When the disruption hit the publishing industry ten years ago, I watched with a wary eye. After I finished The Freelancer's Survival Guide in the summer of 2010, I repurposed this weekly blog to help me understand the changes the publishing industry was undergoing. It seemed, in those heady days, that everything changed daily. And there was a large contingent of brand-new writers who knew so much better than the rest of us how revolutionary this indie publishing thing would be.
Links of the week June 24 2019 (26)
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:
1 July 2019
We've been conditioned by our upbringing in the business culture of the previous century to think of the published book as the be-all-and-end-all of everything we did. Which is why it made my brain hurt, back in the 1990s, when writers would sell their manuscript to the movies first. What was the point of that? I wondered. (Besides money.) Because I always saw it through the narrow prism of a published book. What if the movie didn't get made? That would hurt the published book (and often did).
Because we-none of us-had the right attitude about what we did.
We are not in the publishing industry. We are in the entertainment industry.
For underneath the froth, these were books written by women who not only understood the ways in which women's lives were changing but who were eager to capture those changes on the page. Women such as Rona Jaffe, celebrated for her classic "girls in the city" novel The Best of Everything (1958), who would go on to write 1979's Class Reunion, which followed four women from their time at Radcliffe College through bad marriages and by-and-large better careers to their college reunion 20 years later. And Lisa Alther, whose Kinflicks, published in 1976, told the riotous coming-of-age of Ginny Babcock, teen renegade turned sorority sister, lesbian, suburban mother and more.
But behind all the Ritz and romance - Krantz's heroines in particular were fond of a good wedding or three - something more interesting was going on. Critics often sneer at these books as vacuous and stuffed full of "trivial" concerns such as clothes, shoes and makeup (the wonderfully acerbic Angela Carter memorably described reading Krantz as like "being sealed inside a luxury shopping mall whilst being softly pelted with scented sex technique manuals"), yet they are also part of a rich tradition of novels which place women's interior lives and, most importantly, their sexual desires centre-stage, and, crucially, they are usually, although not always, at their heart about female friendship.
Why are strong, attention-getting titles so important for indie authors? Because there's a lot of competition out there-and next to an arresting, professional-looking cover design, it's the title of your book that's most likely to grab a reader's attention and convince her pick it up and buy it.
The questions become: what is a "good" title, and how do you come up with one? Author Walker Percy once said, "A good title should be like a good metaphor; it should intrigue without being too obvious." True to his conviction, some of his best known titles are The Moviegoer, The Last Gentleman, Love in the Ruins, The Second Coming, and Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book. Intriguing but not too obvious, are they not?
Perhaps you've had a title for your book in mind right from the start, but if you haven't you might want to consider these six tried-and-true tips for creating successful book titles.
One of Neil Gaiman's best known and most influential works, The Sandman, is in development by Warner Bros. Television for Netflix for a live-action series of at least 10 episodes, according to today's (July 1) announcement from the streamer.
Allan Heinberg (Wonder Woman, Sex and the City) is show runner with David Goyer (The Dark Knight, Foundation) and Gaiman, all three of them to co-write the initial episode and all three of them executive producing.
The Sandman, which focuses on Morpheus or Dream, originally was published by DC Comics from 1989 to 1996, and had 75 issues. From the 47th issue, it was released under the Vertigo imprint.
Many early reports of the deal are citing unnamed sources who say it's "the most expensive series that DC Entertainment has ever done" (Lesley Goldberg, Hollywood Reporter). No one in the news media seems to have the actual figures, but the rumors of big bucks have led AV Club to headline Sam Barsanti's write "Netflix Is Throwing a Ton of Money at a Sandman Adaptation" and Gizmodo to headline Charles Pullman Moore's write-up "Neil Gaiman's Sandman Is Becoming an expensive Netflix Series."
As the Caine Prize contenders visit the UK in advance of the announcement of the winner next week, chair of the judges Dr Peter Kimani discusses what the prize has meant to African writing
What have been your observations of the quality of work shortlisted for the 2019 Caine Prize for African Writing?
