One of the things that’s surprised me is just how successful Kindle and other e-readers have been. I figured mobile phones made much more sense as the home of electronic reading. I still do. During one such conversation a month or so back on Authors Electric, I happened to mention mobile phone novels, and a couple of people suggested I write a piece about them. As it happens, the time is perfect for me to do so now.
Mobile phone novels (keita shousetsu in Japanese, where they are incredibly popular) are very different from regular novels that you might read on your smartphone with a Kindle app. They’re a completely different genre. I first became aware of them in early 2009 when I was just starting to write The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes as a serial novel on Facebook. The novel is about internet forums, YouTube, modern art, Japanese culture, and I wanted a format that would go with the subject matter. A serial online novel was perfect. And it lent itself to short chapters with not much description and regular cliffhangers. The kind of thing you’d read like a series of blog posts.
It was inevitable that I’d come across the Japanese cultural phenomenon the mobile phone novel. I did so through http://www.textnovel.com a site where you upload novels chapter by chapter and readers subscribe to new chapters by e-mail or text. Many of the novels are “regular” novels, but I was inexorably drawn to the proper hardcore mobile phone novels.
Mobile phone novels aren’t just read on phones, they started off being written on them and uploaded one text at a time. Because there’s a limit on phone text length (or there was in the mid 2000s when the phenomenon took off), chapters are very short – often under 100 words. And often written in text speak.
It’s a genuinely new form, written in a new way. And I know next to no English authors writing them (OK, I know of none, but I’m sure there must be many, though one feature of the mobile phone novel that befits its milieu is the anonymity of authors). So now I’m writing one. It’s called What There Is Instead Of Rainbows (you can subscribe by e-mail or text here ). And each chapter will be a maximum 200 words (probably around 100 chapters, though it’s a story that, if I were to write it as a novel, would be around 70,000 words).
Now this might sound a bit faddy and low culture (though I’m not sure why that would matter), but I must say I’ve never had so much time writing a book, and it’s completely cured a massive case of block with a book I was really looking forward to writing.
And I haven’t learned so much in a long time. I’m not yet writing text speak though I intend to rewrite The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes in the full format after I finish Rainbows. But the 200 word chapters are both liberating and instructive. Gone in one swoop are those awkward linking passages, those extraneous words you put in “because you ought to.” And that thing about making every scene contribute something? OH yes!
You’d think that voice, originality, beauty would suffer. They don’t. It’s no surprise that the format originated in Japan, of course, where there is an aesthetic of sparse elegance and heart-tugging minimalism. And it’s an aesthetic I love, which is one reason I’m so drawn to it. But the seeming restrictions remind me of another of my heroes, Jack White (of White Stripes, Raconteurs, and Dead Weather fame). The White Stripes (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J2QdDbelmY&ob=av2e and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE3-q-aoFZI) is a two piece band – one guitar, one drum kit. And all their merchandise and branding is restricted to white, red, and black. Self-imposed restrictions Jack decided upon that he finds have enabled his creativity to flourish as he works within and pushes at those limits.
It’s the same with voice in a text novel. Chapter 1 of What The Is Instead of Rainbows is below. I can’t remember the last time I wrote something more me.
The world and I have had very little to do with each other in my 19 years, and if I died now I doubt it would remember me. I certainly wouldn’t remember it. That’s what I was thinking as I sat at Simon’s table drinking Simon’s beer.
It wasn’t a maudlin thought, and it certainly wasn’t going to spur me to suicide. It was just an observation.
Have you ever had that thought? Of course you have, only straightaway you realise that old film was right. You know, the one where the black and white guy throws himself off a black and white bridge and an angel shows him how different the world would have turned out if he’d never been born. Different and shittier.
So anyway straight after the self-pity you think of all the tiny ways your life’s touched all these other lives and how the traces are everywhere.
Which is where I was different from you. Because I didn’t feel any self-pity, and my life hadn’t left any traces. And I was fairly sure of that because Alice’s letter was on the table and I’d read it five times since I found it in Simon’s drawer.
And chapter 2 is just 14 words. A suicide note:
Sorry.
Please. Find a way of telling Steph because I can’t.
Sorry. Goodbye.
Alice
No context, no introduction. Every word counting. Forcing myself to get rid of those adornments made me realize how little I ever needed them.
Now, all I need is to find a way of making my blog posts shorter!
Wednesday, 28 September 2011
Saturday, 24 September 2011
The Most Powerful People in Publishing
(The first of a few articles I'm cross-posting here and on the eight cuts blog as I start to migrate opinion pieces from here to there - I hope you'll come and join me over there)
Yesterday The Guardian published its list of the 100 most powerful people in books. The list was, as lists are, problematic in several ways. But it will do its job in stimulating conversation. I want to have two such conversations here.
First, the list’s remit is confusing. Rather, the way it has been both acted upon and spun is a little slippery. At most points, The guardian tells us this is a list of the most influential (on reading habits) people in the book business. Fine. Nice and narrow and easy to follow. But at another point, the header copy states these are “the people exercising the greatest influence over theUK's reading habits.” So which is it? The two are clearly not co-terminus. The days in which our “reading” was confined to books is over. Only, of course, it never existed. Would anyone actually argue that written news media do not form an important part of our reading habits?
The list clearly embraces non-storytelling – Jamie Oliver is at number 8. Yet newspapers have gone walkies – and the likes of Huffington Post, The Onion, Mashable, and Wired. Well, they’re as absent as Heat and Hello. And the way the list is handled is confusing. The CEO of Google is at number 3 – fine, but in his Google Reader capacity? Really? And if it’s because we use Google to find reading material, where are Facebook and Twitter? Google’s plans may well revolutionise how we read, but this is about what influences how we read now (Google are good at this – spinning a future idea and having us believe it’s more important than it is *now*). And going the other way, Stephen fry as tweeter in chief? This time last year maybe, but things have moved on.
But let’s allow that talk of “reading” is simply the kind of editorial hyperbole newspapers may allow, and look at this as a representation of the books industry. A little aside first. I'm intrigued how different this looks from how it would have done 2 years ago when Seth Godin, Cory Doctorow and Chris Anderson would have been no-brainer choices to sit alongside Malcolm Gladwell, and maybe Richard Nash too. There's a real feel that digital pioneering and experimentation has been subsumed within the existing structures. And seriously, not a single blogger on the list? If you'd said that 2 years ago no one would have believed you.
