Muskets and Monsters

In defence of deus ex machina

2009-11-11T12:00:00.000Z

Let’s get all geeky here for a moment and forget publishing a little. After all, if I don't get the books right from the start, they ain't gonna see print. So let's talk about Gods, those deus ex machina.
Let's talk about my "Dar'uka..."

To explain where I am, I want you to think about superheroes, those brightly coloured spandex guys with square jaws and bursting biceps. In superhero terms Superman is perhaps the dullest hero of them all. He’s the man of steel, and other than a dose of kryptonite, there isn’t much that will phase the guy. He's not even morally ambiguous. In fact it’s only the peril of those he’s trying to save that makes him interesting at all and most of the time you just know he’ll save the good guys, get the girl and hand the bad guys in to the authorities (and I might add, at no harm to himself).
In other words, he is deus ex machina personified as the main character.

Things get more interesting when Superman faces Super-bad-guys, as in Superman II, when you get the ultimate superhero smack-down: three deus ex machina against one. Even now, that confrontation – however badly it holds up these days in terms of special effects – sends me to “geek heaven” (as Buddy from The Incredibles would have put it). For once you feel Superman is in peril; you feel he might get beaten because what’s 3 against 1?

Now I mention all this because potentially I could fall into the same trap of Superman with my new book The Traitor of Light. I think my publisher saw it as well and didn’t want to take the risk that I couldn’t pull it off, wanting a more human-based sequel to The Hoard of Mhorrer. My argument has always been that The Traitor of Light won’t be a Superman: the Movie. It will be a Superman II, because the plot centres around a Dar’uka gone bad, and all the main characters are those same “deus ex machina”. Yet by virtue of this, what makes deus ex machina weak in terms of plotting no longer applies. Again, pinching a quote from The Incredibles, Buddy says “when everybody becomes super, then nobody is.” In other words, if the deus ex machina are in trouble, who is going to save them? Well, the answer is “no one.” A book about only gods and angels becomes a level playing field. Immortals seem very mortal when they’re fighting their own.

That’s what makes this story compelling to me as a writer. I'll need to tread the tight-rope of keeping my “deus ex machina” – the Dar’uka – as intimidating and powerful as they have been in previous books, yet show they do have their weaknesses; not so much their kryptonite or garlic/stake/cross, but a weakness in their arrogance. "Gods are fallible": either that’s a statement of blasphemy or an unfortunate fact, but throughout religions and myths and legends, Gods make mistakes. They learn from them, but when that mistake is made, the implications are enormous for us lowly mortals.
This applies to The Traitor of Light. Those who have already read The Hoard of Mhorrer will know what I mean from the ending of that book. Traitor of Light explains why that has happened and the consequences for book 4, The Fortress of Black Glass. Mistakes are made, more than one actually, and things are learned, but at what cost?

Personally, I am confident of pulling this off. I’m still a new writer and this book will be a huge challenge for me, but it’s the kind of challenge I need. If The Traitor of Light works then it will be, without a doubt, the strongest of the books so far and certainly the most spectacular (after all, the story shifts from 14th century South America, to the 19th century and the surface of Mars, then to Hell itself – it’s quite a ride). It will still feature William Saxon, though in a limited capacity, as the emphasis will be on those beautiful terrors, the Dar’uka. It will also add some much needed humanity to the Dar’uka themselves (though not too much) and things will be set up nicely for book 4.

So it’s a risk. It’s something different in my career so far. Not too different – this will still be a Secret War novel after all, with battles against daemons (many daemons this time), kafalas and even Dar’uka vs Dar’uka. But it will also be a story of subtleties, with an underlying theme of betrayal, not only by the bad guy but by the good guys too. The title of The Traitor of Light refers to all the main characters at some point in the story.
As I mentioned above, “Gods make mistakes…”

Here’s hoping I don’t.

The Secret War series

2009-11-09T10:00:00.009Z

James, Eliza, Frances and Gary and a number of readers who have e-mailed me over the last week, have all asked whether or not the Secret War series will continue. The short answer is “yes”, but it gets complicated, as it often does when it comes to getting the books from a writer’s laptop to you, the reader.

The rights issue to the Secret War books is a tricky one. Currently, Pan Macmillan has the rights to The Secret War and The Hoard of Mhorrer, in terms of language and media rights (encompassing foreign language rights and film/TV/audio/digital rights). The contract stipulates they will retain these rights until they stop printing the books. (Electronic rights is a separate issue, but there’s an on-going debate about it that goes beyond this blog). It is unlikely that a major publisher will take on the Secret War series without the rights to the previous two books. I am in the process of clarifying with Pan Macmillan when the rights will revert back to me, and these discussions are on-going.

However, that doesn't mean The Fortress of Black Glass, or even The Traitor of Light, won’t see print due to the rights issue. There is still plenty of mileage left in the series, not only because of the continued interest from Random House for the German language editions, and La Factoria de Ideas for the Spanish versions, but more importantly because I still love writing these books. It’s quite possible that an independent publisher will take on the remaining two novels as an opportunity, publishing them on a limited basis based on sales and the foreign language-rights sales, thus completing the quartet (or trilogy if it’s decided to leap straight to The Fortress of Black Glass).

I may even self-publish them because at the moment I don’t think any of us in the UK industry are under any illusions of this being “a good time” for publishing. You only have to look at sites such as Bookseller or read the Society of Authors magazine to see that mainstream publishing is not in a good place at the moment with too many authors finding their contracts ripped up for minor infractions or cancelled without any excuse at all. Something that is exasperated by the recent news of a 52% drop in sales for the usual Christmas staple, the celebrity non-fiction book. As one commentator pointed out, we may well just see publishing implode in the near future.

It might be that the future of the mid-list author is in the independent market or self-publishing domain, encompassing both printed works and the less costly e-books. The advantage of going through this route is there is more creative control for the author and there are no secrets: you know how much you’re selling; you know what to do to sell more.

Another advantage of going down this road, either self-publishing or through an independent, is financial. Even if I sold a quarter of the books I sold through my previous publisher, I would make the same profit, and again the foreign language sales would be mine entirely (which is where the money is). With the rise of e-book reading, the fact that you can create apps for the i-Phone for a negligible cost and the profits are greater than you would get going through a publisher, then the self-publishing route is quite an attractive one. Sure, it will mean more hard-work, but also more freedom.

One downside to this approach is that I'll be selling without the backing of a major publisher and while Macmillan didn't throw thousands of pounds on a publicity budget for the Secret War books, they relied on their name and had a dedicated member of staff to get the word out as far and as wide as possible. If I took this on, I won't have the same success publicity wise. I would largely have to rely on word of mouth.

