Grauniad article about new novelists

[UnquietDad]

here

Interesting, although hardly news. Also couldn't shake the idea that Jean-Hannah is bigging up her novelist friends.

The commenter who makes the point about review space has part of the story, and the one who brings up career sustainability has the other.

The same Sam Leith article which is quoted is also the one in which he says that if first novels are no good then he (in the Telegraph) just doesn't review them rather than giving them a bad review. Far more damaging!

[EffiePerine]

Is the London bias restricted to novelists? I've noticed that many (if not most) successful poets are NOT London based. I did wonder about whether poetry was more linked to a strong sense of identity, or maybe a strong connection to a certain form of language? Or just not commercial and hence the London bias doesn't apply?

[poodlepusher]

i didn't blame the publishers - I said they are forced to make it a race (by those exact booksellers you mention).

I don't think being 24 yrs old means you can't write because you've not got 10 or 20 years more experience. There have always been writers who can write beautifully at that age.

How old was Jane Austen?
What about Norman Mailer - didn't his first novel come out when he was very young?

And Geraldine Riley had 2 novels published the first when she was 21 and the second a few years later. The first was the best of the two and it also sold....

[Nighbynight]

oh this is an interesting discussion. I am outside the UK, but trying to get published in britain. As a reader, I'm not really aware of the importance of London - but nobody can miss the same old names coming up in every bookshop in germany.

[midnightexpress]

Sorry poodlepusher, I didn't express that very well, and my comments weren't directed at you in particular. Of course there are talented young writers, you are quite right.

However, many of the students on CW courses simply don't have anything very interesting to say, IMO, and also lack the language with which to say it. In other words, they're just not very good writers. Most of them refused to even venture an opinion about anything in tutorials. The universities are to blame, as they stand to gain financially by taking on students, so are less and less fussy about the calibre of the students they accept on these courses (not restricted to CW of course).

[Nighbynight]

sounds a bit like art colleges, then.

[UnquietDad]

Midnight, I agree with you to a great extent, even though I do teach CW!

I think you can teach it - just as painting, singing and sculpture can be taught.

But just as with these arts, the person needs to have talent to begin with (you can't "put" it there) and needs to have realistic expectations.

What do I mean by this? Well, I have had people on my courses who have never written anything longer than a short story before, and yet expect to learn the craft of novel-writing to professional level in a year or two. It can be a lifetime's craft. I was sending stuff off to publishers for 6 years before I got a sniff from any of them, and that's seen as pretty short.

Nobody joins a beginners' art group expecting to exhibit in the Tate, and nobody takes up the violin from scratch expecting to be playing in the LSO in two years. And yet people expect the equivalent - professional publication by a major publisher - to happen with writing.

And I also agree to a great extent about the "young writers" thing, even though I was 23 when first professionally published. Those writers over 30 do, generally, have more interesting things to say. I can't help myself checking the author biogs in bookshops these days - if they were born after 1980 I put it down!

Interestingly the average age of writers on the NYT Bestseller List a couple of years ago was mid-50s. It's still a craft/job in which you are expected to be producing your best work in your late middle age. Thankfully!

[UnquietDad]

Oh, and the influence of booksellers, indeed. cannot be ignored. They have far more power than they used to, especially since the advent of central in-buying and the decline of the regional rep.

One person could now decide whether your novel goes on the tables in all Waterstones, on the shelf, or not there at all.

The publishers could be putting everything behind a big title of the month, expecting a major city branch of a bookshop to take 50 copies, and they might take 5. The writer is screwed. There's nothing we can do.

I remember some of DW's colleagues going into WHSmith to look for my first book and coming out being unable to find it (and not having asked). If they had asked me I could have told them that it wouldn't be there. Many buyers still take this approach -m if a book isn't in WHS - and /or in the R&J recommendations - it doesn't exist. It's like only buying albums which are in the HMV/Virgin top 50.

Amazon has tackled this to some extent - but also undermines it with their cheap "new and used" copies for sale alongside the proper ones.

[UnquietDad]

Yesterday, naughty me, I shiftily took about 20 minutes shunting my books from the shelves to the tables in a local high-street bookshop. I had to be a bit surreptitious clearing the space. Wondering if any staff will have noticed!