But what is most obvious are the demographics of this list, in gender, age, and ethnicity. I commented, in accord with others, “if these are not the 99 [in a piece of populism that further confused what the list is for, the Guardian placed ‘us the public’ at 100] most influential then this list is a stinging reproach to its compilers. If these *are* the 99 most influential then this list is a stinging reproach on a way wider scale”
One of the list’s compilers, Lisa Allardice, asked whom I would include instead. Given the narrow remit, I realised that’s actually a very difficult one. Which means that actually, the problem is a very big one. This is an industry that serves the wole of the public (ostensibly) yet is representative of just a tiny fraction. I actually can’t think of anything I would want to change from an article I wrote two years ago, which attracted a little attention (and some comments that completely missed the point – and this worries me most of all, when people just don’t understand the problem let alone start talking answers), called From Pitch to Perpetuation of Privilege. I think I’ve mellowed a little from the position of the last couple of paragraphs. Or maybe I’ve hardened, I don’t know. And I don't any more think the problems will kill the publishing industry - but in a way I think that's a bad thing. I think if the problems persist the publishing industry should die, but it probably won't. But I’ll reproduce it in full here. Most of the points directly address this list.
The pitch is the publishing Industry’s equivalent of the University Entrance exam, a selection system that perpetuates disenfranchisement, and serves to narrow the pool of available applicants to a point where the literary world becomes nothing more than the chattering classes talking among themselves. As was the case for hundreds of years in our universities, no one has really noticed this until now, because the people the literary industry marginalise had been marginalised from other forms of communication. Worst of all, they have gone unnoticed because they have until now had no expectation or belief that literature is their world.
But as wider and wider portions of society become cultural consumers, so their hunger for stories by and about people like them grows. Television, through initiatives like the BBC’s My Story, is beginning to take notice, but the publishing industry is standing back and does not, it is my firm belief, even realise there is a problem.
This is just another example of an introspection that will in the not too distant future kill the industry off if it doesn’t do something. The fact is the internet is making culture by and for previously unrepresented voices (be they inner city teenagers, battered sex workers, refugees fleeing from, and would-be refugees trapped in, the world’s war zones, or the women of the world’s shanty towns) widely available. And it’s great. Millions of voices are being heard that would never have been heard before – hope that “I am not alone” is being offered to millions more who never heard culture spoken in their own voice before.
It’s a WONDERFUL thing.
And it’s a phenomenon that is going to kill publishing dead. Or rather, pass it by on the road whilst publishing kills itself. Unless the industry does something serious and soon.
There are many thins the publishing industry needs to look at if its isolation from the consumers of the majority world is not to prove fatal, and I’ve got time to talk about them all eventually. But today I want to focus on the flagship ridiculosity: the query.
This is NOT a piece about higher education. I am merely referring, in passing, to an allegation levelled at the entrance exam (because it IS true of publishing, and it’s a good analogy). The problem with the university entrance exam, the argument goes, like the problem with the 11+, is that you do better if you’re coached for it. Which means you do better if your parents have the money AND the inclination to pay for a tutor. Which means two children of equal “ability” will finish with very different marks. Which means, finally, that if selection is based on entrance exam performance alone children whose parents lack either the money or the inclination to pay for coaching will be disadvantaged when it comes to getting a university place. And to add to all this, the privilege this perpetuates means that those from marginalised backgrounds expect not to get places, so they don’t apply, furthering the divide.
That may or may not be true of universities, but I’m sure you get the logic. And if you don’t get where I’m going, then frankly, well, I can’t say in polite company.
At the moment (and especially in the US where you don’t submit ANY script with your query), whether you get an agent depends on the quality of your query, and a huge part of that is the synopsis and, even more, the query letter. There are many wonderful websites and books devoted to polishing your pitch, and I have benefited immensely from them (and still do). But the system reinforces the status quo in a way that is both shocking, and seemingly invisible to the industry.
How are those who do not currently read their voice in books, written by people like them, and who have stories to tell, and a talent for telling them, get published? They must submit a query – for which they have no training – not just because they have no access to the great query sites and books out there (they may well HAVE the internet), but because they are not surrounded by people who know about sites like this. They may not even know what the “application” method is. It is a mystery. So what happens? They don’t send off their stories – “people like them don’t write books”. And the divide is reinforced.
So what? Well one, it’s just wrong that people be denied a voice for their story – and the notion that the vast swathes of people underrepresented in publishing are underrepresented because there is no talent is just nonsense. Systemic barriers are wrong. Full stop.
Two, these are groups of society for whom the internet allows, more and more, instant access to the consumption and production of culture by and about “people like them”. Whole groups are realising that culture is for them. But books aren’t – and THAT is the problem for the publishing industry. A vast swathe of ever more powerful cultural consumer is ignoring books because books are irrelevant to them.
So what does publishing need to do? Well, more than anything else, what it needs to do is what the “Russell Group” of universities (the UK’s “old elite”) sort of tries to pay lip-service to doing. It needs to stop talking to itself. It needs to stop telling would be writers about “show not tell”. It needs to stop focusing on how to write a query letter. Stop focusing, mind, not stop doing – there is, and always will be, a very large, commercially and culturally important group who like books done that way. What publishers need to wake up to is the fact that this is a segment of the population – a segment whose share of wealth, purchasing power, and access to culture, is shrinking.
What the publishing industry needs to do is not try and “help” people on the “outside” to get to the “inside”. People don’t need it. They have other ways of telling their stories. IT needs THEM. And that is something I have NEVER heard someone on the “inside” admit. So what SHOULD the industry do? It needs to find ways to convince the new generation of storytellers that books are a good medium through which to tell those stories. It needs to think like an “outsider”.
Sadly, I really don’t think it can. Which is why more and more of us who would, ten years ago, have been part of the “trying to get inside” crowd, are ignoring it, letting it slowly eat itself to death, whilst we get on and enjoy the exciting future.