The other downside - especially to many other authors who believe it to be the holy grail - is that there is no advance. Advances are a topic I’m passionate about and one that may well see another blog entry after this. The fact is: I don’t need an advance. I have a day-job, I can make ends meet, and an advance is simply that: an advance on your royalties. You don’t make any further money until you’ve earned that back for your publisher. It might be an indicator of how much money a publisher intends to spend on publicising you, but I would rather they saved the advance and put that into the publicity budget too. I don’t want to be given money I haven’t earned. Earning a 40-50% royalty rate is better that 20% of the net and a small five figure advance, and one that you’ll be clobbered on in the short term by the taxman. That's just my view and one that may change in the future if I make a fulltime career of it, but I'll be honest - I think stupid advances for fiction as well as celeb books, are crippling the industry. They're simply not realistic enough.

Back to self-publishing or going through an independent publisher... another immediate financial considerations is the costs incurred by having the finished book professionally edited. All authors need to be edited at some point during the life of their book, from new writers like me to established ones. The trick is to find someone who is enthusiastic enough and is cost effective. As mentioned before, I would also need to factor in time and resource into publicity too - such as this blog, the website, interviews, and then letters to magazines/websites/blogsites, not to mention providing reviewers' copies to those same magazines and internet reviewers. It would all take time.
But it would be worth it.

Does that mean I will say no to an agent or to getting a major publisher on board for the series if approached? Not exactly. I'll never turn down an offer from a major publisher to continue the series, though I'm doubtful this will occur with the rights being split. I’ll certainly look to mainstream publishing for other projects such as for The Black Hours, Smith and Stranded Rooms.

But ultimately, this isn’t about the money. The money is nice. The money means I can spend more time doing what I love: writing. But if I stop enjoying what I do, then why do it? I have a day-job that fulfils that side of my life, and pays a steady wage. A career as an author is an uncertain one, and too uncertain to worry about whether you can draw on enough enthusiasm to write a book you don’t particularly wish to write, for a return that is less than the day-job per year.

So at the moment, my options are open. As Eliza said, it sounds exciting, and I’ll be the first to admit that the uncertainty of not having a home immediately is a little scary, but yes, it is also exciting. There’s still much to be gained from writing the Secret War series, and I have not tired of it one bit, but I feel I need a short break of a year or so before I embark on the next Secret War book so that when I do, what the reader gets is the best of my abilities and for the right reasons.
Hopefully this will be The Traitor of Light, but I may even jump straight to The Fortress of Black Glass. Whatever it is, and whenever it may happen, I can categorically state now: the Secret War series is here to stay, folks… so watch this space.

UPDATE 18:25 9th November:
Half a day is a long time in publishing. So it might come as a surprise after blogging the above that I've made a decision to write the first draft of The Traitor of Light (the Secret War book 3) in the new year - probably around Feb/March. I've looked at all the reasons to write it, and I can't see any reason why I shouldn't. It's a book I've been wanting to write since I finished the last words on The Hoard of Mhorrer, but felt restrained from writing. Now I think is the best time to take a risk and write it. The research should take about two months but the plot and the characters are already there in note form. In other words, Traitor is ready to roll.
Before then, I'll be looking at the next draft of The Black Hours while doing research for Traitor. And I guess, I'll be looking for a publisher/agent too!
Busy times ahead then...

Sabbatical

2009-11-03T08:23:00.004Z

2009 has been a chaotic year for me and I’ve been trying to catch my breath as well as my bearings.
This is perhaps not the news you were expecting, but I have parted ways with my publisher, Macmillan, due to the turmoil of this year and other mitigating factors. It means that book 3 of the Secret War series is on hold for a while as I decide which project I should be pursuing. I have not made a decision as to whether I continue writing The Black Hours or the planned third book of the Secret War series, The Traitor of Light. But I have made a decision to shelve The Fortress of Black Glass for the time being until it feels right to write it.

I will, of course, keep updating the blog as and when any relevant news comes out, but the impact of family and working life has been too considerable to ignore. In this current climate, I’ve had to look to my family first than my career as a writer and have been forced to make some tough decisions on where I go from here. It does mean that in the future I will have more freedom to approach projects that I want to write, but with an uncertainty over whether those projects are commercial enough and their frequency.

But then, that’s why I do what I do, and why I wrote The Secret War in the first place. Not for the money (which was nice but could never match the wage of the day-job) but because I have an unequivocal belief in what projects I want to pursue.

So a big thanks to everyone who has been supportive on this blog and the Macmillan New Writers blog. It’s made the last four years very special, and hopefully in the near future there will be some news on a new “MFW Curran” book. (For the foreseeable future, any contact should be made via the link to the right i.e. mfwcurran@talktalk.net).

Until then, best wishes

- MFWC

Amazon’s deal with the Devil

2009-10-13T12:50:00.004+01:00

Some sharp soul has alerted me to Amazon UK which is selling my horror fantasy, The Hoard of Mhorrer hardback at £9.66… a number not too dissimilar to 666.

I’d like to go on record saying I had nothing to do with this.

I can’t say the same thing for Amazon,
nor the protagonists of this book…

What’s in a blog?: a change of tact

2009-10-08T13:07:00.001+01:00

It’s been quiet here of late, not because there hasn’t been anything going on, but because there has been plenty going on behind closed doors and I haven’t had the time to put it all down in the blog.

To me, a blog is an on-line diary, somewhere to put down one’s thoughts as well as news, and lately I haven’t been in a position to be opinionated on anything (which shouldn’t be confused with not having any opinions – I’ve recently had plenty, littered amongst the MNW blog, other writer blogs as well as Bookseller). However, time is not just at a premium, it’s like gold-dust or worse: hen’s teeth, and this blog is falling down the priority pecking order at a fast rate. I can no longer justify to friends and family and my publisher, spending hours a week on blog entries, not while I’m writing a new novel, a day job and while I have a 6 month old baby to entertain.

So the short term future of this blog has been decided. Musket and Monsters will cease to be a blog until further notice. It will still reside on Blogger; it will still exist, but it will be rarely updated and only with news items to do with the books and appearances as and when they happen. It’s easier and quicker to update this site than it is with the MFWCurran.com website which is updated every five months or so. It means you can feel free to visit as usual, and you can expect a news item every few weeks or so (sooner in the next couple of months as I hope to provide some news on Book 3 of the Secret War), but my ruminations on writing and publishing will be taking very much a back seat from now on.

This is not ideal, but then as soon as Sarah and I decided to start a family it was never going to be.
At least the novel writing still continues and that’s the main thing, getting the books to my publisher, and getting them to you.

Everything else, as they say, is a bonus…

Raising one’s game mid-sentence

2009-09-11T14:14:00.002+01:00

Firstly, an apology for not blogging so much recently. There’s been plenty going on and blogging time has been relegated down a priority list that looks like this:
1. Baby Daniel,
2. Sarah,
3. writing the new book,
4. the day-job,
5. eating,
6. sleeping,
7. seeing friends and family,
8. and finally this blog.

If I get a spare twenty minutes, then I get to write a blog entry, which hasn’t been so easy recently, and I doubt will get much easier. I’ll persevere because I enjoy blogging and it’s a great way of keeping in touch with readers and friends, but sure, blog entries here will be even fewer than before I expect, but unless I mention otherwise (in a blaze of vitriol and consternation) the fiction-writing side will continue unmolested.

