Indie Novella Alternative Book Fair

 

The four books I purchased at the Fair

I confess my writing room is a complete mess, but my beloved laptop is back home and I am overjoyed. Finally, I can to send out submissions (all poetry so far) and access everything easily and quickly. Despite its quirk of black screen now and then (not done it once so far), it is intermittent and will recover from any crash. It's now up to me to keep everything saved elsewhere as backup.

In other news I attended the Indie Novella Alternative Book Fair a couple of Saturday's ago. Held in Islington Central Library, there was a lovely hall for talks (a theatre with staged seating) and a room upstairs where indie publishers were around to chat to and where they had books for sale. I came back with four!

The first talk was by Andrew Hayward from Penguin (retired). His talk on the History of Publishing from 1399 to the present day was fascinating. He was full of facts and figures as well as anecdotes. He said that we had lost 20% of libraries by 2010/11 and 85% of buying loss. I made copious notes during the talk, if I can understand them!  

By 1399, people spoke English as we would recognise it today, but it wasn't standardised until 1490 and was known as Chancery Standard. The Caxton Press was the beginning of book printing in 1477. Nine thousand copies of the Bible were printed by Thomas Cromwell and these were chained in churches so they wouldn't be stolen. Other important books that came early were The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer, The Iliad by Homer and Revelations of Love & Devine by Mother Julian.

Back in the day, Paternoster Square (by St Paul's) had booths selling books and pamphlets. The Cambridge University Press is the oldest publisher, followed by Oxford University Press. Shakespeare added 1500 new words to the English Language. The emergence of the English novel was around about 1675-1750 with Robinson Cruso and Gulliver's Travels. Samuel Johnson's English Dictionary was published in 1755, but I can't think of that without remembering Blackadder when Baldrick threw the pages of the dictionary on the fire!

Publishers in those days were John Murray (Shelley, Bryon & Jane Austen), Collins, Thomas Nelson, A & Black, Constable (Sir Walter Scott) and Lutterworth. The best seller in 1806 was a cook book by Maria Blundel - A New System of Cooking. In the 1800's popular reading came in the form of Harper's and Ladies Treasury, as well as Penny Dreadfuls. 

Penguin Books were established in 1935, and they were the first people to see the mass market. These days most books shops have disappeared. Waterstones is owned by Daunt Books, but in turn have a Germany media company behind them. Everything has been swallowed by Amazon. 21% of all books are e-books, non-fiction represents 43.5% of books sold, 23% is fiction and 22% is children's books. Penguin is still top publisher and tops £3.8 billion.

So, there is a very brief history which I hope you find interesting. It was a mesmerising talk.

I didn't attend every talk, but I did attend the next one with three debut novel writers. They talked about their journey into writing and how they found publishing. Most had been on writing courses and found their way in through that. They talked about their books and then answered questions from the audience. Much as I would have liked to buy at least one of their books, I'd already spent my quota.

The final talk I attended was the publishing panel. Reps from Weatherglass Books, Dead Ink Books and Renard Press spoke about their companies. Whereas the Big Five publishing companies won't take any risk with publishing, this makes room for Indie Presses, who will. There was a discussion about what people are prepared to pay for a book. The correct price, said one on the panel, should be £15 for a paperback because that is what it is worth. He compared it with what people are prepared to pay for two hours sitting in a cinema. I guess he had a point there when you think how many hours an author spends writing their book. It's a tricky one because we all want to buy as many books as we can (well, I do). 

The different Indie Presses are getting together to showcase their books and they often work together. It was said that they need to sell 1500 copies of a book for people to talk about it. Life is difficult in the world of Indie Presses. Since Brexit it has become costly to send books to Europe and this hasn't helped. Sales for Indie Presses is critical. That's how they survive. On a more positive note, they do not have to sell big numbers of your book to publish another by you, like the Big Five do. 

There feels to be a much more personal relationship here between Indie publishers and writers and we should do our bit to support them. Yes, the big publishers flood the market with books they feel we should be reading, but there's a lot of good books published independently and I would urge you to seek them out. Start by visiting their websites (links above for those I mentioned) and looking at the books they publish and purchase one. 

Upstairs, I spoke briefly to the man from Weatherglass Books. He was due to talk on the panel, so it was all a little hurried. I also spoke to a couple of other publishers. I came away from the fair fired up. It was a brilliant day and thanks to Indie Novella for organising and running the event.

Author Talk

Last night I attended an author event in a local library. The writer, Emma Burstall, who lives nearby came to talk about her new book Tremarnock, set in a Cornish seaside village. This is the first of a new series. I have to say I have never read any of Emma's books (I did look in my library for one but couldn't find any).

A crowd of six came together (so sad these things are not well supported) to hear Emma speak about her route to becoming a published author, her method of working and what she is currently doing (second draft of the next book!). She then read a short passage from Tremarnock and answered our questions. Of the six of us, two were men, one had written but said he wasn't writing at the moment, and one lady was contemplating writing a book. Emma happily answered my question about whether to pay for someone to do a professional read through of a manuscript. She advised trying agents first and see what feedback came (if any), then try a few more. If I had no luck she said it might be worth it. She was lucky and was picked up quite quickly.

Emma also answered a question on whether she used real people as characters and whether they recognised themselves. She said one woman was convinced a character was based on her....but it wasn't! We writers are not that stupid! I guess friends might think writers do that. We might take one thing from someone, but it gets mixed with other traits which come from others or are made up. And to be honest even the writer is in there somewhere!

Other questions included the choosing of words, dialogue, length of book, ideas and research.

