“On Amazon, Dead Ever After has received 366 one-star reviews, compared with 124 five-star reviews. One reader described the ‘extreme disappointment’ they felt with the novel by pointing to a blog post claiming that ‘if Charlaine Harris had written the Harry Potter series, the end of Deathly Hallows would have Harry sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs with the spiders and no magic. While Voldemort would move in across the street, taunt him daily, and dispense life advice.”

(Via: Charlaine Harris threatened by fans over final Sookie Stackhouse novel | Books | guardian.co.uk)

I think this comment says it all:

Does this remind anyone else of that novel/film Misery?

“Write a better ending or I’m going to break your legs, burn your entire novel and keep you here untill you make the ending I want”

Ross Anderson

This is poignant at it is a counterpoint to Star Trek Into Darkness that goes out of it’s way to give the fans what they want to complete its detriment (this link contains spoilers but I’ve left a comment explaining my thoughts with spoilers). It’s still an amazing blockbuster but doesn’t move Star Trek on. And that’s all I’m saying on that.

Back to Charlaine Harris. I’ve read A Touch of Dead, which is a collection of shorts based in Sookie’s world, but not explored further though I’ve had Dead Until Dusk gathering dust for a while. I’d rather read more of her fun cozy crime The Aurora Teagarden Mysteries series. But that’s a preference thing. I’ve done my vampires with Anne Rice and Poppy Z. Brite in my teenage years. I’ve read recently Charlie Huston’s take on vampires and enjoyed that too. What I’m basically saying is that I’m not invested in this 13 book series but if I was would I feel that Harris should have provided a ‘happy ever after’ ending?

My first thought was well that’s a shame. It’s always nice to get that payoff. But life isn’t like that. I don’t know what threads that Harris has been weaving and whether that would be doing the story a disservice. I trust Harris knows exactly what her story needs and it wasn’t a happy ending then so be it. The story is the first priority and the only priority unless you can add little nods and winks and crowd pleasing things that enhance the enjoyment.

There are writers who tell stories by numbers but good on Charlaine Harris for not being one of them. It’s just a shame that some ‘fans’ only see her as a sausage factory.

Are you influenced or engaged? Are you an influencer or an influencee?  I’m pondering this because Alan Bowden aka @wordsofmercury used the phrase ‘The Anxiety of Influence’ in a twitter conversion earlier today, though he was referring to The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry by Harold Bloom, I didn’t quite twig that at the time but it got me thinking nonetheless about what could described as ‘social reading’ and if it’s healthy.

I have a vested interest of course. I’ve been blogging about books for almost 8 years. I’m engaged on twitter with amazing book lovers and I record a nice chat with Simon for a book based banter podcast as well as writing the occasional blog post.

I’m sharing my love of reading and books (paper or electronic) constantly. I guess you’d call me an influencer but I’d rather say engaged.  Mostly as I’m influenced by those around me. I am not a maverick reader. I don’t read obscure books. I read, mostly, popularist fiction. How do I know it’s popularist? Mostly because when I mention a book I don’t get a ‘WTF is that?’ as a response.

I also read in a genre, SF&F, that is in constant conversion with itself (see Speculative Fiction 2012: The Best Online Reviews, Essays And Commentary for some brilliant examples of just that). You can’t get away from being influenced. Well you could disengage from ‘social reading’ but then you’d miss out on the myriad of ways that it is a positive thing; you can find out what others thought of the book you liked/loathed, you can find recommendations, and you don’t miss ‘hot’ books.

And here is where we come to ‘anxiety’. @Gollancz aka Simon Spanton gave a good example:

The race to ‘have read’ is a pitiless and destructive thing. Re-reading is not only a profound pleasure, it is good and valuable too.
https://twitter.com/Gollancz/status/330376124175638528

That’s influence at work in a negative way. I’m certainly guilty of being anxious of ‘not having read’. I’m writing this post right now when I have a book that needs reading sharpish and I want to be cracking on with the afore mentioned Speculative Fiction 2012 (I’m trying to influence you to read it right now) and The Science of Discworld (the first one though the fourth one has just come out, which has influenced me to read the first one properly this time).

There is also ‘keeping up with the Jones’s’ when you’re involved in ‘social reading’ you see all these amazing books coming out that you could feel anxious about missing out and are desperate to keep up. I’ve long since stopped trying to keep up though the guilt and anxiety of not ‘keeping up’ hasn’t gone away.

