New Edition. Contemporary Publishing Magazine.

pg 13 Author nancy freund discusses publishing her first novel and how the changing industry is rife with opportunities for authors

pg 19 after recently opening her own literary agency, book marketing expert julia kingsford shares her insight on what gets a book noticed

pg 22 our uk marketing & publicity executive kate appleton shares her tips on reaching out to book bloggers (because she is one)

NEW EDITION CONTEMPORARY

PUBLISHING

MAGAZINE

ISSUE 17, AUGUST 2014

The Elusive Adaptation Why the video game industry fails at cashing in on the full brand power of our favorite books and series.

NEW EDITION, AUGUST 2014

This Month

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Welcome to the August issue of New Edition! This month we talk to former World Book Night exec Julia Kingsford about starting her own literary agency. Nancy Freund, author of Rapeseed, reveals what she has in common with Lady Gaga. And if you fancy turning your bestseller into a video game, we show you how.

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HAPPENI N GS August July 22 - August 17

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Shakespeare in the Park: ‘King Lear’

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Secret Fiction Tent at the Wilderness Festival

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POETRYPALOOZA

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Central Park, New York City publictheater.org/en/programs--events/shakespeare-in-the-park Tony and Emmy Award winner John Lithgow takes on the role of King Lear in the production celebrating the 52nd year of Shakespeare in the Park, a time-honoured New York City summer tradition. ‘King Lear’ is directed by Tony Award winner Daniel Sullivan and tickets are free on a first come, first served basis the day of the show. For more information on ticketing, visit the website.

Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire wildernessfestival.com/programme/secret-fiction-tent Part of the larger lifestyle and arts festival, the Secret Fiction Tent is a space curated

by Secret Forum to host readers, writers, agents and publishers in discussions of art and the culture of publishing. Fiction, workshops and performances will be curated

by Pan Macmillan, Conville & Walsh, Bloomsbury and more! Tickets for the Wilderness Festival are available through their website.

Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, Venice, CA beyondbaroque.org/calendar.html Poetrypalooza is a celebration of ‘poetry in life’ that includes live music, open mic performances and writing workshops. Beyond Baroque’s events seek to advance public awareness of and involvement in the literary arts, and their Literary Arts Center is both a public meeting place and a bookstore with one of the largest collections of poetry books for sale. General admission is $10 ($6 for students) and the event is open to the public.

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CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE

Roc-A-Reads

After announcing Eimear McBride the winner of the Desmond Elliot Prize in fiction for A Girl Is a Halfformed Thing, head judge Chris Cleave suggested that perhaps publishing should become more like hip-hop.

This may seem strange at first blush, but the music and book industries share many commonalities – artists producing content that’s distributed by large production companies, digital sales eclipsing physical copies, intellectual property considerations, just to name a few. But what does the not-so-hip publishing community have to learn from the decidedly cooler hip-hop industry?

Cleave said at the Desmond Elliot Prize ceremony, “Debut fiction is the bravest, most exciting and purest form of the art, but today’s forces in book retail are lethal to new talent.” The solution, in Cleave’s mind, would be the industry’s “own Jay-Z” to “shake things up….If you look at hip hop, all of these men and women started out as artists, then they become producers, then they own the record company.”

Indeed, after Jay-Z launched a successful rap career, he started his Roc-A-Fella label and mentored up-and-coming rappers, launching the careers of stars including Kanye West. Li’l Wayne did much the

same thing with his Young Money label, making names for artists including Drake and Nicki Minaj.

The same concept could easily be scalable in the book world. Big names like Steven King or Nora Roberts get a lot of air time in the media and could easily mention newer, less recognisable names who they consider to be worth their readers’ time. “From now on,” Cleave said, “I want to see every established writer, whenever they win a prize, or give an interview, or make a statement on Twitter, insist on mentioning an upcoming novelist whose work needs more recognition.”

But this could also go one step further. Famous authors are exposed to unpublished writers all the time – in workshops they teach, at readings they give, in the social circles they run in. Why shouldn’t Neil Gaiman take the writers whose work he loves and believes in and publish them himself? The increasing democratisation of the tools needed to be a publisher – much like the tools necessary to be a music producer – means that it wouldn’t be hard for EL James to start her own romance imprint.

Not only would newer talents be able to capitalise on the popularity of their famous publishers – who already have built-in readerships – but they would also benefit

Is rap music the answer to publishing’s ills?

Jordan Koluch examines how a hip-hop model could put the industry’s talent to better use as mentors to up-and-coming authors. from the wealth of knowledge seasoned authors have about the inner workings of the publishing industry. And who wouldn’t want to be published by someone who had been there and done that? This culture of apprenticeship exists in many forms of art – painting, carpentry, tattooing – but has strangely been lost from writing.

What happened to the literary salons of American expats in Paris in the 1920s or Ezra Pound’s cultivation and publication of TS Eliot, DH and other now-famous Modernists?

And this setup would not only benefit the lesser-known authors who are acquired by the greats.

A publishing operation could be a retirement plan of sorts for a bestselling author; once EL James has written the books she wants to write, a steady revenue stream from a successful romance imprint would be the next logical career step, growning her brand to include a whole stable of authors rather than just her own titles.

Authors frequently complain that they are at the mercy of gatekeepers when it comes to getting manuscripts published. If those gatekeepers were idols and peers, maybe readers would be the richer for it.

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NEW EDITION, AUGUST 2014

What’s in a

Name?

Many of the most famous authors in history have written under names that aren’t their own. But when should you choose a pen name, and when is it best to go by your given moniker? Chris Sansom walks you through the pros and cons of adopting a different identity for your writing self.

Contrary to the opening, this article was penned by none other than world-renowned author, Wyatan Laplume. What’s that? You mean to say you’ve never heard of me? Perhaps that’s because this is my new, highly personalised pen name generated by namegenerator.biz, a site dedicated to churning out apparently ridiculous author names. Shockingly, I didn’t even have to pay for the privilege. For a great many years authors have eschewed their God given names in favour of pseudonyms, and here are a few reasons why you might want to do the same.