Half of me thinks it’s a tragedy. The more so because, like an animal walking to the abattoir, or a patient slipping gently from a coma, I really think most of the industry doesn’t recognise it. But half of me thinks that systems which perpetuate divide and exclusion SHOULD perish, and wonders if we shouldn’t offer a helping hand.
[addendum - one good thing about self epublishing is that it will prove markets exist. Publishers are locked into a vicious evidentiary circle - they will publish what has been proven to sell, but that proof can only come from things that have bene published in the past. It's about carving up an existing market not finding a new one. This is something self-epublishing *can* do]
Yesterday The Guardian published its list of the 100 most powerful people in books. The list was, as lists are, problematic in several ways. But it will do its job in stimulating conversation. I want to have two such conversations here.
First, the list’s remit is confusing. Rather, the way it has been both acted upon and spun is a little slippery. At most points, The guardian tells us this is a list of the most influential (on reading habits) people in the book business. Fine. Nice and narrow and easy to follow. But at another point, the header copy states these are “the people exercising the greatest influence over theUK's reading habits.” So which is it? The two are clearly not co-terminus. The days in which our “reading” was confined to books is over. Only, of course, it never existed. Would anyone actually argue that written news media do not form an important part of our reading habits?
The list clearly embraces non-storytelling – Jamie Oliver is at number 8. Yet newspapers have gone walkies – and the likes of Huffington Post, The Onion, Mashable, and Wired. Well, they’re as absent as Heat and Hello. And the way the list is handled is confusing. The CEO of Google is at number 3 – fine, but in his Google Reader capacity? Really? And if it’s because we use Google to find reading material, where are Facebook and Twitter? Google’s plans may well revolutionise how we read, but this is about what influences how we read now (Google are good at this – spinning a future idea and having us believe it’s more important than it is *now*). And going the other way, Stephen fry as tweeter in chief? This time last year maybe, but things have moved on.
But let’s allow that talk of “reading” is simply the kind of editorial hyperbole newspapers may allow, and look at this as a representation of the books industry. A little aside first. I'm intrigued how different this looks from how it would have done 2 years ago when Seth Godin, Cory Doctorow and Chris Anderson would have been no-brainer choices to sit alongside Malcolm Gladwell, and maybe Richard Nash too. There's a real feel that digital pioneering and experimentation has been subsumed within the existing structures. And seriously, not a single blogger on the list? If you'd said that 2 years ago no one would have believed you.
But what is most obvious are the demographics of this list, in gender, age, and ethnicity. I commented, in accord with others, “if these are not the 99 [in a piece of populism that further confused what the list is for, the Guardian placed ‘us the public’ at 100] most influential then this list is a stinging reproach to its compilers. If these *are* the 99 most influential then this list is a stinging reproach on a way wider scale”
One of the list’s compilers, Lisa Allardice, asked whom I would include instead. Given the narrow remit, I realised that’s actually a very difficult one. Which means that actually, the problem is a very big one. This is an industry that serves the wole of the public (ostensibly) yet is representative of just a tiny fraction. I actually can’t think of anything I would want to change from an article I wrote two years ago, which attracted a little attention (and some comments that completely missed the point – and this worries me most of all, when people just don’t understand the problem let alone start talking answers), called From Pitch to Perpetuation of Privilege. I think I’ve mellowed a little from the position of the last couple of paragraphs. Or maybe I’ve hardened, I don’t know. And I don't any more think the problems will kill the publishing industry - but in a way I think that's a bad thing. I think if the problems persist the publishing industry should die, but it probably won't. But I’ll reproduce it in full here. Most of the points directly address this list.
The pitch is the publishing Industry’s equivalent of the University Entrance exam, a selection system that perpetuates disenfranchisement, and serves to narrow the pool of available applicants to a point where the literary world becomes nothing more than the chattering classes talking among themselves. As was the case for hundreds of years in our universities, no one has really noticed this until now, because the people the literary industry marginalise had been marginalised from other forms of communication. Worst of all, they have gone unnoticed because they have until now had no expectation or belief that literature is their world.
But as wider and wider portions of society become cultural consumers, so their hunger for stories by and about people like them grows. Television, through initiatives like the BBC’s My Story, is beginning to take notice, but the publishing industry is standing back and does not, it is my firm belief, even realise there is a problem.
This is just another example of an introspection that will in the not too distant future kill the industry off if it doesn’t do something. The fact is the internet is making culture by and for previously unrepresented voices (be they inner city teenagers, battered sex workers, refugees fleeing from, and would-be refugees trapped in, the world’s war zones, or the women of the world’s shanty towns) widely available. And it’s great. Millions of voices are being heard that would never have been heard before – hope that “I am not alone” is being offered to millions more who never heard culture spoken in their own voice before.
It’s a WONDERFUL thing.
And it’s a phenomenon that is going to kill publishing dead. Or rather, pass it by on the road whilst publishing kills itself. Unless the industry does something serious and soon.
There are many thins the publishing industry needs to look at if its isolation from the consumers of the majority world is not to prove fatal, and I’ve got time to talk about them all eventually. But today I want to focus on the flagship ridiculosity: the query.
This is NOT a piece about higher education. I am merely referring, in passing, to an allegation levelled at the entrance exam (because it IS true of publishing, and it’s a good analogy). The problem with the university entrance exam, the argument goes, like the problem with the 11+, is that you do better if you’re coached for it. Which means you do better if your parents have the money AND the inclination to pay for a tutor. Which means two children of equal “ability” will finish with very different marks. Which means, finally, that if selection is based on entrance exam performance alone children whose parents lack either the money or the inclination to pay for coaching will be disadvantaged when it comes to getting a university place. And to add to all this, the privilege this perpetuates means that those from marginalised backgrounds expect not to get places, so they don’t apply, furthering the divide.
That may or may not be true of universities, but I’m sure you get the logic. And if you don’t get where I’m going, then frankly, well, I can’t say in polite company.
At the moment (and especially in the US where you don’t submit ANY script with your query), whether you get an agent depends on the quality of your query, and a huge part of that is the synopsis and, even more, the query letter. There are many wonderful websites and books devoted to polishing your pitch, and I have benefited immensely from them (and still do). But the system reinforces the status quo in a way that is both shocking, and seemingly invisible to the industry.
