July 2015 - Writers Magazine

News Review

• 'According to some sources, the audiobook market is growing rapidly. Orion audio publisher Pandora White called the sector "the fastest-growing in publishing" and Booktrack is growing exponentially, but is the quality of the recordings being sacrificed in order to achieve the lowest price? The download has injected new life into a rather quiet corner of the book world, so what are the issues?'
• A kind of fever seems to have gripped a large number of book-buyers who have rushed out to buy Harper Lee's ‘new' book Go Set a Watchman, making the book a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. HarperCollins in the States says that the book has broken its own record for the number sold. But why is there such a huge surge of interest? Go Set a Bestseller is this week's News Review.
• 'At the London Short Story Festival a month ago writers lamented the lack of a publishing market for short stories. With one or two notable exceptions, such as Comma Press, which is publicly funded, publishers do not find it economic to publish short story collections.' News Review asks 'Can short stories find an audience?'
• The news that Scribd is reining back on successful erotica and romance titles exposes the weak link in the subscription model of bookselling. Readers who are addicted to reading these books read them in large quantities and at great speed, so any subscription model which offers as many books as you want for a fee are certainly going to be in trouble...' This week's News Review looks at a technical hitch with subscription services - readers are reading too much!
• 'This was a week packed with news, much of it from Book Expo, so this is just a short summary...' News Review ranges across BookExpo - Richard Charkin saying that power was shifting to authors - to Google's latest action and how authors' groups are offering support to their members.
• Independent London publishing house Atlantic has recently had a new managing director, Will Atkinson. He put forward the company's publishing philosophy very clearly in an article for Bookbrunch, which sadly is behind their paywall. It is possible however to quote what he says in his article, ‘Publishing culture and commerce'.
• Good news on children's books - 'Recent figures from Nielsen BookscanUK bibliographic organisation, describing itself as 'the definitive retail monitoring service for books', which shows UK bestseller lists on its website. http://www.nielsenbookscan.co.uk/ show that children's print books are doing well in eleven out of the twelve countries the research tracks, the exception being India. That means there's a real boom going on in children's books, heartening news for children's writers...' This week's News Review is entitled Children's print book sales booming.

Comment

• ‘The prize thing was absolutely wonderful. It brings you readers and that's the thing you want with every bone in your body but - how to say this without sounding churlish? - I'm very aware that people will have been saying, "Huh? Really? when it won prizes, so I don't take it as a sign that I've got there yet. I'm still working out how to write books. I need more time...' Katherine Rundell, author of Rooftoppers and the forthcoming The Wolf Wilder, in the Bookseller, provides this week's Comment.
• Our Comment is from author and agent Bill Clegg: 'When I finish a week of writing, I'm sick of my own head and desperate to get into the work of someone else.(Going between agenting and writing) is like a series of reunions, you're always happy to be where you are.'
• 'Most authors are driven to write - would probably write whether or not they were ever published or paid, just for the joy of it. This is their strength and their downfall. With the exception of a canny few who treat art as a business, writers are often reluctant to think of their work as just another product...' Joanne Harris, author of The Gospel of Loki and Chocolat, provides this week's Comment in the Daily Telegraph.
• ‘With a shortlist so splendid and accomplished, it was not surprising that in the end our final decision came down to taste... The issue of taste is important here because it is one that affects the decision-making process not only for prize judges but for the industry as a whole: and that's something all authors have to come to terms with throughout their careers. You can't please all of the people all of the time - even hugely well-known authors have some books that do better than others...' Our Comment is from Louise Doughty, author of Apple Tree Yard and chair of the judges for the Desmond Elliott Prize.
• 'At some point, I will get down to actually writing. I don't believe in waiting for inspiration to strike. I'm sure inspiration does arrive at some point, but I would never embarrass it by noticing its arrival or departure...' Anne Enright, author of The Green Road, in the Sunday Times magazine
• 'What I love about fantasy is that it is all about the world, and that world can be showcased in so many different ways, be it film, games, books or artwork. That's part of the reason fans feel so passionately about fantasy. There are already 35 fan fictions about the Summoner trilogy on Wattpad, for example.' Taran Mathan, author of just-published Summoner, Book One: The Novice, which has already attracted more than six million reads on Wattpad, in the Bookseller
• ‘Yet a writer's life is not limited to the dramatic moment of first exposure or the excitement that greets the new work of the well-established. In particular, as suggested by the phrase "the difficult second novel", things can get tough after first publication. If your first book has gone like the clappers, you'll probably be feeling pressure, both self-generated and from expectant publishers...' Alex Clark provides this week's Comment on "The difficult second novel".

Quote

'I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should read one of my first drafts. But I'm one of the world's great rewriters.I find that three or four readings are required to comb out the cliches, line up pronouns with their antecedents, and insure agreement in number between subject and verbs...' 

James Michener