I've just learned that Irons in the Fire is going into Waterstones' bookstores summer reading promotion. Which will mean it'll stay as part of the current 3for2 offer for a potentially useful number of weeks.

So if you're thinking of buying it, go on, you know it makes perfect sense now!

Among the other excitements of the past few weeks, such as the Oxfringe Festival and Eastercon, Irons in the Fire has been published!

Now, I find one of the most toe-curlingly excruciating things about this writing business is soliciting publicity quotes. On the other hand, praise from the praiseworthy is one of the most completely gratifying things. As in:

Dan Abnett
Gaunt's Ghosts, Eisenhorn, The Horus Heresy (WH40K); 2000AD, Marvel and DC (comics); Doctor Who, Primeval and Torchwood (books)
"Magically convincing and convincingly magical, this book delivers the kind of engrossing read you only get when a writer of Juliet's calibre is in effortless and enviable control of the world she's creating."

Kate Elliott (hereabouts, kateelliott)
Crossroads Trilogy; Crown of Stars series
"If you're not reading Juliet McKenna, you should be. The things I love about her work:
it's sharp, well observed, well written, pays attention to the right
kind of detail to ground the world-building, and offers a comprehensive
understanding of class, politics, war, and human nature. Plus:
sorcery, mercenaries, and the little people rising up against their
oppressors. I mean, really, what more could you want?"

Paul Cornell
Doctor Who (TV/books); Primeval (TV); Captain Britain and MI-13 (Marvel Comics)
"Juliet McKenna is an excellent modern fantasy writer. Irons in the Fire shows her at her best, combining politics, sudden, violent action, and a concern for the domestic, for ordinary people. What's best about it is that it's fundamentally about clever people, trying to do their best, in swift-changing circumstances. Precise, thorough, heartfelt and restrained, and thus very British.

All of which makes me even more eager to get on with writing the third book while the second is away at the copy-editors!

Amid the rich array of blogs and websites that we SF&F readers can enjoy, let me point you towards Fantasy Book Critic, where you can currently find a whole series of authors looking back at books they've enjoyed in 2008 and highlighting those they're eagerly anticipating in 2009. My own contribution is here, from Sarah Ash, here and from Mark Chadbourn, here.

The index to all the contributing writers is here. Enjoy!

Well, the wheels of The Insolvency Service do grind exceeding slow.

Cast your minds back and you may recall, back in December 2006, I wrote an article for a magazine, Writers' Forum, then owned by Writers International and edited by one John Jenkins. I duly invoiced, only to be told that since the issue in question covered Dec 06 and Jan 07, invoices would be settled in February. Chasing in Feb and March got me promises but no money. My sending them notice to pay up or expect Small Claims Court paperwork got me a cheque in April - which promptly bounced, as did its replacement, and the one after that. By this time, no one was answering the Writers International phones or email and I eventually discovered the company had been forced into receivership.

The magazine, Writers' Forum had been sold off as a going concern, without any liability for the existing debts - all perfectly legally. So I was one of a considerable number of people left unpaid, a fair few of whom had experienced the same series of duff cheques - all of which cost the recepient hefty bank charges, you should note. Add those on and I ended up £102 out of pocket. Not a sum to break the bank but still, aggravating.

So, anyway, I decided to see this through to the end, via the administrators and receivers. More out of curiosity than expectation of ever seeing any money.

It has been a long, occasionally tedious and not particularly edifying process. The onus has been on me throughout to find out what's been going on and to make sure my claim is processed. The case has passed through three different offices and I've dealt with (at least) six different people. I've had to submit my information three times and still got a letter telling me I must return Form Such and Such instantly or my claim would be disallowed, when I'd already done just that. So there have been phone calls every few months to keep everything on track - all at my expense.

Several of those were about clarifying errors, after a letter arrived to tell me one Julia mackenna was listed as an unsecured creditor in the information Writers International had supplied to the official receiver. Since I work as a company and had invoiced as such, I was a secured creditor, thanks very much, which gave me a chance of some money, whereas Ms mackenna was almost certainly going to be out of luck. That seems to have been a waste of time as that spurious and illusory claim persisted right through the process. I've just had the letter saying Ms mackenna gets nothing.

