Friday at
Harrogate started
out with John Connolly who was interviewed by Mark Billingham, and I’m not sure
which of the two was most under the weather. John Connolly, of course is known
for his Charlie Parker novels which are set in
America
rather than his native
Ireland.
John Connolly in full flow at Harrogate
His first book, Every Dead Thing, took him 5 years to write
and he was rejected by everybody. He said that in every book he’s written he
reaches the stage where he thinks it’s awful but he still has to finish it, and
his first book was no different, if he hadn’t finished it he would never have
written another book. He thinks that doubt is the thing that makes a book, and
that every writer is doubt ridden, they live in fear of rejection. He still
lives in perpetual fear it will all fall apart and being dumped is just round
the corner. This was an honest and entertaining interview and I noticed the
fear of rejection was a constant theme that was echoed by many writers during
the weekend.
It would be far too lengthy to describe all the panels that
took place on Friday because the day was so packed, so I’ll only include the
highlights as I saw them.
Crime in Another Dimension Panel at Harrogate
The second panel of the day which was based on novels with a
science fiction or urban fantasy setting was hilarious. It frequently went off
track, and I’m not sure we learned anything, but there was loads of humour and
the audience laughed a lot.
Wanted for Murder: The E-Book panel at Harrogate
A mid morning panel was also lively but in a different way
because this is a subject that is quite contentious. It had the title
Wanted for Murder the E-book. The panel
included a well known writer of e-books, Stephen Leather; bookseller Patrick
Neale; author, Steve Mosby; agent, Philip Patterson; and VP of the
Publisher’s Association Ursula McKenzie;
which I thought was weighted more to the traditional publishing model than the
e-publishing one. To me Stephen Leather seemed to be the only one really
defending the e-book corner, and he took some whacks from the others as well as
from the audience. I kind of felt a bit sorry for him, although he did put his
foot in it several times. Still, it couldn’t have been a comfortable experience
and probably knocked him off course.
Some interesting points that came out of the panel were:-
- Three
years ago Little Brown, Publisher, were only selling 3% e-books, they are
now selling 20% overall, and 30% fiction.
- Stephen
Leather sold 5% the first year he published e-books, and last year he sold
half a million. He is now selling three times more e-books than his
traditionally published print books. He sees the future as being 90% in
favour of e-books.
- There
is no e-book market in Germany
or France
(maybe that’s why I haven’t sold any there!)
- The
cheaper than chips argument – the notion that an e-book does not exist
physically, does not mean they should sell for 49 pence, although when
physical costs disappear they should be cheaper. There was a view that
cheap e-books undermine all books, with the assumption that it is
independent authors who are pushing cheap books. Interestingly it came out
several times over the course of the weekend that MacMillan (traditional
publisher) was offering 20 pence books on Amazon. (If you’re interested
look up Peter James books)
- Publishers
will not vanish with the advent of e-books because a lot of authors won’t
want the hassle of doing the business side of things, therefore they will
need a publisher and/or agent to do this for them.
- Book
sales – the bookseller indicated hardbacks were selling better than ever
and thinks it will only be paperbacks in jeopardy from the rise of
e-books.
- Stephen
Leather thought a fair price for e-books was 70 pence for short stories;
£1.99 for novellas; and £3.99 for novels. However he does give away some
free books as a promotion for his paid books.
Interestingly there was quite a bit of aggro from the
audience at question time, with many of the questions aimed at Stephen Leather,
and I understand that since the conference there have been a lot of quite
vicious comments floating around on Twitter. Phew, who would think a panel
could produce that kind of reaction.
Here are 2 links to follow up to get a flavour of that
aggro:-
Writing for Your Life panel at Harrogate
Writing for Your Life was
a panel of former intelligence agents and investigative journalists who went
into detail about the risks involved with acquiring information for their
books. I was quite interested in Tony Thompson’s book
Gangs which I thought would come in useful in relation to my own
writing. He was a really nice guy and I had my photo taken with him.
Tony Robinson and me
The day had passed quickly with loads of panels, and all of
a sudden it was 8.30pm and time to listen to Kate Moss, the author of
Labyrinth, and the evening’s special
guest. She was interviewed by Dame Jenni Murray from BBC Radio 4, and Jenni can
always get the best out of her interviewees. It was an interesting session and
hearing Kate talk about
Labyrinth which
she wrote as an adventure story was enough to make me download it to my Kindle.
I think one of the things that attracted me to it was her interest in myth,
magic, folklore, and nonsense, the gap between logic and the dark part. Now how
could I resist that.
Special Guest: Kate Mosse at Harrogate
I bet you’re thinking the day was finished when we left the
session at 9.30pm, but you’d be wrong. There was still the
Special Guests Late Night Conversation between Ian Rankin and Peter
Robinson. This started at 10pm and was, quite frankly unusual and
interesting. The stage was laid out like a pub, complete with beer pump, table
and chairs. Ian and Peter sat at the table, beer glasses in hand, and just
chatted. Every now and then they would get up and refill their glasses from the
pump. It was as if the audience wasn’t there, and I reckon they must have been
quite merry by the end. I liked Ian’s description of what they were doing –
‘Two old farts sitting at a table’. They covered a variety of topics such as:-
- Whether
or not to watch their TV series. Ian prefers not to.
- The
return of Rebus.
- Trends
and changes in crime fiction and the rise of lots of new writers. They
both thought it was a different world now with changes in technology,
although there was still a place for traditional crime fiction.
- Screw
ups.
- Music.
- Being
in a band or group.
- e-books.
- The
Killing.
- Scandinavian
fiction.
They thought it was a bit scary how quickly the world has
moved on, and that their earlier books seem historical now. There was lots more
but I think I’ve given the gist of it. So, at the end it was time to stagger to
our rooms, although many of the audience went there via the bar.
Peter Robinson and Ian Rankin in a late night conversation at Harrogate
It was the end of another exhausting but exhilarating day.
I’ll bring you Saturday’s events the next time, so watch this space.
.jpg)
.jpg)