Bee Bones

Back in 2007, a post on uber-blog Boing Boing alerted me to a new website from Harper Collins Publishers called 'Authonomy'. The site allowed you to upload the first 10,000 words of your book and then have other writers critique your work or vote it to the top of a pile to be read by a Harper editor.

I posted about it a lot at the time, pimping my first, silly, book Space - which I uploaded to the site. I also posted about my disaffection for a process and website I came to see as debased, not because my book didn't win a gold star (because it did) but because the gold star was actually duller under its micron of plating than the average Shiny.

Authonomy did something marvellous for me, though. It allowed me to meet other writers - to learn from them, to share the ups and downs with them. It transformed my approach to writing and led to me writing more books and, I like to think, better books.

I've kept in touch on a regular and almost formal basis with a group of ex-authonomites, the feared and shadowy Grey Havens Gang. And I've kept in looser contact with a number of the people I met during my month-long odyssey propelling Space to the top of the greasy pole. You know how Twitter, Facebook and all can keep people sort of popping up every now and then.

One such is Richard Pierce. Like everyone else I knew on authonomy, he never got picked up by Harper as a result of winning the monthly plugfest, but he did get taken up by British publisher Duckworth, who published his novel, Dead Men. Which I thought was a tad funny as that wasn't the book Richard was shopping on authonomy - that was a book called Bee Bones. It's a long time ago now, but I remember Bee Bones being pretty popular on the site - a stark and yet very human book that explored a young man rooting about in his dead mother's life.

Having had his taste of the conventionally published life, Richard has taken to self publishing - and so Bee Bones is coming out as a self published novel, some seven years after I first came across it on authonomy. Which is a while, I know, but then it took Olives - A Violent Romance about the same length of time to become a book rather than a manuscript.

I'll be buying it - I enjoyed it on authonomy as I enjoyed so many books from a selection which I thought at the time consistently threw up better and more diverse reads than I could find in my local bookshop. A number of the writer friends I made have been published - a few conventionally (a couple becoming best selling novelists) but many more taking the self-published route (a couple becoming best selling novelists).

So if you need a book recommendation, take this one. Richard's Facebook page is linked right here and when he presses the button and lets Bee Bones out into the wild, you can be among the first to know.

I hope he doesn't mind me nicking his cover...

Free Space

Ben Jonson is a doctor in Richmond, London. Life is peachy, perhaps the only cloud on his horizon being the problem of communicating with his incomprehensible housemaid. And then a roast chicken appears out of nowhere.

Ben Jonson never wanted to save the world. But with no warning, no final demand and certainly no invitations issued, Ben finds himself racing against time, the Russian Mafia and spooks aplenty. Driven to near-insanity by auto-manifesting incongruities, Ben is launched into a journey across Europe in search of the source of his problems by the charismatic Lysander Cullinane, the head of a shadowy government agency that specialises in telling awful lies.

Enter a catsuited blonde bombshell with a death fetish, a life insurance salesman on the run and some wickedly nasty Russians with very big guns. Add the world’s most effective computer virus, an imperious old lady with a gimlet eye, England’s most evil-tempered policeman and a dead man with a number of highly developed personality disorders. And then pop in a splash of sex worker with legs all the way up to the bottom of her basque.

The body count rises hourly and Ben’s on the run. But you can’t escape space… 

My first attempt at writing a book resulted in a silly spoof caper called Space. It was quite badly done, but enormous fun - and has since had a bit of a spruce up to make it at least semi-presentable: possibly even readable. It's FREE on amazon through to Friday this week, so do feel highly pressured to not only download it to your own Kindle or Kindle for Android or iPad but also to tell friends, family, passers-by, whoever. Share the link, tweet it - stick it on yer facebook. This is, after all is said and done, a total freebie! And we all likes a bit of it free, doesn't we?

GET YOUR COPY OF 'SPACE' HERE

It still makes me laugh, but its first amazon review says it's totally unfunny. The second one says it IS funny! You be the judge - and do feel free to leave your own amazon review too!

First Fictions

Richard Pierce-Saunderson's first published novel, Dead Men, which charts the last days of 'Scott of the Antarctic' is being published by Duckworth. As I'm doing a panel session at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature focusing on how authors found their route to publication, I thought it would be interesting to explore Richard's story and look at how he took 'Dead Men' all the way to the hallowed shelves of your local bookshop.

So, you’re off on a blog tour of the world. Why stop over in the Middle East?
 You’ve got a different circle of readers to me. I want to extend my reach, so to speak. And then you sent me an article about the UK Ambassador to Lebanon hosting a dinner to commemorate the centenary of Scott getting to the South Pole, which contained a reference to Maxime Chaya from Lebanon, who’s retraced Scott’s footsteps to the Pole, or some of them anyway. And given Dead Men is about Scott’s last days, I found the connection too much to pass by!

What do you mean some of them?
No-one’s ever completed that journey from Scott’s base at Cape Evans to the South Pole and back on foot. That’s about 1,800 miles.

Oh.
Quite


So. First fictions. Let's start where we met, on the Authonomy writers’ web site back in late 2007. Tell me why you ended up there in the first place.
My wife found it for me, actually. The Guardian reported in September that it had come out of beta, and that it was open to the public. It was pitched as a chance to get your work in front of Harper Collins editors, and a place where writers might expect to improve their skills. So I joined, with a book I’d written some years before, called Bee Bones. I didn’t really expect much, to be honest. And for someone who’d been banging on the locked doors of the publishing industry for years it seemed like a last throw of the dice, before chucking in the writing lark and focusing on day job and family for the last years of my life.

Did it teach you anything?
It did, actually, and not just about writing.

Explain.
You know, writers are odd people. They’re desperate to share their words, to get them printed on someone else’s paper at someone else’s expense (and for their gain), but when it comes to marketing themselves, they’re actually clueless. What I learned then, in 2008, is that if we want something, we have to go for it.

What we called shameless plugging, back on Authonomy...
Exactly that. The community there was fairly light-hearted, as I recall it, and you and Simon Forward and I used to play these silly games where we’d try to plug our books in a subversive sort of way, rather than spamming people to come and read them. It meant we devised all sorts of subtle (and mostly humourous) strategies which might drive readers to our books. The thinking needed for those stratagems has stood me in good stead, I think. And it stopped me from packing in writing, stopped me from giving up, because it made me feel like I did have somethinig to say. I don’t know if you feel the same way.

Well, Olives has been published.
There you are then. Part of not giving up was also to grow a thick skin, and to be able to deal with criticism.

Just ignore it, you mean?
No, no, the opposite, in fact. It’s when we’ve not yet developed thick skins as writers that we tend to ignore any criticism of our writing, and skim over advice that could actually make us better writers. Personally, I tend to find that it’s the writers who deflect criticism or call it invalid who are those who are producing sub-standard work. Developing a thick skin means taking all criticism seriously, but learning not to take it personally, and to understand that writing is very subjective.

You’d not learned that before then?
No, I hadn't! Anyway, within the first couple of weeks of being on there, I’d asked for, and got, a long review from an American guy, which basically recommended that I scrap Bee Bones because the plot was faulty, and because it was totally unbelievable.

That must have been a bit of a blow.
In one way, yes. In another, no. He made some valid points about how the book might have been differently structured, which I think I used when I rewrote it. But after about half a day’s grieving, I decided that his core criticism was just his opinion, that the book could stand, and so I left it up there. I’ve still got a copy of that review somewhere.

Do you think it informed your subsequent writing? Because Bee Bones hasn’t been published, has it?
It did inform what I’ve done since. And no, Bee Bones hasn’t been published – yet. There are two versions of it now. But, and this is perhaps the most important point, that book was actually the key to Dead Men getting published.

How so?
I sent Bee Bones to Peter Buckman, the guy who agented Slumdog Millionaire, after Harper Collins had reviewed the book on Authonomy and turned it down (it got to Number one at the end of October 2008, as you know).

