Just poking around on the internet, as one does, I was led by a link from Bookslut to a blog on the Powell's web site (Powell's being, it seems, a major player among US-based online book dealers; and they seem to be, as Foyles once was, in two minds as to whether they have an apostrophe or not).
In a post about new releases (28 June), the Powell's blogger Brockman makes mention, just in passing, and without highlighting it as anything out of the ordinary, of the fact that this month sees the publication in hardback of the 14th novel in a series by Laurell K. Hamilton.
The series features Anita Blake, vampire hunter, and in this one the amorous Ms. Blake discovers that werewolves and vampires are nothing compared to the horror of pregnancy.
Now I must say that that throwaway four-line plug for book number 14 rather hit me in the eye. I think I'd vaguely heard of Laurell K. Hamilton (an American writer, by the way), but fourteen novels in hardback? About a vampire hunter? OK, you know, and I know, that the hardbacks are often intended for library consumption, for the good and simple reason that they last longer. But in this day and age to persuade a publisher to back you for 14 in a row seems to me to be a considerable achievement.
So I went looking for information. I started, as one does, with Fantasticfiction. I'm not sure who runs that site, or how they make any money out of it, but it's a very useful resource, if a trifle garish in its design. Anyway, they give Laurell K. Hamilton five stars. There's a photo which proves that she ain't bad looking either. (I know, I know; sexist; don't bother to write in.)
The Anita Blake series started in 1993, with Guilty Pleasures. And that first book must be pretty good, because it was reissued in 2002, also issued in a special library binding in 2003, and reprinted in a large-print edition in 2004. There are also several different paperback versions in both the US and the UK (I wonder who gets to sell them in Europe, heh heh heh).
As you would expect, Laurell K. has her own web site, and very professional it is too. This reveals that, after 14 books, the Anita Blake heroine has a substantial following. There is, to begin with, an Anita Blake web ring, with 52 active sites listed; these cover numerous different aspects of the Anita Blake universe (aka Anitaverse). You will also discover that Anita has fans on active duty in Iraq. And there are pictures of fans at signings.
OK, so I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that vampire fiction doesn't win any prestigious prizes. And I can positively feel your lip curling.
But hey -- to quote Our Beloved Leader -- before you get too damn sniffy abou it, just remember a couple of things.
First, it never hurts to give people a little harmless pleasure in this world. And if you you can do it through a series of 14 books, plus a few others on the side, and make a living in the process, so much the better.
Second, may I remind you of a point made elsewhere on this blog, namely that it is a fundamental error, with moral implications, to think of fiction as a hierarchy, a sort of tower block, if you will, with literary fiction at the top and the 'lower' types of fiction tucked away in the basement. That is a concept which has no intellectual validity.
The correct way to think of the various genres of fiction is as a street of many bookshops; and in this street there are no prime sites. Each shop pays the same business taxes as any other: all shops are equal. And the smart customer places her business in different shops at different times; to the advantage of everyone, most importantly herself.
To continue from yesterday's little nonsense: if there is one person this week who has proved that she can hack it at the highest level, it is Laurell K. Hamilton.
Friday, June 30, 2006
Bob Garfield on the new marketing model
Bob Garfield, writing on the Advertising Age site, tells us that over the next 18 months he is going to be writing a book online. (Link from Publishers Lunch.) This, he says, will be no wiki: 'I'm the sole author. And it will be owned lock, stock and hypertext by my employer, Crain Communications. But who cares? It's being produced in full public view for public view.'
Here are the outlines of a couple of chapters which suggest to me that the book will be essential reading for those who feel that the old publishing model is sick unto death and is going to be replaced by some disintermediated new thing:
Here are the outlines of a couple of chapters which suggest to me that the book will be essential reading for those who feel that the old publishing model is sick unto death and is going to be replaced by some disintermediated new thing:
1) Say it Ain't So, Status Quo: The context for epochal changes is a complete breakdown in the media-marketing model and the ascendance of the internet. All of this explained.
12) Aggregation Nation. It has always seemed like a chicken-and-egg proposition. When the mass-media model collapses, where will the content come from? Who will pay to create programming without the guaranteed payoff from ad-supported media? Answer: clever aggregators will gather meta data from the online universe and serve up what the public finds most engaging.
Book deals 2005
I have the impression that quite a lot of the people who read this blog are writers who are in search of an agent or a publisher. Other readers, I know, actually are agents and publishers. Well, I hesitate to mention this (you'll see why in a minute) but there is a new book out which will certainly be of value to as-yet-unpublished writers, and may well be equally if not more valuable to agents and publishers who are looking to sell rights.
Published by Publishers Marketplace, and entitled Book Deals 2005, the book is a summary of 'over 3,500 US deals from last year in a single oversized 300-page volume, organizing them and indexing them to provide at-a-glance and in-depth windows on the deal world that you can't get from electronic searching.' In other words, you get to know who is buying what and (within broad bands) how much they are paying.
The snag is that the volume costs $125. On the other hand... one sale would more than cover it. If you want to take a look, it's on the Publishers Marketplace web site. There are links to sample pages. And it's worth noting that, if you subscribe to the Publishers Lunch newsletter (more or less daily), you get the latest deal information delivered on a weekly basis.
One interesting (and possibly encouraging, provided you put it in perspective) piece of information is that 14% of all fiction sales were for six figures or more.
Published by Publishers Marketplace, and entitled Book Deals 2005, the book is a summary of 'over 3,500 US deals from last year in a single oversized 300-page volume, organizing them and indexing them to provide at-a-glance and in-depth windows on the deal world that you can't get from electronic searching.' In other words, you get to know who is buying what and (within broad bands) how much they are paying.
The snag is that the volume costs $125. On the other hand... one sale would more than cover it. If you want to take a look, it's on the Publishers Marketplace web site. There are links to sample pages. And it's worth noting that, if you subscribe to the Publishers Lunch newsletter (more or less daily), you get the latest deal information delivered on a weekly basis.
One interesting (and possibly encouraging, provided you put it in perspective) piece of information is that 14% of all fiction sales were for six figures or more.
Juicing it up
Jamba Juice is an American company, selling so-called health drinks, and it is currently expanding rapidly. Unfortunately, not everyone is enthusiastic about the benefits of Jamba Juice. Here's what Chris Ayres reports from LA, in the London Times:
Should you be eager to know more, however, I can tell you that the book's author, Dr. Maoshing Ni (known to his patients as Dr Mao -- and why does that make me nervous?), shares the secrets gleaned from 38-generations of medical knowledge in his family, and a 20-year study of centenarians in China.
It turns out that 'a longer, healthier and happier life is not a result of a complicated supplement regimen, arcane dietary restrictions or any particular exercise, rather it is a combination of simple approaches to all areas of life.'
The book is published by Chronicle Books. There's a video clip, which doesn't work on my computer. And there's a podcast; but when I clicked on the link it gave me Ronald Reagan's daughter talking about her cats.
A good try, but not an altogether convincing sales pitch.
As far as I’m concerned, Jamba is all hot air. Its drinks may be nutritious (and delicious, even), but they are not necessarily healthy. Indeed, for a terminally fat country, Jamba’s promise to “provide everything you need to live an active, healthy and happy life!” borders on a dangerous con.So, when I receive an email from a book publicist, telling me that Jamba Juice has linked up with a publisher to plug a book called Secrets of Longevity, subtitled 'Hundreds of ways to live to be a hundred', I am, well, just a tad dubious.
Should you be eager to know more, however, I can tell you that the book's author, Dr. Maoshing Ni (known to his patients as Dr Mao -- and why does that make me nervous?), shares the secrets gleaned from 38-generations of medical knowledge in his family, and a 20-year study of centenarians in China.
It turns out that 'a longer, healthier and happier life is not a result of a complicated supplement regimen, arcane dietary restrictions or any particular exercise, rather it is a combination of simple approaches to all areas of life.'
The book is published by Chronicle Books. There's a video clip, which doesn't work on my computer. And there's a podcast; but when I clicked on the link it gave me Ronald Reagan's daughter talking about her cats.
A good try, but not an altogether convincing sales pitch.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Quotes of the week
1. Boris Wertz
'The publishing industry is one of those rare businesses where the producers very rarely listen to consumers.' Boris Wertz, operating chief at Abebooks.
Link from Galleycat in a discussion of LibraryThing, which you might wish to check out for yourself. Start with the article in the Wall Street Journal, perhaps; though it contains a distressing number of typos for a leading newspaper. Or you might want to go straight to LibraryThing itself.
At first sight LibraryThing seems to be another Who Writes Like, which I mentioned the other day. And it's not, says the founder, a dating agency.
I used to catalogue all my books at one time. But then I grew up.
2. Jason Pinter
'That’s why it’s easier for Iowa MFAs who’ve published in Glimmer Train to get agents and book deals. They’ve proven they can hack it at the highest levels.' Jason Pinter on Buzz Balls & Hype.
Doing an Iowa MFA and appearing in Glimmer Train proves you can hack it at the highest level? No wonder the book business is in trouble.
Glimmer Train -- of which I had not previously heard, and of which I do not particularly wish to hear again; ever -- turns out to be, to no one's surprise, yet another small literary magazine. It offers a newsletter for 'serious writers' (which usually means those who take themselves terribly seriously and consider it an insult if others fail to accept them at their own valuation; not the most mature of attitudes).
Thanks, but I think I'll stick to Victorian pornography.
3. Dan Franklin
'So, as I am constantly telling the editors who work for me, one of their key tasks - as well as editing text - is to sell their books in the internal market. It's their job to enthuse sales and marketing, the people to whom the booksellers will listen.' Dan Franklin, publishing director of Jonathan Cape.
Dan Franklin I regard as a sound man, by and large, and he had an article in the Sunday Telegraph (link from booktrade.info) describing two rather different publishing editors. One was the hands-on backroom boy, John Blackwell, and the other was Tom Maschler.
Blackwell was the very old-fashioned type of editor who actually read books, and extremely closely at that: on one occasion he rang Louis de Bernieres and told him that, in describing the suspension of an Italian jeep he had got it all wrong. For the most part, he stayed in his small office.
Maschler, by contrast, was an outgoing, gregarious sort, and a natural salesman. But neither man, Franklin reckons, constitutes a suitable model for today. In the current market, an editor needs to be a mixture of both.
'The publishing industry is one of those rare businesses where the producers very rarely listen to consumers.' Boris Wertz, operating chief at Abebooks.
Link from Galleycat in a discussion of LibraryThing, which you might wish to check out for yourself. Start with the article in the Wall Street Journal, perhaps; though it contains a distressing number of typos for a leading newspaper. Or you might want to go straight to LibraryThing itself.
At first sight LibraryThing seems to be another Who Writes Like, which I mentioned the other day. And it's not, says the founder, a dating agency.
I used to catalogue all my books at one time. But then I grew up.
2. Jason Pinter
'That’s why it’s easier for Iowa MFAs who’ve published in Glimmer Train to get agents and book deals. They’ve proven they can hack it at the highest levels.' Jason Pinter on Buzz Balls & Hype.
Doing an Iowa MFA and appearing in Glimmer Train proves you can hack it at the highest level? No wonder the book business is in trouble.
Glimmer Train -- of which I had not previously heard, and of which I do not particularly wish to hear again; ever -- turns out to be, to no one's surprise, yet another small literary magazine. It offers a newsletter for 'serious writers' (which usually means those who take themselves terribly seriously and consider it an insult if others fail to accept them at their own valuation; not the most mature of attitudes).
Thanks, but I think I'll stick to Victorian pornography.
3. Dan Franklin
'So, as I am constantly telling the editors who work for me, one of their key tasks - as well as editing text - is to sell their books in the internal market. It's their job to enthuse sales and marketing, the people to whom the booksellers will listen.' Dan Franklin, publishing director of Jonathan Cape.
Dan Franklin I regard as a sound man, by and large, and he had an article in the Sunday Telegraph (link from booktrade.info) describing two rather different publishing editors. One was the hands-on backroom boy, John Blackwell, and the other was Tom Maschler.
Blackwell was the very old-fashioned type of editor who actually read books, and extremely closely at that: on one occasion he rang Louis de Bernieres and told him that, in describing the suspension of an Italian jeep he had got it all wrong. For the most part, he stayed in his small office.
Maschler, by contrast, was an outgoing, gregarious sort, and a natural salesman. But neither man, Franklin reckons, constitutes a suitable model for today. In the current market, an editor needs to be a mixture of both.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Victorian pornography -- Part 1: the background
Some time ago, when discussing John Preston's My Life as a Pornographer, I said that I wasn't actually interested in modern gay porn, in itself, but that, if anyone cared, I was interested in Victorian heterosexual pornography. Whereupon, Konrad West wrote in and said that I would have to write a piece about that, then, wouldn't I? Heh heh heh.
Well yes. Indeed. But Victorian pornography is a rather large subject, so we are going to need several attempts at it, and even then we shall only explore the outer suburbs, so to speak. And to begin with, we had better lay down a few ground rules and definitions.
First, the term Victorian. The adjective is derived from the name of Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India, and all the rest of it, who reigned from 1837 to 1901. This is an exceptionally long period of time in human terms, and makes her England's longest-serving monarch. So for our purposes the Victorians will be regarded as the English men and women who lived during Victoria's reign.
Next pornography. Well, pick your own definition, from the dictionary if you must. But John Preston, whose book prompted the request for this series of posts, thought of gay pornography as written work which was designed to give gay men an erection; plus, if possible, an irresistible urge to masturbate.
This is not a particularly elegant or tasteful definition, but it's not a bad one. So pornography in general, as opposed to the gay sort, may reasonably be defined, and will be defined for the purposes of this discussion, as written work which is designed to arouse lust. Usually in the male, because there are good reasons for supposing that Victorian porn was read principally by men; but not exclusively so. If it arouses lust in females too, or instead, I don't suppose many men would object.
In any discussion of Victorian pornography we also need to consider the prevailing morality of the Victorian era. And here we come up against a curious paradox. On the one hand it is absolutely undeniable that the Victorians have a well established and long-standing reputation for prudery, and on the other hand we have equally undeniable evidence that, in certain respects, they were markedly uninhibited and in sexual matters often enjoyed a free-for-all which might have shocked a 1960s hippie.
Let us take the established reputation for starters. Type "Victorian prudery" into Google and you get 11,700 hits, which is enough, I think, to make the point. The Concise Oxford Dictionary says that Victorian means 'relating to the attitudes and values associated with this period, especially those of prudishness and high moral tone.'
Historians will doubtless point out that these attitudes were far from new: if anything they were more pronounced during the Puritan ascendancy in the seventeenth century. But for our purposes, all we need to note is that, in Victorian times, there was an almost total ban on any sort of written description of sexual passion or sexual acts. This ban was imposed both by the force of the law and in other ways by those who favoured reticence on these matters.
In particular, this ban on sexual descriptions and references applied to fiction. And it applied to fiction, as indicated above, both because the law enabled descriptions of sexual acts to be prosecuted and punished by long terms of imprisonment, and because those who largely controlled the commercial side of orthodox publishing chose to eliminate almost anything remotely sexual from the marketplace.
First, the law. From 1802 onwards, there existed a Society for the Suppression of Vice, which dedicated itself, among other noble aims, to the elimination of obscene books, prints, et cetera, not to mention snuffboxes, which often had 'indecent and obscene engravings, highly finished', inside the lid and which enjoyed, it seems, 'a large and ready market in Boarding Schools for Young Ladies.' Ah yes, the young ladies. You just can't trust 'em, you see.
In 1856, for example, the Vice Society, as it became known, pounced on the publishers of a magazine called Paul Pry. Mr Robert Martin, publisher, and Mr William Strange, distributor, were both sent to jail for selling an obscene publication: the offending article was a graphic account of the seduction of a servant girl by a Mr Filthy Lucre.
The case was tried before the Lord Chief Justice, and his Lordship expressed himself deeply shocked that the magazine should be sold for one penny. Selling these things at a high cost was, he implied, not nearly such a serious offence; but to sell them cheap...
In 1857, the Society and those who supported it were much heartened by the introduction of the Obscene Publications Act, which was designed to destroy the pornography trade, then centred on Holywell Street.
By 1872, the Society was able to report that within the last two years it had 'been the means of bringing to punishment, by imprisonment, hard labour, and fines, upwards of forty of the most notorious dealers, and within a few years has seized and destroyed the following enormous mass of corrupting matters : 140,213 obscene prints, pictures, and photographs; 21,772 books and pamphlets; five tons of letterpress in sheets, besides large quantities of infidel and blasphemous publications; 17,060 sheets of obscene songs, catalogues, circulars, and handbills ; 5,712 cards, snuff-boxes, and vile articles; 844 engraved copper and steel plates ; 480 lithographic stones ; 146 wood blocks ; 11 printing presses, with type and apparatus; 81 cwt. of type, including the stereotype of several works of the vilest description.'
They were nothing if not keen, those chaps.
Above all, however, the forces of prudery were led by two men who dominated the commercial publication of fiction: a Mr Smith and a Mr Mudie. The two men, described by one historian as 'hymn-bawling Nonconformists', were proprietors of the two most successful commercial lending libraries; and the libraries were huge buyers of fiction.
Publishers soon learnt that it paid to give very close attention to what Mr Smith (yea, verily, founder of the W.H. Smith chain) and Mr Mudie wanted. And what they wanted was, first and foremost, no sex; Mr Mudie was anxious to ensure that nothing available through his library could possible offend a sensitive young woman. Secondly, Smith and Mudie wanted long books, in three instalments, which would require the reader to pay three fees instead of one to find out what happened to their favourite characters.
This double whammy -- draconian law coupled with the power of commerce -- combined to ensure that Victorian men and women were unable (at least legally) to read fiction which in any way touched upon sexual reality. Any allusions to sex, love, marriage, childbirth and the like, had to be so sanitised as to be entirely incomprehensible to anyone who did not already know the facts of life. And it is very largely those bowdlerised novels which give us our picture of Victorian society today.
Hence we think of the Victorians as prudes. In actual fact, they were just as randy as the English folk of any other era; perhaps more so, because of the forbidden nature of much run of the mill entertainment and humour.
The list of works captured and destroyed by the Vice Society demonstrates that pornography was in ample supply. William Dugdale, perhaps the most active publisher, was imprisoned nine times (and eventually died in prison), but when free was indefatigable; he made sure to visit Oxford and Cambridge at least twice a year. His close rival was a Mr Edward Duncombe, who had six convictions. But the profits were so substantial that these men were not deterred.
Every other sort of sexual material and service was also in demand in Victorian London. In 1857, the medical journal The Lancet estimated that the capital could offer over 6,000 brothels and about 80,000 prostitutes: one woman in every sixteen -- of all ages -- was a whore.
So, there we have it. In Victorian times there was, as ever, a strong interest in matters sexual. There was no legal way in which a desire for accurate sexual information, much less entertainment of an erotic nature, could legitimately be obtained. Hence the pornography business went underground. And it is to the written aspects of that trade that we will devote our attention in part two of this occasional series of posts. But don't hold your breath. It won't be tomorrow.
Well yes. Indeed. But Victorian pornography is a rather large subject, so we are going to need several attempts at it, and even then we shall only explore the outer suburbs, so to speak. And to begin with, we had better lay down a few ground rules and definitions.
First, the term Victorian. The adjective is derived from the name of Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India, and all the rest of it, who reigned from 1837 to 1901. This is an exceptionally long period of time in human terms, and makes her England's longest-serving monarch. So for our purposes the Victorians will be regarded as the English men and women who lived during Victoria's reign.
Next pornography. Well, pick your own definition, from the dictionary if you must. But John Preston, whose book prompted the request for this series of posts, thought of gay pornography as written work which was designed to give gay men an erection; plus, if possible, an irresistible urge to masturbate.
This is not a particularly elegant or tasteful definition, but it's not a bad one. So pornography in general, as opposed to the gay sort, may reasonably be defined, and will be defined for the purposes of this discussion, as written work which is designed to arouse lust. Usually in the male, because there are good reasons for supposing that Victorian porn was read principally by men; but not exclusively so. If it arouses lust in females too, or instead, I don't suppose many men would object.
In any discussion of Victorian pornography we also need to consider the prevailing morality of the Victorian era. And here we come up against a curious paradox. On the one hand it is absolutely undeniable that the Victorians have a well established and long-standing reputation for prudery, and on the other hand we have equally undeniable evidence that, in certain respects, they were markedly uninhibited and in sexual matters often enjoyed a free-for-all which might have shocked a 1960s hippie.
Let us take the established reputation for starters. Type "Victorian prudery" into Google and you get 11,700 hits, which is enough, I think, to make the point. The Concise Oxford Dictionary says that Victorian means 'relating to the attitudes and values associated with this period, especially those of prudishness and high moral tone.'
Historians will doubtless point out that these attitudes were far from new: if anything they were more pronounced during the Puritan ascendancy in the seventeenth century. But for our purposes, all we need to note is that, in Victorian times, there was an almost total ban on any sort of written description of sexual passion or sexual acts. This ban was imposed both by the force of the law and in other ways by those who favoured reticence on these matters.
In particular, this ban on sexual descriptions and references applied to fiction. And it applied to fiction, as indicated above, both because the law enabled descriptions of sexual acts to be prosecuted and punished by long terms of imprisonment, and because those who largely controlled the commercial side of orthodox publishing chose to eliminate almost anything remotely sexual from the marketplace.
First, the law. From 1802 onwards, there existed a Society for the Suppression of Vice, which dedicated itself, among other noble aims, to the elimination of obscene books, prints, et cetera, not to mention snuffboxes, which often had 'indecent and obscene engravings, highly finished', inside the lid and which enjoyed, it seems, 'a large and ready market in Boarding Schools for Young Ladies.' Ah yes, the young ladies. You just can't trust 'em, you see.
In 1856, for example, the Vice Society, as it became known, pounced on the publishers of a magazine called Paul Pry. Mr Robert Martin, publisher, and Mr William Strange, distributor, were both sent to jail for selling an obscene publication: the offending article was a graphic account of the seduction of a servant girl by a Mr Filthy Lucre.
The case was tried before the Lord Chief Justice, and his Lordship expressed himself deeply shocked that the magazine should be sold for one penny. Selling these things at a high cost was, he implied, not nearly such a serious offence; but to sell them cheap...
In 1857, the Society and those who supported it were much heartened by the introduction of the Obscene Publications Act, which was designed to destroy the pornography trade, then centred on Holywell Street.
By 1872, the Society was able to report that within the last two years it had 'been the means of bringing to punishment, by imprisonment, hard labour, and fines, upwards of forty of the most notorious dealers, and within a few years has seized and destroyed the following enormous mass of corrupting matters : 140,213 obscene prints, pictures, and photographs; 21,772 books and pamphlets; five tons of letterpress in sheets, besides large quantities of infidel and blasphemous publications; 17,060 sheets of obscene songs, catalogues, circulars, and handbills ; 5,712 cards, snuff-boxes, and vile articles; 844 engraved copper and steel plates ; 480 lithographic stones ; 146 wood blocks ; 11 printing presses, with type and apparatus; 81 cwt. of type, including the stereotype of several works of the vilest description.'
They were nothing if not keen, those chaps.
Above all, however, the forces of prudery were led by two men who dominated the commercial publication of fiction: a Mr Smith and a Mr Mudie. The two men, described by one historian as 'hymn-bawling Nonconformists', were proprietors of the two most successful commercial lending libraries; and the libraries were huge buyers of fiction.
Publishers soon learnt that it paid to give very close attention to what Mr Smith (yea, verily, founder of the W.H. Smith chain) and Mr Mudie wanted. And what they wanted was, first and foremost, no sex; Mr Mudie was anxious to ensure that nothing available through his library could possible offend a sensitive young woman. Secondly, Smith and Mudie wanted long books, in three instalments, which would require the reader to pay three fees instead of one to find out what happened to their favourite characters.
This double whammy -- draconian law coupled with the power of commerce -- combined to ensure that Victorian men and women were unable (at least legally) to read fiction which in any way touched upon sexual reality. Any allusions to sex, love, marriage, childbirth and the like, had to be so sanitised as to be entirely incomprehensible to anyone who did not already know the facts of life. And it is very largely those bowdlerised novels which give us our picture of Victorian society today.
Hence we think of the Victorians as prudes. In actual fact, they were just as randy as the English folk of any other era; perhaps more so, because of the forbidden nature of much run of the mill entertainment and humour.
The list of works captured and destroyed by the Vice Society demonstrates that pornography was in ample supply. William Dugdale, perhaps the most active publisher, was imprisoned nine times (and eventually died in prison), but when free was indefatigable; he made sure to visit Oxford and Cambridge at least twice a year. His close rival was a Mr Edward Duncombe, who had six convictions. But the profits were so substantial that these men were not deterred.
Every other sort of sexual material and service was also in demand in Victorian London. In 1857, the medical journal The Lancet estimated that the capital could offer over 6,000 brothels and about 80,000 prostitutes: one woman in every sixteen -- of all ages -- was a whore.
So, there we have it. In Victorian times there was, as ever, a strong interest in matters sexual. There was no legal way in which a desire for accurate sexual information, much less entertainment of an erotic nature, could legitimately be obtained. Hence the pornography business went underground. And it is to the written aspects of that trade that we will devote our attention in part two of this occasional series of posts. But don't hold your breath. It won't be tomorrow.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Wandering Scribe does book deal
Back in May I wrote a piece about WanderingScribe's blog: this is a blog written by a woman who professes to be be homeless.
I say professes because, having read the thing, I was just a tad sceptical about it. Was she, I wondered, a genuinely homeless woman? Or was she, perhaps, a clever author in search of a book deal? At the risk of doing the lady a severe injustice, I tended to the latter view.
Subsequent comments on that post of mine were divided in their opinions. And, as I noted a few days later, one person went to the trouble of setting up a blog of his/her own, The Truth about WanderingScribe, in which are set out some of the facts and ideas which might lead one to a conclusion about the genuineness or otherwise of the homeless lady.
Since then I haven't given the matter any thought. But now Publishers Lunch reports that the WanderingScribe blogger's name (or writing name?) is Anya Peters, and her book Abandoned is to be published in the UK next May by Harper Thorsons (editor Sally Potter).
The agent for this deal is Camilla Hornby of Curtis Brown. And for those unfamiliar with the power structure of UK literary agencies, let me say that Curtis Brown is one of the two biggest and most powerful firms, and, on average, they accept as clients maybe 1 in 500 of those writers who approach them.
Subject matter of this book is going to be -- wait for it -- a memoir of Anya Peters's abusive childhood and subsequent homelessness.
Well, forgive me for further cynicism, where perhaps some human sympathy might be more appropriate, but if there is one thing that is flavour of the month in the UK bestseller lists just at the moment, it's child abuse. Add in a dose of homelessness and who knows? Could be a big hit. Not to mention a movie and a musical. Lloyd Webber and Elton have doubtless been tipped off already. Billy Elliott done triffic business so why not this?
Ah me. What dreadful things an acquaintance with the book world does to one's faith in humanity.
On WanderingScribe's own blog, the existence of a deal was acknowledged on 17 May. But using edit>find reveals no mention of Harper Thorsons or the agent responsible. 'Advance' doesn't yield a result either. And although agents and publishers are usually quick to reveal the general size of an advance to Publishers Lunch (nice deal = anything up to $50,000; very nice deal = $50,000 to $100,000; and so on) in this case there is silence. Lunch does tell us, however, that Harper Thorsons got the book after an auction. Which means that there was competition from other publishers who could also smell money.
The BBC, I find, also covered this story on 31 May. The comments on it make interesting reading, and cover the full range from sympathy to disgust.
Well, the very least that can be said is that it is surprising to find that an unknown, homeless writer is suddenly able to persuade one of the biggest and most powerful literary agents in town to take her on as a client. One wonders also what sort of a book proposal was cobbled together by this homeless person in order to persuade publishers to bid for it in competition against each other. What, one wonders, is so attractive about WanderingScribe? Surely there are plenty of C-list celebrities still to publish their story?
And another thing. The blog says, 17 May, that she hasn't got the book written yet, 'but after what I've been through with all this, feels like that might be the easy bit.... Writing a book can't be that difficult.'
