Do authors need editors?

My last blog post was picked up by The Passive Voice, and has so far garnered 285 comments. There's a lot of interesting stuff there, if you have an hour or two to read it. My eye was caught by a comment from author Kathlena Contreras:

My experience with people acting as "editors" is that they've tried to change how I tell my story. And ruined it in the process. My point is that we, as artists of the written word, should stop asking authority figures to validate our work and have some faith in the vision we're trying to communicate.

It's often stated on indie forums that no book will be the best it can be without the help of a professional editor. I think this is nonsense. While I'm sure a good editor can contribute to a book, a bad one can ruin it. I've never blogged about the critique that Remix won on Authonomy from an anonymous Harper Collins editor back in 2010. Not sure why - maybe I didn't want to appear unprofessional. This is part of it:

Here’s how you might take your story into the real world. In this darker alternative, instead of dossing down on the roof terrace of a penthouse flat [sic] in London, for example, Ric would be living in a ramshackle shed at the edge of some property in France possibly inherited recently from the protagonist’s mother/aunt etc. She could come to stay for a few weeks, figure out what she’s going to do. 

He was telling me to change the setting from London, which I know, to France, which I don't. Yup, that makes sense.

But she hears noises, she’s disturbed, thinks there’s someone threatening in the night… doesn’t know what to do… tension builds… next day, she has a poke around, finds evidence of someone living rough, at first she thinks he’s dangerous but then they meet (right there, we’ve gone from a few pages to several chapters with new beginnings, red herrings, tension, uncertainty, plot twists). 

Several chapters where all that happens is a timid woman meets her neighbour. Great.

I think its [sic] unwise to cast a world-famous, very handsome rocker who’s only recently disappeared [in fact three years before] but hasn’t disguised himself at all and has just climbed some tall building [actually three storeys] in Hoxton as a ‘mystery stranger’. Better for him to be more like a cult figure who hasn’t been seen for years – bearded, a bit bedraggled perhaps… but suspiciously well-kempt as if he has money. Then let the relationship build up for a while before the revelations. 

Revelations of what, exactly? If Ric's living openly he can't be a murder suspect, so there is no plot.

I remember having to read this critique two or three times before I believed it. I wasn't foolish enough to take any of its advice. But I pity the poor authors that particular HC editor works with.

Why authors and trad pub don't reveal authors' earnings

Three days ago, a traditionally-published author blogged under the title: HONE$TY PO$T: An Average Traditionally Published Author's Pay. It's a full and frank disclosure of what she has earned over the past three years from her book deals with Harper Collins. You can read a cached copy of it here (EDIT: now expired, so I'm glad I copied it) - cached because within four hours, the post was taken down.

Why was it removed? It's unusual for authors to tell anyone what their advance is, because advances these days are pretty unimpressive. You'll probably hear about it if it's what's referred to as a six figure sum. But mostly, so modest is the average advance, the author prefers to focus on her achievement of having a book deal with a major publisher; people have heard of Penguin or Simon & Schuster, and will be respectful.

And publishers don't want to disclose that they pay authors such beggarly amounts. It would certainly raise eyebrows - and maybe more authors would consider going indie. After all, where would publishers be without writers? Nowhere. Yet from the way they behave, you'd think writers are a minor and non-essential part of the business, who use up a lot of agents' and editors' time that could be more profitably spent elsewhere. Those agents and editors earn a living wage, while writers are advised not to give up the day job. Writers are right down the bottom of the publishing heap. Let me quote from that post:

"My books are paperback originals - no hardbacks - and I make 6% of the paperback sales, 25% of the ebook sales.  Publishers take a big chunk because they have a lot of employees to pay, and print costs are not cheap.  Of my percentages earned I share 15% with my agent and put away approximately 15% for taxes.  That means for every $10 paperback of mine that is sold I get $.60, and $.09 of that goes to my agent."

This writer is not complaining. In her own words, she is happy and grateful.

Roll on the revolution.

P.S. The author tweeted she had to take the post down for 'contract disclosure reasons'.

P.P.S. If you are curious to read the copy I took of the post and comments, email me: lexi14@hotmail.com

Why isn't an older mitten a mat?

