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Comment Archive 2006Some sharp comment from people in the book world through the years. Comment 07 Comment 06 Comment 05 Comment 04 Comment 03 Comment 02 Comment 01
In praise of crime writing 'I like reading thrillers and I don't know why the literary world is sometimes snobbish about them. It's a really flexible form because it lets you move across class and across a city. The elegant and ever-repeating form of noir fiction is that you find a dead body in the beginning, it disrupts the ordinariness of the place, the detective starts to investigate and then wants to find all the connections, and it usually ends up in some high-level cover-up. I like that approach a lot, just in the plain terms of constructing narrative. As a reader and writer, there's so much pleasure in being aligned with the detective and given all the clues.' Vikram Chandra, author of Sacred Games in the Bookseller
Reading what you enjoy 'I would never attempt to dissuade anyone from reading a book. But please, if you're reading a book that's killing you, put it down and read something else, just as you would reach for the remote if you weren't enjoying a television programme. Your failure to enjoy a highly rated novel doesn't mean you're dim - you may find that Graham Greene is more to your taste, or Stephen Hawking, or Iris Murdoch, or Ian Rankin. Dickens, Stephen King, whoever. It doesn't matter. All I know is that you can get very little from a book that is making you weep with the effort of reading it. You won't remember it, and you'll earn nothing from it, and you'll be less likely to choose a book over Big Brother next time you have a choice. Nick Hornby in the Sunday Telegraph's Seven
'A wordwide brand' Academic publishing is poised awkwardly between the huge costs of the web and its enormous potential, and between the huge opportunities created by global English and the piracy that a single language facilitates. In such an environment a worldwide brand is greater than the sum of its parts, and if Wiley can build that, the deal will have been more than worthwhile. Others are thinking along similar lines: witness Springer's recent approach to Informa. The world is awash with cheap cash and bullish private equity investors: 2006 is on track to be the biggest year for corporate deals in history, and it would be odd if publishing was to be immune from this frenzy. Academic publishing may not look particularly sexy, but in a richer, better-educated world it is no bad place to be. Bookseller editorial
'The secret pleasure' 'Books transported me to a place that was filled with endless possibilities, and it was all so much better than whatever it was I was doing in real life. I loved a good story and still do, but as I got older I realised that reading was far more than that. It was the secret pleasure and intimacy of having a relationship with a writer and his characters long after I'd closed the book. Books taught me about other people, what they were feeling, how they viewed the world and how they changed from ordinary beings to extraordinary ones. Often I preferred spending time with them to doing anything else.' Jennifer Kaufman, author of Book Lover, in the Sunday Telegraph's Stella
'Literary ambitions constantly thwarted' 'Ironically though, fiction was always my first love, and I honestly believe that all the other creative things I've done in my life have come as a result of having my true literary ambitions constantly thwarted. As I was carving out a career for myself as a non-fiction writer, I wrote six novels, all of which failed to spark the interest of publishers. Only on my seventh attempt did I strike gold: Equinox is to be published in 26 languages, and I hope it will be the launch pad for my final career change; from non-fiction author to novelist. If I sound unfair about my own non-fiction writing career, I don't mean to be, because, without a doubt, I could not have written Equinox had it not been for those 25 non-fiction titles that preceded it. Indeed, the USP for Equinox is that it is a blend of fact and fiction in which real-life historical figures share the same stage with completely fictional, modern-day characters.' Michael White, author of Equinox, in Publishing News
The novel as big business 'Never mind Hay. From Peebles to Penzance, and from St Magnus to Southwold, by way of Bakewell, Bewdley, Mere and Poole, there's hardly a town in Britain that will not be holding a literary festival this year. Like some medieval peasant migration, the book-buying public will flock this summer into tents, church halls and village halls to experience poets, biographers and above all novelists, reading aloud from their work and signing books...' In 2006 the novelist has become a cross between a commercial traveller and an itinerant preacher. The cultural historians of the future will surely pick over the larger meaning of this festival fever, but one thing is indisputable: in just over a generation the novel has gone public in the most astounding way. In the process, the genre has sold out and become big business, the preferred medium of self-advancement and self-promotion for Blair's children, and almost unrecognisable to fiction-lovers raised on the literary names of the Forties and Fifties.' Robert McCrum in the Observer
