I previously posted about writers selling out, but this article in the Guardian, about the bizarre accoutrements available courtesy of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter empire, brought a wry smile to my face.
No doubt, many people buy this tat as collectable objects, a good investment likely to go up in value. Who knows? Perhaps a plastic Hagrid bauble will be deemed to be worth a small fortune on the Antiques Roadshow 2119. Early editions of the books go for impressive prices—a first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone sold for £60,000 at auction in 2017.
The first time I became aware of merchandising as a source of revenue, was back in the late 1990s when it was widely publicised that the Rolling Stones made more money from T-shirt sales than they did selling tickets to their concerts. It was an exaggeration, but as this article shows $135.9 million in merchandising sales isn’t to be sniffed at.
Just think of the collectability of Star Wars‘ toys and figures. This sort of marketing and money making is easiest in the Fantasy and Science Fiction genres. I recall a terrible failed attempt to hype a damp squib of a 1990 film calledDick Tracy.
Based on a 1930s comic strip, and starring Warren Beatty, Al Pacino and Madonna, much money was thrown at marketing the film through merchandise, novelisations and theme park rides by backers Disney. My local department store’s clothing department had a separate display area featuring yellow trench coats and fedora hats like Dick Tracy wore. They sat there unbought for a month, before being withdrawn.
In my chosen writing genre of Crime, it’s hard to think of merchandising opportunities, apart from the eternal Sherlock Holmes’ tweed suit, deerstalker hat, Ulster overcoat and travelling cloak. Not to forget his violin and magnifying glass, though we’ll draw a veil over his cocaine-injecting hypodermic syringe.
There’s a 221b museum in Baker Street, at Holmes’ supposed address, and sometimes other books engender a tourist trail. I’m well-placed in Cornwall, to take advantage of this, for Winston Graham’s Poldark stories have twice been adapted into television series, and Daphne du Maurier’s Cornish novels are regularly filmed. Visiting the Daphne du Maurier museum/shop at Jamaica Inn is a sobering experience showing how an author’s work can go on earning a fortune for decades after their death. I lived a mile away from this hostelry for about six months, bewildered by how hypnotised the holidaymakers were who spilt off fifty coaches a day. The shop brought in more money than the bar did selling beer.
Should my Cornish Detective novels ever sell as books, getting optioned for a television series, it could be that local traders, pubs and hotels will make money off my creations. I deliberately chose locations ideal for filming with this in mind. Apart from the books themselves, I can’t think of any merchandising potential.
How about your books?
Have you thought of additional ways to sell them, using clothing, music, figurines and games?
This post promises to be the most controversial I’ve made, but let me state from the outset, that I’m glad all the prizes I mention exist.
Encouraging minorities to write and rewarding the best with a prize is a laudable thing. Just recently, a new prize was announced for women’s comic fiction. Called the Comedy Women In Printprize, contestants have to be unpublished and the winner will receive a contract with HarperCollins and an advance of £5,000.
There’s a plethora of competitions and prizes aimed at various minorities, including:
* Jhalak Prize—for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic.
* Creative Future Literary Awards—for writers with mental health issues, disability, identity or other disadvantages social circumstances.
* Granta, the literary magazine, irregularly issues lists of the best young novelists— ignoring anyone over the age of 40 who’s just started writing.
For mature writers, there’s the Christopher Bland prize, to be awarded to a first novel or work of non-fiction published when the winner is 50 or older. Note the catch—you have to be already published. As ever, with these prizes, self-published books are excluded.
Christopher Bland
The world of literary prizes, and even lists of favourite books of the year, often looks like a closed shop to me, in that the same damned authors get selected. It appears to me, that it’s not so much that their writing is exemplary, more that they’re being chosen because of long-founded connections with other authors, publishers and journalists…the old boys’ network. It’s not as if books win prizes through ‘blind tastings’ is it? Think how rare it is for a novel to win an award that doesn’t feature on longlists and shortlists for other prizes; it’s the same with books of the year lists that appear in December.
One of the most egalitarian of prizes is The People’s Book Prize though that requires a book to be submitted by its publisher. If an unpublished author wants to get anywhere, there’s The People’s Book Awardswhich welcomes emerging and established authors. Books Are My Bag Readers Awardsare even more populist, being the only book award curated by bookshops and voted for by readers, but again it’s established authors who get the most votes.