Juliet E McKenna, however, has been paid £38.47. So, less the £12 bank charges those bouncing cheques cost me, that's effectively £26. Better than nothing.

John Jenkins in the meantime, has turned into a tutor and assessor for the National Council for the Training of Journalists. According to Google, he's now an external examiner for various university journalism degrees. At last year's Winchester Writers' Conference, he gave a seminar on freelancers selling their work and knowing their rights. Oh, I was sorely tempted to go along and ask pointed questions about pursuing bad debts. But I decided that would be petty.

Nearly as petty as the way he blanked me utterly when we came face to face in a corridor there, hastily walking past and refusing to make eye contact. I learn he did the same to two other people present, who'd also been left out of pocket by Writers International's collapse. Too embarrassed to offer an apology, after making such a hash of running his company? Too arrogant, having cynically strung contributors along until creditors forced his hand? Who can say. You may make up your own minds. I can't help wondering how much of all this is known to those students of journalism now relying on his expertise.

Looking forward, I now know how to deal with The Insolvency Service. Obviously, I shall be taking very great care to avoid ever having to do so in the future.

When did you last visit your public library? I'm ashamed to say I don't get into mine nearly as often as I did when the sons were smaller. That'll be a New Year's resolution for 2009 then. Because I did pop into the local branch library last week and saw it's following the positive and innovative trends we've been seeing all over, on gigs for The Write Fantastic. This has been a particularly busy year for us as libraries have really got behind 2008 as The National Year of Reading.

A particularly fine example is Bexley, where Sarah Ash and I were on 22nd November. They have an excellent online presence, where you can do everything you might expect, like reserve and renew books, DVDs and such, as well as finding out what libraries are open when. But there's a great deal else besides, like access to online databases. They have 'rooms' where keen readers can find book groups to join and share recommendations and reviews. Different genres are all featured, along with special events like author visits, which are followed up with online interviews. Sarah and I will be doing just such a Q&A soon.

( click here for picture! )

'Lifestyle' interests like DIY and sport and travel etc are covered. Then there's the Entertainment Room with information on film, TV, local theatre and cinema. The Teens Room offers study resources, recommended reading and reviews and information on local groups like the Manga Network and Battle Gamers. And there are similarly focused resources for parents and carers, primary-school kids, local and family historians.

But don't you writers want people buying your books, I might imagine someone grumbling, rather than borrowing them for free?

I do think that grumbler is missing the point. Libraries and bookshops aren't mutually exclusive. They're complementary. Libraries enable readers who can't afford to buy books to keep on reading, especially the young. Nowadays, with the rise of the DVD and computer games and libraries lending those, they enable people to explore all the varied facets of the contemporary imaginative landscape. Again these things aren't mutually exclusive, and tie-in fiction plays a large part in keeping teenagers reading on into their twenties, traditionally a time when a lot of people drift away from reading fiction for pleasure and may not return until they have kids of their own. Or at all.

Encouraging teens - girls and boys - was a particular focus I noted in Rutland Library last week. It was the library service who organised the schools creative writing seminar that I was teaching, they're running a short story competition in the run up to Christmas and they host regular Warhammer gaming sessions.

Oh and before that hypothetical grumbler can start on about digital divides and how online stuff is all very well for those with home broadband, every library I've been into before we started TWF in 2005 has offered computer access and free wi-fi is becoming more and more common.

Libraries enable readers in two minds about a particular author to try one of their books for free. If that book doesn't work for the reader in question, no harm, no foul. If it does, chances are, they'll go on to start buying their books when circumstances and funds allow, or start putting their titles on the Christmas list.

The best way of selling books remains word of mouth recommendation. Which is why library review sites and their reading groups are so fantastic. Reading groups in particular encourage people to move outside their comfort zones and try something new. Again, if it doesn't work for them, no harm is done. If it does, they've taken their first step into a wider universe. Again, we were very impressed by Bexley's support for their readers' groups, via their 'Well Read' newsletter, readily available in all their libraries.

Anyway, libraries don't take income away from writers. They add to it, via the Public Lending Right scheme. A token payment for loans is calculated and paid out annually, up to a maximum of £6,600. So no one gets rich on it, not even JK Rowling, but for instance, it's a major contribution to my discretionary/convention travel fund each year. And the UK scheme is soon to be extended to Ireland - hurrah!

