“I don’t have a problem with fandom,” she says. “But I don’t think fans realise the pressure they put on authors. The very vocal ones can change an author’s next book, even an author’s career, by what they say on the internet. And writers are expected to engage and respond.” She pauses. “The internet is poison to authors.”
That view is probably best illustrated by another quote from her interview:
“There’s just too much stress on authors,” says the 37-year-old Swainston. She lives near Reading now, but grew up in West Yorkshire and she hasn’t lost her gentle accent. “The business model seems to be that publishers want a book a year. I wanted to spend time on my novels, but that isn’t economically viable.”
It seems that Swainston finds herself between a rock and a hard place. Fans demands on the one side and publisher expectations on the other.
Especially as:
Swainston decided partway through a two-book deal that she didn’t want to carry on, and has instructed her agent to negotiate her way out of the contract.
It can’t be a comfortable place for her to be in and hopefully a break from the publishing machine is exactly what she needs. Only time will tell I guess.
Though that doesn’t mean it’s over:
Hi, Salacus Fields. I am still writing, and it is still Fourlands, but it’s a very different philosophy and a tranquil approach, so there are no publications on the immediate horizon… Tomorrow’s article in the Independent on Sunday explains why.
I don’t think her experience or reaction is a universal one. Writing shouldn’t be therapy but it is often therapeutic. I should know I have a pile of poetry to prove it. Scott Lynch is a well known example of writers who have found the pressure of publishing to have severely effected them but only Scott knows underlies his condition. Another is G.R.R. Martin, who it has been pointed out, ‘Is not your bitch.’
Those are extremes – others don’t engage but do have a presence like China Mieville and others you can’t shut up on twitter like @SarahPinborough. I guess each writer has their own way of coping. Some writers like Mark C Newton who is passionate about green issues use their writing to promote agendas .
I must admit that I don’t hang out on forums so I don’t see too often the darker side of fandom and I tend to avoid the negative people you can run into but I do know it’s out there demanding blood and worse from writers. Though on the flip-side I see so many cheerleaders including me I guess that don’t go in for trolling on the whole.
I posted on twitter that maybe Swainston just wants to be loved? To which someone on twitter responded:
We ALL want to be loved But if you’re allowing fans to dictate books, you’ve lost the plot literally
Which brings us back to the title of this post. Your fans are fanatics by definition. We aren’t rational. We don’t consider the human behind the words. We mostly see you as a sausage factory. We are the worse people to take creative direction from. We want our book a year which we look to publishers to provide.
We aren’t anything but consumers. My advice to authors is only give away online what you are willing to lose.
EDIT
Actually Tom Pollock on twitter sums up what a writer is right here:
Don’t give ‘em what they want, make ‘em want what you give.
10 July, 2011 at 6:46 pm
I’m really sad on one level – Steph Swainston is a unique talent and I very much enjoy reading her books. But I also think that her decision highlights the fact that there are authors out there that are cracking under the pressure of having to put yourself ‘out there’.
Clearly, she doesn’t enjoy the give and take of discussing issues with her fans – and that doesn’t make her wrong, just someone who’d rather spend her time writing than chatting/clashing with fans.
And one book a year is a big ask when your writing is as densely textured and well crafted as Swainston. We’ve all read authors whose first books that they’d written & edited over a longer period of time was their best work, as subsequent novels were clearly rushed. Let’s hope that she enjoys teaching and manages to continue writing at her own pace and in her own way.
10 July, 2011 at 6:51 pm
Fingers X
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11 July, 2011 at 6:29 am
When I think of one book a year, I think of Dean Wesley Smith’s articles on that topic. Even a huge 300K book with 3 rewrites/major revision would only require a few hours a day, which I could understand if the author has a day job, family and other commitments, but if the author is a full-time author, one book a year doesn’t seem like a lot of pressure to produce.
11 July, 2011 at 10:53 am
But then you have writers in SF like William Gibson who write reasonably slowly with a book every three or four years, but the time usually justifies the wait. And then there are other, “literary”, writers who supplement their writing with teaching and reviews that take longer.
Writing two books a year is great if you want genre sausage, it isn’t really a workable strategy if your focus is more towards consistent, as Gav says, art. Not every person aims to write huge piles of epic fantasy or media tie in fiction. Writing one book a year with that aim is possible, but if, like Steph Swainston, you want to have a life outside of writing probably gets quite hard to balance.
When did M John Harrison last have a book published?
11 July, 2011 at 9:22 pm
Good points and good examples, Gav. I’m a reader, not a writer, but if I were a writer, I think I’d prefer to have written in the pre-internet days. The internet gives writers a great outlet for self-promotion, but introverts (like me) may find the expectations and demands to be much too stressful.