You can check out an interview, videos and writing by Hilary here
The first book published by Fourth Estate to ever win the Booker Prize, Wolf Hall had been a hot favourite of bookies since the longlist was announced. Apparently William Hill had never seen a betting pattern like it, and Scotsmen.com quoted one spokesperson who said it was “almost like an unspoken psychic rumour” that Mantel would take the prize.
]]>Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’m five foot nine. I’ve weighed the same for about five years, but every day I read the scales and say the same thing: “Oh, surely not.” I spend all my time writing and emailing. If I can’t get an internet connection, I panic. I text all day, or at least until all my texting friends drop from fatigue. I am in love with communication. The most tragic moment in literature for me is when that confessional note goes under that carpet in Tess of the D’Urbervilles. I’ve just acquired a dog for the first time in my life, and he is bliss on little furry legs. His arrival has been an enormous surprise to my two aloof cats. They keep shooting glances at me that say, “How could you do this to us?” And I shrug and say, “Actually, you brought this on yourselves.”
What books have had a lasting impact on you?
Well, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, obviously. Looking back, I think I was unusual in how much comic writing I read when I was young. Books like 1066 and All That and How to be Topp. I remember borrowing A.P. Herbert’s Misleading Cases from the library at a very young age and working quite hard to find it amusing. I loved the American writer Betty MacDonald. I read Keith Waterhouse. But when you look at my own work, I think you can quite clearly detect the influence of D.H. Lawrence, Marcel Proust, Samuel Beckett, Mrs Oliphant, H. Ryder Haggard and of course that woman who wrote Milly Molly Mandy.
Why do you write?
It’s an inexplicable urge. It was a suppressed urge for a very long time, too: I was in my mid-thirties before I started writing fiction or drama, which I think explains the terribly urgent urgency of this urge. My ex-boyfriend still describes me as the only person he knows who goes on holiday just so that she can slave over a keyboard somewhere else.
As an author, what are you most proud of writing?
My novel Tennyson’s Gift. Written mostly on holiday, as it happens.
What is your biggest failure?
My novel Tennyson’s Gift. It was a critical success, but it didn’t sell. It’s umpteen years ago now (published in 1996), but I never got over the sense of dismay.
When you were a child, what did you think you would be when you grew up?
I think I always wanted to write, but for a long time it was obvious to me that I would happily settle for being a library assistant. The main thing about me is that I come from a working-class background; I was considerably exceeding expectations just by sitting A levels. And somehow I kept on doing it: after university, I got an interesting job in literary journalism; I started writing as a critic; I became a literary editor; I became a full-time writer. All the time, I’ve felt I was on extended reprieve from the dull job awaiting me. I still feel that today, if I’m honest.
If you could go anywhere in time for one day, where would you go and why?
Interestingly, I used to have a ready answer to this question. I used to be sure that I would go straight back to the late 1860s and witness Charles Dickens giving one of his dramatic readings of “Sikes and Nancy”, possibly in America. But I went off this idea quite smartly when it was incorporated into one of the very first plots in the revamped Doctor Who. It was a big shock, realising that someone else had the same idea (except for wanting to see Dickens in Cardiff). So I think what I’d really have to choose now would be to see my parents when they were young. It would be unbearable, of course; but it would be like having the mystery of one’s own personal universe unveiled. Annoyingly, they did that story on Doctor Who as well, I seem to remember. Heavens, I’m so obvious.
Do you like reading e-books?
I haven’t done it. I bought a Sony Reader for my niece at Christmas and she loves it. (I’m trying to sound helpful.)
Who are the five people, living or dead, you would invite to a party?
This is where we run up against my searing self-knowledge, I’m afraid. I make it a policy never to seek out people I admire, because I know they will find me a terrible bore and I can’t face the heart-break. But if I could invite them to a party and just watch through the banisters in my nightie, I suppose I’d like to see Alfred, Lord Tennyson in the same room as Bob Dylan, Caligula, Vermeer and the woman who wrote Milly Molly Mandy.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’ve just finished work on the third series of my radio comedy Inspector Steine, to be aired in September/October 2009 on Radio 4. It’s about the police in Brighton in the 1950s, with a terrific regular cast, and I’d like to write it for ever.
