A Public Service Announcement

Nicola Morgan (also known as the crabbit old bat, and That Morgan Woman) has moved her blog from here to here.

If you follow her original blog you might want to start following her new one instead. Just so you don't miss any photos of her lovely boots, or talk about chocolate.

These Things Make Me Happy!

Daniel Blythe, who comments here regularly and has a two-part series due to appear on this blog as soon as I get my act together and schedule it, has a new book out. It's called Autonomy, it's a Dr Who novel, and I think it's currently available at Waterstone's in a three-for-two offer. Buy yourself a copy now, before I rush out and buy them all in a fan-girl frenzy.

As if that wasn't enough, I heard yesterday that Marian Perera, who blogs at Flights of Fancy (which is a lovely blog full of writing help and scam-busting advice) has signed her first book contract: her novel Before the Storm will be published by Samain Publishing.

All this, and it's nearly the end of the summer holidays, too. No wonder I'm grinning.

Trios: The Third Sign, by Gregory A Wilson: Cover Art

We've heard already from Gregory A Wilson, author of The Third Sign, and from his editor at Five Star, John Helfers. Now it's Joshua David McClurg-Genevese's turn in the spotlight as he reveals how he created this stunning cover image.

I first met Greg at a gaming convention in Indianapolis, Indiana. I was there as an artist sitting in my booth, and I remember clearly he came over and spoke with me about one of the illustrations I had up on the wall behind where I was set up. He talked about a book that he was writing, and that he was trying to find an artist to work with on the cover.

That was where our process began. He contacted me some time later and we began talking about The Third Sign.

The first step was to work with Greg and get a sense of what The Third Sign was really about. An overall appreciation of the book and of the setting are the first things that I try to develop, and after a few discussions the main themes and emotions began to surface. In addition, Greg was kind enough to send me a number of sample chapters so that I was able to actually read part of the book before having to develop concepts. This was extremely helpful in getting an understanding of the world that he had created, and a feel for the characters.

I read through the chapters, and he and I discussed them for a time. He had a good sense for certain scenes in each of the chapters that seemed the most visually interesting and that might be good candidates for the illustration. In the end, we chose two of them, and I began working on concepts.

The second step was to develop a series of rough sketches based on the scenes we chose. I was looking to develop the overall composition of the illustration, the camera angles, the dynamic elements and where the cover text would go. The characters were also roughed in, though again it was mostly to solidify the overall composition. The details would come later.

Once I had each of the scenes drawn out as a rough sketch, I sent them back to Greg. We talked about them and decided what worked and what didn't. We narrowed down the choices, I made a few more revisions, and then we decided on a final direction. In these initial stages of rough sketching there was a lot of back and forth between myself and Greg. I tried to make sure that the overall feel of the piece matched what he was looking for, while still maintaining a good sense of artistic composition and design.

The third step was to finalize the drawing. I again discussed the scene with Greg, focusing now more on the details of the setting and the characters. What color were the robes on Orrinell, how intricate were the markings on Sarrtax's battle axe, what species of bird was Squaar? The details are what really makes an illustration come to life, and establishes a firm definition of the setting. I wanted to make sure that the elements in the scene were accurate, and that the way I was depicting the characters was appropriate.

Once the drawing was finished, I again sent it back to Greg. We revised it a number of times to ensure that I was capturing exactly what he was looking for. Once that was completed, I moved on to the painting.

The final step was the painting itself. I transfered the drawing on to watercolor paper, mounted it to a sheet of masonite, and then painted it with oils. Once the painting was completed (and dry), I made a high-resolution scan that became my master working file. With the digital file I was able to make any last adjustments to color that I felt were necessary, before sending it on for the final review.

In the end, I think the cover turned out wonderfully, and I hope it captures the elements of the book.

Sales Statistics: iUniverse

On March 17 of this year I posted some self-publishing sales statistics courtesy of Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware, and I thought it might be interesting to play around with them a little. I should have been an accountant.

In the article I quoted, Victoria wrote, "According to a 2004 article in Publishers Weekly, only 83 of more than 18,000 iUniverse titles published during that year sold at least 500 copies."

If you have a look at the link she provided you'll find this information about sales figures for iUniverse books in 2004:

18,108: Total number of titles published

14: Number of titles sold through B&N's bricks-and-mortar stores (nationally)

83: Number of titles that sold at least 500 copies

792,814: Number of copies printed

32,445: Number of copies sold of iUniverse's top seller, If I Knew Then by Amy Fisher

So 18,108 different titles were published in 2004 and a total of 792,814 books were printed, which gives a mean average of 43.8 copies printed per title. And as iUniverse relies on print-on-demand technology, and only prints books in direct response to orders, “printed” here is the same as “sold”.

If you take away the 32,445 copies that Amy Fisher's book sold and then do the numbers again, that average number of copies sold per title goes down to 41.9.

If you then consider that 83 of iUniverse’s books sold at least 500 copies, and take those 83 books and their sales out of the equation (for simplicity I’ve assumed that they sold bang-on 500 copies each but several will have sold more, and so reduce this average further), the remainder of the books published—that’s a whole 18,025 titles, or 99.5% of all books that iUniverse publishes—sold an average of 39.9 copies each.

