Michael Jecks's Blog, page 32

Editors and Editing

Yesterday I had to give a talk to the Society of Editors and Proofreaders – and I had great fun!

It is a constant source of astonishment to me, how many people say that they hate editors and all their kind. One friend of mine routinely tells how his was trained by the Gestapo, while another lambasts them for being frustrated authors, and “if they want to write a bloody book, they should go and write their own …”

But, and I think it’s a big “but”, they are essential – as many people, those who read and especially those who read ebooks, are beginning to realise.

Yes, it’s not nice to get an editor’s comment on a book. You know the one: on the line underneath “I really loved this one” there’s the little “Just one or two suggestions” sentence. Which usually leads into a minor 30 page dissertation pulling the book to shreds and trying to impose some order on your story and characters.

Research: mediaeval only. And all were properly edited …

The thing is, no matter how objective, sensible, literate and methodical an author may be, he or she will invariably muck things up as soon as he or she starts to read – oh, I can’t be bothered to keep up the he/she malarky – his work. The thing is, as soon as the author’s eyes light on a string of letters, he sees what he expects. In his head the recording is playing, telling him how this scene goes, with every word picked carefully for maximum effect, every comma and full stop perfectly positioned. Apostrophes? No problem for our intrepid scribbler. Semi-colons? Fine.

But on paper, they sneakily move around.

You want to be published? Be professional in your editing, then.

There have been studies conducted by reputable American universities, which have found that when a person sits and reads from a screen, much of the information is missed. For proofreading, it’s a disaster, apparently. The brain can cope far better with words printed on a sheet of paper. But even then, people make a mess of things. If you read words on a sheet of paper, and you wrote those words, you find that you miss typos and misspellings. You may have read that piece of work twenty or thirty times, but if you only sit back and read it, you will miss a load of the errors.

The only way, as demonstrated by personal experience, is to read the words aloud. That means you get the eyes, brain and mouth involved. It sounds daft, I know, but it does mean that while checking your work, if a comma is missing, if a word is mistyped, you will notice it. It makes you stutter, and when you look for the cause of the stutter, you will find the typo.

On the door of my office at Exeter University, there is a page of typing that was sent to me a while ago. It has a number of words on it, but in each word every letter other than the first and last have been randomly rearranged. What is fascinating about it is that you can read it perfectly easily. It is a proof of the fact that the brain (clever device that) can pick up the words on the fly. All the letters in the middle of the word are checked instantly. So long as the first and last are in the right place, the brain can quickly rejig things and make sense of it.

All of which means that authors will miss most of their own errors.

And that is why editors and copyeditors are so vital. How often have you picked a book and read it on Kindle, only to “tut, tut” and mutter indignantly at the complete lack of decent spelling and grammar, or the simple typos that really should have been edited out?

Well, in part this is a function of the constant driving down of prices in the book industry. Publishers employ fewer and fewer editors and other staff, but they don’t do without. However, many books that go straight to ebook are written by people with no experience of publishing, no understanding of editing, and only a fervent belief in their ability to become the next JK Rowling or EL James. And some are making a good living at it, don’t get me wrong. But the vast, vast majority are throwing their work at the internet in the hope that they’ll make their fortune – and don’t. It’s hardly surprising. Even when they are given away for free, bad work will not entice happy comments from disgruntled readers who reckon they’ve wasted their time.

Research: mediaeval only. And all were properly edited …

However, for me, the experience of reading is wrecked by poor editing. I still remember the disgust of reading a published book set in Georgian England that had been bought  from an American writer, which spoke of the cicadas chirping in Kent. No. We’ve never had cicadas in the UK. There was mention that it was a cool evening, so they put hickory wood on the fire. Again, no. We don’t have hickory now and didn’t then.

That book was published in the US, and then the series brought to the UK. Clearly no one bothered to edit or copyedit, and as a result when I wrote a review, I was extremely rude about it. Perhaps I should not have been, but I was. It was a bad book, to my thinking. It was let down badly by poor research and non-existent editing.

So, two rules about good writing here:

First, always, always, read your work aloud for typos and errors;

Second, if you’re going to try to look serious about your writing, no matter whether you go the traditional publishing route or decide to self-publish, always pay someone to edit it professionally.

It costs money, but it is money very well spent. And it may just lead to sales.

Tagged: authors, books, Editing, publishing, writing

A Short Interlude …

Good, old fashioned work. Perfect pencil and proofs!

Today I managed to really upset another writer. Entirely accidentally. In fact, going through the twitter messages, I still don’t quite see where I managed to hit her somewhere painful, but there you go.

I guess that all writers can tend to have soft parts that bruise too easily – but if that’s going to get you angry, you shouldn’t be a writer. After all, writing as a process means setting out in detail intimate ideas, thoughts and feelings, and if you feel battered by seeing your work commented on, you’re really in the wrong business.

The discussion I (thought I) was having with the other writer was about how we work.

My correspondent commented that she always worked through each paragraph carefully. Well yes, so do we all. She went on to say that with her books, she always sent them out to friends and writers for their critiques.

I pointed out that with my books I tend to work on them for what seems like an eternity, and when I’m happy with them, I send them off to the editor and agent for their criticism. They are, after all, the professionals.

This got her goat – big time. I was told off for making comments on her work and her way of working (no. I was engaging with her in a discussion, I thought), and she then went thermo-nuclear with suggestions that if I wanted to discuss how long we’d been writing etc … well, you can see it all on Twitter, if your life is boring enough today.

The latest proofs done. Back to trying to write again!

What I would just like to say is, writing is not a precious art form. It’s work. I work one way: I plan and plot, I write, I edit (much of the time as I go along), and then edit again on full print outs. Only when I’m happy with the book do I send it off to the editor and agent.

Other people work differently. I know authors who came up, unlike me, from writing groups. They tend to circulate their work amongst friends and writers. One classic example is my friend Chris Samson, who always favours some of his friends with copies before he sends  his work off to the publisher. That’s fine. It works for Chris. It wouldn’t for me, for several reasons. It doesn’t mean I look down on him.

I can’t. He’s a damn sight taller than me for a start.

However, the other thing is, I don’t think it is the job of my friends, family, or other writers, to read my work until it’s been edited and is almost ready to go to print. Why on earth would I push my work in front of someone before it’s been edited? That, to me, seems damn cheeky. I wouldn’t want other people to thrust uncopyedited manuscripts in front of me. I don’t have time to read for pleasure just now, let alone doing free editorial work for other writers.

That’s my view. And it is only my view.

The proofs so far this year. Is it any wonder my eyesight’s fading along with my brain?

