And why should publishing be much different? Personalization, making an activity or object relevant to oneself, is key to determining value.
So, a good week for some of us: the BETA website authonomy.com, has finally come of age and brought in its rankings system — which is key to the whole thing. (Bit of disclosure/background: I’m part of the development team setting up the site to help a lot of unpublished and self-published writers and readers.)
With a lot of luck, authonomy will allow people to step into their own picture of the book world — and post up their manuscripts (budding authors) or lists of discovery (budding critics) for the public to read.
It’s early days yet because we’re still about 2-3 weeks away from removing invite code and allowing open access on the site. To be honest, we’re as interested as anyone to see what precisely people will make of this service and how far it can go to help them achieve their goals.
Gratifyingly, one of the digital tribe who really knows his stuff, James Long, has some generous, encouraging things to say over at The Digitalist and even wonders …. is Authonomy relevant to his Big Question of what brings people to a publisher’s website.
Now Authonomy is not really the kind of publisher’s website I have in mind for this question – usually I’m thinking of the catalogue and marketing site – but it presents such a clear answer. You come to Authonomy because you want to get published. And now, the mechanism for achieving that (or having a good stab at it) is in place.
I think the user group / market segment that Authonomy is serving is a bit different … to the group relevant to my Big Question; this is, in my mind, the middle ground: folks who are more than just readers (ain’t nothing wrong with being just a reader!) but not quite writers yet (in the sense of being published, especially within the publishing establishment).
Cheers for that. Agreed we definitely didn’t develop authonomy to market HC books so we’re not at the same party as a publisher’s marketing site…but now you’re mentioned it: about those “folks who are more than just readers”….
Them.
The people who inexplicably want to do more with books than just read them.
It’s this group of people who have dogged my (and probably your) thoughts ever since someone dad-danced up to us and mumbled “web 2.0″ in our ears, isn’t it? We’ve clearly all been wondering if today’s book lover might want an active role or (great word this) conversation, from tagging through to list-building to writing erudite reviews and recommendations…to attending a book group and now even dating (link). 2.0-tastic!
Do we know the answer yet? Hello – does anyone want to talk to us? to each other via us? Not sure.
It’s been said that authonomy is the obvious development of this 2.0 lark. I’m not sure if we could have ‘schemed’ for it in such terms, but I’ll admit authonomy’s proposition is certainly more extreme and involved than asking book lovers to dedicate themselves to tinkling round the edges, listing, recommending and tagging heavily-protected and -copyrighted material for the sheer joy of it. Possibly more fun. Hopefully with a reward a lot more commensurate with the effort.
Well, authonomy’s fledgling BETA community are an amazing bunch of people. Committed, creative, enthusiastic, supportive, (and, my god, active), and I don’t know much about this ‘underground‘ but some of our members are certainly pretty leftfield.
I recently ran a little group interview/survey, ‘Writing and You’, to serve as something of a group photo before our community meets our public. (to anyone interested, I’ll post the full results on the authonomy blog soon.)
What exactly are these 1300+ people doing at authonomy for such a generous amount of time per day? Why the hell are barristers secretly staying up at 2am to recommend other people’s books to the community and policewomen sending encouragement to fellow crime afficiados?
Well it might come as no surprise to learn that the majority in our community are what marketeers would call heavy book readers and ‘consumers’, and care passionately about words and writing.
What might surprise you more is the authonomy community’s stated ambitions. Whilst half of us have eyes on the prize and, if we haven’t got one already, are going all out for a nicely rewarding publishing contract (and I really hope authonomy gets these people there) a healthy number of us (34%) are writing for other reasons — as a hobby, a creative enterprise, or simply to communicate. One member writes
The process of creating a piece of writing is utterly absorbing, and the best way to spend my time.
And according to the survey, some of our members, by nurturing their hobby, are creating stuff they’re pleased with, which in turn drives an ambition to take their creativity beyond a secret pasttime. This passion and drive is truly exciting.
And I’ll tell you what. People interested in books and publishing really like using words. If you’ve got access, take a look at the average comment on a book at authonomy and you’ll see what I mean. Rarely do we get a comment shorter than 100 words (some stretch for pages of involved and committed feedback).