'The value of books' 'We don't think that every major title we publish needs to have dramatic price promotion in order to sell in high volume. Of course, we understand the value of price promotion in driving sales, but we have to do it on terms that are economic. We are concerned about the messages that are being sent to consumers about the value of books if we just price promote everything at the expense of other forms of promotional activity…. 'We've rarely been through a period where the variants in performance by channel have been so great. Yes, the high street is having a difficult time, but that is not to say the whole book market is having a difficult time because, as we know, Amazon continues to grow and the supermarkets are doing well. The situation is the same in the US, where both Borders and Barnes and Noble have been reporting some pretty weak numbers, and yet if you look at the AAP (Association of American Publishers) data the market as a whole doesn't seem to be in bad shape.' John Makinson, Worldwide Chairman and CEO of Penguin in Publishing News
Grown-up fairy stories 'The reason romantic fiction should be scrutinised more thoroughly is that it is the code to unlock what women really want. We go to see movies together, and TV watching is a shared experience, but reading is a private pleasure. I pick up a romantic novel not so I can impress my friends with having read it, but because I know that while I am reading it I can leave the world behind. There will be a heroine that I sympathise with, a hero I want to share a sunset with, and I know that the outcome will be happy… Women need the grown-up fairy stories of romantic fiction in order to make the random cruelty of everyday life more bearable. And before men sneer at women who read romances, they should ask exactly why they need to read a book about the siege of Stalingrad or the SAS. Do they perhaps find facts less threatening than stories that deal with emotion?' Daisy Goodwin in the Sunday Times, talking about the research and thinking behind her TV series, Reader, I Married Him.
'Love to hate book fairs' 'Even though most people in publishing love to hate book fairs, preferring to pretend to be above the hustle and bustle of the marketplace, everyone nevertheless wants to be seen there, and there is no doubt that during three such intense days, where everyone is conscious that they must make it worthwhile, a huge amount of business is done. Not all of this is good business: books are frequently bought for far more than they are worth. Even experienced publishers sometimes throw caution to the winds after being caught up in the excitement of a bidding war conducted via frenzied conversations in a crowded hall.' Anne Louise Fisher, London literary scout, in the Observer (Seven)
'A strong editor' ' Two years to write the first novel. Two years to find a publisher and to get the book on to the shelves. Four years of casual labouring and the dole.Much has changed in those 50-years-to-now; but one thing has not. The more critically successful a writer becomes, the more need there is for a strong editor. To think otherwise risks artistic suicide. A trusted editor, dedicated to the text and sensitive to its author, is the making of a writer and is the great teacher. On the high trapeze, the Flyer may be the one who draws the applause from the crowd, but it's the editorial Catcher who times the flight. I have been fortunate in my editors. The readers' reports for the three novels that followed my second all recommended rejection on the same grounds each time: that the new book was different from the previous one. And each time the editor had faith, and published.' Alan Garner, author of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen in The Times
'Communicating with readers' 'Publishers need to make their sites more welcoming and rewarding to those tiny percentages of readers who do visit. They need to nurture these audiences and build them up, organically, to become loyal customers. And that means adding value that they're not getting on the high street or from Amazon - in the form of content. Publishers aren't going to get rich from sales made on their sites. But the opportunity is to create a relationship with consumers, and to use that relationship to generate better market information on both sides. Communicating with readers is how you will sell more books, and for the moment the best channels of communications are not in publishers' control - but they so easily could be. It's time publishers took their relationships with consumers out of the "too hard" box.' Peter Collingridge, MD of Apt Studio Ltd in the Bookseller
'Writers in front of readers' '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.
