Readers Are Doomed!

Actually, that’s the title of an article I wrote for Nick Daws’ blog. I won’t repeat the article here, but here’s a short extract:

The demographics for reading are changing. The days when our children all enjoyed the delight of a bedtime story are disappearing. How many youngsters now will pick up a book when there is the alternative of television, computer games, and the internet? Here’s a bold prediction for you: within my lifetime the average age of a regular reader will rise to 60. Within 100 years the number of books being sold will drop to a point where the supermarkets don’t even bother to stock them. Within 200 years the only people to read for pleasure will be the few remaining authors themselves, devouring each others’ words in sad, cannibalistic indulgence. Let me know if I was wrong!

If you found that intriguing, why not pay a visit to Nick’s pages and read the whole article. They are always well worth a visit.

Who Needs Quality? (Or, Let’s Sack the Testers!)

Now then, how many of you know anything about the manufacture and production of software? Or, what about the manufacture and production of anything, software or not? Everybody knows something about this, I’m sure.

Let’s hypothesise. Let’s say you are a company that produces something and wants to market it to the general public. It doesn’t matter what that somethingis, and it doesn’t matter if the distribution of it is free or requires the public to purchase it. Hmm, his is a bit general, so let’s be a little more specific.

 Let’s say you produce some software which you freely give away to the public. Your eventual intent, not unnaturally, is that you will eventually command a share of a given market sector, and make money in some way, perhaps by selling advertising space, or offering a premium membership, or something along those lines. How do you go about it?

Well, you get the product written (manufactured), promote it with a suitable advertising campaign (be that traditional media adds, employing expert agencies, or viral marketing). Basically, you tell your potential audience what your software does, why it benefits that audience to use it, perhaps why it should be a preferred choice to its’ competitors, and how good the software is at achieving its’ aim. Then you distribute the software. Perhaps you make it available for download.

“Visit www.s******w.com and download the latest whizzy kit! You know it makes sense!”

So.

Why should the audience believe you? Why should they trust the software you’ve created? What proof do they have that (a) it ‘does what it says on the tin’, and (b) that it wont have any detrimental effect on any of the other software you currently have installed on your PC? Hmm. That’s a problem, isn’t it? Essentially, all you, the potential subscriber to the software, can do is trust that it has been properly designed, developed, and tested within reasonable limits. You have to trustthe manufacturer.

Now, with some products the quality aspect is absolutely essential. It’s obvious that if, say, the software that controls the movement of aircraft around JFK, or Heathrow, or any other airport, or the software that controls the dispensing of medical presciptions, has not been quality assured then the results would be catastrophic. Of course, most of us don’t actually download software that is quite that critical. However, we do download software that could, potentially, be harmful. We all know about viruses and worms and trojans and so forth, but could there be a problem with the software itself, even if it hasn’t been infected? What assurance do we have that the software we download will not have any adverse effect on the rest of the files on our home PC? How do we know the phonelist we made, or the thesis we’re writing for university, or the scores of photos of the new baby we archived, or the personal data we’ve stored, will be safe?

What we do is we trust the manufacturer. We assume and trust that they have tested the software they’ve provided, and that we can be confident that it works as it should. This applies both to applications that we install, and to websites we visit if there is interactivity between the website and ourselves. For instance, maybe we want to upload a file to a social networking or community website. Maybe the website offers us the ability to upload that file. Do you know how it does it? Do you know if it, for example, locks out the file on your PC in order to ensure a clean upload? Do you know if it resets the lock when the upload has finished? Do you know for sure that it hasn’t grabbed some other file instead, or maybe taken an extra copy of the file and logged its’ content without your knowing? Or, what if you use a client application to do the upload? The same questions can be asked.

You know, I worked for a company that actually produced a utility that uploaded files from your PC to a server. You told it what files to upload, and it did it. Unfortunately, it had a side effect at one point where it actually deleted the original files. Don’t worry, the Quality Assurance (Test) people discovered the problem, and the version of the product with that particular ‘bug’ did not get shipped! The testers had done their job, just like they do in any other company – at least, in any other company that actually employs test engineers!

How do you know if the company from whom you have obtained a piece of software actually does have professional, experienced test engineers to assure the safety of your data? How do you know?

I have just been made redundant from such a company. Not just me, mind you – ALL the quality staff have been made redundant. If you obtain any software from that company, then you should be aware that it has NOT been tested in any organised, competent manner. A decision was taken (without, I should add, the full board of directors being advised of the fact) to remove the whole of he QA team from the manager down, because it was decided that ‘due dilligence’ was sufficient to vet the product before it was shipped, and that it would be quite acceptable for the general public to find any ‘bugs’ that might be present. In other words, the people who use the software (that’s you, incidentally) could be given it in an untested state, and who cares if they risk losing data in the process?

