Trouble in paradise?

Continuing on from the religious theme, the Bookseller website today carries another tale of woe regarding the troubled Christian book selling chain formerly known and owned by SPCK (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge). The chain was taken over by the SSG (St Stephen the Great), a more orthodox Christian charity last year, headed by Mark and Phil Brewer, and the stores subsequently renamed to reflect this change. The changes were apparently made in order to reflect what they term as 'traditional Christian values'. Exactly what this means is not made clear.

Whatever it does mean though, it is clear that the company's staff are far from happy, as an insider claimed in November of this year that since the Brewers had taken control of the chain, more than 100 staff had left. Carole Burrows who managed the Durham shop left at the end of October, and earlier that month 11 staff simultaneously walked from the Exeter store. The latest casualties are Newcastle and Truro, where both Managers are due to leave on Christmas Eve. 4 book sellers have simultaneously announced their own departure from the Truro store on the same date.

Mark Brewer acknowledges that the company has staffing problems, but says this is no more than what one would expect. He states in a typical head in sand stance, that it is important that the company's employees are supportive of the charity's aims and devoted to supporting its work, since this is not just a job, but a mission. He went on to say that the shops are like the talents the Lord spoke of in the parables, and to earn His favour as 'good and faithful servants' we must invest these talents for His glory.

It is clear that these two men just do not get it, as the fact that so many staff have resigned and that church attendance as a whole has fallen in the last decade signifies to me that these so called traditional Christian values just do not work, and are not seen as important in the lives of a) those who work for the company and b) those in mainstream society.

The former Manager of the Leicester branch had the right idea when he bought the store from the Brewers earlier this year, renaming it as Christian Resources - this is one that I shall certainly be contacting myself in the New Year to see if they may be interested in stocking my own book.

Leicester is after all a interfaith and multi cultural city (more Muslim in fact than anything else these days) and the range of books stocked needs to reflect that. Rather than stocking exclusively Christian items and books, the new store then stocks books from a variety of different faiths and belief systems, including Anglican, Methodist and Afro-Caribbean churches. It also sells books direct to churches on a sale or return basis so that they can sell them in church events and stalls etc, which certainly makes sense to me. It is nice to know that someone within the 'faith' movement has some (common sense that is).

On a personal note, I have not had the same amount of time to write this blog since I started back at work. It is only a part time job, but it has still meant a lot of adjustment, since it is more than two years since I had a permanent job like this. The money and the stimulation were desperately needed, but even so, it has not been easy rushing straight home and changing from corporate saleswoman back to book saleswoman in the five minutes it takes me to dump my bag and change out of my uniform.

The fact that the other new person, a full timer who started a week after I did, did one days work and has not turned up since has not helped matters, especially since the man that he was supposed to replace is due to leave at the end of the week. Fortunately he has agreed to stay on for a few more weeks on a part time basis to cover days off, or otherwise they would be really stuck, as all they would have had would be me, the Manager and his new deputy, together with 2 weekend staff. As it is I have to work all day on Monday so that the Manager can have a day off and his deputy will not be on his own in the shop all day.

They have tried everything they can do to get hold of this chap who has left, but to no avail. All they need is for him to simply tell them that he is not coming back, but he won't do that, and under company rules they have to give him three weeks absence before they can even begin advertising for someone else. I think this absolutely stinks myself, but that's the way it is.

I suppose having to possibly work full time over the next week or so will not affect my book promotion plans too much though, since it is getting to the point now where the shops are becoming too busy to call anyway, so I have to look at this philosophically and just think of the extra money, which I must admit will come in handy. I have managed to get the book now into well over 100 Waterstones and although I will continue to call until the end of this week, anyone that I cannot now get through to will have to bookmarked for a call in the New Year after Christmas. Until then, I shall just hold my breath and pray that the books are not all sent back in the New Year - one would hope that they would give them at least 6 months to try and sell, but in the book selling business shelf space is money and anything can happen.

God Delusion to be banned in Turkey?

I see from the Independent that Richard Dawkins' Turkish publisher Kuzey Publications is being hauled over the coals by religious fundamentalists. It seems that they are being threatened with legal action by prosecutors who claim that their publication of Dawkins' best selling work The God Delusion insults believers. I don't know they are so upset about myself, as the Turkish translation has apparently only sold 6000 copies since publication.

