November 2017 - Writers Magazine

News Review

• British publisher Richard Charkin of Bloomsbury on the blind spots that might keep the publishing industry from seeing what's ahead. Charkin, formerly of Macmillan and past president of the International Publishers Association, is known for being outspoken and radical in his approach. He condemns the fact that in this age of instant news, it still takes a year for traditional publishers to bring out a book.
• Newly released figures show that ebook revenues in the US have declined again. In the first half of 2017, e-book sales declined by 4.6%, according to the AAP. All other categories, apart from paperback books saw increased revenues in the same time period, with some astounding growth.
• The success of NaNoWriMo has shown the power of a good idea and the way the internet can rapidly spread it to an international audience. The vast number of regions where there are groups signed up shows how successful the project has been - and the great enthusiasm of writers to extend themselves and meet the challenge NaNoWriMo presents.
• New copyright law in Canada has been described as a disaster that can spread, with dire effects for authors and publishers alike. Considerable concern was expressed in a panel at the Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two. about the effect of these changes to the law, the consequences of which are already apparent.
• International publishing seems to be flourishing, to judge from the reports coming out of the Frankfurt Book Fair, and Amazon Crossing now champions translated fiction in a remarkably effective way. It's all go at the Frankfurt Book Fair, where publishers are immersed in half-hour meetings with other publishers, but there is positive news coming back - if, that is, big advances can be viewed as positive! Publishers are flourishing their cheque-books and there have been a run of big deals agreed at the Fair.

Comment

• ‘I knew from a very early age that I wanted to be a novelist, but my father thought I should have a proper job, with a proper salary, a proper pension. The idea of being a writer struck him as the height of foolhardiness. He died very young (58), so he never saw how things worked out... We were very lucky. For 10 years literary fiction was the thing, paperback imprints were starting up, advances huge, every publisher wanted the spin to their list so the literary novelist suddenly found himself in demand with auction bids for the next novel...' Our Comment is from William Boyd, author of A Good Man in Africa, Any Human Heart, The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth and eight other novels in the Sunday Times.
• 200,000 books published a year (just in the UK)! An optimist may think this abundance marvellous: a sign of publishing virility, of a lively literary culture. They would be wrong. It is a disaster for readers and for writers... Do we really think that we need all 200,000 books? Robbie Millen, Literary Editor, The Times, comments on the vast number of books published.
• ‘There were some things about Agatha Christie's writing that I did want to emulate: not the prose style itself, but her blueprint for what the ideal crime novel should be and do. She often started with an outlandish, almost impossible-seeming plot premise that cranked up the suspense level to maximum right from the start; her stories have the strongest bone structure I've ever read..' Sophie Hannah, author of two Poirot novels and 19 other novels in the Observer. Taking on Poirot.
• As an aspiring writer, you should certainly start by writing an outline. I explain how to do this in this Masterclass. You solve a lot of problems with an outline. It is far easier to correct your mistakes if you write an outline than if you sat down and wrote, ‘Chapter One' at the top of a piece of paper and started writing. If you work that way, it will take an awfully long time to correct your mistakes. Our Comment is from Ken Follett, author of The Kingsbridge Series and The Century Trilogy, whose latest novel is Edge of Eternity. It's tempting to quote again from the helpful Masterclasses on his website.
• 'I guarantee you that no modern story scheme, even plotlessness, will give a reader genuine satisfaction, unless one of those old-fashioned plots is smuggled in somewhere. I don't praise plots as accurate representations of life, but as ways of keeping readers reading. When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell students to make their characters want something, even if it's only a glass of water...' Advice from Kurt Vonnegut Jnr in our Comment column.
• 'When you're writing a book, with people in it as opposed to animals, it is no good having people who are ordinary, because they are not going to interest your readers at all. Every writer in the world has to use the characters that have something interesting about them, and this is even more true in children's books...' Roald Dahl on Brainyquotes
• Are American literary novelists ‘less feverish about pecking order' than the British? Martin Amis, now resident in New York, says: ‘They're more realistic about it. Berryman, when Robert Frost died, said, ‘It's scary. Who's number one?' Very unsentimental. At least status anxiety is overt here. And I think writers have a better time from the press here than in England... (where) they think writers are just pretentious egomaniacs.' Martin Amis, author of London Fields, Money and The Rub of Time in the Guardian.

Quote

‘If you find a poem that sets you alive, gives you daydream time, then you are in fact transported. You are carried a little bit further, either into yourself, or perhaps out of yourself. If there is a difference.'

Seamus Heaney