Mark C. Newton's Road to Publication, parts I to III

Writing - image from SXC.HU Mark Charan Newton works for Solaris Books by day, and writes novels by night; his debut, The Reef will be published by Pendragon Press in March, and his agent John Jarrold recently secured a two-book deal with Macmillan UK - details posted over on UKSFBN - for a dark epic fantasy set in a world on the brink of a looming ice age.

Mark and I tend to exchange emails quite regularly - we're both huge Springsteen / Americana fans, so there's a lot of link-swapping of YouTube vids etc. - and we've been known to converse over the board of an online chess game from time to time.

Not so long ago, I suggested to him that his perspective as both an author and a publisher might offer a pretty decent insight into the whole publishing process for those as want to know such things. Maybe he might see his way clear to blogging about it?

'Alright.' he said. 'I will.'

And he has:

It's all very sane, sensible stuff (well, so far...) and well worth taking a look at if you're a newbie writer or wannabe published author.

February 23, 2008 | Filed Under Writing | 1 Comment

Daniel Abraham reports on the 'Epic fantasy Symposium'

Ed Ashby points me in the direction of some particularly interesting reading from the blog of fantasy novelist Daniel Abraham, whose debut Shadow and Betrayal [Amazon], the first part of The Long Price Quartet has recently been published in the UK by Orbit Books and is currently sitting on my to-be-read shelf, demanding my attention.

He's currently presenting the conclusions of a recent meeting-of-minds, dubbed the 'Epic Fantasy Symposium', that featured four and a half hours of conversation between George R.R. Martin, S.M. Stirling, Melinda Snodgrass, Walter Jon Williams, Ian Tregillis, Ty Franck and himself.

Plenty of deep thought (and food for more) on the foundations, tropes, characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of epic fantasy (note: epic fantasy specifically, as opposed to 'fantasy' as wider genre umbrella).

November 28, 2007 | Filed Under Writing | Leave a Comment

More follow-ups and reaction to the current 'quality fantasy' debate

UK fantasy author Joe Abercrombie has added his own thoughts on the topic, highlighting George R.R. Martin's ongoing Song of Ice and Fire series as a good example of how a concentrated, focused dose of innovation within a narrative that's structured on familiar fantasy themes and tropes can produce impressive results. As Joe says: "Epic fantasy is, in book terms, extremely successful and so it tends also to be conservative. But that doesn't mean you can't offer something new while still working within the form," and adds a few pithy thoughts on the non-desirability of too much innovation, which will do nothing to diminish his burgeoning reputation as a notorious potty-mouth...

Meanwhile, in the comments on my previous post, Mark Newton - of the UK's Solaris Books - points out the hard commercial realities afflicting the publishing industry at the moment, due to the mergers of various conglomerates into even larger super-conglomerates and the internal pressures that this generates, which he hopes will allow mid-list publishers - like, say, the UK's Solaris Books - to step in and offer a wider range of material to exactly those readers who are crying out for more than just the same-old, same-old.

And in the same thread, David Hebblethwaite wonders: "...how many writers of unchallenging fantasy actually do make a comfortable living from their writing? Are there any writers of good quality material who make a living; and, if so, what differentiates them from writers of similar stuff who do not?" Good questions. Any writers out there care to comment?

Also, SF Diplomat, pondering the issue further, asks whether the problem only applies to fantasy and why, indeed, that should be the case: "...why is it fantasy's job to be weird and different? Isn't the problem, from Harrison's perspective, that there aren't enough genre publications in general that are all that interested in The Other?" And he's rewarded in the comments on that piece with a visit from the man himself, who elucidates further on his original polemic: "To me, the very word 'fantasy' is what's at issue here, & my rant really asks the question, 'How do we bring the fantastic back to fantasy?' ... It's my contention that, by normalising and rationalising 'myth' and 'magic' the sub-genre you call 'non-weird populist' fantasy has become actually anti-fantastic. As a result, the appetite for the genuinely fantastic is less well served."

And finally, a certain Mr GBH Hornswoggler, Gent. is terribly, terribly bored by yet another debate on the death of quality genre fiction. Well dammit Mr Hornswoggler, but if we all spent as much time reading and writing blogs as you do then we'd all be just as well-informed and just as adroitly cynical about the whole jejune mess, I'm sure. But until that happy day, you'll just have to excuse some of us for being shallow... ;)

Mind you, our Mr H also makes a rather important point, opening with: "Insert my standard rant about the world primarily needing books that real readers will want to spend their own money on." Yes, this is exactly what we do need. As I posted in the comments thread back on Mr Chadbourn's original piece this morning: 'Without a receptive audience, any brave pioneers leaving the beaten track will run the risk of ending up in the literary wilderness - legends in their own literary lifetime, perhaps, but more than likely unable to sustain a decent income.'

So what we need to do is prime the readers to be more receptive to the sort of quality work that we're all pretty much in agreement here about wanting to see.

Again, more on that later in the week. Hopefully.

