For many years I used to contact all the major UK publishers, at least once a year, and ask them to send me a copy of their latest catalogue. (I stopped doing this a few years ago.) Sometimes I got sent a catalogue, and sometimes I didn't. I wrote about these experiences in my post of 24 May 2004.
You can learn a great deal from publishers' catalogues. First of all, you find out what kind of books they are (presumably) looking for, given that they are now big on crime, or romance, or whatever. Secondly, you can sometimes see who the author's agent is. And you can occasionally find the names of key employees. And so forth.
If you keep the catalogue for two or three years, and then look back at it, you get a really good feel for what a difficult business this is. Books which were given a massive push, spread over the cover and two or three pages of the autumn catalogue, turn out to be books which disappeared without trace. And, conversely, that little nothing book which crept in rather apologetically on page 43....
Somewhere along the line, the Time Warner Book Group seem to have got it into their head that I need to be sent their complete stock list. And just a few days ago I got sent their latest. Now a complete stock list is not what I originally asked for (back in the mists of time). It's a dry as dust document. Simply a list showing author's name, title, ISBN, price -- and that's it. However, I discovered, looking at the latest edition, that there are interesting nuggets contained here.
Time Warner is the umbrella under which shelter a fair number of imprints. Little Brown is perhaps the biggest; then there's Virago (up-market women's stuff); Orbit (SF and fantasy); Abacus (literary fiction); and some niche imprints such as X Libris (erotica by and for women).
The stock list is arranged by subject, and it is noteworthy that, in a list running to some 80 pages, fiction in its various forms occupies nearly half the space. In the overall UK book market, fiction seems to amount to about 10% of the total of new books published each year, but its popularity is such that it constitutes about 30% of the number of books sold, producing about 25% of the total amount of money handed over by the customer. And while we're on the subject, let us note that fiction backlist sales -- i.e. sales of books which have been in print for some time -- typically amount to about 45% of a publisher's income. (All of these figures are very rough, but they're near enough for our purposes.)
The thing which really caught my eye, when prowling through this latest Time Warner stock list, is that some novelists have very substantial numbers of books in print. There are the obvious names, of course: Danielle Steel and Patricia Cornwell, for example. But there are also other, much less 'sexy' and well known names.
This second category of relatively unknown but steady sellers breaks down, for me, into two groups. There are those I've heard of, and those I've never heard of.
Among the names I am already familiar with, we have Emma Blair, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, E.V. Thompson, Margaret Yorke, and Elizabeth Taylor. Of the unknowns, just to give a couple, we have L.E. Modesitt Jr, and Evelyn Hood. What all these people have in common is that they don't get written about in the Times Lit. Supp., or any other highbrow journal which creates literary reputation. Neither are they given one-hour interviews on the telly by Lord Melvyn Bragg. No, these people don't get any of the glittering prizes which so attract the young. They just get read; and bought.
Let's take a look at some of these writers in more detail, beginning with Emma Blair. Well, for a start, Emma Blair is a bloke. Iain Blair, actually. And he writes what some would call women's fiction, or romantic fiction, but I've read a couple without feeling uncomfortable. They are mainstream, traditional stories, of ordinary working-class or middle-class folk, finding their way through life.
Cynthia Harrod-Eagles has written in several commercial genres, but for Time Warner she produces a family saga with the overall title of the Morland Dynasty: 28 volumes so far (and all, as I said earlier, still in print).
E.V. Thompson is also a he, and his novels have much in common with Emma Blair's. Margaret Yorke is chiefly a crime writer. And Elizabeth Taylor (no, not that one) was selling nicely in the 1940s and 1950s but is still being read today.
As for the unknowns, L.E. Modesitt Jr turns out to be a science-fiction and fantasy author. And Evelyn Hood, as you've probably guessed (somehow the name sounds right, doesn't it?) goes in for family sagas.
I think the point of this little survey is already obvious, but here it is, spelt out in b and w. All these writers, some of them elderly and one of them gone these many years, produce intelligent, human, well crafted mainstream stories in the grand old tradition. None of them, take my word for it, specialise in The Novel as Metaphor. None of them loses much sleep over the fact that the TLS ignores them. But if they get a letter from a little old lady in Bournemouth, who says that she's had all their books out of the library, and when are they going to write any more, then they feel pretty damn pleased with themselves.
And rightly so.
Friday, January 06, 2006
US bestsellers of 2005
If you were interested by the list of the UK's 100 top sellers of 2005, then you may also care to look at the Book Standard's list of the top 200 sellers in the US.
At number 194, for instance, we have William Golding's Lord of the Flies. This was not a very exciting or satisfactory book even when it first came out, in 1954 (and I speak as one who taught just such classes of small boys), but it is widely held to be Significant, and is, I gather, much taught in US colleges. Which just goes to show how profitable it can be to get on to the essential reading lists of the Eng. Lit. guys. Unfortunately Golding died in 1993 so he isn't around to benefit personally.
At number 194, for instance, we have William Golding's Lord of the Flies. This was not a very exciting or satisfactory book even when it first came out, in 1954 (and I speak as one who taught just such classes of small boys), but it is widely held to be Significant, and is, I gather, much taught in US colleges. Which just goes to show how profitable it can be to get on to the essential reading lists of the Eng. Lit. guys. Unfortunately Golding died in 1993 so he isn't around to benefit personally.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Reginald Hill: The Stranger House
Reginald Hill is one of the UK's most distinguished writers -- and I'm not just limiting that statement to crime fiction, which is his primary field.