Actually that's not what most of us find. And this book is scheduled, according to Lunch, for publication next May. Not next year, sometime, maybe. Next May. Usually it takes a publisher a year to get their act together even after you deliver a finished manuscript.
Ah, but, you see, WanderingScribe has spent the last year telling her story to the trees. 'Night after night I told bits of my story to them. Sometimes talking aloud, sometimes staring it into them - all the things I couldn't tell anyone else, all the things my hunched-up spirit was tired of. Trees absorb pain, and some of these will one day be felled and made into paper, and I have this feeling that if I stare really hard into those empty sheets of white paper once I begin to write, I'll probably see my story already there, like a watermark on their blank surfaces.'
Well, apologies to all concerned if I misjudge them, but the more I learn about this the less I like it.
However... Bearing in mind the recent rows in the US about the veracity of various memoirs, one must assume that Curtis Brown and Harper Thorsons have checked this situation out and found it to be completely fireproof. Mustn't one?
I say professes because, having read the thing, I was just a tad sceptical about it. Was she, I wondered, a genuinely homeless woman? Or was she, perhaps, a clever author in search of a book deal? At the risk of doing the lady a severe injustice, I tended to the latter view.
Subsequent comments on that post of mine were divided in their opinions. And, as I noted a few days later, one person went to the trouble of setting up a blog of his/her own, The Truth about WanderingScribe, in which are set out some of the facts and ideas which might lead one to a conclusion about the genuineness or otherwise of the homeless lady.
Since then I haven't given the matter any thought. But now Publishers Lunch reports that the WanderingScribe blogger's name (or writing name?) is Anya Peters, and her book Abandoned is to be published in the UK next May by Harper Thorsons (editor Sally Potter).
The agent for this deal is Camilla Hornby of Curtis Brown. And for those unfamiliar with the power structure of UK literary agencies, let me say that Curtis Brown is one of the two biggest and most powerful firms, and, on average, they accept as clients maybe 1 in 500 of those writers who approach them.
Subject matter of this book is going to be -- wait for it -- a memoir of Anya Peters's abusive childhood and subsequent homelessness.
Well, forgive me for further cynicism, where perhaps some human sympathy might be more appropriate, but if there is one thing that is flavour of the month in the UK bestseller lists just at the moment, it's child abuse. Add in a dose of homelessness and who knows? Could be a big hit. Not to mention a movie and a musical. Lloyd Webber and Elton have doubtless been tipped off already. Billy Elliott done triffic business so why not this?
Ah me. What dreadful things an acquaintance with the book world does to one's faith in humanity.
On WanderingScribe's own blog, the existence of a deal was acknowledged on 17 May. But using edit>find reveals no mention of Harper Thorsons or the agent responsible. 'Advance' doesn't yield a result either. And although agents and publishers are usually quick to reveal the general size of an advance to Publishers Lunch (nice deal = anything up to $50,000; very nice deal = $50,000 to $100,000; and so on) in this case there is silence. Lunch does tell us, however, that Harper Thorsons got the book after an auction. Which means that there was competition from other publishers who could also smell money.
The BBC, I find, also covered this story on 31 May. The comments on it make interesting reading, and cover the full range from sympathy to disgust.
Well, the very least that can be said is that it is surprising to find that an unknown, homeless writer is suddenly able to persuade one of the biggest and most powerful literary agents in town to take her on as a client. One wonders also what sort of a book proposal was cobbled together by this homeless person in order to persuade publishers to bid for it in competition against each other. What, one wonders, is so attractive about WanderingScribe? Surely there are plenty of C-list celebrities still to publish their story?
And another thing. The blog says, 17 May, that she hasn't got the book written yet, 'but after what I've been through with all this, feels like that might be the easy bit.... Writing a book can't be that difficult.'
Actually that's not what most of us find. And this book is scheduled, according to Lunch, for publication next May. Not next year, sometime, maybe. Next May. Usually it takes a publisher a year to get their act together even after you deliver a finished manuscript.
Ah, but, you see, WanderingScribe has spent the last year telling her story to the trees. 'Night after night I told bits of my story to them. Sometimes talking aloud, sometimes staring it into them - all the things I couldn't tell anyone else, all the things my hunched-up spirit was tired of. Trees absorb pain, and some of these will one day be felled and made into paper, and I have this feeling that if I stare really hard into those empty sheets of white paper once I begin to write, I'll probably see my story already there, like a watermark on their blank surfaces.'
Well, apologies to all concerned if I misjudge them, but the more I learn about this the less I like it.
However... Bearing in mind the recent rows in the US about the veracity of various memoirs, one must assume that Curtis Brown and Harper Thorsons have checked this situation out and found it to be completely fireproof. Mustn't one?
Adam Maxwell: Dial M for Monkey
Yesterday was publication day for Adam Maxwell's short-story collection, Dial M for Monkey. This is a book recommended by Chris Stein on Debra Hamel's Buy a Friend a Book site, which gives it some credibility, and the author has also written for Dave Eggers's McSweeney's.
The publisher of Dial M for Monkey is Tonto Press, which is based in the North of England. They've been mentioned here before, briefly, and are looking for novels as well as non-fiction books. The firm has Arts Council support, but we'll forgive them for that. And, if you live in the north-east, they are offering some creative-writing courses.
The Dial M For Monkey launch party will be held this Thursday, 29 June, at Opera Piano Bar & Lounge, on the ground floor of The Gate complex in Newcastle upon Tyne. Doors open at 7.30, and admission is free. I believe this is what's known as a networking opportunity. A little too far away for me, though.
The publisher of Dial M for Monkey is Tonto Press, which is based in the North of England. They've been mentioned here before, briefly, and are looking for novels as well as non-fiction books. The firm has Arts Council support, but we'll forgive them for that. And, if you live in the north-east, they are offering some creative-writing courses.
The Dial M For Monkey launch party will be held this Thursday, 29 June, at Opera Piano Bar & Lounge, on the ground floor of The Gate complex in Newcastle upon Tyne. Doors open at 7.30, and admission is free. I believe this is what's known as a networking opportunity. A little too far away for me, though.
Monday, June 26, 2006
Another Monday
Monday morning usually sees us taking note of someone who's gone completely barmy over the weekend, and today is no exception.
Amazon out of control -- says the Book Standard
The Book Standard says that Amazon is out of control -- which I take to mean has gone nuts -- and, on the evidence offered, I agree. Amazon has started a grocery store.
I used to think that it would be catastrophic if Amazon failed to make profits and collapsed. But I no longer feel so worried. I'm not sure, frankly, that Amazon ever has made profits, but if it did go down the tube (and going on diversifying for ever and ever seems a good way to bring it about), then I think others would step into the gap. Very willingly, actually. Tesco, anyone? Or see below re Play.com.
Music/publishing parallels
From about 1955 to 1970 I was seriously interested in popular music and jazz. In those days I had ears, of course, which helps. And I'm still kind of interested, though I am handicapped by the fact that my audiologist describes me as 'difficult'.
Anway, the Times on Friday had a really interesting piece about modern popular music, and how bands can take off by using My Space and other internet devices.
The general drift of the story (which is far from new) is that, in order to be popular and sell lots of records, you need the right music and the right face(s) and the right story. Putting these factors together is something of an art. Sandi Thom seems to have done it. But there's a 52-year old bloke in Glasgow who can do the music but is probably 30-odd years too old.
What this story says to me (and again this is not new) is that 17th Street and Kaavya had very much the right idea in terms of books, but they done it all wrong. Do it right and publishing could have a very big hit indeed.
Christopher G. Moore
Christopher G. Moore is a very successful novelist (17 novels so far). Unusually, he lives in Thailand and has developed something of a cult status in Eastern markets.
Christopher is also a blogger, recently added to the blogroll here. In his latest post (as I write), he considers the value of originality in fiction. In doing so, he leads us to yet another agent/blogger with some telling things to say, Kristin of Denver, Colorado -- a lady who blogs as Pub Rants.
Yes, much to one's surprise, it seems that the book world does not end at the borders of New York City or Greater London.
Gary Troup unveiled
If you ever wondered (and you may not have) who Gary Troup really was (see my earlier post re Lost), then Dow Jones newswires has news for you (link from Publishing News).
Independent booksellers (understandably) don't like it when bloggers mention -- or, worse, link to -- online booksellers, so keep this one quiet. There is now a new player in town. Only three months ago I had never heard of Play.com, but now they're ranked fifth among Britain's top internet retailers. To be precise, they come behind Amazon UK, Dell, Argos and Tesco. See what I mean about it not being the end of the world if Amazon were to collapse? The story is at Publishing News.
More ways to sell a book than two
Many and various, as we have often noted, are the ways in which writers seek to achieve publication and, having published, try to achieve sales.
Galleycat reports that Tom Dunkel of the Baltimore Sun found a conspiracy-theory web site called Operation Emu. This tells a fairly familiar story: bunch of guys go out into the Nevada desert and disappear. The place where they disappear is in the heart of Area 51, which is said to be the Times Square of UFO activity.
On investigation, Operation Emu turns out to be a plug for a novel by one R. Brandon Barker. And, so far, it's worked. Barker has attracted enough visitors to his site to persuade agent Byrd Leavell of New York-based Waxman Agency to take him on. The novel is said to be satirical, and derives its fun from 'the cult of alien-life true believers'.
Lost Girls by Alan Moore: a slur on Wendy
Galleycat also has a tale about a comic book or graphic novel (Lost Girls, by Alan Moore) which features Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, Alice from Alice in Wonderland, and Wendy from Peter Pan. And, in said comic book, the three gals have mad passionate sex together.
This is a filthy lie. Wendy ain't no lesbo. I had it from a guy who's bin there.
Alan Moore's Dorothy/Alice/Wendy thingy has attracted a cover story from Publishers Weekly. My prediction: even at $75 dollars a pop, this well sell out overnight. Order your copy now.
For those who care, there are copyright issues here. The Peter Pan copyright is yet another case which keeps lawyers wonderfully well remunerated, as I explained in my post of 20 January 2006. The issues were further illuminated by m'learned friend C.E. Petit, Esq.
PEN friends
Another story on Galleycat features a very bad-tempered representative of PEN. If you've never hear of it, International PEN is a worldwide association of writers, 'founded in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere; to emphasise the role of literature in the development of mutual understanding and world culture'; and all like that. Terrible worthy, earnest, and, as far as I have always been concerned, dull.
I presume, though I don't know, that PEN is a voluntary organisation, staffed by unpaid amateurs; and that one must therefore make allowances in what one expects from them. But I can only say that in my one contact with that operation (over a short-story competition, a couple of years ago), they proved to be so astoundingly incompetent that I immediately made a resolution never to have anything further to do with them.
The PEN spat with Lynne Scanlon, as described by Galleycat, does nothing to change that view.
Famous Five interfered with
The other day, I said that, faced with the choice of reading Douglas Coupland or Enid Blyton, I would settle for Enid any day.
Well, now some son of a bitch has been interfering with the Famous Five. I won't go into the sordid details because it's all too distressing, and not fit for a family blog, but the Sunday Times has the story.
'Blyton’s books would remain true to her intentions, the publisher insisted. “The books have only been very slightly altered with the addition of decimalisation to bring them up to date,” said Margaret Conroy of Hodder.'
Yeah, right. That's what they all say.
Amazon out of control -- says the Book Standard
The Book Standard says that Amazon is out of control -- which I take to mean has gone nuts -- and, on the evidence offered, I agree. Amazon has started a grocery store.
I used to think that it would be catastrophic if Amazon failed to make profits and collapsed. But I no longer feel so worried. I'm not sure, frankly, that Amazon ever has made profits, but if it did go down the tube (and going on diversifying for ever and ever seems a good way to bring it about), then I think others would step into the gap. Very willingly, actually. Tesco, anyone? Or see below re Play.com.
Music/publishing parallels
From about 1955 to 1970 I was seriously interested in popular music and jazz. In those days I had ears, of course, which helps. And I'm still kind of interested, though I am handicapped by the fact that my audiologist describes me as 'difficult'.
Anway, the Times on Friday had a really interesting piece about modern popular music, and how bands can take off by using My Space and other internet devices.
The general drift of the story (which is far from new) is that, in order to be popular and sell lots of records, you need the right music and the right face(s) and the right story. Putting these factors together is something of an art. Sandi Thom seems to have done it. But there's a 52-year old bloke in Glasgow who can do the music but is probably 30-odd years too old.
What this story says to me (and again this is not new) is that 17th Street and Kaavya had very much the right idea in terms of books, but they done it all wrong. Do it right and publishing could have a very big hit indeed.
Christopher G. Moore
Christopher G. Moore is a very successful novelist (17 novels so far). Unusually, he lives in Thailand and has developed something of a cult status in Eastern markets.
Christopher is also a blogger, recently added to the blogroll here. In his latest post (as I write), he considers the value of originality in fiction. In doing so, he leads us to yet another agent/blogger with some telling things to say, Kristin of Denver, Colorado -- a lady who blogs as Pub Rants.
Yes, much to one's surprise, it seems that the book world does not end at the borders of New York City or Greater London.
Gary Troup unveiled
If you ever wondered (and you may not have) who Gary Troup really was (see my earlier post re Lost), then Dow Jones newswires has news for you (link from Publishing News).
Play.comLaurence Shames, a writer known for such crime novels as "The Naked Detective" and "Welcome to Paradise," would not confirm or deny yesterday a report in Daily Variety that he is also the author of "Bad Twin," a novel published under the name of Gary Troup, a character from ABC's hit drama series"Lost."
"Gary Troup wrote the book," Mr. Shames said..."It is interesting how closely his prose style resembles mine. He sets a lot of the story in places I've been..."
Just for the record, Mr. Shames calls "Bad Twin" an "excellent" book that "everyone should read."
Independent booksellers (understandably) don't like it when bloggers mention -- or, worse, link to -- online booksellers, so keep this one quiet. There is now a new player in town. Only three months ago I had never heard of Play.com, but now they're ranked fifth among Britain's top internet retailers. To be precise, they come behind Amazon UK, Dell, Argos and Tesco. See what I mean about it not being the end of the world if Amazon were to collapse? The story is at Publishing News.
More ways to sell a book than two
Many and various, as we have often noted, are the ways in which writers seek to achieve publication and, having published, try to achieve sales.
Galleycat reports that Tom Dunkel of the Baltimore Sun found a conspiracy-theory web site called Operation Emu. This tells a fairly familiar story: bunch of guys go out into the Nevada desert and disappear. The place where they disappear is in the heart of Area 51, which is said to be the Times Square of UFO activity.
On investigation, Operation Emu turns out to be a plug for a novel by one R. Brandon Barker. And, so far, it's worked. Barker has attracted enough visitors to his site to persuade agent Byrd Leavell of New York-based Waxman Agency to take him on. The novel is said to be satirical, and derives its fun from 'the cult of alien-life true believers'.
Lost Girls by Alan Moore: a slur on Wendy
Galleycat also has a tale about a comic book or graphic novel (Lost Girls, by Alan Moore) which features Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, Alice from Alice in Wonderland, and Wendy from Peter Pan. And, in said comic book, the three gals have mad passionate sex together.
This is a filthy lie. Wendy ain't no lesbo. I had it from a guy who's bin there.
Alan Moore's Dorothy/Alice/Wendy thingy has attracted a cover story from Publishers Weekly. My prediction: even at $75 dollars a pop, this well sell out overnight. Order your copy now.
For those who care, there are copyright issues here. The Peter Pan copyright is yet another case which keeps lawyers wonderfully well remunerated, as I explained in my post of 20 January 2006. The issues were further illuminated by m'learned friend C.E. Petit, Esq.
PEN friends
Another story on Galleycat features a very bad-tempered representative of PEN. If you've never hear of it, International PEN is a worldwide association of writers, 'founded in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere; to emphasise the role of literature in the development of mutual understanding and world culture'; and all like that. Terrible worthy, earnest, and, as far as I have always been concerned, dull.
I presume, though I don't know, that PEN is a voluntary organisation, staffed by unpaid amateurs; and that one must therefore make allowances in what one expects from them. But I can only say that in my one contact with that operation (over a short-story competition, a couple of years ago), they proved to be so astoundingly incompetent that I immediately made a resolution never to have anything further to do with them.
The PEN spat with Lynne Scanlon, as described by Galleycat, does nothing to change that view.
Famous Five interfered with
The other day, I said that, faced with the choice of reading Douglas Coupland or Enid Blyton, I would settle for Enid any day.
Well, now some son of a bitch has been interfering with the Famous Five. I won't go into the sordid details because it's all too distressing, and not fit for a family blog, but the Sunday Times has the story.
'Blyton’s books would remain true to her intentions, the publisher insisted. “The books have only been very slightly altered with the addition of decimalisation to bring them up to date,” said Margaret Conroy of Hodder.'
Yeah, right. That's what they all say.
Friday, June 23, 2006
Endweek
Serious disillusion
Have you ever been, like, seriously disillusioned? I mean seriously disillusioned. Like when your Mummy told you there wasn't a Father Christmas/Santa Claus. Or when you discovered that Daddy was really the tooth fairy? Or the first time you read a Booker Prizewinner? Hmm?
Well now here is one that will really stop you dead in your tracks. But the news is -- and she admits this herself, mind you -- the news is that the Joyful Homemaker actually has messy corners in her house.
I tell you, I had to go into another room and snuffle when I found out.
What, I have to ask myself, is the good Lord going to think about that? And she wrote this on the Sabbath, too. Has the woman no shame?
Dove Grey Reader blog
Dove Grey Reader (or dovegreyreader, or ? dove-grey reader) is a 'Devonshire based bookaholic [she ain't kidding] sock knitting quilter, who happens to be a community nurse in her spare time.' She has much to say on the subject of books, and all of it worth hearing about. (Thanks to Susan Hill for the introductions to this lady and the one above.)
The help is out there
Biff Mitchell is giving a workshop on science fiction and cyberpunk at the Maritime Writers' Workshop, July 9-14. Location, if I'm reading it correctly, is in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Other writers are also involved. Details on Biff's web site, and on the workshop's blog.
Andwerve
Andwerve is a Los Angeles-based literary journal, published monthly, which also appears on the web. The editors say: 'We think of ourselves as a conscientious alternative to a media that is generally unaccepting of radical, progressive artwork. andwerve is a publication modeled on the open-source software model, a social philosophy that seeks to push the boundaries of art, culture, and self; to free art from the confines of academia and corporate sponsorship and return it to the people who create it and enjoy it.'
Free art from the confines of academia? I didn't know it was locked up in academia, but there we are. As you can tell from the above, andwerve is fairly modern, cutting-edge stuff (sparing with the capital letters), but they claim to be 'open to anything. if your fiction, non-fiction, poetry, photography, painting, or design challenges existing forms and established lines of communication, then please submit your work.'
Smarter thinking by Random House
Publishers Lunch this week mentioned that the Wall Street Journal had published an article about the 'generally tired topic' of publishers' objections to the Google Library program. The WSJ article is not available online, unfortunately, but apparently Richard Sarnoff, of Random House, is quoted as follows:
Words of wisdom
In a short discussion of the value, or otherwise, of blogs written by published authors, Galleycat quotes SF writer Kristine Smith on the usefulness of knowing what is currently fashionable in the publishing world: 'In the 2-3 years it would take for me to research and write a novel that would fit that niche, the needs would change and they'd want something else.'
So... So you don't need me to spell it out.
The Wow! factor
This blog has more than once remarked on the fact that popular music has the capacity to make people (mostly young people) go Wow! And they immediately want to buy a copy of whatever it is that has made them go Wow! And we have also noticed that it is extremely difficult to identify precisely what it is that causes this effect, whether in music or in fiction.
Well, now some weirdo bunch of scientists somewhere is trying. The Telegraph has the story. Or, to be more precise, John Sutherland has the story (Professor Sutherland to you; at least I assume it's the Prof, though that reference to Magneto's helmet in X-Men has got me worried). (Link from booktrade.info.)
Anyway, it seems that the boffins have analysed thousands of popular-music tracks and have identified hundreds of musical attributes or 'genes'; these they have assembled into a 'music genome' which summarises the 'unique and magical musical identity of any individual song'.
And, if you're muttering So what?, then consider this. Once you have ze formula you can conquer ze vorld. Ve haf vays of making you buy.
If you want to try out this latest miracle of science, hie thee to Pandora and follow the instructions.
Sutherland looks forward to the day when a similar service will be available for books. The technology isn't there yet, he says, because popular music has coughed up the money for the underlying research and the book world hasn't.
Actually, I take leave to question whether we need technology. What we do have, already, is quite a few web sites which offer a 'Who writes like' service. Just choosing one at random: Reader's Corner. And plenty of public libraries offer suggestions: either online, as in the case of Wellington, New Zealand, or in person, in the shape of your cuddly neighbourhood librarian. All you have to do is ask.
If you prefer your information in book form, you can get it from Loughborough University's Library and Information Statistics Unit. Sample pages available.
Entertainment booms
The global entertainment and media industry will be worth $1.8 trillion (£977 billion) by 2010, says a report from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. The spread of broadband internet and wireless technology will be the driving forces behind the growth. (Report from the BBC; link from booktrade.info.)
Apart from noting that the 2010 value figure covers everything from 'books and trips to the cinema, to TV and internet subscriptions in the home' the report says nothing whatever about publishing, let alone fiction as a part of publishing. But my opinion remains unchanged: despite all this excitement and people saying Wow! all the time, fiction is going to have an increasingly hard time maintaining its share of the market.
Coupland is such fun
Private Eye this week provides a clue as to why fiction -- particularly literary fiction -- is going to find it hard to keep up.
Douglas Coupland is evidently a novelist with some literary reputation, and he has a new book out. According to the Eye, this book (iPod) contains, among other wonders, 'the first 100,000 digits of pi, the 8,363 prime numbers between 1,000 and 10,000, all the three-letter words in Scrabble (with one bogus selection), phishing emails, computer error codes and so on. We are asked to presume that there is some meaning to all this drivel...'
Well, thanks, but on the whole I think I'll stick to Enid Blyton, as usual.
Cantarabooks
Cantara Books (a small publisher) is the brainchild of Cantara Christopher. You can find her latest newsletter on the Cantarabooks blog. This gives details some of the books on her list. And, if you live in New York City, she has details of various events and is looking for beta testers of various devices.
Picolata Review
The Picolata Review has announced its first publication, on 21 June. As the name suggests, this is yet another small literary magazine, to be published monthly online. It describes itself as 'a place to find emerging writers and poets'. Unlike most such magazines, this one will consider genre fiction. See the submissions page.
More on book sales in Europe
That which I referred to last Monday as a 'small, quiet war' has got bigger and noisier. The war is about who gets to sell English-language books on the continent of Europe.
Have you ever been, like, seriously disillusioned? I mean seriously disillusioned. Like when your Mummy told you there wasn't a Father Christmas/Santa Claus. Or when you discovered that Daddy was really the tooth fairy? Or the first time you read a Booker Prizewinner? Hmm?
Well now here is one that will really stop you dead in your tracks. But the news is -- and she admits this herself, mind you -- the news is that the Joyful Homemaker actually has messy corners in her house.
I tell you, I had to go into another room and snuffle when I found out.
What, I have to ask myself, is the good Lord going to think about that? And she wrote this on the Sabbath, too. Has the woman no shame?
Dove Grey Reader blog
Dove Grey Reader (or dovegreyreader, or ? dove-grey reader) is a 'Devonshire based bookaholic [she ain't kidding] sock knitting quilter, who happens to be a community nurse in her spare time.' She has much to say on the subject of books, and all of it worth hearing about. (Thanks to Susan Hill for the introductions to this lady and the one above.)
The help is out there
Biff Mitchell is giving a workshop on science fiction and cyberpunk at the Maritime Writers' Workshop, July 9-14. Location, if I'm reading it correctly, is in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Other writers are also involved. Details on Biff's web site, and on the workshop's blog.
Andwerve
Andwerve is a Los Angeles-based literary journal, published monthly, which also appears on the web. The editors say: 'We think of ourselves as a conscientious alternative to a media that is generally unaccepting of radical, progressive artwork. andwerve is a publication modeled on the open-source software model, a social philosophy that seeks to push the boundaries of art, culture, and self; to free art from the confines of academia and corporate sponsorship and return it to the people who create it and enjoy it.'
Free art from the confines of academia? I didn't know it was locked up in academia, but there we are. As you can tell from the above, andwerve is fairly modern, cutting-edge stuff (sparing with the capital letters), but they claim to be 'open to anything. if your fiction, non-fiction, poetry, photography, painting, or design challenges existing forms and established lines of communication, then please submit your work.'
Smarter thinking by Random House
Publishers Lunch this week mentioned that the Wall Street Journal had published an article about the 'generally tired topic' of publishers' objections to the Google Library program. The WSJ article is not available online, unfortunately, but apparently Richard Sarnoff, of Random House, is quoted as follows:
We are going to turn on a fire hose of discovery for the works that we control, where they're going to be discoverable beyond snippets in every possible way on the Net....When those things are discoverable and partially readable on the Web, we're also going to turn on different ways you can then consume it and pay for it. And we're going to...work with Google and a whole host of other partners who we're talking to, in getting that done.Now that sounds a great deal more sensible than some of the stuff that we've been hearing from publishers -- and from authors, for that matter; at least insofar as they are represented by the US Authors Guild.
Words of wisdom
In a short discussion of the value, or otherwise, of blogs written by published authors, Galleycat quotes SF writer Kristine Smith on the usefulness of knowing what is currently fashionable in the publishing world: 'In the 2-3 years it would take for me to research and write a novel that would fit that niche, the needs would change and they'd want something else.'
So... So you don't need me to spell it out.
The Wow! factor
This blog has more than once remarked on the fact that popular music has the capacity to make people (mostly young people) go Wow! And they immediately want to buy a copy of whatever it is that has made them go Wow! And we have also noticed that it is extremely difficult to identify precisely what it is that causes this effect, whether in music or in fiction.
Well, now some weirdo bunch of scientists somewhere is trying. The Telegraph has the story. Or, to be more precise, John Sutherland has the story (Professor Sutherland to you; at least I assume it's the Prof, though that reference to Magneto's helmet in X-Men has got me worried). (Link from booktrade.info.)
Anyway, it seems that the boffins have analysed thousands of popular-music tracks and have identified hundreds of musical attributes or 'genes'; these they have assembled into a 'music genome' which summarises the 'unique and magical musical identity of any individual song'.
And, if you're muttering So what?, then consider this. Once you have ze formula you can conquer ze vorld. Ve haf vays of making you buy.
If you want to try out this latest miracle of science, hie thee to Pandora and follow the instructions.
Sutherland looks forward to the day when a similar service will be available for books. The technology isn't there yet, he says, because popular music has coughed up the money for the underlying research and the book world hasn't.
Actually, I take leave to question whether we need technology. What we do have, already, is quite a few web sites which offer a 'Who writes like' service. Just choosing one at random: Reader's Corner. And plenty of public libraries offer suggestions: either online, as in the case of Wellington, New Zealand, or in person, in the shape of your cuddly neighbourhood librarian. All you have to do is ask.
If you prefer your information in book form, you can get it from Loughborough University's Library and Information Statistics Unit. Sample pages available.
Entertainment booms
The global entertainment and media industry will be worth $1.8 trillion (£977 billion) by 2010, says a report from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. The spread of broadband internet and wireless technology will be the driving forces behind the growth. (Report from the BBC; link from booktrade.info.)
Apart from noting that the 2010 value figure covers everything from 'books and trips to the cinema, to TV and internet subscriptions in the home' the report says nothing whatever about publishing, let alone fiction as a part of publishing. But my opinion remains unchanged: despite all this excitement and people saying Wow! all the time, fiction is going to have an increasingly hard time maintaining its share of the market.
Coupland is such fun
Private Eye this week provides a clue as to why fiction -- particularly literary fiction -- is going to find it hard to keep up.
Douglas Coupland is evidently a novelist with some literary reputation, and he has a new book out. According to the Eye, this book (iPod) contains, among other wonders, 'the first 100,000 digits of pi, the 8,363 prime numbers between 1,000 and 10,000, all the three-letter words in Scrabble (with one bogus selection), phishing emails, computer error codes and so on. We are asked to presume that there is some meaning to all this drivel...'