Last year's Man Booker ‘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' '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' '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
'As businesslike as larger publishers' 'If you're going to get scared, you can't become a publisher. If you're the sort of person who stays awake for a long time at night worrying, you need to think of something else to do… Obviously some independents are absolutely crazy, but we have to be as businesslike as larger publishers - it's just as important for independents to make money.' Andrew Franklin, MD of Profile Books, in The Bookseller
'Within the pressures of daily life' 'I think that the best books are often written within the pressures of daily life. What is happening is that creative writing courses are promulgating the idea that you have to be a professional writer, but that is not true and it is increasingly hard to be… I can think of endless examples of people who get up early and write before going to work. They are engaged in life and producing better work as a result. Just think of Trollope, it is what he did. And if that is what it can do for your writing, then I don't think you should ever give up the day job.' Heather Holden Brown, literary agent, in Mslexia
'Go out there and grab them' 'A lot of nonsense is talked about the way writers publicise their work. The facts are brutal: unless you produce the kind of assured bestsellers that will encourage your publishers to pay for chain-store promotions, you have no guaranteed sales. There are a hell of a lot of books out there waiting to be read (if you pause in the reading of this piece for a mere 40 seconds, another one will have been published somewhere in the world), and if an author wants his to find its readers, he has to go out there and grab them. I've been known to offer to go round to people's houses and shampoo their stair carpets, if they'll only consider giving one of my weighty volumes a cursory heft.' Will Self in the Sunday Telegraph's Seven
'Experiences that I have had' ‘A novel has an energy of its own. In that sense, it is like riding a horse. It talks back to you. It isn't always transient. Sometimes, you wrestle with it. I think of my novel as experiences that I have had, not as things that have accrued to me. It's nice if they boost your status or your income, but they are about pleasure primarily. The pleasure is in the form itself. With a horse, even if you have had a bad ride, you want to get back on because it is so interesting. Same with novels.' Jane Smiley, author of 13 Ways of Looking at a Novel and Horse Heaven in the Observer
Authors, literary agents - and tax 'A good agent guides his or her client confidently through mine-fields such as foreign rights, audio, film, radio and TV, the weasel clauses in contracts that may strip authors of rights they need to retain, queries from foreign publishers, publicity enquiries, rights reversions, downloads, podcasts, websites, double taxation indemnity agreements and so on. Agents also need to respect that awkward need of an author for time and privacy in which to write… Self-employed authors live tightrope lives, their careers often poorly paid and wildly erratic. They have no public service or corporate cushion of sick pay, pension, paid holiday or maternity and paternity rights. They cannot be expected to shoulder the disadvantages of self-employment without being able to offset necessary, legitimate expenses against tax.' Helen Dunmore, Chair of the Society of Authors in the Bookseller
Books for the beach ‘Holidays offer an opportunity to extend reading time beyond that snatched half-hour on the train or the slack-jawed period before lights out, in which a kind of literary Groundhog Day dictates that you read the same page an apparent infinity of times without being any the wiser as to what's going on. Suddenly, there's a bit of time, a modicum of quiet and the prospect of an unfolding mental space in which to aim for something more satisfying than remembering to pay the congestion charge and getting through a day without being sacked. The ensuing challenge is one that all book-lovers should light on with something approaching glee. You know you want something good, something engrossing, something that will hold your attention. You might know, broadly, the kind of things you like, but you're also beset by other imperatives. Should you seize the opportunity to immerse yourself in something out of your normal range? Should you satisfy the modern tourist's conscience by informing yourself about the place you're visiting? Should you work on those areas of your intellect that lie fallow during the rest of the year - renew your acquaintance with contemporary poetry, for example, or bone up on the development of porcelain in the Tang dynasty’ Alex Clark, introducing the Observer’s summer reading list