(In the past when I have done this, they have noticed disappointingly quickly... it's as if they have nothing better to do! )

[Nighbynight]

lol
I sometimes put my favourite authors on top of ones I don't like in bookshops.

[Swedes]

I have been wondering this for a while. What is more important in a novel - the story or the writing? It's a puzzle because some very good writers can spew out some total rubbish and sometimes one can read something which is an unputdownable story but is far from brilliantly crafted.

[UnquietDad]

If people knew what was the secret of a great novel (and one that sold well) they'd bottle it and sell it. The novels which agents and publishers are looking for, so they tell us all the time, are those which have great stories AND great writing. Of course, we can always find exceptions! And there are famous instances of "marketable" novels rewritten top-to-toe by editors. A very young lady with two Bs in her first name springs to mind.

[poodlepusher]

I can't help think its a great shame that you won't consider reading writers younger than 50...

Though I do know that Beryl Bainbridge only reads novels up to 1950 and nothing beyond that. And while I've only read a few of hers, I do think they are well written and hark back to a time when there was a lot more craft involved in putting a novel together.

[midnightexpress]

That's interesting UQD. I'm amazed that WHS still have such an influence. The stores always seem deserted these days when I - rarely - venture in. I just wouldn't think of going there to buy a book any more (strange - I remember hot-footing it there with my pocket money when I was a nipper).

As for the young writers thing - perhaps we're just getting old .

[winebeforepearls]

UQD, I'm a freelance editor and can vouch for the rewritten books! Plenty of them, but usually they're still cr*p. Can't make a silk purse, etc.

And I know a very successful author who still spends happy hours repositioning her books in her local Waterstone's. I don't blame her, but I like to counter it by putting my favourite but unknown writers on the tops of piles or face-out on the shelves.

[UnquietDad]

WHS still has an extensive book section and in many towns it's the only high-street place to buy books! Waterstones and Borders are only in the bigger towns and cities.

I once did an event with a VERY well-known novelist - let's just say, double consonant at the start of their name

We both went into a bookshop to sign some stock first, and I was relieved/aghast (in equal measure) to see that this writer, too, with all the well-known books under their belt, still had to spell their name and explain who they were!

(I never said anything about over-50s, by the way!)

[Kathyis6incheshigh]

I must be ill-informed - I can't work out who the person with the double consonant is or the young writer with 2 bs in her name

[UnquietDad]

Two lower-case consonants, Kathy... And the young person had a novel out about 8-9 years ago which had a teenage protagonist.

[UnquietDad]

By the way, the other thing about teaching writing is that the weirdo count seems higher than in other areas of FE/HE. I've had ongoing email abuse from mine, and it's got to the point now where I've reported him to his IP. (See my thread in Geeks!)

[midnightexpress]

Don't you believe it UQD! I used to work teaching overseas students in HE and the number of odd Chinese and Japanese students who get packed off to UK universities by their parents is pretty impressive.

I imagine as a young would-be author though, one must have a certain degree of existential angst to cultivate.

[poodlepusher]

didn't Andrew Motion ALLEGEDLY get hauled over hot coals for sending inappropriately flirty / suggestive emails to one of his CW students?

[UnquietDad]

Probably. I imagine CW classes at university are full of flighty flirty lissom young things with well-turned ankles. I just get retired teachers and weirdos.

[Shells]

Sorry to tell you this Unquiet Dad, but I worked in bookshops for years and we were forever getting authors putting their own books at front/on top of piles etc. You learn how to spot them pretty quick. Its hugely annoying. And backfires too as you then deliberately don't display those books well in the future. Much more productive to make yourself known to the staff I'd say and try and forge a positive relationship with them.
I know booksellers aren't what they used to be with the corporatisation of Waterstone's etc. but there are still a lot of empassioned ones out there, getting paid badly, but doing it because they love books.

[nkf]

The big booksellers have huge influence and publishers do have a tendency to be sheeplike. And many people argue that too many books are published.

[winebeforepearls]

God, am editing first novel for big literary publisher atm and it is dire

But too untalented lazy to write anything better myself

[nkf]

I've just read the Guardian feature and think it was outrageously silly. It did sound like "please read my friends".