How are those who do not currently read their voice in books, written by people like them, and who have stories to tell, and a talent for telling them, get published? They must submit a query – for which they have no training – not just because they have no access to the great query sites and books out there (they may well HAVE the internet), but because they are not surrounded by people who know about sites like this. They may not even know what the “application” method is. It is a mystery. So what happens? They don’t send off their stories – “people like them don’t write books”. And the divide is reinforced.
So what? Well one, it’s just wrong that people be denied a voice for their story – and the notion that the vast swathes of people underrepresented in publishing are underrepresented because there is no talent is just nonsense. Systemic barriers are wrong. Full stop.
Two, these are groups of society for whom the internet allows, more and more, instant access to the consumption and production of culture by and about “people like them”. Whole groups are realising that culture is for them. But books aren’t – and THAT is the problem for the publishing industry. A vast swathe of ever more powerful cultural consumer is ignoring books because books are irrelevant to them.
So what does publishing need to do? Well, more than anything else, what it needs to do is what the “Russell Group” of universities (the UK’s “old elite”) sort of tries to pay lip-service to doing. It needs to stop talking to itself. It needs to stop telling would be writers about “show not tell”. It needs to stop focusing on how to write a query letter. Stop focusing, mind, not stop doing – there is, and always will be, a very large, commercially and culturally important group who like books done that way. What publishers need to wake up to is the fact that this is a segment of the population – a segment whose share of wealth, purchasing power, and access to culture, is shrinking.
What the publishing industry needs to do is not try and “help” people on the “outside” to get to the “inside”. People don’t need it. They have other ways of telling their stories. IT needs THEM. And that is something I have NEVER heard someone on the “inside” admit. So what SHOULD the industry do? It needs to find ways to convince the new generation of storytellers that books are a good medium through which to tell those stories. It needs to think like an “outsider”.
Sadly, I really don’t think it can. Which is why more and more of us who would, ten years ago, have been part of the “trying to get inside” crowd, are ignoring it, letting it slowly eat itself to death, whilst we get on and enjoy the exciting future.
Half of me thinks it’s a tragedy. The more so because, like an animal walking to the abattoir, or a patient slipping gently from a coma, I really think most of the industry doesn’t recognise it. But half of me thinks that systems which perpetuate divide and exclusion SHOULD perish, and wonders if we shouldn’t offer a helping hand.
[addendum - one good thing about self epublishing is that it will prove markets exist. Publishers are locked into a vicious evidentiary circle - they will publish what has been proven to sell, but that proof can only come from things that have bene published in the past. It's about carving up an existing market not finding a new one. This is something self-epublishing *can* do]
Sunday, 31 July 2011
Verruca Music and The Dead Beat in line for major prize: please help
PLEASE GET READY TO VOTE FOR OUR AMAZING BOOKS
As you know, I run a small press, whcih publishes three amazing books. Its fans did a simply amazing job showing your love for Penny Goring's The Zoom Zoom and getting it called in by the judges for the Guardian's First Book Award (we now have to wait to see what they make of it). Now, if you love one of our other amazing books, Cody James' The Dead Beat and Stuart Estell's Verruca Music, you can help them go all the way in the Guardian's Not the Booker Prize.
YOU CAN START ACTING NOW - HERE'S WHAT TO DO
In order to vote, you need to post a 150 word review of the book (you can do this now), and then link back to that review from your vote WHEN THE VOTING OPENS IN A FORTNIGHT. The Guardian has some problems coping with our ISBN-free books so you will not be able to post on their review site. Nonetheless, they have very kindly agreed that you may POST YOUR REVIEWS ON THE COMMENTS AT EIGHT CUTS (CLICK HERE FOR LINK), and link back to it WHEN VOTING OPENS.
NOTE: Please use the same e-mail when posting your comment as you used/will use to set up your Guardian account. That way, if required, I can take a screenshot from the backroom to verify the review comes from the same address as the vote - please note, therefore: posting a review here, you consent to my taking such a screenshot (only for the purposes, if requested, of sending it - in strictest confidence - to the Guardian judges) I will not give your e-mail addies to anyone else or make them public and will only pass them on on the condition that the Guardian agrees to the same.
Remember, voting will open on Wedneday 3rd August, but to make it as successful and easy as possible, please post your reviews now. Many of you have posted reviews on Amazon or Goodreads already. I think it's perfectly fine to paste those over if that's the case.
And most important - THANK YOU
If you don't yet know our two eligible books, here they are:
The books with the most votes from the next round will go through to the shortlist where they will be read and discussed and reviewed in this widely-read forum. Let's make it three out of three and show the world the amazingness our writers have to offer!
(Go here to see and buy all our books!)
As you know, I run a small press, whcih publishes three amazing books. Its fans did a simply amazing job showing your love for Penny Goring's The Zoom Zoom and getting it called in by the judges for the Guardian's First Book Award (we now have to wait to see what they make of it). Now, if you love one of our other amazing books, Cody James' The Dead Beat and Stuart Estell's Verruca Music, you can help them go all the way in the Guardian's Not the Booker Prize.
YOU CAN START ACTING NOW - HERE'S WHAT TO DO
In order to vote, you need to post a 150 word review of the book (you can do this now), and then link back to that review from your vote WHEN THE VOTING OPENS IN A FORTNIGHT. The Guardian has some problems coping with our ISBN-free books so you will not be able to post on their review site. Nonetheless, they have very kindly agreed that you may POST YOUR REVIEWS ON THE COMMENTS AT EIGHT CUTS (CLICK HERE FOR LINK), and link back to it WHEN VOTING OPENS.
NOTE: Please use the same e-mail when posting your comment as you used/will use to set up your Guardian account. That way, if required, I can take a screenshot from the backroom to verify the review comes from the same address as the vote - please note, therefore: posting a review here, you consent to my taking such a screenshot (only for the purposes, if requested, of sending it - in strictest confidence - to the Guardian judges) I will not give your e-mail addies to anyone else or make them public and will only pass them on on the condition that the Guardian agrees to the same.
Remember, voting will open on Wedneday 3rd August, but to make it as successful and easy as possible, please post your reviews now. Many of you have posted reviews on Amazon or Goodreads already. I think it's perfectly fine to paste those over if that's the case.
