Archive for the 'Writing & Publishing' Category

I got a new mobile phone a few months ago and I’ve been slowly exploring all its functions - and in the process, I’m discovering a whole new mobilesphere (I have no idea if there is such a word but it seems an apt way to describe the world of mobile media in the way that blogosphere describes the world of blogs!). My new phone is also a mobile computer, running Windows Mobile and 80% of its front face is given over to the screen - the phone part of it has a virtual keypad for me to touch-type the phone number. It runs a mobile version of Word, Excel, Outlook and Internet Explorer. It has WiFi so so I can surf the internet as well as send and receive emails if there’s a WiFi service available - but I also splashed out and signed up for a monthly data plan so I could be connected wherever I am. With unlimited texting and a huge number of talk minutes on top of all that, the way I relate to my mobile phone has completely changed.

I used my old mobile phone solely for voice calls - and I did not use it a great deal as I don’t like shouting out my part of the conversation in public while I’m on the bus or in the street. I hated texting as I am not very nimble on using the telephone number keys to type out words. My new phone has a Qwerty keyboard (ie like a PC keyboard) as well as letter recognition on a touch-sensitive screen. Now I can email or SMS to my heart’s content in public - an excellent way to pass the time on the bus or wherever I am in transit!

Being a writer with this new writing tool to play with, naturally, I was curious when I came across an article about mobile phone novels. These are apparently huge in Japan. According to Wired magazine: “A mobile phone novel typically contains between 200 and 500 pages, with each page containing about 500 Japanese characters. The novels are read on a cell phone screen page by page, the way one would surf the web, and are downloadable for around $10 each.” The novelists tend to be young twenty-somethings or even teenagers who type their novels via their own cellphones. According to the writer interviewed by Wired, she can type faster on her phone than on a standard keyboard. There’s even a first mobile phone novel award - sponsored by the premier site that hosts these novels Magic iLand: might you call it the MoBooker?

There has been one author in the West who has written a novel on his mobile phone. According to a news report, “Italian writer Robert Bernocco took advantage of his idle time while commuting to and from work by train, writing his 384-page science fiction novel, Compagni di Viaggo (Fellow Travelers is the English translation), on his Nokia 6630 phone, using the phone’s T9 typing system.” The book has been published in traditional book form by Lulu.com.

I have to say, I admire the abilities of these two writers to master the mobile phone keypad. Even with the mini Qwerty keyboard and letter-recognition function of my new phone, I do not have the patience to write more than a few short text messages or emails on the fiddly thing!

It seems to me, in the West, there has not been any novel specially written for the mobile phone, as far as I know. I don’t think that the reason is necessarily the difficulty of writing on a mobile phone keypad - presumably, one could write it on a PC, blog-style, and then post it to whatever mobile phone novel site there is around. I wonder if Wester writers shouldn’t try this potential new genre. It would be a great way for a new writer starting out to write 500 words at a time. It’s great for readers as most of us have our mobile phones with us at all times - it’s a handy way to read short bite-sized chunks. Writing short, gripping prose is pretty hard, to be sure, and reading a lot of text on a tiny screen can be hard on the eyes. But I think these are excellent challenges for a writer to evolve a writing style exactly suited to this new medium - rather like writing poetry to the constraints of the sonnet form rather than just sticking a few lines together in the modern free-form style.

Would you read a novel on your mobile phone? Do you know of any writers in English who have a written mobile phone novel? Would you, as a writer, be tempted to try writing one? Add a comment or email me and share your views.

Photo: thanks to europe.htc.com

As a writer, one of the most difficult tasks is keeping my notes and research in order. For my fiction novels, I had a lot of research on geology and the structure of buildings (for The Flame Tree, which involved a defective tower that collapses) and on digital technology and brain function (for Mindgame, which turned on a plot to manipulate the minds of Asians). That was just over a decade ago and most of the research was in the form of articles from journals and photocopied pages from books. There was also all my handwritten notes. I stored them all in folders and ring-binders and after awhile it got really difficult to find the particular bit of information I wanted. I also had some recorded audio interviews on cassette tape which I stored in boxes.

Aah, how I longed to go paperless and be able to find what I needed “just like that” (snap of fingers!).

Working on my current non-fiction book on New Trends in International Public Relations, there is even more research than for the two fiction books put together. Fortunately, now that we are in the age of social media there are some great tools to help me sort, file and access my notes easily. First off, I have a del.icio.us bookmarking account. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it is an free online service where you can bookmark webpages that are of interest and that you want to return to again. You can “tag” them with keywords eg asia, social-networks, copyright etc so you can retrieve them again by searching that keyword. You can also add a short description and later, search the text of that short description to retrieve the item you want. It’s part of the social media world because you can share your bookmarks - all of them or only those tagged with a certain keyword, as you choose. You can share them with the world or with only the people you choose or no-one at all. People can subscribe to follow what you are publicly bookmarking.