October 9, 2007 | Filed Under Writing | 5 Comments

M. John Harrison on his preferred flavours of fantasy

Just spotted - via Mark Newton of Solaris Books, writing on When Gravity Fails - that M. John Harrison has also been expressing his views on fantasy fiction recently. He's very clear on the subject of why he reads fantasy fiction, and what he wants - and definitely doesn't want - to experience when he does:

"When I read fantasy, I read for the bizarre, the wrenched, the undertone of difference & weirdness that defamiliarises the world I know. I want the taste of the writerâ€™s mind, I want to feel I'm walking about in the edges of the individual personality."

I agree wholeheartedly; in fact, the article as a whole neatly sums up the thoughts I was groping my way towards a while back (albeit far more eloquently, naturally).

Of course, being an immensely skilled wordsmith in his own right, M. John Harrison also writes for that same effect and as a result his work is incredibly intricate, and beautiful, and disquieting, and very weird, and sometimes just a little impenetrable and I'd heartily recommend it to anyone looking to push those aforementioned boundaries of their reading experience.

And yet - if I remember correctly from my bookselling days - I'm afraid his books just don't sell particularly well... which is a crying shame and exactly the sort of situation that needs to be turned on its head. But it does rather neatly illustrate SF Diplomat Jonathan McCalmont's point about the inherent problems with Mark Chadbourn's call to action.

Yes, if more writers moved towards writing the sort of fantasy that M. John Harrison both produces and appreciates, then we'd have a much richer and much more interesting literary landscape to explore, and this is altogether a good thing.

But given the currently prevailing business model in publishing, we'd also have a great many more writers who weren't able to earn an independent living from their work (that isn't meant as an inference or speculation on the state of M. John Harrison's finances or situation, I hasten to point out) or whose only outlet was the independent presses.

There would then be a great many more gaps in the mainstream market being filled by even more supermarket-fodder pap and the mainstream readers would still be sticking to what they know and still reading the same-old, same-old because that's all they have access to. After all, those big publishers aren't going to stop putting something out there, are they?

So, while I wholeheartedly agree with both Chadbourn and Harrison, I think McCalmont's argument is currently carrying the day: audience education is the key. More on that subject in a future post (time permitting).

October 6, 2007 | Filed Under Writing | 5 Comments

SF Diplomat responds to Mark Chadbourn

SF Diplomat Jonathan McCalmont posits an interesting twist on the point raised by Mark Chadbourn yesterday, by pointing out that the rot goes both ways: the tropes and stock characters of the fantasy genre are actually poisoning the well of wider-interest RPGs. It's difficult, he argues by way of example, to find a historical RPG that doesn't have some element of fantasy thrown in for good measure.

And in direct response to Mark's suggestion that fantasy authors need to innovate, Jonathan points out that there's an economic danger inherent in adopting too radical a stance: it's usually the readers themselves who demand stock fantasy and vote for it by way of their purchasing decision, so moving away from providing content for this market could prove financially damaging for the author:

"The problem here is that the vast majority of fantasy fans simply have no interest in innovation. If fantasy authors were to hear Chadbourn's rallying cry I suspect that the result would be a decrease in sales across the genre. The problem is not with the world of RPGs or lazy authors, it is the audience and until someone finds a way of evolving the tastes of that audience, the market will reward the writers who are able to pleasingly re-arrange old ideas and not those who present us with new ones."

Very good point, well made. Interesting to see how this one is developing. And I do have the inkling of an answer to his second point about how best to evolve the taste of the audience, but I'll need to work on it some more, I think...

October 6, 2007 | Filed Under Writing | Leave a Comment

Mark Chadbourn's call-to-action for fantasy writers

Just a quick note (as I'm still up to my eyeballs in work-related stuff) to flag up a very interesting post over on Mark Chadbourn's Jack of Ravens blog. It's about the changing landscape of the imagination, the changing role of fantasy fiction writers, and the challenge that fantasy writers face: of stepping out of the shadow of the RPG industry in all its multi-faceted forms and really pushing the boundaries:

"Fantasy authors need to find a new unique selling point. If they want to maintain their reputation as the elite of this field, they need to work their imaginations harder, start defining new territories, go to places that the gamers wouldn't (yet) dare to go.

"Who is up for that challenge?"

Damn good question. One I wish I had more time than I do right now to have a go at answering... anyone else want to chip in?

October 5, 2007 | Filed Under Writing | 1 Comment

Paul Raven on the Genre Ghetto

If you've been following the conversational thread that was kicked off by the On Fantasy... entry I posted the other day, you might also be interested to read Paul Raven's take on the 'Genre Ghetto' meme over at his Velcro-City Tourist Board blog.

Paul makes the very valid point that folks like us - genre fiction bloggers and blog-readers - probably have an overly-optimistic view of the health of the genre, as we're likely to be far more aware of the wealth of new talent on offer than the average genre book-buyer in the high-street might be.

And as it's the average etc. who gets to determine - through those all-conquering forces of supply and demand - just what gets published and therefore determines the availability and depth of the genre fiction field at high-street level, the question then becomes: how to avoid a situation whereby the interesting stuff published at the margins becomes marginalised even more, to the point of non-viability.

