Comment from the book world in January 2024

‘She was my favourite author, then and now. It might as well have been science fiction. That world was so alien to my world that I was lost in it, and I've never come out again...

At the time, she was rated as a comic genius, along with PG Wodehouse. It's still respectable to read Wodehouse, but Heyer is in the romance box. She's a superb comic writer. Her favourite is The Corinthian... which follows a young man who is about to be forced into marriage by his family, before he teams up with Penelope, a wealthy orphan who is escaping from her own marriage plans. It was written in 1940 when the bombs were falling - it's totally escapist, and probably my favourite book of all time...

I said: "please give me a job because I love Georgette Heyer. You may be deceived by my two degrees in English literature to think that I am interested in literary fiction, but really I love romance and I'm a Heyer obsessive." She ended up copy-editing Regency romances, which she loved - and she also found romance of her own, meeting her husband, fellow literary agent Luigi Bonomi.

I thought, I'd better start writing these stories down. I had previously written a Heyer continuation novel, and I started to rewrite it in lockdown. I posted it, a chapter at a time, on AO3. (Archive Of Our Own). It's incredible, because readers just find you. You're not advertising it - it's nothing but word of mouth or people seeking out what they're interested in. I had so many people messaging me and telling me how much they loved the stories that I thought I'd try writing an original novel...

I have a really ferocious focus. It's not necessarily always a good thing because I'm not very good when I'm interrupted! But once I'm in the zone I'm in the zone. Because I don't have huge amounts of time, I am really focused in how I use the time that I have. Writing is my absolute passion. I was speaking to Jane Dunn, another Boldwood author - she saw somebody talking about how hard it is to be an author, and we said to each other that we love it - writing is the best thing. Why would you do it if you don't really, really enjoy it?

I think there's a general perception that if you work in publishing and you want to be published, it will be really easy. My book was on submission for over a year before it was picked up, and it was such an unpleasant experience. I know that some aspiring authors think that editors and agents don't have any sympathy with that, but I have been through that experience.'

Bookbrunch

https://www.boldwoodbooks.com/contributor/emma-orchard/

‘Stonehenge is one of the world's most iconic and recognizable monuments but, in reality, so little is known about it. How was it built? Why was it built? Who built it? I've written before about moments of great human achievement and I've always been drawn to stories of ordinary people doing seemingly impossible things, and what could be more extraordinary than the construction of this enormous monument. It's such a remarkable achievement and one of the greatest mysteries of all time and that's a fantastic combination for a story.'

Ken Follett talking to his international publishers 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 his new novel Circle of Days, which is coming out next September, in Bookbrunch.

Ken Follett is the author of more than 37 books, which have sold 195 million copies in over 80 countries and been translated into 40 languages. His best-known books are Eye of the Needle, World Without End and The Armour of Light.

https://ken-follett.com/

'Over the past 20 years, some of the best novels written, as it were, or writing that serves the function of a novel, have been on Netflix and HBO. The writing is complicated, the plotting is complicated. It has subtext, and people are really responding to it in a way that, unfortunately, is not happening with books.

It's not like Dickensian fiction, in that lots of people are really watching weekly episodes for something that is very ambitious in scale and scope. Think of the Wire or Breaking Bad, or Succession. Also, if you look at the history of writing, writers tend to shift to wherever the work is. In the 1950s everybody wanted to be a playwright but it's very hard to imagine if a writer had any choice of career now they would start with the theatre. Same with fiction, I'm afraid if you want an audience then the place to go looks like it's TV.'

Nick Hornby is the bestselling author of eight novels, including Just Like You, High Fidelity and About a Boy, several works of non-fiction including Fever Pitch and numerous award-winning screenplays for film and television including Brooklyn, Wild and, most recently, State of the Union.

‘You can offend somebody in the 21st century with something you said in 1970... By the end of the process I was questioning myself, that was the problem. I wrote innocently and I wrote to make people laugh but when I read the book through I thought, gosh really is this offensive? And that? And that? Am I all these things?

Then I began to think to myself, well how do I know I am not causing offence? And that therefore led me to the conclusion that perhaps it might be better to stick to adult books.

I am being honest with you and open. I am just saying that these are the sorts of doubts that this atmosphere raises. I have an Alex Rider out... but it's quite possible that it's just time to pull up the drawbridge and stop...'

Anthony Horowitz, who juggles writing books, TV series, films, plays and journalism and has written over 52 books, including the Alex Rider series for children, Sherlock Holmes and James Bond novels commissioned by the authors' estates and his own murder mysteries for adult readers, including Magpie Murders, in the Evening Standard.

https://anthonyhorowitz.com/

‘Many people write a non-fiction book and then meet a wall of frustration and delay as they attempt to attract interest from an agent or a publisher. This often drives an author into the arms of a burgeoning self-publishing industry. To the person who has spent years acquiring their knowledge, then more years writing their book, the self-publishing industry can be attractive. They can finally hold their book in their hands, show it to friends and say, "Look what I did. I'm published."

But there are drawbacks and one of the biggest is distribution. Having your book ‘published' and listed on a few websites, (usually as eBooks or Print On Demand) means you buy a few copies yourself, just to keep, then you are working hard (and paying fees) to sell other copies.

What I do is work with non-fiction authors, if they have a solid idea, to take them through the steps of giving their manuscript the best chance of attracting a reputable agent or publisher and, with that, get their book into more mainstream distribution channels, including onto the shelves of bookshops and libraries. One of the first things to be recognised in this process is that non-fiction books are not marketed the same as fiction. Fiction authors usually build a following for their books, so the author's name on the cover is a large part of the marketing...'

Jeff Maynard is an Australian author and documentary maker. His books include Niagara's Gold, Divers in Time and The Letterbox War of Kamarooka Street. Jeff has written widely for television and contributed articles to magazines around the world.

https://www.andrewlownie.co.uk/2019/04/01/selfie-to-shelfie