An obvious (and slightly inconvenient) truth - Nicola Morgan

You know that thing when you realise something and then you realise it was incredibly obvious and you feel embarrassed for not having realised it before? Well, that. But, just in case there's anyone else out there who hadn't thought about this, I will share it with you. Please tell me I am not alone in my foolishness.

Non-fiction is much easier to sell than fiction. And now I realise why.

First, let me tell you how I realised that this was even the case. In August I published my book on Twitter - Tweet Right - The Sensible Person's Guide to Twitter. And in November I re-published Mondays are Red, which was my debut novel back in 2002. I published both books as ebooks only.

Now, Mondays are Red should have had an advantage because it has been published before and has a raft of lovely reviews from newspapers as well as readers; also, it's been out of print for a couple of years and people are still asking for it. But it's selling about a quarter of the number that Tweet Right sells on a weekly basis. (Which is not a vast number, let me tell you, but it's very respectable.)

And this is despite the fact that I did more to push Mondays. A blog tour, for example, which I didn't do for Tweet Right. And TR is more expensive. And shorter. It is, by word count, much less good value. With Mondays are Red, I pleaded with my blog readers and employed blatant emotional blackmail. I never did that with Tweet Right.

However, none of that really worked. (I'm actually a bit relieved - I don't like pleading or blackmail! And btw, let me be clear: I do NOT expect people to buy out of duty.) So, TR continues to outsell Mondays by about four times.

And it seems to me the reason is obvious.

When you try to persuade a reader to buy your novel, you're trying to persuade them to want this one more than thousands - hundreds of thousands - of others. Even if yours is the genre they like to buy, you're still competing in a crowded, often poorly differentiated market. It's easy to be invisible. (Especially since there are some things I won't do to get myself or my book seen.)

But if they are looking for a book about something - Twitter, or my next topic, writing synopses (Write a Great Synopsis - An Expert Guide, coming in January!) - there are very few books that I'm competing against. Very few indeed. It's easier to be seen. Also, it's relatively easy to find the audience, because you know where they hang out. But readers of novels are everywhere, everywhere, I tell you. And they are slippery. God, they are.

So, it's obvious when you think about it, isn't it? It's much more a numbers game than we'd like to think.


In view of this, I will not bother to plead with you to buy Mondays are Red. Honestly. Don't. There are hundreds of thousands of other novels you might like almost as much. But, on the other hand, there's only one at the other end of this link. :)

EDITED TO ADD: I have a suggestion: if any published* UK authors with YA titles which are also in ebook format for Kindle would like to get in touch, I'll do a blog post (on my blog) after Christmas which will list them, with links. SO, if your book is YA, published and in ebook format, email me, in this order: title, author, publisher, 25 words to describe including genre, and Amazon link (UK or US, just one). By Christmas Eve. n@nicolamorgan.co.uk 


(* I'm really sorry but I have to offer this only for authors who have had novels published by a trade publisher. This is purely so that I don't end up having to put eleventy million books in a blog post when I could be eating mince pies.)

Books Do Grow On Trees - Nicola Morgan

The lovely people at Blackwell's Bookshop in Edinburgh invited me to the launch of a fabulous event but I couldn't go because I was in London, hobnobbing with Brian May, Roger Daltrey, Roger Taylor and a load of other stars. (Ouch, the name-dropping! Actually, there were a lot more I could have dropped but I held myself back. Besides, when I told my daughter the other names, her response was, "What sort of a tacky event was this, mother? Please don't tell anyone you were there.") Anyway, although the launch has happened, the event is still going on, and it's SUCH a wonderful cause and idea that I wanted to be able to say something about it here.

So, here's a message from Julie Gamble at Blackwell's:

"The Children's Book Tree at Blackwell's Bookshop in Edinburgh is a scheme that lets customers donate a book to a vulnerable child in the city who is living in care or in difficult circumstances. We are working together with Edinburgh Women's Aid, Edinburgh Young Carers, Barnardo's, many support units run by The City of Edinburgh Council and Edinburgh Foster Care to find out what each child would like. We then attach their requests to tags and hang them from our 'Book Tree'. From 25th Nov until 19th Dec customers can drop into the Children's Dept. at Blackwell's on South Bridge, choose a tag from the tree and buy a book to go with it. We'll then wrap and send the books in time for Christmas.

If you'd like to gift a book but can't make it in person you can get in touch with us on 0131 6228225. If you would like to buy a book on behalf of someone else we can also provide a lovely gift certificate!

Thanks for making Christmas a little brighter for these kids."

Hooray!! Fab idea. I'm going there very very soon. There's the tree, all ready and waiting for wishes to be fulfilled.

Does anyone know of any other schemes like this in your part of the country? Would you like to name them here? Or, if you don't, why not contribute to the Edinburgh one by dialling that number?

If we believe that books are important and enriching and wonderful, we must believe in their utmost importance for vulnerable children who have had such a bad start in life.

Oh, and as an extra treat, here's a pic of Julie, thinly disguised as an elf, standing with Sarah Brown, whom you might recognise. 

When the story just takes over - by Nicola Morgan

Have you ever had the experience of something "just happening" in the book you're writing, something that you just have to find a way to deal with? This used to happen a lot to me and it felt rather wonderful, as though something was there, helping me write the story, something that was going to guide or drag me, something I needed to handle with a long rein. Sadly, this doesn't happen so much nowadays, as I think I've busified myself too much. But one day I'll get it back.

The most memorable time when it happened was when I was writing The Passionflower Massacre, which I confess remains my favourite of my books. There's a big chunk of me in that book. It's from the heart.

ANYway, quite early in the book, I found myself writing these sentences:

Before lunch, a message came for Matt to go back to the hostel. He didn’t come back to the raspberry fields. 

Matilda never saw Matt alive again.

What?? The gorgeous guy just vanishes? The one who was going to save Matilda? Just like that? What, as in dead?????? Nooooo! But he was gorgeous! Where's he gone? Why? Who did it? Is he dead? But I knew he was. But how and why and who and what would be the results? I had no idea.

Of course, I could have deleted it. But I didn't want to. It had been given to me. It sounded exciting. Twisty. Dark. Right.

So I went with it and followed the story and discovered what happened to gorgeous, doomed Matt. And why. And what it did to Matilda. I discovered that it had a part to play in the bursting, roasting strawberries and the ripening tomatoes and the deadly, rare, gorgeous passionflowers. He had to die.

Has this abolition of control happened to you? And isn't it a scary wonderful feeling when it does? I'll get that back, I hope.

_________________________

The Passionflower Massacre and Sleepwalking are to be republished in one pretty ebook on December 2nd! If you liked Wasted, I think you'll like these. Please give them a shot! Super-cheap as an intro offer. Free extracts of the PFM on my blog now. 

Pitch us a book - by Nicola Morgan

The art of pitching a book or the idea thereof quickly and compellingly is one of the most useful of all the dark arts of becoming published. And then of actually selling books - without which we will soon become dumped.

I've been doing workshops about this recently and much fun has been had. By me, anyway. And we had much fun on my blog recently, pitching in - see what I did there? - and helping each other hone our pithy pitches and sharpen our hooky hooks. There were 117 comments, which was somewhat hard to keep up with.