Political correctness is peculiarly slanted, for no one is prepared to criticise how morally astute protestors and activists are being, even if they’re showing signs of prejudice themselves. Those who’ve been oppressed in some way can also be bigots.
I believe in having a level playing field, but that’s impossible. Because I’m male and Caucasian, I apparently represent an oppressive segment of society. Also, one that’s got it made…not in need of help or reward for my writing efforts through a specific award for my gender, race or age.
Imagine the reaction from politically correct people, if it was announced that a writing competition or literary prize was aimed solely at White Males! That would offend so many different groups, that I’m not even going to list them—yet, all would be in favour of such accolades for their own minority group.
Reverse discrimination is rarely mentioned, but there was an interesting example of it recently, from Sweden…where a rock festival was deemed to have been guilty of discrimination for excluding males.
“I hate political correctness because it turns you into a liar. People say what they think they’re meant to say.“
There’s nothing to be done about it, though, as political correctness is a weighty club.
I repeat I’m in favour of all of these competitions, prizes and cash awards targetting minority or special interest groups. In my working life and as a volunteer, I’ve interacted with disadvantaged children, the deaf, the blind, the autistic and dementia sufferers. I’ve been a marriage guidance counsellor and a rape crisis helpline volunteer and volunteered for the Crisis at Christmas homeless scheme.
Any competition or award is essentially a marketing tool, to attract attention to the books being promoted. That’s a good thing if we want more of the public to read…though, some of the prize-winning titles are not always easy reads so they might put people off.
I wonder if the increase in awards and competitions for minority groups is a backlash against the entrenched Caucasian middle class who run publishing…Try looking at literary agencies and publishers’ websites to find BAME, LGBT or disabled employees.
What do you think about the world of literary awards and writing competitions?
Have you ever entered a minority group writing contest?
I’ve been wondering about what makes a story a page-turner, about how readers become devotees of a particular author.
What prompted me to mull over readability, was a sticker on the cover of a crime paperback I borrowed from the library last week.Life Or Death by Michael Robotham has a sticker proclaiming LOVE IT OR YOUR MONEY BACK with a qualifier in small print around the edge advisingTo find out more and for T & Cs go to www.thecrimevault.com/exclusives/lifeordeath/
As a story, it’s capably written, with a couple of mysterious hooks that drag the reader in to make them want to know what happens. I wondered how many readers claimed their money back, for the guarantee had a four-month time limit from the date of publication in 2015.
Robotham started as a journalist, before becoming a successful ghostwriter of celebrities’ biographies. He shares traits in his writing style with other journalists whose crime novels I’ve read, mainly that he’s masterful at concision, of getting the action onto the page without flowery excess, but it lacks the warmth of involvement in his characters’ fates. It reads more like a film treatment, detailed notes for a script than a story told by a writer with the common touch. Instead of sitting alongside me describing what happens, Robotham’s voice sounds like the narrator of a True Crime documentary.
From the Cambridge Dictionary:
The Common Touch: the ability of an important or rich person to communicate well with and understand ordinary people.
When it comes to choosing a book to read, the author is an important person, even if not as wealthy as they should be! Having theability to communicate in a compelling way decides whether readers will like your story enough to read on. If you’ve touched them, they talk about your book and word of mouth promotion sells it in bestselling amounts.
‘The best moments in reading are when you come across something—a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things—which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.‘
Such communicating with a reader is partly down to chance for a writer, but some authors have an amiability that is very attractive; I think, it’s one of the reasons for J. K. Rowling’s success.
We talk about influences on our writing, and for me, the main way that my style has been swayed is emulating the common touch of favourite authors such as Walter Mosley, Elmore Leonard, J. B. Priestley, Dennis Lehane, John Steinbeck, Somerset Maugham and Guy De Maupassant. There’s something about these authors where I feel like they’re on the same level as me…not talking down to me.
Being a companion to our readers is a strange thing for us to think about, but it’s the stance I consider when writing my Cornish Detective novels. I find it helps to imagine just one reader as I write, rather than attempting to appeal to the masses. Kurt Vonnegut put it well:
While editing a short story last night, as I went to check the hyphenation of a word, my own name Paul jumped out at me!
