writerlywitterings

This weekend I received a new book in the post. Actually I received three, but only one is relevant for this blog post.

 

I regularly get books posted to me. Sometimes it’s a pain, especially when I’m in the middle of a book myself. Why? Because when I’m sitting at my desk trying to write 5-7,000 words a day, I can’t afford the distraction of another book that will tempt me away from my own work.

 

Disraeli once said “when I want to read a book, I write one”. One thing is certain: when an author is writing, it is absolute death to his art to read another person’s work. I can’t. If I do, my writing takes on that writer’s style. There’s some sort of osmosis that seeps into the keyboard or something.

 

However, I have been persuaded to read The Ravens of Solemano by Eden Unger Bowditch. Why? Well, because this woman is a keen writer. She has written another book (Atomic Weight of Secrets), and she has contacted me personally to see whether I can give her a

plug for it.

 

It’s damn hard to get a book known out there – as I may have mentioned once or twice on this blog (that was sarcasm, in case you missed it). Books are written, sent to publishers, and occasionally the better ones are taken up and appear in print. However, the problem is that the marketing budgets in large publishing houses are all taken up.

 

The cost of advertising nowadays is prohibitive. Publishers spend a lot of money bringing a book to market. Just today I received the latest version of a map for Tournament of Blood. It is brilliant, a new way of looking at the area, and rendered in a delightfully medieval manner. For me, it makes the scene come alive. But it cost someone several man-hours, and those man-hours had to be paid for by my publisher.

 

Then again, publishers have the expense of editors, copy-editors, proof-readers, and even secretaries and receptionists to cover. They tend to have large brick-and-mortar sites to house all these thoroughly industrious chappies.

 

Without them, life would be much easier. I could go and write three books a year, no problem, and stick them up electronically.

 

There’s no surprise that people complain about publishers.

 

After all, what do publishers do? They take money in, and pay it out at six monthly intervals to the poor devils like me who do all the real work. Not hard.

 

Aha! I hear you say: then why don’t you go straight to electronic books and cut out these middle-men?

 

And the answer is: simple. I don’t want my books to sink without trace.

 

Everyone can think of authors who are richer than they deserve. Many will point at EL James (confession, I had to look up her initials in case I used the initials of one of my own favourite short story writers, MR James!) and tell me that there are authors who don’t need all these editorial wallahs. All they need do is put a book on the web, and rake in the spondulicks.

 

Yes. Some authors are very lucky. Some can write perfect prose without the need for intervention from another writing professional. Some literary types (which tends to mean independently wealthy and without the need to earn a crust) don’t need help. Some earn ridiculous sums for their work. However, for every one author who makes it and makes it big, there are 5,000 who drown. There is a rule of thumb, the 80:20 rule, that in any profession the top 20% earn 80% of all that profession’s income. In writing, it is more like a 95:5 rule. That means that of all the income generated from writing, 95% is taken by only 5% of the authors.

 

It used to be the case that if a writer started writing a book, there was a less than 10,000 chance that it would be published. Now, it’s easy to get published (on the web). However, it is infinitely harder to get read.

 

There are plenty of people who try to write. Many are very poor story-tellers. That’s my opinion, but I am a publishing professional – I earn my money from writing – so my view is valid. I believe that too many people write something and fling it at the internet in the hope that it will garner such favourable reviews that they will be proved to be the next Da Vinci Code or 50 Shades superstars. Well, I’m sorry, but they won’t. Very, very few people earn enough from  their writing to be able to keep a mortgage, and the number who can do so is reducing as the money dries.

 

The thing about publishers is, not only do they help create much better work by honing it, they also provide brand awareness – a fact which is growing in importance.

 

If you go to the internet and look up a book, it is quick and easy. However, if you go to browse, hunting for a book – well, from personal experience, you might as well go and dunk your head in a barrel of wine, for all the good it’ll do you. At least the wine will get you drunk. Searching for books, when you have no idea what it is you’re actually looking for, and you’re only looking for a diversion for a few hours, is painfully difficult – at least, it is for me.