Get Her Off the Pitch! is the story of Lynne Truss’ foray into the very masculine and rather baffling world of sport. Lynne spent four years as an unlikely sports writer for The Times. It was a job that took her around the world (via the most difficult journeys and least glamorous hotels) and introduced her to some of the greatest living sportsmen. It was published on October 1st by Fourth Estate.
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Tell us a little bit about yourself
I’m the last novelist in England, or the first, if you’re sailing from across the Atlantic. I’m typing this at my desk, looking over our garden and barely resisting the temptation to get out there and start deadheading.
What books have had a lasting impact on you?
Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy and Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea for showing me what was possible. Armistead Maupin’s Tales from the City and Alan Hollinghurst’s The Swimming Pool Library for showing me anything is permitted in fiction if you do it with style and charm. Saki and Chekhov’s short stories for showing how much can be achieved in a tiny space.
Why do you write?
Compulsion. Also I think it feeds my profound curiosity about people’s lives. If I didn’t write I think I’d have to be a priest or a psychotherapist, probably the latter as it pays better and involves less silliness.
As an author, what are you most proud (or embarrassed) of writing?
I’m pretty proud of writing Rough Music. Although it was Notes From an Exhibition that won me a much bigger audience I think the earlier novel was a technical breakthrough for me. And it suddenly seemed to grant me permission to stop smiling, as a writer, and go into the dark places.
What is your biggest failure?
Not counting my earliest novels, which were crazily under written because I was so impatient, I’d say my Little Bits of Baby and The Cat Sanctuary. They’re not failures, exactly, and they each have a loyal following, but I had a pretty lazy editor at the time who was content with far less than I know I was capable of. I respond well to pushing and he didn’t push me nearly enough. They’re both stories that deal with very dark themes within a comic framework and if I wrote them now I know I’d go far deeper into those dark areas. In particular I’d listen more closely to what the female characters were trying to tell me rather than imprisoning them in my (very male) plotting. I think a female editor would have stood up for the female characters as my male editor didn’t.
When you were a kid, what did you think were you going to be when you grew up?
When I was really really small I had secret dreams of being a ballet dancer. Then I settled on music – I’d like to have been a cellist. I still play the cello but it’s a constant source of guilt that I didn’t threw it over for acting once I was a student.
If you could travel anywhere in time, for one day, where would you go and why?
I’d go to Clapham Station on the day Oscar Wilde was made to change trains there on his way to Reading Prison so I could push through the crowd of spitters and hecklers to slip him a letter reassuing him that his words would live on and his love be legalised and celebrated.
Do you like reading e-books?
I don’t know. I’ve never tried. But I love new technology so it’s probably only a matter of time. However I’m also deeply in love with books as things, with peculiar smells and creases and stains. I can’t imagine snatching an e reader from a burning house the way I can a book.
Who are the five people, living or dead, you’d invite to a party?
Francis Poulenc, Colette, Byron, George Cukor and Ann Tyler. But god alone knows what I’d feed them.
What are you working on at the moment?
A new novel is bubbling up nicely. It’s dark and fairly rambling at the moment, about the West Cornwall family of a very good priest who’s a very poor father.
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To commemorate the close of the first decade of the 00’s, last week The Millions blog ran an ongoing feature counting down the best books of the millennium (so far). Judged by a distinguished panel of writers, critics, and editors, Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections emerged in the top spot as the best new title of the last decade. As a follow up to the series, the blog posted a great piece listing the top 20 books chosen by the panel of experts, versus the top 20 books chosen by their readers. Despite the expected overlaps, it was fascinating to see the clashing tastes of both groups. One book that made it onto the reader’s list that didn’t figure into the expert’s was Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s much loved novel, Half of a Yellow Sun.
So what do you think…is Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections the best book of the Millenium?
]]>Hilary recently participated in the Daunts Debates, where she discussed her personal fascination with the historical period of Wolf Hall, and touched on the process of bringing characters like Thomas Cromwell, Thomas More and Henry VIII to life.
[wpyt_profile1]HdNWSrHiMuA[/wpyt_profile1]
Check out parts two and three…
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Gary recently recorded a great Q&A, posted here as a podcast:
[audio:gary kemp interview.mp3]
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE PODCAST
Update:
I Know This Much: from Soho to Spandau is out in paperback this Thursday.
