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Comment from the book world in June 2016

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June 2016

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'I didn't think about the readers'

27 June 2016

‘The first two books, I didn't think about the readers. I didn't think anyone was going to read it, and I was much freer. Then the reaction came, and it was more and more difficult physically to write about other people. I spared them. It is inhuman, if you push that direction you end up outside humanity.'

When he started A Death in the Family, he battled the constant sense of ‘this is stupid; this is so little and insignificant... It is always difficult, and I never know when I do something whether it is good or not, I have to give it to my editor and I have to trust him, even if I hate it...

I am not stupid, I know since people are reading it the way they are, there is something else in there that has literary quality and it is not related to the sentences but it is connected with the feeling of presence, I think, presence in the book. Closeness to yourself. But I don't think it's great literature, no, no, no.'

Karl Ove Knausgaard, author of A Death in the Family and Some Rain Must Fall, in the Bookseller

 

 

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'You only have so much petrol in the tank'

20 June 2016

‘It isn't that I can't take the criticism. What you don't need is to hear yourself explained to yourself, or for any sliver of self-consciousness to come into your writing...

‘The greatest enemy to good art is the router in the hall. I have had conversations with other writers who say their concentration is totally shot by their need to check Twitter...

If you are going to engage with that medium, you have to do it really well. I'm not sure even if I had the time I would really do it. I think you only have so much petrol in the tank. I would rather use my words for something else.'

Maggie O'Farrell, author of This Must Be the Place and The Hand That First Held Mine in the Independent on Sunday

 

Two revolutions in publishing

13 June 2016

‘In the last three decades of the 20th century rents rose, publishers moved out of central London, new publishers came and went, historical names amalgamated or went bust, agents became publishers, former publishers became agents. No more handing in manuscripts in carrier bags at reception. Synopses were scrutinised; publishers ceased to accept unsolicited manuscripts. Marketing voices drowned literary-minded editors; agents saw a future in re-writing their clients work; university departments of creative writing sprang up.

Absurd sums were paid to "name" writers - including me - until in 1999 Amazon came along with its actual sales figures ad a bitter sanity was restored for some 10 years; until ebooks arrived and started another revolution. It was of the same order as when Caxton came along and printing took over from manuscripts hand-copied by scribes, and readership went from single digits to thousands. Suddenly, with the internet 500 years later, billions of readers became available. Publishing is still adjusting to the shock, but managing pretty well, considering.'

Fay Weldon, author of The Life and Loves of a She-Devil and Before the War in the Independent on Sunday