New writers

Yes, Mr. poet_hatwin for example really has some of the stuff alright. Another object lesson on internet distribution channel morph out.

We have plans in the pipeline to start ABCtales writing classes. Watch this space!

"We have plans in the pipeline to start ABCtales writing classes. Watch this space!"

How are you going to overcome the problem that deciding what is and is not good writing is a subjective business?

Who is to say that the "teachers" have any idea what they're talking about?

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

"We have plans in the pipeline to start ABCtales writing classes. Watch this space!"

Do I smell the smell of someone smelling money?

"'We have plans in the pipeline to start ABCtales writing classes. Watch this space!"

Do I smell the smell of someone smelling money?'"

Well, in a general sense there's more money in writing classes than there is in selling writing.

For example, there are literally 100 times as many poets in the UK making cash primarily from teaching people to write poetry as there are making cash primarily from selling books and doing readings.

But no one makes a mint from this kind of thing.

All the organisations I know of who run writing classes on a long-term sustainable basis are heavily subsidised by the Arts Council or through educational funding.

If ABC is planning to do it commercially they need to have a very strong USP or they're heading for an unpleasant surprise.

Firstly who is DavidK? And what qualifies him or anybody else to offer writing classes? What does anybody get out of such a class? Competitions sometimes ask for entrants who have studied at a recognisable institution. I presume that this wouldn't be one. One might then ask what's the point of it? If people want to learn how to write they can join any number of websites that cater for new writers and read books on creative writing.

And above all, they can practice writing. Personally I think that's by far the best way of learning.

Finding a publisher, beyond buying artists' and writers' handbooks and sending off sample chapters to garner rejection slips is something no writing course , (in my experience,) helps you with. And that is probably the most difficult aspect of the whole thing. And even if you get work accepted by publishers that doesn't mean they'll publish it. Publishers and agents can and do change their minds.

I think that if people want to improve their writing there is no shortage of opportunities already.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

So, is someone forcing you to take a writing class, patmac?

As with everything else on ABC all offers will be of the highest quality and the offer will be completely transparent.

It does amaze me when people who have quite happily used a completely free service for years and years suddenly go off the deep end when that service begins to charge for certain things. We will always be free to join and free to post upon - the social networking and author support stuff has to be free to work well. If we then offer you other paid for services that you might be interested in I think that that might be regarded as reasonable.

I still don't see the point of it. What does a graduate of the ABCtales school of writing get? A publishing contract, an agent, included in an anthology

what?

Lots of people here can write extremely well already. What do they get?

What's the point of it?

And if there's no point to it then why are you doing it?

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

Well, people can turn up and do some writing, meet some other people who like writing and get some tips on how to write better.

If you don't want those things, don't turn up.

There are plenty of literature development agencies that do offer courses that help you move towards publication.

Spread the Word, in London, are one. Apples and Snakes, who do stuff in a range of areas, I think also offer some training along these lines.

"I think that if people want to improve their writing there is no shortage of opportunities already."

This is a good point. It is an extremely crowded market. Tony and co. need to consider that, along with the fact (the accounts of relevant organisations are freely available) that most 'sustainable' writing course providers are (at least) 50% - 60% funded through grants and/or other forms of cross-subsidisation.

If you're a private individual supplementing your income by doing a session or two a couple of hours a week independently in a local community venue you might do it at a profit but it's massive challenge to try doing it commercially as an unsubsidized business.

"I still don't see the point of it. What does a graduate of the ABCtales school of writing get? A publishing contract, an agent, included in an anthology...what?"
Patmac, you may as well ask the same question about any qualification. A degree in Advertising doesn't give you a job as a copywriter and a degree in History doesn't give you a job on "Time Team". What a writing course might give you is a pointer or two about what you need to do to get what you want from your writing - whether that be fame and fortune or just some personal satisfaction.

Spread the Word only offers basic tuition for prose writers. (But it does have an advanced poetry class.)

Centerprise Trust who are Arts Council funded offer basic classes too. They charge over a hundred pounds for one of their courses but only twenty pounds for the basic course. And they don't say anything about publication.

Moving towards publication is a phrase which doesn't really mean anything.

Publication guaranteed means something.

The Writers' Bureau guarantees publication for its students. (But what it doesn't say in its marketing literature is that it also runs a magazine.)

In reality nobody can help students get published because publishers and agents choose which material to accept.

In practical terms: Teaching people how to become a celebrity might be more useful. And then you could get someone to ghostwrite your novel and have it published automatically.

We need to be careful that we're not 'just taking money from people who don't know any better.'

Or maybe we just want a world full of unemployed good writers.

The question what's the point of it? is still as pressing now as it ever was.

***

If the answer to the question: What is the point of charging for writing tuition?

is:

To bring people up to the level of writing where they can share writing with people on websites (and not seek publication.)

Then it can be posited that people can already do that now and they don't need to pay for it.

So the question then becomes why charge money for it?

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

You're missing the point Pacmac, your aggro at the industry (I'm guessing they turned down your thriller- Even the Nude die Naked)is turned on the host organism- ABC tales. What you might get out of a writing course is detailed feedback (here feedback is intermittent but often good)- a concentrated course depending on your fellow writer/critics can be enlightening.

Your argument is essentially: who will teach the teachers? Who will gross the grocers? Who will nurse the nurses? Maybe David K is Wilbur Smith

Hi Davey,

We're not discussing the 'industry,' whatever that means.

I'm asking why charge money for writing courses and you said in order to get detailed feedback.

OK, thank you. That's a perfectly acceptable answer, (the first that I've had.)

People can get detailed feedback in the lulu forum for free.

Are there any other reasons to charge money?

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

;o)

I am afraid to say, and it is not an observation I take any pleasure from, that sometimes people value things they pay for more than they value things that come free. More than this, if they pay more they think that they are getting something better. So, if one offers a service gratis it seems to many folks to be either a waste of time or some kind of elaborate confidence trick. If you put a price on it and even hike the price just to the point where it seems a little too steep you'll get more customers who believe that what they are getting is worth every penny.
So what's the difference between raysawriter telling me what he thinks of my latest story and some writing course tutor telling me that my prose is well paced but I need to lose the flowery descriptions? Perhaps I'm more likely to listen to someone I've paid..... hmm, perhaps.

Right Kropkin, in economic terms Giffen Goods.

In economic terms a purchaser of a Giffen Good is a confused person. Honesty and dilligence would suggest that the purchaser be given purchasing guidance rather than be sold such goods.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

"If the answer to the question: What is the point of charging for writing tuition?

is:

To bring people up to the level of writing where they can share writing with people on websites (and not seek publication.)

Then it can be posited that people can already do that now and they don't need to pay for it.

