Why I don't want to self-publish - that authorised version!

I got into a snit a couple of months ago - and wrote this, hoping the Bookseller might publish it - they didn't, but I think it's a worthwhile statement.

“Have you thought of self-publishing?”

Friends, reading groups, other writers, even the local Society of Authors’ chapter(?) are encouraging me to do this.   I don’t want to.  I’ve investigated it, I’ve been to a conference on digital media for writers, visited the “Writers Lounge” at the London Book Fair and heard from the businesses who are making money from the self-publishing trend.  I have been momentarily enthused – it’s a simple procedure: stick the novel on line, tweet about it, blog about it, tell your Facebook friends to share the links... and hey-presto – after the week of free downloads, and glowing Amazon reviews you’re plucked up in a whirlwind of money, fame and renown.

Like the nurse who attended me in hospital recently, I like good books.   This nurse was a reader, a consumer, she had no connection with the production and distribution side of the industry – her comment on self-published books was:

“Some of them are quite good, and I’ve enjoyed them, but most of them have got so many mistakes in that I just get sick of it and give up.”

This need not worry the author, who presumably has the 99p or whatever s/he’s charging, in their Paypal account.

How many self-published books are honestly of publishable standard?  The work often hasn’t been fully edited (arguably the longer offerings of some very popular writers haven’t been edited either...) and it hasn’t been proof-read.  Jane could have spent several hundred pounds getting professional help with these things, but she hasn’t got the money – and anyway it will eat into the profits she’s longing to make from her book.  She could have taken the advice of friends who suggested politely it needed more work – but she felt happy with it, or perhaps even sick of it, and didn’t see the point in waiting any longer.  None of these are indicators of a book that’s ready for the market.

If I were to put my precious first novel The Romantic Feminist out in the self-published ether, I would be rubbing shoulders with the under-edited (mine is in its 20^th version I think!) and the unproof-read (I know it still has typos) and worst of all, it would simply join a great steaming pile of unpublished books, a million books each year apparently.  Where there’s muck there’s brass, sure – but you have to dig pretty deep in the heap to find anything remotely like brass, let alone gold, so I think, if you know you’re a good writer, why would you want to lose yourself amongst the unpublishables?  Of course, you’d hope that your book would shine out – would be discovered, that there would be a buzz about it – people would start tweeting about you, critical mass would drive you on – to what?  Ah – lots of money, yes, and also – being picked up by a publisher.

This strikes me as a very random and labour-intensive way to find a publisher.  I do not wish to spend all my valuable time blogging and tweeting about my absolutely marvellous books – I don’t want to beg my friends to review me on Amazon, I don’t want to spend time fending off queries from people who want to enhance my ratings for money, or provide professional services of unproven quality.  I understand that there is another way of finding a publisher, and there are people who do that for you called literary agents.  They do not charge upfront fees, it is, in best practice, a co-operative and collaborative relationship – they can help you make your work more marketable, encourage you in the paths of literary righteousness, and guide you through the valley of rejections.   Of course these people are very much in demand, there are not many of them, and they are very over-stretched because they are expected to take a quick look at all the millions of soon to be self-published books landing on their desks.

But why, say the self-publishing fanatics, would I want a wicked, greedy grasping publisher to take all my hard work, put a repellent and inappropriate cover on it, and then give me a pittance for it?   Well, because although Amazon is a very well known brand, it’s a brand that represents efficient on-line selling and delivery.  It isn’t a brand a writer really wants on their work – what we want is a brand like Faber or Penguin or Bloomsbury – so that when someone sees our book – whether it’s our notional reader, or a reviewer, or a browser in a library – they see that it carries a badge of credibility, of quality.   The reader may hate the book, they might think Harper Collins (other publishers are available) had done the world a disservice by allowing one of their imprints to publish it – but at least they are confident that not all HC books will be quite so dreadful, however fashion- driven publishers may be from time to time. 

We need diversity of imprints to give us an idea of the kind of work we are being offered.  Genre is too crude a division: is this horrific crime, literary crime, humorous crime, insightful crime, or just barely cobbled together crime?  Publishers and their imprints provide that branding for a writer.  Amazon cannot – and who knows which reviews are written by the friends and relations of the authors (yes, I’ve done it myself – it was a good book though!) and which are truly objective.

There have been and continue to be great changes but writers and readers still need publishers and agents, and their ability to offer work that stands out from the crowd and implies some guarantee of literary standards.   At the moment if self-published writers had a collective “company” motto it would probably have to be “With no regard for Quality”, and that isn’t something I want to stamp on my books.

Despised, rejected....

Well, I still think I'm quite a good writer, but JM clearly didn't "get on with" The Ash Grove - but at least she didn't waste too much time over it.

Find a title!