Chambers Dictionary lists Paul Pry as ‘a person who pries into other people’s business. [The eponymous character in John Poole’s play (1825)]‘
Intrigued, I investigated further. Wikipedia describes Paul Pry as: “a comical, idle, meddlesome and mischievous fellow consumed with curiosity.“
Well, that fits me!
I was christened Paul after my father, who was named after his father, who was named after his father, all of us with the name of a British king as a middle name…John, in my case.
Curiously enough, my mother used to tell inquisitive infant me “to stop prying” when I was being nosy about something, though I doubt she knew of a 19th-century play.
My surname of Whybrow is uncommon, though as I knew of a couple of writers called Whybrow, I experimented with the pen name of Augustus Devilheart when I first returned to creative writing. Marion Whybrow wrote art books and Ian Whybrow writes children’s books; neither are related to me. Using a pen name was too complicated for me, so I reverted to my birth name.
There’s a village near Penzance, Cornwall, called Paul. Whenever I’m overtaken with a fit of egomania, I imagine moving there and changing my name by deed poll, so that I’m Paul Paul of Paul House, Paul. (The men in white coats are coming to take me away).
Of Pauls in fiction, who I like, there’s Paul Atreides in the Frank Herbert’s Dune universe, Paul Sheldon in Stephen King’s Misery, Paul Morel in Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence…and what of the Apostle Paul?
Does your name have any literary connotations?
Did an author take your name in vain with a fictional character?
In full dither mode, as I avoid studying helpful articles about self-promotion, querying and Amazon, I’ve been re-reading short stories and novellas that I wrote in 2013 and 2014.
I haven’t looked at them for three years since I uploaded freshly edited versions with new covers onto Amazon and Smashwords. It’s been an enjoyable experience, like catching up with friends I haven’t seen for a while.
My writer’s eye also spotted preoccupations, recurring themes in my stories, that I wasn’t totally aware of while creating them. I edited out a load of wordy garbage, which I missed in 2015. It’s satisfying and embarrassing to strike out twenty-four words and say what I meant in just five words!
One tricksy dilemma that I wrestled with back then, still bothers me a bit…the use of there’s and there’re. It’s discussed in this thread on the English Language & Usage Stack Exchange website.
As one contributor says, strictly speaking, there’s, for there is, shouldn’t be used when referring to a plural, yet in everyday conversation people commonly say it. They also make an elision of there are dropping the letter a and turning it into there’re—but somehow that word looks wrong in print!
I previously pondered the pain of contractions in an old post and the tussle between being grammatically correct and making our characters sound believable continues. I’ve found there’re used in only a few novels that I read this year, usually recently published crime stories. In my own writing, I’ve sometimes used there’re in speech, especially if the speaker expresses themselves colloquially. I wouldn’t use it in the narrative where I’m describing a series of events.
It’s a neurotic writer quandary to have, but what do you think?
Are there any contractions that bother you?
Eek! I’m adding to the existing confusion over their, there and they’re…
I’ve been pondering the use of contractions in how I write conversation. I recently spent five weeks editing my five completed novels, adding quite a few contractions to make how my characters talk sound more natural.
We all run words together in conversation—you’ve, she’s, hadn’t, I’ve—and not doing so, by pronouncing each word separately can make what’s said sound formal and the speaker stiff and pedantic. In formal business writing, scientific papers and for legal matters, contractions are not used.
When reading, some contractions are easily processed by the brain, but writing them down can look clumsy. People commonly say there’re, but to my eyes, in print, it looks a bit odd and pronouncing it (even mentally in my reading voice) sounds like a small dog growling!
Contractions have altered through the centuries, and I commonly use an archaic example—’tis—which isitandis combined, as Cornish people regularly say it. When I lived in Atlanta, most people said y’all instead ofyou all.
Expressing colloquialisms too closely can look clumsy, words such as she’d’ve, shouldn’t’ve and mightn’t’ve. Such contractions might ease the flow of conversation, but in writing they become obstructive.
How do you handle contractions? I wonder how tightly edited they are, by editors at a literary agency or publisher—being added or taken away….
Merriam Webster’s online dictionary site has added a feature they call Time Traveller.
