Rights and Stuff

I’ve already, kinda, possibly reported this already, but here’s a more comprehensive round-up of where I am right’s-wise:

The reversion of the rights to The Secret War and The Hoard of Mhorrer should occur by June next year, to give the remaining paperback and hardback stock time to be sold. Whatever stock is left will either be remaindered or pulped.
This does mean that the current editions of the paperback of The Secret War will be the last for some time, and the last published by Macmillan. So if you want a copy of the book, you’d better buy it before June. Ditto with The Hoard of Mhorrer, which will not be published as a paperback by Macmillan and there will not be another print run of the hardback.
Once they’re sold out, they’re sold out, folks.

It also means that no more foreign rights can be agreed, including any media rights. Until I jump into bed with another publisher, I’ll be dealing directly with foreign publishers and anyone else wanting to do stuff with the books. Which is a little daunting, I admit, but it’s only the difference between being a father and an uncle. Relying on a publisher to deal with all the messy bits means you don’t get bogged down with, i.e. rights sales, printing costs, publicity and fine-tuning, and is like handing back the baby when it soils itself or starts screaming for a feed. As a new father, I can appreciate the hard-work required to take on these responsibilities myself, but like fatherhood I can imagine it being quite rewarding. Whether or not I can take this responsibility on full-time, we’ll see, but it will stand for an interim period until I decide where to go with the books.

So where do I go from here? Well, as the weeks have progressed the options are clearer for me. With the rights to the books returning to my control next summer I can approach another publisher with an attractive package. A package that includes two published novels that have done alright on the sales front, that have been sold to two major foreign markets, i.e. Germany and Spain, with a continued interest in the remaining books. There’s also the opportunity to tinker with the first book again, to remove the inconsistencies and flaws that, to the author, are quite annoying.
The Secret War was written largely in my twenties and it shows to be honest. It’s a debut book, and most debut books have weaknesses. It will be a good exercise to revise some of the prose, (not the story, I might add – I’m not George Lucas, you know?) which would bring it up to the standard of writing in The Hoard of Mhorrer.

Then there’s books 3 and 4 of the Secret War. The Traitor of Light is shaping up to be a handsome novel and I’m very excited about writing it (just ask Sarah how distracted I am at the moment – but then Sarah’s used to me abruptly tuning out as I ponder the finer details of the next project).
The Fortress of Black Glass is at the green-lit stage too, with much of the research and plotting already complete. I could quite easily continue writing The Fortress of Black Glass after The Traitor of Light – writing them back to back and delivering both books for publication over the space of two to three years.

And then finally we have The Black Hours, the book I’m concentrating on until the New Year. There’s still a lot to do on this book, but I’m happier with The Black Hours than I was with the Hoard of Mhorrer at this stage, and from the reactions of those who have read it, The Black Hours has promise and may well form part of the package above, or it might be pimped as a one-off to an indie publisher.
Or even self-published.

I’ll also be looking to get an agent in the New Year. I have no doubt that things are hard for agents at the moment, as they are with anyone linked to the publishing business, so getting one won’t be easy. Genre writing might appear to be faring well, but it only appears that way. Look deeper and you can see trouble there. For me, I think the next two to three years will be a struggle in terms of genre publishing as the recession takes its toll and publishing struggles to get by generally.
Thankfully, that won’t affect my writing. I’m not writing to put bread on the table so there’s not much financial pressure to deliver to a deadline or to someone else’s requirements. I will be writing what I want to write and when I want to write. I’m pretty disciplined when it comes to these things and I don’t need a carrot or a stick to write a book. I do it because I love writing.
For the reader that’s a good thing, because it means I can concentrate on what matters most: getting the books written, written well and then I can worry about how they’re going to get to you, the reader.

