Book scheme set for overseas chapters

The Financial Times 2nd March 2009
Mick Neville had not read a book in 10 years. Now, three years after joining a workplace reading movement, he cannot get enough of books.
Last Thursday he was welcomed at 10 Downing Street as one of a handful of Reading Heroes honoured by Gordon Brown, the British prime minister. And the scheme he is involved with is soon about to spread overseas.
Backed by his employer and in his role as a union learning representative in a government-backed scheme at Fletchers Bakery in the northern English town of Sheffield, Mr Neville turned the company’s redundant smoking room into a library and learning centre where colleagues could improve numeracy and literacy skills.
Central to the initiative at Fletchers are Quick Reads – short, fast-paced books by bestselling authors such as Ian Rankin or the business angels from BBC Television’s Dragons’ Den. Six titles, including one by Kate Mosse, are being published for World Book Day next Thursday. read more

March 2, 2009 | 2 Comments | Investigative Journalism, Published Articles, What Authors Need To Know

Melvyn Bragg: Why I’m still haunted by my first wife’s suicide

The Daily Mail 28th February 2009
There is a book in Melvyn Bragg’s library that he cannot bring himself to read. It isn’t badly written or one he finds distasteful. It has featured on literary prize shortlists around the world and earned its author plaudits. Yet still the book broods on a shelf, ignored, because TV’s King of Culture fears that what it might show him would be just too painful.
The book is Bad Faith by Carmen Callil, the story of French Nazi war criminal Louis Darquier. It is not Darquier’s story that repels Bragg, 69, but what it might reveal about Darquier’s daughter, Anne, who died in 1970. read more

March 1, 2009 | No Comments | Celebrity Interviews, Published Articles

Melvyn Bragg: I just don’t want to go there

The Independent on Sunday 22nd February 2009
Behind the charm, the soft Cumbrian lilt, the flashing smile and twinkling eyes, something darker festers in Melvyn Bragg, award-winning broadcaster, acclaimed novelist and ennobled member of the Labour elite. Despite the success and celebrity, the dapper grammar school boy from working-class Wigton carries within him a mixture of guilt, rage and bewilderment that others would find hard to conceal. The thought crosses my mind as a late sun pours its weakening light into his office on the 22nd floor of LWT’s Waterloo HQ at the end of a freezing Tuesday in February.
The room is packed up for a move to the sixth floor. Boxes are strewn around. A handful of books are abandoned on a shelf; like forlorn drunks they lean against one another for support. I am here to talk about Bragg’s book Remember Me?, the latest in a series of autobiographical novels and the most searing of them all. It is an account of the doomed relationship between Bragg’s literary doppelganger Joe Richardson and a troubled French poet, Natasha, who bears a striking resemblance to the author’s first wife, the French artist Lisa Roche. Both were gifted artists, both tried to distance themselves from aristocratic roots, both had troubled childhoods and both ended their lives as their marriages fell to pieces. As with all suicides, both left a legacy of guilt, regret and profound sadness with the friends and family, including a young daughter. read more

February 23, 2009 | 1 Comment | Celebrity Interviews, Published Articles

Are these taboo-breaking novels art or porn?

The Independent 23rd January 2009
Years ago, I heard a story about a group of publishers asked to recommend books for translation. The criteria were that they should be well-written, have literary merit, be commercially viable and have been recently published. One book divided the judges: a novel written from the point of view of a sex-abuse victim who enjoyed her abuse. The women thought it badly written and disgusting. The men thought it ground-breaking and provocative: its explicit content and taboo-breaking perspective were enough to give it “literary cachet”. When it comes to sex, the usual rules for judging good literature need not apply.
I recalled the story while reading German author Charlotte Roche’s much-hyped Wetlands, a novel that has been hailed by Granta as the modern equivalent of J D Salinger’s The Catcher In The Rye, J G Ballard’s Crash and Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch. Wetlands (translated by Tom Mohr; Fourth Estate, £12.99) tells the story of Helen Memel, 18, who is recovering from invasive surgery on her piles. She regales readers with intimate details about her anal sphincter (you will never look at a cauliflower in the same way again), bodily fluids, shaving and general sex life. read more

January 26, 2009 | 2 Comments | Opinions, Published Articles, Publishing commentator

