My favorite thing to remember about novel-writing is an observation I saw taped to a friend's wall in her office in graduate school: "Nobody asked you to write that novel". Therefore novel-writing is a choice--you can always stop, always keep going. You are free to do whatever you want. Most novelists come to writing novels because they have been avid readers. Almost all novels, because they are capacious and hard to contain, are imperfect. Normally, "perfect" and "ambitious" cannot co-exist in the same novel. Therefore, most readers have plenty of opinions about how even a wonderful, beloved, and thrilling novel might be made just a little better. And so we try it. And we discover that it is both harder and easier than it looks.
Links of the week March 18 2019 (12)
Our new feature links to interesting blogs or articles posted online, which will help keep you up to date with what's going on in the book world:
25 March 2019
Exhaust your own curiosity about your project before showing it to someone else. Let your own ideas play out without getting input from others, then, after you show them your work, use their responses as input to push you forward. It may take you several drafts and a long time to come to the end of your ability to tackle a given subject, and when you do, you might be satisfied or dissatisfied with your product. If you are dissatisfied, the input of others will give you ideas for how to shape your novel further. If you are satisfied, the input of others will let you know if your novel is readable and accessible.
The mere thought is at once repulsive and terrifying: books as commodities. After all, a book is the original divine creation of its author, right?
We typically think of commodities as undifferentiated products such as corn or wheat. To a consumer looking for flavor and nutrition, one kernel of corn is the same as another. Though higher-quality corn can command premium prices, the price ceiling is ultimately determined by what the market is willing to pay for a given product.
If we divide the hours of reading pleasure one book offers by its price, we can create a simple metric: cost per hour of reading pleasure. This metric allows one book's pleasure-delivery potential to be compared to another's. Readers are unlikely to consciously intellectualize their cost per hour of reading pleasure. Yet this metric guides consumer behavior much as gravity guides water to flow downhill. In a marketplace of interchangeable options for pleasure, consumers will gravitate toward the best-quality option with the lowest price, whether that quality is measured by brand, average review, or word of mouth.
The Me Too movement certainly does not mark the first time women have instigated widespread change in our society, but it may be unique in its scope, speed, and sweep. Moving from a social-media hashtag to courtrooms and classrooms around the world, Me Too has impacted not just politics but all aspects of entertainment and culture - including writing and publishing.
At the same time, Me Too is generating renewed interest in stories that were formerly sidelined because of their bold feminist themes or "unlikeable" female characters. Second-wave feminist texts like Lorde's Sister Outsider and Dworkin's Pornography: Men Possessing Women are finding a new generation of readers; novels like Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Wolitzer's The Wife are finding new life on screen. I believe that discovering this historical continuity is vital for the current feminist moment. I chose to set The Red Word in the mid-1990s in part because that was my own university era (so I could trust to memory as well as research for the details) but also because I wanted to explore the contours and lasting impact of third-wave feminist ideas as they shaped my characters' thinking and behaviour inside and outside the classroom.
Late last month, the author Kosoko Jackson withdrew the publication of his début young-adult novel, "A Place for Wolves," which had been slated for a March 26th release. The book, which follows two American boys as they fall in love against the backdrop of the Kosovo War, had garnered advance praise ("a tension-filled war setting, beautiful young love, family strength and all heart," one blurb enthused). It also had the imprimatur of the #ownvoices hashtag, in which the main characters of a book share a marginalized identity with the writer-Jackson is black and queer. But a disparaging Goodreads review, which took issue with Jackson's treatment of the war and his portrayal of Muslims, had a snowball effect, particularly on Twitter. Eventually, Jackson tweeted a letter of apology to "the Book Community," stating, "I failed to fully understand the people and the conflict that I set around my characters. I have done a disservice to the history and to the people who suffered."
The Y.A. world is often credibly depicted as a censorious, woker-than-thou hothouse, and never more vividly than in Rosenfield's piece; the article has become a Rosetta stone for anyone seeking purchase on Y.A.'s callout-and-cancel culture.
Authors have heard the same advice from their agents, fellow author friends, and even publishers time and again: if they want readers to know about their books, they should hire independent publicists to supplement publishers' publicity campaigns. The new normal is this: independent presses and major publishers alike expect many authors to do the lion's share of their own publicity.
This means that authors must own or share functions ranging from providing publishers with media contacts; promoting their work via their (hopefully robust) social media channels; scheduling book talks; writing supplemental press materials; and pursuing local or niche media. In-house publicists do fantastic work and are ardent believers in the printed word, but belief is not enough. In an age when the publishing industry is largely consolidated under a handful of corporate umbrellas, in-house publicists are often juggling several book campaigns at a time. They seldom have the bandwidth to conduct comprehensive research and follow up with publicity avenues that are off their beaten paths.