Hill is chiefly famous for his series of 23 novels featuring the two police detectives Dalziel and Pascoe. These novels constitute the main grounds for the UK Crime Writers Association awarding him their prestigious Cartier Diamond Dagger for his lifetime contribution to crime writing. The novels have also been successfully filmed for television.
Under other names Hill has written in other genres, such as historical and science fiction. Indeed his latest book, The Stranger House, is quite hard to pigeonhole; it is perhaps best described as a mainstream novel.
As you would expect from a man who has written several million words of fiction, and is now nearly seventy, The Stranger House is absolutely professional and polished in every way. It's a pleasure to read. Carefully researched, thought about in great detail before pen ever touched paper, this book provides a great deal for the beginning writer to learn from and for the experienced reader to enjoy.
An author's note at the beginning goes to considerable pains to warn off the libel lawyers (I find garlic works best, and, if all else fails, hold up a silver cross), but then the author adds: Just because I've made it all up doesn't mean it's not true.
As is frequently the case with Hill's books, his chapter headings and part divisions feature quotations from literature: in this case the source is mainly the Poetic Edda, or the oral literature of Iceland, which was finally written down nearly a thousand years ago.
The plot of The Stranger House is fairly simple in essence, though it turns out to be complex in practice. Not difficult to follow, but complex in its ramifications. Two young people in their twenties come together in a small village in Cumbria, in the north of England. Sam Flood is a brilliant (female) mathematician from Australia, and Miguel Madero is a Spaniard who nearly became a priest. Both these young people are searching for information about the origins of their family.
The basic material of this novel could easily have served -- with a tweak here and a tweak there -- as the basis for yet another Dalziel and Pascoe novel. It involves crimes of various sorts, and investigation. I am very glad, however, that Hill chose to write this book the way he has. I have not enjoyed the last two or three Dalziel and Pascoe books, though no one else (to my knowledge) has complained. It seemed to me that Hill had grown weary of his two characters, and of the genre, and was writing what seemed all too likely to be a postmodern pastiche of his earlier triumphs. But here there is no mucking about. Just a very interesting story, well told.
If you want to pick holes, you could say that on page 206 the hero and heroine get themselves into a mess which no one with any sense would have got into -- and that stretches the patience a bit. But since we know that there are still 250 pages to go, no reader is going to doubt for a minute that they will emerge unscathed.
Another problem is that the climax of the book, featuring a fire, stretches the old credulity just a trifle. But the description of the fire is as good as you could hope.
Some of the dialogue is also a little stagy -- but then the author does have to get his characters talking and exchanging information, so we shouldn't complain.
All in all these are trivial criticisms compared with the overall achievement, which is substantial. Highly recommended. As usual, the work of an old pro from one of the commercial genres makes the average literary novel look like a very sick puppy indeed.
Hill is chiefly famous for his series of 23 novels featuring the two police detectives Dalziel and Pascoe. These novels constitute the main grounds for the UK Crime Writers Association awarding him their prestigious Cartier Diamond Dagger for his lifetime contribution to crime writing. The novels have also been successfully filmed for television.
Under other names Hill has written in other genres, such as historical and science fiction. Indeed his latest book, The Stranger House, is quite hard to pigeonhole; it is perhaps best described as a mainstream novel.
As you would expect from a man who has written several million words of fiction, and is now nearly seventy, The Stranger House is absolutely professional and polished in every way. It's a pleasure to read. Carefully researched, thought about in great detail before pen ever touched paper, this book provides a great deal for the beginning writer to learn from and for the experienced reader to enjoy.
An author's note at the beginning goes to considerable pains to warn off the libel lawyers (I find garlic works best, and, if all else fails, hold up a silver cross), but then the author adds: Just because I've made it all up doesn't mean it's not true.
As is frequently the case with Hill's books, his chapter headings and part divisions feature quotations from literature: in this case the source is mainly the Poetic Edda, or the oral literature of Iceland, which was finally written down nearly a thousand years ago.
The plot of The Stranger House is fairly simple in essence, though it turns out to be complex in practice. Not difficult to follow, but complex in its ramifications. Two young people in their twenties come together in a small village in Cumbria, in the north of England. Sam Flood is a brilliant (female) mathematician from Australia, and Miguel Madero is a Spaniard who nearly became a priest. Both these young people are searching for information about the origins of their family.
The basic material of this novel could easily have served -- with a tweak here and a tweak there -- as the basis for yet another Dalziel and Pascoe novel. It involves crimes of various sorts, and investigation. I am very glad, however, that Hill chose to write this book the way he has. I have not enjoyed the last two or three Dalziel and Pascoe books, though no one else (to my knowledge) has complained. It seemed to me that Hill had grown weary of his two characters, and of the genre, and was writing what seemed all too likely to be a postmodern pastiche of his earlier triumphs. But here there is no mucking about. Just a very interesting story, well told.
If you want to pick holes, you could say that on page 206 the hero and heroine get themselves into a mess which no one with any sense would have got into -- and that stretches the patience a bit. But since we know that there are still 250 pages to go, no reader is going to doubt for a minute that they will emerge unscathed.
Another problem is that the climax of the book, featuring a fire, stretches the old credulity just a trifle. But the description of the fire is as good as you could hope.
