Guest Post: On digital publishing from an industry insider - and lapsed writer

I started my twelve year career in publishing in the heady summer of the year 2000. Working in books was the only logical career choice for me. Prior to this I wrote. I wrote all the time. I finished my first self-illustrated episodic story, about school bullying, at the age of ten. I completed a “novel” at aged fourteen, inexplicably about the mafia (I am not even Italian) and containing perhaps the most unconvincing sex scene in the history of literature. Until “Fifty Shades of Grey” was published, that is. At university I continued, writing heartfelt poems about unrequited love, frustrated intellect and bohemian stuff. Then, I got my first job in publishing and the writing stopped.

It wasn’t just seeing the brutality of the slush pile first hand that caused me to change my views. Wandering the halls of the annual book fairs, I couldn’t help but be astounded and somehow disheartened by the sheer number of books that are published every year. How, I asked myself, can my voice be heard above all this noise? And then, there are those writers, those brilliant voices, that inexplicably fail. As a publisher, you believe in the writer, you believe in the book, you promote the hell out of it and yet still the copies just don’t sell. And at the end of the day, that is what publishing is, the business of selling books. When books don’t sell, they are remaindered, they are pulped, they are listed as out of print, they are forgotten. Suddenly it seemed a bit pointless to be churning out my mediocre words into a clearly disinterested world. So rather than add to my piles of unread prose, I hid my writer’s heart away.

This is not to say that I have spent the last decade in bleak despair. Publishing is one of the most vibrant and exciting industries to work in and right now it is going through a period of immense change. For decades publishers have acted as gatekeepers for what is and isn’t read. Unpublished writers were, for the most part, unread writers. Digital publishing means that writers, instead of poring over endless rejection letters, can put their work out there - and what better way to get the attention of those distant commissioning editors than a bestselling Kindle novel? Of course, self-publishing is in no way a sure-fire way to success. If anything, the clamour of voices has become louder and harder to navigate. But the digital world has given us one thing: more opportunities to reach our readers.

So, armed with this sliver of hope and opportunity, I have slowly been starting up my writing hand again. It’s been hard. I am rusty, wracked with self-doubt and a heap of healthy cynicism, but I am doing it. I am writing.

Caroline - an industry veteran now 'jumping the fence'

About the writer:

Having spent twelve years in the publishing industry, Caroline Goldsmith has spent her life surrounded by books. She has worked in sales, publicity, marketing, rights and contracts and has spent more time at bookfairs and hauling suitcases full of hardbacks around Europe then she cares to remember. She has now left publishing to embark on a new life in the country, where she plans to rekindle her long-neglected writing habit and finally unleash that novel that has been hiding in her on an unsuspecting world. You can follow her adventures on her blog These Are My Days, or on Twitter @goldcaro

TA-DAAAAAAH!!!!

The fanfare is to welcome our new Strictly, Derek Thompson, who has manfully stepped into the shoes of our beloved Rod, who is off to poetical pastures new. We’ll miss Rod’s wit and wisdom hugely, but Derek will be bringing his own brand to the party, as a comedy writer (among other things) and occasional coach. So, on behalf of all Strictly followers, we decided to plonk the new boy down in the hot seat, direct a bright light into his eyes, and interrogate…er, that is, interview him:

So, Derek, tell us a bit about your writing life to date…

Well, I have been around the writing block a few times and have occasionally found a temporary parking space.

I write both short and long fiction, non-fiction and comedy material. My paper children include:

• Four completed novels - three of which are doing the rounds. Two short story ebooks with Musa Publishing - one out in Nov.
• Stories in three anthologies - Coffee Shop Chronicles, Beyond the Horizon and Flash Fiction South West.
• An in-progress ebook anthology of my own stories.
• The Little Book of Cynics (co-written with David French).
• Two unloved homing sitcom scripts
• The Showreel Sketchbook - a self-pubbed ebook of comedy sketches.

Why comedy as well as fiction?

Because it's fun! And even if time is pressing, it can still be a great way to get creative with words. Something simple, like a joke, can involve many of the techniques we also use in fiction - such as exaggeration, juxtaposition, content and context, wordplay, and building tension. Plus, you can use comedy to say things in a way that's less confrontational than saying it outright.

Describe your writing day…

It all depends what I'm doing, really. If I'm working freelance for a client, I'll be focused on their brief to the exclusion of all other projects, however compelling they may be. When I'm working on a novel, I like to immerse myself in that world and read the dialogue aloud, in character. It helps that I write in the attic! Sometimes I temp, so any time before and afterwards has an added tension and focus. Strangely, I often get more writing done then.