Do your memoirs make some pretty unmistakable references to real life undesirables such as murderous gangsters who may be alerted to the book? Probably a good idea to go for a made up name. Don’t want your by-day clients and work colleagues knowing that you’ve been running an underground sex dungeon since the mid-nineties? Yep, 'Mistress Kitty' is probably the viable option.

Pseudonyms are actually more prolific than you’d probably think, and they’re certainly not just the domain of unknown writers, with even the most seasoned authors finding good reason to employ one or more alter egos.

When Robert Galbraith, the impossibly well named and enigmatic Englishman, published his apparent debut, it initially shifted a measly 1,500 copies. But in an unsurprising testament to a culture with few secrets, Twitter played a part in uncovering Galbraith’s true identity. In response to a Sunday Times tweet praising

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his book, Cuckoo’s Calling, as being suspiciously good for an unknown author, a mystery party pooper messaged the paper’s arts editor suggesting that it was in fact JK Rowling in disguise. Cue a buying frenzy, and a twelve billion per cent rise in sales for the book, which went on to hog the top spot of bestseller lists worldwide.

Clearly Rowling was sick of printing money with her Potter books, and was anxious to see whether she could attain the same success the hard way, having assumed a pseudonym. Indeed, her reasoning seemed further admirable when giving comment on the situation, as she expressed her disappointment in the game being up too soon. Poor thing.

But Rowling isn’t the first author to have concealed their identity, and indeed gender, as we found with Alice Bradley Sheldon in the 1960s. Sheldon assumed the name James Tiptree, Jr. knowing that publishing her works of science fiction would likely be overlooked on account of her being a woman, in what was seen as a male dominated area of literature. Interestingly, her new moniker was inspired by a particular brand of marmalade, and was given that extra male feel by tacking on a ‘junior’. But unlike Rowling, Sheldon’s real identity long remained a mystery as she wasn’t rumbled until a decade later, having successfully misled the patriarchal public into thinking she was a male intelligence agent.

In the process Sheldon proved to be a great boon for female writers the world over, and even managed to

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embarrass a fellow writer, Robert Silverberg, who had argued in the introduction to Sheldon's book Warm Worlds and Otherwise that it couldn’t possibly have been penned by a woman. In your face, Silverberg.

Another, perhaps less discussed reason for authors opting for an assumed name, comes with the perceived assumption that their complex, or even exotic, names put them at a disadvantage when seeking that allimportant notoriety. Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto clearly felt that switching his handle to Pablo Nerudo would be the right thing to do, and I can’t see any reason why he shouldn’t have.

Agatha Christie (real name Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller) clearly felt that her quadruple-barrelled birth name was a syllable too far for potential readers, and opted for her now iconic nom de plume. Though it’s difficult, or, rather, impossible, to gauge whether or not she would have been successful without the move, it’s probably safe to say that the switch made it far easier for octogenarian ladies at book clubs to share their excitement about Poirot.

For some authors, their pseudonym has become their real identity. On visiting the USA for the first time from Czarist Russia, having convinced authorities her trip to visit family would be a short one, Alisa Rosenbaum fled the country, and assumed the widely known name Ayn Rand, and will be forever remembered as such.

There are, however, a number of reasons why you wouldn’t want a pseudonym. For the budding self

published writer, the process of seeing their life’s writing work come to fruition in a professional manner can be a stressful one, manifesting its effects in many different ways, one of which comes with the idea that they simply must have a pseudonym. Some writers are under the impression that changing one’s name to something exotic will impress those who matter most. Of course this is nonsense, and the fact remains that you should be far more worried about having a cohesive, interesting story which has been edited and packaged in a beautiful cover than changing your name to ‘Zayn Caballo' because it sounds cool. That is, unless you have the misfortune of being called Stephen King by coincidence. A pseudonym that is hard to pronounce or spell will make it difficult when garnering media interest. If each media outlet is mispronouncing or misspelling the pseudonym differently, how will readers start to learn about your work, and how will you gain the notoriety you seek?

Your real name can even be an advantage if you’re an expert in your field. A widely respected ecologist could build on the platform they already have in the scientific community to publicise a book on living a green lifestyle.

So while it may seem easy to log on to namegenerator.biz and change your name for the purpose of publication, the decision is one you should really consider, weighing the anonymity that comes with a nom de plume against the potential for confusion.

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NEW EDITION, AUGUST 2014

WHAT AUTHORS WANT

ing t t t e u s g rs. B ting e a s ik e l lette ions Dian st n e o t n .

No ctio rejec hers her b e rej tain an ot unts ions t cer re th reco ejec s to g. r tip ectin mo setto rst) e j Ris d wo s som he re e (an giv ing t d o an se d tho 8

I

framed a rejection letter I received once.

I had written a play called ‘Something Italian’, which was a very sensitive teenager’s response to September 11th, and I had submitted it to Playwrights’ Horizons in New York City.

It was the very first stage play I had ever written. It was over three hours long and had a ton of characters and I am sure if I reread it today I would want to hide under a table in embarrassment.

Playwrights’ Horizons does professional productions.

Occasionally, they present up-and-coming playwrights, but those up-and-coming playwrights are never random teenagers who have no idea what they are doing.

But, still, I submitted the play and imagined that this would be my big break in New York City theatre.

Several weeks later, I received a letter from Playwrights’ Horizons.

The letter was extremely personal, praised my play, and told me they really were inundated with plays about September 11th and couldn’t accept it for production at that time.

I framed that letter.

They cared enough at Playwrights’ Horizon to send me a personal rejection letter. That must have meant that I was a real writer who deserved to be treated like one.

That rejection letter gave me

CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE

confidence.

