjoyed. Even if some form of contract is obtained, it is unlikely to provide enough money to live on, and there is no guarantee of continuity of employment, however committed you may be.
In other words, there are no sensible reasons, as has been demonstrated over and over again in this essay, for seeking to become a professional novelist (or even an amateur one, of which more will be said later). However, these are personal decisions and they must be made by individuals. And individuals who have read thus far in this essay will be aware that any decision to try to become a professional writer cannot, by definition, be rational; it must be emotional, which means that it is dangerous.
Let us consider the dangers.
If there is one thing that can almost be guaranteed about being a writer, attempting to work through traditional book-publishing channels, it is that the process will involve a great many negative emotions: anger; frustration; bitterness; a sense of injustice; jealousy; depression; despair.
It is obvious just from the names of these powerful emotions that they are undesirable. But just how undesirable and damaging they are is often underestimated. A finished novel is the product of several hundred hours of hard work, and the physical and psychological consequences of having it rejected, over and over again, are far from negligible.
Taleb points out to us that scientists have examined the physical impact of the negative emotions which are aroused by situations such as rejection. He refers us to Sapolsky, whose work reveals that prolonged stress, such as that experienced by ambitious writers trying to juggle too many balls at once, causes or intensifies a range of physical and mental afflictions, including depression, ulcers, colitis, heart disease, and more. The glucocorticoids released at times of stress tend to hamper the formation of new memory and brain plasticity.
Typically, highly negative experiences have an effect on the mind and body which exceeds (by an estimated magnitude of 2.5 times) the positive effect of a good experience. So if, after fifteen submissions, a writer finally persuades an agent to represent her, which is a positive emotional event (of sorts), then our writer is still likely to be left in emotional deficit.
The very process of writing a novel is likely to have a far-reaching impact on several areas of the writer’s life. The girlfriend or boyfriend may not be enthusiastic; your employer may wonder why you are so anxious to leave at 5.00 p.m.; and your bank balance may be depleted by various expenses. When achieving even the most minimal success takes much longer than you hoped – and it will – you will be subjected to well-meaning but painful interrogations by your family and friends.
But there are worse things than being rejected. The worst thing that can happen to a writer is for her to become the author of a black swan before she is old enough, and experienced enough, to understand how she came to achieve that success.
The creator of a black swan is placed under enormous pressure to repeat the triumph. The pressure comes from her publisher, from the critics, from readers, booksellers, family, friends, spouse, children, and half a dozen other sources. And our writer sits at her desk and the paper remains blank.
In its most extreme form this pressure can prove fatal. In 1974 John Leggett wrote a book about Ross Lockridge and Tom Heggen (Ross and Tom). In post-war America, both these men had huge successes with their first books. They became rich and famous. But neither man could figure out what to do next; they became depressed; they committed suicide.
Stoicism and dignity in the face of randomness
Taleb tells us that, in the ancient world, the stoics’ prescription for peace of mind was to do what one can to control one’s destiny; for the only thing that Madame Randomness does not control is your behaviour. In the end, however, randomness will have the last word; and therefore the sole solution left to us is dignity.
What this means for writers is that it would be wise not to degrade yourself with empty hopes; neither is it dignified to whine when a publisher drops you after two books, and your agent refuses to return your calls. And perhaps the most dignified choice of all, for a writer, is to decline to participate in a circus where so much is determined by chance.
The whole business of submitting yourself to the slush-pile procedure is likely to be both painful and damaging; and it is more damaging, frankly, for those who understand how random it is than for divine innocents, who at least retain the delusion that the system is administered by readers whose judgements are reliable and valid.
How to proceed, if you really must
The evidence so far assembled in this essay surely suggests that writing a novel, with a view to getting it published through the mainstream publishing system, is a foolish thing to do. But we all do foolish things, some of us in full awareness of the consequences. (I once had a friend who decided that, despite the risks, smoking cigarettes was a sensible course for him, because it calmed his nerves; he died of cancer in his early fifties.) So, despite all the drawbacks and disadvantages of trying to launch a career as a writer, some will persist in trying; and if you really must go down this ill-advised route, you should at least equip yourself with a good map.
The first thing to do, and the easiest, is to cure your chronic ignorance of the facts of publishing life. Those of us who write may be fools; but at least we should be well-informed fools. This state of affairs can be achieved by reading the trade papers for a couple of years, and by reading some of the books mentioned in the references section of this essay.
Having done that – and it cannot, unfortunately, be done overnight – the next step is to clarify your goals. It is unlikely, on the whole, even with Madame Randomness on your side, that you are going to be able to achieve fame, literary reputation, and lots of money, all at the same time. There are exceptions, of course (e.g. Hemingway), and one of the most frequent errors on the part of writers is to assume that they themselves will be one of those rare exceptions. (If you want to know why this is an error, consider this: when we get into a car to go to the supermarket, we do not, generally speaking, assume that we are going to be one of those rare people who get killed in an accident.) So you need to decide, as precisely as possible, what it is that you hope to achieve as a writer; and, at the risk of mentioning it too often, I have to say that my book The Truth about Writing will be helpful in this regard.
Having sorted out your goals, and having armed yourself with a good working knowledge of how the business actually operates, you are then in a position to formulate a career plan. Most ‘business plans’ are a form of fiction anyway, and this one is likely to be even more divorced from reality than most. But it will do no harm if you set out on a piece of paper what you plan to do, over a period of say five years, and with what result. With a bit of luck you will see immediately how unrealistic such plans are, and save yourself a great deal of trouble.
How to find an agent/publisher
No writer can hope to enjoy any sort of serious career unless she is published by one of the major firms. And so the problem, assuming you have written a novel, is how to persuade one of those firms to publish it.
As we know, the big publishers have abandoned the slush pile; some of the bigger agents have either followed suit or will do so shortly. There remain, however, a number of reputable literary agencies which are still willing to consider unsolicited submissions.
There are good ways and bad ways to approach these people, and if you seek advice on how to do it, read (agent) Carole Blake’s book From Pitch to Publication.
Some commentators on the publishing scene maintain that before long writers will be obliged, perforce, to approach literary agents via an intermediate fee-charging service such as the Literary Consultancy – an organisation which has already been mentioned.
The Literary Consultancy will arrange to have your manuscript read by a professional. More to the point, if your work is judged to be of a high enough standard, the Consultancy will then recommend the book to one or other of the literary agencies with whom it has links. The present referral rate is reportedly 1 out of every 20 manuscripts read. I find this figure surprisingly high, but then perhaps the Literary Consultancy attracts an unusually competent class of writer; and besides, referral to an agency probably does no more than indicate to the agency that reading the manuscript may not be a complete waste of time.
There are numerous other ‘reading agencies’ which charge a fee for assessing your manuscript. These vary from the entirely honourable to the totally fraudulent, whose sole purpose is to part fools from their money.
A possible way forward
So far, this essay has not done much to encourage the view that writing novels is a productive use of one’s time. However, thoughtful and informed readers may well be ahead of me in realising that, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, there is another set of strategies which could be pursued by those afflicted with the writing bug. These strategies require a clear head, which alone is a requirement that may put them beyond the reach of most, but I want to say a word about them here.
Let us suppose that a wildly ambitious young writer, full of ideas for wonderful novels, has prepared herself for a writing career, as indicated above. Such a person, if possessed of the power to think clearly, can hardly fail to be aware that the idea of becoming a full-time professional writer is a chimera, achievable only through the improbable workings of randomness. But this same young writer might recognise that there is a much more workable scheme of things.
Suppose (she says to herself) I acknowledge that I am never going to be another A.S. Byatt or Jilly Cooper (according to taste), but that I nevertheless decide to go ahead with writing novels as a spare-time occupation. There are, after all, some eccentric individuals who spend hundreds of hours making a scale model of a steam railway engine or a nineteenth-century sailing ship. Such people undertake these mammoth tasks, occupying several hundred hours, without any expectation of becoming famous or rich. Why should I not approach novel writing in the same spirit?
To which the answer is, No reason at all. Except that it requires quite exceptional powers of rationality, and the ability to quell, for ever, even the tiniest hope that publication (in the traditional sense), fame, glittering prizes, and untold wealth will follow. I have never met anyone capable of this, but such a paragon may exist.
Yes, it is possible for an individual to work in this way. And when the novel is finished it can be put on display, in just the same way that a model steam engine might be put on display. The novel can be ‘exhibited’ on the internet. It can be printed up in book form and given away, or even sold – provided that the writer does not expect to sell many copies.
There are some observers who see a bright future for what is now called ‘disintermediation’ – the process whereby texts are delivered from author to reader (like this essay, in fact) without the need for a publisher or a bookseller in the middle. In principle, there is no reason at all why the quality of work distributed in this way should not equal, or even exceed, the quality of much formally published work.
The pro-am option
Demos, an independent UK think tank, recently published a report on the ‘pro-am phenomenon’. A pro-am is someone who works in a particular field as an amateur, but who nevertheless works to professional standards. The pro-am may make some income from a given activity, but it will not be the individual’s sole source of income. The Demos report has shown that pro-ams are today making significant contributions in a number of fields, as varied as astronomy, theatre, and open-source software.
Those for whom writing is seen as a means of establishing their identity are unlikely to be satisfied with this strategy. But, for those who already know who they are, it is certainly an option; and it is one which can be exercised at any time, for example after retirement.
The pro-am approach is in fact the way in which I myself have operated over the last few years. My first novel was published in 1963, and over the next twenty-odd years I had five other novels published by firms in the UK, USA, France, and Denmark. In the 1990s, after a gap of some years, I was in a position to start writing fiction again; but, although I was represented by a leading agent, I discovered, unsurprisingly, that modern publishers were not interested. My solution was to start my own small press, Kingsfield Publications, which I use chiefly as a vehicle for my own work; the books are published under various pen-names according to their character.
As a result of my long experience of writing and publishing, I am in a position to ensure that I can write, design, and oversee the printing of trade paperbacks to a fully professional standard. Kingsfield Publications succeeds in selling a limited number of copies of each book, chiefly to the UK library trade. Because of the low set-up cost of modern print-on-demand technology, most books generate a modest profit. I know that the books are read, because I receive income from the public lending right scheme.
At present, it is a fact of life that pro-am novels produced in this way cannot provide a writer with even a modest living. Neither will they attract reviews in major newspapers, so it is difficult to build a reputation.
However, there are signs that this situation may change. A number of observers have begun to talk about the long tail, by which is meant that vast body of work which exists behind what might be called the short head.
In publishing, the short head is the blockbuster world of the big publishers and the big retailers. But there is already a long tail, in the form of the backlists of orthodox publishers; and an even longer tail, in the form of ebook and print-on-demand reprints of long-forgotten masterpieces and even pulp. This long tail will almost certainly grow larger as individual writers become weary of trying to break into the mainstream and begin to offer their work through less orthodox channels.
Some observers believe that the long tail will eventually constitute a larger part of the market than the short head (if it doesn’t do so already). And the readers, bless their hearts, are beginning to realise that finding something to read is no longer a matter of going down to the nearest W.H. Smith and seeing what is piled up near the door. They are beginning to learn that finding a ‘good book’ requires a little work, and the internet is the obvious place to start.
The theory is – and it seems eminently credible to me – that users will increasingly recognise that the internet provides a vastly increased pool of choice; and the search engines will allow them to explore their own tastes in ways hitherto not available.
Individuals with access to the internet, whether their interest is in music, videos, or books, are not limited to the current bestseller list which is being plugged by the big retailers.
What is more, they may discover, as they explore the various niches, that they actually prefer what is available in some obscure corners of the web to what is effectively forced upon them by the blockbuster/winner-take-all conglomerates.
It is forecast, by a certain number of wishful thinkers, that the long-tail effect will lead to the disappearance of winner-take-all dynamics. It is said, for instance, that the big TV networks will close down. I seriously doubt that. The big TV networks, and the big publishers, will remain big. But they will suffer reductions – reductions in the number of customers and the size of their profits.
As and when this situation develops further, it will be possible for many pro-am writers to find a small, but appreciative, and possibly passionate, audience for their work. They are unlikely to grow rich or to become famous in the old-fashioned sense; but they may supplement their income to a useful degree, and they will be known, worldwide, to those who share a particular set of tastes.
The rewards of independence
The rewards of this new strategy, though limited, should not be underestimated. Perhaps the most important of them is that the pro-am approach allows writers to write exactly what they want, when they want, in whatever form they want. These are rare privileges, unknown to those who play the corporate game.
In short, the pro-am writer seems to me to have the best of all possible worlds – subject to a couple of caveats. The pro-am has to be mature enough to be genuinely satisfied with the rewards of that status. (Daily meditation on the so-called ‘rewards’ of the corporate alternative should help.) And she has to be calm enough to be unfrustrated by the limitations of working on time-consuming projects in her all too finite amounts of spare time.
At present, many of those who write blogs and publish their own books live in the same over-hopeful frame of mind as those young ladies who, in the 1950s, used to work in Hollywood drug stores, in the expectation that at any moment a big-time producer would walk in and pick them to star in his next movie. In other words, they live in a dream world.
All such dreams should, in my opinion, be abandoned.
Let us suppose, just for the sake of argument, that some big-time editor reads a self-published novel and decides to offer the writer a two-book contract on the strength of it. So what?
If the publisher is exceptionally rash (and we have evidence that some of them are), then a large sum of money may be involved; in that case it would make sense to take the advance and run. But in the average case, the advance offered is likely to be the usual pittance; the book will be given the usual minimum support; and after two or three such books, which fail to generate fire-storms of enthusiasm, the writer will be dropped.
Is that experience worth all the accompanying hassle? I suspect not. In the twenty-first century, therefore, the really smart writers – the ones who have mastered their skills, who learnt to understand the publishing business, and who value their sanity – they are not going to succumb to these blandishments. The mature and confident writer will recognise that she does not need to have her work validated by some all-too-fallible editor. And so, when our emancipated writer does receive an offer from such a source, she will smile politely, and say Thanks, but no thanks.
Such a writer will be entitled to feel truly proud of herself; because she at least, of all the many writers in this world, will have set aside childish things. She will have become an adult at last.
References
This essay is not intended for publication in an academic journal, and so I have not peppered it with footnotes giving the source of every statement or statistic. You may be assured, however, that every ‘fact’ or figure that appears here has previously appeared in print somewhere, and has at least some likelihood of according with reality.
The major publications which are referred to in the text are listed here in alphabetical order by author. All are recommended for further reading.
Allen, Michael. (2005). Grumpy Old Bookman – Essays and Criticism. Wiltshire: Kingsfield Publications.
Allen, Michael. (2003). The Truth about Writing. Wiltshire: Kingsfield Publications.
Bellaigue, Eric de. (2004). British Book Publishing as a Business since the 1960s. London: The British Library.
Bernard, André. (2002). Rotten Rejections. London: Robson Books. (There are various earlier editions in both the US and the UK.)
Blake, Carole. (1999). From Pitch to Publication. London: Pan.
Epstein, Jason. (2001). Book Business. London: W.W. Norton & Company.
Klebanoff, Arthur. (2002). The Agent. London: Texere.
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. (2004). Fooled by Randomness. London: Texere.
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. (2004). Fooled by Success: the Black Swan and the Arts. A paper presented on 24 September 2004 at the Arte-Scienza symposium, Rome; available on Taleb’s web site, www.fooledbyrandomness.com.
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. (2004). On the Invisibility of the Drowned Worshippers. A draft chapter of Taleb’s forthcoming book on black swans; available on www.fooledbyrandomness.com.
About the Author
Michael Allen’s principal career was in education, first as a teacher and then as an administrator. Prior to retirement, he held the post of Administrative Secretary of the University of Bath. He has a PhD in education and is a former Fulbright Fellow.
In parallel with his career in education, Michael has had a long record of achievement as a writer. He was first paid for writing a newspaper article in 1955, and since then he has published 11 novels, a collection of short stories, and three non-fiction books; he has also had work produced on the stage, television and radio.
Michael is a former Director of an academic publishing company, Bath University Press, and he currently runs his own small press, Kingsfield Publications. He writes a more or less daily blog, the Grumpy Old Bookman. A variety of posts from this blog are now available in printed form: see above.
For more information try the following web sites:
www.kingsfieldpublications.co.uk
www.michaelallen.me.uk
www.truthaboutwriting.co.uk
Part 5: Strategies for slush-pile contributors (writers)
Should writers be in this business at all?
Part 5 will broadly follow the pattern of Part 4, and so we begin by asking ourselves whether writers – specifically novelists – are wise to be in the publishing business at all.
The evidence assembled in Part 4 demonstrates that publishing is not a business that anyone in full possession of the facts should go into unless there are special circumstances: such as the possession of a private income, or an overriding desire to be involved with books. I am not going to repeat the argument here. What is instructive, I suggest, is to compare writing with other potential careers, even those of a modest kind which might be thought to be below the dignity of someone capable of writing a novel.
Consider, if you will, a possible career in the motor trade for a young man; and, for a young woman, a career in hairdressing. For either of these two forms of employment, it is easy to obtain suitable training at modest cost. The job can be done by anyone with average intelligence. There are thousands of firms throughout the UK which offer job opportunities. And in order to remain in employment all one has to do is turn up on time and perform to a minimally demanding standard. Given hard work and a little initiative, you could end up with your own business and do rather well. There is no winner-take-all mechanism in the motor trade or hairdressing. Randomness will undeniably play a part in a career in either field, but that role will normally be a minor one.
None of these happy circumstances apply to a young person who wishes to earn a living as a novelist. For a novelist it is not easy to obtain adequate training (I am not impressed by what I have seen of degrees in creative writing). The job of being a writer requires exceptional ability and aptitude, plus years of practice. Job opportunities are limited and the competition is huge. Randomness is the dominant factor in determining any degree of success which may be enjoyed. Even if some form of contract is obtained, it is unlikely to provide enough money to live on, and there is no guarantee of continuity of employment, however committed you may be.
In other words, there are no sensible reasons, as has been demonstrated over and over again in this essay, for seeking to become a professional novelist (or even an amateur one, of which more will be said later). However, these are personal decisions and they must be made by individuals. And individuals who have read thus far in this essay will be aware that any decision to try to become a professional writer cannot, by definition, be rational; it must be emotional, which means that it is dangerous.
Let us consider the dangers.
If there is one thing that can almost be guaranteed about being a writer, attempting to work through traditional book-publishing channels, it is that the process will involve a great many negative emotions: anger; frustration; bitterness; a sense of injustice; jealousy; depression; despair.
It is obvious just from the names of these powerful emotions that they are undesirable. But just how undesirable and damaging they are is often underestimated. A finished novel is the product of several hundred hours of hard work, and the physical and psychological consequences of having it rejected, over and over again, are far from negligible.
Taleb points out to us that scientists have examined the physical impact of the negative emotions which are aroused by situations such as rejection. He refers us to Sapolsky, whose work reveals that prolonged stress, such as that experienced by ambitious writers trying to juggle too many balls at once, causes or intensifies a range of physical and mental afflictions, including depression, ulcers, colitis, heart disease, and more. The glucocorticoids released at times of stress tend to hamper the formation of new memory and brain plasticity.
Typically, highly negative experiences have an effect on the mind and body which exceeds (by an estimated magnitude of 2.5 times) the positive effect of a good experience. So if, after fifteen submissions, a writer finally persuades an agent to represent her, which is a positive emotional event (of sorts), then our writer is still likely to be left in emotional deficit.
The very process of writing a novel is likely to have a far-reaching impact on several areas of the writer’s life. The girlfriend or boyfriend may not be enthusiastic; your employer may wonder why you are so anxious to leave at 5.00 p.m.; and your bank balance may be depleted by various expenses. When achieving even the most minimal success takes much longer than you hoped – and it will – you will be subjected to well-meaning but painful interrogations by your family and friends.
But there are worse things than being rejected. The worst thing that can happen to a writer is for her to become the author of a black swan before she is old enough, and experienced enough, to understand how she came to achieve that success.
The creator of a black swan is placed under enormous pressure to repeat the triumph. The pressure comes from her publisher, from the critics, from readers, booksellers, family, friends, spouse, children, and half a dozen other sources. And our writer sits at her desk and the paper remains blank.
In its most extreme form this pressure can prove fatal. In 1974 John Leggett wrote a book about Ross Lockridge and Tom Heggen (Ross and Tom). In post-war America, both these men had huge successes with their first books. They became rich and famous. But neither man could figure out what to do next; they became depressed; they committed suicide.
Stoicism and dignity in the face of randomness
Taleb tells us that, in the ancient world, the stoics’ prescription for peace of mind was to do what one can to control one’s destiny; for the only thing that Madame Randomness does not control is your behaviour. In the end, however, randomness will have the last word; and therefore the sole solution left to us is dignity.
What this means for writers is that it would be wise not to degrade yourself with empty hopes; neither is it dignified to whine when a publisher drops you after two books, and your agent refuses to return your calls. And perhaps the most dignified choice of all, for a writer, is to decline to participate in a circus where so much is determined by chance.
The whole business of submitting yourself to the slush-pile procedure is likely to be both painful and damaging; and it is more damaging, frankly, for those who understand how random it is than for divine innocents, who at least retain the delusion that the system is administered by readers whose judgements are reliable and valid.
How to proceed, if you really must
The evidence so far assembled in this essay surely suggests that writing a novel, with a view to getting it published through the mainstream publishing system, is a foolish thing to do. But we all do foolish things, some of us in full awareness of the consequences. (I once had a friend who decided that, despite the risks, smoking cigarettes was a sensible course for him, because it calmed his nerves; he died of cancer in his early fifties.) So, despite all the drawbacks and disadvantages of trying to launch a career as a writer, some will persist in trying; and if you really must go down this ill-advised route, you should at least equip yourself with a good map.
The first thing to do, and the easiest, is to cure your chronic ignorance of the facts of publishing life. Those of us who write may be fools; but at least we should be well-informed fools. This state of affairs can be achieved by reading the trade papers for a couple of years, and by reading some of the books mentioned in the references section of this essay.
Having done that – and it cannot, unfortunately, be done overnight – the next step is to clarify your goals. It is unlikely, on the whole, even with Madame Randomness on your side, that you are going to be able to achieve fame, literary reputation, and lots of money, all at the same time. There are exceptions, of course (e.g. Hemingway), and one of the most frequent errors on the part of writers is to assume that they themselves will be one of those rare exceptions. (If you want to know why this is an error, consider this: when we get into a car to go to the supermarket, we do not, generally speaking, assume that we are going to be one of those rare people who get killed in an accident.) So you need to decide, as precisely as possible, what it is that you hope to achieve as a writer; and, at the risk of mentioning it too often, I have to say that my book The Truth about Writing will be helpful in this regard.
Having sorted out your goals, and having armed yourself with a good working knowledge of how the business actually operates, you are then in a position to formulate a career plan. Most ‘business plans’ are a form of fiction anyway, and this one is likely to be even more divorced from reality than most. But it will do no harm if you set out on a piece of paper what you plan to do, over a period of say five years, and with what result. With a bit of luck you will see immediately how unrealistic such plans are, and save yourself a great deal of trouble.
How to find an agent/publisher
No writer can hope to enjoy any sort of serious career unless she is published by one of the major firms. And so the problem, assuming you have written a novel, is how to persuade one of those firms to publish it.
As we know, the big publishers have abandoned the slush pile; some of the bigger agents have either followed suit or will do so shortly. There remain, however, a number of reputable literary agencies which are still willing to consider unsolicited submissions.
There are good ways and bad ways to approach these people, and if you seek advice on how to do it, read (agent) Carole Blake’s book From Pitch to Publication.
Some commentators on the publishing scene maintain that before long writers will be obliged, perforce, to approach literary agents via an intermediate fee-charging service such as the Literary Consultancy – an organisation which has already been mentioned.
