Publishing in a changing world

As the author of three novels, several anthologies, and a guide to children’s fiction published by mainstream traditional publishers, and – recently – a novel published by an independent online publisher (The Dark Tower, Arbuthnot Books, 2010), I think I can say I’ve seen publishing from both sides. When my first novel, A Mild Suicide, was published almost twenty years ago, the world was a very different place – with no mobile phones, no iPads or Kindles, and only the most basic computers, or ‘word-processors’ as they were called then, to facilitate the back-breaking labour of preparing one’s novel for publication.

Even these were regarded with suspicion by some writers, who – just like those now professing horror at the idea that printed books and newspapers might one day be replaced by electronic readers – swore blind that they would never give up their precious Smith-Corona typewriters for such new-fangled but ‘soulless’ devices. Writing on a computer – these self-styled Luddites claimed – would surely be detrimental to the craft of writing itself, by making the process far too easy. Standards would, inevitably, slip…

In fact it wasn’t the new technology that brought about a decline in the quality of published writing, but good old-fashioned market forces. The collapse in 1997 of the Net Book Agreement – by which the price at which books could be sold to the public had been fixed in advance by publishers and booksellers – meant an end to the cosy world of small bookshops and ‘gentlemanly’ publishers, prepared to take a flutter on an unknown author for a small outlay. Publishing turned, almost overnight, from a genteel ‘profession’ into hard-headed Big Business.

With hundreds of local bookshops forced to close, ousted by the big chains, with their ‘three-for-two’ marketing ploys, publishers were reduced to chasing sales in the form of ‘celebrity’ biographies, ‘misery’ confessionals, or the sort of drearily interchangeable bestsellers which have become an all-too familiar feature of contemporary culture. As for the authors, they found that good writing alone wasn’t enough to get them published. Those that weren’t canny enough – or willing – to turn themselves into ‘brands’ soon ended up out in the cold. It wasn’t a good time to be a literary purist.

As a lecturer in Creative Writing in the mid-2000s, I came across a wide spectrum of aspiring writers – from the insanely deluded to the genuinely talented. Of this last category, there were those that ticked all the ‘right’ boxes – youth, good looks, an interesting ‘back-story’ – and those that didn’t. It isn’t hard to guess which were the ones that stood more chance of getting their work published, in a market increasingly driven, it seemed, by considerations that had nothing to do with literary merit.

All of which was depressing in the extreme, if what you were interested in was – to paraphrase Coleridge – getting ‘the right words’ down on the page in ‘the best order’. Suddenly, you had to concern yourself, not with creating believable characters or devising an engaging plot, but with self-promotion, marketing strategies and target audiences. It goes without saying that this was extremely detrimental to the creative process. Writers shouldn’t have to ‘tailor’ their work to suit the stipulations of marketing men (or women). The best writing isn’t – necessarily – the writing that sells the best.

And so to the present day. With the publishing industry on both sides of the Atlantic in meltdown since the 2008 ‘credit crunch’, and new and established authors alike finding it harder and harder to break through the cordon of ‘gate-keepers’ – agents, publishers’ readers, marketing teams – set up to deter the fainthearted from proceeding further, it seems the time is right for a new approach. And for the first time in a generation, this has become possible. Because with the new ‘print-on-demand’ technology now available, authors no longer have to surrender control of their work, and their careers, to the vagaries of an outmoded, inward-looking, and protectionist, publishing industry. There’s a new world out there: a new readership; new kinds of reading.

In the past, an author might have to wait at least a year after signing a publishing contract, before he or she could expect to see the work in print. Financial rewards, whether from advances or royalties, were – with the exception of a few, widely publicized cases – minimal. An author’s place in the pecking-order (and therefore the size of any advance they might expect) would be determined, not by the quality of their work but by the sales figures of their last book – figures that would of course have been affected by the amount the publisher had spent on promoting the book in the first place. Even winning a prize might have little effect on this – as I found to my chagrin the year my second novel, Undiscovered Country, won the Encore Award.

But with the new publishing, the emphasis has shifted, from publishers and agents running the show – and deciding what gets published and what doesn’t – to things being back in the control of authors and readers. Now, within weeks of getting your book approved and typeset by an online press, you can hold that book in your hands. Other people can read it. They can review it, too – as aficionados of the readers’ comments on Amazon will attest. No longer is the literary future of the nation the preserve of a handful of people. Publishing has become truly international, in ways that can only have been dreamt of, twenty years ago.

Of course, nothing can compare to the excitement of getting that call, to say your novel’s been accepted by a large publishing-house – unless it’s the excitement of seeing your novel appear on the screen of the latest e-reader. To know that you’re part of the greatest innovation in literary history since Caxton invented the printing-press, and that the words you’ve written are being downloaded and read, by a new community of readers (and writers) isn’t just exciting – it’s breathtaking.