So the good news is that the hand is getting better which has had a positive effect on the writing. It’s no longer about “how do I get the words onto the screen” now, but the “words” themselves, as I seamlessly use both the keyboard and the speech recognition software to write. I’m one breath away from completing the first third of the first draft of The Fortress of Black Glass; I’m over 40,000 words into it as it happens. Considering two weeks were lost with the dodgy hand not to mention getting used to the speech recognition software, my progress is better than I’d hoped for.

But even though I’ve hit a stride I’m reluctant to break from, break from it I must because matters of publishing must intervene.

Earlier this year I was handed the task to provide my editor with one chapter of the new book (a near-polished chapter that is), an outline for the book and a very brief outline for the next trilogy I have in mind… by October. Due to all things hand-related, the deadline has been extended, but regardless of my progress on the first draft of the new novel, the task remains uncompleted.
So after I finish Chapter 7 sometime this weekend, I’ll be returning to the matter of getting something to my editor as promised. It will mean doing something that won’t come naturally to me, something that probably wouldn’t feel natural to most writers: halting in mid-book to return to the beginning for a spot of polishing and redrafting. Over the next two to three weeks, I’ll be re-writing, chopping, trimming and grooming the first two chapters (“two chapters” because the first chapter won’t suffice to get a feel of the new book). I’ll also be cutting down the 40 page monster of a chapter-by-chapter outline of Fortress… to something more manageable and punchy; and then I need to write the brief outline for The Last Trilogy (which is shaping up to be like “Heroes” meets “Brian Aldiss’ The Hothouse” meets “Cormac McCarthy’s The Road”).
All whilst sitting in the middle of a first draft.
(Whatever stride I had found will be completely interrupted. Which is a bit of a bugger, but as I said before, it’s necessary.)

I’m fully aware that whatever I send to my editor will need to be the best work I’ve ever written. I’ll need to sell myself like never before, and I’m feeling the pressure. It’s not unwelcome, it’s not uncomfortable, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel nervous about it, not because I think what I’m writing will be crap – I’m confident that what I write will be the best of my abilities – but because it’s getting tighter and tighter amongst the mid-list authors and more and more seem to be falling from publishing-grace, their books cancelled, their contracts torn up.
It’s getting more competitive in here.

All authors - save the lucky few who have been embraced by the public and carried to bestsellerdom - need to raise their game. Some have been arrogant to believe they are untouchable, and have seen contracts torn up in front of their eyes, while others have taken publishing for granted and now reside in limbo. Some have not delivered, and again face being without a seat when the music stops, or those that have, have not been lucky enough to sell in sufficient quantities and in an age when every pound counts, fiscal matters have curtailed careers.

So I’m raising my game mid-sentence, mid-book. I’m going to work my arse off to write something that will sell both this book and the next trilogy (or trilogies, if you include another Secret War threesome I have planned) to my publisher, so they can’t say no.

Which will probably mean even fewer blog entries here…
Ho hum…

“Due to work on his new novel, M F W Curran isn’t in at the moment. Please leave a message after the beep..."

2009-09-10T13:20:00.002+01:00

Learning to flocking write again

2009-08-18T11:23:00.002+01:00

Monday was frustrating. Very frustrating. It was the first day I sat down to dictate the novel, and boy was it hard work. You see writing a blog is very much like talking to someone about your writing, or anything else for that matter. Writing a novel, or any fiction, requires you to think a lot more about what you say before you say it. So this blog entry for example, is very much written, or in my case – spoken, on the hoof. (I’ve said it before, you can get away with a lot more here. Try that with a novel and you'll only get rambling prose.)

I would say the other important impact on dictating a novel, especially a fantasy novel, whatever speech recognition software you're using has to cope with the myriad of fantasy names that aren't part of everyday speech and cannot be found in the average dictionary. So when you talk about “Count Ordrane of Draak” what you actually get is “count ordering of drought”. Or perhaps “count ordering of drug”. Either way you find yourself amending the text but also the dictionary to make sure it doesn't happen again... Which invariably it does: computers are clever, and they are so intuitive, but they are also fallible
On Monday, what with all the correcting and deleting of erroneous text, I managed to write 1500 words in the time it would normally take me to type 3000 words. So basically dictating at the moment is halving my productivity. I am not the most patient of people, I admit, and my frustration often boiled over yesterday. In fact if one had read the unedited text from Monday one would have found various expletives dotted around paragraphs. Or rather they might have been expletives, but the software could not recognise swear words so instead of the obvious, “flock” or “ flocking hell” or “for flock’s sake” appeared time and time again as markers of my compounded frustration. Instead of a book about vampires and Demons, it was starting to look like a book about the migratory habits of birds.

And obviously a bit of frustration here and there means I am less thinking about the text, but more how I can achieve the text without having to type it. So I guess the quality in this first draft might be a little hit and miss while I get used to using speech recognition software. I can later change the contents during the drafting process and it's something I'm not too bothered about right now, but being an impatient soul, it galls me that it won't be perfect or near as dammit perfect from the start.

Not that I'm complaining too much. My learning curve is quite steep and I'm learning very quickly how to manipulate speech recognition software to recognise my voice and so that I can navigate around the computer with the least fuss possible. In fact I should be quite pleased with the way it is going, you see my dad had one of the first speech recognition programs on his computer and I remember trying to use it; it took an entire evening to write a simple paragraph. That was in the early 90s, and speech recognition was quite quite primitive (though still a little exciting, after all operating anything by speech alone is the stuff of science-fiction).
Now the software is a little bit more sophisticated, and it seems to recognise most of what I say. It seems a long way from the 80s and I can't help but think of that scene in Star Trek: the voyage home (come on, you don't have to be a Trekkie to remember this) where Chief engineer Scotty is sitting down at a 1980s computer trying to talk to it to make it work, resorting to talking down the mouse thinking that would work. What I'm doing now 13 years later is a far cry from the 1980s but not that far from the technology present in shows such as Star Trek, and while this technology is not quite perfect, it's getting there, and with computer power increasing with each generation of PC, speech recognition software will become more and more important in our lives.

Until then, and until I can get this thing to work 99% accurately to recognise my voice, I guess I'll have to get used to “flockings” and “ships”, and try to control my frustrations. Like the British rail advert said, and with a little tinkering, “we might get it wrong, but we're getting there
-- for flock’s sake...”