So the question then becomes why charge money for it?"

You charge for providing a service because you can offer it and someone else is willing to pay for it.

The person who does or doesn't buy the service decides for themselves whether it has any value to them. If it doesn't then they won't buy it.

Unless otherwise stated, the point is to help people improve their writing but I happily attend poetry courses on the basis that my general standard of writing may remain fairly similar but spending a few hours a week studying poetry under the direction of someone who knows about poetry is good fun.

I can't see why you think writing tutors have any less right than anyone else to be paid to provide a service that people want?

What qualifies these particular writing tutors?

And yes, if the course is sold on the basis that it probably will not or certainly may not improve your writing, given that determining good writing is a subjective undertaking, then that's fine.

But the course should take extra care to openly state that.

And then it should also state that even if your writing was excellent before and is excellent now, that is likely to be of less practical use in gaining a publishing contract than celebrity is, (if a student was hoping to get published after learning.)

So, students should be clearly and repeatedly warned that it's likely to be a waste of both time and money.

And then, if they still want to go ahead with it, then they should have their money taken from them and be given a receipt.

:-)

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

"What qualifies these particular writing tutors?"

Most writing tutors are writers who are passing on their skills and experience. Some also have experience as editors and a lot also have training as teachers or lecturers. I don't know who's doing the tutoring for ABCtales.

"And yes, if the course is sold on the basis that it probably will not or certainly may not improve your writing, given that determining good writing is a subjective undertaking, then that's fine.

But the course should take extra care to openly state that."

I think the general understanding in terms of creative writing is that this is not stated because it's fairly obvious.

But I don't think a writing course is significantly less likely to help you become a better writer than a history course is likely to help you become a better historian or a politics course is to help you become a better political analyst.

"And then it should also state that even if your writing was excellent before and is excellent now, that is likely to be of less practical use in gaining a publishing contract than celebrity is, (if a student was hoping to get published after learning.)"

I'm not sure why anyone would assume that a writing course would directly help them to get published unless the course was called 'How to get published'.

The celebrity thing is red herring. It's simply not true that aspiring writers have less chance of getting a book deal because, for examples, Jordan and Frank Lampard are having their autobiographies published.

When celebrity books sell well they create profits which publishers often use to support the publishing of less commercial titles.

"So, students should be clearly and repeatedly warned that it's likely to be a waste of both time and money."

Well, it is a waste of time and money going to writing courses if you believe that writing tutors can't tell you anything worth knowing about your writing and the only point of a useful writing course would be to explain the magical route to publication.

But I don't think most people who do go have that as their starting point.

A lot of courses are called: Do You Want To Get Published?
or Do You Want To Be a Writer?

So yes. I agree with you, the course has to make certain that it doesn't do that. And not only does it have to make certain that it doesn't do that but it also has to make certain that it doesn't imply that doing the course will get you published, (unless the course creators are actually going to publish your work, in which case it's fine.)

The celebrity thing is just practical. In Britain we've got a football girlfriend with ghostwritten books, a woman with big titties with ghostwritten romance books, endless celebs with childrens' books and so on. Nobody bothers to pretend that any one of them knows one end of a pen from the other end. But their books are appearing. So there's nothing red-herringy about it. In practical terms you're infinitely more likely to get a book published by being a celebrity with big titties than you are by writing well.

So, I agree with you. As long as the student knows that it's likely to be a waste of time and money then it's fine.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

I'm not sure exactly how many celebrity books are published but it is obviously a tiny fraction of the books there are published. As a writer I'm not concerned about that and nor should other writers be. It is a strange phenomena that so many complain about an industry that they so obviously want to be part of.

There always has been, in times when an sellable culture has existed, a popular culture. The Victorians had the same concerns. Those books you are concerned about will disappear and be forgotten in time.

What is undoubtably true is that a lot of very fine writing gets published, more than any of us will ever have chance to read. Agents and publishers want to find good writers and care about good books. If you are good enough, whatever that means, then you will make it.

And if you don't, so what? What exactly is it that you want, money, fame? If you care about writing then that is the thing that should make you happiest. Being published brings all other worries...

I like going to book events, watching programs about writing, writers. I have never paid for a writing lesson but I have learnt most from reading other writers.

However, that is not to say that paying for a course is wrong. It might work for you. It might make you work harder than you would otherwise. And if you are paying for feedback then you would hope that the feedback would be better than what you can get for free. In my experience however impressed friends may be by the fact that you might be published, they don't want to trawl through your work offering hints and tips.

As Tony points out, this site is run on a free basis. If he wants to offer paid courses then surely that it is up to him. If people want to take them up than that is up to them. I don't see what there is to be anxious about. I really don't.

"So there's nothing red-herringy about it. In practical terms you're infinitely more likely to get a book published by being a celebrity with big titties than you are by writing well."

I wasn't saying that celebrities don't get books published. They clearly do. It's a red herring because we as aspiring writers are not in competition with them.

No publisher is making a decision between publishing my poetry collection or your novel and publishing Jordan's ghost-written novel - which is just as much an extension of her merchandising work as branded t-shirts or jewellery.

My point is that Jordan's novel being published doesn't make any writer's book significantly less likely to be published.

Jordan, Madonna, Ashley Dupre, Kylie, the football girlfriend etc. The phenomenon of celebs who plainly can't write having books published hasn't gone unnoticed by many literary journalists. (It's a marketing thing.)

These days writing isn't what it used to be. (You don't need to be able to write, just be a celeb.)

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

To say that writing now isn't what it used to be is, with all great respect, utter tosh.

Ever since there were books that were produced for mass consumption there's been a mixture of different types of books published.

Some books will sell few but will make enough of an impact with their readers to ensure that they are reprinted, rediscovered or return to publication. Other books will make a splash then disappear without a trace.

There are always good books, bad books and books that either change your life or make you want to snap their spines. Always.

To suggest that it has ever been different is only looking down the wrong end of a telescope at history, mistaking the well known landmarks for the whole landscape.

No one has ever been a good writer without wanting to be a better writer. A course can make you a better writer only if you want to be one. Developing your craft is the aim and a lot of the time, that's something that you can't just do on your own, no matter how much you tell yourself that you can.

Getting better as a writer isn't the same as being published. I know Drew has always wanted to be a writer and has always tried to write better and now he's a published writer. His journey has been about writing, not publishing. Even if Drew hadn't landed the contract that he has, having read his work here I know that he'd still be an excellent writer, even if his work was never published in book form.

Tony isn't being a big fraud by suggesting that ABC might run courses. He's thinking of offering, in return for cash, an experience that some people might find helpful in developing their writing.

