To e or not to e

If you're a regular here, you'll know that I'm pretty committed to traditional publishing.

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."
(Ooh, don't think we've had Elizabeth Barrett Browing here before!)

I like traditional publishers because:

• I get to write books rather than do marketing. I hate selling, and I hate selling my own books more than anything. I will be rubbish at marketing. I say things like 'Don't buy this book unless...' rather than 'Buy this book because...'
• They do all the faffing about with proofreaders and cover designers and illustrators and permissions and all that, so I can just do some writing, which I like better than faffing about.
• They give me an editor. An editor I am not paying, who will be as rude or ruthless as necessary to make a good book (rather than to make a happy author who will pay again).Or that's how it should work.
• I know pretty much what I'm earning - they promise me some money if I write a book; I write the book; they give me the money. Then later I might get some more money. Great! This is all very straightforward and I can plan things like buying some food or going to Italy. Occasionally, a publisher goes bust and I don't get the money. But, to be fair, I've probably lost only about £5000 like that over the last fifteen years. Painful at the time, but not a bad average. 
• This will cause howls of disagreement from the self-publishing lobby, but I genuinely think the endorsement of a traditional publisher counts for something in the eyes of the buying public - and with good reason. Anyone and his dog can put out a book on Kindle. While there are some very good ones, there is also a lot of total shite out there. If I am looking for a book of a specific type and I see it's only available as an e-book I check out the publisher. If it looks as if it's self-published, I don't buy it. I want publishers doing quality control - I don't have time to do it myself. I expect other readers are the same. And yes, of course some traditionally published books are bad. But a higher proportion of self-published books are bad.

But recently some traditional publishers have been getting very difficult to work with. (No names, for obvious reasons.) I'm talking here about non-fiction and fiction that it is commissioned for a specific list, not one-off stories or non-fiction titles. Here's how:

• Their projects are increasingly urgent. I used to have a deadline three months from the point the project was suggested. Now it's more often six weeks. Then the publisher eats into those six weeks in the following ways:
• They don't send the brief immediately, or when they say they will. It's as though they consider their job done when they've found an author. Ahem - we have to do the book, yet. Not sending the brief means I can't even start the outline. This summer's record for this one: not sending a brief for three weeks on a project that had six weeks to start with. And I've still not got it. They have failed to send a brief for three weeks, because they are 'very busy'. But their project is very urgent. Of course. Just not urgent enough to devote any time to.
• They sit on outlines or synopses for weeks - sometimes until after the delivery date for the manuscript. Record on this one: until after the final delivery date of the manuscript.
• They take ages to respond to questions - that is, questions about the book they have commissioned and that has a deadline that isn't going to move just because they haven't answered crucial questions about content or format.

It's impossible to work like this. I had an editor last year who sat on things from Monday morning until Friday afternoon and then sent their responses, to be turned around and back on their desk by Monday. Do they think I don't have a life? What do they think the working week is for? How would they respond if I worked like they do? (Arguably, not at all because they never respond to anything.)

Danger for planet complacency

And the money. I get less for a book now than I got for a comparable book 15 years ago. Royalties, advances and fees are all down. One has even just tried to change the fee after the event.  But this post isn't about money, it's about behaviour. That last point is relevant though, changing the fee after the event. It's as if I went to Pizza Express, ate a pizza, and then refused to pay the advertised price. They'd call the police!

I have to say that I also work with some wonderful professional, capable, efficient and hard-working editors. I love them to bits. They are the reason I put up with the others - every time I hope I will have a good experience. I know which publishers I can trust and I work with them repeatedly. They know who they are because I tell them that I appreciate them. I am working with three of them at the moment. But some others - what planet are they on? Planet complacency. And planet complacency is about to be hit by a meteor (otherwise known as 'the changing face of publishing').

