November 2013 - Writers Magazine

News Review

• This week has yielded some rather unexpected figures from both sides of the Atlantic relating to ebook sales. In the States it looks as if ebook sales are in decline, whereas in the UK there's also a tempering in projections of ebook growth.
• After eight years of litigation over Google's scanning of more than 20 million books in libraries, Judge Denny Chin has come down in their favour: ‘Google's use of the copyrighted works is highly transformative. Google Books digitizes books and transforms expressive text into a comprehensive word index that helps readers, scholars, researchers, and others find books...
• A recent investigation by USA Today into their bestseller lists of the last thirty years throws an interesting light on changes in bestsellerdom and background changes in the way in which books are bought and sold.In the years 1993-98, John Grisham dominated the fiction bestsellers but the list as a whole was full of big non-fiction bestsellers, mostly self-help, such as Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, Don't' Sweat the Small Stuff... And it's all Small Stuff and Chicken Soup for the Soul. This was an era when books were still bought in retail stores, especially bookstores, and the big book chains were dominant...
• Last week's news of the departure of Larry Kirshbaum, the respected and successful publisher turned agent who Amazon hired to head up their trade publishing venture, was greeted with a certain amount of glee amongst all those who are fearful of the giant online retailer. But what does it really mean?
• The shortlist for the 2013 T S Eliot Prize for Poetry is an interesting and diverse one. Including new work by well-established poets Robin Robertson, Michael Symmons Roberts, Sinéad Morrissey and Geroge Szirtes, it also has newcomer Helen Mort's debut collection, Division Street. Daljit Nagra's interpretation of The Ramayana and Moniza Alvi's powerfully felt At the Time of Partition invoke a wider world. Anne Carson is unpredictably experimental, as always, in her verse novel Red Doc >, which contrasts wonderfully with Speak, Old Parrot from veteran poet Dannnie Abse.

Comment

• 'Work is the only interesting thing for me if I'm working out on the edge of the unknown. The immediacy of discovery, that's what's interesting to me. Every book is a different country. When I start my fourth, it will be as if I've never written a book before. I'll be completely at sea, and nothing I've ever done before in my life will help me at all.' Donna Tartt, author of The Goldfinch, in the Sunday Times' Culture
• 'Contrary to what some media outlets reported last week e-books haven't killed off any publishers: in fact in the main they have led to increased profit margins. E-book growth has largely sustained trade publishers during the latter years of the big recession, and even if they do now, as some say, 'plateau', profit margins may continue to grow as publishers learn to better manage their inventories and working capital across the rest of their business.' Philip Jones, editor of the Bookseller
• 'Women should write from the heart, and because they can't not write. I don't think that there is a chick-lit formula: you come across some heroines like Bridget Jones, but mine tend to be bitches. Entertain yourself and don't ever imagine your mother reading your book.' Adele Parks in The Times
• 'The nice thing about agenting is that you can carry on until you annoy everyone. I'm going to do it until I don't enjoy it. And I do enjoy it, not every single minute, but more than 90% of it. Even the negotiating is good fun up to a point. And that moment you get your authors' new manuscripts, and your heart is in your mouth because you want to be able to love it - that's still the most exciting part... Publishers as people aren't risk averse, as corporations they are. Often editors would like to buy books that they aren't allowed to.' Carole Blake of agency Blake Friedmann in the Bookseller
• 'The nice thing about agenting is that you can carry on until you annoy everyone. I'm going to do it until I don't enjoy it. And I do enjoy it, not every single minute, but more than 90% of it. Even the negotiating is good fun up to a point. And that moment you get your authors' new manuscripts, and your heart is in your mouth because you want to be able to love it - that's still the most exciting part... Publishers as people aren't risk averse, as corporations they are. Often editors would like to buy books that they aren't allowed to.' Carole Blake of agency Blake Friedmann in the Bookseller.
• 'When I'm working at full tilt, I average about 1,000 words an hour. I sit at the keyboard and it all comes out. It's an extraordinary thing, but I think it's because fiction is created by the unconscious mind, which is always exploring situations and possibilities. I suppose that's the thing I love about writing, what got me into it in the first place...' Alexander McCall Smith, author of The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon in The Times.

Writers' Quote

'In nearly all good fiction, the basic - all but inescapable - plot form is this: A central character wants something, goes after it despite opposition (perhaps including his own doubts), and so arrives at a win, lose, or draw.' John Gardner