What’s in a cover?

Putting Kindle arguments aside, there is something egalitarian about electronic reading. A book loses its genre straightjacket when you are taken immediately into its pages: bypassing any cover and arriving directly at the first page of chapter one.

When I was a child, my parents had shelves of penguin originals. I used to pull books off the shelf to read without actually knowing what type of novel they were – they were simply orange-and-cream, or green-and-cream stripes. I still have some of these books, they now have an antique charm. But in terms of the cover, there’s nothing much to choose between authors as different as Daphne du Maurier, and Aldous Huxley.

Contrast this with today where genre is king. We do judge a book instantly by its cover, and women’s commercial fiction gets the short straw. I read my first Victoria Hislop book recently – on a kindle, so without the benefit of cover art. I found the writing good, the story serious, and the outcome for some of the major characters brutal and bleak. Later browsing online I was surprised to discover Hislop referred to as chicklit. Really? Perhaps because they hadn’t looked further than the covers of her six novels – all swirly-girly lettering and island seascapes (probably not her doing).

Hannah Beckerman, author of ‘The Dead Wife’s Handbook’, recently started a pitch to help women writers get reviewed, particularly commercial fiction, under a new hashtag, ReviewWomen. She says that the only genre not currently being reviewed in the heavyweight press, is women’s commercial fiction. With light, bright covers and easy prose, it is overlooked.

Many serious minded reviewers will not consider women’s commercial fiction at all. But women certainly read it. Perhaps this accounts for the rise of the book blogger, who isn’t so prejudiced. We are told that the fiction book industry is kept alive these days by women readers aged between 16 and 65. Why then are so many authors men? It seems that men want to write books but aren’t so keen to read them. Perhaps if they did, we'd have genre officially termed bloke-lit. Wonder what those covers would look like?

Are books the doughnut authors give away?

As books go plummeting down in price and author events go up, I’m beginning to wonder – are books becoming the doughnuts we give away with an author profile these days? Recently I bought 'The Luminaries' by Booker prize-winning author Eleanor Catton. It cost £1.19. I committed the sin of purchasing on kindle, but was shocked nevertheless. All that effort for less than a chocolate bar?

Much like a free doughnut with your coffee, authors now give away online short stories at launch time, to encourage interest in their new book. They also write blogs, tweet, appear at festivals, review other books and generally give away words for free. It’s required.

Author events on the other hand are becoming ever more expensive. I went to one not that long ago for Sarah Waters. Thirty two pounds bought me an advance copy of The Paying guests, and my ticket to the swanky London Rosewood Hotel, where waiters were circling with wine before we were ushered into a moodily lit seating area, and Ms Waters appeared. I enjoyed it, and so did the other hundred plus fans. As they say, 'you do the math'.

Perhaps authors are like rock-stars now. The wisdom goes that bands now make more money on their merchandise than their music. After all Rock band U2 gave away their last album to everyone with an i-tunes account, to get bums on seats for their global tour: something which was unthinkable at the band’s height. What next? T-shirts at author events, or perhaps a branded purse or make-up bag. Lingerie in fifty shades of grey?

In this brave new world of digital freedom (and everything free on digital) it’s all about building a profile, getting clicks, retweets, getting the name out there. Marketing lore tells us that a reader has to hear the name of a book three times before they decide to purchase. But authors themselves are now being marketed as celebrities. Gone are the days when a favourite author would finally stray onto the TV screen and we’d think ‘OMG is that what she looks like? Thought she was blonde.’

But to be a celebrity you need to be famous for something. And so we are back to the writing. All that crafting of words, editing, shaping, finessing, has to keep going regardless of whether it’s free or not. I know most authors don’t expect to make money from books alone these days, but at least they’d like to be able to earn enough to buy an ice cream at the end of the month. Or a doughnut…

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

A cleverly crafted suspense thriller, all the more interesting because the characterization is painstakingly convincing. Have you ever sat on a train at a standstill, and stared into the houses by the track? It feels both legitimate, and like prying. Paula Hawkins has taken this feeling and woven it into the basis of her novel, ‘The Girl of the Train’.

Thirty something Rachel Watson travels every day on a commuter train, from which she idly takes an interest in the occupants of houses that back on to the line, weaving stories about them to pass the time. Or so we think. But as the narrative draws you in, the reader begins to realise that Rachel is not a reliable narrator. She has a connection with these people, and she’s not being honest with anyone – least of all herself. And she has other problems.

We follow divorced and lonely Rachel as she stumbles through the ruins of her life in an alcoholic haze. We should despise her but we don’t, which is testament to the sensitive way that Paula Hawkins has handled this character. Rachel vows to herself many times that she won’t be taking another drink, but the next chapter sees her dropping by the off-licence once again, to our frustration. Rachel is trying to cope with many of the usual traumas of life – divorce and loss, the lack of friends that a break-up can cause, childlessness, career disappointment. But her troubles are all magnified by her illness, and her frightening alcoholic blackouts. Which leaves the reader uncertain what the truth of the matter is.

Hawkins has captured perfectly the guilt and torment, but also the defiance, of someone struggling with alcoholism, and crucially the way that others are drawn into their dependency.  Which makes her careful plot, weaving of characters, and the ending when it comes, richly plausible. Worth a read.

Does your mind mistake talking for doing?

I’ve just finished writing a book – it’s quite a whopper clocking in at 130,000 words. Who knew? Well, clearly me, and just my partner. I can tell I’ve offended some people. ‘Oh they say, you kept that quiet,’ and quickly change the subject. My children said, ‘What you, you’ve written a book, a real one?’

They feel left out, but this was not my intention. My purpose in keeping shtum was to make sure I finished. For me, the only way to achieve something difficult, long-term, and which eats up creative energy, is to tell no one. This isn’t out of fear of failure, it isn’t even about people messing inside my head and muddying my ideas. It’s about channelling energy.

If I talk about an idea, then I dissipate that energy, in discussing or explaining or simply receiving support. It’s great to have cheerleaders, but if I talk about something enough then I almost feel that I have done the work, the actual writing becomes expected, almost a chore.

If on the other hand I tell no-one, I’m forced to respond to friends asking me what I’ve been up to, with ‘Oh, nothing much.’ Which makes me seem like a wet weekend. But that’s the point. The pressure builds up precisely because I can’t tell anyone, like an old pressure cooker rattling away, the steam is desperate to escape: and all that drive, energy, ideas and enthusiasm gets fed straight back into the work until you can see it bursting from the page.

I thought I was alone in this peculiarity. Now I find there has been a century’s worth of research on the subject. In 1926 American social psychologist Kurt Lewin, called this ‘substitution’. You tell people about your goal, they affirm your intentions and then the mind feels it to be real. You’ve already had the gratification, ‘Wow, sounds great…’ so now you feel less driven to do the hard work. Your mind mistakes the talking for doing.

In 2010 motivational speaker Derek Sivers gave a talk on keeping your goals to yourself. His advice? If you need to talk, state it in a way that gives you no satisfaction, such as “I really want to run this marathon, so I need to train five times a week and kick my ass if I don’t, okay?”

Likewise, the exception to my rule was my Faber Academy writing group. A meeting of like-minded would-be writers all struggling with the same problems. Competitive, critical but constructive, it was at least a space to let off steam. The danger, of course, is to become a writing course junkie, where praise within the group is enough, and finishing your book becomes secondary.

Keep working, keep silent and keep the pressure building. Before you know it you are gunning along toward the finish. And then, finally, you get the satisfaction of saying ‘Guess what? I’ve written a book…’