I know, I was in the Top Five with you the same month.
I thought I’d let you get that one in. But not with Olives.

No, it was a funny book called Space. Still unpublished, too. Anyway, we digress.
Right, Peter read the first three chapters of Bee Bones and an extended synopsis, but didn’t take it on. He said it was a good book, but too midlist (ie no chance of selling really, really well). I asked him if I could send him my next book when I finished it and he said yes. I had, in the meantime, started Dead Men after coming back from the Antarctic, and after getting lots of encouragement to write another book from my friends on Authonomy. So, when I’d finished the book after 6 months (and some helpful comments from people), I sent it to Peter. Two 3-hour phone calls, five weeks, and a massive edit (from 113k words down to 85k) later, he asked me if I’d sign for him.

It’s taken four years to get it published?
That’s the thing, though. Everyone thinks you’ve made it as soon as you get an agent, because that part is ball-breakingly difficult, but I had to wake up and smell the coffee, because getting an agent’s only the start. Peter made a massive effort to sell the book to mainstream publishers, but nearly all of them, without exception, quoted the market place as being too difficult to try to sell a new author into with such a complex book. Some of the feedback we had included “A few years ago I may well have offered, but it’s so inhospitable out there in the markeplace”, and “It’s an impressive and really quite brave novel; an ambitious and complex novel.” But still nothing, until the lovely independent Duckworth came along and took it on at the end of summer last year. To an extent that extended selling process was more depressing and discouraging than being constantly knocked back by agents, and one that led me, on more than one occasion, talking to Peter about self-publishing.

But you didn’t go that route?
Peter persuaded me to be patient. Also, I have self-published poetry, and in all honesty I’m just too lazy to do all the marketing gruntwork self-publishing involves.

So Duckworth are doing all the hard work for you?
They have arranged some events for me, and I’ve arranged others. But my mind-set’s different now. I just hate doing admin stuff, and to have someone who points me in the right direction is really helpful, because I’m one of the most disorganised blokes in the world. Now that we’ve got events set up, I’m desperate to do more, and not too lazy to catch trains from one end of the country to another. In fact, if any airline wants to sponsor me to tour the US and Australia and New Zealand, I’d gladly do that, too.

You’re obviously bonkers, and still on that shameless plugging trip.
Now that a third party’s put time and money into editing, typesetting and printing my book (and converting it into Kindle and Kobo format), I suppose I am.

So, what next?
The Kindle version of Dead Men is already available, although I am trying to encourage people to use their local bookshops instead. The physical book comes out on 15th March, although there’s a rumour that the Natural History Museum in London might be putting it on their shelves in the week starting 5th March. I just hope it sells lots of copies.

So, many congratulations are in order. Have you bought your celebratory copy of Olives yet?
Erm...

Here's a link to 'First Fictions' at the LitFest, which you can still buy tickets for at the amazing, knock-down price of Dhs65 and which even includes a seat!

And this here is your very own link to Richard's debut novel, Dead Men, which you can pre-order from Amazon or snap up on Kindle.

And here, last but by no means least, is a link for Richard to buy Olives ... >;0)

Must Use Bigger Elephants

I'm over in Australia today rabbiting away about my remarkable tally of rejections from the British publishing industry on Ozzie Sci-Fi writer Patty Jansen's brilliantly titled blog, Must Use Bigger Elephants.

It's all part of Patty's 'Blog Tour', a brilliant scheme writers have evolved to share space on each others' blogs and therefore give each other access to their readers for a day. I've guest posted on a number of other writers' blogs (and gladly hosted them on this one), mostly because of the international community of writers I've stayed in touch with since we all met on Harper Collins' Authonomy website.  Few us still visit Authonomy, but a great number of us still stay in touch.

It's interesting, Authonomy could well turn out to have had a demonstrably important and wide-ranging effect on writing and fiction that was completely unintended by its founders. And one not entirely in their interests, as many of us have thrown up our hands at the publishing industry and gone it alone. Tools like blog tours give writers access to global audiences as well as giving readers access to new writers. And of course self-publishing means you can reach global audiences far more easily than all the printing, shipping, distributing and stocking involve in 'traditional' publishing.

So do please be my guest and pop over to MUBE and have a root around and perhaps, if you're into science fiction, take a look at Patty's work. Don't forget to behave well while you're there and wipe your feet before going in...

How To Write A Book

This, believe it or not, was my Christmas gift from 
The Niece From Hell - a 'starter pack' of book napkins!.

You have to bear in mind the advice below comes from a self-published author who's just started out and will likely never sell more than a couple of hundred books, not Jeffrey Deaver, okay? You are, of course, more than welcome to buy my book and decide for yourself whether to listen to me.

Pal Abdulla Al Suwaidi (@Aabo0 to you) asked me on Twitter to share the resources I used developing my book, Olives - A Violent Romance. To that end, the below.

In terms of actual literature on writing books, there are hundreds of books on how to write a book. It's notable that few of them are written by successful authors of anything other than books on how to write books and many carry mendacious subtitles such as 'How To Get Published'. I think you've more chance of being published by wearing a duck on your head and standing naked outside Blackstone's than you have by reading these books. Books on writing will only take you so far - the rest of the process is as arcane and mystifying as the famous Nebulising Nonentity of Nether Thragulon Nine.

I own two books about writing, foisted upon me by an insistent and exasperated Phillipa Fioretti as we worked together on an early edit of Olives. Self Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Brown and Dave King and The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman. Both are books I am very glad I bought. Other than those, I suppose I've read a load of articles and stuff online but most of my learning has come from working with writer friends on my manuscript or theirs - there are writer's websites such as Harper Collins' Authonomy or Litopia which let you post up your manuscript and allow others to 'crit' it. The upside of this is you get lots of advice and input, the downside is there can be a lot of backbiting, competitive 'backing' where, for instance authonomy, the site is based on competing and it can be hard to know if the advice comes from a seasoned pro or a complete dufus.

Should you join a writers' group? I have found (as I acknowledge in Olives) the company of writer friends utterly invaluable, but I stress they are friends - people whose company I sought and enjoy. I have never belonged to a writers' group as such and look on them with mild horror. But don't 'go it alone' for pity's sake. I did that for over five years and now fervently wish I hadn't wasted so much time.

I follow a number of blogs, but these are more focused on publishing rather than writing. However, I'd recommend:

The Passive Voice - mostly posts from other people's blogs, but his selections are usually thought-provoking and his observations often add value, too. And, of course, he's finding other writers worth following for you.

The Shatzkin Files - Consultant Mike Shatzkin was one of the early voices that 'got' digital and he remains a must-read commentator on publishing.

The Bookseller - The trade journal of publishing. I find this great for following the industry and occasionally  useful for 'reality checking' some of the more strident neologist voices.

Pub Rants - A useful agent's blog. Kristin is one of the very few agents who I follow.

Writer Beware - A good early warning system for scams and scammers. As self publishing grows, so will the marketing scams that promise to market your book etc.

Mad Genius Club - A bunch of writers writing about writing, always worth a visit.

The Independent Publishing Magazine - Does what it says on the cover.

Obviously, if anyone else has any smart ideas on writer/author/publishing blogs to follow, feel free to chuck 'em in the comments.

As for the rest of it, here are some of my learnings so you don't have to smack your head against the same brick walls I did.

How to write a book

So, you've set up all these blogs in your reader and popped off to Amazon to buy those books. You've got a nice, sharp pencil and a piece of paper ready. Now you can start writing your book. Step back from that keyboard, I was serious about the pencil and paper.

1) A Novel Form
What kind of book are you intending to write? Be clear with yourself, categorise it from day one. Chic-lit for the over 30s European housewife? A thriller for early 20-something professionals? Tighten it as much as possible and try to imagine your audience. Is it a large audience? What kind of books is it buying? Where is it buying them? Is your genre of choice one you read a lot in? Which authors do you admire/enjoy the most? Are they selling well? How will you be different to them, yet occupy the same space on the shelf? (One writer solved this problem by using a pseudonym that placed him next to his 'target author' on bookshelves!)