To this day, I am still without an agent, so I still do my own submissions and get my own rejection letters.

When they are personalised with references to the play I have submitted, I feel nearly as happy as I did when I got that first rejection letter. It pushes me to keep going and to know that I matter.

However, as all writers know, that’s not the case with every rejection letter. Last year, I received a rejection that shook me up and made me want to go to Bloomington, Indiana and yell.

I submitted my play ‘Warmth’ to a Jewish theatre there. (The theatre mainly does puppet shows.)

‘Warmth’, at that point, had been the finalist in a major competition and had a sold-out run at a community theatre to absolute rave reviews. (Since then, ‘Warmth’ has raised $25,000 with a one night performance for a Holocaust museum – again to rave reviews.)

I knew it had been received well, I knew enough people liked it – but the artistic director at this theatre thought otherwise.

She basically told me it was absolutely horrible and that I should never write again.

She even called it ‘predictable’ and said it had ‘unlikely situations’.

I wasn’t sure how something could be both. She thought the main character was completely unbelievable and unrealistic, which was surprising to me, because the main character was completely based upon myself. Perhaps it was nice to learn that I am unique.

Her email was quite rude, and cold, and critical. I wrote back, and we went back and forth a few times. My friend thought it was hilarious that I was in a feud with some old woman in Indiana who ran a Jewish puppet theatre.

Rejection letters should never be critical and rude. A simple ‘thanks but no thanks and good luck’ would have done nicely.

For several years, I worked as

assistant to a major Broadway producer. (Last time I checked, he was the sixth most powerful man in the business. I wonder if the puppet theatre lady is number five.) We would get scripts from all over the world delivered to our office every day. It was my job to write rejection letters for these scripts.

I would remember that teenage girl framing that Playwrights’ Horizon rejection letter and I imagined giving confidence and validation to some struggling writer who was sending their plays to a major producer, dreaming this would be their big break. There was no way that a major Broadway producer would just take a chance on an unsolicited script mailed to him. While I’m sure that might happen in, well, a Broadway musical, this is the real world.

My rejection letters were always really, really nice.

But then the same writers I rejected would once again send scripts with notes that would say things like, ‘The last letter you wrote me was so encouraging, I had to send you another play in case this one was more what you were looking for.’

Sometimes being too nice and encouraging can indeed backfire.

As I writer, and also somebody who has been required to be a ‘reader’, I know what should be in a good rejection letter and what other writers also would like. Here’s what I would recommend.

Be personal. Always put the writer’s name in the letter, and always directly mention the title of the manuscript they submitted.

Even if you’re just using an autofill feature, an author who took the time to thoughtfully craft their pitch will feel validated that the agent/editor/reader took the time to read it.

If you aren’t currently accepting unsolicited manuscripts, tell the writer politely. Writers know that some agencies are only open to submissions at certain times. But if it’s not clear from your website

when your submission period is open (and let’s face it, it’s hard to edit a website if you’re not a coder), then a kind ‘Sorry, we’re not currently open to submissions’ goes a long way to couch the rejection, even as a templated email.

Wish the writer good luck. Even if the manuscript isn’t your cup of tea, it’s nice for a writer to feel that someone is rooting for them on the long and arduous road toward literary acceptance.

Remember writers are very sensitive people with easily bruised egos. Even a ‘no, thank you’ is preferable to a straight ‘no’.

And there’s one thing you should always avoid. Never personally attack the writer and the writer’s work. Just because you didn’t enjoy the manuscript doesn’t mean it isn’t the perfect fit for somebody else.

As funny as it was to be feuding with a woman who runs a puppet theatre in Bloomington, Indiana, her words still stung a bit, and there truly is never really an excuse to be rude and hurtful.

Writers know that they will ultimately be rejected. (I still remember how I felt when I wasn’t accepted into the Young Authors’ Festival when I was in the 4th grade.) But a personal and encouraging rejection letter can go a very long way when you’re a sensitive, artistic being pursuing a field where heartbreak and disappointment can be more plentiful than good news.

Authoright’s Diana Rissetto is the author of several plays, including ‘Pigeons, Knishes and Rockettes’, which premiered Off-Broadway and is currently being developed into a film, and ‘Warmth’, which earned the Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey $25,000 in funding this spring. Find her online at www.DianaGolightly.Blogspot.com and on Twitter @DianaGolightly

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eBooks are finally permeating the library space, but digital lending is receiving different treatment from its ink-and-paper counterpart. Jordan Koluch investigates different methods of eBook borrowing to benefit publishers, libraries and readers alike.

Simon & Schuster recently announced that it has ended its library eBook lending trial period and will be making all of its books available through all US libraries. Great news, right? One of the Big Five opening up all of their titles for free digital lending – the wave of the future.

Well I’ve recently gotten into eBooks (you know because I keep telling you). But I keep trying to find ways to not pay $10 or more for them – completely legal and ethical ways, I promise. So when American Library Association president, Barbara Stripling, lauded the Simon & Schuster deal as ‘an important milestone for improving the ability of libraries to serve the public in the digital age’, I decided I had to check it out.

Armed with my library card, I logged on to the New York Public Library website and began browsing their eBook collection. I was impressed by how expansive it was, really – tens of thousands of books at my disposal. Most of the titles I specifically searched were missing, but I have weird taste, and Netflix has taught me to find something cool in what I’m offered instead of being irritated by not finding what I want.

So I scrolled through the offerings and found a few titles that seemed interesting. I clicked on one, curious to see how the lending process worked, and was met with…a waiting list? Since moving to New York, I’ve been no stranger to waiting in line, but I was hoping the online library had evolved past that.

It turns out that the Simon & Schuster deal (which seems to be industry standard, based on the experience I had) stipulates that ‘the library can offer an unlimited number of checkouts during the one-year term for which it has purchased a copy, although each copy may only

be checked out by one user at a time.’