This is my fourth redundancy, but in each of the previous cases there were financial reasons for the ‘downsizing’. In this last instance, however, that is not the case. The company was extremely well backed. I wonder how many of the investors know they are now financing the development of  product that (a) does not have any formal design/development process, (b) is not quality checked, and (c) relies on developers who are also employed by direct competitors of the software? Boy, are they gonna look stupid if something goes wrong! I wonder what would happen if, and let’s be generous, the product actually becomes popular in the near future, and they find there is a need to expand the business. They get to compete with the ‘big boys’ like YouTube or MySpace. Now I know those companies employ testing staff and quality regimens, yet this poor relation wont be able to employ testing staff because they made the positions redundant! Oh dear! How sad! What a shame!

Is this a case of sour grapes on  my part? I guess it probably is, but it doesn’t make it any less true. You see, I actually care about quality.

The Strawberry Fairies Save Sandcastle Island

Authors come in all shapes and sizes, and they write in all genre, yet every famous name you can mention has begun in the smallest of ways, struggling for recognition, honing their talents, refining their craft. For some the goal of publication never comes, but for others that most magical of moments arrives when they are offered a pen, and a piece of paper, and hear the words ‘Just sign here.’ They’ve made it! If you later ask their secret they will, almost to a person, reply that determination and never giving up are their requisites to success – and now it’s happened for Linda Eschler.

 Linda Eschler is the author of The Strawberry Fairies Save Sandcastle Island, the first in a new series of delightful stories for children, issued through Publish America. The tale revolves around the adventures of two impish fairies, Quinn and Gabriel, who come across the wicked Captain McNasty, as unpleasant a character as the ubiquitous Hook. Needless to say, things turn out for the best in the end, but Quinn and Gabriel, children of the King and Queen of the island, must overcome many obstacles to reach a happy ending! A delightful read that took me back to magical moments in my own childhood, when I would lose myself in the prose of Blyton, or even earlier listening to tales at my mothers’ knee. Wonderful stuff for the children! Linda has been a registered member of Let’s Get Published since March 2007, and has contributed extracts from The Strawberry Fairies Save Sandcastle Island, as well as from some of her other works, all of which can be reviewed at www.letsgetpublished.com. Let’s Get Published is a web portal for authors of fiction and non-fiction to present their work to editors, literary agents, and publishers through the medium of the world wide web. The service is free of charge, and welcomes writers of all genre. Nigel.

www.letsgetpublished.com

Publishers Are shy of Authors

Found an interesting article today that was worth the read. It mentioned particularly the reluctance of some editors/publishers to meet authors face-to-face, citing that as a reason why publishers almost universally use literary agencies. if that is the case, then let’s Get Published should be seen as most welcome by said publishers/editors, seeing as how we provide a mask of neutrality for both sides! The article is at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lissa-warren/to-bea-or-not-to-bea_b_51593.html

Authors, Agencies, and the Digital Age

I’ve read a number of articles in a number of publications over the past few years where writers who believe they have talent (in whatever field or genre) bemoan the fact they cannot find a literary agent to represent them. I myself am in this boat, so I do not decry their complaints. In fact, they have my most sincere sympathy. How on earth is one to bring to the world stage the greatest work ever written? Vanity publishing is always an option – but who would really want to compromise their artistic integrity by pursuing such a route? On-demand publishing is a new method that is gaining attention and favour with a large number of people – but even here, unless you are prepared (and able) to subsidise the promotion of your work the results can be disappointing. E-publishing is also an option, but that is a market still in its’ infancy, and until the technology of providing adequate download speeds improves, and/or the mass of the reading public decides that screen-based reading is an acceptable alternative to a good ol’ fashioned book, I suspect it will always be a poor relation to the mainstream. 

Most writers will follow the tried and tested formula of presenting to a literary agent. Indeed, most reputable publishing houses will not countenance direct approaches from wanna-be’s any more, so an introduction through an agency is just about the only avenue available. But there are problems. How do you get an agency to take notice? 

The traditional method is to write or telephone a potential agent in the hope they might have a slot in their list into which you might fit, but the responses received (from those agencies that bother to respond) is invariably negative (though usually polite). Simply sending in a manuscript cold is a waste of time; agencies have so much work being submitted with their permission that unsolicited work is invariably consigned to the waste bin without a second glance – and who could blame them? So there is a huge barrier, and that barrier is resource. The agencies don’t have the resources of time and manpower to review all the potential talent that is out there. One reason for this is that there is an insistence that writers send their submissions in hard-copy. This inevitably results in a veritable mountain of paper passing through an office or across a desk. Maybe if that mountain could be reduced a little, by the agencies becoming more open to alternative methods of receiving submissions, then a wealth of new talent would become visible. 

