REVELATIONS AND REVELRY

When people think of becoming an author and publishing a novel, I think it’s fair to say that even now it’s considered as something you can apply to do and you may or may not be accepted. For the vast majority, it is unfortunately the latter. The well-trodden, traditional route to becoming a published author is to write a book, seek and find a literary agent and for them to secure a publisher on your behalf. The number of people who achieve this, versus the number of people who try and don’t, is tiny. There are literally millions of aspiring writers worldwide, look at the current phenomenon that is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), the slightly kamikaze idea being to write a 50,000 word novel in a month, quantity, not quality, being important. I think it’s a great idea and gives those people who have ‘always meant to write a book’ a kick in the right direction towards doing so. I am passionately committed to encouraging writing of every description. Even if it never leaves the author’s desk it can still be a wholly enjoyable and often therapeutic thing to do. There are people out there with fascinating stories to tell. Sadly, it has become clear that the writing industry is viewing NaNoWriMo extremely sceptically, because a percentage of these currently-being-written manuscripts will inevitably land on the desk of some agent or editor who already has their hands full. Anyway, I digress. Most of these writers that I’m talking about, for one reason and another, will never become published. Breaking into this tightly protected industry is an incredibly hard thing to do. We’ve all heard the infamous stories of how often Stephen King and JK Rowling were turned down which people repeat ad infinitum in an effort to be encouraging to aspiring writers, but for me it has always had the opposite effect. Instead of reassurance, it just demonstrates that actually, the publishing industry is completely prejudiced against the unknown, no matter how good that unknown work is. And frankly, one view is why shouldn’t they be? Agents and publishers are ultimately looking to make money out of a book, not give a wannabe writer their chance of a lifetime. For an agent to accept a manuscript they have to be 100% behind the project, and believe that it can be a marketable, profitable book which will sell well. Added to which there are hundreds of fully-established novelists in every genre who regularly turn out work which sells extremely well, thanks in part to their recognisable name. Therefore, it is easy to see why agents and publishers may not be fully enthusiastic about welcoming new writers into the fold. However, as I know from experience, there are those who are more open-minded than others and who have one eye more or less continually open for new projects and new authors. Sense dictates that there WILL be undiscovered talent, though these days the bar is set extremely high. But I shall not be side-tracked, this is not a piece on how to become published, instead I’m looking at the other option, the option that is currently a sneered-at phrase among the publishing fraternity: SELF-PUBLISHING.

The self-publishing industry has seen a real explosion over the last few years. More people have become aware that it exists, websites like www.lulu.com have helped promote it as a concept, and like any new venture, the more people that go forth into it, the more people want to follow them. The reason for this is all those hundreds of writers (and I’m talking purely UK-based here) who are not given the chance through traditional publishing, yet yearn to see their work in print. And furthermore bound into a recognisable format. And why not? Should they forget their aspirations and resign themselves to be failed novelists just because the person at the top of the writing chain hasn’t liked their style or content? I don’t see any reason why. If a person has invested the amount of time and energy it takes to write a book, then that potentially deserves some outlet.

What becomes vitally important here is to be realistic, and recognise that very few people will become household names because of their writing, and still yet fewer if they self-published. But if the aim is simply to write a book and have it published through some form or other, for it to be available as an actual book in other words, then turning to self-publishing becomes a viable option. The publishing industry has experienced something of a backlash from irritated writers due to its closed -ranks policy; and this can be seen in a number of ways. For example, the growth of websites such as www.youwriteon.com and www.authonomy.com. The latter was the brainchild of HarperCollins publishers, designed to discover new writing talent. Once a month they review the most popular submissions, with a view to publishing them. It’s a unique site and a relatively new idea, but furthermore it creates a holding bay for aspiring writers who have a place to focus their creative energies and have the knowledge that their work has a purpose. After all, the most successful novels will be placed into the direct attention of an editor at HarperCollins. It’s massively popular, but, ultimately, just another way of breaking into the same industry, it’s not a new way of becoming a successful author.

Self-publishing is a different method. This is where the author bears all of the costs associated with publishing purely to get their book printed and bound. There are a few companies who offer this service, there is no selection criteria applied, but it does cost thousands of pounds. So why this prejudice against it? That’s an easy question to answer: no selection criteria means that absolutely anything can be printed and published. No-one in a position of authority has actually made the decision that a book is worthy of publication. However ultimately, this doesn’t really matter because if it’s no good then the market will judge it as such and it won’t sell no matter how hard the author tries. It often comes down to an issue of vanity.