The five stories on the shortlist are outstanding and any of them is a deserving winner. That four of the five writers are women adds another dimension about the place of women writing on the continent. Quite honestly, this wasn't obvious during the judging process. Not that it matters, but women writers outshone the menfolk in the contest.
The judging panel works with the submitted works. But I believe the Caine Trust engages in outreaches to mobilise writers to participate. Neither did we engage in regional balancing in our judging; we just picked the best writing. That said, we received over 130 submissions from 21 African countries. That's a substantial sample of the continent's writing. However, since the Caine Prize is offered to best fiction in English, or is available in English translation, this linguistic categorisation obviously locks out Arabic, Francophone and Lusophone Africa. Moreover, some 2,000 indigenous languages are in active use in Africa, so the Caine Prize can only accommodate a slice of African writers of English expression.
24 June 2019
UK book sales fell for the first time in five years in 2018, despite the success of bestsellers such as Michelle Obama's autobiography, Becoming.
The UK publishing industry was hit by a surprise fall of £168m (5.4%) in sales of physical books last year, ending a period of growth stretching back to at least 2014.
Sales fell from £3.11bn in 2017 to £2.95bn last year, according to the latest figures from the Publishers Association, which published its annual yearbook on Wednesday.
Some of the biggest hits last year included Michelle Obama's Becoming, published in print and as an audiobook, which is on its way to becoming the most successful memoir in modern publishing history.
Other big sellers included Joe Wicks's The Fat-Loss Plan: 100 Quick and Easy Recipes with Workouts, Michael Wolff's White House exposé Fire and Furyand John Grisham's The Rooster Bar.
Despite its infamy for robbing people of their careers, writer's block can give you a powerful gift-insight into your own relationship to the creative process.
Writer's block is nothing more than a drain of energy when you come to a certain part of the process, and we all have natural ebbs and flows of energy as we move a project through its paces. So, think back. What part of your project were you on when you felt stymied?
Here are four possibilities, each tagged with a creative thinking style that we'll discuss. Does one of these forms of writer's block describe you?
- Maybe you love the research and inquiry phase, but get stuck when it's time to write. (Clarifier)
- Maybe you have so many ideas, it's hard to determine which idea is best for you. (Ideator)
- Maybe you can't let it go; it needs a little more polishing. (Developer)
- Maybe you dash it off but later find sloppiness and errors in it, after getting it out into the world. (Implementer)
Kathleen Hale Came For Her Goodreads Critic. Then The Internet Came For Her.
Five years ago, Kathleen Hale wrote an essay for the Guardian - about targeting a Goodreads reviewer - that nearly ended her career. Now, she's back with a new book that some people say never should have been published.
When you start writing professionally, namely about yourself, people don%u2019t really tell you that putting that kind of work out into the world can feel dangerous. Dangerous to your sense of safety, dangerous to your sense of self, to your relationships, and perhaps even to any potential future career. Write the wrong thing %u2014 and here, wrong can mean anything from merely obnoxious to cruel or racist or wildly incorrect or otherwise offensive %u2014 and it%u2019s easy to be misunderstood, or eviscerated online, or fully canceled, whether for good reason or not.
Five members of the book publishing and bookselling industry appeared Tuesday at hearings being conducted by the U.S. Trade Representative over the Trump administration's proposal to impose a 25% tariff on $300 billion of goods imported from China, including books.
The representatives at the public hearing emphasized a number of reasons why books should be excluded from the tariffs, arguing that because publishers and booksellers operate on thin margins, the imposition of tariffs would almost certainly lead to higher book prices for consumers and could force some bookstores and publishers out of business.
One the point stressed by speakers is the fact that many American publishers (thanks to various ways the business has evolved in the last 30 years) have no choice but to use Chinese printers. American publishers do use U.S. printers wherever possible, explained Lui Simpson, v-p of global publishing for the Association of American PublishersThe national trade association of the American book publishing industry; AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies, but, she noted, "many of the most technically complex and innovative books, including many children's books, can only be printed in China."
Judith Krantz, author of blockbuster romance novels including "Scruples" and "Princess Daisy" that sold more than 80 million copies worldwide, died Saturday in Bel-Air of natural causes. She was 91. The news was originally reported by Deadline.