If all that doesn’t get you feeling better about publishing-and-the-web’s long term prospects, you and I have different reasons for being here.
But, granted, whilst it’s not to be counted part of the recent tranche of publishers’ consumer websites, authonomy does not come into the world without its own ambitions. It’s not to sell books, print money or steal ‘book ideas’, or market HarperCollins existing ‘product’.
Ultimately, our own aim is to help authors get their work promoted or published, help all publishers recruit new talent, and help readers/critics discover at grassroots some exciting and eclectic new writing voices. Why?
It’s simply that we recognize that in a world where reading is in danger of becoming a minority sport, where government-funded reading campaigns are fast-adopting the same tone as a public health announcement, we have an interest in nurturing, fuelling and encouraging that passion for the written word. Even Apple’s Steve Jobs, the man with the power to put a copy of War and Peace into the pocket of most people in the developed world if he so wished, said books aren’t that big a deal. We so need to prove him wrong.
Obviously I‘d be lying to say, after the months of development work we’ve put in, it doesn’t feel absolutely fantastic to have a decent handful of people say they’re admiring what we doing. But my own (personal) opinion is that if authonomy site comes to anything, it’s not primarily to be seen as a point scored for HC, but as a point scored for reading and writing.
If you’re in the industry and you’d like to know how authonomy can help you, please do drop me an email some time — it’s my pet subject. I suspect if authonomy is functioning correctly and doing its community justice, it’ll be used as a tool by agents and publishers all over the shop to spot talent, to keep the passion alive — and to keep us all in the picture.
]]>Maynard and Jennica - substituting for the classics in all fine bookstores from 1st October.
]]>And in our particular case it’s the selection of Darkmans by Nicola Barker that’s making us so gleeful. So…you’ve probably read everything you possibly can about fellow shortlistee, Ian McEwan, but in case you’re now rushing off to Waterstones to stock up on the Big 6, here’s more on the very talented Nicola Barker and her book.
Darkmans is the third of Nicola Barker’s visionary narratives of the Thames Gateway – and incidentally, it’s not the first time she’s been in with a chance of the coveted prize. The previous book, Clear, made the grade with a Booker longlisting in 2004.
Clare Reihill is the editor here at 4th Estate and she says
Darkmans is a very modern book, set in Ashford (a ridiculously modern town), about two very old-fashioned subjects: love and jealousy. It’s also a book about invasion, obsession, displacement and possession, about comedy, art, prescription drugs and chiropody. And the main character? The past, which creeps up on the present and whispers something quite dark — quite unspeakable — into its ear…
Nicola Barker lives and works in east London. She was the winner of the David Higham Prize for Fiction and joint winner of the Macmillan Silver Pen Award for Love Your Enemies, her first collection of stories. Her second story collection, Heading Inland, received the John Llewellyn Rhys/Mail on Sunday Prize. Her novel Wide Open won the IMPAC Prize in 2000, and Clear was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2004. She is one of Granta’s ‘Best Young British Novelists’ of the decade.
Want more?
Here’s the first chapter of Darkmans so you can get a taste for it:
you got questions about this – and a van full of monkeys with typewriters still can’t sort it? email us or billyharper11@yahoo.co.uk
]]>With this in mind, and with a bit of trepidation, on Wednesday a few of us went to see the press screening of the film of one of our bestselling titles of last year – Stuart: A life Backwards. How would it live up to the book – without doubt, one of the most touching and imaginative reads of the last few years? Author Alexander Masters spoke a little about the process of adapting his work to film at our Foyles Day a few months ago and it sounded quite promising then – so…..
The book’s editor Nick (Pearson) says
[the screening was] a really wonderful gathering of journalists, the actors and all the people involved in the film, Stuart’s family too. There was a stunned silence at the end.
Forty years ago BBC1 screened Ken Loach’s Cathy Come Home, a drama-documentary about homelessness and its effect upon families. That film became an instant classic, a describer of the times, and it continues to be regularly referenced as an example of the public power of television. (It was the catalyst for the housing action charity Shelter.)
One can’t help thinking of Stuart in relation to that film, both because of its powerful subject matter, and its potential as a defining piece of television, particularly at this moment when the small screen is under the hammer somewhat. Importantly for us, it is a film about the writing of our book, and I’m sure viewers will want to go on to read it.