These questions all seem far removed from the beautiful process of creating literature and they indeed are. But if you want your beautiful literature to get published, you'd better start thinking commercially from the get-go. Publishers don't buy beauty any more, they buy books they think they can sell in the mainstream. If you're in it for the beauty and to hell with the consequences, then you're self-publishing and you're as well to understand that before you press a single key.

Now to use that piece of paper (some people use whiteboards or big charts, I happen to use paper). Presumably you've got an idea of the basic plot of the book. Now you can Google 'narrative curve' and came back to this after you've spent a couple of days reading all the advice out there. I start out by putting the events in my book in little clumps of text and linking them with arrows, so each clump is a little like a scene. Each scene, then, takes your character forwards on the journey of your book (the journey can, of course, take place on an armchair), by moving the character or by moving other characters and situations that influence or impact your character. The arrows let you move to the next scene and connect scenes. Force yourself to do this through the whole book to the end (the temptation is to do about half and then decide to resolve the rest when you get to it). It doesn't have to be totally granular - it can be a very 'broad brush' approach, but you want to have an idea of what you're setting out to do. Ideally, the whole thing can also be colour-coded to belong to the beginning, middle and end, which takes you back to the narrative curve stuff.

2) Start writing
Now you can start putting your scenes on paper, knowing where they belong in the full picture. In fact, books are ideally structured in scenes, each scene having an objective to it that moves the story forward. Each scene belongs in a place, so be careful to let your reader know where he or she is. Each scene has a single point of view, that is the events are witnessed through one character. If you start using two or more POVs, you'll confuse the reader. This is where you Google "point of view" and come back to this article in a couple of weeks when you've exhausted yourself with the endless debate writers love to have about POV.

How much should you write? I'd aim for 1,000 words a day, but if you're doing 500 that's fine. The keyboard has arguably done us some dis-favours here as it makes it all to easy to dash ahead like a charging rhino, which is hardly the stuff of considered prose. Writers who worked long-hand did a great deal less editing, I suspect, than we do today.

3) Consider these things.
What person will you write your book in? There are arguments for first person and arguments for third person. Come back when you've done Googlin' - I wrote Olives in the first person, but my other books are all written in the third person. The first person demands that you really get behind one character and I created something of a rod for my back by choosing to narrate my story through a character who isn't intended to be necessarily likeable or admirable, in fact other characters elicit your sympathies and admiration. I personally think it's worked, but I'm biased. And it was a hell of a lot of work to do. Third person would have been simpler and easier all round. Having said that, there is some really smashing literature out there written in the first person and a cherry-pick of the very finest I'd suggest would include Camus' The Stranger, Fowles' The Magus and Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. If you're going to write in the first person, I'd recommend some movement of green paper over to Jeff Bezos' account.

Who is your main character? No, I mean really who? One of the things that makes JRR Tolkein's work so fabulous is that he created his world before he populated it, even down to defining its history, folk-lore, culture and languages. What are your character's personality and quirks, background and situation? How will your character be changed by the story you're telling? How will other characters interact with your main characer - and who are they? All of this is "characterisation" and, yes, you should Google it right now and come back to this article in a few days when you've defined your characters and fleshed out their lives so you feel you know them. They can develop as you're writing, of course - but you're best having thought them through first so you can have them react to situations realistically and in a way we believe and can empathise with.

4) As you write...
Think about where you are in each scene and how it is best experienced through your character's POV. What are the sights and sounds? The smells? The feelings? Close your eyes and  breathe it in, live it. And now put it down on paper. Use one word where ten will do, but pick the word that really nails it. Don't kill yourself being a 'rivet man' and detailing the scene to the point where we all start haemorrhaging , just set it up in a few well chosen words and then make it come alive for us by referencing it through your characters' senses. Don't forget touch - a cold key in the pocket, a warm baby. You might like to Google "writing style" here and come back in a couple of months or so.

Language is the only tool you've got, in the same way as voice is the only tool you have during a phone call. That means you have to use it to create pictures, draw the reader in and build a sense of reality. Strangely, less is more - a few well chosen words is all you need because we will fill in the gaps for you. But do avoid cliché and don't use two verbs where one will do. In fact, one writer friend is a passionate killer of adverbs and she's right almost all of the time. Consider your choice of words. If Simon gets up and walks from the room leaving Helen behind is Simon being as interesting or engaging as if he pushes back the chair irritably and strides out of the room, brushing past Helen? Be careful not to let yourself get too 'purple' here, it's a balancing act.

Focus on your characters' emotional responses, but do try and avoid telling us what those responses, those feelings and reactions are. We're better off you showing us what they are in the way the characters react. Here's another Google moment, the idea of "showing not telling". See you in a few days.

5) Hammer away
 Keep hammering away at it, building your scenes and helping your characters live the lives you've given them in your mind. Keep to the straight and narrow, don't forget we're going to have to read this, so your amusing, if self-indulgent invention of Granny Smith who is a totally great character but actually matters not one jot is something you might like to reconsider spending time on given you're almost certainly going to dump her when you get around to the edit. Do bear in mind many books suffer from a 'soggy middle', something you should avoid if you've planned well but can also avoid by bearing this particular bear trap in mind. One day, probably in about 80-100 days depending on your genre and story, you're going to sit back and experience a remarkable moment of satisfaction.

Now the doubt can creep in from the dark corners and gnaw at you. Is it any good? Did it all work? Will anyone read it? Is it just a pile of self-indulgent tripe?

Welcome to my world. And good luck to you.

Rejection. An Author's Guide

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The very nice piece about me in The National last Sunday did  contain one or two teensy-weensy mistakettes, one of which was that Olives - A Violent Romance had been passed up by 250 agents and 12 publishers. That's not actually the case, that's my total rejection count, not just those notched up by Olives.

It's mostly my fault - for the first few years I pursued my writing goal in secret and flung myself repeatedly against the same wall, the Dunning Kruger Syndrome coursing through my veins. I'd send off batches of manuscripts, four or five at a time, convincing myself that all sorts of things were possible. That it was a numbers game. That agents further up the alphabet would be easier. That this edit was the one that'd make it through.

My first rejection was from an agent at big agency Peters, Fraser and Dunlop (PFD to you), who had made a big noise online about how he loved to help new authors. I remember cursing and shaking my fist at him (from 4,000 miles away) as his form rejection showed me how little he, in fact, cared for us unsung geniuses.

I've already said several times that I now consider my first book, Space, was badly written. It was funny, but really lacked the technique to cut the mustard. I realised that in 2007 when I finally 'came out' and made contact with other writers. I was still 'shopping' Space then, hopeful that whatever quality had got it to the 'Editor's Desk' on Harper Collins' peer-review site Authonomy would be seen by someone who would take it on and get it a nice editor. It was not to be. I had finished Olives and started submitting it to agents before then, but Olives too had been notching up rejections from agents, some of whom had said odd things like 'The British public isn't interested in the Middle East' and 'We see enough bombs in the world without wanting to read about them.' I took these statements seriously at the time, but have since learned not to - literary agents and editors alike will cast around for the nearest glib phrase to decorate a rejection, these aren't thought-through guidance, but a brush-off. They do an awful lot of rejecting, they reserve their time and effort for the stuff that gets through.

So Olives must have racked up another 100-odd rejections (in batches, in between major editing runs and re-writes) before one request for a 'full read' came back with 'it isn't dramatic enough'. I stomped off with gritted teeth and the determination to give them dramatic if they wanted dramatic. Beirut, an insane, pumped up international spy thriller on crack, the result of that particular temper tantrum, was certainly dramatic.And it was also rejected time and again before a cheeky correspondence with the very kind agent Andrew Lownie resulted in my getting a professional reader to look at the manuscript - his advice taken, I resubmitted to Robin Wade and it was Robin who signed me up and took Beirut to 12 of London's Finest.