The Literary Consultancy will arrange to have your manuscript read by a professional. More to the point, if your work is judged to be of a high enough standard, the Consultancy will then recommend the book to one or other of the literary agencies with whom it has links. The present referral rate is reportedly 1 out of every 20 manuscripts read. I find this figure surprisingly high, but then perhaps the Literary Consultancy attracts an unusually competent class of writer; and besides, referral to an agency probably does no more than indicate to the agency that reading the manuscript may not be a complete waste of time.
There are numerous other ‘reading agencies’ which charge a fee for assessing your manuscript. These vary from the entirely honourable to the totally fraudulent, whose sole purpose is to part fools from their money.
A possible way forward
So far, this essay has not done much to encourage the view that writing novels is a productive use of one’s time. However, thoughtful and informed readers may well be ahead of me in realising that, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, there is another set of strategies which could be pursued by those afflicted with the writing bug. These strategies require a clear head, which alone is a requirement that may put them beyond the reach of most, but I want to say a word about them here.
Let us suppose that a wildly ambitious young writer, full of ideas for wonderful novels, has prepared herself for a writing career, as indicated above. Such a person, if possessed of the power to think clearly, can hardly fail to be aware that the idea of becoming a full-time professional writer is a chimera, achievable only through the improbable workings of randomness. But this same young writer might recognise that there is a much more workable scheme of things.
Suppose (she says to herself) I acknowledge that I am never going to be another A.S. Byatt or Jilly Cooper (according to taste), but that I nevertheless decide to go ahead with writing novels as a spare-time occupation. There are, after all, some eccentric individuals who spend hundreds of hours making a scale model of a steam railway engine or a nineteenth-century sailing ship. Such people undertake these mammoth tasks, occupying several hundred hours, without any expectation of becoming famous or rich. Why should I not approach novel writing in the same spirit?
To which the answer is, No reason at all. Except that it requires quite exceptional powers of rationality, and the ability to quell, for ever, even the tiniest hope that publication (in the traditional sense), fame, glittering prizes, and untold wealth will follow. I have never met anyone capable of this, but such a paragon may exist.
Yes, it is possible for an individual to work in this way. And when the novel is finished it can be put on display, in just the same way that a model steam engine might be put on display. The novel can be ‘exhibited’ on the internet. It can be printed up in book form and given away, or even sold – provided that the writer does not expect to sell many copies.
There are some observers who see a bright future for what is now called ‘disintermediation’ – the process whereby texts are delivered from author to reader (like this essay, in fact) without the need for a publisher or a bookseller in the middle. In principle, there is no reason at all why the quality of work distributed in this way should not equal, or even exceed, the quality of much formally published work.
The pro-am option
Demos, an independent UK think tank, recently published a report on the ‘pro-am phenomenon’. A pro-am is someone who works in a particular field as an amateur, but who nevertheless works to professional standards. The pro-am may make some income from a given activity, but it will not be the individual’s sole source of income. The Demos report has shown that pro-ams are today making significant contributions in a number of fields, as varied as astronomy, theatre, and open-source software.
Those for whom writing is seen as a means of establishing their identity are unlikely to be satisfied with this strategy. But, for those who already know who they are, it is certainly an option; and it is one which can be exercised at any time, for example after retirement.
The pro-am approach is in fact the way in which I myself have operated over the last few years. My first novel was published in 1963, and over the next twenty-odd years I had five other novels published by firms in the UK, USA, France, and Denmark. In the 1990s, after a gap of some years, I was in a position to start writing fiction again; but, although I was represented by a leading agent, I discovered, unsurprisingly, that modern publishers were not interested. My solution was to start my own small press, Kingsfield Publications, which I use chiefly as a vehicle for my own work; the books are published under various pen-names according to their character.
As a result of my long experience of writing and publishing, I am in a position to ensure that I can write, design, and oversee the printing of trade paperbacks to a fully professional standard. Kingsfield Publications succeeds in selling a limited number of copies of each book, chiefly to the UK library trade. Because of the low set-up cost of modern print-on-demand technology, most books generate a modest profit. I know that the books are read, because I receive income from the public lending right scheme.
At present, it is a fact of life that pro-am novels produced in this way cannot provide a writer with even a modest living. Neither will they attract reviews in major newspapers, so it is difficult to build a reputation.
However, there are signs that this situation may change. A number of observers have begun to talk about the long tail, by which is meant that vast body of work which exists behind what might be called the short head.
In publishing, the short head is the blockbuster world of the big publishers and the big retailers. But there is already a long tail, in the form of the backlists of orthodox publishers; and an even longer tail, in the form of ebook and print-on-demand reprints of long-forgotten masterpieces and even pulp. This long tail will almost certainly grow larger as individual writers become weary of trying to break into the mainstream and begin to offer their work through less orthodox channels.
Some observers believe that the long tail will eventually constitute a larger part of the market than the short head (if it doesn’t do so already). And the readers, bless their hearts, are beginning to realise that finding something to read is no longer a matter of going down to the nearest W.H. Smith and seeing what is piled up near the door. They are beginning to learn that finding a ‘good book’ requires a little work, and the internet is the obvious place to start.
The theory is – and it seems eminently credible to me – that users will increasingly recognise that the internet provides a vastly increased pool of choice; and the search engines will allow them to explore their own tastes in ways hitherto not available.
Individuals with access to the internet, whether their interest is in music, videos, or books, are not limited to the current bestseller list which is being plugged by the big retailers.
What is more, they may discover, as they explore the various niches, that they actually prefer what is available in some obscure corners of the web to what is effectively forced upon them by the blockbuster/winner-take-all conglomerates.
It is forecast, by a certain number of wishful thinkers, that the long-tail effect will lead to the disappearance of winner-take-all dynamics. It is said, for instance, that the big TV networks will close down. I seriously doubt that. The big TV networks, and the big publishers, will remain big. But they will suffer reductions – reductions in the number of customers and the size of their profits.
As and when this situation develops further, it will be possible for many pro-am writers to find a small, but appreciative, and possibly passionate, audience for their work. They are unlikely to grow rich or to become famous in the old-fashioned sense; but they may supplement their income to a useful degree, and they will be known, worldwide, to those who share a particular set of tastes.
The rewards of independence
The rewards of this new strategy, though limited, should not be underestimated. Perhaps the most important of them is that the pro-am approach allows writers to write exactly what they want, when they want, in whatever form they want. These are rare privileges, unknown to those who play the corporate game.
In short, the pro-am writer seems to me to have the best of all possible worlds – subject to a couple of caveats. The pro-am has to be mature enough to be genuinely satisfied with the rewards of that status. (Daily meditation on the so-called ‘rewards’ of the corporate alternative should help.) And she has to be calm enough to be unfrustrated by the limitations of working on time-consuming projects in her all too finite amounts of spare time.
At present, many of those who write blogs and publish their own books live in the same over-hopeful frame of mind as those young ladies who, in the 1950s, used to work in Hollywood drug stores, in the expectation that at any moment a big-time producer would walk in and pick them to star in his next movie. In other words, they live in a dream world.
All such dreams should, in my opinion, be abandoned.
Let us suppose, just for the sake of argument, that some big-time editor reads a self-published novel and decides to offer the writer a two-book contract on the strength of it. So what?
If the publisher is exceptionally rash (and we have evidence that some of them are), then a large sum of money may be involved; in that case it would make sense to take the advance and run. But in the average case, the advance offered is likely to be the usual pittance; the book will be given the usual minimum support; and after two or three such books, which fail to generate fire-storms of enthusiasm, the writer will be dropped.
Is that experience worth all the accompanying hassle? I suspect not. In the twenty-first century, therefore, the really smart writers – the ones who have mastered their skills, who learnt to understand the publishing business, and who value their sanity – they are not going to succumb to these blandishments. The mature and confident writer will recognise that she does not need to have her work validated by some all-too-fallible editor. And so, when our emancipated writer does receive an offer from such a source, she will smile politely, and say Thanks, but no thanks.
Such a writer will be entitled to feel truly proud of herself; because she at least, of all the many writers in this world, will have set aside childish things. She will have become an adult at last.
References
This essay is not intended for publication in an academic journal, and so I have not peppered it with footnotes giving the source of every statement or statistic. You may be assured, however, that every ‘fact’ or figure that appears here has previously appeared in print somewhere, and has at least some likelihood of according with reality.
The major publications which are referred to in the text are listed here in alphabetical order by author. All are recommended for further reading.
Allen, Michael. (2005). Grumpy Old Bookman – Essays and Criticism. Wiltshire: Kingsfield Publications.
Allen, Michael. (2003). The Truth about Writing. Wiltshire: Kingsfield Publications.
Bellaigue, Eric de. (2004). British Book Publishing as a Business since the 1960s. London: The British Library.
Bernard, André. (2002). Rotten Rejections. London: Robson Books. (There are various earlier editions in both the US and the UK.)
Blake, Carole. (1999). From Pitch to Publication. London: Pan.
Epstein, Jason. (2001). Book Business. London: W.W. Norton & Company.
Klebanoff, Arthur. (2002). The Agent. London: Texere.
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. (2004). Fooled by Randomness. London: Texere.
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. (2004). Fooled by Success: the Black Swan and the Arts. A paper presented on 24 September 2004 at the Arte-Scienza symposium, Rome; available on Taleb’s web site, www.fooledbyrandomness.com.
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. (2004). On the Invisibility of the Drowned Worshippers. A draft chapter of Taleb’s forthcoming book on black swans; available on www.fooledbyrandomness.com.
About the Author
Michael Allen’s principal career was in education, first as a teacher and then as an administrator. Prior to retirement, he held the post of Administrative Secretary of the University of Bath. He has a PhD in education and is a former Fulbright Fellow.
In parallel with his career in education, Michael has had a long record of achievement as a writer. He was first paid for writing a newspaper article in 1955, and since then he has published 11 novels, a collection of short stories, and three non-fiction books; he has also had work produced on the stage, television and radio.
Michael is a former Director of an academic publishing company, Bath University Press, and he currently runs his own small press, Kingsfield Publications. He writes a more or less daily blog, the Grumpy Old Bookman. A variety of posts from this blog are now available in printed form: see above.
For more information try the following web sites:
www.kingsfieldpublications.co.uk
www.michaelallen.me.uk
www.truthaboutwriting.co.uk
Monday, March 07, 2005
On the Survival of Rats in the Slush Pile -- Part 4
Continued from last Friday. Here is Part 4 of my new essay on writing and publishing. Please remember that, if at any point you decide that you would like to have all of this essay available in one lump, you can go here and download the whole thing as a PDF file. You can then print it out, pass it to friends, et cetera.
Part 4: Strategies for slush-pile selectors (agents and publishers)
Introduction
This essay has been written mainly to consider the problems relating to the writing and publishing of fiction; and that focus will be maintained in Parts 4 and 5.
Part 4 will look at the problems which agents (and publishers) face in finding suitable material, particularly material from as-yet-unknown writers. But first let us step backwards and take a hard look at the question of whether there are any rational reasons for being involved in the fiction-publishing business in the first place.
General difficulties in thinking
In undertaking hard thinking of any kind we are handicapped by human nature. Taleb presents evidence that human beings are simply not wired for rational thought. Modern behavioural science has shown that our cognitive apparatus has considerably less influence over our actions than does our emotional machinery. Apparently there are good genetic reasons why this should be so: if we made all our decisions rationally they would take far too long. Taleb maintains, and I agree, that we should all be aware of this flaw in our thinking, in order to protect ourselves (as far as possible) from the essentially emotional nature of our decisions.
In few areas of life, I suggest, is this warning more apposite than in relation to writing and publishing.
Is publishing a sensible business?
We must remember throughout our consideration of the problems connected with the writing and selling of novels that publishing is first and foremost a business. Whether it is a sensible business is a different matter altogether. Like all businesses, publishing requires capital; and investors, sooner or later, will need to consider whether they are earning a decent return on their capital.
As far as the specific returns on investment in publishing are concerned, we are handicapped by incomplete data. But such data as we have suggest that publishing in general is not a good field for investors to enter. (See, for instance, Eric de Bellaigue’s interesting collection of essays, British Book Publishing as a Business since the 1960s). At best, publishing seems likely to yield a lower return to investors than do many other industries. Within publishing, trade publishing is less profitable than the mundane areas of textbook and reference-book publishing; and within trade publishing, fiction is particularly demanding of cash and typically appears to provide lower yields than non-fiction. ‘People who make money in literary publishing are rare,’ says Carmen Callil.
Luke Johnson, currently Chairman of Channel 4, once owned a book publisher and found it ‘a painful experience.’ Generally, he said, publishing is a ‘terrible business… a barely rational industry.’ The cash-flow characteristics are unattractive. ‘You ship finished volumes to booksellers who only accept them on a sale or return basis, and demand at least 55 per cent trade discount, and pay 120 days later.’
In America, the situation seems to be worse. Richard Curtis, a leading New York literary agent, says that the returnability of books is killing the business. ‘The old system has become corrupt and dishonest.’
Prima facie, therefore, there is not much reason for investing in a company which publishes fiction.
Why are big conglomerates involved in publishing?
It is no accident, in my view, that today’s most powerful publishers are subsidiaries of much larger companies, which have a broad-based involvement in other media, such as newspapers and television. HarperCollins, for example, is a big publisher but occupies barely a couple of pixels on News Corp’s overall screen.
It seems reasonable to assume that the managers of major international companies are well aware of the relatively unsatisfactory rate of returns from trade publishing in general and fiction in particular. Parent companies’ continued involvement in book publishing must therefore be seen as a long-odds bet. Inspired by the occasional black swan, investment in publishing is seen as a quirky and risky part of the overall portfolio: it may be regarded as something that’s worth a punt, but don’t hold your breath.
Here again we have some wonderfully fuzzy thinking. Fiction publishing and retailing are only rendered remotely profitable by the blockbusters; and blockbusters cannot infallibly be manufactured. So the business hinges upon black swans, which are random events. But what observers tend to forget is that random events do not occur at evenly spaced intervals; they occur at random intervals. Thus if HarperCollins has a black swan this year, it does not follow that it will be Random House’s turn next year. Good ole HC may turn the same trick for ten years in a row. And if they do, of course, the HC editorial department will become legendary; but they won’t deserve it.
If HC were to strike lucky in that way, for ten straight years, the not-so-lucky conglomerates might begin to wonder whether the game was worth the effort. Publishers might find that their parent company’s patience and tolerance were not inexhaustible.
Factors for individuals to consider
If we assume that a major company has decided to remain involved in book publishing on the basis described above, it still remains for individuals to decide whether an involvement in the business is wise for them personally.
Surveys of remuneration packages in publishing tend to show that average salaries are low, when compared with other industries: pitifully low when compared with jobs in the financial sector. A survey by Bookcareers.com, in 2004, showed that the average salary in UK publishing firms was just under £24,000 a year, about 10 per cent below the national average. And this, mark you, in a business which is largely based in London. In the publishing industry at large, there are few jobs which pay in excess of £100,000 a year.
In order for an individual to build a career it will be necessary (on present evidence) for that person to change firms several times; this is unlikely to have an advantageous effect on pension rights.
The evidence therefore suggests that a career in book publishing is not attractive in terms of the rewards which are normally regarded as significant.
As for agents who specialise in fiction…. What can we say about career prospects for them?
Well, I have long maintained that being an agent is the toughest job in the business. If you happen to belong to a firm which was established a hundred years ago, and which controls the literary estates of some household names, then the job of making a decent living from 10 per cent or 15 per cent of writers’ incomes becomes less formidable. But not much.
Hilary Rubinstein was reported as saying, in 1995, that work in a literary agency offered the participant ‘a better life, albeit a less decent living.’ Less decent, in this context, refers to publishing as the alternative.
Why does anyone work in publishing?
We have seen that there are few rational reasons for either investors or individuals to become involved in fiction publishing or in agency work. Anyone who joins a publisher or an agency is either too dim to have cottoned on to a few simple economic facts, or else has decided that they will sign up regardless; probably, in many cases, the former. Most individuals who do become involved in the book trade tend to drift in, I suspect, on the strength of a vague idea that they would like to work with books. And if they remain in, after the truth has belatedly dawned upon them, it is often because it is by then too late to do anything else.
It is a curious fact, which I noticed in my principal area of employment (education) before I noticed it in publishing, that people who work in a particular industry often know nothing about it. They have a job, and that is enough; they show no interest in understanding a larger picture. When Jason Epstein wrote his extraordinarily interesting Book Business, I read it as soon as it came out, and for the next year or so I made a point of asking everyone I met in the book world whether they had read it. I never found anyone who had. People who work in publishing seem to be far too busy to read anything; and they’re certainly too busy to think.
I suggest that this lack of interest in the broader perspective is to no one’s advantage.
How do we find the best books?
If we are involved in fiction publishing, for better or for worse, how then do we find the best books to publish?
Let us assume, optimistically, that a hypothetical publishing company, Clapham & Irons, has made a conscious and rational decision that it will enter (or remain in) fiction publishing. And let us assume that Clapham & Irons is staffed by dedicated and keen employees, who have joined the firm despite being bright enough to understand the limited career prospects that the industry offers. Such employees are naturally interested in finding the ‘best’ books to publish.
Definitions of ‘best’ will vary. But even if the firm has a preference for literary fiction, the term will imply the sale of large numbers of copies. One of the few universally agreed ideas in modern publishing is that publishers and booksellers alike depend for their survival upon a steady flow of big sellers – and I do mean big. So what are the sources of such books, and how can they be identified?
One well tried method of obtaining books which will sell is to steal an established author from another company. The usual method for doing this involves offering more money than the writer’s present publisher is prepared to pay, and this calculation is clearly a risky one. We need go no further into it than that, but my view is that firms which pay silly money to established names and then run into trouble have no excuse.
Given that the ability to write effective prose (whether fiction or non-fiction) is a rare skill, publishers also tend to commission books, even novels, from those who have demonstrated, in related fields, that they have unusual writing ability: which means, mainly, journalists. Jilly Cooper and Penny Vincenzi were both journalists before they became successful novelists. So the commissioning of a novel from such recognised talent may well be an effective strategy. However, it is easy for all parties to misjudge the differences between fiction and non-fiction; and paying a substantial advance for a book which has yet to be written is sheer folly.
In my opinion, a better method than commissioning is to breed and develop talent within the house. In other words, a firm should find a promising writer before anyone else does, treat her well, invest in suitable publicity budgets, and build her reputation. This procedure used to be widely used: in the old days, once a writer was taken on by a firm she could expect to stay with it pretty much for life, and she would not be expected to succeed overnight. But nowadays writers are given much less time to deliver the goods. Indeed in many cases they are expected to hit the ground running. Quite how they will have acquired the necessary skills to do this is evidently beyond the understanding of those who make decisions in modern publishing.
This question of allowing a writer time to develop is in my view crucial. So far as I know, no modern trade publisher has yet followed the example of Antony Blond (with Simon Raven) whereby a writer is effectively put on the payroll and paid a monthly amount to produce fiction. And yet this seems to me to offer great advantages to both parties.
I suspect that the writing of fiction looks so easy, to the people who do nothing more than read it, that both embryo authors and publishers systematically underestimate the difficulty of the task. It fact, narrative technique is something that can only be mastered over a longish period of time and perhaps half a dozen books. A paid apprenticeship looks to me like a better investment than a huge lump sum paid for a book which a leading agent has managed to persuade six competing publishers is absolutely wonderful.
Another useful device, which appears to me to be underused, is ghosting. In today’s market the ability to appear on TV chat shows and mix it with the likes of Richard and Judy is a key factor in building a bestseller. The use of a celebrity to give a brand name to a book, or series of books, is therefore a smart move.
How to manage the slush pile: reactive procedures
We now turn to the last of the established strategies for finding people who can generate the product without which a publishing business simply cannot function. It is the method which has traditionally proved to be remarkably inefficient, and it is, of course, searching through the slush pile.
The suggestions in this section will be couched in terms of procedures to be operated by agents, since the task of slush-pile reading has very largely been shifted in their direction; but the suggestions will apply equally well to any publishers who may still be reading unsolicited submissions.
We begin by considering reactive procedures: which means that we will look at the slush pile in its traditional form.
Financing the slush-pile operation
If the slush-pile procedure is not operated to an exceptionally high standard it is a waste of resources. If the best an agent can do is to employ (or exploit) as a reader some kid who is halfway through a degree course in media studies, then I suggest that the agent should not bother. In other words, if an agent can’t read the slush pile herself then she should employ someone with enough experience to be a tolerably reliable judge. And that means that the agent must pay a decent hourly rate.
Skilled and experienced readers are inevitably going to cost serious money; and an agent’s only source of such money is her income from published writers. Thus the cost of servicing an agent’s slush pile is met partly by the agent herself (through money which she would otherwise take as salary) and partly by the writers in her stable.
Actually the position is worse than that. Most major publishers no longer accept unsolicited submissions, which are now sent almost entirely to agents. So publishers have saved money while agents have seen their costs increase. This is one of the reasons why agent’s commissions, in many instances, have crept upwards from 10 per cent to 15 per cent.
All of this is unfair and unnecessary. The solution lies in the introduction of a system of fees.
In principle, agents can either charge publishers for doing the job of sorting out the publishable from the oh my god, or they can charge the as-yet-unpublished writers.
It seems unlikely, on the whole, that agents will be willing to propose charging publishers a fee, or that publishers would pay it if they were asked to. It follows, therefore, that the only method of financing the slush pile which is both fair and practicable is to charge a fee to those who submit unsolicited manuscripts.
To my knowledge, only one firm of any standing is at present charging fees for reading, and that is the Scott Meredith Agency in New York. The present owner of the agency, Arthur Klebanoff, says bluntly in his book The Agent that ‘agents typically get their clients by referral or by soliciting authors or celebrities. It is a rare agent who finds his opportunities from the slush pile.’ He, at least, is not going to waste his resources on a procedure which is both costly and ineffective.
What is a realistic reading fee? Well, if you submit a 300-page manuscript to the UK-based Literary Consultancy, for example (and this is a body supported by the Arts Council, no less), it will cost you some £450. In return the Consultancy will give you a detailed report on the manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses, one which has been prepared by an experienced professional. In the past there has been considerable resistance to this idea of agents charging a reading fee, for a variety of reasons: these include ‘a desire to be fair to people’ and a fear that fees will alienate some good writers. At present the code of practice of the UK Association of Authors’ Agents discourages such charges.
Well, sorry, but this is all nonsense. One of the major problems in publishing and agency work is that the people who do it tend to be too damn nice for their own good (or anyone else’s). Book people are awfully sensitive themselves, and they just don’t like to hurt anyone’s feelings. But publishing is a business, and it needs to be conducted in a businesslike manner: that manner should be polite and friendly, but it should be firm, and it should be based on clear thinking, not sentimentality.
Writers, as we shall see in Part 5, tend to be quite exceptionally clever people who are at one and the same time extremely dim. If they weren’t dim they wouldn’t be writing a novel which they are now trying (mostly in vain) to get people interested in. Agents are under no obligation to give these people free services. Quite the reverse: they are under an obligation to see that their existing clients don’t pay for things which are not their responsibility.
Neither is there any need for agents to fear that, if they start charging a realistic fee for reading a novel, the supply of new talent will dry up. There is no risk of that. There are plenty of people willing to pay several thousand pounds to see their book in print, so asking them to invest a small proportion of that sum in order to be considered as a possible client by an agent is not going to be a major deterrent. In any case, various blow-softening arrangements are obviously possible: an agent can offer to waive the fee if a client is taken on or a contract offered; et cetera.
Providing clear guidelines for submissions
To protect its reputation, any organisation which is going to charge a fee for reading an unsolicited manuscript needs to set up some tight guidelines for submissions, so that writers do not waste their money. These guidelines ought to include, as a minimum: a list of genres which will be considered; the lowest and highest acceptable word lengths; and layout requirements.