So I have an activity for all you writers AND all you readers. Can you pitch either your book or a book you've read in a maximum of 25 words? That way, not only can you sharpen your hook (if you're a writer) but you can also encourage others to buy either your book or a book you love. And it's not a million days to Christmas and people want ideas, so...

Some tips, first, for those who haven't done this before. The best hooks generally have the following elements:

• Concrete phrases and strong images, not vague ones. Eg, not "about survival" but "about surviving shipwreck on a small boat with a ravenous tiger and a dying zebra."
• A main character who is described not by name but by what he is and what drives him. Eg, not "Bob", but "football-obsessed teenager".
• The conflict, obstacle and stakes - bigged up to their most enormous possible bigginess.
• Wolves. Or, if wolves are not possible, any of the following emotional drivers: war; murder (or other tragic or violent death); lust; obsession; fear; blood; human sacrifice; slavery; fierce animals with some kind of nobility (such as wolves, obviously, or lions, tigers etc; actually tigers are especially good) - stoats tend not to work so well; torture; snakes (the only exception to the nobility rule); gods and religion in general, though never in a good way; plague; torture; tulips; motherhood; rejection; champagne; incredibly pointy mountains; incredibly dark caves; flying (without aeroplanes); luxury chocolate; shipwreck; orchids; terrorism; nuclear war; very severe and definitely apocalytpic climate change - a bad summer isn't enough. You get the picture.

If you'd like my patent method, though many of you won't need it, as you're experts:

1. Choose an epithet for your main character - eg abandoned orphan (especially if adopted by wolves), vengeful divorcée, underpaid writer, redundant vampire...
2. Brainstorm for five minutes, writing down every word or phrase you can think of that your book conjures up, including episodes, themes, adjectives, emotions, aspects of the main character.
3. Select the 15 most compelling of those. (Not truest - most compelling.)
4. Select the 5 most compelling of those.
5. Make sure they all feature in some form in your 25-word pitch.
6. Hone, hone, hone, sharpen, sharpen, sharpen.
7. Submit.

So, how would you pitch us your book or a book you love?

The Subtle Censor - Celia Rees

A quick look through recent blogs will tell you that writers for Young Adults spend a lot of time worrying about their readers and what is deemed to be appropriate or inappropriate in their fiction. More so than other writers, as Nicky Morgan pointed out last week. Other people also get exercised about this, hence the calls for book banning and burning that have been discussed here, too. The difficulties are almost always to do with sexual content. Violence not so much. Language a bit more concerning. But sex. That's the difficult one. This puts the writer for Young Adults in a bit of a dilemma. Do you, or don't you? If you do, how are you going to do it? I'm not talking about putting yourself forward for the Bad Sex Prize here, more how you are going to mention it at all.

Here are some rules: Sex is OK if...*

You are a male writer of some stature or a male writer who is Well Known For It (preferably both).

You are the above and writing about boys from a boy's point of view (but NOT homosexuality).

You make sex into a metaphor, so you are not writing about sex per se but something else, something Other, something to be put off for a long time (preferably altogether) or something Bad will happen and your heroine will never be the Same Again. It is better to burn than turn.

The outcome is Bad. See under abuse, rape, unwanted pregnancy, abortion, because then it is a) A Serious Issue, b) not the heroine's fault and c) even though it is not her fault, she's getting punished for it anyway.

NOT OK

Sex for sex's sake. Sex where people enjoy it. Sex that is part of everyday life, even if it is safe, legal and not frightening the horses.

So there is a kind of censorship, nothing official, nothing as dramatic as banning and burning, but it is there, nonetheless. Most damagingly, it can get into the writer's own head after years of being told to take it out or tone it down because if you don't then the libraries won't take it, the schools won't like it, the booksellers won't know where to put it and, oh, you can forget the Carnegie. No mention, of course, of teenagers, the actual readers, who might like to see their lives reflected with veracity and applaud the book's honesty.

* ellipses are useful in this area of writing.

Who Do We Write For? - Nicola Morgan

I've been thinking about this a lot recently because some people I respect have contradicted a belief of mine. See, I think - thought - that writers should think of their readers. Of course we need to have confidence and belief in our own writing and to love what we do, feel inspired and fulfilled by it; but, for me, each sentence is there for the enjoyment of readers. Therefore, I'm thinking of them while I'm writing.

I also believe that the main reason I failed to be published for so long was that I was writing purely for myself, with little or no thought for the reader's enjoyment. I was so up myself with the beauteousness of my prose that if I wanted two glorious sentences where one would do, hell, I'd put them both in. After all, they were Good Sentences so the reader could damn well read them and enjoy them as much as I did. I was thinking of myself and my enjoyment way too much. I was being self-indulgent, which is what doing something for yourself is.

So, quite often on my Help! I Need a Publisher! blog I have blogged to aspiring writers about the importance of thinking of readers when we write. I don't mean that we should just give them everything they want, just as parents shouldn't give children everything they want. I mean that for me the desired end of a book is the satisfaction or excitement or inspiration of the reader - or whatever other emotion I happen to wish for in them - and that my own pleasure is only in achieving that. I have quoted Stephen King's thing about his Ideal Reader, the person he has in mind when he writes, the person he imagines looking over his shoulder. He talks about writing the first draft with the "door closed", in other words without too much thinking of readers, but the second and subsequent drafts with the "door open", very much with imagined reactions flooding in and affecting what he writes. And that's in a book on how to write - On Writing - so he is offering it as guidance, even a rule.

But I'm aware that this is not the only way to look at things. I recently interviewed Ian Rankin and Joanne Harris and asked each of them where they stood on this question and they were quite clear that they don't particularly think of their readers. Now, considering that they are both phenomenally commercially successful, I find that interesting.

So, have I got it wrong? Or does it just depend how you interpret the question? Are Joanne Harris and Ian Rankin just lucky that they've hit a way to write which indulges both them and their readers, so they don't have to think consciously about the reader? Am I too mired in YA/children's writing, where we have to do a bit of mental gymnastics in order to satisfy a reader who is patently not the same sort of reader as we are ourselves? Or what? To the writers among you: how much do you think of your readers, either as an imaginary generalised bunch or a specific group?

Yes, we write because we want to and because we love doing it, and it's therefore somewhat selfish, but to what extent is your actual choice of ingredients in each book for the sake of your reader more than yourself? What is your relationship with your reader when you're writing?

And take your time: I'm not thinking of readers or writing at the moment because I've got a building disaster. Six days after my lovely plumbers started what should have been a simple bathroom refurb, this is what we've got. (Actually, now it's worse because even the wooden frame has gone and they've started to dig up the concrete floor to the depth of half a metre into the solid ground.) Flood, broken pipes, damp, leaky steps above it, original poor building of the extension, missing damp-course, a running-a-mile insurance company and a home survey when we bought the place six months ago that detected "no sign of damp"... Sorry to go off point but sod readers - I need to think of myself for a bit!

No more postcards any more - Nicola Morgan

[After writing this, I saw Saviour Pirotta's post about school visits, in which he praises postcards. I don't disagree with him in that context but you'll see that I have come to a different conclusion, because I'm asking a different question.]

