Tweetpitchers (from left to right):
Darren Stephenson, me,
Zena Shapter, Lucy Stone, Monique Kowalczyk |
A few weeks ago I attended the Speculative Fiction Festival
2011 in Sydney.
I was lucky enough to win a free pass in The NSW Writing Centre's tweetpitch competition. The rules were you had to mention @writingNSW, use the hashtag #specfic11, and fit a pitch in however many of your 140 characters were left. The book pitched had to be speculative fiction. I won one of five passes with this tweetpitch:
'Betrayed by everyone she loves, an assassin must decide who to trust to stop evil gaining the key to immortality'.
For those who don’t know, speculative fiction includes the
fantasy and science-fiction genres and, more peripherally, horror. There was
some advice given by publishers and published authors that I thought would be
worth sharing with my fellow writers.
Pan Macmillan Australia also announced it is launching a new
ebook imprint in 2012. They are the first Australian publisher to do so. They
don’t see ebooks as the death of traditional print books, just as a new format.
The good news for us as writers is that more people are reading now than ever
before.
Publishers' Talk
The first session of the day with a panel of publishers. The panel included Stephanie Smith of the
Voyager imprint of Harper Collins Australia, Zoe Walton from Random House, Claire
Craig from Pan Macmillan Australia and Keith Stevenson from Coeur de Lion
Publishing.
These esteemed publishers had this advice to offer:
- Don’t look at trends. By the time we, as
writers, spot a trend, it’s usually too late to jump on the bandwagon.
Publishing is cyclic, so trends come around again. If you can’t sell your book
during the current trend, keep trying and your genre will eventually trend
again. Writers also need to write to their strengths – there is no point
writing what’s trending if it’s not your strength;
- The paranormal romance trend has outlived
expectations, which means it has hung around long enough for writers to
jump on the bandwagon. However, the longer a genre trends, the more saturated
the market becomes. At this point publishers are looking for books within that
trend but with original and different elements to what already exists.
Cross-genres may become more appealing at this point. For trending genres, an
original cover can become important in helping a book stand out to readers;
- Sometimes a stand-alone book will be more appealing
to a publisher when the market is over-saturated with series. Don’t dismiss the
selling power of a stand-alone novel.
- Don’t be discouraged by rejections. It’s not just
about your writing;
- Publishers are looking for strong voice,
compelling story and superb writing. Especially, they’re looking for what’s
different about a book.
- Cross-over books can work but are harder to sell
outside their home country because they are not easy to slot into default
genres;
- Stories that push boundaries are attractive;
- Traditional high/epic fantasy is the beating
heart of speculative fiction (e.g. George R. R. Martin). There is always room
for these books. This was fantastic news for me as I write nothing but
high fantasy. And of course, I too think of it as the beating heart of
speculative fiction. Naturally!
- There is a lot of interest in sci-fi currently
plus room for modern humorous fantasy;
- Sword and sorcery books are mostly gone, the
trend has shifted to paranormal romance. No good sword and sorcery had been
seen recently;
- Traditional fantasy naturally lends itself to
series, often trilogies, but there is room for stand-alone books.
- Publishers do like authors to have a social
networking presence but it’s not essential. When the market is flat, an author
might have a huge social networking presence – and it can make no difference to
sales. However it can help to get the word out and publishers encourage
it;
- Don’t send a first draft to a manuscript appraisal service. You should self-edit first. Having had an appraisal won’t necessarily influence the publisher’s decision as they will make their own assessment but appraisal services and editors are useful to improve writing when a writer needs an outside perspective. Writers’ groups and critique groups can also fill this function, usually on a reciprocal basis.
Margo Lanagan |
What
I took from this is if you’re writing paranormal romance at this late stage in
the trend you probably aren’t in a better position than those of whose genres aren’t
trending. You should write what you’re good at. And high fantasy ROCKS.
The question put to the panel at the end of the session was ‘What
book would you absolutely be unable to turn down if it crossed your desk on
Monday?’ and here are the various responses.
- A story with great voice and fully realised worlds;
- A story with great voice, great worlds and lyrical writing;
- A comic genius like Terry Pratchett;
- A great gripping story that can’t be put down.
I too would like to see another Pratchett genius! If you’re
hiding out there somewhere, there’s a publisher who wants you! Please do stand
up.
Versatile Artists
This was the second session I attended, with four Australian published speculative fiction authors. They
were:
- D.M. Cornish – a successful book illustrator who was asked to write a book to go with his illustrations;
- Pamela Freeman - award winning author of books for adults and children;
- Margo Lanagan – an author of short fiction and novels; and
- Kate Forsyth – author of The Witches of Eileanan series and one of my favourite authors.