New Writers and Graveyards for Books

On Saturday we took Daniel on his first train journey. Thankfully he was a good little boy throughout and apart from doing what all babies do, i.e. shouting loudly, pointing at people, laughing and sucking his own socks, it was a pleasing day-out without any problems. The fact that it was York was a bonus. A big bonus.
Personally, I love York. It’s a great city, steeped in history and with a great relaxing ambiance. We tend to go there about once a year, usually around Christmas time, and last year I had a chance encounter with Ed Alleyne-Johnson who was busking near Borders bookstore.
While this time I didn’t bump into anyone famous (or rather no one that I noticed) I did meet a fellow author, Jason Blake, who was signing books at Borders for his new novel “Sex, Drink and Yellow Fish.”
It’s perhaps not the sort of book I’d usually buy, but Jason is a nice guy and we had a good chat and I was soon reminded of John Connolly’s words about supporting fellow writers, so I purchased a signed copy all the same and gave him some words of encouragement. Jason’s done a few signings so far and has a few signings to come, so by the end of it he should become quite the seasoned pro.
If you see him lurking in a bookshop near you, don’t be afraid to have a chat with him, and if you are persuaded to buy a copy of his new book rather than another vacuous-in-time-for-christmas-celeborghostwritten-book, then all the better for you, for him and probably for publishing in general.

Anyway, without planning it, it would soon turn out to be a day of new writers and new writing…
If you’ve ever been to York, you might have noticed a bookshop called The Yorkshire Book Clearance Outlet, which is a “Cuprinol” shop if ever I saw one (i.e. does exactly what it says on the tin). It’s a clearance shop with a difference – you’ll find all manner of gems here, out of print books to first editions, including some real surprises and in some cases for less than a discounted paperback.
Now Macmillan New Writing hardback editions are pretty special books; they are so by design. They are intended to be special limited edition novels that will one day be of value to a collector in terms of debut novels and first edition hardbacks, as well as being a launch-pad for each new author. Goldsboro books for example, has done good business on the back of the Macmillan New Writing books, and I’ve seen signed first editions of The Secret War in hardback going for anything between fifty and two hundred quid. So it was with some surprise, and slight dismay, to find a bookshop selling first edition hardback copies of some MNW titles for less than a quarter of their publishing price. Two of these books included Gavin Smith’s DogFellow’s Ghost (published October 2008) and the Sleepwalkers Introduction to Flight (Sion Scot-Wilson, published May 2008). These aren’t old books by any standards but were on sale for about £3 each. And they weren’t alone. There were four other titles on sale for £3 a pop, books that I’ve seen selling recently at ten times that much. Are Macmillan remaindering books too quickly, was the first thought. After all, as an author you read your statements and they detail returns after about 12-18 months but they’re soon sent out again to another bookseller. Rarely have I heard of any MNW books being remaindered so quickly.

I approached the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section with apprehension wondering whether or not one of my books would be sitting there. I was relieved when they weren’t but then I got to thinking “so what if they were?” Judging by the people walking out of the shop with armfuls of novels, if someone did buy The Secret War for £3, would it be such a hardship? True enough, I won’t get anything from that sale, but if it leads that reader to pick up another of my books, that must be good, mustn’t it? I myself have bought books from remainder shops and have then gone on to pay full price for another of that author’s books, such as Adam Roberts’ Salt and Tad Williams’ Otherland. And I admit, I did buy Gavin Smith’s novel there and then, and two copies of Sion Scott-Wilson’s book for friends. They were too good to leave in the shop.

So this leads me to another question about "what price is a book to an author?" Especially a debut book? Can a writer bear to have a debut book sold for bugger-all if it will lead to a following? Is it worth it for no gain in the short term only for a longer term outlook?
With the rights to my books reverting to me around summer of next year, there is a question about where do I go from here in terms of publishing and many people have suggested self-publishing. But what of the first book? Should this go out gratis to entice people to buy the next two or three? Maybe as an e-book? It’s definitely something worth thinking about.