I found the evening boosted me up and took away those negative feelings I've been having (too much time writing alone). These events are my lifeline and I was able to give some encouragement to the lady who was thinking about writing and wish her well. We all need these things, a few words of encouragement, either to get us going in the first place or to keep writing when the nagging doubts start to fester. A nice inspiring evening. Thanks Emma.

It's nearly all over....Winchester Writers' Festival

My room for the weekend

I am recovering after a very grueling day at The Winchester Writers' Festival. This should have been the easier day but somehow it ended with me feeling washed out and a headache borne out of lack of sleep over the days, information overload and two one-to-ones. But don't misunderstand me - I am exhausted but happy!

I arrived on a beautiful warm sunny Thursday and dragged my suitcase from the station to Winchester University and checked in somewhere around 3pm. Anyone who has been to Winchester Uni will know when I say that the accommodation is up a steep hill and through various parts of the General Hospital! There was no shuttle bus for Thursday arrivals so it was a walking job. Tough. A student also here for the weekend was trailing her case up the hill so we joined forces, ended up in the wrong building and some kind lady told us where our accommodation was.

I have to say, though basic, I love my room. I have a desk by the window - bliss - and I brought a few home comforts - kettle, tea bags, treats! After unpacking I headed off down into the City and to my favourite cafe, Eighteen 71, and had a cream tea. Then I went for a short walk along the river Itchen and sat for half an hour listening to it flow past. Second bliss of the day!

There was no dinner laid on that night but I had some food with me, so no problem. I headed over to the pub opposite where 'Thursday arrivals' were apparently meeting for networking. When I arrived I couldn't see anyone with badges. Then I spotted them all outside. There were no seats left and I'm afraid that out of my comfort zone (entering a pub on my own) I did a runner! I later found out I wasn't the only one to do that.

Friday was the masterclass I had chosen 'Polishing and Perfecting Your Finished Work' with Lizzie Enfield. Thank goodness I made notes because already I'm having difficulty remembering what we did! We looked at structure and plot, frameworks, viewpoint, themes, getting feedback, literary consultants and the final edit. We did some exercises including writing a bio about us and our novel in 50 words and writing two or three 'book club' questions about our novel. I learned a lot from it, while also confirming that some of the things I'm doing are right.

There were plenty of breaks for coffee and time to look at the book fair and all day one-to-ones were running. My first one-to-one came just after lunch. I was seeing Liz Bonsor from the Blair Partnership. Sitting outside the room where all the agents were was like sitting in the waiting room at the dentist. You could feel the tension! I thought I'd clam up and not be able to speak but Liz put me at my ease and I was amazed that she liked my writing. She suggested a couple of things and said when I was ready to send it out to agents to include her agency. I was on cloud nine and floated out of there. That alone made my weekend.

After dinner, where I met another great bunch of people, I went off to hear Julian Stannard read from his latest poetry collection The Street of Perfect Love (which I bought from the book fair) and Carole Burns from her book The Missing Woman.

Today was another early start with a nine o'clock keynote speech from Sebastian Faulks who was brilliant, amusing and informative. He pitched his talk so well for us writers and fledgling writers. After that there were a series of talks to attend. My first one was 'Do I Need A Literary Agent' with David Headley. It was interesting to hear what an agent actually did and how his agency works with writers to get the best deal. I should say that all the talks lasted about an hour. My next choice was 'Why I Won't Read Past The First Page of Your Manuscript' with Scott Peck. He was so funny but very informative, though many I think felt quite despondent afterwards! He was honest. Simple things like keeping to guidelines to me are obvious, but not to some it seems. Why make things even more difficult for yourself? It's bad enough without ruling yourself out from the start.

After lunch I had my one-to-one with Julian Stannard. I was more nervous about this than I expected. I'd hardly considered my poetry at the time because I was so keyed up about my novel. At first I wasn't altogether sure I really agreed with what he said. At times I felt he was trying to make me write they way he does, but there were other aspects I understood. He was quite radical and I wondered why no one had said these things before. I found his one-to-one more stressful and more personal, yet I felt I was really getting something here if I allowed myself to 'get over myself'! My first thought was I need to write differently, I need to 'massacre my babies'! It was all quite daunting and I left feeling I been through some traumatic experience. In fact my next talk was his, entitled 'Cut. Cut, Cut'. He knew I was coming! Disappointingly there were only five of us. Three then left to go to one-to-ones and the other person booked the talk thinking it was on editing fiction. I was the only poet there! Talk about stressful. Even so, it was good to do. Leaving there I got to my final talk 'Means to an End' with Adrienne Dines' on how you get from start to finish in a novel. I was struggling and longed to just come back to my accommodation and sleep! It was a good session though, well worth attending.

I wasn't longlisted in the poetry competition and as I hadn't opted for the big festival meal I took the shuttle bus back to my room and went to bed to recover! Not that I slept. I needed to think a few things through and get ready for tomorrow.

The masterclass tomorrow is 'Novel Writing: Planning for Success' with Simon Hall but I need some serious sleep, My brain won't switch off at night! However, I am so glad  I took the plunge and came here. I've met some lovely people and had a chance to discuss writing with like minded people which is so good. The authors and agents giving talks are so supportive.

I am wondering if when I get home (I leave straight after the masterclass tomorrow) I will even feel like writing for a while! However, I have started a complete re-draft of the poem Julian gave me feedback on. It was hard to cut all those lines!

Here are a few pictures of my time here:

Cream tea at Eighteen 71

Winchester University

River Itchen, Winchester

View from my window

My accommodation