Erol Karaaslan, the founder Kuzey Publications could though face between six months and twelve months in jail if found guilty. Prosecutors are still debating over to press charges.

It is not the first time that Dawkins' has come against such problems in Turkey, since it seems that Islamic fundamentalists also tried to ban his earlier work The Selfish Gene.

I don't understand the furore personally or even why it was deemed necessary to publish in this territory in the first place - the book discusses Christianity more than other religions, and Turkey is a predominantly Muslim country. It also then puzzles me as to exactly who has been offended. Having read the book myself, I don't recall it even mentioning Islam.

Neither is Dawkins the first author to face controversy. The article states that Nobel prize winning novelist Orhan Pamuk and Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink were just two several dozens writers to be charged last year under a controversial law that makes it a crime to insult Turkishness, whatever that means. Pamuk was acquitted, but Dink – who was murdered earlier this year by a teenage ultra-nationalist - was found guilty.

What though does it mean to be Turkish, or for that matter, any other nationality? Does one have to be born in that country or have parents who were, or is it sufficient to have lived there for a certain number of years. If so, then how many? Is a child of Jamaican parents who emigrated to Britain in the 1950's any less British that I am - of course not, for in their hearts they still think of themselves as British, and that is what counts.

This also brings to mind an episode from my favourite science fiction series Babylon Five entitled Infection. It is I believe an episode from series two. It basically revolves around a machine on an uninhabited planet that seems hell bent on destroying everything in its path. When they ask what the machine actually wants it transpires that it was put in place to protect its former inhabitants, the Icarans from raiders by destroying anything that was not pure Icaran. The predictable result was of course the destruction of the entire race. Muslims and for that matter any other fundamentalist regime, should take note for if they do not pull up their own socks and start to behave in a more sensible manner by not being threatened by anything that does not agree with their own faith, they will ultimately share the same fate.

The word atheist is generally recognised in most societies as meaning one who does not believe in God. There is nothing wrong in this, as it is like anything else just one of many widely held beliefs. Being an atheist does not make one less moral or less of anything in fact, in fact when you look at the statistics the opposite is true. The more secular societies are nine times out of ten more tolerant and understanding of each other.

The word atheist has it seems only recently crept into the Turkish language, where it is regarded as a kind of insult. The Independent cites a survey of religious attitudes conducted in Turkey in 2006, which found that less than 2 percent of corespondents claimed not to believe in God. More recently polls showed that just 25 percent of Turks accept evolutionary theory.

On the one hand, while I am the first to espouse religious freedom, and in no way agree with the ridiculousness of this case, one has to ask why the book was published in this territory in the first place, when there seems to be such limited demand. Surely they must have known the controversy it would cause. The cynic or perhaps spiritual aspect of myself, wonders if this was the whole idea, since the only way to really shed light on these situations for them to be open to the light of public scrutiny so that they can be discussed by the world media and these regimes will realise and understand that their views are simply not those of a civilised society.

The treatment of women in Islamic countries has also been in the news in recent days. Firstly of course the ridiculous case in Sudan where a female teacher has been jailed for allowing the children in her case to name an innocent teddy bear as Mohamed. The British Government are I understand intervening to get her released, but in the meantime, some have called for a suspension of aid to that country. They are cutting off their noses then to spite their face.

The other case is that of a young recently married woman in Saudi Arabia, whose husband thankfully is standing by her. It seems that in Saudi Arabia with its extreme laws of sexual segregation, the only way that men and women can form any kind of relationship is for men to stand in the streets with their mobile phone numbers either on display as women walk past with their male chaperone's, or to literally throw them car windows. Somehow then prior to her marriage, this woman then formed a phone relationship with such a man.

After she was married he threatened to tell her husband unless she agreed to meet him, and so foolishly it seems she did. They were driving together when another car swung in front of them, hijacked their own car and drove them to an isolated place, where both her and her male companion were gang raped repeatedly by up to seven attackers. She tried to keep it from her husband and family, but the rapists (who had filmed the attack on their mobile phones) started to boast about what had happened and so the truth came out. Astonishingly the woman was sentenced to 90 lashes and then when she and fer family complained this was increased to 200 lashes and 6 months in jail. The rapists in the meantime were sentenced to between 2 and 11 years apiece.