Who all rejected it.

It's certainly a remarkable tale - 250 rejections is quite a tally. Many of these are completely my own fault - for going it alone, for thinking this was a numbers game, for sticking with it and for beating my head repeatedly at the same wall. But a good number of them are the fault of an industry in its death throes. Agents are gatekeepers for publishers, filtering out anything they don't believe is a dead cert winner. Agents get paid 15% of authors' revenues and like nothing more than a nice, fat advance. If you can land a £100,000 advance once a month alongside some strong residuals, you're in the moolah, no? So there's a strong trend to support the well-trodden path, to be mainstream and not take risks. Added to that, the sheer number of hopefuls submitting to agents means manuscripts will be rejected for the most arbitrary reasons - bad formatting, an unconventional beginning, a difficult topic. And then there is the faddishness of safe publishing - if African Memoirs are this year's Big New Thing, then they're not going to be too open to a Sweeping Russian Drama. Sorry, Leo.

In the UK today, books are going straight to paperback and straight to discount - 3 for 2s and half price deals stacked up in supermarket bins as publishers try to find new ways to hit the popular pocket for money as they struggle with a public becoming ever more indifferent to full length linear narrative. People today are consuming so many streams of content and entertainment in such easily digestible media - and of course, e-readers are now part of that world, which rather confuses those used to thinking of the dynamics of publishing in terms of percentages of the hugely inefficient wodge of dead tree that is a booky book. E-book sales are going through the roof as the prices asked for by authors are going through the floor - publishing is finding it ever harder to map out its relevance in this scenario. And so only the very safest, most obvious decisions get made.

I'm sure someone in publishing will drop by and say, no, that's not the case - we just back quality. But I don't think the protest will carry much conviction these days.

So how can an author today handle rejection? First, remember it's not personal. Second, take any feedback as a hugely positive thing (remember, they're focusing on the stuff that gets through, so if they spare you a comment or two, they've done you a big favour). Third, don't let 'em pile up to 250. If you notch up just ten of those nasty little photocopied slips, assume the next ten won't be any different and get your ass off to www.kdp.com and sign up to Kindle Direct Publishing.

Because that, my dears, is where the party is.

All Change For Authonomy

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Warning - traffic destroying writing post follows...

One of the infamous, shadowy international writers group, the Grey Havens gang, alerted us to a blog post on Harper Collins' Authonomy site which heralds major changes to the site. The post recognises that Authonomy has major structural issues and appears to be a heads-up that changes will be made in the near future that will address these.

Authonomy is a peer-review site for writers to post samples of their work for others to read, criticise and, if they think it is of oustanding, publishable quality, to 'back' it. The most backed books each month are skimmed for a read by Harper Collins' editors. I have written much in the past about authonomy, if you're interested in all the background it's all collected at this here link. Probably the most controversial - and widely read and linked - post is this one, which led to this guest post on Eoin Purcell's blog, apparently so contentious that Eoin froze comments on it. I still think the post I did for Eoin best defines my view on authonomy at that time.

Just to be abundantly clear before I toss my hat once again into the ring of Authonomy debate - I am not sore that my book 'won' but didn't get published. I recognise, more now than ever before, that the book was funny and popular  but very, very badly written. I get that. However, I invested a lot of time, energy and thought into Authonomy and have gained much from my experiences with the site - both personally as a writer and professionally as someone who consults on communications - particularly in the digital/social space. (I have to add this caveat every time, depressingly, as the first response to anything I have to say about Authonomy is so frequently, 'that's just sour grapes cos you didn't get a contract', which isn't the case at all.)

At the time I left authonomy, I wrote:

We've never seen people - even the editors who review the books are anonymous. I'm sure HC thinks its being terribly funky and Web 2.0, but it's not. It's missed the first rule of these types of engagements with a community. Foster a community, be part of a community, engage with the community. HC hasn't, because it doesn't respect that community enough... Many people have had enough of being treated like the carvers in front of Gormenghast - even more so when it's become clear that the Groans don't want any of our carvings.

I liked the Gormenghast analogy so much I used it again in this post on the future of publishing, in which I pointed out that:

With all the energy of a group of kids in a huge playground, we invested a huge amount of time and effort on the site, vying to get to the top and using fair means and foul to do so. At the core of it, though, was a sincere belief in quality – the majority of users adhered to a principle that they’d only ‘back’ books that they would genuinely buy in a bookshop.

The changes that Harper Collins are making to authonomy will refocus the site, the company says, on that idea of rewarding quality rather than the messy cronyism, begging and whoring that has come to characterise the site. As Harper's blog post says:

In recent months, we'll admit that the site has been suffering from a kind of 'vote inflation' where support was given (or traded) very freely and as a result the rank of all books has been somewhat cheapened... We want the charts to mirror more accurately a community consensus, and for the feat of reaching an editor to be based on something other than months of superhuman networking effort. 

That's great, but I can only hope that my silly little voice (and others like me) got heard to some degree in the hallowed halls of Harper Collins: 


A site like that needs the active participation in the community of the organisation behind it. With sincerity that wins the trust of the community. You cannot run online communities, you have to be part of them. You have to accept the principle that you give up ownership in favour of participation. Putting up a patronising blog post every week or so from an editor, or the occasional forum intervention from an unnamed contributor in response to critical threads is not really what Web 2.0 is about, is it? Even the critiques on Authonomy are from unnamed editors. But then my argument is that it was never about critiques.

(that extract from my post on Eoin's blog)

Part of the problem has been, I am quite sure, 'old world thinking' - it's something we come across professionally pretty much every day these days - companies bring us in to consult on social media, digital and community programmes and want someone to provide the content and populate the profiles/communities for them because their own key staff are doing more important stuff, like talking to clients and partners - but the whole point about this stuff  is that it's not an ad campaign. You can't just book it and walk away from it, it's all about engagement and talking to people using new tools and a new degree of accessibility. Sure, it involves being exposed, taking some responsibility and actually engaging with customers and other stakeholders. But those concepts are core to this stuff, not peripheral. You need to be there yourself - just getting some developers or an agency to do it won't work. And running a community site with faceless camp guards policing it won't work either.

If the changes to Authonomy include Harper Collins' editors actually engaging in the site, being named members and helping authors, influencing debate, mentoring work they believe to be of merit, being kind to work that is fifth rate and telling authors, gently, that this is the case - wouldn't that be wonderful? If real world editors actually were part of the community, if books that rose to the top were taken, for instance, into a manuscript development program similar to the Hachette program that got my pal Phillipa Fioretti into print, wouldn't Authonomy very quickly become THE place for any aspiring author to go? Wouldn't it give Harper first dibs on pretty much every emerging talent in the world today?

Yes it would. 

The one thing Authonomy has ever lacked has been the active community participation of the people that created it. If that's about to change, it could be very big news indeed for publishing. And I would welcome it with open arms - it would become what I believed Authonomy was to start with - a vital, energising response from the publishing industry that embraced and leveraged the powerful democratisation of the Internet. 

How Social Media Taught Me How To Write

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I picked up a parcel from Sharjah post office yesterday containing a jar of homemade chutney. We had some with a slice of cheese on toast last night. It was delicious.

It had been sent to me by Australian author HélèneYoung after I came in as a runner up in a frivolous competition held in a guest post on on Hélène's blog by writer pal Phillipa Fioretti. (Did I mention that Phillipa's first book, 'The Book of Love' publishes on the 1st April? Yes? Oh, okay then) I confess I had not seriously expected to ever see a jar of home-made chutney arriving from 'down under', let alone one sent by a Bombardier pilot and novelist, but then that's the power of social media for you - the power to globalise chutney.