Of course, even if that were to happen, there would still be the hard realities of actually persuading a(ny) publisher in a competitive marketplace, with limited (though still large) resources, that hard cash should be spent in promoting a given author – but at least the pool of authors would be so much greater to choose from. Maybe, even, an increase in available talent would encourage an increase in the number of publishing companies, the smaller enterprises that could make money on the sidelines (and lets be honest, it’s money that’s at the heart of any publishing body). Who knows? 

But I digress. How does one increase the visibility of that talent? Well, one method is to persuade the literary agents to go and look for it. Does that sound ridiculous? It really isn’t. Why, you may ask, would any agency who is already inundated with submissions bother (let alone need) to go out and hunt down some more? Well, it’s a two way thing. What if, instead of each individual author writing to each individual agency, hoping against hope that there is a vacancy in their books for a bright, up-and-coming talent, the authors made their submissions (the usual 3-chapter requirement) to a single location, a portal that literary agencies could visit and navigate and discover the written gems that lie within? I’m talking, of course, about the ubiquitous internet. 

Consider the benefits. To the author there is no longer the need to spend time and money on speculative phone-calls, postage, return postage, paper, inks, other consumables, &c. (which has a secondary benefit, in these ever greener times, of reducing the call on natural resources like the forests, felled to produce paper). To the literary agency (one-man/woman shows and giants alike) there is the increased freedom to manage their time more efficiently. Who knows better than the agent when they have a vacancy? Who knows better than the agent when the market will be ripe for a particular writing style? Who know better than the agent when they will have the actual time to spend in reviewing works from unknowns? 

Nothing is ever easy, and everything has negative aspects, of course. Two detracting factors are lethargy and trust. For an author, it’s most likely trust. If you send your submission into the ether, how can you know it will  still be yours? How can you know it wont be snatched away and used without your knowledge, claimed for themselves by some infidel? The answer really is that you don’t submit everything at once. As for plagiarism, that is a reality faced by every writer, as it has been since the first mark was scratched on a rock! 

For the literary agent, though, lethargy may be the biggest problem. We all become comfortable in our ways, and the thought of change is often resisted. Yet change happens all the time. It’s the human condition, indeed the natural condition, and it’s called evolution. In these modern times, I find it hard to imagine that any business can afford to stand still. The world wide web has shaken the music industry, and it will shake the publishing industry likewise. Perhaps it has already begun to do so. Either way, any company that fails to embrace the technology and methodologies now emerging will be doomed to sink in the foundering seas of progress. Some agencies have taken the first steps, and already signed up to the concept of new ways for finding literary talent. Those who do not will not survive.

What Other People Think of LGP

I thought it might be useful to show what other people think of Let’s Get Published, so here are a few unsolicited comments:



 

Our   Reviews "I   liked your site & joined while I was there. "     Jenny   tlcbaskets.com "good   site for publishing articles, I wish I knew something about   it too:))"     Mex   miragepartnership.com "Very   good resource for those seeking to be published. It was   really easy to navigate and find my way around. Lots of   information was provided too! Good luck to you here."     Judy   stagingandredesignacademy.com "Pleasant   site, pages opened quickly - friendly feel. Great theme,   hope it works and wish you lots of success."     jay   homeworking4me.co.uk/mysteryshopping.htm "An   excellent site for the budding or published author to   showcase their work."     Loraine   abc123kidz.com Get   your own reviews, free traffic at

Vindication…

…possibly.

I set up Let’s Get Published (www.letsgetpublished.com) to hopefuly act as a portal for writers, agents, publishers, and editors to meet up in neutral territory, as it were. Getting the interest of writers proved not too difficult, thanks to Sandy Mather (http://writingtoinspireyou.com), and Nick Dawes (http://www.mywriterscircle.com/), and we now have a growing community. The hard part was always going to be convincing the publishing communities (publishers, agents, editors) to pay Let’s Get Published a visit.

So, a couple of weeks ago I released an internet press release (you can probably still see it on Google News, searching for ‘literary agents’ or similar – I think we’re now on page 2), following it up with individually hand-edited (!) emails to likely-looking addresses in the publishing community. The response was mixed, but that is what I was expecting. Some said ‘dont bother us’, others said ’sounds interesting’. Some didn’t say anything at all, of course.

However, the important point is, that from this initial and very unsophisticated publicity, one literary agent got in touch and asked to become a member of Let’s Get Published! Our very first!

What can I say? I was over the moon! Ok, so it’s just one out of thousands, but it marks the first real positive progress in LGP’s history. The members wer delighted when I told them, and I (currently) have half-a-dozen new submissions to upload to the website. If only I didn’t have to work for a living (LGP really is just something I do in my spare time – though it’s certainly more than a hobby).