The world can no longer sit back and allow this kind of thing to happen, we have to send a strong signal to these countries that this behaviour is not acceptable.

Genesis of Man now in 109 Waterstones !

When I first began to ring book shops in August, I did not really know what to expect. I hoped for success and to get stocked in as many as possible, but didn't have a particular figure in mind. As Christmas began to approach I set myself a goal though to have received orders to the value of 400 books by the end of the year. It looks as if I may achieve that a lot earlier than I thought, since as of today the figure is 386.

In fact I am proud to say that my book is now stocked in over 100 branches of Waterstones in total - not bad at all for a book that no one wanted to publish and which most agents and publishers said wouldn't not sell. What do they know! If you want anything doing, do it yourself, women have known this for years and they are not far wrong it seems.

More importantly perhaps though than the number of stockists is the number of sales. I do not have the exact figures, but suffice to say that the sales are coming in thick and fast with no signs of diminishing.

It has also though come to light that there may be a problem with supply, since yesterday morning Paul went into his local branch at Kings Lynn in Norfolk and it seems that they have not yet received the copies that they ordered over a week ago. Paul in return reported this to Richard, who did some digging around. It seems that they are not the only ones to be kept waiting, since I understand that Gardners have back orders for a considerable number of copies. I have had it has to be said, a phenomenal couple of weeks with book shops ordering left right and centre.

The 30 copies they ordered on November 6th sold out almost as soon as they arrived, and so last week an order was placed for another 50 copies. Then when Richard discovered just how many branches I am now in, he rang them up and asked why they were not ordering more given its popularity. They have then ordered another 50 copies as of yesterday, bringing the total for November to 130 copies ordered! Mind you, I will have to scale things down by the middle of December anyway, since for one thing the shops will be too busy to take my calls, and for another, any they do order at that late stage will not arrive in time for Christmas anyway. I suspect then that this may the last order I receive until Christmas now. We will see as always, but at least I know that any more orders that I do get can now be fulfilled quickly and easily.

Still can't believe it is in 109 Waterstones though !!

Getting stocked in book stores lesson no. 2

Continuing on from yesterday - how should one approach book shops when do you get round to ringing them and is it really worth the time and effort that entails? I mean, no one likes to receive unsolicited sales calls at the best of times do they? In this situation the calls are not exactly unsolicited, as when ones works in or manages a book store talking to authors who want you to stock their books goes with the territory, that is why Waterstones have people like independent author advisor Justin Hutchinson in the first place - to help and advise independent and self published authors and put them on the right track.

Actually I have found it to be THE most worthwhile piece of marketing I have ever undertaken. It does take a certain amount of courage to do this for sure, and you have to know your market and your product, but you have already done that right - or you wouldn't have self published in the first place would you? I sincerely hope you did your research anyway, as it not, I fear you will be in for one hell of a shock otherwise ....

The way that I did it then was to decide firstly on how many calls to make each day. You don't want to rush this and call everyone at once, as for one thing you rapidly tire of doing this, and for another if you say it enough times it does start to sound rehearsed. You want your pitch to sound as natural as possible if you are to be in with a chance.

I try then to make between 10 and 12 calls a day, and no more than that. You will need of course though some means of recording what has been said and who needs to be call next. The spreadsheet of Waterstones details that Justin sends you is read only so you will need to copy this into a format that can be edited. I don't have excel on my machine, so I use Works instead, which is a somewhat simpler version to use. I have added several columns entitled contact name, date and what was said, and then follow up columns with dates as well. Sometimes you may need to contact a store several times after all before you get a result.

In my case then I started with the local stores within say an hour of home and then started to work down the list country wide from A to Z. The whole process I estimate will take around 4-5 months to complete and will in all honesty be ongoing since you continually have to make follow up calls as well to build up a relationship with your stockists.

Who you need to speak to will depend on the size of the store you are calling, and unfortunately it is difficult for you to know this until they pick up the phone and tell you! The best approach then is simply to explain who are and ask who the right person to speak to is. I say it something like this 'good morning/afternoon, my name is June Austin and I am the author of a mind, body and spirit book entitled Genesis of Man, I was wondering who the right person would be to speak to about getting it stocked in your branch'.

