Andrew Blackman

As a follow-up to my recent post about the threatened cuts to the Public Lending Right, I was happy to get an email this afternoon from the Society of Authors telling me about a petition they’ve organised with other groups to defend PLR from cuts. I’ve signed the petition and would urge other writers, or any other people who think writers should get a small amount of money when their books are borrowed from the library, to sign it as well.

Andrew Blackman Literary news funding for writers, income, libraries, plr, public lending right

Following on from my last post, I was amazed to hear that bookshop behemoth Barnes & Noble is now up for sale. If even they can’t make money, how do the smaller guys stand a chance? Or maybe, as the bookshop owners argued, they offer a different service and cater to a different market anyway. Perhaps clearing away some of the big chains will allow smaller bookshops to flourish again? I certainly hope so…

Andrew Blackman Literary news

I got depressed about bookshops recently. A great little London literary magazine, Smoke, has just published its last issue. The editor/founder Matt Haynes explained:

Of the hundred-odd shops that stocked our early issues, well over half have now closed. And when Borders ceased trading just before Christmas, we lost not only more than 25% of our sales overnight, but also three dozen high-profile spots from which to be subliminally sublime.

I was really sad to hear this. Smoke is a magazine where I got one of my first stories published, and it’s a magazine I’ve subscribed to for several years and always enjoyed reading. The writing was always fresh and interesting, and it was great to have the London focus. Haynes says he plans to do new things: “Because the system no longer works for us, we’re inventing a new one.” Maybe that’s what’s happening now in general, just a change in the way things work. But I can’t help seeing it as a loss.

Then yesterday I was in Leatherhead, a fairly small commuter town just southwest of London, and discovered a wonderful independent bookshop called Barton’s. I was on my way home so didn’t get to stop long, but I really enjoyed my ten-minute browse. I came across a book on the shelf that I’d wanted to buy for ages but had never got around to (Crow by Ted Hughes). Then I saw another in the bargain bin that was perfect for me (a guide to caravan and camping sites in Europe, a few years out of date but still useful for planning a trip my wife and I are going to take next year). A sign said “Make us an offer” and so I offered £1 and the owner accepted. The Ted Hughes was full RRP, £3.99 (it’s a slim volume).

I have bought many books online, but it’s always been a purely functional activity. This brief stop at Barton’s I really enjoyed. Apart from the two books I ended up buying, I saw loads more that I had to restrain myself from buying. It was a friendly, welcoming place, and the owner seemed very knowledgeable about books. I told him how nice it was to come to a new town and find a good independent bookshop, and he agreed with me that things were tough for bookshops at the moment. He listed a few in nearby towns that had gone under, but said that he was doing OK.

In fact he was quite positive, saying that his main worry at the moment is the recession, not so much ebooks and internet sellers. He said that yes, people can often get books cheaper on the internet, but they could do that anyway with supermarkets or discount stores. What he offers is a pleasant buying experience, knowledgeable advice, friendly banter, recommendations, the ability to locate hard-to-find books, etc. He told me about a woman who’d come into the shop saying her sons wouldn’t read, and he spent an hour with them finding out what they liked and coming up with some suggestions for them to take on holiday. The woman came back a few weeks later and said that her sons had read the books in the first few days of the holiday and they’d had to find a bookshop in the area to buy more by the same author.

What he said reminded me of what I heard a while back in my local bookshop Prospero’s Books. I was saying that they must be worried after a budget bookshop, House of Books, opened across the street. They said it hadn’t had much effect: they offered a different service, and catered to a different market. There will always be people who just want cheap books, but there are enough people who value what a good independent bookshop has to offer.

It’s good to go to places like this and find they are thriving, but I can’t help thinking about all the other bookshops that haven’t made it. On the train on the way back to London yesterday, I realised how odd a thing it was for me to say, that I was happy to find a bookshop in Leatherhead. I’m not that old, but I remember when pretty much any town you visited would have a local bookshop, often several. Maybe it’s OK that all that business is now going to Amazon instead. Maybe it’s just the way things go, and something new and better will come out of it in the end. But I can’t help seeing it as a loss.

Andrew Blackman Literary news bartons bookshop, books, bookselling, bookshops, Crouch End, ebooks, leatherhead, prospero's books

Just wanted to share the exciting news that one of my regular readers, Michelle Davidson Argyle (aka Lady Glamis) has just published her first book. I haven’t read it yet, but the extracts I’ve seen were very intriguing. It’s the story of what happens after the “happily ever after” that we’re all so familiar with in the Cinderella story. Nice concept, and I’m looking forward to reading the book. Congratulations Michelle, and all the best with Cinders. I’m really happy for you.

To find out more about the book, please click the image below for a link to Michelle’s site.

Andrew Blackman Literary news cinders, michelle argyle

Ah, another list. Another list that makes me feel inadequate, not only because I’m not on it but because I haven’t even read any of the people who are on it. The closest I can get is having seen Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speak at the Southbank Centre.

Is anyone better read than me? Do you have a recommendation on which of the 20 best writers under 40 will indeed be “key to their generation”? The last list, ten years ago, included David Foster Wallace, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Franzen and Jhumpa Lahiri. Which of these do you think will hit similar heights?

Andrew Blackman Literary news

It’s sad to see that the budget for Public Lending Right is being cut by the new Tory/LibDem government. It’s a worthwhile scheme that provides income to writers. OK, at six pence per loan it’s not a huge amount, but every little helps. It’s sad that having spent billions on wars and bank bailouts, the government suddenly finds that it needs to save money, and it’s things like libraries and arts funding that get cut. Mind you, they are still happy to spend £100 billion replacing a nuclear submarine that has never been used. But six pence per library loan? Sorry, too expensive.