One of the questions put to the panel was ‘How do you know
when to stop a project?’ The answers that most resonated with me were:
- Supermarket queue/traffic light test – when you are stuck in a queue or at traffic lights with nothing else to do, and you don’t think about your project;
- If it’s not the last thing you think about before falling asleep.
D.M. Cornish |
I often fall asleep with one of my stories on my mind! I confess
I have never stopped a project. I have put them aside for later consideration
(sometimes years of consideration!) but never actually terminated one.
Here’s a little bit about what each of the authors had to
say.
Margo Lanagan
- Noting that the title of the session was ‘Versatile Artists’ she observed that she considers ‘versatile’ to be a nice way of saying ‘flailing around trying to find what works’. She considered that a fair assessment of what she had done.
- Do not write poetry. Poets generally get paid less than writers i.e. nothing or the next best thing!
- If you get bogged down in a novel try a short story for instant gratification or to learn how to finish.
To finish her novel, Margo says she had to pretend it was a
short story. Some reviews actually say it reads like a short story collection.
It’s interesting that she clearly has a strong preference for short stories.
In Margo’s opinion, the value of writing short stories is
that they are therapeutic to write, they help writers to learn about finishing,
they can help to refresh your writing when you have been bogged down in a
longer project and they are useful professionally for keeping your name out
there and marketing yourself. Indeed, I don’t like short stories, but I have
forced myself to write a few recently and I am about to send the first off to Fantasy
magazine – following the advice of
Tobias Buckell to start at the top and work your way down.
Pamela Freeman
Pamela Freeman |
Pamela’s first adult book was a thesis for a doctorate. She
started writing with short stories and in her opinion, people are usually
either short story writers or
novelists. In her case, she considers herself a short story writer who managed
to write a novel.
Her advice is that royalty checks only come twice a year so
versatility in other areas is valuable to help have a more steady income.
D.M. Cornish
An illustrator by preference, he had to learn to write while writing his first novel (at the publisher's request). He found the experience painful and difficult and had to force himself to finish the third book. Sometimes writing is just about discipline.
Kate Forsyth
Kate has written children’s books for all ages, adult books,
poetry and articles. She has never
written short stories (I’m jealous). Like Pamela, she considers writers are
either short story writers or novelists. Her very first attempt to write a
short story grew into the Witches of Eileanan (a 6 book series). She
writes smaller projects between big projects as a refresher, but never short
stories.
The advice from panellists on what to do while waiting to
get published was mixed. Some authors said ‘don’t write’ and others said write
as often as you can, get a job doing technical writing or freelance writing,
anything.
I expect this comes down to personal preference, where your
strengths lie, and what kind of income you need. I blundered into technical
legal writing myself and I can say that if you do technical writing it can
be difficult to keep this technical, formal writing style out of your creative
writing. I find myself editing it out. Another technical writer I know has the
same problem. But it does help you to hone grammar, sentence structure, word
use etc. so it has advantages.
For those of you in Australia, the last advice given was:
- Don’t sign with an agent who is not a member of the Australian Literary Agents Association; and
- The avg annual income for an Australian author is $11,000 pa.
Pitching Session
The highlight of the day for me was the one on one pitching
session with Stephanie Smith of Harper Collins Australia’s Voyager imprint. I
don’t think I have been this nervous since I did my very first mock legal trial
at university – to the point where at lunch I felt like throwing up might be a
good idea.
Kate Forsyth |
I was fortunate enough to be asked to send in a partial. I
have my fingers crossed but I’m trying to keep my expectations at a reasonable
level!
All in all it was a fantastic day, although I couldn’t stay
for as much of it as I would have liked. I hope the advice I have shared here
may help some of you.
10 comments:
I love con recaps, and really appreciate them because I can't attend very many. Your notes have been very helpful to me, thank you :)
Great post, Ciara! Chock full of gems. Stumbling it.
Thanks Toby!
You're welcome, glad it was helpful. It was my very first convention! We don't have a lot here. Some, but not a lot. The perils of living in a (relatively) small country.
I always come home from these types of events inspired and write like crazy for a month. Love that you had an opportunity to attend and that you obviously enjoyed it!
I am glad you got to do something so much fun, and I love the information you've provided here. I shared and stumbled. Maybe I'll try a short story, too. Hmmm.
I came home bouncing off the walls LOL.
I'm not a short story person either, Amberr. But as Tobias Buckell observed, writing a short story is a much faster way to fail, identify errors and correct them than writing a novel LOL. Sad to say I did it the long way round. I have far more failed novels lying around than failed short stories!
Thanks for sharing all these useful nuggets of info!
It was my pleasure
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