And speaking of the author trying, I met a very interesting chap last week in Waterstones. He was called Alan Gilliland and he’d written and illustrated a children’s book called “The Amazing Adventures of Curd the Lion in the Land at the Back of Beyond”. He had previously worked for 18 years for a national newspaper in their graphics department. Through conversation it became clear that he had marketed his book very effectively, selling £90,000 worth. In addition he’d had interest from the USA in turning it into a feature film. No small amount of success in other words. Well, I thought, of course that’s possible with a big publishing house and consequent marketing department behind you, plus he probably has hundreds of contacts from his media days which would be handy for review purposes; it’s no surprise really. After a brief conversation about the various merits of book-signing and gaining some valuable advice, I asked which publishers he was with. His response knocked me sideways, “No-one,” he said. “I’m with myself. Completely self-published.” I was so amazed that I couldn’t speak for a second (very unusual), but it was literally the last thing that I expected him to say. He had a well-rehearsed patter which he then gave me, telling me how beneficial it was to be in control of the whole operation, that it would never go out of print unless he chose, the books would never be pulped unless he chose – and perhaps most pertinently – the amount of money that he earns per book sold is far in excess of what most authors earn. All undoubtedly true. And what is more, he’d had no help in terms of reviews, simply because he was self-published. Even after working for 18 years in the media industry, he had not been given a helping hand of any sort. It doesn’t appear to have affected his success, I was extremely impressed and it opened up a side of self-publishing that I hadn’t realised existed. However, whilst his story is undoubtedly true and inspirational in part, I do wonder what difference it would have made to him to have had the support of a publishing house.  What this story does prove is that the success of a product, and in this case the book, depends on the marketing. Being with a mainstream publisher gives the author all the advice and expertise that they could wish for. It’s on tap. For a self-published author, they have no such access to free advice and support, which makes it an expensive business to achieve even a small amount of success. Not forgetting the substantial upfront costs to manufacture such an enormous number of books.

The conclusion that I’m going to draw is that although it’s a sad fact, it is probably still true that to achieve even a moderate amount of success, respect and recognition as a writer, you do need to tread the traditional route. Being a self-published author in the eyes of the publishing industry is worse than being an unpublished author. I suggest that the reason for this is that those people high up in the business want to make the decision that a book is worthy of publication; unless they or someone of their set standards has ratified it as such, then it does not merit a glance, much less any respect, regardless of the fact that it may actually be quite a good book. They appear to loathe the confidence/arrogance of the person who chooses to go ahead anyway. There are, and always will be, exceptions to this, but I don’t think the publishing world is ready to welcome self-published tomes with open arms just yet.

Interesting sites:

www.ravensquill.com

www.greenbay.co.uk/advice.html

www.selfpublishingmagazine.co.uk

www.writersworld.co.uk

I woke up this morning and wondered what I would write about today. I’ve had a nice, but not fantastically interesting weekend. Nothing much has happened on the writing front, I’m working hard on a book proposal for Manuscript Number 2 which is consuming much of my thoughts but I have yet to see any productive output as a result. It’s all being corralled in my mind though, so it’s fine. I just need to extract it careful piece by careful piece. It may surprise some of you to know that even with one published book under your belt you still need to pitch your next manuscript to the publisher. They need to be convinced that it’s a saleable work; clearly I know this, it’s just a case of imparting the information in the strongest form possible. But this didn’t leave me with much scope for today’s blog.

So luckily for me, it was a beautiful day here in Hampshire. Equally luckily, we had nothing planned. We got up staggeringly late, ate a staggeringly unhealthy lunch and the sum of all these things combined to make it a good idea to go for a lengthy walk this afternoon. We decided to walk through our local village to the ruins of an old Abbey (where my author photo was taken) and perhaps stop for a quiet drink on the way back. It all went to plan until we reached the outskirts of the village, where there were police cars lined up and cones to prevent people parking. We live in a nice area by the way; you don’t normally find it frequented by police, so I was slightly surprised. As we walked further down into the village we saw flags hung outside every house along the road. Nice, but again, unusual. Then we saw something not only unusual but distinctly alarming. A person had made a papier-mâché – um – thing – and placed it outside their house. It looked like a dragon but the sheet hung above it declared it to be something from “NARNIA”. This dragon was accompanied by creepy music and bizarrely, printed out photos of Narnia characters with guinea-pig faces superimposed over the top.

“Is that….?” said my husband, in tones of someone who has drunk too much the night before and has fears in case they are hallucinating.

“Yes.” I replied. “I truly think it is. A person has put their pet guinea pigs faces onto those of Narnia characters.”

We don’t live in the sort of place where this is normal behaviour.

The next house we came to had a papier-mâché cake outside it, next to which was a sign saying “EAT ME” amongst other decorations.

“Ah. Alice in Wonderland,” said my husband knowledgeably. He was very quick to get into the swing of this, you see. He was being very casual and laid back about the whole thing, as if it were completely normal to try and guess which fairy-tale the house was pretending to be.

