What writers have to do

Monday, and I’m in a mess. My desk is full of papers once again, and I have to load the washing machine with the sheets I stripped from the bed. I’ve unloaded the dish washer – M normally does that but he forgot to start it till this morning. (Normally we do it overnight, on cheap rate electricity.) I have to deal with the spare room bed, because my daughter and family are coming next weekend. (Wouldn’t you know it, we’ve already arranged to visit my son and family in Cambridge). I’ve just been to the post office and couldn’t draw cash, because I’d taken the wrong card with me – because my brain is still asleep. I’ve also got to do some advance cooking for a meal when we return from Cambridge and PD & family will still be around.

Last night, though, when my brain was in gear, I wrote the following blog, which I didn’t then upload:

Sunday, 14th October

Jean http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=258028702
raised an interesting point in her query yesterday. Is this really what writers have to do?

I thought about it and the answer is Yes – and No. Any writer who only wants to write can do just that. Putting aside what it’s necessary to do to earn a living, or look after one’s family, after that, it could be the only thing that occupies your time, and you could do nothing but write. But this has nothing to do with getting or being published. In our particular case, because Goldenford Publishers (www.goldenford.co.uk) is run by a group of us and is a publishing company, we have to carry out all the work required in a small business – that is sales, marketing, design, setting up files ready for the printer, bookkeeping, etc. – as well, of course, as editing and writing. But it would be completely wrong to imagine that if we were published by any other publisher, we could sit back and let them do all the work.

Even in the 1980s, when my self help book was published by Thorsons, I went on about fifty radio stations carrying out publicity at places arranged by the publicity department of the publishing house, and similarly, when it was brought out in a new edition in the early 90s, I carried out a another publicity tour, did interviews ‘down the line’ from Radio Southern Counties and went on Sky TV as well.

Just a couple of years ago, Irene (www.myspace.com/ireneblack) and I escorted an author, who shall be nameless, to a Guildford Festival event, and she complained that the budget for publicity from her publisher, who will also remain anonymous, was about £12 a year, and that if she wanted to sell her books, she had to go out to events of this kind and sell them herself. I hear that now, the big publishing houses want to hear what the author can offer in terms of marketing ideas and possible selling leads, before they take them on. Books these days are a commodity and authors can no longer retreat to the garret with their quill pens, if they want their books to sell. That’s not to say that some fine, exceptional books don’t reach the public and sell well. But many others rely on hype, bookshop signings, and radio and TV appearances, even for the shyest and most introvert of writers. For those who are in the public eye through football, modelling or Big Brother, life is so much easier – and they don’t even have to know how to write.

We have just returned from a party at my cousin’s home in Chigwell, Essex to celebrate both an engagement and a housewarming – an hour and three quarters to get there, but alas two hours and twenty minutes to get back, crawling through a traffic jam on the North Circular. Good party, though. I always enjoy seeing my relations and we were blessed with a beautiful autumn day and sat in the sunshine for a couple of hours this afternoon, surrounded by spectacular New Guinea busy lizzies. And another party is in the offing in a few weeks’ time – this time a birthday party with a zero on the end. As it happens, my son has just celebrated one of those – no party – just a weekend away with his family. As it was a special birthday, M & I bought him a mobile phone that does everything but cook the dinner. Conferencing, linking to the internet – when we discussed it we decided it was similar to that Yuppy type toy – the Raspberry, or Strawberry – or is it a Blackcurrant? (All you need is an Apple computer to go with it and you have a dessert.) My son is not a Yuppy, but he knows he doesn’t need this. It is a toy, but that’s what presents are all about, so I don’t begrudge buying it for him.