The book seller will then do one of several things - put you through to the right person, tell you there are not in or ask you send them some information. Sometimes they will also try and tell you that you have to go through Head Office. If they do this, then politely explain to them that you have already spoken to their independent author advisor who said that you are free to contact any store that you choose direct.

When you do get to speak to someone make sure that you know exactly what you need to say and make sure you have the ISBN close by as well, as they are bound to want to know this so that they can look it up. If you are very lucky and say the right things then they may agree to order copies then and there, but they are more likely to request further information. Whether you choose to send this by fax, email or letter is up to you, but email is by far the cheapest of course. If you do send emails then make sure they are not overloaded with attachments as they will not get through the system. I send them a standard email with a copy of my information sheet and a link to the book trade page on my own website which contains reviews, sample chapter etc should they wish some more information.

Make a note then of who you spoke to and sent the information to and call them in a weeks time to make sure if was received and see what their interest was. I use my Works spreadsheet in conjunction with Works calendar to record this information. It is a useful tool since if it happens for example to be the persons day off when you call, then you simply make a note to call them on the next available day, which you will see when you open the calendar on that day.

One tip I will also pass on is that if you speak to a manager or book seller and they say that they will mention the book to the section manager of your genre (children's or whatever) see if you can get that persons name as well. Even if you can't, then when you call to follow up, do not ask for the store manager but the section manager direct. Store Managers are busy people and nine times out of ten when they tell you they are going to do something they don't. because they forget or get distracted. Talk then to the section manager direct, who makes the final decision to buy and save yourself a lot of time.

When I do get orders I also always send out a confirmation email thanking the store for their custom and providing a link to my website should they wish to use reviews etc for promotional purposes. Like I said earlier, these stores do gt busy, and sometimes they may tell you they are going to order copies and then forget, so sending these emails serves to remind them.

Here then ends lesson number two in how to get stocked in the chain stores.

Getting stocked in book stores

During my travels across the worldwide web, I have had several authors contact me to ask the secret of my success and how they can get their books stocked in as many shops as I have. I have therefore decided to write a short article about it on here, for the benefit of not only those other struggling authors, but also those who are considering this path. While what I have to say applies primarily to print on demand authors, who it has to be said do face unique challenges, the principles are neverthess the same no matter which type of book you have written.

Here then goes ....

In order to get stocked in book stores in the UK (or any other country for that matter), you first need to have an account with one of the major wholesalers or distributors that they obtain their titles from. It is also preferable that the books are actually stocked by one of the wholesalers (Gardners and Bertrams/THE group being the biggest players in the UK).

There are 2 ways that book stores will obtain books from such wholesalers -either as a special order, where copies are obtained direct from the author or publisher, who sends them to the wholesaler, who in return sends them to the shop concerned. The second way is where the books are actually stocked by the wholesaler in their own warehouse and they fulfil all the orders direct. Wholesalers though are quite choosy as which titles they take on board - they expect all titles stocked by them to be available on terms of at least 55 percent discount (15 percent for them, 40 percent for the book stores) and also on sale or return. POD titles are not normally available on such terms, typically being available as a special order on 40 percent discount (25 percent to the stores) firm sale basis. Stores then are often reluctant to stock such titles, unless they are local interest.

Gardners books were actually the original print on demand pioneer in this country, although they no longer offer that particular service. Once Lightning Source opened a plant in the UK, they could not compete and so closed that operation down, concentrating on their wholesale arm. I was exceptionally lucky in that because my publisher, Authors OnLine Ltd were the first POD provider in this country, and Gardners only print on demand customer, believe it or not, they have a longstanding relationship with them that enables certain titles such as mine to be taken on as stock items. There are only a handful of such POD books in the whole country that are available in this way.

The 3 major book chains in the UK are WH Smiths, Waterstones and Borders. I have not approached Smiths as yet, as most of their stores tend to stock mainly fiction with very small mind, body and spirit sections. Paul who is one of Richard's more succesful authors, who helps other authors with publicity is going to contact them for me in the New Year. Waterstones though are easier to get into than most people think. The guidelines from Gardners website say the following:

"Waterstones buy all their books from small publishers via Gardners." Note that this is not totally true, as they do use other suppliers as well. "In order to sell to the Waterstones branches it is necessary to register with Waterstones, via Gardners. To do this please contact Justin Hutchinson by email justin.hutchinson@waterstones.com and ask for a Waterstones Trading Application Form (alternatively you can call Justin on 0208 996 3477)."

