Archive for September, 2010
How is the revolution in new technology changing the commercial publishing industry?
TLC’s final event for the Flow Festival on 28th September was a cutting-edge publishing debate, chaired by Robert McCrum, associate editor of The Observer. We engaged Santiago de la Mora, Head of Print Partnerships for Europe Google, alongside Dan Franklin, Head of Digital at Canongate Publishers and Bill Thompson, technology writer and digital guru.
In this urgent debate, the panel attempted to demystify the relationship between the internet and publishing, and asked if the brave new world of free content would decimate print industries and threaten the livelihoods of emerging and established writers. The audience was full of well informed writers and agents, such as Claire Alexander and Caroline Dawnay, who helped to create a lively and fascinting Q & A at the end.
Click here for the Bookseller review of the event or here for Robert McCrum’s full article in the Guardian.
Taz Shakir who attended the Literary Adventures in March 2010, at Casa Ana in Andalucia, has found time during his busy life as an anesthetist, to make a book out of contributions from those on the adventure writing holiday. Below is a quote from Taz to his fellow holiday-makers. We think this gives a flavour of how things went, and hope you will join us soon. Click here to see a short video clip.
Dear Literary Co-adventurers,
The making of this book had been an absolutely marvellous experience. For the past many years I have lived a life where if something needs be done it should have been done yesterday! There are always so many different things going on, that even looking for downtime has long been given up as an crazy idea. Perhaps many of you live similar lives too.
And then there was the making of Literary Adventures 1! The relaxed to and froing of e-mails- submissions, corrections, questions and their answers was superb. Nothing was harried, there were dead-lines, no expectations or demands. Our exchanges were always supportive, non-confrontational, polite and happiness-generating! Gandhi would have been proud of all of us! In fact, the longer I took the more compliments I got from all of you!!
PS The book is very sweet and has taken pride of place on my bookshelf.
Taz Shakir
TLC hosted a fabulous event last night on 22nd September, in which Fiona Mountain, historical novelist and author of Rebel Heiress, (previously published under the title Lady of the Butterflies) and Chair Paul Blezard, writer and presenter of One Word digital radio station, discussed her route to publication, and how two TLC reports helped her as part of a long journey into print. Paul Blezard teased out her story, from struggling writer to one who has just made it onto the bookshelves of Sainsbury’s.
During the second half of the event, Fiona and Paul were joined by literary agent Broo Doherty, creative writing tutor Greg Mosse, Professor Brenda Cooper and TLC’s Director Rebecca Swift. The panel discussed how to attract the attention of literary agents and the inner workings of the publishing industry. The Q & As went on into the night, focusing on very real questions such as whether writers can write what they really want to write anymore. After the interval, we had an energetic rapid-fire round of practice pitches of novels from members of the audience and the panel responded. It was inspiring, albeit rather terrifying, no doubt.
The Literary Consultancy was involved in the founding of The Free Word Centre in London. As one of the Arts Council’s regularly funded organisations, it was given the chance to take part in a series of conversations about what it would mean to have a national and international centre for literature, literacy and free expression in the UK.
Find out more about TLC at Free Word Centre on the Location page.
Part of the FLOW festival at the Free Word Centre with The Literary Consultancy & English PEN
As part of the FLOW festival at the Free Word Centre, The Literary Consultancy and English PEN presented Go With The Flow – A Lunchtime Literary Walk.
A walk around literary Clerkenwell that started and ended at Free Word. Writers Jake Arnott, Monique Roffey and Shazea Quraishi and the philosopher Robert Rowland Smith read from their books en route, and encouraged participants to do their own writing –and, of course, to bring an umbrella too!
Free tickets up for grabs for the FLOW festival!
Rebecca Swift is co-founder of The Literary Consultancy (TLC), which offers help to writers in the form of manuscript assessment, mentoring and agent placement. She’s offering you the chance to win a free ticket to an evening event at the FLOW literary festival!
The Literary Consultancy is now firmly established at the Free Word centre, a hub which celebrated its first birthday on 15 September. To mark the occasion, Free Word is launching its second annual literary festival, and this year the main theme and title is FLOW.
We are offering Writers’ & Artists’ website users a chance of winning two free tickets to TLC’s evening events on 22 and 28 September (worth £10 each) open to those who ring first. Call 020 7324 2563 and leave your details quoting ‘Free Word Flow/W&A’.
http://www.writersandartists.co.uk/2010/09/tlc-free-word-and-the-flow-festival/
These days, the task of first sifter generally goes to agents – but even they are feeling overwhelmed. Curtis Brown proclaims on its website, as a point of difference: “We are one of the few agencies who do accept unsolicited manuscripts.” Anyone who begins to feel this publishing business is a closed shop has good reason.