My best opportunities for creative writing are first thing in the morning, last thing at night and being trapped on long train journeys - a habit I picked up when I used to travel up to London regularly from the West Country.

You’ve probably had the worst luck ever in terms of your publishing experiences – Tell Us All…

I suspect this is where the comedy comes into it again. My pub story 'highlights' include:

1. The indie editor who offered me a contract and died before the revised contract could be signed. The replacement editor hated the book.
2. The indie editor who took a year to get me an edit for approval and then the firm went bust.
3. The indie publisher who wanted to publish my novel, but because of its size requested a sizeable contribution from me.
4. The publisher who asked for a 'full', only to return it immediately as the request had come from a work experience person who had exceeded her authority and enthusiasm.
5. The editor who asked for a full and then rejected it because the word count was too high, based on a formula they'd neglected to tell me about beforehand.

I'm sure I'll share more as time goes on.

Any advice for aspiring comedy writers?

Probably the same as for any writer - dare, write, edit, refine, be persistent and be creative. And network too, apparently.

Your greatest writing achievement?

I'm not sure if it's the greatest, but completing my fourth novel, Scars & Stripes, gives me a unique satisfaction. Had I not written the other three novels, and a very personal piece for The Guardian, I would not have been able to tackle some autobiographical content that's been loitering at the back of my brain for too many years.

Your most embarrassing writing experience?

I have two - one really personal and one less so.

I wrote to a TV producer, Simon Wilson, (that's the dare part I was talking about) telling him how much I liked his sketch show and offering him some of my material. The show was called Swinging, but I kept calling it Swingers in my emails.

The personal one is both comic and tragic (one of my brands). I heard from my granddad that an uncle had passed away suddenly, and I really liked him. So I wrote to my aunt, expressing my condolences and telling her what a nice bloke he'd been. She wrote back, thanking me for the letter saying it had really touched her. However, he wasn't actually dead - my granddad had got his aged wires crossed. Less than two weeks later, my uncle died. I didn't send another card.

What qualities will you bring to Strictly Writing?

That sounds like one of those classic job interview questions, where I'd normally fish out words like dynamic, flexible and task orientated. But seeing as how it isn't, I'll say that I want to bring openness, humour, warmth and creativity. Not that they weren't here before, but it'll be my own special recipe.

If any Strictly followers have more questions for Derek, now’s your chance!

Friday Film: Printing a book in 1947

If the video player doesn't display, you can watch at the Internet Archive

Sign of the Times

Regular readers may recall that in my last post I was musing about publicity.
I'd received a pre-meeting email from my new publicist, Jamie, asking me to consider the PR campaign for Dishonour.

I looked over what I'd done for my previous books, and what I could add to the mix.

Well, I've now had the meeting and thought I'd share with you the nuggets of wisdom Jamie passed along.

First up, it's worth mentioning that Jamie turned out to be a woman. A young woman at that. Loud, funny, with a slash of scarlet lipstick. She talked ten to the dozen, one hand grasped around a perpetually winking blackberry, the other around a chilled glass of wine.

Over mussels, chips, and more wine, she told me about the current state of the industry.
In a word, it's quiet.
Many publishing houses are cutting their staff and dumping authors whose sales are less than sparkling. Those not dumped can expect low advances.

The good news is everyone is looking for debut authors. The Holy Grail being the book acquired for a song that goes on to do some serious commercial business.

Many houses are also slashing their publicity budgets.
'Big mistake,' Jamie announced.

Well, in the words of Mandy Rice Davis, she would say that wouldn't she, I hear you cry.

Actually though, I agree with her. There seems to me to be little point in buying a book, editing it and launching it, with all the concurrent costs, only to release it into the wild with little more than a pat on the back and fingers crossed all round.

But what do I know?

Anyways, we then discussed what we both thought were the best ways to help a book sell. Jamie's view is that first and foremost you have to concentrate on the brand. And the brand is the author. Writers, says Jamie, have to accept that selling ourselves is part and parcel of the job.

But, but, but...I hear you say, it's not what we're about. We're about words, and craft and creativity.

Jamie told me that she understands that, even has sympathy with it, but when a writer is reluctant to join the publicity junk, her heart sinks.

When I explained that I see publicity as imperative and ultimately my responsibility, she beamed.

And so to business...she pulled out a typed document detailing everything she'd already done for May's launch, and everything she was going to do. Much of it involved her 'contacts'. Another reason, if you needed one, why good PRs earn their keep. They eat, breathe and sleep this stuff. Jamie tells me she is out at industry functions most evenings, that she lunches her contacts several times a week, and that she spends 'hours' on internet social media.