Some of the dialogue is also a little stagy -- but then the author does have to get his characters talking and exchanging information, so we shouldn't complain.
All in all these are trivial criticisms compared with the overall achievement, which is substantial. Highly recommended. As usual, the work of an old pro from one of the commercial genres makes the average literary novel look like a very sick puppy indeed.
James Aach: Rad Decision
Ian Hocking, author of Deja Vu, drew my attention to James Aach's online novel Rad Decision. You can go take a look for yourself.
James Aach is an engineer with a background in the nuclear-power industry, and Rad Decision is a thriller about a man who believes it is his destiny to destroy a nuclear-power plant. Well, this is a sound enough plot, and all will depend on how the author handles it. You can make your own judgement of that, because the novel has been posted at the rate of three episodes a week since last August.
The opening chapter looks promising to me, but the Rad Decision site provides no clue as to whether James Aach has already tried to get his novel published by a mainstream publisher, or has gone straight to the web. Either way, I don't think it does any harm to have the whole thing available for people to dip into if they wish.
James Aach is an engineer with a background in the nuclear-power industry, and Rad Decision is a thriller about a man who believes it is his destiny to destroy a nuclear-power plant. Well, this is a sound enough plot, and all will depend on how the author handles it. You can make your own judgement of that, because the novel has been posted at the rate of three episodes a week since last August.
The opening chapter looks promising to me, but the Rad Decision site provides no clue as to whether James Aach has already tried to get his novel published by a mainstream publisher, or has gone straight to the web. Either way, I don't think it does any harm to have the whole thing available for people to dip into if they wish.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Javier Sierra: The Secret Supper
Javier Sierra's novel The Secret Supper is due to be published in the UK (by Simon and Schuster) on 6 March this year, and in the US (by Atria, a sub-division of S&S) on 21 March. In the UK, S&S are banging the drum already, chiefly by distributing advance reading copies, one of which I have read.
This novel has an interesting history. Javier Sierra is Spanish, and his book was first published in Spain in October 2004. (Remember that date.) It was a huge hit in his native land, selling over 200,000 copies in hardcover. Since then rights have been sold in 30 other countries.
So what's it about?
Well, all the principal events occur in Milan, in 1497, and the story is narrated, mostly, by an old man called Father Agostino Leyre. Evidently a real person, as are many other characters in the book, Leyre spent his declining years as a cave-dwelling hermit in Egypt. But in 1497 he was an important official in the Church of Rome.
Leyre is sent to Milan because of rumours surrounding the painting of the Last Supper which Leonardo da Vinci is currently completing. The word is that Leonardo is using the painting to include coded messages which spread ideas which are seriously in conflict with those of the Church. Leyre's job is to find out if these rumours are true, and, if they are, to decode the painting.
At which point you may groan and say to yourself, Oh yes, another rip-off of The Da Vinci Code.
But hold... The author tells us (and I have no reason to doubt it), that he spent three years in researching and writing his book. If we assume that he completed the work one year before publication in Spain, that means that his groundwork was done between 2000 and 2003. And, since the Dan Brown thingy wasn't published until mid 2003, I think we can rule out any question of influence.
There is a question, however, as to how good or bad an effect the whole Da Vinci phenomenon will have on the sales of this book. No one can doubt that it will have some effect: and the publishers insist on mentioning it in every piece of supporting material, so they obviously think it's a Good Thing. We shall see.
And the next question is, is the book any good?
Well, I certainly found it interesting. But then I'm a European, with an interest in the Renaissance and the Reformation. And the nature of the book is such, I suspect, that it is going to have far greater appeal in countries which have largely Roman Catholic populations than in places where Protestantism is the norm. Or, to put it another way, countries where people take religion rather more seriously than is the case in the UK.
There are some murders in the book, but the revelation of who committed them is dealt with as if it was of very little interest. So this certainly isn't a whodunit, or even much of a thriller. The whole attention of the characters, and of the author, is focused on interpreting Leonardo's famous painting, and what it is intended to mean. And I must confess that I learnt a great deal more about that painting, from reading this book, than I had ever known before.
So, a tolerably interesting read. But is it going to appeal to those who lapped up Dan Brown? I am inclined to doubt it. But the endless publicity for Dan Brown's extraordinarily long-lasting bestseller will probably generate enough heat to make this one a success too.
I do hope that, before this book is printed in the final hardcover edition, someone corrects not only the typos but also the bizarre layout of the conclusion. The footnote on page 311 is in absolutely the wrong place, in my opinion; in the ARC its placement totally kills the impact of the last word on that page. The information conveyed in that footnote properly belongs in the Author's Notes, on page 318.
The last two paragraphs of the Post-Scriptum (on pages 316/317 of the ARC), also belong in the Author's Notes.
As part of the publicity drive, there is an English-language official web site for the author, and a web site specifically for the book.
This novel has an interesting history. Javier Sierra is Spanish, and his book was first published in Spain in October 2004. (Remember that date.) It was a huge hit in his native land, selling over 200,000 copies in hardcover. Since then rights have been sold in 30 other countries.
So what's it about?
Well, all the principal events occur in Milan, in 1497, and the story is narrated, mostly, by an old man called Father Agostino Leyre. Evidently a real person, as are many other characters in the book, Leyre spent his declining years as a cave-dwelling hermit in Egypt. But in 1497 he was an important official in the Church of Rome.