Looking more immediately forward, I'm keen to see what Trafford libraries are offering. Checking details for our upcoming TWF gig there, I was impressed with their online presence too.

And I'm wondering just how busy TWF is going to be in 2009 because I cannot imagine any of the librarians we've met this year allowing the impetus they've generated just to evaporate.

Hey there - just wanted you all to know that the 'David Gemmell 'Legend' Award for Fantasy' is now happening!

For all the information about casting your vote etc please visit http://GemmellAward.com

Nominations are coming in from all the Fantasy Publishers thick and fast, and will be Longlisted on the website very soon!

Another gratifyingly busy year concludes with the following events:

4th October – GamesFest III, Tring
Mark Chadbourn, Stan Nicholls, Juliet E McKenna

11th October – NewCon, Northampton
Juliet E McKenna, Chaz Brenchley, Deborah J Miller

15th November - Wokingham Library – 10.00 am – 1.00 pm,
Creative Writing Course & Discussion
Juliet E McKenna, Chaz Brenchley
ring the library for more details on 0118 978 1368

22nd November – Welling Library – 11.00 am – 12.30 pm,
Reading and Writing SF& Fantasy
Sarah Ash, Juliet E McKenna
ring the library for more details on 020 830 37777

17th December –Stretford Library, Manchester, from 7 pm
Reading and Writing SF& Fantasy
Stan Nicholls, Juliet E McKenna, Chaz Brenchley
with Conrad Williams and Paul Magrs
ring the library for more details on 0161 912 5150

Come along, say hello and/or spread the word to pals you know within striking distance of the gigs who're likely to be interested.

And then it's onward to 2009!

One of our Write Fantastic's very own members, Stan Nicholls has kindly given us an extensive (and in parts hilarious!) interview over on Wonderlands... so do come over and share oor Stan's expertise and reminiscences... http://wonderlands.ning.com

Also, while I'm 'here' - just a reminder that Juliet, Chaz and myself (Deborah Miller) will be at the Ealing/West London Lit Fest on Saturday 6th September 1 - 2pm. Come along and say 'hi'!

Here's something to look out for. Phil Rickman will be talking fantasy fiction on his BBC Radio Wales programme this coming Sunday afternoon, 20th July, at 5.30 pm. There's a repeat at 9.30 pm on the Monday.

For those of us outside Wales, BBC iPlayer is the answer.

Over at Strange Horizons I confidently predict you'll find a whole lot of interesting stuff.

Including this week, my thoughts on Shadow Gate, the second volume of Kate Elliott's Crossroads sequence.

There's a new social networking site just for fantasy where readers, authors, artists, publishers, agents and other pros can meet up. It's only just launched, but already people are signing up. Take a look at http://wonderlands.ning.com/

In my capacity of 'info' at thewritefantastic.com, I've been contacted a second time by a seventeen year old whose first book is being published! Or rather, I've been spammed again. The circulation list for this email runs into probably hundreds of names. I'm not going to waste time counting. So I'm presumably dealing with someone who doesn't even know basic web etiquette/has never heard of 'undisclosed recipients'.

Well, actually, I'm not dealing with him. No, I'm not dismissing him because of his age. There are some very good/popular teenage writers. But I simply do not have the time to attempt to explain all the problems inherent in his approach. Or why anyone in the book trade will look as his 'press release' and bin it immediately. The breathless, repetitive and jammed-with-adjectives prose style aside, it's misspelled and poorly punctuated. Assuming this is a reflection of the book, it's a positive disincentive. As is the fact the one-word title includes two umlauts and a diphthong - but I concede that may just be me.

There's a shot of the artwork included. Amateurish is the kindest thing one can say about that. To be more specific, it doesn't stand any comparison with the A Level Art piece of my sister's that I have framed and hanging on the wall here.

Who's publishing this? Yes, it's one of those outfits that offer "authors' services" in a handy range of packages to suit all pockets, handily priced in all anglophone currencies - though you have to dig fairly deep to find out that you have to pay, after you've read all the fantastic blurb about how much money you can make as an independent author in the brave new world of internet publicity and print-on-demand.