The thin red line

A while ago I wrote a scathing piece in the Daily Mail about what I regarded as the “pornography” of misery memoirs. I had become increasingly concerned at the way boundaries were being pushed in this genre. Each book seemed to push the border between taste and titillation further as the content became ever more graphic in their depiction of abuse – especially child sexual abuse. read more

November 17, 2008 | 11 Comments | Blog, News, Publishing

It’s more than a loss for Ross

Okay, I hold my hands up: I got it wrong. Jonathon Ross’s book is sinking like a stone. But his suspension from the BBC will affect more than his own book. Talking to friends in publicity at the large publishing houses, his disappearance from our screens in the run up to Christmas is worrying for altogether other reasons.
Since the demise of Parky [the show, not the man], Ross has been the number one showcase for A List celebrities with a book to plug. As one PR said to me, there really isn’t anywhere else. An appearance on Ross sent people into stores, and as most celebs publish in autumn in order to cash in on the upsurge in sales at this time of year, not having this influential show on their side is a huge loss. read more

November 5, 2008 | 3 Comments | Blog, Publishing

Who’s a naughty boy then?

Amid all the furore about the nuisance calls made by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross there is bound to be one winner: Transworld, publisher of Ross’s life-story-cum-pub rant Why Do I Say These Things?. Transworld execs must have been cracking open the champers when they saw the author of their big Christmas book splashed across the front pages of every newspaper and leading every news bulletin for saying something he might regret. Why does Jonathan do these things?
Of course the marketing men and women may have feared a backlash against the star, but among his target audience of 20-something blokes the response seems as sniggering as the puerile stunt itself. Older people and women of varying ages may be far less approving, but they are not the chief component of Ross’s and Brand’s target audience – however metrosexual Brand claims to be his boasts about who he has shagged (with the unvoiced implication that these “ladies” must be sluts to his stud) sound like swaggering sexism to me and a very nasty throwback to the 70s.. read more

October 29, 2008 | 1 Comment | Blog, Publishing

The Insider: Maria Rejt

Mslexia Summer issue
If you want Maria Rejt, Macmillan and Picador publishing director and one of the most respected editors in London, to notice your manuscript it is simple: create a unique outsider’s voice and characters that move her. Not as easy as it sounds, but that formula is what makes a script shine out like a ‘little golden nugget in the Yukon River’ from the mountain of scripts that clutter up her impossibly untidy office near King’s Cross. read more

October 27, 2008 | No Comments | Published Articles, Publishing People, What Authors Need To Know

Mrs Palin: a love song


vlad and friend boris presents ‘Song for Sarah’ for mrs. Palin
Hello Sarah Palin we wrote this song for you because we see you from Russia! Plz respond to our emails!! We like to hear from you!! words 2 song soon as i wayk up in the morning i go to my window i made …

October 25, 2008 | 2 Comments | Blog, General Discussion

Me and Mao: How Xinran got China talking about the Cultural Revolution

The Independent on Sunday 19th October 2008
A year ago the Chinese journalist and historian Xinran returned to China. She was there to research her latest oral history, China Witness, a collection of interviews given by grandparents and great-grandparents. She took the opportunity to visit her mother, from whom she was separated at the age of seven during the Cultural Revolution. The visit offered the opportunity to talk about what had happened 40 years ago and its effect on both mother and child.
“I spent four hours sitting with my mother.” Xinran’s voice cracks. “Both of us were in tears. I believe both of us wanted to talk, that we had both dreamed of this moment and had been waiting to speak. I think she really wanted to know what happened to me during the Cultural Revolution and I really wanted her to know how I grew up without her.”
She pauses; the memory remains painful. “But we couldn’t speak a word. We were too frightened of hurting each other.” read more

October 19, 2008 | No Comments | Celebrity Interviews, Published Articles, Publishing People

Search for chapter and verse on e-prices

The Financial Times 15th October 2008
Want to know how to silence a book publisher? Ask him about his pricing strategy for electronic books. It is a subject guaranteed to send a shiver down the spine of an industry suffering from a deep-discounting retail culture that is subsidised by fat margins exacted from publishers. It is also a subject that will come under scrutiny today when publishers meet in Frankfurt for the annual book fair, the biggest in the world.
The successful launch of the Sony Reader (pictured) and Amazon Kindle has focused minds on how much consumers should pay for e-books. According to David Roth-Ey, director of digital business development at HarperCollins in the UK, being last in the digital market has advantages: “Books are late to the game of digitisation and so we can look at the way that music, film and television have faced these challenges more or less successfully.” read more