Writing is a discipline after all. As Buk said above, it isn't unreasonable to say that a bit of teaching might make someone more able in their particular discipline. You wouldn't tell someone who wanted to be a professional singer not to go for lessons, or a wannabe ballet dancer not to take classes. It's hard to see why you'd think writing would be of such a different order.

Writers aren't tiny states under siege, assaulted on all sides by giant forces wishing to destroy them. They're people who do writing, want to get better at writing and hope that, in one way or another, someone, somewhere, will get something out of the fruits of their labours.

Cheers,

Mark

I agree with almost everything Mark and Buk say.

I can't see where this idea about competition comes from.

Someone who walks into Borders looking for Jordan's autobiography only to discover it's been pulled by the Literature Police probably won't go and buy Kafka instead.

"These days writing isn't what it used to be. (You don't need to be able to write, just be a celeb.)"

Clearly wrong in so many ways:

Literacy is higher than it's ever been.
There are more opportunities to write than there've ever been - internet, self-publishing and so on.
There's more freedom to write. I'm gay. The kind of thing I write would have been illegal a generation ago. That's something that I'm very aware of and significant to me.
Sales of quality fiction are actually doing ok.
And even on a most basic level - do you actually know anything about the people who are writing the Kerry Katona, Jordan books? They might be fine writers.

And I say again - there are so many brilliant books around by fine writers. I can't believe that anyone can't see that.

I think everybody is in agreement that there are few restrictions to writing on the Internet. And if we are talking about Internet writing then there is no absolute requirement for lessons in writing before beginning, (beyond those taught in schools.) However, some writers on the Internet are unable to express themselves clearly or as they'd wish to. If they'd like help to do that, and are willing to pay for it, then that sounds like a worthwhile, (targeted and limited) service.

Dumbing down of literature? Richard Curtis, agent, formally of Scott Meredith Agency, in his article Publishing in the Twenty First Century argues that fiction is in crisis. (Feel free to agree with him or not.) The Guardian carries a related article called Once Upon a Time, which lists a long string of celeb childrens' books many of which it describes as awful but profitable.

To deny that the 'celebritisation' of literature is taking place is to speak against the facts.

To say that writing was never better in the past than it is today is an interesting argument. I'd start by saying that Shaw, Wells, Russell, Darrow and Chesterton, (who debated literature together,) made a better writing group than Madonna, Kylie, Jordan and Ashley Dupre. But I can admit that literary appreciation is subjective!

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

"I'd start by saying that Shaw, Wells, Russell, Darrow and Chesterton, (who debated literature together,) made a better writing group than Madonna, Kylie, Jordan and Ashley Dupre."

You really are in trouble if you think Madonna, Kylie and Jordan are representative of the best writers around!!!!!!!

The professor of literature from Cambridge was on Start the Week the other week. He was saying that every age has always complained about a dumbing down. I can't remember his name now - I must have dumbed down myself.

And Richard Curtis's agent - Curtis is a brilliant bloke and a funny writer - but his films aren't exactly intellectual heavyweights, are they?

No doubt celebrity books are published but so are many many more really brilliant ones, more than at any time.

What a good state we're in!!!

Richard Curtis, (agent, Scott Meredith agency, not the film director,) argues in his article Publishing in the Twenty First Century argues that fiction is in crisis. The Guardian online article, Once Upon a Time, has a long string of celeb childrens' books many of which it describes as awful but profitable.

The argument from Richard Curtis points to what he calls the 'blockbusterisation' of literature. Many publishers chasing big-hit-books at the expense of new writers. According to Curtis old editors who disagreed with this practice have been replaced by new ones who actively support it. Employing Madonna, Paul Mccartney, and Kylie as writers would suggest that he has a point!

If there is a cogent argument that literary dumbing down has been practised more thoroughly in former times than it is now then please elaborate on it.

Borders bookstore has recently announced plans to feature more books with their covers facing outwards, (a practice which costs publishers a promotional fee.) This will reduce the overall number of books in each store.

It may be true that more books are being produced than ever before in history and that general rates of literacy are increasing. But whether or not mass producing junk books by celebrities and covering the media with them is what one usually associates with being an author I doubt.

If people of like minds can associate on the Internet and write on the Internet, then they can at least share their own views of the purpose of being literate. And they do not need to be bound by an increasingly crass commercial application of the bookmaking and selling business.

I think what a good state the Internet could put us in in future is perhaps a more apt assessment.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

"But whether or not mass producing junk books by celebrities and covering the media with them is what one usually associates with being an author I doubt."

You keep referring on and on about books by celebrities and it is just plain wrong. These books are a tiny fraction of books published. Don't worry about them.

There are thousands of other books which are brilliant and they will continue to get published.

And the media is awash with good books - The Booker Prize, Costa Book Prize, Richard and Judy Book Club are all very high profile and show quality fiction - are there any celebrity titles in there?

The papers I read - Independent, Guardian, never review these celebrity books.

I suppose celebrity books are an easy target if you have a particular axe to grind.

And as it happens the novel in its very inception was seen as a dumbing down from the serious, or poetic form.

Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group were very much in fear of mass literacy and didn't think writing was for everyone. They were scared of dumbing down. As were the Victorians. T. S Eliot and so on.

What we have now is a time when loads of really fabulous books are readily available to everyone - this year I have read Don Quixote (published in a new edition - a symptom of our dumb culture? Perhaps not), Dickens ( still available everywhere), A L Kennedy, Joe Dunthorne, Ben Borek, Joshua Ferris, Gerard Woodward, George Saunders, Douglas Coupland, David Benioff and so on.

There are so many other books I want to read.

Publishing is in a good state.

And for writers that can only be a good thing. It is hard no doubt to get published but if you keep trying, are good enough then you will succeed.

There is little to be gained from thinking the world is against you when it is not.

If I lived in Iran and was in fear of being beheaded for being gay then perhaps I would have something to say about it.

I'm referring to Curtis and Curtis refers to 'blockbusterisation.' It's the Guardian article that I referred to which talks about celebrities. If you want to break books down by categories according to figures published from Neilsen then please do. As far as availability is concerned it depends upon whether we're referring to new books or older ones. Although you miss an interesting point that more titles can be kept in print today owing to POD. Cambridge Univerity Press have expanded their catalogue because of it.

I'm not sure why I'd want to pay any attention to the list of books that you want to read. My own list looks far more like CLR James, Jacques Stephen Alexis and Jacques Roumain and Alejo Carpentier. I've been able to get hold of the books that I wanted on Amazon. And I'm grateful for it. I'm aware of the fact that whether or not you think access to required literature is sufficient, or not, depends on what you want to read!

