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Take me to the Fair...
Oct. 15th, 2007 12:28 pmIn the wake of one of the world's biggest publishing industry shindigs, the Frankfurt BOok Fair, which ended yesterday, The Guardian has a write-up of the Fair and its issues here - go read the whole thing, it's funny and sad and exciting and appalling and you end up not knowing whether to giggle maniacally or sit on the stairs weeping and tearing your hair out. Here's a sample of it:
Oh, the writers. What becomes abundantly clear from Frankfurt is that if you've got a book inside, it's really not a bad idea to keep it there. Why does anybody even want to be a writer? And I say that as one. Two weeks ago the BBC reported that it came top in a survey of the nation's dream jobs. I end up ranting about this at the Bloomsbury stand, and Alexandra Pringle, the editor-in-chief of Bloomsbury, rants with me.
'I know!' she says, 'It's mad. It's a horrible job. It doesn't pay well. It's lonely. It's depression-inducing. It's frustrating. There's no fun to be had. But everyone has a drive to be a writer. And everyone thinks they can do it.
'Whereas to be one is some sort of mental derangement! They're all bonkers. When my writers say I could earn more money at the till at Sainsbury's, I say, well go and do it. There's no point writing unless you feel that you have to do it. You have to really want to do it and to be prepared to suffer to do it. Or else you really might as well go and work on the till at Sainsbury.'
And even if you do write a book, the obstacles are so huge. Jonny Geller tells me he personally receives 1,000 unsolicited submissions a year, and the general slush pile holds another 3,000. Out of those, he takes on maybe five new authors. I always knew that the odds against getting my first novel being published were enormous but I'm actually quite grateful that I didn't know quite how enormous.
And here I am, starting a new project. Or two. Oh, the stories that I have waiting.
And I don't know if I should just give up and play dead, or go and light a candle in a shrine every day of my life in gratitude for all that I have managed to achieve in the last five years or so of my life - there are hundreds, THOUSANDS, *MILLIONS* of writers out there - the famous, the not-yet-famous, the never-will-be famous, the barely-published, and those who still dream the dream and wait with a greater or lesser degree of patience for it to come true. If you raise the bar and count those who have had work published in more than one language, the number drops dramatically. More than five, it drops even more. More than ten, it's exponential. And here's me, with thirteen. THIRTEEN. I have contracts in my contracts drawer from Turkey and Israel and Lithuania and Brazil and Czechoslovakia, and more. My little book came out in paperback in Spain with the word "Bestseller" stamped on the cover. Sometimes even i find it hard to believe.
It's getting harder and harder to get into the charmed circle. I've been lucky. And I'm suitably grateful.
Oh, the writers. What becomes abundantly clear from Frankfurt is that if you've got a book inside, it's really not a bad idea to keep it there. Why does anybody even want to be a writer? And I say that as one. Two weeks ago the BBC reported that it came top in a survey of the nation's dream jobs. I end up ranting about this at the Bloomsbury stand, and Alexandra Pringle, the editor-in-chief of Bloomsbury, rants with me.
'I know!' she says, 'It's mad. It's a horrible job. It doesn't pay well. It's lonely. It's depression-inducing. It's frustrating. There's no fun to be had. But everyone has a drive to be a writer. And everyone thinks they can do it.
'Whereas to be one is some sort of mental derangement! They're all bonkers. When my writers say I could earn more money at the till at Sainsbury's, I say, well go and do it. There's no point writing unless you feel that you have to do it. You have to really want to do it and to be prepared to suffer to do it. Or else you really might as well go and work on the till at Sainsbury.'
And even if you do write a book, the obstacles are so huge. Jonny Geller tells me he personally receives 1,000 unsolicited submissions a year, and the general slush pile holds another 3,000. Out of those, he takes on maybe five new authors. I always knew that the odds against getting my first novel being published were enormous but I'm actually quite grateful that I didn't know quite how enormous.
And here I am, starting a new project. Or two. Oh, the stories that I have waiting.
And I don't know if I should just give up and play dead, or go and light a candle in a shrine every day of my life in gratitude for all that I have managed to achieve in the last five years or so of my life - there are hundreds, THOUSANDS, *MILLIONS* of writers out there - the famous, the not-yet-famous, the never-will-be famous, the barely-published, and those who still dream the dream and wait with a greater or lesser degree of patience for it to come true. If you raise the bar and count those who have had work published in more than one language, the number drops dramatically. More than five, it drops even more. More than ten, it's exponential. And here's me, with thirteen. THIRTEEN. I have contracts in my contracts drawer from Turkey and Israel and Lithuania and Brazil and Czechoslovakia, and more. My little book came out in paperback in Spain with the word "Bestseller" stamped on the cover. Sometimes even i find it hard to believe.
It's getting harder and harder to get into the charmed circle. I've been lucky. And I'm suitably grateful.