And most important - THANK YOU
If you don't yet know our two eligible books, here they are:
The books with the most votes from the next round will go through to the shortlist where they will be read and discussed and reviewed in this widely-read forum. Let's make it three out of three and show the world the amazingness our writers have to offer!
(Go here to see and buy all our books!)
Sunday, 24 July 2011
Edited to add: why the best thing about self-publishing is NOT editing your books
Go on Whisper it. Self-publishing is becoming almost respectable. And it’s hardly surprising. Mark Edwards and Louise Voss’s 6 figure deal with Harper Collins (who, after the pair occupied the number 1 & 2 spots in the Kindle charts, admitted they might be onto something) is only the tip of a growing iceberg (one which I’m lucky enough to be somewhere at the base of, with my thriller The Company of Fellows selling 5000 copies and getting me invited to take part in a Rising Literary Stars panel at Blackwell’s bookstore).
But it’s a very particular (and inevitable) kind of self-publishing. And whilst I welcome it, it also makes me sort of hang my head in despair (the bittersweet ironic smile kind of despair I feel at the honour of being supported by Blackwell’s for my thriller two years after self-publishing my debut, the literary coming of age novel Songs from the Other Side of the Wall, that got stonking reviews wherever it *was* read but didn’t even make half a column inch in the local paper).
The warning signs were there a while back. Self-publishers are a marmite-y kind of bunch. Half of us are belligerent “dead tree books are screwed and legacy publishing’s dead” types. The other half are desperate to show we’re just as good as regular-published books (and half of those say it because they want a regular contract, whilst the other half want to control the process but compete for the same market).
But what almost all seem to have in common is an insistence that their books are just as good as regular-published books. And just as good almost always means edited to the same standard (most aren’t, of course, but their authors are buying into the game that they should be). And they have a point. 99% of books are better if they’re edited professionally. Because 99% of self-published books would like to be like regular books.
Now when it comes to self-publishing statistics matter. Every media essay I’ve seen on the subject of self-publishing has been about a number – copies sold, Kindle chart position, size of advance when the author went mainstream. I’ve yet to see one that talks intelligently and critically about the quality of a self-published book (oh, wait, there was a particularly dumbass piece somewhere sniping at John Locke’s books). But in the world of dumb-ass number crunching (I may need a bigger thesaurus because when it comes to the media’s treatment of self-publishing I find myself wanting to say dumbass a LOT), ignoring that 1% takes the dumbass-ness biscuit.
Because that 1% of books is what self-publishing was made for, and what will, ultimately, once Amazon has squeezed the regular “indie” authors back into the New Model Mainstream, be the ultimate reputation-saver for self-publishing.
Editing is the making of a commercial product and the breaking of art
That’s the simple thesis, and I’m not getting into a “what is art” debate.
Now editing in art can be a whole spectrum of things. At one end you have the watercolour painter who goes into the field behind their home and paints them, then sells or hangs the pictures as is. At the other end you have Phil Spector producing records with the unmistakable wall of sound signature stamp. Editing falls somewhere in the middle. On the one hand there’s copy-editing that’s rather like hiring a studio complete with sound guy so your download sounds polished (I hope even that simple analogy will show the flaw in the assumption that editing is always good – the “in your front room” acoustic or “on a dodgy amp in a grotty pub” plugged-in sound is different from studio production and *some*times people prefer it – depends what they’re looking for). On the other hand a great editor working on your book with you can be like having Mark Ronson produce your record.
The thing about spectrums is that for any given genus, there are usually species at each point on it. And that’s what I want to say about writing. There are works that are right at the watercolour end. Writers who are so distinctive and original that editing their work is like giving it lithium – you knock off all the troughs, but you take away the peaks with them, and it’s impossible to do one without the other.
On the Guardian Books Blog this week, John Self started a fascinating debate that went so viral it spawned a popular twitter hashtag #famousforthewrongbook. The piece, which asked for examples where an author was famous for a piece of work that actually wasn’t their best, confirmed what I’ve been saying for a long while, and what’s very pertinent here: when you get a game-changer of a writer, their best work tends to come later in their career, but their “great” work comes at the start. The numbers of diaries and letters included in the 600+ comments on the post further gets the underlying message across. Editing polishes what’s there, makes it “sing”. But the actual step-change, what *is* there to start with that a person spends their whole life perfecting, that is most visible when the editorial hand is most distant.
And this is where self-publishing can do what regular publishing can’t. Regular publishing is a business and can’t be run other than as a business (don’t even get me started on Arts Council grants for small publishers). It’s not just inevitable that it will dole out large doses of cultural lithium to pull things towards accepted norms, that’s its job. Self-publishing doesn’t have to. It doesn’t have to make money, and can do pretty much what it wants on a zero budget.
So not only is it not obligatory for self-publishers to edit “to professional standards”, I would say we should positively embrace not-editing, and where we find great art in the self-published ranks that’s full of flaws and fragility, rather than seeing what could be done if it was given a good polish (I’ll tell you what will happen – you will discover that inside every great book there’s a very good one waiting to get out), we should celebrate it as it is.
And I can’t help but finishing with a note to the cultural media. I understand why you talk about the numbers with self-publishing. That’s not dumbass. Talking *only* about the numbers *is* dumbass.
And here’s what’s really dumbass. The cultural media portrays itself as wanting to make the distinction between commercial art and art that has no commercial reference. And yet it will only review books from regular publishers. Discussions of merit will range as far as obscure and forgotten *regular published* works and no further. That’s all fine and I’ve heard the arguments about how you *have* to talk about “event” books (I don’t buy the argument for a minute but I hear it and I’ll run with it) – just don’t pretend you’re talking about the fullness of art if you’re going to run that way.
An addendum. I’m going to do something that will shock and disturb. I’m going to say congratulations to the Guardian for opening up the First Book Awards to *all* books, however published. Fantastic. I really hope they follow through by offering reviews of the merits of the books readers suggested.
So please, stop judging self-published books on how well-edited they are, and start judging them on how good they are. The two are not always the same. And in rare instances they can be opposites.
