Oi! Publishers! Get a ****ing move on!!

Some time in the next three or four weeks the US paperback edition of what they call No Survivors (or The Survivor as it was titled in the UK) will finally be published, a mere three years after I started writing the damn thing and 27 months after I delivered it. In the middle of August, the UK paperback of Assassin will appear, almost 18 months after its delivery, and at roughly the same time as the first hardback editions hit bookshops in Germany and Canada.

Now, I don't wish to prejudice my relationships with any individual publishers, because there is no suggestion that mine have been any more dilatory or careless than anyone else's. My schedules are everyone's schedules. So the following question is addressed to the publishing industry as a whole, to wit: am I the only person in our business who thinks that these delays are, to put it mildly, f*cking ridiculous?

I can't speak for other thriller-writers, but I put a lot of effort into coming up with ideas that feel contemporary and if possible slightly ahead of the game. There are elements in Assassin, for example, that were quite original when I first conceived them, but have now passed into the realm of the everyday. That may, in some sense, be a good thing: readers won't have a hard time believing things they now know to be possible. But I have the lifelong journalist's love of speed: I want to get the story out as fast and as fresh as possible. I hate seeing my words decaying over time like piping hot gravy congealing into unpalatable fat.

What frustrates me even more is that these antiquated schedules, essentially determined, so far as I can see by the available slots on supermarket and bookstore-chain shelves make no sense at all in an age of instant digital publishing. Very soon I will have on my computer the final, copy-edited, proof-read manuscript for my next book, Dictator. There is no technical reason why I could not put it online a minute later. Now, I'm not in the business of making my work available for nothing, any more than Tesco, Ford or your friendly local plumber are. But the point remains: there is no need for delay.

What's more, there's a fantastic opportunity here. Publishers and authors alike spend a lot of time fretting about the impact of the internet and digital technology, but less time embracing the ways in which it could revolutionize our trade, and art for the better. I'd love to be able to write books the way that Dickens and Conan Doyle did, in serial form. I don't know what the deadlines were for 19th century magazines, but I'd hazard they worked on lead-times of days, rather than months. So Dickens was able to respond to current events and affect debate by being absolutely of his moment. How ridiculous that we have gone so far backwards since then.

But what fun it would be to use modern technology to recover the immediacy and relevance that our distant predecessors took for granted and make fiction a vital, contemporary, spontaneous part of our culture once again!

Excuses, Excuses

Not my day to post so here's my excuse for running late this week.

I've always said the best cure for writer's block is a publisher's deadline. This week I faced not one but two deadlines.

I had to complete final changes to ROAD CLOSED. The hand corrected hard copy is in an envelope ready to deliver tomorrow. After eight months of scribbling, rewriting, exulting and despairing, my second book is about to leave my control. It will be published this June. There's no going back now. (It's already reached 10,000 on amazon.co.uk amazon sales ratings, so it has to be printed soon!)

Those of you who know me might think I'd be stressed in case I lose the hand tweaked MS. What if the house burns down tonight? (Even I'm not daft enough to worry about burglars stealing my MS.) No worries. I'm SO sorted. The corrected MS is scanned and saved on not one but two computers and a memory stick. (If you don't know me yet, you're probably beginning to by now. I used to be neurotic. Now I'm an author, I have an artistic temperament.... )

My other deadline this week was having to complete a 10 page synopsis of the next book in my series, for my agent. (I managed 9 pages written in chapters so I could leave lots of gaps.) (I hope my agent doesn't read this!)

What have I learned? Well, I've discovered that one deadline is a catalyst to action, two seem to operate like negatives and cancel each other out. Somehow, this week's been a bit of a struggle.

That's my excuse for posting late. Next week I'll post on time (Wednesday night) with an interesting and controversial post... Now I'm going to sleep with a rather large envelope under my pillow...



Leigh Russell

WHO'S GOT GEAR?

Met up with my agent just before Christmas. The agency had a good year but he was clearly exhausted and wondered where he was going to find an extra gear for 2010. It struck me that everyone is finding the need for that extra gear – whatever it is they do for a living. Is it because there aren’t enough hours in the day to service the 21st Century expectations demanded of us? That’s a whole different discussion.

Of the writers I know it’s certainly true that 24 hours just doesn’t cut the mustard. Writing is only one part of the process. It’s a competitive market out there and hoping that readers find our work isn’t an option for anyone who wants to earn a living writing commercial fiction. There’s certainly more onus on writers to promote themselves now. Is this a good thing? Maybe not for our physical and mental health but being part of and having some control over how well our own work performs – via promotional websites, blogging, interviews etc - is a fascinating process that has kept me engaged with my work long after publication. It’s also a great way to gauge reader reaction and get the sort of instant feedback writers wouldn’t have had in the last century.

But I’ve just hit a tricky milestone with STOP ME. The trade paperback has been out for four months and appears to have done well in terms of sales and this Monday sees the release of the mass market paperback. It’s very exciting and the actual book feels like it’s a different entity because of its electric blue cover. Plus Allison & Busby have secured a coup with a WHSmith Travel promotion which will certainly help sales.

However, I’m going to have to find an extra gear myself in terms of promoting it. Everyone I know has now bought their copy so it’s a case of now having to brainstorm some new ideas to help promote the paperback. All suggestions for finding new converts to the Vacation Killer are most welcome!

Book 2 is completed and with agent and I’ve started jotting down ideas for 3 so it’s also a question of juggling writing duties with promo for STOP ME. You won’t find me complaining though – even if the gearbox is making a worrying clunking sound.

Wishing you a blissful 2010.

Richard Jay Parker

Endangered Species - Thursday 16th July

Last week I took a light-hearted look at… well, at men in shorts… so this week I thought I should take a serious look at the current state of the book market. Turns out it’s looking every bit as ugly as Tony Blair in his floral shorts.

A leading chain of bookstores is closing five branches, including a flagship store in central London. Not so long ago bookshop chains were the bullies in the playground, chasing independents off the swings and roundabouts. Now the chains are being pushed aside by supermarkets and online suppliers, themselves under threat from a new gang on the block - eBooks.

What’s wrong with eBooks? In a word: quality. eBooks threaten to make publication accessible to everyone. I wouldn’t claim that all self-published books are inferior, or that traditionally published books are necessarily good. Far from it. But experienced publishers put their reputation and their money on the line when they publish a book. They demand quality, whether literary or commercial, and they pay professionals to hone the product.

It’s no secret that people are queuing up to be published. Literary agents receive as many as 50 manuscripts every day. Remove the constraints imposed by publishers and you fling open the floodgates. As increasing numbers of writers produce eBooks, paradoxically fewer people will read them. Readers will be overwhelmed with choice, much of it third rate and poorly produced.

And there is a further worrying aspect to our growing dependency on technology. In 1909 EM Forster wrote a short story. Set in the (then) future, he posits a world where man has become so dependent on technology that he has become virtually paralysed. People lie in beds, their limbs withered and useless, as a vast machine tends to their every need. The title of the story is: The Machine Stops.

So let’s support real books – they are an endangered species, and, if we’re not careful, we could be next.

(I did warn you my post this week was going to be serious. I’ll be cheerful next week.)

Leigh Russell