Personally I would go a lot further and require those submitting a manuscript to provide a biography, evidence of previously published work, an outline of the next novel that is planned, and a description of what sort of career as a writer they envisage for themselves. The more detail that is demanded the better, because it will concentrate the minds of a group of people who tend to be hopelessly vague and woolly.
At this point, anyone who is familiar with my other diatribes on publishing will be asking a question. Just a minute, they will say. How does all this charging a fee business equate with your frequently stated view that the treatment of writers by agents and publishers borders upon the scandalous? Are you not being somewhat inconsistent by recommending that agents give writers so many hurdles to overcome, and charge them a fee to boot?
My answer to that accusation is that there is nothing shabby or disgraceful in telling writers the truth and acquainting them with the painful facts of publishing life. (It is something that I try to do on an almost daily basis in my blog.) On the contrary, by setting out the plain facts you are doing wannabe writers a profound favour.
If an agent says, point blank, that in the previous year she considered 2,000 new novels and agreed to represent just one of the authors, then that is useful information to those who are thinking of making a submission.
If the agent tells the writer, unambiguously, that a £300 (or whatever) reading fee does not mean that every word of a book will necessarily be read – indeed it may mean that no more than the traditional two pages will be read – there is nothing shabby in that either. The writer can accept the deal or not.
What the £300 fee should mean is that a competent reader will be employed – for the benefit of the agent, please note, not for the benefit of the writers – and that the reader so funded will have sufficient time to give a proper appraisal of those books which appear to justify a proper appraisal. Books which are clearly semi-literate will be identified as such and will be given short shrift.
Neither do I believe that, in return for the fee, a writer is entitled to a critique of the work submitted; the readers’ reports are provided for the agent’s benefit, not the writer’s. (A manuscript submitted to a reading agency set up specifically for the benefit of writers, e.g, the Literary Consultancy, is a different matter; in that case writers certainly would be entitled to a lengthy report for their money.)
There is, as I say, nothing shabby or disgraceful about an agent who tells writers the painful facts of publishing life. But the point is that they should be told – up front, before they decide to send in their cheque. This is a tough world, and it is tougher for writers than for most people, so it is to the advantage of all the naïve hopefuls that they should have their naivety kicked out of them at as early a stage as possible.
How to manage the slush pile: proactive procedures
As before, this section is written from the perspective of the literary agent but much of what is said is equally applicable to publishers.
It is certainly arguable that, for agencies which are already well established, the traditional slush-pile procedure has had its day – even if amended as suggested above. There are already some bigger agents who will not read unsolicited submissions: ICM in New York being an example. I for one would not necessarily disagree with anyone who said that sitting and waiting for a black swan to come floating though the door is a ridiculous strategy. And there are certainly alternatives.
In the first place, big agents can in practice draw clients from a host of smaller firms – both publishers and agents. It is a simple fact of life, though one that is bitterly resented within those smaller firms, that a writer who has had some modest success will either approach a larger firm herself or will be receptive to an approach if it is initiated by the larger company. (Remember Arthur Klebanoff’s view, quoted above.)
This is all very painful and agonising, and may contravene certain written or unwritten ‘laws’, but in the final analysis writers need to decide why they are in the business at all. Are they putting in all that labour and time just to meet some nice people and make friends? Or are they anxious to build literary reputation and/or make lots of money? Either way, the big agents (and publishers) carry much more clout than the small ones, and they are the people to be with.
It is therefore possible for a powerful agent to ignore unsolicited submissions entirely, and to sit back and wait for those who have had some small success to use that success as a calling card.
But there are other, more proactive, routes to the recruitment of talent by an agent.
The last ten years have seen remarkable changes in printing technology and internet communications. What these developments mean is that it is now far easier for writers to get some exposure somewhere – even if it is only on their own blog. But the exposure may be a little better than a blog: it may be on some sort of selectively edited ezine or web site. Or the writer can publish her own work through one of the many firms that now offer that service. Instead of paying a well qualified reader to go through a mountain of manuscripts – even if accompanied by cheques – it might be more effective to pay this reader to go out and look for writers who have produced something which is already out there in the marketplace in one form or another.
I also think that, if I was an agent, I would be much more inclined to consider seriously a writer who had gone to the trouble and expense of having a book printed (albeit through some form of print-on-demand vanity press) than a writer who simply had a pile of paper under her arm.
For one thing it is psychologically easier to judge a book that actually looks like a book.
Prices paid
There is evidence to suggest that, overall, the proportion of publishers’ income that is paid to writers has diminished over the period since conglomeration began in earnest, and since the abolition of the Net Book Agreement. However, agents will naturally press for their clients to be paid substantial advances, and publishers will resist.
As far as publishers are concerned, modern strategies for book selection are so painfully and obviously fallible that it is tempting to suggest that some lateral thinking ought to be applied. It would be interesting, for instance, if one of the major houses introduced a rule that, in the case of a previously unpublished and untested author, they would never bid for rights in competition with another publisher, and would never pay an advance greater than a modest sum. In this way they would at least avoid some of the Type 2 errors described earlier – in other words, publishers would not end up paying silly money for writers without an established reputation. The results of such an experiment might be illuminating one way or the other.
The above paragraph, by the way, is written in a week when a leading publisher announced an advance payment of £500,000 to a previously unpublished author. This was after an allegedly ‘frenzied auction’. Yes, well, I dare say that if you assemble five or six desperate and over-excited people, who are bidding with someone else’s money, things may get a bit frenzied. Whether the bidders are acting sensibly is open to question.
Rejection letters
My view is that, whether rejection letters are sent by agent or publisher, they should say nothing. And especially not Sorry.
Any advice whatever, given to a writer, will result in the manuscript coming back to you six months later, with the advice followed to the letter; probably to the detriment of the book. And any encouragement, however minor, will be treated as a justification for sending you everything else that the writer has ever written.
If that’s what you want, fine. But I don’t believe it is.
Making decisions
Finally in Part 4, a word about making decisions.
Taleb tells us that, before beginning a meeting with his colleagues, he always issues a standard reminder, just as one might say grace before a meal. Taleb asks his colleagues to remember that, collectively, he and they are a bunch of idiots who know nothing and are prone to make mistakes; but they do happen to be endowed with the rare quality of knowing what they are.
I recommend this procedure for adoption whenever a decision has to be made on the publishing of fiction.
Part 4: Strategies for slush-pile selectors (agents and publishers)
Introduction
This essay has been written mainly to consider the problems relating to the writing and publishing of fiction; and that focus will be maintained in Parts 4 and 5.
Part 4 will look at the problems which agents (and publishers) face in finding suitable material, particularly material from as-yet-unknown writers. But first let us step backwards and take a hard look at the question of whether there are any rational reasons for being involved in the fiction-publishing business in the first place.
General difficulties in thinking
In undertaking hard thinking of any kind we are handicapped by human nature. Taleb presents evidence that human beings are simply not wired for rational thought. Modern behavioural science has shown that our cognitive apparatus has considerably less influence over our actions than does our emotional machinery. Apparently there are good genetic reasons why this should be so: if we made all our decisions rationally they would take far too long. Taleb maintains, and I agree, that we should all be aware of this flaw in our thinking, in order to protect ourselves (as far as possible) from the essentially emotional nature of our decisions.
In few areas of life, I suggest, is this warning more apposite than in relation to writing and publishing.
Is publishing a sensible business?
We must remember throughout our consideration of the problems connected with the writing and selling of novels that publishing is first and foremost a business. Whether it is a sensible business is a different matter altogether. Like all businesses, publishing requires capital; and investors, sooner or later, will need to consider whether they are earning a decent return on their capital.
As far as the specific returns on investment in publishing are concerned, we are handicapped by incomplete data. But such data as we have suggest that publishing in general is not a good field for investors to enter. (See, for instance, Eric de Bellaigue’s interesting collection of essays, British Book Publishing as a Business since the 1960s). At best, publishing seems likely to yield a lower return to investors than do many other industries. Within publishing, trade publishing is less profitable than the mundane areas of textbook and reference-book publishing; and within trade publishing, fiction is particularly demanding of cash and typically appears to provide lower yields than non-fiction. ‘People who make money in literary publishing are rare,’ says Carmen Callil.
Luke Johnson, currently Chairman of Channel 4, once owned a book publisher and found it ‘a painful experience.’ Generally, he said, publishing is a ‘terrible business… a barely rational industry.’ The cash-flow characteristics are unattractive. ‘You ship finished volumes to booksellers who only accept them on a sale or return basis, and demand at least 55 per cent trade discount, and pay 120 days later.’
In America, the situation seems to be worse. Richard Curtis, a leading New York literary agent, says that the returnability of books is killing the business. ‘The old system has become corrupt and dishonest.’
Prima facie, therefore, there is not much reason for investing in a company which publishes fiction.
Why are big conglomerates involved in publishing?
It is no accident, in my view, that today’s most powerful publishers are subsidiaries of much larger companies, which have a broad-based involvement in other media, such as newspapers and television. HarperCollins, for example, is a big publisher but occupies barely a couple of pixels on News Corp’s overall screen.
It seems reasonable to assume that the managers of major international companies are well aware of the relatively unsatisfactory rate of returns from trade publishing in general and fiction in particular. Parent companies’ continued involvement in book publishing must therefore be seen as a long-odds bet. Inspired by the occasional black swan, investment in publishing is seen as a quirky and risky part of the overall portfolio: it may be regarded as something that’s worth a punt, but don’t hold your breath.
Here again we have some wonderfully fuzzy thinking. Fiction publishing and retailing are only rendered remotely profitable by the blockbusters; and blockbusters cannot infallibly be manufactured. So the business hinges upon black swans, which are random events. But what observers tend to forget is that random events do not occur at evenly spaced intervals; they occur at random intervals. Thus if HarperCollins has a black swan this year, it does not follow that it will be Random House’s turn next year. Good ole HC may turn the same trick for ten years in a row. And if they do, of course, the HC editorial department will become legendary; but they won’t deserve it.
If HC were to strike lucky in that way, for ten straight years, the not-so-lucky conglomerates might begin to wonder whether the game was worth the effort. Publishers might find that their parent company’s patience and tolerance were not inexhaustible.
Factors for individuals to consider
If we assume that a major company has decided to remain involved in book publishing on the basis described above, it still remains for individuals to decide whether an involvement in the business is wise for them personally.
Surveys of remuneration packages in publishing tend to show that average salaries are low, when compared with other industries: pitifully low when compared with jobs in the financial sector. A survey by Bookcareers.com, in 2004, showed that the average salary in UK publishing firms was just under £24,000 a year, about 10 per cent below the national average. And this, mark you, in a business which is largely based in London. In the publishing industry at large, there are few jobs which pay in excess of £100,000 a year.
In order for an individual to build a career it will be necessary (on present evidence) for that person to change firms several times; this is unlikely to have an advantageous effect on pension rights.
The evidence therefore suggests that a career in book publishing is not attractive in terms of the rewards which are normally regarded as significant.
As for agents who specialise in fiction…. What can we say about career prospects for them?
Well, I have long maintained that being an agent is the toughest job in the business. If you happen to belong to a firm which was established a hundred years ago, and which controls the literary estates of some household names, then the job of making a decent living from 10 per cent or 15 per cent of writers’ incomes becomes less formidable. But not much.
Hilary Rubinstein was reported as saying, in 1995, that work in a literary agency offered the participant ‘a better life, albeit a less decent living.’ Less decent, in this context, refers to publishing as the alternative.
Why does anyone work in publishing?
We have seen that there are few rational reasons for either investors or individuals to become involved in fiction publishing or in agency work. Anyone who joins a publisher or an agency is either too dim to have cottoned on to a few simple economic facts, or else has decided that they will sign up regardless; probably, in many cases, the former. Most individuals who do become involved in the book trade tend to drift in, I suspect, on the strength of a vague idea that they would like to work with books. And if they remain in, after the truth has belatedly dawned upon them, it is often because it is by then too late to do anything else.
It is a curious fact, which I noticed in my principal area of employment (education) before I noticed it in publishing, that people who work in a particular industry often know nothing about it. They have a job, and that is enough; they show no interest in understanding a larger picture. When Jason Epstein wrote his extraordinarily interesting Book Business, I read it as soon as it came out, and for the next year or so I made a point of asking everyone I met in the book world whether they had read it. I never found anyone who had. People who work in publishing seem to be far too busy to read anything; and they’re certainly too busy to think.
I suggest that this lack of interest in the broader perspective is to no one’s advantage.
How do we find the best books?
If we are involved in fiction publishing, for better or for worse, how then do we find the best books to publish?
Let us assume, optimistically, that a hypothetical publishing company, Clapham & Irons, has made a conscious and rational decision that it will enter (or remain in) fiction publishing. And let us assume that Clapham & Irons is staffed by dedicated and keen employees, who have joined the firm despite being bright enough to understand the limited career prospects that the industry offers. Such employees are naturally interested in finding the ‘best’ books to publish.
Definitions of ‘best’ will vary. But even if the firm has a preference for literary fiction, the term will imply the sale of large numbers of copies. One of the few universally agreed ideas in modern publishing is that publishers and booksellers alike depend for their survival upon a steady flow of big sellers – and I do mean big. So what are the sources of such books, and how can they be identified?
One well tried method of obtaining books which will sell is to steal an established author from another company. The usual method for doing this involves offering more money than the writer’s present publisher is prepared to pay, and this calculation is clearly a risky one. We need go no further into it than that, but my view is that firms which pay silly money to established names and then run into trouble have no excuse.
Given that the ability to write effective prose (whether fiction or non-fiction) is a rare skill, publishers also tend to commission books, even novels, from those who have demonstrated, in related fields, that they have unusual writing ability: which means, mainly, journalists. Jilly Cooper and Penny Vincenzi were both journalists before they became successful novelists. So the commissioning of a novel from such recognised talent may well be an effective strategy. However, it is easy for all parties to misjudge the differences between fiction and non-fiction; and paying a substantial advance for a book which has yet to be written is sheer folly.
In my opinion, a better method than commissioning is to breed and develop talent within the house. In other words, a firm should find a promising writer before anyone else does, treat her well, invest in suitable publicity budgets, and build her reputation. This procedure used to be widely used: in the old days, once a writer was taken on by a firm she could expect to stay with it pretty much for life, and she would not be expected to succeed overnight. But nowadays writers are given much less time to deliver the goods. Indeed in many cases they are expected to hit the ground running. Quite how they will have acquired the necessary skills to do this is evidently beyond the understanding of those who make decisions in modern publishing.
This question of allowing a writer time to develop is in my view crucial. So far as I know, no modern trade publisher has yet followed the example of Antony Blond (with Simon Raven) whereby a writer is effectively put on the payroll and paid a monthly amount to produce fiction. And yet this seems to me to offer great advantages to both parties.
I suspect that the writing of fiction looks so easy, to the people who do nothing more than read it, that both embryo authors and publishers systematically underestimate the difficulty of the task. It fact, narrative technique is something that can only be mastered over a longish period of time and perhaps half a dozen books. A paid apprenticeship looks to me like a better investment than a huge lump sum paid for a book which a leading agent has managed to persuade six competing publishers is absolutely wonderful.
Another useful device, which appears to me to be underused, is ghosting. In today’s market the ability to appear on TV chat shows and mix it with the likes of Richard and Judy is a key factor in building a bestseller. The use of a celebrity to give a brand name to a book, or series of books, is therefore a smart move.
How to manage the slush pile: reactive procedures
We now turn to the last of the established strategies for finding people who can generate the product without which a publishing business simply cannot function. It is the method which has traditionally proved to be remarkably inefficient, and it is, of course, searching through the slush pile.
The suggestions in this section will be couched in terms of procedures to be operated by agents, since the task of slush-pile reading has very largely been shifted in their direction; but the suggestions will apply equally well to any publishers who may still be reading unsolicited submissions.
We begin by considering reactive procedures: which means that we will look at the slush pile in its traditional form.
Financing the slush-pile operation
If the slush-pile procedure is not operated to an exceptionally high standard it is a waste of resources. If the best an agent can do is to employ (or exploit) as a reader some kid who is halfway through a degree course in media studies, then I suggest that the agent should not bother. In other words, if an agent can’t read the slush pile herself then she should employ someone with enough experience to be a tolerably reliable judge. And that means that the agent must pay a decent hourly rate.
Skilled and experienced readers are inevitably going to cost serious money; and an agent’s only source of such money is her income from published writers. Thus the cost of servicing an agent’s slush pile is met partly by the agent herself (through money which she would otherwise take as salary) and partly by the writers in her stable.
Actually the position is worse than that. Most major publishers no longer accept unsolicited submissions, which are now sent almost entirely to agents. So publishers have saved money while agents have seen their costs increase. This is one of the reasons why agent’s commissions, in many instances, have crept upwards from 10 per cent to 15 per cent.
All of this is unfair and unnecessary. The solution lies in the introduction of a system of fees.
In principle, agents can either charge publishers for doing the job of sorting out the publishable from the oh my god, or they can charge the as-yet-unpublished writers.
It seems unlikely, on the whole, that agents will be willing to propose charging publishers a fee, or that publishers would pay it if they were asked to. It follows, therefore, that the only method of financing the slush pile which is both fair and practicable is to charge a fee to those who submit unsolicited manuscripts.
To my knowledge, only one firm of any standing is at present charging fees for reading, and that is the Scott Meredith Agency in New York. The present owner of the agency, Arthur Klebanoff, says bluntly in his book The Agent that ‘agents typically get their clients by referral or by soliciting authors or celebrities. It is a rare agent who finds his opportunities from the slush pile.’ He, at least, is not going to waste his resources on a procedure which is both costly and ineffective.
What is a realistic reading fee? Well, if you submit a 300-page manuscript to the UK-based Literary Consultancy, for example (and this is a body supported by the Arts Council, no less), it will cost you some £450. In return the Consultancy will give you a detailed report on the manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses, one which has been prepared by an experienced professional. In the past there has been considerable resistance to this idea of agents charging a reading fee, for a variety of reasons: these include ‘a desire to be fair to people’ and a fear that fees will alienate some good writers. At present the code of practice of the UK Association of Authors’ Agents discourages such charges.
Well, sorry, but this is all nonsense. One of the major problems in publishing and agency work is that the people who do it tend to be too damn nice for their own good (or anyone else’s). Book people are awfully sensitive themselves, and they just don’t like to hurt anyone’s feelings. But publishing is a business, and it needs to be conducted in a businesslike manner: that manner should be polite and friendly, but it should be firm, and it should be based on clear thinking, not sentimentality.
Writers, as we shall see in Part 5, tend to be quite exceptionally clever people who are at one and the same time extremely dim. If they weren’t dim they wouldn’t be writing a novel which they are now trying (mostly in vain) to get people interested in. Agents are under no obligation to give these people free services. Quite the reverse: they are under an obligation to see that their existing clients don’t pay for things which are not their responsibility.
Neither is there any need for agents to fear that, if they start charging a realistic fee for reading a novel, the supply of new talent will dry up. There is no risk of that. There are plenty of people willing to pay several thousand pounds to see their book in print, so asking them to invest a small proportion of that sum in order to be considered as a possible client by an agent is not going to be a major deterrent. In any case, various blow-softening arrangements are obviously possible: an agent can offer to waive the fee if a client is taken on or a contract offered; et cetera.
Providing clear guidelines for submissions
To protect its reputation, any organisation which is going to charge a fee for reading an unsolicited manuscript needs to set up some tight guidelines for submissions, so that writers do not waste their money. These guidelines ought to include, as a minimum: a list of genres which will be considered; the lowest and highest acceptable word lengths; and layout requirements.
Personally I would go a lot further and require those submitting a manuscript to provide a biography, evidence of previously published work, an outline of the next novel that is planned, and a description of what sort of career as a writer they envisage for themselves. The more detail that is demanded the better, because it will concentrate the minds of a group of people who tend to be hopelessly vague and woolly.
At this point, anyone who is familiar with my other diatribes on publishing will be asking a question. Just a minute, they will say. How does all this charging a fee business equate with your frequently stated view that the treatment of writers by agents and publishers borders upon the scandalous? Are you not being somewhat inconsistent by recommending that agents give writers so many hurdles to overcome, and charge them a fee to boot?
My answer to that accusation is that there is nothing shabby or disgraceful in telling writers the truth and acquainting them with the painful facts of publishing life. (It is something that I try to do on an almost daily basis in my blog.) On the contrary, by setting out the plain facts you are doing wannabe writers a profound favour.
If an agent says, point blank, that in the previous year she considered 2,000 new novels and agreed to represent just one of the authors, then that is useful information to those who are thinking of making a submission.
If the agent tells the writer, unambiguously, that a £300 (or whatever) reading fee does not mean that every word of a book will necessarily be read – indeed it may mean that no more than the traditional two pages will be read – there is nothing shabby in that either. The writer can accept the deal or not.
What the £300 fee should mean is that a competent reader will be employed – for the benefit of the agent, please note, not for the benefit of the writers – and that the reader so funded will have sufficient time to give a proper appraisal of those books which appear to justify a proper appraisal. Books which are clearly semi-literate will be identified as such and will be given short shrift.
Neither do I believe that, in return for the fee, a writer is entitled to a critique of the work submitted; the readers’ reports are provided for the agent’s benefit, not the writer’s. (A manuscript submitted to a reading agency set up specifically for the benefit of writers, e.g, the Literary Consultancy, is a different matter; in that case writers certainly would be entitled to a lengthy report for their money.)
There is, as I say, nothing shabby or disgraceful about an agent who tells writers the painful facts of publishing life. But the point is that they should be told – up front, before they decide to send in their cheque. This is a tough world, and it is tougher for writers than for most people, so it is to the advantage of all the naïve hopefuls that they should have their naivety kicked out of them at as early a stage as possible.
How to manage the slush pile: proactive procedures
As before, this section is written from the perspective of the literary agent but much of what is said is equally applicable to publishers.
It is certainly arguable that, for agencies which are already well established, the traditional slush-pile procedure has had its day – even if amended as suggested above. There are already some bigger agents who will not read unsolicited submissions: ICM in New York being an example. I for one would not necessarily disagree with anyone who said that sitting and waiting for a black swan to come floating though the door is a ridiculous strategy. And there are certainly alternatives.
In the first place, big agents can in practice draw clients from a host of smaller firms – both publishers and agents. It is a simple fact of life, though one that is bitterly resented within those smaller firms, that a writer who has had some modest success will either approach a larger firm herself or will be receptive to an approach if it is initiated by the larger company. (Remember Arthur Klebanoff’s view, quoted above.)
This is all very painful and agonising, and may contravene certain written or unwritten ‘laws’, but in the final analysis writers need to decide why they are in the business at all. Are they putting in all that labour and time just to meet some nice people and make friends? Or are they anxious to build literary reputation and/or make lots of money? Either way, the big agents (and publishers) carry much more clout than the small ones, and they are the people to be with.
It is therefore possible for a powerful agent to ignore unsolicited submissions entirely, and to sit back and wait for those who have had some small success to use that success as a calling card.
But there are other, more proactive, routes to the recruitment of talent by an agent.
The last ten years have seen remarkable changes in printing technology and internet communications. What these developments mean is that it is now far easier for writers to get some exposure somewhere – even if it is only on their own blog. But the exposure may be a little better than a blog: it may be on some sort of selectively edited ezine or web site. Or the writer can publish her own work through one of the many firms that now offer that service. Instead of paying a well qualified reader to go through a mountain of manuscripts – even if accompanied by cheques – it might be more effective to pay this reader to go out and look for writers who have produced something which is already out there in the marketplace in one form or another.
I also think that, if I was an agent, I would be much more inclined to consider seriously a writer who had gone to the trouble and expense of having a book printed (albeit through some form of print-on-demand vanity press) than a writer who simply had a pile of paper under her arm.
For one thing it is psychologically easier to judge a book that actually looks like a book.
Prices paid
There is evidence to suggest that, overall, the proportion of publishers’ income that is paid to writers has diminished over the period since conglomeration began in earnest, and since the abolition of the Net Book Agreement. However, agents will naturally press for their clients to be paid substantial advances, and publishers will resist.