Let’s assume that those books were priced at £10 each (which is a reasonable-ish price for a paperback right now). I don’t know what rate of royalties they’d have earned from iUniverse (anyone?), so can’t make a direct comparison here: but let’s assume that the writers had not self-published their books and had instead been published by a mainstream publisher, with a contract which specified a reasonable-to-generous royalty of 12% of cover price. On that deal they’d make £1.20 per copy sold: so on sales of 40 copies they’d earn a total of just £48 per book published.

I’d like to find out how many of the titles concerned sold under twenty copies: this would at least filter out a lot of the people who used iUniverse to produce books just for friends and family and had no intention of ever seeking sales for them (which is how I’ve used Lulu in the past). Because if I could take those books off the total it would push the averages up a little bit and give us a better idea of the average sales levels that iUniverse authors were achieving when these numbers were collated—but the numbers would still have a long way to go before they equalled the sales figures of the least successful books from a mainstream publisher.

On Talent, Rising To The Top

If you want to know how editors feel on the rare occasion they find a good book in their slush-pile, then read this lovely post from Making Light which compares the feeling to that moment in Britan's Got Talent when Susan Boyle began singing and Simon Cowell's usually-cynical face lit up with joy.

(What isn't mentioned in the article is the months of auditions that the Britan's Got Talent judges had to endure before they discovered Susan Boyle among the ranks of the hopeful. Because while the televised highlights make those auditions seem cringingly funny you have to remember that they are only the highlights. Most of the auditions are talent-free, embarrassingly bad, and just plain boring. Just like most of the stuff in the slush-pile.)

Trios: Beachcombing, by Maggie Dana: What Editors Want

Maggie Dana began this particular trio of articles with an account of her potholed path to publication; then Will Atkins, her editor took over and discussed Macmillan New Writing. This time Will considers the role of the author in the publication process, and nails down what authors can do to imrpove their chances of success.


Beachcombing was recommended to us by another of our authors, who was in a writing group with Maggie (‘recommendations’ sometimes make the heart sink, but in this case it was clear from the first page that Maggie was a real talent). Part of the fun of MNW is that we publish across all fiction genres—crime, thrillers, literary fiction, comic fiction, fantasy, historical, etc, etc—and so our criteria for publication are pretty simple: do we love it, can we sell it and does the author have a future? If the answer is yes, yes and yes, then we publish it. Beachcombing is a novel that fits rather neatly into its given genre (broadly: commercial women’s fiction; or ‘hen-lit,’ as Maggie calls it) and is, to abuse a cliché, a perfect beach read—as the title and cover suggest. But sitting neatly in an established genre isn’t, of course, enough to guarantee sales.

Beachcombing was MNW’s first paperback original—nobody wants to lug a jacketed hardback onto the beach, do they? It’s also worth mentioning that the publication date isn’t accidental—it’s a summer read. This enabled our sales team to present it to their key accounts—Waterstone’s, Borders, WHSmith, etc—as a straightforward commercial proposition: loveable book; nice, sunny cover; June publication date. There are now heaps of copies in the shops and, happily, it’s well represented at UK airports and rail stations, just as the summer season gets going. We’re fortunate that Maggie has energetically embraced digital marketing and self-promotion (she even Twitters, heaven help her); she’s made herself available for a fortnight’s worth of readings, interviews, signings and launches during her visit to the UK, and has also proved herself to be an energetic advocate and supporter of budding authors—of all ages—seeking publication (she spoke inspiringly on this subject at the Writer’s Handbook Live event recently).

What we are always looking for is an author whose writing ticks all the boxes: who can create engaging characters and settings; construct plausible and satisfying plots; write with fluency, grace and style. Plenty of the submissions we receive at MNW tick one of those boxes, or two—very few tick them all. We’re also looking for authors who are unafraid to get their hands dirty, who know their value as writers but understand the collaborative aspect I’ve mentioned; and who’re able to weather the knock-backs and dead-ends and ‘potholes’ that Maggie mentioned in her blog, alongside the highs. Above all, we’re looking for writers with a future—who can cast their spell once to capture readers’ loyalty, and then keep casting it, again and again. It’s the reserves of dedication, talent and sheer energy that all this requires that makes truly successful and lasting authors so rare.

Guest Post: Believe In Yourself, But Believe In The Evidence As Well

This post is part of my very occasional series about logic and research: my thanks to Dan Holloway for writing it. In a very clever twist of scheduling (nothing to do with me, honest), his excellent follow-up piece to this appeared on his own blog a couple of days ago. Dan's book, Songs From The Other Side Of The Wall, is available from the Year Zero Writers' website.

“If you work hard enough at it, you’ll succeed.” It’s the mantra of motivational coaches everywhere. Mr(s) Motivator will follow up with numerous citations of people who made conquering the unconquerable their life’s work. The actor who auditioned for a thousand parts before landing their first call back. The inventor who patented a thousand useless ideas before hitting the one that netted her fortune. The writer who received a hundred rejections before someone spotted the bestseller.... It’s one of the most frequent quotes of the day. And it’s one of the most toxic examples of false logic there is.