I met Phillipa on Harper Collins' authonomy, where I had put a lump of my first book with the hope of finding someone who'd want to publish it. One of the fascinating side effects of authonomy was to drive a huge focus on editing work, with writers encouraged to critique each others' work and sharing views, information and approaches to writing on the site's lively forums.
I started writing books because I had reasoned I could write well. I had written millions of words in a 22-year career in media and communications, from articles, news stories, interviews and reviews through to market research reports, speeches and white papers - I'd churned out all sorts of things for all sorts of people, from CEOs to Kings. Why not write a book?

I quickly learned that Space, my first book, was as funny as I thought it was. It was popular on authonomy and hit 'The Editor's Desk', voted there by the community of writers that made authonomy snap, crackle and pop. I also learned that it was very, very badly written - although I didn't know it at the time. I remember Jason Pettus of the Chigaco Centre for Literature and Photography being particularly horrified at the way Space was put together. It broke most of the 'rules' of bookish writing - to the point where I have now retired it as uneditable.

I had a second book up my sleeves, a serious book about Jordan called Olives, that I also put on authonomy - although this time around I was just after 'crits' for the work. The frenetic effort it took to get the first book to the top of the slush pile was exhausting - and the proffered 'crit' from a Harper Collins editor was hardly value that returned the effort. 

The crits on Olives started to make me think more deeply about how it was written and I started to make some big changes and a series of wide-ranging edits to the book. Phillipa worked with me on a big edit and made me go and buy some books on editing and writing (I had hitherto vehemently resisted doing that but Pip bullied me), and Heather Jacobs, another of the little band of writers I've stayed in almost daily touch with since authonomy, did a painstaking line edit of the book. Heather taught me I use 'that' too much, the latest in a series of lessons that has completely transformed the way I approach writing.

I haven't met a single person since I started all this. It's all been online. I have canvassed agents in the UK, had feedback on my work from hundreds of people from around the world and profited enormously from having broken my pre-authonomy 'I'm not telling anyone I write these things' approach and have made friends online with a number of smart, talented writers whose daily doses of input, support and general silliness have been invaluable. There are writers everywhere in my online life now - on Twitter, on Facebook and the blog, too. It's nice to have them there, because I know they understand.

If it hadn't been for authonomy, I'd have learned nothing. I probably would have given up and gone back to the day job. Now I'm on book number three and 'shopping' Olives in the meantime.
>
I wouldn't have got a jar of Australian chutney, either...

Sorry, folks, this week's mostly going to be about books (Which usually sends readership plummeting, but hey ho!) - you can blame the Emirates Airline International Literary  Festival - in particular, don't forget the social media and publishing session on Friday! There's a Twitvite and FaceBook event page, BTW.

Books, Books, Books!

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I have written about Dragon International Independent Arts before. Dragon was founded out of frustration at Harper Collins' authonomy, one of a number of initiatives to have been born out of the great coming together of writers that authonomy has caused. Strangely, I believe these grassroots movements of writers are doing more to define the future of publishing than companies like Harper Collins, still mired (as is much of the publishing industry) in offline thinking. And I am pleased to be able to tell you all that Dragon, for one, is doing very well indeed, thank you.

Founded by SarahJane Heckscher-Marquis, Dragon set out to establish a viable small independent publisher that would give people access to books of quality that had been overlooked by 'the machine', breaking down the barriers between readers and the books they want to read - as Dragon itself has it, 'Books for people who love books'. Sarah's brave move saw a number of the more interesting books on authonomy get put into print. Check them out:

Harbour
Paul House

Set in wartime Hong Kong under threat of Japanese invasion, this is a lush period piece and one of the many books on authonomy that I'd have bought if I had the chance. And now I do - you can buy the paperback here and the good news is that delivery to the UAE (or anywhere else in the world) is free!

1812
M.M. Bennetts

Now I'm going to come right out and say it: this isn't my kind of book. It's a huge historical novel set in the middle of the Napoleonic wars - but it's flawlessley written: I can remember one review on authonomy that made the point that there wasn't a single word out of place in the book and the Historical Novel Review called it 'compelling' and 'vivid'. If you 'do' historical novels, you can buy the paperback here.


Pistols for Two, Breakfast for One
Matthew Dick

Matthew Dick's a silly bugger and much of his silly buggeriness is evident in his excellent book. I remember first reading this book on authonomy and enjoying myself immensely. It's engaging, funny, swaggeringly well-written and redolent of the rather wonderful Terry Thomas school of absolute caddery as it follows the cowardly career of Hugo Hammersley, devious swine and serial womaniser. Buy it here.

Who must I kill to get published?
Jason Horger

There are 10,000-odd manuscripts languishing in the great online slushpile that is authonomy, so it's a dead cert that there are 10,000 people out there asking themselves this very question. A wannabe author finally finds an agent interested in his book only for the agent to turn up dead. Again, a book that was widely admired in its time on authonomy and a very popular one, too - perhaps because it's written with flair and a light, deft touch that is eminently readable. It's also funny and buyable here.

These first four Dragon titles were released in November and are available to bookshops throughout the UK thanks to a distribution deal that Dragon has done with Central Books - and, of course, globally online as the links above prove - don't forget that free delivery now!

Kindle versions will be available from April, too.

Now there's news that Dragon is to publish a further two titles - Heikki Hietala's Tulagi Hotel and Greta van de Rol's Die a Dry Death. Again, both books were popular reads on authonomy.

In fact, SJ has done a neat job of cherry-picking some of the better books from the authonoslush, books that bobbed at the top of the 10,000-odd hopefuls and that stood out because they had that 'something' that makes you want to read the damn thing.

I had originally seen authonomy as a fascinating exercise in democratising publishing through the crowdsourcing that many companies are now finding is an important asset - listening to customers in order to define products and services that better suit their requirements. It's a great use for social media, for instance.

Fed up with being offered discounted copies of Katie Price's ghost-written pap and worse, I had thought the idea of actually selecting books through a filter of peer-review could shake things up a little. That wasn't authonomy's aim, as it turned out, but it is Dragon's and the fact that the company has not only survived but is expanding its list (they're also getting involved in non-fiction and possibly even film) to other media is something I am following with great interest and a raa raa for the li'l guy.


 

Gormenghast and the Future of Publishing

Image via Wikipedia

Longer-suffering readers of this silly little blog will know about Harper Collins’ authonomy website and my opinion of it. For those that weren’t around, this post pretty much explains things. The post was something of a bombshell in its time, BTW.

Authonomy was Harper Collins’ attempt to harness the process of change that the Internet is undoubtedly going to bring to publishing in a similar fashion to the change it is bringing the music industry. Although the company scrupulously avoided outlining any strategy, it is my opinion that the overall gameplan was to create a website that would attract authors and encourage them to put their books online (Authonomy), a website for readers (Book Army) and then allow the authors to ‘self publish’ for the readers by using a POD (print on demand) supplier. Today’s POD systems can create high quality single books at near-market prices.

The Authonomy deal was this: if you made it to the top five books each month on Authonomy, a Harper Collins editor would read and critique your manuscript, or MS. Getting an MS in front of a Harper Collins editor is a bit like getting ten minutes with Warren Buffet to chat about your new business proposal – and just as difficult. So it’s no wonder that the site soon attracted something in the region of 6,000 writers. You’d be surprised how many carvers there are living around Castle Gormenghast.

My ‘generation’ on Authonomy (before anyone starts squealing ‘sour grapes’, I made it to the top five and got a ‘gold star’ as well as a crit from an HC editor. You’ll have to read the ‘backstory’ linked above to see what I thought of it) was pretty much the first ‘wave’ of writers to discover the site and consisted of a heck of a lot of really talented people. With all the energy of a group of kids in a huge playground, we invested a huge amount of time and effort on the site, vying to get to the top and using fair means and foul to do so. At the core of it, though, was a sincere belief in quality – the majority of users adhered to a principle that they’d only ‘back’ books that they would genuinely buy in a bookshop. Although there was a huge element of popularity and ‘plugging’ of books, we reasoned that if you could market yourself on Authonomy, it just proved you could market yourself in the real world too, so was fair game as part of the mix that makes a book.