]]>In parts one and two of the series, our contributors presented speculations on the radical shifts publishers and the entire publishing process will undergo in coming years – covering everything from the emergence of new genres to the form next generation reading devices will take. In our concluding piece we continue to look at ways the industry may transform in the coming years.
Scott Pack, Publisher of The Friday Project
The lovely, and increasingly bearded, Jeremy LoCurto, asked me to write a piece about what publishing will be like in the year 2025. In the spirit of our digital future I asked people on Twitter for their views in 140 characters or less.
Here is what they said:
@rblandford In the future, books will be read to us by a robot butler, who will then waltz with us in the living room before bedtime.
@adrianslatcher books will be smaller, faster (to market), not necessarily just books (see new nick cave), but still, distinctly books
@booksellercrow What will publishing be like in 2025? – Fucked. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.
@nikperring I suspect a very small amount of paper will be used, if any. Is that too obvious?
@davidmbarnett Dominated by novels and autobiogs by the children of today’s celebrities, probably.
@dantjenkins Jordan will be on the Nat curriculum will be printed in student editions by Penguin, Coles Notes will also be available
@KRLitmag I see iPods with AudioBooks, more Kindle, Sony Readers, etc, an upsurge in eBooks and web publishing for 2025.
@nikperring generally, I mean; not suggesting books will be particularly small.
@orbific 2025: novels will seem archaic, like opera. People will see them as solitary and anti-social. Stories will be networked.
@matthewhill There will be no publishing, only Daniel Brown.
@dantjenkins people will reminisce about paper cuts
@jonmhowells publishing 2025. Same old moans, but more jetpacks.
@quackwriter 2025: Books will be beamed direct to people’s brains. Publishers will have to pay for the best brain space.
@KieraG23 publishing 2025: profit share or collapse.
@LaceyTiger In a reversal of fortunes, authors will receive multi-million pound advances and demand jewel encrusted lecturns for . . .
@JosaYoung originality will disappear and and only identical books colour coded for ease of genre spotting will be published
@KRLitmag Printed press still popular in 2025, but more of a “scene” – older gens holding onto past, kids trying to be sophisticated.
@LaceyTiger . . . readings, while struggling would-be movie stars will be forced to produce own films and tout their wares on the net!
@meandmybigmouth There will be a LoveFilm for books. Only one major chain will survive and they will purely stock mass market. All else sold by indies.
@brettlock In 2025 we will be in the middle of WWIII. It won’t be going well.
@magicnose forgive my zero tweets on publishing in 2025. truth is i’m pretty ignorant about all publishing so thought best i kept out
So there you have it, a snapshot of the future generated by the favoured social networking tool of the moment. A fine case of lazy journalism by me, or ‘crowdsourcing’ as @john_self so kindly put it.
Peter Collingridge, Apt Studio
I think the best, or perhaps most credible, futures are those that somehow reflect our present.
For me, this is shown by the enduring appeal of Bladerunner’s grimy, broken, recognisable city – credibility earned by the fact that it’s not a shiny, perfect, city of the future but a wholly familiar one, albeit with plug-ins .
Similarly, when I try and imagine publishing 15 years from now, I’m likely only to see the things that currently preoccupy me professionally about publishing. Those preoccupations are two quite big, but also quite simple, things:
- How enjoyment of literature can be enhanced through relationships with other media; and
- How to bring great writing to a much broader audience.
Looking at that second preoccupation first.
I think that by 2025, the problem of supply will have been “solved”.
We’ll be able to get any writing, from any era, in any language or format we like, immediately, and probably for free. At a time when many are prophecising the apocalyptic end of publishing I think it is both astonishing and comforting that, in 2009, the biggest and most powerful technology companies in our lives (Apple, Amazon, Sony, Microsoft, Google) are competing – arguably for the first time – on the same playing field, and it’s to “win” in books.
Whether “winning” means scanning the information in books (Google, Microsoft), or controlling the playback or distribution of the information in the book (Amazon, Google, Sony, Apple – allegedly ) the attention of these giant companies on a relatively small industry suggests that books may just be around for a little longer than some would suggest. Exaggerated rumours of publishing’s death etc. However, doubtless is the fact that this attention will force the business to change shape dramatically – and very quickly.