I recently conducted some modestly scientific research and I bring you the results: buying postcards in an attempt to support my books is a) far too expensive and b) utterly pointless if measured by ensuing book sales.

The only type of writer in a position to discover this is someone who has a self-published ebook-only books, because that is the only way precise, near-real-time sales can be monitored. With my ebook-only books, where I'm the publisher, I know for a fact whether I have sold an ebook in any given 24-hour period.

So, let me tell you two recent opportunities I had to test the value of giving away postcards to support a book.

TEST 1 - Mondays are Red
I do nothing to promote Mondays are Red and it sells the same (small!) number every week, with no variation other than an overall 10% decline in the last year. It is available only as an ebook and I will see every sale within a few hours.

Recently, I did a school event at a private school. 120 pupils in the audience, of the right age to enjoy Mondays are Red. Each pupil was allowed to pick up a Mondays are Red postcard, signed, on the way out. Each pupil did. So, 120 cards went into the world, carried home by a person who was a) fired up to enjoy a book (it was a very positive event) and b) almost certainly able to afford to pay under £3 for it.

Over the ensuing two weeks, how many extra copies of Mondays are Red were sold in the UK?

None. Zero. I know, someone might buy it later but I'd like to think at least one person was moved to buy it NOW.

TEST 2 - Dear Agent, Write a Great Synopsis and Tweet Right (all on one postcard)
I do a bit to promote these books, because they are featured visually on my Help! I Need a Publisher! blog, which gets good traffic and has 1600+ registered readers. They sell steadily - and by steadily I mean that I sell uncannily the same number every week. The weekly figure does not vary unless something has spiked it. Again, they are available only as ebooks and I will see every sale within a few hours.

Recently, I was speaking at the York Festival of Writing. There were hundreds of people there but I decided not to leave piles of postcards because I wanted to know they'd been picked up. I did leave one small pile but I also properly handed out 110 over 24 hours.

Over the ensuing two weeks, how many extra copies of any of those books have been sold in the UK?

None. Zero. I know, someone might buy them later but...

And yes, of course, we don't know whether those cards will find their way into other hands and whether sales might ensure but I'm not anticipating a pre-Christmas rush, tbh.

So, let's look at the cost of this embarrassing failure
I buy my cards from Vistaprint. Maybe there's somewhere cheaper (though they aren't known for being high-end) but I like being able to design them easily and I do take advantage of the special offers. (For example, if I want 500, I know that I should just order 250, because, when I've clicked "buy" I'll be given the chance to buy another 250 for a far cheaper price.)

But the unit cost of a postcard is still pretty shocking, even when bought in bulk. I looked at my last order, in which I ordered 250 of Mondays are Red and 500 of the writing/publishing one. And I worked out that each card cost me just over 13p.

So, it cost me £30 to fail to sell a single copy of four books. And when I think how many postcards I've handed out over the years... Well, I'd rather not, to be honest.

And that's why I won't be buying postcards any more. (Oops - see PS...) I'll be signing jotters and arms and scraps of paper and punishment slips, but not postcards bought by me. I may order some business card sized things, but not postcards. I can't afford the waste, pretty as they are.

What about bookmarks? Don't get me started on bookmarks. I researched bookmarks years ago and decided that, as well as the greater cost (usually) they don't work well as marketing tools because people put hide them inside a book and they've already bought the book so it's unlikely to prompt a sale. Again, they're pretty and it's nice to give something to a reader, but...

You see, don't get me wrong: I'd love to be able to give pretty presents to everyone who smiles at me and asks for a signature and if money flowed from my pen I'd happily go back to buying postcards. But I can't afford it.

I'd love to know what everyone thinks. I am sure loads of you will disagree with me, and you might easily be right.
_____________

*cough* The books mentioned above are available on Amazon, but, apart from Tweet Right, they are also available on my own online shop, which is the cheapest place to buy them and you get all formats in one package... But no postcards!

PS Added later: Erm, I capitulated. I just ordered postcards again. One for all my books on one card, including the forthcoming ebook of The Passionflower Massacre and Sleepwalking. Why? Because I ordered 1000, making them cost just under 8p, and because I like pretty things. I am a fool! 

In which I control my addiction - Nicola Morgan

I am probably the last person you expected to say what I'm going to say: the internet has all got too much and I am going to take control. It's become like one of those eat-all-you-can buffets and it's making me feel somewhat sick.

After I spoke about "building your online platform" at the Society of Authors conference, people said they were terrified by my apparent energy. How did I find the time? Vanessa Gebbie asked on my blog for advice about how to use the internet without wasting time. Blithely, I replied, a) define wasting time b) when it feels too much, stop - don't let it take over. Discipline, my child!

Well, I was OK at that point. After all, I only had a few blogs and three FB pages and Twitter and a new website in progress (now done!) and three existing websites and Audioboo. And this collaborative blog. And the Authors Electric blog, which I'd just joined as a newbie ebook publisher. (And immediately volunteered to manage their Twitter account...)

But then, my behaviour tipped over some kind of precipice: I investigated (purely for research, you understand) LinkedIn, where I found groups and threads and discussions, and where I spent a lot of time deleting randomly-generated emails. And Google+, which everyone said was "better" than Facebook, and where I found circles and groups and threads and discussions and hangouts to hang out in with people I already knew from Twitter and Facebook. Then (purely for research, you understand), I thought I should join the Kindle Boards (because I am interested in ebook publishing) and the Kindle UK forum (ditto and because it exists) and the Absolute Write Water Cooler (ditto and ditto and because people asked me to) and in all of those places I found forums and groups and threads and discussions and spent a great deal of time in a great many similar conversations.

In those places, I kept seeing the same people. Often lovely people. "Fancy meeting you here! Do you come here often?" So I was communicating with existing friends in umpteen places. They were everywhere, all at the same time, and so was I.

As well as that, within 24 hours of arriving on one forum, I had THREE private messages warning me to be careful what I said because the conversation could sometimes be vicious. The word "vicious" was actually used in each case. I didn't see any viciousness but I know people who have experienced it. And I don't want to.

After a couple of weeks of all this gorging on the buffet, and working longer and longer hours to get any actual work done, it all became too much and I thought, "Blimey, this is wasting time." And I reminded myself of what I'd told Vanessa Gebbie: Discipline, my child!

Also, I was getting more and more frustrated with Facebook - I seemed to be force-fed information and photos and quiz results and Farmville pink rabbits from people I literally didn't know. At. All. I am sure many of them were lovely people, but I didn't know them and they didn't know me and there are actually only so many hours in the day. And to be honest I don't want to know the Farmville activities of even my closest friends.

So I began slipping away from some of the afore-mentioned places, without wanting to offend the perfectly decent and sensible people there. Today, I began to try to untie the strings of Facebook. And what long FB conversations that caused! Facebook has this horrible word, "Unfriending". In order only to interact with people you actually know, you have to unfriend the others. It's horrible. You have to do it one name at a time and a little - well, OK: big - message comes up asking if you're really sure you want to unfriend so-and-so. Meh.