From Donna Wilson

I came across this charming rhyme posted as a comment on a Facebook thread, and can't resist copying it to my blog.

The Kitten sat on the Mitten

And the young of a cat is always a kitten,
but the young of a rat is never a ritten
and conversely a kitten when older's a cat
so why isn't an older mitten a mat?

Michele Brenton, aka Banana the Poet, has published books of her witty and accessible poetry, which you can find (and buy for a modest price) here.

Woohoo! A new year!

My new year got off to a pleasant start with Wolf by the Ears finishing the month at #4 on the YouWriteOn charts, entitling it to a professional critique from Random Penguin or Orion. 

I used to be very active on YWO - I always say it's the place I learned to write - but I only put Wolf up to get more opinions on the all-important first chapters of the novel. The top ten is a bonus.

2013 had its ups and downs. It's getting more difficult to sell ebooks, though many indie authors are still doing extremely well. Persistence is, I think, the most important factor leading to success - certainly more important than talent. Publishing is still changing, and who knows what opportunities are just around the corner? We need to keep writing, stay nimble and fast and ready to take risks. In my opinion, trad pub is here to stay. After years of stoutly maintaining that ebooks were no cheaper to produce and handle than print books (a thumping lie) publishing houses are currently making a fortune from digital. But a big chunk of the market now belongs to self-publishers, and trad pub won't be regaining that lost territory.

Here's wishing all my readers a fantastic 2014.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

City Traffic in the Rain from The Pipe Dream Daily

Wishing a

MERRY CHRISTMAS

 to you all, and may your dreams come true in 2014!

(I've chosen a rainy picture this year as we do seem to be having a great deal of rain right now in London.)

Messing with Amazon's head, or Jeff Bezos thinks I own a dog

The dog I don't have -
image from K9 Protection Dogs

Amazon has the most sophisticated algorithms in the world for knowing what its customers want in order to offer it to them. It's one of the secrets of their success.

I know I've misled Amazon about my reading tastes, since I so often click on the books in the signatures of fellow writers out of curiosity, to see how they are doing or to read their samples. But this week I realized, when viewing the Lightning Deals Amazon emailed me, that I've confused them about my entire lifestyle as well. I cycle, garden in a small way on my balcony, feed birds and have a weakness for tiny bright torches; they've got that right, even if they haven't twigged I wouldn't take a barbecue as a gift.

But now Jeff Bezos thinks I own a dog. He's currently offering me an assortment of dog beds, collars and eating bowls. And I know why. It's because there's a guard dog in Wolf by the Ears, and I researched the toy he'd be playing with. (A Kong, since you ask, this one.) Amazon's useful for finding items your characters own or buy, because its selection is so huge. A pity it doesn't sell property.

Of course, as a writer I'm even more misleading on Google. Recently I've exhibited an unhealthy interest in firearms, signs of surveillance, tracking by mobile phone, the FSB, undetectable poisons, post-mortems, fingerprints, toxicology, how long a corpse takes to float and how to hack a Sim card. Perhaps in my next book I'll include a villain who writes a novel as cover for the research necessary for his evil deeds...

New novel out ~ Wolf by the Ears

Today I hit Amazon's Publish button on Wolf by the Ears, my latest novel - an exciting and anxious moment. I do hope readers will like it. This is the synopsis (and you don't want to know how long it took to write, or how many people helped me with it):

When Tyger Rebel Thomson starts working for a Russian oligarch, she could be on her way to the life of her dreams – assuming, that is, she lives long enough to get there.

Grisha Markovic is a man with enemies. He’s loathed by the Kremlin, under observation by MI6, involved in acrimonious litigation over a Siberian gold mine, and rumoured to possess an explosive dossier containing details of a massive Russian tax fraud.

Grisha is impressed with Tyger’s intelligence; he takes a fatherly interest in her and makes her his personal assistant. This could be the break she has been hoping for. But after a mysterious driver tries to run her down, she begins to suspect that the death of his last PA may not have been an accident…

I got the idea for the story when reading about the death of Boris Berezovsky. Interested, I started researching oligarchs, and realized just how many dubious deaths there had been in this country, all with Russian connections. We know assassins killed Litvinenko and attempted to kill German Gorbuntsov, who survived a hail of bullets on the doorstep of his London flat. What about Alexander Perepilichnyy, Badri Patarkatsishvili and Stephen Curtis? Those deaths were recorded as having 'no suspicious circumstances'. Like Litvinenko and Berezovsky, these men were enemies of the Kremlin, and believed themselves under threat.