Which this kid has presumably swallowed, hook, line and sinker. So me trying to tell him otherwise would presumably just be me being mean and spiteful, what with me being one of those authors who's weaseled a way into conventional publishing through contacts or whatever and pulled up the ladder behind her. Sorry, it may be cowardly of me but I don't feel inclined to get that kind of abuse - and more - again.

I've done a quick google on the so-called publisher and checked the usual sites for warnings about them and can't find any evidence they're actively scamming people. If I had, I would drop the lad a line.

So his email will go in the bin and over the next however-long, he will presumably learn the same painful and expensive lessons as 99.9% of all self-published writers.

SIGH

We're having another satisfactorily busy year. Our next appearances are as follows. Please spread the word and if you can get along yourself, do say hi.

18th June 2008
Beckenham Library
Bromley Literary Festival
Sarah Ash
Jessica Rydill
6.30-8.00 pm
Free. Please book through the library.

25th June 2008
Kensington Central Library
Alternate Worlds
Sarah Ash
Chaz Brenchley,
Juliet E McKenna
6-8 pm
Contact the library for more details.

Via Darren Turpin, who found it on Jeff Somer's blog.



Too true/funny/agonising* not to share.

*delete as applicable

UK national newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, asked me to write an article on fantasy for those not familiar with the genre. The result is here.

Mark Chadbourn

So says Stephen Page, Chief Exec of Faber & Faber in The Guardian yesterday. According to him, "as most book publishers bow to bestsellers and celebrity culture, serious literature can still thrive thanks to the internet."

He concludes

"The industry is closer now to a tipping point that would see a dramatic reduction in range, a shortening of writers' careers, and a reading culture that errs towards mass forms of entertainment alone. Perhaps one day the ebook will play some role in this, but for now hope lies in the new technology-spawned networks and print technologies that give oxygen to diversity, resulting in demand that allows online and range-holding booksellers to thrive."

And thus we see, not for the first time, that SF&F is out there well ahead of the curve

Over at Shelf Awareness today, there's a very good article about Print on Demand by Robert Gray, who's been talking to Ken Arnold, who's a chap who's setting up a new publishing venture and who knows exactly what he's up against.

"I suspect you are right about the low-bar syndrome as a precondition for bookseller and reviewer suspicion of POD publishers. And the market has been flooded with self-published and subsidized merchandise. An easy response to the sheer quantity is to reject an entire category that has proved to be too often full of defective goods.

"On the other hand, he notes that university presses and other publishers already take advantage of POD's economy of scale to keep titles in print, "and that seems to be a real solution to a problem that's been around a long time. Hittite grammar is not a popular subject, but a few people need it. Entire areas of scholarly research are moribund because there are no publishers who can afford to carry the results of academic research."

And, as we see in genre fiction, PoD is an obvious way for authors to keep their own out of print titles a new lease of life for their dedicated fans.

I'm keeping a copy of the whole article and a note of the archived url for the next time some hopeful aspiring writer emails asking for my advice about getting reviews and/or publicity for their first self/subsidy/vanity published novel.

I got one of these just this week. It does feel brutal to reply that their biggest problem is going to be the near-zero credibility of such efforts, referring them on to Absolute Write, Preditors & Editors and Writer Beware so they don't have to take my word for it. But in all honesty, I just don't see an alternative.

Juliet E McKenna

Over in The Guardian's book blog Hannah Davies wonders "If novels are going to combust imaginatively, shouldn't they be written spontaneously?" going on to say

We now know that noxious fumes are a formidable foe in the battle to produce great literature. Rob Jones, chairman of innovative independent publisher Snowbooks, thinks he's uncovered another enemy: lack of preparation.

I would have thought it was the other way round. Doesn't planning kill creativity? When it comes to fiction, sitting down and hammering out a step-by-step plan just seems so John Grisham, so Jordan's ghostwriter - a writing-by-numbers technique that produces plot-heavy bestsellers. But a little investigation seems to prove Jones right. Stephen King states in On Writing that he never sets out his stories in advance. Orhan Pamuk, by contrast, reveals himself to be a veritable boy scout of literature, saying that he plans his books down to the last detail, to the point of plotting each chapter in advance. So on the side of planning ahead we have a Nobel prizewinner, and fighting the spontaneity corner is a bestseller-list fixture and goremeister.