I hope I strike a balance between engaging what is current and what I’m interested by. Though this implies that they are separate things. They’re not. I’m genuinely excited by what is current. There is buzz and hyperbole for sure that does move books up and down the TBR but this is the state of my home library:

@oliagent my shelves are such an eclectic mix of favourite authors, books to try, books I never thought I’d like but did and rarities
https://twitter.com/gavreads/status/330635399074566145

If I posted a list of all the books I hope they’d say these are Gav’s shelves rather than these are a generic SFF fans shelves. Though with the crime, lit fic, odd YA, poetry, non-fic and cookbooks I’d hope that was even more unlikely. Maybe making a list of my favourite novels would be more convincing? But I’m obsessing.

And that’s the point of this post: obsession and reading and what you’ve read and what you’re going to read and if they are your choices or if they’re not why and how are others influencing what you read?

There is one concern, which focuses on blogging, and that is homogenisation. Another example of anxiety of influence as well as being too influenced. There are books out there for everyone but it’s worrying when one person loves all the books seemingly without distinction.

I guess where this post has ended up is that you (me) want to give and takie from the circle of engagement rather than feeling your not being you through your reading even when you are (and you are aren’t you?)

The British Library keeps popping up over the last few weeks and one thing that really got me excited is there new exhibition:

Murder in the Library: An A-Z of Crime Fiction runs 18 January – 12 May 2013

Classic locked-room mysteries, tales of murder and mayhem in quaint villages or gritty adventures on mean city streets.

Crime fiction, which currently accounts for over a third of all fiction published in English, holds millions of people enthralled. Murder in the Library will take you on a fascinating journey through the development of crime and detective fiction, from its origins in the early 19th century through to contemporary Nordic Noir, taking in the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the first appearance of Miss Marple and the fiendish plots of Dr Fu Manchu along the way.

 There have been some happy visitors:

“The exhibition is made by such weird and wonderful artefacts. Each one speaks of the simple joys that the genre has brought. They remind you that people both large and small have been thrilled by crime writing, a great leveller. Murder in the Library made me smile on an otherwise bleak midwinter day.”

(Via: Murder at the British Library » Spectator Blogs)

 So I’m definitely going there when I’m in London at the end of February. 

And then we have their sound archive gathering togethers hours and hours and hours of interviews with various writers: 

“The Writing Life: Authors Speak podcasts

Sarah O’Reilly, project interviewer for Authors’ Lives writes:

Extracts from the oral history collection Authors’ Lives have recently been published on a 2-disc CD, ‘The Writing Life: Authors Speak’. One of the most difficult tasks in putting the CD together was to boil down the hundreds of hours of interviews we had in the archive into two 70-minute CDs. And seeing as those interviews covered all aspects of the writer’s life – from what may make someone grow up to be a writer, to their experience of the writing process and the things that inspire them, to the changes they may have witnessed over the last half century to the way in which books are written, published and read – we had a job deciding which aspect of the writer’s life the CD should focus on.

In the end we felt that a CD which could shed some light on the creative process would be of most interest to listeners, and the most straightforward way of handling the heterogenous material within the collection. Because though we may know as readers what it is to live with (or should that be through?) a book, we probably don’t know much about the writer’s experience of the creative process, let alone their values, inspirations and perceptions of their craft. And how much do we understand about the way in which a writer’s life may be put into the service of their work? We hope ‘The Writing Life: Authors’ Speak’ will shed some light on these mysterious areas.

A BL podcast on ‘The Writing Life: Authors Speak’ can be found here.  To hear three interviewees – Philip Hensher, Hilary Spurling and Michael Frayn – discussing their writing lives in a recent event in the Library Conference Centre, click here.  The interviews within the Authors’ Lives archive can be browsed on the Sound Archive catalogue by searching with the collection reference number C1276.”

(Via: The Writing Life: Authors Speak podcasts – Sound Recordings)

I’m also keen to hear their British Writers and American Writers CDs to hear the voices of authors that are no longer alive to get a sense of their voice and personality. 

I’m lucky to speak to various authors on the podcast and hearing what they sound like and how they speak is always a revelation. 

And whilst browsing I came across this:

Female Detective: The Original Lady Detective, 1864

Typical of detective fiction of its time, Andrew Forrester’s book features various cases narrated by Miss Gladden, or ‘G’ as she is also known. Her deductive methods and energetic approach anticipate those of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, and she can be seen as beginning a powerful tradition of female detectives. ‘G’ uses similar methods to her male counterparts – she enters scenes of crime incognito, tracking down killers while trying to conceal her own tracks and her identity from others.