Well, thanks, but on the whole I think I'll stick to Enid Blyton, as usual.
Cantarabooks
Cantara Books (a small publisher) is the brainchild of Cantara Christopher. You can find her latest newsletter on the Cantarabooks blog. This gives details some of the books on her list. And, if you live in New York City, she has details of various events and is looking for beta testers of various devices.
Picolata Review
The Picolata Review has announced its first publication, on 21 June. As the name suggests, this is yet another small literary magazine, to be published monthly online. It describes itself as 'a place to find emerging writers and poets'. Unlike most such magazines, this one will consider genre fiction. See the submissions page.
More on book sales in Europe
That which I referred to last Monday as a 'small, quiet war' has got bigger and noisier. The war is about who gets to sell English-language books on the continent of Europe.
Basically, the Brit publishers are saying that Europe is theirs, and there are laws to prove it. The Americans think it should be open to any publisher. Details in Publishing News; link from booktrade.info.
And finally...
Normally I don't take any notice of small-town America deciding to ban this or that. It seems to happen every day. But I did notice somewhere that some braindead moron had decided that kids who lived in shelters for the homeless in Porter County would no longer be eligible to borrow library books. And I wasn't impressed.
Well, Michael Schaub reports on Bookslut that the library directors have changed their minds. Why? Because a bunch of kids shamed them into it, that's why.
Michael Schaub thinks young Taylor is a hero and so by golly do I.Eleven-year-old Taylor Knoblock led the charge, taking his brother, Jacob, 9, and sister, Rachel, 6, and a wagon with him.
'I read in the paper that the public library wouldn’t let kids from the homeless shelter check out books anymore,' Taylor said. 'I didn’t like that idea, so I started to collect books for Spring Valley to have their own library....
'I feel sad for people that don’t have the same stuff as I do,' said Taylor, who by early afternoon had collected about 50 books and 20 videotapes.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Robert Bringhurst: The Elements of Typographic Style
I have more than once expressed the view that the physical shape and design of a book has a pronounced effect on the reader's enjoyment of it. Usually this effect is unconscious, but it's real enough, and it is more important, I think, than many people realise -- including professionals who ought to know better.
I have also said, from time to time, that on average, year in and year out, it seems to me that American book design is superior to British.
Well, in Robert Bringhurst's classic text The Elements of Typographic Style, we have some wonderful insights into how the conscious or unconscious impact of a well designed book is brought about. The Elements of Typographic Style is vastly superior, in every way, to Williamson's Methods of Book Design, which was recommended to me a decade or so ago as the authoritative book its field.
Bringhurst's masterwork was first published in 1990. Rapid developments in digital technology meant that it had to be revised and enlarged in 1996; and the third edition, again fully revised, appeared in 2004. It is widely recognised, I believe, as a classic in its field, and I can't say that I am surprised.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that every author and publisher ought to own this book (though I have bought one myself), because it is extremely technical in places, and overall is far too detailed for most laymen. However, I do think it would do no harm for all book lovers to take a look at it, if only to understand how deeply some people care about the importance of the page's appearance.
In itself, this book is an exceptionally elegant piece of design: but you would expect that, I think. Taller and narrower than many books, it was designed by the author, set into type in Canada, and printed and bound in Hong Kong; because the world is flat. The basic font used is Minion Pro, which I first noticed, and heartily approved of, in the latest Terry Pratchett novel.
Minion is not without its critics: someone told me that, as issued, the closing quotation mark is positioned too close to the full stop, with the result that it can all too easily be mistaken for an exclamation mark. However, I didn't notice that in the Pratchett book; and in any case, as Bringhurst explains, the skilled typographer can tweak the kerning settings of most fonts these days, so as to eliminate any nuisances of this kind. And, bearing in mind some of the examples that Bringhurst offers, you will be amazed by how sharp an eye some of these typographers have.
The contents page reveals that the book is divided into 11 chapters with five appendices. This page could, with advantage, give a much more detailed breakdown of the sub-headings within each chapter, as the titles themselves -- e.g. Rhythm and Proportion; Harmony and Counterpoint -- do not tell us very much. However, there is a very thorough index at the back.
The early chapters give us a number of practical working rules: e.g. Add extra lead (space) before and after block quotations. On hyphens, for instance, Bringhurst is relaxed about their appearance at the end of a page (something that the old guard would never have allowed), but says that 'in the interests of typographic hygiene, unnecessary hyphens should be omitted.'
We also have a vast amount of background information. For example, I learnt that the mediaeval scribes and clerks devoted much more attention to the layout of their manuscripts than I had hitherto suspected. I suppose this is fairly obvious when you think about it: copying a document or a book might take you a week or a year, and the result would have a substantial value, so naturally you would give a great deal of thought as to how to make a good job of it.
The mathematical bases for the various traditional (and new) page sizes are fully explained, and, interestingly, parallels are drawn with music. 'The shape of the page itself,' says Bringhurst, 'will provoke certain responses and expectations in the reader, independently of whatever text it contains.' For example, 'the very long and narrow columns of newspapers and magazines have come to suggest disposable prose and quick, unthoughtful reading.'
And so on. This is not a book that can readily be summarised. It can only be studied and admired.
Bringhurst himself, I discover, is a bit of a polymath but perhaps principally a poet. Typography seems to be almost the least of his interests. If you want to read an interview with him (from 1997), there is one on the typebooks site. I particularly like the following response, when he is asked what book he is working on at the moment:
I have also said, from time to time, that on average, year in and year out, it seems to me that American book design is superior to British.
Well, in Robert Bringhurst's classic text The Elements of Typographic Style, we have some wonderful insights into how the conscious or unconscious impact of a well designed book is brought about. The Elements of Typographic Style is vastly superior, in every way, to Williamson's Methods of Book Design, which was recommended to me a decade or so ago as the authoritative book its field.
Bringhurst's masterwork was first published in 1990. Rapid developments in digital technology meant that it had to be revised and enlarged in 1996; and the third edition, again fully revised, appeared in 2004. It is widely recognised, I believe, as a classic in its field, and I can't say that I am surprised.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that every author and publisher ought to own this book (though I have bought one myself), because it is extremely technical in places, and overall is far too detailed for most laymen. However, I do think it would do no harm for all book lovers to take a look at it, if only to understand how deeply some people care about the importance of the page's appearance.
In itself, this book is an exceptionally elegant piece of design: but you would expect that, I think. Taller and narrower than many books, it was designed by the author, set into type in Canada, and printed and bound in Hong Kong; because the world is flat. The basic font used is Minion Pro, which I first noticed, and heartily approved of, in the latest Terry Pratchett novel.
Minion is not without its critics: someone told me that, as issued, the closing quotation mark is positioned too close to the full stop, with the result that it can all too easily be mistaken for an exclamation mark. However, I didn't notice that in the Pratchett book; and in any case, as Bringhurst explains, the skilled typographer can tweak the kerning settings of most fonts these days, so as to eliminate any nuisances of this kind. And, bearing in mind some of the examples that Bringhurst offers, you will be amazed by how sharp an eye some of these typographers have.
The contents page reveals that the book is divided into 11 chapters with five appendices. This page could, with advantage, give a much more detailed breakdown of the sub-headings within each chapter, as the titles themselves -- e.g. Rhythm and Proportion; Harmony and Counterpoint -- do not tell us very much. However, there is a very thorough index at the back.
The early chapters give us a number of practical working rules: e.g. Add extra lead (space) before and after block quotations. On hyphens, for instance, Bringhurst is relaxed about their appearance at the end of a page (something that the old guard would never have allowed), but says that 'in the interests of typographic hygiene, unnecessary hyphens should be omitted.'
We also have a vast amount of background information. For example, I learnt that the mediaeval scribes and clerks devoted much more attention to the layout of their manuscripts than I had hitherto suspected. I suppose this is fairly obvious when you think about it: copying a document or a book might take you a week or a year, and the result would have a substantial value, so naturally you would give a great deal of thought as to how to make a good job of it.
The mathematical bases for the various traditional (and new) page sizes are fully explained, and, interestingly, parallels are drawn with music. 'The shape of the page itself,' says Bringhurst, 'will provoke certain responses and expectations in the reader, independently of whatever text it contains.' For example, 'the very long and narrow columns of newspapers and magazines have come to suggest disposable prose and quick, unthoughtful reading.'
And so on. This is not a book that can readily be summarised. It can only be studied and admired.
Bringhurst himself, I discover, is a bit of a polymath but perhaps principally a poet. Typography seems to be almost the least of his interests. If you want to read an interview with him (from 1997), there is one on the typebooks site. I particularly like the following response, when he is asked what book he is working on at the moment:
I think that books, like people, are better off not being talked about behind their backs. Before they are finished, books are all back. After they are published, people, including the author, can say what they please.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Kristin Shoemaker: Aurora Borealis
Aurora Borealis is published by the author, Kristin Shoemaker, through Lulu.com, and Kristin makes no bones about it.
What does that imply, if anything? Well, in this day and age I suggest that it does not mean that you're automatically going to read something second rate. Far from it. But the odds are that a Lulu.com book is not going to be something that would excite a New York editor. Because the likelihood is that the author will have tried agents and editors before going to Lulu.
Actually I don't know whether Kristin Shoemaker did that or not. But I think it's fair to say that Aurora Borealis is not a book that would excite a New York editor. In and of itself. What I think it does do is constitute a very respectable example of what is called, in TV circles, a calling-card script. That is to say, it is a piece of work which demonstrates rather well that the author can produce work of a professional standard.
The author now has a novel which is nicely printed out in book format -- and that is always so much more impressive than a heap of manuscript -- and she can hand copies out to professionals and say, look this is an example of what I can do. Viewed in that way, I regard Aurora Borealis as an impressive and valuable piece of work. If I were an editor in a leading fiction house (or even a small one), I wouldn't actually have published this book. But if I were shown it, and spent a few minutes reading it, I would certainly say, and mean it, please let me see anything else that you write.
Told in the first person, Aurora Borealis tells how Alice Pendleton, an aspiring writer, comes to suffer endless (metaphorical) torture at the hands of her sister from hell -- a sister who is named Aurora. The tension and antagonism are steadily increased to the point where Alice decides that there is nothing for it -- she is just going to have to bump her sister off.
The main virtues of this book are:
Judging by this initial book, Kristin is more naturally inclined to the commercial market than to literary world, and that, in my opinion, is an entirely healthy state of affairs. If I were her agent I would encourage her to do a few books in a strictly commercial format -- the more tightly formulaic the better -- in order to gain experience. Using another name wouldn't do any harm. Then, when she finds her feet, she can do books which have a more personal stamp on them.
If you want to read another, and rather harsher, review of this book, you can find one by Kate Trout. Though in my view Ms Trout takes the whole thing rather more seriously than is necessary. Aurora Borealis is, as I say, a black comedy, and black comedies are not designed to give us a template for living right.
It was, incidentally, Kristin Shoemaker's blog which led me to the Trout review. And, as you will realise when you see that the blog is called Linux Librarian, Kristin has more than one pair of shoes in her wardrobe.
What does that imply, if anything? Well, in this day and age I suggest that it does not mean that you're automatically going to read something second rate. Far from it. But the odds are that a Lulu.com book is not going to be something that would excite a New York editor. Because the likelihood is that the author will have tried agents and editors before going to Lulu.
Actually I don't know whether Kristin Shoemaker did that or not. But I think it's fair to say that Aurora Borealis is not a book that would excite a New York editor. In and of itself. What I think it does do is constitute a very respectable example of what is called, in TV circles, a calling-card script. That is to say, it is a piece of work which demonstrates rather well that the author can produce work of a professional standard.
The author now has a novel which is nicely printed out in book format -- and that is always so much more impressive than a heap of manuscript -- and she can hand copies out to professionals and say, look this is an example of what I can do. Viewed in that way, I regard Aurora Borealis as an impressive and valuable piece of work. If I were an editor in a leading fiction house (or even a small one), I wouldn't actually have published this book. But if I were shown it, and spent a few minutes reading it, I would certainly say, and mean it, please let me see anything else that you write.
Told in the first person, Aurora Borealis tells how Alice Pendleton, an aspiring writer, comes to suffer endless (metaphorical) torture at the hands of her sister from hell -- a sister who is named Aurora. The tension and antagonism are steadily increased to the point where Alice decides that there is nothing for it -- she is just going to have to bump her sister off.
The main virtues of this book are:
It's short: maybe 55,000 words.These are not negligible accomplishments. As for shortcomings: well, the plot is a little creaky here and there. But these things improve with practice, and after a few more books Kristin will be as competent as anyone.
It's well written: the author can spell and punctuate.
It has a clearly defined plot: this is not 225 pages of anguished introspection.
It's amusing -- not laugh out loud funny, but I certainly view it as a black comedy.
Judging by this initial book, Kristin is more naturally inclined to the commercial market than to literary world, and that, in my opinion, is an entirely healthy state of affairs. If I were her agent I would encourage her to do a few books in a strictly commercial format -- the more tightly formulaic the better -- in order to gain experience. Using another name wouldn't do any harm. Then, when she finds her feet, she can do books which have a more personal stamp on them.
If you want to read another, and rather harsher, review of this book, you can find one by Kate Trout. Though in my view Ms Trout takes the whole thing rather more seriously than is necessary. Aurora Borealis is, as I say, a black comedy, and black comedies are not designed to give us a template for living right.
It was, incidentally, Kristin Shoemaker's blog which led me to the Trout review. And, as you will realise when you see that the blog is called Linux Librarian, Kristin has more than one pair of shoes in her wardrobe.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
The libel laws of England part 94
The Guardian this morning carries a report of a libel case in progress in the English courts. The case is important in that it is believed to be the first time that a publisher has sought to use the so-called Reynolds defence.
The Reynolds defence was developed in the judgment on a libel action brought some time ago by the former Irish prime minister Albert Reynolds against the Sunday Times. In theory, it allows the media to print allegations that are in the public interest, irrespective of whether their truth can be ascertained, so long as certain important tests are applied.
Anyone seeking to publish a non-fiction book in the UK, and especially a book which claims to expose wrongdoing of one sort or another, should keep an eye on this one.
The Reynolds defence was developed in the judgment on a libel action brought some time ago by the former Irish prime minister Albert Reynolds against the Sunday Times. In theory, it allows the media to print allegations that are in the public interest, irrespective of whether their truth can be ascertained, so long as certain important tests are applied.
Anyone seeking to publish a non-fiction book in the UK, and especially a book which claims to expose wrongdoing of one sort or another, should keep an eye on this one.
Sam Bourne finally makes it
As noted here on several occasions, most notably perhaps on 3 April, it has taken some time for The Righteous Men, by Sam Bourne, to achieve the recognition which is, as all right-thinking folk will agree, the birthright of any novel written by a Fleet Street journalist and agented by the all-powerful Jonny Geller.
At last, however, Bourne (aka Jonathan Freedland, political columnist of the Guardian) has made it: he is officially on Richard and Judy's summer reading list. And if that doesn't shift a few copies, nothing will. (Link from Publishers Lunch. For Richard and Judy think Oprah UK.)
On Saturday last, the Times did a profile of the woman who apparently draws up the reading list for our beloved R & J: her name is Amanda Ross. A nice enough lady, I'm sure, but I have the odd quibble with her.
In respect of The Righteous Men, Amanda says this: 'This book was the best thriller that I read, and thrillers really aren't my genre. I find it tough to choose thrillers.'
Well -- ahem -- actually, darling, we could have deduced that from the fact that you chose this one. I haven't read it myself, but I think it's fair to say that those who have read it regard it, for the most part, as second rate.
Mind you, right at the start of the Times profile, some of the really important factors in determining R & J's all-powerful list are made clear. Here is what Amanda Ross says about the process of making her massively sales-generating choices:
By the way, while I may not be too fussy about the subjunctive, I do have to admit that I prefer people who use a plural noun to use the plural form of the verb. Just one of my funny little quirks.
At last, however, Bourne (aka Jonathan Freedland, political columnist of the Guardian) has made it: he is officially on Richard and Judy's summer reading list. And if that doesn't shift a few copies, nothing will. (Link from Publishers Lunch. For Richard and Judy think Oprah UK.)
On Saturday last, the Times did a profile of the woman who apparently draws up the reading list for our beloved R & J: her name is Amanda Ross. A nice enough lady, I'm sure, but I have the odd quibble with her.
In respect of The Righteous Men, Amanda says this: 'This book was the best thriller that I read, and thrillers really aren't my genre. I find it tough to choose thrillers.'
Well -- ahem -- actually, darling, we could have deduced that from the fact that you chose this one. I haven't read it myself, but I think it's fair to say that those who have read it regard it, for the most part, as second rate.
Mind you, right at the start of the Times profile, some of the really important factors in determining R & J's all-powerful list are made clear. Here is what Amanda Ross says about the process of making her massively sales-generating choices:
I don’t pretend that I know what definitely will make a bestseller. That’s not how I choose the books. My criteria, honestly, is: is this book going to entertain and engage people enough to generate 12 to 15 minutes of gripping television? The bottom line is: what’s the sofa chat?Well that's honest enough for you. And no doubt the political columnist of the Guardian is a dab hand at the TV shows. Even if he doesn't look all that wonderful in a mini-skirt, which is another useful asset for a wannabe bestseller.
By the way, while I may not be too fussy about the subjunctive, I do have to admit that I prefer people who use a plural noun to use the plural form of the verb. Just one of my funny little quirks.
Noah Cicero writes on
A writer is someone who writes, is what I've always said. She doesn't sit around talking about what she does, or telling people that she's going to do a book some day. She writes. And Noah Cicero does as much in this line as most people. Maybe more.
Noah was noted here a while back for Burning Babies. (Not the most attractive title.) Now he has a blog, and the blog tells us about the forthcoming (any day) The Condemned; and about The Furious Land (a freebie via Lulu); and he's also in The Edgier Waters.
Noah was noted here a while back for Burning Babies. (Not the most attractive title.) Now he has a blog, and the blog tells us about the forthcoming (any day) The Condemned; and about The Furious Land (a freebie via Lulu); and he's also in The Edgier Waters.
Sariola's ghost
Those of you who love to worry over the ethics of ghostwriting can chew over this one for some time, I suspect. It comes from Finland (link from the Literary Saloon).
Here's the headline: Finnish novelist admits to using ghost writer for 16 crime novels. Publisher denies knowledge. (Hastily.) And the author is apologising. And they all have confusingly similar names.
There is no indication, by the way, that any of the people who bought and read these 16 novels are complaining. So quite why the 'author' feels the need to apologise I'm not sure -- unless she now feels that it was somehow wrong to put out a ghostwritten book in the first place. In which case I think she is misguided. Personally I am entirely relaxed about ghostwriting, as you may have gathered from previous posts.
Modern publishing is a business, and big-time writers are brands. And there's a class of reader that really doesn't care about art and literature (I'm one, for a start). Just gimme a good romance, they say. Or a thriller. And if it's got a name on it that I recognise, and it's the same sort of book as the last one with that name on it, that's fine. Tells me all I need to know. Who actually wrote it and how they divide the loot is none of my business.
Actually this Finnish ghostwriting affair looks very like the Michael Gruber/Robert Tanenbaum business. That is to say, there comes a time when the ghost decides to set up in his/her own right, and then the history of the ghosted books becomes a commercial asset for the ghost turned name author.
Here's the headline: Finnish novelist admits to using ghost writer for 16 crime novels. Publisher denies knowledge. (Hastily.) And the author is apologising. And they all have confusingly similar names.
There is no indication, by the way, that any of the people who bought and read these 16 novels are complaining. So quite why the 'author' feels the need to apologise I'm not sure -- unless she now feels that it was somehow wrong to put out a ghostwritten book in the first place. In which case I think she is misguided. Personally I am entirely relaxed about ghostwriting, as you may have gathered from previous posts.
Modern publishing is a business, and big-time writers are brands. And there's a class of reader that really doesn't care about art and literature (I'm one, for a start). Just gimme a good romance, they say. Or a thriller. And if it's got a name on it that I recognise, and it's the same sort of book as the last one with that name on it, that's fine. Tells me all I need to know. Who actually wrote it and how they divide the loot is none of my business.
Actually this Finnish ghostwriting affair looks very like the Michael Gruber/Robert Tanenbaum business. That is to say, there comes a time when the ghost decides to set up in his/her own right, and then the history of the ghosted books becomes a commercial asset for the ghost turned name author.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Monday morning
Bullshit jobs
Galleycat reports on a launch party for Stanley Bing's book 101 Bullshit Jobs... and How to Get Them. And there's an excerpt from the book, dealing with agents and book editors, which might amuse you. Of book editors, Bing says, 'the more [money] you make, the more access you have to the highest, rocket-grade bullshit imaginable.' He also adds: 'The great book editor is at once a gifted salesperson, an arbiter of taste, a babysitter of lost souls, and a closet boulevardier. God bless them, both of them.'
Sounds to me as if he's been there and done it.
Boris on why women read
In the Telegraph, Boris Johnson has an article about why women read fiction. Actually it's not only about that: it's a wide-ranging article dealing with social changes in the UK. But when we get to the reading fiction bit, here is Boris's conclusion:
Most UK readers of this blog will know who Boris is, but in case you don't you can find out on Wikipedia. Personally I wish he was Prime Minister.
Calling Joanna Trollope fans
OK, here's the deal. On 26 June the BBC World Service will be interviewing Joanna Trollope on the World Book Club programme. You can find details on the BBC's appropriate web page. The discussion will centre on one book in particular, The Rector's Wife.
If you have read this book, and would like to ask the author a question about it, then here's your chance. Send an email to worldbookclub@bbc.co.uk. You can use this address right up until the day of the broadcast, but the sooner the better.
If you visit the BBC site, you will see that the same page has links to numerous previous interviews which you can still listen to: about 30 or 40 of them, including all the usual literary suspects but also Martin Cruz Smith, Ken Follett, Ruth Rendell, Terry Pratchett, and other big commercial names.
More on the Book Depository
New online retailer the Book Depository, mentioned here some ten days ago, is a bigger and more elaborate outfit than I had realised, though I still don't think that the home page makes it immediately obvious what the site actually does. And as I'm a simple sort of chap I like to be told these things. Anyway, just how big and elaborate a business it is is explained in Publishing News.
Book sales in Europe
British and American publishers have for some time been fighting a small, quiet war over the right to sell books in English on the continent of Europe. Now the bosses of some European book businesses have made it plain that they want an open market. Details in booktrade.info.
Jordan on horseback
We have already noted, you and I (15 March to be precise), that Katie Price, aka the stupendously well endowed (if with assistance) model Jordan, is to publish a novel in July. Entitled Angel, the cover looks quite remarkably dull to me.
However, there is good news. Publishing News reports that Katie is to plug the book by riding a horse down Oxford Street, dressed as an angel. Now angels aren't usually dressed like Lady Godiva, dammit, but Jordan is a lively lass and I dare say she would do it if there were enough requests. Go on, write in. Her publisher (Arrow/Random House) don't have a web site for her listed on their list of author sites, so you'll just have to write to them. Not that they want you to, of course. Publishers don't want to be bothered by mere members of the public: see their contact page, which definitely warns you off.
By the way, Angel has so far subbed 150,000 copies. 'Subbed' in the UK book trade, means ordered by the retail trade in advance of publication.
Irvine Welsh interview
The Book Standard has an interview with Irvine Welsh, of Trainspotting fame.
Treat to look forward to
Hey, you know what I found out? Susanna Clarke has a new book coming out. In October, subject to change. Entitled The Ladies of Grace Adieu, it's being issued by Bloomsbury. Looks like a collection of short stories. Well, she published a few of those while she was writing Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and I thought they were pretty good.
How not to advertise
Saturday's Times has a Books section, and then another section entitled The Knowledge: this latter deals with 'the cultural week', and has info on films, theatre, music, galleries, et cetera, plus the week's TV and radio listings.
In last Saturday's The Knowledge there was an advert for a book entitled The Greatest Man in Cedar Hole by Stephanie Doyon. The ad occupied most of a page, and advertising space in the Times is not cheap.
Apart from a picture of the book, the ad ran as follows (all in capital letters): Stand by me meets a confederacy of dunces in this enchanting story spanning three generations in small town America.
Now... What the fuck, as I believe the young people say. I tried this on Mrs GOB, and it meant absolutely nothing to her. It does mean something to me, but not a lot. Stand by me is presumably a reference to the 1986 film of that name, which I never saw but which is, I suppose, tolerably well known if you happen to have been around in 1986 and were paying any attention to films at the time. All I remember about it is that it was about a bunch of boys.
Then there's a confederacy of dunces. This is, equally presumably, a reference to the novel of that name which won the Pulitzer prize in 1981. I tried to read it and found it the most excruciatingly dull book that I'd read in a very long time. It is chiefly famous because the author committed suicide; it is said that he became depressed following numerous rejections of his novel, which was only published through the efforts of his mother after his death. As for what it's about -- I remember nothing.
So -- what we now have is an expensive advert for a paperback (no price given), published by Bloomsbury, and the only thing this ad tells us is that the book might, just conceivably, if you are extraordinarily well read and well movied, remind you of a couple of things which appeared more than twenty years ago.
Does this strike you as a good way to spend a marketing budget?
Hope for the great unwashed
There's an ever-growing band of hopefuls (it seems to me) who believe that if you put stuff out in one form or another, even give it away free, and if it's really really good, then sooner or later it will attract the attention of a big-time publisher, and fame and fortune will be yours for ever more.
Should you happen to believe that particiular article of faith, then your faith will be reinforced by a Joel Rickett report in the Guardian (link from booktrade.info). 'The cannier conglomerate publishers,' says Joel, 'are scouring blogs and specialist websites to find promising material. HarperCollins's paperback team, Harper Perennial, has turned up three books from small publishers that have created a stir; each will be reworked, redesigned and marketed to a wider audience.'
These three are Michael Norton's 'subversive ethical guide', 365 Ways to Change the World; a set of fantasy short stories, Magic for Beginners, by 'the cult American author' Kelly Link; and Belinda Rathbone's The Guynd, which traces the true story of how an American art historian fell in love with an eccentric Scottish laird.
Susan Hill on the Orange Prize
Last Saturday's (17 June) Times quoted Susan Hill's blog reference to the Orange Prize, which she helped to judge in 1996. 'The management team is feminist PC new Labour personified. It is the only prize I have judged where I was really, really unhappy with the whole tone of the way it was run.'
That blog entry was on 24 May. On 17 June Susan notes that what she writes is being noticed, as well she might, because what she has to say is always relevant and timely, and comes with a welath of experience behind it. Her blog is rapidly becoming essential reading.
On 17 June, for instance, she says this: 'The fact is that a lot - a lot, a lot, a lot - of people who read and buy books, now take absolutely no notice of the literary pages of the papers - indeed, they probably never glance at them.'
Damn right, sweetheart. Me included. Well, I do glance, but only to see what silly ideas they've come up with now. Like that book advert, mentioned above.
PDF made simple
Someone wrote to me a while back and asked about how to make PDF files. I gave such advice as I could, though I am really the last person to ask about technical matters.
Basically, if you want to make really professional PDFs, you need the Adobe Acrobat programme, which is very expensive. I have an early version, which I used on Windows 95, but it doesn't work on Windows XP. I wonder why? Can Adobe be encouraging me to buy an upgrade?
There are various medium-priced programs, such as Serif Page Plus, which will allow you to convert a page layout to PDF. Serif is quite a good programme, but it takes a many hours to learn how to use it.
And there are also some free conversion programs. The trouble with the free ones, at any rate those of them that I've tried in the past, is that they sometimes alter the layout of the page when doing the conversion. This is something that I find totally unacceptable. In fact it drives me nuts.
However... Over the weekend I read an article which mentioned pdf995. This is free, if you can put up with a few adverts, and only costs $9.95 if you want to get rid of the ads. More to the point, it seems to work. I have only tried it on three files so far, but I deliberately chose as test pieces three files which I thought might give trouble, and the PDFs emerged just fine.
Much more testing is needed before I decide if I'm completely happy. And, as you would expect, this program lacks any kind of control over the extent to which images, for example, are compressed or not compressed.