As far as publishers are concerned, modern strategies for book selection are so painfully and obviously fallible that it is tempting to suggest that some lateral thinking ought to be applied. It would be interesting, for instance, if one of the major houses introduced a rule that, in the case of a previously unpublished and untested author, they would never bid for rights in competition with another publisher, and would never pay an advance greater than a modest sum. In this way they would at least avoid some of the Type 2 errors described earlier – in other words, publishers would not end up paying silly money for writers without an established reputation. The results of such an experiment might be illuminating one way or the other.
The above paragraph, by the way, is written in a week when a leading publisher announced an advance payment of £500,000 to a previously unpublished author. This was after an allegedly ‘frenzied auction’. Yes, well, I dare say that if you assemble five or six desperate and over-excited people, who are bidding with someone else’s money, things may get a bit frenzied. Whether the bidders are acting sensibly is open to question.
Rejection letters
My view is that, whether rejection letters are sent by agent or publisher, they should say nothing. And especially not Sorry.
Any advice whatever, given to a writer, will result in the manuscript coming back to you six months later, with the advice followed to the letter; probably to the detriment of the book. And any encouragement, however minor, will be treated as a justification for sending you everything else that the writer has ever written.
If that’s what you want, fine. But I don’t believe it is.
Making decisions
Finally in Part 4, a word about making decisions.
Taleb tells us that, before beginning a meeting with his colleagues, he always issues a standard reminder, just as one might say grace before a meal. Taleb asks his colleagues to remember that, collectively, he and they are a bunch of idiots who know nothing and are prone to make mistakes; but they do happen to be endowed with the rare quality of knowing what they are.
I recommend this procedure for adoption whenever a decision has to be made on the publishing of fiction.
Friday, March 04, 2005
On the Survival of Rats in the Slush Pile -- Part 3(b)
Continued from yesterday. Here is the second half of Part 3 of my new essay on writing and publishing. Please remember that, if at any point you decide that you would like to have all of this essay available in one lump, you can go here and download the whole thing as a PDF file. You can then print it out, pass it to friends, et cetera.
Survivorship bias
Indulgence in the faulty thinking known as survivorship bias is universal throughout publishing.
Slush-pile readers, editors, publishers in general, agents, critics, media commentators, readers, and (published) writers – all have a marked tendency to assume that the slush-pile procedure actually works, and that the survivors are indeed the best.
If pushed up against a wall, with a loaded gun inserted into a nostril, most publishing professionals will admit that the selection of the ‘best’ books is subject to occasional errors. (We have encountered plenty already.) But the next day, the same person will fall back into the old (and incorrect) mode of thinking, and the slush-pile procedure will continue to operate, unchanged.
This is probably the place to point out that the most dramatic illustration of survivorship bias in the book world occurs following the award of a prize. Let us consider, for instance, the Booker Prize (properly the Man Booker Prize), which is currently the most prestigious literary award in the UK.
If you and I are presented with a piece of string, and are asked to guess its length, you may say that it is 15 inches long, and I may say that it’s 18 inches. In order to resolve our disagreement, we can measure its length against a ruler and come to a conclusion which all sane parties will accept as correct.
But when you and I are faced with a novel, and asked to say whether it is a masterpiece or an overblown piece of self-indulgent nonsense, there is no universally recognised scale against which we can measure the book and come to a clear conclusion. Judging a novel is a matter of taste and sensibility, and you are likely to maintain that your taste and sensibility are superior to mine.
As far as the Booker Prize is concerned, it is safe to say that the choice of the ‘best’ book of the year is inevitably a matter of opinion rather than fact. And not even unanimous opinion. In almost every year there are press reports of disagreements among the judges, and in some years we hear of ‘compromise choices’ or the chairman’s casting vote. We also know that, in one particular case, the eventual winner was unusually fortunate.
In 2002 the winner of the Booker Prize was Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Many newspaper reports at the time told us that this book had been rejected by Faber, the firm which had published Martel’s earlier work; the book had also been turned down by at least five other major publishers. So if the eventual publisher, Canongate, had not taken the book, it is likely that the manuscript would have remained in the author’s filing cabinet. Furthermore, if the book had been accepted by one of the bigger firms, it would not even have been entered for the Booker Prize in the first place, because the big firms are only allowed two nominations and have to enter their most famous authors; if they don’t, the famous authors are likely to go elsewhere.
The Life of Pi saga provides a beautifully clear demonstration of the random nature of decision-making in publishing. Here we have a book which was turned down for publication by numerous ‘good judges’. It was entered for the Booker Prize by a small firm which had no stronger candidates. And it so happened that the particular set of judges who were reading in 2002 happened to like it best. Or a majority of them did.
All rational observers will agree that Life of Pi, or any other Booker winner, cannot sensibly be described as the best book of the year in any absolute sense. The Life of Pi episode shows us, undeniably, that there might have been other books that year which could, quite possibly, have found favour with the judges if they had been submitted. The most that can be said of the book which wins the Booker Prize is that it is the one which (of those presented for their judgement) the judges liked the best.
But observe, please, what happens when the winner of the Booker Prize is announced (in any year). What happens is that the media, the critics, and the public, all behave as if there is some absolute sense in which the winner is the best book of the year. They act as if the book has been held up against a ruler, a universally agreed scale, and has been found, indisputably and scientifically, to be ‘better’ than any other.
This very week, for instance, I was given a copy of the New York Review of Books, in which there is a lengthy review of the most recent Booker winner; the article runs to 108 column inches. Similar articles are no doubt published every year. And this ‘superstar treatment’ will be repeated in newspapers and magazines throughout the English-speaking world.
It is the winning novel, please note, which is treated in this way – not the runners-up; and certainly not the good books which were not submitted by their publishers; and definitely not the books which didn’t even make it into print. It is the winning author who will be interviewed on television, invited to writers’ conferences, and made the subject, in due course, of earnest PhD theses by bespectacled young people who can think of nothing better to do with their time than waste it by deconstructing a novelist’s prose. This is the winner-take-all mechanism in its most unforgiving form.
The runners-up, the non-shortlisted books, and the unpublished books, all those are the drowned worshippers and dead rats of the fiction world; they are losers who disappear from our sight, never to be heard of again. And yet we know, beyond doubt, that but for the workings of randomness, which favoured the winner and disfavoured the drowned worshippers, there might be one, ten, or a hundred other books which could, in different circumstances, have proved to be more enticing to the judges than the eventual winner.
Survivorship bias in the book world is therefore brutal, vicious, and deadly. There is no point in complaining about it: it is just the way things happen. The world in general, and the book trade in particular, is unfair, unjust, and patently absurd in its workings. But all those who work in the book trade, in particular those who write and sell novels, need to be aware of this situation. And they need to ask themselves whether a business in which randomness is so powerful a factor in the distribution of rewards is a business which sensible people should allow themselves to be involved in.
Nietzsche’s error
Nietzsche, you will recall, told us that ‘What does not kill me makes me stronger.’
What, if anything, can we make of Nietzsche’s alleged words of wisdom in relation to publishing; in particular, in relation to the slush pile?
Having your novel rejected by a slush-pile reader certainly does not kill you. So suppose we examine the view that rejection makes you a better writer.
Rejection will certainly have noticeable and possibly dramatic effects, the chief of which are usually emotions such as anger, disappointment, and disgust. (The rats, by the way, had no choice about participating in the experiment. But it is not compulsory to submit anything to a slush pile. Therefore any injury which results from slush-pile experiences is a self-inflicted wound.)
Does rejection make you more determined to succeed? Possibly. But it may also cause a writer to decide (probably quite correctly) that this writing business is a fool’s game. A writer who produces a professional piece of work, and is yet unable to persuade an agent to take him on, or a publisher to invest in his book, may well conclude that the slush-pile procedure is impossibly flawed and that sensible people would not continue to waste postage on it. I happen to believe (without empirical evidence to support my view) that the writers who come to this conclusion are probably the ones who would do best in publishing if they actually persevered; because they, at least, have proved capable of rational thought. By contrast, it is the all-time, never-going-to-be-publishable losers who will see rejection as a reason to redouble their efforts.
The rejected writers, whether they drop out altogether or not, disappear from sight; just like the dead rats. Their strengths and weaknesses, virtues and shortcomings, are lost to us. Let us consider the consequences of that.
We noted, above, that MASH was rejected by 21 publishers, and The Scarlet Pimpernel by 12. Suppose both these authors had decided not to bother with the book business any more, after 20 and 11 rejections respectively. In that case these two works would have been lost to us for ever.
And the survivors, of course – those who are selected for submission by agents, and are subsequently put under contract by publishers – they will tend to assume, human nature being what it is, that they survive and prosper because of their natural inborn talent plus a great deal of hard work. Such writers will assume, in 99 cases out of 100, that they are superior to those who were rejected.
The same assumption will confidently be made by those who have done the selecting; because they, remember, have sufficient skill to decide within fifteen seconds, or a page and a half, whether a book is worth pursuing.
Such assumptions, on the part of both selectors and selectees, are in my view wholly unjustified, and I hope we have accumulated enough examples by now for you to understand why.
The swimmer’s body
Errors in thinking of the ‘swimmer’s body’ type are widespread in the field of writing and publishing.
Essentially, swimmer’s body errors involve getting things back to front. For example, in most trades and industries, companies boast about the high sales of their product; but publishers boast about its high cost (in the form of advances to authors).
We also noted earlier that it would be foolish to take up swimming in the hope of acquiring a beautiful body. Champion swimmers are not beautiful because they swim; they swim because they have bodies that are eminently suitable for swimming.
Similarly, it would be foolish for writers to emulate the working methods of successful and famous writers on the assumption that use of the same working methods will necessarily lead to similar success.
Many years ago, when I was young and impressionable, I read the famous volumes of interviews with writers which had been published in the Paris Review. What struck me most forcibly was that many of those writers seemed to operate on the basis of inspiration (or claimed to). What happened, allegedly, was that these writers never pre-planned their novels: they simply sat down at their desks and embarked on the great adventure of writing fiction.
Two points. First, people who have become rich and famous, often after many years of struggle, do not normally reveal all their trade secrets, not even to a sycophantic, starry-eyed interviewer from a prestigious literary journal; so we should take these revelations of ‘working methods’ with a shovelful of salt. And second, common sense surely tells us that writing a novel without having a clear concept of its overall shape, at the start, is a recipe for disaster. It compares with a surgeon going into an operating theatre without knowing whether he is going to remove an appendix or perform a lobotomy; and who knows, if he gets really inspired, he may amputate the patient’s left leg.
And yet, and yet…. As you and I know full well, young and ambitious writers are trusting souls, a trifle simple-minded pretty much by definition; and if a working method is good enough for André Gide and William Faulkner (or whoever), then by golly it’s good enough for them – common sense notwithstanding. Thus is futility piled upon futility.
No. We need to look a little harder at the concept of the swimmer’s body to discern anything truly useful to the art of writing.
If it is true that champion swimmers become champions mainly because of their basic physique, what is the writer’s equivalent?
The answer, surely, is a capacity to write effective prose; a writer needs to be able to use the English language to full effect.
In England, which is the source and home of the English language, the ability to write even halfway decent prose is today a rare quality. The cause, as you doubtless realise, lies in the failure of English education, a topic too big to go into here. Suffice it for our purposes to note that hardly anyone under the age of fifty has been taught to spell and punctuate properly, much less polish their prose style.
A powerful command of the English language does not necessarily require a massively high IQ: Muhammad Ali had the former but not the latter. Neither does it require a particularly long or arduous training; but it is a training which is best given on a one-to-one basis (I used to teach English to small boys myself), and in recent years such personal instruction has seldom been available.
It is doubtless the case that many slush-pile readers use the ‘basic command of English’ test as a preliminary filter; they discard immediately those books which may be described as semi-literate. I do so myself, as a matter of fact. In my capacity as owner and operator of a small press (Kingsfield Publications), I am regularly sent manuscripts by hopeful writers. (This despite a notice on the firm’s web site telling them that such submissions are a waste of time.)
Sometimes the submissions come on paper, and sometimes as email attachments. Either way, if I look at them at all, my inclination to read more than a few lines is heavily influenced by their grasp of, say, punctuation. A recent manuscript came with quite a sensible covering letter, but the first page of the accompanying text revealed a complete inability to punctuate dialogue in the orthodox manner. It is perfectly true that some writers adopt their own method of punctuating speech: James Joyce is an example. But in this case I was convinced that the oddities were the result of incompetence. Enough. I read no more.
It is not, in my view, unreasonable to use this crude ‘basic command of English’ filter to reduce the size of the pile of manuscripts. However, it is a mistake to assume that this test is reliable.
I once found a manuscript which was more or less functionally illiterate – being spattered with hundreds of elementary errors – but which, when read aloud, revealed that the author had a perfectly clear story to tell in her own distinctive voice. Unfortunately, the economics of having such a text moulded into shape by a professional editor usually preclude any further consideration of the manuscript – unless the publisher is prepared to gamble that it’s a black swan.
In most cases, it is evidently at the later stages of the slush-pile selection process that mistakes are made, rather than at the stage where the basic command of English test is applied.
In statistics, you commit a Type 1 error if you reject the hypothesis when it is true; and a Type 2 error if you confirm the hypothesis when it is untrue. As we have already seen, the slush-pile procedure produces both these types of errors: not all the time, but frequently. Books which turn out to be excellent (either by literary or commercial criteria), are rejected; and some books are selected which later prove to be duds.
The selection of duds does not matter in and of itself. Most books are duds, in the sense that they do not become black swans. They are capable, competent, even entertaining pieces of work – but they do not generate massive enthusiasm, either in the publisher or in the book’s readers. Such duds are harmless and may even be beneficial in that they give the authors practice in the difficult art of learning to write; they invite some critical attention and slowly build a reputation; and with sensible costing they may even do rather better than break even.
Where the selection of duds does do great damage is in those cases where the wrong book is selected for the ‘full treatment’. Giving a book the works these days involves paying a big advance (which is used to generate publicity and arouse interest), and providing a large publicity budget.
If both of these big-money sums (big, at any rate, by publishing standards) are committed, and the book fails, damage has been done in several quarters. The publishing firm’s profits suffer; its reputation is damaged; the author’s confidence may be shattered; and booksellers will be disgruntled.
In the past, publishers were often able to keep the gory details of such failures more or less secret within the firm. But with the advent of computer-based point-of-sale databases, which record actual sales in the high-street shops, and which are accessible to almost everyone in the trade (on payment of substantial subscriptions), the truth will out.
In the 2002 edition of the Writer’s Handbook, Barry Turner gave a couple of examples. Author A was paid £300,000 for two novels. The first came out in 2001 and sold less than 4,000 copies. Author B was paid £250,000 for one book, by a different publisher, and this one generated sales of 1,500 copies.
Private Eye recently identified a similar case. An author with an established but modest track record was paid £500,000 for her new book. The hardback (published in 2003) sold just over 2,000 copies, and the paperback (2004) managed 10,000.
Similar errors are made on a smaller scale. With my publisher’s hat on, I once sold a book to a major UK publisher for £15,000. Five years later, when the rights reverted, there was still an unearned balance of £11,000 on the royalty statement.
Some of the deals that are announced in UK publishing are so bizarre that in any other industry one would assume that money was changing hands in brown-paper bags in various Tesco car parks. In this industry, however, we can say with absolute confidence that the participants are more likely to be financially clueless than corrupt.
Casanova: a case history
You will recall that Casanova’s memoirs reveal that he continually escaped from tight corners, where his testicles or his life itself were endangered. We also noted that we would be unwise to conclude from these events that Casanova was exceptionally talented or clever. On the contrary, it was simply the random flow of events, over which he had no influence, which ultimately determined whether he lived or died.
In publishing, it is easy to mistake the effects of chance for those of unusual talent. Most readers will have had the experience of seeing a book heavily recommended in the press. A full-page glossy advert in the Bookseller or Publishers Weekly announces ‘a very special publishing event’. The book cover features endorsements from famous names (who by a curious coincidence are published by the same firm). And yet, when you actually come to read the book, you find yourself puzzled to understand what all the fuss was about. You sit there and ask yourself what you are missing.
The answer is that you are missing nothing, because there is nothing there to miss. You are expecting the book to live up to its hype; you seek evidence that it is quite exceptional. But the truth is that what you have in your hand is simply a perfectly workmanlike novel which, through the workings of randomness, has cleared successive selection hurdles and has survived to be given the benefit of a huge publicity budget. And that’s all.
How reliable and valid are the slush-pile results?
In statistics, two important concepts are reliability and validity.
A test, such as a questionnaire about people’s attitudes to a given topic, is said to be reliable if it yields the same results when completed by the same person at two different times (always assuming that the individual’s attitudes have not changed in the meantime). And validity can be defined as the extent to which an instrument actually measures what the researcher wishes it to measure (and not something else).
The slush-pile analysis, which takes place every day in hundreds of offices of agents and publishers all over the world, is clearly not conducted on a rigorous and scientific basis. Nevertheless, it will be useful, I believe, to consider to what extent the analysis is reliable and valid.
Let us remind ourselves of what it is that the slush-pile readers wish to ‘measure’. What they wish to do is to find those books which are going to be of most benefit to the firm in question, whether it be publisher or agent: the books which are going to make money and/or bring literary prestige in their wake.
In today’s book trade, it is certainly the case that publishers and booksellers alike are increasingly dependent upon a constant flow of big sellers. These can to some extent be manufactured, but the real prize is the black swan: the book by an unknown which will turn out to transform the revenues of all those stakeholders who get so much as a sniff of it.
In theory, slush-pile readers should develop, or be instructed to apply, a series of criteria (tests) which would be reliable, in the sense that if the same book was subjected to the test some months apart (after the first reading had been forgotten), it would receive the same rating on the second reading as on the first. And secondly, the test criteria should be valid, in the sense that they would lead to the infallible detection of any and all black swans.
Now…. There are not many things in the world of books which can be said to be certain; but one thing that I feel reasonably certain of (on the basis of the evidence quoted above, plus much else in a similar vein) is that the slush-pile procedure is pitifully unreliable, and it is not remotely valid. In fact, so utterly inadequate is the procedure (as generally applied) that it is tempting to say that you can almost guarantee that a black swan will be overlooked.
A general conclusion
I submit that we can now draw up a general conclusion for Part 3 of this essay. And the general conclusion is this: The selection of books from the slush pile, provided the books reach a certain basic standard of professionalism, is essentially random.
Please note: This does not mean that every writer whose book is chosen for publication is a very average talent who just got lucky, and that every unchosen writer is simply unlucky. Chance favours the prepared, and writers can certainly help themselves: they can make sure that their spelling and punctuation are perfect; that the manuscript is crisp and clean; that the story is not hackneyed and stale; and so forth. And agents/publishers can employ mature, intelligent and well-read readers, whose judgements are certain to be superior to those of recent graduates in Eng. Lit.
What our conclusion does mean is that the book-selection process is much more random than we think; and that unless you have objective evidence as to why one book was preferred to another, then the workings of randomness are the most likely explanation.
We have seen that the experiment with rats was flawed, and it failed to identify the ‘strongest’ rats. A similar set of flaws have been shown to be present in the slush-pile procedure. The procedure is unreliable in that ten publishers may reject a book, only for the eleventh to accept it and have a success with it. And the procedure is invalid in that, time after time, it fails to identify books which prove to be strong when eventually presented to the market.
Prior to the emergence of a black swan, there is no known test which will identify it as a superior entity. The book has its own unique characteristics, of course, but we cannot pin down beforehand what it is that will make it a huge success. If Barry Cunningham, of Bloomsbury, had been on holiday when Harry Potter first came into the office, and if the book had been rejected by an ‘intern’ (whatever they), Harry would have for ever remained, as the author herself pointed out, in his cupboard under the stairs.
Furthermore, in looking back on the black swan, after the event, we would be foolish to attribute its success to factors which it clearly shares not only with other books which were not huge hits, but also with other books which never even made it out of the slush pile.
In seeking explanations for black swans in publishing, it would be wise to accept that there may be no specific reasons – not even a spectrum of possible explanations. It may be that the most we can say about a black swan is that it sold a lot of copies because a lot of people liked it: a statement which is both tautological and unenlightening.
Naturally, the publishing powers that be, and many others who have an emotional or financial stake in publishing, will resist this statement that randomness lies at the heart of the book-selection process. It offends their sense of their own importance; and it is always tempting to indulge in what psychologists refer to as as hindsight bias.
‘I always knew that book was a winner, Daphne’ is a sentence which will be pronounced in many quarters when ‘that book’ proves to be a black swan. Conversely, ‘I never had any faith in it, Daphne, but the acquisitions committee just wouldn’t listen’ will be heard loud in the land when the unearned million-pound advance has to be set against profits at the year end.
Writers who are published, rather than rejected, will likewise resist my general conclusion; this is true whether they prove to be wildly successful or not. God knows, they have laboured hard enough, often for years, in the face of massive indifference, so it is understandable that they should attribute any kind of success to the innate qualities of their work; they will assume, whenever they make even a modest breakthrough, that it is all down to their natural superiority to the rest of the herd.
The opinion of such writers is reinforced when the reviews come out. (‘Brilliant’, said The Times.) It is easy to forget that, except for the big established names, reviewers do not bother to write about a book at all unless they can say something encouraging; space is too limited. This is survivorship bias again: the reviewers who read the book and hated it are lost to us, just like the dead rats.
The axe man cometh
In the course of time, after a publisher has put out two or three books by a writer, that writer is likely to be given the axe. There is nothing personal in this; it’s just the nature of today’s business. If a writer has been given two or three chances to find readers and to enthuse the critics, and the sales figures just aren’t there, and the reviews aren’t there either, then it’s Dear Jane time; and usually via an email to the author’s agent rather than during lunch at the Groucho (which is what it was when everyone had such high hopes).
But even the writer’s ultimate catastrophe, in the shape of a promising career terminated by an inadequate bottom line, even that will be ascribed by the victim to conscious and deliberate decision rather than to the effects of randomness. ‘The bastards didn’t give me the publicity budget they promised.’ Or ‘They got taken over by some South African fascists and my face didn’t fit.’
For a writer who has been dumped, it is a particularly bitter blow to discover that all that effort was futile. And the publisher isn’t going to be particularly thrilled by a less than sparkling sales record either. Which is all the more reason for us now to try to learn some lessons, and to develop strategies which will improve the situation.
Survivorship bias
Indulgence in the faulty thinking known as survivorship bias is universal throughout publishing.
Slush-pile readers, editors, publishers in general, agents, critics, media commentators, readers, and (published) writers – all have a marked tendency to assume that the slush-pile procedure actually works, and that the survivors are indeed the best.
If pushed up against a wall, with a loaded gun inserted into a nostril, most publishing professionals will admit that the selection of the ‘best’ books is subject to occasional errors. (We have encountered plenty already.) But the next day, the same person will fall back into the old (and incorrect) mode of thinking, and the slush-pile procedure will continue to operate, unchanged.
This is probably the place to point out that the most dramatic illustration of survivorship bias in the book world occurs following the award of a prize. Let us consider, for instance, the Booker Prize (properly the Man Booker Prize), which is currently the most prestigious literary award in the UK.
If you and I are presented with a piece of string, and are asked to guess its length, you may say that it is 15 inches long, and I may say that it’s 18 inches. In order to resolve our disagreement, we can measure its length against a ruler and come to a conclusion which all sane parties will accept as correct.
But when you and I are faced with a novel, and asked to say whether it is a masterpiece or an overblown piece of self-indulgent nonsense, there is no universally recognised scale against which we can measure the book and come to a clear conclusion. Judging a novel is a matter of taste and sensibility, and you are likely to maintain that your taste and sensibility are superior to mine.