Change part one

2009-08-13T21:58:00.002+01:00

Some of you might have gathered from the last blog entry that I've been suffering from RSI and because of this my visits to this blog and the Macmillan new writing blog have been few. A writer or any artist is expected to suffer for their art, which is perhaps a romantic notion of how one follows their craft. In reality when you have RSI or anything approaching a tendon or muscular strain doing anything such as using a mouse or typing on a keyboard is bloody hard work and painful. Add to that looking after a baby and practical concerns intrude. So where does that leave my writing? Well, I guess it means that I've had to put the third novel on hold. It's not something I wanted to do and it's been forced upon me, as my editor told me there is no point trying to write when in the back of my mind I’m trying to block out the pain curling up my wrists and throughout my fingers.
But I am a writer. It’s what I do. But how does a writer write without actually putting pen to paper or finger to keyboard? My imagination is not impaired, nor is my enthusiasm and I can’t stand not to write.
So apart from rehabilitating my wrists which may be a long process, I've been looking into other means to write. Dave Budd reminded me that Barbara Cartland used to dictate her novels (indeed I remember a comedy sketch on this very thing which at the time I thought purely daft -but now the irony is not lost on me), and so I thought ‘why not?’. But it's not so easy dictating anything let alone a novel. Writing is about what comes naturally to you, and I suppose simply sitting somewhere dictating fiction is not the most natural thing in the world. Indeed it's almost narcissistic in the same way it would feel to give your acceptance speech to the mirror for an award that doesn't exist. Most writers don't like the sound of their voices. We're not talking narrative voice here, but the sound of their own incessant droning as they sit in a quiet room talking to no one in particular. Believe me it's not easy but it can be overcome.

Indeed you might be surprised to know that this blog entry is entirely dictated, which might explain the slight change in narrative voice. After all some writers - including this writer - have an altogether different voice when it comes to writing than they do general conversing. But I can get away with it here because let's face it there are no airs and graces on informal blogs such as this.
Fiction is different. Writing books is different. Especially a series of books. Because in my case with the Secret War books, I have different a narrative voice and it's not the narrative voice that is present in this blog or when I talk to people. It will take a lot of getting used to to dictate a new book in an old voice. I am trying to do it now; I've been talking to myself in the shower a lot and at other times around the house to the point that Sarah must be thinking I'm losing my mind. I haven't quite graduated to talking to myself on the streets though that might happen... but it's something I must do if only to save myself discomfort and for the ability to do things that I've previously taken for granted.

This blog entry has taken around half an hour to write. It's not been that accurate and at times I've had to delete what I've dictated, but the majority of this blog (I'd say about 90%?), has been written using a speech recognition program on a computer - not a trusty assistant typing away while I lounge in a comfortable chair with tea and biscuits at my side. That's just as well because I have a habit of changing my mind and changing the order of what I want written – a trusty assistant would probably have quit by now!
I'm not entirely sure how long it will take to dictate fiction from the top of my head. It could take a lot longer than it takes me to type usually, because it does not feel natural. But I think with much perseverance, it will do. In fact it might even be a blessing, after all don't many writers speak their prose aloud after they've written it? I guess what I'm doing is the opposite or perhaps just the other way round; I can be sure that what I write sounds fine once enunciated rather than I hope what I write on the page may sound okay once I speak it aloud.

But I'm beginning to babble...

What I'm talking about here is a new regime. A regime where I might sound crazy talking to myself, but as long as the words are put down on screen and put down the way I want them to be written, then a little insanity is not much to ask for, is it?

Two good things, one blind thing

2009-08-03T16:53:00.003+01:00

Well the good news is that I’ve started writing the third book today. I’m now 4,000 words into the first draft of The Fortress of Black Glass, and I’m quite pleased with how it’s gone. Other than showing I’m able to write under the influence of a three and a half month old baby (who wants constant attention and has started to laugh at anything and anyone), I’ve written these words with a burst blood-vessel under my eye-lid, looking more like Le Chiffre from Casino Royale, than a thirty-something writer, having to dab the blood from my eye periodically so I can see what I’m bloody doing. But it’s there on the screen, and it reads well, especially for a first draft (it usually takes me a couple of drafts to write something I’m that happy with.)

The second thing to be pleased about is that the MFWCurran website has been updated again, with interviews and reviews, the books and other announcements you may have caught here or might have passed you by. The contact details have yet to be updated but to beat the SPAM filter - if you want to get hold of me, e-mail mfwcurran@talktalk.net and put in the subject header: “Muskets and Monsters”. I’ve got a rule running on my e-mail that will weed this out from the spam…

Preparation and remembering the beginning

2009-07-27T10:29:00.005+01:00

Okay. Deep breath. Time for a bit of nervous excitement – next week I start writing the first draft of The Fortress of Black Glass. Of all three books, this is the one I’m seriously nervous about for three reasons.

The foremost reason is that I want to finish the trilogy well – I want a big boom, rather than an anti-climatical whimper. There’s nothing worse than building up to a climax, especially in a series, only for a lack-lustre ending after 400,000 words or 7 hours of movie time. Just look at the Matrix trilogy, or Pirates of the Caribbean. I could mention a few writers too, but for the sake of solidarity (and because it’s my opinion only) I’ll not mention them here.

Secondly, after plans to write The Traitor of Light were scotched, I have to write book four without having written book three, so in effect The Fortress of Black Glass is book three now, making it a nicely rounded trilogy, though with a fair bit of exposition to be negotiated (no one really likes the “in last week’s episode…” thang, so I’ve got a fair bit of work to do tying up the ends of Hoard of Mhorrer with the opening chapter to Fortress).

The third reason is more immediate, and is not completely in my hands…

…Like it or not, I have a tight-rope to tread, but there’s a strong gale blowing. It’s quite obvious to me, from anecdotal evidence and what I’m reading in the Press and on-line, that the recession is taking a big bite out of publishing. Like it or not, the mid-listers who enjoyed certain creative freedoms at the expense of bestseller incomes are finding themselves without publishers, and new writers are finding they are having to prove themselves more and more, all because of the balance sheet. The recession is forcing the industry to shrink its output, adopting a gastric band to ensure they remain competitive but more importantly, solvent.
I have two published books to my name, but I am a relatively new author with a lot still to prove. Whether or not I am allowed to prove myself will largely depend on whether The Fortress of Black Glass is appealing enough, but also how the first two books are doing commercially. The latter situation is out of my hands now – other than turning myself into a crazed publicity machine, there is little more I can do to get the books selling more than they are (writers can sometimes spend too much time selling and too little time writing – you need to have that balance).

So that leaves the first condition for me to work on: making sure The Fortress of Black Glass is compelling. What I’ve learnt from my short time as a published novelist is that once you set out your store, you have very little room to change the merchandise. Publishers like it when you hit a winning formula and they like more of the same, as long as it’s fresh and entertaining. It’s almost a contradiction on the surface and there is a fine line between too much change and too little difference but that’s the tight-rope a series writer must approach.
For me, The Fortress of Black Glass needs to be a heavy-weight book. The previous two were romps, adventures that hark back to the old cliff-hanger serials with buckles that are swashed and feats of extreme heroism, tinged in the blood and the grime of dark fantasy. And largely they were quests, either for mcguffins or for experience. The Fortress of Black Glass doesn’t exactly break that formula, just bends it. This is a book about vengeance and will be so much darker. It will return to the adventuring element – there will still be the battles, the hectic skirmishes and the pyrotechnics of the first two books - but there’ll be that sense of finality with regard to the fates of quite a few of the characters, and how the whole story has gone full circle from the Secret War.
A big part of that is thinking about who my readers are - which I find ironic as I didn’t have a broad audience in mind when I started writing the first book nine years ago. The audience I’ve found since The Secret War was published isn’t exactly the audience I expected.
And as an entertainer, you ignore your audience at your peril.