It's an exhausting schedule that most of us couldn't keep up.

As lunch drew to a close, I made a note of those things I needed to do.

1. Get back in contact with anyone and everyone who has 'helped' me when I launched my last three books. Note to self, keep records in future.

2. Suggest some feature ideas to sell me in. Hard sells don't work. Think of the non fiction hook that can give me my in.

3. Networking. Apparently I need to Twitter.

4. Be available. There will, hopefully, be an onslaught of interest around launch and through the Summer. I need to prioritise publicity during this period.

With that, Jamie drained her Tia Maria coffee and headed off for cocktails with a well known blogger and Mark Billingham.

I stumbled back home and tried to work out how the hell one sends a tweet.

An editor's visitors - 1890

It's my turn to blog on Strictly today, but a few hours before this post is due to go up, I, as an international woman of mystery, will have just (I hope) arrived home from a top-secret mission to the Middle East. (Well, it's not really top secret, but it sounds cooler and more enigmatic that way.) I am, therefore, scheduling this post in advance. I'm handing it over to one Arthur Lockyer Esq, a Victorian editor who gives a glimpse into the process our writerly forebears had to endure when submitting their work. This is an excerpt from a piece he wrote for The Graphic newspaper in April 1890.

The editor probably suffers more than any other professional man from the visits of people whom he has no desire to see, but who are eager for a personal interview with himself. In this respect, therefore, his ideal of bliss lies in the two polysyllabic words, inaccessibility and invisibility. In the case of an extensive and highly organised concern, it is possible to achieve the first of these two substantives.

Let us give an example. You want to see the editor, or one of the editors, for in such an establishment there are often several of them. But you have learnt from private sources that the name of the particular editor whom you wish to see is Marmaduke Johnson, and so, with your manuscript in your hand or concealed somewhere about your person, you climb a steep narrow staircase until your progress is arrested by a sort of sentry-box, wherein sits an undersized, but preternaturally intelligent, youth. He has a manner as if the name of Johnson was entirely foreign to his ear; nevertheless he is fairly civil, and after inspecting your card, and holding a colloquy with an invisible person through a flexible tube, he hands you over to a commissionaire. The military hero, after conducting you along several passages, suddenly says 'In here, sir,' and ushers you into a small room containing nothing but a desk, two chairs, and a rather ancient map of London.

You inspect the map for about five minutes, when the door again opens, and in comes an elderly gentleman in spectacles, who asks you to be seated, and listens to your statement with patience and courtesy. You say to yourself, 'What a nice fellow Marmaduke Johnson is!' Unfortunately, however, this is not Johnson at all, but only his deputy, for presently the elderly gentleman says: 'Your manuscript shall have Mr. Johnson's best attention.' He then bows, touches a bell, the inexorable commissionaire appears instantly, like an Arabian Nights' genie, and in another two minutes you are politely marched off the premises, without having even seen the great man's coat-skirts. This is a specimen of the Inaccessible Editor, and a very enviable mortal he is, in this respect.

But, as spacious premises and a large and well-trained staff of subordinates are required to render an editor triumphantly inaccessible, some editors, who do not possess these advantages, strive, often with indifferent success, to render themselves invisible. Some accomplish this by notifying to their would-be interviewers that they are to be seen on Fridays between 4 and 6 P.M., and by taking care always to be absent on those afternoons; while others have a couple of doors to their den, and when they hear in the outer office the voice of a well-remembered bore they bolt incontinently through the inner doorway down the staircase, and hide themselves until the bore's patience is exhausted, and he reluctantly departs.

Why do we write? - Guest post by Alice Turing

A year ago, I decided to jack it all in and turn my back on writing. It was ten years to the month since I’d started writing my first novel. I’d been through many writing stages, but they’d all had one common theme.

I was trying to get noticed.

I love the stage, have always been quick to say, “Look at ME,” but have always felt slightly ashamed. And then stubbornly proud, then self-consciously indifferent, then ashamed again - on a life-long cycle. And that’s what publication is: One long look-at-me treadmill.

I sent the first three chapters of my first novel to 30 publishers and 15 agents before I finished writing it.

“Look what I’ve done!”

and

“Look what I’m doing!”

At first the process of packaging myself and my work was exciting. Until the rejections started to appear, and with it the angst. Was I too forward? Not forward enough? Too informal? Too previous? Too unpolished? Too bad a writer?

