Lynda La Plante is a bestselling crime novelist and an Edgar Allen Poe Award winner. She's known for her series Prime Suspect and its TV adaptation of the same name. The Jane Tennison series is a prequel to the Prime Suspect series, following Tennison at the beginning of her career. Plante's latest novel, the seventh book in the Jane Tennison series, Unholy Murder will be released August 24 by Zaffre.
Links of the week August 16 2021 (33)
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:
23 August 2021
The feedback from my readers is what drives me to keep writing. This has been especially true during the pandemic, with the help of software and social media such as Zoom, Facebook, Instagram etc. Although my readers are the biggest incentive for me, I am also greatly inspired by the commissions I receive from my publishers. Writing novels is a very solitary occupation but the team at Bonnier Books (Zaffre) give me incredible support and encouragement. The inspiration for each novel can come from many different sources - for example, Widows came about as a result of reading a small newspaper article about the wives of prisoners who had carried out a bank raid.
Drown Memorial Hall was only a decade old when it was converted into a field hospital for students stricken with the flu in the autumn of 1918. A stolid, grey building of three stories and a basement, Drown Hall sits half-way up South Mountain where it looks over the Lehigh Valley to the federal portico of the white-washed Moravian Central Church across the river, and the hulking, rusting ruins of Bethlehem Steel a few blocks away. Composed of stone the choppy texture of the north Atlantic in the hour before a squall, with yellow windows buffeted by mountain hawks and grey Pennsylvania skies. Built in honor of Lehigh University's fourth president, a mustachioed Victorian chemistry professor, Drown was intended as a facility for leisure, exercise, and socialization, housing (among other luxuries) bowling alleys and chess rooms. Catherine Drinker Bowen enthused in her 1924 History of Lehigh University that Drown exuded "dignity and, at the same time, a certain at-home-ness to every function held there," that the building "carries with it a flavor and spice which makes the hotel or country club hospitality seem thin, flat and unprofitable." If Drown was a monument to youthful exuberance, innocent pluck, and boyish charm, then by the height of the pandemic it had become a cenotaph to cytokine storms. Only a few months after basketballs and Chuck Taylors would have skidded across its gymnasium floor, and those same men would lay on cots hoping not to succumb to the illness. Twelve men would die of the influenza in Drown.
When I keyed into the locked building, it was empty, silent save for the eerie neon hum of the never-used vending machines and the unnatural pooling luminescence of perennially flickering fluorescent lights in the stairwells at either end of the central hall. While in a basement computer lab, I suddenly heard a burst of noise upstairs come from one end of the hall rapidly progress towards the other - the unmistakable sound of young men dribbling a basketball. Telling myself that it must be the young children of one of the department's professors, I shakily ascended. As soon as I got to the top the noise ceased. The lights were out. The building was still empty. Never has an obese man rolled down that hill quite as quickly as I did in the spring of 2011.
Whether it's the language, the tradecraft or the folk legends of American Mafia life, The Godfather reads like a voyage through the underworld with Mario Puzo acting as our Virgil.
The Godfather also functions as a classic of another genre: the immigrant story. Vito is the new arrival who works around the clock to establish himself in his new land, getting his hands dirty, while his more privileged and better-educated son longs to succeed like a native. Michael Corleone's dreams are of assimilation. He marries a willowy WASP beauty, her family rooted in the New England of the Mayflower. He wears the uniform of the US Army. He is adamant that ‘his children would grow in a different world. They would be doctors, artists, scientists. Governors. Presidents. Anything at all.'
Scotland’s new makar Kathleen Jamie: ‘Poetry is at the heart of our culture’ | Poetry | The Guardian
Kathleen Jamie's tenure as makar - Scotland's national poet - is already a work in progress.
When the 59-year-old was formally welcomed to the role last Wednesday by first minister Nicola Sturgeon, she told reporters that the post "confirms a weel-kent truth: that poetry abides at the heart of Scottish culture, in all our languages, old and new".