But it’s a very particular (and inevitable) kind of self-publishing. And whilst I welcome it, it also makes me sort of hang my head in despair (the bittersweet ironic smile kind of despair I feel at the honour of being supported by Blackwell’s for my thriller two years after self-publishing my debut, the literary coming of age novel Songs from the Other Side of the Wall, that got stonking reviews wherever it *was* read but didn’t even make half a column inch in the local paper).
The warning signs were there a while back. Self-publishers are a marmite-y kind of bunch. Half of us are belligerent “dead tree books are screwed and legacy publishing’s dead” types. The other half are desperate to show we’re just as good as regular-published books (and half of those say it because they want a regular contract, whilst the other half want to control the process but compete for the same market).
But what almost all seem to have in common is an insistence that their books are just as good as regular-published books. And just as good almost always means edited to the same standard (most aren’t, of course, but their authors are buying into the game that they should be). And they have a point. 99% of books are better if they’re edited professionally. Because 99% of self-published books would like to be like regular books.
Now when it comes to self-publishing statistics matter. Every media essay I’ve seen on the subject of self-publishing has been about a number – copies sold, Kindle chart position, size of advance when the author went mainstream. I’ve yet to see one that talks intelligently and critically about the quality of a self-published book (oh, wait, there was a particularly dumbass piece somewhere sniping at John Locke’s books). But in the world of dumb-ass number crunching (I may need a bigger thesaurus because when it comes to the media’s treatment of self-publishing I find myself wanting to say dumbass a LOT), ignoring that 1% takes the dumbass-ness biscuit.
Because that 1% of books is what self-publishing was made for, and what will, ultimately, once Amazon has squeezed the regular “indie” authors back into the New Model Mainstream, be the ultimate reputation-saver for self-publishing.
Editing is the making of a commercial product and the breaking of art
That’s the simple thesis, and I’m not getting into a “what is art” debate.
Now editing in art can be a whole spectrum of things. At one end you have the watercolour painter who goes into the field behind their home and paints them, then sells or hangs the pictures as is. At the other end you have Phil Spector producing records with the unmistakable wall of sound signature stamp. Editing falls somewhere in the middle. On the one hand there’s copy-editing that’s rather like hiring a studio complete with sound guy so your download sounds polished (I hope even that simple analogy will show the flaw in the assumption that editing is always good – the “in your front room” acoustic or “on a dodgy amp in a grotty pub” plugged-in sound is different from studio production and *some*times people prefer it – depends what they’re looking for). On the other hand a great editor working on your book with you can be like having Mark Ronson produce your record.
The thing about spectrums is that for any given genus, there are usually species at each point on it. And that’s what I want to say about writing. There are works that are right at the watercolour end. Writers who are so distinctive and original that editing their work is like giving it lithium – you knock off all the troughs, but you take away the peaks with them, and it’s impossible to do one without the other.
On the Guardian Books Blog this week, John Self started a fascinating debate that went so viral it spawned a popular twitter hashtag #famousforthewrongbook. The piece, which asked for examples where an author was famous for a piece of work that actually wasn’t their best, confirmed what I’ve been saying for a long while, and what’s very pertinent here: when you get a game-changer of a writer, their best work tends to come later in their career, but their “great” work comes at the start. The numbers of diaries and letters included in the 600+ comments on the post further gets the underlying message across. Editing polishes what’s there, makes it “sing”. But the actual step-change, what *is* there to start with that a person spends their whole life perfecting, that is most visible when the editorial hand is most distant.
And this is where self-publishing can do what regular publishing can’t. Regular publishing is a business and can’t be run other than as a business (don’t even get me started on Arts Council grants for small publishers). It’s not just inevitable that it will dole out large doses of cultural lithium to pull things towards accepted norms, that’s its job. Self-publishing doesn’t have to. It doesn’t have to make money, and can do pretty much what it wants on a zero budget.
So not only is it not obligatory for self-publishers to edit “to professional standards”, I would say we should positively embrace not-editing, and where we find great art in the self-published ranks that’s full of flaws and fragility, rather than seeing what could be done if it was given a good polish (I’ll tell you what will happen – you will discover that inside every great book there’s a very good one waiting to get out), we should celebrate it as it is.
And I can’t help but finishing with a note to the cultural media. I understand why you talk about the numbers with self-publishing. That’s not dumbass. Talking *only* about the numbers *is* dumbass.
And here’s what’s really dumbass. The cultural media portrays itself as wanting to make the distinction between commercial art and art that has no commercial reference. And yet it will only review books from regular publishers. Discussions of merit will range as far as obscure and forgotten *regular published* works and no further. That’s all fine and I’ve heard the arguments about how you *have* to talk about “event” books (I don’t buy the argument for a minute but I hear it and I’ll run with it) – just don’t pretend you’re talking about the fullness of art if you’re going to run that way.
An addendum. I’m going to do something that will shock and disturb. I’m going to say congratulations to the Guardian for opening up the First Book Awards to *all* books, however published. Fantastic. I really hope they follow through by offering reviews of the merits of the books readers suggested.
So please, stop judging self-published books on how well-edited they are, and start judging them on how good they are. The two are not always the same. And in rare instances they can be opposites.
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
I must be Mad to do this: writing, living, and mental health
I’ve been planning this post for months, and to be honest I’ve been dragging my heals. There’s an apposite reason – I’m bipolar my own mental health hasn’t been tip top the past few weeks. There are good reasons, as in yippee good – I’ve just finished touring a fabulous words and music show with a host of other great writers that’s played to a set of sell-out crowds.
And there’s the real reason – I don’t really know what to say. Well, that’s not true. I would like to go off on a rant about the ridiculous perception that having mental health issues is glamorous. Or that bipolar people are predisposed to be creative. But I’d just get too angry, and I’ve done it before. Many times.
So I’m not going to hobbyhorse you. Well, I am but not in a down your throat and make you gag kind of way. Hardest and most counterintuitive, I’m not going to talk about me, me, ME. I’m going to talk briefly about three remarkable artists and how mental health relates to their art. Then when I’ve got that out of the way I’ll talk about me! No, really, I won’t.