On the wiki site I’ve created for the book, you can see the feed of my public bookmarks of the webpages that are relevant to the theme of New Trends in International Public Relations - scroll to the bottom of the page. Not only am I able to save the webpages, I can also share them so whoever comes to the book wiki can see what I am currently researching.

The only problem about del.icio.us is that it only saves webpages and I’ve had to find some other means of storing my non-webpage research eg notes of discussions, recorded audio interviews, random thoughts I’ve had while on the bus, articles scanned from or torn out of journals. They have so far all gone into the trusty paper folders again.

However, I recently found Evernote, a virtual note-taking and note-storing site that is in beta trialling. It allows you to bookmark webpages as well as add your own notes and attach photos and audio files - which means that I can keep pretty much all my research in one virtual place so that I can chuck out the paper folders. They don’t support pdf files but a workaround is to upload those into my online storage account at Box.net and link to it from Evernote. I’ve installed their mobile application on my PDA so I can take notes on the fly and upload them directly to my Evernote account. That application also optimizes the Evernote site online for viewing my stored notes from my PDA so I don’t have to clog up my PDA’s memory with old notes. I can also forward emails to the account - so if someone sends me email replies to interview questions, I can keep that email together with my other notes on the same subject. And I’ve taken to snapping a photo of any handwritten Post-Its or other notes and sending those to Evernote as well. And it’s all searchable by text or keyword.

There are some limitations in Evernote’s functionality regarding sharing, private/ public options and elements of their filing logic compared to del.icio.us but hopefully, they’ll be able to improve on those with the feedback that their beta users are giving them. The main thing I’d like to see is greater flexibility in being able to share by reference to specific tags. I’m not switching entirely to Evernote for the current book project since I’m committted to del.icio.us for that but I will certainly be using Evernote more fully for my next book project.

For all you writers, students, researchers out there, I’d say that Evernote is certainly worth a try. It’s currently in beta trialling by invitation only - I have 9 invitations left so if you’d like one, add a comment below and I’ll get back to you on a first come first served basis. Remember to leave your email address in the relevant field - I’ll be able to respond to you but it will not be visible by anyone else.

Photo: of files thanks to Stephanie Asher from flickr.com (CCL)

A survey by Borders bookshop shows that if your Zodiac sign is Gemini, you are twice as likely to be a successful writer, reporting that “The 27 great writers born under the twins include Chaucer, Salman Rushdie, Thomas Hardy, Leo Tolstoy, Margaret Drabble and Jodi Picoult”.

I’m a Gemini and I’m pleased to say that I’ve been moderately successful as a writer but by no means anywhere near the Greats. For me, the trouble about being a Gemini is that I tend to be changeable, easily bored and unable to easily buckle down for the long, hard slog it takes to be truly great at something. I’m much more successful at being a dilettante than a literati.

What star sign are you? Has it helped with your writing? Or hindered it?

Photo: thanks to Lukman Kusuma from flickr.com (CCL)

I am chuffed that highly-respected UK editor turned writing coach, Kathy Gale, has written a guest piece for Fusion View - a personal account of her experience of working with writers while an editor at the top London publishing companies and as an independent writing mentor.

