Little Books and Big Ambitions

I recently read an interesting post from Leigh Russell, author of the Geraldine Steel series, in which she reminds readers of the value of having a publisher. Having recently started work on a set of humour ebooks, along the lines of The Little Book of Cynics, I found myself smiling at her post.

She's right, of course, that having a publisher (and an agent, come to that) enables a writer to concentrate on what they do best (and enjoy the most!): writing. I'm an advocate of self-publishing, initially by necessity and now by choice. I submitted my fantasy, Covenant, to more agents and publishers than I could shake a manuscript at. There were one or two nibbles, but in the end none of them came to fruition. 

Books are written to be read, so what's a writer to do? I decided that publishing Covenant myself would provide several benefits:

1. It would give me a final version of the book, after a final, heroic edit. (A lovely idea, but for the 33 typos subsequently discovered and now fixed.)
2. It would put the book out there for public scrutiny, allowing for the prospect of feedback and reader engagement.
3. It would draw a line under the book and enable me, the writer, to breathe out a sigh of satisfaction and then go and start writing something else. (Or, in my case, spend time working on the other three novels.)
4. It would pave the way for book sales and all the good stuff we associate with being a successful writer. To date, I've had a magazine review Covenant and I've made some money.

However, as an indie / self publisher, you not only wear many hats, you're also responsible for not dropping any of them. You get 100% of the choice and 100% of the responsibility for making it all happen.

But we're skirting around one of the issues here; we're avoiding the literary elephant in the room. No, not this one - the other one: literary achievement. The argument runs that becoming a selfie will most likely end in financial disappointment, whereas conventional publishing... Well, that's the thing about publishing - there are no guarantees. Delving into any bargain bucket will show you that.

I think that writers need to have a mature conversation with themselves and with one another. We're not all going to the prom, as I'm fond of saying. In the cold light of day my fantasy, Covenant, will never trouble the bestseller list, regardless of how it's published. That doesn't mean it's without literary merit (however that's defined), or that it won't show a healthy profit over its lifespan. 

Not every book gets on the podium. There are so many factors at work  including context, timing, luck, connections and the actual style of writing. As a writer / author, you can only produce your best work and then put your work out there. (And then promote your book mercilessly!)

I decided to produce four little books because I'd written material that really didn't fit anywhere else. I did approach some humour publishers, but nothing materialised, apart from an honest and interesting conversation about the economics of impulse purchase / gift titles. Mindful of that discussion, I've opted for ebooks. It's an easier, lower cost route to market and, given the proliferation of devices and platforms, coupled with the unit price, it makes more sense.

My forthcoming quartet of ebooks comprises:
Man Up! The wisdom of ignorance. The male mind laid bare.
Wise Up! Modern wisdom for those with a short attention span.
Newsclash. Real news stories + boredom = satire.
The Little Read Book of Project Management. An alternative glossary of terms.

I'll announce the birth of my other little darlings on my personal blog, over at www.alongthewritelines.blogspot.co.uk

Guest Post: Justin Carroll talks about the novella

 Novellas - Too Long, Too Short, or Just Right?

When I was pimping my novella, Everything’s Cool, I received similar responses from a number of agents, who stated that, “there’s no market for novellas.” Novellas aren’t vogue; their odd length means that, like the three bears’, these offerings of literary porridge just aren’t hot enough, or cool enough.

 

There’s no doubt that the novella has an interesting relationship with the literary world. Agents shy away from those works of 20,000-40,000ish words, decrying them as unpublishable. Publishers, meanwhile, have a strange love/hate affair with them – a decent profit per unit, but a marketing quandary: How to market something without using the stigmatized word, “novella”. 

Then there are those writers who scoff at the novella, considering it a rambling short story or a novel that ran out of steam, both being the product of a sub-par creative force.  

But, some writers don’t take the above view. Ian McEwan, author of the Booker shortlisted novella, On Chesil Beach, recently wrote that the novella is “the perfect form of prose fiction”. Before him, other writers had embraced the novella – in recent years, Kurt Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury to name but two. Or, further back, we see Henry James, Kafka, Steinbeck, or the school perennial, Joseph Conrad and The Heart of Darkness. 