Cody James, author of The Dead Beat and Babylon, is the best novelist of her generation. She also has schizophrenia. She is also and has been also many many things – meth addict, Satanist, punk, opening act for Marilyn Manson, consumer of ludicrous quantities of noodles, zinester, photographer, my best friend. And just about the funniest person I’ve ever met. She’s taught me two things about mental health and writing. Well, the first is more about writing in general. Back at the start of last year, she made a brilliant video advertising our first big live show, at Rough Trade Records. In it, she read a passage from Babylon in which the central character, Daniel, tries to kill himself, something Cody has done 4 times. The video was deleted from Facebook after being reported and a massive debate followed. Cody’s contribution crystallised everything I feel about writing. She explained how an English teacher told her once she should try and make the world a better place. Her take – “maybe there is no way to leave the world a better place, and all we can do is tell the truth.” Simple, and all-encompassing. The truth doesn’t mean facts or autobiography. Telling the truth in your writing means peeling your skin off and poking down through the layers to reach the innermost part of yourself, then smearing it all over the page.
Which leads to the second thing – life, the truth, everything to do with this glorious and messed-up world, is complex (and mental health is only one very small part of it). It has more than one side. There is always hope in despair and despair in hope, humour in depravity and depravity in humour.
In a wonderful interview she did for me Cody said:
“What upsets me more than anything in novels and movies in this genre (Selby Jr. I’m looking at you) is that they seem hell bent on portraying only the moments of shock and depravity – they rob the reader and the viewer of the full experience. Yes, we were really fucked up and yes, we did bad things, but we were still trying. I still spent some Sunday mornings eating cereal and watching cartoons with a 7ft tranny. And, even though you’re all jacked up and your apartment has no furniture, you still try. Even though the person cooking the turkey has been up for three days and can’t remember how to work a stove, and your guests keep going to the bathroom to shoot up and then keep falling asleep in the mashed potatoes, you’re still there celebrating Thanksgiving. There are still moments of utter joy and there is still so much laughter. If, as an artist, you don’t portray that, you’re nothing but a cheap hack.”
I can’t really add to that.
Katelan Foisy is the author of Blood and Pudding. It’s the book that has influenced my writing and performing more than any other. It tells the story of her bipolar, heroin-addicted best friend Holly. Specifically it is a transcript of tapes Katelan made when one Xanax-fuelled teenage day the pair of them decided to get in a car and see where they ended up (another lesson from Katelan – record everything. You never know when you’ll want it). The transcriptions, full of idealism and energy, form the book’s bones, which Katelan has fleshed out with stories from the years between that trip and Holly’s death from an overdose just a few years later. I have never read such an uplifting celebration of a life. Or of Life. Holly’s was a life cut short, a life shadowed and tarred and tarnished, but it was a Life. Damn, it was a life. Blood and Pudding opens with the wonderful words “Wherever we end up, we end up,” and urges the reader to “go out and live. And live. And go on living, because you never know when it’ll stop.” There are two things to say about that. Mental illness is not a death sentence. Don’t treat it as such. In yourself, or in others. And make sure your writing contributes to Living. Because anything else is as good as being dead.
Dave Griffiths is the former frontman of the band Witches. He’s the writer and musician behind the fabulous Grey Children project. He’s using the project, which combines his considerable musical talents with his equally considerable literary ones, to raise awareness for Pure-O, the form of OCD he has. In a recent interview I did with him one of the things we discussed most was the role music plays in managing his symptoms. Music provides a total immersion that draws his mind away from everything else. I realised how similar what he was saying was to the role writing plays in my life (and listening to music), to the experience of so many people I know with various mental health problems. Sadly, sometimes the things we use to engulf our minds, to drown out the noises in our heads, are things that do us as much harm as the illness itself, if not more – drink, self-harm, drugs. But art is something that can improve both our mental health and our wider lives. Maybe even the lives of others.
There we have it. Three amazing writers. Three amazing people. Three ways mental health and writing intersect. And a single strand running through the whole thing. Life. And the importance of living it. Without apology and without restriction.
And there’s the real reason – I don’t really know what to say. Well, that’s not true. I would like to go off on a rant about the ridiculous perception that having mental health issues is glamorous. Or that bipolar people are predisposed to be creative. But I’d just get too angry, and I’ve done it before. Many times.
So I’m not going to hobbyhorse you. Well, I am but not in a down your throat and make you gag kind of way. Hardest and most counterintuitive, I’m not going to talk about me, me, ME. I’m going to talk briefly about three remarkable artists and how mental health relates to their art. Then when I’ve got that out of the way I’ll talk about me! No, really, I won’t.
Cody James, author of The Dead Beat and Babylon, is the best novelist of her generation. She also has schizophrenia. She is also and has been also many many things – meth addict, Satanist, punk, opening act for Marilyn Manson, consumer of ludicrous quantities of noodles, zinester, photographer, my best friend. And just about the funniest person I’ve ever met. She’s taught me two things about mental health and writing. Well, the first is more about writing in general. Back at the start of last year, she made a brilliant video advertising our first big live show, at Rough Trade Records. In it, she read a passage from Babylon in which the central character, Daniel, tries to kill himself, something Cody has done 4 times. The video was deleted from Facebook after being reported and a massive debate followed. Cody’s contribution crystallised everything I feel about writing. She explained how an English teacher told her once she should try and make the world a better place. Her take – “maybe there is no way to leave the world a better place, and all we can do is tell the truth.” Simple, and all-encompassing. The truth doesn’t mean facts or autobiography. Telling the truth in your writing means peeling your skin off and poking down through the layers to reach the innermost part of yourself, then smearing it all over the page.
Which leads to the second thing – life, the truth, everything to do with this glorious and messed-up world, is complex (and mental health is only one very small part of it). It has more than one side. There is always hope in despair and despair in hope, humour in depravity and depravity in humour.
In a wonderful interview she did for me Cody said:
“What upsets me more than anything in novels and movies in this genre (Selby Jr. I’m looking at you) is that they seem hell bent on portraying only the moments of shock and depravity – they rob the reader and the viewer of the full experience. Yes, we were really fucked up and yes, we did bad things, but we were still trying. I still spent some Sunday mornings eating cereal and watching cartoons with a 7ft tranny. And, even though you’re all jacked up and your apartment has no furniture, you still try. Even though the person cooking the turkey has been up for three days and can’t remember how to work a stove, and your guests keep going to the bathroom to shoot up and then keep falling asleep in the mashed potatoes, you’re still there celebrating Thanksgiving. There are still moments of utter joy and there is still so much laughter. If, as an artist, you don’t portray that, you’re nothing but a cheap hack.”