For a lot of people, however, that kind of refinement is unnecessary anyway. Take a look. It's easy to download and absolutely straightforward to use (even for a non-techie like me).
Galleycat reports on a launch party for Stanley Bing's book 101 Bullshit Jobs... and How to Get Them. And there's an excerpt from the book, dealing with agents and book editors, which might amuse you. Of book editors, Bing says, 'the more [money] you make, the more access you have to the highest, rocket-grade bullshit imaginable.' He also adds: 'The great book editor is at once a gifted salesperson, an arbiter of taste, a babysitter of lost souls, and a closet boulevardier. God bless them, both of them.'
Sounds to me as if he's been there and done it.
Boris on why women read
In the Telegraph, Boris Johnson has an article about why women read fiction. Actually it's not only about that: it's a wide-ranging article dealing with social changes in the UK. But when we get to the reading fiction bit, here is Boris's conclusion:
Now that seems about right to me, although Michael Schaub, of Bookslut, who led me to the article, didn't seem to think much of it.The reason women devour so much fiction is that it is the only place where they can find a certain idea of masculinity. It is a spirit that has been regulated out of the workplace and banished from the classroom.
Women turn to fiction, I would guess, because it is the last reservation for men who are neither violent thugs nor politically correct weeds, where a girl can still get her bodice ripped without the bodice ripper being locked up.
Most UK readers of this blog will know who Boris is, but in case you don't you can find out on Wikipedia. Personally I wish he was Prime Minister.
Calling Joanna Trollope fans
OK, here's the deal. On 26 June the BBC World Service will be interviewing Joanna Trollope on the World Book Club programme. You can find details on the BBC's appropriate web page. The discussion will centre on one book in particular, The Rector's Wife.
If you have read this book, and would like to ask the author a question about it, then here's your chance. Send an email to worldbookclub@bbc.co.uk. You can use this address right up until the day of the broadcast, but the sooner the better.
If you visit the BBC site, you will see that the same page has links to numerous previous interviews which you can still listen to: about 30 or 40 of them, including all the usual literary suspects but also Martin Cruz Smith, Ken Follett, Ruth Rendell, Terry Pratchett, and other big commercial names.
More on the Book Depository
New online retailer the Book Depository, mentioned here some ten days ago, is a bigger and more elaborate outfit than I had realised, though I still don't think that the home page makes it immediately obvious what the site actually does. And as I'm a simple sort of chap I like to be told these things. Anyway, just how big and elaborate a business it is is explained in Publishing News.
Book sales in Europe
British and American publishers have for some time been fighting a small, quiet war over the right to sell books in English on the continent of Europe. Now the bosses of some European book businesses have made it plain that they want an open market. Details in booktrade.info.
Jordan on horseback
We have already noted, you and I (15 March to be precise), that Katie Price, aka the stupendously well endowed (if with assistance) model Jordan, is to publish a novel in July. Entitled Angel, the cover looks quite remarkably dull to me.
However, there is good news. Publishing News reports that Katie is to plug the book by riding a horse down Oxford Street, dressed as an angel. Now angels aren't usually dressed like Lady Godiva, dammit, but Jordan is a lively lass and I dare say she would do it if there were enough requests. Go on, write in. Her publisher (Arrow/Random House) don't have a web site for her listed on their list of author sites, so you'll just have to write to them. Not that they want you to, of course. Publishers don't want to be bothered by mere members of the public: see their contact page, which definitely warns you off.
By the way, Angel has so far subbed 150,000 copies. 'Subbed' in the UK book trade, means ordered by the retail trade in advance of publication.
Irvine Welsh interview
The Book Standard has an interview with Irvine Welsh, of Trainspotting fame.
Treat to look forward to
Hey, you know what I found out? Susanna Clarke has a new book coming out. In October, subject to change. Entitled The Ladies of Grace Adieu, it's being issued by Bloomsbury. Looks like a collection of short stories. Well, she published a few of those while she was writing Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and I thought they were pretty good.
How not to advertise
Saturday's Times has a Books section, and then another section entitled The Knowledge: this latter deals with 'the cultural week', and has info on films, theatre, music, galleries, et cetera, plus the week's TV and radio listings.
In last Saturday's The Knowledge there was an advert for a book entitled The Greatest Man in Cedar Hole by Stephanie Doyon. The ad occupied most of a page, and advertising space in the Times is not cheap.
Apart from a picture of the book, the ad ran as follows (all in capital letters): Stand by me meets a confederacy of dunces in this enchanting story spanning three generations in small town America.
Now... What the fuck, as I believe the young people say. I tried this on Mrs GOB, and it meant absolutely nothing to her. It does mean something to me, but not a lot. Stand by me is presumably a reference to the 1986 film of that name, which I never saw but which is, I suppose, tolerably well known if you happen to have been around in 1986 and were paying any attention to films at the time. All I remember about it is that it was about a bunch of boys.
Then there's a confederacy of dunces. This is, equally presumably, a reference to the novel of that name which won the Pulitzer prize in 1981. I tried to read it and found it the most excruciatingly dull book that I'd read in a very long time. It is chiefly famous because the author committed suicide; it is said that he became depressed following numerous rejections of his novel, which was only published through the efforts of his mother after his death. As for what it's about -- I remember nothing.
So -- what we now have is an expensive advert for a paperback (no price given), published by Bloomsbury, and the only thing this ad tells us is that the book might, just conceivably, if you are extraordinarily well read and well movied, remind you of a couple of things which appeared more than twenty years ago.
Does this strike you as a good way to spend a marketing budget?
Hope for the great unwashed
There's an ever-growing band of hopefuls (it seems to me) who believe that if you put stuff out in one form or another, even give it away free, and if it's really really good, then sooner or later it will attract the attention of a big-time publisher, and fame and fortune will be yours for ever more.
Should you happen to believe that particiular article of faith, then your faith will be reinforced by a Joel Rickett report in the Guardian (link from booktrade.info). 'The cannier conglomerate publishers,' says Joel, 'are scouring blogs and specialist websites to find promising material. HarperCollins's paperback team, Harper Perennial, has turned up three books from small publishers that have created a stir; each will be reworked, redesigned and marketed to a wider audience.'
These three are Michael Norton's 'subversive ethical guide', 365 Ways to Change the World; a set of fantasy short stories, Magic for Beginners, by 'the cult American author' Kelly Link; and Belinda Rathbone's The Guynd, which traces the true story of how an American art historian fell in love with an eccentric Scottish laird.
Susan Hill on the Orange Prize
Last Saturday's (17 June) Times quoted Susan Hill's blog reference to the Orange Prize, which she helped to judge in 1996. 'The management team is feminist PC new Labour personified. It is the only prize I have judged where I was really, really unhappy with the whole tone of the way it was run.'
That blog entry was on 24 May. On 17 June Susan notes that what she writes is being noticed, as well she might, because what she has to say is always relevant and timely, and comes with a welath of experience behind it. Her blog is rapidly becoming essential reading.
On 17 June, for instance, she says this: 'The fact is that a lot - a lot, a lot, a lot - of people who read and buy books, now take absolutely no notice of the literary pages of the papers - indeed, they probably never glance at them.'
Damn right, sweetheart. Me included. Well, I do glance, but only to see what silly ideas they've come up with now. Like that book advert, mentioned above.
PDF made simple
Someone wrote to me a while back and asked about how to make PDF files. I gave such advice as I could, though I am really the last person to ask about technical matters.
Basically, if you want to make really professional PDFs, you need the Adobe Acrobat programme, which is very expensive. I have an early version, which I used on Windows 95, but it doesn't work on Windows XP. I wonder why? Can Adobe be encouraging me to buy an upgrade?
There are various medium-priced programs, such as Serif Page Plus, which will allow you to convert a page layout to PDF. Serif is quite a good programme, but it takes a many hours to learn how to use it.
And there are also some free conversion programs. The trouble with the free ones, at any rate those of them that I've tried in the past, is that they sometimes alter the layout of the page when doing the conversion. This is something that I find totally unacceptable. In fact it drives me nuts.
However... Over the weekend I read an article which mentioned pdf995. This is free, if you can put up with a few adverts, and only costs $9.95 if you want to get rid of the ads. More to the point, it seems to work. I have only tried it on three files so far, but I deliberately chose as test pieces three files which I thought might give trouble, and the PDFs emerged just fine.
Much more testing is needed before I decide if I'm completely happy. And, as you would expect, this program lacks any kind of control over the extent to which images, for example, are compressed or not compressed.
For a lot of people, however, that kind of refinement is unnecessary anyway. Take a look. It's easy to download and absolutely straightforward to use (even for a non-techie like me).
Friday, June 16, 2006
Ragbag
I must be getting old. Thought I had posted some of this stuff on Monday, but, unless I am even older than I thought, I didn't. So here it is now, plus some later stuff accumulated during the week.
Post Secrets
Seth Godin's post about blog traffic led me to PostSecret, a bizarre and sometimes disturbing place where people write their secrets on a postcard. For those who care about novelty, this is a wholly new 'art form' (for want of a better word), enabled by the internet. Either that or it's a clever wheeze to make money out of other people's work. There's a book involved.
Read the small print before you contribute. And it's hard on the eyes, because it's one of those white text on black background things that drive me crazy.
Was, were, and the subjunctive
Post Secrets
Seth Godin's post about blog traffic led me to PostSecret, a bizarre and sometimes disturbing place where people write their secrets on a postcard. For those who care about novelty, this is a wholly new 'art form' (for want of a better word), enabled by the internet. Either that or it's a clever wheeze to make money out of other people's work. There's a book involved.
Read the small print before you contribute. And it's hard on the eyes, because it's one of those white text on black background things that drive me crazy.
Was, were, and the subjunctive
A commenter on the ghostwriting post takes me to task for writing 'If I was...' instead of 'If I were...' In other words, I am told that I should have used the subjunctive mood.
Well, yes. And then again, no.
When I was writing the sentence complained of, I did actually pause before tapping further on the keyboard. I contemplated writing 'If I were...' and decided against it.
Why? Well, because of a general sense that the language is changing. And because a blog is not the most formal of contexts. And besides, I said to myself, will anyone not understand me if I write 'If I was...'? I decided not.
But, for the record, I have now consulted Authority on the question of the subjunctive.
Fowler's Modern English Usage, 3rd edition, as revised by Burchfield (and not, I understand, in itself universally admired) says that the standard reference work on historical English syntax has 156 pages on the subjunctive. Which is too many for me. But in the conclusion of his own (rather complicated) article on the subject, Fowler/Burchfield says that the subjunctive 'is seldom obligatory.'
If we go back 58 years to Sir Ernest Gowers's Plain Words, for a mercifully simpler explanation, we find that he does accept that it was common (in 1948) to find the subjunctive used after 'if'. However, after, quoting various instances of the subjunctive, he concludes: 'It is probably true of all of them that the indicative would have been equally correct, and certainly true that the subjunctive has a formal, even pedantic air.'
Well, as you may have noticed, the style of this blog varies wildly between the twenty-first-century informal and the eighteenth-century formal, so you may find all sorts of usages occurring. And I do not guarantee consistency in the use of the subjunctive or anything else. But I don't think I would accept the argument that 'If I was...' is, in and of itself, necessarily wrong.
As to the anonymous commenter's question -- does the ability to spot things like this qualify him as a good ghostwriter -- I suppose my answer to that is that this ability is certainly useful, and, insofar as it is indicative of close attention to detail, it is a Good Thing. But don't count on it to get you a contract.
Rosemary de Courcy
In a quiet way, Rosemary de Courcy is one of the most famous names in UK publishing. She started out (as I recall) as an editor at Futura, a mass-market paperback firm. It was about thirty years ago, when the paperback firms, particularly the American ones, were cutting each other's throats to buy the rights to books. And Rosie sold the US rights to some really rather ordinary bodice-ripper for about $300,000 -- which was quite a lot of money in those days. Hence she became hot.
She and I had a discussion at that time, about the possibility of writing a paperback original, but we never came to any agreement, and the proposed book (Counter-Coup) was later published by Muller.
Since then Rosie has gone onward and upward, but always making use of her very substantial editing skills. Never (so far as I know) tempted to write her own novels, Rosie has always had a keen nose for what is commercial and what can be sold. Really smart, in other words. Never dumb enough to fall for all the lit'ry glamour.
Now it seems, she is planning a move which will give her 'a more flexible career to take beyond pensionable age.' She has joined up with a literary agency (Mulcahy and Viney) and will also continue to provide editorial services to the likes of Maeve Binchy, Penny Vincenzi, and others. Joel Rickett has the story in the Guardian (link from booktrade.info).
Indie bestsellers
Joel Rickett also reports that the Bookseller has started to publish a special bestseller list derived from the sales at 20 leading independent bookshops. This, it is believed, will give a different picture of the trade from the usual lists, which are heavily influenced by supermarket sales. For better or worse, this new list does not seem to be available online.
April Ashley tells all
You have to be quite old, and British, to remember April Ashley. But she was a big name in the tabloids some forty or perhaps fifty years ago. Why? Because April was probably the first bloke in Britain to 'have the operation' and become -- superficially speaking at any rate -- a woman. Now she's written a book.
The book, The First Lady, is written, interestingly enough, 'with' Douglas Thompson. Our Doug, a name not previously known to me, turns out to be one of the heroes of our time, i.e. a ghostwriter (mainly). As a ghost he has helped along the likes of Christine Keeler, Michael Flatley, and Paul Nicholas. What is more he writes showbiz biographies on his own. Just the sort of career, in fact, that sensible writers would aim for.
You can get a broad outline of the April Ashley story from an interview in the Sunday Times. An old show-business friend of mine performed with April in a nightclub in the 1960s. He ended up flat on his back while April, skirts a-twirling, danced above him. 'It's true, it's true!' he yelled.
Yes, I know. Terribly vulgar. But it was that sort of era. (See Boothby, below.)
Jeanette Winterson bereted
Jeanette Winterson reports that she has been 'bereted by two readers, indeed made into something of an escaped goat, for being sufficiently unfamiliar with the English language to imagine there was such a thing as a damp squid.' And she has whole lot more of the same in her entertaining column in last Saturday's Times.
Pot and kettle
Galleycat reports that John Freeman (whoever he), writing on the blog of the national book critics circle board of directors, has been criticising book bloggers who review books and then offer links to an online retailer from which, if a reader buys the book, they get a commission. Freeman claims that this is immoral and removes any shred of credibility that a litblogger might have.
Well, cheeky bugger, is all I can say. As it happens I don't (usually) link to Amazon or anyone else (although I have in the Doug Thompson bit just above), and I can't be arsed to go through the rigmarole of setting up affiliate status anyway. But what about those newspapers which happily accept advertising from publishers and then, by a curious coincidence, review books from said publishers? What are we to make of that, eh Freeman? Whassa matter --cat got your tongue?
The Boothby affair
Unless you're very old, and English, you won't remember, but once upon a time there was a politician called Bob Boothby, who later became Lord Boothby. He had a number of distinctions, not the least of which was that he was bisexual; in that capacity he not only fancied boys, but also fathered a child by the wife of Harold Macmillan, a man who later became Prime Minister (and remained married to the same wife).
The other day, when looking for something quite different, I came across a fascinating short memoir by John Pearson. It seems to have been printed, if I'm reading it right, in the Independent on Sunday on 15 June 1997.
It's too long a story to go into here, but Pearson tells how politicians, journalists, senior police officers, and various others, all saw fit to save Lord Boothby's skin, purely and simply because it suited their own interests to do so. Also involved are various murders and murderers, gay orgies, blackmail, extortion, gangs... Oh and a whole lot more.
None of this is news, really, We've had it all rehearsed in the press and in books, many a time. But John Pearson's article is an interesting read none the less. And, of course, these events have been dealt with in fiction, most notably I suppose by Jake Arnott -- a writer who does not, I'm afraid, impress me, but who has impressed other people. Unless I mistake me, Arnott's character Lord Teddy Thursby has strong echoes of Boothby.
The Pearson article appears on the web site of Bernard O'Mahoney, a writer who specialises in books on crime.
Jesus Christ never was
Never was what? Well, never was at all. Never existed. So, at least, argues Luigi Cascioli, and he has a web site in four languages to prove it.
There's a book involved. Well of course -- there would have to be, wouldn't there? And there's a law suit. And it all links up with the Da Vinci code. But how did you guess? And the web site has masses and masses of other stuff.
If you're looking for the racy bits, try the essay on Nudism and Satanism: complete with pictures. As you would expect, this has lots of stuff about clerical orgies, witchcraft, and black masses.
The most entertaining aspect of all this is that Luigi Cascioli is being represented, at the European Court of Human Rights, by that well known 'important international lawyer' Mr Giovanni di Stefano. If you want to know why that's entertaining, go here, here, and here.
99 Burning
99 Burning's issue 9 is out. It's just as rude, bad-tempered and pushy as ever, urging you to read something or be labelled a dipshit. The article by Jim Cherry, said to be about the publishing industry, seems to me to be about music. Or are we expected to draw parallels?
Litro
Then there's Litro, described as original fiction for the underground -- in more senses than one. What happens is, Mike Fell prints up stories and hands them out free to people going into one of London's underground stations. And you're invited to submit stories of your own.
Well, there's more ways than one to find readers, and some of the stories are also posted online at the Litro site. I recommend Mumbo Jumbo by Lynsey Calderwood. This is, at first sight, tough going because it's written in a kind of Trainspottingese, or Scots. But stick with it -- it's worth it. All in all, the Litro site is more professional and impressive than I thought it was going to be.
Litro also tells me that Foyles Bookshop hold short story readings on the last Friday of every month (in London, that is). Go to Decongested for details. It seems they've contracted Arts Council funding, which can be a fatal disease, so we must hope that they all feel better soon.
Tami Brady on the real You
Tami Brady has a new book out from the Loving Healing Press. Entitled The Complete Being: Finding and Loving the Real You, it is a bit too touchy-feely for me, but it may be exactly what you're looking for.
Tami is an archaeological contractor. (Look, I keep telling you I don't make these things up, OK?) And she is founder, editor, and reviewer for TCM Reviews, which seems to offer an essentially free review service, plus a number of for-pay promotional packages.
Loving Healing Press is what I would describe as a new-age publisher, but it certainly has an interesting range of books which are fully described on the web site. They have also taken advantage of Amazon's facilities to launch a publiblog -- something that I had heard about but not seen before.
The blog offers an intriguing account of how one of the firm's books came to be written: David Powell's autobiographical story of how a tour of duty in Vietnam nearly destroyed him mentally, and how he finally managed to recover.
Bill Liversidge on Octavia Randolph
Bill Liversidge is one of those with some faith in the digital revolution and the internet-viral marketing model -- at any rate as a device for interesting mainstream publishers who might recognise a powerful online performance, in terms of generating readers, and buy a book on the strength of it. But his faith is severely tested by the communication he has had from Octavia Randolph.
Nip over to the Pundy House and read it for yourself. But basically Octavia has concluded that even a large online readership counts for naught in the book worlds of London and New York.
My site receives over 50,000 readers a month, from more than 60 nations. On it I have three complete historical novels, a novella, and scores of essays - over 500,000 words of text. Everything is free....
I'd like to speak to the fact that conventional publishers live in a parallel universe to those of us who publish on the WWW. It wouldn't matter to them how many readers download or access free novels on the internet, because that is just not how they decide their lists.
Hmm. Maybe a rethink is in order.
Octavia's web site has lots of good stuff on it, including an essay on Wyrd: the Role of Fate. I haven't quite figured out yet what impact wyrd has on writers, but I'm working on it. Preliminary interpretation: performing with courage and drive may help you to succeed; but if you're doomed, you're doomed.
And last...
One could go on for ever, it seems. But we must stop somewhere.
If you were wondering where you could buy a set of nipple clamps which can send and receive SMS text messages, and which can simultaneously download knitting patterns off the internet, then I have the answer. They can be found in Little-Frigging-in-the-Wold, where they are manufactured by Norbert Trouser-Quandary.
What a wonderful thing the internet is. Have a nice weekend.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Sue Townsend: Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction
Adrian Mole is not quite up there with Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, and Harry Potter; but in the UK his recognition quotient can't be far off that of those three other literary giants. Outside the UK I don't think Adrian is anything like so well known; I have a suspicion that he doesn't travel well. No matter, he is much appreciated in England, and this latest book about him is wonderful.
First a few words about Adrian's history; then something about his creator, Sue Townsend. And finally a brief account of the book.
Sue Townsend's The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 was published in 1982. It was, as the title tells us, the diary of an angst-ridden teenager; it was very funny, and a huge seller. Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction is, by my count, the sixth in the series, and once again the title tells us where we are: the book is set at the time of the Iraq war (it covers September 2002 to July 2004, to be precise), and at the start of it Adrian is 34.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, Adrian has his own web site, where there is lots more information about him.
The onlie begetter of young Adrian is Sue Townsend, a woman who deserves your warmest admiration (though she wouldn't thank me for saying so). Born in 1946, she left school at the age of 15 and had a number of modest jobs in factories and shops. She began writing immediately, but had little success for twenty years. Then she won a prize for a television play, which got her started. Since then she has written quite a number of books and several successful plays. Not the least of these is The Queen and I, which has the royal family deposed from the monarchy and forced to live a normal life on a housing estate in a provincial city; it's also available as a novel.
Sue is a very private person and avoids the celebrity circuit. But I can tell you that she is the mother of five children, is a lifelong Socialist, and since 2001 has been registered blind. Diabetes is what did the damage to her eyes, and you can read all about it in an interview that she gave to Balance, which is a magazine for diabetics.
She still has some small amount of vision, and manages to write by using inch-high letters in thick black marker pen. She only gets about 30 words to a page and reads it back with the aid of a magnifying machine attached to a computer. This is, naturally, a laborious way of working, and I take my hat off to anyone who can write a 460-page novel under those circumstances.
Anyone not yet acquainted with Adrian will soon get the hang of him from the first page of the new novel. He is writing a letting to our glorious leader, Mr Blair. 'Dear Mr Blair,' he begins, in a letter dated 29 September 2002. 'You may remember me -- we met at a Norwegian Leather Industry reception at the House of Commons in 1999.'
In other words, Adrian is one of those people who are really quite bright, but who somehow or other manage to live in a different universe from the rest of us. He is a direct descendant of that other notable diarist, Mr Pooter.
Adrian is currently working in a secondhand-book shop (run by an amiable old gent called Carlton-Hayes); in his spare time he is acting as chairman of a creative-writing group, and he is also worrying about his 17-year-old son, Glenn, who is in the army and may be sent to Iraq.
Adrian has a long history of involvement with women. His great abiding passion is for Pandora Braithwaite, once a teenage girlfriend and now a junior minister in the Blair government. Then there's Sharon, mother of Glenn; there's a Nigerian princess, mother of Adrian's son William, who has been taken to live in Nigeria but misses his Dad. And in the present book Adrian gets himself engaged to the ghastly Marigold, though he can't stand the dreadful neurotic woman, and much prefers her sister Daisy, with whom he has a passionate affair.
On top of that, Adrian succumbs to the contemporary disease of over-spending. People keep sending him these credit cards, you see, and as he's feeling rather depressed about Glenn and the WMD he keeps buying things. By page 267 his minimum monthly repayments already exceed his monthly pay cheque, and the situation deteriorates further after that.
Shining through this portrait of the clueless but well meaning Adrian Mole are a number of political points. Adrian is portrayed as a man whose friends regard him as a kind and likeable person, but as something of a simpleton. He is a man capable of writing things like this: 'How anybody could doubt Mr Blair's word is a mystery to me. The man radiates honesty and sincerity.' So you really don't need to be particularly perspicacious to realise that Sue Townsend has total contempt for Blair and New Labour and their wretched war. At least Adrian's old flame Pandora has the good sense to resign from the government in protest.
In the shape of Adrian's friend Nigel, who is going blind, we also have someone who speaks for the author. Nigel does not take kindly to losing his sight. And he is not grateful when people ask him things like whether his hearing has improved now that he can no longer see. In his spare time Adrian reads Private Eye aloud to Nigel -- an experience which might teach him something about how the world really works -- but Nigel is driven to comment thoughtfully, 'You don't understand half of what you're reading, do you, Moley?'
All in all, this latest episode in the difficult life of Adrian Mole is a delightful read. It is not without its darker passages: you can't run a war without someone getting badly hurt or even killed. But it is a book written by a very warm-hearted, decent woman, and it shows. She equips the hapless Adrian with enough good friends to help him out of all the dreadful messes that he gets himself into, and the ending is a happy one. So much so that it made me cry. But then I always was a sentimental old fool.
Rumour has it that this is to be the last in the Adrian Mole series. That would be sad but, in the circumstances, entirely understandable.
First a few words about Adrian's history; then something about his creator, Sue Townsend. And finally a brief account of the book.
Sue Townsend's The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 was published in 1982. It was, as the title tells us, the diary of an angst-ridden teenager; it was very funny, and a huge seller. Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction is, by my count, the sixth in the series, and once again the title tells us where we are: the book is set at the time of the Iraq war (it covers September 2002 to July 2004, to be precise), and at the start of it Adrian is 34.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, Adrian has his own web site, where there is lots more information about him.
The onlie begetter of young Adrian is Sue Townsend, a woman who deserves your warmest admiration (though she wouldn't thank me for saying so). Born in 1946, she left school at the age of 15 and had a number of modest jobs in factories and shops. She began writing immediately, but had little success for twenty years. Then she won a prize for a television play, which got her started. Since then she has written quite a number of books and several successful plays. Not the least of these is The Queen and I, which has the royal family deposed from the monarchy and forced to live a normal life on a housing estate in a provincial city; it's also available as a novel.
Sue is a very private person and avoids the celebrity circuit. But I can tell you that she is the mother of five children, is a lifelong Socialist, and since 2001 has been registered blind. Diabetes is what did the damage to her eyes, and you can read all about it in an interview that she gave to Balance, which is a magazine for diabetics.
She still has some small amount of vision, and manages to write by using inch-high letters in thick black marker pen. She only gets about 30 words to a page and reads it back with the aid of a magnifying machine attached to a computer. This is, naturally, a laborious way of working, and I take my hat off to anyone who can write a 460-page novel under those circumstances.
Anyone not yet acquainted with Adrian will soon get the hang of him from the first page of the new novel. He is writing a letting to our glorious leader, Mr Blair. 'Dear Mr Blair,' he begins, in a letter dated 29 September 2002. 'You may remember me -- we met at a Norwegian Leather Industry reception at the House of Commons in 1999.'
In other words, Adrian is one of those people who are really quite bright, but who somehow or other manage to live in a different universe from the rest of us. He is a direct descendant of that other notable diarist, Mr Pooter.
Adrian is currently working in a secondhand-book shop (run by an amiable old gent called Carlton-Hayes); in his spare time he is acting as chairman of a creative-writing group, and he is also worrying about his 17-year-old son, Glenn, who is in the army and may be sent to Iraq.
Adrian has a long history of involvement with women. His great abiding passion is for Pandora Braithwaite, once a teenage girlfriend and now a junior minister in the Blair government. Then there's Sharon, mother of Glenn; there's a Nigerian princess, mother of Adrian's son William, who has been taken to live in Nigeria but misses his Dad. And in the present book Adrian gets himself engaged to the ghastly Marigold, though he can't stand the dreadful neurotic woman, and much prefers her sister Daisy, with whom he has a passionate affair.
On top of that, Adrian succumbs to the contemporary disease of over-spending. People keep sending him these credit cards, you see, and as he's feeling rather depressed about Glenn and the WMD he keeps buying things. By page 267 his minimum monthly repayments already exceed his monthly pay cheque, and the situation deteriorates further after that.
Shining through this portrait of the clueless but well meaning Adrian Mole are a number of political points. Adrian is portrayed as a man whose friends regard him as a kind and likeable person, but as something of a simpleton. He is a man capable of writing things like this: 'How anybody could doubt Mr Blair's word is a mystery to me. The man radiates honesty and sincerity.' So you really don't need to be particularly perspicacious to realise that Sue Townsend has total contempt for Blair and New Labour and their wretched war. At least Adrian's old flame Pandora has the good sense to resign from the government in protest.