Once called "the hardest working woman in trash fiction," Krantz wrote books that have been translated into more than 50 languages. Seven have been adapted as TV miniseries, with her late husband, Steve Krantz, serving as executive producer for most of them.
Krantz was renowned for her discipline and rigor, writing 10,000 words per week and spending countless hours researching the historical eras in which her books were set. Her books often featured working women and themes of empowerment and achievement.
Despite her success as a writer, Krantz was often challenged about her choice to write in a genre deemed "trash fiction."
"You know, people think that because I had a good education, I'm not writing on the level that I should," she told The Times. "They think I'm harboring some slim little intellectual volume, that I am really Isaac Bashevis Singer in disguise."
Here at Literary Hub, we're big fans of rejection. And why not? Everybody gets rejected at some point, including young, aspiring short story writers who go on to win Nobel Prizes in literature. So here, I've collected a few of my favorite writer rejections-for the most part, I've stuck to more substantial ones, as opposed to the one-liners you see frequently repeated around the internet, unsourced except for by the power of consensus. There are also a lot - a lot - of fake literary rejection letters out there. Some are obvious; others are a little more skillful. I've tried my best to use only those I could confirm. The letters below range from the polite and apologetic to the cruel and mocking-rejection being an art, it seems, in its own right. Read on, and take heart.
From an unnamed publisher to Robert Galbraith, who is actually J. K. Rowling, upon submission of The Cuckoo's Calling:
Dear Robert Galbraith,
Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to consider with interest. However, I regret that we have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we could not publish it with commercial success.
At the risk of "teaching my grandmother to suck eggs," may I respectfully suggest the following:
Double check in a helpful bookshop, on Amazon or in the twice yearly "Buyer's Guide" of the Bookseller magazine (order via newsagents, or available in your local reference library) precisely who are the publishers now of your fiction category/genre.
More than 200 people from 40 countries attended the International Publishers Association's Africa Rising summit on June 13 and 14 in Nairobi. The event featured panel discussions and presentations on the challenges of professional publishing, both trade and educational, in Africa.
Among the topics addressed were opportunities for innovation in print and digital publishing; the need for more investment, public and private; and the need to establish piracy and copyright protections. Cultural projects discussed included prioritizing publishing in indigenous languages in order to increase literacy, promoting free speech, and decolonizing existing institutions, such as textbook publishers and libraries-all of which are in various states of development by local African publishers and institutions, now with the additional support of the IPA.
"African publishing is the new frontier," said Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o in the opening keynote speech of the conference, in which he touched on the various ways colonialism was an impediment to the professionalization of an indigenous African publishing ecosystem. In the past, "English was the language of glory, while African languages were the languages of gory," he said, encouraging publishers to publish books in indigenous languages and addressing the misperception that there is no existing market for them. "If Iceland, with 300,000 people, can sustain literary culture, why not Africa, where there are 40 million speakers of Yoruba, or 60 million Hausa, and 100 million speaking Swahili?"
When he joined the army, the author had the reading age of an 11-year-old. But he can still remember the pride he felt at reading his first book
I joined the army straight out of juvenile detention at the age of 16. I was no criminal mastermind - I burgled the same block of flats repeatedly and was always going to end up getting caught.
The education system had failed me; I had attended nine schools in seven years and I didn't see the point of it. I wanted to be a panel beater or a tube driver; I had heard they made loads of money and you didn't need much education for those kind of jobs. So that was it - why bother going to school? All I needed was to get a council flat, and I had that cracked because my parents were already on the list. All that was left was a Mark II Ford Escort and that would be me made.
It was while I was in juvenile detention that the army recruitment guys turned up and offered us an early release if we joined up. It sounded better than prison, so off I went. But the army turned my life around by opening my eyes and showing me that there were opportunities if I took the initiative and made something of myself. If I was willing to put in the effort.
When my world truly changed for the better, I was in a classroom, alongside about 20 other boy soldiers, with an old sweat of a captain standing up front. He pointed out of the window, towards the barbed wire fence and the real world beyond, saying: "Out there, they think you are all thick. But you're not. The only reason you can't read or write is because you don't read or write. But from today that all changes."