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Comment from the book world in September 2006

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September 2006

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'Writers in front of readers'

25 September 2006

'Whoever originally came up with the idea of putting writers in front of readers must've been taking a real punt. We spend most of our time by ourselves, along in a room with all these characters in our head, talking to them as they talk to us. Not really an ideal training ground for making public appearances.


But more often than not it must work, as it's still happening. We have now, somehow, become a part of the entertainment industry, and I don't just mean the schools, the shops and the library visits, and all the panels and events at the increasing number of literary festivals there are to do...

Is this then the future? Will writers now be judged not only on their literary merit, but also - like politicians - on their looks and performance abilities? And which will be deemed the most important? Will writing courses have to start offering speech and drama modules, stand-up comedy training and hair and beauty advice? You never know.
Graham Marks, Children's editor of Publishing News and author of Zoo

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Last year's Man Booker

18 September 2006

'As chair of the committee one felt like Evel Knievel, preparing for his jump across the Grand Canyon. It is, of course, possible to loathe a novel and admire aspects of it. It is possible to think a novel a superb work of art but pass it over for the Man Booker prize. One can argue critically from entrenched positions with an open mind. One can compromise. One can agree, gracefully, to go with majority opinion. So it was.'

John Sutherland, on chairing the 2005 Man Booker judging panel, in the Guardian

'A stranglehold on our industry'

11 September 2006

'Another factor stifling new talent in this country is the agent-publisher model. Agents take on authors whom they think have commercial potential, spruce them up a bit and then tout them round the publishing houses looking for the highest bidder. Some agents have such big reputations that editors will drop everything to attend to their submissions. As a system it can work well and has produced many of the best books of the past 20 years, but it is such an established arrangement that it has a stranglehold on our industry. We have reached a point where many big publishers source 95 per cent of their new books from agents and many of those agents will no longer view unsolicited work. When you have such a rich seam of new writing in this country, much of it just a few clicks away on the internet, this is a travesty.'

Scott Pack, former buying manager at Waterstone's and now with the Friday Project, in The Times

'The second novel trap'

4 September 2006

'If your first novel was a dazzling success, everyone expects you too excel yourself. And, of course, you gave your first novel everything you'd got. Either way, unbearable pressure... My first book was a 500-page distillation of my life to date. After it became an international bestseller, I sat at my computer and saw nothing on the screen but the six figures of the advance for my second book fading in and out with an eerie whistle like the titles of a junk sc-fi TV series...'

Celia Brayfield on second novels in The Times