The print on demand author does not though have to fill in any forms, since their provider will have already done this. All you need do then is contact Justin, who will verify that your book(s) is/are acceptable, and then he will email you a spreadsheet of contact details for all stores. Then all you need to do is get ringing ! Justin is very nice and easy to talk to and he will also contact stores to iron out problems on your behalf - several have tried to tell me that they do not deal with Gardners, and he intervened on my behalf and put them straight! He is a useful man to know then!

Note that some branches may ask if they can order direct from you, as the author. It is not Waterstones policy though to do this, and I advise you not to, since you may have problems getting paid! It is always preferable then to ask them to order from Gardners or another wholesaler direct. The beauty of the Waterstones system as well is that once a store has ordered copies of your book, when they sell, and stocks are exhausted, it is automatically reordered, so you don't have to keep ringing to see if they need more ... Having said this, there does seem to some way of by passing this system, as at least one branch has not re ordered mine, but had to be reninded - gently of course.

Borders are not so easy to get into. You need to send a copy of your book together with the usual information (information sheet, reviews, sales figures if appropriate, press coverage, press releases etc) and a detailed marketing plan - this part is very important as they do not take on titles that are unlikely to sell and it is your job to show them that are going to work hard at finding and/or creating that market - to their New Press Department attention Claire/Dorindar to Stillerman House, 120 Charing Cross Road, London WC2 H0JR, telephone 0207 379 7313 email newpress@bordersgroupinc.com

After that you can telephone their stores in the same way - they don't supply you with a list though so you have to get all the details off their website. This is easy enough though, since they are all listed on there anyway, and broken down into various areas - i.e. London, south east etc. They only have about 80 stores anyway compared to over 300 Waterstones so this is a doddle in comparison .... The other way to get listed with them is of course to get booked to do a talk or signing at one of their stores as I did. Be careful though that they do not list the book as local interest as it is likely to end up the wrong shelf and other stores further afield may be reluctant to order because of that ....

It is easier than you think then to get accepted by these stores, but the hard work begins after acceptance, as you have to get out there and tell the stores about your book persuading them to order. Nevertheless, this is something that the serious self published author has to grit their teeth and get on with. The key is to know your market, understand how the supply chain works and be professional and courteous at all times. I personally aim to ring at least 10 stores a day, which I have been doing for the past 3 months. So far have managed to get stocked in almost one third of Waterstones stores and several Borders and independents, so it is worthwhile. After all, even if they only order only 2 books apiece, that adds up to several hundred sales over a couple of months ....

Taking the Hachette to firm sale

Writers Guild strike in America is intensifying - apparently an unnamed Hollywood studio has lost a $3 million contract because of it to make a film - that will teach them to honour writers a bit more won't it! I am afraid I do not have much sympathy for these people at all, who get rich on the backs of my colleagues across the pond and give them absolutely sweet fa. It is about time these people realised that contrary to popular belief, they need us far more than we need them .... Without writers they would all be out of business fast.

Support from the strike though seems to be coming from all quarters. USA Today reports that motorists driving past Universal Studios on Tuesday afternoon (yesterday) were treated to a cavalcade of stars almost as impressive as the Golden Globes ceremony. These stars were picketing in support of the Writers Guild strike which is now in its 9th day. As long at the strike continues the actors after all cannot work either, and they too are losing money. Mind you, most of them can afford to ...

The entire cast of Brothers and Sisters were there along with Executive Producer and writer Greg Berlanti as well as Matthew Perry from Friends and stars from The Office. Tonight show host Jay Leno rode past on his motorcycle to add his support and Ben Stiller walked down the hill from Universal Studios where he has been directing comedy show Tropic Thunder with a week of shooting still to go. He said, "As a DGA, SAG and WGA member, this is a very tough time. Movies that are in production get affected because no script changes can happen. We had to make sure any rewrites were done before the strike, but changes happen every day. So, I'm saying right now, if this movie's not funny enough next year, it's because of this strike. The writers have always been the ones who didn't get respect. In a way, I wish all the unions could have gone out at the same time, because it would have sent an even stronger message. Studios need to take this seriously." Good for him ! Perhaps writers in the UK should get together and refuse to allow their books into the chain stores until we get a better deal as well ...

