Reading Delights (and how to sell them)

Last week I was playing shop amidst a feast of reading delights. Or, to put it more clearly, I did a few shifts on a bookstall at the Bath Literature Festival (sadly finished now for this year).

And not just any bookstall. I was working - oh, all right, volunteering - for the lovely Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights. (Seriously, check out the link to see just how therapeutic a bookstore can be.)

I hoped I was going to enjoy myself, but I never realised how much. People who like books are easy to be around. And I was surprised how swiftly I became interested in what was often not what I would expect to be my kind of book, when I saw it through the eyes of someone who could appreciate it. But mostly it was amazing to be surrounded by so many of them.

I don't think I've ever really thought before what nice things books are. They're more than visually attractive, they're tactile, designed to be picked up, opened and explored. And they have a life. I was quite upset recently to visit a craft fair where one of the products was books mutilated into becoming CD racks and suchlike. But I digress. Whole and healthy, they're nice things to sell.

This might sound a bit odd coming from someone whose last post announced her conversion to e-books - but don't get me wrong:  I never meant to give up the hard stuff. Why does there always have to be a choice? Dogs or cats. The Beatles or the Stones. Shakespeare or Beckett. Why can't I have them both? I think our lives are enhanced by enjoying things in as many ways as we can.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the e-Book

"I'm not much of a reader, but since we've had one of these ..."

This is not me talking, you will have guessed. It's the lady from the couple I got talking to while looking at the demo e-readers.

I'd reached a tipping point. As always with these things, it was an accumulation of forces which led me there. Recently, I heard from two friends who are going to be published electronically later this year (ec newman, and Kim Donovan's St Viper's School for Super Villains) and I need to be able to read them. I also remember a respected YA author answering a question at the Kids' Lit Fest last year. Of course he liked e-books: his house was full of paper ones, and the overspill in the garage was getting damp.

I don't have that impressive a library - each time I've moved on in my life I've taken only the books that meant most to me, leaving the rest behind - but our house is small and when the piles start growing on the landing you realise you have to do something. That something could of course be giving some away, and I weed fairly frequently, but I went through them a couple of weeks ago and managed to find two I was prepared to part with. I use my local library extensively, but some of the books I want are not available without expensive inter-library loan fees. If I got an e-reader I could buy more without adding to the piles; I could even make space by replacing some battered classics with free downloads.

Enough worthy reasons to give myself permission to start browsing scrummy on-line bookstores full of inviting titles, and playing with tablets and e-readers... it's a toy! I want one!

Back to the lady in the shop. The really interesting thing about that couple - besides the fact that they had been turned from non-readers into readers - was that they already had an e-reader, but one was not enough. They were shopping for another, fancier one so they could both read at the same time and stop fighting over the one they already had.

Video didn't stop people going to the cinema. I have no statistics to prove this, but my sense is that it gave the film industry a boost, allowing people to develop their taste for movies. I've had my first personal experience of how e-publishing may do the same for our appetite for reading.

      Be not afeard: the isle is full of noises,
      Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not ...

Sorry. Could never resist a bit of Caliban.

Time for a Change of Portal

The snow gives me an excuse to put a new image at the head of my blog. It's cheating a bit because it was taken last year, but there is snow here on the street outside. It was taken in Somerset, near Priddy, and if you look closely you can see sleigh tracks on the path.

I collect what I call "portal pictures": images which seem to lead from one world to another. It's a bit hard to get away from wardrobes and lamp posts with ones like the snow picture, but here's another. Where do you imagine it might lead?

Commercial or Literary?

This one's been known to get my unmentionables in a twist before now. I end up getting all hot and bothered about 'Why can't a book be popular and well written?'; and 'If literary means valued, how can you judge your own work as such?' Or for that matter 'Why would anyone set out to write something that isn't literary?' But calm down - an excellent post here from bigglasscases puts the argument in a useful practical frame.

i.e., for every person like me protesting (again) that Shakespeare was commercial and literary, there's a hardworking agent out there trying to place books who finds it helpful to have a handle on where they might fit.

Sarah LaPolla also has a better shot at defining the difference between literary and commercial fiction than any I've come across before, with a nice analogy to catwalk vs high street fashion; and some advice for debut authors pitching their books.

So the question is, where do you see your work?

For my own part, Timehikers is (I hope) definitely commercial. Not so sure about Better than Stars or Water: a suggestion that it's a problem I need to sort out, maybe?

The Future's Here, and It's Electrik!

