I spent a wonderful afternoon in a forum for the Art of Writing and Publishing. There were close to 60 people in attendence. It was broken into two different panels hoping to capture different takes on the industry.

The first panel consisted of Peter Craven (a critic), Alison Croggon (a poet and fantasy novelist) and Carmel Bird (an absolute gem) who were supposed to look at anthologies, poetry, criticism and editing.


PETER CRAVEN
Peter Craven took 'The Art' of writing and publishing and began to tell the group how literature was the true art form of writing. He put the works of Grisham and Bryce Courtenay up against Tolstoy and generally snobbed off every other form of writing. He also didn't think much of Australian literature writers, but singled out Peter Carey and Tim Winton as people that had done ok. When he eventually got over himself, he did provide some useful information about print runs... 3,000 - 4,000 average for lit books, Tim Winton up around 30,000. He mentioned a few good lit magazines to pick up including Heat and Overland. He also gave the 'get other people to read your work, try to get published anywhere' talk.


ALISON CROGGON
Alison took up the topic of editing, but spent most of her 15 minutes discussing her early relationship with a poetry editor and how he taught her the rules. She discussed how to use criticism and made a point of positive feedback not always being a good thing. She advised the group to find someone who KNOWS your genre to read it. Don't just get a romance editor/assessor to read your science fiction novel. She also discussed her completion of her second fantasy novel (her excuse for not being prepared for the forum) and warned the group not to fall into fantasy cliches and to make your settings credible. Alison shot back at Peter over his take on other writing not being serious and closed off by emphasising that even though editing is slow and painful, it's necessary.



CARMEL BIRD
Carmel was by far the best speaker for the whole day. She spoke beautifully and used an elaborate language to demonstrate her confidence in this forum. She discussed the craziness of Harry Potter and how it will effect the publishing world, she spoke about writer's block and how to overcome it, and she gave us 5 rules to writing

1. If you write fiction, READ EVERYTHING!
2. Have an idea of your own and have faith
3. Put in the time AND the effort!
4. Show it to a teacher or mentor and consider what is said
5. Get an agent!

Oh, and she stressed many times about having faith in what you are doing.



Then came question time for these three. There was probably more information given in this 20 minutes than in the previous 45. Most centered around getting an agent, editing and self publishing.
The big things I got out of this was Peter remarked that more money is spent in marketing a book than editing a book in Australia, hence his condemnation of the standards of Australian books. Alison also backed this claim up. Peter and Alison combined again and said that it was easier to get published in Australia than it is overseas, and the consensus among the three of them was get your work assessed first BEFORE presenting to an agent AND ONLY use an agent, never send unsolicited!



PART DEUX!

Paddy O'Reilly (a winner of a number of short story competitions), Ian Syson (a publisher) and Judith Rodriguez (a poet and teacher at Deakin Uni) took the second session discussing winning awards, publishing poetry and editing literary magazines. Now, I do apologise for this, but I paid very little attention to this entire second panel. Why? Well, for starters, the topics didn't interest me all that much and secondly, the speakers were quite boring.



PADDY O'REILLY
She began by reading an opening paragraph to one of her winning stories and moved on to an analogy about the Tortoise and the Hare. It was a shining moment, because she referred to "finding her inner tortoise". Other than that, I struggled to follow where she was going with her 15 minute speech. She didn't have much to offer in the way of writing, other than to keep trying and put your fingers into as many pies as possible.


IAN SYSON
He was a weird one. Not really a writer, although his 'inner tortoise' was working on a novel of some kind, he spoke about the publishing industry and of literary magazines. He slagged off everyone. Kerry Packer, Rupert Murdoch, Penguin books, Dymocks, Angus & Robertson, The ABC; all were capitalist pigs in his eyes. He is the publisher of Vulgar Press (www.vulgar.com.au). He basically threw up ideas and condemnations in his speech and said he'd answer questions if anyone was interested.


JUDITH RODRIGUEZ
Ok, this was a poetry speaker, so my 'inner tortoise' curled up under a nice tree and slept soundly for 15 minutes. She did have a few good points towards the end about getting in touch with those who will help you get published (other authors, writing groups, agents, editors, publishers, marketers). She also quipped about how she was able to sell more books for herself than her publisher was.




