Picnic Books

My first blog (yes, a real blog virgin ) and, reading the contributions of Caroline, Andrew and Ben, I’m very much reminded of that fact. In the meantime, sitting in front of an obstinately blank computer screen, my first problem is that I’ve absolutely no idea who I am writing for. Are there untold numbers of historical mystery buffs out there, hanging on my every word (improbable)?  On the other hand, is it someone who has stumbled on this site by accident and doesn’t want to take the dog for a walk because it’s raining (all too likely)?  So for the moment I’ll play safe and aim at the would-be dog walker.

Of course if you write historical fiction then you must be prepared for setbacks if real time events impact on your book. A point that Caroline makes early on in her blog is that, given the publication date of her own novel, recent comments in the House of Lords about nurses have come out just a little too early. Serendipity will sometimes do an author an apparent favour by bringing into public arena facts/news that help to publicise the book. On the other hand, ‘sod’s law’ will almost certainly dictate that the timing is totally out of ‘sync’   Then there are other problems. If the core of your book also deals with a longstanding historical mystery (in my case the bodies of unidentified children found in the wreckage of a Gloucestershire rail crash in the late twenties), then a further nightmare must be that someone comes along and actually solves it. So here and now let me make a heartfelt plea. If somewhere in the West Country is a nonagenarian who, all these years, has been keeping quiet about the identity of these kids, then I have a message for him/her.  ‘Why rock the boat now? ‘

Another factor in using a real historical mystery as a starting point, is that vast forests will already have been sacrificed to non-fiction accounts of what really happened – or what might have happened.  As a consequence the research base can sometimes be overwhelming. Nor is this restricted to recent history.  Whilst researching a previous novel concerning a man-eating wolf in eighteenth century France, I had to plough through innumerable accounts by armies of nineteenth century French clerics determined to mine the last vestiges of folk memory.  Judging by the amount of time they spent on the subject, it may help to explain why France is now the most secular nation in Europe.

Given all this, I suppose it is lucky that my present novel, ‘Something Hidden’, deals with a little known mystery.  I was about to say an ‘unknown mystery’, but that carries echoes of ‘Monty python’.  What I mean is that although many people – especially those in the area where it happened – will know of it, it still does not have any national resonance.  Also it occurred eighty years ago – just far enough away in terms of time { I hope} to give the author more of a free hand to ‘invent’ both circumstances and characters.   

My starting point involved researching the background to the original railway accident on which the novel is based ( Charfield, Gloucestershire 1928).  Obviously the circumstances in which the bodies of two apparently well dressed and well cared for children could be killed without being missed, struck a national chord.  There was massive publicity and everyone, it appeared, had a theory.  These ranged from the relatively sane to the totally mind boggling.  Happily, because this was 1928, an ‘alien abduction gone wrong’ did not figure among them – but almost everything else did.  Tomorrow I will go through some of these ‘theories’, but potential readers can rest assured: absolutely none of these have been incorporated into the novel.

 My final session in the blog-barrel.

Thanks Caroline for the comments on naming practices, a hundred years on from the period that you are writing about the structuring is I have to say quite fixed.  I think that rather than it being a question of literacy it is probably more to do with the fact that we are now coming into the beginning of the age of bureaucracy.  Definitely mix up forenames and surnames, both to preserve identities and also because some combinations flow much better than others.

When I first set off on what has turned out to be a most enjoyable week I mentioned that, for the uninitiated the road to publication is, (unless you are amazingly lucky or have well placed relatives), at best an uphill climb with a hard furrow to plough, sorry about the mixed metaphors – bloggers license – and that I might come back to the subject before I finally pulled down my tent and made way for Nick Blackstock to have his say. 

It is for that reason that I want to close my week with, as they used to say on American television ‘a few words, not from – but to – our sponsor’, Picnic Publishing.

I have been writing non-fiction material for the last ten years, and like so many others came into fiction work, not so much by accident as by the realisation that I had ‘a novel in me’ that I wanted to share, and a moderate ability to write it.  I knew better than to think in terms of making huge sums of money, believe me if you have written non-fiction you very soon come to that realisation – you do it because you want to.

What came as a huge shock to me once the novel was completed, was the difficulty involved in trying to convince someone in the publishing world to take an interest in it. Naïvely I thought that because I had got one or two non-fiction books behind me I was going to be able to put it into the market place with a fair chance of being successful.

Top selling authors, (one of which I am not),  who have made it onto the shelves will almost without exception tell you that in respect of their first work they made innumerable submissions and got knocked back time after time before getting a lucky break.  This seems to be an immutable and sad fact.

The truth is that historically the industry has become locked into two virtually unbreakable circles of agents and major publishers.  They resemble mutually impenetrable force fields, each feeding off of the energy generated by the other.

For some considerable time now the major publishing houses – and it to these that agents submit work – have concentrated solely on established authors who have a proven track record and have been earning them money for a long time. 

There is a massive and obvious flaw in this ethic.  Writers rely on creativity and after however long, even for the best, this dries up and sooner or later the quality of their work deteriorates.  Initially the reading public accept this situation, generally with the comment, ‘I read his last book, but I didn’t think that it was up to his usual standard’.  After a few below par efforts, sales begin to drop.  This has now become in certain – by no means all I hasten to add – cases progressive, and the industry has begun to stagnate. 

The big houses will tell you that they are looking for new authors to give a chance to, but the truth is that the vast majority are not – it is business as usual, a new author is a risk and costs money, better to get a few more miles out of an established one even if he or she is past their sell-by date.

Agents perpetuate the situation because they are very aware of this policy and an established writer on their list, even if they are a bit tired, is an earner.  For an agent to take a chance on putting forward a new candidate is far too risky a business. Good first time submissions are returned, usually unread with a short note to the effect that ‘we are not accepting new clients’, or ‘our list for this year is full’.  Some do however state in the Writers and Artists Yearbook  that they specialise in ‘packaging first time work by celebrities’ !!!!

There is now however for new authors a bright light at the end of the tunnel.  A sea change is taking place and the big houses are beginning to lose out to a new breed of small publishers who are genuinely interested in first time authors, and are operating without the massive overheads with which the major players have over the years saddled themselves.  A new publishing generation of which Picnic is one, is beginning to emerge. 

Work that is submitted is actually read properly and assessed professionally.  Interestingly – and for me this is what is providing that light at the end of the tunnel – one of the really powerful players – Faber – recognising what is happening, has shaken away from the pack, nailed it’s colours to the mast, and formed the ‘Independent Alliance’, which at present has ten member publishers under it’s aegis and is supplying them in various ways with help and support.

There may be those who think that I am finishing my blog week simply with a sales pitch for publishing houses such as Picnic, and do you know what, you are correct!

I don’t know how long the other authors’ who have contributed to these columns waited to get their first book published, nor is it my business.  I only know how difficult it was for me and still is for others, and just how immensely high are the odds that are firmly stacked against you.  So I will sign off quite simply by saying to Picnic, ‘thank you for publishing ‘Crooked Mile’, and to everyone else who has taken the time to read and respond to my week’s blog – ‘thank you also, and I sincerely hope that you enjoy reading it’.

Ben

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www.benbeazley.com   email: research@beazleyweb.com