It looked very much as if HC had created a site that was intended to do what the Internet does best – improve access and disintermediate the gatekeepers, in this case the agenting system that means that only books with obvious mass market commercial potential get through to publishers. Now it looked as if readers could actually vote for the type of book they’d like to see in bookshops – and if HC was to add authonomy winners to its lists, there’d be a new and wonderful outbreak of crowdsourced work to choose from. I can honestly say, BTW, that I read more work that I would buy on Authonomy than I have seen in bookshops all year. Really.

Of course, it was not to be. The POD plan lurked and I ‘outed’ HC when they sent a private email to some of us offering us beta list status. I accused the company of being insincere, in offering a clear ‘get published’ carrot when in fact it only ever intended to create a POD site to hedge against the tide of innovation. It is still my humble opinion that this was the case.

But something else has happened as a result of authonomy, something rather wonderful. In fact several things.

One thing is that I have stayed in touch with a relatively close-knit group of writers I admire and respect, and we’re just as much in touch a year after we all wandered away from Authonomy muttering darkly (A huge number of people have left the site, disaffected with the whole game and the way HC has chosen to play it).

A much more important thing is that the disaffection and annoyance at the ‘traditional’ publishing industry and the way it treats writers has resulted in two groups of writers from authonomy creating real, truly important (IMHO) initiatives that I believe are much more about the true future of publishing than Authonomy.

Year Zero Writers

Dan Holloway is a lecturer by day and maverick by night. Actually, he’s probably pretty maverick by day, too, but we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

The author of the evocative and hauntingly beautiful Songs From the Other Side of the Wall, Dan founded the Year Zero Writers group as a collective designed to pool resources and talent in a way that would enable writers to reach out to audiences with their books. You can find out more about Year Zero here. Dan’s Year Zero projects include Free-e-day (see the BookBuzzr link below) and (to my knowledge) the first ‘FaceBook book’ (The Man Who Stole Agnieszka’s Shoes was written in weekly instalments on a FaceBook group, taking the input of readers to mould the plot). has seen Year Zero growing in popularity, attracting readers and participants and spawning a vibrant writers’ blog that is attracting readers in a most satisfactory manner.

Four books have been ‘published’ by Year Zero and more are planned - one compilation of short stories (Brief Objects of Beauty and Despair) and three novels. You can go to the Year Zero site, interact with the authors, find out more about their work (it is excellent) and then either download a PDF (free - in other formats here) or order a printed copy (paid for) of those books (the links are to Dan's 'Songs'). Although not the most active member of Year Zero, I am deeply proud to be associated with it.

Dragon International Independent Arts

Diiarts is a small independent imprint founded by writer Sarah Jane Heckscher-Marquis, which on November 14th will ‘conventionally’ publish four books that were hugely popular on authonomy and that represent, along with the three books that Year Zero has announced, some of the first books to have been published as a result of the authonomy project.
SJ has taken the highly unusual step of getting so frustrated at seeing great fiction (and I would personally, having read large amounts of all of them, commend them most highly to you, particularly Paul House’s stunning work, Harbour) mouldering on the slushpile and being overlooked by the Groans that she has put up her own money to publish some of her favourite work from the site. With the avowed intent of creating and maintaining her own small list of high quality fiction, she has had the pick of the best stuff on authonomy and has, I believe, chosen wisely.

As SJ says in the diiarts.com launch press release, “We believe there is a great deal of high quality, distinctive writing out there, which the larger publishers are just not picking up. Not only are readers missing out, but we’re losing something of the richness and diversity of the English language. We’re in danger of losing the spirit of innovation and thoughtfulness that’s been the hallmark of the English novel since we invented it. What we’ve seen is that more and more authors are expected to compromise on their vision, their voice and their artistic values, to cut their work down at whatever cost to fit supermarket display racks. We believe—passionately—that our authors should be in control of their own work. When they are, great books are the result.”

What has me chuckling evilly is the fact that both of these initiatives came about as a result of Authonomy. And, of course, I believe they both represent different facets of the change that will eventually lead to the flooding of Gormenghast - 'e-books' and small, independent publishers who are passionate about books, not shareholders, together will forge what I believe to be the future of publishing.

The Klazart Exploit

You'll have probably read my post on the 'Klazart Exploit', the gaming of Harper Collins' authonomy peer-review writers' site by Starcraft commentating YouTube uber-geek Vineet Bhalla.

If not, it's here.

The most excellent Lauri Shaw, a princess amongst women, has now interviewed Vineet about who he is, why he did it, what he thinks about it all and where he thought it would take him.

The interview's here and I do recommend it as a Web 2.0 case study, a piece of interest to anyone who has a view on authonomy or writing and as just a neat adventure story.

Cheers!

Klazart and Authonomy - Update

Harper Collins Publishers today published a statement on its authonomy book-review website concerning Vineet Bhalla ('Klazart') and the great voting debacle.

"48 hours ago none of us had heard of Starcraft. That was before Klazart posted his book on the site and started to invite support from the Starcraft community. His efforts were spectacularly successful and he has reaped the rewards of these newcomers’ support. We do not consider his actions to be breaching any site rules and his book will not be removed by us."

The statement goes on to say:

"We are willing to admit that the recent events have shown up real flaws in the algorithm behind the talent-spotter ranking. Some excellent suggestions have already been made and we’ll be considering these."

A number of writers have already left the site - a vast number have stayed but are grumbling away on the forums.

Meanwhile, the book's number 6 on authonomy with over 1200 votes. Some 2,000 new users joined the site over the weekend and have yet to vote for anything.

Is this most controversial of books any good? Will it get anywhere? See for yourself: it's here. What do YOU think?

Gamers Break Authonomy

It's a remarkable old world, chaps and chapesses. Really.

Many of you will be all too familiar with my involvement in Harper Collins Publishers' authonomy, the peer-review writers' site that involves thousands of writers clambering up a greasy pole to get their work in front of an HC editor for review. Every month the top 5 books, voted by the 'community' get reviewed by an HC editor (or janitor, we can't quite be sure which sometimes). To date not one top 5 book has moved beyond a read and crit, apart from a suspected 'token full read' given to my mate Simon Forward. The crits have been of variable quality, that afforded my own first book, Space, a good example IMHO of the WTF quality of some of the crits that HC hands out.

(If you would like to read some quality stuff, try my second book Olives, BTW. I ain't 'plugging' that one, though - it's a serious book about the Middle East, while Space was a comedy about chickens and stuff.)

But that hasn't stopped thousands of new writers from posting their work up there and trying to climb that self-same slippery pole. It's hard, folks - you have to chivvy people to go and read your book by participating on the forums, plugging the book and generally shouting a lot. And then they have to like it enough to vote for it - vote enough times for it to beat out everyone else and rise to the top of the begrudging souffle that is the online slushpile. You need hundreds of votes.

But, rather brilliantly, uber-gamer Vineet Bhalla, 'Klazart' to his mates, posted a YouTube video urging fellow gamers to pop over to authonomy, log in and vote for his book. (It's here...)

In a marvellous demonstration of the sheer power of social media, hundreds of gaming fans (possibly thousands) have done just that - garnering Vineet's book over 700 votes in the past 48 hours and launching it up the authonomy charts by some 3,000 places to its current 17 - and rising.

The howls from the authonomy 'community' of writers, bilked by the brash 'gamers' who've suddenly appeared on the site, have been wonderous indeed - suddenly the place has come alive again and started to pop and splutter with action and life - from apopleptic authors ranting pompously about cheats and darn gamers to gamer punks telling them all to piss off as they scrawl on the walls and pour beer on the carpets. The gamers have a point - the authonomy 'rules' make it clear you're welcome to invite friends and family. HC can't have imagined that 'family' could include over 8,000 gaming fans who follow a popular gamer's YouTube space!