I've been worrying about the title of the first volume ever since I realised that Conscience would be the title for the second volume - and so I have been through various manifestations.  This morning, having decided that there was no single abstract noun that would describe the book without giving the game away, I tried to think of a phrase - I remembered the scene where they sing the Ash Grove together - the beginning of their liking for each other - it's a romantic song of lost love.  But there's also the sense of Ashes... death, destruction - the ash grove could be a beautiful place that's been ravaged by fire - and that does suggest what happens in some sense.  So The Ash Grove is the new title for volume 1.

Conscience: Volume 1

1.    September 1916, France

David cycled across the fields towards a horizon swollen with clouds.  Around him was the wreckage of undulating countryside, with an occasional stand of ragged trees.  Alongside the rutted track the tussocks of fading grass were still studded with late-flowering plants he recognised: scabious, fumitory, and that yellow thing – what was it called?  Rattle perhaps? And some sort of vetch, a blue-purple colour that he loved; it reminded him of one of the dresses his mother had worn when he was a child.   These few fragments of the underlying countryside remained dotted here and there across the battlefield, incongruous scraps which recalled his civilian life.  Looking up again he saw a black puff of smoke unravelling against the sky, heard the distinctive crump, and saw the group of soldiers he had noticed lounging around in the distance toppling like ninepins as a shell burst on the ground near them.  He wobbled on the bike as the vibration passed through him, and put his hand to his head to be sure he was wearing his tin hat.

David saw at once how narrowly he had missed being amongst them, a few seconds’ cycling away perhaps.  Although he was trembling slightly he felt calm. He pedalled onwards, into the disorder, hoping he could help somehow. 

Help me Lord, he prayed, help me do what you want me to here.  And thank you for keeping me safe from harm.

He knew that it was a matter of chance if another shell came or not, and he rode in amongst the wounded soldiers feeling he’d been saved for that day at least.   Some of the soldiers had dragged themselves to their feet, their uniforms spattered with clods of the dusty soil.   They looked shaken and seemed to be moving randomly about without purpose.  Others were still down: one of them lay flung near the path and David couldn’t avoid seeing his wounds.  The face was ripped away, and amidst the blood he thought he could see white bone – or was it muscle? – he couldn’t look at it for long, his stomach turned with the sight of it; he’d be no use if he started vomiting.    He had heard about shells, and how the serrated edge of a piece of metal flying through the air would slice  anything in its path.   Incredibly, the soldier was not dead.  He murmured something.  David slowly got off his bike; he wasn’t meant to be here.  He was taking a message to the dressing station.  He should leave at once, there was clearly nothing he could do, it had been a fantasy to think he could be any use here.  He clutched his bicycle fiercely, the one steady object in the midst of the confusion.

An officer staggered towards him, his face bloody with scratches, his uniform dirtied by earth thrown up by the shell.

 “You’re Medical Corps aren’t you?  Come over here – there’s one of my chaps, he – he needs looking at.”

Dear God, David thought, I can’t do this, let me go away.

But he followed the officer obediently, although he too seemed confused, as dazed with the noise and mess as David, and he’d been there in the thick of it when it happened.  David admired the fact that he was able to think of someone else.  He stopped, looked at David and gestured towards another soldier, lying in the mud, with some sort of head wound.  Nothing dramatic, very little visible, just blood trickling around his face, he looked dead.

 “Perhaps you can stitch him up” the officer said brightly “ – do something for him.  He’s a decent chap, got 3 kids.”

David looked at the officer, young of course, his pink and white complexion still unlined.  Couldn’t he see the man was dead?  He must be completely disoriented by the shell.  The noise alone had been unbearable, penetrating David, shaking his thoughts to pieces before they had a chance to form.  All he wanted to do now was run away.   

“Until last month, I was a curate in South London,” he told the officer, who was now gesturing with impatience at him.  “Now I’m just a cyclist messenger, I don’t think I can do anything for this man, he's beyond first aid.  All I can do is get a message to someone who will know what to do.”

The officer looked at him blankly – he didn’t understand – didn’t register what David was saying.   He must have been deafened by the blast.  But he must have got the gist of David's futility, barking abruptly

 “Well, what the hell are you doing here?”

“I was wondering that myself.”

David began to walk away back towards the path, recalling the injured man’s attempts to speak.  He was a non combatant, with no medical experience and this was his first morning at the front, his first exposure to fresh battle wounds and he knew he was completely out of his depth.  He felt he must go back to the man with the bloodied head, repulsive though the sight was; he was still alive at least.   

Finally...

After various delays and desperation - which is the nearest I will admit to "Writers' Block" I sat down 2 days ago and began to work on the sub-plot of the book which is currently living under the working title of Seduction - I have written about 2,000 words of new material and "I am well pleased".