All writers work in their own sweet way. In fact all of us, over time, will change how we work. I used to work from a strict plan and timeline. I would set out an entire plot on A4 sheets of paper sellotaped together to create a flow chart. Do I do that now? No, of course not. Now I scribble notes daily, consider themes and let ideas fester for a while. Then, when it’s all loosely sorted in my head, I start to write. Once or twice I’ve started from the last scene, and gone back and written the story after. Sometimes I’ve begun in the middle, mostly I start at the beginning. I think I have a pretty sequential approach to story-telling.

Is this right for everyone? No.

Does that mean someone can tell me I’m wrong to work this way? Of course not!

Creative people, and writers are all creative, have to figure out the best way for each of them to work. If you want to write, do it the way that suits you best. If you want to write paragraphs and put each in front of your wife, then do so (mine would pull her hair out); if you want to write the entire book and get it into the best form you can and then send it to an agent, do that!

No one can prescribe for you how to write any more than they can prescribe what you should write. Writers know instinctively what is good or bad, or they shouldn’t be writers.

And please, if another writer tells you how they work, don’t think it’s criticism. They may just be trying to engage you in conversation!

Tagged: authors, books, novelist, process, publishing, writing

Where Do Stories Start?

A couple of weeks ago, I was given a firm instruction to write a bit more about the process of writing. So, just for those who asked, here are some more musings on the world of scribbling.

Planning a story is a pain. Really, it is. I always characterise my work as being 9/10ths day dreaming – and not many people can claim to have a job like that.

But day dreamers still need food for thought. I have to have a basic level of understanding about a period, a scene, a moment in politics – something – before I can even begin to think about a plot.

Well, that’s the easy part. I’ve been fascinated by history for all my life, and reading and researching aspects of the various periods I’ve written about has been a joy, not a chore. Over the last twenty-odd years since I started writing, I’ve collected a library that serves me well. And almost all the books in it have been eagerly absorbed. If you are going to write about history, you need a solid grounding in the history, because otherwise you will not be able to convince the reader.

But if you have the grounding, you have the period, the politics, the social history – where do you start inventing a story?

I usually start with a little snippet I’ve read or heard of. A silly comment, a newspaper article, anything can spark an idea. Either a thought of modern life and how would that have struck Simon or Baldwin, or a situation that drives me so potty I have to write about it (as happened with Act of Vengeance).

Yesterday I was enormously grateful to Tom Cadbury of the RAM Museum in Exeter, who took me around and showed me a few of his favourite items on display. He stopped after showing me the excellent display of flint axes and other hand tools, and said, “What would Baldwin have made of that?”

Fascinating exterior to RAMM. It uses stones from all over Devon to show what rocks there are!

My immediate reaction was, that Simon would have picked it up for a moment and tossed it aside, but perhaps Baldwin would have looked and puzzled over its shape for a few moments.

However, it gave me pause for thought. There are so many little ideas that occur, and to be honest, most have always flitted out of my mind faster than they entered. Which is why now I use a Midori Traveller’s Notebook. I recommend it to anyone who’ll listen, but it’s not the maker that matters, it’s the fact that you need a notebook that will be with you at all times. Yes, I used to use a tablet and my phone – but I’m reverting to older technology because it’s safer. Notebooks don’t get broken, wiped, or lose data because of a power surge or cut. My Midori has notes of various ideas that come to me wherever I am, and many will make it into books.

Back to RAMM – in amongst the broken jugs there were some excellent (possible) stories, such as: why were so many good quality jugs found at the bottom of a well? My own mind immediately brought up a novice’s expression of frozen horror as he peered down into the well having dropped his canon’s best jugs. It’s an idea to fix on, I think – ideal for a camera shot from inside the well looking up, if there are any producers reading this!

A few exhibits further over was another jug, a so-called “puzzle” jug, which was made in about 1300. It has a tower design, with holes cut into the sides all the way up, and figures leering out. Any liquid would appear to be at risk of pouring straight out through all these holes, but the clever design incorporates a hollow handle. Liquids pour down that into the reservoir at the bottom.

A rather poor photo of the puzzle jug

This is my photo,

but you can see it better here:  The Puzzle Jug, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter.

Because of its decoration and the skill of its French designers, it was of enormous value, and Tom speculated that it would probably have been owned by a bishop or someone of similar standing. That again led to me thinking of Stapledon and wondering whether he owned it himself, or whether he had seen and handled it in the house of a wealthy friend, perhaps.

On the other hand, it could have a more mundane story. Perhaps it was seen by a thieving English soldier during the Crécy campaign and brought home on his return?

These are all raw ideas for stories. They are hooks that get my interest, nothing more. But hooks are crucial to writers. It is the sprinkling of little details of historical fact through my books that, I think, give them their realism, and which make the reader occasionally blink and pause to rethink a little detail of life.

One such example I often use was the medieval treatment of animals.

Nowadays we think of medievals as merely cruel for the sake of cruelty. If you hear about cats being put in a sack and beaten to death, or of dogs having burning bushes tied to their tails, or cock, dog fighting, or bull and bear baiting, it’s hard to see the people as kind towards animals.

Yet I would contend that our ancestors had more natural kindness to animals generally. They grew up with animals and understood them.

Jugs found in a well!

In my village there is an old farmer who still has a fair dairy herd. He has grown up around animals, looking after the calves until they grew to a marketable age and size, and then sold them on. There is not much space for sentiment in a farmer’s life.

However, in the back field near his house there is a little mound. That is where one of his old cows is buried. She was with him from birth, and she went with him like a dog when he tramped out across the fields. When she was too old and couldn’t give any more milk, he didn’t send her to the abattoir, but kept her for several more years until she died of natural causes.

Compare that with the way that, during foot and mouth, men would round up herds and shoot them in their hundreds, before piling them up and setting fire to them. There are stories still murmured with horror down here in the West Country about some of the vile men involved laughing and joking as they slaughtered their victims. Perhaps they would have been instantly recognisable to their medieval ancestors.

Similarly I’ve know many men who hunt game. Those who trap rabbits, and who spent time with each one, stroking them and calming them for a minute or two, before despatching them with a quick movement. Cruel people wouldn’t have taken that effort. But it is a part of country life, to ease the passing of other animals – to give to each a degree of respect.

It’s only by thinking carefully about all these little hooks that the story starts to develop.

So, having the hooks set out, it’s time to write the story…

But that’s for next time!

Tagged: books, crime writing, medieval, Museum, novel, publishing, Templar series, writing

Giving Talks

Ok, this is a slight digression.

Today I’ve been writing a speech. Only a little one, but it’s one that has to be good, so I’ve been playing around with words, rereading old speeches and trying out new anecdotes.