Authonomy's forums, which had settled down to a rather sedentary and boring repetition of every topic, from how you deal with POV (Point of View. If you don't know, don't bother. It's not critical to your life, believe me) to whether book titles that contain leopard testicles are saleable in today's market, have suddenly come alive and thrill to the sound of argument, contention and challenge - battle, even.

It's great. It's like an invasion of anarchists at an old people's home. Any half-decent anthropologist would get a thesis and at least two bacon sandwiches out of this lot.

But the influx of new voices has been too much for the site - authonomy has gone down, baby, a mere few thousand new readers has been enough to smack the servers for six and deny access to many, the site's up and down like a tart's knicks. (Well, it is Sunday and sysadmin Rik will be down the pub sinking a few nutty browns before dragging his weary arse into the laughter factory tomorrow morning.)

Meanwhile, I do heartily recommend nipping over and taking a look at the writers vs gamers debate - it takes me back to the late 1970s and, for me, that was a good time.

Oh what larks, Pip!

Books and Social Media

Some of you will know Dan Holloway, responsible for one of my favourite books on authonomy, Songs From The Other Side Of The Wall.

Dan's something of an intellect and given to visions of revolution. A talented, intellectual revolutionary is something of a rarity these days, I think you'd probably agree. Like many of us, confronted with the banal realities of modern publishing, Dan's been exploring alternatives and some of them may well start to define what we have been discussing (particularly over here at Lauri Shaw's blog) - the future of publishing.

Where Dan's particularly interesting is how he's experimenting with mulitiple media platforms - the book as a multi-threaded, collaborative experience rather than as a static, engraved achievement.

While Lauri has been making her most excellent book, Servicing The Pole, available for download a chapter at a time. Dan's gone further in that he is not only giving away his newest book, The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes, away on Facebook a chapter at a time, but is also allowing readers to contribute to the development of the plot. The novel itself dissects the real and unreal stories behind the creation of an iconic image.

So let's do some Dan-speak:

So, why? Literary anarchy or marketing gimmick?
In all honesty both. I have just finished editing my previous book, Songs from the Other Side of the Wall, which I expect to self-publish this summer. I spent a lot of time talking to people about how to market it, and the whole loss leader thing came up. On the other hand, the potential of the internet for bending fiction out of shape fascinates me. The web’s full of people trying to publish their novels in a new medium. There’s not many people trying to do something new. I’ve always loved the interplay between artist and audience you get in installation art – Sam Taylor Wood going to sleep in a glass box; Gilbert and George – well, being Gilbert and George. For me culture of any form is a process, it’s an interplay. The novel’s lost that. The internet gives us a chance to get it back – that immediacy and connection.

Have you found the process different from writing your previous books?
I’ve had two real revelations. The first is the way the novel itself relates to the virtual world I’ve built around it. Part of the site is devoted to news reports, snippets of biography, little teasers – these form a world in which the novel takes place. What that means is there’s a whole load of back story I just don’t need to put into the novel – it’s much leaner because so much is already known – or can be referenced elsewhere in the site. I can get on with the story – it’s funny. I’ve talked a lot in the past about how I hate the western novel’s slavery to story. I thought this would break that barrier. It’s actually ended up taking story to its tight logical conclusion. The second point is the way the two parts of the novel relate. There’s a lot of social commentary, political satire, stuff about art and celebrity. But there’s also a personal story – a man whose daughter went missing ten years ago. He’s on a journey both to find the real story behind this iconic image of a dead woman but to find his missing daughter, and to understand why some people are remembered forever while others are forgotten. Because the rest of the site has set the political tone, I don’t have to balance the two parts as I write – I can spend the early chapters drawing us right into the personal story that will keep the reader with me – and I don’t have to worry readers will think I’ve lost sight of the other angle.

So how far does the interactivity go?
Well there’s commentary – like you get on a DVD, podcasts, real time editing so people can see me changing my mind. Then there’s events – this is about an image – so I’m holding a contest to design the image – people can enter online or by flashmob – hand me their entry at the café in Waterstone’s Piccadilly 11am on April 21st.

It seems like you’ve approached this in a very calculated way. Is your heart really in the book itself?
At first I told myself it was but I may have been kidding myself. This started as an experiment. But because I’ve gone straight to the emotional heart, it’s actually become the most personal thing I’ve ever written. It feels like I’m baring my soul every day. I just love some of the characters. And they all go to some very dark places. And all of it without a break, with the constant pressure of a deadline, and only an hour a day actually to write in. It feels like I’m putting myself through a very public wringer.

Isn’t the whole thing a bit, well, mad?
Well, I don’t believe in clinical. I don’t get people who bury themselves in their study and won’t show anyone what they’ve done. If your art isn’t a two way thing it’s not art. It might be therapy, but it’s not art. Art makes you vulnerable, puts you on the line. It’s raw. Or it’s dead. Er... Like a shark in formaldehyde :)

So how do we keep up with the project?
You can go to the group The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes on Facebook. I’m also Twittering all my updates there – you can follow the agnieszkasshoes Twitter. And if you get lost just steer from my website.

What next?
A break? In a month or so one of my writing groups, The Bookshed, is bringing out an anthology, Short Fuses – an incredible collection of cutting edge shorts. This autumn sees the release of the first set of books from Year Zero Publishing, a hugely exciting, edgy collective of writers I’m part of – and which you, Mr McNabb, are also playing with.

I’m expecting Songs from the Other Side of the wall to be one of the first Year Zero issues. Next year’s book will either be a body-swap I’ve been working on (a Chinese girl who’s an only child and a Polish boy who’s an identical twin), or a book I’ve always wanted to right about an affair between a 50 year old woman and her 18 year-old student. Either way I’ll always keep up the book a year. If you can’t wait for any of that, you can read one of my shorts, Coastlines, about a Spanish civil servant’s affair with a Chinese businesswoman, in the anthology “Great Short Stories from Youwriteon.com Writers”, which is available from Amazon.

Harsh

As another round of writers pass the authonomy 'top five' test, one of the books that passed out last month received an unusually harsh spanking from Harper Collins' editor.

Remember one of my points was 'respect'? That I was annoyed at HC's 'one way' communication and its faceless editors? Well, imagine how you'd feel having put your work in front of 4,000 people so that an anonymous jerk with the backing of a major corporation could write:

"...stands out from the crowd of Authonomy proposals; not necessarily through its content or writing, however, but through the high status its author is held in within the Authonomy community."

So it only got there through the writer's popularity? That starts the girl off well, doesn't it? And then we go on:

"I don’t honestly believe that Seeing Red is a great work of science fiction."

At least that's honest, if a tad brutal. But then you can't really get into the writing thing unless you're up for a bit of brutality. I mean, all editors are brutes, no?

"Seeing Red’s take on science fiction is naïve and simplistic..."

Oh hang on. Aren't we being a bit, well, unnecessary here?

"The world of SF...has moved far on from cheesy concepts expressed in this book"

Note the missing definite article. The editor can't spell 'found', either.

"...the settings are straight from central casting."

Our hero goes on to have a right old go. Get this - and do imagine this was your hard work, voted to the top by something like 500 people on the site who have said, essentially, that they would buy it if it were on sale:

"Of course, there is nothing wrong at all with referencing the styles of older pulp novels – they may be the equivalent of B-movies but at their best can have a tremendous joi de vivre and embrace some truly mind-boggling concepts. But I do not believe that the intention here was to deliberately pastiche that sort of science fiction to make a particular point or create a specific effect."

And this from a patronising, condescending goon that can't even spell 'Joie de vivre'!

But the real kick in the head comes last. Remember, this is supposedly from an editor at one of the world's largest and most powerful publishing houses, so carries unusual weight:

"I cannot see any science fiction imprint picking this one up for publication."