It sounds so reasonable. But if I put the exact same argument in the following terms, you’d say I was nuts. “All humans are under ten feet tall. Mabel is under ten feet tall. Therefore Mabel is human.” Which of course, she isn’t. She’s the cow who lives in the field next door to me.

So how are these the same? Well, it IS true that if you are human you will be under ten feet tall. Likewise, barring a minority that is infinitely smaller than the tabloid cynics would have you believe, those who break through have worked hard to get there. But just as it’s true that being under ten feet tall doesn’t make you human, so it’s true that working hard doesn’t mean you’ll succeed. In logic it’s called the law of symmetry. Two properties are symmetrical if having either of them means you always have the other (a implies b, and b implies a). Take “three-sided shape” and “internal angles add up to 180 degrees”. These properties are symmetrical because all three-sided shapes have internal angles that add up to 180 degrees and vice versa. “Under ten feet tall” and “human” aren’t symmetrical. Nor are “successful” and “hard-working”. To put it at the most basic level, in both cases there’s many more of one than t’other.

So why does the “try hard” mantra sound so plausible? Because we want to believe it. If it were simply about hard work, we could all achieve our goal – because we’re all capable of hard work. What the guru’s doing is little more than preying on your dreams. It sounds plausible because you SO want it to be true. But it ain’t! And have you noticed how often “Just a little bit harder” is followed by “And I can help with that extra mile for just £...”?

That’s not the only thing that’s so unsavoury about this bad logic. Think for a minute what it implies. It’s amazing how few people realise the implication. But it’s there as plain as the slathering of ketchup on my fry-up. “I you work hard you will succeed” implies. “If you haven’t succeeded, it’s because you haven’t worked hard enough.” That’s not bad logic, by the way. In other words, if you haven’t made it, it’s somehow your fault. Well, sometimes maybe it is. But sometimes maybe it isn’t! I will never, repeat never, be an England rugby player. And if I’d started playing age two and trained every day since then with the best coaches and the best nutritionists and the best I don’t know what, I would still never make it beyond the local Sunday afternooners.

Which leads me to the last point I want to make. It is so important to learn when to draw a line. If you have one thousand rejections, it may well be that the one thousand and first will be successful. But it’s much more likely, as Sir Alan tends to say to the candidates in the boardroom for the seventh time, that “someone up there’s trying to tell you something.” Which doesn’t mean you should give up the writing you love. But it probably DOES mean don’t give up the day job.

I’m NOT saying you shouldn’t work hard. That would be bad logic on my part, because with these asymmetrical relations, the opposite of the false statement IS true. By which I mean, whilst it’s false to say “if you’re under ten feet tall you’re human” it’s true to say “if you’re over ten feet tall you’re not human”; and whilst “if you work hard you’ll succeed” is false “if you don’t work hard you won’t succeed” is true. Unless you’re the one in a million exception; but whilst I’ve read enough of “The Black Swan” to know never to rule that out, I don’t really think a “how to” book on being the exception is of much beyond curiosity value.

To sum up. Work hard. Work very hard (most of all, work smart, but that’s another post). But that’s no guarantee of success: you have to know when to call it quits. When I decided in January 2008 I wanted to make a living as a writer, I did my research and I did some soul-searching, and I drew up a five-year plan (not to have given up the day job by then, but to have given up one day a week, which for me is the tipping point: at the moment I have a pretty good idea that making it will follow on (again, that’s another post). I revise it at least every two months (without ever revising the end date) to make sure I’m not missing a trick, and to see what I can learn from what’s going to plan and what isn’t, so I can work smarter. I hope, once five years are up, if I haven’t hit my target I’ll take my own advice. Which isn’t to say I’ll stop writing. I’ll never stop writing – and as long as there’s an internet or whatever comes next I won’t stop sharing what I write. But I’ll owe it to my wife as much as myself to realise if I’m going to find a way out of the day job, it probably won’t be writing.

Some Notes About Rights

Publication rights to a book reside in the book itself, not in the author—although the author will (usually) own the rights to the books that they write.

Once a book appears in print, the first print rights to it have been used up and cannot be retrieved under any circumstances. While other rights to that book might still be available, those first rights are gone for good and nothing, including a change of name for the book or for the author, can legally renew those rights. It's important for writers to understand this as while some publishers will consider republishing a previously-published book, many will not. Self-publishers: take note.

If someone sells first rights to a book and then writes a second book, that second book will have its own full set of rights which the author will own (unless it’s been written under a work-for-hire contract, but that’s a whole new kettle of fish), including first rights.

If you sell full world rights to a book, you can't then sell that book into any other territories or in any other formats, but the publisher which bought those rights can. So if a UK publisher buys first print rights for the UK, US first rights and world electronic rights remain with the writer; if a UK publisher buys world rights to that first publication, they can publish it in their own territory and get their US branch to publish there, for example, or sell those rights to a different publisher. Generally, a writer would get 50% of the advance and royalties resulting from any such sale, but a lot depends on the contract.