For these writers, among numerous others, the novella isn’t a failed novel or the product of an inability to edit. In a novella, words cannot run riot; much like a short story, every word is precious, every scene needs to be carefully considered with an economy of language and description. There’s an urgency, a tension to novellas that I personally rarely find in a novel, unless it is barely longer than a novella itself – a shining example being Iain Banks’s The Wasp Factory.

And for readers? I’ve met very few who would cry out in joy at the prospect of a novella any more than they would clap excitedly at the prospect of a two-thousand page saga.

 

Justin Carroll

But, what really matters is not the length or identifier, it’s the story.  Story drives and guides the novella like no other medium. There’s no time for rambling or self-indulgence. It’s not a literary morsel, a few thousand words to whet the appetite but leave the reader wanting. It’s a tight story, driven by carefully created characters and plots, that allows just enough space for them to breathe and develop in a way that a short story often cannot. There’s something about the novella, about the tightness and self-contained nature of it that, like a good short story, ends precisely when it means to. By necessity the reader has to dive in and lose him- or herself. And, to have one’s readers lose themselves in one’s world is what every writer aspires to, surely?  

I’m not saying that the novella is ‘the perfect form’, and I’m certainly not saying that I will only write novellas. However, I do strongly believe that the novella is as valid a choice for storytelling as any other. Arguably, it is a better way to tell a story than a rambling epic or an unsatisfying short story.  And, if your story reaches its natural conclusion at a mere 30,000 words or so (42,000 in my case), don’t try and fill it out unnecessarily. Revel in the fact that you have crafted a story that is the length it needs to be. Be proud that you have joined the novella alumni, those writers who have wrestled with a taxing medium and crafted a story that is enjoyable and rewarding to read.

Then, let the readers decide: Unpublishable, unmarketable, bastard offspring of the novel and the short story? Or a work of fiction that, like that third bowl of porridge, is just right. 

 

You can buy Everything's Cool here. Follow Justin via his website or on Twitter (@writerjustinc)

The self-published

Why should we celebrate the self-published? What have they really done? Submitted a flawed, error ridden manuscript for a company to print out and bind together? Perhaps they've put years of work into the novel but haven't been able to secure a publisher or agent, so they've headed down the self-pub route. Should we talk about them in the same sentence as Marcel Proust or Fyodor Dostoyevsky?

Self-publishing really only used to be for those who wanted to write about themselves, bind memories into book form, or create a collection of short stories for a niche market or for their children to enjoy, but now, or so it seems, everyone's at it. It's really bucking the trend as the New York Times recently highlighted. The newspaper recently reported that four self-published authors had taken up seven slots on the New York Times e-book bestseller list. Furthermore, the article suggests that this trend will continue in the years to come. The authors include Colleen Hoover - Slammed and Point of Retreat, R.L. Mathewson with Playing For Keeps, Lyla Sinclair with Training Tessa and Bella Andre with If You Were Mine, Can't Help Falling In Love and I Only Have Eyes For You.

Are they any good?

Take our wannabee author, Arthur Reid for example - his book has been rejected by every agent and publisher this side of Texas, so he wants to proclaim to the world that he is 'an author.' So he self-publishes. He contacts the local newspaper, The Bugle, and he tells them he's a published author. The editor, not knowing the difference between mainstream and self-publishing, runs the story. Arthur enjoys a few Amazon sales and word gets around that 'Fifty Shapes of Stetson Hats' is actually really, really good. The cowboys all rush out and buy it.

Then there's 18-year-old Ann Books who secured a six figure sum via Riches and Tops Literary Agency, and ended up in all the papers. 'Bright young literary thing,' was the headline, except the hype died a slow death and she made a handful of sales. She put her tail in her pocket and became a recluse, penning Book Two. But...but...but...she has an agent and has been published by the big men.

Who's the author here? Arthur or Ann? Or both?

Are readers more intent in seeking out a good story, regardless of where it has been published? Do they gloss over the mistakes - there, they're, their etc - and shout about how wonderful the boy meets girl story is? Now that Arthur has self-published, becoming an overnight sensation, will he change his name, nationality and undergo plastic surgery to remove his moustache and re-invent himself as an author proper?

So many questions.

Discuss.

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

This is a job for...Mickey Rooney*

There's light at the end of the tunnel.

So there I was with a stack of rejection letters (well, there would have been if I hadn't needed some kindling) and a manuscript that had just made it back from an editor.