Paul argues for a more effective adoption of the technology available; which I totally agree with, hence all my recent talk of the need for increasingly sophisticated and trusted information filtering mechanisms (blogs, review websites, author recommendations of other author's work) to help the more discerning reader find the good stuff in the first place and then make an informed purchasing decision.

Paul also argues that:

"...mainstream publishing is a monoculture. Genre has always been somewhat of an independent annexe to it, and I think that in the long run its future survival is dependent on that becoming more the case than less...

He's saying that we dwellers-within should pick up the ghetto, carry it out of the city, then circle the wagons and start our own township out on the plains. Again, I'm all for that, although to be honest I was under the impression that this was pretty much happening already.

And I have always thought that there's far more mileage for genre publishers in concentrating on talking to genre readers and genre fans, than there is ever likely to be in any attempt to persuade some minute fraction of the mainstream readership to come on down to the ghetto they're so scared of and take a look around (we promise not to mug you while you're here - honest...) More on that in later posts, workload allowing.

Anyway, Paul's is a damn good contribution to the ongoing debate. Well worth a read.

May 23, 2007 | Filed Under Writing | 1 Comment

Horror fiction: the next big thing?

A recent article by Danuta Kean in the Independent Online's Enjoyment section forecasts healthy growth for the horror genre in 2007, following a good decade or so in the publishing doldrums.

The piece is very well researched and includes quotes from some of the biggest names from the publishing end of the UK horror field: Gollancz editor Jo Fletcher, Orbit editor Darren Nash, Waterstone's head buyer Michael Rowley and legendary horror afficionado Stephen Jones.

The article also thoroughly outs Joe Hill as the son of Stephen King (if you hadn't heard that one already) and highlights a number of forthcoming titles to watch out for.

It's a very good piece, well worth reading if you're at all interested in the future of the genre in the UK. Heads-up via Mark Chadbourn's Jack of Ravens blog.

February 8, 2007 | Filed Under Writing | Leave a Comment

Debut authors: has your novel got what it takes?

Ye Olde Typewriter by 'Robmania' via www.sxc.hu John Jarrold - editor, script doctor, literary agent and raconteur extraordinaire - has posted a fascinating insight into the approximate number of hoops that an editor working for a mainstream, commercial publisher sometimes has to jump through in order to get a new author into print, over on his TTA forum. (Worth noting: John does stress that this isn't the business model for every big publisher out there, just some of the majors.)

It makes for particularly fascinating reading, whether you're just generally interested in the machinations of the publishing industry, or a debut author who's wondering why that manuscript you submitted to 'ExWiZee Publishing Co. Inc.' didn't get picked up and published straight away and isn't flying off the shelves and into the bestseller lists already...

And the piece also highlights a significant area in which small and independent presses have an advantage over the majors: if the publisher likes a book and their gut instinct tells them it will sell, they can publish and be proverbially damned... just so as long as they have the resources to put it into print, of course; the obvious flip-side of the coin there.

February 1, 2007 | Filed Under Writing | Leave a Comment

Vandermeer on Writing

Author, blogger, raconteur and international playboy buccaneer Jeff Vandermeer has blogged the introduction to what I assume will be his forthcoming bestseller on the art of turning the mere written word into good, publishable, hard-cash earning prose: The Evil Monkey Guide to Creative Writing.

The Vandermeer. Would you buy a used galleon from this man? I wonder though... in amongst the pearls of wisdom on the craft of writing, will The Vandermeer also reveal the true secret of his success? For as well as being a superbly skilled writer, and one blessed with a truly warped and endlessly fascinating imagination to boot, Mr V-- is also a world-class self-publicist. And in an entirely good way, too.

Some folks, who shall remain nameless, seem to think that "Hey, look at me! No, me! Over here! I'm great, you must read my stuff, I demand that you do!" is the way to go. They inevitably fail. Jeff's approach is more along the lines of: "Well, here's what I write, I hope you like it. Oh, and here's a whole bunch of really entertaining and interesting stuff to go along with it. Come along for the ride. But hey, only if you want to. You do? Great! Come on in..."

I'm paraphrasing, yes, but you see the difference?

It's something that any writer who's truly interested in developing more than just a minor presence on the bookshelf (it's amazing how many debut authors seem to think that as soon as they've got that first title in the bookstores that's it, they've made it; it's amazing how many of them are wrong) would be well-advised to observer closely and learn from.

It's really not just about the writing these days, you know. Whether you like it or not, you have to have the marketing (and by that I don't just mean a bit of advertising, a few proofs / ARCs and a couple of press releases; that is such a twentieth-century attitude) to back it up. And who better to spend their valuable, scare time being genuinely enthusiastic and endlessly eager to talk about the good stuff that you do than... you?

But more on that later. In the meantime, go read that intro. Then go read some Jeff Vandermeer. You know you want to.

[Heads-up via the always informative FP Blog]

January 5, 2007 | Filed Under Writing | Leave a Comment