 

You can search for cheapest titles first, and you will be presented with a couple of hundred thousand free books. Or go the other way, and wade through all the books at $30 plus, trying to get to the books that are $8. It’s impossible.

 

When you do buy a copy, and get it loaded on your kinoobo reading doohickey, you find it’s full of typos. There are repetitions of the same word in the same sentence, the same paragraph, or the same page. There are misspelled words, there are missing commas, missing (Dear God, I hate this) or misused apostrophes, confusion between the use of “their”, “there” and “they’re”, and any number of other failures. They are there in the work when the author has edited, copy-edited and proofed their own work. You cannot escape it. It will happen.

 

That is why publishers are there. They often fail to edit as well as they might. If a book is published in the USA, it will come to the UK without amendment, and will look odd to Brits as a result. But it’s still got that conviction, that brand-confirmation. The publisher will always produce better-crafted work than an individual: the fact that a book has been put out by a publisher means that it has been approved and improved by professionals. And that is beginning to matter.

 

For the author, there are ways to avoid the copyediting errors. My own modern thriller, “Act of Vengeance”, is a well-produced book because I paid for an editor, a copy-editor, a cover designer – basically, it’s got everything that a published book should have.

 

So, I believe that publishers are still very important to books. But they have their own costs to cover, as I said.

 

Now I come back to the point, at last, and the point is this: authors who put themselves out and try to get their books marketed deserve all the help they can get.

 

Many writers finish the book, send it off, and expect publishers to immediately cobble together a budget of half a million pounds to market it. Well, it doesn’t happen like that. Most of the budgets are already tied up with the latest book by the author the publisher is pushing. Why push that one? Because that author was given a £200,000 advance, and the publisher is determined to get the money back somehow. Blowing part of the marketing budget to ensure the firm sells loads makes sense.

 

When I was a computer salesman it was always said that “no one got fired for buying IBM”. In the same way, no marketing or PR professional got fired for promoting, say, JK Rowling. Think about that. Was anyone unaware that her latest Harry Potter was coming out? And yet every time, Potter Mania would be stoked by the vast resources of Bloomsbury, while the mid-list authors who brought in the bread-and-butter money that paid for the buildings and long lunches for the publisher withered with no promotions.

 

Authors have to look to their own resources when it comes to marketing.

 

The thing is, when someone wants to get their book marketed, there are only so many friends and members of the family who can be asked to promote it. It’s a bit embarrassing to keep on asking for the favour (and if you think it’s bad with one book, you should try asking for people’s help with the thirty-second!). However, if you won’t get moving and try to get some publicity, you’re like a shark that stops swimming: you sink.

 

So, when I was politely asked (and Eden was very polite) whether I would consider reviewing her book, I said no. I was hellishly busy. And when she kept up a conversation over some months until her new book came out, I eventually submitted to fate. I want to help new authors – I’ve been doing so all my working life. I’m busy again, it’s that time of year, but she was persistent, polite, and persuasive.

 

It works.

 

Once story I like to relate is that of my friend Chris Samson. When he started out, he had no knowledge of the industry. All he had was a damn good manuscript. He sent it to a number of people, asking if they would read it and give him any comments.

 

One lady he wrote to was PD James. She did look at it, and liked what she read. She liked it so much, she gave him some suggestions, but also sent a copy to her agent, who took on Chris, and sold it for a large advance (more, in fact, than all my advances put together over the last twenty years – not that I’m bitter …).

 

Sadly, I don’t command the same influence as someone like Chris. But if I can help new writers, I’d like to.

 

Only not just now, please. I have my own book to write. Pick on another author more suited to your work!

 

For those with an interest in such things: currently proofing STICKLEPATH STRANGLER and DEVIL’S ACOLYTE, writing a piece for Medieval Murderers Tenth Anniversary edition, writing a new novel, and trying to fit in real life in-between …