Richard Platt's Blog, page 2

The Royal Society Prize

“The envelope, please!”

The moment when a book prize winner is announced is always nail-biting for everyone on the shortlist, but at this year’s Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize I really didn’t think my book was going to win. The smart money was on How the Weather Works, a beautiful pop-up book from Templar by Christine Dorion, illustrated by Beverley Young.

I was right – and wrong. My book, Plagues, Pox and Pestilence didn’t scoop this prestigious prize. But neither did How the Weather Works. Instead the prize went to Science Experiments, a DK book written by Ian Graham and Robert Winston. Prof Winston was unable to be present in person, but he sent a brief video message saying that he would be donating the £10,000 prize to the Reach Out Lab at Imperial College where, he told us … “we bring children of all ages into the college and they do science experiments with a background of maths to improve science literacy.”

After the ceremony the MC, Nobel Prize-winner Paul Nurse (centre), tried out a couple of experiments from the winning book, with help from Events Officer Rachel Frances (left) and a young member of the audience, whose name I am ashamed to admit I failed to write down.

The complete failure of one of the experiments brought ill-concealed mocking laughter from the audience. Needless to say the loudest guffaws came from the shortlisted authors who had been passed over for the prize (“Schadenfreude? Moi?!”)

I won’t pretend that we weren’t all disappointed that we hadn’t won, but I can truthfully say that I had a really wonderful evening. Mary and I had a long conversation with Paul Nurse, who is president of the Royal Society, and I also chatted to a couple of members of the shortlisting committee, who were extremely nice about my book. One of them even mistook me for a scientist (which I am not) and this gave me particular pleasure, because I always try very hard to get right the facts in my book. Either I succeeded or I am an expert bluffer.

 

A narrow escape!

Richard with illustrator Stephen Biesty

Just back from New York, where Mary and I narrowly avoided hurricane Sandy. We were due to fly back the day the storm struck, but managed at the last minute to bring our flight forward by three days. Phew!

NYC was the tail-end of a fortnight-long visit centred on Boston, where I gave a talk at the USS Constitution Museum, and another to a year group at a local school. I was there with illustrator Stephen Biesty (see pic.) We worked together on the Museum’s interactive website A Sailor’s Life For Me, and previously on many successful books for publishers Dorling Kindersley.

Steve and I both visited with our wives, and the museum staff treated us all like royalty. We got a VIP tour not only of the museum, but also of the USS Constitution. Historian and curator Margherita Desy showed us round while the ship was underway in Boston Harbour — a rare thrill for any maritime enthusiast:

The museum is just as brilliant, and if you are visiting Boston, you really should go. On the first floor there are wonderfully engaging exhibits that introduce visitors to the reality of sailors’ lives on the Constitution during the War of 1812. Lots of the displays are hands-on and practical: you can learn how to spring into a hammock, and reef a sail on a swaying yard.

As an author, I found the whole experience fascinating, because I am used to paper and ink, or web pages. Here my words were on the wall with Steve’s pictures. We even found our way into the “rest rooms”, with quirky little quotes about the ship’s head!

Poo, pee and puppets

Yesterday pre-publication copies arrived of Don’t Flush: lifting the lid on the science of poo and wee. This caused huge excitement in Platt Towers, especially for Mary P, who has never before had a book published.

Mary has been grafting away for some time on Sue, the Talking Turd (see picture, left) who will star in our talk about the book at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in a week or so. Now it would be dishonest if I was to pretend that I didn’t have misgivings about this muppet when Mary first suggested her. I was worried that, if it all went pear-shaped, or nobody laughed, that would be my career down the pan (so to speak.)

Indeed, Mary’s first attempts at Sue did not inspire confidence. Version 1 had a purple mouth, and was rapidly ditched because she bore a striking resemblance to one of the George Mitchell Minstrels. V2 was only a slight improvement.

While Mary was doing this, I was working on a slide show for the event, and when I saw Sue v.2, I made a mental note to create a .ppt that would work with or without Sue the brown-velvet Poo.

Fortunately, v.3 was a huge improvement. Not only had Mary crafted a bug-eyed, green-mouthed talking turd, she’d also breathed life into it, making her character cheeky, gobby and – yes, almost cuddly.

What was slightly worrying, though, was how closely M was identifying with her creation. As she fixed on the eyes and trimmed off the whiskers of hot glue, it was clear that she had created her alter-ego.

My sister once said of Mary that “she has an unerring eye for the naff”, and suddenly I could see what she meant. Sue v.3 is very, very naff. But very funny. As we ran through our routine for the show in front of the mirror, I found Sue leaning forward to read my script. Her eyes were scanning the lines, and her lips were twitching slightly (I don’t think she finds reading easy.) I was convulsed with laughter. I just hope the audience at Cheltenham find Sue as funny as I do.

What price e-books?

At the Harogate Crime Writing Festival a couple of weeks ago, novelist Stephen Leather made contributions to a panel discussion about ebooks that raised the hackles of the audience, and started a controversy that rippled out far beyond the borders of this genteel English spa town.

Leather has embraced ebooks with enthusiasm, publishing his work through Amazon.com directly in many different forms, from short stories to full-length novels. He promotes them in a manner that could at best be described as vigorous, and at worst as dishonest, admitting that he uses “sock puppets” to spread a buzz about his newest titles. By this he means that he invents false personas on forums and in Twitter to talk about, and comment favourably on his work. He even impersonated another (critical) author, using the writer’s identity to puff his own books.

But it was not Leather’s dishonesty that I found most damaging and offensive. It was his attitude to the price of e-books. He sells most of his work for less than a pound, and is happy to give e-books away for nothing on the basis that readers who get a free taste for his writing will go on to buy his other works.

Leather’s views devalue the work of all authors, encouraging the notion that any creative effort is worthless, and that those who consume it should not have to pay for it. This attitude is now entrenched in the world of music, where a  generation raised on free downloads now resents paying even a penny a song. Earning a living by selling recorded music was always difficult. Now it’s all but impossible. Unless book buyers are encouraged to pay a fair price for what they read, authors will follow musicians into the dole queue.

The counter-argument to this is that ebooks should be cheap because they “cost nothing” to produce and distribute. Putting aside the fact that printing, shipping, warehousing and distribution of paper books accounts for only about 15% of the cover price, this argument suggests that the value of a book is somehow related to its weight in your hand. Of course it’s not. The true value of books lies in the intellectual effort required to bring them to the reader, the work not only of the authors, but also of artists, editors, designers, photographers, publishers and (whisper it) even marketing and publicity staff. All these people contribute to the creation of good books, and they have to be paid whether you read the e-book or the dead-tree edition.

Anyone who cares about what they read, and who wants to encourage good writing and good books, should be prepared to pay more for an e-book than a cup of coffee.

You can read Stephen Leather’s own account of the discussion on his blog here. Jake Kerridge also covered the event in a Daily Telegraph article.