What's my point? I actually think there's a reassuring message to all this. I think that any of you who also feel that your online life has got or is getting too much, if it feels unhealthy, might take comfort from this: if I, the ultimate internet junkie, addicted to communication with as many people as possible in as many ways as possible, can call a halt and take control, anyone can! it feels very cleansing and sensible. Like a detox diet after over-indulgence.

I don't think we should do any of these online things just because we feel we "ought" to, only when we want to. We should eat when we're hungry or to be sociable and human, not when someone waves a piece of chocolate cake in front of our noses. Not just because it's there. Not because people try to tempt us.

If only it was as easy with real food...

Has anyone else reached this point of online saturation? Some of you, I know, have resisted it. It's all about balance - but that balance is different for each of us. When you reach it, I urge you: stop. Discipline, my child. Or desperation.

Nicola Morgan is the author of around 90 books for children and adults, including Tweet Right - The Sensible Person's Guide to Twitter. £2.74 on Amazon and you don't need a Kindle!

How Has Reading Changed? by Nicola Morgan

Everything we do changes our brains. So, if there's something we are doing differently now, compared with how we did it previously, our brains will be changing or have changed to reflect that. If readers' brains are changing and if reading behaviours are changing, surely this will matter for writers?

Reading behaviours have changed over the last twenty or thirty years, at least in parts of the world where the digital age has arrived. Almost all of us read a great deal on-screen, and we spend a certain amount of our day reading material on websites. New research at the University of California, San Diego suggests that the average person today consumes nearly three times as much info as in 1960. According to The New York Times recently, "the average computer user checks 40 websites a day and can switch programs 36 times an hour."

We quickly become better at scanning headlines to decide what we want, and we skip and flit about, gathering snippets of info and processing it very quickly. Our brains change to reflect new skills. Gary Small's fascinating book, iBrain, is based partly on research on a group of people who had never used the internet before, alongside a control group. The study suggested - and this is backed up by other research into time taken to rewire neural connections - that after only five hours' practice, the brain of an internet beginner has changed, measurably, to reflect new skills and experience. And more practice or use produces more change, apparently.

(For more on the science of this, I recommend iBrain, and The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr.) But for now I want to talk anecdote, not science. I want to ask you if your experience matches mine.

Maybe five years ago, I was about to start writing The Highwayman's Footsteps. I wanted it  to be "rip-roaring adventure", thrilling historical drama, just like one of my favourite books as a teenager, The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas. I remembered that The Black Tulip had lots of gore and high tension and a very fast-paced story.

So, I took it from my shelf to re-read it, for the first time since I'd been a teenager. Well, I wasn't wrong about the gore. (Who says modern YA fiction is shocking? Blimey!) High tension? Well, maybe, but you had to read a LOT of words first and unpick reams of long paragraphs and complex sentences. It's turgid prose, with masses of subordinate clauses. The opening paragraph consists of a single sentence of 148 words.

Reader, I couldn't read it. Seriously.

So, what has happened in the intervening years? How did I turn from a teenager who could lap that up to an adult who couldn't keep her eyes on the page? But forget me - what about you? I'm guessing I'm not the only reader whose reading habits have changed. And it can't be to do with age, because surely a teenager would have if anything a greater need for pace than a middle-aged person? Are we just too busy nowadays to read slowly? Have we been subconsciously demanding faster books / simpler sentences over the last thirty years, so that now page-turnability is compulsory, whereas before (?) it wasn't? Has our definition of page-turnability changed?

If our reading habits, needs and tastes have changed, science tells us our brains have, too. There's nothing much we can do about this, although each of us in theory controls the mouse on our own computers. Besides, I'm not even saying that in terms of reading habits this is a bad change. (In terms of the arguments that people like Gary Small and many others are introducing regarding empathy and wisdom, that's a different matter.)

I'm just interested:

• Do you find it harder to concentrate on longer, denser texts than you used to?
• Have you had any Black Tulip examples, where you've tried reading something you once loved and then wondered what on earth has happened to your brain in the meantime?
• What might it mean for us as writers? Publishers say people want shorter, snappier reading material - are they right? 
• Do you think it matters?  Are you worried about any of this?

Answers in a comment. Oh, and keep it snappy - no one will read it otherwise.

Right, I'm off. Things to do, people to meet, tweets to tweet, info to process, websites to scan...

Of Yurts, mud and wellies - Nicola Morgan

I'm cheating a bit with this blog post, I'm afraid. Many of you know some of the things that are busifying me at the moment and I'm really struggling to keep up so I hope you won't mind my bringing you a link to a post I wrote recently for the Guardian books blog during the Edinburgh International Book Festival, which the Guardian now sponsors.

Even that post was a teeny bit cheaty, as I've blogged on ABBA about the gloriousness of the Yurt once before. But the Yurt is magically glorious and magical gloriousness deserves an audience.

However, not everything about the EIBF is magically glorious. But they give us due warning.

Which is very necessary when you see this:

But, in no way does this spoil anyone's enjoyment. In the very same minute that I took the mud picture, I took this, just a few feet away:

And besides, what do I care? I haz these:

Who to blame when a bookshop bites the dust? - by Nicola Morgan

The sad news came last week of the closure of The Lion and Unicorn bookshop in Richmond. I'll pause for a few moments while you go and read the story behind this closure.

*hums a gloomy tune*

So, the reasons are not complicated: higher costs, caused by rising rates, rents and wages, against falling income, caused in large part, says the article, by Amazon.

I'm no apologist for Amazon, which regularly behaves in a way I detest, but in this case Amazon merely offers temptation and opportunity and they have the right to do both. Temptation and opportunity to satisfy our impatience and desires at the click of a finger and often (though by no means always) very cheaply.

It's people who succumb to that temptation. It's the people who could have bought a book from the Lion and Unicorn (or whichever bookshop we are talking about at the time) but bought from Amazon instead. And ditto with other bookshops.

I'm not trying to guilt-trip anyone here. We're all busy; we all want lovely books and we want them effortlessly. We all love a bargain and we don't want to pay more than necessary for something, which is understandable, thrifty. (Though let's not forget libraries as being the way of getting a book in the cheapest way possible.)

But there are consequences to our buying choices. We have to consider that the death of bookshops (or other businesses) may be one of them. And we have to think about whether there are actions we can take which will have better consequences.

It's just too easy to blame Amazon only. It's a cop-out. Amazon flutters its come-hither prices at us and gets us drunk with its seductive service. But we do not have to be seduced.

--------------------

Nicola Morgan blogs and speaks about writing, reading, publishing, the reading brain, teenage brain, learning brain, and shoes. She also has an online shop which sells signed (only) books and exclusive tea-towels. She offers excellent customer service and pays her taxes scrupulously. www.nicolamorgan.com

ART OR COMMERCE - Nicola Morgan

I have been having interesting conversations recently on the subject of writing more commercially. By which I mean writing with an intention to sell more books. There's been a revealing discussion in the comments of a blog post I wrote on my own blog, titled, SELLING OUT? In the post, I'd used the phrase, "Selling out? I call it selling."