Some agents prefer to only sell the rights that a publisher is definitely going to use, which means that the writer retains all other rights: but I think that the best place for rights to belong is with the person or business with the best chance of selling them. There's little point in a writer keeping hold of US rights if he or she has no hope of selling the book into America, when the publisher of their UK edition has a US branch too, or good sales contacts in that country.

Finally, if a book which has already been published is revised, extended, redesigned, and republished, then the resulting book would be a new edition of an old title, not a whole new book—because the main portion of the book would have been published in the earlier edition, so it can't be considered a completely different book.

It Must Be Awards Season....

Michael Stelzner, of Writing White Papers, is now asking for nominations for his fourth annual Top 10 Blogs For Writers contest.

He asks for nominations to be made via his comments, and will allow only one vote per person. You have to provide a link to the blog you're voting for; and explain why you think it deserves a place in the top ten. To get into the shortlist, blogs will have to have more than one vote. Nominations close on 11 September, which will arrive far sooner than we all expect.

I shall nominate Writer Beware, or perhaps Nicola Morgan's blog (I'm struggling to decide which one to go for, because they're both great). It's up to the rest of you what you vote for: but anyone who votes for my blog will, of course, be my new best friend and receive virtual chocolate.

Trios: The Einstein Girl, by Philip Sington: Waterstone’s Perspective

Last time The Einstein Girl appeared here, we learned how its cover was created; today, Rodney Troubridge (the Fiction Marketing Planner at Waterstone’s) reveals how he makes his decisions; and next time, a key account manager at Random House will discuss selling this sort of literary fiction to booksellers.


As a lucky retailer who gets sent a lot of proofs to read it is always enjoyable to think, 'what shall I read next?'

Looking back I think what interested me about The Einstein Girl was that it had been recommended by the publisher at a highlights presentation of their titles a few months before. I didn't know any thing about the author other than vaguely remembering his previous novel but I liked the plot line and so I gave it a go.

I have always liked reading books set in the interwar period in Germany and/or Central Europe and admired the way the doomed Weimar Republic is portrayed and the frightening spectre of the Nazi takeover beginning its terrible influence. I was also intrigued to see how the author would handle the giant figure of Einstein and how he would fit into the overall story.

Luckily my colleagues on the buying team felt equally enthusiastic and we will be promoting the title in branches of Waterstone's from publication.


Philip's editor at Harvill Secker has kindly squirrelled away five copies of The Einstein Girl for us. If you'd like to be in the running for one of them, all you have to do is answer the following question: where did the designers find the photograph which appears on the cover of The Einstein Girl? Send your answers to "competition at philipsington dot com": a week after the third article in this series appears, Philip will select the five winners at random and I'll announce them here.

How Writers Can Save Publishing, One Book At A Time

When I visited Aberystwyth a couple of weeks ago, I did my usual thing: I left my husband on the beach to supervise our children, and I went for a walk around the town.

I've known Aberystwyth all my life: I have a lot of family there, and it's familiar to me in an infrequent, surreal way. I know the layout of its streets, but not the names of them; I know the history of the town as it appears in my family's folklore, which often juxtaposes oddly with the more widely-accepted versions; and I know a series of landmarks through the town which help me to knit together my own mental street-map, and which provide a framework for all those inherited memories I have of the place.

This time, though, one of those landmarks had gone. Galloway's, the independent bookshop on Pier Street, has closed. The space it left behind is now filled with racks of tracksuits and boxes of cheap trainers. There are other bookshops, of course (and the list you'll find in this link still includes Galloway's even though it's gone, which pleases me): there is a branch of Waterstone's on the main shopping street and a couple of hundred yards down from it the small but brilliantly-stocked Siop-y-Pethe, both of which are wonderful in their own ways, and there are a few others too: but Galloway's, with its top floor full of fiction, its racks of small-press books, its spooky, echoing basement full of textbooks and odd non-fiction: Galloway's, which I've never once left without a satisfyingly fat bundle of books—Galloway's is gone. Because, as several people told me sadly, it just wasn't making enough money to remain in business.

I stood outside the space-which-once-was-Galloway's and stared in at the bright white trainers and the young men fighting to get themselves the right sizes, the best designers. It was never so busy when it was full of books. I found myself thinking of the wonderful literary magazine Cadenza, which came to an end this year not because of a lack of quality or reputation, but because it didn't sell enough copies to pay for its own printing bill; and of Salt Publishing, which earlier this year asked us to buy just one book in order to keep it in business (which appears to have worked, I'm pleased to say).

So here is my point. It is difficult to get published: this we know. But imagine how much more difficult it would be if the market were halved. Fewer publishers in business translates directly into fewer publishing slots; and as bookshops close, books and literary magazines have fewer opportunities to get into readers hands, which reduces book sales even further.