Twenty-eight of those 30 publishers said no, as did all 15 agents. But then, ten months after I sent it out and (weirdly, and coincidentally) two days after I finished writing it I got the phone call from the 29^th publisher, saying YES. And then there was a new kind of packaging. The publisher was only small: If I wanted to set the world on fire I had to hawk my own wares. I splatted myself across the internet, organised two multi-media-performance book launches, got interviewed on Woman’s Hour, tried to display myself in a way that would MAKE PEOPLE NOTICE ME.

Part of my schtick was that I was honest and open about myself and my work. Self-consciously self-aware. It was supposed to be charming, beguiling. And there’s the thing. It was still an act. It was still a Look At Me, and the Me I wanted people to look at was a very particular me. I wasn’t allowed to admit too much doubt, or be too boring, or too conventional. I had to be upbeat. I was Selling, and salesmen never cry.

The book didn’t do too badly, given the size of the publisher. But the Woman’s Hour appearance had no effect. There were no broadsheet reviews. A few people Looked At Me, but not as many as I’d hoped, and not as enthusiastically or for as long as I wanted.

The next book was hawked - by a shiny new agent - to a great deal of publishers, large and small, around the world. The Germans published it. Nobody reviewed it there apart from a couple of disgruntled Amazon users who seemed to think they’d been promised the opposite of what they got. I said “Me, look at me” in as many ways I could think of, until finally I snapped. Nobody was looking at me. Nobody was talking about me. No-one was interested, and the fact that I wished they were only made me hate myself even more.

When I’d fielded enough rejections, when I’d swallowed a bucket-load of jealous lumps toward those who succeeded where I had failed, I gave up.

My kernel of self loathing (“Look at me, I hate myself, aren’t I interesting?”) said that I only ever wrote to get noticed. To say to the world, look at how clever I am. Love me, praise me, idolise me. But there were other reasons. I wrote because I love words. Because I like to play with them, toy with them, put them together and pull them apart. And I wanted to make something lovely. But the loveliness existed when no-one could see it, as well as when it was tarnished by my pushing it under the world’s nose like a beauty-pageant mum.

I wrote this piece because I wanted you to notice me. But publishing as a look-at-me contest makes me feel nauseous. Makes me phobic of defining myself as a writer. Makes me use a pseudonym. Makes me commit Writer Hari Kiri by vanity-publishing my second book and ensuring that no proper publisher will ever add it to their list.

Look at me, I’m an idiot. Look at me, I failed - and that was my final success.

Dance Your Way to Psychic Sex is available exclusively from danceyourway.co.uk

Living in the past

I subscribe to Literary Review; if you don’t, you should. The writing is sparkling and I’ve learnt more about the yays and nays of how to knock up a novel from their reviewers than from many of the how-to books crowded on my shelves. Much of LR covers non-fiction books which can lead you down interesting research paths for fiction. Even reading the reviews can throw up ideas for stories. The only danger is that you spend all your money ordering sacks of books using the readers' offer. Well, that’s my review of Literary Review, but this post is not about that: it’s inspired by LR in a different way.

Today, let’s flick forward through the May edition to the fiction section; that’s what we’re into here at Strictly Fiction. We find ten novels reviewed last month, including the latest release from the truly amazing Colm Toibin, ultimate master of characterisation – his stories exist in the spaces between the characters. But, enough of him, the survey we are conducting is about temporal setting. How many of the ten novels would you expect to use a contemporary versus historical setting? Half? A third? One?

You were wrong; the answer is . . . er, not sure, possibly none. Of the ten fiction titles sweating under the precision eye of LR, there are eight historical offerings, one that was actually written in the 1930s and one that might be contemporary. Hoorah, there’s one. It’s included as one of the short pieces in their monthly Four Debut Novels page (my ultimate fantasy, but never mind that). In fact, for the one – possibly – contemporary novel we aren’t actually told when it is set, and this researcher wasn’t painstaking enough to find out. Nine out of ten would be a striking enough ratio, so who needs facts?

I bet the story you are slaving over right now is historical. Notably, the possibly contemporary piece receives, perhaps, the harshest treatment of all the books on trial, but surely that can’t be because its setting is contemporary. No, no.

So, there is a trend; you’ve noticed it too. Contemporary fiction is history. Setting your work in the present is so last year.

As you might have guessed, the novel I’m limbering up to submit is set in the halcyon days of 2008. Do you remember that period in history? So long ago now, the last of the salad-summer afternoons just before the world got crunched. I researched that period constantly while I was writing it, by staring out of the window. Since then it's been laid out on the editing table. Now I’ve come to realise the thing is unpublishable simply because it isn't hist fic. That's the only acceptable genre.