It’s a vaguely unsettling way of dating oneself, especially when you realise how young some words are, and also how so many have fallen into disuse…because you’ve certainly never heard of them!
I was born in 1954, which spawned such words as boonies, buyback, cash flow, junk mail, sleaze and wheeler-dealer. The word wonk also appeared—which means: “a person preoccupied with arcane details or procedures in a specialized field.” Considering how much I study the world of writing and publishing, I’m a wonk! My spellchecker doesn’t like it, suggesting that I replace the ‘o’ with an ‘a’!
Anyone in need of writing prompts could use the words from their year to create a story, using every one.
Authors are, for the most part, nice people. Anyone who likes books is surely someone you could get on with…but, what if they only liked one author or one genre?
I once met the friend of a friend, an elderly gentleman who was obsessed with the books and life of Stephen King. He showed me his temple to the author, which had once been his dining room, but now held thousands of hardbacks and paperbacks, including foreign editions, on shelving on every wall…as well as a unit mounted to the back of the door! The only furniture was a buttoned brown leather Chesterfield chair occupying the centre of the room, with a coffee table alongside for him to rest his book and sherry glass on. He didn’t read any other authors, considering them inferior. I dare say, he could have won Mastermind with Stephen King as his specialist subject, but his devotion was peculiar.
Writers can be snooty about strange things, including how they learned to be writers. For an unpublished author, one route to success appears to be attending a creative writing course, for we see stirring stories of students being snapped up my literary agents, getting a publisher and winning a literary prize. Certainly, one of the best ways of getting anywhere is talking face to face with influential folk in the book world. Attending a degree course or a residential workshop, might validate your own writing, teach you useful techniques and give you confidence, but would you end up writing in the same way as every other attendee? This is a criticism that has been levelled at such courses.
I admit I feel a bit jaded when I read the fluff for the latest hotshot debut author, to see that she graduated from the University of East Anglia Creative Writing course with an M.A., where she was taught by Margaret Atwood who introduced her to her literary agent. It’s easy to end up feeling shut out….But, am I being a hard-done-by snob or are they with their elitist smugness?
Literary snobbery is pervasive, even if it’s not admitted to. Some male readers won’t touch books written by women, and it’s easy to see how divisive things get when looking at book reviews. In 2013, The London Review of Books published 72 reviews of books written by women compared to 245 written by males. The New Yorker came in at 253/555 which is better, but the Times Literary Supplement fared poorly with 903 male writers and 313 female. The TLS employs far more male reviewers than female, despite the fact that 80% of fiction is bought and read by women. Asked about the discrepancy, TLS editor Peter Stothard said he was “only interested in getting the best reviews ofthe most important books” continuing “while women are heavy readers, we know they are heavy readers of the kind of fiction that is not likely to be reviewed in the TLS.”
While we’re on snobbery in book reviews in newspapers, what about self-published books? They never get reviewed by the mainstream press. In the last year, I can only recall one example of a self-published book being mentioned, and that was only because it had been snapped up and heavily promoted by Penguin Random House.
It’s sometimes said that female writers receive lower book advances than male writers, but things look fairly even in a survey done by Jane Friedman, so perhaps market forces are eradicating the snobbery shown by book reviewers:
What about snobbery among book readers? Some people stick to one genre; fans of Romance are particularly loyal, which is one reason why it’s the best-selling genre. I’ve known Science Fiction readers who look down on normal fiction. Some despise genre writing, only tackling highfalutin literature. I once had a girlfriend who only read heavyweight novels that had won literary prizes, as if that would improve her intellect.
When looking for readers of my first Cornish Detective novel, I deliberately asked two acquaintances to offer their thoughts, as they normally read Chick-Lit and Travelogues and I intended to market my Crime novels to a mass audience. Both of these women are unafraid of expressing opinions, making them better than choosing friends or relatives who might fear upsetting me. I asked them why they didn’t read crime stories, and they answered, “I didn’t think I’d like them”…which is snobbery based on ignorance. They enjoyed my novel, offering useful thoughts on how it could be improved.