When I wrote The Secret War I was writing for the big kid in me. If you want a category of age, I would say between 14 and 17. So really, if there was an audience in mind for the first book, it was teenage boys. The fact The Secret War has been adopted by each side of that age range and by women as well, means that I misjudged my audience – in a good way. I am not deluded into believing the Secret War books are high-brow literature. They were never meant to be. They're escapism. I think we all like a bit of adventure and hopefully I've delivered that for those who enjoy a bit of an escape now and again (misery novels they are not!).
If I aim for that audience again, yet without compromising on the dark stuff, I should achieve something that Macmillan can’t say no to, and a book that my readership will embrace with the same fondness as the previous two.
Well, that’s the plan anyway.

When I start The Fortress of Black Glass next week, I will do so with more pressure than previously put upon me. Some of it will be welcome, some of it will not. I know there’s going to be a few casualties over the next year or so in terms of my peers across the publishing world, and I know that where there is solidarity amongst authors (especially within MNW) there might also be discord from those outside this circle, but as a writer all I can do is write my best novel yet and let it be judged on those merits.
Everything else is sadly out of my hands…

A little love-in

2009-07-16T22:00:00.001+01:00

It’s odd to think that in a vocation that’s clearly anti-social (are there many professions where you spend most of your career locked away from the rest of humanity?), solidarity for writers is an important thing, which is kind of apt in a week where the likes of Philip Pullman and Anthony Horowitz have been haranguing the Home Office for the quite ludicrous (and callously opportunistic) £64 levy for an increased CRB check for writers visiting schools (something that has pretty much kyboshed any future appearances by me at schools in the near future – though a CRB check is a good thing, I don’t agree with the fee either).

But it’s not just politics that brings a little love.
It’s empathy.

This lunch time I made a fleeting visit to the local Waterstones in Sheffield to meet John Connolly, a lovely guy who will give you all the time in the world if you have it. Armed with a few books, with Sarah and Baby Daniel in tow, the visit turned into a bit of a whirlwind which meant bombarding John with questions (sorry, John, if you’re reading this!) about the writing, and the experience of writing with everyday pressures of family and social life (something I’m experiencing to the nth degree lately).
But what I got out of the all too short meeting was more a feeling of solidarity, exemplified by John buying a copy of my book and asking me to sign it for him. “Writers should support each other,” he said to me with a broad smile.
And he’s so right. They should.
And I reckon they do. Especially with Macmillan New Writing. I’ve never met such a disparate collection of authors before, writers who are not bound by genre, but by experience. By empathy. It’s a fraternity, a group of wide-eyed and eager writers stepping onto the page for the first time. Like John did today, we buy each other’s books, pimping them to everyone we know (I’ve lost count of the copies of MNW books I’ve bought for people for Christmas and Birthdays) or the times I’ve asked for hardbacks of MNW titles to be ordered in the local bookshops; and when we can, we attend book launches or book signings (for a non-Londoner I’ve done six, which isn’t that bad…). And we support each other on the MNW blog, picking each other up when things don’t go right, or congratulating each other when they do.

Although this blog entry is sounding a bit like a love in, I don’t think there’s anything wrong in that. John has shown that you’re never too big, or too successful for solidarity. True, I can think of a few writers who don’t think that way, but with the market-place and writing conditions getting more and more competitive and restrictive (there seems to be mid-list cull at the moment that’s a little scary), it’s good to know there are writers out there who will go that extra mile to help other writers out.

And while we’re on the subject of John Connolly and a little love, if you’ve been lucky to attend one of his signings before and became a proud owner of one of John’s compilation CDs, you might like to know a lot of love, time, running about, hassle and John’s money goes into producing them (it’s where John’s advance goes!)
But when he told me this, there was a little gleam in his eye and I could tell that it didn’t matter to him. New writers can learn from this. The effort, the money – the fact he doesn’t sell any more books on the back of the CDs – doesn’t bother him. He loves the music, but more importantly, he loves the fans and he doesn’t just go the extra mile for them, but drives up to the airport and gets on a plane for them. For John, the fans are everything.

Now that’s love, folks…

(Update: I published the same blog entry over on the Macmillan New Writers Blog. To see more comments on this just click here).

It’s not swine flu

2009-07-08T13:07:00.003+01:00

I’ve been under the weather the last few days, stricken with a cold that could be a mild dose of seasonal flu (the term “flu” is quite subjective, don’t you think? – one man’s or woman’s flu is another’s heavy cold, which I suspect is my case). But with the Media bashing on about a “swine flu pandemic” my paranoia levels have been creeping up.
Usually I return to work if I’m half well (as someone one said to me, if I’m fit enough to walk down the garden if there was a pot of gold sitting there, then I’m fit enough to go to work), but I’ve been worried about contagion, passing on my germs to my colleagues – just in case it is a mild dose of pig-fluenza and not just a cold.
And that paranoia has stretched to family too; I’ve been sat as far away as I can from Baby Daniel, despite the lure of cute baby noises and laughter. (He’s at that ten week-old age where he craves attention and gets all squeaky when he can’t see you.)
But it has got me out of nappy changing, so every cloud…

Anyway, call it a fear if you like, but while I’m not afraid of swine flu, I am afraid of Daniel getting it, and Sarah too (though with Sarah it’s more of a selfish thing – Sarah’s healthy enough to keep it at bay, but I would need to take time off work if she came down with it - if that happened I’d be looking after the baby in her absence).

As for my immediate fear... Well, for the first two days I honestly thought I had a mild dose, not strong enough to incapacitate me, but strong enough to make me lethargic and coldy. As the effects wore off, I was relieved but I kept that fear alive for personal reasons and I’ve now added that feeling of paranoia and denial to The Black Hours, a story that is more about paranoia of plague than it should be about politics (though admittedly, the first drafts were the other way around)...

...It might surprise some of you that I’m still tinkering with The Black Hours, but while I agree that nothing is wasted, in this case I want to see where I went wrong and to see if it is salvageable. And The Black Hours is, salvageable that is. It just missed out, and with a few tweaks I'm certain this could be the first "Frank Wallace" novel in print. I could be wrong, but one attempt is not enough to dissuade me.
I won’t have finished my tinkering by the time I start the third Secret War book, but I’ll have left myself a minor project to complete once I’ve laid The Fortress of Black Glass to rest. Hopefully I will have added enough fear in The Black Hours to make it work, to force the reader’s heart to beat faster. After all The Black Hours was meant to be a story about fear, about the end of the familiar in Victorian society. Yet somehow down the line it became more a James Bond thriller and less about the fear. After reading the last draft, Dave Budd mentioned that my plague “was not scary enough”, that “real” people weren’t being endangered.
Now they are and The Black Hours has become more of a tragedy than a straight forward adventure thriller; a catastrophe affecting not just the extras but the main characters too.

So I guess a recent bout of paranoia can do wonders for writing apocalyptic novels…

…And no, I’m certain I don’t have swine-flu.