Leyre is sent to Milan because of rumours surrounding the painting of the Last Supper which Leonardo da Vinci is currently completing. The word is that Leonardo is using the painting to include coded messages which spread ideas which are seriously in conflict with those of the Church. Leyre's job is to find out if these rumours are true, and, if they are, to decode the painting.
At which point you may groan and say to yourself, Oh yes, another rip-off of The Da Vinci Code.
But hold... The author tells us (and I have no reason to doubt it), that he spent three years in researching and writing his book. If we assume that he completed the work one year before publication in Spain, that means that his groundwork was done between 2000 and 2003. And, since the Dan Brown thingy wasn't published until mid 2003, I think we can rule out any question of influence.
There is a question, however, as to how good or bad an effect the whole Da Vinci phenomenon will have on the sales of this book. No one can doubt that it will have some effect: and the publishers insist on mentioning it in every piece of supporting material, so they obviously think it's a Good Thing. We shall see.
And the next question is, is the book any good?
Well, I certainly found it interesting. But then I'm a European, with an interest in the Renaissance and the Reformation. And the nature of the book is such, I suspect, that it is going to have far greater appeal in countries which have largely Roman Catholic populations than in places where Protestantism is the norm. Or, to put it another way, countries where people take religion rather more seriously than is the case in the UK.
There are some murders in the book, but the revelation of who committed them is dealt with as if it was of very little interest. So this certainly isn't a whodunit, or even much of a thriller. The whole attention of the characters, and of the author, is focused on interpreting Leonardo's famous painting, and what it is intended to mean. And I must confess that I learnt a great deal more about that painting, from reading this book, than I had ever known before.
So, a tolerably interesting read. But is it going to appeal to those who lapped up Dan Brown? I am inclined to doubt it. But the endless publicity for Dan Brown's extraordinarily long-lasting bestseller will probably generate enough heat to make this one a success too.
I do hope that, before this book is printed in the final hardcover edition, someone corrects not only the typos but also the bizarre layout of the conclusion. The footnote on page 311 is in absolutely the wrong place, in my opinion; in the ARC its placement totally kills the impact of the last word on that page. The information conveyed in that footnote properly belongs in the Author's Notes, on page 318.
The last two paragraphs of the Post-Scriptum (on pages 316/317 of the ARC), also belong in the Author's Notes.
As part of the publicity drive, there is an English-language official web site for the author, and a web site specifically for the book.
Miss Snark's marathon of synopses
I have remarked once or twice before that modern young writers just don't know they're born. They now have access to so much information that just simply wasn't available 40 years ago.
For instance -- and it is one hell of a for instance -- the agent who blogs as Miss Snark apparently invited people to send her synopses for an online critique. And she spent a week going through them and posting the results. Here's the link. If the page takes a while to open, that's because it's a long page. There's an awful lot of work involved. And the post you're looking for is dated 1 January.
So, there you have it. A real live working agent's take on 100 synopses. Well, 99 actually. There were 107 submitted but various got dropped for various reasons .
Now if you can't learn something from that I just don't know what to do for you.
M.J. Rose noticed this before I did and provided the link. But then she's smart like that.
For instance -- and it is one hell of a for instance -- the agent who blogs as Miss Snark apparently invited people to send her synopses for an online critique. And she spent a week going through them and posting the results. Here's the link. If the page takes a while to open, that's because it's a long page. There's an awful lot of work involved. And the post you're looking for is dated 1 January.
So, there you have it. A real live working agent's take on 100 synopses. Well, 99 actually. There were 107 submitted but various got dropped for various reasons .
Now if you can't learn something from that I just don't know what to do for you.
M.J. Rose noticed this before I did and provided the link. But then she's smart like that.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
UK bestsellers of 2005
Personally I am not nearly as interested in bestsellers these days as I used to be. Most of the books on the hot list end up there by virtue of (a) having been written by old hands or celebrities, and (b) an expensive publicity drive on the part of the publisher. Which is all very well and good, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the book is going to interest me.
However, if you are keen to know what the great British public was willing/persuaded to buy in 2005, booktrade.info has a link to a table in the Guardian which sets it all out. This is a pdf file which is considerably larger than A4. If you reduce it to fit on A4 you may need a magnifying glass.
Meanwhile, and also in the Guardian, Robert McCrum makes ten predictions about things which are pretty much certain to happen, mostly bookwise, in 2006. They seem fairly accurate to me.
However, if you are keen to know what the great British public was willing/persuaded to buy in 2005, booktrade.info has a link to a table in the Guardian which sets it all out. This is a pdf file which is considerably larger than A4. If you reduce it to fit on A4 you may need a magnifying glass.
Meanwhile, and also in the Guardian, Robert McCrum makes ten predictions about things which are pretty much certain to happen, mostly bookwise, in 2006. They seem fairly accurate to me.
Delayed holiday fun(?)
You're probably fed up with party games and the like. But just in case you've got any appetite left, here's a little quiz which I designed some years ago for a quite different purpose. Think of it as a lighthearted test of your grasp of the English language.
Of course it is deeply insulting to suggest that any reader of this blog might have any shortcomings at all in terms of knowledge of grammar, spelling, syntax, and the like. So you'll probably get 100%. No problem. It won't take a minute. And it might even be fun. Or not. As the case may be.
The quiz has three parts. First, a test of your vocabulary; then a spelling test; and finally a sort of find the deliberate mistake thingy. Then you get the answers. And finally a few comments.