October 15, 2008 | 1 Comment | Published Articles, Publishing commentator, What Authors Need To Know

Only mystics need apply

Always ready to look on the bright side of life, and to see opportunity where others see despair, publishers are rushing out books on the credit crunch. According to a report in The Economist, the financial crisis has spawned a mini-boom in books analysing what went wrong. Already 18 titles are either in the works or already in store.
The rush release of these books challenges the perception of book publishing as a slow industry that is as fast to respond to the market as Paula Radcliffe in an Olympics marathon. When they want to, publishers can turn around a book in a matter of weeks. But, because the supply chain for a book can grind slowly thanks to booksellers’ lack of flexibility on instore display, book publishers need to have more foresight than most and be attuned to the zeigeist to the point that they could make a killing in the Mystic Meg market. read more

October 14, 2008 | 1 Comment | Blog, Publishing

Art for arts sake: money for God’s sake

The Author Autumn 2008
Earlier this year as the row over Arts Council England’s (ACE) regular funding raged on there came a point when I found myself wondering in what kind of sublebrity bubble Jeremy Clarkson lives. In a rant in the Sunday Times, the TV presenter said that ACE had “never offered” to translate his bestselling books into Urdu, which in part led him to conclude that “to get funding these days what you’ve got to be is black or mad or preferably both”. What stops him applying? I would have thought he met one of that criteria.
The same sense of wonder at celebrities’ literary self-aggrandisement descended on me at the Galaxy British Book Awards as Spice Girl Gerry Halliwell gushed about her life as a “children’s writer”, before announcing the Children’s Author of the Year from a shortlist that included Jordan. There was audible relief in the room when Horrid Henry creator Francesca Simon beat the glamour model to the accolade.
I relate the two stories because they sum up why I believe government subsidy for literature remains necessary in a market driven economy. Publishing is a business, but it also has a cultural impact. If the market is left to its own devices – or rather the judgment of over-cautious sales and marketing departments – then the small publishers large houses increasingly rely upon to hothouse literary talent will find it even harder to survive. read more

October 2, 2008 | 2 Comments | Opinions, Published Articles, Publishing commentator, What Authors Need To Know

Hello, hello I’m back again

Hmmm, that is probably not the best headline for a woman who has just had a baby (it’s a G Glitter song, in case you wondered what I am talking about). But it is appropriate in one way, because I have take a long break from my website thanks to the birth of my daughter – the wonderful Kasia – in July and getting married.
It’s been a busy summer too in the book industry – ebooks finally appear to have reached a tipping point (well, they made it to News at Ten, which is a pretty good gauge of public interest), the global economy has gone into freefall (and hopes of rescue have been scuppered by Republican senators fearful of losing their seats, good to know that they are not motivated by self-interest); Richard & Judy bade farewell to terrestrial TV (more of that at a later date…); and now children’s books are to get Brand Beckham. More of that here… read more

September 30, 2008 | 7 Comments | Blog, General Discussion, News, Publishing

Slaughter by write

The Independent on Sunday 22nd June 2008
Two years ago I interviewed Ian Rankin for this newspaper. In the middle of a wide-ranging discussion he said something he may have since come to regret. “The people writing the most graphic violence today are women,” he told me, then continued, “They are mostly lesbians as well, which I find interesting.”
The comments caused a furore in crime writing circles worldwide, but Rankin was not the first I had heard make this claim, he was merely the first to go on record.
“Oh, that was you,” US crime writer Karin Slaughter says when I mention the comments to her. The look she gives, half-ironic, half-knowing, makes me feel like a naughty schoolgirl. Hers is one of the names raised by anonymous critics who regard relentless detail of rapes through belly buttons or with knives, or of women buried alive, as unsuitable for fiction. It is an unease Slaughter has cultivated since her 2001 debut Blindsighted with books that live up to her name, petrifying readers with every crunch of bone and spatter of blood. read more

June 23, 2008 | No Comments | Celebrity Interviews, Published Articles, What Authors Need To Know
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