Speaking from her home in Fife two days later, she is already excavating that thought: "The warmth of reception I received has been wonderful. I'm wondering if people who are not terribly interested in poetry recognise that here is something of integrity, somewhere where they're probably not going to be lied to or bullshitted, where language is taken seriously."
As those virtues become less common in public life, people might still recognise them in poetry, Jamie suggests. "There's such a depth of a thirst for that, especially after the pandemic." It puts a responsibility on poets, she adds briskly, which is absolutely fine.
Let's talk about the second person point of view, but first, let's talk about video games. Suppose you've played any video game in the past twenty years. In that case, you'll know there are two camera positions developers can use.
Either you are above and just slightly behind the character. From this point of view, you can control the character, where they go, what they do, but the character is not you. The protagonist is Agent 47, or Lara Croft. These games are called 3rd person shooters.
The other option for game devs is to put the player behind the eyes of the character. You see the world as they see it. Think back to games like Halo, or Call of Duty. You're not controlling the hero; you are the hero. These games are called 1st person shooters.
The second person point of view is to literature, what first-person shooters are to gaming. In a second-person point of view text, you, the reader, are the character. That may seem a little confusing at first, but don't worry, we'll go into it further.
Below you'll find the definition of the second-person point of view. We'll talk about what a second person point of view is and why authors use it. We'll also talk about why editors hate this point of view.
Since the start of the Covid pandemic, there's been a rise in instances of government censorship of books around the world. In October 2020, the International Publishers Association released a 106-page report, "Freedom to Publish: Challenges, Violations and Countries of Concern," that outlined 847 instances of censorship in a host of countries, including France, Iran, Serbia, and the United Kingdom, as well as the United States. According to the report, in 55% of those instances, the censorship was undertaken by government authorities. The report is downloadable from the IPA website.
Since that report was issued, efforts to censor books have continued. In July, the Hungarian government imposed an $830 fine on the distributor of the Hungarian translation of Lawrence Schimel%u2019s children's book What a Family!, citing a law that bans the depiction of homosexuality and gender reassignment in material aimed at minors. The book tells the story of two families with young children - one with two fathers and the other with two mothers.
More than 60 bookshops launched in the UK and Ireland in the past 18 months - but who would open one in a pandemic? We asked five to share their stories, while bestselling author Val McDermid remembers the bookshops of her youth.
Despite the huge increase in online shopping during the pandemic, Truman still believes it's a good time to open a physical bookshop. "Over lockdown, people became very much more aware of their local community, and where they were spending their money. They want to shop local and support independents. That works in a bookshop's favour."
The publishing industry has long been teetering on the brink of one crisis or another, whether that's a reckoning around its lack of diversity or its perpetually challenged bottom line. But as the global health crisis unfolded in the spring of 2020, authors and publishers found themselves facing an entirely new dilemma. With in-person talks and signings - once the backbone of the book promotion machine - out of the question, would the whole system collapse? Would publishers fail to find new solutions? Would authors' work not sell? Would independent bookstores go under?
Prior to the pandemic, the strategy for book promotion had remained unchanged for decades. The idea of the book tour was simple: When readers see an author in-person, they're more likely to buy a book that day, get a signature, and maybe stay loyal to them in the future. It might sound glamorous, like a chance for authors to hold court with fans across the country. But the reality is far more taxing - if an author even gets to go on a book tour in the first place. In the wake of the Great Recession, publishers slashed marketing budgets, leaving most authors responsible for their own publicity efforts. The lucky few who get a publisher's financial assistance are usually shuttled from bookstore to bookstore and state to state in a flurry of travel reservations and hotel rooms. Still, publishing is a notoriously staid, risk-averse industry, and wasn't in any rush to pursue alternatives.