Read on if you wish. This is another of those evergreen writing debates, so the comment thread is pretty much as you might suspect.

My six pennorth? I'm thinking Rob Jones, innovate independent publisher has probably seen more sprawling messes of hoplessly unstructured prose than most, thanks to the slush pile. Just about every writer I know who's taught creative writing says ability to structure a coherent plot is what divides the may-be's from the never-will's. This is certainly my experience.

Not every time. I've come across those who have nailed a plot down in every particular and gone on to produce astonishingly tedious writing. Mostly because the aforementioned plot is a wholly artificial exercise taking some plot-structure diagram from a 'how to' book and then shoehorning in stuff to tick as many boxes as possible in the genre they think will speed them to fame and fortune. Thus their prose shows the same poverty of inspiration and originality.

The thing is, the successful 'write Chapter One and go!' practitioners are actually just as good as the plan-aheaders at structuring plot. They just do the work at a different point in the process, as they rewrite. Talking to other writers, I find the 'let's go!' folks tend to far more drafts than we plan-aheaders.

(And suffer more from writer's block, incidentally, and tend to have more 'I wrote 60,000 words and realised it was going nowhere' stories. Sorry but I cannot afford to write 60,000 words and realise it's wasted effort!)

I've learned in such conversations that the most successful 'let's go!' writers are almost invariably the most experienced, and will often say, 'I used to do a lot more planning'. While I've heard the most dedicated plan-aheaders say they've become less wedded to their outlines as time passes.

My own experience bears this out. I do a lot of note-taking and advance planning but ten books in, I now see for myself where the internal dynamic of the unfolding plot and character interaction means I must significantly change or even abandon elements of my original scheme. These days I make the necessary adjustments as I'm writing without fretting.

Back in the beginning, I needed an editor to point out where changes were needed to stop the first-draft plot creaking under the strain. After a couple of books, I'd see this for myself but agonise over how best to do it and thrash out various alternatives in subsequent drafts. Now I'll just drop my editor a quick email, if some really radical change to the outline needs to happen, saying 'oh, you know that bit where... actually now, it's going to be...'.

So I will continue to advise aspiring writers to do as much advance thinking and planning as they personally can stand, whether or not they actually write any of it down, before typing "Chapter One".

Juliet E McKenna

If you're thinking of sending a writer your manuscript in hopes of feedback, or if you're a writer with one of those very emails lurking in your inbox - here's a piece worth reading.

Every writer has their horror stories on this topic. The top of my personal list is the individual who emailed to say they wished to become my apprentice. Said individual would send me chapters and then it would be best if we had a hour's face to face discussion and instruction once a week. Since said individual didn't drive but handily lived in a neighbouring county, it would obviously be most convenient for me to drive there. As soon as I replied, I'd get the first chapter and here were convenient times and dates over the next fortnight for the first session. Obviously I'd be paid for my time - £{risible hourly rate} - just for the hour's mentoring. OK?

Once I'd recovered from the breath-taking arrogance of all this, and then once I'd got my breath back from laughing myself silly, I emailed a polite demurral. Said individual took this as me merely wanting to negotiate up the money. I explained in firm and simple sentences that no amount of money would buy me more hours in the day and my time was already fully committed with no leeway to take on something like this, even if I wanted to, which I didn't. I ignored the subsequent emails and happily they soon stopped coming.

There are people who have asked for my help who I've really regretted having to turn away for one reason or another. This individual isn't one of them!

It's a cold, grey, rainy Friday here. The kind of day when you can all too easily find yourself staring glumly at shelves and shelves of nothing to read. If any of that applies wherever you are, I suggest you slide on over to The Fantasy Book Critic blog where a truly awesome collection of authors from all over are enthusing about good stuff they read in 2007 and looking forward to books due out in 2008.

Ok, declaration of interest here, I chipped in with my six pennorth/ten cents worth. Never mind that. Go and see what Elizabeth Bear (aka matociquala and kateelliot and markchadbourn and oh, all manner of other folk have had to say. It'll brighten up your day, trust me.