Fortunately there are organisations out there gearing up for the fight, like the Society of Authors and Libraries for Life for Londoners. In the current climate it will be a tough fight, but I’m very grateful that they are doing it. Things like libraries tend not to be a high priority, but they are very important, and it’s not just the PLR that’s under threat. Book budgets have been slashed for years, and this will probably only get worse unless someone can convince the government to get its priorities straight.

Andrew Blackman Literary news, Political comment government spending, libraries, public lending right

The Society of Young Publishers hit on an interesting idea in a recent issue of its magazine inPrint. They dug up an old article from 1998, in which Waterstones Managing Director Alan Giles was giving his thoughts about the future of the bookselling industry. For those of you who don’t know, Waterstones is the major bookshop chain in the UK, the equivalent of Barnes  Noble in the US, only even more dominant. So this guy should know what he’s talking about, right?

Wrong. He got more or less everything wrong. Supermarkets were not a threat, he said – “the aim is to sell more food, not to compete with booksellers”. Ha! Supermarkets are now a major player, not only competing with booksellers but affecting the type of books published and the price at which they are sold (the effect in both cases being negative). As for Amazon and other internet booksellers, “he believes the threat is minimal and faces many fundamental problems in the retail market. People are still afraid to give our credit card details for example, and not everyone has access to a computer let alone the Internet yet.” Ottakars, now defunct, was “poised for growth”. Borders UK, now defunct, had then just started up and had “an advanced understanding of what the bookshop of the future should offer the customer.”

The point is, of course, not that Alan Giles in particular got things wrong. It’s that more or less anyone, writing in 1998, would have got things wrong. Some of the things he said were even right for a while, but in the long term things change so much. What’s interesting is how the long term comes about much sooner these days. A prediction made in 1968 would probably still look reasonably sensible by 1980. But from 1998 to 2010, the bookselling industry has changed radically. Publishing houses and booksellers have gone through dozens of mergers and acquisitions, start-ups and bankruptcies, and we’ve gone from a world where people were afraid to give out their credit card details on the internet to one in which books can be downloaded in seconds onto an iPad, or printed on demand on an Espresso Book Machine.

So I’m sorry, Alan Giles, for making you look a bit silly. If it’s any consolation, I’m sure that most of what I say on this blog will look equally ridiculous in a few years’ time.

Andrew Blackman Literary news bookselling, future, publishing

My publisher, Legend Press, just announced that submissions are open for the 2010 Luke Bitmead Writer’s Bursary. This is the contest that gave me my break into publishing when I won it in 2008. The prize is £2,500 and a publishing contract. You enter the first three or four chapters of your novel and a personal statement – full details are here.

If you are an unpublished novelist with a manuscript ready to submit, I’d really recommend entering. Winning changed my life completely, and it’s been fantastic to see On the Holloway Road in bookshops all over London. I’m sure last year’s winner Ruth Dugdall would agree – her winning book, The Woman Before Me, comes out in August. There’s no entry fee, so all you’re risking is the postage, and the potential rewards are huge.

Luke Bitmead was a talented writer who died tragically young, and his family set up a Memorial Fund to help fledgling novelists to get published. I’d recommend checking out Luke’s website, now run by his family and giving details of the fund and its work.

Andrew Blackman Literary news luke bitmead, writing contest

Lady Glamis just wrote a great series on short story writing. It includes a useful list of markets to submit to, loads of good advice, and also a short story contest. So if you have a story to submit, do send it in for the contest – prize is $50 plus a full critique and publication on the blog. If not, have a read of the series anyway. I want to start writing and submitting more short stories, so it was timely for me.

Andrew Blackman Literary news short stories, short story contest

So it seems that due to a procedural anomaly, a whole year’s worth of novels missed out on being considered for the Booker Prize. This is being remedied by a retroactive award, with a shortlist of novels from 1970 being drawn up by three judges and then a public vote to decide the winner.

I think this is interesting – partly for a window onto a year’s writing (lots of names I recognise, but not a single book I’ve read), but also for raising questions of how we judge literature. I bet that a lot of people, like me, haven’t read any of the books, and probably won’t have read them before the votes are cast. So what will the votes be based on? Names, probably – liking other Ruth Rendell novels so assuming this one was probably good. Or perhaps they’ve read one, and will vote for that one. I’d imagine that the number of people who have read every book on the shortlist and can choose between them all on an equal basis is very small. It’s different from previous public votes, like the Best of the Booker, where you were voting for a range of high-profile books across 40 years, and there was a better chance of having actually read them. So it will be interesting to see how it works out. The choice will almost certainly be different from what it would have been had the prize actually been awarded in 1970 through the usual process.

I am happy of course for the writers too, to get some long-overdue recognition. I do feel a little sorry for those who experienced the excitement of seeing their name on the shortlist, allowed their thoughts to wander to how they would spend the £50,000 cheque that a Booker winner receives, and then saw this at the bottom of the announcement: “The winner of the Lost Man Booker Prize will receive a designer bound copy of their novel.” Hmm. Giving someone a copy of their own book is not the best prize in the world. It’s certainly not £50,000. But I suppose the real prize is the recognition, and also the nice boost to royalties from readers rediscovering your work.

Andrew Blackman Literary news lost booker, man booker prize