As far as the Booker Prize is concerned, it is safe to say that the choice of the ‘best’ book of the year is inevitably a matter of opinion rather than fact. And not even unanimous opinion. In almost every year there are press reports of disagreements among the judges, and in some years we hear of ‘compromise choices’ or the chairman’s casting vote. We also know that, in one particular case, the eventual winner was unusually fortunate.
In 2002 the winner of the Booker Prize was Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Many newspaper reports at the time told us that this book had been rejected by Faber, the firm which had published Martel’s earlier work; the book had also been turned down by at least five other major publishers. So if the eventual publisher, Canongate, had not taken the book, it is likely that the manuscript would have remained in the author’s filing cabinet. Furthermore, if the book had been accepted by one of the bigger firms, it would not even have been entered for the Booker Prize in the first place, because the big firms are only allowed two nominations and have to enter their most famous authors; if they don’t, the famous authors are likely to go elsewhere.
The Life of Pi saga provides a beautifully clear demonstration of the random nature of decision-making in publishing. Here we have a book which was turned down for publication by numerous ‘good judges’. It was entered for the Booker Prize by a small firm which had no stronger candidates. And it so happened that the particular set of judges who were reading in 2002 happened to like it best. Or a majority of them did.
All rational observers will agree that Life of Pi, or any other Booker winner, cannot sensibly be described as the best book of the year in any absolute sense. The Life of Pi episode shows us, undeniably, that there might have been other books that year which could, quite possibly, have found favour with the judges if they had been submitted. The most that can be said of the book which wins the Booker Prize is that it is the one which (of those presented for their judgement) the judges liked the best.
But observe, please, what happens when the winner of the Booker Prize is announced (in any year). What happens is that the media, the critics, and the public, all behave as if there is some absolute sense in which the winner is the best book of the year. They act as if the book has been held up against a ruler, a universally agreed scale, and has been found, indisputably and scientifically, to be ‘better’ than any other.
This very week, for instance, I was given a copy of the New York Review of Books, in which there is a lengthy review of the most recent Booker winner; the article runs to 108 column inches. Similar articles are no doubt published every year. And this ‘superstar treatment’ will be repeated in newspapers and magazines throughout the English-speaking world.
It is the winning novel, please note, which is treated in this way – not the runners-up; and certainly not the good books which were not submitted by their publishers; and definitely not the books which didn’t even make it into print. It is the winning author who will be interviewed on television, invited to writers’ conferences, and made the subject, in due course, of earnest PhD theses by bespectacled young people who can think of nothing better to do with their time than waste it by deconstructing a novelist’s prose. This is the winner-take-all mechanism in its most unforgiving form.
The runners-up, the non-shortlisted books, and the unpublished books, all those are the drowned worshippers and dead rats of the fiction world; they are losers who disappear from our sight, never to be heard of again. And yet we know, beyond doubt, that but for the workings of randomness, which favoured the winner and disfavoured the drowned worshippers, there might be one, ten, or a hundred other books which could, in different circumstances, have proved to be more enticing to the judges than the eventual winner.
Survivorship bias in the book world is therefore brutal, vicious, and deadly. There is no point in complaining about it: it is just the way things happen. The world in general, and the book trade in particular, is unfair, unjust, and patently absurd in its workings. But all those who work in the book trade, in particular those who write and sell novels, need to be aware of this situation. And they need to ask themselves whether a business in which randomness is so powerful a factor in the distribution of rewards is a business which sensible people should allow themselves to be involved in.
Nietzsche’s error
Nietzsche, you will recall, told us that ‘What does not kill me makes me stronger.’
What, if anything, can we make of Nietzsche’s alleged words of wisdom in relation to publishing; in particular, in relation to the slush pile?
Having your novel rejected by a slush-pile reader certainly does not kill you. So suppose we examine the view that rejection makes you a better writer.
Rejection will certainly have noticeable and possibly dramatic effects, the chief of which are usually emotions such as anger, disappointment, and disgust. (The rats, by the way, had no choice about participating in the experiment. But it is not compulsory to submit anything to a slush pile. Therefore any injury which results from slush-pile experiences is a self-inflicted wound.)
Does rejection make you more determined to succeed? Possibly. But it may also cause a writer to decide (probably quite correctly) that this writing business is a fool’s game. A writer who produces a professional piece of work, and is yet unable to persuade an agent to take him on, or a publisher to invest in his book, may well conclude that the slush-pile procedure is impossibly flawed and that sensible people would not continue to waste postage on it. I happen to believe (without empirical evidence to support my view) that the writers who come to this conclusion are probably the ones who would do best in publishing if they actually persevered; because they, at least, have proved capable of rational thought. By contrast, it is the all-time, never-going-to-be-publishable losers who will see rejection as a reason to redouble their efforts.
The rejected writers, whether they drop out altogether or not, disappear from sight; just like the dead rats. Their strengths and weaknesses, virtues and shortcomings, are lost to us. Let us consider the consequences of that.
We noted, above, that MASH was rejected by 21 publishers, and The Scarlet Pimpernel by 12. Suppose both these authors had decided not to bother with the book business any more, after 20 and 11 rejections respectively. In that case these two works would have been lost to us for ever.
And the survivors, of course – those who are selected for submission by agents, and are subsequently put under contract by publishers – they will tend to assume, human nature being what it is, that they survive and prosper because of their natural inborn talent plus a great deal of hard work. Such writers will assume, in 99 cases out of 100, that they are superior to those who were rejected.
The same assumption will confidently be made by those who have done the selecting; because they, remember, have sufficient skill to decide within fifteen seconds, or a page and a half, whether a book is worth pursuing.
Such assumptions, on the part of both selectors and selectees, are in my view wholly unjustified, and I hope we have accumulated enough examples by now for you to understand why.
The swimmer’s body
Errors in thinking of the ‘swimmer’s body’ type are widespread in the field of writing and publishing.
Essentially, swimmer’s body errors involve getting things back to front. For example, in most trades and industries, companies boast about the high sales of their product; but publishers boast about its high cost (in the form of advances to authors).
We also noted earlier that it would be foolish to take up swimming in the hope of acquiring a beautiful body. Champion swimmers are not beautiful because they swim; they swim because they have bodies that are eminently suitable for swimming.
Similarly, it would be foolish for writers to emulate the working methods of successful and famous writers on the assumption that use of the same working methods will necessarily lead to similar success.
Many years ago, when I was young and impressionable, I read the famous volumes of interviews with writers which had been published in the Paris Review. What struck me most forcibly was that many of those writers seemed to operate on the basis of inspiration (or claimed to). What happened, allegedly, was that these writers never pre-planned their novels: they simply sat down at their desks and embarked on the great adventure of writing fiction.
Two points. First, people who have become rich and famous, often after many years of struggle, do not normally reveal all their trade secrets, not even to a sycophantic, starry-eyed interviewer from a prestigious literary journal; so we should take these revelations of ‘working methods’ with a shovelful of salt. And second, common sense surely tells us that writing a novel without having a clear concept of its overall shape, at the start, is a recipe for disaster. It compares with a surgeon going into an operating theatre without knowing whether he is going to remove an appendix or perform a lobotomy; and who knows, if he gets really inspired, he may amputate the patient’s left leg.
And yet, and yet…. As you and I know full well, young and ambitious writers are trusting souls, a trifle simple-minded pretty much by definition; and if a working method is good enough for André Gide and William Faulkner (or whoever), then by golly it’s good enough for them – common sense notwithstanding. Thus is futility piled upon futility.
No. We need to look a little harder at the concept of the swimmer’s body to discern anything truly useful to the art of writing.
If it is true that champion swimmers become champions mainly because of their basic physique, what is the writer’s equivalent?
The answer, surely, is a capacity to write effective prose; a writer needs to be able to use the English language to full effect.
In England, which is the source and home of the English language, the ability to write even halfway decent prose is today a rare quality. The cause, as you doubtless realise, lies in the failure of English education, a topic too big to go into here. Suffice it for our purposes to note that hardly anyone under the age of fifty has been taught to spell and punctuate properly, much less polish their prose style.
A powerful command of the English language does not necessarily require a massively high IQ: Muhammad Ali had the former but not the latter. Neither does it require a particularly long or arduous training; but it is a training which is best given on a one-to-one basis (I used to teach English to small boys myself), and in recent years such personal instruction has seldom been available.
It is doubtless the case that many slush-pile readers use the ‘basic command of English’ test as a preliminary filter; they discard immediately those books which may be described as semi-literate. I do so myself, as a matter of fact. In my capacity as owner and operator of a small press (Kingsfield Publications), I am regularly sent manuscripts by hopeful writers. (This despite a notice on the firm’s web site telling them that such submissions are a waste of time.)
Sometimes the submissions come on paper, and sometimes as email attachments. Either way, if I look at them at all, my inclination to read more than a few lines is heavily influenced by their grasp of, say, punctuation. A recent manuscript came with quite a sensible covering letter, but the first page of the accompanying text revealed a complete inability to punctuate dialogue in the orthodox manner. It is perfectly true that some writers adopt their own method of punctuating speech: James Joyce is an example. But in this case I was convinced that the oddities were the result of incompetence. Enough. I read no more.
It is not, in my view, unreasonable to use this crude ‘basic command of English’ filter to reduce the size of the pile of manuscripts. However, it is a mistake to assume that this test is reliable.
I once found a manuscript which was more or less functionally illiterate – being spattered with hundreds of elementary errors – but which, when read aloud, revealed that the author had a perfectly clear story to tell in her own distinctive voice. Unfortunately, the economics of having such a text moulded into shape by a professional editor usually preclude any further consideration of the manuscript – unless the publisher is prepared to gamble that it’s a black swan.
In most cases, it is evidently at the later stages of the slush-pile selection process that mistakes are made, rather than at the stage where the basic command of English test is applied.
In statistics, you commit a Type 1 error if you reject the hypothesis when it is true; and a Type 2 error if you confirm the hypothesis when it is untrue. As we have already seen, the slush-pile procedure produces both these types of errors: not all the time, but frequently. Books which turn out to be excellent (either by literary or commercial criteria), are rejected; and some books are selected which later prove to be duds.
The selection of duds does not matter in and of itself. Most books are duds, in the sense that they do not become black swans. They are capable, competent, even entertaining pieces of work – but they do not generate massive enthusiasm, either in the publisher or in the book’s readers. Such duds are harmless and may even be beneficial in that they give the authors practice in the difficult art of learning to write; they invite some critical attention and slowly build a reputation; and with sensible costing they may even do rather better than break even.
Where the selection of duds does do great damage is in those cases where the wrong book is selected for the ‘full treatment’. Giving a book the works these days involves paying a big advance (which is used to generate publicity and arouse interest), and providing a large publicity budget.
If both of these big-money sums (big, at any rate, by publishing standards) are committed, and the book fails, damage has been done in several quarters. The publishing firm’s profits suffer; its reputation is damaged; the author’s confidence may be shattered; and booksellers will be disgruntled.
In the past, publishers were often able to keep the gory details of such failures more or less secret within the firm. But with the advent of computer-based point-of-sale databases, which record actual sales in the high-street shops, and which are accessible to almost everyone in the trade (on payment of substantial subscriptions), the truth will out.
In the 2002 edition of the Writer’s Handbook, Barry Turner gave a couple of examples. Author A was paid £300,000 for two novels. The first came out in 2001 and sold less than 4,000 copies. Author B was paid £250,000 for one book, by a different publisher, and this one generated sales of 1,500 copies.
Private Eye recently identified a similar case. An author with an established but modest track record was paid £500,000 for her new book. The hardback (published in 2003) sold just over 2,000 copies, and the paperback (2004) managed 10,000.
Similar errors are made on a smaller scale. With my publisher’s hat on, I once sold a book to a major UK publisher for £15,000. Five years later, when the rights reverted, there was still an unearned balance of £11,000 on the royalty statement.
Some of the deals that are announced in UK publishing are so bizarre that in any other industry one would assume that money was changing hands in brown-paper bags in various Tesco car parks. In this industry, however, we can say with absolute confidence that the participants are more likely to be financially clueless than corrupt.
Casanova: a case history
You will recall that Casanova’s memoirs reveal that he continually escaped from tight corners, where his testicles or his life itself were endangered. We also noted that we would be unwise to conclude from these events that Casanova was exceptionally talented or clever. On the contrary, it was simply the random flow of events, over which he had no influence, which ultimately determined whether he lived or died.
In publishing, it is easy to mistake the effects of chance for those of unusual talent. Most readers will have had the experience of seeing a book heavily recommended in the press. A full-page glossy advert in the Bookseller or Publishers Weekly announces ‘a very special publishing event’. The book cover features endorsements from famous names (who by a curious coincidence are published by the same firm). And yet, when you actually come to read the book, you find yourself puzzled to understand what all the fuss was about. You sit there and ask yourself what you are missing.
The answer is that you are missing nothing, because there is nothing there to miss. You are expecting the book to live up to its hype; you seek evidence that it is quite exceptional. But the truth is that what you have in your hand is simply a perfectly workmanlike novel which, through the workings of randomness, has cleared successive selection hurdles and has survived to be given the benefit of a huge publicity budget. And that’s all.
How reliable and valid are the slush-pile results?
In statistics, two important concepts are reliability and validity.
A test, such as a questionnaire about people’s attitudes to a given topic, is said to be reliable if it yields the same results when completed by the same person at two different times (always assuming that the individual’s attitudes have not changed in the meantime). And validity can be defined as the extent to which an instrument actually measures what the researcher wishes it to measure (and not something else).
The slush-pile analysis, which takes place every day in hundreds of offices of agents and publishers all over the world, is clearly not conducted on a rigorous and scientific basis. Nevertheless, it will be useful, I believe, to consider to what extent the analysis is reliable and valid.
Let us remind ourselves of what it is that the slush-pile readers wish to ‘measure’. What they wish to do is to find those books which are going to be of most benefit to the firm in question, whether it be publisher or agent: the books which are going to make money and/or bring literary prestige in their wake.
In today’s book trade, it is certainly the case that publishers and booksellers alike are increasingly dependent upon a constant flow of big sellers. These can to some extent be manufactured, but the real prize is the black swan: the book by an unknown which will turn out to transform the revenues of all those stakeholders who get so much as a sniff of it.
In theory, slush-pile readers should develop, or be instructed to apply, a series of criteria (tests) which would be reliable, in the sense that if the same book was subjected to the test some months apart (after the first reading had been forgotten), it would receive the same rating on the second reading as on the first. And secondly, the test criteria should be valid, in the sense that they would lead to the infallible detection of any and all black swans.
Now…. There are not many things in the world of books which can be said to be certain; but one thing that I feel reasonably certain of (on the basis of the evidence quoted above, plus much else in a similar vein) is that the slush-pile procedure is pitifully unreliable, and it is not remotely valid. In fact, so utterly inadequate is the procedure (as generally applied) that it is tempting to say that you can almost guarantee that a black swan will be overlooked.
A general conclusion
I submit that we can now draw up a general conclusion for Part 3 of this essay. And the general conclusion is this: The selection of books from the slush pile, provided the books reach a certain basic standard of professionalism, is essentially random.
Please note: This does not mean that every writer whose book is chosen for publication is a very average talent who just got lucky, and that every unchosen writer is simply unlucky. Chance favours the prepared, and writers can certainly help themselves: they can make sure that their spelling and punctuation are perfect; that the manuscript is crisp and clean; that the story is not hackneyed and stale; and so forth. And agents/publishers can employ mature, intelligent and well-read readers, whose judgements are certain to be superior to those of recent graduates in Eng. Lit.
What our conclusion does mean is that the book-selection process is much more random than we think; and that unless you have objective evidence as to why one book was preferred to another, then the workings of randomness are the most likely explanation.
We have seen that the experiment with rats was flawed, and it failed to identify the ‘strongest’ rats. A similar set of flaws have been shown to be present in the slush-pile procedure. The procedure is unreliable in that ten publishers may reject a book, only for the eleventh to accept it and have a success with it. And the procedure is invalid in that, time after time, it fails to identify books which prove to be strong when eventually presented to the market.
Prior to the emergence of a black swan, there is no known test which will identify it as a superior entity. The book has its own unique characteristics, of course, but we cannot pin down beforehand what it is that will make it a huge success. If Barry Cunningham, of Bloomsbury, had been on holiday when Harry Potter first came into the office, and if the book had been rejected by an ‘intern’ (whatever they), Harry would have for ever remained, as the author herself pointed out, in his cupboard under the stairs.
Furthermore, in looking back on the black swan, after the event, we would be foolish to attribute its success to factors which it clearly shares not only with other books which were not huge hits, but also with other books which never even made it out of the slush pile.
In seeking explanations for black swans in publishing, it would be wise to accept that there may be no specific reasons – not even a spectrum of possible explanations. It may be that the most we can say about a black swan is that it sold a lot of copies because a lot of people liked it: a statement which is both tautological and unenlightening.
Naturally, the publishing powers that be, and many others who have an emotional or financial stake in publishing, will resist this statement that randomness lies at the heart of the book-selection process. It offends their sense of their own importance; and it is always tempting to indulge in what psychologists refer to as as hindsight bias.
‘I always knew that book was a winner, Daphne’ is a sentence which will be pronounced in many quarters when ‘that book’ proves to be a black swan. Conversely, ‘I never had any faith in it, Daphne, but the acquisitions committee just wouldn’t listen’ will be heard loud in the land when the unearned million-pound advance has to be set against profits at the year end.
Writers who are published, rather than rejected, will likewise resist my general conclusion; this is true whether they prove to be wildly successful or not. God knows, they have laboured hard enough, often for years, in the face of massive indifference, so it is understandable that they should attribute any kind of success to the innate qualities of their work; they will assume, whenever they make even a modest breakthrough, that it is all down to their natural superiority to the rest of the herd.
The opinion of such writers is reinforced when the reviews come out. (‘Brilliant’, said The Times.) It is easy to forget that, except for the big established names, reviewers do not bother to write about a book at all unless they can say something encouraging; space is too limited. This is survivorship bias again: the reviewers who read the book and hated it are lost to us, just like the dead rats.
The axe man cometh
In the course of time, after a publisher has put out two or three books by a writer, that writer is likely to be given the axe. There is nothing personal in this; it’s just the nature of today’s business. If a writer has been given two or three chances to find readers and to enthuse the critics, and the sales figures just aren’t there, and the reviews aren’t there either, then it’s Dear Jane time; and usually via an email to the author’s agent rather than during lunch at the Groucho (which is what it was when everyone had such high hopes).
But even the writer’s ultimate catastrophe, in the shape of a promising career terminated by an inadequate bottom line, even that will be ascribed by the victim to conscious and deliberate decision rather than to the effects of randomness. ‘The bastards didn’t give me the publicity budget they promised.’ Or ‘They got taken over by some South African fascists and my face didn’t fit.’
For a writer who has been dumped, it is a particularly bitter blow to discover that all that effort was futile. And the publisher isn’t going to be particularly thrilled by a less than sparkling sales record either. Which is all the more reason for us now to try to learn some lessons, and to develop strategies which will improve the situation.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
The GOB in book form
A while back -- on 1 February, to be precise -- I immodestly pointed out that you can now buy the Grumpy Old Bookman in the form of a trade paperback. Through my own small press, Kingsfield Publications, I have taken the first six months or so of the GOB and had it printed up.
As I pointed out at the time, I do not expect many readers of this blog to rush over to Amazon and buy a copy, but it is at least available. The book consists of 130 posts from the first seven months of the GOB (March to September 2004), and so there is nothing in it that you cannot read for free by clicking over to the archives, in the column on your right. However, you may care to bear the existence of this book in mind when next you need a present for a bookish friend. He or she can always put it in the guest room; or the bathroom; because it is, as you will realise, composed of nice bathroom-sized pieces; for reading, that is.
There were two main purposes for publishing this book. The first was to enable me to send copies to newspapers and magazines in the UK. I don't expect any of them to review it, and so far none of them have, but I thought it might get a mention in a diary column here and there. Which it has. More of that in a minute.
The second reason for producing the material in paperback was to enable me to give copies to friends and relations who -- believe it or not -- don't actually have computers.
As to the press, I am grateful to the Literary Saloon for pointing out to me that the paperback GOB got a mention in the NB column in the Times Literary Supplement. And even more grateful to Golden Rule Jones for printing the whole passage, which goes as follows:
Should you be remotely interested, Grumpy Old Bookman -- Essays & Criticism is available from either amazon.co.uk or amazon.com, in both cases at a discount on the publisher's price.
As I pointed out at the time, I do not expect many readers of this blog to rush over to Amazon and buy a copy, but it is at least available. The book consists of 130 posts from the first seven months of the GOB (March to September 2004), and so there is nothing in it that you cannot read for free by clicking over to the archives, in the column on your right. However, you may care to bear the existence of this book in mind when next you need a present for a bookish friend. He or she can always put it in the guest room; or the bathroom; because it is, as you will realise, composed of nice bathroom-sized pieces; for reading, that is.
There were two main purposes for publishing this book. The first was to enable me to send copies to newspapers and magazines in the UK. I don't expect any of them to review it, and so far none of them have, but I thought it might get a mention in a diary column here and there. Which it has. More of that in a minute.
The second reason for producing the material in paperback was to enable me to give copies to friends and relations who -- believe it or not -- don't actually have computers.
As to the press, I am grateful to the Literary Saloon for pointing out to me that the paperback GOB got a mention in the NB column in the Times Literary Supplement. And even more grateful to Golden Rule Jones for printing the whole passage, which goes as follows:
Well, I don't know who has been going around saying that the internet is going to kill off the book, but it certainly ain't me. And as you see, I am accused of pining for the permanence of print, which is also untrue. As a matter of fact, the digital version of the GOB will probably be around longer than the paperback version.About once every five years, the death of print culture is announced. It has always surprised us how eager some folk are to see off the maggoty old book. The internet was supposed to have been the final nail in its coffin. As things have turned out, books and the internet have learned to coexist peaceably. Literary weblogs (blogs) are occasionally cheering and informative complements to the world of print and paper, but only a cyber-fanatic would now argue that they could replace it. More books are published than ever before. And it is notable that, while literary blogs feed off print culture, print culture is barely nourished by blogs.
Bloggers have the advantage of universality, but are casualties of transience. The signs are that they pine for the permanence of print. Michael Allen, author of the [GOB] blog... has just issued his dispatches in the form of a 300-page book, called Grumpy Old Bookman (Kingsfield, £12.99). And the Guardian recently gave a spread to Jessica [sic] Crispin, the brains behind bookslut.com. "Yesterday I read a book that was so bad I ended up ranting to my boyfriend for ten minutes about the doomed nature of the publishing industry." In a clever bit of subversion, she was pictured peeping out from behind a big fat book.
Should you be remotely interested, Grumpy Old Bookman -- Essays & Criticism is available from either amazon.co.uk or amazon.com, in both cases at a discount on the publisher's price.
On the Survival of Rats in the Slush Pile -- Part 3(a)
Continued from yesterday. Here is the first half of Part 3 of my new essay on writing and publishing. Please remember that, if at any point you decide that you would like to have all of this essay available in one lump, you can go here and download the whole thing as a PDF file. You can then print it out, pass it to friends, et cetera.
Part 3: The experiment with rats when applied to publishing
Applicability and relevance
Taleb’s ideas about randomness have proved useful in facilitating clear thinking in a number of fields of activity: for example, Card Player magazine tells us that they are applicable to the game of poker. It will therefore be useful to go through each of the points made in Part 1 and to examine their relevance to the book trade in general and the writer’s position in particular.
The first thought that struck me, on reading Taleb’s draft chapter for his book on black swans, was that the experiment with rats is closely analogous to the process of selecting books from the slush pile. And, just in case there is anyone reading this who doesn’t know what a slush pile is, let me explain.
Defining the slush pile
Unknown and unpublished writers tend to be, as remarked in Part 1, wildly ambitious and eager for fame, money, and literary reputation. To achieve these objectives they have to get published. And to get published they have to arrange, as a first step, for their work to be offered to publishers.
