August 2014 - Writers Magazine

News Review

• 'It looks as if open submissions are here to stay. Publishers, having for many years tried to stem the tide of unsolicited submissions, are now openly soliciting them within a time-limited and often genre- specific framework. Some publishers have always worked this way. Harlequin Mills and Boon has been an example, encouraging unsolicited manuscripts in specific sub-genres of romance and going to some pains to encourage authors to send in what they were looking for to add to each of their lists. But most publishers have made it clear that they will not accept unsolicited submissions...'
• 'The Amazon/Hachette dispute has now caused a large group of authors to band together to protest about how Amazon's actions are affecting their sales. Authors Unlimited printed a letter in Sunday's New York Times. They have accused Amazon of boycotting their books by refusing to accept pre-orders, not discounting their books, slowing the delivery of their books (in some cases to several weeks) and suggesting on some Hachette authors' pages that they might prefer to buy something else. Authors United v Readers United (aka Amazon) is the title of this week's News Review.
• 'The truth is that many a film option, much publicised at the time it was sold, has subsequently disappeared into the sand. The investment in a feature film, particularly a Hollywood one, is so great that studios are exceedingly cautious about which options they pick up and run with. On the plus side though, the track-record of a bestselling book, especially one with a distinctive plot, can give it ‘legs' in a way that nothing else can. The studios have a ready-made audience and storyline, all they need to do is to commission a screenplay and then they're ready to start making the film.'
• Is this 'the end of the publishing business as we know it'? This week's News Review: 'Amazon's launch of a subscription model for ebooks with its Kindle Unlimited has caused dismay amongst both publishers and agents. There has been a debate about whether this would be a sub-licence or a sale, with some agents insisting that it is a sub-licence and Amazon arguing that it is a sale. Authors will get a tiny amount of royalty...'
• 'As two of this week's links demonstrate, poetry is contradictory in its audience and reach. A huge audience is interested in poetry - more than one million people read poems at poets.org each year. But on the other hand poetry book sales, in the US as elsewhere, are meagre for all but the very best-known poets. How is it that an artform which seems central to literature, offering distilled language and meaning in a succinct form, can be so easily ignored by many in the mainstream? In theory this should be poetry's moment, for the short form is perfect for the Internet...'

Comment

• In response to one commentator, Melanie A, who said the "publishing business is corrupt, sick and almost dead", Child stated: "When you say the publishing business is corrupt, sick, and almost dead, you're completely wrong. Yes, it's cautious and careful, as a result of the recession you mention, and the changing entertainment environment you note, and contracts are certainly stricter, but it's vibrant, optimistic, profitable, energetic, full of very smart people, most of them young, most of them women, and I find it a very pleasant place to work (but then, I came from television.) Lee Child, author of 19 Jack Reacher novels, including Personal, after appearing on UK's Newsnight TV programme, quoted in our Comment column.
• ‘I never started writing thinking I would make a lot of money out of it. Most of the writers I knew in the early days had day jobs. When I started making a bit of money from it that was nice. When it became a full-time occupation that was lovely. So the money was a bonus, really. Ian Rankin, author of Saints of the Shadow Bible and many other Rebus novels in the Sunday Telegraph.
• ‘Crime fiction is the natural medium for writing about social justice. I used to write books about an environmental concern or a healthcare concern, but I was beginning to be tiresome, so now I tend to make those issues part of the backdrop to a crime story instead...' Sara Paretsky, author of 16 novels including Critical Mass, in the Independent on Sunday.
• ‘Last month, if you will excuse the self-advertisement, I published a novella as an Amazon Kindle single. A mere £1.49 to download, but already a site called general-ebooks.com is offering the thing free. Call me a spoilsport, but this ripped-off author would prefer the authorities to send a policeman with a search warrant...' D J Taylor, columnist and author of The Windsor Faction and 10 other novels, and biographies of Thackerary and Orwell, in the Independent on Sunday.
• ‘It was terrifying. I thought: "That's it, I only have 12 books in me." I was so sufficiently ill with it that I had to go to a doctor. For six months I couldn't write and I didn't tell anyone. It wasn't that I didn't know what to write, it was that I couldn't get the damn thing out. In the end, I literally pulled myself down to the library, sat there and dragged it out word after word. I didn't plan it, I started on chapter one and just saw where it went...' Freya North, author of 13 novels, most recently The Way Back Home, in the Bookseller on the dreaded writer's block.

Quote

'The literary world is made up of little confederacies, each looking upon its own members as the lights of the universe; and considering all others as mere transient meteors, doomed to soon fall and be forgotten, while its own luminaries are to shine steadily into immortality.' Washington Irving