Vocabulary
Do you know the difference between the following pairs of words? Can you explain the difference, in each case, in a couple of brief sentences? If you can’t, check the meanings in a dictionary.
aural and oral
appraise and apprise
canvas and canvass
complement and compliment
discreet and discrete
loath and loathe
interment and internment
prescribe and proscribe
principal and principle
stationary and stationery
Why am I bothering about these similar but different words? Because the spell checker on your word processor won’t help you if you write complimentary when you mean complementary; and you risk looking ignorant if you do.
Spelling
Spelling is difficult to test in print, but set out below are twenty commonly misspelt words. Half of them are correctly spelt, and half are not. Can you identify the wrong 'uns? (Answers at the end of the post.)
accommodate
agressive
aquire
appalling
benefitted
besiege
concensus
desparate
detatched
gauge
harassed
millennium
minuscule
momento
neccessary
niece
seperate
supercede
surprise
threshold
wilful
Grammar and punctuation
Finally, if you’re not fed up with this game, here are a few sentences which contain some elementary errors of grammar or punctuation, or both. Can you see what is wrong? (Hint: there may be more than one thing wrong in each sentence. Answers are again at the end of this post.)
1 After inspecting a guard of honour, President Reagan’s motorcade moved into the centre of Moscow.
2 Its a long way from London to Wiltshire, the train toots it’s whistle with relief when it finally arrives.
3 She was the oldest of the two sisters.
4 Between you and I, he is quite wrong, and I would of told him so if he hadn’t been so big.
5 Through hard work the coach affected a considerable improvement in the teams performance.
Answers to the spelling test
The correct versions of ten of the words are set out below; the other ten are correct as printed (at least they are if you use English spelling as opposed to American; the Americans have their own rules.)
acquire, not aquire
aggressive, not agressive
benefited, not benefitted
consensus, not concensus
desperate, not desparate
detached, not detatched
memento, not momento
necessary, not neccessary
separate, not seperate
supersede, not supercede
Answers to the grammar and punctuation test
1 The first sentence provides an example of an unattached, or dangling, participle. The motorcade did not inspect the guard of honour; President Reagan did.
2 Here we have two sentences separated by a comma. Ideally there should be a semi-colon after Wiltshire, but a full stop would do. Also, the first its should be it’s and the second it’s should be its.
3 She was the older of the two sisters. If there had been three sisters, she might have been the oldest. In talking about persons who are closely related, elder and eldest are often used rather than older and oldest.
4 Between you and me, not I. This is a common error, but often debated; see the discussion in Fowler’s Modern English Usage. Also, I would have told him so; not would of.
5 The general sense of the sentence implies that the coach effected a considerable improvement. He might have affected a lack of dismay when the team lost. Teams requires an apostrophe before the s, unless he coached several teams successfully, in which case the apostrophe would go after the s.
Nobody is perfect
Let me make it plain at this point that there are definite limits to my own knowledge of grammar and spelling.
I will readily admit, if you put a gun to my head, that I would have to think hard before explaining the difference between a transitive and an intransitive verb; and ditransitive verbs, which have both a direct object and an indirect object, are really tricky.
I believe I understand what is meant by the active voice; and I could have a stab at explaining what a gerund is. But for all these explanations I would much prefer to consult one of the standard reference books before claiming even tentative authority on the subject.
As for spelling – well, some of the words listed in the spelling section above are those which had me fooled for years.
And it’s never too late to learn. When I was in my forties, a professor of mathematics pointed out to me that there is a difference between verbal and oral, and a professor of chemistry reminded me that data is a plural noun.
There now. Wasn't that fun?
Of course it is deeply insulting to suggest that any reader of this blog might have any shortcomings at all in terms of knowledge of grammar, spelling, syntax, and the like. So you'll probably get 100%. No problem. It won't take a minute. And it might even be fun. Or not. As the case may be.
The quiz has three parts. First, a test of your vocabulary; then a spelling test; and finally a sort of find the deliberate mistake thingy. Then you get the answers. And finally a few comments.
Vocabulary
Do you know the difference between the following pairs of words? Can you explain the difference, in each case, in a couple of brief sentences? If you can’t, check the meanings in a dictionary.
aural and oral
appraise and apprise
canvas and canvass
complement and compliment
discreet and discrete
loath and loathe
interment and internment
prescribe and proscribe
principal and principle
stationary and stationery
Why am I bothering about these similar but different words? Because the spell checker on your word processor won’t help you if you write complimentary when you mean complementary; and you risk looking ignorant if you do.
Spelling
Spelling is difficult to test in print, but set out below are twenty commonly misspelt words. Half of them are correctly spelt, and half are not. Can you identify the wrong 'uns? (Answers at the end of the post.)
accommodate
agressive
aquire
appalling
benefitted
besiege
concensus
desparate
detatched
gauge
harassed
millennium
minuscule
momento
neccessary
niece
seperate
supercede
surprise
threshold
wilful
Grammar and punctuation
Finally, if you’re not fed up with this game, here are a few sentences which contain some elementary errors of grammar or punctuation, or both. Can you see what is wrong? (Hint: there may be more than one thing wrong in each sentence. Answers are again at the end of this post.)