‘G’, the first female detective, does much physical detective work, examining crime scenes, looking for clues and employing all manner of skill, subterfuge, observation and charm to achieve her ends. Like Holmes, ‘G’ regards the regular constabulary with disdain. For all the intrigue and interest of the stories, little is ever revealed about ‘G’ herself, and her personal circumstances remain a mystery throughout. But it is her ability to apply her considerable energy and intelligence to solve crimes that is her greatest appeal, and the reappearance of the original lady detective will be welcomed by fans of crime fiction.

I’ve never head of ‘G’ though I’m a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes. Has anyone read it?  From the Amazon reviews it seems it’s better seen has an historical document rather than a book to enjoy for pleasure. I’m curious nonetheless. 

Are you a British Library fan? What’s your must see?

As part of ‘it’s complicated’ (see Thanks For All The Fish) I did say I wouldn’t stop blogging or recording The Readers and I’m not. The Readers is my weekly chat with Simon and I enjoy that immensely, so that’s def not changing, but the blog and tweets will probably be sparse and sporadic for a few weeks. I’m craving just reading without broadcasting it for a bit.

 ”For my work at The Guardian I spend a lot of time looking at new books, and I’ve gone out of my way to look at new books by indie published writers. And my conclusion has been that the vast majority of independently published writers aren’t ready. The books aren’t ready and their authors aren’t ready either in most cases. Nonetheless indie publishing is now an established route in to professional writing for those who are ready. So how do writers know when they are ready?”

(Via: 7 signs you are ready to self-publish (a checklist) | Damien G. Walter)

If you’ve read my Reasons Why We Reviewers Won’t Read Your Self-Published Book post you might want to read this one too

We are still coming to terms with writers not only being able to self-publish but being able to get those words easily to anyone with an Internet connection and reading device or a postal service.

In other words, you can write a novel, novella or shopping list and get it out in the world with very little monetary investment. And it doesn’t even need to be as an eBook as physical print-on-demand has gone from strength to strength.

And readers are responding to this availability of gatekeeper-free material by supporting those writers with sales. Though as we saw the other day those sales may not replace a full- or even part-time job.

One thing that just isn’t happening for self-published authors on a large scale is breaking into the various circles of critics and reviewers, of which I’m one.

Now, when I posted Where do authors get their validation in an age of self-publishing? I touched on but didn’t fully address why I don’t review self-published fiction (though I read and buy a lot of self-published non-fiction) so I thought I’d come up with a list. Not all these reasons are mine but are indicative of the issues.

I’m going to use ‘we’ as I think this list is more universal than personal though I’m sure people will let me know if it’s just me.

We don’t know who you are.

This is a biggie and probably the toughest as it’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy due to the gatekeeper nature of the circles of critics and reviewers.

Logically, there should be no good reason why independent critics/reviewers (e.g. those who blog about books) don’t feature a wide range of books from different sources. Self-published to big six can easily get review copies out there in some sort of form. So it’s not availability. It’s from the reasons for this post. So I’m going to come back to it at the end.

We don’t know how you’ll react.

The erratic behaviour of the author mentioned in Where do authors get their validation in an age of self-publishing? is a strong illustration of why we don’t read self-published authors. We don’t have a firewall between us and the writer. Books from publishing houses that don’t have any self-published books give a level of detachment between what we write and the reaction we’ll get. Sure, publishers don’t want negative reviews but they do need to know if they are publishing something that isn’t selling because it’s awful or because it’s good but not reaching the audience. Publishing is a crap shoot.

We’ll feel guilty when we don’t read it.

We have the best of intentions on reading books we agree (and in some cases begged) to look at and on those we get sent by publishers unsolicited (though even then some of those don’t fit our tastes). It is however physically impossible. And publishers are realistic. I’m sure they are disappointed and do calculate the returns on their investment in certain reviewers and in sending out books from certain authors to certain people. But that’s why they have marketing and PR departments to balance those risks with the chances of books catching imaginations and starting word of mouth, which is second only to money in raising awareness of books (see back to we don’t know who you are.)

But if we’re approached directly we may have to explain why we haven’t read your book. A book you’ve invested hundreds of hours of your life writing, then spent more time talking to us about and getting us to agree to read, only for us to come back with some lame excuse like ‘real life got in the way’ or ‘I got this much better book’.

We know you’re not going to generate hits.