If Curtis believes that the 'blockbusterisation' of literature is occurring at the expense of new authors that's an argument that he can set forth, (and he does so.) In his argument he states that excellent authors are not being published. You may not be aware of the fact that Marc Blaney recently won a Somerset Maugham prize for his book Two Kinds of silence, which went unpublished. Jill Paton Walsh couldn't get her book, Knowledge of Angels published in the UK, (it had already been published in the States.) It was short listed for the Mann Booker Prize. So, in factual terms, the argument that all good books get published is false. Those two didn't get published in the UK until after they had been proven to be good. Those are only two shortlisted or prizewinning books. (I know of a whole range of good books which are not formally published.)

In factual terms these books existed. They were not traditionally published in the UK and they were good books.

That is a fact.

If you wish to argue against the facts please do so without me.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

For someone so keen on the *facts*, this comes across much more as an embittered rant than an evidence-based argument.

I just don't see what the big deal is.

Does this just come down to no-one wanting to publish *your* books?

Enzo,

Get a proper argument and read the thread. Ad hominem arguments show nothing but the inability to understand the issues.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

Oh, do calm down.

If anything, it's people like you and I doing the POD thing that's diluting the average quality of published literature, not celebrities.

I'd much rather read Russel Brand's Booky Wook than the average POD.

What I don't get is what do you want to happen? You said yourself in your first post that it's a subjective process - so that's that, right? Some books make it, some don't. The bottom line is more gets read now than ever so the opportunity to get read is better now than ever.

Happy days.

Speak for yourself!

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

"Those two didn't get published in the UK until after they had been proven to be good. Those are only two shortlisted or prizewinning books. (I know of a whole range of good books which are not formally published.)

In factual terms these books existed. They were not traditionally published in the UK and they were good books.

That is a fact.

If you wish to argue against the facts please do so without me."

I don't see how the 'facts' you're presenting relate to the points you're making.

As far as I can see no one is arguing that all good books always get published. The question is whether that's a new thing and whether there any specific practices that mean its more or less likely now than it used to be.

It is true that publishing and bookselling are very different now to what they were 10 or 15 years ago.

There are more books available in general, while the selection of books you'll find in your local high street bookshop - assuming your area still has either a high street or a bookshop - is generally smaller.

This may not be what you'd like but you don't seem to offering any suggestions about how the situation could be altered beyond demanding that major commercial publishers publish what you'd like them to publish rather than what customers want to buy.

"If there is a cogent argument that literary dumbing down has been practised more thoroughly in former times than it is now then please elaborate on it."

I'm still waiting for a cogent argument that literary dumbing down is being practised thoroughly now other than that some people say it is - which was the main argument previously, too.

The fact that celebrities' books are being published is not an argument in favour of that position unless you're offering some evidence of how this actually causes other literature not to be published.

I also think it's up to you (and Richard Curtis's agent) to pin point when the golden age of literature was.

As a guide, most golden ages take place twenty five years ago or before the war. The start date that you're counting back from is generally irrelevant to the timing of the golden age.

My local highstreet bookshop has closed. It might be useful to have studies on the closure of highstreet stores with since the loss of the Net-Book-Agreement and discounting practices by chain stores and supermarkets. Curtis' argument maintains that publishing margins are slim, former financial losses are pressing, and that editors are pressurised to raise sales. This he says invites editors to select titles which they believe will sell extremely well. And there he posits that a previous generation of editors looked first at the literary merit of a book and then its sales potential. Curtis maintains that under pressure to increase their sales many of these editors have left publishing and have been replaced by editors who are far more amenable to the practice of choosing books for their sales potential rather than for their literary merit. Celebrity books fit easily into this category of literature. The Guardian article asks the same questions but from a customer angle. And while it makes no attempt to analyse publishing behaviour per-se, it asks why badly written books by celebrities sell so well. As to a Golden age in literature. My thoughts hadn't run to quite that length. But I am intrigued by pictures of Charles Dickens along with G. Macdonald, A. J. Froude, Wilkie Collins, Anthony Trollope. W. M. Thackeray, Lord Macaulay, Lord Bulwer-Lytton and Thomas Carlyle, or my previous mention of GK Chesterton debating with friends George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, and Clarence Darrow.
And the writers who inspire me I know wrote together and were formally African slaves. They were Olaudah Equiano, Ottobah Cugoano and Ignatius Sancho.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

In the top 100 selling books of 2007 according to Nielsen there is one (ONE!) work of fiction written by a celebrity. The book is Crystal and it is by Katie Price and it is at no 92.

I haven't read it, it may be very good.

In the top 100 books two thirds are works of fiction.

I would argue that fiction is in a pretty healthy state.

Good work, Drew.
Post a link to where you got the data from.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2007/12/28/lrv_...

"Charles Dickens along with G. Macdonald, A. J. Froude, Wilkie Collins, Anthony Trollope. W. M. Thackeray, Lord Macaulay, Lord Bulwer-Lytton and Thomas Carlyle, or my previous mention of GK Chesterton debating with friends George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, and Clarence Darrow."

And would it be fair to say that all these people you like are still in print. How does that forward your argument?

Are editors deciding - Katie Price or Dickens...? I think not.

OK, Drew. That's bestselling books not total book sales. I can't find 2007 Nielsens Report. I can only find 2002 so far. Publishers' Association. Figures total for UK 2002, 250,390 titles of which 11,800 were fiction. Unless there was a radical overhaul of fiction sales between 2002 and 2007 in which fiction sales rose by fifteen to twenty times in volume, I don't think fiction titles would account for three quarters of total booksales.

Statistically we're talking total national booksales by volume (not individual authors Price vs Dickens.)

But, in terms of what Curtis is saying it's not Price or Dickens, it's Price/Rowling/Grisham(s) or new novelists in general?

To add to that, and Curtis doesn't make this point, it's the money spent on marketing the 'next big thing novelist' which fails to produce a bestseller. That promotional money could have been spent on a number of smaller novelists.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

I have to say, Drew, that a lot depends on how you define “Celebrity” as I counted very many TV celebs books including several by Jeremy Clarkson.
Ah, I see, they don't count as fiction :O)

"I can only find 2002 so far. Publishers' Association. Figures total for UK 2002, 250,390 titles of which 11,800 were fiction. Unless there was a radical overhaul of fiction sales between 2002 and 2007 in which fiction sales rose by fifteen to twenty times in volume, I don't think fiction titles would account for three quarters of total booksales."

That wouldn't be a radical overhaul because you're not providing a figure for fiction sales in 2002.

Number of title sold classed as fiction has a fairly limited connection to the % of books sold that are fiction. Not least because, for example, in Drew's Guardian list, two editions of JK Rowling's book sold 4 million copies, which vastly exceeds the number of copies sold of all books by all living poets put together.