1 After inspecting a guard of honour, President Reagan’s motorcade moved into the centre of Moscow.
2 Its a long way from London to Wiltshire, the train toots it’s whistle with relief when it finally arrives.
3 She was the oldest of the two sisters.
4 Between you and I, he is quite wrong, and I would of told him so if he hadn’t been so big.
5 Through hard work the coach affected a considerable improvement in the teams performance.
Answers to the spelling test
The correct versions of ten of the words are set out below; the other ten are correct as printed (at least they are if you use English spelling as opposed to American; the Americans have their own rules.)
acquire, not aquire
aggressive, not agressive
benefited, not benefitted
consensus, not concensus
desperate, not desparate
detached, not detatched
memento, not momento
necessary, not neccessary
separate, not seperate
supersede, not supercede
Answers to the grammar and punctuation test
1 The first sentence provides an example of an unattached, or dangling, participle. The motorcade did not inspect the guard of honour; President Reagan did.
2 Here we have two sentences separated by a comma. Ideally there should be a semi-colon after Wiltshire, but a full stop would do. Also, the first its should be it’s and the second it’s should be its.
3 She was the older of the two sisters. If there had been three sisters, she might have been the oldest. In talking about persons who are closely related, elder and eldest are often used rather than older and oldest.
4 Between you and me, not I. This is a common error, but often debated; see the discussion in Fowler’s Modern English Usage. Also, I would have told him so; not would of.
5 The general sense of the sentence implies that the coach effected a considerable improvement. He might have affected a lack of dismay when the team lost. Teams requires an apostrophe before the s, unless he coached several teams successfully, in which case the apostrophe would go after the s.
Nobody is perfect
Let me make it plain at this point that there are definite limits to my own knowledge of grammar and spelling.
I will readily admit, if you put a gun to my head, that I would have to think hard before explaining the difference between a transitive and an intransitive verb; and ditransitive verbs, which have both a direct object and an indirect object, are really tricky.
I believe I understand what is meant by the active voice; and I could have a stab at explaining what a gerund is. But for all these explanations I would much prefer to consult one of the standard reference books before claiming even tentative authority on the subject.
As for spelling – well, some of the words listed in the spelling section above are those which had me fooled for years.
And it’s never too late to learn. When I was in my forties, a professor of mathematics pointed out to me that there is a difference between verbal and oral, and a professor of chemistry reminded me that data is a plural noun.
There now. Wasn't that fun?
Monday, January 02, 2006
The Sunday Times 'tests' publishers and agents
Yesterday's Sunday Times carried a story, right at the top of the front page, which was so remarkably silly that one hardly knows where to begin in discussing it.
This story purported to draw attention to 'concerns that the [publishing] industry has become incapable of spotting genuine literary talent.'
What two Sunday Times staffers did was carry out an experiment which has been done at least three times before, and four times if you count Doris Lessing's experiment with one of her own novels (see the footnote to this post for details). They typed out the opening chapters of two novels which had both, in the 1970s, won the Booker prize; they changed the titles, changed the names of the key characters, and then submitted the two typed manuscripts to 20 of the UK's big-name publishers and agents -- making 40 submissions in all.
The two novels chosen for this experiment were In a Free State by V.S. Naipaul and Holiday by Stanley Middleton.
There were 21 responses to these submissions. And (as you may have guessed), only one agent was remotely interested in seeing the rest of the book she received. All the other publishers and agents either didn't reply or said no thanks, with varying degrees of politeness.
The results of this experiment are presented as if they lend support to the view that agents and publishers are clueless morons who wouldn't recognise a good book (however defined) if you hit them over the head with it.
Well, we could go on all day about this. But let me say that my sympathies are entirely with the agents and publishers whose time was wasted in this futile exercise. Secondly, I want to make it clear that the experiment does tell us some useful and interesting things about publishing, but not the things that the Sunday Times reporters seem to think it does.
In the course of the ST article, various earnest souls are quoted saying extremely silly things. Andrew Motion, the poet laureate, for instance, says: 'It is surprising that the people who read it (Naipaul’s book) didn’t recognise it.'
No it's not. It's not remotely surprising that a Booker prizewinner from the 1970s wasn't recognised in 2006. Quite a lot of sensible publishers and agents wouldn't recognise last year's Booker winner, even without the names of characters changed. Why should they? If your specialism is science fiction or crime or romance, then the book which happens (largely through the workings of randomness/chance/Lady Luck) to win the Booker prize is a matter of complete indifference.
And then there's Stanley Middleton, author of one of the books used in this alleged test of competence. 'People don’t seem to know what a good novel is nowadays,' he says. From which we discern that dear old Stanley (86 now) takes the view that there is some sort of universally agreed scale that we can use to measure how 'good' a novel is. And, as we already know if we've been paying attention, there isn't.
No. What this experiment shows is what Naipaul, at least, has the good sense to understand, and to say, namely that the world has moved on.
God knows, it is very odd for me to find myself speaking up on behalf of modern publishers, but it seems to me that, when it comes to selecting material, particularly fiction, they are doing exactly what a good publisher should.
Modern publishing companies are, first and foremost, machines for generating a profit for their shareholders. Full stop. They have nothing to with 'good books' as defined by some ivory-towered highbrow with more spare time than sense. Hence it is not remotely surprising, or improper, to find that publishers are 'obsessed with celebrity authors and "bright marketable young things" at the expense of serious writers.' Serious writers, in this context, I understand to mean that readily recognisable group of writers who take themselves far too seriously, who produce books which very few people want to read, much less buy, and who believe, wrongly, that the world owes them a living.