Katherine Rundell is visiting the Bologna Children's Book FairThe Bologna Children's Book Fair or La fiera del libro per ragazzi is the leading professional fair for children's books in the world. this year for the first time and the celebrated children's author, who is translated into 28 languages and counting, is excited at the prospect of meeting many of her foreign publishers for the first time, as well as exploring the wealth of books from other countries on show.
"I've been to the city but not to the book fair, so just being able to see what is out there will be wonderful," she says. "I know what English writers are producing, but we don't translate enough in the UK, so being able to see what is being produced further afield will be wonderful."
"I wrote The Girl Savage when I was 21, I'm now 31, and readers have different reactions in different countries and childhood experience itself has changed in those 10 years. It's interesting to see books come out in their second lives," she says. "Those books are read differently because people are reading with a different set of cultural values but, ultimately, they are still kids reading about children's adventures. I occasionally get letters from children that I can't only not read, I also can't identify the language. It's immensely touching."
More than 1,300 writers including Kerry Hudson, David Nicholls, Sally Rooney, Michael Rosen and Val McDermid have backed a campaign for Waterstones booksellers to be paid the living wage.
"As authors, we recognise the vital role booksellers play in our literary culture and industry. Their skill, expertise and passion are a true asset, and this deserves to be acknowledged both through public recognition and financial remuneration," the authors write. "There is anxiety from staff members about the potential for an increased wage being subsidised by staff redundancies or reduced hours. We wish to make it clear that authors will not support that as an outcome. A business that cannot offer a living wage to staff without redundancies or reducing hours [does not have] a viable business model."
There are picture books that engage, transport, amuse, intrigue, enchant, comfort, or even haunt adults, but that don't connect with the children who are their purported audience. This would be absolutely fine-picture books are a unique and endlessly variable art form-but it can be hard to overcome customers' resistance to buying them for themselves. As one of my bookselling colleagues said recently, people will spend $40 on glossy coffee table art books they'll look through once or twice, but are reluctant to buy themselves an $18 picture book they can't stop leafing through in the store.
Why have we come to a place where picture books are relegated to the landscape only of the very young? It was not always thus. We didn't used to hurry children away from picture books into beginning readers and chapter books at age six, the way most parents do now. As a 10-year-old who avidly read novels, I still spent dreamy time absorbed in Remy Charlip's clever Arm in Arm, and often revisited old favorite picture books from my younger years. But there's so much competitive school-related pressure and anxiety that we often overhear adults saying to their kids, who have come up to them hopefully with a picture book in hand, "Put that away. It's a baby book." (Oh, the sorrow!)
18 March 2019
Rachel Hecht Children's Scouting
As we get on the road to Bologna, I think the power of the tie-in continues to have a significant impact internationally: books that have been picked up by Netflix in particular, or optioned in major studio or streaming deals, are generating immediate and big foreign interest-as are novelizations of popular TV series or video games that provide an additional point of entry for readers and fans.
Addison Duffy
Agent United Talent Agency
Across all platforms, buyers are looking for fresh new voices and stories. Studios and especially streaming platforms are hungry for family, young adult, middle grade, and children's content across animation and live action. With the addition of the Disney and Apple streaming platforms, there is a sizeable shift in the appetite for kids' programming.
Brexit has loomed large over the last three London Book FairsInternational Book Fair Information, the focus of numerous panels and programs. But during the 2019 event, the issue came to a stunning crescendo, with three consecutive votes in the U.K. Parliament over the course of the fair's three days leaving the U.K.'s divorce from Europe in a state of chaos.
In his opening keynote at Quantum, the fair's preconference, Faber & Faber CEO Stephen Page celebrated the extended period of stability publishers are currently enjoying. And, citing the "chaos of Brexit" and "Citing prejudice around the world," Page urged publishers to pay attention not only to their individual bottom lines but also to the vital role that publishers collectively play in the cultural ecosystem.
E-books may be the future of publishing, but print editions continue to make up a large portion of book sales, and, for many indie authors, printing remains a crucial aspect of the self-publishing process.
One of the most popular ways indie authors print physical books is through POD-or print-on-demand-services. The clearest benefit of using a POD service is that authors don't have to spend money printing large quantities of physical books that customers may or may not end up buying; with POD, authors only have to print as many books as they sell.