I enjoy giving talks. Which author wouldn’t? We get an audience, we get a fee, we get the chance to talk about our favourite subjects and pretty often we get fed, too. Any author will approve of events like that!

The speech I’m writing today is quite focused, because it’s to an audience of publishing professionals. No pressure there, then.

Some gigs are better than others!

However, while that may sound flippant, it is crucial to understand your audience.

 

I have been present at talks where the speaker had no idea what people were going to enter the room – truth to tell, I’ve had that myself on occasion – and it can be a painful experience for all concerned. If possible, learn about the organisation, the people, what is likely to work with them as an audience. Watch existing videos of past talks to the same audience, and measure what gets them interested. Researching the audience is key to any good talk, because if you go in without a good good understanding of what will work, you can come unstuck quickly. I had that once not long ago – I was given a firm briefing, but when I stood up to talk, it was clear that the instructions were plain wrong. That is something to avoid.

With my talk I’m lucky: it’ll be to a group of people who are interested in writing, in words, and in grammar. That puts me on to a stronger wicket.

In the past I’ve often left speeches to the last minute, because the pressure of other work gets in the way, but this week I’m taking no chances: today I planned the main outline of the talk, setting out the main themes in Scapple and on paper, and then moving on to typing up the basics. Tomorrow, I’ll read it through a couple of times, amending as I go, until it sounds and feels natural.

There is no special magic to giving talks. I have attended some hilarious after-dinner speeches in my time – from politicians like Chris Mullen and Gyles Brandreth to comedians and humorous writers.

For me, probably the best was Terry Pratchett. He accepted my invitation to the Crime Writers’ Association Dagger Awards ceremony with enormous humility and was an absolute delight on the day. He spoke with warmth and immense generosity, and I think everyone in the room was enthralled.

Another brilliant speaker for the CWA was Greg Dyke, a short while after he launched his book about being removed from leadership of the BBC. He was funny, shrewd, stimulating and made a lot of friends with his self-deprecating manner.

The main thing about such speakers was, their ability to speak to their audience as though talking to a group of individuals, to be amusing without trying to be a comedian, to engage all the people in the room without allowing any to feel neglected.

In the past I’ve managed a successful career as a speaker by basing my talks on either my knowledge of publishing, my chosen subjects, or by giving anecdotes on my career. There are always plenty of snippets about writing and the life of an author which will entertain listeners.

When talking about some of my specialist subjects, however, I’ve discovered some risks. For example, although I like to talk about persecution and the cruelty that some can inflict on others (it is after all a significant them in all my books about the Templars), I tend to avoid talks about lepers. I used to give regular talks on the disease and its victims after publishing The Leper’s Return, but now I tend not to, because when describing the way that these poor people were treated, how they were described as being ‘dead’, their wives declared widowed, their wills enforced, and how they were forced to go through the last rites and even lie in a grave … well, I used to get so choked that I could not continue. Which is not a great trait for a guest speaker!

So, since then I have tended to focus on the amusing and silly little anecdotes that entertain. I am always very happy to relate silly incidents I’ve been involved in, or the dafter side of the industry (and the daft side is rather large).

I have even been known to wear a suit at speaking engagements!

For me, it is the act of reading and rereading the text that makes the talk work well. If you are reading words from a sheet of paper or a screen for the first time, you will not be able to watch out for the tell tale signs of boredom. You will be concentrating so hard on reading that you won’t engage with the listeners.

In the past I’ve dictated into tape players, into digital recorders and telephones, so that as I’ve driven about, walked, or even just as I travelled to the event, I’ve been able to bore myself stupid about my speech. And that’s a good way to be, because it means that you know exactly what you’re going to say at every stage, which gives you the flexibility to go away from your script and digress. And that means the talk is fresh to you and the audience.

Some of the best speakers will practise and then stick rigidly to their words as though they were carved in stone, but that misses the point of a talk. Any talk is an entertainment. The speaker must engage and inform, but do so in a manner that keeps the interest of the audience. If it feels like a lecture, many people will be turned off, but if there’s a strong flavour of spontaneity about it, more and more people are drawn in.

So, for me, the main aspects of giving a talk are: research the audience, plan the talk, write it, edit, and then rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

And throw away the script when you stand up!

Tagged: author, crime writing, ebooks, entertaining, Michael Jecks, novelist, publishing, speaking, talks, writing

Planning Not To Plan!

I was talking this morning to my old friend Phillip Gooden, and he mentioned that he was writing a variation to his latest story.

‘You know how it is,’ he said, ‘so often you don’t know how the story will pan out until you actually start it.’

It’s very true. So often aspiring writers will sit and glare thoughtfully at an empty screen for hours, and then decide to get over their blockage by trying to plan their book.

Sometimes, for some writers, this will work.

 

When I started out, I would fill sheets of paper with essential plans. I had whole sheets of A4 set out on the sitting room carpet, full of scrawls and arrows, pointing, in the most logical flow diagram you could conceive, exactly what route the story would take. It made the story coherent, it made it absolutely reasonable.

And it’s why I never plan to that extent any more.

And only one of these was planned …

The thing is, while I was writing the story, I came to realise, at about page 80, that it was abundantly clear to me who the murderer was. Well of course, you could say. I’d written the damn thing, if I didn’t figure out who was the killer, there would be a problem.

Yes. But my problem was, it was so flagrantly obvious to anyone who read the book already who did it and why.

I suppose if I’d thought about it, I could have altered it slightly and created a book along the lines of THE SECRET HISTORY by Donna Tartt (an excellent book, by the way). However, I wasn’t that imaginative in those days, so instead I tore up a lot of paper, sat down and tried to replan the book.

But that’s the point. There’s only so much you can do with a plan. If you organise the plan in detail, you just give away all the secrets.

But it didn’t work. Real lives aren’t logical, nor are they planned, generally. They are shambolic, accidental, and full of incidents that weren’t anticipated. Life is messy.

Now, and for the last 31 books or so, I’ve tended to let the story develop on its own. I know the rough direction I need to take, but the scenes and incidents come to me daily, and surprise me. And that way, hopefully, the stories come across as surprises to the reader too.

Crime books depend upon motivations. There are many possible motives for murder, from sexual desire, to lust for money, to jealousy, rage, or even fear – but each possible criminal must have a decent reason to want to commit murder, and ideally he or she must also have a good opportunity and a means.

It’s the main reason why the ban on pistol shooting struck me as blatantly silly. By removing one means of murder, we were told, the public would be more safe. As if all guns are inherently evil and dangerous, and the mere possession of a pistol could lead to someone wanting to kill people. It’s rather a Viking concept. They attributed lots of human characteristics to their weapons, too.