With my own reading, about half of it is in my chosen writing genre of Crime and half of all of the books I read are written by women. I rarely read pure Romance stories, though I like novels with a love story as part of the plot. I forced myself to read a James Patterson co-written Romance in the Bookshot series, which might just be the most masochistic act I’ve inflicted on myself this year! Sacking the Quarterback made me feel ill like I’d injected saccharine into a vein! A ten-year-old could write better.
I don’t often read Speculative, Fantasy or Science-fiction, not because I’m snobby about them, more because my brain’s too feeble for the leap needed to immerse myself in those worlds. Most of the Historical fiction I read has a criminal component, such as the Matthew Shardlake series by C. J. Sansom.
I’m unsure exactly why, but I avoid detective novels set from Victorian times to the 1970s; I think it’s because they predate technological and forensic developments, seeming like an easy option to me. It’s not, as historical facts need to be researched.
In what I write, I’ve tackled most genres, except for Romance, though I penned a couple of novellas with a romantic element and many love poems and song lyrics. I like to think that my crime writing has a literary quality but that might be me having delusions of grandeur!
Author Caroline O’Donoghue makes some good points about chick lit haters, in this article. Her ire is also directed at the covers that publishers use to market this genre, something I had a go at in an old post.
My local library recently reorganised the layout of their shelving units, introducing a couple of free-standing carousels. From 20′ away, it was obvious to me what sort of paperbacks were displayed on them, as one was dark in colour with shadowy figures and guns—the Crime books, while the other was all pink and pastel blue with twinkling silver highlights for Romance.
The thing, is these are established colour schemes, a visual shorthand of what genre of writing a book fits into, so it would be foolish to buck the trend.
O’Donoghue complains that Chick-Lit books don’t get discussed in mainstream media book pages, and she’s done something about it, by starting her own podcast. She’s got a point, as with British newspaper book reviews, I can only think of the Daily Mail which has a section devoted to Chick Lit.
Most newspaper book review sites have a separate section for Crime and Thrillers, but sly snobbery is rife when it comes to giving literary awards to these genres. Just as it’s rare for a comedy film to win an Oscar, so best-selling Crime novels are overlooked for writing prizes. It was a small miracle that in 2018 for the first time a graphic novel was nominated for the Man Booker Prize.
It’s really reverse snobbery, isn’t it? If a genre is popular, selling millions of units, then it’s looked down upon by critics and committees of judges.
Are you a snob about the books you read?
Are there some genres you’d never write or read?
Do you think some genres are easier to write than others…such as children’s books, bodice-ripper romances, Westerns, Graphic Novels or Erotica?
Apparently, the first word that I spoke wasn’t Mummy or Daddy but Book.This doesn’t mean to say that I think I was a born writer, though as I’ve always got my head in a book I might well be a born reader.
Come to think of it, I wish I’d been a born editor!
It’s intriguing to trace where talent comes from: some is a natural gift and though skills can be learnt, if someone doesn’t have an instinctive feel for the craft it’s going to show.
People I’ve known who achieved proficiency quickly included an above-the-knee amputee who took to turning wood on a lathe like she was born to make bowls. One of the keenest pool players in Liskeard, Cornwall was a ten-year-old boy who’d been handed a cue at the age of five, and standing on a chair to reach the baize playing surface proceeded to sink balls into pockets. Adult players avoided him, for fear of an embarrassing defeat.
Having a love for what you’re doing helps.
Think of the artists you like to seeinterviewed about what they do, be they writers, painters, actors or musicians—those with enthusiasm shine out—and they’re not always massively successful commercially. It’s easy to tell when someone is just going through the motions creatively…and I’m including those who are rolling in money from their shtick.
Raymond Chandler is admired for his terse writing style. He’s been called a born writer, but he admitted that he slogged long and hard to make his prose readable while conveying the essence of what he was trying to get across. Robert McCrum makes some good points about the craft of writing in this articleabout Chandler.
Elena Ferranterecently pitched into this debate about natural talent versus training. I like what she says about not wasting one’s writing abilities. She also acknowledges that success is often down to luck:
“Talent is insufficient: if it’s not cultivated, it ends up, in the best cases, inventing the wheel, only to discover that this has been done already. Those who feel they have an artistic vocation have an obligation not to squander it by being content with what pours from their heart.“
There’s a story told about a sensei of Kendo, the bamboo sword fighting martial art from Japan. After defeating a much younger opponent, one of his students congratulated his master on a perfect fight. The sensei responded by saying that his technique had been flawed, but that was why he’d been studying Kendo for fifty years, and that he would never want to achieve perfection…the reason he fought was for the love of his art.