But there are other ways to get a hearing. There is The Literary Consultancy, for example, established by Hannah Griffiths and Rebecca Swift in 1996, at a time when many independent publishers were being gobbled up by conglomerates. They began to see, as Swift puts it, that “bottom lines had become all-important, meaning that writers who were perhaps too literary or too experimental are judged with extreme caution by anyone interested in profits first.”
In the slush pile Swift saw not guilt-inducing dross, but “a great big neglected pile of people’s efforts. Everybody needed and deserved attention.” But at the same time, “what they needed to understand was that that was very highly skilled attention, and that to get a really good response should cost money.” They charge £75 to read stories of up to 3,000 words; £250 for a one-or two-page synopsis up to 100 double-spaced pages; £1.50 per double-spaced page for the first 300 pages of a longer manuscript, and £1 per page thereafter, providing for that a detailed, thoughtful critique of the entire submission. If they consider a work exceptional, they will recommend it to an agent. They are doing well.
During the weeks of 14th Sept – 5th Oct, the Free Word Centre in Farringdon presents their second annual festival. The Free Word Centre is England’s first centre for literature, literary and free expression. Shreela Ghosh, the director of Free Word, outlines ten snazzy points about the growing need and desire for literary festivals in the UK. Click here to read the entire article in the Bookseller.
TLC helped author Wessel Ebersohn with his novel, The October Killings. Ebersohn’s new thriller, Those Who Love Night, was published this year. Here is an interview about the new book with Crime Beat at Book Southern Africa.
Ebersohn interview with Crime Beat by Mike Nicol in August 2010
Mike Nicol of Crime Beat interviewed Wessel Ebersohn on THOSE WHO LOVE NIGHT.
Crime Beat: Well, this came as a surprise, although I am not sure exactly why. Perhaps I thought you were intricately tied into the South African scene. But leaving that aside, Those Who Love Night is set in Zimbabwe. Why did you decided to go outside our borders?
The great advantage that an author enjoys when using The Literary Consultancy is the power of an objective and dispassionate view of his or her work from talented and knowledgeable people. The guidance and positive criticism I received from TLC played a major part in the market’s acceptance of The October Killings. I am truly grateful for the help given to me.
Wessel Ebersohn, The October Killings , Umuzi
Wessel Ebersohn: I have been fascinated by Zimbabwe and its travails for a long time. A well-ordered society is better for its citizens in every way, but it is not very stimulating. I recently spent a few weeks in Europe. I found much there that is interesting and beautiful, but not much to get the pulse racing. The chaos that is Zimbabwe, borne out by our own visits to that country, is a naturally exciting background for a thriller, not always the easiest or safest place to research though.
Crime Beat: You visited the country? In what way was conducting research difficult?
Wessel Ebersohn: Writers trying to get the real picture of Zimbabwe are always tense while in that country. Shortly before one of our visits, while working on Those Who Love Night, a Johannesburg-based journalist had fled the country. She found it necessary to travel via Zambia to throw the dogs off the scent. You are always aware that you are in a dictatorship and doing things of which the government would not approve. Not only that, but you are aware that you could be drawing unwelcome attention to the people you meet. For instance, we visited friends whose offices the Zanu PF headquarters looks down on. Passing through seemingly endless farmlands that had once been worked by white farmers, but are now lying fallow, also does little for the state of mind. The road blocks too are reminder of where you are. We were shaken down for US$50 by the police at one of them, but that was something that might happen to any tourist. It had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with opportunism. I took no notes while in the country, relying instead on my memory, which for matters important to me is a good one.
Crime Beat: Zimbabwe is a society in collapse. It is ruled by a neurotic and paranoid despot and this has bred a violent and sinister element in his security services. This is the sort of background you favour in your novels, but I wonder if this is not also a cautionary tale for South Africa?
Wessel Ebersohn: It certainly is a cautionary tale for our country. One has to understand that the leadership of that country do not see their actions as unreasonable. No dictators do. According to the pronouncements of its propagators, the recent attempts to bring the press to heel in South Africa also seems entirely reasonable. What has to be appreciated is that any such step can take the one who makes the decision down a turning in the road that can lead to some altogether unexpected destination. It may also turn out to be almost irreversible, at least for the foreseeable future. When the person or group making such decisions is at the head of a nation the consequences may truly be vast.
Crime Beat: Just to return to the topic of the Ebersohn territory: an iron-fisted state and a citizenry struggling for their rights. Why is this one of your dominant themes?
Wessel Ebersohn: I am enthralled by the struggles that people have when they live under dictatorships. We live in a continent from which many middle-class people – of all races – have fled. I remember something Reverend Beyers Naude said to Miriam, my wife, while I was in hiding finishing Store Up The Anger. She was afraid of being picked up by the security police. He gave her excellent advice, then he said, “But it is exciting, isn’t it?”
Read the whole interview on Wessel Ebersohn’s news page