How certain?
Oh, about 80-20.

(Or perhaps, 70-30…)

Grandes noticias…

2009-06-16T17:48:00.001+01:00

I’m between blog-entries right now. Odd I know, but I have a long-ish blog entry in the offering that I’m trying to squeeze in between being a dad, work and writing fiction, yet I reckon the following was worth a little blog entry on its own...

I’m delighted to announce that the Spanish translation rights to The Secret War have been sold to La Factoria de Ideas for an undisclosed sum plus royalties. I’m quite excited about this, as La Factoria de Ideas contacted me direct through the MFWCurran.com website (and I pointed them in the direction of Pan Macmillan who handle the rights sales); so I feel more than just a cog this time in the selling of the rights - it shows that having a website can pay off in more ways than just the obvious publicity. Other reasons for being excited is that La Factoria de Ideas publish the Spanish translations of Clive Barker amongst others (as someone said to me, it’s one step away from God) and sells not only to Spain, but the US and the South Americas, so there’s the potential for a very large readership.

It’s expected the Spanish edition of The Secret War will publish sometime in 2010, not far off the German edition of the Hoard of Mhorrer. If “La Guerra Secreta” sells well, then The Hoard of Mhorrer may well be snapped up too – so here’s hoping Spanish speakers everywhere enjoy my brand of vampire/demon slaying!

(…A long pause, and then…stuff)

2009-06-10T13:15:00.002+01:00

I’m still alive. I know I am because I’m breathing and these are my fingers typing out these words.
Just thought I’d let you know that.

For the past two weeks I’ve been doing stuff. Stuff to do with writing, stuff to do with work, stuff to do with admin/paperwork/promotional work, and obviously family stuff too. The family stuff forms most of the stuff I’ve been up to and Baby Daniel has been a big part of that stuff. He’s been doing stuff like keeping Sarah and I awake, but he’s been doing cute stuff as well, like gurgling, smiling and generally being adorable, so I can’t complain.

On the writing stuff, I’ve knocked out two more short stories; one has gone to a reader, while the other is being refined before submission. A third story is being redrafted, and in the little time remaining, I’ve been looking over the Black Hours again. But it’s all good stuff, and it’s keeping my imagination ticking over nicely before I start writing the third Secret War novel in August.

I’ve also been reading stuff too. A lot as it happens. That’s the thing when you have a baby and you don’t get much time to write stuff; you read more stuff instead. Such as China Mieville’s Un Lun Dun, Stephen King’s Everything’s Eventual and now I'm reading John Christopher’s Death of Grass (which is more unrelenting than Cormac McCarthy’s The Road). I seem to spend more time reading than watching telly, just to relax; though the Death of Grass is hardly a relaxing read, it’s better than watching the mind-numbing and dispiriting banality of terrestrial telly, something sleep deprivation makes you more aware of (or perhaps less tolerant of).

Anyway, that’s about it: stuff. As Aliya mentioned on my Facebook, I’ve made a few sentences so my brain is still intact, even if physically I’m a bit below par and time is running for the hills. I’ve been doing plenty of stuff, but very little blog stuff. I just don’t have the time. And blog entries will become fewer and fewer as soon as I start The Fortress of Black Glass. So there’s plenty of stuff I’ll not be able to do in the near future, including promotional work, school visits, internet based endeavours etc.

But I will post here on occasion, if only to tell you about the stuff I am doing…

War of the Words

2009-05-19T20:28:00.003+01:00

At the moment with so much taking up my time, I’ve been unable to dedicate enough of it to blog entries – but I thought this bit of news was worthy of note, especially among aspiring writers.

Sci-Fi Now Magazine, in conjunction with my publishers, Tor, have just announced a novel writing competition called “War of the Words”, where any aspiring science fiction or fantasy novelist can submit three chapters and a synopsis in order to win a publishing deal with Tor, an imprint of Pan Macmillan.
All the details, including terms and conditions can be found at the Sci-Fi Now website, but just before you go there or dismiss the idea of entering, I’d like to throw in my ‘two penneth’ worth of thought…

This isn’t just a competition where the winner gets published in a one-off annual anthology, nor is it a cash prize, it’s something much, much better. You see, just because there is only one overall winner in this competition, this is also the opportunity to get your work seen by one of the major players in the genre publishing world without the need of an agent. Believe me when I say this, but that’s a big deal, and even though you might not win the main prize, Pan Macmillan are not daft. If they believe that your book has merit, they may well take further interest in what you’ve submitted even if you’re not the overall winner. The publishers are likely to take more than one punt on entrants in the competition if the quality is there.

I can say this from experience.

This competition is not too dissimilar to the novel writing competition held on Channel 4, judged by Pan Macmillan in 2004, where one overall prize was mooted, but the standard of submissions were so high, that a further five books were published under Pan, and then a further dozen entries were picked for the Macmillan New Writing imprint, mine included. So no, I didn’t win the Channel 4 writing competition, but what do you know? I’m now one of Pan Macmillan’s authors, as a direct result of entering that writing competition.

So, is it worth entering?
If you’re not published yet, then bloody hell yes!
The only catch is that you have until the 20th August to enter. So what are you doing wasting time reading this blog? Get writing!

Midnight oil and monsters

2009-05-04T00:06:00.004+01:00

It’s the witching hour, and I’m trying to give Sarah a couple of hours rest while Curran Jnr sleeps in his Moses basket in the lounge - while barely a couple of feet away, I do a bit of “work” to see what is going on in the world of writing, and all things “secret war”-y .

Well first up, we have a rather nice cover for the German edition of The Hoard of Mhorrer, which hits the shelves in paperback in February 2010:

Translated, the German title is “The Demons of the Fire” or something along those lines, so no issues around the pronunciation of “Mhorrer”. It’s not a bad cover as covers go, though I still prefer the UK cover (especially for The Secret War). Random House are continuing with that whole ‘brand’ thing by using the same style for the “MFW Curran” icon as they have with the first book, though slightly smaller as the title of book 2 is a little longer and bigger. It looks like a damn fine book and it’s being translated by Joachim Korber, and it’ll be interesting to see how it goes down in Germany as I’ve noticed a few copies of Mhorrer (English edition) have shifted over there on Amazon.de.

And second, but not last by any means, there’s another review posted for both Hoard of Mhorrer and The Secret War on the Falcata Times lit-review blog, which I’m pleased about – check it out by clicking here.

And that’s about it for now. Daniel is sleeping soundly, for once, and I’m flagging. It has to be said, there’s nothing like having a baby to focus your mind, but I can’t wait to get back to the writing in a month or two; I’ve already started thinking about the Moby Dick/Lovecraft short story – it even has an opening line.
I just need the time and the energy to sit down and write it.
Maybe in a few weeks.

After I get some sleep…

Night all.

Announcement: A New Edition

2009-04-28T21:59:00.002+01:00

Message from Matt & Sarah:
“Baby Daniel was born last night, weighing in at 6.4lbs. Both baby and mother are a little tired but doing fine. Thanks to everyone who has wished us well.
Love Matt, Sarah and Baby Daniel.”