In the past, it was common for novelists to submit their completed manuscripts to publishers themselves. Every day the postman would deliver, to every publisher in the land, a pile of ten or twenty manuscripts. These unsolicited submissions are known in the book trade, throughout the English-speaking world, as the slush pile.
The term ‘slush pile’ gives a clear flavour of the contempt in which unsolicited submissions are held. It is widely agreed in publishing circles (on the basis of countless years of experience) that many of these manuscripts will be unreadable, unpublishable junk. But it is also the case (as history demonstrates) that the slush pile will occasionally contain a black swan.
One point to note is that every writer, and every novel, is at some point in someone’s slush pile. With absolutely no exceptions.
At some stage, and possibly at many different stages, decisions have to be made on whether to continue to consider a book for publication, or to send it back to its author with a rejection slip. This iterated process has its parallels with the rats-in-the-vat experiment. The rats which were submitted to radiation included every type of rat: fat, thin, strong, weak, young, old. Similarly the slush pile contains writers and manuscripts covering the whole range of ability and quality, from masterpieces to illiterate rubbish.
The role of literary agents
For over a hundred years there have been individuals within the book trade who undertake to handle the business side of writers’ affairs for them. These literary agents, as they are called, will submit manuscripts to publishers, negotiate a contract, and check royalty statements; they may well give advice on market demands, provide detailed comment on content, undertake editing, and generally act as an intermediary between writer and publisher when things go wrong (as they all too frequently do). In return for these services, an agent will receive an agreed percentage of a writer’s income.
The unknown writer, let us say a single mother living on a council estate in Gateshead, will these days find it impossible to submit a novel to a major publisher; the publisher will simply send it back to her, unread, accompanied by the advice that she should try to find an agent to represent her. So the unknown young woman from Gateshead will end up in an agent’s slush pile rather than a publisher’s.
If, at some point, the writer is accepted as a client by an agent, the agent will then offer the book to a publisher, usually to an editor with whom the agent is on first-name, let’s-do-lunch terms. The book is then part of the editor’s slush pile.
If, in the course of further time, our young lady from Gateshead happens to generate a black swan which amazes the entire universe with its brilliance, she will still find that her next novel will still end up in the editor’s slush pile, in the sense that its publication will have to be subject to a conscious decision. The new book may rise immediately to the top of the editor’s reading pile, and the decision to go ahead with publication of the second novel may be uncontested, but a decision will have to be made, none the less.
And by the way, publication of book number two, or number twenty-two, even to follow a big success, may not be uncontested; it may be a matter of considerable debate. In 1986, after Dean Koontz had published fifty-four novels, he appeared on the US hardcover bestseller list with Strangers. He then wrote Lightning, which involved him in a bitter struggle with his editor, who prophesied the end of his career if it was published. Koontz insisted that publication should proceed, and in due course he was proved right, because Lightning became another hardcover bestseller. The editor concerned was Phyllis Grann, then at Putnam.
What the slush-pile process is designed to do
The purpose of the experiment with rats was to find the ‘strongest’ rats – strength being regarded, by the designers of the experiment, as the most desirable of all possible characteristics. To this end, increasingly high doses of radiation were administered until in the end there were only a few rats left.
But what is the slush-pile process – whether undertaken by agents or publishers – designed to do?
Everyone in the book trade is anxious to find the ‘best’ books. Different participants in the trade will have differing definitions of ‘best’. For some it will mean the books which generate the most income. For others it will mean the books which get the most favourable reviews from the highbrow critics. But if the submission and selection process has any purpose at all it is to select the ‘best’ books from the point of view of the organisation conducting that process. In particular, it is surely the hope of most parties that the process of selecting books from the slush pile will throw up an occasional black swan.
How the slush pile is dealt with
If, every day, the postman brings even as few as ten manuscripts into an agent’s office, the agent must assume (if she is willing to consider them at all) that among these unsolicited and unpromising submissions there may perhaps be the twenty-first-century equivalent of Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, or Harry Potter; or perhaps a Booker Prize winner. She therefore has to give at least some serious consideration to these manuscripts.
Perhaps our agent is super-conscientious, a mistress of the management of time, and can manage without sleep. In those circumstances she may even do the initial trawl through the manuscripts herself. But that is unlikely to happen. It is more than probable that the busy agent will employ a reader to do the job for her. The reader will discard the manuscripts which are judged to be hopeless and leave a relatively manageable number for a final decision by the boss.
Over the past fifty years or so much has been written about the role of the slush-pile reader; the experiences described are mainly those of individuals who worked in publishers’ offices in the days when big-time publishers were still willing to consider submissions from the public; but we shall be safe, I think, in assuming that the process is much the same wherever it occurs.
Since the job of sorting through the slush pile is generally reckoned to be soul-destroying, it is almost invariably given to the newest and most junior member of staff: the one who is in no position to refuse. Such people are seldom given any training. (Until recently no one got any training in publishing anyway, unless it was in the form of ‘Sit by Nelly and watch what she does.’)
The volume of work is such that the reader cannot possibly give more than a few minutes to any one manuscript, unless it proves to be unusually promising. Often, those who have done the job claim that to read one paragraph is sufficient to enable a rejection decision to be made.
Here is what one publishing professional, Andrew Taylor, had to say about the task, writing in The Bookseller in 1996: ‘In an average day’s work at a publisher’s office, I aim to assess 7 to 10 submissions and write reports on each of them which vary in length from 2 to 500 words.’
Mr Taylor is more generous with his time than some publishers’ readers. Giles Gordon once stated that when he was the slush-pile reader at Gollancz, he learnt how to tell whether a manuscript was any good within 15 seconds. ‘It’s just a matter of practice,’ he said airily.
Literary agent Pat Kavanagh takes much the same view. ‘Two pages will tell you if a book from the slush pile is worth pursuing.’
The results of the search through the slush pile
It is generally reckoned that, however carefully or otherwise the slush pile is read, it is rare to find anything in it which is worth even the most cursory consideration as a candidate for publication.
The agent Pat Kavanagh, mentioned above, was asked how often she had found a book in the slush pile that was worth pursuing. ‘Never,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe it has ever happened to me.’
Barry Turner, in The Writer’s Handbook, once mentioned an agent who fared a little better than that, but not much. In 14 years of reading 25-30 manuscripts a month, the agent found 5 good ones. Another agent, at Curtis Brown, personally received 1,200 manuscripts in one year, and took on 2 of the authors as clients. One agent at perhaps the largest UK agency remarked recently that she was having to read 3,000 manuscripts in order to find 1 client.
In 1989, The Times reported that the well-known British imprint Hutchinson was receiving about 1,000 manuscripts a year. One of these unsolicited manuscripts might be published every couple of years or so. Maybe.
At Chatto and Windus the Times reporter was told that about 10 manuscripts arrived every day. Were they all read? Long pause. ‘Yes.’ Were any ever taken on? Long pause. ‘No.’
The largest publisher of romantic novels in the UK is Mills & Boon, or Harlequin Mills & Boon, to give the firm its full name. The Mills & Boon editorial director has stated that the firm receives 6,000 manuscripts a year from hopeful and so-far-unpublished writers. Out of these submissions, the company takes on, in a good year, about 10 new writers.
In 1995, the owner of two small publishing firms in the USA reported in Publishers Weekly that he had received nearly 7,000 offers of books in the previous twelve months, and had decided to accept 12 of these submissions.
A much larger and more prestigious American firm, Viking, agreed to publish only one unsolicited manuscript in 26 years; that was Ordinary People, by Judith Guest. The book went on to become a bestseller as well as the basis for a successful film.
Finally, the publisher Anthony Blond, writing in The Spectator, maintained that the acceptance rate of unsolicited manuscripts was 1 in 2,000, in both London and New York.
And so on. Taleb rightly advises us against drawing general conclusions from insufficient data (the Baconian flaw), but it would be wearisome, and it is surely unnecessary, to go further.
We can safely conclude, I suggest, that very few manuscripts are picked out of the slush pile – anyone’s slush pile, whether agent or publisher – with a view to being taken further.
It follows therefore, as dogs follow a bitch in season, that a writer’s chances of achieving any kind of success are extraordinarily small. There is only the slimmest chance that a new and as yet unpublished writer will be taken on to an agent’s list of clients; even if taken on as a client, there is no guarantee of publication; and even if the writer is published, the chances of achieving any kind of critical or commercial success are also small.
Famous rejections
Few manuscripts are selected from the slush pile; but we know for certain that some of those which are rejected are in fact worthy of publication – worthy by any standards, whether literary or commercial.
We have already had one example of a black swan which was unrecognised by everyone when it was still in manuscript: Harry Potter. The sole editor in London publishing who was interested in the first Harry Potter book, by a completely unknown author, was Barry Cunningham of Bloomsbury.
‘If it hadn’t been for Barry,’ said J.K. Rowling in 2000, ‘Harry Potter might still be languishing in his cupboard under the stairs.’ A long succession of editors had previously described the book as ‘too long’, ‘too complex’, and ‘too old-fashioned’.
This instance is almost enough, on its own, to prove that slush-pile readers’ judgements are fallible. However, we don’t need to limit ourselves to one example. Here are some others.
MASH, which became one of the most famous series in the history of television, was originally a novel. It was rejected by 21 publishers over a period of seven years before eventually finding a home. After publication, it was adapted as a successful cinema film before being developed for television.
In a more literary vein, the most famous case is that of the American novelist, John Kennedy Toole. In the early 1960s Toole was made emotionally unstable by the frequent rejection of his book A Confederacy of Dunces, and in 1969 he committed suicide.
Toole’s mother then took on the task of trying to find a publisher for the book on which her son had laboured so hard. She finally managed it, and in 1981 the novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. A Confederacy of Dunces was hailed by the New York Times as a ‘masterwork of comedy’ (though I’m afraid I never got so much as a smile out of it myself).
There are many other cases in publishing history of books becoming famous and successful only after a long struggle to achieve publication. James Joyce’s Dubliners was rejected by 22 publishers; and Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel by 12. There are so many such ill-advised rejections, in fact, that a whole book has been written about them: André Bernard’s Rotten Rejections. This book includes, among other things, a letter from a publisher in reference to an agent’s submission of an early John Le Carré novel. ‘You’re welcome to Le Carré,’ said the publisher. ‘He hasn’t got any future.’
George Greenfield, an agent, told a story about Enid Blyton, who was published by Macmillan, and whose innumerable books for children sold so many copies that they paid the salaries of most of the staff. On one occasion Enid had heard that her usual editor had left the firm, but no one had told her the name of her new editor. So, when she had completed her next book, she simply addressed it to ‘Macmillan & Co’. The manuscript went into the slush pile, and in due course was rejected.
A similar instance of the rejection of a work by a famous author occurred early in the career of Giles Gordon.
Giles was then working for Hutchinson, which was run by Robert Lusty. At the time, Hutchinson’s most profitable author was Dennis Wheatley, who is now largely forgotten but was then a sort of English Stephen King. At his death, Wheatley had 50 books in print, and total sales were 41 million copies. As with Enid Blyton, the income from his novels was making a massive contribution to his publisher’s profits.
Giles Gordon was a young man with fastidious tastes, and by his own admission he felt nothing but contempt for Wheatley; and so, when Wheatley’s new novel arrived, Giles had it sent out for a slush-pile report as if it was from an unknown.
The report which came back was not favourable. ‘The book is terribly hackneyed,’ declared the reader. ‘Decline.’
Giles showed this report to his boss, Robert Lusty, who was not amused. Giles was told to publish the book in short order.
‘In spite of my best efforts,’ said Giles, ‘Dennis Wheatley’s career continued to prosper.’
This story demonstrates a number of points. One, that young men are often arrogant, ignorant and stupid; two, that mature publishers usually develop a degree of common sense; and three, that slush-pile readers… Well, what can one say about the Hutchinson reader in this case? He or she failed to recognise a new book by the firm’s principal asset. Does this generate any confidence in that reader in particular, or the slush-pile process in general?
Writers hit back
Every so often, repeated rejection of what the author believes is a good book leads to an attack of blind rage, out of which comes a determination to prove that publishers are complete fools. Sadly, this is not too difficult to achieve, at least in particular instances.
The usual procedure to obtain revenge is to type out a chapter or two of a current bestseller, give it a new title, and submit it to publishers as your own work. I know of at least three occasions when this experiment has been carried out, with results which will not, I think, surprise you. I will quote only one example here.
In the summer of 2000, the French publisher Plon issued a novel which had been written by a famous television presenter; the book was a great ‘success’, in that the author was interviewed widely, made many personal appearances, and the public was persuaded to buy a large number of copies.
The magazine Voici decided, however, that this novel was less than interesting, and that it would never have been published at all had it come from an unknown author. Voici typed out the first chapter of the book and offered it, under a pseudonym, to every leading publisher in France. None of them wanted to read the full manuscript, and none even recognised it as the season’s hit – including Plon, which had published the book in the first place.
We have surely assembled enough evidence about the slush pile. We now need to consider some of Taleb’s types of erroneous thinking, apply these to the world of publishing, and see what can be learnt which might be of value.
Flaws in the slush-pile methodology
We noted above that the experiment with rats was designed to identify the ‘strongest’ rats, and that it failed to do so because of flaws in the methodology.
There is sufficient evidence provided above (and elsewhere) to convince the author of this essay, if no one else, that the slush-pile procedure is also flawed. It is intended to identify the ‘strongest’ or the ‘best’ books (however defined), and it demonstrably fails to do so.
Taleb tells us that, in any experiment or procedure, there will be a difference between the desired outcome (in this case identification of the best books) and the actual outcome if there is either variance in the base cohort, or randomness in treatment.
In the slush-pile procedure both of these factors are present.
The base cohort contains a wide range of variance. The books submitted will range from the sub-literate to the masterly. Some writers can spell and punctuate; some can’t. Some writers will reveal a lifetime of experience; some will display a youthful naivety.
Secondly, there is massive randomness in the treatment of the books submitted. A variety of readers are likely to be employed; they have their own preferences, their own likes and dislikes, and these will differ one from another. The source of a submission (author, unknown agent, high-powered agent) will itself colour the willingness of the reader to ‘give the book a chance.’
The slush-pile procedure, we will allow, does bring about the publication of books which reach a basic, but fairly modest, professional standard. But no more. It does not facilitate, much less guarantee, the identification of black swans. The procedure, as normally operated, is deeply unsatisfactory.
Part 3: The experiment with rats when applied to publishing
Applicability and relevance
Taleb’s ideas about randomness have proved useful in facilitating clear thinking in a number of fields of activity: for example, Card Player magazine tells us that they are applicable to the game of poker. It will therefore be useful to go through each of the points made in Part 1 and to examine their relevance to the book trade in general and the writer’s position in particular.
The first thought that struck me, on reading Taleb’s draft chapter for his book on black swans, was that the experiment with rats is closely analogous to the process of selecting books from the slush pile. And, just in case there is anyone reading this who doesn’t know what a slush pile is, let me explain.
Defining the slush pile
Unknown and unpublished writers tend to be, as remarked in Part 1, wildly ambitious and eager for fame, money, and literary reputation. To achieve these objectives they have to get published. And to get published they have to arrange, as a first step, for their work to be offered to publishers.
In the past, it was common for novelists to submit their completed manuscripts to publishers themselves. Every day the postman would deliver, to every publisher in the land, a pile of ten or twenty manuscripts. These unsolicited submissions are known in the book trade, throughout the English-speaking world, as the slush pile.
The term ‘slush pile’ gives a clear flavour of the contempt in which unsolicited submissions are held. It is widely agreed in publishing circles (on the basis of countless years of experience) that many of these manuscripts will be unreadable, unpublishable junk. But it is also the case (as history demonstrates) that the slush pile will occasionally contain a black swan.
One point to note is that every writer, and every novel, is at some point in someone’s slush pile. With absolutely no exceptions.
At some stage, and possibly at many different stages, decisions have to be made on whether to continue to consider a book for publication, or to send it back to its author with a rejection slip. This iterated process has its parallels with the rats-in-the-vat experiment. The rats which were submitted to radiation included every type of rat: fat, thin, strong, weak, young, old. Similarly the slush pile contains writers and manuscripts covering the whole range of ability and quality, from masterpieces to illiterate rubbish.
The role of literary agents
For over a hundred years there have been individuals within the book trade who undertake to handle the business side of writers’ affairs for them. These literary agents, as they are called, will submit manuscripts to publishers, negotiate a contract, and check royalty statements; they may well give advice on market demands, provide detailed comment on content, undertake editing, and generally act as an intermediary between writer and publisher when things go wrong (as they all too frequently do). In return for these services, an agent will receive an agreed percentage of a writer’s income.
The unknown writer, let us say a single mother living on a council estate in Gateshead, will these days find it impossible to submit a novel to a major publisher; the publisher will simply send it back to her, unread, accompanied by the advice that she should try to find an agent to represent her. So the unknown young woman from Gateshead will end up in an agent’s slush pile rather than a publisher’s.
If, at some point, the writer is accepted as a client by an agent, the agent will then offer the book to a publisher, usually to an editor with whom the agent is on first-name, let’s-do-lunch terms. The book is then part of the editor’s slush pile.
If, in the course of further time, our young lady from Gateshead happens to generate a black swan which amazes the entire universe with its brilliance, she will still find that her next novel will still end up in the editor’s slush pile, in the sense that its publication will have to be subject to a conscious decision. The new book may rise immediately to the top of the editor’s reading pile, and the decision to go ahead with publication of the second novel may be uncontested, but a decision will have to be made, none the less.
And by the way, publication of book number two, or number twenty-two, even to follow a big success, may not be uncontested; it may be a matter of considerable debate. In 1986, after Dean Koontz had published fifty-four novels, he appeared on the US hardcover bestseller list with Strangers. He then wrote Lightning, which involved him in a bitter struggle with his editor, who prophesied the end of his career if it was published. Koontz insisted that publication should proceed, and in due course he was proved right, because Lightning became another hardcover bestseller. The editor concerned was Phyllis Grann, then at Putnam.
What the slush-pile process is designed to do
The purpose of the experiment with rats was to find the ‘strongest’ rats – strength being regarded, by the designers of the experiment, as the most desirable of all possible characteristics. To this end, increasingly high doses of radiation were administered until in the end there were only a few rats left.
But what is the slush-pile process – whether undertaken by agents or publishers – designed to do?
Everyone in the book trade is anxious to find the ‘best’ books. Different participants in the trade will have differing definitions of ‘best’. For some it will mean the books which generate the most income. For others it will mean the books which get the most favourable reviews from the highbrow critics. But if the submission and selection process has any purpose at all it is to select the ‘best’ books from the point of view of the organisation conducting that process. In particular, it is surely the hope of most parties that the process of selecting books from the slush pile will throw up an occasional black swan.
How the slush pile is dealt with
If, every day, the postman brings even as few as ten manuscripts into an agent’s office, the agent must assume (if she is willing to consider them at all) that among these unsolicited and unpromising submissions there may perhaps be the twenty-first-century equivalent of Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, or Harry Potter; or perhaps a Booker Prize winner. She therefore has to give at least some serious consideration to these manuscripts.
Perhaps our agent is super-conscientious, a mistress of the management of time, and can manage without sleep. In those circumstances she may even do the initial trawl through the manuscripts herself. But that is unlikely to happen. It is more than probable that the busy agent will employ a reader to do the job for her. The reader will discard the manuscripts which are judged to be hopeless and leave a relatively manageable number for a final decision by the boss.
Over the past fifty years or so much has been written about the role of the slush-pile reader; the experiences described are mainly those of individuals who worked in publishers’ offices in the days when big-time publishers were still willing to consider submissions from the public; but we shall be safe, I think, in assuming that the process is much the same wherever it occurs.
Since the job of sorting through the slush pile is generally reckoned to be soul-destroying, it is almost invariably given to the newest and most junior member of staff: the one who is in no position to refuse. Such people are seldom given any training. (Until recently no one got any training in publishing anyway, unless it was in the form of ‘Sit by Nelly and watch what she does.’)
The volume of work is such that the reader cannot possibly give more than a few minutes to any one manuscript, unless it proves to be unusually promising. Often, those who have done the job claim that to read one paragraph is sufficient to enable a rejection decision to be made.
Here is what one publishing professional, Andrew Taylor, had to say about the task, writing in The Bookseller in 1996: ‘In an average day’s work at a publisher’s office, I aim to assess 7 to 10 submissions and write reports on each of them which vary in length from 2 to 500 words.’
Mr Taylor is more generous with his time than some publishers’ readers. Giles Gordon once stated that when he was the slush-pile reader at Gollancz, he learnt how to tell whether a manuscript was any good within 15 seconds. ‘It’s just a matter of practice,’ he said airily.
Literary agent Pat Kavanagh takes much the same view. ‘Two pages will tell you if a book from the slush pile is worth pursuing.’
The results of the search through the slush pile
It is generally reckoned that, however carefully or otherwise the slush pile is read, it is rare to find anything in it which is worth even the most cursory consideration as a candidate for publication.
The agent Pat Kavanagh, mentioned above, was asked how often she had found a book in the slush pile that was worth pursuing. ‘Never,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe it has ever happened to me.’
Barry Turner, in The Writer’s Handbook, once mentioned an agent who fared a little better than that, but not much. In 14 years of reading 25-30 manuscripts a month, the agent found 5 good ones. Another agent, at Curtis Brown, personally received 1,200 manuscripts in one year, and took on 2 of the authors as clients. One agent at perhaps the largest UK agency remarked recently that she was having to read 3,000 manuscripts in order to find 1 client.
In 1989, The Times reported that the well-known British imprint Hutchinson was receiving about 1,000 manuscripts a year. One of these unsolicited manuscripts might be published every couple of years or so. Maybe.
At Chatto and Windus the Times reporter was told that about 10 manuscripts arrived every day. Were they all read? Long pause. ‘Yes.’ Were any ever taken on? Long pause. ‘No.’
The largest publisher of romantic novels in the UK is Mills & Boon, or Harlequin Mills & Boon, to give the firm its full name. The Mills & Boon editorial director has stated that the firm receives 6,000 manuscripts a year from hopeful and so-far-unpublished writers. Out of these submissions, the company takes on, in a good year, about 10 new writers.
In 1995, the owner of two small publishing firms in the USA reported in Publishers Weekly that he had received nearly 7,000 offers of books in the previous twelve months, and had decided to accept 12 of these submissions.
A much larger and more prestigious American firm, Viking, agreed to publish only one unsolicited manuscript in 26 years; that was Ordinary People, by Judith Guest. The book went on to become a bestseller as well as the basis for a successful film.
Finally, the publisher Anthony Blond, writing in The Spectator, maintained that the acceptance rate of unsolicited manuscripts was 1 in 2,000, in both London and New York.
And so on. Taleb rightly advises us against drawing general conclusions from insufficient data (the Baconian flaw), but it would be wearisome, and it is surely unnecessary, to go further.
We can safely conclude, I suggest, that very few manuscripts are picked out of the slush pile – anyone’s slush pile, whether agent or publisher – with a view to being taken further.
It follows therefore, as dogs follow a bitch in season, that a writer’s chances of achieving any kind of success are extraordinarily small. There is only the slimmest chance that a new and as yet unpublished writer will be taken on to an agent’s list of clients; even if taken on as a client, there is no guarantee of publication; and even if the writer is published, the chances of achieving any kind of critical or commercial success are also small.
Famous rejections
Few manuscripts are selected from the slush pile; but we know for certain that some of those which are rejected are in fact worthy of publication – worthy by any standards, whether literary or commercial.
We have already had one example of a black swan which was unrecognised by everyone when it was still in manuscript: Harry Potter. The sole editor in London publishing who was interested in the first Harry Potter book, by a completely unknown author, was Barry Cunningham of Bloomsbury.