You can view Wolf's sample on Amazon and decide whether to lay out £1.99/$2.99 in order to read on.

Chasing the last typo, considering commas, committing to the move

The paperback cover, still a work in progress

My latest novel is nearly good to go. A couple of beta readers told me it was comma-light, and they were right, so I've been judiciously adding commas.

Q pointed out that my disclaimer at the start of the book, While the places in this book are a mixture of real and imagined, the characters and events are fictitious, was not strictly accurate, since I mention Vladimir Putin and other real people. So I have made that line even shorter: This is a work of fiction. (I am in favour of keeping a book's front matter as brief as possible. The verbose disclaimers, threats towards pirates, and personal avowals that some authors go in for amaze me.)

I've formatted the paperback, and printed it out to check the way it looks on the page, which gives me the opportunity to have a final read-through. I've started work on the paperback cover. I have still to format the ebook.

At some stage, one has to admit the book is as good as one is going to get it. In Churchill's words, it's almost time to "kill the monster and fling him to the public" - which is both frightening and exciting.

Beta readers and Winnie the Pooh

Pooh murmured to himself: 

"But whatever his weight in pounds, shillings, and ounces, 
He always seems bigger because of his bounces."

"And that's the whole poem," he said. "Do you like it, Piglet?"

"All except the shillings," said Piglet. "I don't think they ought to be there." 

"They wanted to come in after the pounds," explained Pooh, "so I let them. It is the best way to write poetry, letting things come." 

"Oh, I didn't know," said Piglet.

This is an early example of a beta reader having his advice overruled by the author. Piglet's suggestion is correct, yet the removal of the shillings would not improve the couplet.

I've reached the end of my next novel, and I've started sending it out to beta readers. I don't send it to everyone at the same time, since I'm making changes as I get feedback and I want to get comments on the latest version. (Also some of my lovely betas are doing Nanowrimo.) I'm still obsessively tweaking the fight scene, too; in my experience fights take a lot of rewriting. It's very interesting, reading betas' suggestions. I've had three reports so far, and none of them have queried the same things, and they have all made some suggestions which I have leaped upon and incorporated, and others which I have not.

The variety of responses confirms me in my view that half a dozen good betas perform better than the average editor. I write for readers, not people working in the publishing industry, so it makes sense to have readers vet my books. I imagine it's possible for an editor to become jaded, or didactic. I like a nice mix of readers and reader/writers. Readers can tell you what's wrong, and a fellow author can often tell you how to fix it.

My betas so far have liked my latest novel. This is a relief. It's lonely, writing a book, and quite worrying waiting to see what readers make of it. I hope to publish in the not-too-distant future.

The Fussy Librarian

One of the biggest problems for readers and authors is to find each other. A brand new site called The Fussy Librarian aims to help with this. 

From their home page:

1. Enter your email address
2. Select what types of books you read
3. Indicate your preferences on profanity, sex and  violence
4. Get daily emails & enjoy great books
5. There is no step five*

This recommendation service has been going a month, and can only get better as the choices are refined and users give feedback. (I think people's definitions of mild profanity and non-explicit scenes of sex can vary wildly, and examples would help.)  Jeffrey Bruner says they plan to keep adding categories - there are currently thirty - and content options.

I think this could be good - I've joined, and you can too, here.

* I want a step five!

Do not trifle with readers' expectations

A couple of weeks ago Harper Collins published the third and final book, Allegiant, in Veronica Roth's popular trilogy. I'd actually bought a copy of the first book, Divergent, and got several chapters in when a horrible certainty came to me that Roth had sold the book as "Harry Potter meets The Hunger Games," and I went right off it.