I looked at him, “Well, yes,” I said. “Clearly.  But why?” My question was swiftly answered when we came to the main thoroughfare which was populated by various stalls, a hog-roast, people selling enormous amounts of balloons, bubble mixtures and pieces of wool on sticks (yes, really). All became clear, it was the village carnival. Madness reigned. Literally.  Amongst which was a group of people from whom a huge noise emanated. Sort of aeroplane-like.

“I can’t see,” I said to my husband. “What is it?”

“Er, well,” he said peering over the crowd. “It appears to be a woman on a mobility scooter turned into an aeroplane.” One of the least safe things I’ve ever heard, if you ask me. Eventually it emerged that it was a Battle of Britain display. Of course it was. They couldn’t have depicted it better.

Enjoyable though this lunacy was, we decided nonetheless to still head for the Abbey and then spent a good twenty minutes trying to find our way out of the village. I was specific about the road I wanted to use (most direct route to the pub) but less specific about where it actually was. Which didn’t make me very popular. But no matter, because it did give us the opportunity to pass a river where a kind gentleman with a 4 litre bottle of cider and long-unwashed hair invited me to “…come and sit ‘ere wiv me darlin’,” – an invitation which social etiquette dictated I declined because I was with my husband and daughter. Obviously in any other situation it would have been lovely. Suffice to say, once we’d made it to the pub we didn’t go any further. We sat by a lovely open fire, drank some lovely wine and laughed a little about our eventful walk. Oh little did we know what was coming up……

What was coming up was the parade. We happened upon this on our way back (for which I got the blame for insisting we walk back through the village rather than along the fume-filled A27. Can’t think why I insisted that.) Anyway, precisely as we arrived at the road we needed to cross, the parade of floats along it began. Of course it did. But at least it provided us with some of the best spectacles of the day. If not my life. I’m not clear how you qualify to have a float; there were all sorts being towed by all manner of odd vehicles. Including unsuitably-attired women, and unbelievably men, singing and pretending to be Cheryl Cole. The fact that their ages meant each one of them could easily have been her grandparent didn’t seem to have put them off, which is a lovely enthusiastic attitude. There was also a float of girls dressed in tight sailor outfits and dancing to a Vengaboys track for some obscure reason. It was a cold day but it didn’t matter because they were well-insulated. And shortly after that was a group of sweet little children dressed as elves on a Christmas float, accompanied by Father Christmas himself and some adult elves, which I thought was genuinely nice. Until I spotted the cans of lager the adult elves were drinking as they marched in a parade with small children. Father Christmas was abstaining at least. The best bit however was the band of men marching in uniform. Not sure which uniform (it was navy blue with white hats) but it was very smart and EXTREMELY sexy. I nudged my husband, “Can you dress up in a uniform like that please?” I asked. “No,” he said flatly. “I am not dressing up in a uniform and marching through the village.” It wasn’t quite what I had in mind but I let it go.

And that was about it. The excitement tailed off after that. The rest of my evening will be about ironing and watching Downton Abbey, of which my husband is suspiciously fond. I thought he was enjoying the plotline but it turns out that he has fallen mildly in love with Lady Mary. You know the one, she of the tightly-corseted waist in hunting outfits with an oft-veiled face and long, dark hair. Either that or in a plunging evening dress with heaving bosoms. I can’t think what the appeal is. I may offer a deal though – I’ll be Lady Mary if he wears a uniform.

And perhaps next year we can have our own float.

“Chick lit is genre fiction within women’s fiction which addresses issues of modern women often humorously and lightheartedly.^[1] The genre sells well, with chick lit titles topping bestseller lists and the creation of imprints devoted entirely to chick lit.^{[citation needed]} Although sometimes it includes romantic elements, women’s fiction (including chick lit) is generally not considered a direct subcategory of the romance novel genre, because in chick lit the heroine’s relationship with her family or friends may be just as important as her romantic relationships.^[2]” – www.wikipedia.co.uk

Do you write chick-lit or do you not write chick-lit? That is the question. Right up until Things He Never Knew was published, I didn’t really give the actual genre it fell into much thought, besides being happy to say that it fits comfortably into the commercial women’s fiction bracket. It was only after it was released and I started publicising it heavily and looking for reviews and things like that that the words ‘chick’ and ‘lit’ started featuring more and more often. The first time it happened was in a bookshop where I was discussing a possible book-signing and the manager asked rather guiltily if the book was “chick-lit” and then apologised profusely in case I considered that a slur. I was rather taken aback, because at that stage I did not perceive chick-lit as a bad thing. After all, a book is what it is and falls into the category that suits it best. However, this negative attitude was one that I came across again and again. Sentences often began with “I’m not saying it’s chick-lit or anything, but….” And my bemused brain would immediately shriek “But it IS!” – not audibly, thank goodness. I just couldn’t understand it, the term is not an insult as far as I’m concerned and I certainly didn’t want to attach literary pretensions to Things He Never Knew – it’s a good book, but it’s not literature (writing that word always makes me think about Educating Rita where Michael Caine enunciates the word so carefully in that scene – “…li-tar-rit-ture…”)

