Authors Electric

Self-publishing, at least to any author who takes it even remotely seriously, has always  The Quickening by Mari Biella raised a host of questions. Where and how to distribute? What price, if any, to charge? Is KDP Select exclusivity a good thing or not? How can I best construct a well-edited, well-formatted, professionally-produced book, given my limited funds? How can I market my book, if I can bear to do so at all? These are all questions that we all ask ourselves, of course, and it’s essential that we do so. One thing that has received altogether less attention, though, is the question of author ethics. It’s a question that needs addressing, as two recent news items have proved. One author openly admitted stalking someone who gave her a bad review (in an account that was duly published by a national broadsheet, no less); another allegedly assaulted a woman who wrote a lukewarm review of his book. Nor is this solely an issue amongst self-publishers, as one of the...

          A writer is someone who writes. Seems easy doesn’t it? But, at what stage do writers become professionals? Not so easy. Is it when they write their first article, story, novel, or book? Or is it tied to publication? And if it’s tied to publication, what kind of publication? Does publication in magazines count? What about online magazines? Does it have to be a book? And what about e-books? Do you have to be published by one of the Big Six to be recognised as a professional author? In my opinion that would be a bit restrictive. So, should this be extended to other publishing houses who are not part of the Big Six? And what about the multiplicity of independent publishers (Indies) that are springing up?           I started to wonder about this after chatting to the membership secretary of the CWA (Crime Writers Association) who indicated that the number of self published e-book auth...

Last year, Authoright took a big step towards concretising the changing publishing landscape by sponsoring an Author Lounge at the London Book Fair. That was a huge success, in terms of numbers at least, the room consistently sardined to the gunwhales. This year they have gone one further and launched the first ever London Author Fair (I was lucky enough to be asked to give a workshop on how to give killer talks, and collaborating with people from the other branches of the arts - you can download my notes and slides here ). Hosted at Covent Garden’s Hospital Club and mixing seminars and workshops, around 400 writers gathered together to hear industry leaders and innovators deliver a programme dedicated to putting writers, however published, at the heart of the publishing industry. Emblazoned across the venue under the visual of a fist that blended every shade of historic political activism, the Fair came together under the slogan “Writers Unite” (which was, of course, not just a sl...

A few weeks after I had my second child, short on sleep and high on anxiety, I woke up one morning and when I opened my mouth to speak, found that only gibberish came out.  The link, between what I was saying in my brain and what came out of my mouth, was broken.  I was utterly terrified.  Exhaustion - the doctor said - what you need is sleep.  So, a couple of pills were swallowed, baby, feeding bottles, and toddler were handed over to a panicky 'What do I do now?' father, and then I slept for 14 hours straight, woke for a drink and then slept again.  The following morning, my voice was back in its normal place, the tongue articulating what the brain dictated.  But I've never forgotten what it was like not to be able to communicate. Since then, I've been a compulsive communicator.  And compulsive is the word.  In fact, there's a label for it and I think it ends in 'aholic', and has nothing to do with the amount of wine I drink (though, on the...

When you enter any trade fair you're handed all sorts of leaflets, cards and magazines. The London Book Fair has a daily news sheet  The Bookseller Daily . On the first day, this was the front page headline: Self-Publishing, Agency Under Debate "The future of self-publishing, the new agency model and the Penguin Random House merger will be the hottest talking points at the London Book Fair, industry figures predict. Self-published authors will have a greater voice at LBF than ever before, with agents and authors coming together for the LitFactor Pitch curated by AuthorRight, while the Alliance of Independent Authors celebrates its first birthday at the fair. Agent Luigi Bonomi said: "I think we're really moving into a very different world. To date it has been a reticence, a diffidence towards publishers by self-published authors, and vice versa, and maybe this year the Cold War between these two communities will be broken by the two sides meeting face to face, a...

2012 was my first year of epublishing. I began it by sending an email to Linda Gillard, whose example had inspired me. She kindly replied, offering me welcome advice, which included the suggestion that I might feel at home in a group called Authors Electric. I’d seen the website in 2011, another example which had inspired, so I sent off an email to AE, giving the same account I had given to Linda Gillard, about my writing history and experiences with literary agents and publishers over a number of years. I was invited to join AE and, at first, throughout February, I was convinced that this had happened by accident or misunderstanding. Yes, I’d been published by Picador and Vintage, but only single short stories at a time, never a book. Yes, I’d been represented by more than one literary agent over the years, but they had never succeeded in selling my work! I was convinced throughout February, as I waited for my first March 11 th blog slot, that Authors Electric only a...

It’s spring and that means we’re entering the fabulous fun of festival season. It might be a Glastonbury-free summer but the literary world will be steaming full ahead through Hay and beyond. It’s the time when the public get to meet their heroes, and get to find new heroes. When they’re introduced to the whole smorgasbord of literary everythingness to take their pick for what to read in the year ahead. (the musician Jessie Grace at Not the Oxford Literary Festival) So as writers this is a doubly exciting time. It’s where we get to meet our public and to embrace the wonderful people who don’t yet know us and swaddle them in our fabulousness. Aren’t you bursting with anticipation? What’s that? You’re not going to a festival? You haven’t been asked? The sad fact is that if you’re a self-published writer or a spoken word poet festivals don’t want to know. It doesn’t matter what you’ve written, how brilliant it is, how many people love your work, what reviewers or anyone else think. If you...