Essentially, publishers want to make borrowing eBooks from libraries exactly like borrowing physical books from libraries – the library buys a copy, a patron borrows it, and the other patrons wait until it’s returned. Libraries are so happy to be able to lend eBooks at all – services like Overdrive have made this possible for them to do so without violating copyright restrictions – that they agree to the publishers’ requests.

Fancying myself smarter than the system, I checked online at what used to be my local library in suburban Arizona. Surely, when not competing with eight million other people, I could find myself an eBook. But it seems that whatever Arizona lacks in numbers, it makes up for in eBook interest, because I had exactly the same problem.

Apparently Simon & Schuster (and, again, all the publishers whose books I ran into) anticipated this, because ‘in order to help support libraries, and for the convenience of patrons who might not want to wait until a popular new title is available, Simon & Schuster’s eBook program includes a “Buy It Now” capability, which gives the patron the option to purchase a copy of Simon & Schuster eBooks through a library’s online portal, with a portion of the proceeds from each sale going to the library.’

Here’s why I don’t think this is going to work. In her praise of the program, Stripling said, “We have always known that library lending encourages patrons to experiment by sampling new authors, topics and genres.”

Readers are willing to take that kind of risk on books that are free because there’s no loss if they don’t like them. But if they do, they’d probably

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NEW EDITION, AUGUST 2014 Borrowing eBooks from libraries could be much more convenient than waiting for print books to become available if publishers were willing to negotiate better lending terms.

be willing to search out the author’s other work, even if they have to buy it. But I’m not going to pay $10 for an eBook I’m not sure I want in the first place.

But I’m also not going to wait. Maybe I’m more impatient than the rest of the librarygoing populace, but if I’m trying to borrow a book to take on vacation, read over a long weekend, or keep me busy in a waiting room, I don’t want to get that book at the next unspecified time it becomes available. So I walk away (though the NYPL has great free air conditioning, if you’re looking for some), and the publisher loses that potential discovery.

I see the argument from the publisher’s perspective – they need to make money on eBooks just as much as they do on print books.

Libraries are a fairly high percentage of sales on every P&L, so to sell one digital copy that can be lent to several patrons at once means that the publisher loses several sales per library.

They want to protect themselves against that at all costs (see our DRM article for more on mitigating digital copyright issues).

But I would argue that they’re also losing readers, who are infinitely more valuable in the long run. Sure, there are library patrons who get all of their books at libraries, never paying for a physical or digital copy of any title. But I would say that most people who borrow from libraries also buy books, lend books and talk about books they like. Which means that one free eBook loan could culminate in a number of sales down the road.

I’m also not sure how demonstrable this profit loss actually is. Readers borrow print books from their friends and buy used

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print books in bookstores, neither of which monetarily benefits the publisher. Does the e-revolution exacerbate this problem so much that lending of eBooks has to be protected?

But if unlimited lending still seems too severe, how about adopting an iTunes model? iTunes users can rent movies and TV shows for a twenty-four-hour period for one or two dollars. Instead of a ‘Buy It Now’ button, how about a ‘Borrow It Now’ button? For a dollar or two, library patrons could borrow the book for the standard lending time of the library, after which time the patron is prompted to renew the book for another few dollars. If they don’t renew, the book disappears from their e-reader.

This technology exists, as evidenced by the Kindle Lend and Borrow program. This would allow impatient readers (me) to skip the queue while also limiting the risk they’re taking on a previously unknown title. Those who want the book for free can continue to wait, and the publisher makes continued revenue on the eBooks lent above the free lending threshold.

Readers know that digital is different, as do libraries, which see the importance of participating in the digital space. But publishers are still trying to adhere to a print model of sales that isn’t going to cut it as the market becomes more saturated with eBook readers.

The time to shift is now, and the place to do it is libraries, which offer a channel of distribution whose terms are highly advantageous to publishers already. A cutting-edge distribution model through libraries would arguably drive more readers there, and away from distribution streams that are less desirable from the industry’s perspective. Then everybody wins.

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In Living Colour 13

NEW EDITION, AUGUST 2014

Most writers see the world differently from the rest of us, but probably not many see it as differently as author Nancy Freund. Diana Rissetto talks to Nancy about publishing her first novel, emailing Lady Gaga and what colours taste like.

You wrote your first novel at nine and say that manuscript has been ‘lost forever’. Have you ever thought of reworking that book? I know that, as a writer, I’ve come back to ideas and stories I had as a kid.

Yes! Not only have I thought about reworking it, but I told the basic premise to my kids, and my younger son ‘finished’ the book when he was nine. We were both very excited about it, and then his computer crashed, and the whole thing was lost again. We went from excited to devastated, and then decided maybe that book is not meant to be. It would have been my first synaesthesia book, and now Rapeseed is my first synaesthesia book. I’m pretty sure Rapeseed is more cohesive than my childhood novel. But to your point about picking up older ideas and playing with them, I do that all the time. You should see my heavily-laden filing systems!

And in that book you wrote at nine, you first touched upon the idea of synaesthesia. Was writing a novel that used synaesthesia as a major plot point always something you wanted to do?

Well, I didn’t realise this was a goal of mine, but often we figure out our journeys in life after we are well on our way. The first book was called The Orange Invasion.

My first full-length novel was called Driving the Smoky Red about a summer as the zoo train’s engineer. You can look back over my writing and see pretty quickly how important colour is in my stories and my titles. So

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I guess it has been my goal, after all.

Did you ever consider writing a non-fiction book or do you prefer writing fiction?

I love fiction…I love imagining all kinds of crazy directions a character’s actions might take him or her, and all the many responses he might have to another character’s line of dialogue. My preference really is fiction, day to day. But I love non-fiction too – especially a well-crafted memoir or compelling essay.

So I enjoy writing in this way too. And right now I’m about to go to press with a true labour of love, an international cookbook of family favourite meals from forty-one countries. It’s pretty imaginative and creative, and of course it’s non-fiction.