Currently Allegiant is at number 5 in the US Kindle Store; it has 2,040 reviews with an average of 2.8 stars. Why the huge sales and the low customer ratings? Because Veronica Roth chose to end the series in a way that her readers hated. Here is a typical comment:

"I loved Divergent and Insurgent and was really looking forward to Allegiant. I don't recommend this book to anyone unless you want to be distraught and depressed for days afterwards. The first 300 pages are boring and totally detached from the plot of the first two books. The book picks up in the end only to leave the readers broken-hearted. There is no happy ending. There is no real closure. The author can do anything she wants with the final book and needless to say, I really dislike Veronica Roth as an author after reading this. Why end a once epic trilogy this way? I read books to be entertained and I was far from entertained. I recommend readers only reading the first two books and making up their own ending."

There is a compact between writers and readers; the reader will suspend disbelief, the writer will be true to the characters and the genre. How would we feel if Bertie Wooster suddenly murdered his Aunt Agatha? We would feel indignant and cheated, just like Roth's fans. I think there is an urge successful writers sometimes have to demonstrate they are really serious artists, prepared to shock and confound expectations. Doing this is generally a mistake.

It happens with screen writers, too. I still remember the final episode of MASH, where the writers, assured of a vast audience, decided to go all serious. Then there's the episode of Cheers where Sam discovers the dishy young woman accompanying an old friend is not his girlfriend but his daughter, and feels old and alone. This glum stuff is not what we watch Cheers for - we want to be amused, that's all.

It's difficult enough to write a good book without being wilful. Don't be wilful. Readers will not forgive you.

Writers' & Artists' Yearbook, farewell and good riddance

I last thought it essential to possess a copy of Writers' & Artists' Yearbook in 2008. I was no doubt happy to hand over my £14.99 for their 101st edition, believing this was a step towards becoming a published author. Flicking through it now, it strikes me as all rather quaint.

Here's Alison Baverstock, writing a piece on How to attract the attention of a literary agent: "Think not what an agent can do for you, but what you can do for an agent", which is the exact opposite of my advice of what to ask an interested agent: "What can you do for me?" There's all the usual stuff about doing your research, meekly sending exactly what the agent wants, and waiting patiently and not bothering her as the months trail by. It's not called submission for nothing.

Little mention, in 2008, of self-publishing; one article mentions POD, with no suggestions as to how a writer can sell the books once they are printed.

In my copy I see I've turned down corners, crossed out non-fiction agents, and put lines and stars by the possibilities. So much hope: such a complete waste of time, effort, stationery, ink cartridges and stamps.

These days, Writers' & Artists' recognizes that a huge chunk of publishing is self-publishing, and have even got a section offering would-be indie authors advice. Unfortunately they, like most of the large publishers, have done a deal with the devil, Author Solutions (now owned by Random Penguin). A new writer filling in their handy form is very likely to be recommended to use one of the 'self-publishing services' of Author Solutions or one of their alter egos. He will then find himself subjected to a hard sell, and paying thousands of pounds for inferior and useless 'services' he doesn't need or could get cheaply elsewhere. He will end up sadder, wiser, and considerably poorer.

For more detail on W & A's perfidy, see David Gaughran, here.

And my old copy of Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2008 is going in the bin where it belongs.

The WIP's progress: 60,000 words

Those of you who hang on my every word (and I don't want to sound ungrateful, but shouldn't you get out more?) will have noticed my blog posts have been a tad less frequent of late. The reason is that in my spare time I've been working on my next novel  to the exclusion of much else. 

And today I hit the magic 60,000 word mark, which is my personal point of no return. It's not that all is plain sailing from here to the end of the book; I haven't written the end yet and I'm going to have to change some of what I've already written. It's just that if I get that far, barring accidents and disasters, I'm going to finish the darned thing whatever problems I encounter.

Because it's a lot of work,  attempting to pick the right 60,000 words and get them in the right order.

One word after another

For me these days the most difficult part of writing a novel is getting going on the first page. I don't recall having this problem with my first two novels, when I was still in the drunken woohoo isn't writing amazing stage. Now just deciding which novel to write can take me months.

With the WIP, I finally cracked it by taking the excellent advice of Jerry Cleaver in his book, Immediate Fiction. You commit five minutes a day to your novel; you also think about it before you go to sleep. And if you don't know what to write, that's fine, you just sit and do nothing for five minutes. If you want to work for longer, that's fine too. You do this religiously for thirty days without evaluating the plan's effectiveness. 