Before I press the delete key, are there any other rational explanations? Perhaps the readers of Literary Review are a load of old farts who only read historical fiction and regiments of contemporary novels are preening themselves on the bookshop shelves, blissfully ignored by LR. Frankly I doubt it. Every recently published book I can find in the Ealing branch of Waterstones harps back to days of yore.

People aren’t interested in now. They want then. We have to face the truth, forsooth!

Here’s an idea. I’ll tuck my novel under the bed for forty years and wait while it grows in value like a fine Margaux. If I’m still alive, I’ll then cast it into the gaping maws of the publishers, pretending I wrote it as a historical piece. Everyone will marvel at the startling recollection of the period just before the end of civilisation, the death of global capitalism. In the meantime I’m starting a new one set in the Mesolithic period; an extract is linked here. It’s called Hist Fic, to leave agents and publishers in no doubt that it’s the sort of stuff they are looking for. It's the only chance for publication to an escapist readership who can’t look today in the mirror.

Let’s extend this research a little more.

So, when is your story set?
	It's historical, of course, like all the rest.
	I'm breaking the trend and risking a contemporary setting.
	In the future: you forgot to mention sci-fi, you muppet.
	What story?
pollcode.com free polls

The Slush-Pile Experience

I've often thought it would be fun to volunteer as a slush-pile reader for a day. When I say fun, I've no doubt I'd lose the will to live after about three manuscripts, but I do like the idea of gaining an insight into how publishers and agents feel about unsolicited submissions. Are 90% of them really crap, or is that just an urban myth? Are 90% of them actually pretty good, now that writers have internet communities on which to share advice, research markets and get feedback on their chapters?

Though I sympathise with the common lament that agents reject work without reading it, I must admit that even if I started out giving careful consideration to everything, this wouldn't last beyond the first covering email that said: “This is teh next harry potter. Tell me how much u r going 2 pay me lol.”

I can see myself whizzing through the submissions going:

Nope.
Nope.
Hmm, pretty good, but... nah.
Nope.
Aww, this one has a picture of the author's puppy... but the book still sucks.
Hmm, nice writing, but it's the end of the first page and no one's died yet, so nope.
Huh, this author has the same name as a loser boyfriend I had 15 years ago, so... nope.

We writers know we must make sure our work is better than the rest of the pile, that our plot isn't the same old chestnut as everyone else's, that we spot the typo we've supposedly proofread a million times, and that we time the submission so that its position in the Leaning Tower of Envelopes corresponds to the ten-second window when the agent is in a good mood. The only trouble is that, as industry outsiders, we've got no way of knowing what the rest of the pile is like. What exactly are those clichéd plots and first-page no-nos? We don't get to see them because... well, they don't get as far as a bookshop. Without access to much unpublished fiction, it's difficult for a writer to appreciate the all-important (and perhaps subtle) differences between a standard rejection and a request for a full.

I think a bit of mutual understanding between agents and not-yet-published writers would be a good thing. Therefore, I have a bright idea. (Yes, just the one.) Agents and publishers could offer exciting Red Letter Days-style activities, like so -

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The Slush-Pile Experience!
The perfect gift for the writer in your life.

Whether you've always fancied yourself as a top London agent, or whether you want to know once and for all how much worse a writer you are than the rest of the world, here's the chance to fulfil your dreams!
Your special day will start with five cups of strong black coffee and a couple of paracetamol (included) before your instructor shows you to your desk for the experience of a lifetime! Are you up for the challenge of trying to break into gaffer-taped Jiffy-bags? Can you last more than two paragraphs of a 500-page political rant in free verse? It's a race against time to read and reject 200 manuscripts by the end of the day! You'll learn all the terminology (including “What a load of crap,” “Oh God, please not the first chapter of Pride & Prejudice under a different title again,” and “This is brilliant, but I just don't love it enough.”) After your exhilarating fourteen-hour shift, you'll be treated to a witty email from a bitter author telling you why he is rejecting you.
A fun and original way to re-discover your sense of adventure!

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Agents would get their slush-piles dealt with and writers would get first-hand knowledge of what really makes a submission stand out from the rest. The submitting writers would have their work read within a year by someone who didn't have thousands of phonecalls to answer and bestselling authors to look after. Everyone wins!

www.carolinerance.co.uk

Thank you to Ali Farid on Stock Exchange for the "Rejected" photo.