We have to ask – have you sent a copy to Lady Gaga [who famously has synaesthesia]?

Oh man, I HAVE to do this! Do you have her address?

I’d love to send it to her.

How often do you base characters on people from your real life? I know I do it all the time!

Has it ever gotten you into trouble with any of your friends or family?

I think all writers draw from life when they write fiction, but none of my characters are truly based on real people. They may be composites of several people, blended to create a character suited to my story. I did, however, use some real names in Rapeseed, like when

CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE

struggle and fail, but the very fact that so many new publishing ventures can launch right now is a fabulous thing. Even coming from a background of traditional publishing and distribution models, I still side with the ‘excited’ camp. As for Kindle versus print… both. For immediacy and for travel, the Kindle. But I’m a hoarder and a holder and an underliner, so I mostly love print.

Five favourite books of all time?

Awful question! Horrible! I’ll just give you my top five off the top of my head, reserving the right to reverse my decision at any time: 1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 2. Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo 3. Still Writing by Dani Shapiro 4. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer 5. A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean What are you working on right now?

Are you allowed to tell?

history teacher Mr Neame is taking roll. It made the writing fun for me, but I think people who know those names found it distracting when they read the novel, so in future, I think I will have to avoid doing those things that give me a giggle as a writer but don’t suit the story.

Effort of Will (working title) is a novel about a Montana rancher-turned-visual artist who thinks his biggest struggle in life is his internal debate between art and the land.

He meets and marries a New York financier with ten-year-old twins, an overseas contract in a Swiss investment bank and expertise in building high-net art portfolios. Will finds the demands of family, fatherhood and high finance make his original battles look like child’s play. Effort of Will is scheduled for 2015 publication with Gobreau Press.

What would you do if you saw somebody reading your book in public? Would you approach them and tell them you were the author?

How do you feel about the changes that are happening in the publishing industry? Is it upsetting or exciting? Do you prefer a Kindle or a print book?

As long as it didn’t seem inconvenient to the person, I think I might introduce myself. I’d hope an author seeing me read their book might do the same.

I’m thrilled about the changes. Print-on-demand technology and eBooks have suddenly broadened the industry and made the connection between writers and readers much more accessible. The industry is in turmoil, but it’s exciting to see how savvy publishers are doing creative things to embrace the changes.

Booksellers and libraries and really all levels of service bureaux have amazing opportunities right now to do things differently. It’s scary – revolution is scary – all change is scary. Also, many new businesses may

What’s next? Will there be more books in your future?

Definitely! Writing and publishing are fantastic fun. I can’t imagine giving up any of it.

Nancy Freund can be found online at nancyfreund.com and on Twitter @ nancyfreund

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NEW EDITION, AUGUST 2014

Game On The video game industry has attempted to capitalise on dedicated literary fanbases for years, but it rarely succeeds in satisfying ardent fans of the books undergoing electronic adaptation. Justin Kelly explores possible explanations for the shortcomings.

It’s all but impossible to miss the growing trend of literary superfans taking over the summer movie scene.

We’ve all seen it: earnest readers emerging in droves to gorge their collective, bookish nostalgia on overly hyped adaptations of the year’s most beloved titles.

Said bibliophiles were most recently baited by John Greene’s YA tearfest, The Fault in Our Stars. Before that it was the first two Hunger Games instalments hitting fresh off the heels of Twilight fever. And while it is difficult to overestimate the fervour with which readers approach these lucrative film adaptations, what the public often misses is that Hollywood is not the only industry cashing in on the devoted fan bases of the publishing arena.

Less publicised than movie adaptations, book-based video games are much more prevalent than you’d think.

There have been 108 Harry Potter video games released over various platforms in the past decade. But don’t let that shock you; there have been 112 for Lord of the Rings. The entertainment industry knows that voracious readers will pay top dollar for the chance to inhabit the virtual lives of their favourite literary heroes, and they waste no time in providing opportunities to do just that. In fact, it’s not uncommon for developers to found entire programming studios with the singular goal of granting Timmy direct access to Narnia through his television screen or tablet device.

But developers often harbour very little regard for the source material from which their games are made. Of those 108 Harry Potter games released since the year 2000, aggregate gaming review sites such as Gamestop and Gamefaqs argue that fewer than ten are worth the time and money necessary to play. The bulk of user reviews on book-to-game adaptations suggest that players feel regularly betrayed by scroogey programmers who prey on their love for certain literary brands.

Games are produced without providing a faithful and engaging experience consistent with the standards of the original story, and it’s not getting past the notice of players. Here is a sampling of user reviews written by dissatisfied gamers who were once excited by the prospect of entering the interactive reincarnations of their favourite books:

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‘Wish the Grinch had stolen this! I don’t even know what to say about this game. My sixyear-old was bored with it in minutes. I mean literally minutes. And that is pretty sad to me. Dr Seuss is supposed to be a franchise for kids. […] Boring, ugly, slow, and worthless.

Avoid this game at all costs. I am not over exaggerating when I say it’s the worst game I have ever had the displeasure of trying.’

‘The game is based on the movie and hence strays REALLY far from the book. If you’re hoping to play an interactive version of the book, tough luck for you. [. . .] The lack of story is huge.’

–Treex, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

–Knight-of-God, Dr Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat

‘Virtually unplayable to even the most die-hard Tolkien fan. […] Don’t even waste a rental. The game is so poor that it doesn’t seem worth it to test just for a couple of nights. Maybe a younger child would get some enjoyment from this title, but others should keep far away, like Frodo from a Ring Wraith.’

–NeoGeo, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

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Clearly, book lovers-turned-gamers won’t be fooled by a simple adaptation hoping to cash in on a franchise if the game can’t deliver the quality expected. And why should they? For the most part, literary blockbusters earn their fame when practised readers recognise something wonderful in the story being told. Honest human elements connect to readers looking for something relatable. Percy Jackson was not always famous; the book had to prove itself, grow legs, and stand the test of time. To suggest that the name of a franchise is enough to garner the love and respect of a fan base is incredibly misguided at best and incredibly insulting at worst.