I think this method works so well because it gets the subconscious working on the book - and it's totally unthreatening. Anyone, no matter how busy, can find five minutes a day and do nothing. After thirty days I'd got a pile of notes and the novel was under way. My average word count is 480 per day, and the end is in view.

When you get right down to it, writing a novel is as simple as taking the White King's advice in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:

The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. "Where shall I begin, please, your Majesty?" he asked.
"Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."

Smells in novels ~ but not much in Jane Austen

Smell is one of the senses we are told to use when writing a novel, and I totally agree; what can be more evocative than the smell of the sea, or honeysuckle, or a sudden whiff of the aftershave used by a long-departed boyfriend? But in the middle of the night when I should have been sleeping I had a revelation - there are very few mentions of what things smell like in Jane Austen's novels. This from Emma is par for the course:

Never had the exquisite sight, smell, sensation of nature, tranquil, warm, and brilliant after a storm, been more attractive to her.

There must be a reason for this. Smells must have been very different in Jane Austen's day, and I wonder if it was not thought genteel to comment on them. 

We are somewhat smug these days about smell - after all, London smells of cars, a mixture of exhaust, tyre particles and petrol, and before owners were compelled to pick up after their dogs, on a hot day Hyde Park had a distinct reek of dog excrement. When my daughter was small I remember constantly trying to stop her accidentally treading in it on the pavement. My workshop is in Hoxton, an area with a vibrant nightlife, and while women seem able to wait to get home to have a pee, many men don't. But it's unarguable that we wash more than the people in Regency times, simply because it's much easier for us to keep clean with running hot water, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, electric toothbrushes and deodorant. So when Jane Austen describes a ball, we can only imagine the smells as the room got warmer and dancers more heated. She is not going to mention them.

How fortunate for us we live in less correct times and are allowed to describe everything our senses record. Any writers reading this are welcome to post a brief extract from their novels that deals with smells, nice or nasty.

Writing middles, Clippit, and increasing eccentricity

I use Word 2000. It's what I'm used to; I've written five novels on it. I actually uninstalled Word 2007 from my laptop to stick with what I know. (Unadventurous? Moi?) 

And one benefit you don't get on modern versions of Word or fancy programs like Scrivener is the Office Assistant. I like Clippit. There, I've said it. I know he has enemies, but it's a lonely business, writing a novel, and you do tend to go a bit mad. (Okay, maybe it's just me. You're probably as sane as when you started.) But I am soothed by Clippit's friendly, helpful presence. Even when I've been staring so long at a blank screen that he curls up and goes to sleep, a silent comment on my lack of productivity, I know at the tap of a key he will spring to attention, ready to make suggestions, my little virtual friend.

In Muriel Spark's novel,  A Far Cry From Kensington, it is suggested by the protagonist who works in publishing that a cat is an aid to writing - though she does add, a cat won't actually write the book for you, or guarantee it will be any good. Clippit serves the same function, but you don't have to feed him and take him to the vet, and if you find you are arguing with him more than seems reasonable, you can always switch him off for a while.

Writing - never mind the quality, feel the width

Lucie Rie conical bowl, 1978

I want to start with a quote from Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall. In this bit Paul Pennyfeather is having problems with discipline as a teacher in his first class at a ghastly school. Another teacher, a child molester called Captain Grimes,  gives him a cane and leaves him to it.

"Listen," he said. "I don't care a damn what any of you are called, but if there's another word from anyone I shall keep you all in this afternoon."
"You can't keep me in," said Clutterbuck; "I'm going for a walk with Captain Grimes."
"Then I shall very nearly kill you with this stick. Meanwhile you will all write an essay on 'Self-indulgence'. There will be a prize of half a crown for the longest essay, irrespective of any possible merit."
From then onwards all was silence until break. Paul, still holding his stick, gazed despondently out of the window. Now and then there rose from below the shrill voices of the servants scolding each other in Welsh. By the time the bell rang Clutterbuck had covered sixteen pages, and was awarded the half-crown.
"Did you find those boys difficult to manage?" asked Mr Prendergast, filling his pipe.
"Not at all," said Paul.