In the shape of Adrian's friend Nigel, who is going blind, we also have someone who speaks for the author. Nigel does not take kindly to losing his sight. And he is not grateful when people ask him things like whether his hearing has improved now that he can no longer see. In his spare time Adrian reads Private Eye aloud to Nigel -- an experience which might teach him something about how the world really works -- but Nigel is driven to comment thoughtfully, 'You don't understand half of what you're reading, do you, Moley?'
All in all, this latest episode in the difficult life of Adrian Mole is a delightful read. It is not without its darker passages: you can't run a war without someone getting badly hurt or even killed. But it is a book written by a very warm-hearted, decent woman, and it shows. She equips the hapless Adrian with enough good friends to help him out of all the dreadful messes that he gets himself into, and the ending is a happy one. So much so that it made me cry. But then I always was a sentimental old fool.
Rumour has it that this is to be the last in the Adrian Mole series. That would be sad but, in the circumstances, entirely understandable.
More on the James Joyce copyright
Soon after posting yesterday's piece about the saintly Stephen Joyce and his good work on behalf of humanity, I found a reference in Publishers Lunch to a recent legal challenge to Stephen Joyce's behaviour.
You can read all about it in a press release from Stanford Law School. Basically, the Fair Use Project and Cyberlaw Clinic at Stanford is assisting the well known Joyce scholar Carol Shloss in her struggle to establish the right to quote from published and unpublished material relating to James Joyce on a scholarly web site about him.
You can read all about it in a press release from Stanford Law School. Basically, the Fair Use Project and Cyberlaw Clinic at Stanford is assisting the well known Joyce scholar Carol Shloss in her struggle to establish the right to quote from published and unpublished material relating to James Joyce on a scholarly web site about him.
According to the lawsuit, the Estate and its agent, Stephen Joyce, have a history of threatening and pursuing litigation against persons using Joyce's works. As examples, the lawsuit states that the Estate sued sponsors of a global Internet webcast reading of Ulysses that took place on Bloomsday 1998; that event was supported by the Prime Minister, the President, and other politicians in the Republic of Ireland. In addition, the lawsuit contends that although the Estate does not hold copyright over medical records of Lucia Joyce and many letters relating to her, it has consistently leveraged the threat of denying permission to use James Joyce's works if material relating to Lucia Joyce -- of which the Estate does not approve -- is published.Thank the Lord for Lawrence Lessig, is all I can say.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Does Sandi Thom show writers how to do it?
About ten days ago we took note of the case of Sandi Thom. Sandi is a young Scottish girl who writes songs, and she took to webcasting concerts of them from her basement flat. As is the way of things in the pop music world, kids started to notice, they emailed and texted other kids, and... all like that.
There were those who questioned some of the statistics about Sandi's claimed viewing numbers and downloads. But hey -- why spoil a good story? And why begrudge a kid a few minutes of fame? And besides, it turns out that Sandi's record company has been sending very heavy-handed legal letters to various newspapers, warning that allegations of an 'internet scam' were not only false but will 'most likely have a significant and long-lasting detrimental effect on a promising new British artiste, at a very critical point in her nascent musical career.' In other words, watch your step, boys.
Well, within the last week Sandi's fame has really taken off, as fame will do from time to time. Last Saturday, for instance, Sandi was on the front cover of the Daily Telegraph magazine, and yesterday she was on the cover of the Times 2 section.
The Times article (very long, by the way) is definitely worth reading for what it says about marketing in the digital age. It emerges that Sandi is not quite as young as you might think, has been around for some time, knows a lot of influential people, and the online audience was boosted by Sandi's management sending off 1 million emails.
But enough about the pop business -- you can read all that for yourself if you want to. What, you will be asking, has this to do with books?
Well, as noted here before, there are those (notably Val Landi) who believe that what the internet has done for the Arctic Monkeys and Sandi Thom it can also do for writers. This new model of achieving success in popular music publishing, some observers say, can also become the new model for book publishing. It is 'a new model that allows emerging artists to bypass the dysfunctional roadblocks of a broken industry.' Book publishing, like music, is said to be 'a broken dysfunctional industry, primed for disruption.'
Hmm. Are we really to believe that this kind of viral, internet-drive, overnight fame can be achieved by writers, in the same way that it can demonstrably be achieved by singer/songwriters?
The problem, as I remarked here on 26 May and also 22 May, is that music is well known for making people (mostly teenagers) go Wow! The kids hear something, which may or may not sound attractive to you and me, and they go Wow! This I've got to have, they say. And they download it for a dollar, or whatever, pirate it, spread the word, text it, phone friends, start fan clubs and so forth.
The great big overwhelming problem for writers, a problem to which I have not yet even seen a suggested solution, is that it is hideously difficult to imagine how a writer might create that kind of Wow! effect.
Yes, we've all read books that we love, and we recommend them to friends. But books are not like songs. History shows that hit songs are often written in twenty minutes on the back of an envelope, by people with very limited musical training. Once a song becomes famous, it is subsequently recorded by ten, twenty, a hundred other artists. It last for fifty years or more. It is instant emotion: three chords of a familiar song and you're hooked again. The emotion is repeated. How many hundred times have you heard 'Hotel California' (or whatever turns you on)? Does it ever pall?
Fiction just simply doesn't work that way. Not even the short story. A short story can't hit you with a powerful emotion in ten seconds, as a song can. What is more, once a short story is read, it's read. You don't really want to read it again. Certainly not as many times as you can listen to a much loved record.
So that's the first and most powerful reason why I doubt that the internet is going to transform the fiction market for writers quite as dramatically as some would argue. Yes, writers can relatively easily find routes to publication, and readers, that weren't there even ten years ago. But instant, (almost) overnight success on the Arctic Monkeys/Sandi Thom model? No.
But... if you're keen to try, here's my prescription.
Viral marketing on the internet works best with young people. So if you want to achieve internet-driven fame, aim for the young. Anything above ten years of age and below twenty.
Do you remember -- well, no, you wouldn't, because you're too young, and some of you aren't English. But from 1922 to 1970 a lady called Richmal Crompton published approximately a book a year featuring a small boy called William. These books were collections of short stories: about 350 stories, all told.
You can find a sample here -- a sample which, incidentally, in its account of a visit to a 'Picture Palace', really shows its 1920s origins, though the small boy remains a timeless figure. It is quite a fascinating example of Richmal Crompton's art, in that it reveals that she never remotely wrote down to her audience.
William was a middle-class English boy, aged 11, who had a bunch of friends called the Outlaws. They all lived in a village and enjoyed a very suburban/provincial life indeed. And William was a rather naughty boy, for ever getting into scrapes and difficulties of one sort or another.
These books were highly popular with boys of my generation, and are still read today: Macmillan keeps reissuing them.
Now, what you need to do, if you want to rise to fame via the internet without benefit of agent, Macmillan, or anyone else, is learn how to write stories which are of much interest and excitement as the William books were in the almost fifty-year period during which they first appeared.
Before you start, make sure that you have a good stock in hand, because, if the wheeze works, demand will increase exponentially. And make sure that you know how to keep the series going for several decades and 350 stories if need be.
Of course, if you're really, really smart, you will combine the writing of the stories with finding a person to front the operation. Perhaps someone who is already known and admired by the target audience. A children's TV presenter, perhaps? Work on it. It needs thought. This division of labour, though requiring a division of the loot, will help enormously and be worth every penny. It means that a media-savvy person can handle the chat shows and the newspapers while you get on with churning out the stories. And if you choose the right collaborator, someone who mixes with the target audience on a daily basis, they can be a genuine help in letting you know what the kids are talking about these days.
Begin with one story. (Of course it has to be a story that makes the target audience go Wow!) There's no need to rush. Get it known. Put it about. Release the virus. And then go from there.
That way you have at least some chance, in principle, of making the Arctic Monkeys and Sandi Thom look like amateurs.
There were those who questioned some of the statistics about Sandi's claimed viewing numbers and downloads. But hey -- why spoil a good story? And why begrudge a kid a few minutes of fame? And besides, it turns out that Sandi's record company has been sending very heavy-handed legal letters to various newspapers, warning that allegations of an 'internet scam' were not only false but will 'most likely have a significant and long-lasting detrimental effect on a promising new British artiste, at a very critical point in her nascent musical career.' In other words, watch your step, boys.
Well, within the last week Sandi's fame has really taken off, as fame will do from time to time. Last Saturday, for instance, Sandi was on the front cover of the Daily Telegraph magazine, and yesterday she was on the cover of the Times 2 section.
The Times article (very long, by the way) is definitely worth reading for what it says about marketing in the digital age. It emerges that Sandi is not quite as young as you might think, has been around for some time, knows a lot of influential people, and the online audience was boosted by Sandi's management sending off 1 million emails.
But enough about the pop business -- you can read all that for yourself if you want to. What, you will be asking, has this to do with books?
Well, as noted here before, there are those (notably Val Landi) who believe that what the internet has done for the Arctic Monkeys and Sandi Thom it can also do for writers. This new model of achieving success in popular music publishing, some observers say, can also become the new model for book publishing. It is 'a new model that allows emerging artists to bypass the dysfunctional roadblocks of a broken industry.' Book publishing, like music, is said to be 'a broken dysfunctional industry, primed for disruption.'
Hmm. Are we really to believe that this kind of viral, internet-drive, overnight fame can be achieved by writers, in the same way that it can demonstrably be achieved by singer/songwriters?
The problem, as I remarked here on 26 May and also 22 May, is that music is well known for making people (mostly teenagers) go Wow! The kids hear something, which may or may not sound attractive to you and me, and they go Wow! This I've got to have, they say. And they download it for a dollar, or whatever, pirate it, spread the word, text it, phone friends, start fan clubs and so forth.
The great big overwhelming problem for writers, a problem to which I have not yet even seen a suggested solution, is that it is hideously difficult to imagine how a writer might create that kind of Wow! effect.
Yes, we've all read books that we love, and we recommend them to friends. But books are not like songs. History shows that hit songs are often written in twenty minutes on the back of an envelope, by people with very limited musical training. Once a song becomes famous, it is subsequently recorded by ten, twenty, a hundred other artists. It last for fifty years or more. It is instant emotion: three chords of a familiar song and you're hooked again. The emotion is repeated. How many hundred times have you heard 'Hotel California' (or whatever turns you on)? Does it ever pall?
Fiction just simply doesn't work that way. Not even the short story. A short story can't hit you with a powerful emotion in ten seconds, as a song can. What is more, once a short story is read, it's read. You don't really want to read it again. Certainly not as many times as you can listen to a much loved record.
So that's the first and most powerful reason why I doubt that the internet is going to transform the fiction market for writers quite as dramatically as some would argue. Yes, writers can relatively easily find routes to publication, and readers, that weren't there even ten years ago. But instant, (almost) overnight success on the Arctic Monkeys/Sandi Thom model? No.
But... if you're keen to try, here's my prescription.
Viral marketing on the internet works best with young people. So if you want to achieve internet-driven fame, aim for the young. Anything above ten years of age and below twenty.
Do you remember -- well, no, you wouldn't, because you're too young, and some of you aren't English. But from 1922 to 1970 a lady called Richmal Crompton published approximately a book a year featuring a small boy called William. These books were collections of short stories: about 350 stories, all told.
You can find a sample here -- a sample which, incidentally, in its account of a visit to a 'Picture Palace', really shows its 1920s origins, though the small boy remains a timeless figure. It is quite a fascinating example of Richmal Crompton's art, in that it reveals that she never remotely wrote down to her audience.
William was a middle-class English boy, aged 11, who had a bunch of friends called the Outlaws. They all lived in a village and enjoyed a very suburban/provincial life indeed. And William was a rather naughty boy, for ever getting into scrapes and difficulties of one sort or another.
These books were highly popular with boys of my generation, and are still read today: Macmillan keeps reissuing them.
Now, what you need to do, if you want to rise to fame via the internet without benefit of agent, Macmillan, or anyone else, is learn how to write stories which are of much interest and excitement as the William books were in the almost fifty-year period during which they first appeared.
Before you start, make sure that you have a good stock in hand, because, if the wheeze works, demand will increase exponentially. And make sure that you know how to keep the series going for several decades and 350 stories if need be.
Of course, if you're really, really smart, you will combine the writing of the stories with finding a person to front the operation. Perhaps someone who is already known and admired by the target audience. A children's TV presenter, perhaps? Work on it. It needs thought. This division of labour, though requiring a division of the loot, will help enormously and be worth every penny. It means that a media-savvy person can handle the chat shows and the newspapers while you get on with churning out the stories. And if you choose the right collaborator, someone who mixes with the target audience on a daily basis, they can be a genuine help in letting you know what the kids are talking about these days.
Begin with one story. (Of course it has to be a story that makes the target audience go Wow!) There's no need to rush. Get it known. Put it about. Release the virus. And then go from there.
That way you have at least some chance, in principle, of making the Arctic Monkeys and Sandi Thom look like amateurs.
The joys of copyright
The issue of copyright has been discussed here from time to time. For example, in February I mentioned that, even in 1841, Macaulay had wisely argued to the House of Commons that extending the term of copyright much beyond an author's lifetime was not an idea which was in the public interest.
The House of Commons then agreed with him, but later legislative bodies, in Europe and the USA, have taken a different view. And if politicians go on taking funds from companies which have a vested interest in making copyright last for ever, then we can expect that the term of copyright will steadily be increased further and further. This will greatly benefit the media companies' shareholders, and those who control writers' estates, but it won't do much for anyone else.
I am reminded of all this by a post by Michael Schaub on Bookslut. James Joyce died in 1941, but, thanks to the politicians of this world, his work is still in copyright. The Joyce estate is now controlled by one Stephen Joyce (the great man's grandson), and Stephen Joyce is, in his small way, also famous. The following story shows why.
An academic who has devoted years of his life to studying the work of James Joyce, and is a recognised expert in the field, recently applied to Stephen Joyce for permission to quote from Ulysses. Stephen demanded a fee of $1.5 million, and told the academic: 'You should consider a new career as a garbage collector in New York City, because you’ll never quote a Joyce text again.' The full story is contained in an article in the New Yorker.
What a charming fellow Stephen is. And how clearly this incident demonstrates that the public interest in literature is best served by extending the term of copyright steadily towards infinity.
The House of Commons then agreed with him, but later legislative bodies, in Europe and the USA, have taken a different view. And if politicians go on taking funds from companies which have a vested interest in making copyright last for ever, then we can expect that the term of copyright will steadily be increased further and further. This will greatly benefit the media companies' shareholders, and those who control writers' estates, but it won't do much for anyone else.
I am reminded of all this by a post by Michael Schaub on Bookslut. James Joyce died in 1941, but, thanks to the politicians of this world, his work is still in copyright. The Joyce estate is now controlled by one Stephen Joyce (the great man's grandson), and Stephen Joyce is, in his small way, also famous. The following story shows why.
An academic who has devoted years of his life to studying the work of James Joyce, and is a recognised expert in the field, recently applied to Stephen Joyce for permission to quote from Ulysses. Stephen demanded a fee of $1.5 million, and told the academic: 'You should consider a new career as a garbage collector in New York City, because you’ll never quote a Joyce text again.' The full story is contained in an article in the New Yorker.
What a charming fellow Stephen is. And how clearly this incident demonstrates that the public interest in literature is best served by extending the term of copyright steadily towards infinity.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
More on Dylan Evans and the placebo
In September last year we took a look at Dylan Evans's book on the placebo. And now the medical correspondent of the magazine Private Eye has drawn attention to the data on the British Medical Journal's web site devoted to clinical evidence.
According the to Eye, Clinical Evidence have found that only 15% of the thousands of orthodox scientific treatments that they have reviewed have been proven to be beneficial. A further 23% are likely to be beneficial, 7% are a trade-off between benefit and harm, 5% are unlikely to be beneficial, 4% are likely to be ineffective or harmful, and a whopping 46% are of 'unknown effectiveness'.
Meanwhile, it seems that the placebo, or placebo-type treatment, works pretty well. Patients with osteoarthritis who have had air blown into their joints (while under anaesthetic) have as much pain reduction and improved movement as those who've had proper arthroscopy. And one of the reasons why it costs drug companies nearly $1 billion to get a new drug to market is that many of them have a hell of a time demonstrating that the wonder drug performs better than a placebo.
One study, of 15 neurotic patients, proved that a placebo works even when the patients are aware that they're being given a sugar pill. The 15 patients were told: 'A sugar pill is a pill with no medicine in it at all. I think this pill will help you as it has helped so many others. Are you willing to try this pill?'
Of the 15 patients, 14 agreed to try it, and 13 improved over a week, some a great deal, and including one patient who had previously been suicidal.
The Eye's medical man suggests that 'all medicine is in large part placebo... But far from wasting money, complementary therapy does in many cases save it by avoiding the prescription of far more expensive, and potentially harmful, drugs.'
Meanwhile Dylan Evans himself has got a bit bored with run of the mill science, and has embarked upon a utopia experiment. You can volunteer to help if you like. Among other things, he's looking for people who can tell stories.
According the to Eye, Clinical Evidence have found that only 15% of the thousands of orthodox scientific treatments that they have reviewed have been proven to be beneficial. A further 23% are likely to be beneficial, 7% are a trade-off between benefit and harm, 5% are unlikely to be beneficial, 4% are likely to be ineffective or harmful, and a whopping 46% are of 'unknown effectiveness'.
Meanwhile, it seems that the placebo, or placebo-type treatment, works pretty well. Patients with osteoarthritis who have had air blown into their joints (while under anaesthetic) have as much pain reduction and improved movement as those who've had proper arthroscopy. And one of the reasons why it costs drug companies nearly $1 billion to get a new drug to market is that many of them have a hell of a time demonstrating that the wonder drug performs better than a placebo.
One study, of 15 neurotic patients, proved that a placebo works even when the patients are aware that they're being given a sugar pill. The 15 patients were told: 'A sugar pill is a pill with no medicine in it at all. I think this pill will help you as it has helped so many others. Are you willing to try this pill?'
Of the 15 patients, 14 agreed to try it, and 13 improved over a week, some a great deal, and including one patient who had previously been suicidal.
The Eye's medical man suggests that 'all medicine is in large part placebo... But far from wasting money, complementary therapy does in many cases save it by avoiding the prescription of far more expensive, and potentially harmful, drugs.'
Meanwhile Dylan Evans himself has got a bit bored with run of the mill science, and has embarked upon a utopia experiment. You can volunteer to help if you like. Among other things, he's looking for people who can tell stories.
Percentages for beginners
I really try not to make a habit of fishing comments out from where they are and sticking them on the front page: it's an invidious practice, especially two days in a row. However, there's a beauty just arrived on the Maddox post of 3 April. The commenter is one zenofeller, though whether this is the zenofeller of zenofeller.com ('the world's leading anal satire site') I know not. Though I doubt there would be two.
After giving other commenters a quick lesson in how to calculate percentages, zenofeller explains about the almost infinite number of emails that can be stored on a hard disc, and then concludes as follows:
After giving other commenters a quick lesson in how to calculate percentages, zenofeller explains about the almost infinite number of emails that can be stored on a hard disc, and then concludes as follows:
As I always say, a sense of humour is an essential attribute if one is to survive in the book business.if this blog and the people on it are in any way representative of the industry, then here's the explanation why the industry finds itself today in the position of dreaming for a fraction of the video games market.
fucking idiots.
Generating blog traffic
Publishers Lunch recommended Seth Godin’s piece about how to generate traffic for your blog, so naturally I did.
As usual when I read these things, I ended up slightly depressed and confused. Seth, who is never short of ideas, lists 56 ways for a blogger to find readers. Some of the steps that he recommends are things that I already do, and some aren’t. And some (as I'm sure he realises) are entirely contradictory. Here are just a sample, not an exhaustive list.
Things I do, or try to do (it would be immodest to say that I succeed):
Become an expert in your field.
Be timeless… write posts that will be readable in a year.
Share your expertise.
Write long, definitive posts (but see below).
Answer your email.
And here are some I don’t do (usually):
Write short, pithy posts (see above).
Encourage readers to help you manipulate the technorati top blog list.
Write about your kids.
Be snarky. Write nearly libellous things about fellow bloggers.
Tag your posts. Use del.ico.us.
Do e-mail interviews with the well known.
And that’s just out of the first 20 tips.
Well, this is a pretty boring subject unless you’re a blogger, so we’ll stop there. But Seth is no slouch when it comes to marketing in general, so here’s another of his tips, from a separate post; it’s relevant to anyone, or any organisation, with anything to sell:
When I type your brand or your name into youtube, what do I find? What about technorati? or flickr? You can fix all three of these things today. It's easy to worry about Google rankings, but hard to change them. Now, though, there are dozens of horizontal search tools that you can populate yourself. They're not hiding. Are you?
By the way, while we're on the subject of blogging: if you're a regular blogger, hie thee to Scooptwords.com and discover how you can possibly -- just possibly, perhaps, maybe -- generate some income from your work.
Scooptwords, as you will see, is associated with Nightcap Syndication, a web site which, if you're a blogger, is also well worth a look.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Lewis Perdue and Dan Brown
Last Friday I was pretty dismissive of Lewis Perdue's complaints against Dan Brown, so I think it is only fair that I should fish out his comment on my post and put it on the front page, otherwise you might miss it. So here it is:
Not only weary but leery too. I am not a lawyer, and have no detailed knowledge of the case law relating to copyright in either the UK or the USA. What I do have is several decades of reading about and hearing about cases in which writers feel that they have been ripped off.
For example: the Ladies Night versus Full Monty case. The authors of the stage play Ladies Night felt that the movie The Full Monty was a rip-off of their play. So did I, having seen both. So did a commenter on the IMDb page for The Full Monty. (The comment, by susanxx, now seems to have been removed, but for the moment you can still find it cached on Google.)
The authors of Ladies Night made several attempts to get compensation, in more than one country. And lost each time. Their Hollywood attorney said, 'I've been doing this for 40 years, and this is as solid a copyright case as I've ever seen.' But they still lost.
Even if you win, you can still lose. At any rate in England. There was the case (it's not on the net and I don't remember all the details so I am going to leave out the names I do remember) of the man who opened a newspaper and found an article about a pop star, by a well known British journalist. He considered that this article made excessive, and uncredited, use of his book on the pop star. So he sued. And won. Was paid £8,000 in damages. Legal costs, which he had to meet: £20,000.
And then there's the case of Baigent et al versus Dan Brown. Those guys ended up nearly if not actually bankrupt.
No, no. It's not smart, in my opinion, to go around complaining that somebody stole your ideas. Even if it's true, it looks like sour grapes and it looks as if you're simply chasing the money. And it certainly isn't smart to take the case to court; not in England, anyway.
The best thing to do is to keep your mouth shut, let others comment if they see fit (like that clear-thinking fan on IMDb), and just get on with your next book or whatever.
The truth is, of course, that I know nothing whatever about the rights and wrongs of this case. (If you want to make your own mind up, start with Perdue's legal resources page.) I don't think I had ever heard of Lewis Perdue's book until the reports of the Vanity Fair article started to appear. So if I was dismissive I was simply saying that I am a little weary of reading about these issues.You know, it's really easy to lose in court when the judge refuses to allow the strongest evidence to be presented. This is precisely what happened when the judge in my case disallowed the sworn statements of the expert witnesses.
There was never a trial, never a hearing on the evidence. The Random House "victory" in court is a sham: all about manipulating the system and nothing about justice.
And don't forget, please, that Random House sued me...not the other way around.
Not only weary but leery too. I am not a lawyer, and have no detailed knowledge of the case law relating to copyright in either the UK or the USA. What I do have is several decades of reading about and hearing about cases in which writers feel that they have been ripped off.
For example: the Ladies Night versus Full Monty case. The authors of the stage play Ladies Night felt that the movie The Full Monty was a rip-off of their play. So did I, having seen both. So did a commenter on the IMDb page for The Full Monty. (The comment, by susanxx, now seems to have been removed, but for the moment you can still find it cached on Google.)
The authors of Ladies Night made several attempts to get compensation, in more than one country. And lost each time. Their Hollywood attorney said, 'I've been doing this for 40 years, and this is as solid a copyright case as I've ever seen.' But they still lost.
Even if you win, you can still lose. At any rate in England. There was the case (it's not on the net and I don't remember all the details so I am going to leave out the names I do remember) of the man who opened a newspaper and found an article about a pop star, by a well known British journalist. He considered that this article made excessive, and uncredited, use of his book on the pop star. So he sued. And won. Was paid £8,000 in damages. Legal costs, which he had to meet: £20,000.
And then there's the case of Baigent et al versus Dan Brown. Those guys ended up nearly if not actually bankrupt.
No, no. It's not smart, in my opinion, to go around complaining that somebody stole your ideas. Even if it's true, it looks like sour grapes and it looks as if you're simply chasing the money. And it certainly isn't smart to take the case to court; not in England, anyway.
The best thing to do is to keep your mouth shut, let others comment if they see fit (like that clear-thinking fan on IMDb), and just get on with your next book or whatever.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Fish on Friday
Some assorted items accumulated over the week. Given the way Blogger has been behaving this week, you are, frankly, lucky to get this at all. When Blogger works, it's just fine. When it doesn't work, it's a royal pain in the arse.
Shamblog
Steve Salerno doesn't like the self-help book business, and he's set up a blog to tell people why, warn 'em off, encourage them to stand on their own two feet, not pay good money to Dr Phil (as if I would), and all like that. (Link from Galleycat.)
In case you missed it (and I for one did), Steve is the author of SHAM, which is, by all accounts, a fairly full-blooded attack on the self-help business. (See, for instance, the Publishers Weekly review.)
Self-help is a big business, too. According to Galleycat, Americans spent $8.5 billion on self-help last year, out of which publishers got $650 million. I don't follow the arithmetic there, but presumably the bigger figure includes lots of things other than books, such as seminars and weekend retreats and the like.
Boring bits from booktrade.info
A French publisher is suing Google. For piracy. 'Over its controversial effort to digitise millions of books for online viewing.'
This is boring.
Someone else has decided that Dan Brown done them wrong. The July issue of the magazine Vanity Fair contains an article by Seth Mnookin revealing 'two new instances of possible plagiarism in Brown's past.' Two textual analysis experts also tell Mnookin that they believe Brown borrowed the plot for his Da Vinci book from Lewis Perdue's Daughter of God.
This is very boring.
Michael Cader, at Publishers Lunch, points out that Perdue has already taken his claim to Federal courts -- twice. And has lost -- twice.
Mnookin has a blog, by the way, should you care, and he is already getting beat up by the fans.
Meanwhile, Galleycat has had an email from Perdue in which... Oh I really can't be bothered.
Straczynski goes POD
Michael Straczynski is the author of one of the very best books on writing for the screen, either TV or movie. Entitled The Complete Book of Scriptwriting, it's available in various formats and editions, and if you're interested in that form of writing I recommend it.
That, however, is not the message for today. Unlike some pontificators, Straczynski is a man who's been there and done it: for example, he wrote 92 of the 110 scripts for the 1990s TV series Babylon 5. And now he's taken to selling copies of the scripts. (Link from Publishers Lunch.)
In an interview with USA Today, Straczynski says that he has sold over 18,000 copies of volumes of his scripts. Each volume contains seven scripts, with additional notes, and runs to about 450 pages. These he sells (on his own behalf) at $40 each through CafePress.
Straczynski projects he will generate $1.5 million in sales from 14 different volumes. This is turnover, of course, not profit. But Straczynski reckons it's a good return on the $500 that he spent to set up the babylon5scripts web site.
Down with Updike
Rebecca Jane, at Flash Fiction, didn't like John Updike's speech to the BEA either.
Abebooks is ten
Abebooks, which is an online conglomerate of secondhand-book dealers, is ten years old and is celebrating in various ways, one of which is to highlight the ten most expensive books sold through the site. Very interesting. As someone said about Moss Hart's garden, it shows what God could have done, if only he'd had the money.
Scott Byrnes: Revelations
It is a truth universally acknowledged that all self-publishers, with a novel to sell, are in need of a web site. Except that Scott Byrnes's Revelations don't got none. Or at least, if it does, it's beyond my finding.