Publishers and agents have noted that there is a significant crossover between the gaming community and the literary community, and this is arguably why those who own the rights to books regularly include a video game option within their roster of subsidiary rights to be sold for winning titles. Games based on books are released in conjunction with movies by the same name because of the simple fact that readers and gamers come from the same pool of consumers – those value story above nearly all else. In a recent article published by the Huffington Post, writer Steven Petite had this to say concerning the rise of storytelling in video games: ‘A fun experience is created by engaging gameplay. However,

Truly great games stick with you because of memorable story elements that made you laugh, smile or cry even to the extent of changing your perception on gaming in general.

–Steven Petite, Huffington Post an experience that will remain with a player long after the credits roll is, in my opinion, the effectiveness of the story. Truly great games stick with you because of memorable story elements that made you laugh, smile, cry even to the extent of changing your perception on gaming in general.’

There is an incredibly lucrative market inherent within book-to-game adaptations. Readers connect to well-written fiction in ways unprecedented by other creative mediums. They are almost always willing to experiment with separate incarnations of their beloved novels, but they will not be fooled by titles alone. If game developers hope to profit from a literary brand that has passed the consumer test and entered a global sphere of loyal adoration, they had better prepare themselves to retain the ingredients responsible for creating the phenomenon in the first place. They had better ensure a thoroughly fleshed out experience wherein the reader/ player/watcher can discover a sense of narrative refuge and human compulsion. Or, to put it even more simply, they had better require that one, most basic and elusive of all artistic components: an honest-to-goodness, highquality story. 

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Agenting for a New Age In June 2014, a new agency opened its doors to authors.

Kingsford Campbell is a happy mix of Charlie Campbell, a literary agent who joined Ed Victor’s agency in 2005, and Julia Kingsford, who previously was head of marketing and communications at Foyles, and also behind the immensely successful World Book Night venture. Emma Lowe talks to Julia Kingsford about the decision to enter the agenting world.

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ingsford Campbell started as an idea that was years in the making. Charlie Campbell, then an agent at Ed Victor, and Julia Kingsford, head of marketing at ValoBox, knew that together they could form something that was of real value to authors.

Kingsford explains, “Charlie and I had known each other on a professional basis for about four years. Charlie has significant agenting experience and my book marketing skills are wellhoned. We had been talking for a while about our combined experiences with both marketing and agenting backgrounds and how there was a need to change and do things better. This sense is currently being borne out in the Amazon/Hachette saga, of which authors are at the centre. Our major question was ‘Are authors being looked after, and are there opportunities to reformulate the publishing model in order to do it better?’. We decided that an awful lot of the problems that we had encountered in our previous careers had come down to the fact that the relationship agent vs. author had not been an equal one, it was more a relationship of management and contract, where actually it needed to be a partnership. We are interested in authors as a whole and what they authentically have to offer the whole process, not just soundbites here and there and a manuscript.”

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We certainly recognised that authors appreciated the fact that we treated them and their books as a career option, and something to be serious about, rather than something they did for fun and amusement.

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This was the idea that Kingsford Campbell was built on. According to Kingsford, “We certainly recognised that authors appreciated the fact that we treated them and their books as a career option, and something to be serious about, rather than something they did for fun and amusement.”

But Kingsford Campbell isn’t your run-of-the-mill literary agency.

Kingsford brings her marketing background to the table, making sure that promoting the book is a priority from the very beginning of the publishing process. “Putting the advent of digital aside, marketing to publishers is very different. It used to be about taking booksellers on trips to the author’s birthplace, giving them a lovely trip, and hoping that they were going to buy books to sell in their shops.

This kind of marketing is very rare now. The focus is most definitely on direct to consumer marketing and it is ludicrous to now plan any marketing campaign without a direct to consumer approach. There has always been an element of this, but it now needs to be done in a much more thorough way. Authors are having to think much earlier in the process about how they get to the authors, and that is generally a good thing.”

Changes is book marketing are already well underway, and the readers of the future will find books in ways the industry hasn’t even thought of yet. The book used to be the only hand held form of entertainment, whereas now there is huge competition for anything that can amuse or educate whilst seated, travelling etc. Kingsford feels that authors and books need to be confident of their value in this marketplace, and that they can definitely compete against more

interactive forms of entertainment.

For Kingsford, readers are amongst the best forms of marketing for a book: “Any book that can harness the energy of the author and the community that they inhabit is likely to know some success”.

Obviously, Kingsford’s significant marketing knowledge and experience about which blogs may prove more fruitful, when Twitter campaigns can be used to advantage, or what opportunities the author should grab with both hands are all skills that her clients will benefit from, but she says that the success of a book is indisputably linked to the author.

“Write the best possible book you can. Read it, get your friends to read it and be honest with you.

Think about the structure, style, character development and the overall landscape of the book, and be harsh where you need to be; self indulgence is often a book’s downfall.

“Write what you can authentically and naturally write, and write of what you know.

Don’t write someone else’s book, or something that you think you should be writing.

“Believe in what you are writing.

It’s yours. Own it, and be proud of it.”

Julia Kingsford is the co-founder of Kingsford Campbell Literary Agency.

Find her online at kingsfordcampbell.com and on Twitter @JuliaKingsford and @KCAgents

CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE

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Read. Rev Kate Appleton, Authoright’s UK Marketing & Publicity Executive and avid book blogger, takes you inside the world of reviewing and suggests ways to approach bloggers about your book.

Weblog, blog, blogger, vlogger? The Oxford English Dictionary has seen a transformation under the eagle eye of the internet. I am a blogger, since the thought of vlogging (video blogging) makes my insides cringe – I don’t even like having my photo taken. And I’ve chosen to blog about my love of books.