A First Edition Favourite

2009-04-24T12:16:00.002+01:00

Nope, I’m not referring to “No.1 son” or “No.1 daughter” – that still hasn’t happened yet (true to form, our first child is a late one), I’m referring to the recent bit of writing news that has come my way. The Favourite – a short story I penned earlier this year – is to be published in the newsstand magazine, First Edition.

For those not in the know, First Edition was born in January this year, appearing on the shelves of WHSmiths seemingly out of nowhere. I’ve been buying the magazine from issue one, and it’s seen some changes over the first three issues already as the editorial staff get used to format, advertising and content. No doubt there’ll be more changes over the first year of its life, but this is one publication I think new writers should get behind as it is, let’s face it, one of the few newsstand publications left that publishes short fiction. Other than Borders and sometimes Waterstones, you’ll be hard pressed to find many newsagents or booksellers that sell copies of say Interzone or the Magazine of Fantasy or Science Fiction. And I’ve never seen an issue of Granta anywhere other than Borders. Writing Magazine and Writer’s Forum hold regular competitions, but they’re devoted to writing rather than being a showcase for fiction.
To publish a new magazine focused purely on short fiction – and not just for a specific genre but all kinds of beasts – is a big gamble in this financial climate and takes a lot of courage. Even if I wasn’t being published within their pages, I would still be buying every issue as it hits the stands – they’re more deserving of support than perhaps other newsstand magazines I could speak of.

As for my story, well this is a big deal for me. It’s the first short story of mine to be published, and while it won’t have as much impact as say The Secret War or The Hoard of Mhorrer, it’s a red-letter moment. After all, it was the short form that attracted me to writing in the first place, with anthologies such as Stephen King’s Nightshift, the tales of HP Lovecraft and Barker’s The Books of Blood. I’ve tinkered on occasion with writing short stories, but other than a short-lived foray into the small presses while I was at university, I haven’t seriously submitted anything for publication before.
The Favourite is a small slice of menace – which is perhaps the best description on what is a slow-burning narrative crammed into a few thousand words. It leans on the apocalypse genre a little, but it’s more a character piece and it’s quite different to either Secret War or Hoard.

I’m certain that once I see The Favourite in print, I’ll be eager to polish off the other three or four short pieces I’ve been writing this year, submitting them to various publications around the UK, and perhaps abroad too, though probably under the pseudonym of Frank Wallace, so The Favourite might be the first and last MFW Curran headed short story to see print. We’ll see.

Until then, check out First Edition now. The Favourite will appear in issue 4, out 7th May…

Baby Steps

2009-04-15T17:01:00.000+01:00

Curran Jnr hasn’t arrived yet, but he/she is in the post (or “in transit” if you believe in that whole stork/baby thing), so I’m posting a pre-fatherhood blog entry on where I am with the writing.

This week I started Chapter One of The Fortress of Black Glass. I’m glad to report that the first two thousand words were a dream to write and I’ve suffered no ill-effects of writing a non-Secret War novel in between, nor has pre-baby stress affected the prose. As it stands, it’s been the easiest start to a Secret War novel yet, and is certainly the most gothic start to any of the books. It opens in the city of Arhus, Denmark, following a funeral cortège no less, and pretty much goes down hill from there – with my usual pyrotechnics and angelic intervention. It’s an explosive opening to the book – or will be once I’ve completed the chapter… because I’ve halted mid paragraph until September, regardless of how long it takes for the baby to arrive.
“Why would you do that?” I hear you ask. After all, shouldn’t I be making the most of the time I have without dirty nappies and midnight feeds, to write down as much of the novel as I can? Well, yes, I suppose.
And no.

You see, it’s all about baby steps. That and not losing my head. At the end of September, Macmillan will be expecting the first chapter, the synopsis to the book, and a synopsis to a new trilogy I have planned called “The Last”. The synopses to both Fortress and The Last are done, and they’re not bad at all. However, based on what I send them, Macmillan may offer me a substantial long term contract. Which is great news, right?
But what if I can’t deliver what I’ve promised? What if personal circumstances mean that whatever advance I get I can’t fulfil?
What if the quality of my writing weakens through mental and physical weariness once the baby arrives?
Despite Brian McGilloway and Aliya Whiteley’s assurances that having a baby isn’t the end of writing, it certainly will be disruptive. Every baby experience is different, and I am not counting on having a dream baby who sleeps all night and hardly wants attention. Nor am I counting on just Sarah to bring up our child – I need to be there too. I want to be heavily involved.
I also have a day-job that has become increasingly pressured and something, somewhere, must give – the flesh and the spirit can be battered. (I wouldn’t be the first writer to stop writing because of a baby, nor would I be the last.)

So in September I’ll begin writing again and I’ll begin writing with four months of sleepless nights behind me. I’ll be conditioned. I’ll know then whether or not I can carry off this challenge – whether or not I can write four drafts of a 140,000 word novel in 18 months, with a baby to look after and a day-job to go to. If I can complete the first chapter in September (that has had the best of starts) then – for me – that will be proof enough that I can deliver what Macmillan wants from me. I’ll know if –mentally - I’m up for it, and I can send Macmillan the first chapter and two synopses with confidence.
And who knows, maybe if everything goes well, I’ll be writing before then.

So for now it’s baby steps – tentative ones to get the book going, and in the right direction. That and perhaps a blog entry.
Or two.

Thrice for twice

2009-04-09T13:10:00.000+01:00

I’m a bit miffed about missing out on Sci-Fi London; it looks like a fantastic event, and being invited personally to something of this calibre (and with a host of pretty cool films on show) having to make my apologies was one of the hardest decisions of the last 12 months. But it was the prudent decision to take in case either the baby was late or I was reduced to a brain-dead civil servant from sleep deprivation after the baby arrived.
Still, despite not attending, I’m all too eager to pimp the event, so click here to have a look at the line-up (I promise I won’t be too envious if you go along).

And while we’re on all things Sci-Fi London, Tor has kindly arranged discounts on a selection of their Sci-Fi/Fantasy releases to celebrate their presence at the weekend’s event. For a limited time only, you can get a number of great books direct from the Macmillan on a 3 for 2 promotion, including hardback and e-books, as well as the paperback releases. Without too much shameless promotion, the paperback of The Secret War and the hardback of The Hoard of Mhorrer are amongst the discounted titles so there’s no better place to go for a copy of either. Or both!

(Personally, I would go for Mieville’s Perdido Street Station or The Scar, along with Charles Stross' The Clan Corporate, and perhaps the paperback of The Secret War; or if you want hardback titles, how about Mieville’s The City and the City, The Hoard of Mhorrer and Neal Asher's The Gabble and Other Stories?
Anyway, I’ll leave that up to you...)