Anyway, after about a month of the same, recurrent situation happening, I did some in-depth research into a genre that I already thought that I knew pretty well. After all, Carmen Reid, Adele Parks, Jane Beaton and Jill Mansell are some of my favourite authors. Not to mention Jilly Cooper, Jenny Colgan and Catherine Alliott. And indeed I did know it well. The section of it that I chose to read. When I explored the available titles within the chick-lit range more fully, I discovered that the ‘chick-lit’ term refers to nothing more than a scale, and there are wild extremes at either end of that scale. In my opinion there is a trashy end, and there is a more refined end. And what’s more I think there is a distinct over-lap at that end between chick-lit and literary fiction, which is a whole other sphere.

Chick-lit is commercial women’s fiction, i.e. novels pitched at primarily younger women (the ‘chick’ bit) and usually containing a romantic element to the story. However as the Wikipedia definition at the top shows, there’s not always a romantic element; with which I wholly agree. Chick-lit as a genre was born in the 90s and much like a real child has continued to grow ever since, now encompassing many, many different types of books. Which is where the trouble comes in, because chick-lit has different associations for different people. The lady I talked about in my last blog, for example, would have refused to buy anything carrying that label, yet when she read the synopsis of my book, she was intrigued enough to buy it. Personally, I think that shows prejudice towards the genre, but why is she prejudiced? I imagine it’s because of some of the rubbish that can be found on the bookshelves of Waterstones these days. By rubbish I mean the fiction books written by people who are not authors, and furthermore haven’t actually written the book themselves; it’s been visited by the hand of a ghostwriter. That’s the bottom end of the scale in my opinion. As we move further up there’s a whole host of different titles jostling for position which in all probability can muddle along together. And then at the top of the scale, the boundaries between chick-lit and literary fiction (hereafter referred to as lit-fic to save my nails which are suffering as I type) become blurred. Like my vision after the amount of wine I drank the other night.

When I googled the term ‘literary fiction’ it brought up a list of books which have been defined as just that and whilst most weren’t familiar to me, one did leap out. It was a book called The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. I read this a while ago, a year or more, and yet I recall it distinctly as one of the best books I have ever read. At the time I declared it to be my favourite book, which as any avid reader will know is a ridiculous concept. But I was so gripped, intrigued and impressed with the book (encompassing therefore the writing and the plot) that it was how I felt. I would thoroughly recommend it even now. So why is that book defined as literary fiction and not chick-lit? It’s fair to say that the appeal of that specific title does not lie in superficial storylines, i.e. girl meets boy, girl likes boy, boy does not like girl – oh oops, yes actually he does like girl but by that time girl is seeing someone entirely unsuitable – or similar. The Thirteenth Tale demanded deeper thinking and presented more challenging ideas. The point of the story appeared to be not just entertainment but to inspire deeper thought and requiring a degree of cerebral analysis. Using those criteria I would also place Kate Mosse and Kate Atkinson into the lit-fic category. Labyrinth by Kate Mosse is a stunning, intellectual and passionately researched book. It’s not an easy read, it does require concentration, but is no less enjoyable for doing so. Perhaps therefore that is one of the elements of lit-fic.

At this point the old adage of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ must be mentioned. Because whilst I don’t agree with doing that, you do actually need to read a book to judge it, it’s definitely true that a person can be lured or otherwise by the colour, composition and other details of a book cover. For example, chick-lit books usually have covers depicting variously women, shoes, handbags or all of the above. The cover of Sophie Kinsella’s “Twenties Girl” is one of my recent favourites. They are bright, cheerful and frivolous, giving an idea of the contents. My mother refuses to buy a book with a pink cover (“I Don’t Know How She Does It” by Allison Pearson being an exception) and my mother does not read chick-lit. She did however read Things He Never Knew so does that therefore mean that it is not chick-lit? Absolutely not. I would place my book directly into the chick-lit category (sorry lady who bought it at the signing) but I would also place it further up towards the lit-fic end of the scale. I don’t think the book is a superficial tale, I think it does require some thought, some exploration of morals and emotions, but at the same time it is not iconoclastic in any sense, nor a particularly demanding read. So maybe it is chick-lit for the more intellectually-inclined chicks?

There’s so much more to say on the subject, yet I think the main points have been covered. And just to be clear – I am not being derogatory towards any type of book. There are many and varied titles available on the market and each with their own degree of merit. Choosing a book is a necessarily subjective thing and I would hesitate to say that one book is ‘better’ than another. ‘Different’ is about the best and most general description that can be applied.

Here endeth the lesson 🙂

I hope everyone has a bright, cheerful and frivolous weekend!