As a blogger I receive on average two or three books a week (having said that, four came in the post just the other day). If you do some swift maths calculations that’s approximately 200 books a year, or a book every 1.5 days, plus I haven’t even factored in the books I buy in bookshops for myself or that, heaven forbid, people buy me books for Christmas. As a result there’s a serious bookshelf overflow situation in my flat and, unsurprisingly, some books either go unread or I read them so far down the line that a review, when finally uploaded, is pretty much defunct for an active publicity campaign.

My blogger situation is probably not unique, and when I get chased for reviews of books I’ve asked for but still haven’t read, I have to fight the urge to shut down my email account and move abroad. When I’ve failed to read the book there is always the underlying feeling that I’ve let an author down. As a result, I now accept fewer books so that I can guarantee a review of the ones I do choose to receive. This may not be

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view. Repeat. the ideal solution but it’s reduced my stress levels, has stopped me giving empty (although well-meant) promises to publicists and eased the strain on my aforementioned bookshelves.

But how do I choose which to accept out of all of these books that authors want to send to me? The general rule of thumb, so that the postman does not have to break his back, is that I will have previously received an email and press release about each book.

Being on the other side of the campaign as a publicist, I am now more aware of the costs affiliated with preview copies, and blind marketing and sending books unsolicited is not the best or most cost effective method of marketing. Usually unsolicited copies go in a bag destined for the charity shop, and not because I’ve taken umbrage but simply because they’re not to my tastes in genre.

Therefore, without sounding overly sinister, to target bloggers effectively it’s usually as simple as following a three-step programme. Firstly, take note of the name of the blog. Is it called Crime Room or is it called Chick Lit Lover? Then, read its ‘About Me’ section, usually detailing the blogger’s likes and dislikes. You often also discover their name here, which is a lot more effective when writing an email than the vague ‘Hi’. Finally, scroll through a few recent reviews and ask yourself, “Will this person be interested in my book?” If you find yourself with a tick against two or three, then that is the blogger for your book. Also, if you pick a blogger whose interests align with your book, the people who are following that blog will more likely choose to read (and purchase) that very same book. A win–win situation.

Once you’ve got your targeted list of blogs make sure you send a press release and review request.

As touched upon previously, this engages with the blogger and also pays them a small compliment in that someone has actually looked at their blog. Seriously, when I got my first book review request, on the back of my third blog post, I was extremely excited, if only because it proved that it wasn’t just my mum who was

reading my website. This contact, if successful, also puts the book in the forefront of the blogger’s mind; they’re waiting for it to arrive (if it’s a printed book), and sometimes this will result in its going to the top of the reading list.

More recently, and this may not be everyone’s cup of tea, a breakthrough idea has come from the people at Hachette UK, who have created a blogging website called Bookbridgr. This online facility allows bloggers to: link to their own blog, set up a unique page, see book recommendations, and set preferences for review materials (whether eBook or paperback), thereby weeding out unsolicited publications and preventing a deluge of books arriving on your doorstep. Also it should be noted that bloggers are invited to post reviews of books regardless of publisher.

Penguin Random House UK have also followed, in a slightly different suit, with My Independent Bookshop, whereby readers are invited to give book recommendations and discover new books whilst supporting their local bookshops.

After having accepted, read and reviewed a book and promoted their review via social media, what gives the blogger a little buzz is if the publishing house, or, even better, the author, replies, retweets or simply acknowledges the publicity. I had a brief and amusing Twitter chat with author Andrew Kaufman after one such review, and it felt like what I’d done was really appreciated.

Bloggers are primed to be an author’s best friend.

However, publicists (talking about myself as well now) and authors, if nothing else, remember: Research your blogger audience, as it is time wasted and maybe a contact ruined if you inundate a blogger with irrelevant genres.

Kate Appleton blogs about books at thefriendlyshelf.wordpress.com. Follow her on Twitter @friendlyshelf

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DO IT YOURSELF! ‘Self pub’ is the new industry buzzword, but what does it take to self publish the right way? Just uploading your book online isn’t enough to propel it to stardom, but Ed Roberts gives some tips on self publishing professionally and successfully.

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Previously in publishing, many writers had manuscripts, but only a lucky few actually got the chance to see their work in print. With the self publishing age upon us, it is now possible for anyone and everyone to publish their work through various companies around the world. Gone are the times where you would have to wait weeks, months, years for any type of response from a publisher. Now, you can be your own publisher, but of course this takes lots of work.

Any successful entrepreneur knows that initially you have to use your own capital to grow your business. The same goes for authors in the self publishing realm. The self published author’s book is their business; it is their brand, and ultimately, it is their responsibility to make sure it gets

working on your book. After all, you, as a writer, are in complete control of your book with self publishing. Working with a nameless designer or editor through a generic company usually leads to poor results and mistrust. To be successful in self publishing, it is imperative that you remain completely involved and make the final decisions. Remember, the companies working on your book work for you; you don’t work for them!

Whenever individuals think of self publishing, one name that comes to mind is that of Fifty Shades of Grey author EL James.

While it’s enticing to believe that all self publishing projects end in such success, it is simply a rarity. This is not to say that it cannot happen, but authors need to temper their

Self pub necessities: A really good copyedit: even if you use beta readers instead of a developmental editor, hiring a professional copyeditor is a must so that irritating grammatical and mechanical errors don’t detract from your book’s professionalism, and your readers’ reading experience.

A genre-standard cover: your cousin may be an awesome graphic designer, but professional book cover designers know what readers expect a book of a certain genre to look like. If you’ve written a thriller, you want your cover to align with readers’ expectations of that genre.

the proper care and exposure.

There are obviously many different avenues to go to make sure your book is professionally done. You can find freelancers to edit your book, create a cover, help with social media, etc. You can go through various companies to help with different aspects of the book: one company for design, one company for distribution, one company for marketing, etc. You can even go to one company for everything, from proofread to publishing, distribution and marketing.