In the UK, we have always had a tiny murder rate. It’s a cultural thing. And of the murders we do have, the vast majority are marital. Husband or wife murdering the spouse – I don’t know why. Perhaps because the mint jelly wasn’t put on the table with the lamb or something. Whatever the reason may have been, at that moment there was means, opportunity and motive to kill.

The interesting thing that was not reported at the time of the ban on pistols was, that although the police made a big thing of the fact that ‘legally owned pistols’ were responsible for an increasing number of homicides, and therefore handguns should be banned, in fact the murder rate with legally licensed pistols was stuck at fewer than one per annum. The increasing instance of ‘homicides’ with legal weapons was arrived at because police homicides committed with their own guns was increasing so rapidly at the time. And those guns weren’t held on licenses, although they were legally owned. As Goebels may have noted that language could be used creatively to deceive, although he was happy enough just to lie, of course.

But that’s another story.

In any case, murderers in books need strong motives, and if it’s blatantly obvious to the author who was the guilty party, it’s going to be damn hard to keep it secret from the reader.

Which is why, after THE LAST TEMPLAR, I amended my writing process. Now I sketch an outline of the story, but it’s only when I sit and write that the characters start to come to life and the story begins to evolve and take on its own momentum.

If you’re writing, you need to leave space for creativity and inspiration. You cannot plot and plan to the nth degree. At least, some can – I can’t!

 

Sales growing – lots on Kindle!

While mentioning THE LAST TEMPLAR, I have to mention the wonderful promotion that Simon and Schuster organised last week. In the space of one day, it went from being a lowly mid-list title to becoming a best seller, with over 4,500 copies being sold on the Monday. It’s fantastic to see that so many people wanted to try the book, and I hope it’ll mean lots of people decide to try out the other titles in the series too.

Meanwhile, TEMPLAR’S ACRE is gathering more and more brilliant reviews. The sales are steadily growing, and almost without exception it’s getting strong, positive comments from all readers. Perhaps a chunk of that good news comes from the amazing Kindle deal. For the summer, Simon and Schuster have decided to offer TEMPLAR’S ACRE as an ebook at the ridiculously cheap price of £2.99 from Amazon UK. So, if you want to have a really good deal, you know what you have to do!

Just now (like Phil Gooden) I’m in the middle of the tenth Medieval Murderers collection. This being our anniversary edition, I’m taking a slightly different line on the story. Hopefully people will like it!

As soon as that’s put to bed, I have to crack on with the next book in the Hundred Years War series, which will itself be a challenge. However, I’m keen to get on with it. And as soon as that’s completed, I have an idea for another Jack Case story, which will hopefully get put on paper before Christmas.

This is what happens when you have a fiddler, melodeon player and Anglo squeezeboxes with too much beer inside them!

The last few weeks have been very busy, first with a week away, second with the preparations for the Dartmoor Folk Festival, which went off really well this last weekend (hence the lateness with the blog). I’ve drunk more beer in three days than I have in the last six months. And I enjoyed every one of them! If you can get to no other festival next year, try to come to Dartmoor in early August. The bands are great, the location’s stunning, and you even get to see a happy Morris-dancing scribbler!

Tinner’s Morris dancing outside South Tawton Church for the Folk Festival. Look out for us at Chagford on Thursday!

And now I need to prepare for Thursday. A whole day at Chagford Show, selling books and dancing with Tinner’s Morris.

I hope to see some of you there!

 

Meantime, here are a couple of other pictures to get you into the mood!

 

 

New band, Gadarene, with a wonderful, rich sound to their music. Matt Norman of Great Western Morris is there with the hat!

 

Tagged: author, books, crime writing, Dartmoor, Dartmoor Folk Festival, ebooks, medieval, novelist, publishing, Templar series, writing

Trolls and Other Cowards

This has come about because of the really horrible cases of trolls upsetting people last week. Thanks for the inspiration, you sad perverts.

For those who didn’t hear about it: over here in the UK some women were attacked on Twitter.

There are some pathetic individuals who like to worry or scare people for no reason. Trolls exemplify this kind of moron. They put messages up on Twitter and elsewhere. They infest the internet with cruel, thoughtless comments, going to sites put up in memory of recently deceased people and throwing on their own vicious posts, or going to Twitter accounts and trying to terrify people with threats of rape or bomb attacks. This last week has seen a spate of them, with women such as a campaigner, a commentator and a professor being their targets.

Of course, bullies and other cowards are easily cowed when confronted, which is why so many of them take up anonymous personas on the internet so that they can feel secure from retaliation or confrontation. No doubt many of these intellectually-challenged individuals will turn out to be teenagers – although there will be a fair number of unpleasant adults, no doubt. However, it really is time that their crimes were investigated more seriously. Threatening to commit rape or a bomb attack is a crime in the UK. Someone going to the internet to spread comments like them really does deserve to be caught and have their crime highlighted. The old “name and shame” approach is ideal for this kind of crime. Most bullies don’t like to think that their crimes will be exposed to general public contempt with their own mugshot attached.

Westernmost point of the Isle of Wight – the Needles

The problem, as always, is that of certainty. How can you be absolutely convinced that the man whose face you have posted on Twitter, say, with a list of his offences, is actually the correct person?

I am a firm exponent of the principle that it’s better to allow nine felons to go free rather than condemn one innocent. In the modern world, however, there are too many blurred lines between guilt and innocence.

Take the example of the fool who discovered that his plane flight was cancelled. He was grumpy, so he put up a silly message on twitter. His message was clearly a joke. It ran to the effect that if they (Robin Hood airport) didn’t get their act together, the poster would go and blow it up. He put it on his main twitter feed without hiding his name or identity. So it was a silly message, as I say – a prank – but he was pursued through the courts, lost his job (and then a second) and was ruined. For more information about it, look up #twitterjoketrial on Twitter or the web. Luckily, he has been freed from prison and the case against him exposed as a pointless waste of time and effort (and meanwhile, to show the common sense priorities of the staff at the airport, read this: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/...).

That fellow was guilty of a dim-witted lapse of judgement, when he stuck up his daft message. However, it was so clearly a joke that pursuing the poor devil through the courts was an abuse in its own right. Officials should not try to impose the absolute letter of the law. There has to be leeway for logic. Britain has always been proud of the use of sufficient law as much as sufficient force to enforce the law.

But trolls still proliferate. One threatened Professor Mary Beard – a plain-speaking, delightful woman, whose incisive mind often, for me, makes sense of the strange world we live in – with a bomb attack. As she said, she wasn’t particularly scared by the threat, but she did feel harassed. And with good reason – who wouldn’t?