And while authors nervously joke about it, and friends and family may tease that they’ve seen your book in The Works or a similar remainder bookshop, you know, I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all. Remainder bookshops may seem like a graveyard for novelists, but perhaps its just a new beginning or an opportunity.
Whatever gets it out there, right?

UPDATE: You can read more comments about this blog entry over on the Macmillan New Writers blog by clicking here.

In defence of deus ex machina

Let’s get all geeky here for a moment and forget publishing a little. After all, if I don't get the books right from the start, they ain't gonna see print. So let's talk about Gods, those deus ex machina.
Let's talk about my "Dar'uka..."

To explain where I am, I want you to think about superheroes, those brightly coloured spandex guys with square jaws and bursting biceps. In superhero terms Superman is perhaps the dullest hero of them all. He’s the man of steel, and other than a dose of kryptonite, there isn’t much that will phase the guy. He's not even morally ambiguous. In fact it’s only the peril of those he’s trying to save that makes him interesting at all and most of the time you just know he’ll save the good guys, get the girl and hand the bad guys in to the authorities (and I might add, at no harm to himself).
In other words, he is deus ex machina personified as the main character.

Things get more interesting when Superman faces Super-bad-guys, as in Superman II, when you get the ultimate superhero smack-down: three deus ex machina against one. Even now, that confrontation – however badly it holds up these days in terms of special effects – sends me to “geek heaven” (as Buddy from The Incredibles would have put it). For once you feel Superman is in peril; you feel he might get beaten because what’s 3 against 1?

Now I mention all this because potentially I could fall into the same trap of Superman with my new book The Traitor of Light. I think my publisher saw it as well and didn’t want to take the risk that I couldn’t pull it off, wanting a more human-based sequel to The Hoard of Mhorrer. My argument has always been that The Traitor of Light won’t be a Superman: the Movie. It will be a Superman II, because the plot centres around a Dar’uka gone bad, and all the main characters are those same “deus ex machina”. Yet by virtue of this, what makes deus ex machina weak in terms of plotting no longer applies. Again, pinching a quote from The Incredibles, Buddy says “when everybody becomes super, then nobody is.” In other words, if the deus ex machina are in trouble, who is going to save them? Well, the answer is “no one.” A book about only gods and angels becomes a level playing field. Immortals seem very mortal when they’re fighting their own.

That’s what makes this story compelling to me as a writer. I'll need to tread the tight-rope of keeping my “deus ex machina” – the Dar’uka – as intimidating and powerful as they have been in previous books, yet show they do have their weaknesses; not so much their kryptonite or garlic/stake/cross, but a weakness in their arrogance. "Gods are fallible": either that’s a statement of blasphemy or an unfortunate fact, but throughout religions and myths and legends, Gods make mistakes. They learn from them, but when that mistake is made, the implications are enormous for us lowly mortals.
This applies to The Traitor of Light. Those who have already read The Hoard of Mhorrer will know what I mean from the ending of that book. Traitor of Light explains why that has happened and the consequences for book 4, The Fortress of Black Glass. Mistakes are made, more than one actually, and things are learned, but at what cost?

Personally, I am confident of pulling this off. I’m still a new writer and this book will be a huge challenge for me, but it’s the kind of challenge I need. If The Traitor of Light works then it will be, without a doubt, the strongest of the books so far and certainly the most spectacular (after all, the story shifts from 14th century South America, to the 19th century and the surface of Mars, then to Hell itself – it’s quite a ride). It will still feature William Saxon, though in a limited capacity, as the emphasis will be on those beautiful terrors, the Dar’uka. It will also add some much needed humanity to the Dar’uka themselves (though not too much) and things will be set up nicely for book 4.

So it’s a risk. It’s something different in my career so far. Not too different – this will still be a Secret War novel after all, with battles against daemons (many daemons this time), kafalas and even Dar’uka vs Dar’uka. But it will also be a story of subtleties, with an underlying theme of betrayal, not only by the bad guy but by the good guys too. The title of The Traitor of Light refers to all the main characters at some point in the story.
As I mentioned above, “Gods make mistakes…”

Here’s hoping I don’t.