This is Patty's reaction to it. I don't think she's gone far enough, but there you go: Patty’s blog…

Bookworm

If any of you have been at all interested in any way whatsoever about the stuff I've been posting regarding Harper Collins' authonomy, then you might be interested in this guest post on Eoin Purcell's blog.

Everyone else can just carry on as normal. There's nothing for you to see here. Move along, now. Move along.

Not what it says on the box

Some may remember the mad, frenetic dash to get my first book, Space, to the top of the pile over at Harper Collins' authonomy peer-review writers' website.

The rationale behind authonomy seemed simple enough. Using language like 'Publishing contract, anyone?' (that language has since changed, incidentally, to 'Get Read. Get Noticed. Get Published'), authonomy allowed writers to post up some, or all, of their books and then solicit votes from other users of the site. The more votes you get, the nearer to the top of the pile you get. And if you are a 'top five' book at the end of the month, your book is forwarded for review to a Harper Collins editor.

Now Harper Collins is a huge publisher that doesn't even look at unsolicited, unagented manuscripts. And most unpublished writers would chop off their left legs to get their work in front of an editor (it's a date!) at a publishing house as powerful as HC. The expectation is that if your book's any good at all, you'd get asked for a 'full read' (heavy petting) or even get through to negotiating a contract (you're smoking a fag together by now).

But it turns out that HC was just teasing. I got to the top of the pile thanks to the support of a huge number of people, many of whom were genuinely impressed and amused by, and liked, my book. I enjoyed myself immensely doing it, by the way.

Like other people who've made it to 'the editor's desk', I put a huge amount of effort into it. And don't get me wrong - I've learnt a huge amount from the experience and made some really cool contacts and pals as a result. So for that, I can only thank HC for the site.

But the HC review of my book (next to the gold star on the book page) was slapdash and odd. And many other writers who'd got to the top of the 'greasy pole', as some called it, got the same feeling. Now, over 25 chart-topping reviews, five months, into the exercise, HC has not asked for ONE full read from a writer whose book reached the top, let alone taken anything further to any degree.

Yesterday, HC sent me a note offering me the chance to put my books up as POD (Print on Demand or Publish on Demand) books on authonomy. Soon, according to the email, all books on authonomy will be available as POD books but for now only 'a few early adopters' have been offered the opportunity - and a 'gift' of the first 10 books free.

Working with blurb.com, authonomy will add a button to each book's page, which currently allows you to read the book, watchlist the book or back the book. They'll add 'buy the book'.

Which potentially means that the whole exercise was purely about populating a new POD site with a community of unpublished authors who can now upload their books to sell them, at an unusually expensive cost to the author per book (limiting the profitability for the writer), to people who come clicking to the site.

This was arguably never about publishing contracts or talent spotting. It was never about 'Beating the Slushpile', as authonomy claims in its graphics and claimed in its original 'blurb'. It was about creating a POD site so that Harper Collins could hedge its bets against the 'new revolution' of Internet based publishing and digital publishing.

Worse, the exercise exposes some interesting values from HC and its approach to social websites. At no stage did it share its roadmap with the writers populating the site. At no stage did it seek our input, advice or approval. It just rolled out what it was giving us and we were expected to be pathetically grateful to receive it. All the way to the offer to become a POD book and sign away our rights in return for being part of a huge publisher's experiment.

Many of the writers I know on authonomy are disappointed, upset and angry at the move. It's not why we went there (there are established and, from a profit sharing point of view, better POD sites out there) in the first place. And people feel that while it's maybe not been directly dishonest, HC has hardly been transparent about its intentions for the site and the writers (some 3,500 and more) who have put their work on it.

And HC certainly hasn't been inclusive at any level - in fact, it communicates with the people on the site either through a sysadmin's alias ('Rik') or the alias 'authonomy'. We've never seen people - even the editors who review the books are anonymous. I'm sure HC thinks its being terribly funky and Web 2.0, but it's not. It's missed the first rule of these types of engagements with a community. Foster a community, be part of a community, engage with the community.

HC hasn't, because it doesn't respect that community enough. Lets face it, we're just wannabe's on the slushpile anyway. But I rather feel that it might just find that community pushing back a little now. Many people have had enough of being treated like the carvers in front of Gormenghast - even more so when it's become clear that the Groans don't want any of our carvings.

Someone on the site asked recently, 'Is authonomy a con?'. I'm afraid my answer is 'yes', I feel it rather has been.

PS: HC asked that I keep their offer to myself for the moment. I don't feel able to respect that request.

PPS: Authonomy-topping author Dan Holloway's manifesto for changing publishing is here. It's got some good thinks in it...

Critical

Well, this is a turn up for the books - I've been criticised!!!

Was just on the way out of the door last night to have a few jars with a pal when up popped an email from Harper Collins' authonomy, the would-be author's peer-review Web 2.0 gadget thingy, saying that my 'crit' from an HC editor was ready.

For those who were interested, kind, supportive, curious and generally wonderful about the whole authonomy thing, my heartfelt thanks to you all.

For those who would like to see what HC said, it's here. They didn't take any of the books that came top 5 this month as, indeed, they haven't taken any book that's topped out on authonomy so far. Having said that, the journey has taught me much and I'm deeply glad I did it.

Normal service will now be resumed.

authonoblog

OK.

I said I'd done posting about authonomy, the Harper Collins social networking slushpile writer's group peer-review website thingy. And I lied.

In about 10 days I'll get my very own crit from an HC editor, which will be nice. Not really expecting 'We love you, here's a contract' so much as 'Nice, tidy it up'. We'll see.

Meanwhile, this is the last 10 days of the current month at authonomy, and a number of smart, talented people are now hoping for their own 'top out' moment on the editor's desk. I'd like to recommend you pop over and take a read of these books then add them to your bookshelf so that they get the backing.

There's a lot of debate about this, but one of the things I find so neat about authonomy is the possibility of a new egalitarianism in literature: we're getting to choose the kinds of book we'd like to read from a sample of raw work. There are over 3500 books on authonomy and getting to the top of the pile is some achievement.

Some of you guys were kind enough to help me do it: take a look at these little marvels and see if you agree with me that they should be in bookshops!!!

The Voices of Angels is young adult fiction from Spain-based expat Hannah Davis. It's a magical wee book, about a girl called Lizzie who can see people 'marked' with their own imminent deaths. Her parents send her to stay with her grandmother in Andalucia where she discovers that the veil dividing this world and another, more infinite existence, is so thin that she can walk through into infinity.

Songs from the Other Side of the Wall is an amazing piece of literary fiction, a book whose author is able to paint with language, creating masterpieces of precise word-pictures, colours and wordscapes that have you reading for the sheer joy of consuming Dan Holloway's writing. It's the story of a girl whose lover is killed and who reconnects with her estranged parents, finding love and redemption as she rebuilds her life.

Carry Me Away by American journalist and editor Robb Grindstaff is the story of Carry, a 'GenX biracial military brat' who lives her life in the belief that she is going to die at 20. It's a remarkable portrayal of a young woman, brilliantly executed and deftly paced. It's a very 'American' book in its tone, dialogue and language. And it's eye-poppingly good.

Punchline by Paul Fenton will make you laugh. If it doesn't, you're dead.

Diary of a Small Fish is another very American book. Author Peter Morin has built a tense political thriller, with whip-crack dialogue and a nice cynicism that combines with, somewhere, just a little bit of heart. It's a damn good read, a sort of curl up by the fire with a glass of red sort of read.

Last, but not least, I have to mention Tybalt and Theo. Much beloved Dubai (and now Spanish) blogger Keith Williamson gives his own little spin to the financial crisis by building in a splendid time-shift and throwing in porridge-bowls of silliness. It's rushing the authonomy charts and currently sits at 25.

Did I say 'beloved'? Sorry meant malign hunchback misanthrope. Key got stuck or something...