Five out of the top twenty books are written by celebrities rather than writers but three of them are cookbooks, which are definitely not in competition with new novels.

"But, in terms of what Curtis is saying it's not Price or Dickens, it's Price/Rowling/Grisham(s) or new novelists in general?"

Hmmm. So why did Curtis cast Hugh Grant in Notting Hill when he could've taken a chance on an unknown up and coming actor (who may well have been much better at acting).

Answers on a postcard (or a very big cheque).

This Richard Curtis doesn't direct films. He was formally a literary agent with New York's Scott Meredith Agency. He's arguing that new authors are being squeezed out in favour of blockbuster-writers. Enormous figures of sales for individual fiction titles help to explain what Curtis is saying, ie more sales are being crammed into fewer titles. But he goes further than that and maintains that even though much money is made selling these titles, publishers still can make overall losses, (or have losses outstanding from previous years.) And can therefore make operating losses overall. Essentially he's saying that the 'big-fiction-title' strategy is flawed. Figures of overall booksales are useful in illustrating general booksales. Trends for later years would be helpful too. He mentions that designing a strategy exclusively to score mega sales of new fiction titles has become a holy grail in fiction publishing, (one that he doesn't agree with. He also mentions that editors who didn't agree with it either left their jobs and were replaced by ones who do.)

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

Literature is constantly getting better each and every year. As well as all the old classics from Homer, Dante, etc up to Kafka, Dickens, etc you have new books being published. Read the good ones, don't read the bad ones.

Our generation has the best of it, bookwise, because we're the present. In 100 years all these books will still be around AND many more great ones.

Without defining good, in terms of aesthetics, what with it being subjective and all, how do you know, without first having read them, where the new good ones are? Or in the case of specialist books, even where the old good ones are?

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

Although it makes me somewhat uncomfortable, I'm not sure 'good' is the word but maybe 'important' and there are layers of this, from acknowledgement and general agreement by the academic and critical establishment to underground and transgressive type fiction, which can occasionally emerge over time as a new form or standard, although this seems to happen less and less. Certainly, books required in curriculum are the ones that last and are 'seminal works' by virtue of this integration. Best chances of success come by understanding the formal cannon enough to follow and hopefully extend it.

As good is prone to subjectivity so importance is to relativity. And though canons, if they are those, range infinitely in setting, type and content from ancient scriptures, hieroglyphs and parchments, through books to Internet writings. And acknowledgement is no necessary good. Its malevolent kind comes in forms as various as Index Librorum Prohibitorum, Divisione per la censura dei libri and acts, in 1933, at Wilhelm Humboldt University, some targets there were little known indeed. Authorities, dignitaries and figureheads of many types are often found wanting in their literary judgements; hindsight being marvellous. Wollstonecraft, (the elder,) remarked erroneously that Olaudah Equiano's book was merely a curiosity. She wasn't the only literary person who misjudged him and his kind. Some people with more sense than politics would say that the best friends of literature are inquiring minds and examination. Much fault is found in many other systems.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

I can see where my last sentence above might have been very much the wrong thing to say as it includes the words ‘success’ and ‘cannon’ and ‘follow’ which are not good words for artists. I agree the question of 'value' or what is 'good' in art/literature is open to endless debate and opinion, but work that is 'important' usually has proven itself to be just that prior to any blessing or judgment by the hated authorities. Identifying standards, forms, trends, influences, and movements that gain broad adoption by other practitioners is only taking the historical perspective. These arcs often happen simultaneously by various people in separate locations who are not communicating, and experts only connect the dots and plant the flags. If you are asserting that serious scholarship and critique does not identify the ‘good’ stuff, then I have to disagree. Manet essentially emulated Courbet but had the nerve to add black, not previously considered an eligible color. I think this better explains my view. I have no idea what some of these references are above, so you have me at a disadvantage there.

Folks, I'm going to put my prodigious and considerable rep 'on the line' here and predict that Patmac will never have a novel commercially published. Even given a quantum physics 'infinite dimensions' style multiverse model of reality, I predict that in every single dimension where he exists, Patmac will not be published. Whether this is because unfairness and incompetence are hardwired into the book industry, or because Patmac cannot produce work of a sufficient quality to get people to part with money for it, is hardly my place to say.

But I'll say it anyway. The answer is the latter.

-

Funny boy!

Forget about patmac for a moment, (I know it's hard because he's so great,) but consider for a moment any good authors out there who have written great books and are publishing them themselves.

Now, just for a moment, consider that they've been marvellously written, well laid out, their covers are excellent, they've been well edited and are superb books to read.

What should happen to those books? (If you need to, use Jill Paton Walsh's and Marc Blaney's as examples.)

** For people who can't think all that deeply, and would rather throw childish comments at patmac, let me pose an easier problem: What did the leopard say after eating his owner?

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

Tastes like sausage? I’m reading a Jill Patton book right now, there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with self publishing, nobody said that.

It's not a moral question. So the words right and wrong are irrelevant.

The range of books of that type is wide. Most people know almost nothing about the subject and can speak of only the bottom of its range and even then often not about specific books either, only of stereotypes. But at the top end, if you happen to be Jill Paton Walsh, your formally self-published book, Knowledge of Angels, will have been short listed for the Mann Booker Prize. If you're Marc Blaney you'll have won a Somerset Maugm prize. If you're the Reverend GP Taylor your self-published book, Shadowmancer, will have become a worldwide bestseller, and if you're James Redfield, your formally self-published book, The Celestine Prophesy, will have sold over twenty million copies. If you'd been Olaudah Equiano you'd have seen your self-published book help to bring about attitudes which saw an anti slavery bill introduced in the House of Commons and if you were Tom Peters you'd have gone In Search of Excellence with one. That's a tiny sample of some of the world's most outstanding books of that type.

It's not a particularly widely understood discipline. But the words right and wrong do not apply to it, that's for certain.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

"Now, just for a moment, consider that they've been marvellously written, well laid out, their covers are excellent, they've been well edited and are superb books to read.

What should happen to those books?"

Well, good books that people want to read should be published. In terms of the 'top end' you mention, they have been eventually.

Publishers, like all other business people, have to make decisions about what they think will sell and how much effort and finance it will cost them to sell those things.

Sometimes they make mistakes. The famous mistakes you list are obviously the lucky ones because their stuff did get published in the end.

Acknowledging that mistakes are and will always be made doesn't tell us anything about the publishing industry in a general sense and doesn't alter the fact that the main reason why most books that don't get published don't get published is that they're no good.

Of course publishing in a capitalist economic system is subject to the same commercial pressures as any other part of that system but, even taking Jordan into account, it's still more resistant to these pressures than most industries.