I re-read his email - the one that proposed publishing my fantasy novel (yay!), but only if I provided £5000 (not so yay). I checked the biscuit tin and, apart from a few bourbon crumbs, there was nothing there. Unless you include the reflection of an unpublished novelist staring back at me.

The novel has a chequered history, which you can read about some other time here should you feel inclined. We've been through a lot together - 10,000 words in the last edit, for one thing. The reader feedback has been good and, bar the odd rough edge, I think it would work as a niche publication.

So, what to do?

Self-publish, of course, as a friend of mine has been saying for months! I've weighed up the pros and cons, which are as follows:

Pros
1. The book is already written.
2. I would have needed to complete a full edit anyway.
3. No one understands a book better than the author.
4. Affordable start-up costs through Lightning Source. (Other options are Feed-A-Read and Lulu, to name but two.)
5. I already have a block of ISBNs, having self-pubbed an ebook of comedy sketch scripts.
6. I had a marketing plan of sorts already put together.
7. I have realistic expectations of Covenant's potential as a niche fantasy novel.
8. Small number of sales to recoup my investment.
9. I get to see Covenant in paperback. Finally.

Cons
1. The edit has to be really good because there'll be no one else to act as a quality gate.
2. All promotional activities will be down to me (as opposed to 75%!).
3. Time spent on this is time spent away from writing new material / books / job applications.
4. No guarantee of success.
5. I need to sort out all aspects, including the cover design.

I aim to complete the edit by the end of June and then a final read through and the formatting by the end of July. I've decided - for this novel anyway - that it's time it was in print and available to readers.

I'll post an update in July or August. Meantime, what's your view of self-pubbed paperbacks, both as readers and writers?


* Before my time too, but I pick up lots of stray information.

Vive La Revolution

On a writing site the other day, I saw a thread entitled, 'The Pubishing Industry is dead.'

Out of sheer nosiness, I clicked on and found a thinly veiled advertisement by a self publishing company. Nothing new there, but what was interesting were the responses, which broadly said, 'yeah' and 'right on brother'.

It reminded me of the SWP meetings I attended in my youth, where middles class students who had never worked a day in their lives would give their heart felt support for the workers of Nicaragua. From the safety of the pub, natch. Actually, as the daughter of a real life miner I had kudos beyond measure, which I profited from whenever possible, in the shape of pints of lager.

But back to self publishing...

I have to say my feelings on the topic are much like my feelings on vegetarianism and jogging. It's fine for other people, but personally I wouldn't do it.

It isn't the latent snobbery of the traditionally published that makes me say this. No. Frankly it's fear. Cold, hard, indesputable fear.

I have had three books out there on the shelves of WH Smiths. I have a contract for three more. Yet, I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I have never ever been able to read any of my own work and nod in satisfaction. Without exception, I am entirely unable to assess any of my projects objectively. In truth, I always think they are shit.

Before I even type the first word, I send a synopsis to my agent. If he says he likes my idea, I go ahead, though I remain convinced I won't pull it off.

Once the book's finished, I remain utterly unconvinced and sub it to my editor expecting a polite email turning it down.

How then, could I conceive of publishing my work without both my agent and editor telling me it's good enough? I tip my hat to those that have the confidence, but this writer is too much of a yellow belly.

Speaking of editors, how could I conceive of publsihing anything without the invaluable input of the editorial team? I know it's a fashionable myth that these days they do nothing to books. But it is just that. A myth. Every writer I know has a period where their book swings back and forth, wending through structural edits, line edits, copy edits. All my books have benefited immeasurably from the proccess. Look in any acknowledgement at the back of a book and you'll find the author giving humble thanks to their editing team. It's genuine gratitude, I think. If we were only grateful for them having bought our work, we'd more likely throw a high five to Bob In Marketing and Sales.

And that's another hurdle, for me at least: sales. I could no more walk into a book shop and ask them to stock my latest, than I could drink six liters of water a day ( or whatever the water experts say is 'a good thing'). How could I compete with that nice Bob In Marketing and Sales who knows all the buyers and can offer a discount on a BOGOF? The very thought makes me shudder.

I am neither salesman, nor publicist, nor PR guru.

I am just someone who makes stuff up and writes it down.

So I think I'll stick with traditional publishing. I suspect that, like Mark Twain, rumours of its demise have been greatly exagerated, and it will blunder along for some time yet.

No doubt I'm wrong, and when the revolution arrives, I shall be left behind in a pool of real ink...