With all of these choices, some authors’ heads may spin! It is important to make sure you know exactly what your book needs, you get the proper consultation from a professional, and you collaborate closely with the team

expectations with their book and set realistic goals. Even the most successful books start with slow growth. A few good reviews lead to interviews, interviews lead to a social media following, a social media following leads to demand, and so on.

For instance, first-time novelist Rob Sinclair was wary to self publish. Sinclair debuted his first novel, Dance with the Enemy, in May of 2014 with Authoright’s imprint Clink Street Publishing.

Sinclair stated in a recent blog post, ‘At first I was apprehensive, almost taking it as an early sign of failure – though in reality self publishing these days is anything but. It’s quickly becoming a legitimate route to market both for new and more established authors. The pros

are that you get to decide what to publish, when and how. It gives you as the writer complete freedom.’

This sentiment is what every self publisher should know before going through the process. You are in complete control, it is a legitimate way to get your book out there, and it is not an unknown idea anymore.

He also went on to talk about social media and growing his brand by saying, ‘I still think it’s an incredibly brave decision for a writer to make, putting yourself out to the world like that. I’m a shy person. And all of sudden my book is for sale to the world, I have a Twitter & Facebook account and website (my uneasy foray into social media is a whole other story for another day!).’

Sinclair had guidance and did his research to come to working A bespoke marketing campaign: every book has a target market, and reaching that target market is the key to building a successful author brand and making sales. Just putting your book out there isn’t enough; hire professionals who know how to get books in readers’ hands, and have them target blogs, radio shows and other media where your target market is sure to be looking.

with Clink Street, but he took the leap to grow his brand and invest the time and capital in his book, which is what any smart and successful entrepreneur would do.

Can you put the time and effort into your book and still have it not be successful? Absolutely. Would you ever find out the potential of your book without putting any effort into it? No. Self publishing is a risk just like opening up a small business is a risk, but the gratification of getting your work out there is a feeling that cannot be replicated. My advice is to not give up if you are rejected by a traditional publisher and know that with self publishing now mainstream, anything can be possible.

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Famous First Lines Everyone knows how important first impressions are. Which is why first lines really matter. See which lines hooked us into our favourite books and made us want to keep reading.

Hayley Murphy, Samuel Beckett Some people read romances. Others love thrillers. But for me, nothing quite beats staring mankind’s abject futility full in the face through this avant-garde nihilist novel

by Irish literary legend, Samuel Beckett. Featuring a solipsist tied to a rocking chair, a prostituteturned-nurse and a man with the ability to meditate himself into a heart-attack, Murphy is about the twinned fear and comfort of non-existence. And the opening line says it all. No one, in my book, has articulated the unique suffering of mankind as he makes his clumsy passage through life, better than Beckett. Habit, ritual, physical and mental frailty, fleeting human contact; the sorry efforts we make to punctuate our lives with meaning, even though death remains inevitable, were the themes with which Beckett ran wild.

Through his pen the mundane reads magnificently, painfully bittersweet and at times the most desperate words you could ever read. Beckett once said that words are all we have. And he’s right. And in writing about death Beckett inspires me at least to live life to the fullest; Murphy is bleak personified, but yet perversely life-affirming. Are we meant to understand everything Beckett writes? Certainly not. Life doesn’t always make much sense either. But while we’re here, we might as well make our time count.

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The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.

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Ed The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald This famous first line stuck out to me because it is still relatively fresh since I read the book again when the movie came out. As I get older, it actually does hit home to some extent. My father gave me advice consistently as I was growing up and I would either take his word as gospel or shrug it off. As I get older, the advice he gave me is starting to make complete sense and I think about it on a daily basis. The same can be said about Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby as he gets older, wiser, and less vulnerable to the world. He is experiencing more and seeing the world for what it truly is.

With age comes realisation and you can see the change in Nick as the novel goes on.

Jordan Time’s Arrow, Martin Amis

What goes around comes around.

Martin Amis begins Time’s Arrow with a first line you’re bound to forget for its generality. Like most of the novel, it’s quite innocuous, at least until it’s not. Time’s Arrow follows Tod Friendly through his seemingly uneventful life, narrated by what many believe to be Tod’s conscience, which feels Tod’s feelings but has no access to his thoughts or control over the events of his life. Suddenly, things start to get weird. I risk being vague only to avoid spoilers, but you eventually become aware of where the arrow is pointing, and the first line becomes poignant, though only on a second reading. I love how the book sneaks up on you, luring you in with normalcy and spitting you out upside down.

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The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what to impale itself, and die singing.

Justin Paul Clifford, Edward Bulwer-Lytton I wish I could explain to you why Bulwer-Lytton’s 58-word opus of an opener stands as one of the best first lines in the history of all things literary (his verbosity might have something to do with it), but I kind of don’t have to. The first known use of the iconic phrase, BulwerLytton’s novel set the stage for gothic literature for eons to come.

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Diana The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough The Thorn Birds is one of my alltime favourite books. When I first read it as a teenager, I thought ‘Ralph’ was a perfectly unromantic name (I mean, really) but everything about the book was so beautiful and sweeping. (Sometimes ‘sweeping’ is the only word.) The first line sets up the rest of the book so perfectly. Father Ralph de Bricassart and Meggie Cleary are in love, but cannot be together and, just like those thorn birds, keep bringing upon themselves more and more hurt. With the last lines of the book, we come full circle: ‘When we press the thorn to our chest, we know, we understand, and still we do it.’ The bird doesn’t know any better, but Father Ralph and Meggie do. As a Catholic, I am surprised I wasn’t completely mortified by this book, but the language is just so lovely that that isn’t possible.

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

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Next month in New Edition: Author Gabriella Gillespie.

How to craft a great title.

Is there too much to read?

September happenings.

And more!

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