There are both positive and negative effects of both commercial pressures and some publishers resistance to them.

This is a long thread but I'm still no closer to understanding what you'd actually like to happen to make things better.

So, we have the proposition that:

Not all books published by mainstream publishers are of merit, and not all self-published books are without merit.

Can't really disagree with that.

We also have the proposition that:

There are a lot of factors involved in why someone buys a particular book rather than another particular book.

Can't disagree with that either.

We also have the proposition that:

People self-publish books because they cannot get other people to publish them for them.

Again, can't quibble with that either.

There is also another proposition:

Mainstream publishers publish books that no one reads all the time. Why can't they publish different books that no one wants to read instead of the books that no one wants to read that they currently publish?

And also:

Mainstream publishers already publish lots of books of a particular type. Why can't they publish more of that type so that people wouldn't need to self-publish them.

Cheers,

Mark

I don't think anybody wants to try to tell publishers what to publish. These are economic decisions often made in companies which have been publishing for generations, sometimes for hundreds of years. The cost of changing their output is likely to be ruinous. (No change there.)

We shouldn't confuse good books with popular books. Popular books such as Equiano's went through nine editions. Tom Peters' book became a core curriculum text. GP Taylor's book and James Redfield's had achieved notable sales in their self-published form and attracted publishers for that reason. It's not unreasonable for a publisher to want to publish a book which is already selling well. The Walsh book in England and The Blaney book, on the other hand were not selling well but were praised. Their subsequent publication is unlike that of the British book by Taylor.

Over time it will become clearer that running a business for profit (and remaining solvent in publishing,) is not the same thing as professing about attributes of aesthetic merit. ie what's published is what's profitable not necessarily what's good.

So the first thing which needs to happen is we the reading public have to get used to the idea that what is published is what's profitable not necessarily what's good. (It may be and it may not.)

And then we have to get used to the idea that what's unpublished is not necessarily bad. (It may be and it may not.)

At the moment these ideas are not understood by most people. And further more they are misunderstood by most people. They may never be widely understood. But it is incumbent upon people who profess a knowledge of publishing and writing to understand these things.

That's the first thing that needs to change. People who feel able to speak about publishing and especially self-publishing should actually know about the subjects.

And the next thing that needs to change is that a greater number of British people should be willing to assess formally unpublished full-length work. At the moment almost no-one is. I assess it. And I know of one other British organisation that does. In the light of the fact that what is not formally published may yet be good the assessment of full-length work which has not been formally published should have been undertaken routinely a long time ago. It is a mistake that is has not been.

The Americans have made a lot more progress in that regard.

In Britain this is an error and an omission and it should be both acknowledged and rectified.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

... we the reading public have to get used to the idea that what is published is what's profitable not necessarily what's good.

You may be the only person here who has the remotest problem with that idea.

... a greater number of British people should be willing to assess formally unpublished full-length work.

If enough of them read it, it wouldn't be unpopular, therefore it wouldn't be unpublished. The great British public is spoiled for choice with novels that have already been vetted and sorted for them by publishing houses, why should they waste their time trawling Lulu.

I'm confused. I don't get what your beef is.

If it's that publishers run their businesses for a profit then Big Whoop! that's hardly news - and hardly fair either because most of them still run smaller enterprises publishing what they think are worthy and good books that don't stand a chance of making them a fortune.

If it's that publishers sometimes get things wrong the also Big Whoop! Nobody in any consumer industry is doing more than making marginally educated guesses at what the public will like. Look at New Coke, Decca passing over The Beatles, the stacks and stacks and STACKS of books that *do* get published but never make their advance back.

I'm referring specifically to British people who profess a knowledge of publishing and writing. (The ordinary reader will continue to do what he has always done.)

The point about new full-length writers, particularly in Britain, is that they are not necessarily visible because too few of their works are being examined. Making that point isn't a beef.

It's simply a point.

So, to put the same point more clearly, in order to ascertain the number of good new full-length writers in Britain more of their books need to be examined. Too few Britons who profess a knowledge of publishing and writing are willing to examine new not-formally published full-length works and are therefore unable to give a true account of what is being written in Britain because it is information that they do not possess.

The situation in America is better because such commentators who examine both formally published and not-formally published new works are far more numerous. And therefore the picture that they are giving of what new work is being produced is a far more accurate one than its British counterpart.

That is a point.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

Oh right.

So who are these people who ought to be 'examining' (I take it that means 'reading'?) not-formally published full-length works?

So really, your point is that there are diamonds in the rough and that nobody in the publishing world finds them?

But the examples you give of people who have self-published have all been picked up by major publishers, meaning that those particular diamonds have been found.

Or are we talking about other diamonds and other roughs?

If you want to self-publish, go ahead. It's you that's taking the risk and I'd presume you would do whatever you could to minimise the risk to your finances.

If someone else wants to publish you, they will and they will do whatever they can to minimise the risk to their finances.

If they're trying to turn your book into a best seller, they will risk a lot by investing of money and activity into it, in the hope it will make a return.

Would you publish a book you weren't sure of, with your own money? Risking your own cash investment?

If you did want to do that with your own money you would do these things:

1. make sure the text is good, or at least not full of errors, typos and other possible clangers

2. make sure that it looks as good as other things in a similar market

3. make sure that you had money for repping to get it into shops

4. make sure you had money for review copies and a proper PR mechanism

5. make sure the author fully behind the process

6. make sure that there was either something novel about your intended publishing venture, that it came from someone with a track record or that it was a good enough example of something for a specific market

This is what publishers do. What reviewers do is look for interesting things to review. The agenda here is underpinned effective PR vs. personal interest:

1. Publications need to know a publication exists and why it might be of interest

2. They need to be able to get review copies quickly and painlessly. For example, I review books of short stories for a website (www.theshortreview.com). I am interested in reviewing books from independent publishers because that's where new writers come from. I would be interested in reviewing these books more but it sometimes takes ages to get a review copy from a small publisher. Bigger publishers are much quicker at getting review copies out.

3. They need to have a personal interest in the book to be reviewed

4. They need to want to review it.

It's up to an enterprising small publisher or self-publisher to work out the best way of overcoming these obstacles. You have to work with, not work against.

Cheers,

Mark

Oh, and you need to know how to write proper press releases, not ones like this:

http://lostintheshowbiz.blogspot.com/

Cheers,

Mark

Mark, an excellent list. I can't disagree with anything on it. Yes, other diamonds and other roughs. Full length work, not shorts. But in brief, yes. I agree with everything you've said there.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

Anybody who claims to know what's being written in Britain should systematically examine the top of the not-formally published range. Authorities, literary pundits, claimants, anyone who professes such knowledge should seek it before making their claims. Or alternatively should admit that they do not have the necessary information and nor do they wish to seek it, but they'd like to make their claims regardless of whether they possess the relevant knowledge or not.