Small publisher power 'It's possible to punch above your size and weight and get the kind of coverage much larger houses receive. I do think that the shifting dynamics of the trade are in our favour. The conglomerates are focusing with tremendous vigour on doing fewer books, and doing them with more power - and that allows smaller publishers to pick up on those projects that aren't being housed in the way they would have been five to ten years ago.' Philip Gwyn Jones of new independent publisher Portobello in Publishing News
'Famously nice to all they meet' 'What is the X-factor that turns a book into a bestseller? They don't just happen by chance. Publishers put their efforts into marketing and publicising a book in a way that will make it stand out from the 200,000 others published every year. Booksellers are wined and dined and critics courted to get the buzz going long before the book appears. At the centre of their efforts is the author, who nowadays has to put as much work into selling themselves as they did into writing their book. So what do this elite bunch have in common? It's simple. Rankin, McCall Smith and Binchy are famously nice to all they meet, as are Joanna Trollope and Jacqueline Wilson. They are prepared to wait until the last fan's copy of their latest books is signed, and to visit libraries, schools and book festivals in the back of beyond to talk to tiny audiences of enthusiastic readers who will spread the word about them. The result is huge loyalty among booksellers and librarians who are willing to push their work.' Danuta Kean in the Independent on Sunday
'A slow, frustrating process' 'Sometimes I fear that some writers want to get published more than they want to write. Being a successful writer is a long apprenticeship. Writing a novel is a slow, frustrating process. It takes time and patience to get it right. Don't send out your work to publishers and agents when you are feeling impatient and frustrated with it. Send it out when you're happy and confident in the work - the difference will show in the writing, trust me. If you play the long game, perhaps go on a course or join a workshop, get some feedback and apply it, you are already giving yourself a better chance of success. In the end write for the sake of the writing, to make the writing, your writing, the absolute best it can possibly be, only then is it really worth reaching for the jiffy envelope.' Julia Bell in Mslexia
'Publishing is a fortunate business' 'The tensions between taste and commerce have perhaps never been more stark than they are at present. Many would argue that the pursuit of the supermarkets by the high street chains has disenfranchised whole groups of readers who may well be happy to buy this month's big commercial read or celebrity cook a discount but also want - and want brought to their attention - work of a more substantial nature, fiction or non-fiction… 'In many ways, publishing is a fortunate business. Technological advance increases the range of opportunities for publishers without making redundant the age-old activity of reading itself. "Delivery" is the vogue word of the moment, and whether it's downloadable, audio, print-on-demand or a good old-fashioned hardcover, the means by which publishers can get closer to their readers has never been greater. That this returns publishers to their own roots - as booksellers - cannot escape attention for long.' Peter Robinson of newly set up Robinson Literary Agency in Publishing News
Only a bestseller or a flop 'Publishing a book in England felt generally more relaxed than America, in the way that Hay is more relaxed than Austin, and Vauxhall than Manhattan. People in England chatter more, and have more outlets in which to do so - Start the Week, newspaper columns, book programmes. Americans simply don't consider books (or culture generally) to be that newsworthy or debatable. And when they do, it is invariably because Oprah Winfrey is somehow involved. Therefore, America seems like a place where you can only write a bestseller or a flop - you're either on Oprah, or you're not. In England, however, it looks easier to be acceptably successful on the back of a review in the Observer simply because so many people read the same paper, and subsequently everyone chats about the same things. In America, there is only one national paper, USA Today, which has roughly the cultural capital of the Daily Mail.' American author Wesley Stace in Publishing News