Over the last year I've read a lot of blog posts which have bemoaned the perilous state of publishing today: the suggested solutions to publishing’s financial crisis have ranged from sacking all editors (and in so doing prevent them rejecting the Brave New Literary Voice Which Could Alone Save Publishing (which is usually, coincidentally, the voice of the person writing the blog post in question) to cutting literary agents out of publishing's food-chain (because in their role of literary gatekeeper—how I hate that phrase—they’ve rejected the Brave New Literary Voice Which Could Alone Save Publishing, and we know who that is, don’t we?). But very few of them have pointed out that writers could do a lot to help keep all these publishers and booksellers in business until business picks up.

Every time you submit your work anywhere, support your submission by buying a copy of the magazine that you’re submitting to, or a book from the publisher you’d like to publish you. If you’re writing a novel and are nowhere near ready to submit then think about who you would like to publish you once you’re ready to go and buy something from them.

Buy just one more book; subscribe to just one literary magazine; use your local bookshop if you can; and then keep going. Every single copy helps: and there’s no need to stop at just one. If you can afford to, buy an extra book or literary magazine every month or every week; if you can’t afford to then order books at your local library and read them all for free—the library pays for the books it lends out, and every little helps. Because every time a publisher ceases trading or a bookshop closes its doors, it becomes just a little bit harder for us to get published. And if we writers haven’t supported the independent publishers, the small imprints, the many tiny but wonderful literary and genre magazines which put out fabulous work, then we can’t complain when they close, and another opportunity is lost to us forever.



(The two stunning covers I've used to illustrate this piece belong to books translated by John K Bollard with photographs by Anthony Griffiths: The Mabinogi, and Companion Tales to the Mabinogi. They're both published by Gomer, and I bought them from Siop-y-Pethe. If you're interested in the Mabinogion, or in Welsh/Celtic literature, culture or countryside, buy them both: they are the most beautiful books I've seen in a good long while.)

If You've Ever Wondered...

...what reading slush for months on end does to your mind, then just read this.

It is a bloody brilliant blog and I wish I'd written it.

(I wish I'd discovered the blog, too, but have to admit that Janet Reid got to it first. Now I know what her competitors feel like.)

Trios: The Third Sign, by Gregory A Wilson: The Editor's View

Although Gregory A Wilson has already told us how he found a publisher, it's interesting to read a corresponding view from the other side of the fence. Here, Greg's editor at Five Star, John Helfers, discusses what he looks for in a writer, and how writers can improve the editing process. Next time we'll hear from the book's cover artist but meanwhile, my thanks to John for this revealling contribution.

I first met Greg Wilson at the 2005 GenCon. At first he seemed like one of the dozens of aspiring authors I meet at that convention and others around the country, but as our conversation progressed, I became aware of certain vital differences between him and the rest of the crowd.

Greg’s background as both an associate professor and avid fiction reader gave him an excellent grounding in the tropes of the fantasy genre, which was revealed when I first read an early draft of his novel The Third Sign. He also had the persistence and drive that marks a good author. However, before he could get to that stage, there was one last hurdle to overcome—I had to accept his book first.

Don’t get me wrong—as I mentioned above, the quality was there in his manuscript from the start. However, Greg writes in a crowded sub-genre—the high/epic fantasy. Having worked and written in the field (one of my favorites) for more than a decade, I’ve seen just about everything cross my desk while acquiring science fiction and fantasy for the Five Star line, so I have very high standards. And if an author wants to submit a high/epic fantasy to me, that’s fine, but it had better be something pretty damn special.

After reviewing his work, I saw the glimmerings of what the novel could be, but I knew it would take some hard work on both of our parts to get it there. I went back to Greg with the first three chapters edited, showing him both how I work, and outlining some of the major edits that I felt the book needed. I asked him to revise the manuscript (remember, at this point the book hadn’t been accepted yet) both to see if he could take what I had given him and incorporate it into his book, and, to be honest, gauge his reaction to my suggestions (there’s nothing worse than working with an easily-offended/haughty/balky/recalcitrant author, and often the results just aren’t worth the trouble in the first place). Greg was more than willing to revise and resubmit, and after seeing what he had done with my edits, I was pleased to offer him a contract to publish his novel.

This is not to say that after that first revision the manuscript was ready to go. Both of us worked very hard on polishing and strengthening the final version, deepening character motivations and relationships, working out the timeline so that events happening on opposite sides of the kingdom worked in the overall plot, etc. Happily, Greg was also excellent to work with during the editorial process all through the pre-production stages. I’ve always thought that the mark of a true, professional writer is that they can be open to suggestions and the alternate perspectives on their work, and that’s exactly what Greg was. Working with him to shape the manuscript into its final published form was a highly rewarding experience (for both of us, I hope!) I was very pleased to play a part in bringing Greg’s fantastic vision into print, and hope that his readers enjoy what is hopefully the first of many volumes about Calen’s adventures in his troubled homeland of Klune.

Nominate Your Favourite Writing Blogs!