The final frames show Alexander (Benedict Cumberbatch) walking into the window of Heffers in Cambridge and plonking down our hardback in the middle of a pile of Da Vinci Codes. We are trying to have the shop recreate that for the day of the film!
So, no matter what you your opinion of the box right now, or how large or small your faith in the effectiveness of book-tv adaptation, please watch it and tell us what you think. We think it’s a masterpiece, so interested to hear if you agree. It’s due to be shown in BBC2 either on 16th September or 23rd September (not sure which yet, but you’re bound to find out in a raft of publicity which is coming up for it).
….and if for some bizarre reason you haven’t read the book yet, drop me a line. I’ve found 5 copies of it to give away and I guarantee you’ll like it.
]]>
In my view, Gwyneth has penned one of the best first-person accounts of the state in Sunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book About Depression . The book is part memoir, part literary guide. She writes
Depression is internal snow. Black snow. The flakes whirl around like motes in the water around your personal shipwreck. The quicker you dive down to see your sorry state, the better for you in life. For above you, if only you can reach it without getting the bends, are sunshine, laughter on a yacht, the clink of plates as a lunch of steaming fish is handed round.
Dorothy, meanwhile, has worked in clinical psychology for many decades, and her now classic book Beyond Fear is one of the essential must-read titles for anyone researching or exploring this topic. (I spoke to her earlier in the year in a series of podcasts broadcast here).
They both visited the filing cupboard this week to record this conversation about living well, and how to interpret and survive darker times — one of our best podcasts yet, I think.
]]>Confounding every flowery pinnied stereotype, Elisa Beynon, (who is known to cook in her high heels,) has wowed our judges including Nigel Slater, Waitrose Food Illustrated Editor William Sitwell and Louise Haines of 4th Estate with her submission. They felt that her entry, bursting with mouthwatering ideas from the vicarage kitchen displayed ‘enthusiasm, warmth, gentle humour’ and ‘terrific home cooking.’ You can read her winning entry in the attached PDF.
Elisa says her spinsterhood signature dish was broccoli and tomato ketchup, until marriage to husband Nigel (a vicar) taught her that ‘church and food’ go together like ‘PMT and chocolate.’
But only trial, ‘unsavoury error’, and a delight in the impact her food had on friends, family and her husband’s parishioners, has seen Elisa develop her winning recipes including The Great Chocolate Rescue Remedy (for Hormonal Girls,) Hot Halloumi Salad (for Social girls) and Sunshine soup (for post-baby blues.)
She says,
For me, food is all about ingredients and interaction and planning the perfect dish for the person or people who are coming over. Left to my own devices, I’ll eat from the fridge, but to see others enjoy my food is delicious. Friends encouraged me to write down my recipes a few years ago now, but only seeing this competition on the front of WFI galvanised me in to action and made me realise that writing down my recipes brings together the things I adore— food, writing and people.
Judge Nigel Slater says “Eliza’s entry shone with enthusiasm, warmth and gentle humour. A truly original voice.” Louise Haines adds: “She is a witty writer and a terrific home cook.”
The folk at 4th Estate will now start working with Elisa Beynon to put her book together, and we’ll keep you posted.
Thanks so much to 2500 of you who entered, and – even if you didn’t walk away with the top prize this time – I hope you’ll keep cooking, and posting some signature recipes up on to 5th Estate for us hungry readers.
]]>David Lassman submits thinly disguised Jane Austen script to various publishers’ slushpiles and gets rejected.
Conclusion: publishers today wouldn’t know a good book if it came and hit them in face.
The counter-arguments are of course coming in thick and fast. Well what would you expect from an industry of accomplished wordsmiths? Try Andrew Franklin (today’s Independent) and Colin Brush (Penguin Blog) — putting it all far more eloquently that I can do in the short space of time I have available before I get another edit off to production this afternoon.
And I’ve got a decent amount of sympathy for these arguments … that the exercise displays a naivety about the modus operandi of a modern publishing business… that the world moves on and Austen, whilst much loved, perhaps isn’t cutting edge, as is the remit of many contemporary fiction houses …all certainly true. And perhaps most rigorous as an argument, as GOB said in early 2006, and Jean Hannah Edelstein put in her Guardian post on the slushpile, “publishers are not charities” for providing a literary feedback service. With the best will in the world, there simply isn’t time.