Reading and Quick Reads 'It is easy to understand the mindset of those who feel uncomfortable with reading. All of us know the mystery of seeing others enjoy a pastime which exasperates us: music if we are unmusical, physical exercise if sedentary, sleeping late if early risers. But reading is generally looked on as a pleasure even by those who avoid it - a pleasure to some but not for them. Getting into it is too hard, it is too much like work. "My early and invincible love of reading," as Gibbon put it, "which I would not exchange for all the treasures of India," is incomprehensible to those who need a dictionary every few words. No one will need a dictionary for Quick Reads. While I was writing mine I couldn't help hoping that those who bought a copy would go on to my other books, in the process develop an invincible love of reading and perhaps become my fans.' Ruth Rendell, writing about her Quick Read The Thief in the Sunday Telegraph
'That same fabulous world' ‘C. S. Lewis’s World-Between-The-Worlds – that magical, mystical place, hushed and unhurried, where visitors could enter a thousand different worlds by jumping into different pools – always seemed to me to be the perfect metaphor for a library. Trips to the library with my mother are, in my memory, even more thrilling than trips to the sweet shop, and when I got my eldest daughter a library card I felt as though I had bought her citizenship of that same fabulous world.’ J K Rowling, in support of the innovative Love Libraries scheme
The art of the ghostwriter 'It's not our job to be objective and even-handed. We're there to be passionately subjective, fighting as hard to put across our clients' stories as any barrister in any courtroom. We ask endless impertinent questions in order to climb inside their skins and put their views convincingly. Every page of an autobiography must sound as authentic as a monologue in a play Ghosting is a varied, rewarding life for any writer able to suppress their own opinions and ego. Hanging out with characters as colourful as Sharon Osbourne is never going to be anything less than entertaining, and to have the inside track on the truth behind the doors of 'Beckingham Place' must make anyone an in-demand dinner guest.' Andrew Croft, ghostwriter-extraordinaire, in the Sunday Telegraph
'A monopoly right' 'The law is therefore as everyone thought it was. Unless you copy the means of expression of facts and ideas, you do not breach copyright. Nor do you do so, if you simply consult somebody's material and then do your own research. Had the judge decided differently, adaptations of others' works would have become distinctly perilous. The concept of unlawfully taking someone's central theme or ideas would be dangerously vague, leading to costly legal vetting for writers of historical fiction. Copyright is after all a monopoly right. The law has to strike a fair balance between protesting the rights of the author and allowing literary development.' David Hooper, copyright specialist and partner at Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, in Publishing News , commenting on the outcome of the Da Vinci Code case
'A publisher's job is to add value' 'What I begin to wonder is whether we've crossed some barely visible Rubicon, beyond which commercial judgement altogether overpowers the judgement of value. I don't subscribe to the notion that history is a dead duck, or that the appetite of readers can be satisfied by a diet of reality television A publisher's job is to add value to the work they are about to bring into the world. An existing brand or franchise requires a great deal less risk and effort than an unknown author or a difficult subject. In the latter case the payback is less certain, the time frame longer, and the quantum smaller. But if we can't or won't tackle both ends of the equation, is there any point in being a publisher? If we leave it all to Amanda Ross (of Cactus, the originator of the Richard and Judy Book Club), already raised to the purple in the Observer's list of movers and shakers, will there be a publishing industry left to belong to?' Anthony Cheetham, former CEO of Random Century and of Orion, now a consultant to Random House, in the Bookseller.