I’ve felt the same way about things I’ve loved doing, including motorcycling, cooking, boxing and writing. I’ve been known to turn around and retake a corner on a motorcycle, to get a more fluid line through the bend. In rewriting prose and poetry, it might mean that many versions of the work exist, eventually reaching a point where it’s the best I can do. It’s never going to be perfect, but that’s OK.
Such striving for improvement doesn’t feel natural; as Raymond Chandler showed it’s a job that needs hard work. Albert Einstein said:
“The definition of genius is taking the complex and making it simple.”
I get a thrill out of reading something where I think the author really nailed it, and if it can be made to sound simple, almost as a throwaway line, it has more impact. I wrote down a few great observations from James Lee Burke’s Robicheaux:
*“Solitude and peace with oneself are probably the only preparation one has for death.”
*“The only argument you ever win is the one you don’t have.”
*“Solitude and peace with oneself are probably the only preparation one has for death.”
*“The only argument you ever win is the one you don’t have.”
I don’t suppose that such pithiness came easy to Burke, for in offering some writing tips, he noted:
“Robert Frost once said a poet must be committed to a lover’s quarrel with the world. He had it right. If a person writes for money or success, he will probably have neither. If he writes for the love of his art and the world and humanity, money and success will find him down the line. In the meantime, he must work every day at his craft, either at his desk or in his mind and sometimes in his sleep. It’s a lonely pursuit, one without shortcuts.”
Apparently, from worldwide surveys asking people what their worst fault is, procrastination is said to be the thing they most regret. We all have a tendency to put off until tomorrow (or maybe the day after) what we don’t want to do today.
I once had a girlfriend who gently pointed out my laggardness by buying me a coffee mug with the saying printed on it: “What the wise do in the beginning, the fool does in the end.”
As authors, we’re commonly advised to avoid procrastination, to manage our time better and to get on with things…aiming for a daily word count by staying away from the temptation of the internet. Striving to perfect our skills, it’s easy to become neurotic.
I’m laid back in my approach to life and to writing. I did go a bit berserk when I returned to creative writing in 2013, after a long lay off, but churning out 5,000 words daily was counterproductive as it took ages editing out the crap.
At the moment, I’m at a crossroads (which I’m trying not to see as an impasse), for I’ve completed my fifth novel and am torn between querying and returning to self-publishing. Fretting a bit that it was a delaying tactic, I re-read my novels at the start of 2019. My justification for doing so was that I wanted to know them inside out, so I can sell them effectively.
Then, this morning I spent 90 minutes following up on links posted on a Cornish Witch’s website. Was that a waste of time, I wondered…probably not, as I found useful information for a novella I’ve started featuring a benign hedge witch. I’ve touched on white witches in my novels, as well as black magick and Druidry, but intend to explore how folklore and superstition motivate criminals. Worse still, I found the witchy site via the excellent Cornish Bird blog—which I recommend to anyone interested in the county or if you’re contemplating starting your own blog.
My point is, there’s more to being an author than just writing words. Investigating blogs is research, reading email newsletters about publishing might help me out, posting on my writers’ forum the Colony is reassuring and reading novels borrowed from the library is a free way of broadening my understanding of how storytelling works. Even thinking about writing is writing!
Some anonymous wag once said: “Procrastination— A hardening of the oughteries” But I don’t feel that I ought to be doing anything else if I’m not writing, for I’m always ‘one’ having ideas about what needs editing and planning unwritten stories.
I certainly miss creating fresh pages, but I need to recharge my batteries while learning how to be a blogger and turning myself into a supplicant worthy of the attention of literary agents. I did a word count of all of the stories and poems I’ve written in the last five years, coming up with 1,300,000. If I’d put that many miles on a car engine, it would have needed regular maintenance and might benefit from time off resting in the garage.
How do you handle the sin of prevarication?
Do you feel guilty if you don’t hit a daily word count?
Or, are you relaxed…in touch with your muse and ready to respond, writing when you’re inspired?