At the very least, you could say deliberately hiding the golden needles in a haystack is an old joke.
With the current system, it’s not surprising that the slushpile is given scant regard, that it falls right at the bottom of the priorities of a busy publishing house.
The predictable headline-grabbing conclusion that the lean and mean publishing industry has become inefficient at weeding out the good stuff, if you think about it, is not erroneous but an absolute tautology.
How can an industry that must necessarily pare down to 4 people handling a gigantic stack of (usually unsuitable) scripts each week try to wean out and nurture every drop of literary talent?
Oh, how outrageous and naïve to suggest that it should…Right?
Wrong.
Well, maybe it’s naïve and didactic to suggest that we should, but isn’t it reasonable, these days to discuss if we could?
I can’t help thinking that, where the didactic tone is misplaced, there is something useful and interesting to be gleaned by Lassman etc’s experiment.
And it’s a message that is amplified, not dulled, by the repetition of these public stunts of ‘got one past the goalie’ — which incidentally land pretty hard on the shoulders of the poor editorial assistants who have to wade through the ‘slushpile’ single-handedly.
Scrape away certain incoherent speeches from people who believe the world owes them and their script massive fame and fortune, rise above the subjectivity of a writer who’s simply a bit sore and rejected, and what the slushpile complainers are doing is pointing out the sheer inefficiency of our system of selection.
The moment of quality selection is positioned at the exact point at which we’re least likely to find something good. You’ve got 1000s of scripts with almost zero-visibilty. (And I’m willing to bet that some of these 1000s are genuinely good scripts that in an ideal world are worthy of more care and attention, which is a shame.)
Yes yes yes, it’s madness and commercial naivety to expect one single person with only 24 hours in a day to single-handedly check for genius every script that plops through the letterbox (or make that postbag — we get 3 sacks full a month) if that’s how it works, but are the slushpile rats so very stupid to assume we might be doing it a different way in this day and age?
If we take the boxing gloves off each other for a second, actually, is there a way to do this better? A way that still allows everyone their sanity, rather than the current squabbling, sorry tales of missed masterpieces, and massive pile of jiffy bags that trips me up every morning on the way to my desk?
How would you find a needle in a haystack? Especially if your established business depends on harvesting needles?
1) Roll the sleeves up, spend all day fruitlessly looking for the needle, cursing the haymakers, and forget the real business of the day (milking the cash cows) in the meantime.
2) Rely on the visiting tinker to supply you with new needles (you have to pay through the nose for it, but time is money and at least you don’t spend all day in the goddamn haystack — besides the tinkers always have the best needles)
3) Discourage all large piles of unsorted hay by putting a notice at the entrance of your farmyard that NO UNSOLICITED MATERIAL, BE IT NEEDLES OR HAY, WILL BE ACCEPTED THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
OR
4) Time to repaint that farmyard sign — PICK YOUR OWN NEEDLES
and
5) Start wondering if you’ve overlooked the value of hay.
If the legendary stories wheeled out (Proust self-published; Moby-Dick was a financial and critical failure; it took author suicide for Confederacy of Dunces to get noticed; Ulysses was a struggle for Joyce to get published, Harry Potter, Watership Down…) teach us anything, it’s that eventually this stuff does get an audience and its day of judgment.
And it’s no coincidence that this is usually happens at the point when the bottleneck of 5 stressed-out assistants and 600 scripts widens out to let a world wide market, surprisingly well-versed in the process of selecting books, decide for themselves.
This old industry might think lulu.com and blurb.com have nothing to do with them, but I admire them — they’re suggesting that the needles will to some extent find themselves, and in the meantime, have started to sell hay to people who actually want and value hay, a little at a time. They are already (or in Blurb’s case, about to be) nicely profitable in the process, thank you very much. You tell me: ‘commercially naïve’, or creatively finding a solution to make everyone on the farm in-print and impressed?
The quality-control is a whole other issue, but I think a clue for us as an industry is to be found in the likes of Threadless and even Mechanical Turk.
I mean, if you’re genuinely having to risk farming the slushpile out to ‘just anyone‘ why not trust it to everyone?
Watch this space.
]]>