Dan Brown's approach to writing 'Writing is a discipline, much like playing a musical instrument; it requires constant practice and honing of skills. For this reason, I write seven days a week. So, my routine begins around 4 am every morning, when there are no distractions. By making writing my first order of business every day, I am giving it enormous symbolic importance in my life, which helps keep me motivated. If I'm not at my desk by sunrise, I feel like I'm missing my most productive hours. In addition to starting early, I keep an antique hour-glass on my desk and every house break briefly to do push-ups, sit-ups, and some quick stretches. I find this helps keep the blood (and ideas) flowing.' Dan Brown, in the Bookseller
Keeping Google in proportion ’Nick told me to just fix the Google thing and the rest would be easy. Sounds like a job for a humorist. Google wants to give away 'snippets' of authors' work. Maybe we could work something out, there. But what constitutes a snippet? We might begin by stipulating that no snippet shall be as large as a full witticism. Then we might measure how many snippets there are in, for instance, 'A Million Little Pieces.'" Roy Blount Jr, humorist, the new president of the Authors Guild of America, on how to handle Google, which the Guild launched a suit against last September
'An airport novelist' ‘I'm as proud as anything to be called an airport novelist; how great that somebody should want to take one of my books as a companion on a journey. I don't write to impress people. My intention is to carry them along by saying that first one thing happened and then another and another. People everywhere love stories and want to hear about hopes, dreams, disappointments, misunderstandings, rewards, loss - the human lot. That's why I'm so glad to be part of Quick Reads, an initiative designed to get adults who are reluctant readers back into this wonderful and rewarding habit.' Maeve Binchy in The Times magazine Quick Reads - News Review 27 February
'Something you have a deep connection to' 'To get people to buy them, books need to have physical properties that make them compelling as furniture. Aside from that, it's about enthusing emotion. Some people really build a bond with a book and they can't let it go, and one of the things we're really working on is trying to connect with people and to say that books are an emotional product - not only do they have an ability to educate and entertain, to enlighten and enrich a life. For me, Fermat's Enigma is a book that really means something to me and I can only imagine lending it to someone if I could be sure they'd return it, because I keep going back to it. That's the key, in a nutshell - books have to be a product infused with permanency. We've got to get back to the experiential side, where it's not the throwaway supermarket item you don't really care about but something you have a deep connection to.' Rick Vanzura, President of Borders Group International, talking to Liz Thomson in Publishing News
'Tell a story' 'Any writer has to draw on his or her own experiences and knowledge of life, but as soon as you create a character, that character becomes a real person in your head and changes things you have planned. That is where imagination takes over from experience.' His advice to aspiring writers: ' Read, read, read. Then find a story that moves you and write it from the heart, for yourself - not for some imaginary reader. Never think there is a formula - there isn't. Don't get obsessed with crafting the perfect paragraph, think more about the What than the How. Tell a story.' Nicholas Evans, bestselling author of The Horse Whisperer and The Divide, in Writers' Forum
'We know your local market better than you do' 'Central buying sends out several messages, some of them may even be unintentional. Here's a selection: One: this is what you are going to sell whether you like it or not. Two: we don't trust you in your shop to know what you should be selling. Three: we know your local market better than you do. Four: we know your local solicitor better than you do. Five: we can manage your stock better from the centre. Six: we can organise the promotions better than you can from the centre. Seven: you're a manager, yes, but you are really only there to switch the lights on and off and to relay the team messages to your team. Eight: if the books don't sell, it is your fault, because you weren't committed to them. Nine: it's all done in the name of economics, market share and economies of scale.' Willie Anderson of the bookseller John Smith in a debate about central buying at the Society of Bookmen, reprinted in Publishing News.
Why publishers launch new imprints ‘The most important quality now in books is distinctiveness. That's why publishers are capitalising on their different imprints, and why I am setting up Fig Tree later this month, Penguin's first new hardback imprint for 20 years. I am not kidding myself that any book buyer will ever recognise the name: when Penguin - owner of such venerable imprints as Hamish Hamilton, Michael Joseph, Allen Lane, Viking - did some research a few years ago, we found that none of our hardcover imprints were recognised by bookbuyers, even though everyone knew and loved the paperback imprint Penguin. No, the hardcover imprints work as signposts for people within the world of publishing - they direct authors and agents as to who is buying what and where a book will fit, they point literary editors as to which books to review; and occasionally they help booksellers. And it helps that in a world dominated by prizes with strict submission rules, more imprints means you can submit more books.’ Juliet Annan of Penguin explaining the strategy behind her start-up imprint Fig Tree in the Daily Telegraph