This may not in fact be necessary, since environmental issues seem to be coming very much to the forefront in publishing this week, and one of the most overriding issues is of course the vast amounts of books which are pulped each year as publishers print far too many of them. Publishing News reporrs that the book trade's cross party Environmental Action Group, which is chaired by Penguin General MD Helen Fraser has agreed a target for the industry to reduce its carbon emissions by 10% by 2015. The group also believes that environmental initiatives should form part of the criteria for publisher and retailer of the year categories at the British Book Industry Awards, as organised by Publishing News, and also the Bookseller Retail Awards.

A working party is apparently satrting to look at issues such as transport, packaging and paper, as well as perhaps more cruciallym, long term issues connected to the supply chain, in particular, returns.

Last weeks Publishing News reported that the UK's largest publishing group, Hatchette Livre has released an ethical and environmental policy in which it has pledged to start selling its backlist consumer titles on a “firm sale basis”, in consultation with its customers (for this read book sellers) by the end of 2008. The policy document explains as I have said so many times, that the printing and multiple transportation of books that may end up being pulped is both costly and environmentally damaging and they are committed to reducing this practice. They go on to say that the estimated cummulative saving in terms of printing, paper, processing and transport will be in excess of one million books a year.

By the end of 2009, the group also hopes to have moved most all its trade publishing onto Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified paper, and to have made major progress in the same direction for their educational and illustrated publishing. The policy will be introduced gradually across the company's UK publishers starting with Little Brown at the beginning of 2008 and then other UK publishers, including Headline, Hodder & Stoughton, Hodder Education and Orion. I wonder how many of these backlist titles will then be maintained via print on demand. It will be interesting to see what happens here.

The response from book sellers, according to The Bookseller has been mixed. One more enlightened soul indie bookseller Clive Keeble, says that he hopes other publishers will follow suit, as the current system of sale or return is 'archaic and wasteful'. He goes on to say that it is poor business to expect others to subsidise one's business. I like this man and must find out what book shop he runs so that he can stock my book!

However, other booksellers expressed misgivings about what it would mean in terms of range. Waterstone's are said to be circumspect, stating that while they are committed to investigating ways of reducing returns, they had to ensure that any action the industry takes does not threaten specialist booksellers' ability to stock and sell deep range. That is rich I must say, since it due to the business activities of the chain store demanding more and more discounts so that they can have 3 for 2 promotions and so on that the majority of independents are going out of business in the first place!

The downside is that it may lead book sellers to be more wary of stocking back list titles, including mine. As Sheila O'Reilly, owner of indie Dulwich Books says, book sellers have two ways of buying stock - from wholesalers or direct from publishers. If they buy from the publishers direct they get less discount, usually with sale or return; if they buy from from wholesalers we get more discount and the right to return between 5% and 10% of the previous three months' sales. What this in practise means is that they have to have a 5 percent error rate. If firm sale comes in across the board, such book sellers then will be a lot more cautious about ordering such back lists (and books like mine) that do not have a provemn sales record.

Is is fair though to expect as Clive Keeble said, others to subside your business. Personally alhtough I take Sheila O'Reilly's point, I think not. Nobody else has a 5 percent error rate written into their supply contract, so why should book sellers be any different?

More worrying, book sellers may start to demand higher discounts to compensate for this loss, whihc is a move that small presses would strongly resist. Chris Rusbhy, Director of Bertrams, the UK's second largest wholesaler made the point that it is all very well to have green credentials, but there would be a saving that goes along with that, and book sellers should be able to share that saving. They are though missing the point - yes there would be savings in terms of less books being printed, but the books that are printed still have to shipped to the wholesaler, packed and then shipped off again, and this costs the same regardless. Personally I think the book sellers are just being greedy - I mean my book cost me nearly £5000 to write over 5 years, during which time I was not earning money elsewhere as I was writing full time. As it stands, who gets what can be broken down as follows:

book seller £6.00
print costs £4.06
wholesaler £2.25
me £1.60
publisher £1.08

This is why I would strongly then resist such a move and why I see parallels between this and the Writers Guild strike, since it is about the writers right (write!) to earn a decent living wage from doing what they do best. Call me old fashioned, but I believe the lions share should always go the person who created the work and not the one who is selling it.