Kathy Gale has been Senior Editor of Pan Books, Macmillan and Hodder & Stoughton; Editorial Director at Pan Macmillan; Marketing Director of Simon & Schuster; and Joint Managing Director of The Women’s Press. She currently heads her own writing consultancy, KG Publishing Services.

~~~~~~~

Kathy writes:

Flair

As an editor and publisher for over twenty years, I’ve worked with many writers and I’ve always shared the common publishing view that you’ve either got writing talent or you haven’t. If the flair’s there, it’s worth honing, nurturing and developing. If it isn’t, don’t encourage the writer.

I held this view steadfastly during my time as Senior Editor at Pan Books, Macmillan and Hodder & Stoughton, and when I became Editorial Director of Pan Macmillan and Joint Managing Director of The Women’s Press. But in 2005, I decided to go it alone and set up my own business as a publishing consultant and writing coach.

Breaking down the barriers

I began working with writers who were just starting out - reading their work, meeting them, talking to them on the telephone, helping them to understand the bewildering world of publishing and what publishers and agents actually want. When I started, I thought I would mostly be telling writers, gently and clearly, that they hadn’t got what it takes. And then I noticed a remarkable thing. As I worked with authors, and as I talked to them about the difficulties they were experiencing, the challenges they faced, the reasons their work wasn’t having enough of an emotional impact on the reader, often something was unlocked. Often, draft two or draft three was suddenly remarkably different. At that point, I began to change my mind about the whole talent question. Perhaps, in reality, we all have talent, but there are barriers – lack of knowledge of the publishing world, fear of exposure or failure, the ability to create the time and space to write – that hold us back.

It’s a tough world out there

This isn’t to say that I’m not realistic. I still give writers clear and honest feedback about their potential to be published and that’s often not the feedback the writer wants to hear. And I alert writers to the realities of the publishing world – it is extremely and increasingly tough to get a publishing deal. But I have been surprised by the amount of talent that is out there, just needing some encouragement and support to flourish.

Our beloved babies

For some of my writers, publication is the aim and nothing else will do. Others want to write the best book they can possibly write for the satisfaction that gives them. That changes the advice I give and the way I work. Some writers will come to me for initial feedback on their work and then go away for months as they rewrite. Others come regularly for detailed editing and support throughout the writing process. All of them come to accept that writing a good book takes months, often years, of sustained, hard, committed work. But most find it a highly satisfying and rewarding process. Alice Walker once said that having a child was like letting your heart walk around outside your body – a graphic picture of the vulnerability motherhood creates. And I think writing is a little like that – something internal and personal is being put out in the world for other people to look at and comment on. This can be a delicate, painful process. But most mothers would say that they wouldn’t be without their children. And I bet most writers wouldn’t be without their books.

~~~~~~~~~

To contact Kathy Gale about her work as a writing coach:
Kathy.gale@kgpublishingservices.co.uk
www.kgpublishingservices.co.uk

Photo: thanks to bookseller.com

We all need our dreams. The world is full of aspiring writers dreaming to have their great literary works published. Some of us are lucky enough to achieve this dream. Others keep dreaming, keep trying, keep on going despite the odds. All those motivation gurus tell you that if you face setbacks, just pick yourself up and try again. Writers who run writing workshops encourage you to keep writing, keep improving your craft. We hear stories about writers like J. K. Rowling who was a single mum writing her manuscript at cafes and wham! now she’s a billionaire. We dream that we’ll be the next big thing in publishing, with our manuscripts fought over in by publishers who will be begging us to take their million dollar deals.

But sometimes, you just need to stop and look at the cold, hard facts.

Danuta Kean is a well-known journalist and commentator specialising in the publishing industry. Her blog on writing and publishing is a must-read for anyone interested in how that world works. A recent post gives us the cold, hard facts about writing and money. She says:

“Anyone who believes being an author is a pathway to riches is in for a rude awakening. Though the image of the starving writer scribbling away in their garret is dated, the average writer has seen their income drop from a measly £7,000 a year in 2000 (source: The Society of Authors) to £4,000, according to the latest research from the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS). Although news headlines may trumpet six figure advances for debut novelists and high profile politicians, the reality is that most authors’ advances are well below £10,000.”

Take home message of the day? By all means keep scribbling - but don’t give up that day job just yet!

Photo: thanks to sxc.hu (free)

My 13-year-old nephew emailed me a story he has been writing and asked for my feedback last week. I was very touched that he asked me and I wanted to give him pointers that were going to be practical and useful.

The thing is, though, I have no idea what standard one should expect from a teenager as I have only ever considered writing by adults. I didn’t want to patronise him in the way that adults can patronise teens so I decided that I would give him advice as one writer to another, regardless of his age.

I was looking over my email to him just now and it struck me that some of the tips I gave could actually be helpful to any aspiring writer so I thought I’d share some of them here:

1. Show not tell. This is what all writers must learn to do. Show us the scene and the surroundings so we can infer what is happening and you don’t have to tell us. For example*, “Dan waited outside the maternity ward. His palms were sweaty and he couldn’t stop fiddling with the lighter. He kept looking up expecting to see the doctor come through the surgery doors. What was taking so long?” We know he is anxious and impatient by seeing his actions. We can infer that his wife is through those doors undergoing surgery - probably because there is a problem with the pregnancy. That is “showing”.

Compare “Dan waited anxiously and impatiently outside the surgery doors of the maternity ward where he had brought his wife an hour ago because there was a problem with the pregnancy”. That is “telling” - it gives you all the information but it’s not as exciting. You’re not in there with Dan.

Look through your manuscript and see where you can change “telling” to “showing”.

2. Minimise the use of adverbs. This is what my editor at Hodder & Stoughton told me. If you are showing not telling, then you don’t need adverbs because your reader will know if your character is angry or timid and you don’t have to say “angrily” or “timidly”. Go through your story and strike out 95% of the adverbs. Keep only a handful and they will be even more powerful.