All I can do is point you to Amazon.com.
Scott's publicist tells me that he spent a decade thinking about this book. (First he did a screenplay version. Then he spent five years saving enough money to take a year's sabbatical to write the book.) She doesn't say that it is self-published, but the publisher, Blue Stripe, seems to have done nothing else. And Scott has also invested money in marketing the book.
I wish him well.
Dibs
Susan Hill is a distinguished and successful English novelist and dramatist, and has been mentioned here several times before. Now she has a blog, which has already attracted a considerable number of readers.
There is a new online book retailer in the UK: the Book Depository.
Romance readers never had it so good
Romantic fiction is not what it was. It's better.
There are now (I am told -- not my field) all sorts of new sub-genres in romance: erotic, paranormal, Christian, Wayne Rooney, David Beckham.... Actually I made those last two up, but the others are real.
Jessica Inclan does the paranormal ones, and When You Believe (Kensington, 6 June) is the first of a trilogy. Jessica describes her books as 'Harry Potter for adults - with sex.' And they're inspired by the theory of quantum physics. So you don't need to take any shit from anyone. The next time someone curls their lip at you while you're reading one you can say, 'Hey, listen, smart-arse -- this is inspired by the theory of quantum physics. So shut it.'
Wodehouse Prize
Last year's winner of the Wodehouse Prize was A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, which was the start of its well deserved rise to fame. This year's winner is Christopher Brookmyre with his tenth book, All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye.
The book is published by Abacus, which is part of Little, Brown, and I eventually managed to find an entry for the book on the Little, Brown web site. That web site, in my opinion, really sucks. The opening page was a complete blank, at least on my screen, and once I got in I had a hell of a time convincing the firm that it actually did publish Brookmyre. Looking at the URL for the book, which I have used for the hyperlink in this paragraph, I seriously doubt whether it will work. And no one saw fit to mention the Wodehouse Prize on the Titles in the News page.
Who was it said that the big publishers are not entirely at ease in the digital world?
Shamblog
Steve Salerno doesn't like the self-help book business, and he's set up a blog to tell people why, warn 'em off, encourage them to stand on their own two feet, not pay good money to Dr Phil (as if I would), and all like that. (Link from Galleycat.)
In case you missed it (and I for one did), Steve is the author of SHAM, which is, by all accounts, a fairly full-blooded attack on the self-help business. (See, for instance, the Publishers Weekly review.)
Self-help is a big business, too. According to Galleycat, Americans spent $8.5 billion on self-help last year, out of which publishers got $650 million. I don't follow the arithmetic there, but presumably the bigger figure includes lots of things other than books, such as seminars and weekend retreats and the like.
Boring bits from booktrade.info
A French publisher is suing Google. For piracy. 'Over its controversial effort to digitise millions of books for online viewing.'
This is boring.
Someone else has decided that Dan Brown done them wrong. The July issue of the magazine Vanity Fair contains an article by Seth Mnookin revealing 'two new instances of possible plagiarism in Brown's past.' Two textual analysis experts also tell Mnookin that they believe Brown borrowed the plot for his Da Vinci book from Lewis Perdue's Daughter of God.
This is very boring.
Michael Cader, at Publishers Lunch, points out that Perdue has already taken his claim to Federal courts -- twice. And has lost -- twice.
Mnookin has a blog, by the way, should you care, and he is already getting beat up by the fans.
Meanwhile, Galleycat has had an email from Perdue in which... Oh I really can't be bothered.
Straczynski goes POD
Michael Straczynski is the author of one of the very best books on writing for the screen, either TV or movie. Entitled The Complete Book of Scriptwriting, it's available in various formats and editions, and if you're interested in that form of writing I recommend it.
That, however, is not the message for today. Unlike some pontificators, Straczynski is a man who's been there and done it: for example, he wrote 92 of the 110 scripts for the 1990s TV series Babylon 5. And now he's taken to selling copies of the scripts. (Link from Publishers Lunch.)
In an interview with USA Today, Straczynski says that he has sold over 18,000 copies of volumes of his scripts. Each volume contains seven scripts, with additional notes, and runs to about 450 pages. These he sells (on his own behalf) at $40 each through CafePress.
Straczynski projects he will generate $1.5 million in sales from 14 different volumes. This is turnover, of course, not profit. But Straczynski reckons it's a good return on the $500 that he spent to set up the babylon5scripts web site.
Down with Updike
Rebecca Jane, at Flash Fiction, didn't like John Updike's speech to the BEA either.
Abebooks is ten
Abebooks, which is an online conglomerate of secondhand-book dealers, is ten years old and is celebrating in various ways, one of which is to highlight the ten most expensive books sold through the site. Very interesting. As someone said about Moss Hart's garden, it shows what God could have done, if only he'd had the money.
Scott Byrnes: Revelations
It is a truth universally acknowledged that all self-publishers, with a novel to sell, are in need of a web site. Except that Scott Byrnes's Revelations don't got none. Or at least, if it does, it's beyond my finding.
All I can do is point you to Amazon.com.
Scott's publicist tells me that he spent a decade thinking about this book. (First he did a screenplay version. Then he spent five years saving enough money to take a year's sabbatical to write the book.) She doesn't say that it is self-published, but the publisher, Blue Stripe, seems to have done nothing else. And Scott has also invested money in marketing the book.
I wish him well.
Dibs
Dibs -- subtitled Earlybuzz on upcoming books -- does what it says on the label: i.e. tells you about books that will be published shortly. It's written by the literary editor of an American newspaper who gets lots of galley proofs, advance info sheets and the like.
In addition to describing books, Dibs also report book-related news items of a quirky nature -- e.g. that Danielle Steel's art gallery has closed its door after three years.
Maddox arrives
On 3 April this year, Maddox was described here as a name to watch. This did not impress everybody. Well, now he's arrived, and he appears at number four on the New York Times hardcover 'advice' bestseller list.
Whether 'advice' is quite the best word for what Maddox has to offer I'm not sure. I described it as 'robust humour'. Others were less polite. The NYT calls it 'ribald humor'.
Susan Hill blogsSusan Hill is a distinguished and successful English novelist and dramatist, and has been mentioned here several times before. Now she has a blog, which has already attracted a considerable number of readers.
In yesterday's post, Susan describes a book about books by Gabriel Said. It contains the following thought, which Susan has understandably highlighted:
Time is by far the most expensive aspect of reading, excepting time spent in certain circumstances; in transit, ill-health, prison or retirement. In a wealthy economy time is worth more than things and it is easier to buy things than to find the time to enjoy them.
Warning. Well, not a warning, but a note. Susan's post of 7 June refers to the death of her baby, twenty-two years ago, which is very upsetting. But it contains a poem by Ben Jonson which may help those in a similar position.
The Book DepositoryThere is a new online book retailer in the UK: the Book Depository.
I must say that, when I first clicked on to the BD site, it was not immediately apparent to me what it was all about. But when you poke around a bit it gradually grows on you.
Mark Thwaite, of Ready Steady Blog (one of the Guardian's top ten literary blogs) is delighted to have been appointed as the BD's web-editor, and has an introductory piece about it.
Mark points out that the BD is good news for book lovers (both in the US and in the UK), as the site is making a lot of difficult-to-get-hold-of books available 'at great prices'. He is also pleased that the enterprise appointed a blogger as their managing editor. This, he modestly says, 'is -- in a very small way -- a success story about the blogosphere: they took on someone from the blogosphere because they think that the blogs are so important.'Romance readers never had it so good
Romantic fiction is not what it was. It's better.
There are now (I am told -- not my field) all sorts of new sub-genres in romance: erotic, paranormal, Christian, Wayne Rooney, David Beckham.... Actually I made those last two up, but the others are real.
Jessica Inclan does the paranormal ones, and When You Believe (Kensington, 6 June) is the first of a trilogy. Jessica describes her books as 'Harry Potter for adults - with sex.' And they're inspired by the theory of quantum physics. So you don't need to take any shit from anyone. The next time someone curls their lip at you while you're reading one you can say, 'Hey, listen, smart-arse -- this is inspired by the theory of quantum physics. So shut it.'
Wodehouse Prize
Last year's winner of the Wodehouse Prize was A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, which was the start of its well deserved rise to fame. This year's winner is Christopher Brookmyre with his tenth book, All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye.
The book is published by Abacus, which is part of Little, Brown, and I eventually managed to find an entry for the book on the Little, Brown web site. That web site, in my opinion, really sucks. The opening page was a complete blank, at least on my screen, and once I got in I had a hell of a time convincing the firm that it actually did publish Brookmyre. Looking at the URL for the book, which I have used for the hyperlink in this paragraph, I seriously doubt whether it will work. And no one saw fit to mention the Wodehouse Prize on the Titles in the News page.
Who was it said that the big publishers are not entirely at ease in the digital world?
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Glubb Pasha on the Arabs
Glubb Pasha -- or, to give him his full title, Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb -- was one of a long string of Englishmen who got involved in the complicated affairs of the Middle East: Lawrence of Arabia was perhaps the most famous. Pasha, by the way, is simply an honorary title in the Arab world, one that is typically granted to high-ranking soldiers or governors, and it means, more or less, 'Sir'.
Born in 1897, Glubb was a career soldier, and his career culminated in his role as commander of the Arab legion, from 1939 to 1956.
After his retirement, Glubb wrote a considerable number of books, which I have not read, but I have just read My Years with the Arabs, which is the text of a lecture that he gave to the Institute for Cultural Research in 1971. It's still in print, and if you are trying to make sense of the current nonsense in Iraq you could do worse than take a look at it. (ISBN 0 9500029 6 8)
Glubb begins by trying to give a historical definition of the term Arab. He points out that, in the seventh century, a handful of troops from the Arabian peninsula (perhaps 15,000 or 20,000 men) conquered vast areas of the Middle East. These soldiers were inspired by the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. Ultimately, the countries conquered by these troops adopted the Muslim religion and the Arabic language, but their populations were largely unchanged. The newly 'Arab' countries therefore retain marked differences in ethnic origin and customs, and they react very differently to the events and crises of life.
Having made that point, Glubb goes on to describe some common characteristics of those peoples who are today considered Arab. And we should note immediately that, writing in 1971, he was aware that the younger generation of Arabs were often being educated in western universities, and were bringing into their communities new ideas and new ways of doing things. However, Glubb seems to have held the view that most of the characteristics which he described were likely to remain at the core of Arab behaviour and thinking.
The first characteristic that he identifies is courtesy. He describes the elaborate politeness and formality with which even the poorest people greet friends and strangers.
His second trait is dignity, which he says is common to all Middle East cultures. In company, an Arab will not lounge about, yawn, or laugh uproariously with his mouth open. The behaviour of Europeans and Americans, says Glubb, often makes them seem like barbarians to the Arabs.
To the casual visitor, says Glubb, Arabs do not normally seem very pious. But whether or not they pray five times a day (as Muslims are supposed to), Glubb thinks it a safe generalisation to say that all but a handful of westernised Arabs believe in God. This, he feels, has a markedly stabilising effect on society. For example, there are no suicides among these people.
As for the common sneer that Arabs are fatalists, Glubb chooses to describe this rather as a calm acceptance of setbacks and defeats. It is their faith in God which enables Arabs to bear terrible misfortunes and hardships without nervous breakdowns and suicides.
Next, Glubb considers the Arab attitude to money. 'Most of the traditional Arabs among whom I lived presented a phenomenon entirely strange, perhaps incredible, to the modern Western mind -- they did not live for money.'
This has various consequences, one of which is that the poor do not envy the rich; the elderly are cared for in the family, and are not seen as a hindrance to the pursuit of money.
However, this is one area where, even in 1971, Glubb could see substantial changes. The western-educated young often returned with a very western enthusiasm for money. As a result, the old system of basing business transactions purely on trust was breaking down, and a wider gap was developing between rich and poor in the Arab world.
Under traditional Arab conditions, children naturally grew up as part of a family, and tended to continue in the family way of life. The sons of shepherds, farmers, and merchants became shepherds, farmers and merchants in turn. But by the time Glubb was writing, the introduction of western education methods had changed all that. A university degree is now considered the one essential to success; under the western influence, 'character, honesty, experience, courage are never enquired of, or even thought necessary.'
This development causes Glubb to consider the question of wisdom and knowledge. 'One of the most striking peculiarities of life in this country,' he says, 'which has impressed me since my return to Britain, is the loss of our appreciation of the difference between Wisdom and Knowledge.' These are, in Glubb's view, as different as chalk is from cheese.
Wisdom, according to Glubb, is the art of living and can only be acquired by experience; thus an old peasant may be wiser than the world's greatest scientist. 'I have known village headmen in Asia,' he declares, 'who were wiser than the president of the United States.'
No further comment is required on that.
Glubb considers politics in the Arab world. In politics, he says, we in the west are as narrow-minded as our ancestors were in terms of religion: i.e. convinced that our way is best. He gives an example drawn from two western comments on the state of Jordan in the 1940s. One western correspondent remarked to Glubb that the government of Jordan was 'entirely reactionary and feudalistic, and really an anachronism in the modern world.' A second correspondent, speaking separately from the first, remarked that 'This is the first country I have ever visited where everyone I have spoken to praises the government.'
Moral: we should not make the assumption that democracy is the most natural, or the 'best' form of government for every nation under the sun. Some might prefer a different arrangement.
The key to the traditional Arab form of government, Glubb says, was accessibility, at all levels. Everyone in the community had the opportunity to speak to the leader, without lawyers, legal fees or delay. Our own system, Glubb argues, has completely lost this vital asset. No single man is responsible for anything: individuals are concealed within committees, and the system is dehumanised and depersonalised. Glubb's conclusion is we are not justified in demanding that other nations should abandon their own traditions and adopt ours.
Finally, Glubb points out that the western code of chivalry has its origins in the Arab world. Before the preaching of Islam in the seventh century, the Arabs carried on endless wars; but these wars were governed by strict rules of honour. The object of war was not to conquer or subdue another tribe; it was to provide a means whereby men could win honour, rather than wealth or power.
It was these same warlike nomads who formed the spearhead of the Arab conquests, and in Spain and France they established their ideas of war for honour, and a chivalrous attitude toward women. (The Arabs, by the way, remained in Spain for nearly 800 years.) Glubb concludes his lecture by echoing the words of the great French scholar, Dr Levi-Provencal: 'Arabs taught Europe respect and courtesy to women.'
Should you wish to read Glubb Pasha's lecture, you can obtain it from the Institute for Cultural Research, along with much else.
Born in 1897, Glubb was a career soldier, and his career culminated in his role as commander of the Arab legion, from 1939 to 1956.
After his retirement, Glubb wrote a considerable number of books, which I have not read, but I have just read My Years with the Arabs, which is the text of a lecture that he gave to the Institute for Cultural Research in 1971. It's still in print, and if you are trying to make sense of the current nonsense in Iraq you could do worse than take a look at it. (ISBN 0 9500029 6 8)
Glubb begins by trying to give a historical definition of the term Arab. He points out that, in the seventh century, a handful of troops from the Arabian peninsula (perhaps 15,000 or 20,000 men) conquered vast areas of the Middle East. These soldiers were inspired by the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. Ultimately, the countries conquered by these troops adopted the Muslim religion and the Arabic language, but their populations were largely unchanged. The newly 'Arab' countries therefore retain marked differences in ethnic origin and customs, and they react very differently to the events and crises of life.
Having made that point, Glubb goes on to describe some common characteristics of those peoples who are today considered Arab. And we should note immediately that, writing in 1971, he was aware that the younger generation of Arabs were often being educated in western universities, and were bringing into their communities new ideas and new ways of doing things. However, Glubb seems to have held the view that most of the characteristics which he described were likely to remain at the core of Arab behaviour and thinking.
The first characteristic that he identifies is courtesy. He describes the elaborate politeness and formality with which even the poorest people greet friends and strangers.
His second trait is dignity, which he says is common to all Middle East cultures. In company, an Arab will not lounge about, yawn, or laugh uproariously with his mouth open. The behaviour of Europeans and Americans, says Glubb, often makes them seem like barbarians to the Arabs.
To the casual visitor, says Glubb, Arabs do not normally seem very pious. But whether or not they pray five times a day (as Muslims are supposed to), Glubb thinks it a safe generalisation to say that all but a handful of westernised Arabs believe in God. This, he feels, has a markedly stabilising effect on society. For example, there are no suicides among these people.
As for the common sneer that Arabs are fatalists, Glubb chooses to describe this rather as a calm acceptance of setbacks and defeats. It is their faith in God which enables Arabs to bear terrible misfortunes and hardships without nervous breakdowns and suicides.
Next, Glubb considers the Arab attitude to money. 'Most of the traditional Arabs among whom I lived presented a phenomenon entirely strange, perhaps incredible, to the modern Western mind -- they did not live for money.'
This has various consequences, one of which is that the poor do not envy the rich; the elderly are cared for in the family, and are not seen as a hindrance to the pursuit of money.
However, this is one area where, even in 1971, Glubb could see substantial changes. The western-educated young often returned with a very western enthusiasm for money. As a result, the old system of basing business transactions purely on trust was breaking down, and a wider gap was developing between rich and poor in the Arab world.
Under traditional Arab conditions, children naturally grew up as part of a family, and tended to continue in the family way of life. The sons of shepherds, farmers, and merchants became shepherds, farmers and merchants in turn. But by the time Glubb was writing, the introduction of western education methods had changed all that. A university degree is now considered the one essential to success; under the western influence, 'character, honesty, experience, courage are never enquired of, or even thought necessary.'
This development causes Glubb to consider the question of wisdom and knowledge. 'One of the most striking peculiarities of life in this country,' he says, 'which has impressed me since my return to Britain, is the loss of our appreciation of the difference between Wisdom and Knowledge.' These are, in Glubb's view, as different as chalk is from cheese.
Wisdom, according to Glubb, is the art of living and can only be acquired by experience; thus an old peasant may be wiser than the world's greatest scientist. 'I have known village headmen in Asia,' he declares, 'who were wiser than the president of the United States.'
No further comment is required on that.
Glubb considers politics in the Arab world. In politics, he says, we in the west are as narrow-minded as our ancestors were in terms of religion: i.e. convinced that our way is best. He gives an example drawn from two western comments on the state of Jordan in the 1940s. One western correspondent remarked to Glubb that the government of Jordan was 'entirely reactionary and feudalistic, and really an anachronism in the modern world.' A second correspondent, speaking separately from the first, remarked that 'This is the first country I have ever visited where everyone I have spoken to praises the government.'
Moral: we should not make the assumption that democracy is the most natural, or the 'best' form of government for every nation under the sun. Some might prefer a different arrangement.
The key to the traditional Arab form of government, Glubb says, was accessibility, at all levels. Everyone in the community had the opportunity to speak to the leader, without lawyers, legal fees or delay. Our own system, Glubb argues, has completely lost this vital asset. No single man is responsible for anything: individuals are concealed within committees, and the system is dehumanised and depersonalised. Glubb's conclusion is we are not justified in demanding that other nations should abandon their own traditions and adopt ours.
Finally, Glubb points out that the western code of chivalry has its origins in the Arab world. Before the preaching of Islam in the seventh century, the Arabs carried on endless wars; but these wars were governed by strict rules of honour. The object of war was not to conquer or subdue another tribe; it was to provide a means whereby men could win honour, rather than wealth or power.
It was these same warlike nomads who formed the spearhead of the Arab conquests, and in Spain and France they established their ideas of war for honour, and a chivalrous attitude toward women. (The Arabs, by the way, remained in Spain for nearly 800 years.) Glubb concludes his lecture by echoing the words of the great French scholar, Dr Levi-Provencal: 'Arabs taught Europe respect and courtesy to women.'
Should you wish to read Glubb Pasha's lecture, you can obtain it from the Institute for Cultural Research, along with much else.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Which way the wind blows
Introduction
Yesterday we looked at various pontifications about change -- change in the book world, and change as determined by the advent of the internet and all things digital.
We discovered, not surprisingly, that some people in the book world are deeply afraid of digital, and that some people think it's going to create a wonderful new environment in which everything will be lovely, and all writers will earn £100,000 a year (or the equivalent) for very little work.
If I have one self-criticism of this blog, it is that I spend too much time linking to other people's thoughts and not enough time thinking for myself. So here I am going to offer a few speculations about possible developments in the field of fiction. In doing so, I may thereby expose, even to myself, the poverty of my own ideas, and thus precipitate an immediate and permanent return to linking. But who knows.
Anyone who has read this blog regularly, over the last couple of years, will find here some ideas which have been floated before: but perhaps they may be somewhat refined, and in any case I think they are worth repeating. The argument will be based largely, but not entirely on UK experience; but the world is flat these days, and getting flatter by the minute.
Background
For all practical purposes, the novel came into existence 250 years ago. At first confined to the educated classes, the novel gradually became more popular with the advent of compulsory education, towards the end of the nineteenth century. In the early twentieth century the novel continued to grow in readership, and superficially it appears to be a common choice of entertainment today.
However, as the decades passed, the novel faced ever-increasing competition. In the nineteenth century there were theatres; then, in the twentieth century, there were films; radio; television (a real killer blow, potentially); and now every sort and kind of iPod, DVD, CD, video on demand, computer games, interactive this and that, and a dozen other media.
The novel still has things going for it. It's easily portable (usually); you can dip into it at odd moments; it's cheap (especially if you buy secondhand). And from the entertainment consumer's point of view, therefore, it has much to recommend it.
On the other hand, there are plenty of consumers for whom the novel is not attractive. It is intimidating: all those pages of solid prose. It requires of the reader intelligence, concentration, a large vocabulary, and a wide frame of reference. There are plenty of entertainment media today which call for none of these; and many of them are free. So the novel's future may not be as rosy as its past.
When we look at the novel from the author's point of view, we see that, over the past 200 years or so, it has been possible, at least in principle, for a novelist to make a living from the craft. But in practice this has been possible for only a small proportion of those who write novels. The rest have made little or nothing, in financial terms. Often they have not even achieved publication.
I do not subscribe to the view that those novelists who have 'succeeded' -- succeeded in getting published, and in achieving fame and fortune -- have been the 'best' novelists in terms of any reasonable set of criteria. This point has been dealt with at some length in my (free) ebook, On the Survival of Rats in the Slush Pile, and I won't go into it again here. Let's just say that chance plays a large part.
The position today
So -- where do we stand today?
The position is that novels are sold and read reasonably widely, but in commercial and industrial terms the book market is a small one. It is demonstrably difficult for publishers to make fiction pay, and even harder for novelists to make a steady income. As was originally said about writing for the theatre: You can make a killing, but you can't make a living. To make a killing in publishing/writing, you have to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right book. And it may be a one-hit wonder.
Suppose the internet had never come along in the 1990s -- what would have been the prospects for the novel and for novelists then?
All the signs are that publishers would have had an increasingly difficult time, and writers a worse one.
More and more novels are being published, especially in the UK, but the retail trade is interested in only a tiny handful of them. These are pushed upon the book-reading public by every means at the trade's disposal, and the rest are soon forgotten.
Of course the reading public is by no means stupid, and not every book that is hyped sells in large numbers. Only recently Robert McCrum lamented the tale of Londonstani, a novel for which, he says, Fourth Estate paid £300,000. 'Alas,' says McCrum, 'everything about its short life has been a disaster.... Londonstani is already being airbrushed from history.' And the damn thing was only published in May; in the US it isn't even due out until 22 June.
So the pattern is clear, and has been remarked upon here, and elsewhere, many times. A novelist has to show promise of hitting the big time, first time out, to stand any chance of serious publication. You need a big-time agent (preferably Geller) to interest an editor; you need a huge advance to persuade the publisher to make meaningful efforts to sell your book; and if your book fails your career is effectively over.
One of the great mysteries of life is where the publishers think these first-time smash hits are going to come from. True, once in a while you get a Susanna Clarke, who emerges fully formed; but most even halfway normal writers need four or five books to develop their talents fully.
Fortunately for the orthodox book trade, as presently constituted, the internet does exist. I say that because, for all the frightening threat that it represents, the internet also offers a means whereby young, or new, writers can develop their skills, gain some exposure, find readers, and develop a fan base. Hence it provides a training ground for the publishers' great hopes of the future.
Publishers have done nothing whatever to encourage this training ground; rather the reverse. They have done nothing to deserve it; but there it is, none the less. A gift from whatever gods may be.
It is already perfectly possible for new writers to offer their books to internet users, for minimal cost (to the author), in any one of a dozen different formats, from free PDF to print-on-demand hardbacks in collector's editions, signed by the author. Whereas once you might have been published by a mainstream publisher and described as 'promising' by the Northamptonshire Echo, now you can publish your early and promising books yourself, until, with the third, or fifth, or tenth, you succeed in interesting an agent and a major publisher and go on from there.
It's worth noticing, in passing, that if you have a burning ambition to write a series of novels about something really obscure and of definitely minority interest, such as life in a Bedouin caravan in the fifteenth century, or some bizarre sexual peccadillo, then the internet and its search engines mean that the 15, or 150, or 1,500 people in the world who are actually interested in your own peculiar area of enthusiasm, can find your book and buy it.
However, it is an established fact, and one which I personally find somewhat distressing, that even those who do write books which are clearly going to be of minority interest are almost invariably consumed by wild ambition. No matter how limited their abilities, no matter how obscure their subject matter, most of them are convinced that they have a number-one bestseller on their hands. If only those deadbeat agents and publishers...
We are still dealing, at this point, with the impact of the internet, and digital technology, on the traditional book trade today. And having considered the situation for publishers we now need to think about retailers.
Last week we considered, even here on this blog, the possibility that the big book chains would kill off all the small independent booksellers -- and the precise reverse of that scenario: that the indies would be the only survivors. My own view, based on the digital-photography model, is that the high-street fiction-retailing scene is going to be transformed pretty damn quick.
Fiction, at least as we now know it, is pure text. It doesn't need pictures. Hence it can perfectly well be produced on a print-on-demand machine. I predict it will be. Let's say within ten years. What I envisage is that even books published by the big-time firms will be sold to the public through small high-street boutiques, or over a counter in a supermarket, just as digital photos are today. The chains may well continue to exist, particularly for non-fiction, and they may choose to go on selling fiction, but they won't be needed.
Publishers will not use traditional printing methods (for novels). They will not have warehouses full of books; they will not transport them round the country in huge vans. They will generate publicity as now, but they will supply their retail outlets, big and small, with a digital file. The customers will place their order -- over the phone or over the internet -- and then they will call and collect the book when convenient; or have it sent, of course.
The pattern of success -- with big sales and big fame going to just a few books -- will be the same as now. And such 'success' will come easiest to those who are the beneficiaries of the big firms' marketing budgets. But it will also be possible for books put out by small publishers to take off via the internet, in just the same way that unknown bands can launch a new song, without benefit of a big recording company.
In statistical terms, therefore, we shall still have sales of novels forming a Zipf curve, but the long tail will be increasingly important to everyone: publishers and readers and writers alike.
You can see evidence of this already. Compare, for instance, three science-fiction novels such as Robert Charles Wilson's Spin, John Sundman's Acts of the Apostles, and Geoff Ryman's Air. One of these three novels is self-published; the other two are published by major firms and have won, or been shortlisted for, major prizes.
What is there to distinguish these three books, one from another? Essentially, nothing. They are all three highly competent, fully professional pieces of work. Two of them I enjoyed very much, the other I didn't fancy. If you have a keen eye, you might guess which is the self-published book just from the look of the thing, but from the content alone you would have no chance.
How does it happen that two of these books sold to big firms and one didn't? Pure chance. Or circumstance; or randomness. See my Rats essay for details.
Today the two books published by major firms will have sold more copies than the self-published one. But not many more, I suspect, because John Sundman has shifted quite a few on his own behalf, and the two professionally published books were, in any case, part of the long tail themselves.
As the digital world expands, I expect this levelling of the playing field to become more pronounced. The sales curve will never approach a 'normal' distribution, but in the long tail it will become much harder to distinguish between the books from big firms and those from various companies, such as Lulu.com, which service the small or the self-publisher. Readers won't care who publishes a book. They don't now! And in the future, if they find something that turns them on, they will send an enthusiastic email to their friends, who will order it from their favourite supplier. No matter who published it.