‘If it hadn’t been for Barry,’ said J.K. Rowling in 2000, ‘Harry Potter might still be languishing in his cupboard under the stairs.’ A long succession of editors had previously described the book as ‘too long’, ‘too complex’, and ‘too old-fashioned’.
This instance is almost enough, on its own, to prove that slush-pile readers’ judgements are fallible. However, we don’t need to limit ourselves to one example. Here are some others.
MASH, which became one of the most famous series in the history of television, was originally a novel. It was rejected by 21 publishers over a period of seven years before eventually finding a home. After publication, it was adapted as a successful cinema film before being developed for television.
In a more literary vein, the most famous case is that of the American novelist, John Kennedy Toole. In the early 1960s Toole was made emotionally unstable by the frequent rejection of his book A Confederacy of Dunces, and in 1969 he committed suicide.
Toole’s mother then took on the task of trying to find a publisher for the book on which her son had laboured so hard. She finally managed it, and in 1981 the novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. A Confederacy of Dunces was hailed by the New York Times as a ‘masterwork of comedy’ (though I’m afraid I never got so much as a smile out of it myself).
There are many other cases in publishing history of books becoming famous and successful only after a long struggle to achieve publication. James Joyce’s Dubliners was rejected by 22 publishers; and Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel by 12. There are so many such ill-advised rejections, in fact, that a whole book has been written about them: André Bernard’s Rotten Rejections. This book includes, among other things, a letter from a publisher in reference to an agent’s submission of an early John Le Carré novel. ‘You’re welcome to Le Carré,’ said the publisher. ‘He hasn’t got any future.’
George Greenfield, an agent, told a story about Enid Blyton, who was published by Macmillan, and whose innumerable books for children sold so many copies that they paid the salaries of most of the staff. On one occasion Enid had heard that her usual editor had left the firm, but no one had told her the name of her new editor. So, when she had completed her next book, she simply addressed it to ‘Macmillan & Co’. The manuscript went into the slush pile, and in due course was rejected.
A similar instance of the rejection of a work by a famous author occurred early in the career of Giles Gordon.
Giles was then working for Hutchinson, which was run by Robert Lusty. At the time, Hutchinson’s most profitable author was Dennis Wheatley, who is now largely forgotten but was then a sort of English Stephen King. At his death, Wheatley had 50 books in print, and total sales were 41 million copies. As with Enid Blyton, the income from his novels was making a massive contribution to his publisher’s profits.
Giles Gordon was a young man with fastidious tastes, and by his own admission he felt nothing but contempt for Wheatley; and so, when Wheatley’s new novel arrived, Giles had it sent out for a slush-pile report as if it was from an unknown.
The report which came back was not favourable. ‘The book is terribly hackneyed,’ declared the reader. ‘Decline.’
Giles showed this report to his boss, Robert Lusty, who was not amused. Giles was told to publish the book in short order.
‘In spite of my best efforts,’ said Giles, ‘Dennis Wheatley’s career continued to prosper.’
This story demonstrates a number of points. One, that young men are often arrogant, ignorant and stupid; two, that mature publishers usually develop a degree of common sense; and three, that slush-pile readers… Well, what can one say about the Hutchinson reader in this case? He or she failed to recognise a new book by the firm’s principal asset. Does this generate any confidence in that reader in particular, or the slush-pile process in general?
Writers hit back
Every so often, repeated rejection of what the author believes is a good book leads to an attack of blind rage, out of which comes a determination to prove that publishers are complete fools. Sadly, this is not too difficult to achieve, at least in particular instances.
The usual procedure to obtain revenge is to type out a chapter or two of a current bestseller, give it a new title, and submit it to publishers as your own work. I know of at least three occasions when this experiment has been carried out, with results which will not, I think, surprise you. I will quote only one example here.
In the summer of 2000, the French publisher Plon issued a novel which had been written by a famous television presenter; the book was a great ‘success’, in that the author was interviewed widely, made many personal appearances, and the public was persuaded to buy a large number of copies.
The magazine Voici decided, however, that this novel was less than interesting, and that it would never have been published at all had it come from an unknown author. Voici typed out the first chapter of the book and offered it, under a pseudonym, to every leading publisher in France. None of them wanted to read the full manuscript, and none even recognised it as the season’s hit – including Plon, which had published the book in the first place.
We have surely assembled enough evidence about the slush pile. We now need to consider some of Taleb’s types of erroneous thinking, apply these to the world of publishing, and see what can be learnt which might be of value.
Flaws in the slush-pile methodology
We noted above that the experiment with rats was designed to identify the ‘strongest’ rats, and that it failed to do so because of flaws in the methodology.
There is sufficient evidence provided above (and elsewhere) to convince the author of this essay, if no one else, that the slush-pile procedure is also flawed. It is intended to identify the ‘strongest’ or the ‘best’ books (however defined), and it demonstrably fails to do so.
Taleb tells us that, in any experiment or procedure, there will be a difference between the desired outcome (in this case identification of the best books) and the actual outcome if there is either variance in the base cohort, or randomness in treatment.
In the slush-pile procedure both of these factors are present.
The base cohort contains a wide range of variance. The books submitted will range from the sub-literate to the masterly. Some writers can spell and punctuate; some can’t. Some writers will reveal a lifetime of experience; some will display a youthful naivety.
Secondly, there is massive randomness in the treatment of the books submitted. A variety of readers are likely to be employed; they have their own preferences, their own likes and dislikes, and these will differ one from another. The source of a submission (author, unknown agent, high-powered agent) will itself colour the willingness of the reader to ‘give the book a chance.’
The slush-pile procedure, we will allow, does bring about the publication of books which reach a basic, but fairly modest, professional standard. But no more. It does not facilitate, much less guarantee, the identification of black swans. The procedure, as normally operated, is deeply unsatisfactory.
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
On the Survival of Rats in the Slush Pile -- Part 2
Continued from yesterday. Here is Part 2 of my new essay on writing and publishing. Please remember that, if at any point you decide that you would like to have all of this essay available in one lump, you can go here and download the whole thing as a PDF file. You can then print it out, pass it to friends, et cetera.
Part 2: The experiment with rats
The experiment described
Taleb is under contract to produce a book on black swans; and, at the time of writing this essay, he has posted a draft chapter from the book on his web site. The present title of the chapter is ‘On the Invisibility of the Drowned Worshippers’, which is a reference to the work of Francis Bacon in the seventeenth century.
Bacon, it seems, was once shown a set of portraits of men who had survived shipwrecks; these portraits had been commissioned by the Church authorities. The subjects of the portraits were all good Christians: before embarking on a voyage they had taken the steps recommended by the Church for those in peril from the sea; these preparations no doubt included going to communion, spending a great deal of time praying, and, I imagine, making a substantial contribution to Church funds.
The result of these Christian preparations was that, when their ship sank, lo and behold, God rewarded them by saving their lives: hence their portraits, which were presented by the Church authorities as an example to others.
It was Francis Bacon who asked one of those questions that you’re not supposed to ask. Where, he enquired, were the portraits of those mariners who, before their voyage, had also gone to communion, said their prayers, and made a contribution to Church funds, but had nevertheless drowned? These were the ‘drowned worshippers’ who had become invisible. The Church, through some oversight, had not mentioned them, or commissioned their portraits.
The drowned worshippers constitute a phenomenon which will often be mentioned in this essay: survivorship bias. We human beings are fallible creatures, and we have a habit of seeing only the survivors of a set of experiences. This, Taleb tells us, is an error in thinking which can get us into serious trouble.
In the course of his draft chapter from the book on black swans, Taleb sets out to describe several other kinds of erroneous thinking. In order to illustrate these errors, he asks us to imagine an experiment with rats. (And since this is a hypothetical experiment I can give an absolute assurance that no animals were harmed during the writing of this essay.)
Suppose, Taleb says, that we have access to a city full of rats: rats of all kinds, fat, thin, sickly, strong, well proportioned, et cetera. In order to determine which of these rats are the strongest, we select a random sample, one that is truly representative of the rat population as a whole. We then put the sample group into a large vat and subject the rats to increasingly high levels of radiation.
As the levels of radiation increase, many of the rats will die. By the end of the experiment (unless you take it too far and kill them all) you will be left with a small number of survivors.
Taleb uses this hypothetical experiment, and its results, to illustrate a number of errors in thinking.
Flaws in the methodology
First, we need to think about the experimental procedure itself. Alert readers will already have noticed that the methodology of the experiment, as described for the purposes of this essay, is flawed.
The intention is to select the ‘strongest’ rats. But while the experiment will certainly reduce the numbers of rats, there is no guarantee that the survivors will be the strongest.
The surviving rats would only be the ‘strongest’ in the limited sense that they were the ones best able to withstand increasing doses of radiation. They might not be the strongest in terms of ability to survive without water, or ability to climb fences. The ability to withstand radiation might or might not be a useful characteristic in the real world.
Second, at least some of the survivor rats may have survived by pure chance. At the moment when the next blast of radiation was administered, a ‘weak’ rat may have been shielded from radiation by a ‘strong’ rat. Furthermore, there might be some variations in the way in which the radiation was distributed around the vat: in some spots (perhaps towards the rim) the rats might absorb less than in other spots.
In short, the design of the procedure leaves much to be desired; and this, we shall see, is the case with some procedures in publishing.
Survivorship bias
We have already noted the phenomenon which is known in statistics as survivorship bias; and history suggests that it is all too easy to fall prey to this lax way of thinking.
Survivorship bias involves mistaking what you see for what is really there. The tendency is for human beings to see only the survivors of some set of circumstances, and to ignore those who, for one reason or another, disappeared or dropped out as events proceeded. We often find ourselves earnestly discussing the traits in a cohort of survivors when, in truth, those traits are no different from those in a much larger population; if you consider the circumstances carefully it may be apparent that the survivors emerged as a result of sheer randomness, rather than through the possession of some special qualities.
It may be, if clear thinking is applied to any set of events, that those who dropped out, voluntarily, or were eliminated, perhaps as a result of chance, have at least as much to teach us about what is important and relevant as those who survived.
Nietzsche’s error
Nietzsche is responsible for the aphorism ‘What does not kill me makes me stronger.’ If repeated, in a suitably solemn tone of voice, in front of a group of people who are aware that Nietzsche is a Big Name in Philosophy, this dictum may well induce nods of agreement. And you may sometimes hear people say, after a young person has had some kind of setback, ‘Well, he will be all the better for the experience.’ Once in a while it might even be true.
In general, however, Nietzsche’s aphorism is nonsense. On the physical level, a car crash which brings you close to the point of death may leave you paralysed for life. So, although you are not actually dead, you are certainly not stronger than before. And in an emotional context, a bereavement which causes you seriously to contemplate suicide may, even if you do not succumb to the temptation, leave you lonely and depressed.
So it is with our rats. The rats which survived our experiment are by no means necessarily stronger. In reality, there is a good chance that they will be weaker. Radiation is not often good for you.
Taleb quotes a newspaper article about the Russian Mafia, which referred to the new generation of gangsters as being ‘hardened by their Gulag experiences’. But, if any modern gangsters have indeed survived the Gulag, they are hardly likely to have been ‘hardened’; the camps were not famous for providing fitness-training courses.
Despite these readily apparent flaws in Nietzsche’s aphorism, there are circumstances in which people behave as if it were true. We often assume that survivors of some intense selection process are stronger than those who were eliminated. We assume that survivors are necessarily the best of the cohort; whereas in reality the procedure may have been flawed and they may simply have emerged by chance.
The dead rats, you see, are no longer around to steal our cheese, or to give us Weil’s disease. Whatever their strengths or weaknesses, virtues or vices, they are gone, and are mourned by nobody. We forget them. But it is a mistake to overlook them because some of them, at least, might well have had characteristics which would be valuable outside the context of our flawed selection procedures.
Another point to note is that the survivors, the chosen few, will themselves tend to conclude, falsely, that they are necessarily superior to those who died. Usually, the nature of rats being what it is, they will conclude that they are infinitely superior to the dead. Some humans share this characteristic.
The swimmer’s body
Another mistake in thinking is described by Taleb as ‘the swimmer’s body’ error.
It is observable that athletes who participate in different events have differing physiques: rugby forwards are big and beefy; high jumpers are tall and slim; and swimmers often have rather beautifully proportioned bodies with ‘elongated muscles’.
Observers who are fuzzy thinkers sometimes conclude from this that if they want to have a beautifully proportioned body they should take up swimming. But this is what is known, in popular parlance, as getting things arse over tip.
Swimmers do not end up looking beautiful because they took up swimming; they excel at swimming because they have the kind of physique which lends itself to fast progress through water, and which is itself aesthetically pleasing, the more so when developed by exercise.
The swimmer’s body error often involves the false attribution of a particular outcome to a particular set of traits. In the business world, it is not unusual to find books which purport to identify the common characteristics of successful entrepreneurs. The analysis is usually based on the careers and backgrounds of those who have got to the top, and it generally yields a list of such ‘success factors’ as optimism, confidence, and a willingness to take risks. Yet had the researchers interviewed those who failed in business, going bankrupt within two or three years, they would undoubtedly have found the same characteristics present.
By the way, it does not necessarily follow from this (should you be tempted to think it) that the successful entrepreneurs are successful only as a result of chance, or random events; but it is a mistake to attribute their success to qualities which they share with many of those who failed.
Casanova: a case history
Casanova’s famous memoirs tell of a life of continual setbacks and escapes from dangerous situations, followed by periods of prosperity and advancement. His was a roller-coaster ride, and it seems that, when it came to overcoming difficulties, Casanova was an unusually resourceful man.
This impression is false. In the above paragraph, the words ‘it seems’ are the crucial ones. We know about Casanova simply because, through a series of accidents of fate – random events – he happened to survive long enough to write a ten-volume set of memoirs about his escapades.
Other adventurers, thousands of them, doubtless got into similar scrapes and difficulties, but they ended their days on a dueller’s sword or died in a debtors’ prison. Casanova was not unusually talented or resourceful: there was nothing to differentiate him from any other self-serving layabout except that Madame Randomness happened to take a shine to him.
Next step
It would be possible to spend some time discussing Taleb’s arguments and examples, which are not without their own weaknesses. That, however, is not the point of this essay. The point here is to learn to think clearly about writing and publishing; and to that end we will now apply some of Taleb’s ideas to the present-day circumstances of writers and publishers, and see what emerges.
Part 2: The experiment with rats
The experiment described
Taleb is under contract to produce a book on black swans; and, at the time of writing this essay, he has posted a draft chapter from the book on his web site. The present title of the chapter is ‘On the Invisibility of the Drowned Worshippers’, which is a reference to the work of Francis Bacon in the seventeenth century.
Bacon, it seems, was once shown a set of portraits of men who had survived shipwrecks; these portraits had been commissioned by the Church authorities. The subjects of the portraits were all good Christians: before embarking on a voyage they had taken the steps recommended by the Church for those in peril from the sea; these preparations no doubt included going to communion, spending a great deal of time praying, and, I imagine, making a substantial contribution to Church funds.
The result of these Christian preparations was that, when their ship sank, lo and behold, God rewarded them by saving their lives: hence their portraits, which were presented by the Church authorities as an example to others.
It was Francis Bacon who asked one of those questions that you’re not supposed to ask. Where, he enquired, were the portraits of those mariners who, before their voyage, had also gone to communion, said their prayers, and made a contribution to Church funds, but had nevertheless drowned? These were the ‘drowned worshippers’ who had become invisible. The Church, through some oversight, had not mentioned them, or commissioned their portraits.
The drowned worshippers constitute a phenomenon which will often be mentioned in this essay: survivorship bias. We human beings are fallible creatures, and we have a habit of seeing only the survivors of a set of experiences. This, Taleb tells us, is an error in thinking which can get us into serious trouble.
In the course of his draft chapter from the book on black swans, Taleb sets out to describe several other kinds of erroneous thinking. In order to illustrate these errors, he asks us to imagine an experiment with rats. (And since this is a hypothetical experiment I can give an absolute assurance that no animals were harmed during the writing of this essay.)
Suppose, Taleb says, that we have access to a city full of rats: rats of all kinds, fat, thin, sickly, strong, well proportioned, et cetera. In order to determine which of these rats are the strongest, we select a random sample, one that is truly representative of the rat population as a whole. We then put the sample group into a large vat and subject the rats to increasingly high levels of radiation.
As the levels of radiation increase, many of the rats will die. By the end of the experiment (unless you take it too far and kill them all) you will be left with a small number of survivors.
Taleb uses this hypothetical experiment, and its results, to illustrate a number of errors in thinking.
Flaws in the methodology
First, we need to think about the experimental procedure itself. Alert readers will already have noticed that the methodology of the experiment, as described for the purposes of this essay, is flawed.
The intention is to select the ‘strongest’ rats. But while the experiment will certainly reduce the numbers of rats, there is no guarantee that the survivors will be the strongest.
The surviving rats would only be the ‘strongest’ in the limited sense that they were the ones best able to withstand increasing doses of radiation. They might not be the strongest in terms of ability to survive without water, or ability to climb fences. The ability to withstand radiation might or might not be a useful characteristic in the real world.
Second, at least some of the survivor rats may have survived by pure chance. At the moment when the next blast of radiation was administered, a ‘weak’ rat may have been shielded from radiation by a ‘strong’ rat. Furthermore, there might be some variations in the way in which the radiation was distributed around the vat: in some spots (perhaps towards the rim) the rats might absorb less than in other spots.
In short, the design of the procedure leaves much to be desired; and this, we shall see, is the case with some procedures in publishing.
Survivorship bias
We have already noted the phenomenon which is known in statistics as survivorship bias; and history suggests that it is all too easy to fall prey to this lax way of thinking.
Survivorship bias involves mistaking what you see for what is really there. The tendency is for human beings to see only the survivors of some set of circumstances, and to ignore those who, for one reason or another, disappeared or dropped out as events proceeded. We often find ourselves earnestly discussing the traits in a cohort of survivors when, in truth, those traits are no different from those in a much larger population; if you consider the circumstances carefully it may be apparent that the survivors emerged as a result of sheer randomness, rather than through the possession of some special qualities.
It may be, if clear thinking is applied to any set of events, that those who dropped out, voluntarily, or were eliminated, perhaps as a result of chance, have at least as much to teach us about what is important and relevant as those who survived.
Nietzsche’s error
Nietzsche is responsible for the aphorism ‘What does not kill me makes me stronger.’ If repeated, in a suitably solemn tone of voice, in front of a group of people who are aware that Nietzsche is a Big Name in Philosophy, this dictum may well induce nods of agreement. And you may sometimes hear people say, after a young person has had some kind of setback, ‘Well, he will be all the better for the experience.’ Once in a while it might even be true.
In general, however, Nietzsche’s aphorism is nonsense. On the physical level, a car crash which brings you close to the point of death may leave you paralysed for life. So, although you are not actually dead, you are certainly not stronger than before. And in an emotional context, a bereavement which causes you seriously to contemplate suicide may, even if you do not succumb to the temptation, leave you lonely and depressed.
So it is with our rats. The rats which survived our experiment are by no means necessarily stronger. In reality, there is a good chance that they will be weaker. Radiation is not often good for you.
Taleb quotes a newspaper article about the Russian Mafia, which referred to the new generation of gangsters as being ‘hardened by their Gulag experiences’. But, if any modern gangsters have indeed survived the Gulag, they are hardly likely to have been ‘hardened’; the camps were not famous for providing fitness-training courses.
Despite these readily apparent flaws in Nietzsche’s aphorism, there are circumstances in which people behave as if it were true. We often assume that survivors of some intense selection process are stronger than those who were eliminated. We assume that survivors are necessarily the best of the cohort; whereas in reality the procedure may have been flawed and they may simply have emerged by chance.
The dead rats, you see, are no longer around to steal our cheese, or to give us Weil’s disease. Whatever their strengths or weaknesses, virtues or vices, they are gone, and are mourned by nobody. We forget them. But it is a mistake to overlook them because some of them, at least, might well have had characteristics which would be valuable outside the context of our flawed selection procedures.
Another point to note is that the survivors, the chosen few, will themselves tend to conclude, falsely, that they are necessarily superior to those who died. Usually, the nature of rats being what it is, they will conclude that they are infinitely superior to the dead. Some humans share this characteristic.
The swimmer’s body
Another mistake in thinking is described by Taleb as ‘the swimmer’s body’ error.
It is observable that athletes who participate in different events have differing physiques: rugby forwards are big and beefy; high jumpers are tall and slim; and swimmers often have rather beautifully proportioned bodies with ‘elongated muscles’.
Observers who are fuzzy thinkers sometimes conclude from this that if they want to have a beautifully proportioned body they should take up swimming. But this is what is known, in popular parlance, as getting things arse over tip.
Swimmers do not end up looking beautiful because they took up swimming; they excel at swimming because they have the kind of physique which lends itself to fast progress through water, and which is itself aesthetically pleasing, the more so when developed by exercise.
The swimmer’s body error often involves the false attribution of a particular outcome to a particular set of traits. In the business world, it is not unusual to find books which purport to identify the common characteristics of successful entrepreneurs. The analysis is usually based on the careers and backgrounds of those who have got to the top, and it generally yields a list of such ‘success factors’ as optimism, confidence, and a willingness to take risks. Yet had the researchers interviewed those who failed in business, going bankrupt within two or three years, they would undoubtedly have found the same characteristics present.
By the way, it does not necessarily follow from this (should you be tempted to think it) that the successful entrepreneurs are successful only as a result of chance, or random events; but it is a mistake to attribute their success to qualities which they share with many of those who failed.
Casanova: a case history
Casanova’s famous memoirs tell of a life of continual setbacks and escapes from dangerous situations, followed by periods of prosperity and advancement. His was a roller-coaster ride, and it seems that, when it came to overcoming difficulties, Casanova was an unusually resourceful man.
This impression is false. In the above paragraph, the words ‘it seems’ are the crucial ones. We know about Casanova simply because, through a series of accidents of fate – random events – he happened to survive long enough to write a ten-volume set of memoirs about his escapades.
Other adventurers, thousands of them, doubtless got into similar scrapes and difficulties, but they ended their days on a dueller’s sword or died in a debtors’ prison. Casanova was not unusually talented or resourceful: there was nothing to differentiate him from any other self-serving layabout except that Madame Randomness happened to take a shine to him.
Next step
It would be possible to spend some time discussing Taleb’s arguments and examples, which are not without their own weaknesses. That, however, is not the point of this essay. The point here is to learn to think clearly about writing and publishing; and to that end we will now apply some of Taleb’s ideas to the present-day circumstances of writers and publishers, and see what emerges.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Richard Curtis: On the road to virtual
On 27 January I drew attention to a series of three articles by the US agent Richard Curtis, available on Backspace. The articles describe the changes that have occurred in publishing over the last few years, and the third article in the series, which has just appeared, attempts to look into the 'virtual' future.
You should read Curtis's series of articles in full, but here, just to get you interested, are a few comments on number three.
Curtis suggests that, while the people who work in publishing have (eventually) accepted digital innovations, such as email, they may have overlooked what he calls a 'shift to a new publishing paradigm.'
To my mind this is an unfortunate form of words. It makes Curtis sound like a third-rate sociology lecturer from the 1980s, and I think he's better than that. 'Paradigm shift' is the sort phrase that people use when they wanted to dazzle you with bullshit, and it's not very helpful. Insofar as the phrase has any meaning at all, I think it just means that tastes and fashions have changed, and that new ways of doing things have become available. And in publishing that's certainly true.
Curtis rightly points out that the experience of reading stuff on screen is different from that of reading text on paper. You've probably noticed this from your own experience. I certainly have; I am much more inclined to skip and skim through text on screen than I would be if I was holding a book or a sheet of paper. Which is why I have repeatedly suggested that my long essay On the Survival of Rats in the Slush Pile is best downloaded as a PDF file and then printed out on paper; that way, if I may make so bold, you are more likely to get the full benefit of it.