Electrikinc, to be precise. And it's sparked off with a bang, drawing attention from the Bookseller and across the Channel  [apologies for the fact that you have to be a subscriber to read the first article and to speak French to understand the second: who said publicity was easy to get? And at least on the second link you can see the cover for Kim Donovan's St Viper's School for Super Villains].

Yes, Electrikinc is a publication venture, but one with a difference. A small group of Bath Spa graduate children's authors, with some impressive editorial skills between them, have got together as a co-operative to publish their own work. It looks to me like a promising alternative to the pitfalls of self-publication; and crucially one which embraces the advantages of new technology. Kim's book will be first to hit the market - I would say shelves, but of course the name is a bit of a giveaway. Electrikinc will focus on e-publishing and print on demand ... which has led me once again to think about electronic vs. paper books.

What do you think?

I try not to make judgements about things where I have no personal experience, and I have yet to read a book on-screen. I'm bombarded by other people's opinions, and the observation I've made is:

People who don't have an e-reader don't like them. People who do, do. But they would, wouldn't they, in both cases? No-one's going to buy one unless they like the idea in the first place.

Maybe that's a clue to the truth: for the time being at least, there are going to be those who prefer one or the other; I've even heard people say they like both, but for different purposes: e.g. paper for books to treasure, and electronic for books to take on holiday.

I can't help noticing Electrikinc will be offering print on demand. Perhaps what we're witnessing is not so much the death of the physical book, more the end of its primacy, and of the long print run.

One thing's for certain: I'm going to have to get that e-reader.

A Monster of a Book: 'Beast' by Ally Kennen

You will want to read Beast. The reptilian eye staring at you from the cover will make sure of that. In fact, if you like good YA fiction you will probably have read it already. I don't know why I hadn't til now. After all, I saw that cover first of all in a prospectus for the writing MA I was about to take, where Ally is a well remembered past graduate. Like I said, the eye's been watching me. I suppose I knew it had the patience of a crocodile lurking in the shallows. It could wait, because we both knew it was going to get me in the end.

On the face of it, Stephen is everyone's worst kind of disaffected teenager, with a history of crime and antisocial behaviour: twocking, arson, substance abuse. But judgement is impossible, because you are forced to see life from his point of view.You know all about his hopeless background, and the way in which his damaged life has forced him to wall up any capacity to believe in himself or to trust those who try to offer him care.

But this novel is no bleeding heart criticism of social conditions. Whatever your views about young people who kick against society, you have to admit that the dominant problem in Stephen's life is a real one. It's twelve foot long and he's been feeding it a pig a month.

Here lie the reasons for the book's success. For all his apparent faults, Stephen is a totally convincing and thoroughly engaging character. You can't help empathising with him. Having a terrible secret which you feel sets you apart and that can be told to no-one is a normal condition of adolescence, although in most people's experience it's something less alarming than a predatory pet big enough to eat your own father. It's impossible not to admire Stephen's determination and resourcefulness, and the clues are there right from the beginning to his good heart: from his affection for his little brother, through his care for his foster sister's paralytically drunk boy friend, to the fact that he never considered leaving the young crocodile to die when it would have been so much easier to do so.

In a feat of skilful plotting, the book torments alternately with the hope of a better life for Stephen, and the threat of a terrible destiny. As the pressure builds, occasional flashes of desperate humour will make you want to laugh out loud.

In the end, we are convinced that Stephen deserves a a happy ending, but he has to rid himself of the monster first.

Have I stumbled on a metaphor? But that's what's so good about this book. It's as gripping as any young person could wish for, whilst at the same time offering the very best in writing.

Respect.

Working Through the Block

Well, not exactly a block. I've been stuck for days - *blushes* more like weeks - on the same sequence I'm trying to add into the rewrite of Stars. I thought I was finding it difficult because I lacked the excitement of creating new work - or maybe I was missing the pressure of a deadline (see How Do You Keep Going When Nobody Cares? below) - or possibly just being lazy.

All those things are probably true, but what I've now realised is that I was mostly finding it tough because the passage was wrong from the start. It wasn't working, and I needed to approach it completely differently. Somewhere inside I knew that all along.

As soon as I saw that, I was able to rewrite most of it at a sitting. Now I'm poised to move on. Yay!

The question is, was it a waste of time crawling more and more slowly up that blind alley, or did I need to do it in order to see the right path? Far from being redundant, was it actually necessary?

One thing I'm sure of: if you stick at it, you never stop learning.