So what might this “solved” supply world look like? Well, clearly there will still be some died-in-the-wool, hard-copy book fetishists, but we’ll leave them and their print on demand, customised hardback books to one side, the perverts.
Whilst we *might* still have reading devices / physical or screen-based hardware, and getting content onto them will be trivially simple, I like to think that we are more likely to have moved not just to an invisible “cloud” based storage system, but to an invisible consumption system.
Perhaps the heads-up display, or earpiece model is too much to imagine, but I can see that text-to-speech will long have evolved beyond an argument over whether it’s a legal entitlement or a rights violation to the point where most of our interactions will be voice-based, with computers and over the air. And my money is on a Google-shaped company owning all of this, not publishers.
As Amazon demonstrated with its Stephenie Meyer coup of 2011, there are a lot of savings to be made by telescoping the publishing supply chain and cutting out all of the middle men. (The same move also swiftly settled their score with Hachette ) Removing those middle men – the publishers, printers, distributors and, later on, agents – left only author, retailer and consumer. And consumers lapped up the price savings in whatever format (Kindle, Lightning Source, Audible) and in enough numbers to easily justify such economies.
However whilst Amazon blazed the trail, Google of course swept in and did the same – but made it all available for free.
So, in 2025 there will be an ever-growing sea of writing available, and the rights holders of course will move to where the market is and whoever controls that market. Authors will be able to publish direct to Google and Amazon and reach millions, unmediated. As a result, supply won’t be the problem – it will be the creation of demand, my first preoccupation. And this is where I think publishers will need to move to, quickly.
Given the sea of information available – and the uncritical attitude of Google and Amazon to serving up that sea to whatever minority or majority wants it – people will need to carve a curated journey through the sea. Publishers need to get over their fear of going direct to consumers, and embrace disintermediation themselves.
Those publishers left standing – probably the smaller, more boutique outfits not acquired or bankrupted by Googlezon - will offer all sorts of models and products: one-off, subscription, on-demand, tailor-made. The shape these “products” will take will be various, and if my hunch
is right the content will long have moved from just words, to an experience where words, music, film, supporting material, and the idea of the networked book all combine on your terms.
Personally – I’d love it if only parts of this came true. Mainly the Enhanced Editions bits, obviously. And I appreciate that, from the current perspective of publishing, the above is far from rosy. But I also think that the history we are living through right now is a defining one for publishing.
Again, speaking personally, I think that publishers in 2009 have some very hard choices to make – to go wholeheartedly direct to consumer, to embrace collaboration with each other, to fail enthusiastically, to move beyond being editors to become producers and curators, to innovate, to invest in R&D, to attract new and fresh skills and ideas, to move quickly and learn even faster, and above all to execute really, really well.
But I believe, and I hope, that books will remain at the centre of our culture well beyond 2025. Who makes sure that happens – beyond the authors at the centre of it all – is what is up for grabs.
Sam Shone, Marketing Manager
In 2025 publishing will look almost exactly as it does today. People will still buy hardbacks mainly in the autumn and paperbacks mainly in the summer. Katie Price will, tragically, still manage top the charts with her 19th biography Confessions of a Silicon Grandmother. Publishers will be trying to guess what the next technology to revolutionise the industry will be (e-readers, Tablets, iPhones and their descendants will have become so mainstream and readily available that the novelty will have worn off and everyone will have realised that it is, in fact, easier and nicer to buy a book).
The thing about all this technology is that it’s new and it’s fun – it’s the novelty of it that is fuelling the debate. Don’t get me wrong, it is changing the industry but what it’s changing isn’t how people consume their books but how we introduce people to them. It’s a marketeer’s dream; everyone has one device onto which we can send multi-format information to engage them with our books: videos of the author, audio and even text (how novel!). What excites me about publishing 2025 is the development of even more platforms we can use to tell people about our authors and finding new ways to reach more people quickly and effectively. It will be incredibly targeted and with very little of the wastage we see in print and outdoor advertising because we will know exactly who we are advertising to, and to what frequency.