That disclaimer would be satisfactory.

(I have met pundits in Britain who claim only formally published work is meritorious.)

Pundits do not need to examine the entire range, they can turn to [*non-profitmaking] organisations which already do that and simply take recommendations from them. In America this work is already underway. This is not the case in Britain.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

But won't the organisations that provide the recommendations just end up working on the same basis as you accuse the bigger publishers of working on, or indeed the critical establishment?

Presumably they'd be even more of a closed clique because they wouldn't have a financial stake in what they were promoting? And who would pay them to do this?

The Arts Council pays lots of money to small publishers to do work to sell more copies and develop their audiences, some of whom piss it up the wall and others of who make it go a long way and do some really good things with it.

And are you really claiming that no one can review anything with any authority until they have read everything that is being published everywhere?

Cheers,

Mark

Mostly, people with influential opinions on books get sent the sort of books they are likely to like by PR people. I don't think anybody systematically checks books, however they are published.

The organisations are non-profitmaking. Nobody pays them. In America there are lots of them in Britain I know of only two.

Will the non-profitmaking organisations be biased and have subjective views? Yes they will. (They won't all have the same ones though.) Profit won't be a factor in their bias, so their recommendations already do look different from publishers' recommendations for that reason alone.

The organisations may (or may not be) internally cliquey but will probably not be in cliques together, since they're separate entities and currently all work for different (and their own reasons.) It can be expected that if they recommend a book then it has at least the features that they claim it has. (Of course the book can freely be examined by any other person or group.) Since the initial non-profit organisation has nothing to gain it has no reason to recommend books as good which are not.

Many existing, (and almost all British,) pundits will not examine books which are not formally published and to that extent they are already systematically checking how they are published. Other more thorough organisations take recommendations on books and will examine books of all types which show promise.

Yet other organisations still will examine every book that comes their way. Preliminary samples can be offered online. The review process can be quite efficient, calling in those books which show promise early on.

There are many efficiencies and many recommendations which are not being made use of in Britain. America on the other hand is far more advanced in these areas.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

I'm quite dubious about the idea and value of organisations existing to read books that no one else wants to read. I'm not clear who benefits from this.

If you've written a book and you can't get a publisher to take it or you've self-published it and you can get a review in any of the thousands of small press publications and websites there out there, or you can't get enough of your friends and family to read it and pass it on to others to develop some sort of momentum behind it then as far as I can see, the only function of an organisation promising to read everything is to prolong your misery.

That said, I'm not arguing against people with a general interest in writing beyond the mainstream reading some self-published work by choice and then writing about it.

I'd quite like to do a bit of that myself but even if every novel I read was a self-published one, I wouldn't be able to read more than 20 or so a year - assuming I'm also allowed to hold down a job and have some friends and read books which are published by publishers, too.

There's 18581 books just in the literature fiction section on Lulu as of today.

Lulu is only one self-publishing company and would take me 929 years to read all of their fiction stuff, even if everyone stops writing now.

I think that's my point. There are only two British organisations which review non-formally published work that I know of. That's not thousands. If you have a list of British organisations which do do that please add it to the thread. That's fantastic news.

Please don't add American organisations because I do know several tens, (perhaps not hundreds,) but many who are willing.

In order to read the books people first must know that the books exist. The next thing that they need to know is that they're good books, (if indeed they are good books.) In order to establish whether or not they're good they first need to be read. So someone has to read and categorise them. (Lulu has an inbuilt review mechanism, a free voluntary one. So your 929 years are perfectly safe.) Some lulus recommend each others' work highly too. I've even seen one who advertises books she likes on her own storefront which is extremely good-neighbourly of her. It's an entirely voluntary type of behaviour, (unless someone or some pundit professes to know what's inside books that he or she hasn't read. Some do make claims of that sort and should not do so.)

It's not all that complicated really.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

"In order to read the books people first must know that the books exist. The next thing that they need to know is that they're good books, (if indeed they are good books.) In order to establish whether or not they're good they first need to be read. So someone has to read and categorise them."

Well, yeah, that's what a publisher does.

What you're essentially arguing for is a parallel not-for-profit industry to do the boring, frustrating bits of publishing and receive none of the potential benefits for doing so.

I can understand why some people might want to dip into self-published writing to see what's going on but I can't see why any large number of people would choose to do this on a large scale.

"I think that's my point. There are only two British organisations which review non-formally published work that I know of. That's not thousands. If you have a list of British organisations which do do that please add it to the thread. That's fantastic news."

Well, I've been involved in an editorial or writing roles with at least ten very small to small to medium sized magazines or newspapers over the last ten years.

Most of them have published some reviews, none of them have an explicit policy in terms of not reviewing self-published books.

If we were sent copies of self-published books (I think I've received three or four over that period), they'd be judged in the same way as any other which will always be a subjective judgment on whether readers would be interested in a review of the book.

There's an obvious difference between a non-profit and a publisher doing it in that the publisher says a book is good partly because he wants to profit from it. Whereas a non-profit reviewer doesn't. It's likely that he says it's good solely and only because he believes that it is.

The boring bits, not really. The non-profit reviewer doesn't have to edit the book or negotiate with suppliers. He only has to read it and look at it. In my operation I have samples uploaded online. So I can already tell in advance which books are likely to have been well written. So far most of the books that I've received have been a joy to read. (I don't accept ones which have errors in the online samples.)

One, about the life of Mary Magdalene, was outstanding. One was a space spoof of the Hitchhikers Guide variety. I really enjoyed that one. Another was part Japanese folk tale, part science fiction and part fantasy. Those have been my favourites and I can't praise them enough.

And about other people being interested in reading them, I've found no trouble at all in interesting other people in my favourites. All that's required is that I tell them about them. It's no different from what normally happens when you talk about a book you've enjoyed reading.

I reviewed a chess book with diagrams of its instructions. That was a great book too.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

"There's an obvious difference between a non-profit and a publisher doing it in that the publisher says a book is good partly because he wants to profit from it."

Well, in the case of most publishers and most books, that's only part of the reason but whether the book can sell some copies to some people clearly is usually part of the publisher's decision-making process.

I think the point of disagreement is that compared to the opposite - most publishers taking most decisions on the basis of abstract idea about what should and shouldn't be published - I think a commercial element in publishing decisions is good thing not a bad thing.

Not sure what point you're making with the rest.

I don't think anyone's disputing that are some decent self-published books available or saying that it's a bad thing for people to set-up websites or magazines to review some of them.

The question is whether it's likely or desirable for people to review all of them.