The longer term
So far so good then. The immediate digital future seems to offer some hope for novelists, and even for big publishers of fiction -- if only the latter can stop living in the past, and cure themselves of the delusion that literary fiction is somehow 'better' than any other kind. For one thing, the print-on-demand model eliminates the nonsense of returns.
In the longer term -- say the next fifty or one hundred years -- I am less hopeful about the novel. In the sense that I think it is a medium in trouble.
Once upon a time, and not so very long ago at that, the poet was king. Byron was the movie star of his day. Swinburne was a household name. But poetry faded away. It didn't die (although various practitioners did their very best to kill it), but it was overtaken by everything else.
Poetry still exists. It's still written -- quite a lot of it. And it's still read -- mostly by people who think they are, or want to become, poets themselves. But it generates no income and brings no worldly fame. This, I suspect, is what may happen to the novel.
As a matter of fact it has already happened to the novel, to some extent. Various commentators have pointed out that, somewhere around the middle of the twentieth century, or slightly before, the world of fiction divided.
As soon as Eng Lit started to be taught in universities, those who made their living by teaching it decided, consciously or unconsciously, that you couldn't expect people to take the subject seriously if it was fun. So they made sure that it wasn't fun. They began to big up -- as the current phrase has it -- books of the most amazing tedium. The novel was split into two major divisions. There was 'serious literature' on the one hand, and popular, commercial fiction on the other.
By and large that's the way it is today. 'Serious literature' is occasionally hyped up, via the Booker and other devices, into a major source of income for publisher and writer, but for the most part it is a minority interest. Popular fiction is what pays the rent.
Yesterday we looked at various pontifications about change -- change in the book world, and change as determined by the advent of the internet and all things digital.
We discovered, not surprisingly, that some people in the book world are deeply afraid of digital, and that some people think it's going to create a wonderful new environment in which everything will be lovely, and all writers will earn £100,000 a year (or the equivalent) for very little work.
If I have one self-criticism of this blog, it is that I spend too much time linking to other people's thoughts and not enough time thinking for myself. So here I am going to offer a few speculations about possible developments in the field of fiction. In doing so, I may thereby expose, even to myself, the poverty of my own ideas, and thus precipitate an immediate and permanent return to linking. But who knows.
Anyone who has read this blog regularly, over the last couple of years, will find here some ideas which have been floated before: but perhaps they may be somewhat refined, and in any case I think they are worth repeating. The argument will be based largely, but not entirely on UK experience; but the world is flat these days, and getting flatter by the minute.
Background
I have already argued, particularly in my discussion of the value of a novel compared with that of false teeth, that a novel is not a big deal. And I repeat that assertion now.
A novel, as we all know, is essentially a story. It is the extended version of an anecdote, told over the camp fire, or in the gentleman's club, or the women's institute. Its purpose is to create emotion in the listener/reader.For all practical purposes, the novel came into existence 250 years ago. At first confined to the educated classes, the novel gradually became more popular with the advent of compulsory education, towards the end of the nineteenth century. In the early twentieth century the novel continued to grow in readership, and superficially it appears to be a common choice of entertainment today.
However, as the decades passed, the novel faced ever-increasing competition. In the nineteenth century there were theatres; then, in the twentieth century, there were films; radio; television (a real killer blow, potentially); and now every sort and kind of iPod, DVD, CD, video on demand, computer games, interactive this and that, and a dozen other media.
The novel still has things going for it. It's easily portable (usually); you can dip into it at odd moments; it's cheap (especially if you buy secondhand). And from the entertainment consumer's point of view, therefore, it has much to recommend it.
On the other hand, there are plenty of consumers for whom the novel is not attractive. It is intimidating: all those pages of solid prose. It requires of the reader intelligence, concentration, a large vocabulary, and a wide frame of reference. There are plenty of entertainment media today which call for none of these; and many of them are free. So the novel's future may not be as rosy as its past.
When we look at the novel from the author's point of view, we see that, over the past 200 years or so, it has been possible, at least in principle, for a novelist to make a living from the craft. But in practice this has been possible for only a small proportion of those who write novels. The rest have made little or nothing, in financial terms. Often they have not even achieved publication.
I do not subscribe to the view that those novelists who have 'succeeded' -- succeeded in getting published, and in achieving fame and fortune -- have been the 'best' novelists in terms of any reasonable set of criteria. This point has been dealt with at some length in my (free) ebook, On the Survival of Rats in the Slush Pile, and I won't go into it again here. Let's just say that chance plays a large part.
The position today
So -- where do we stand today?
The position is that novels are sold and read reasonably widely, but in commercial and industrial terms the book market is a small one. It is demonstrably difficult for publishers to make fiction pay, and even harder for novelists to make a steady income. As was originally said about writing for the theatre: You can make a killing, but you can't make a living. To make a killing in publishing/writing, you have to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right book. And it may be a one-hit wonder.
Suppose the internet had never come along in the 1990s -- what would have been the prospects for the novel and for novelists then?
All the signs are that publishers would have had an increasingly difficult time, and writers a worse one.
More and more novels are being published, especially in the UK, but the retail trade is interested in only a tiny handful of them. These are pushed upon the book-reading public by every means at the trade's disposal, and the rest are soon forgotten.
Of course the reading public is by no means stupid, and not every book that is hyped sells in large numbers. Only recently Robert McCrum lamented the tale of Londonstani, a novel for which, he says, Fourth Estate paid £300,000. 'Alas,' says McCrum, 'everything about its short life has been a disaster.... Londonstani is already being airbrushed from history.' And the damn thing was only published in May; in the US it isn't even due out until 22 June.
So the pattern is clear, and has been remarked upon here, and elsewhere, many times. A novelist has to show promise of hitting the big time, first time out, to stand any chance of serious publication. You need a big-time agent (preferably Geller) to interest an editor; you need a huge advance to persuade the publisher to make meaningful efforts to sell your book; and if your book fails your career is effectively over.
One of the great mysteries of life is where the publishers think these first-time smash hits are going to come from. True, once in a while you get a Susanna Clarke, who emerges fully formed; but most even halfway normal writers need four or five books to develop their talents fully.
Fortunately for the orthodox book trade, as presently constituted, the internet does exist. I say that because, for all the frightening threat that it represents, the internet also offers a means whereby young, or new, writers can develop their skills, gain some exposure, find readers, and develop a fan base. Hence it provides a training ground for the publishers' great hopes of the future.
Publishers have done nothing whatever to encourage this training ground; rather the reverse. They have done nothing to deserve it; but there it is, none the less. A gift from whatever gods may be.
It is already perfectly possible for new writers to offer their books to internet users, for minimal cost (to the author), in any one of a dozen different formats, from free PDF to print-on-demand hardbacks in collector's editions, signed by the author. Whereas once you might have been published by a mainstream publisher and described as 'promising' by the Northamptonshire Echo, now you can publish your early and promising books yourself, until, with the third, or fifth, or tenth, you succeed in interesting an agent and a major publisher and go on from there.
It's worth noticing, in passing, that if you have a burning ambition to write a series of novels about something really obscure and of definitely minority interest, such as life in a Bedouin caravan in the fifteenth century, or some bizarre sexual peccadillo, then the internet and its search engines mean that the 15, or 150, or 1,500 people in the world who are actually interested in your own peculiar area of enthusiasm, can find your book and buy it.
However, it is an established fact, and one which I personally find somewhat distressing, that even those who do write books which are clearly going to be of minority interest are almost invariably consumed by wild ambition. No matter how limited their abilities, no matter how obscure their subject matter, most of them are convinced that they have a number-one bestseller on their hands. If only those deadbeat agents and publishers...
We are still dealing, at this point, with the impact of the internet, and digital technology, on the traditional book trade today. And having considered the situation for publishers we now need to think about retailers.
Last week we considered, even here on this blog, the possibility that the big book chains would kill off all the small independent booksellers -- and the precise reverse of that scenario: that the indies would be the only survivors. My own view, based on the digital-photography model, is that the high-street fiction-retailing scene is going to be transformed pretty damn quick.
Fiction, at least as we now know it, is pure text. It doesn't need pictures. Hence it can perfectly well be produced on a print-on-demand machine. I predict it will be. Let's say within ten years. What I envisage is that even books published by the big-time firms will be sold to the public through small high-street boutiques, or over a counter in a supermarket, just as digital photos are today. The chains may well continue to exist, particularly for non-fiction, and they may choose to go on selling fiction, but they won't be needed.
Publishers will not use traditional printing methods (for novels). They will not have warehouses full of books; they will not transport them round the country in huge vans. They will generate publicity as now, but they will supply their retail outlets, big and small, with a digital file. The customers will place their order -- over the phone or over the internet -- and then they will call and collect the book when convenient; or have it sent, of course.
The pattern of success -- with big sales and big fame going to just a few books -- will be the same as now. And such 'success' will come easiest to those who are the beneficiaries of the big firms' marketing budgets. But it will also be possible for books put out by small publishers to take off via the internet, in just the same way that unknown bands can launch a new song, without benefit of a big recording company.
In statistical terms, therefore, we shall still have sales of novels forming a Zipf curve, but the long tail will be increasingly important to everyone: publishers and readers and writers alike.
You can see evidence of this already. Compare, for instance, three science-fiction novels such as Robert Charles Wilson's Spin, John Sundman's Acts of the Apostles, and Geoff Ryman's Air. One of these three novels is self-published; the other two are published by major firms and have won, or been shortlisted for, major prizes.
What is there to distinguish these three books, one from another? Essentially, nothing. They are all three highly competent, fully professional pieces of work. Two of them I enjoyed very much, the other I didn't fancy. If you have a keen eye, you might guess which is the self-published book just from the look of the thing, but from the content alone you would have no chance.
How does it happen that two of these books sold to big firms and one didn't? Pure chance. Or circumstance; or randomness. See my Rats essay for details.
Today the two books published by major firms will have sold more copies than the self-published one. But not many more, I suspect, because John Sundman has shifted quite a few on his own behalf, and the two professionally published books were, in any case, part of the long tail themselves.
As the digital world expands, I expect this levelling of the playing field to become more pronounced. The sales curve will never approach a 'normal' distribution, but in the long tail it will become much harder to distinguish between the books from big firms and those from various companies, such as Lulu.com, which service the small or the self-publisher. Readers won't care who publishes a book. They don't now! And in the future, if they find something that turns them on, they will send an enthusiastic email to their friends, who will order it from their favourite supplier. No matter who published it.
The longer term
So far so good then. The immediate digital future seems to offer some hope for novelists, and even for big publishers of fiction -- if only the latter can stop living in the past, and cure themselves of the delusion that literary fiction is somehow 'better' than any other kind. For one thing, the print-on-demand model eliminates the nonsense of returns.
In the longer term -- say the next fifty or one hundred years -- I am less hopeful about the novel. In the sense that I think it is a medium in trouble.
Once upon a time, and not so very long ago at that, the poet was king. Byron was the movie star of his day. Swinburne was a household name. But poetry faded away. It didn't die (although various practitioners did their very best to kill it), but it was overtaken by everything else.
Poetry still exists. It's still written -- quite a lot of it. And it's still read -- mostly by people who think they are, or want to become, poets themselves. But it generates no income and brings no worldly fame. This, I suspect, is what may happen to the novel.
As a matter of fact it has already happened to the novel, to some extent. Various commentators have pointed out that, somewhere around the middle of the twentieth century, or slightly before, the world of fiction divided.
As soon as Eng Lit started to be taught in universities, those who made their living by teaching it decided, consciously or unconsciously, that you couldn't expect people to take the subject seriously if it was fun. So they made sure that it wasn't fun. They began to big up -- as the current phrase has it -- books of the most amazing tedium. The novel was split into two major divisions. There was 'serious literature' on the one hand, and popular, commercial fiction on the other.
By and large that's the way it is today. 'Serious literature' is occasionally hyped up, via the Booker and other devices, into a major source of income for publisher and writer, but for the most part it is a minority interest. Popular fiction is what pays the rent.
I suspect that, in decades to come, popular fiction will also continue to lose ground to the other media. The novel will then become, in time, the equivalent of poetry, black and white darkroom photography, the building of model steam engines, and flower arranging. In other words, it will be a minority interest. An interest which arouses deep passion in the hearts of a hard core of enthusiasts, but not one which really shifts the balance of power in the world. Not one which enables more than a handful of people to earn a living, in any capacity.
After perhaps three hundred years of life, the novel will quietly fade into obscurity. It will still be there, just as radio drama is still there, but no one will take any notice. And that really isn't terribly surprising.
What is surprising, when you think about it, is that anyone should ever have imagined that it could be otherwise. The novel was only able to flourish through absence of competition, not because of any great virtue of its own. And when you think about the interactive, virtual-reality entertainments which might soon be on offer, the novel's chances seem slim.
Writing a novel is, even now, a very bizarre enterprise. Why on earth should anyone ever bother to spend a couple of years slogging away at writing one?
The answer, at present, is for fame and fortune: the writer in search of identity. But even today, the statistical likelihood of achieving fame and fortune through writing a novel is so slim that you have to be more or less deranged to imagine that these (in any case questionable) blessings will fall upon you.
One thing is perhaps certain. Even if the novel does fade away, into a quiet state of decrepitude, there will still be writers around who are dumb enough to believe that -- if they just stick at it long enough -- fame and fortune must inevitably be theirs.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Updike, Sorrell, and change
Michael Cader, of Publishers Lunch, reports that a recording of John Updike's address to the assembled troops at Book Expo America has been posted by the BEA, so you can hear the great man's argument in full, should you wish.
As you might expect, given Michael Cader's previous comments about the BEA, he was not too impressed by Updike.
As you might expect, given Michael Cader's previous comments about the BEA, he was not too impressed by Updike.
In my sadder and more cynical moments, [the speech] reminds me of the anachronistic bubble aspect of BEA, where lost causes can go to congratulate themselves and relive an idealized world of publishing that may never have existed....
Updike's concern and distaste in the speech isn't so much about technology, universal libraries, or even the potentially changing reading experience. It's about the changing economics of writing books....
Simply put, he doesn't want to let go of a world that has compensated him increasingly well for writing. What's grisly [to Updike] is the idea of the author 'as a kind of walking, talking advertisement for the book' and a world in which 'only the present, live person can make an impact and offer, as it were, value.'
Equally grisly [to Updike], though he's not honest enough to put it this way, is a wide-open electronic pipeline of often free written content that Updike must compete with, which this learned critic simplistically tars as 'egregiously unaccurate, unedited, unattributed,and juvenile.'
In other words, Updike doesn't like change, and he doesn't like competition, especially from those who give it away free (such as bloggers).
Cader reports that another commentator on the Updike speech (Sean Wilsey in Time) described Updike as 'a white-haired gentleman trying to halt something new because it runs against something established, urging the retrograde upon people who should know more than any others that retrogression is patently not in their interest.'
Well, we noted on 25 May that attendees at BEA divided mostly into three camps: those anxious for change, those who accept it, and those who resist. John Updike was among the resisters.
In reading all this, I was struck by the contrast between Updike's view, on the one hand, and the view of Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of the WPP group, on the other. Sorrell founded WPP in 1986; since then, WPP has become one of the world's leading communications and advertising companies and is valued by the UK stockmarket at £7.5 billion. It is therefore reasonable to assume that, where advertising is concerned, Sorrell knows what he's talking about.
In the Times last Friday, Sorrell drew attention to certain parallels between the present concerns about all things digital and the advent of commercial television in the UK in 1955.
In 1955, advertising was almost entirely print-based, and there were many senior executives in the advertising agencies who had severe doubts about the viability of television advertising. For one thing, it was thought that the British public would never tolerate having their television programmes interrupted by adverts. And for another, these senior executives had no idea how to use film.
A similar situation arises, Sorrell argues, in newspapers and advertising agencies today. A new medium, with new technology, has made an appearance, in the shape of the internet. Senior executives, in established businesses, don't understand the technology; they are far from convinced that it can be made to generate a profit; and the internet (even today) still seems to be strange, expensive, and threatening.
What will happen next, Sorrell suggests, is similar to what happened in the late fifties. From the top, so to speak, the established companies will slowly, and reluctantly, get to grips with the new technology. And from the bottom, new companies will start up, run by bright, energetic young people with lots of technical know-how.
Gradually things will shake down until the new medium finds its place among the established media. In the process, some of new companies will fail, and some of the old companies will find themselves taken over by the bright young men.
Sorrell's comments are, I repeat, confined to advertising; but they seem to me to offer some obvious parallels in the world of publishing.
Meanwhile, in yesterday's New York Times, there was an article by Motoko Rich, entitled 'Digital Publishing is Scrambling the Industry's Rules'. (Link from booktrade.info.)
This is not, in my opinion, a very good article. For one thing the author seems to think that the standard royalty rate is 15% of the cover price of a book, and for another he rehashes a number of well known stories. But the article does contain a number of quotes which nicely illustrate the two attitudes which are commonly found in publishing today.
On the one hand we have the open dread and contempt for the new, as expressed by Updike and others. 'There's no substitute for the look and feel and smell of a real book -- the magic of the paper and thread and glue.' Not that you get much thread these days, but you see the point.
And then, by contrast, you have the wild enthusiasm for change. 'I think people who are sort of on the outside of the institutions and new voices entering will be a lot more excited about this technology. That's one of the effects that technology always has. It democratizes things and brings in new readers and authors.'
If you want a further dose of advocacy for the new, try today's Guardian (link from booktrade.info), where Jeff Jarvis seeks to put the book into perspective. Speaking mainly in terms of the non-fiction book, he argues that online, or at any rate digital, prose offers considerable advantages over the printed form.
Enough, for the moment, of what other people are thinking. What do I think about the glorious digital future that awaits us? For that you must wait until tomorrow. Contain yourselves.
Novels set in Venice
A few weeks ago, when I was writing my review of Michelle Lovric’s The Remedy, I thought I might start by mentioning that it was just one of many novels, by many different authors, set in the noble and beautiful city of Venice. And I thought I would list a few.
But then I realised that the list of novels set in Venice, even the ones known to me, is very long indeed. And in any case, I now discover, someone else has done the job for me.
The someone is Jeff Cotton, and if you go to his web site you can find an extensive list of Venice-based fiction, with lots of links -- enough novels, in short, to keep you busy for several years. Not to mention films, comics, and a lot more. And, as if that was not enough, Jeff has also done a similar job for Florence and London.
What set me thinking about this was coming across yet another novel set in Venice. This one is The Lion of St Mark, by Thomas Quinn.
Thomas Quinn is one of those rather tiring and alarming people who seem to be good at everything. In his case, he has had a lengthy and successful career in business, and is currently executive vice president of Swiss Medica, a firm described as 'the maker of several innovative over-the-counter medicines.'
Thomas has no formal training in history (as far as I can see), his degree being in Industrial and Labor Relations (Cornell). But somewhere along the line he acquired a passion for history in general and Venice in particular.
The Lion of St Mark is described on the title page as being Book One of The Venetians, so evidently there is more to come. It is set in the fifteenth century, and Kirkus Reviews tells us to 'Think Tom Clancy channeled for those thrilled by galleons and exploding minarets.'
More details on the author's web site.
But then I realised that the list of novels set in Venice, even the ones known to me, is very long indeed. And in any case, I now discover, someone else has done the job for me.
The someone is Jeff Cotton, and if you go to his web site you can find an extensive list of Venice-based fiction, with lots of links -- enough novels, in short, to keep you busy for several years. Not to mention films, comics, and a lot more. And, as if that was not enough, Jeff has also done a similar job for Florence and London.
What set me thinking about this was coming across yet another novel set in Venice. This one is The Lion of St Mark, by Thomas Quinn.
Thomas Quinn is one of those rather tiring and alarming people who seem to be good at everything. In his case, he has had a lengthy and successful career in business, and is currently executive vice president of Swiss Medica, a firm described as 'the maker of several innovative over-the-counter medicines.'
Thomas has no formal training in history (as far as I can see), his degree being in Industrial and Labor Relations (Cornell). But somewhere along the line he acquired a passion for history in general and Venice in particular.
The Lion of St Mark is described on the title page as being Book One of The Venetians, so evidently there is more to come. It is set in the fifteenth century, and Kirkus Reviews tells us to 'Think Tom Clancy channeled for those thrilled by galleons and exploding minarets.'
More details on the author's web site.
Derek Wilson: The Nature of Rare Things
Derek Wilson is the author of over fifty books, and while I haven't actually added them up I suspect that the majority are non-fiction. You can study his output in more detail at his web site.
The Nature of Rare Things is a crime novel, and it is the second book in a series featuring Dr Nathaniel Guy. Guy is a lecturer in paranormal psychology at the University of Cambridge, and occasionally -- as one does -- he finds himself investigating crimes which involve the paranormal. In this book it is a case where a painting goes missing in apparently impossible circumstances, and the man who is accused of stealing it commits suicide. Some time later, the dead man is sid to be attempting to prove his innocence by communicating through a medium.
The book is carefully researched, professionally put together, and is written in a traditional style; younger readers may find it a trifle old-fashioned and staid. It's not a book that will make much impression as a mass-market paperback (if it ever appears in that form), but it will be often borrowed through the public libraries.
The Nature of Rare Things is a crime novel, and it is the second book in a series featuring Dr Nathaniel Guy. Guy is a lecturer in paranormal psychology at the University of Cambridge, and occasionally -- as one does -- he finds himself investigating crimes which involve the paranormal. In this book it is a case where a painting goes missing in apparently impossible circumstances, and the man who is accused of stealing it commits suicide. Some time later, the dead man is sid to be attempting to prove his innocence by communicating through a medium.
The book is carefully researched, professionally put together, and is written in a traditional style; younger readers may find it a trifle old-fashioned and staid. It's not a book that will make much impression as a mass-market paperback (if it ever appears in that form), but it will be often borrowed through the public libraries.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Monday morning
Just in case you missed them, here are a few bits that cropped up over the weekend.
Sarah Waters
The Guardian had an interview with Sarah Waters (link from Bookslut). This is a longish piece, and if you don't know Sarah's work it's a good introduction; and it acted as a reminder to me to get hold of her latest, The Night Watch. Interview by Lisa Allardice, by the way, who clearly knows what she's doing.
The future of bookshops
The Waterstone's/Ottakar's thingy has prompted all sorts of think pieces in the press.
There's an article by Iain Dale, on the Guardian comment-is-free page, which predicts the closure of virtually all independent bookshops. 'I foresee that within 10 years, apart from a very few run by retired individuals with money to throw down the drain, the independent bookshop will have disappeared from our town centres.'
This has generated lots and lots of comments, including one from Andy Laties which is definitely worth reading.
Another article appeared in the Independent. Perhaps because of the paper's name, this was a bit more hopeful, and it at least offered a few reasons as to why small bookshops might survive.
The Guardian piece really annoyed Clive Keeble, who reckons that the indies are the only assured survivors on the UK high streets. Clive also sent me a link to an American article, in the Village Voice, which suggests that the battle between big and small bookshops is not new. And at the end of a longish, thoughtful, and well researched article we get the following: 'Strange to say, someday superstores may be the historical curiosity that indies are now in danger of becoming.'
Tip of the week
Here's a useful tip. If you are thinking of starting a new career as a novelist, at the age of 70, as Mary Wesley did, you should equip yourself with two things: (1) a full life, particularly on the sexual side; and (2) a son who is a literary agent. In Wesley's case, the son was Toby Eady, of (not surprisingly) Toby Eady Associates. It never hurts for an embryo novelist to have a close relative who is a known name in the book business.
I was reminded of this by an article by Toby Eady in yesterday's Sunday Times. The article was a short profile of his mother, who is written about at book length in a biography of Mary Wesley, just out: Wild Mary, by Patrick Marnham.
Investing in books
The Sunday Times also had an article, in the Money section, about investing in books. I'm not going to dwell on that, because I would never advise anyone to buy a book for investment purposes. Buy a book because you want to read it, and possibly keep it, by all means; but if you're buying in the hope that you can sell it in n years' time for a profit, you deserve all the trouble you get.
Only one point caught my attention in this article: it was a statement that the print run for the very first Harry Potter book (hardback) was 500 copies. (Such was the confidence of the publisher.) Hence copies of that first edition are in short supply, and sell for a small fortune.
I also remember, though you'd have to dig into the archives of the Bookseller to find the details, a complaint which was made soon after Harry started to become really popular. It was a complaint made in connection with, I think, the third book in the series.
A bookseller wrote in to say that she had been collecting first editions of the Harry Potter books from the beginning. And so she had wanted to have a first edition of this latest book. But when she opened the packages with supplies of the book for her own shop, she found that none of the books was a true first edition: they were all marked Reprinted, or Second Impression, or some such. I forget the exact phrase.
Someone, the bookseller sourly remarked, had evidently realised that there was going to be money in these things, and had ensured that true first editions weren't even available to booksellers who opened the packages straight from the printers, in advance of the publication date.
All of which is another reason for not buying books for investment purposes. Not to mention the fact that there is a cottage industry in forging J.K. Rowling's signature and selling the 'signed' books on ebay.
Graze anatomy
Before we leave the weekend's papers, it's worth noting that Saturday's Times had a review of a book translated from the German: Three Bags Full, by Leonie Swann. It's been a bestseller in Germany, and foreign rights have been sold all over the place.
Three Bags Full is a detective story with a twist. The twist being that the murder victim was a shepherd, and the detectives are his sheep. It's set in Ireland.
Well, some very odd things happen in Ireland, and this book sounds as if it might be fun. Then again, it might be all postmodern and lit'ry.
Breakfast with Pandora
At the Breakfast with Pandora blog, DF concentrates mostly on ancient and modern mythology, but he also covers the craft of writing. He recently took time out to disagree with my assessment of To Kill a Mockingbird, and to demonstrate that it genuinely communicates with young people (his post of 31 May). Well, yes, indeed, I don't doubt it. It just didn't do a lot for me.
Kipp Fenn
You won't remember, but back in November last I mentioned Paul K. Lyons, who was running the Diary Junction and other things, and plugging a novel in the process.
Well, he's still at it, and now his novel Kipp Fenn is available online, in full.
Sand Storm offer
As I have said before, many and various are the ways in which writers seek to get themselves into print. For example, the ever-energetic Steve Clackson is trying a new offer to interest publishers in his novel Sand Storm. Steve says that they can have it royalty-free, provided they make a donation, for each copy sold, to the International Red Cross. Meanwhile he is working on the next one.
Death of 'Connie Sachs'
Most people who have read John le Carre's thrillers will know that he worked, at one time, for the UK's intelligences services, MI5 and MI6. Hence it was not surprising that, when he came to write espionage stories, Le Carre based some of his characters on real people.
One of Le Carre's minor characters in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was Connie Sachs, a woman with an encyclopaedic memory for information about even the most obscure corners of Communism. In the 1979 TV adaptation, Connie was played by Beryl Reid.
This character was widely believed to be based on Milicent Bagot, a spinster who was something of a legend in MI5. Well, now Milicent has died, at the age of 99, and the Times has an obituary of her.
Sarah Waters
The Guardian had an interview with Sarah Waters (link from Bookslut). This is a longish piece, and if you don't know Sarah's work it's a good introduction; and it acted as a reminder to me to get hold of her latest, The Night Watch. Interview by Lisa Allardice, by the way, who clearly knows what she's doing.
The future of bookshops
The Waterstone's/Ottakar's thingy has prompted all sorts of think pieces in the press.
There's an article by Iain Dale, on the Guardian comment-is-free page, which predicts the closure of virtually all independent bookshops. 'I foresee that within 10 years, apart from a very few run by retired individuals with money to throw down the drain, the independent bookshop will have disappeared from our town centres.'
This has generated lots and lots of comments, including one from Andy Laties which is definitely worth reading.
Another article appeared in the Independent. Perhaps because of the paper's name, this was a bit more hopeful, and it at least offered a few reasons as to why small bookshops might survive.
The Guardian piece really annoyed Clive Keeble, who reckons that the indies are the only assured survivors on the UK high streets. Clive also sent me a link to an American article, in the Village Voice, which suggests that the battle between big and small bookshops is not new. And at the end of a longish, thoughtful, and well researched article we get the following: 'Strange to say, someday superstores may be the historical curiosity that indies are now in danger of becoming.'