Seems to me that we've got ourselves caught in a quite unnecessary, contradictory and damaging mindset. It goes like this: a writer's success is most often measured in volume of sales. (In the eyes of publishers and the public, if not by us.) Yet, at the same time, many people sneer at the idea of writing "more commercially" in order to attract more readers - ie more sales.We know that harder books will be read by fewer people, but we need to be read by more people in order to survive as writers. Yet we think that "harder" books are somehow "better".

Writers and other artists have always had to have an eye to what would sell. We don't produce art in a vacuum - or, at least, I would rather not. I write so people will read me. It would be pointless (for me) if no one did, and pretty pointless if only a very few did. Call me a mercenary - please - but what is wrong with us wanting more people to read our work? In my ideal world, lots of readers would choose to spend their time and money reading whatever I wrote; but it's not an ideal world so I have to think carefully about who my readers are, what they might enjoy enough to pay for, and how many readers I would like to have.

This week I spoke at an event in Glasgow for writers - Weegie Wednesday - and I talked about how all authors must decide what we want from our writing, whether we are in it for art or in it to making a living, and the possible and varied compromises we might need to make in either case. I gave a strident "take control of your writing lives" message. I said that neither writing for art's sake nor writing to try to make a living were positions to be ashamed of, but that we had to be clear about which we wanted and how we can achieve it - even if we end up doing a bit of both. (Which is my ideal.) From conversations afterwards it was really obvious that the published writers are being much more realistic, down-to-earth and commercial-minded than the unpublished. There's a lesson there...

What does this mean for me at the moment? Well, on my agent's advice, but also believing myself that it's the right thing to do if we want to offer it as a highly commercial, saleable venture, I am taking a machete to something I wrote about 18 months ago. I'm stripping out all the bits I thought I liked, all the bits that I thought made it special. Anything that doesn't take the story forward, fast and furiously, goes. Whole chapters are zapped. Lyrical pauses go. Back-story disappears. The philosophy and reasoning are subsumed. The gaps are injected with action and pace.

And you know what? Without all those "good" bits, it's better. I like it! I like it almost as much as I did before but - and this is more important for me than it is for the unpublished writers I spoke to this week - I think readers will like it better. And maybe that's the difference between arty and commercial: with arty, the artist likes it more; with commercial, the reader likes it more.

Well, I'm in this to write for readers and I am not ashamed if perhaps I can now write for a few more of them. If that's one measure of success, bring it on.

As an aside, I want to ask the writers amongst you something: have you noticed a recent tendency amongst publishers to want stories to be faster-moving, with greater "page-turnability"? Do you think they're right or are they over-reacting to the shorter attention spans which we keep being told people have? And have you felt the need or desire to alter your writing to accommodate it? If you thought that writing in a different way would gain you more sales, would you do it?

Readers, what do you think about this suggestion? Even if you still love to linger over a book, do you accept that many (more?) people want something more page-turning?

I'd love to know your thoughts!

Of Yurts and Spiegeltents: Book Festival-ing in Edinburgh - Linda Strachan

Where can you find a Yurt and a Spiegeltent, comedy, politics, cuddly creatures, crime and all kinds of great writing?
Well, if you are in Edinburgh in the next two weeks or so there is one place you should not miss.

By the time you read this the 28th Edinburgh International Book Festival will have kicked off.  Billed as the 'largest and most dynamic festival of its kind in the world'. 
 Now that is a huge claim to fame but for those of us who live in the vicinity - and the some 220,000 visitors it attracts- it is easy to see why.
Edinburgh at festival time is a completely different place than it is during rest of the year. It feels looks and even smells different!

Playing host to the The Book festival, the International Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe, the Jazz Festival and several other festivals all at the same time, the city is converted into one huge venue, where even the streets become the stage and performers attract audiences in the most unlikely places.

In all this exciting cultural mayhem the Book festival is an oasis of calm.  You enter Charlotte Square (which for the rest of the year is a leafy private garden) and immediately the bustle of the city is converted into an excited hush, a tranquil setting resounding with gentle roars when the audience in one of the tents begins to applaud.



Of course the Edinburgh weather can affect the Book festival as much as anywhere else and there have been a few years when the rain left delightful little ponds around the square- delightful for the little yellow plastic ducks that suddenly appeared! Their equally sudden disappearance gave rise to discussions about the possibility of a plastic crocodile..... ?

But each year they have added more solid walkways, then covered walkways to and from the event tents and the bookshop tents and finally even to the author's green room - the yurt.

There was one particular year when there was much comedy to be had watching the staff wielding large umbrellas to shelter celebrity authors in the dash across what seemed to be the only uncovered walkway- the first 2 metres as they stepped out of the yurt on their way to their events.  Thankfully that was sorted the following year.

But when the sun shines the grassy centre of the book festival fills with people. They sit about chatting and reading in the sunshine, eating ice cream and sipping coffee. People of all ages, families with tinies and octogenarians, and from all walks of life, they have one thing in common, they love books and discussion.

creating the Spiegeltent

In the signing tent or walking around the book festival you might spot a first time author or a megastar, a politician or an actor. The Book festival also has a Spiegeltent where in the evening Unbound is free and brimming with music and performances.


As you can see I am a huge fan and look forward to the last two weeks of August each year.

It is a chance to spend time listening to wide variety of fascinating authors, to meet up with old friends and new and to discover books and authors I might never have found otherwise.

Preparing to chair an event with Nicola Morgan

The Authors' Yurt is a particular delight.

The 'green room' for authors appearing at the festival, it is a lovely space and even has a separate area for quiet preparation before an event.

Hamish McHaggis  & friends

Hamish McHaggis decided to pay a visit to the yurt a couple of years ago and the staff were keen to pose with him!  I am not sure if Hamish is going to make an appearance during my event this year - it will depend if he has recovered from his recent trip to the USA!


I will be spending quite a bit of time at the book festival again this year and aside from my own events I hope to catch up with quite a few SAS authors and ABBA contributors who are appearing there this year, such as,  Celia Rees, Liz Kessler, Nicola Morgan, Gillian Philip, Cathy MacPhail and many more. 
www.edbookfest.co.uk

Here are details of my events below and in the comments perhaps those of you who are also appearing in Edinburgh will add your names and the details of your events, too.

If you are coming to Edinburgh don't miss the Book Festival or put it in your diary for next year!


Linda Strachan is appearing at the Edinburgh Book Festival on-

On Thursday 18th August 2011 - 5.30pm 
Amnesty International Imprisoned writers series
On Friday 19th August 2011 - 5.00pm For teens and Adults -
Exploring the research involved in writing her teen novels Spider and Dead Boy Talking 
On 25th August 2011 
- writing workshop (THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT)
On Schools Gala Day  - 30th August 2011
 Hamish McHaggis and friends

Website www.lindastrachan.com
Blog http://writingthebookwords.blogspot.com
 

Diversify or Die - how do you do it? by Nicola Morgan

Most writers have always had to have other jobs. No one owes us a living - I absolutely believe that. And increasingly, no one is going to give us one. We have to go and get it.

Not new and not a big deal. But something we have to keep thinking about, keep working around or with, keep battling against.