It made me think: what sort of moron would think writing such threats and sending them would be amusing or in any way justified?

I was reading last week (while away on holiday for a week in the Isle of Wight – lovely!) about sketching and painting, which I am trying to learn, and discovered a little jewel of advice which was, that to learn how to draw well, one should draw for at least ten minutes every day. Trying to draw for two hours once a fortnight doesn’t get the brain and fingers working, but a little time every single day will help enormously.

The Tennyson Monument at the top of his favourite down on the Isle of Wight.

In the same way, a writer needs to spend a little time every day thinking about characters and plots, and ideally writing a little about them.

Well, for me, my basic research falls into some distinct categories. One involves thinking about faces, bodies, habits, nervous tics and other plain, visible, physical attributes. For this I am very lucky: I have a book which is perfect for me. Many years ago, when I worked for Wang Laboratories, I attended a wonderful sales convention. Afterwards, all the salespeople there were given a book with photos of all the hundreds of attendees. Whenever I am in doubt about a character, I go to that book for facial shapes, eye colours, track lines beside mouths – everything. And I can embellish all my characters based on clients and colleagues I used to work with. That is why, I think, I tend to have realistic people in my books – the victims, witnesses and others are based on real people.

However, the majority of my work lies in thinking about the motivations of the people. I have to invent felons of all types, and to do that I need to gain an insight into the way that their minds may work. For that, there is no better exercise than thinking about crimes committed.

If you are going to write effectively and realistically, you have to pull apart the motives of all those who inhabit your stories. If you are a crime writer, you have to have five or six people who have realistic means, motives and opportunities to commit the crime. And you cannot have each making use of the same motive, naturally. That would feel lazy to a reader. It would to me as a writer!

So, for me, it is useful to read newspapers, listen to the radio, or watch TV, and see if I can put myself into the shoes of the people depicted there. Usually I can, with a little effort. It’s possible to think myself into the mindset of a drunk who kills from jealousy, or a bully who kills from some sense of saving face, or the terrified who kill in self-defence – but the one sort of person I really cannot understand is the nasty, mean-minded individual who is so inept at social interaction, so incapable at human relationships, that the only means of self-expression of which they are capable is to bully, scare, and intimidate people he will never meet, from a distance, without even having the courage to show their own face.

That kind of ultimate cowardice is to me incomprehensible.

View over Freshwater Cove, Isle of Wight

Tagged: crime writing, criminals, internet, publishing, Templar series, trolls, writing

Writing – Six Faults

I was looking at a blog today, and it sparked an idea.

The idea was, thinking of the worst advice ever given to aspiring authors. Where on earth would you start with a piece like that, I wondered. And then I started thinking …

So here goes.

My favourite bits of dreadful advice.

1. You should be a writer.

This is right up there. I can remember my mother giving me this piece of advice many years ago. However, she wasn’t to know back then (I was still at school) that I would soon have the unenviable record of destroying any business with which I formed even the loosest of relationships.

I started off working with Wordplex, in Greencoat House, Kingston-upon-Thames, and had a great time working with Dick Houghton and the others for five years. Then I went to Wang Labs and enjoyed (mostly) five years working in the west end.

But all in all, I had thirteen jobs in thirteen years. None survived. Some folded while I worked with them (quite a few, actually). Only one dispensed with my services, but they went the way of all my other employers, I’m glad to say. So, all in all, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that soon after I started writing, publishing discovered that electronic formats could be as damaging to books as they had been to music.

2. You should be a writer.

NO!

If someone tells you that you should be a writer, ignore them. Unless they happen to be an editor who is already opening a chequebook, their advice is ill-considered. Always.

I actually thought of this because of the famous quote from an anonymous agent: “most people have a novel inside them – and most should leave it there.”

Sadly, not everyone has a story to tell. It’s not just that writing is a skill that requires practice, it’s the simple fact that some people do not have time to sit back and plan, imagine and dream. It’s a creative thing, and if your entire life is spent working in business,  you are not giving your creative juices the spur they need. And occasionally, people write things down thinking that they are being fascinatingly imaginative, only to find that they – well, they aren’t.

I once knew a successful author  who had been a policeman. He told me that he spent all his working life reading books that were completely unrealistic, and thinking, “I could do better than that.”

So, one day, he sat himself down and started to write. He produced a really good, working book based on his own experiences.

It was rejected by every publisher.

In the end, it went into a bottom drawer, and later he had a good hard look at it, and immediately saw why it had been rejected. As a police procedural training manual, it was great.

As a work of page-turning fiction, it wasn’t!

3. Money.

“If you would know what the Lord God thinks of money, you have only to look at those to whom He gives it,” Maurice Baring once said.

That puts me on the right side, apparently, being broke.

I’ve already blogged about money, but this is a heartfelt comment. If people write expecting to make themselves lots of money, they will fail.

The fact is, people who tend to make the most money as writers tend to be the ones who suddenly had a massive break. Da Vinci Code was written by an author who was an established mid-lister. 50 Shades was written on the internet without any concept of making the sort of money it subsequently earned. Ian Rankin spent years earning very little as he tried to establish himself as a crime writer, before fame and success suddenly struck.

All, after many years of hard work and graft, became “overnight” successes.

There are plenty of people who will say that you’re a fool if you don’t write for money (“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money,” Samuel Johnson), but equally, if you write exclusively to make millions, your stories won’t carry other people. Or so I believe.

I once had a friend give me a good word of advice. If I wanted to make money, he said, I should write stories based on Formula 1 racing or baseball. Those two sports were so popular in the US and Canada that I’d make a fortune.

Which was true, I suppose. And the same could be said for soccer in the UK – but it forgets one minor detail: I detest football and know nothing about motor racing or baseball. For me to write about them would be as enjoyable as volunteering to have needles stuck in my eyes. I am happier writing my books in the hope that there is a market for them, than trying to write about things that do nothing for me. If you write about things that excite you or make you witter enthusiastically, you are more likely to excite and enthuse readers.

I have to include one more quotation here: Molnar’s. He said he started writing in much the same way a woman turned to prostitution:

“First to please myself, then to please my friends, and finally for money.”

He had it in the right order. Money comes if you write well about things that interest you. Not because you want to make money.

4. Don’t make enemies

I know of so many guys and gals who set out on a career and then manage to upset all those who could have helped them. We all upset people on occasion. No one is a cheerful, happy companion at all times (although the Crime fraternity is better than most), and sometimes we get a little grumpy. All of us do.

However, there is no point criticising friend’s work; no need to be nit-picky; no justification for putting down another’s work without damn good reason.