Tip of the week
Here's a useful tip. If you are thinking of starting a new career as a novelist, at the age of 70, as Mary Wesley did, you should equip yourself with two things: (1) a full life, particularly on the sexual side; and (2) a son who is a literary agent. In Wesley's case, the son was Toby Eady, of (not surprisingly) Toby Eady Associates. It never hurts for an embryo novelist to have a close relative who is a known name in the book business.
I was reminded of this by an article by Toby Eady in yesterday's Sunday Times. The article was a short profile of his mother, who is written about at book length in a biography of Mary Wesley, just out: Wild Mary, by Patrick Marnham.
Investing in books
The Sunday Times also had an article, in the Money section, about investing in books. I'm not going to dwell on that, because I would never advise anyone to buy a book for investment purposes. Buy a book because you want to read it, and possibly keep it, by all means; but if you're buying in the hope that you can sell it in n years' time for a profit, you deserve all the trouble you get.
Only one point caught my attention in this article: it was a statement that the print run for the very first Harry Potter book (hardback) was 500 copies. (Such was the confidence of the publisher.) Hence copies of that first edition are in short supply, and sell for a small fortune.
I also remember, though you'd have to dig into the archives of the Bookseller to find the details, a complaint which was made soon after Harry started to become really popular. It was a complaint made in connection with, I think, the third book in the series.
A bookseller wrote in to say that she had been collecting first editions of the Harry Potter books from the beginning. And so she had wanted to have a first edition of this latest book. But when she opened the packages with supplies of the book for her own shop, she found that none of the books was a true first edition: they were all marked Reprinted, or Second Impression, or some such. I forget the exact phrase.
Someone, the bookseller sourly remarked, had evidently realised that there was going to be money in these things, and had ensured that true first editions weren't even available to booksellers who opened the packages straight from the printers, in advance of the publication date.
All of which is another reason for not buying books for investment purposes. Not to mention the fact that there is a cottage industry in forging J.K. Rowling's signature and selling the 'signed' books on ebay.
Graze anatomy
Before we leave the weekend's papers, it's worth noting that Saturday's Times had a review of a book translated from the German: Three Bags Full, by Leonie Swann. It's been a bestseller in Germany, and foreign rights have been sold all over the place.
Three Bags Full is a detective story with a twist. The twist being that the murder victim was a shepherd, and the detectives are his sheep. It's set in Ireland.
Well, some very odd things happen in Ireland, and this book sounds as if it might be fun. Then again, it might be all postmodern and lit'ry.
Breakfast with Pandora
At the Breakfast with Pandora blog, DF concentrates mostly on ancient and modern mythology, but he also covers the craft of writing. He recently took time out to disagree with my assessment of To Kill a Mockingbird, and to demonstrate that it genuinely communicates with young people (his post of 31 May). Well, yes, indeed, I don't doubt it. It just didn't do a lot for me.
Kipp Fenn
You won't remember, but back in November last I mentioned Paul K. Lyons, who was running the Diary Junction and other things, and plugging a novel in the process.
Well, he's still at it, and now his novel Kipp Fenn is available online, in full.
Sand Storm offer
As I have said before, many and various are the ways in which writers seek to get themselves into print. For example, the ever-energetic Steve Clackson is trying a new offer to interest publishers in his novel Sand Storm. Steve says that they can have it royalty-free, provided they make a donation, for each copy sold, to the International Red Cross. Meanwhile he is working on the next one.
Death of 'Connie Sachs'
Most people who have read John le Carre's thrillers will know that he worked, at one time, for the UK's intelligences services, MI5 and MI6. Hence it was not surprising that, when he came to write espionage stories, Le Carre based some of his characters on real people.
One of Le Carre's minor characters in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was Connie Sachs, a woman with an encyclopaedic memory for information about even the most obscure corners of Communism. In the 1979 TV adaptation, Connie was played by Beryl Reid.
This character was widely believed to be based on Milicent Bagot, a spinster who was something of a legend in MI5. Well, now Milicent has died, at the age of 99, and the Times has an obituary of her.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Weekend roundup
Tim Coates on libraries
Tim Coates is an increasingly well known critic of the UK public-library system. See, for instance, his 2004 report, Who's in Charge? Well, now he's got a blog, on which he can berate the Mr Grimsdykes of this world for their overall cluelessness, if not downright malice. (Thanks to Maxine at Petrona for the link.)
Poems in the dark
Vincent Spada, whose Auntie lists were mentioned here last week, has a more serious side. He's a poet; and if you go to Poems in the Dark you can find examples. I rather line this one, if he will forgive me for quoting it:
Tim Coates is an increasingly well known critic of the UK public-library system. See, for instance, his 2004 report, Who's in Charge? Well, now he's got a blog, on which he can berate the Mr Grimsdykes of this world for their overall cluelessness, if not downright malice. (Thanks to Maxine at Petrona for the link.)
Poems in the dark
Vincent Spada, whose Auntie lists were mentioned here last week, has a more serious side. He's a poet; and if you go to Poems in the Dark you can find examples. I rather line this one, if he will forgive me for quoting it:
Reality
One always thinks when one is young
that they are a song yet to be sung
Fame and fortune are just a matter of time
No mountain is too high for them to climb
But the years roll by, too quickly, it seems
and, one by one, end all of your dreams
The truth prevails, and you finally see
that what never was can never be
For that is life
Reality.
Vin is looking for a publisher for his poetry and stories, so if you like that example you could go take a look.
More Mitzi
Mitzi Szereto, as has been noted here a few times, is an erotic writer who gives talks and courses on how to do it. Write erotic fiction, that is. And she's in London:
Date: Wednesday 14 June 2006
Time: 6.30 for 7 p.m.
Venue: The Boardroom (3rd Floor, off the music section), Foyles Bookshop, Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0EB
Nearest Tube: Tottenham Court Road
Admission: free to members; £3.00 non-members
The event is sponsored by Women in Publishing, a non-profit organisation devoted to promoting the status of women in publishing.
Abebooks 10th anniversary
Abebooks is possibly the most successful online conglomerate for secondhand-book dealers, though I gather, from various mutterings, that not all such dealers are happy with abebooks's current arrangements for dividing the loot. However, if you are looking for something obscure, published in 1923, or even 1973, abebooks is in my view a pretty good place to start.
Currently abebooks.com is celebrating its tenth anniversary in business, an occasion which has led to the invention of certain non-books, such as Henry VIII's Making Marriage Work. Henry made his marriages work, as you will doubtless recall, by chopping the heads off some of his various wives. Drastic, but certainly effective.
Judgement Day for McCrum
Nobody likes McCrum much. I didn't have anything nice to say about his Observer article on Tuesday; Roger Morris wasn't too impressed; and Francis Ellen wrote a lengthy crit as a comment on another post of mine (you can find it here). Bournemouth Runner at the Art of Fiction was confused by it, even after two readings. But at the very similar-sounding Tart of Fiction it got a somewhat warmer reception.
Actually I'm not sure the damn thing deserved all that attention.
Digitally dubious
From time to time we have noted, you and I, that the internet has sometimes been used to catapult people to fame and fortune without their having to go through the tedious process of finding an intermediary, to market their work to the general public.
Thus, for instance, we had the musical group Arctic Monkeys, finding an audience, selling lots of records, and recently getting themselves a US tour, all without benefit of a contract with one of the big-time recording companies. This was a process which deeply impressed Val Landi, for example, since it appeared to offer hope that he, and others, could achieve similar things with fiction.
Well, maybe. As for me, I sat here sighing and thinking to myself that it would not be long before someone took this apparent route to success and -- shall we say -- added a few creative wrinkles to it.
Hence I was not altogether surprised to open my Times on Wednesday and find a headline which said: Singer denies rise to fame was result of internet scam.
Seems that Sandi Thom became famous by webcasting concerts from her basement flat. But now Sandi has had to deny that her success is the result of 'music's most ambitious internet scam.' It's a longish story, but there's a professional publicist involved, and when asked to verify the claimed audience figures he replied that 'his expertise was generating publicity, not technology.'
Now, it seems, 'Chart companies are on the lookout for internet hype. The Modern were removed from the Top 40 when the Official UK Charts Company noticed a pattern of multiple download purchases of their track. The band blamed overzealous fans for ordering too many copies.'
And all like that.
Calamity Physics
While reading the Scotsman, earlier this week, in connection with the Troup/Hanso Corporation business, I chanced across a link to a web site plugging the novel Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl.
I don't go much on hi-tek web sites, being a relatively recent convert to broadband, and this one is, I think, the fanciest I've ever come across. I certainly wouldn't advise going there unless you have got broadband, because I think it would take fifteen minutes to get from page to page.
That said, the site is reasonably interesting and inviting, and certainly very clever. It also has a sense of humour. And music.
I was doing quite well with it, and quite looking forward to reading Marisha's novel, until I came across the following endorsement from Jonathan Frantzen: 'Beneath the foam of this exuberant debut is a dark, strong drink.'
Oh dear. That is not a good sign. There I was, thinking that this might be some really clued-up writer who has not only written a skiffy thing but bolted together, with some very clever friends, this elaborate plug for it. Seems not. The book is going to be published by Viking in August. And, given the time and trouble taken over this web site, we are assuredly going to hear a lot more about it before then.
Publishers Weekly have given Special Topics in Calamity Physics a starred review, saying about it (among other things): 'This novel is many things at once—it's a campy, knowing take on the themes that made The Secret History and Prep such massive bestsellers, a wry sendup of most of the Western canon and, most importantly, a sincere and uniquely twisted look at love, coming of age and identity.'
Hmm. This isn't encouraging either. The Secret History I never finished; just couldn't see what the hell everyone was on about. Prep I've never even heard of.
And for a minute there it all looked so promising.
Blogroll
Three additions to the blogroll this week, all of them by Brits. Roger's Plog is by Roger Morris, author of the MNW-published Taking Comfort. Then there's The Art of Fiction, the author of which, as far as I can see, wishes to remain anonymous. And finally the wonderfully titled The Tart of Fiction, who is also a shy lady.
Booksellers deeply hurt and upset
On Monday last we noted the Sunday Times 'revelation' that booksellers were charging publishers for putting their books in prominent piles, including them in 3 for 2 promotions, and all like that. And the booksellers, it seems, considered all this a wicked slur upon their integrity.
Publishing News has the story (link from booktrade.info). And we do actually learn something from it. We learn, for instance, that Nicholas Clee (nor surprisingly) got it right when he said that the booksellers choose which books they think will go, and then approach the publishers to launch a joint effort (hence the term co-op).
We also have Jon Howells, of Ottakar's, wondering aloud why the Sunday Times was 'revisiting such an old story'. It's because they haven't the wit to go out and find a new one, that's why. He also adds: 'The supermarkets don’t get a mention, or Amazon, and the extra discount the publishers give them is far more expensive than paying a few quid for a bookstore promotion.'
And there's more. Worth looking at.
Joe Wikert's view from the top
Finally this morning, here's another top publishing man who has a blog. Joe Wikert is Vice President and Executive Publisher in the Professional/Trade division of John Wiley & Sons. His primary responsibilities are for books for software developers and IT people, so he knows a thing or two about digital. (Link from Publishers Lunch.)
If you scroll down the right-hand side of Joe's blog, you will find that he has highlighted a number of previous posts under various headings (excellent idea -- must try to find time myself). Lots and lots of good stuff here, such as A skeptic's view of authoring; Agents: do you need one?; Self-publishing; and more.
This blog is mainly for non-fiction writers, but is also of general interest.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Ghostwriting for beginners
If I was forty years younger, still in my twenties, and if I was afflicted by that absurd ambition to write books for a living, I hope I would have enough good sense to realise that the only practical way forward would be to become a ghostwriter.
And, since this post is headed Ghostwriting for beginners, let me explain that a ghostwriter is someone who writes a book which has someone else's name on the cover -- usually someone who is already well known to the public. Such books are normally but not exclusively non-fiction.
Ghostwriting goes back a long way, chiefly in terms of autobiography. Many and many a celebrity has written their life story through the simple expedient of spending three days in a hotel with a writer and a tape recorder. The writer then goes off and puts the book together, and the celebrity does the chat shows and the interviews.
In America it is sometimes the case that these books carry a formal acknowledgement of the ghost's work. So Joan Rivers's first-person Still Talking says that it was written 'with Richard Meryman' (who did a terrific job of capturing Joan's voice, by the way). But in the UK we tend not to do that: so Geri Halliwell's If Only does not give any clue that it was actually written by Michael Robotham. After doing some fourteeen high-profile autobiographies, Robotham later wrote a novel, The Suspect, under his own name.
Even in fiction, ghosting goes back a long way. One piece of entirely useless information which sticks in my mind is the fact that stripper Gypsy Rose Lee's The G-string Murders (1941) was actually written for her by Craig Rice. Craig has fans of her own, one of whom has told the story. She also ghosted a novel for the actor George Sanders: Crime on My Hands (1944).
Other ghosted novels from past decades include the Margaret Truman and Elliott Roosevelt mystery series; this phenomenon was fully and usefully discussed in 2002, by Jon Breen, in the Weekly Standard, where the morality of it was questioned.
I've been meaning to write about the process of ghosting for quite some time, and this may not be my last word on the subject. But for today I am prompted to comment by an article in Publishers Weekly (link from Galleycat).
The PW article makes it clear that the contemporary ghosting business is booming, and is here to stay. Unless you are a complete beginner in the book world, you cannot fail to have noticed that the current business is celebrity orientated. The industry lives and dies on publicity, and celebrities love that stuff. If they last any length of time they also get to be damn good at it. The only trouble is, many of them have difficulty signing their name, let alone writing anything longer. Hence the need for ghosts.
We now discover, courtesty of PW, that Madeleine Morel, an English expat based in New York, has set up a literary agency which handles ghost writers and naught else. Between them, Morel's clients have written seven New York Times non-fiction bestsellers in the past two years, three of which have reached number one. They have also produced scores of other books which haven't done quite so well but which have generated a very reasonable income.
Before you rush off to offer your services, you do need to remember that, to be successful, a ghost writer needs a remarkable range of skills.
First, you need to be able to write -- which is not a common accomplishment, though the belief that one has the talent is widespread indeed.
Next, you need to be able to work fast. And I mean fast. MFA princesses who spend the whole morning worrying over where to put a comma need not apply.
Third, you need to be able to adapt to the, shall we say, idiosyncratic ways of the average celebrity.
You need to be able to make some fine judgement calls as to how much you can embellish and expect to get away with, without generating a James Frey-type scandal.
You have to be genuinely and entirely satisfied with taking the money and none of the fame. You have to be willing to sit there calmly while Nicole Richie swears on a stack of bibles that she actually did write every word of her novel.
And finally, when things go wrong, you must expect to be blamed for everything. For example, Roy Keane, then captain of the Manchester United football team, 'wrote' an autobiography in which he described how he got his own back on another player who had earlier displeased him. Keane tackled the man with the deliberate intention of injuring him. In fact, when you watch the film of the incident, you might be forgiven for thinking that Keane intended to put the man into a wheelchair for life.
In the autobiography, Keane described his intentions thus: 'I'd waited almost 180 minutes for Alfie... I'd waited long enough. I fucking hit him hard. The ball was there, I think. Take that, you cunt.'
The autobiographical description of this infamous tackle generated a good deal of comment, and it became the subject of a formal inquiry by the Football Association. At that inquiry, the ghost writer claimed that he had made up all these direct quotations. Keane, for his part, said that he had never read the book. To the FA, however, and to everyone else, the ghosted description of the tackle sounded all too much like the authentic voice of Roy Keane, and they fined him £150,000. In my opinion, Keane was lucky not to face criminal charges.
Before we finish this short review of ghostwriting, for the present at least, let me say that I see no convincing objection to the arrangement, at least in principle, and at least in the field of non-fiction. There are plenty of people who have huge experience in certain fields, and who have a great deal of useful knowledge to impart, but who are either incapable of putting it down on paper themselves, or lack the time. The ghost writer therefore undertakes a valuable service.
The situation is less clear cut in fiction, and there are certainly those who consider it immoral for someone to pose as the author of a book which is not entirely theirs. However, provided the celebrity makes a contribution to the novel (and I emphasise that bit), I myself am in favour of it.
Why? Because I consider that all fiction is purely and simply a source of entertainment -- even the highbrow bits. Fiction, at its best, can make you laugh and make you cry. But that's it. It is not a good source of information on how to fry eggs or run a business. It does not offer a good guide on how to live your life, and those turning to it for philosophical or religious enlightenment are in the wrong place.
If you want an example of how fiction collaboration might work in practice, consider the case of Stella Rimington. Dame Stella, a former head of MI5, has massive experience of world affairs in general and of espionage in particular. What she doesn't have is any experience in writing a novel. Somewhere along the line, after her retirement, she either dreamed up the idea of writing a novel herself, or was talked into it by an agent. This led to the publication of a thriller called At Risk, in which she acknowledged the help of Luke Jennings, who is a thriller writer himself. In interviews Dame Stella described how their collaboration worked.
If you read the linked interview, you will see that Dame Stella claimed that she did the first drafting herself. But I can well imagine that, in other collaborations, the named author's input would mainly take the form of oral information about technical matters, anecdotes about incidents and characters, and general background colour. The celebrity and the professional writer would then agree on a plot outline, and the pro would do the actual writing. And in practice there would be many variations on the basic model.
Given the present state of big-time publishing, with its capitalist aim of generating profits (to which I do not object), such a division of labour seems to me to be logical. And those who consider that the person whose name is on the cover should write every word of the text might bear in mind that any printed book, even the most literary, is already a joint effort.
Writers do not, by and large, do their own cover design or typesetting: certainly not when published by the big firms, anyway; and both of those factors play a part in a book's success. Neither do the named authors drive the van that delivers the book to Waterstone's. So what's the big deal about using a celebrity to front the thing? In today's world it makes perfect sense.
Personally I have no problems with it, and I just wish I were young enough to give it a go. But I dare say there are those who take a different view. All I can say about the moral arguments is that the deception -- if deception there be -- is a very trivial one compared with, for example, the sins of food labelling. Or those adverts outside theatres which say 'Amazing -- Daily Express', when actually what the Express said was 'It is amazing that such a lousy play should ever have been put on.'
One could write a whole book about ghostwriting, and several people have. Type the word into the amazon search facility, and take your pick.
Online there is a variety of information, as suggested above, but for additional stuff you could start with Sarah Weinman's valuable case study from 2004: The Ballad of Michael Gruber.
Should you ever be offered a ghostwriting contract, remember that the small print here is even more vital than usual. But of that, perhaps, more another day.
And, since this post is headed Ghostwriting for beginners, let me explain that a ghostwriter is someone who writes a book which has someone else's name on the cover -- usually someone who is already well known to the public. Such books are normally but not exclusively non-fiction.
Ghostwriting goes back a long way, chiefly in terms of autobiography. Many and many a celebrity has written their life story through the simple expedient of spending three days in a hotel with a writer and a tape recorder. The writer then goes off and puts the book together, and the celebrity does the chat shows and the interviews.
In America it is sometimes the case that these books carry a formal acknowledgement of the ghost's work. So Joan Rivers's first-person Still Talking says that it was written 'with Richard Meryman' (who did a terrific job of capturing Joan's voice, by the way). But in the UK we tend not to do that: so Geri Halliwell's If Only does not give any clue that it was actually written by Michael Robotham. After doing some fourteeen high-profile autobiographies, Robotham later wrote a novel, The Suspect, under his own name.
Even in fiction, ghosting goes back a long way. One piece of entirely useless information which sticks in my mind is the fact that stripper Gypsy Rose Lee's The G-string Murders (1941) was actually written for her by Craig Rice. Craig has fans of her own, one of whom has told the story. She also ghosted a novel for the actor George Sanders: Crime on My Hands (1944).
Other ghosted novels from past decades include the Margaret Truman and Elliott Roosevelt mystery series; this phenomenon was fully and usefully discussed in 2002, by Jon Breen, in the Weekly Standard, where the morality of it was questioned.
I've been meaning to write about the process of ghosting for quite some time, and this may not be my last word on the subject. But for today I am prompted to comment by an article in Publishers Weekly (link from Galleycat).
The PW article makes it clear that the contemporary ghosting business is booming, and is here to stay. Unless you are a complete beginner in the book world, you cannot fail to have noticed that the current business is celebrity orientated. The industry lives and dies on publicity, and celebrities love that stuff. If they last any length of time they also get to be damn good at it. The only trouble is, many of them have difficulty signing their name, let alone writing anything longer. Hence the need for ghosts.
We now discover, courtesty of PW, that Madeleine Morel, an English expat based in New York, has set up a literary agency which handles ghost writers and naught else. Between them, Morel's clients have written seven New York Times non-fiction bestsellers in the past two years, three of which have reached number one. They have also produced scores of other books which haven't done quite so well but which have generated a very reasonable income.
Before you rush off to offer your services, you do need to remember that, to be successful, a ghost writer needs a remarkable range of skills.
First, you need to be able to write -- which is not a common accomplishment, though the belief that one has the talent is widespread indeed.
Next, you need to be able to work fast. And I mean fast. MFA princesses who spend the whole morning worrying over where to put a comma need not apply.
Third, you need to be able to adapt to the, shall we say, idiosyncratic ways of the average celebrity.
You need to be able to make some fine judgement calls as to how much you can embellish and expect to get away with, without generating a James Frey-type scandal.
You have to be genuinely and entirely satisfied with taking the money and none of the fame. You have to be willing to sit there calmly while Nicole Richie swears on a stack of bibles that she actually did write every word of her novel.
And finally, when things go wrong, you must expect to be blamed for everything. For example, Roy Keane, then captain of the Manchester United football team, 'wrote' an autobiography in which he described how he got his own back on another player who had earlier displeased him. Keane tackled the man with the deliberate intention of injuring him. In fact, when you watch the film of the incident, you might be forgiven for thinking that Keane intended to put the man into a wheelchair for life.
In the autobiography, Keane described his intentions thus: 'I'd waited almost 180 minutes for Alfie... I'd waited long enough. I fucking hit him hard. The ball was there, I think. Take that, you cunt.'
The autobiographical description of this infamous tackle generated a good deal of comment, and it became the subject of a formal inquiry by the Football Association. At that inquiry, the ghost writer claimed that he had made up all these direct quotations. Keane, for his part, said that he had never read the book. To the FA, however, and to everyone else, the ghosted description of the tackle sounded all too much like the authentic voice of Roy Keane, and they fined him £150,000. In my opinion, Keane was lucky not to face criminal charges.
Before we finish this short review of ghostwriting, for the present at least, let me say that I see no convincing objection to the arrangement, at least in principle, and at least in the field of non-fiction. There are plenty of people who have huge experience in certain fields, and who have a great deal of useful knowledge to impart, but who are either incapable of putting it down on paper themselves, or lack the time. The ghost writer therefore undertakes a valuable service.
The situation is less clear cut in fiction, and there are certainly those who consider it immoral for someone to pose as the author of a book which is not entirely theirs. However, provided the celebrity makes a contribution to the novel (and I emphasise that bit), I myself am in favour of it.
Why? Because I consider that all fiction is purely and simply a source of entertainment -- even the highbrow bits. Fiction, at its best, can make you laugh and make you cry. But that's it. It is not a good source of information on how to fry eggs or run a business. It does not offer a good guide on how to live your life, and those turning to it for philosophical or religious enlightenment are in the wrong place.
If you want an example of how fiction collaboration might work in practice, consider the case of Stella Rimington. Dame Stella, a former head of MI5, has massive experience of world affairs in general and of espionage in particular. What she doesn't have is any experience in writing a novel. Somewhere along the line, after her retirement, she either dreamed up the idea of writing a novel herself, or was talked into it by an agent. This led to the publication of a thriller called At Risk, in which she acknowledged the help of Luke Jennings, who is a thriller writer himself. In interviews Dame Stella described how their collaboration worked.
If you read the linked interview, you will see that Dame Stella claimed that she did the first drafting herself. But I can well imagine that, in other collaborations, the named author's input would mainly take the form of oral information about technical matters, anecdotes about incidents and characters, and general background colour. The celebrity and the professional writer would then agree on a plot outline, and the pro would do the actual writing. And in practice there would be many variations on the basic model.
Given the present state of big-time publishing, with its capitalist aim of generating profits (to which I do not object), such a division of labour seems to me to be logical. And those who consider that the person whose name is on the cover should write every word of the text might bear in mind that any printed book, even the most literary, is already a joint effort.
Writers do not, by and large, do their own cover design or typesetting: certainly not when published by the big firms, anyway; and both of those factors play a part in a book's success. Neither do the named authors drive the van that delivers the book to Waterstone's. So what's the big deal about using a celebrity to front the thing? In today's world it makes perfect sense.
Personally I have no problems with it, and I just wish I were young enough to give it a go. But I dare say there are those who take a different view. All I can say about the moral arguments is that the deception -- if deception there be -- is a very trivial one compared with, for example, the sins of food labelling. Or those adverts outside theatres which say 'Amazing -- Daily Express', when actually what the Express said was 'It is amazing that such a lousy play should ever have been put on.'
One could write a whole book about ghostwriting, and several people have. Type the word into the amazon search facility, and take your pick.
Online there is a variety of information, as suggested above, but for additional stuff you could start with Sarah Weinman's valuable case study from 2004: The Ballad of Michael Gruber.
Should you ever be offered a ghostwriting contract, remember that the small print here is even more vital than usual. But of that, perhaps, more another day.
The Open Society and its Enemies
Yesterday the Literary Saloon announced that the most recent addition to its 'complete review' series is their take on Karl Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies. The Lit Saloon comments that, given the current Bush administration's pronounced closed-society tendencies, Popper's (originally two-volume) book is, once again, a highly pertinent text, even for American readers.
I don't know why they stuck that 'even for American readers' on the end. Popper was always a highly relevant book, for Americans, Brits, and anyone else concerned with the freedom of the individual as opposed to the demands of the almighty state.
First published in 1945, Popper's book is chiefly noteworthy, I suppose, for its intellectual demolition of Marxism. For ever after, it was difficuit -- well, actually impossible -- for any Marxist to claim, as they had hitherto, that Marxism was 'scientific'.
The Complete Review provides its own little introductory essay to Popper and his thinking. This essay is mercifully written in plain English -- and what a massive relief that is, when one contemplates the ghastly academic bullshit in which it might have been couched. Five stars to whoever wrote it.
The essay makes a number of very interesting points, one of them being that Marx's heart was in the right place. Given the times in which he lived, he was quite right to highlight the miserable condition of the working classes. And, I may add, it was really not surprising that he should take the view that revolution inevitable.
Here's the conclusion of the Complete Review's essay:
I don't know why they stuck that 'even for American readers' on the end. Popper was always a highly relevant book, for Americans, Brits, and anyone else concerned with the freedom of the individual as opposed to the demands of the almighty state.
First published in 1945, Popper's book is chiefly noteworthy, I suppose, for its intellectual demolition of Marxism. For ever after, it was difficuit -- well, actually impossible -- for any Marxist to claim, as they had hitherto, that Marxism was 'scientific'.
The Complete Review provides its own little introductory essay to Popper and his thinking. This essay is mercifully written in plain English -- and what a massive relief that is, when one contemplates the ghastly academic bullshit in which it might have been couched. Five stars to whoever wrote it.
The essay makes a number of very interesting points, one of them being that Marx's heart was in the right place. Given the times in which he lived, he was quite right to highlight the miserable condition of the working classes. And, I may add, it was really not surprising that he should take the view that revolution inevitable.
Here's the conclusion of the Complete Review's essay:
In a world where religious fundamentalism again manages to move the masses (and leads far too many to do the outrageous), and powerful democratic states like the United States move, under the jr. Bush administration, to limit the rights and voices of individuals, while arguing that they benevolently (yet untransparently) are working towards the greater good, The Open Society and its Enemies remains an essential work. And it's also an engaging and accessible read.
Highly recommended.
Well, the Complete Review essay is certainly recommended. Whether you feel strong enough to tackle Popper himself is up to you. I read him as a young man and was no doubt all the better for it.
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