Anyway, I just wanted to let the world know the good news. Let’s Get Published is here, and we mean to stay!

Home « Angry Wild Legends

Home « Angry Wild Legends

And so it begins…

So today I sent off my draught press releases to uptone. These should now find their way, over the next few weeks, onto the internet through various internet press release forums. Then we shall see how effective this form of promotion is. The next stage will be to shoot mails directly to publishers and literary agents. I’ll be provided special site logins to them so they can short-cut directly to member submissions.

I could Swear

When you walk down the street – past a schoolyard, near to a group of lounging teenagers, outside a pub wherever – you will not have to go far before your ears pick out certain words, key words, critical words, earthy words. Do you hear them? Even if you say “No, I close my ears as I go by” you still know they have been spoken, so even in your denial of them they find a way in.

I’m talking about swearwords. Oaths, as at some point they were called – which actually begs the question: when did ‘swear’ and ‘oath’ become so interchangeable? Anyway, that’s not the object of my rambling. What I’m curious about is what purpose swearing serves, and are there, should there be, any limits?

Swearing seems to serve several purposes.

1. It is used in an attempt to offend. In a show of defiance against conventional society some people (particularly the young) resort to this in an attempt at self-determination. I am different, they shout, not realizing that they follow in their fathers’ footsteps! Nowadays, of course, many of the words our parents would never dream of uttering (or so we, as their offspring, would like to believe) are so commonplace they blend into the background and are almost invisible, so used have we become to hearing them.
2. It is used as an adjunct to ignorance and prelude to (or attempt to avoid) violence. Not everyone has the glibness of tongue to be able to explain their point concisely, and often in that circumstance their primal tendencies come to the fore. Very often these tendencies lead to violence, and swearing is used in an effort to intimidate and belittle, reducing the target in stature. This can be seen on both sides of an ‘argument’, with the subject of an initial assault responding with violent words of their own in an effort to show they also have the ability to defend themselves.
3. It is used in an attempt to shock, for example in humour. How many comedians have resorted to vulgarity in order to raise a laugh from their audience? This is normally because the comic has determined (rightly or wrongly) that the basal level of the audience is such that crudity is the quickest way to their approval. Is this not simply a defensive use of swearing, an effort to ingratiate the comedian with his public?
4. It is used in the (extended) bedroom. Between partners there will always be those who are dominant and those who are submissive, albeit to varying degrees. The dominant will often use such words and require the submissive to accept them, and not infrequently the submissive party will expect and encourage this. Equally, the dominant may expect the submissive to use them, particularly with explicit self-reference.
5. It is used in an attempt to declare self-important independence. This is often the case with children/youngsters in their endless efforts to stretch the boundaries imposed by their parents/guardians, to show how ‘grown up’ they are.  Don’t you find it sad that they equate adult maturity with the ability to swear? It is a variant of points 1 & 3 above, but this is of course not understood by the child perpetrator!

So when is it OK to swear? And do we see the written swear word in a different light to when it is spoken?

Personally I see nothing wrong in using any word within a verbal conversation between agreeing parties. This can apply to sexual encounters or general banter. If the audience, sexual or otherwise, is happy to be sworn at then the speaker is at liberty to use whatever words they with.

Equally the presence of a written oath is acceptable to me. It helps to explore character, or emphasise context. Such words can be viewed as merely tools of the trade.

But are there limits? Should there be constraints on when expletives are used? I believe there are, or should be limits. The purpose of swearing is generally antagonistic, or disharmonious at the very least. So where should the line be drawn?

For me there is the absolute limit of childhood. We all know that children will swear. It is very much a case of monkey-see, monkey-do, and that is where I draw my own personal line (which, I confess, I have stepped across on occasion). My argument is this: we set examples. In the fashion of Mrs. Do-as-you-would-be-done-by, each of us know how we ourselves want to be treated, and have a moral obligation (I hate the word, but it works) to follow that creed. Society’s ills are not resolvable by simple expedients such as outlawing the use of particular words or phrases, but if we can reduce the negativity our children are exposed to in daily life then we at least go some way towards that goal.

There is a counter-argument that by continued and public usage swearwords lose their vulgarity and power, becoming subsumed into conventional language, and to some extent that is true. But I believe also there is need within people to know that there is a dark place where bad things lurk, and ‘bad words’ are a little window though which we can look in relative safety. Anyway, if we just took away the swearwords we have, then new ones would simply appear in their place.

So lets keep our swearwords. Let’s keep them special and powerful by using them only infrequently, and with specific intent. But let’s also try to keep them in the adult sphere if we can. We’ll never succeed in wholly stopping their use by children, but that’s not an excuse for not caring.