And so on. The story continues on an inside page, with more of the same.
This story did not take long to reach the blogosphere. Here's what the Literary Saloon concluded:
Publishers are not charities; they are under no obligation to publish books which appeal to a relatively small clique of literary-fiction fans. And the Sunday Times piece does not, in my view, demonstrate any shortcomings among leading literary agents and publishers.
What the ST does do is lend support to my comment in an earlier post that newspapers no longer present us with either up-to-the minute news or cutting-edge information. All too often, today's newspapers simply recycle press releases and provide beginner's guides to subjects which are already more than fully covered on the internet. At this rate, those who forecast the death of the so-called mainstream media may have a point.
Almost inadvertently, the ST article also lends support to the belief which I have been discussing with one or two correspondents recently, namely that it seems to be much harder to get an agent to take you on in the UK than it is in the US. Carole Blake, for instance, says that she gets up to 50 novels a day, but takes on only six new clients a year.
Footnote
Here, if you're interested, are details of previous alleged tests of publishers' competence.
In 1979, Chuck Ross typed out Jerzy Kosinski’s novel Steps, which had won the National Book Award, and sent it under a pseudonym to 14 publishers. Of these, 2 lost the typescript ('We're sure it's here somewhere, Chuck'); 1 returned it unread; 8 sent it back with the standard rejection slip; and 3 'recognised its quality' but still didn’t want to publish it.
A similar scheme was carried out in 1996 by one Kevin Banks, of Colchester, who was actually a journalist on the Sunday Mirror. He sent a chapter of a novel to 10 publishers and asked if they were interested in seeing the rest with a view to publishing it. None were.
'Kevin Banks' then revealed that the chapter in question was a 'lightly amended' version of Chapter 1 of Popcorn, which was a current bestseller by the comedian Ben Elton.
Yet another similar exercise was undertaken in France, in the summer of 2000. A famous French television presenter had written a novel which was published by a leading firm called Plon; the book was a great 'success', in that the author was interviewed widely, made lots of personal appearances, and the public was persuaded to buy a large number of copies.
The magazine Voici decided, however, that this novel was less than interesting, and that it would never have been published at all had it come from an unknown author. Voici typed out the first chapter of the book and offered it, under a pseudonym, to every leading publisher in France. None of them accepted it, and none recognised it as the season’s hit – including Plon, which had published the book in the first place.
In 1984 Doris Lessing asked her agent to submit one of her novels to her two main publishers without telling them who had really written it. Both firms turned the book down.
All of these 'tests' prove absolutely nothing, except the obvious point that a book of quality x by an unknown is not the same commercial proposition as a book of quality x which carries the name of an established author or a celebrity.
This story purported to draw attention to 'concerns that the [publishing] industry has become incapable of spotting genuine literary talent.'
What two Sunday Times staffers did was carry out an experiment which has been done at least three times before, and four times if you count Doris Lessing's experiment with one of her own novels (see the footnote to this post for details). They typed out the opening chapters of two novels which had both, in the 1970s, won the Booker prize; they changed the titles, changed the names of the key characters, and then submitted the two typed manuscripts to 20 of the UK's big-name publishers and agents -- making 40 submissions in all.
The two novels chosen for this experiment were In a Free State by V.S. Naipaul and Holiday by Stanley Middleton.
There were 21 responses to these submissions. And (as you may have guessed), only one agent was remotely interested in seeing the rest of the book she received. All the other publishers and agents either didn't reply or said no thanks, with varying degrees of politeness.
The results of this experiment are presented as if they lend support to the view that agents and publishers are clueless morons who wouldn't recognise a good book (however defined) if you hit them over the head with it.
Well, we could go on all day about this. But let me say that my sympathies are entirely with the agents and publishers whose time was wasted in this futile exercise. Secondly, I want to make it clear that the experiment does tell us some useful and interesting things about publishing, but not the things that the Sunday Times reporters seem to think it does.
In the course of the ST article, various earnest souls are quoted saying extremely silly things. Andrew Motion, the poet laureate, for instance, says: 'It is surprising that the people who read it (Naipaul’s book) didn’t recognise it.'
No it's not. It's not remotely surprising that a Booker prizewinner from the 1970s wasn't recognised in 2006. Quite a lot of sensible publishers and agents wouldn't recognise last year's Booker winner, even without the names of characters changed. Why should they? If your specialism is science fiction or crime or romance, then the book which happens (largely through the workings of randomness/chance/Lady Luck) to win the Booker prize is a matter of complete indifference.
And then there's Stanley Middleton, author of one of the books used in this alleged test of competence. 'People don’t seem to know what a good novel is nowadays,' he says. From which we discern that dear old Stanley (86 now) takes the view that there is some sort of universally agreed scale that we can use to measure how 'good' a novel is. And, as we already know if we've been paying attention, there isn't.
No. What this experiment shows is what Naipaul, at least, has the good sense to understand, and to say, namely that the world has moved on.
God knows, it is very odd for me to find myself speaking up on behalf of modern publishers, but it seems to me that, when it comes to selecting material, particularly fiction, they are doing exactly what a good publisher should.