So - should I give up on these unprofessional people? There are plenty of authors out there saying 'why should the publisher get 90% of the income from a book?' But this isn't about the money. It's about the attitude. It's about not being able to write a book of 128 pages over three successive weekends in August, spending the weekdays waiting on the editor's response. It's about needing a brief before starting a project (of the type that needs a brief). It's about working with professionals.

Last year, I had an argument with a publisher who said that now is the best time to be an author. It so isn't. Now is the worst time to be an author. You earn less than ten years ago for the same work. Many - not all - publishers have a ridiculously unprofessional attitude, short deadlines and no budget. They don't value authors, but at the same time they depend on authors to sort out all their scheduling screw-ups. Perhaps it's a good time to be starting out as an author. You can stick all your books on Kindle and take a chance on them being discovered. Do lots of promotion. Alienate all your Facebook friends. I don't want to do that. I want to do what I'm good at and leave publishers to do what they're good at. Only problem is, some of them don't seem to be good at it any more.

It's actually  much harder for someone who makes a living from books to switch to e-self-publishing than it is for someone who still hopes to find a publisher. The unpubilshed are not giving anything up (except perhaps a dream of being published by Penguin, or whoever). I'd be risking my whole family income, and certainly swappping a model on which I can plan a budget for one on which I can't.

This would be less tricky if I wrote more for adults. Of course, there are lots of people writing for adults who make a good living from well-written self-e-published books. Children's books are a different matter. And I love my adult publisher, so I don't want to self-publish instead of working with them.

So I'm not *quite* ready to jack it all in and start poking the HTML, but I can see it's not far off. Publishers were always vulnerable to people wanting to keep more of the money, but that won't be my motivation. When they lose the battle to keep the people who would rather work with them than not, they've really, really lost.

And finally... even if you think you can work out which publishers I'm talking about, you can't. I have books at various stages with eight different publishers and none of you knows who all of them are.

How not to send in crap - self-editing

This post was prompted by a question asked by Vanessa Harbour on her blog Chaosmos - why is it so hard to see problems with our own writing, even when we can pick up the same problems in the writing of others? The answer, as she says herself, is that we see what we want to see when we re-read our own work - we're blind to the things we never intended to be there (ie mistakes). How to get unblind?

I've spent some years as a Royal Literary Fund fellow. RLF fellows work in UK universities helping students to improve their writing skills. A lot of it is about self-editing. It's not about teaching them to write fiction (most of them are not creative writing students - they can be writing about pharmacology, fashion, maths, history - anything). It's not about editing what they have written. It's about teaching them to be better writers, to take charge of the nuts and bolts of writing, not only using grammar competently but writing effectively. One of the techniques I use with students might, I hope, help other writers. You need to print out some of your work to do this.

1: I go through a few pages of the student's writing highlighting all the mistakes with a highlighter pen and explaining what is wrong. If possible, I use different colours for different types of mistake. For instance, there might be one colour for grammatical errors, one for changes of point of view, one for unnecessary passive constructions... you get the idea. If you can get someone you trust to do this for you, they might spot more than you spot yourself, but if you don't have someone to do it, print your work in a font you don't normally use so that it doesn't look like your work.

2: Over the next few pages, I highlight the same mistakes in the same colours, but without the annotation.

3: I check the student understands why each bit has been highlighted and help them to change/improve it. I tell the student to go through the rest of the work highlighting the errors, using the same colours.

4:The colour pattern shows which are the most common mistakes. Focus on looking out for that type as you write. Every few pages, print some out and highlight in colour all the mistakes of that type. Revise to correct them.

5: Do the same with the next type of mistake. Every so often, do an audit of the type of errors that are sneaking through still and try harder. Keep the highlighters by the keyboard as you type - seeing them will remind you of what you are avoiding.

This is much easier for a competent writer than for a student who doesn't really understand why some of the things even ARE mistakes.

This method doesn't work so well on big, structural issues, but it's useful for many other types. This is part of my writing-in-colour method which I will write up one day. Probably after I have bought shares in a highligher company....