Writers Guild revolts !

Those who have read my book will know that it is heavily influenced by an American science fiction television series entitled Babylon 5. This was written and produced by one Michael J Straczynski, who these days is one heavyweight writer. He is apparently working on a new film entitled Changeling, to be directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Angelina Jolie. You don't get much more heavyweight than these two. His own website though details a bit of a hoo ha which is going on at the moment Stateside with regard to the Writers Guild - the US equivalent of our Society of Authors.

It seems that their members are going on strike in protest at proposals put forward to stop payment of what are referred to as residuals. These are the small fees which authors are paid each time a film of something that they have written (or other such similar things) is sold or borrowed. It is not a large sum - something like 4 cents - but if you happen to have written a popular film, then this can add up to quite a considerable sum. Unlike public lending rights, there is no maximum payment.

It seems that in America as in Britain there is a popular misconception that writers are rich. In only wish that this were true! In actual fact we are one of the most poorly paid group of people you can imagine. Most of us have to supplement our income with other part time occupations - teaching for example, or in my case as of tomorrow, working in retail. And those who work in publishing think they are badly off for having to do unpaid work experience in order to get their lucky break !

Sure there are some writers who do extremely well - Jeffrey Archer, and JK Rowling - but these are few and far between. At any given point in any one year, around half of all film and TV writers are unemployed. Sometimes this may be because they are not very good, but most often it is because they are between commissions. You have to find a buyer for the movie (or book for that matter) that you have spent six months (or five years) writing - I hasten to add at your own expense. This is the way that publishing works though, whether you write books, films or whatever. You produce or write the product, sell it and only then do you get paid.

A residual then is like an author's royalty. Screen and script writers are paid them each time their work is shown on television. They are how such writers survive between jobs, and only fair when one considers how the network or studio itself makes money from the authors work. If nobody airs your show or re-runs the film or show that you have written, then there is no residual, it is as simple as that. After all, if the network isn't getting paid, then they can't pay you either!

This then is why last week, 90 percent of Guild members voted to down tools and go on strike - and quite rightly so. This though is the tip of the iceberg, for it is about far more than just residuals, but also about the writers right to be acknowledged as the creator of the work. Under the new proposals residuals will not be paid for what are termed as 'new media' which in practise means shows that are broadcast on Internet radio or television, it also means that NO credits will appear in advertising - so the writer loses the right to even be acknowledged. Stuff that for a game of soldiers ! The proposal entirely eliminates the requirement that writing credits appear in advertising and publicity, even if the names of others - such as producers and directors - are included. The Guild response is as follows: For years the MBA has provided that the writer receive parity in advertising and publicity. The Guild will never accept this proposal, which is an insult to writers and demeans their contributions. Hear, hear !

I don't know where this will end then, but like the debacle with Eagle Publishing that I mentioned the other day, it is one to watch, and yet another sign that the tide is turning. Studios and TV networks would be wise to remember, like a certain person at Foyles, that without writers to create these works in the first place, they too would be out of a job. Without us, the people who actually write this stuff, they would have no reason for being ....

On another note, I see from The Bookseller that Waterstones are to close their first ever store in Old Brompton Road, London. It seems that the store was taken on a 25 year lease which is about to expire, taking the 12 staff with it. Every effort though will be made to deploy them elsewhere within the company. I will a note not to ring that branch - last time I tried they would not answer their phone anyway, and so I gave up and moved on to other branches who would.

Fortunately this week they have quite a few of these. In the past week I have worked doubly hard, knowing that my return to work was imminent and I would have the same time to concentrate on this essential activity. This week then I have secured orders from Bromley Glades, Birmingham New Street, Cambridge, Enfield, Chester, Guildford High Street, Gateshead Metro Centre (I am delighted at this one), Gower Street, Greenwich, Ealing, Hastings and Hemel Hempstead Riverside. I have lost count of the total number of shops then which are now stocking me, but with the run up to Christmas, it must be well over 80 by now. This is not bad at all, since it means that before this is over with a bit of luck, I will be stocked in almost a third of their total branches.

The article in this months Writers News should help - I have not seen it yet myself, but hope to get a copy this afternoon. Dinner is calling though, so I better go and see what needs doing in the kitchen - the delightful smell of chopped onions is wafting towards me as I write !