However, we have to acknowledge, as Curtis does, that, in the wonderful new age in which we now live, people are reluctant to print stuff out. No less a person than M.J. Rose has told me so, and I believe it. Curtis also points out, again correctly, that this circumstance will affect the nature of the book itself.
A consequence of this, says Curtis, is that 'the new breed of publishing animal seems to exhibit diminished confidence in the power of words alone.' So if, as a writer, you want to do business with these people (which I do not recommend), you have to take that change of attitude into account.
Modern publishers now tend to be interested in many other things besides, or before, the manuscript of a new book: they want to know what the author looks like; whether she is the owner of a chain of shops, or hosts a TV series, or can otherwise get exposure. Can the book, potentially, at least, be turned into a video game, a movie, a web site? All of these factors may influence a decision on whether to even bother reading the author's manuscript.
Yes, some people are undoubtedly concentrating on the multimedia possibilities of text and author. But the new technology has generated another effect too -- in the opposite direction.
Some writers (me, for instance) and some readers (me, for instance) have begun deliberately to concentrate solely on the text, and to ignore, consciously, all these other 'wonderful possibilities'. For well over fifty years I have been interested in the power of words, and I am now much more interested in the layout of text on the page than I was in the past.
Just as it is true that reading words on screen provides a different experience from reading them on the printed page, it is also true that the choice of font, the size of the type, the lengths of sentences and paragraphs, all of these have a largely unconscious but in my view quite profound effect on the reader. And so when I now present text on paper (or even on screen) I pay very close attention to those factors -- at least when I have any control over them. And if you publish your own stuff in printed form, as I do, then you do have control.
Curtis then moves on to blogging, and he tells us that some writers are making money from their blogs. Are they indeed. Very few of them, I suggest, and not much money.
Curtis's belief is that blogs will meet the needs of niche audiences, people who feel passionately about particular subjects or issues, and that in due course advertising will be targeted precisely at these readers, thus generating lots of moolah for those who write the blogs. Hmmm. Don't hold your breath, is my view.
Curtis also suggests that blogs can be 'enhanced' by all sorts of fancy doo-dahs in the graphics line. Well, yes, you can clutter your blog with pics of the kids and the dog if you wish, or even with pictures of Britney. But blogs began with the word, and it is still, I believe, the word that counts.
And what of the future? Curtis presents us with a picture of publishing in which the big firms become less and less influential and authors become more powerful. Possibly. The trouble with predictions of this kind is that we have heard them all before, and they never work out as envisaged. All we can say for certain is that things will not stay the same, and we cannot predict how they will change.
Meanwhile, I could not help smiling about one point. A couple of weeks ago I wanted to send Curtis an email. At the end of his articles on Backspace there is a full description of his achievements but there is no email address for him. His firm does have a web site, but the contact information provides nothing but a snailmail address. In short, Richard Curtis, who undoubtedly does have an email address somewhere, doesn't seem to be at all keen that anyone should contact him by that means.
For a man who writes about the electronic future, and who begins part III of his survey of modern publishing by telling us that agents now have to do most of their business by email, this seems a little odd, don't you think?
I understand the reasons, of course. Richard Curtis doesn't want to be bothered by the likes of you and me. He would rather we didn't send him 430 unsolicited mss a day, as email attachments.
However, if you're really keen to let Richard know what you think of his articles on Backspace, you can find an email address for him (as you would expect) on Everyone Who's Anyone.
You should read Curtis's series of articles in full, but here, just to get you interested, are a few comments on number three.
Curtis suggests that, while the people who work in publishing have (eventually) accepted digital innovations, such as email, they may have overlooked what he calls a 'shift to a new publishing paradigm.'
To my mind this is an unfortunate form of words. It makes Curtis sound like a third-rate sociology lecturer from the 1980s, and I think he's better than that. 'Paradigm shift' is the sort phrase that people use when they wanted to dazzle you with bullshit, and it's not very helpful. Insofar as the phrase has any meaning at all, I think it just means that tastes and fashions have changed, and that new ways of doing things have become available. And in publishing that's certainly true.
Curtis rightly points out that the experience of reading stuff on screen is different from that of reading text on paper. You've probably noticed this from your own experience. I certainly have; I am much more inclined to skip and skim through text on screen than I would be if I was holding a book or a sheet of paper. Which is why I have repeatedly suggested that my long essay On the Survival of Rats in the Slush Pile is best downloaded as a PDF file and then printed out on paper; that way, if I may make so bold, you are more likely to get the full benefit of it.
However, we have to acknowledge, as Curtis does, that, in the wonderful new age in which we now live, people are reluctant to print stuff out. No less a person than M.J. Rose has told me so, and I believe it. Curtis also points out, again correctly, that this circumstance will affect the nature of the book itself.
A consequence of this, says Curtis, is that 'the new breed of publishing animal seems to exhibit diminished confidence in the power of words alone.' So if, as a writer, you want to do business with these people (which I do not recommend), you have to take that change of attitude into account.
Modern publishers now tend to be interested in many other things besides, or before, the manuscript of a new book: they want to know what the author looks like; whether she is the owner of a chain of shops, or hosts a TV series, or can otherwise get exposure. Can the book, potentially, at least, be turned into a video game, a movie, a web site? All of these factors may influence a decision on whether to even bother reading the author's manuscript.
Yes, some people are undoubtedly concentrating on the multimedia possibilities of text and author. But the new technology has generated another effect too -- in the opposite direction.
Some writers (me, for instance) and some readers (me, for instance) have begun deliberately to concentrate solely on the text, and to ignore, consciously, all these other 'wonderful possibilities'. For well over fifty years I have been interested in the power of words, and I am now much more interested in the layout of text on the page than I was in the past.
Just as it is true that reading words on screen provides a different experience from reading them on the printed page, it is also true that the choice of font, the size of the type, the lengths of sentences and paragraphs, all of these have a largely unconscious but in my view quite profound effect on the reader. And so when I now present text on paper (or even on screen) I pay very close attention to those factors -- at least when I have any control over them. And if you publish your own stuff in printed form, as I do, then you do have control.
Curtis then moves on to blogging, and he tells us that some writers are making money from their blogs. Are they indeed. Very few of them, I suggest, and not much money.
Curtis's belief is that blogs will meet the needs of niche audiences, people who feel passionately about particular subjects or issues, and that in due course advertising will be targeted precisely at these readers, thus generating lots of moolah for those who write the blogs. Hmmm. Don't hold your breath, is my view.
Curtis also suggests that blogs can be 'enhanced' by all sorts of fancy doo-dahs in the graphics line. Well, yes, you can clutter your blog with pics of the kids and the dog if you wish, or even with pictures of Britney. But blogs began with the word, and it is still, I believe, the word that counts.
And what of the future? Curtis presents us with a picture of publishing in which the big firms become less and less influential and authors become more powerful. Possibly. The trouble with predictions of this kind is that we have heard them all before, and they never work out as envisaged. All we can say for certain is that things will not stay the same, and we cannot predict how they will change.
Meanwhile, I could not help smiling about one point. A couple of weeks ago I wanted to send Curtis an email. At the end of his articles on Backspace there is a full description of his achievements but there is no email address for him. His firm does have a web site, but the contact information provides nothing but a snailmail address. In short, Richard Curtis, who undoubtedly does have an email address somewhere, doesn't seem to be at all keen that anyone should contact him by that means.
For a man who writes about the electronic future, and who begins part III of his survey of modern publishing by telling us that agents now have to do most of their business by email, this seems a little odd, don't you think?
I understand the reasons, of course. Richard Curtis doesn't want to be bothered by the likes of you and me. He would rather we didn't send him 430 unsolicited mss a day, as email attachments.
However, if you're really keen to let Richard know what you think of his articles on Backspace, you can find an email address for him (as you would expect) on Everyone Who's Anyone.
On the Survival of Rats in the Slush Pile -- Part 1
Continuing from yesterday, here is Part 1 of my new essay on writing and publishing. Please remember that, if at any point you decide that you would like to have all of this essay available in one lump, you can go here and download the whole thing as a PDF file. You can then print it out, email a copy to friends, have it framed to hang on the wall, et cetera.
Part 1: The concept of black swans
A definition
Before we proceed further, I need to introduce you to the concept of black swans.
In his book Fooled by Randomness, Taleb defined a black swan, in the context of investment management, as an unexpected and catastrophic event which could destroy even a so-called ‘master of the universe’.
Subsequently, Taleb wrote an essay entitled Fooled by Success: the Black Swan and the Arts; and in relation to the arts Taleb defines a black swan as ‘a piece of work that, unexpectedly, captivates interests, spreads like wildfire, and dwarfs other contributions.’ As examples of these massively successful phenomena he quotes the Harry Potter books, Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ, and the success of the Beatles. (Taleb, you see, is not an intellectual snob.)
Black swans in the arts are distinguished by the fact that they occur extremely rarely (when compared with the total amount of work which is offered to the public), and yet they have enormous impact. They provide, in short, exactly the kind of success that every writer (or publisher, producer, actor, et cetera) yearns for.
Taleb argues that these black swans are random events. After they occur, many observers claim to be able to see that their success was inevitable, for reasons which they then proceed to define; most of these reasons have to do with the innate qualities of the work in question. But Taleb maintains that these post-event explanations are essentially false and unreliable. They are highly influenced by hindsight bias, which makes use of ‘posterior information’. Observers of black swans tend to overestimate the analysable and underestimate the non-explainable.
Above all, those who claim to understand black swans (but only after they have come into view) are neglecting the ‘silent evidence’. Taleb maintains that if we are to understand the factors behind the huge success of Harry Potter (to mention but one convenient example) we need to do more than recognise the qualities that are present in the Harry books; we also need to consider the qualities which were present in the thousands of manuscripts which were rejected by agents and publishers and which never even made it into print.
Similarly, Taleb suggests, if we were to try to pin down the reasons for the rise to stardom of some young actor, we would need to consider the qualities present in other young actors – those who were not, for some reason, given a part for which 400 men auditioned. We would need to identify what it was that caused the producer to choose our future star for a part in his film rather than one of the 399 other candidates; and we would be likely to find, Taleb avers, that the producer’s choice had nothing to do with ‘talent’, however defined. Or, to put it another way, we would find that many of the rejected applicants had just as much talent as the future star.
An example: Harry Potter
Just in case you don’t know the much-told story, it is worth recording that the first Harry Potter book was rejected by every major publisher in London (some sources say as many as 20); and when it was eventually bought by Bloomsbury, the one publisher who showed the smallest degree of interest, they paid but a small sum of money for it (sources say between £2,000 and £3,000). Clearly, none of the ‘experts’ who read the book in manuscript, and rejected it, had the slightest inkling of the massive money-making machine which they held in their hands.
Implications
The Harry Potter case is an all-too-typical example of the failure to identify a black swan at an early stage. And yet it is highly desirable to identify them, if possible, because of their massive power to generate income. The black swans dominate their competitors in a way which distorts the rewards available: they are part of, and may be the cause of, a winner-take-all mechanism.
In the book world, what this means is that bestsellers tend to become massive, while sales of ‘ordinary’ books are minuscule. It is not that bestsellers sell twice as many copies as the average novel: they sell hundreds of times as many.
This circumstance is observable in most of the arts: in other words, you are either overwhelmingly successful, in terms of money, fame, and reputation, or you are nothing.
Interestingly, the same clustering effect can be found in other contexts, outside the arts: similar concentrations can be found in the academic-citation system, and it doesn’t matter whether the academic field is physics or social science.
It is also important to note that the concentration effect becomes more marked, not less, as the size of the pool of works on offer increases. The more product that is available, the more the big hits dominate and stand out.
How black swans come about
The appearance of a black swan is influenced by, among other factors, the ‘tipping-point mechanism’. Contagious diseases spread furiously above a certain minimum level (the tipping point), but die down below that level.
In the arts, the mechanisms of contagion are accelerated by the media, and, of course, by word-of-mouth recommendation. Thomas Gilbert and his colleagues at the University of California have used some statistical methods which are normally applied to phenomena such as the spread of diseases, or earthquake aftershocks, in order to analyse the spread of information about books. They distinguish between exonogous (external) and endogonous (internal) stimuli. Publishers use exonogous methods of generating awareness of a book when they give it a large advertising budget; endogonous shock is what occurs through one person recommending the book to another.
Both exonogous and endogonous stimuli play a part in turning ugly ducklings into black swans. A large advertising budget may generate some initial awareness of the product, but it does not inevitably create a black swan; it may evoke nothing more than yawns. Endogonous effects, by contrast, are absolutely essential to the emergence of a black swan, whether it has a large publicity budget or not, and they cannot always be created, no matter how much money is spent; they either occur spontaneously, or they don’t.
Taleb’s principal conclusion about the black-swan phenomenon in the arts is that the process is ‘far less fair than it seems to participants’. The randomness of the system is greatly underestimated. Furthermore, people involved in the arts tend to suffer from overconfidence, and overestimate the chances of their own success. This, believe me, is particularly dangerous for writers, but it can also be catastrophic for publishers who commit massive resources to books which flop. Example: the Dorling Kindersley collapse which occurred as a result of overprinting Star Wars books.
Two observers reaching the same conclusion
One of the reasons why I find Taleb’s paper on black swans in the arts so intriguing is that it echoes, with added scientific and intellectual underpinning, my own conclusions, reached earlier and independently. My views on the ‘secret of success’ for writers were set out in Chapter 9 of The Truth about Writing: there I argued that success for writers is determined by circumstance.
Circumstance, I said, is a factor which some might call chance, fate, luck, serendipity, or karma. But the true definition of circumstance, for my purposes, is everything that you cannot control, or even influence.
Here is an example of circumstance, drawn from the film industry. In the 1950s, the actor Montgomery Clift turned down the lead parts in four films. He declined (1) the part in Sunset Boulevard which was later played by William Holden; (2) the Marlon Brando part in On the Waterfront; (3) the James Dean part in East of Eden; and (4) the Paul Newman part in Somebody Up There Likes Me. As you will already have noticed, if you know anything about the history of the cinema, each of the actors who picked up a part that had been rejected by Montgomery Clift used that opportunity to establish his own name; and they all became stars as a result. None of which would have happened if Clift had decided to play any of the parts himself.
I even compressed my idea about circumstance into a mathematical formula, or expression (of sorts):
S :: C
This formula holds true, I suggested, where S = Success (however defined), and C = Circumstance (as defined above). The symbol :: was introduced by William Oughtred in 1631, and it means ‘varies as to’. S :: C is therefore a compact way of saying that Success varies according to Circumstance.
Both Taleb and I, therefore, approaching matters from wholly different directions, have concluded that success in the arts, and particularly success as experienced by writers, is a random event. It is not determined by hard work, who you know, or talent (not, at any rate, above a certain level).
You, the reader, will probably resist the Taleb/Allen conclusion at this point; but you at least are thoughtful enough to be reading this essay, so please reserve final judgement on the causes of the black-swan phenomenon until you have read the rest of the argument.
Taleb and I are not alone in reaching our conclusion about the effects of randomness aka circumstance.
In his autobiography Nudity in a Public Place, the actor John Nettles quoted a friend of his whom he described as ‘a great literary figure and a major celebrity’. This individual remarked to Nettles: ‘Nothing is more common today than successful men with no talent…. Success and celebrity do not necessarily depend on talent in these dog days and it is a good thing you never ever believe they do, otherwise you might miss out on the joke of the century.’
On a less elevated level than John Nettles’s friend, one of the former Spice girls recently spoke with some awe about the popular-music business; she was amazed, she said, that ‘so many people with so little talent are making so much money.’
The remainder of this essay will enlarge on the idea that huge literary and/or commercial success for writers, who are not already famous names, comes (if it ever does) in the form of a black swan, or a random event. The discussion will then be used as the basis for generating strategies which might be adopted by those who work in the book trade. The strategies will, however, be of particular importance to writers – especially if they wish to avoid lasting psychological, and hence physical, damage; and if they wish to avoid allocating scarce resources (e.g. time and energy) to an almost certainly futile project.
Part 1: The concept of black swans
A definition
Before we proceed further, I need to introduce you to the concept of black swans.
In his book Fooled by Randomness, Taleb defined a black swan, in the context of investment management, as an unexpected and catastrophic event which could destroy even a so-called ‘master of the universe’.
Subsequently, Taleb wrote an essay entitled Fooled by Success: the Black Swan and the Arts; and in relation to the arts Taleb defines a black swan as ‘a piece of work that, unexpectedly, captivates interests, spreads like wildfire, and dwarfs other contributions.’ As examples of these massively successful phenomena he quotes the Harry Potter books, Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ, and the success of the Beatles. (Taleb, you see, is not an intellectual snob.)
Black swans in the arts are distinguished by the fact that they occur extremely rarely (when compared with the total amount of work which is offered to the public), and yet they have enormous impact. They provide, in short, exactly the kind of success that every writer (or publisher, producer, actor, et cetera) yearns for.
Taleb argues that these black swans are random events. After they occur, many observers claim to be able to see that their success was inevitable, for reasons which they then proceed to define; most of these reasons have to do with the innate qualities of the work in question. But Taleb maintains that these post-event explanations are essentially false and unreliable. They are highly influenced by hindsight bias, which makes use of ‘posterior information’. Observers of black swans tend to overestimate the analysable and underestimate the non-explainable.
Above all, those who claim to understand black swans (but only after they have come into view) are neglecting the ‘silent evidence’. Taleb maintains that if we are to understand the factors behind the huge success of Harry Potter (to mention but one convenient example) we need to do more than recognise the qualities that are present in the Harry books; we also need to consider the qualities which were present in the thousands of manuscripts which were rejected by agents and publishers and which never even made it into print.
Similarly, Taleb suggests, if we were to try to pin down the reasons for the rise to stardom of some young actor, we would need to consider the qualities present in other young actors – those who were not, for some reason, given a part for which 400 men auditioned. We would need to identify what it was that caused the producer to choose our future star for a part in his film rather than one of the 399 other candidates; and we would be likely to find, Taleb avers, that the producer’s choice had nothing to do with ‘talent’, however defined. Or, to put it another way, we would find that many of the rejected applicants had just as much talent as the future star.
An example: Harry Potter
Just in case you don’t know the much-told story, it is worth recording that the first Harry Potter book was rejected by every major publisher in London (some sources say as many as 20); and when it was eventually bought by Bloomsbury, the one publisher who showed the smallest degree of interest, they paid but a small sum of money for it (sources say between £2,000 and £3,000). Clearly, none of the ‘experts’ who read the book in manuscript, and rejected it, had the slightest inkling of the massive money-making machine which they held in their hands.
Implications
The Harry Potter case is an all-too-typical example of the failure to identify a black swan at an early stage. And yet it is highly desirable to identify them, if possible, because of their massive power to generate income. The black swans dominate their competitors in a way which distorts the rewards available: they are part of, and may be the cause of, a winner-take-all mechanism.
In the book world, what this means is that bestsellers tend to become massive, while sales of ‘ordinary’ books are minuscule. It is not that bestsellers sell twice as many copies as the average novel: they sell hundreds of times as many.
This circumstance is observable in most of the arts: in other words, you are either overwhelmingly successful, in terms of money, fame, and reputation, or you are nothing.
Interestingly, the same clustering effect can be found in other contexts, outside the arts: similar concentrations can be found in the academic-citation system, and it doesn’t matter whether the academic field is physics or social science.
It is also important to note that the concentration effect becomes more marked, not less, as the size of the pool of works on offer increases. The more product that is available, the more the big hits dominate and stand out.
How black swans come about
The appearance of a black swan is influenced by, among other factors, the ‘tipping-point mechanism’. Contagious diseases spread furiously above a certain minimum level (the tipping point), but die down below that level.
In the arts, the mechanisms of contagion are accelerated by the media, and, of course, by word-of-mouth recommendation. Thomas Gilbert and his colleagues at the University of California have used some statistical methods which are normally applied to phenomena such as the spread of diseases, or earthquake aftershocks, in order to analyse the spread of information about books. They distinguish between exonogous (external) and endogonous (internal) stimuli. Publishers use exonogous methods of generating awareness of a book when they give it a large advertising budget; endogonous shock is what occurs through one person recommending the book to another.
Both exonogous and endogonous stimuli play a part in turning ugly ducklings into black swans. A large advertising budget may generate some initial awareness of the product, but it does not inevitably create a black swan; it may evoke nothing more than yawns. Endogonous effects, by contrast, are absolutely essential to the emergence of a black swan, whether it has a large publicity budget or not, and they cannot always be created, no matter how much money is spent; they either occur spontaneously, or they don’t.
Taleb’s principal conclusion about the black-swan phenomenon in the arts is that the process is ‘far less fair than it seems to participants’. The randomness of the system is greatly underestimated. Furthermore, people involved in the arts tend to suffer from overconfidence, and overestimate the chances of their own success. This, believe me, is particularly dangerous for writers, but it can also be catastrophic for publishers who commit massive resources to books which flop. Example: the Dorling Kindersley collapse which occurred as a result of overprinting Star Wars books.
Two observers reaching the same conclusion
One of the reasons why I find Taleb’s paper on black swans in the arts so intriguing is that it echoes, with added scientific and intellectual underpinning, my own conclusions, reached earlier and independently. My views on the ‘secret of success’ for writers were set out in Chapter 9 of The Truth about Writing: there I argued that success for writers is determined by circumstance.
Circumstance, I said, is a factor which some might call chance, fate, luck, serendipity, or karma. But the true definition of circumstance, for my purposes, is everything that you cannot control, or even influence.
Here is an example of circumstance, drawn from the film industry. In the 1950s, the actor Montgomery Clift turned down the lead parts in four films. He declined (1) the part in Sunset Boulevard which was later played by William Holden; (2) the Marlon Brando part in On the Waterfront; (3) the James Dean part in East of Eden; and (4) the Paul Newman part in Somebody Up There Likes Me. As you will already have noticed, if you know anything about the history of the cinema, each of the actors who picked up a part that had been rejected by Montgomery Clift used that opportunity to establish his own name; and they all became stars as a result. None of which would have happened if Clift had decided to play any of the parts himself.
I even compressed my idea about circumstance into a mathematical formula, or expression (of sorts):
S :: C
This formula holds true, I suggested, where S = Success (however defined), and C = Circumstance (as defined above). The symbol :: was introduced by William Oughtred in 1631, and it means ‘varies as to’. S :: C is therefore a compact way of saying that Success varies according to Circumstance.
Both Taleb and I, therefore, approaching matters from wholly different directions, have concluded that success in the arts, and particularly success as experienced by writers, is a random event. It is not determined by hard work, who you know, or talent (not, at any rate, above a certain level).
You, the reader, will probably resist the Taleb/Allen conclusion at this point; but you at least are thoughtful enough to be reading this essay, so please reserve final judgement on the causes of the black-swan phenomenon until you have read the rest of the argument.
Taleb and I are not alone in reaching our conclusion about the effects of randomness aka circumstance.
In his autobiography Nudity in a Public Place, the actor John Nettles quoted a friend of his whom he described as ‘a great literary figure and a major celebrity’. This individual remarked to Nettles: ‘Nothing is more common today than successful men with no talent…. Success and celebrity do not necessarily depend on talent in these dog days and it is a good thing you never ever believe they do, otherwise you might miss out on the joke of the century.’
On a less elevated level than John Nettles’s friend, one of the former Spice girls recently spoke with some awe about the popular-music business; she was amazed, she said, that ‘so many people with so little talent are making so much money.’
The remainder of this essay will enlarge on the idea that huge literary and/or commercial success for writers, who are not already famous names, comes (if it ever does) in the form of a black swan, or a random event. The discussion will then be used as the basis for generating strategies which might be adopted by those who work in the book trade. The strategies will, however, be of particular importance to writers – especially if they wish to avoid lasting psychological, and hence physical, damage; and if they wish to avoid allocating scarce resources (e.g. time and energy) to an almost certainly futile project.
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