Most writers do not live by writing alone. Those who do are either exceptionally lucky or Anne Rooney, who actually does do some teaching and editing but who mainly works damn hard to write a crazy number of books, whether or not each one is precisely where her heart is, because she knows we can't always follow our hearts if we have to earn a living. A writer's gotta do what a writer's gotta do. Like anyone, really.

So, diversification becomes a necessity. I'm very happy with diversification. I have a low boredom threshhold anyway, so flitting between fiction and non, teenage brains and teenage stress and teenage books, public-speaking and writing consultancy and writing bitty things for bitty places and all the things that occupy my day is a pleasure. But I really need to focus on things that make money, and not all those do. And most of them don't do much.

So, recently (yesterday, as I write this) I diversified further and opened a shop - not really thinking it would make me much money but hoping that it might make a bit and help sell my books. And be fun. Not a shop with a tinkly bell and clanky metal shutters that I could pull down at 5.30pm, but an online one with cool buttons such as Add to Cart and View Basket. Currently, it just has books and bags in it, but gosh how diversificatorily do I have plans! Anne Rooney will even approve of my plans, I'm pretty sure. Today I've been sourcing bags and tea-towels and biothings and designing content and contacting suppliers and dreaming big and bold and bright.

I almost forgot to write. Well, OK, I did forget to write.

And then, also today, I got the news that 110 schools have ordered class sets (I can't even do the maths) of The Highwayman's Footsteps and I remembered that I'm a writer and must not diversify so much that I forget that.

Because that's the problem. Diversification is dilution. And distraction. It's do or die but it's also do too much and die.

I'm excited about my shop but perhaps the next product I should design is a sign to go above my desk saying, 

Remember I'm a writer

How do you diversify? What would you do and what would you not do? How do you make a living as a writer or support your writing with something else?

I want aspiring authors to understand that the vast majority of us don't earn a living specifically from writing. I think this honesty is important. It's reality and life and what we work with. Every time an aspiring author tells me they want a publishing contract so that they can give up their job, or afford a better house, a little bit of my heart sinks. And then I remember that I enjoy what I do, and my heart flies again.

Maybe I could write a book about a shop. A shop where you buy dreams that don't last long. Because you wake up and smell the coffee and drink it and get working and then find that working is better than dreaming anyway.

Meanwhile, do keep an eye on my shop, where I will soon be offering a perfect gift for the writer in your life...

ROCK OF AGENTS - by Nicola Morgan

I read this post from Kristine Rusch. Be warned: it's not a pretty picture. It paints a very gloomy portrait of the situation for writers at the moment, and I have to say much rings true. Last year, on Help! I Need a Publisher!, I also wrote a few negative posts about the situation for writers, though always with a degree of optimism because I do tend to find the positive in any situation, crabbit old bat though I may be.

But, I want to respond to something that Kristine says about agents.

"What’s worse is that the people we once thought were our advocates - our agents and our editors—can’t help us any more.  ... Agents - who are savvy about business - have realized that they can no longer make money in traditional ways, so many of them are looking for other ways to make money.  And often, those ways hurt the writer. See what agent Peter Cox says about this, about the way he’s fighting to keep some semblance of decency in his profession. "

Although it's true that there are some potential conflicts and true that rules need to be set (which is why the Association of Authors Agents is looking at it so carefully), I want to scotch the idea that this is what agents in general would do. Agents are too often portrayed as sharks and though they may sometimes be so it's not a fair generalisation.

But forget any generalisations for the moment. I want to get specific and talk about my agent.

My agent has been my rock. She has fought for me and stayed with me despite the fact that most of my income does not currently go through her - she doesn't take a percentage of my speaking/consulting income; and she only acts for my children's titles; I've not written a new children's book recently; and my royalties are pathetic. (And yes, Kristine is right that publishers blame authors for poor sales, quite unfairly in most cases, or at least they drop us when it happens, often without apology or any obvious feeling of regret or understanding. Most of you will know someone who has suffered like that.)

My agent has kept me strong in the face of adversity that almost stopped me writing altogether. She has never stopped believing in me or working for me. She has never told me to write any particular thing or not to write any particular thing. She could have done, if money was her object. She never pushed or hassled or nagged. She was just there, calm for me, to keep me calm when I couldn't write fiction.

And my agent is not going to publish my backlist as ebooks and give me a cut - no: I'm going to publish them and give her a cut! Hooray! I owe it to her and it's the least I can do. After all, without her, those books would never have been published in the first place. She hasn't earned as much from me as she should have done, especially in the last year or two, and I really hope I can put that right.

So, this is just a shout-out for my great agent. Good agents are not sharks - they work for us and usually they work damned hard. I owe mine everything. I owe her the very fact that I'm a published author. And I intend to be able to give something back.

Thank you, Elizabeth Roy.

 __________________________

I'll let you know (if I may) when we republish Mondays are Red and Sleepwalking. Those books did well and I still get many emails from people who want them - a school just this week was trying to buy a class set of Mondays are Red and so that school is going to work with me around the re-publication. I will also be publishing a brand new non-fiction list, starting with Tweet Right - the sensible person's guide to Twitter. Publication for that is planned for September. All you reluctant tweeters - one for you!

A Competition from Nicola Morgan

Straight to the point: I bring you a competition. The prize would have been chocolate but somehow I ate it. Instead I have something which will last longer, be more useful, and give you pleasure. And engender no guilt whatsoever.
 

The prize is a copy of Write to be Published and a gorgeous, sought-after, limited edition, hessian, multi-functional, “Crabbit bag”. Obviously, the book is also gorgeous and sought-after, but it’s not limited edition – I hope – or hessian. As to being multi-functional, well, you could use it as a drinks mat or to fan yourself in a moment of undue excitement, but its true destiny is to help writers write better, understand the weird minds of publishers and agents, and become published. Then stay published. Even if you’re not a writer, you might enjoy the insight it gives into just what makes a publishable book and a publishable writer.

So, how do you enter?
 

Well, you may know that I am more than occasionally known as the Crabbit Old Bat. (To the left is my appropriately strident avatar on Twitter, where I tweet as @nicolamorgan.) I should explain, because I realise that it is hard to believe in connection with my laidback personality, but “crabbit” is a delicious Scottish word meaning grumpy and tetchy. Google the phrase “Crabbit Old Bat” and you’ll see just how supremely I reign supreme in this field. (*boasts*)

Sometimes it’s cathartic to let one’s grumpiness hang out and have a good old moan. It may not be attractive but then things hanging out rarely are. So, here’s your chance to join me in liberated, unashamed crabbititude.

Tell me: what bugs you in the book world? What really gets your goat and ruffles your tail-feathers? It could be something about being a writer or a reader or a customer in a bookshop or an internet-surfer or a word-lover or anything remotely connected to the world of words and books.

Add your gripe (or gripes – don’t hold back!) to the comments below and I’ll put all comments into a bag and pull out a winner. Apart from spam – now there’s something that bugs me…

Deadline is midday British time on 20^th July. I’ll need your email address if you win, so if you don’t want to put it in the comment you’ll need to keep an eye on my blog at Help! I Need a Publisher from July 20^th, where I’ll announce the winner and put all the entries for your perusal.