(PS: The comments below may include SPOILERS)

The Secret War series

James, Eliza, Frances and Gary and a number of readers who have e-mailed me over the last week, have all asked whether or not the Secret War series will continue. The short answer is “yes”, but it gets complicated, as it often does when it comes to getting the books from a writer’s laptop to you, the reader.

The rights issue to the Secret War books is a tricky one. Currently, Pan Macmillan has the rights to The Secret War and The Hoard of Mhorrer, in terms of language and media rights (encompassing foreign language rights and film/TV/audio/digital rights). The contract stipulates they will retain these rights until they stop printing the books. (Electronic rights is a separate issue, but there’s an on-going debate about it that goes beyond this blog). It is unlikely that a major publisher will take on the Secret War series without the rights to the previous two books. I am in the process of clarifying with Pan Macmillan when the rights will revert back to me, and these discussions are on-going.

However, that doesn't mean The Fortress of Black Glass, or even The Traitor of Light, won’t see print due to the rights issue. There is still plenty of mileage left in the series, not only because of the continued interest from Random House for the German language editions, and La Factoria de Ideas for the Spanish versions, but more importantly because I still love writing these books. It’s quite possible that an independent publisher will take on the remaining two novels as an opportunity, publishing them on a limited basis based on sales and the foreign language-rights sales, thus completing the quartet (or trilogy if it’s decided to leap straight to The Fortress of Black Glass).

I may even self-publish them because at the moment I don’t think any of us in the UK industry are under any illusions of this being “a good time” for publishing. You only have to look at sites such as Bookseller or read the Society of Authors magazine to see that mainstream publishing is not in a good place at the moment with too many authors finding their contracts ripped up for minor infractions or cancelled without any excuse at all. Something that is exasperated by the recent news of a 52% drop in sales for the usual Christmas staple, the celebrity non-fiction book. As one commentator pointed out, we may well just see publishing implode in the near future.

It might be that the future of the mid-list author is in the independent market or self-publishing domain, encompassing both printed works and the less costly e-books. The advantage of going through this route is there is more creative control for the author and there are no secrets: you know how much you’re selling; you know what to do to sell more.

Another advantage of going down this road, either self-publishing or through an independent, is financial. Even if I sold a quarter of the books I sold through my previous publisher, I would make the same profit, and again the foreign language sales would be mine entirely (which is where the money is). With the rise of e-book reading, the fact that you can create apps for the i-Phone for a negligible cost and the profits are greater than you would get going through a publisher, then the self-publishing route is quite an attractive one. Sure, it will mean more hard-work, but also more freedom.

One downside to this approach is that I'll be selling without the backing of a major publisher and while Macmillan didn't throw thousands of pounds on a publicity budget for the Secret War books, they relied on their name and had a dedicated member of staff to get the word out as far and as wide as possible. If I took this on, I won't have the same success publicity wise. I would largely have to rely on word of mouth.

The other downside - especially to many other authors who believe it to be the holy grail - is that there is no advance. Advances are a topic I’m passionate about and one that may well see another blog entry after this. The fact is: I don’t need an advance. I have a day-job, I can make ends meet, and an advance is simply that: an advance on your royalties. You don’t make any further money until you’ve earned that back for your publisher. It might be an indicator of how much money a publisher intends to spend on publicising you, but I would rather they saved the advance and put that into the publicity budget too. I don’t want to be given money I haven’t earned. Earning a 40-50% royalty rate is better that 20% of the net and a small five figure advance, and one that you’ll be clobbered on in the short term by the taxman. That's just my view and one that may change in the future if I make a fulltime career of it, but I'll be honest - I think stupid advances for fiction as well as celeb books, are crippling the industry. They're simply not realistic enough.