Writers are in that happy position of not actually being in competition with each other. We tend to write books that some people enjoy. Our fans may be equally smitten with other writers we cannot stand.

I personally know of several writers whose work – well, I mentioned sticking needles in my eyes before, so let’s just assume I don’t like their work too much. Who? None of your business. The fact that I cannot stand their writing style, find their prose too verbose or too dry, that I cannot stand their narrative and think that their plots are more turgid than the Telegraph’s Royal Diary section, has nothing to do with you. You may well love their work.

And by writing about their work in that manner, I can only upset someone else who is only trying to write to make a living (probably). So I have no reason to do so.

Beethoven once said (don’t know to whom) “I rather liked your opera. One day I think I will set it to music.” From a great composer, that was unforgivable. He had no need of greater adulation, but wanted to offend and insult another’s hard work. Why? Perhaps he felt the other composer was a terrible threat to his own reputation? I think that kind of comment is based entirely on weakness of character.

So: I am a firm believer in not doing down anyone else’s work.

Others don’t agree with me. They think it’s more important that they talk down other authors’ work because they think there is some finite amount of money out there for all the books in the world, and they want the largest slice.

I think they’re silly.

5. I cannot emphasise this enough: Read the Rules!

This is based on my experience as coordinator and judge of the Debut Dagger competition for the CWA.

I spent ages reading 3,000 word beginnings to novels, and 300 word synopses, and the thing that staggered me was not only the inability of many people to proof-check or edit their work, it was the inability to read the rules.

If you enter a competition and the rules state typed manuscripts only, sending in handwritten copy will not help you win. If you are told to type double-line-spaced, and you send in a copy written single-spaced, you will likely not pass “go”. If it says you can send in no more than 3,000 words, and you send in 6,000, the reader will not give you marks for effort.

Similarly, if you are looking to send in a manuscript to an agent or editor, first ask them what they are looking for, if you cannot see it on their website. When in doubt, check.

They will usually help you by telling you that they need their books sent in either electronically, or that they want double-spaced text, with at least one inch margins, and under no circumstances should it be bound. The number of aspiring authors who think that presenting a bound novel, with full-colour artwork on the cover and acetate jackets is astonishing. Editors are too busy for all those fripperies. Many have told me that the first hint for a rejection is a book that’s bound. They want loose-leaf because it’s easier to work with on their desks and won’t thank you for making them get a knife to cut the pages free.

And that last point about rejection is important. If you are presented, as I have been, with over a thousand novel concepts to look through, you very soon realise that the key to success is learning quickly how to reject.

Editors aren’t looking for the next Harry Potter concept when they read your book. They’re looking for any niggles for which they can reject them. If you have bad spelling, if you repeat the same word in succeeding sentences or paragraphs, if you write in clichés, if you have a problem with grammar – they will reject you.

Why, are they fools?

No, but editors have to work with an ever-diminishing pot of money. They have limited resources to spend on new authors. They must read and pick the gleams of gold from the piles of rough spoil they have uncovered. All editors tend to receive at least ten unsolicited manuscripts every day. Ten. And they do have daytime jobs to attend to, with meetings, and all the tedious project forecasts and budget controls.

A good editor is worth her (I’ve never met a good “he” editor) weight in gold.

She will nurture talent wherever she finds it. She will cut out pointless description and replace ill-considered words with stronger ones. She will present your novel to her commissioning committee with flair and style – she is tying her career to your ability, don’t forget. She will help you to build your sales and your career and your reputation.

But, and it’s a big “but”, she won’t bother if you don’t take her advice.

6. A Bonus Feature Thought: Get on with it!

OK. You want to be a writer, do you? You want the flattery and kudos and cash that comes from being published? So how do you go about it?

Many people go to courses at university. There they learn lots. All about sentence construction, how to dissect literary styles, how to write about different people and scenes … lots.

Others go to creative writing courses in their spare time. They study, write, read aloud to friends and colleagues. They learn lots.

Many, many more stay at home. They regularly get out sheets of paper and stare at them. They pull out typewriters or laptops and fiddle with the keys for ages before putting them away again, consoling themselves with the thought that even Shakespeare had his bad days, and put on Eastenders.

If you fall into that last category, you will not be a writer.

If you fall into the two topmost categories, you may become a writer – but it’s more likely that you’ll end up as an editor or publisher.

The thing is, if you want to be a writer, you have to actually sit down and write. Every day. Regularly.

Writing, if you want to do it properly, is a serious undertaking. You are documenting lives and situations that will shock, entrance, horrify or engage in some other way. You are wanting to put down on paper in a manner that will stab a reader’s brain through his or her eyes. You are demanding a lot, because of your writing. You are demanding someone’s undivided attention for six or seven hours. If you want to do that, you need to remember at all times that your readers deserve your respect as much as you deserve theirs.

You need to plan your work, yes. You should have a basic understanding of other books and how they were composed and set down, yes. But the main thing is, you need to write. You have to hone your art. It took Ian Rankin about fifteen years to become recognised. It’s taken me a damn sight longer (but I live in hope). However, going to university or attending creative writing classes, while no doubt useful to many (CJ Sansom and Robyn Young attended the same creative writing evening classes in Brighton), are merely a way of putting off the evil day when you have to put your efforts in front of an editor somewhere. And if you want to be an author, that is what you are trying to achieve.

So: sit down – now – pick up that pen, and start writing.

Tagged: authors, blogs, books, ebooks, novelist, publishing, writing

Critics – Be Kind

There are many critics in the world. And they have suffered some horrible comments in the past. Tynan said, “A critic is a man who knows the way but can’t drive the car.”

Sadly, there are all too many critics around today. The advent of the internet has created an explosion of critical writing as much as it has a vast increase in fiction and non-fiction writing. The only sad thing is, that people who put comments up are often much like Trolls, throwing up rude, unkind comments just because they can.

I wonder, though, how many people pay any attention to them?

I know that critical pages in newspapers are declining. There’s little money in them, so the editors are not keen on them. It’s easy to cut a few pages of people talking about someone else’s books. In any case, how many people read a review in the Times or Telegraph with a view to seeing how good a book is? I think most of the time people read them because they want to be amused or entertained by the writer of the review. Publishers don’t advertise in the review pages so often – it’s expensive compared with throwing some free copies in the direction of some internet bloggers – so what is the point of the critic pages? At least, I imagine that’s the rationale behind the closing of so many review pages.

In all my years of reading, I can think of only a tiny number of books I’ve bought as a result of a review – and by that, I mean fewer than five.

Yet now more and more weight is being given to critics. People on Amazon and Goodreads put in scathing comments about books and authors without a second’s thought. And yet those comments could wreck an author’s career, especially an author who is new and trying to become established.