During my career in publishing, several factors have led to self-publishing becoming a viable and profitable path for authors. These include:
- The growth of ebook sales, which in some ways replaces the mass-market paperback
- The rise of online retail: the majority of books are now sold online regardless of format-and we all know where, at least in the US
- The advent of print-on-demand (POD) technology and distribution
This last one has been of tremendous benefit to traditional publishers and authors alike. It means that no one has to take a financial risk on a print run when demand is uncertain. Nor does anyone need to worry about warehousing and inventory management. Rather, the book is printed only when an order is placed, then it's immediately dispatched to the customer.
As of 2021, most readers cannot tell if the paperback they're holding in their hands is print-on-demand or from a traditional offset printer. Even hardcover print-on-demand is seeing an increase in sales and acceptance by consumers. Yes, print-on-demand carries carries a higher unit cost (and thus lower profits), and it has some design and production limitations. But for the average self-publishing author, this makes publishing more accessible and affordable than it has ever been. (The same is true for small presses, of course.)
As more and more books get purchased online, it doesn't matter if your books are available on a physical bookstore shelf or not. You don't need a bricks-and-mortar presence for your book to be discovered and purchased. All you need is a product page at the major online retailers. Readers won't know how the book is printed or that it's only printed when they order it, or they may prefer a digital edition.
The biggest trade publishers continue to get larger: Hachette Book Group has entered into a "binding commitment" to acquire one of the industry's largest and most distinct independent publishers, Workman Publishing. HBG, backed by its parent company, Lagardère, is paying $240 million for Workman, which had sales of $134 million last year. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of September.
With its unique approach to publishing, Workman has maintained it own sales force, and has sold its line far beyond bookstores. Both Reynolds and Pietsch said that they see a big opportunity in reaching those markets with a broader list from the combined companies.
Another practical reason for the deal, Reynolds said, is that it costs of a good a deal of money to invest in the type of publishing Workman does. Freed from the distraction of maintaining its own infrastructure, he said, Workman could devote its full attention to developing new products.
It's three years since we announced the formation of Mensch Publishing to an uninterested world.
I have accounts from inception to March 31, which includes setup costs and writing off of all stock and work in progress on a cash-expended basis.
Total cumulative revenue, including some consultancy fees and rights deals, is £278,000 (US$384,453) and profit before tax of £106,000 (US$146,593). I started with £10,000 (US$13,829) in a dedicated bank account and now have £30,000 (US$41,488) after paying advance tax. Not a huge bonanza but at least we are solvent and the on right side of the ledger.
We've published 14 titles, the bulk of them having been supported admirably by Bloomsbury's sales, rights, and production teams and MDL's distribution. Four have been published using IngramSpark's self-publishing platform. I've managed to run the business with no full-time staff but a wonderful freelance team of editors, designers, and publicists.
One of the purposes of the business, apart from keeping me occupied and testing out some of my publishing theories, was for me to relearn the business at the micro level. So what have I learned and which of my prejudices have been confirmed or undermined?
I started at Nosy Crow about 10 and a half years ago, and found my way there entirely thanks to several kinds of luck, really. At the time I was in my last year of an English Literature degree and came home to London in the spring with a vague plan to revise for my final exams. I'd spent the previous few months emailing publishing companies about internships, and I happened to come across Nosy Crow - a very new and small company at the time - on Twitter. They offered me a few weeks of work experience, and after that I managed to convince the company's managing director to let me come back after I'd sat my finals. And then, amazingly, they offered me a job.
The parts of the job that have changed the most for me are the collaborative elements. While I can do the actual hands-on editing perfectly happily from home, I've found the work that requires interaction with other people to be much more of a challenge - and although platforms like Zoom have made an enormous difference, I remain a firm believer that they are not an adequate substitute for in-person discussion. And the things that Zoom can't begin to replicate are the small, incidental moments - the chance encounters and casual conversations in a shared environment - which it turns out contribute an enormous amount to the way we all work and the culture of a company.