Maria Schneider has asked people to nominate their favourite writing blogs over at Editor Unleashed. Nominations are welcome until 18 August which gives you just a few more days to participate. Fame and fortune await the lucky winners: no doubt there'll be a few soggy sandwiches left over for the also-rans.

I know a few brilliant writers' blogs I'm going to nominate: Writer Beware, all those blogging agents like Janet Reid, Colleen Lindsay, Nathan Brandsford; Emma Darwin's This Itch Of Writing has to go on the list, of course; the Pitch Parlour, the Behler Blog, Nicola Morgan's fabulous blog and Sally Zigmond's excellent The Elephant in the Writing Room; but I'm sure I've missed one off that list.

(Does everybody agree that it's naff for people to nominate their own blogs? I think it probably is so I'm not going to nominate this one. It's up to you, boys and girls. Please remember to leave a link and don't mention my nastier habits. Thank you.)

Wanna Be A Writer? Vote For This Book Now!

Thanks to the magic of Facebook, I've learned that Jane Wenham-Jones's book Wannabe a Writer? is up for a prize over at The People's Book Awards. It's a great book for aspiring writers but don't risk reading it while you're eating: it made me laugh so much I shot a piece of sweetcorn out of my nose (and you'd be amazed how far a snort-propelled piece of sweetcorn can travel).

The good thing about The People's Book Awards is that anyone and everyone can vote for the shortlisted titles. So, if you've read Jane's book and would like to support it, and her, then please follow this link, and cast your vote.

Robert Fletcher of Writers' Literary Agency Labelled Fraudulent And Frivolous In Legal Ruling

Ann Crispin and Victoria Strauss today announced that Robert Fletcher of the Writers' Literary Agency has not only lost the lawsuit he took out against them and James Macdonald eighteen months ago: Robert Fletcher's suit has been deemed frivolous in the judge's findings, and his business habits have been labelled fraudulent. Robert Fletcher brought the case because he claimed that the warnings that Writer Beware had issued about his company were defamatory, but the judge disagreed with him. I particularly liked the piece by James Macdonald, which Fletcher objected to, which you can read here (I did want to quote it here, but Blogger still won't let me copy and paste).

Robert Fletcher has now been ordered to pay Writer Beware's costs, and according to a lawyer over at Making Light he's going to find it very difficult to wriggle out of doing so. At this point I wish that Ann and Victoria had hired a more expensive lawyer, but we can't have everything.

Just in case anyone who reads this page is considering submitting to the Writers' Literary Agency or one of its many subsidiary companies, here is a link to the discussions about the Writers' Literary Agency and Robert Fletcher over at Absolute Write: and I'll finish with an extract from the judge's findings which I found particularly interesting:

The plaintiff, Robert Fletcher, sent multiple e-mails to both defendants, Crispin and Strauss threatening them both with physical harm and threatening them with this lawsuit. In fact, in two of his e-mails, he indicated that his purpose was not to prevail in the lawsuit but just to bankrupt the defendants, Crispin and Strauss.

Hands up anyone who fancies an agent who behaves like that. No one? Can't say I blame you.

My warmest congratulations to Ann Crispin, Victoria Strauss and to James Macdonald for winning the case. And yah-boo-sucks to Robert Fletcher. Frivolous and fraudulent has such a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Trios: The Einstein Girl, by Philip Sington: Cover Design

Matt Broughton began designing book covers for the academic publisher Routledge in 1997, and moved to Random House in 2001. He is now a senior designer and continues to design covers for Random House's literary imprints, including Harvill Secker. Lily Richards has worked as a picture researcher at Random House for nine years, mainly working on literary book covers but also for some book interiors. I thank them both for the following piece, which describes how they worked on Philip Sington's book, The Einstein Girl.

Next time we'll hear how a buying manager at Waterstone's makes his decisions; and finally, a key account manager at Random House discusses selling literary fiction like The Einstein Girl to booksellers.



When people ask us how we design covers there is never one answer – ideas can come from any number of areas: authors, editors, and they all are considered along with a more formal brief. The brief is originally conceived by the editor of the book in consultation with Sales and Marketing. Things that would be considered at this stage are the format – is it a hardback, paperback or reissue, comparable titles, position we are aiming for in the market, print runs and artwork budgets.

The brief is for us very much a starting place and for fiction we like to also have something to read – a manuscript, or a book if it has previously been published. A decision will be made by the designer as to how to approach the artwork: commissioned illustration, photography, found images, typographical solutions etc. With that decision made, and with the brief, the book, and the various parameters in mind, we begin the creative process.

In the case of The Einstein Girl, it was clear that the cover would need picture research. We wanted to find photographs of 1930s Berlin, specifically the young woman in the book and the nightclub scene. These photographs would need to be strong in atmosphere as we wanted to achieve a design with film noir look to reflect the writing. We sourced the photographs from a German archive, AKG, and the design could then begin.

Various design solutions were taken to the weekly cover meeting where editors and people from sales and marketing all considered the options. Once we had settled on the present cover, author approval was also sought. Covers are not always straightforward and can change dramatically over the course of being worked on, but it is all part of the process.


