"Personal" question(s) to John Jarrold

[Kissmequick]

Then I shall agree to disagree, to a point. I never expected anyone to agree with me, I know my views are not exactly mainstream. And when I find more than the odd book in my favourite genre that makes me go *wow* I shall agree with you completely. It's like TV, Idon't like reality Tv but lots do. Yet I do expect find something I can watch.

OK?

 

[Wezman]

Yeah I know - I'm being crotchety, but only because fantasy is my first love in fiction, and I'm depressed about the way it seems to be going. It's something that's bothered me for a while. I wamt the new books to fire me up the same way the old ones did, and they don't! There's so little to them.

*sigh* I'm just going to have to wait for really interesting characters to come back into fashion.

oh and wez, yours is on my list of *books to buy* god help you.

Woohoo! For that I may turn up on the Triple and we can go for a blast, with my missus and your feller, of course. Can't have the rest of the list gossipping can we?

 

[John Jarrold]

Then I shall agree to disagree, to a point. I never expected anyone to agree with me, I know my views are not exactly mainstream. And when I find more than the odd book in my favourite genre that makes me go *wow* I shall agree with you completely.

OK?

I'd usually recommend Gemmell to Conan fans, but obviously I can't in your case! I much prefer Druss to Conan (who I loved when I was 17). More realistic, and aware of his own mortality...

 

[John Jarrold]

Then I shall agree to disagree, to a point. I never expected anyone to agree with me, I know my views are not exactly mainstream. And when I find more than the odd book in my favourite genre that makes me go *wow* I shall agree with you completely.

OK?

Just a thought - you may find more of the colourful characters you like being published in the US. About 80% of US SF and Fantasy isn't published over here. The size of their market allows for a wider range, which can sell sufficent copies over there to make commercial sense, whereas the market for those areas of the genre in the UK just ain't big enough to be commercially viable to the major publishers. Should be easy enough to get these days, via the net and specialist shops.

 

[John Jarrold]

It's like TV, Idon't like reality Tv but lots do. Yet I do expect find something I can watch.

OK?

You're comparing oranges and apples...

 

[Kissmequick]

You're comparing oranges and apples...

Well just trying to make my point in an accessible manner. It's all entertainment for the masses after all. More cox's and golden delicious?

Honestly, I don't expect the genre to bow down to my tastes or whatever. I don't expect anyone to agree with 100% - we all have our own opinions, and I wanted to debate the differences, and the whys and wherefores.

Obviously people other than me enjoy what is published tremendously, and good for them. I would like a fair crack at the whip though! My tastes aren't that extreme. I was only expressing a viewpoint, in the hope of a nice discussion, and to hear other viewpoints ( and yes I know I get a bit passionate, but this is fantasy dammit!). I'm a big lover of debate, thrust and counterpoint....

And yes, I have found a difference between US and Uk published works. It was the UK industry I wanted to discuss though.


And wez, any time. We'll leave your missus and my old man in the pub and OD on adrenaline on the TT course.

 

[Wezman]

And wez, any time. We'll leave your missus and my old man in the pub and OD on adrenaline on the TT course.

Done deal. 120ish over the mountain makes for a fun ride. The Trip will go faster, but I would lose my head in the drag if I did. Oh, and oncoming traffic. At least the racers have it one way. Oh, so did we this year. The mountain was race-wise for the whole two weeks. Now that was fun.

Wez

 

[scalem X]

Isn't the problem just that people with your sort of off-mainstream needs can just grab back to the old fantasy/scifi or whatever we're talking about?
After all a lot of those books stay in print. The thing is that twenty thirty years ago, a lot of crap was also produced. But what we remember now and read now is the good stuff of that age. So of course if you compare all the stuff from now, to the good stuff of that age, you'll have the impression that nowadays' writings are weaker.
Now for the matter of genre changes and that you can't find now what you could find back then: it is only logical. The reason why I won't write in exactly the same style as Asimov is that I can't beat him at his own game. I can create my own style and develop it until I'm as good as he was in his style, but I'll never write beter in his style than he did. If you like Asimov's style then I guess he's the best guy to read.
(anyway I think things are going off-track here) No one wants to start an argument about why the sixties had beter music than the seventies and otherwise...

