Mariella Frostrup Plays the Mischievous Minx

It all started with the Book Show from Sky Arts turning up at the house to film me waffling about ghostwriting. Pleasant sunny day, guard down, camera running, my questioner enquired if I wouldn't prefer to write "in my own voice", or something similar.
What I wanted to convey was the idea that I wasn't particularly interested in hearing anything I had to say, but I was interested in hearing from other people with more interesting backgrounds. What actually happened was I proferred the opinion that the world had heard enough over the last five hundred years of people like me, ("middleclass, middleaged, middlebrow, male and english speaking"), pontificating and that it was time to give the rest of the world a bit of hearing.
The filmed interviews ended, (Hunter Davies and Kirsty Crawford had also appeared and been very charming), and the viewers were returned to the studio where, to my horror, distinguished novelists Robert Harris and Peter James sat listening to me pontificating, as if deliberately illustrating my own point, (if only I could lay claim to such subtle powers of irony). Mariella Frostrup, armed with her most disarming of smiles, then suggested to them that they were the under attack as "middleaged, middleclass, male and english speaking pontificators", (mercifully she let them off the "middlebrow" accusation).
Eek. These two were most defintely not who I had in mind. Most of Peter James's books of crime and policework are very much not set in the world of the middleclass etc etc, and Robert Harris tells tales on the very rich and very powerful, who are just as colourful and interesting as the underdogs of society. To make it worse, I know them both. Peter is a chum of long standing and Robert very sweetly quoted my "Ghostwriting" book at the start of every chapter of his novel, "The Ghost".
Both of them, mercifully, did not rise to the bait that the Mischievous One was dangling and doled out only the mildest of reprimands before saying very forgiving things. I felt a little like I had been hauled into the common room and told off by two much admired teachers for some piece of smart-alecry which I had meant for other staff members. Yet another illustration of why it is infinitely preferable to stay behind the scenes as a ghost and let other people do the media pontificating.

Posh-Publishing Embraces Self-Publishing

Faber and Faber, poshest of the posh old guard publishers, (T.S. Eliot, Peter Carey, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, Sylvia Plath - you get the picture), run a thing called The Faber Academy - http://www.faberacademy.co.uk/ - and are launching a three-day course on self-publishing in February 2012 entitled "Bring Your Book to Market". The tutors are Ben Johncock http://www.benjohncock.com/ and Catherine Ryan Howard http://www.catherineryanhoward.com/ .

I met Mr Johncock, who runs a thing called The Twitter Consultancy, in a BBC radio studio in Oxford a year or two ago. I was still somewhat in a funk about social media at the time, but already uneasily aware that the things this extraordinarily bouncy young man was talking about were probably the future and sooner or later I was going to have to get my head round them. (The programme was being mediated by the fabulous Sue Cook - http://www.suecook.com/ - who was also proselytising on the joys of social media, making me even more aware that I might be cowering a little further from the cutting edge than was wise).

Catherine Ryan Howard I have not met, but she is a successful self published author and comes across on her website/blog etc as being very jolly, truthful, self-aware and endearing.

Not only are Faber and Faber an extremely bright bunch of people, (their editors re-wrote "Lord of the Flies" for William Golding for heaven's sake), they are also not afraid of things cutting edge - a point proven by their recent adoption of Jarvis Cocker as Editor-at-Large, which followed a similar appointment for Peter Townshend some time ago, when the old boy was still pretty cutting edge himself. If they are embracing the idea of self-publishing and the need for us to learn how to use social media properly, then I think we can safely assume that there is now no going back.

I find this is all enormously encouraging having just launched an ebook of my own, "The Fabulous Dreams of Maggie de Beer", (http://www.maggiedebeer.com/) and opened a Twitter account.

A Triumph for Fine Ghostwriting

The announcement from New York that Keith Richards has won the Mailer Prize for Distinguished Biography is a wonderful endorsement for the writing skills of Mr Richards' ghost/collaborator/whatever-you-like-to-call-him, James Fox.
The whole project illustrates perfectly the joys, (and doubtless frustrations), that the process of ghostwriting for an interesting subject can provide. Mr Richards has led the most interesting and entertaining of lives. Spending time with him and then speaking in his voice must have been fun. To then be awarded a "distinguished" prize would be a very jolly cherry on top of the cake.
Mr Fox is, of course, a highly established writer, (and author of the very famous "White Mischief"), so I am sure he has no problem with Mr Richards picking up the prize and the attendant publicity which will help to keep the royalties flowing.