Publishing and the coming changes due to digitisation are often compared to recent and radical changes in the music industry, but let’s take a step back and look at those changes. What exactly is radical? Have you changed the way you listen to music? When you download your album from itunes do you get it bundled with artist interviews, music videos, behind the scenes footage or live tour tickets? No, you buy the music and you listen to it. You probably saw all that other stuff on TV or through a podcast and that’s why you’re buying the album. The product hasn’t changed because you still listen through speakers at home and through earphones on the move. The major change has been that music is now instantly accessible through the same product you use to consume it. There it is, that’s the radical change: ‘instant access’. I just can’t see someone wanting or needing that kind of instant access to a book because books are not designed for the same kind of instant gratification; you have to commit a fair bit of time to them in order to get anything from the experience.
It’s fair to say that the current e-reader platforms have not revolutionised the industry. I would personally love an e-reader as I wouldn’t have to print off any more manuscripts (which, lets face it, are not easy to read when stood up on a busy train), but general readers don’t have that problem – reading a book as soon as it comes in, regardless of whether it’s a word doc, PDF, handwritten or on stone tablet, isn’t their job. They don’t need an e-reader because it doesn’t solve a problem they have with the current format, nor does it provide any function that enhances their reading experience. We’ll all use them in the industry and a small section of consumers will too, but they won’t become the main format – promise.
The Tablet is likely to be the platform that brings about the biggest changes in the industry. It will be an iPod (and I assume at some point iPhone), e-reader, internet provider, portable TV and lemon zester all in one cool, stylish, Apple iTastic touch screen box. It gives the consumer something they ‘need’ – one device for everything (and an amazing marketing campaign that will convince you that you are not cool unless you own one). But will this change the way people read? I still don’t think so, but as I said before it will change the way which we introduce people to our books. These devices are about instant and short-lived gratification: a song, the news, a music video, a viral video, TV programmes on demand. Books are not about instant gratification and so the Tablet will not be giving you anything you don’t have or anything you need. Newspapers, on the other hand, are screwed. Sorry.
Did you enjoy this series? If you have any ideas for topics you’d like us to explore, or want to contribute to our next blog series contact fifthestate@harpercollins.co.uk
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Strange Days Indeed, tells the story of the 1970′s, a decade of collective nervous breakdown, financial meltdown, and political turmoil - a time not unlike our own. With his acute sense of the absurd Francis Wheen slices through the melange of mistrust and conspiratorial fever to recount an era of power cuts, military coups, economic anarchy and the arrival of Uri Geller. Strange Days Indeed publishes on September 3rd.
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I Know This Much: from Soho to Spandau is out in paperback this Thursday. It is published by Fourth Estate.
More like this:
]]>This week on Fifth Estate our series on the landscape of publishing in 2025 continues. For several years now, publishing commentators have been predicting revolutionary change in the industry. Here at Fifth Estate, we thought it would be fun to explore different views of how this might play out. This is the second in a three part series.
Rahim Hirji, Director of Corporate Development
There will be no books in 2025 – well, not in the form that we know them today. With time scarce and technology advancing at a speed faster than a pandemic outbreak, we will see a merging of content across all media. Books will become productions and publishers will become producers, not just of fiction and non fiction, but of stories, ideas and visions. All content, not just books, will be digital with every single book in the world instantaneously available, anywhere, anytime. There will be no physical book and I will not need a bookshelf. I’ll be able to read whatever I want on whichever device I want, be that on my phone, tablet, laptop or TV. I’ll never need to worry about where my book is, because it’ll be stored in a virtual Googazon cloud, that will not only store the last page that I read, but will also serve me up the next piece of media content that I need and want to read or watch, be that the news, the latest Gladwell theory of wow, or episode of season 24 of 24. Everything will be available in all languages immediately, in human simulated audio and in word form. Rights will extend globally, as international boundaries become more blurred. And publishers – publishers will work together, invest together and join forces with other media producers. Stranger things have happened. Who knows what publishing in 2025 will be like? What we do know is that technology knows no boundaries and the future has not yet been written.