'Fascinated by people' ‘I write biographies because I am fascinated by people – by their infinite resourcefulness, by their mystery and power, by the strange patterns their lives make – and because they give me better plots than any novel I could invent. My subjects have been writers and a painter because the frontier between life and art is where I like to work.’ Hilary Spurling, winner of the Whitbread Prize for Matisse the Master, quoted in Writers’ Forum
Writing 'from the heart and your soul' ‘If you write something that you know well, from the heart and your soul, it will live, somehow. It may not live in your lifetime, but it will survive, if you write it from your heart and soul. And you have a brushstroke of talent. It will live.’ Mel Brooks
'Publishing is more market-driven' 'In the three years since I became President of the AAA (Association of Authors' Agents), there has been a significant rise in the tempo of change in the publishing world. This change is systemic and wide-ranging, and is set to accelerate further. Its various aspects are all linked, but I think they may be divided into three main categories: change in the retail trade; change in the mode of delivery and reading of texts; and change in the policies of publishers. The greatest change has been in the retail trade. It is here that we can see most clearly how market forces are shaping our industry. When I came into publishing in the 1980s, it was a world in which publishers pushed books through the marketplace; it is now a world in which retailers pull books through. I don't mean by this that retailers are directly making the decisions about what books should be published; but we have all of us - agents, editors, publishers - internalized the lessons of the marketplace, and are bound to be influenced by it in the judgments we make every day. Put simply, publishing is more market-driven now than then.' Derek Johns, outgoing President of the Association of Authors' Agents, in a speech reprinted in Publishing News
'Write every day' ‘You have to be able to edit your own work. Write every day even if it’s rubbish, because it’s always better to have something to work on than to have nothing. You have to be ruthless and you have to give yourself space to do it. I don’t find it as easy to concentrate as I used to and my attention span is short. But as long as I get my 1,000 words written it doesn’t matter if I only sit down at my computer for five minutes at a time then jump up and do the dishes or something.’ Sara Waters, whose new book The Night Watch is just out, in Writers’ Forum
'A hard slog' for a small publisher ‘It's been a hard slog - the first 10 years were much more difficult as we established credibility and a backlist. You always think you're just about to turn the corner but it takes longer than you'd think, a bit like a petrol tanker. It does help if you have a few stokes of luck. You can have a bestseller after a year or 50 years - but by then it's too late.' Pete Ayrton of Serpent's Tail on setting up a small publishing house, in the Bookseller
'From "competitive" to ludicrous" pricing' ‘I think book retailing passed a tipping point this Christmas, from ‘competitive’ to ‘ludicrous’ pricing. That tipping point was when bestsellers were sold at less than half price. Sweet David Baldacci – how’s that going to help book retailing? It looks like we don’t value what we’re selling and makes it appear we’re ripping people off when we sell a book at full price. Book retailing must feel it’s made a bit of an arse of itself at an office Christmas party: it can’t quite remember what it did, there was a lot of drink, things got a bit messy and maybe it owes someone an apology. Not sure who though. Maybe another lap of the track and we’ll have got it all out of our system. Happy New Year.’ Nigel Jones of Ottakar’s in Publishing News
'This private secret place' 'This private secret space, this hidden empire that opens out between the book and yourself, is precious. In an age when there are more distractions and ways of filling time - or wasting time - than human beings have ever had before, this rich, consoling, inspiring, liberating solitude is more valuable than ever. We must lead our children and show them the way.' Philip Pullman
Storytelling Stories go back as far as humankind, for the good reason that the world is incomprehensible without them. By establishing relationships between things, a story permits meaning and memory. Plain lists are notoriously hard to remember: stories and theories act like mnemonics, allowing elements to be strung together and interrogated. Uniting emotion and intellect, stories can recount a complex technological narrative with breathtaking economy.' Simon Caulkin, writing in the Observer about Storytelling: Branding in Practice by Yakaboylou, Fog and Budtz
'There's no short cut' ‘If you want to write you have to put in the hours. There’s no short cut… It never ceases to amaze me how many writers insist on writing stuff they don’t have a hope in hell of getting published. Look at what’s selling in the bookstores and supermarkets. Don’t think that you can just write one book either. Publishers often want a novel a year from their authors – in the same style and genre. This is how you build your readership. Many people seem to want to be writers without having a real idea of what it entails.’ Carole Matthews, author of The Sweetest Taboo, in Writers’ Forum
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