3. Minimise subordinate clauses. Subordinate clauses can work to give explanations or provide additional information. But they can also distract from the main action. For an action story especially, what you want to convey is a sense of immediacy.

For example*, “Some might have considered Anna a timid girl but on this dark night, for the sun had set some hours before, as she strolled slowly home from work, feeling tired, for it had been a long and difficult day in the office, when Anna was suddenly and brutally attacked, she felt it within her heart that now was the time to be strong and fight back with all her might.” This gives you a lot of information about Anna and her day at work and what her friends think of her. But it loses immediacy because we are not there with her in the attack.

Compare: “Anna was tired. It had been a long and difficult day at the office. On her usual route back from work, she walked more slowly that usual even though it was already dark. Suddenly, someone grabbed her from behind. …..” And then you can describe the scene where she fights back. We do not need to know yet that her friends think her timid. You can always include that later, perhaps in a scene with her friends talking about how brave she was and how that was unexpected for them. The main point in this particular scene is the attack and her fighting back.

Go through your story and see where you can cut out subordinate clauses that are not relevant for that scene right now.

So, whatever age you may be, if you’re working to improve your writing, I hope these few pointers help you, too.

If you have any tips that you’d like to share with other writers, please do add them as a comment or email me, using the Contact link above.

*These examples are NOT taken from my nephew’s story - they are invented by me as illustrations.

Photo: thanks to this is your brain on… on flickr.com

Following from my post on SlushPileReader.com, where readers can vote for unpublished manuscripts to get a publishing contract, Amazon.com and Borders are also getting in on the act with their own versions of the democratic publishing ideal.

See the January magazine article Looking for a New Publishing Paradigm

These business models all rely on one of the characteristics of social media - user-participation. On the bookmarking site, Digg.com, you can bookmark on online article that you like and it will appear in a public page on Digg. Other readers who then follow the link to read the article you bookmarked can then vote for that item - the more votes it has, the higher the ranking on the Digg page and more readers will see it. Wikipedia is dependent on users making and editing entries.

In general, experts take the view that only 10% of visitors on a site participate in any active way eg leaving comments or other action that contributes to the site or enterprise offered by the site. Digg is very technology and sports biased. I expect that the people who populate Wikipedia are serious fans of whatever topic they are writing about and enjoy the kudos of being an expert. Many other user-generated site I’ve come across has a strong bias towards the interests of young guys with a tecchy, gadget-, sports-, or auto-focused interest. While there are many book lovers who are young guys, I have a sense that the majority are women who love books, the physical things, and may not have such a passion for reading their novels online - and have less of a fervour about being an expert. I would be very interested to watch how these publishing business models pan out and whether there’s going to be a bias towards sci-fi, fantasy and male-readership genres.

I also note that these ventures are all US based. America is notoriously self-focused when it comes to book publishing and it is hugely difficult to get your book published if you’re not American - even if, as a non-native, you write about a US setting with American characters, it’s very difficult to get it past the US literary sniffer dogs. I wonder if these ventures will let in more non-American manuscripts or if we will still find only US books getting through. (I don’t know if there’s a condition of entry that rules out non-US manuscripts - does anyone know?)

Am I portraying gender stereotypes here? What do you think? Please add a comment.

Pic: thanks to art.com

One of the characteristics of social networking online is the interactive, community element. On a blog, readers can comment on posts. On a photo-sharing site like Flickr, users can pool their photos into Groups. On YouTube, you can post a video response to a video you’ve just watched. On Wikipedia, you can edit the online encyclopaedia or discuss an entry with other users.

A new publisher, SlushPileReader.com has just launched where authors can submit their manuscripts and readers can vote on whether or not that manuscript should be published as a book.

On the Book Standard, one of the company’s founders, Johanna Denize is quoted as saying:

“The world of literature is en extremely subjective world. An author may only have one shot at having his manuscript read and if the particular editor or agent who reads it doesn’t like it—that’s it. Game over. Slush Pile Reader will change that and give authors a chance to be read not just by one person but by many.”

When a book is selected for publication via this reader voting process, the company is committed to publish it in the traditional way and the author is paid an advance along with receiving royalties.

Book Standard comments:

“Slush Pile Reader is launching at a great time, as many publishers are taking into consideration the public’s opinion of a manuscript before publishing it. Simon & Schuster is one publisher that has taken special care, joining with Media Predict to decide which proposals are likely to succeed and teaming up with Gather.com for the First Chapters and First Chapters Romance competition, where Gather.com members vote on excerpts from manuscripts on the site.”