Ben North, Creative Director
There will be at least six new genres that we either don’t think will work or haven’t considered yet. This is because the future isn’t predicted, it’s made by interested and interesting people having ideas and doing things. Sadly, in 2025 most publishers will spend far too much time trying to predict what will happen in 2030 or 2035. E-readers will be dead, and we will be reading on … whatever device works best to read on. (The central question with this sort of technology is nearly always: does A) work better than B) for my current needs? If the answer is ‘yes’, then A), be it a book, a convergent digital device or a spaniel with a chalkboard hung from its collar, is the thing you need.)
Even so, I’ll make some guesses. Almost none of them will be right. Which I guess will still make them more useful than most futurology.
- A trend that might be called ‘Punk publishing’ via POD. Might involve ‘writers’ markets’ — cottage publishing, etc.
- The ‘literary’ novel will continue to fade in significance and most people won’t really care … but someone will start doing something else ‘serious’ with narrative forms. Probably not with the written word.
- A new age of pulp (see 1 and 2).
- Publishers will still publish books. They will still consist primarily of linear text, and will not make much use of moving image, sound, or hyper-textual bulls**t. This stuff is like the waiter who interrupts your tasty dinner to tell you about the provenance of the meat, the concept behind the menu and all that nonsense. Briefly interesting and then just an obstacle to you enjoying the thing you actually came for.
- Speed. Books will come to market FAR more quickly (giving hacks something to do after the likely death of the newspaper industry).
- The age of the all-in-one fluorescent jump-suit will finally arrive. Tweed and linen versions will become the default look in publishing circles.
See you there …
Hannah MacDonald, Publisher, Collins
Summer holidays in 2025: My daughter sulks by a swimming pool reading interactive horror stories on her phone. She subscribes to over twenty small, edgy online publishers who keep her supplied with the slightly sexy, scary morality tales that are to her taste. She watches a lot of movies on her phone, the screen is the same size as the packets of cigarettes she hides in her drawers. But she still reads because she likes the way she can be involved in the stories — change the events and endings according to her mood.
I don’t spoil it by telling her that most of her suppliers aren’t as independent as they seem. The ones with the sillier titles (Kinetic Kink, creatOR) are owned by publishing corporates who monitor content and activity in the silence of near paperless offices.
I meanwhile sulk in the shade reading a new paperback called Teenagers: How I Coped by the-ex minister for social mobility, Jordan. I am one of a sizeable minority who still prefer paper.
Jeremy LoCurto, Graduate Trainee
In ETA Hoffmann’s short story, “The Choosing of the Bride”, a goldmaker produces a magical object: a blank book that becomes whatever you most want to read. Most readers would love a magic book like this. And in a sense, now you can have one — in the last couple of years, this alchemy has sort of been brought to reality with the advent of e-readers. So many people are now asking: is the future of publishing written in e-ink?
I don’t think so. E-readers aren’t good enough today, and won’t be around in 2025. Hoffmann wrote his short story almost 200 years ago, and the modern e-reader still creaks with the cobwebs of a two-hundred year old vision dreamed up by a gothic writer. In 2025 e-readers will have been long since swallowed up into convergent media devices, like the forthcoming Apple Tablet, and publishers will step up efforts to produce ‘enhanced’ content to ensnare the user in the galaxy of the digital book (and make them pay more for it). By then, users will micro-purchase slivers of extra material to build a more in depth reading experience. A new layer of personnel will be added to the publishing process to create digital media productions. They’ll be more akin to producers than editors, and work to build book galaxies for a short list of select mass market titles.
I imagine (read: I hope) that by 2025 there will be a generation of devices that project atmospheres consisting of image and sound. By then books remain narrative driven text, but are orbited by material beamed out of the screen. So when I read A Moveable Feast, satellite maps tracing Hemingway’s Paris hover around me, and archived historical snapshots of the location of the Café des Amateurs float around the walls like framed clouds. Soundtracks of Parisian music from the 20’s are beamed into my headphones. If I want, I can activate a 360 panorama view of Hemingway’s study at Finca Vigia or turn the walls of my room into a video of Cuban fishing and Kudu hunts.
In 2025 available technology might finally be more in step with our imaginations. But even then, I predict that at least 70% of publishing will still be physical books. The technology behind the book is proven: they are portable, cheap, easy to use, and durable — and engage our imaginations like no other medium.
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