Apart from its refreshing lack of political correctness of any kind, this extract contains a writing tip: stop trying so hard and just get on with it. Even if no one is offering you a half crown.

In Art and Fear, Ted Orland and David Bayles tell the story of a ceramics teacher who told his class that half of them would be graded on the quantity of pots they created and the other half on the quality. At the end of the term, the results were interesting. Freed from the pressure of straining for excellence, making good and bad pots, practising and learning from their mistakes, it was the quantity group who produced the best pots.

How to get a publishing contract

What are the publishable classes? It's an expression coined by my virtual friend, Iain Manson, and means the sort of people who find it relatively easy to get an agent and a publishing deal, unlike most of us who find it next to impossible. It includes (and I'm relying on Iain to tell me if I've missed a category):

• Journalists
• Anyone with a contact in publishing
• Anyone famous for something other than writing
• Anyone related to someone famous

Recent examples include 21 year-old Samantha Shannon; from the Guardian article: "Her father knew someone in touch with literary agent David Godwin and, after an email exchange, he agreed to look at her manuscript. He was 'kind' about it but also turned the book down. Yet it was this connection that would not long afterwards lead to Shannon doing a two-week summer internship with his agency (in Seven Dials, Covent Garden), which was to prove illuminating about 'how the industry works'." David Godwin subsequently became her agent and sold the first three novels in her fantasy series to Bloomsbury for a six-figure sum.

Lottie Moggach is doubly qualified by being a journalist and daughter of Deborah Moggach, the successful writer. Her first novel, Kiss Me First, has recently been published by Picador. 

Then there's promising newcomer JK Galbraith, who turned out to have got a deal for his first crime novel by actually being JK Rowling.

I haven't read any of these books, and I'm not implying they are not excellent and worthy of a publishing contract. But I think this nepotism matters, because the pool from which publishers select authors is in reality quite small, however vast the slush pile may be. It seems to me self-evident that there are many equally good or better writers who are rejected time and again after a cursory glance by an intern. And these days when the future of Big Publishing is uncertain, they cannot afford to miss the next Big Thing just because it happens to have been written by a nobody.

P.S. On a happier note, self-publication has again proved the best way to go for most of us. Steve Robinson has accepted an offer from Amazon for a four book deal with an option on book five following the huge popularity of his genealogical crime series, now on special offer. Go Steve!

My 3rd self-publishing anniversary

This day three years ago I self-published Remix on Amazon.

Self-publishing wasn't what I really wanted. I believe I still hankered after the dream - an agent, a publisher, a stack of books in a bookshop which I could go and secretly gloat over, maybe a desk, a pen, a queue of fans... 

But the dream had made it clear it didn't want anything to do with me. I couldn't even get to first base and find an agent to take me on, though several trifled with me.

So I gritted the teeth, concocted a cover, worked out how to format for Smashwords and KDP, and committed to the move.

Back then - and how quaint it seems now - writers on forums would give dire warnings that you were using up your first publication rights (que?) and said no big publisher would consider a book once it had been self-published (pause for raucous laughter). They also opined that no book without the input of a publisher's team of editors, designers and marketers would A) be any good and B) sell any copies.

How wrong they were. Those of us who jumped in at that point caught the first wave of indie opportunity, a boom time that will never happen again.  So favourable to popular books were Amazon's algorithms in those days that Remix spent over eight months in the UK top 100. 

Now that almost everyone agrees that self-publishing is a valid way for a writer to proceed, it's way tougher to make an impact on the charts. Three years ago, I was lucky.

REMIX, the Hungarian hardback

Yesterday the Hungarian hardback edition of Remix arrived through the post. A proud moment. So far, Könyvmolyképző Kiadó's is the only hardback version of any of my novels.

Remix has had quite a few covers in its time, and it's interesting that this one has more the feel of my early ones. The title is in raised lettering. My heroine Caz looks very sultry, which I think would amuse her. I particularly like the dedication:

Mintynek

Köszönet minden íro barátomnak – ti tudjátok, kikre gondolok...

TRANSLATION

For Minty 

With thanks to all my writing friends - you know who you are...