The one thing that’s not clear to me is whether the readers are paid anything for their “work” by giving input to the publishing process in this way. Perhaps there’ll be enough people who’ll do it for the fun of it - and who would enjoy being in the influential position of making or breaking the career of a would-be author.

This is a cross-post from my communications and social media blog, ZenGuide

Last week, I gave a presentation at the Copyright Licensing Agency’s annual open meeting about The Impact of Web 2.0 on copyright issues. It was a packed hall with over 180 people, many of them standing. The delegates ranged from authors and content producers to publishers and librarians and knowledge management professionals in education and business organisations. Althought I couldn’t make it for the whole of the round table discussion on digital information and copyright chaired by Chris Bryant, MP, I managed to catch the tail end of it. I also had the chance after the event to speak to a few of the delegates, including representatives from the BBC, a photographic rights agency, a publisher and a corporate knowledge management professional.

I’m jotting down here some of my impressions of the issues from the conference - these are no more than impressions and vignettes of the discussions as they were aired and raise more questions for debate rather than giving firm answers.

• The government is making funding available for schools to help students become more internet- and social media- literate but there are apparently delays due to concerns about schools using materials off the internet in breach of copyright. However, there are apparently special sites offering copyright-free material for schools and educational establishment for just this purpose. But, overall, can the government with all its unwieldy bureaucratic machinery be the right instrument for change is the fast moving area of online technology and networked communication and enterprise?

• Is digital rights management here to stay? Or will content producers like the BBC have to accept the fact that they will have to let go off their rights to a product some time after it’s been produced?

• At the moment, the likes of the BBC can still find a market to sell its high quality products like its natural world series etc due to the fact that pirated versions on the internet are of low quality. It is probably not long before the technology will be freely available to upload high quality pirated versions online. What then for the original content producers?

• Is there a future for book writers when digital readers become more widely available? At the moment, book lovers are still attached to the physical book but as the young techno-loving iPod wearing millenials and their children start to outnumber us oldies, will they adapt more enthusiastically to electronic book readers? If so, will that be an opportunity for “bijou” writers who don’t produce blockbusters to gain a wider readership through digital distribution because they won’t be at the mercy of the bookshops for distribution? Or will it be a threat because their work can now be easily copied and freely distributed illegally?

• Chris Bryant mentioned the estate of German playwright Bertolt Brecht. The estate were apparently restrictive for a long time in granting rights for Brecht’s works to be used, quoted, performed or edited. For example, his plays in their original would run for over 3.5 hours which is difficult to market to today’s theatre-going audiences. However, they have recently been more open in rights granting and the result has been that more Brecht plays are being performed and the increased exposure generally from the dissemination of his works through freer rights has resulted in greater revenue returns for the estate.

• The panellists in the main discussion all called for flexibility in managing copyright - yes, it is important to protect and value the products of creativity and hard work but in this digital age, it’s important to be flexible to enable the sharing of information and knowledge.

• I was struck by the comment of a university representative about the difficulties of printing off 50 copies of an online article to include in a student pack for discussion on one of the university’s courses. It’s ironic in that the founding principle of the World Wide Web was that the technology was meant to make information freely available for all…

What do you think? Have you had experiences around copyright issues and social media or online digital technologies? I’d love to hear your views - please add a comment or email me.

Photo: of Sony Digital Reader thanks to askdavetaylor.com

The print on demand revolution has been taken one step further in China where readers can order free, personalised books online - the catch is that they have to agree to advertising being inserted.

According to China Business News:

When selecting which books they want from BookGG, users can choose from a number of sponsors who wish to advertise in the books, and how many adverts they are willing to have. The location of adverts - front, back, middle or in page corners - can also be specified. If users agree to have enough adverts, the books will be provided to them free of charge.

Customers can also ask for books to be customized, for example, by having their names printed on the cover.

Once customers have made their selection, BookGG re-binds the books it acquired from publishers, inserting whatever adverts have been selected, before dispatching them.

You can read the full interview with Shen Bo, the publishing company’s president at China Business News.

Similar “permission”-based business models are taking hold in the mobile phone industry where content providers offer free content to mobile users if they agree to view adverts - or premium versions if the user prefers not to have ads.

Is there a business model for self-publishing authors to find investors/ venture capitalists for their book in exchange for advertising ? Certainly, product placement with funding in fiction has already occured - I think BMW offered prizes for short stories featuring their cars and I seem to recall a famous sex-and-shopping female novelist having designer brands sponsor one of her books (can anyone remember the author and which book it was?).

Photo: thanks to gigijin from flickr.com