Modern publishing companies are, first and foremost, machines for generating a profit for their shareholders. Full stop. They have nothing to with 'good books' as defined by some ivory-towered highbrow with more spare time than sense. Hence it is not remotely surprising, or improper, to find that publishers are 'obsessed with celebrity authors and "bright marketable young things" at the expense of serious writers.' Serious writers, in this context, I understand to mean that readily recognisable group of writers who take themselves far too seriously, who produce books which very few people want to read, much less buy, and who believe, wrongly, that the world owes them a living.
And so on. The story continues on an inside page, with more of the same.
This story did not take long to reach the blogosphere. Here's what the Literary Saloon concluded:
This is sure to be the talk of the literary weblog world (and quite a bit of the print media) in the coming week; we look forward to the fall-out. Of course, the real question is whether the publishers and agents will take any steps to address their failures. Sure, editors can always explain that 'it wasn't right' for their lists, but we'd think some serious reprimands were in order.I find this conclusion absurd. I do not agree that there have been any 'failures', much less that reprimands are required. Quite the reverse. My view is that, for once in their lives, agents and publishers got things dead right, given the present set of circumstances in which they operate.
Publishers are not charities; they are under no obligation to publish books which appeal to a relatively small clique of literary-fiction fans. And the Sunday Times piece does not, in my view, demonstrate any shortcomings among leading literary agents and publishers.
What the ST does do is lend support to my comment in an earlier post that newspapers no longer present us with either up-to-the minute news or cutting-edge information. All too often, today's newspapers simply recycle press releases and provide beginner's guides to subjects which are already more than fully covered on the internet. At this rate, those who forecast the death of the so-called mainstream media may have a point.
Almost inadvertently, the ST article also lends support to the belief which I have been discussing with one or two correspondents recently, namely that it seems to be much harder to get an agent to take you on in the UK than it is in the US. Carole Blake, for instance, says that she gets up to 50 novels a day, but takes on only six new clients a year.
Footnote
Here, if you're interested, are details of previous alleged tests of publishers' competence.
In 1979, Chuck Ross typed out Jerzy Kosinski’s novel Steps, which had won the National Book Award, and sent it under a pseudonym to 14 publishers. Of these, 2 lost the typescript ('We're sure it's here somewhere, Chuck'); 1 returned it unread; 8 sent it back with the standard rejection slip; and 3 'recognised its quality' but still didn’t want to publish it.
A similar scheme was carried out in 1996 by one Kevin Banks, of Colchester, who was actually a journalist on the Sunday Mirror. He sent a chapter of a novel to 10 publishers and asked if they were interested in seeing the rest with a view to publishing it. None were.
'Kevin Banks' then revealed that the chapter in question was a 'lightly amended' version of Chapter 1 of Popcorn, which was a current bestseller by the comedian Ben Elton.
Yet another similar exercise was undertaken in France, in the summer of 2000. A famous French television presenter had written a novel which was published by a leading firm called Plon; the book was a great 'success', in that the author was interviewed widely, made lots of personal appearances, and the public was persuaded to buy a large number of copies.
The magazine Voici decided, however, that this novel was less than interesting, and that it would never have been published at all had it come from an unknown author. Voici typed out the first chapter of the book and offered it, under a pseudonym, to every leading publisher in France. None of them accepted it, and none recognised it as the season’s hit – including Plon, which had published the book in the first place.
In 1984 Doris Lessing asked her agent to submit one of her novels to her two main publishers without telling them who had really written it. Both firms turned the book down.
All of these 'tests' prove absolutely nothing, except the obvious point that a book of quality x by an unknown is not the same commercial proposition as a book of quality x which carries the name of an established author or a celebrity.
Selling A Woman from Cairo
Val Landi's novel A Woman from Cairo is an interesting case study, one which is worth keeping an eye on.
A while back, Val got the kind of phone call that many writers dream of but never actually get: a big-time agent ringing to say that she loves the book. In Val's case it was Jean Naggar, who represents Jean Auel, of Clan of the Cave Bear fame, NBA winner Mary Morris McGarry, and New York Times bestselling author Phillip Margolin, among others.
What is more, Val got taken to lunch.
So far, A Woman of Cairo has collected a number of what is known as rave rejections, some of which you can read in the latest post on his blog. And he is beginning to wonder if his book is perhaps a bit too realistic for today's market, which favours more escapist books. Or at least, that is what he has been told.
Well, we shall see. In the meantime you may just care to note that finding an enthusiastic agent is one thing (and damned hard); finding an enthusiastic publisher is yet another step; and finding an enthusiastic publisher who thinks that your book is just the ticket for the modern reader is a third step.
I don't think I ever implied that this business is easy, did I?
A while back, Val got the kind of phone call that many writers dream of but never actually get: a big-time agent ringing to say that she loves the book. In Val's case it was Jean Naggar, who represents Jean Auel, of Clan of the Cave Bear fame, NBA winner Mary Morris McGarry, and New York Times bestselling author Phillip Margolin, among others.
What is more, Val got taken to lunch.
So far, A Woman of Cairo has collected a number of what is known as rave rejections, some of which you can read in the latest post on his blog. And he is beginning to wonder if his book is perhaps a bit too realistic for today's market, which favours more escapist books. Or at least, that is what he has been told.
Well, we shall see. In the meantime you may just care to note that finding an enthusiastic agent is one thing (and damned hard); finding an enthusiastic publisher is yet another step; and finding an enthusiastic publisher who thinks that your book is just the ticket for the modern reader is a third step.
I don't think I ever implied that this business is easy, did I?
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