 

[Havlen]

Let me be the first to say that this thread has really been hopping today 8)

 

[Susan Boulton]

I understand where Kissmequick is coming from with regards to not finding modren books that compare with older, more loved works. I, too, find it harder to find books I enjoy in the same way, but I have realised that in many cases it is not the quality of the writing, but me that has changed over the years. My tastes are different, in fact I don't re-read old favourites now, as I have found that often the enjoyment I once had in them can be lost.

Something else I have learned over the last few years is that even if I am not keen on a published book, I can, most often or not, see why it has been published. I am not a fan of Scott Lynch's work, yet I can plainly see that he is a talented writer, that his story of Locke Lamora struck a cord with thousands of readers, and the buzz surrounding it was created by the readers far more than publishers' hipe. The book is not bad, far from it, but it is not for me. But I have no doubt that is twenty years it will be considered a "classic" of the genre.

As a want to be writer I tend to write the type of stories I like to read. I haven't yet produced a novel that has made an agent sit up and say. "Yes, I like this! I think it can be published." I know I might never produce such a work. I accept the fact that my chances of making it into print are very, very small. I still write and I still try, as I know that there is not a formula to writing a publishable novel. It is a matter of combining talent as a writer with a plot/characters that hook and entertain the reader, just like Scott Lynch has done.

As you cannot judge yourself as regards to talent, plot/characters etc, I tend to burden the poor agents/publishers that have to wade through my many submissions with that.

 

[John Jarrold]

Well just trying to make my point in an accessible manner. It's all entertainment for the masses after all. More cox's and golden delicious?

With TV - well, everyone in the UK has a TV (just about) so the product has to be for smaller groups as well as for the huge catchment areas. But on the major networks, an audience of one million is a failure.

On the other hand, most people in the UK don't read, and sales of one million paperbacks are incredibly few and far between. So you are starting with a far smaller catchment area and the fantasy and SF audience is a percentage (around 9%) of that smaller percentage. So having books that only appeal to a small percentage of that small percentage doesn't become commercially viable, in the way it can be around the edges of the much larger TV audience.

 

[Kissmequick]

Damn John, ya got me with my loose analogy.

As a want to be writer I tend to write the type of stories I like to read. I haven't yet produced a novel that has made an agent sit up and say. "Yes, I like this! I think it can be published." I know I might never produce such a work. I accept the fact that my chances of making it into print are very, very small. I still write and I still try, as I know that there is not a formula to writing a publishable novel. It is a matter of combining talent as a writer with a plot/characters that hook and entertain the reader, just like Scott Lynch has done.

me too - and I have yet to find any objectivity in my own work. And yeah there was alot of dross around twenty years ago, but I could find something I liked. And yes, I can see why some of the books I mentioned got published - As I said, they were good books in some cases, just not to my taste. I've got no problem with that. As I posted a couple of times, it could just be me getting old and grumpy or jaded.

Maybe I've just been unlucky in my choices this last year or two? At least John's given me one good book this year.

Isn't the problem just that people with your sort of off-mainstream needs can just grab back to the old fantasy/scifi or whatever we're talking about?

Well yes I can, but I need new stuff. If I only read what I already know, the sense of discovery would be gone - you know the bit where you finish a damn good book and your friends have to tell you to shut up about it, and promise to read it just so you won't talk about it any more.

Gods I'm starting to sound like my mother. *cries*

 

[John Jarrold]

the bit where you finish a damn good book and your friends have to tell you to shut up about it, and promise to read it just so you won't talk about it any more.

You mention the last twenty years, but in the last ten years I've done that about GRRM, Robin Hobb, China Mieville, Joe Abercrombie and a number of others. George RR and Guy Gavriel Kay never cease to amaze me. Their subtlety, characterisation (many more shades of grey than in the old, primary colour days) and wonderful world-building are spot on. And multiple point-of-view has been the overarching style in epic fantasy for thirty years, so that's nothing new. Most people I speak to want that variation, to get into different characters' heads, to know more than any of them know individually by soaring above the plot and the world in that manner.

 

[Kissmequick]

As I said, maybe I've just been unlucky the last couple of years. And yes I too have done that about both GRR Martin and Robin Hobb, and will do about Abercrombie come the Thursday night Unofficial Fantasy Club.


Multi point of view is as I've said a purely personal thing - I don't mind a few, actually I quite like two or three, but every chapter a different one out of 8 or 10 just made it a bit tiresome for me. My view only. It doesn't stop me reccommending a book to someone who I think will appreciate it more.