Philip's editor at Harvill Secker has kindly squirrelled away five copies of The Einstein Girl for us. If you'd like to be in the running for one of them, all you have to do is answer the following question: where did the designers find the photograph which appears on the cover of The Einstein Girl? Send your answers to "competition at philipsington dot com": a week after the third article in this series appears, Philip will select the five winners at random and I'll announce them here.

I Wish I Lived In Edinbugh!

Yes, I know it would mean that I would run the risk of bumping into that Morgan woman every now and then, but it would also mean that I could apply for the job of managing the Edinburgh Bookshop, the latest creation of Fidra Books' growing business empire.

I could be entirely wrong here, but I bet that the good people at Fidra are not necessarily looking for someone with years of retail experience. I'm guessing that enthusiasm, positivity, computer savvy, marketing brilliance and a familiarity with Facebook and blogging and books and bookish people would be of more interest. And I know that lots the people who read my blog fit that description well.

If you're wondering what good a job in a bookshop would do you just take a look at Fidra's reputation, and consider what their past employees have gone on to do (the Orange Prize website might be a good place to start).

Let me know if you apply, and good luck to you all.

Trios: Beachcombing, by Maggie Dana: Macmillan New Writing

Last week we heard about Maggie Dana's potholed path to the publication of her first adult novel Beachcombing; this week Maggie's editor, Will Atkins, discusses the imprint which finally took her into print: Macmillan New Writing.


You might remember that there was a bit of a fuss when Macmillan New Writing launched back in 2006 [I remember only too well—I was very sceptical, but have been proven thoroughly wrong!—Jane]. We decided that, rather than fend off un-agented authors with a broom-handle, we would accept—in fact encourage—unsolicited submissions of debut fiction via our website; we also decided that our terms would be standard and non-negotiable (and this is what didn’t go down well with some): world rights, no advance, but 20% royalty on net receipts.

Macmillan New Writing is now an integral, and pretty uncontroversial, part of Pan Macmillan, and operates in the same way as the other imprints here, using the same editorial, design, production, publicity, marketing and sales staff. Several of our authors have ‘graduated’ to Pan Mac’s mainstream imprints, with multi-book deals, on conventional terms, with an advance. Macmillan New Writing was founded with the understanding that authors’ careers take time to grow. Fundamental to the way the imprint operates is a close working relationship between author and publisher: our authors are often un-agented; and therefore it’s vital that they have faith in us to a) not fleece them and b) publish them well. Successful publishing is about collaboration and mutual trust, and these things are vital when developing an author’s career over the long-term. We try to involve our authors in every stage of the publication process, and we’re fortunate that our authors are eager to muck in when it comes to promoting their own work (and the imprint itself). They are also a wonderfully garrulous and mutually supportive bunch, despite the breadth of the Macmillan New Writing church; and this sense of shared interest and community is one of the things that makes Macmillan New Writing special. All are in the same boat, all serious writers trying to develop a career, and genre snobbery is peculiarly absent, just as it is (I hope) in our commissioning policy. Good books are good books, after all.

In fact the business model is the least interesting thing about Macmillan New Writing – what is interesting is what we’re publishing: Brian McGilloway, a truly world-class crime writer, cut his teeth at Macmillan New Writing, and we’ve just published the double Orange Prize-nominated debut by Ann Weisgarber, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree. (And look out for Ryan David Jahn’s crime debut, Acts of Violence, in the autumn—a big new arrival).

But the thing we’re really excited about right now is Maggie Dana’s novel Beachcombing. One of the nice things about Macmillan New Writing is that we’re open to submissions from all over the planet, and at any given moment some gleaming gem can ping into my Inbox. Brian pinged his from Derry; Ann pinged hers from Texas; and Maggie pinged Beachcombing from Connecticut.


Next week Will reveals what he's looking for in the slush-pile and what he looks for in the authors he publishes; and how all this measures up to more than the sum of its parts.

That Morgan Woman Outed Me

Yes, it's my 47th birthday today and Nicola Morgan has been and gone and told everyone (I knew I shouldn't have twittered about it).

I spent the morning sitting in the sun, writing in peace as my lovely husband took the boys off to a three hour archery lesson. I was very productive, and now feel smug.

I've been given an embroidered dark blue silk jacket, which I bought for myself from eBay but which Big Dave intercepted when the postman delivered it; and I've been promised an orchard with apples, pears, walnuts and mulberries (all to be planted in the autumn which is, apparently, the best time of year to plant them), a petrol strimmer (Big Dave's died a few weeks ago and apparently I need one of my own now, to compensate), and an electric screwdriver (ditto). A Chinese meal is apparently going to be cooked for me soon. Meanwhile I shall read: my joy knows no bounds. A perfect birthday, and it's not over yet.

A Techno-Crisis Strikes Again

I've been trying off and on this afternoon to schedule some new posts here but each time I try, and no matter which computer I work with, Blogger is refusing to allow me to paste any text into the little box where my posts go. So while I have quite a few posts saved to Word and ready to go, I can't move them from my computer onto my blog.