Question time for these three was a lot more sedate, but more about Harry Potter came up. This is the one area where I thought Ian shined. He discussed how publishers are becoming focused on 'Events' and the industry was collapsing in. As it did, it opened up gaps in the market that his company, Vulgar Press, could fill. He said all publishers were cutting their back lists and the take up of new, untried authors was declining. He also said that we needed to make the distinction between kids who were reading, and kids who were 'Harry Pottering'. Would their 'Harry Pottering' turn them into readers of other material?


And that was essentially it. It was an interesting experience for me and it was the first time I had been to one of these things. I do recommend that everyone try to get along to a forum of this kind at least once or twice a year, and Lou, you really should try to do more of them. With the advice you offer in chat and on your website, you'd have enough material to keep everyone happy.

Thanks Mick! That was super. Amazing to do this right when Harry Potter came out as it must have had such an impact on the dicussion. What a phenomenon! About half way through and loving it! Hee!

This is a great spot to put advice we have found from other forums. If we here any good snippets at talks, or chat about them on the web or read good advice in a book we can put it here.

Thanks again Mick
Al

Thanks, Mick, for sharing something many of us would not normally have access to.

Since joining this group, there are some definite recurring themes in the advice for writers. Hopefully this means if we follow the advice we won't go wrong!

I must come back and find this information again in about 25 years when I finally finish my novel!!!LOL!

Luv Wendy

He made the comment that he was an admirer of the series, but it was plainly (and painfully) obvious that no one with a red pen had touched books 4 & 5. Alison and Carmel both nodded at this. He seems to think that the editing team on the book are either afraid to make changes, or J.K Rowling has her publisher by the short and curlies. (I think the latter)

It would be great to read everyone elses experiences at these forums. Not only to hear the information, but to get a taste of the personalities in the industry we are all trying so hard to break into.

That was a fab precis, Mick. I felt as if I was there! And I agree, it's great to attend forums to hear what published authors have to say. Quite often, as you found, it's just their subjective view of things, which isn't always positive, but you have to remember that one person's 'reality' of publishing isn't necessarily the way it is. I've often found that people with negative attitudes are dogged by bad luck, and I don't think that's a coincidence. I firmly believe that a positive attitude towards publishing and faith in your own work can get you far.

The problem I've discovered with panels is that they're mostly made up of reviewers and literary writers/poets, who are keen to speak because they earn part of their income off "the circuit". That's why I was so pleased when Selwa organised the Popular Writing Festival for genre writing panels, as I think the majority of readers are genre readers, rather than literary readers, so it stands to reason that more people would attend (and did). The state literary festivals: Brisbane/Sydney/Melbourne Writers Festival etc, which get the major attendances, are getting more genre writers each year which is good to see. It used to infuriate me when they'd fly in an obscure overseas author at great expense when there were perfectly good local writers I'd have preferred to listen to.

As to attending more panels myself, I do like public speaking but it takes time away from my writing, and travelling interstate takes time away from my family, so I consider what I'll do very carefully. As my children grow older and less reliant on me I'll probably do more, but just for now I'm happy with what I'm doing.

It's very nice of you, though, to say that you think I'd do well

Well, I went to a panel last night at Dymocks in the city that followed on from EnVision.  Kim Wilkins, Cory Daniells, Karen Brooks, Paul Brandon and Marianne de Pierres spoke about 'life after you're published' and it was so interesting.  Kim's story of how her publisher sent a photographer, make-up artists and stylist to get glam shots of her when her first book was published, was hilarious.  She had long black hair then and was writing horror so they dressed her in a purple corset and long black skirt and took her to the Toowong Cemetery and took goth photos of her.  She cut her hair a year later so they'd have to stop using those photos but apparently certain newspapers are still using them years later - so that was a timely warning that you need to think of the image you want to project because if you leave it up to your publishing house it can come back to haunt you years later!

Marianne talked about the editing process and how she'd put horrible pressure on herself (because of some bad editing experiences previously) but it turned out fine in the end.  Paul talked about coming to grips with doing publicity (his publishers threw him in the deep end in New York three weeks after Sept 11) and how hard that's been for a hermit-like person to cope with.  Rowena talked about being feted by her publishers and how doing Toastmasters had helped her cope with interviews/readings etc - as she too had been a bit of a hermit.

It was great for the aspiring authors attending EnVision to hear this sort of stuff, because getting accepted for publication doesn't magically make all your problems go away.  It actually brings new challenges which can be quite stressful.  So the more you know about what to expect, the better it is.

I'm probably biased, but I love listening to genre writers.  They're so down-to-earth and passionate about what they do.  And so very generous on panels (mind you, the couple of wines we poured into the panel members at the Siebel beforehand probably helped).