It occurs to me that in Genesis when God had a look at his work and "saw that it was good" this is the story of everyone who creates something new - something different from their usual work - or just makes anything that is complete in any way, whether it's a crocheted mat or an advertising jingle.  We are so pleased to have a completed work.  Creating is what humans like to do - ergo of course God does it.  Of course God didn't have to submit his work to editors, proofreaders etc.  But perhaps that's what all geological changes and evolution are - the great refining process that has to go on in any new work.  Curiously, when I did the last (23rd?!!!) edit of TRF (during which I removed about 8,000 superflous words, mostly "quite" "somewhat" and "she wondered whether") I did not look at it and "see that it was good" - I looked at it and wondered "have I done enough? Will I ever have done enough?"    I have had so many ideas for ways of doing it differently that I am thinking of re-creating the whole thing and calling it "27 Endings" - and telling the second half entirely from His point of view.   Daring!... actually, it is going to be archived until I am famous enough for someone to take a risk on it.  I bloody well hope that writing is my real metier because I haven't got time to start a new one (except perhaps crocheting mats).

At the moment I am hoping to produce a roughish second draft of Seduction by the end of the month - and I can then submit that to the Dear Agent - who kindly said she'd like to read the whole thing when I'd finished it.   I am hoping it will be a case of 4th time lucky with her.  I am still not sure about the name:  Seduction, Frustration, A Man must Marry are 3 possibilities.  But none of these adequately describes the book - however, Deception might give the game away...but it seems possible.  Alternatively there are probably dozens of books called Deception... What's beneath... oh, I don't know.

Not Blocked/Unblocked

I don't really believe in "Writer's Block" - I believe in the inability to write during times of stress, or heavy domestic or other commitments, and that is what I have had for the last few months.  Recently I have been managing a bit of light editing on TRF - but I haven't touched Conscience for about 3 months... nor have I done any of the necessary back ground research/reading - apart from the book about Woodbine Willie - which I haven't finished yet.   So...I'm not blocked.

On the other hand I felt astonishingly "unblocked" yesterday - not in a literary way, but intellectually, and additionally my level of articulacy seemed to be higher.   Firstly I went to a creative networking thing - and secondly went to the meeting with the potential client for M.  Both these things were differently stimulating.  We seem to be "in" with the client - subject to the Heritage Committee's approval - this is a large job that will continue for some time and begin later in the year.   We found it quite hard to believe - although there are still some uncertains: they may not get the funding - although the client seemed completely confident of that - and of course, the Heritage Committee may not approve us.

But somehow - just going out and being with different people seemed to do wonders for my mood and my articulacy... or maybe it was the celebratory gin and tonic before supper, and a couple of glasses of rose.  We haven't been drinking much - a "good thing" - but sometimes I think the odd glass of wine does make one feel better and more expansive.   The fact remains, that I will be unlikely to be able to get on with any work of any kind except domestic, until 24th September - I expect on 23rd I will be too knocked out by the effects of hosting a family party and then driving to Norwich to take Ned to UEA....

Loss of Confidence

Well, it happens, eventually.  A couple of months ago I would have said I could write, had two novels under my belt etc.

Today I would say I have a completely hopeless first novel and a draft of a second novel that needs a significant re-write that I wonder if I am capable of.

There are reasons for this change of heart, firstly the fact that I haven't been able to write for weeks.  Secondly the fact that another two agents have turned me down, perfectly nicely  "considered carefully"  "just not quite right for our list" - but rejected none the less.

Thirdly, and rather annoyingly, I have had feedback from the wife of a member of the SoA group - he described her as an editor - but I think "proof reader" might be more correct.  I felt unsure whether I should impose on her, it was her husband who suggested it, her workload is clearly heavy - and his adding to it can't have been encouraging.  "Well-written and interesting" - but then she said a number of things which indicated she hadn't read it properly and suggested it would work better as a short story ("What?").  However, receiving this critique the day after the exhaustion and stress of the Summer Squall was a bit of a coup de grace to my self-esteem. I suppose I was nurturing a fantasy that she would say "how interesting - one of the editors I work with would rather like this - may I show it to her?"  I did know that was a fantasy.

Somehow, from these not very major setbacks I have extracted all the discouragement possible, I feel that I will never be published and I might as well give up now.  I feel intensely sorry for myself.  I also feel vaguely humiliated.  I have been writing for a long time - and no sign of anything really.  Interest from an intelligent agent seems to have been a blip...  The humiliation is because I have been so confident for so long.  Why didn't I just shut up about it?  Do it quietly? - but I had to justify my existence.  What was I doing?  Why wasn't I working or cleaning the house or bringing my children up properly?  So the writing needed to be mentioned, to explain why I wasn't doing all these other things, why we were so poor - with only half an income coming in, etc.

In the last few months I've been gradually becoming more depressed - and the idea of giving up writing has been nudging me... I won't stop writing any more than I will stop breathing - just stop hoping to get published, just stop hoping eventually I will make a successful submission... I don't know.  I will not self-publish, but if I don't have the discipline of submitting then I might lose the necessary rigour to improve my work.  God, I feel sorry for myself!  Hope I've snapped out of it by Friday.