In a kind of ludicrously millennial and trivial way, the thing that lockdown has changed the most for me is that it has made me much less hostile to phone calls: in pre-pandemic days I would avoid them at all costs, whereas now I actively look forward to them.
American author Mitzi Szereto says she has been plagued by fake pornographic e-books listed under her name on Amazon in a similar scam to one which previously targeted commercial women's writers in the UK.
Szereto, who has been an author for more than 20 years, recently discovered four Amazon Kindle books labelled under her name which were not written by her with titles like Forbidden and Forced Dirty Collection, available for free on its Kindle Unlimited service. It comes four years after The Bookseller revealed authors such as Melissa Hill, Miranda Dickinson and Millie Johnson had been affected in this way.
The author told The Bookseller of her experience: "I happened to be doing a check of my books on Amazon, since I have a new book coming out. That's when I saw the first two books and they appeared very high up on my list of published books. After I finally managed to get these fraudulent books taken down, a Facebook friend in Germany who'd seen my post about the name fraud, alerted me that two more books had appeared under my name - in fact, within hours after the first takedown. It seems as if the fraudster was all set to go with fresh books to upload and was not deterred in the least."
Like almost every other children's writer I know, my overwhelming desire is to get children reading. I want them to pick up the book and remain immersed in its pages for as long as is reasonable to expect any 21st century digital native to remain immersed in anything.
I want them to experience the unique pleasure of escaping their lives and minds for a brief moment or two through someone else's story. I want them to enjoy the book and share it with their friends, even perhaps re-read at some point. I want reading to be fun, and never a chore.
But that doesn't mean you can't discuss serious subjects - in fact, any subject - in a children's book, if you successfully manage the tone. Yes, young readers are at a crucial stage of emotional and intellectual development, indeed many at different stages. Some will be sensitive on certain issues, and every child needs to feel included in the stories they read. But mindful of all that, it is still possible, I believe, to address big subjects - whether it is grief or climate change.
And I'm interested in exploring these subjects through the dilemmas of characters, not passing down pat moral instruction or orthodoxies, that's not the job of writers. Children today are more connected to their world than ever before, whatever parental and school boundaries they live between, through devices and the constant background of 24 hour news and digital lives. They live in the shadow of issues such as climate change, and I think we owe it to them to provide narratives that navigate and explore such subjects.
'There's more than one way to burn a book', wrote Ray Bradbury, in a coda to the 1979 edition of his anti-censorship classic, Fahrenheit 451. The case of Kate Clanchy, the Orwell Prize-winning author, currently rewriting her book after a particularly strange fit of identitarian pique, shows us just how true that is.
The story of Clanchy's sudden fall from grace in the publishing world is utterly mad, even by today's standards. She is an author, poet and teacher. In 2019, she published Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me, a memoir reflecting on her time teaching in an Oxford comprehensive, to critical acclaim.
But in the two years since, the bounds for acceptable thought and expression have apparently shrunk to such an extent that it is now being painted as a racist screed. Tweeters and Goodreads reviewers recently began criticising the book online, over its descriptions of ethnic-minority and disabled pupils in particular, and it quickly turned into a huge storm.
If you read in English, chances are that there are a few countries that take up the vast majority of your reading. Only 2-4% of books published in English are translated, and even books published in English in countries other than the U.S. and UK often don't get picked up and publicized in the same way that U.S. American works do.
This is even more pronounced when it comes to children's books, where the same books top the charts year after year. Parents tend to buy and read to their kids the same books their parents bought and read to them. If you want to branch out, though, and discover children's books published all across the world, here's a great place to start!
TheToyZone has gathered up the most popular children's books from each country and put them into these gorgeous graphics. You can scroll to the end for an interactive table with every pick! They did this by first looking at the top 20 children's books published by authors from each country (by number of Goodreads user ratings), then picking the book with the highest average rating.
I've listed the books available in English, but the full list can be found at the end of the post.