Meanwhile, a very, very happy 3^rd birthday to ABBA and my huge thanks to all who work so hard to organise it and the Scattered Authors Society. Being a children’s author is a privilege and a pleasure and one of the things that makes it so is the community of writers and readers all wanting the same thing: great books for young people.

And now, after that happy message, back to being crabbit. Join me!

Books, bacon and chain bookseller of the year - by Nicola Morgan

Gosh, how proud I am of my favourite supermarket! It has a fantastic selection of bread, and beans and bacon and even lots of other foods that don’t begin with b. Yes, I know: man or woman cannot live by bread (or beans, bacon and baking powder) alone, but fear not because Sainsbury’s has just been honoured for its bookselling wondrousness. Yep, it’s won the “Martina Cole General or Chain Bookseller of the Year” award.

Admittedly, this surprised me a little. I tried to think where the books were in my large branch of Sainsbury’s and I couldn’t quite remember. I thought that might be because when I go to Sainsbury’s I’m usually focused on the beans etc and don’t expect to see books. And the brain often doesn’t see what it doesn’t expect to see.

Anyway, according to the citation, this award was for “reinvigorating book zones, increasing book sales by more than 33% and attracting new book buyers to the market.” Book zones? Fab!

Despite knowing that you can’t believe everything you read in the papers, I was cautiously optimistic when I went to look at my nearby Sainsbury’s. After all, it’s big and has very recently been refurbished, so it must have a book zone.

And there, behind the clothes, it was! Just the green bit, as the rest is toys, but it was verily an actual cardboard shelfy thing, all for books. Well, three titles. And did you spot that it has some batteries hanging from it, just in case you need those for your torch while reading under the bedclothes?



But no! Silly me. This wasn’t the real Book Zone, merely the taster, the introduction to the gloriousness of the real Book Zone.

Look! Books! Please don’t be surprised that it took me a while to find. It was right at the back of the shop, in a corner. I’d literally never seen it before.

Also, I didn't notice at the time but if you look very closely at the top right hand corner of the photo, you'll see a big sign: WE'VE DUMPED THE JUNK! Meh. (By the way, yes, that is my shopping trolley in the shot and yes they are my bottles of pink Cava. I got those from the Wine Zone.)

Anyway, no time to lose. I measured the Book Zone: three metres long, with six shelves. I counted the books. There were between fifty and sixty titles – it was difficult to count because everything was a bit of a mess and people kept coming past to get to the DVDs. There were the forty best-selling paperbacks (I’m not too sure whose chart that was) and a few scruffy picture books, Jeremy Clarkson’s latest and some pink things that looked like cupcakes. Oh, and two cupcake recipe books.


I went looking for something to compare this with. Now, I could have chosen crisps or yogurt, each of which occupied metres and metres and metres of shelving and countless products, but a) that’s a lot of measuring and counting and b) it would have been unfair to books and c) they don’t begin with b. But, just round a few corners, was the bacon. The Bacon Zone.

I did some measuring and counting again – I was quite enjoying this, along with the surreptitious photography. (Not that I think I was doing anything wrong, just that photographing bacon is not a very impressive thing to be seen doing.) Three metres, six shelves, and 55 products. (Also a bit difficult to count, not because people kept coming past to get to the books but because people kept wanting to buy the products, which hadn’t been a problem in the Book Zone.)

Well, zone-wise, books and bacon pretty equal, possibly even a few more products in books than bacon. But I needed to be sure. And sure enough, round the corner, a whole other Bacon Zone. And, what’s more, in pride of place at the end of an aisle. Clearly they really wanted to sell this bacon stuff. Victory to bacon! Maybe Sainsbury's are going for the Dan Brown Bacon Retailer of the Year award.

So, “reinvigorating book zones, increasing book sales by more than 33% and attracting new book buyers to the market,” eh? Give me a break. That book zone needed a rocket up it. There were no book sales going on while I was there and no book buyers at all, let alone new ones. Actually, a man in shorts did come by and lingered but I think he was hiding from his wife. He didn’t buy anything.

If Sainsbury’s wants to enter the book-selling game with a mission to “attract new book buyers”, that’s great. After all, we’ve just heard that 30% of UK households own no books. But you do that by supporting and enthusing libraries, schools and families with your passion for books, not by filling a dark corner with the top forty, chucking in a few scruffy deep discounted publisher promotions, some cupcakes and Jeremy Clarkson.

Listen to me, Sainsbury’s: people come to your stores for the bacon and the beans. (And in my case the very cheap and decent pink Cava at £4.89 a bottle.) If you really care about books more than bacon, then here’s an idea: fund book-buses, full of the lovely books you want to sell, and take authors into schools. Pay the authors a reasonable fee and we’ll talk about books, not just ours, but any books, good books, fascinating books, inspiring books. We’ll do the enthusing, we’ll display the knowledge and the passion and we’ll help you sell the books. Just think of the good publicity you’d get for your lovely supermarket, too.

Then, you really would deserve the Martina Cole General or Chain Bookseller of the Year. In the meantime, frankly, you don’t.

By the way, this evening I'm having my launch party for Write to be Published. In a bookshop. But not Sainsbury's. The Edinburgh Bookshop. I did buy my fizzy wine from Sainsbury's because Vanessa doesn't yet stock it. Come on, V, what are you waiting for? You could be the Nicola Morgan Cava Retailer of the Year!

Time to Hang up Your Keyboard? - Nicola Morgan

I've just read The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson. Apart from the fact that it made me want to give up writing because it's so brilliant, it was unadulterated pleasure, as all her books are. As you'll know, Eva Ibbotson died in October last year, aged 85. She'd just finished going through the proofs of her next book. And if you've read her books - if you haven't, please, please do - you'll know that her writing is fresh and vibrant and sparkly, magical, seemingly effortless, and pure, pure brilliant.

In many ways, there's no reason why someone shouldn't be writing as well at 85 as at 45. But it made me think: when, why and how do authors retire? Do we have to go on till there's no breath in our bodies? Are we allowed to stop? Sometimes, should we? Some people, writers or not, lose touch as they get older - and losing touch is a complete no-no for a children's author, so what if that happens to us and how will we know? Will someone tell us? What if we're different from Eva Ibbotson and actually decline in our writing ability, as is possible? How do we decide when it's time to hang up the keyboard?

Leaving aside the question of money, which for most of us is not a very big question - or at least not a very big answer - I have some questions for the published writers amongst you.

• Do you expect to carry on writing until you no longer can? 
• Have you given any thought to when or if you'll stop?
• Will you announce that you've retired? Or will you perhaps carry on writing but not go through the publishing process, not jump through the hoops that publishers and reviewers set?
• Perhaps you're tired of the whole thing and are secretly looking forward to stopping? (It would be a hard thing to admit, wouldn't it? After all, we're supposed to love writing. But it's hard work, often very hard work, even before all the promotion stuff we're supposed to do.)

I'm interested! What do you all, different ages as you all are, think you'll do about stopping, or will you go on, as wonderful Eva Ibbotson did, as long as your health and energy permit?

Perhaps the ideal is that we reach the stage when we no longer care about success and simply write for the love of it. Maybe that's what Eva did. Maybe that is the secret. Maybe, to adapt the words of Robert Frost, my favourite poet, she still had stories to tell before she stopped and words to write before she slept.