I'm not really clearly how your decision not to review books that have errors in their online samples is a fairer basis for a reviewing decision than a decision by a magazine not to review a book because no publisher wants to publish it.

Good and bad do not come into question in regard to publishers needing to profit from their operations because publishing is not a moral question; it's a commercial operation. Therefore it's neither good nor bad. It merely is.

The point with the rest is that, (contrary to your suggestion,) it's not boring. Reading well-written books doesn't bore me, anyway.

Anyone who maintains that good books do not exist outside mainstream publishing is wrong. Some people do maintain that and they are wrong.

The books don't have to be self-published; they can be unpublished galleys. They can be short stories.

My own view is that the priority is to search for the best ones first. Once they have all been found whoever wants to can start to look for others. The best method that I know of is to attract samples and pick the best of those.

As to your question of fairness in selecting from samples, I don't know, you may be right. Not accepting books based on faulty samples might be equally unfair. But if the author can submit a faultless sample I will accept his book, whereas an author is unlikely to be able to reclassify his publisher at the whim of a magazine editor.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

When a publisher reckons a book is 'good' enough for publishing they are basically thinking 'I think lots of people will so want to read this book that they will pay money for the priviledge'

When one of your wonderful magnanimous non-profit book reviewers recommends a book to their readership, are they really thinking anything all that different?

As for the priority of searching for the best books. Searching for good books is not a priority at all for me. I have a shelf of books I am dying to read, and when it runs low it only ever seems to take fifteen minutes in the nearest Oxfam to refill it - and that's without recommendations from friends, Amazon, Booktribes etc.

My seven published books sell regularly ... I sell at least one a month! I don't see my retirement from the sex shop coming any time soon, Now, would you like that butt plug wrapping, or are you going to wear it, Sir?

Then again, my books may just not be worth buying.

My own personal view of the word good in relation to publishing books is that it's probably misleading. No doubt it very true in relation to books like Sir David Attenborough's Living Planet and a host of other books, but not in regard to OJ Simpson's 'did I kill my wife?' book and various other crass bits of celebrity tat which come out more and more regularly these days. The words good, book, and publishing may go together but they do not necessarily do so.

And my own personal view is that some people put themselves forward as book reviewers to pre-read books which have been published and to say whether, in their opinions, these are good books or not. (Fair enough.)

Some of these reviewers are prepared to review only mainstream books. Some book-pundits comment publicly that nothing else is worth reviewing. As it becomes clearer that this is far from true such ignorance will become less and less acceptable.

Do non-profit reviewers want to review books that they suspect nobody wants to read? Probably not. But what they often do is review books which were not formally published - because they suspect that people do in fact want to read them. This happens to be true in the case of many of the books that they choose.

Individuals will get book recommendations from a range of places. The more the merrier: Amazon, Booktribes, Oxfam, anywhere, great, all good-

Great!

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

"Some of these reviewers are prepared to review only mainstream books. Some book-pundits comment publicly that nothing else is worth reviewing. As it becomes clearer that this is far from true such ignorance will become less and less acceptable."

Well, in the mainstream press, reviewers review what they're paid to review.

How will this become less and less acceptable?

Why don't you publish a magazine or newspaper reviewing self-published books and see if anyone wants to buy it?

Sooz,

I can't understand your point. Isn't value relative? I don't know anything about your books, but suppose, just for the sake of argument, they are satires about British middle class, urban angst. Then perhaps they don't mean much to American Midwest car plant workers. But that doesn't mean they don't make great presents for British parents to give sons or daughters leaving for university, perhaps especially those ones with interests in English and Sociology.

Isn't value a question of: What is valuable to whom?

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

Reviewing whatever you like won't become less acceptable. Anyone can review whatever they want to.

What will become less acceptable is the ignorance of some pundits who claim that nothing outside mainstream publishing is good. There always have been and there always will be good books outside. And knowledge of that fact will become increasingly widespread. People expect pundits to know more than them and not less than them about a subject. Ignorant pundits will become less acceptable.

People can continue to review whatever they like.

Editors wait until a book crosses over into the mainstream and then they review it. So The Celestine Prophesy, Shadowmancer, etc, etc will all have been reviewed plenty of times. That type of reviewing isn't reviewing a book to tell whether or not it's good it's reviewing books which are already popular to increase the circulation figures of your magazine.
So you can review self-published books and sell copies. *You just pick all the successful self-published books. But that's only one version of book reviewing. (The opportunist version.)

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

“There always have been and there always will be good books outside."

True

“And knowledge of that fact will become increasingly widespread."

Not necessarily, you only hope so.

Because reviewers gravitate to un-reviewed self published books that people are buying by the thousands, they are "opportunistic". What a frame of mind. How do you go on? Whenever the words right/wrong are used in a context any reasonable person would understand as correct/incorrect you extrapolate this as a moral statement. Are you married? If so, can I send this poor woman some flowers in sympathy for the mentality she is dealing with?

I’ve read some of your work and think your dialog and expository skills are impressive. If you snapped out of this professorial trance a bit and sanded off a few layers of intellectual varnish to get at the heart of things, who knows, actual human beings might just start buying your books like crazy. Real genius is more likely to squat down and take a crap on your parlor room floor than anything.

'This soup is good,' is a qualitative statement.

'Honour killings are good,' is a moral statement.

The words good and bad have both types of use. People often use them interchangeably and incorrectly.

I don't think it's unreasonable for people to expect pundits to know what they're talking about. And yes, you're correct that I do hope that when people understand that good writing exists in large measure beyond the confines of traditional publishing they will expect information from so-called experts to reflect that fact. To that extent I hope so, yes. I cannot foretell the future but I expect this will turn out to be the case.

As far as my own writing is concerned I don't know. But since I do not review my own books for the purposes of reviewing books it makes no difference one way or the other.

What I do know is that book reviewing has more than one purpose. It can be done to give attention to popular books or mainstream books in the expectation of enticing readers and buyers to purchase the reviewer's paper or magazine.

Or it can be done for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not the book is good to read in the opinion of the reviewer. It may have no other motive than that and perhaps it may not be opportunistic behaviour for that reason. The Americans have done far more work in the latter regard. The British have done almost none.

My latest killing is:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/human_sacrifice.php

For a second there, Den, I thought you were talking about my books .. but then we got to the intelectual bit and I realised .. nah, that's never me. ;-) My books have had all manner of critiscism .. but never that they're too intelectual. You can send me some flowers if you like, purple ones please.

So... as I was saying, when I strarted this string... where have all the good writers come from? Maybe they are born in heaven... or as I suspect we all have to work at it. So... for me writing is a craft which can be developed, otherwise I would give up now.

Whatever happened to the writing classes that Tony mentioned??

Ray