The Future ain’t just Orange, it’s New…

2009-04-07T21:18:00.000+01:00

Over on the Macmillan New Writer’s blog we’re popping corks. The Macmillan New Writers are pretty much a family, so when one of us has success, we pretty much all join in to celebrate. And celebrate we will. After all, April marks the third year of Macmillan New Writing, and it looks like we’ll be celebrating in style…

…As yet there hasn’t been a bestselling a writer amongst us – though a couple of us have come close (Eliza Graham has sold 100,000 copies of her first book in Germany alone and Brian McGilloway’s fan base is escalating) – but I get the feeling that this is about to change.

Last year, Ann Weisgarber’s Personal History of Rachel DuPree became the 30th book to be published Macmillan New Writing, and now it has been short-listed for the Orange New Writers prize, along with Francesca Kay and Nami Mun.
But that’s not all. The Personal History of Rachel DuPree has also been long-listed for the main Orange prize too, and over on the blog, we’ve got everything crossed that Ann’s book will get the main prizes. Just being listed is awesome, but here’s hoping that there are great things ahead for her, the book, and I guess the imprint too. (I’ll try to restrain myself by saying that Robert McCrum ‘can eat my shorts’ for the comments he made in 2006 about the very idea of Macmillan New Writing).

A good reason to learn another language

2009-04-05T10:49:00.002+01:00

Being a slightly superstitious person (who, me?) I decided that, should there be a horse in the Grand National with a name that was loosely connected with parenthood or babies, I would place a £5 bet on it. After all, it’s happened before where a horse bearing a zeitgeist-moniker has won the National (such as Party Politics way back in 1992). I was a little dismayed to discover there wasn’t such a horse in the race, so I decided not to play.

Oh, if only I had learnt French at school. English (and probably some American) people are perhaps the worst in the world when it comes to learning another language. And I'm one of them. I know perhaps a smattering of German words, and while I do try when I go abroad, I don't try hard enough, and I always feel just a little ignorant.

Out of sheer curiosity I babel-fished “Mon Mome” after the Grand National had run its course, and would you bloody believe it, it translates as “my kid”. Gutted? Too fucking right I was! For the sake of learning another language when I was a “kid” we might have been £500 better off.

I guess I would have been none the wiser if curiosity hadn’t gotten the better of me, but while they say ignorance is bliss, I reckon it also makes you poorer…

Shenanigans

2009-04-04T09:05:00.002+01:00

At the moment, the only calls I expect are from people asking when the baby is due, or that terrifying call from Sarah to say she’s gone into labour. So it was quite surprising to get a call from someone on Friday alerting me to certain shenanigans going on at Amazon UK – specifically with the details of The Secret War.

Three years ago, I had a passionate discussion – okay, an argument – with someone on a since deleted forum about the value of consumer opinion. My argument was, that as a music critic many moons ago, my opinion was no more or less valid than the average consumer so why shouldn’t there be a place where consumers can place their reviews of a product, i.e. Amazon. The argument against was that none of the reviews could be regulated and that unlike professional critics they weren’t as informed. To me that was a nonsense, and I argued my corner strongly. I can’t say I won the argument, but I reckon it was a draw at the very least. In my opinion, someone who has just bought the latest U2 album has as much right to review it publicly as someone who has been given it to review as an assignment.

But there are abuses. And it appears that I’ve been a little naïve.

It seems as though The Secret War has suffered certain shenanigans over on Amazon. Over the last three months there has been about three new reviews of the book ranging from great to not so great (not a problem – as I said, everyone should have an opinion). In terms of voting for these reviews, it’s been just as slow with only a handful of votes either way, if that. And then, in the space of 24 hours, not only is there a new review, but instantly there are 6 votes for it – oddly, 3 for and 3 against. The caller confessed they were one of the three against (having thoroughly enjoyed the book, they agreed with some of the review, but not all of it), but the other two are a mystery. Now while I love the fact there are people out there who will defend the book, the reviewer has the right to feel a little bullied. I’ve read the review myself, and some of the criticisms are fair, so my first reaction was that perhaps it was unfair to suddenly turn on the review so quickly.
But then something else struck me as odd.
You see, it wasn’t only this review that got votes. But the other reviews below it. And even odder, they were all negative votes, ranging from three to four negative votes on each review – and here’s the strangest thing – even when the reviews concurred with the new one. In fact, it seems the only review to get any positive votes at all, was the new one. Three positive votes in less than three hours or so.

Amazon’s review system is such that only the most helpful reviews make it to the top of the pile, i.e. the first page. The more helpful votes a review gets the better chance it has at staying on top and accruing more votes. So I did some digging on the internet and discovered that it isn’t uncommon for reviews to suddenly get helpful votes within minutes of being posted, either from friends of the reviewer or from the reviewer themselves with multiple accounts.
So I tried this myself. I opened two new accounts on Amazon using my website e-mail address, and low and behold I was able to vote more than once for a review, in this case the Sony Camera I bought last year which is bloody marvellous and worth the votes. If I were to write reviews on Amazon, it would be quite easy for me to vote for myself and bump myself up the ladder.
And the rewards for getting to the top are apparently worth the shenanigans, as Top 50 reviewers apparently get sent copies of movies and books and CDs to review in advance of publication, becoming part of Amazon’s Vine select reviewers.

I’ve since trawled a few posts around the web and there are other examples of Amazon review abuse, from artists and companies to reviewers, where reviews have been “negatived” out of existence, and where there have been malicious campaigns to discredit Top 100 reviewers by rivals.
I suppose there’s nothing new here – something like this was always going to be open to abuse – but it’s disappointing, because it detracts from the whole point of people out there having an opinion.
I still stand by my argument, that there is a place for consumer reviews, but I don’t think the Amazon system works. There are too many agendas involved, too many problems with it, and as such I’ve decided to distance myself and this blog from it (and soon the website), removing the links to Amazon. Please feel free to use Amazon to buy the books (I still use it to buy things I can't get elswhere), but I guess I would go elsewhere for objectivity when it comes to the reviews and how they are voted for and against.

Fruits of the Weekend, and further branding

2009-04-01T16:19:00.002+01:00

On Saturday I was interviewed in the flesh by the lovely Adele for Un:Bound, the fruits of which are now on her blog-site. Click here to view.
On a special note, it was a fun interview, which isn’t bad considering it lasted 2 hours (and I was suffering from an objectionable evening the night before). The fact Adele managed to draw out anything worth writing about in those two hours of ramblings is a down to her skill as a good interviewer – but be the judge yourself by checking it out.

Also, the branding debate has transferred itself from this blog to the Macmillan New Writer’s blog, with Suroopa Mukherjee (of the wonderful, Across the Mystic Shore) raising the whole question of whether branding is necessary and what it does to the writer. I’ve thrown my two pennies into the discussion at the end, but it’s worth reading if you want other points of view on the whole debate.

And while we’re talking fruits… If this blog suddenly falls quiet, unless you’re told otherwise, I’m not dead, just encumbered by a “bundle of joy”. Fatherhood is getting closer now, and babies rarely arrive on time – unlike royalty statements from Macmillan (which you can set your watch by) and by striking coincidence, one happened to arrive this very morning.

That should buy some nappies, then…