I can’t really add to that.
Katelan Foisy is the author of Blood and Pudding. It’s the book that has influenced my writing and performing more than any other. It tells the story of her bipolar, heroin-addicted best friend Holly. Specifically it is a transcript of tapes Katelan made when one Xanax-fuelled teenage day the pair of them decided to get in a car and see where they ended up (another lesson from Katelan – record everything. You never know when you’ll want it). The transcriptions, full of idealism and energy, form the book’s bones, which Katelan has fleshed out with stories from the years between that trip and Holly’s death from an overdose just a few years later. I have never read such an uplifting celebration of a life. Or of Life. Holly’s was a life cut short, a life shadowed and tarred and tarnished, but it was a Life. Damn, it was a life. Blood and Pudding opens with the wonderful words “Wherever we end up, we end up,” and urges the reader to “go out and live. And live. And go on living, because you never know when it’ll stop.” There are two things to say about that. Mental illness is not a death sentence. Don’t treat it as such. In yourself, or in others. And make sure your writing contributes to Living. Because anything else is as good as being dead.
Dave Griffiths is the former frontman of the band Witches. He’s the writer and musician behind the fabulous Grey Children project. He’s using the project, which combines his considerable musical talents with his equally considerable literary ones, to raise awareness for Pure-O, the form of OCD he has. In a recent interview I did with him one of the things we discussed most was the role music plays in managing his symptoms. Music provides a total immersion that draws his mind away from everything else. I realised how similar what he was saying was to the role writing plays in my life (and listening to music), to the experience of so many people I know with various mental health problems. Sadly, sometimes the things we use to engulf our minds, to drown out the noises in our heads, are things that do us as much harm as the illness itself, if not more – drink, self-harm, drugs. But art is something that can improve both our mental health and our wider lives. Maybe even the lives of others.
There we have it. Three amazing writers. Three amazing people. Three ways mental health and writing intersect. And a single strand running through the whole thing. Life. And the importance of living it. Without apology and without restriction.
Thursday, 14 July 2011
SALE!!
OK, so Lulu, where our eight cuts gallery press books are printed, are having a 20% sale, which means that our three fabulous books (see here for details) are, until the end of tomorrow, July 15th, no longer £8 but £6.40 each - when you get to checkout, just enter the coupon code BIGUK for UK customers, or BIG for overseas and you'll get the discount.
So:
The Dead Beat is £6.40
The Zoom Zoom is £6.40
Verruca Music is £6.40
and if you're interested, my books are also on offer :)
The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes for £4.80
Songs from the Other Side of the Wall for £6.40
(life:) razorblades included for£4
The Company of Fellows for £8
So:
The Dead Beat is £6.40
The Zoom Zoom is £6.40
Verruca Music is £6.40
and if you're interested, my books are also on offer :)
The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes for £4.80
Songs from the Other Side of the Wall for £6.40
(life:) razorblades included for£4
The Company of Fellows for £8
All over the place
It goes like that sometimes. You're quiet as a church mouse and then all of a sudden you're everywhere. This week I am lucky enough to be appearing at not one, not two or even three fabulous places, but four! And five if Mark Williams decides to put my piece on mental health and the arts up this week. Make that five/six!!
So what am I doing, and where?
Well, it's a right old mix of topics so I hope there'll be somethingf or everyone. Two pieces are already up, which is why I'm posting now, so you can join in whilst the debate's still young.
Over at Nicola Morgan's fabulous Help I Need a Publisher, I get to rant about whether looks matter for new writers in a piece called "You say fat ugly bloke I say channelling Ginsberg" It's a soap box column and as might be exected there's a real bruhaha brewing, and it's led to a fabulous follow-up piece from Catdownunder, reminiscing on meeting Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti.
Today I am guesting at India Drummond's site, talking about how and why I made the switch from experimental fiction to YA paranormal romance with my latest book, Black Heart High.
JUST POSTED! On Friday I am interviewed about life and art at Hannah Warren's Place. It's the most detailed and candid interview I've given.
And stll to come:
On Saturday it's the 16th, which means it's my day at Kindle UK Authors, where I'll be talking about the advantages and disadvantages of writers' critique groups, collectives and collaborations in a companion piece to the post I made here.
And on Sunday, in Crossing the Line, I'll be making my contribution to a month-long series of pieces on the subject "the relevance of sex in literature" over at Suzanne Burke's fab Soooz Says Stuff. I'll be opening many worm cans with a frank discussion of transgressive fiction, whether there are any lines left to cross with sex, and my own personal battles with writing transgressive material that's nothing to do with sex.
So come and join one or more lively debate!
So what am I doing, and where?
Well, it's a right old mix of topics so I hope there'll be somethingf or everyone. Two pieces are already up, which is why I'm posting now, so you can join in whilst the debate's still young.
Over at Nicola Morgan's fabulous Help I Need a Publisher, I get to rant about whether looks matter for new writers in a piece called "You say fat ugly bloke I say channelling Ginsberg" It's a soap box column and as might be exected there's a real bruhaha brewing, and it's led to a fabulous follow-up piece from Catdownunder, reminiscing on meeting Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti.
Today I am guesting at India Drummond's site, talking about how and why I made the switch from experimental fiction to YA paranormal romance with my latest book, Black Heart High.
JUST POSTED! On Friday I am interviewed about life and art at Hannah Warren's Place. It's the most detailed and candid interview I've given.
And stll to come:
On Saturday it's the 16th, which means it's my day at Kindle UK Authors, where I'll be talking about the advantages and disadvantages of writers' critique groups, collectives and collaborations in a companion piece to the post I made here.
And on Sunday, in Crossing the Line, I'll be making my contribution to a month-long series of pieces on the subject "the relevance of sex in literature" over at Suzanne Burke's fab Soooz Says Stuff. I'll be opening many worm cans with a frank discussion of transgressive fiction, whether there are any lines left to cross with sex, and my own personal battles with writing transgressive material that's nothing to do with sex.
So come and join one or more lively debate!
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