I know Sibelius once said: “Never pay attention to what the critics say … a statue has never been put up in honour of a critic”, but nowadays it is difficult to ignore the cruel, barbed comments. All authors can see them, appended to their work like tattoos of monsters designed to scare away the unwary.

After all, a newspaper comment would normally be checked by editors and proofers for accuracy and libel. Comments on Amazon go up unchecked, and even if libellous it is be near to impossible for the author to have the review taken down.

My personal favourite was a one star review for The Last Templar, which was scathing. The writer said he hated books like mine. It was the first person narrative that really grated, he said.

First Person narrative? There was none. To this day I don’t know whether he meant something other than first person narrative, or was merely thinking about another book and got mine confused with it!

Then there was the American reader who commented on one of my books, saying that it was so full of typos he couldn’t read it. Sadly he did not mention where the typos were, nor what they were. The book had been edited and copyedited, so I think the following comment from another reader hit the nail on the head. This kindly individual gently pointed out that I am English and the book used British English spelling, not American. Still, that sort of comment could have cost me sales. Luckily Act of Vengeance has gathered only superb reviews apart from that one, and I think the single comment won’t affect it, but someone else could have suffered.

Typos? No, not many!

My very first “fan” letter came after the Last Templar was published. It listed 21 separate errors or problems in the story.

As you can imagine, my editor, a delightful young woman who had just spent money on me and hoped to bring me on as an author, was a little anxious to read these faults. If these points were correct, it called her judgement into question, after all. She called me and asked whether I would like to comment on the points raised.

Yes, I would. The first point the (to me, anonymous author – I never saw the original letter and wasn’t allowed to know from whom it came) raised was that the siege of Acre was not in 1291: it was 1191. Rather than Christians being besieged by Muslims, the writer said, it was Richard Coeur de Lion’s men assaulting the city held by Saladin’s men.

Well, he was right about that history. King Richard did attack Acre and captured it from Saladin. However, it is not my fault that 100 years later the roles were reversed and the Mamluk armies threw the Christians from what remained of their toeholds in the Holy Land.

I took a strong line on that, and said that since the reader didn’t look up the history to confirm whether Acre was besieged or not in 1291, I didn’t propose to spend time on his other points.

Of course today that same reviewer would put his comments up on the internet and may well affect the sales of my book.

And that is why I have only ever written two unkind reviews of books. I tend to think that every book has something in it that will make it appeal to some people. It is my job as  a critic and reviewer to find those positive aspects so that the people looking for that kind of a read will find it. It isn’t my job to be amusingly unkind about someone else’s work to gain a giggle or two.

Two reviews I’ve written did go for the jugular, yes. But in both cases they were deserved, I think. One for a lack of research into her period, the other for – well, for the quality of the writing.

Both were some time ago. I now won’t review books that I find too crassly poor. There are some (very commercially successful) authors whose books I cannot read. Literally. Two spring to mind, whose books are mercifully unmarked after page 100. I struggled to that page, but didn’t find it possible to keep turning the pages after that. But others will love those books. It’s not my place to decide for others whether they should or should not read them.

Perhaps they’re just listening to the advice of Don Marquis. He said: “If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that’s read by persons who move their lips when they’re reading to themselves.”

Hmm.

Tagged: author, blogs, books, publishing, writing

Thieves, ID and Piracy

OK, this is a blog post about the tedious side of publishing: money. Where does it come from and where does it go?

The idea for this blog came from an email I had yesterday and another three this week. All were from friends of mine on holiday in the Philippines. Sadly, all of them emailed me “with tears in [their] eyes” to tell me that they’d been robbed, and all their money and cards, as well as their belongings, had been cleared out. Could I send them some money, only a few thousand, to let them get on the next plane and settle their hotel bills?

Clearly these emails did not come from my friends because the return email address was slightly altered. A “u” and an “r” transposed, or a number added, making the email address fictitious – or fraudulent. In any case, the fact that these morons were sending their pleas to an author was indication enough that they knew nothing about me or my profession.

Authors don’t have money like that.

In any case, when I wrote to my friends’ real addresses, they all replied. All were at home.

Still, let’s get the whole author/money thing out of the way, OK?

Authors get loads of money for doing really very little work. They wake up early (say, nine in the morning), with a mild hangover. After a brief calisthenic exercise routine, they do some deep breathing – i.e. they reach for a packet of cigarettes and light the first.

Then it’s downstairs to the kitchen for that essential writing fuel, some black coffee, before commuting to the office to open the lid of the ancient typewriter. Or, ideally, pulling the cap off a fountain pen. Or, still better, sharpening a quill. And they will sit at the table for a couple of hours with utter dedication, writing hard until they have at least one sheet of paper almost full, before wandering off to get dressed so that they can attend an important publishing meeting with an editor (or agent) in a pub, building up to tomorrow’s minor hangover over several bottles of Château Scrivener’s extremely ordinary red.

And for this, as you know, the average author will receive a pittance. A mere half a million pounds or so (for my American friends, you can assume a million or gazillion bucks).

Which is brilliant. And if any of it were true, I’d be far less grumpy than I am.

The fact is, real authors work very hard. Putting down a book onto paper is the least of it. That takes no account of the months staring into space while other people are trying to have a conversation with you; it ignores the missed parties and evenings in restaurants and bars because you’re indoors trying to figure out a plot; most of all, it doesn’t consider the months and months of reworking, editing, copyediting, proofing the same document. Working from home means never being out of the office, never switching off from work.

Also, in these straitened times, authors also have to do other work. Much of it unpaid: marketing, giving talks, writing articles and – dare I say it – blogs!

And of course it doesn’t consider the slowness of making money. Authors are all self-employed. There is no safety net for authors, no monthly pay-cheque, no private medical cover. Authors receive an income (they never know how much in advance) from royalties, paid twice a year.

Authors are not all millionaires. In fact, very few are. The Society of Authors conducted a poll of their membership some years ago, and learned that of all authors in the UK, fewer than five percent earned over £25,000. The number earning good money was vanishingly small. Of all authors, three quarters earned less than the national average wage (then about £21,000). Two thirds earned less than half that; a full half of all authors earned less than £5,000.

So, writing is not a highly paid profession.

But what is interesting, is the impression readers have. So often I will hear people say that it would be a good idea for authors to give away free copies of their books. Naturally this relates to ebooks mostly, but often people are talking about second hand titles too.

It’s an interesting business model. It’s based on the fact, universally accepted, that books are expensive. They cost a small fortune. That is why books are peddled by “pirates”. And why so many people will go to hunt down the free books offered by these pirates, who are breaking down the old, broken capitalist model and providing people with what they want: free books. Free. It has to be good, doesn’t it. If you like books, that is.