We have several and varying different reasons for spending hours of our free time, and reviewing books that aren’t going to attract anyone is a serious consideration for some bloggers. Have you noticed how many reviews of the new Hilary Mantel there are? Everyone likes to be popular unless they are going for underground cult status, I guess. You see, a popular book will attract hits from people who already know about a book and those searches will get redirected to a blog (your blog) and they might come back. It’s ‘buzz’ content. So you might get bumped up the rankings when that big buzz book lands.

I’m breaking my ‘we’ voice for a second as I’m been blogging far to long to solely chase hits but doesn’t stop me from being tempted.

We don’t read cute bunny love stories set in Ancient Rome…

… or whatever genre you’ve written in.

Now this one is odd. You’ve gone through all that self-motivation to put your work into a package that you consider is something worth paying for and then you start trying to sell it to someone who doesn’t read the type of book you’ve written. Again, it goes back to ‘we don’t know who you are’ but not only that, you’ve also wasted our time and yours. We see the dilemma: you make a connection with us and we probably won’t review it anyway, and if you spam us we might not read it either but it’s got our attention, so why not just spam us and save yourself some time?

With bloggers especially it isn’t always about the fixed reviews on their websites. It’s about the conversations that happen elsewhere. You’re planting that seed of awareness. You know of the phrase ‘all publicity is good publicity’ – well, being negative is not a route I’d recommend btw as it’s a small world – but publicity is about getting out there. Something publishers pay a lot to make happen.

But even that is not enough as their writers are also being asked to promote themselves more. You can no longer write a book and let your publisher do all the work. It’s easy for most books that aren’t by established names to get buried. And even those can fade away if they don’t have fuss made when they come out.

We don’t understand why you don’t like what you’ve written enough to introduce it professionally to the right readers, readers who have published their taste over many, many blog posts for you to see what kind of books they like.

We know it’s going to be rubbish

Call it a sixth sense or sense of smell or culmination of years of experience but wherever it comes from it’s not usually wrong. We can tell if someone is worth reading and of a professional standard after a few pages though even then it might not be good. Or a book we want to read or enjoy but at least we won’t be foaming and ranting within a second of settling down. Authors can be deluded. Self-published authors doubly so. Not only have you compiled your opus without being consciously aware that what you’ve written needs to be redrafted or thrown away as it’s obvious that you’ve not yet mastered the craft of storytelling to an engaging degree. But you’ve got an ego that makes you think that someone else will not see your flaws. The reverse in fact, that we will see your genius and wonder why you haven’t gotten a six-figure publishing deal. We don’t want to break your delusions – as mentioned we don’t know how you’ll react – but we won’t be guilty that we haven’t finished reading you and we are really sorry we now know who you are and hope never to read you again.

Now I know this is full of sweeping generalisations and I’m sure there are exceptions to every point raised but if self-publisher writers want to be ‘taken seriously’ by those that have ‘respected opinions’ they are going to keep coming up against the default opinion that the quality of their work isn’t going to be as good as those books that have been through agents, editors, publishing committees, copy editors, book buyers for retailers – most of whom they have needed to get past in order to get published.

In other words reviewers/critics should never be the first people to give feedback on a work. Neither should your friends or relatives unless they are also able to be professionally critical to a high enough standard.

This all sounds a bit negative though it’s meant to be realistic, as harsh as that sounds. And at some point I want to do a post on ‘why we should review self-published authors’ though I’m struggling beyond; we’re missing out on some great stuff, but wading through all the slush to get there doesn’t seem a fair exchange.

Comments?

If you’re only staying for the one post you may want to also read  Thoughts: Where do authors get their validation in an age of self-publishing? which is a sort of prequel to this post. 

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Half the respondents failed to reach $500 in royalties in 2011, and a quarter of the books are unlikely to cover the direct costs of production. “Sobering” news, wrote Cornford and Lewis. “Who’d come back for more?”

Stop the press: half of self-published authors earn less than $500 – the guardian

But if you’re traditionally published you are made for life right? 

You think writers live in garrets? Think again. Carl Wilkinson introduces the Millionaire’s Club, an exclusive band of authors whose books have sold more than a million copies.

The Millionaire Authors’ Club – The Telegraph

And it’s not as many as you think. 68 authors (some of non-fiction) in the UK have sold 1million copies since 1998.

Of course there is a middle ground – authors on average according to The Telegraph – made £4000 a year in a UK.  

Also see: 

Not a Gold Rush – The report of the Taleist Self-Publishing Survey 2012
Self-publishers fail to earn a fortune shock!