 

[John Jarrold]

Whenever I've heard anyone say something along those lines (and some of them were editors) they were speaking of the fact that the bestsellers keep the publishers in business, pay the salaries, keep their stockholders happy, etc., so that they can publish the smaller books that earn more modest profits and take a chance on new books that might not pan out at all (but which they naturally hope will be wildly successful). Surely when meant in this way it isn't rubbish? Or was it true, but not anymore?

Teresa, just thinking about this in the light of what I was saying to Kissmequick about the differences in scale of the US and UK markets - it's possible that a US publisher can make commercial sense of more marginal books that would defeat a publishers' costing in the UK. If you can bang out 25,000 copies, it will make commercial sense. At 4,000 copies, it doesn't. But each book still has to pay for itself!

 

[Havlen]

I can see the point of saying that top-selling books pay for books by new authors, but I can also see the point of saying that they don't pay for books by new authors. I think its probably most accurate to say that top-selling books "allow" a publisher to sign new authors in the same sense that, in a financial portfolio, your large cap funds allow you to have small cap funds. They provide a cornerstone of stability because they are lower risk/good payout whereas small cap funds are high risk/high potential but can also fall flat.

I think where John is coming from is that -- in a practical sense -- that means diddly-squat. A book from a new author is not being looked at in the sense that it is being 'paid for' or 'allowed to be signed' because of top-sellers. It is being looked at and judged on whether or not it is going to make money, and if the editor doesn't think it will turn a profit, the editor won't sign the book.

Just like in that financial portfolio -- you may have the ability to buy the stock of a small company because you have a lot of stock in IBM, but when you go to pick out which small company to buy stock in, you aren't thinking that the investment is being paid for by your IBM stock, you are thinking in terms of which small company has solid finances and great future potential so that it can make you money.

In the end, it amounts to the same thing: new authors will be picked up only if the editor thinks their book will make money.

It would certainly be nice if there was an altruistic side of the industry wherein bestsellers would help pay for 'good' books, but capitalism has a way of squashing that sort of mentality.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the subject

 

[John Jarrold]

Yep, it's a commercial business, ruled by sales and marketing directors, where each "product's" bottom line is judged individually.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I can see the point of saying that top-selling books pay for books by new authors, but I can also see the point of saying that they don't pay for books by new authors. I think its probably most accurate to say that top-selling books "allow" a publisher to sign new authors in the same sense that, in a financial portfolio, your large cap funds allow you to have small cap funds. They provide a cornerstone of stability because they are lower risk/good payout whereas small cap funds are high risk/high potential but can also fall flat.

This is exactly what I was saying. (Or I think it is. I have no idea what large-cap and small-cap funds are.)

I've never heard anyone say that the big books allow publishers to take a risk on the smaller books in the sense that it all goes into the pot together and the success of one cancels out the non-success of the other and everyone is happy and keeps getting published. The point is that the big sellers aren't ruining the business and taking the bread out of the mouths of struggling authors: They are the reason the publisher is still able to pay advances to new authors, even though they know from experience that a certain number of those books (of course they don't know which ones, or they would never publish them) are going to fail and the authors subsequently cut from their lists. They are the reason the publisher can afford that big office in New York City and keep on doing business on the scale that they do do business, instead of having to operate under the same limitations as a small press. They are the reason that a new author with no track record has any chance at all of being published by a Random House or a HarperCollins.

Still, I know that it's harder to break into the business now than it was twenty years ago, and that midlist authors are practically extinct. It would be pleasant to blame this on the authors with gargantuan sales figures (particularly those whose work I particularly dislike), because they eat up all of the publisher's marketing budget and fill up all the space in the bookstores, but I don't really believe they are the ones to blame.

 

[Marky Lazer]

Still, I know that it's harder to break into the business now than it was twenty years ago,

Does this maybe have to do with the fact that people read less? (Not sure whether that's true, but I've been told it is, anyway).

 

[Triceratops]

It's probably due to several contributing factors, reading less just being one of them. House mergers, newspapers book review space being cut down, availability of internet and on-screen composing, which floods the market with new writers, POD and many other factors.

Fact is, I was published quite easily 20 years ago, and there were a ton of small and medium press houses that actually paid good advances. I've sold three books this year, but they were to smaller POD outfits, with next to no distribution or marketing.

Tri