Are Blogs the Perfect Writers' Medium?

Amidst the razzle dazzle of Twitter, Facebook and the rest, it is easy to overlook the wonders of the humble blog. For writers they must be the greatest form of communication that the producers of the electronic media have yet presented to us. Now we can be editors and star contributors of our own magazines, writing and publishing the articles that we would normally be trying to persuade others to publish, able to pursue our hobby horses at full gallop and shamelessly plug the work of those we admire.
I have been particularly converted by Morgen Bailey's Writing Blog, (and here it would only be seemly to admit that I have been both interviewed by Morgen http://wp.me/p18Ztn-1e5 and have also written a guest piece http://wp.me/p18Ztn-1fa ).
Regardless of the obvious vested interests at work here, I would still like to sing the praises of blogs such as these. There are companies now who offer to organise "virtual book tours" which, if I have undestood correctly, largely involve people being interviewed or writing about their latest book on other people's blogs in much the same way they would in old fashioned media like television "sofa shows" and the features pages of the old "grey-prints".
Each blog may have no more than a few hundred or a few thousand followers, but then many of the best literary magazines had similarly modest but extremely devoted readerships.

Self-Publishing Moves into the Mainstream

The idea that The Bookseller magazine, that venerable trade organ for the traditional publishing process, would dedicate four pages of editorial for a "Flagship Feature" on self-publishing would have been unthinkable even a short time ago, but that is what happened at the end of last week Bookseller. The very suggestion of people publishing their own books has in the past brought forth patronising smirks at best, and howls of derision at worst, from those who believed such things should be left to the professionals.
All that has now changed and leading the charge is Alison Baverstock, (the author of the Bookseller feature), with the publication of her guide to self-publishing The Naked Author.
It would be hard to overstate what a seismic change in attitude this represents. Self-publishing does not in any way threaten the livelihoods of the existing publishing businesses that are able to add value for their customers in matters of packaging, distribution and marketing, but it does mean that a whole new cottage industry has been allowed to spring up and is now thriving thanks to a variety of factors coming together at the same time.
The Naked Author is an absolute milestone in this exciting journey.

Ghostwriter and Assassin Entwined

A ghostwriter is once more in the spotlight in Haruki Murakami’s much publicised new novel, 1Q84.

Tengo is commissioned by a maverick publisher to “re-write” a compelling piece of prose written by an equally compelling teenage girl, leading him into the sort of adventure that tempted me to become a ghostwriter in the first place. (I haven’t finished reading it yet so it’s quite possible a fate will befall him which will make me reconsider my position there).

The chapters following Tengo’s adventure alternate with those following Aomame, an icy, glamorous, professional assassin. The stories of these two protagonists become increasingly entwined and there are, as you would expect from Mr Murakami, enough subtexts to feed the minds of several million ravenous readers.

I know I’m biased to an unreasonable degree, but I just love the idea of a ghostwriter being used alongside an assassin as a device to unravel plots and characters and trains of thought – just as Robert Harris did with his very different ghostwriter in The Ghost, (his protagonist ghosted non-fiction rather than fiction). Unravelling plots, characters and trains of thought is, after all, exactly what we are hired to do in the real world.

Books and Authors on Television

Despite the phenomenal success of Richard and Judy’s Book Club, the myth persists that books and authors don’t play well on television. Never mind that virtually all the major drama series are adapted from books, (“The Slap” by Christos Tsiolkas being the latest one to be heavily trailered), and that virtually every major television personality writes books more often than cheques, (Jamie Oliver and Jeremy Clarkson must virtually support Penguin these days). In the last couple of days however I’ve seen two cheering little programmes.

First there was Diana Athill on Imagine. Ms Athill breaks virtually every rule of television; she is old, (women aren’t supposed to appear on the screen after their fortieth birthdays unless they are willing to don sequins and be mocked on the dance floor), she is unashamedly posh, (although she has a sexual history which would make an Essex reality girl blush), and she is mightily and unapologetically intelligent and literate. The reason she makes good television is because she is genuine and because she thinks and talks with an honesty and clarity which fairly takes your breath away.

The second programme was produced by The Culture Show and involved carting the Booker shortlist up to the village of Comrie and getting a variety of locals to read, comment and meet some of the authors. The result was a gentle half hour of interesting characters telling interesting stories. (The book which came off the worst was later announced to be the winner of the prize, which I guess goes to show just how far the literary world’s tastes sit from those of the majority of the reading public).

Surely there must be a wealth of this sort of unexploited television fodder gathering cobwebs in our remaining bookshops.