The Dreaded P-Words - Nicola Morgan

One of the problems with modern life is too much choice. Choice is offered as a good thing and, on the face of it, it is. Certainly, lack of choice is lack of power and the ultimate lack of power is slavery. But too much choice can be horribly paralysing and lead to great dissatisfaction. 

There's an area of choice in which I think writers are becoming panicky and paralysed. It's the P-Words: Publicity, Promotion, Profile, Platform. Oh, and pro-active.

Time was when a writer wrote a book, waited for Publication Day, was wheeled out for a few signings and tottered back to a hotel for a claret-laden dinner with editor. (Actually, I have no memory of such days, but allow me some imagination.) Now, we have to be pro-active, partly because often our publishers don't do enough or we have better ideas, or simply because there are so many opportunities and our publishers rightly encourage us to use them. We see other authors Doing Stuff and want to Do Stuff too. For a pro-active, interfering, control freak such as me, this is, in theory, great.

In theory.

In practice, it's a flipping nightmare, a feast of choices, incitement to wake in the night with Yet Another Stupid Wheeze Which I Usually Actually Carry Through. And then there's the panic when we hear what someone else is doing - why didn't we think of that? The blog tour, the sponsored marathon, the one-woman festival, the colour-coded Tweet-up, the mail-shotting of the fan database. What?? You don't have a fan database, in a spreadsheet, with the ability to identify each category of reader, by postcode? You mean you haven't set up a Twitter persona for each of the characters in your book? You don't have a special blog, posting every day for six months? You haven't organised a book giveaway throughout all continents of the world? Bad, lazy author.

NO! No more, I say, no more. I reject paralysing choice. I will not be panicked into doing stupid things that sound good but wreck me. Never again will I set a world record of school visits in one day, as I did for Deathwatch. Or organise a blog tour AND set up a new blog, as I did for Wasted. Nor will I ever lie awake wondering what mad things to do for the next book. I will reject panic. I will calm down, be sensible and moderate. We do too much, worry too much, glance in too much fear at other people, fret about what we're not doing instead of focusing on what we can do well.

So, here, for what it's worth, is my advice on approaching publication in a state of zen:

1. Play to your strengths: do what suits you. If the idea curdles your stomach juices, spit it out.
2. Focus not on the excitement of the Bright Idea but the feeling you will actually have when you have to put the idea into practice. Will you regret it? If so, stop it in its tracks.
3. Choose a couple of things to do and forget the other possibilities. You have another book to write and a life to live.
4. Ignore everyone else: no one is doing everything and most people are not selling as many books as you fear.
5. If you wake in the night with a crazy idea, go back to sleep. 
6. Be strategic and time-focused. Six months before publication, make a plan (in conjunction with your publisher); then do virtually nothing till two months before P-day.Then, look at your plan and follow it. This planning eliminates the need to wake in the night in a panic. Besides, you're not panicking, remember?
7. Remember that what happens to your book will depend mostly on luck and the book, more than how many hours you spent promoting it.
8. You do not have to have a launch party - it's fun (for some people) but it usually doesn't sell books so only do it if it will make you happy, not if it will stress you.
9. Do as I say, not as I do. But I'm trying - I really am.

ARGHHHHH.

By the way, in case my publicist is reading this, the book is called Write to be Published. But it's not published till June, so I'm doing nothing yet.

Caaaaaaaaalm. Ommmmmmmmmm.

The New Art of Conversation - Nicola Morgan

In the last week, two blog posts that I've commented on have found themselves in The Guardian. One was Lucy Coats' trenchant post on ABBA about A Certain Person and his unpleasant brain injury comment. The other was independent bookseller Vanessa Robertson's equally trenchant piece about World Book Night. I’m interested in what happened to them and the appended comments and in what this means for all of us.

After Vanessa's WBN post, I'd left a comment, among many comments from other people, and mine was picked up by a journalist and quoted (well, half of it) in her subsequent Guardian piece. No other comment was quoted by name. In the Guardian, my quote was prefaced by the statement, "Author Nicola Morgan was among those happy to air objections..." This implied that I'd been asked by the journalist. Actually, she had tried to contact me but my phone was off while I was doing school talks and by the time I got her message it was too late: her deadline had passed. One might think that because I’d commented, I was de facto “happy”. Well, yes: I was happy to comment amongst all the other commenters but the small but important difference now was that my comment had appeared on another forum, in print, with another headline, and taken out of its original discussion. It had been, in effect, re-contextualised by someone else. I am not annoyed, because I utterly stand by what I said, and the journalist's piece was good. But it got me thinking.

In Lucy's post, one commenter's remark was also taken and used in the Guardian piece on that subject, and later, on ABBA, that commenter expressed a similar surprise to mine. I’m not criticising journalists, by the way. There may be an issue of asking permission but I’m not interested in that just now. Ditto any copyright issues to do with quoting from blogs.

So what am I saying? I am saying that the internet has changed something about conversation. Blogs, unless actually private and hidden, are public, and when we comment, although it might feel like a discussion where we're all in the room, we are putting our views out there in a very public way. We cannot then control where our comments will appear. And it's permanent. The internet doesn’t forget. The internet has blurred the once clear divide between the spoken word and the printed word. It's more permanent than either and possibly more powerful.

In a good old offline conversation, you know who is there, who is listening - unless you are being bugged - and you know it is unlikely your words will find themselves discussed in public elsewhere. You can make mistakes, change your mind, clarify what you mean if someone doesn't understand. No one can take your words out of context because all those in the discussion know the context. The discussion is also moderated by those in it. It is controlled and yet can be wild and free ranging. There is little at stake other than the opinions of those present.

In an online conversation, the new conversation, all that is different. There is much more at stake, much more that can go wrong, much less control. You don't know who's listening and you don't know what will happen to your words, except for one thing: they will remain.

We also need to realise that Facebook and Twitter conversations are now watched by journalists. You make comments on Facebook and those comments can be quoted or passed on to people outside your FB circle. I have heard of people having to "defriend" others because they are worried that those people, not being actual friends, may use their comments against them. And I worry about the unguarded comments that some people make on Facebook, because FB sometimes feels like a party, with actual friends, whereas in fact we should always assume that in theory anyone could come across our comments there. If you comment on a thread, the friends of the person who started that thread - whom you may not know - also see your comment. And with Twitter, absolutely anyone can, in theory, see what you say. The nature of a Twitter conversation also means that what we say can be twisted, because of the "edit Retweet" facility, in a kind of crazy chinese whispers game, to the extent that a comment of someone else's can look like ours.

The internet has allowed us to have conversations and debates with people we'd never have been able to "meet"; it's opened up boundless possibilities for new forums, new discussions, new knowledge. And while it’s wonderful that the things we say can be read by so many, that publicity for our views is so easy, that all of us can be opinion-formers, that real freedom of speech is so heady, it’s also the case that these things can hurt us.


So, I urge you, writers and bloggers, Twitterers and Facebook aficionados: spread your words more carefully and thoughtfully than ever. Even if you are merely adding a comment to someone else’s conversation. Anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence - and you may not even get the chance to sign the statement.