Back to self-publishing or going through an independent publisher... another immediate financial considerations is the costs incurred by having the finished book professionally edited. All authors need to be edited at some point during the life of their book, from new writers like me to established ones. The trick is to find someone who is enthusiastic enough and is cost effective. As mentioned before, I would also need to factor in time and resource into publicity too - such as this blog, the website, interviews, and then letters to magazines/websites/blogsites, not to mention providing reviewers' copies to those same magazines and internet reviewers. It would all take time.
But it would be worth it.

Does that mean I will say no to an agent or to getting a major publisher on board for the series if approached? Not exactly. I'll never turn down an offer from a major publisher to continue the series, though I'm doubtful this will occur with the rights being split. I’ll certainly look to mainstream publishing for other projects such as for The Black Hours, Smith and Stranded Rooms.

But ultimately, this isn’t about the money. The money is nice. The money means I can spend more time doing what I love: writing. But if I stop enjoying what I do, then why do it? I have a day-job that fulfils that side of my life, and pays a steady wage. A career as an author is an uncertain one, and too uncertain to worry about whether you can draw on enough enthusiasm to write a book you don’t particularly wish to write, for a return that is less than the day-job per year.

So at the moment, my options are open. As Eliza said, it sounds exciting, and I’ll be the first to admit that the uncertainty of not having a home immediately is a little scary, but yes, it is also exciting. There’s still much to be gained from writing the Secret War series, and I have not tired of it one bit, but I feel I need a short break of a year or so before I embark on the next Secret War book so that when I do, what the reader gets is the best of my abilities and for the right reasons.
Hopefully this will be The Traitor of Light, but I may even jump straight to The Fortress of Black Glass. Whatever it is, and whenever it may happen, I can categorically state now: the Secret War series is here to stay, folks… so watch this space.

UPDATE 18:25 9th November:
Half a day is a long time in publishing. So it might come as a surprise after blogging the above that I've made a decision to write the first draft of The Traitor of Light (the Secret War book 3) in the new year - probably around Feb/March. I've looked at all the reasons to write it, and I can't see any reason why I shouldn't. It's a book I've been wanting to write since I finished the last words on The Hoard of Mhorrer, but felt restrained from writing. Now I think is the best time to take a risk and write it. The research should take about two months but the plot and the characters are already there in note form. In other words, Traitor is ready to roll.
Before then, I'll be looking at the next draft of The Black Hours while doing research for Traitor. And I guess, I'll be looking for a publisher/agent too!
Busy times ahead then...

Sabbatical

2009 has been a chaotic year for me and I’ve been trying to catch my breath as well as my bearings.
This is perhaps not the news you were expecting, but I have parted ways with my publisher, Macmillan, due to the turmoil of this year and other mitigating factors. It means that book 3 of the Secret War series is on hold for a while as I decide which project I should be pursuing. I have not made a decision as to whether I continue writing The Black Hours or the planned third book of the Secret War series, The Traitor of Light. But I have made a decision to shelve The Fortress of Black Glass for the time being until it feels right to write it.

I will, of course, keep updating the blog as and when any relevant news comes out, but the impact of family and working life has been too considerable to ignore. In this current climate, I’ve had to look to my family first than my career as a writer and have been forced to make some tough decisions on where I go from here. It does mean that in the future I will have more freedom to approach projects that I want to write, but with an uncertainty over whether those projects are commercial enough and their frequency.

But then, that’s why I do what I do, and why I wrote The Secret War in the first place. Not for the money (which was nice but could never match the wage of the day-job) but because I have an unequivocal belief in what projects I want to pursue.

So a big thanks to everyone who has been supportive on this blog and the Macmillan New Writers blog. It’s made the last four years very special, and hopefully in the near future there will be some news on a new “MFW Curran” book. (For the foreseeable future, any contact should be made via the link to the right i.e. mfwcurran@talktalk.net).

Until then, best wishes

- MFWC