Most services also ship to customers directly, which cuts down on delivery time and allows authors to attend to the many other tasks and responsibilities that come with self-publishing. And, because books are always ready to be printed (assuming the contract with the service remains active), titles are never out of stock. Finally, many POD providers offer ancillary services, such as cover design and copy editing, which can be of tremendous help to indie authors who lack the contacts or expertise to manage these aspects of the process on their own.
Beyond these features, which are common to most services, POD providers vary widely in the benefits they provide, the business models they follow, and the fees they charge. Here's a breakdown of some of the major POD players and the attributes that make each service unique.
AA Dhand sits at a table in the balcony cafe at Bradford's magnificent old Wool Exchange and points to the spot where his latest victim was found.
She was hanged in a particularly grisly fashion from a ledge below the hammer-beam roof, suspended between two grand granite pillars.
Her name was Usma and she met her tragic fate at the start of City of Sinners, the Bradford crime author's latest novel.
The reputation may not be helped by crime thrillers that paint a picture of its mean streets. But Dhand says his books, which tackle racial and religious tensions, child grooming and terrorism, can't try to please anyone but his readers.
"My job as a crime writer is to thrill and entertain and to keep you turning the page," he responds. "It's not to try and make the city read a certain way."
In 2013, at an age past which most people live, W.S. Merwin published three books. One of them was a 1,500-page Collected Poems with Library of America, which even as it landed was out of date. A new volume was already scheduled for 2015. Others would follow. Just last month yet another book of prose arrived, full of Merwin's account of meeting Pound, tales of translation woe, tiny shards of memory from travels long ago. This constant production, which in a writer like Updike could feel like mania, in Merwin felt proof that the meaning of living was to search, and the search could not end until he did.
Just after World War II, a young Princeton student journeyed to St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, DC, to visit Ezra Pound. The great poet had been tried for treason for broadcasts he made in Italy for the fascist government and, pleading insanity, wound up serving a dozen years in the psychiatric institution. To the astonishment of his young visitor that day in 1946, Pound greeted him as if he were a serious poet. Like an elder, he also offered advice. "You don't really have anything to write about at the age of eighteen," Pound warned. "The way to do it is to learn a language and translate. That way you can practice, and you can find out what you can do with language, with your language."
While times have been upbeat in the book world, with almost universal good results for publishers, the same cannot be said of news media, and in particular digital news media. Whereas a few years ago startup news companies, backed by aggressive venture capital and touting technologically turbo-charged journalism, were riding high, now they are in full-on crisis mode. Large-scale layoffs have occurred at former darlings of the internet economy including the HuffPo, Buzzfeed, Vice and the Pool. For those working in the field, the news has been grim; prospects are shrinking; jobs are going; budgets are being slashed; the promised future is not coming to pass.
Ultimately this is all about the currency that powers the media environment and that, in the digital age, has become the most prized asset of all: attention. Getting, keeping and, crucially, monetising attention are harder than all of these companies had bargained for. Nonetheless, there is a huge lesson and positive message here for publishers
Toby Faber on the pleasures and surprises of writing the history of the firm founded by his grandfather
In January 2017, I succumbed to a long-standing temptation and decided to pitch a history of Faber & Faber.
There was a clear arc to the story: the early struggle and the arguments with shareholders that accompanied the foundation of the firm, the luck and insight that led Geoffrey Faber to recruit TS Eliot as an editor, the need to adapt to the post-war world, the almost-bankruptcy in 1970, the turnaround fuelled by money from Cats in the 1980s, and then, finally, the restructuring in 1990 that reinforced the firm's independence when all its competitors were being swallowed into conglomerates. I knew many of the individual stories that I wanted to tell, too: the elaborate jokes the directors played on each other in the 1930s, Lord of the Flies being rescued from the slush pile, the rejection of Animal Farm, and Eliot's handwritten note on a memo about Ted Hughes: "I think we ought to take this man now. Let's discuss him."
Three authors of middle grade and young adult titles transformed a panel discussion into a master class on how reality finds its way into fiction, during a wide-ranging conversation hosted by Children's Books Boston on March 12 at Simmons University. Led by Horn Book executive editor Elissa Gershowitz, authors Liza Ketchum, Malinda Lo, and Tara Sullivan shared the extent to which they combine meticulous historical research, careful editing, and personal acumen to create realistic fiction storylines for young readers.
For all three authors, however, the need to establish a firm factual foundation for their work is done in the service of creating compelling fiction. The daughter of a historian, Ketchum said her work is, in part, informed by the fact that her father's books were, "All about white guys." Fiction, she said, creates the opportunity to enrich the stories of people who are not seen in those histories.