I've tried right-clicking in Blogger's text editor but the "paste"option is greyed out; I've tried using CTRL-V but that doesn't work either. I have made sure that I've copied the text I want (by pasting it into an email, and a new Word document): I can't think of anything else I can do.

Does anyone else have this problem, or is it just me? And if it's not just me, can anyone suggest how I could get round it?

Moving From Self-Publishing To Mainstream

I've heard a lot of self-published writers insist that self-publication is a good route to mainstream publication. But is that really the case? Probably not.

Literary agent David Fugate of LaunchBooks Literary Agency has written,

looking back at my PublishersMarketplace search, I noted that 29 deals were listed where the book had been previously self-published. That sounds like a decent number until you realize that more than 30,000 deals have been reported there over the last 2 years.

So out of every thousand deals reported by Publishers' Marketplace over the last two years, only one concerned a book which had previously been self-published: a statistic which effectively flattens the argument that self-publishing provides a good route to mainstream success.

I'd really like to find out how many books were self-published in that same time-frame, and how many of them went on to be published by mainstream publishers: but it's proved impossible to find anything verifiable and hype-free (if anyone knows where I can get such statistics for free, I'd love to have them). Because if we had those figures we'd be able to see just how likely it is for books to cross over from self-publishing to mainstream, and possibly how fast this trend is increasing.

None of this is meant to imply that self-published books can't be successful without making that transition: of course they can, under the right circumstances. Mr Fugate goes on to write,

Does that mean I think you shouldn’t self-publish your book? Not necessarily. There are circumstances where self-publishing - especially when taking advantage of the speed and ease of print on demand - makes a great deal of sense (generally when speed to market is very important and where the author has a significant marketing platform to draw upon).

Bolding mine. If you're going to self-publish, you're going to have to do a lot of marketing and promotion in order to see any significant sales; and unless you go on to make those significant sales, you're no more likely to find yourself a mainstream publisher than anyone else who has written a book. Unless your book is stonkingly good, which is, of course, a whole different discussion.

Reviewers Wanted!

Last night on Twitter's Litchat several people asked if there were any software programs which could help writers work and while I suspect that most are no more than expensive procrastination tools, I bet that there are a few which are useful.

The thing is, I just don't know which ones they are. I'm relatively non-technical: I write most of my work by hand, using a real pen and real paper, and then I "type" up my work into Microsoft Word using Dragon NaturallySpeaking and a couple of associated gadgets which I've reviewed here, but I don't use anything else to produce my work.

So if you use any specialist writing software, hardware or gadgets, then I'd be grateful if you'd consider writing a review of it for me, listing its good points along with its bad, and explaining just who you think might benefit from using it. Email your review to me at "HPRW at tesco dot net", and put "HPRW review" in the subject-line so I don't mistake you for spam (and while we're at it, I would welcome some more reviews of writing-related books if anyone feels so inclined).

Plagiarism: The Whole Story

If you've been following my anti-plagiarism blog posts, you might be interested to know that Vanessa Gebbie has now blogged about the whole sorry mess in detail, giving names of all the writers, stories and publications involved. It's a sordid story, but I'm glad it's all out in the open now. Here's the link.

To summarise, Vanessa Gebbie shared some very specific story ideas with Douglas Bruton, the writer at the centre of this plagiarism row. He proceeded to use those ideas to write his own story, and to use extracts of her novel in progress (which he beta-read for her) as the basis of his own work. He has since won a couple of prizes with those particular stories, which has left an understandably sour taste in Gebbie's mouth (in the comments to this blog post of mine, Gebbie and Bruton discuss some of the details). This might all be seen as a nasty storm in a literary teacup if it was an isolated case: but sadly, it's not.

Bruton also appears to have used the plot, characters and theme of Paul Auster's Travels in the Scriptorium as the basis for his own story, Waiting in the Scriptorium. He submitted it to Cadenza Magazine's literary competition (coincidentally co-edited by Vanessa Gebbie), and won a prize. The editors hadn't read the Auster novel and so didn't spot the many similarities between the two works: but several of Cadenza's readers had. They complained, and some cancelled their subscriptions as a direct result. Cadenza has now closed, as it didn't have enough income to continue.

More recently, Bruton took a prizewinning story by Tania Hershman (who was a member of the same online writing group as he was), rewrote it in his own words using Tania's unique structure, theme and plot, and submitted it to a competition where it won first prize. Bruton's story, Mondays Smell Of Burnt Toast, has since been taken down and so is not now available for anyone to read (unless someone is clever with the Wayback Machine, which I am not).

This wasn't a case of Bruton using someone else's work to inspire: neither Auster's novel nor Hershman's story was used as a starting point for a story which covered new ground. They were simply rewritten by Bruton, scene by scene, which looks suspiciously like plagiarism to me but Douglas Bruton remains convinced that he has done nothing wrong. In his most recent email to me he wrote,

Please be assured that I stand by my conviction that I have not done anything more than many of the writers in this debate have done... I truly believe that Art/art moves forward by building on what has gone before or through the 'sharing' of ideas.