Except what it really means is: no books.

For all those books to be in print, publishers need to be paid.

It’s a wonderful concept. These free-marketeers are stopping the rotten system of big publishers, cutting out the middle-men and providing books free to the reader. The authors, so the logic goes, don’t need the money. They make enough already. The publishers are just nasty vampire-squid capitalists bleeding everyone dry, so cut them out. And the happy reader gets the books for a much more reasonable zero fee.

Let’s think about that. First, is it true that books are hideously overpriced?

If you buy a book from a shop, that shop owner will make, maybe, 40-50% of the cover price. But he or she has had to buy the books in, has to pay rent and rates, has to give him or herself a salary, and probably pay staff as well. There are reasons for the costs involved.

But still, let’s think about the cost of a book. A paperback now is about £9.00, a hardback nearer £20. Except you’ll get either of them with a hefty discount, usually.

So, let’s assume the hardback is a more reasonable £15. What can you do for that sort of money?

Well, here in the UK, you can go and have one meal, perhaps. Not including wine. It’ll last you an hour, maybe two. Or you could go to the cinema. For the money you’d get, maybe, two tickets to a cheaper film. You could, of course, buy a DVD for £10. Or maybe buy three beers in a pub in London (as I learned a couple of weeks ago to my horror. But they were good beers!).

Each of those will last a couple of hours. Whereas a book for the same money will last you days.

Books are not expensive. In terms of the effort put in to produce them, they are incredibly cheap, but also in terms of the entertainment value too. They last longer than any equivalent entertainment for that money.

It is not that books are overpriced or expensive. These are not reasons for piracy. They are only attempts to rationalise, to justify the theft. It is like a criminal trying to invent a justification for breaking into your house.

A little over the top as a metaphor? Think again. When you take a free book, you are supporting international criminal gangs.

Let me quickly say that most people do accept that authors should be rewarded, just as plumbers, builders, chefs and underwater basketweavers should. And the nicest thing is, most younger folks pay for books and ebooks without quibbling. All the researches have shown that the worst offenders, when it comes to piracy, are baby-boomers. Why that should be, I do not know.

But what these offenders don’t seem to realise is, they are putting their own bank accounts at risk.

The sites need money to fund them. They need computers, programmers, telecomms lines, websites. And all this costs money. Does anyone seriously think they can support all this without income?

Pirate sites are not charities. They exist to make money for their proprietors. Of course, these owners are all nice, fluffy characters who exist to help other people and look after their mothers.

No.

Most of these sites are based in strange countries like Uzbekistan and the Ukraine for a reason, and the reason is, they are safe there. If they pay, there is no interest shown in them by their authorities, and the chances of the FBI or the Metropolitan Police nabbing them are remote in the extreme.

The proprietors of firms dedicated to providing free material have several income streams: advertising (often from pornography sites) and theft.

Their adverts are an eclectic mix. There are some pleasant ones from major brands such as Tesco and Marks and Spencer – but if the major brands discover they’re on such sites, they pull their ads immediately. They don’t want to be associated with the sites because pirate sites do not exist for their adverts (and certainly not to give away free material) – they are money-making ventures. They make much more money from scams and frauds than from ads. The ads are only there to give them a spurious respectability.

How does it work?

Well, most of these sites apparently ask for credit card or Paypal details when you log on. Not so they can take your money, you understand, but so that they can identify you when you log-in in the future.

In the old days it was easy to spot a nefarious person with a bad disguise. Modern pirates are more subtle.

They will ask for credit card numbers, for the secret card numbers on the reverse of the cars, for names, dates of birth, towns of residence. And enthusiastic pursuers of free books (or films or pornographic material) will give these details gleefully. Everyone gives up their details on the internet nowadays. Nothing is private, after all, is it? They feel safe giving up their data.

For some time, the readers will consume books. And then, one day in the future, their bank account will be emptied.

Because that is how the companies make their money.

It is the same as the firms who write and offer to reward the reader with money because they’ve won a lottery for which they never bought a ticket; or a vast grant from the UN although it was never applied for; or the sum of $18 million dollars in a Lagos bank which was left unclaimed after Mr Jackson died and you can have 50% if you let the corrupt bank manager use your bank account to export the money; or the percentage of every deal sent through your account if you only allow a series of deals to be traded (ignore the money-laundering aspect of both these last two) – and the many other frauds and scams promoted on the web.

The fact is, all these scams are run by organised crime. If you agree and swallow their bait, you will end up giving them all your bank and ID details. And you will find that one day in the future, your bank will be cleaned out. Worse, you may find that your identity has been used and you can be arrested for being guilty of a crime in India, even though you were living in Walsall at the time.

I had a nice one once. I had a letter from my credit card company telling me that my account was over the limit, and I must pay £7,500 immediately.

I didn’t panic. In fact, I laughed. Because that credit card was not being used and never had been. I could prove that the PIN number had not been used, because it was still sealed in its envelope. I’d never looked at it.

That card I had bought solely as a spare in case of emergency and, as I told the bank, it had never even been activated. As they could tell from their records.

They didn’t bluster or argue, to their credit. But only because they didn’t want the embarrassment. Because the only way that my credit card number could have got out and been used, was by a member of the bank’s staff selling it. Personal details are regularly traded in foreign countries. It’s easy. If you have low paid members of staff in a call-centre in Pakistan or India, it’s hardly surprising that for the cost of a MacDonald’s in New York, a team member will look up and sell fifty names and addresses so she can feed her children for a week.

But that is a digression.

The main thing is, pirate sites are not there as charitable organisations trying to break the mould of an outmoded business practice, in other words, getting rid of copyright and allowing instant, free access to books by all to the masses. They are criminal organisations which exist to steal your identity and bank details so that they can rob you. Their bait to get you to give them your details is the offer of someone else’s products, free of charge, that they have stolen.

The fact that at the same time they are helping to destroy the incomes of authors, and forcing many to stop writing, doesn’t really worry them too much. That would be like a thief breaking into your house and feeling guilt for taking your jewels or your TV.

Do you think that’s likely?

The latest book from my lovely publisher, Simon and Schuster

Tagged: authors, books, ebooks, novelist, piracy, publishing, theft, writing

Persistent, Polite and Persuasive

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.

 

I’d rather be writing in ink.

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.

 

A pile of proofs. All checked yet again.

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.

Ebook only for now. But I can hope!

 

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.

 

The latest proofs done. Back to trying to write again!

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 …

Tagged: author, books, ebooks, publishing, review, writing