International research: it’s enough to give you a nosebleed

When I was in Japan earlier this year I tried to interview a local friend of mine. I’d hoped to capture her story on audio for later use in some kind of podcast or radio documentary. She’d already spoken about her experience in English (her second language) with great depth and lucidity. When I asked her if I could record an interview she was pleased. And then she said, ‘Would it be OK if you gave me the questions first, so that I can write the answers and read them to you?’ She wasn’t prepared to go on the record without perfect English, yet  I wasn’t interested in a perfect answer. It was an awkward situation both practically and culturally.

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As I pursued that ill-fated international story I frequently found myself in quagmires of cultural difference. I came to the conclusion that I’d best improve my processes before I visit the country again.

At NonfictioNow this Saturday, four writers (Benjamin Law, Desmond Barry, Mieke Eerkens and Stephanie Elizondo Griest with David Carlin) will front a session, International Research and the Nonfiction Writer. They’ll provide us with practical information and encouragement on writing and researching in lands far away.

Australian writer, Benjamin Law (The Family Law, Gaysia) is fast becoming an expert on researching and writing overseas. For his most recent book, Gaysia he traveled to seven different countries over 18 months, ‘I got used to writing the book in windowless hostel rooms in Malaysia, overnight train compartments in India and airports,’ he says.

Traveling in itself can be food for frustration. Add to that the desire to research a story and you need to develop a high level of flexibility. Language and cultural barriers can take you to the wrong place. Like the train Law accidentally took in India, ‘Think: kids in the luggage compartment, peanut shells all over the floor, human shit on the toilet walls (no joke) and such a density of people that grown men insisted on sitting on my lap.’

But frustration and inspiration often come hand-in-hand. ‘That sort of stuff was hilarious too, and I can remember laughing like a madman throughout it all, thinking it'd make for great material,’ says Law. (Indeed, in writing this post, I’ve just rehashed my own frustration in my first paragraph).

Those of us who are interested in international stories are also interested in being overseas. ‘Going to a country I've never been to before makes me feel 10-years-old over again. Everything is interesting and new and stimulating, and the people you meet are constantly surprising. It's enough to give you a nosebleed,’ Law says.

In a bid to ensure he understands the fundamentals before leaving home, Law reads up a lot. He organises a quota interviews including one close to his arrival, ‘with someone who could give me the lay of the land… [and] more stories and leads to follow,’ he says. When he knows he’s traveling a lot he buys a year of travel insurance.

Like me, Law has been frustrated by language. ‘Good interpreters and translators are expensive, and sometimes the subject matter calls for people who are sensitive to what you're writing about,’ he says. And then there’s budget. Even with an advance on his book Law, ‘also dug deep into my savings. By the time I'd filed the final edit, I was the poorest I'd ever been.’

Writing and researching overseas ‘is sort of humbling too… it was a good reminder that writers are supremely lucky… All I needed was my laptop, my notepad, pens, backpack, good plumbing and a lockable room every night,’ says Law.

This session could be a corker for anyone planning or writing stories away from home. (Speaking with Law has alone buoyed my plans for another Japanese story).

Researching internationally isn’t easy. But Law insists we must not be discouraged. A good story is a good story, no matter where it is. ‘I've got two ideas for follow-up books… that are driving me insane every time I think of the logistics, but screw it – they have to be written!’

Benjamin Law will be presenting in the session International Research and the Nonfiction Writer with Desmond Barry, Mieke Eerkens and Stephanie Elizondo Griest and David Carlin on Saturday 24 November at 10.00am.

Visit the NonfictioNow website for more detail.

A voice from the future

‘Cliff hanger’ and ‘conference’ are words that don’t often play in the same scenario. But when Malcolm Neil was cut off mid-presentation at last week’s Independent Publishers Conference these words came to mind. Neil is Director, Content Acquisition and Publisher Relations, APAC at Kobo Inc. Kobo provides e-reading services (including e-readers and e-books) to over 200 countries. When Neil’s presentation abruptly concluded, he was sharing some choice insights into the behaviors of e-book purchasers. This is an advantage that e-books have on the ‘device’ of a hard copy book: detailed metrics. Although providing the ‘detailed’ part would be commercially sensitive, Neil still gave interesting metrics to conference delegates. For example, Kobo has configured their email marketing to book-buying prime times: 10am and 8pm (you’ll notice a change in my social media habits as a consequence). Women are the predominant e-book and e-reader buyers (no surprises there). Women 65+ buy more than 12 e-books per year (that one did surprise me).

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Neil spoke to us onscreen as if from the future. In fact he presented from his Singapore hotel room via Skype. And then his video-face froze, and a little ‘bzit’ line went across the screen and we all said, ‘Oh dear’. Neil did try to call back, but we lost him again and went on with the other presentations.

Speaking to him after the event I mentioned the technology had let us down. In fact it was the electricity at his hotel – not the Internet – that failed us. It’s an important point, given our subject matter.

Neil provided a few more choice stats to me. The bad news for non-fiction writers is the e-book market is predominantly a fiction one (more like 80/20 fiction/non-fiction in contrast to 60/40 in the print market). On the upside, there are more opportunities to find readers for self-published work, which as Neil says, ‘Is a little obvious when you think that in a physical book store you’ll find next to no self-published books.’ Still, it’s always good to see the theory reflected in the stats. Around 5% of e-books purchased are self-published.

I came from the conference with a sense that publishing had perhaps made amends with the ‘threat’ of e-books. Maybe it’s because I’m semi-converted (I’m distributing my own work and reading others’ electronically). Perhaps there’s room for both print and electronic. Maybe the change in publishing will hit a point of disruption to traditional publishing rather than complete annihilation.

‘That notion [of disruption] is not borne out by the evidence,’ Neil says. ‘Where you might have sold 3,000 copies of the [print] book you might sell 1,000 in the future. And those numbers will continue to change.’ Bookstores everywhere have modified their stock to include products that – unlike books – bring in strong margins. In the Australian context this need is exacerbated by fluctuating exchange rates.

‘I think there’ll still be bookstores and print sales because it’s an object, and people like buying objects. But ultimately as the economy of e-reading becomes more affordable [the print book is] in danger of becoming a secondary part of publishing.’ As well as that, once readers buy into an electronic provider (such as Amazon) they’re within that eco-system. ‘They’re going to get other emails about physical books. So they’re going to start purchasing [those] online as well,’ Neil says. He reminds me to look at job cuts in publishing and, ‘the way large publishers are nervously reconfiguring their businesses.’ (Although, as Mark Davis tells us, technology isn’t the only reason these changes have occurred).

Paper-book lovers will be glad to know that while in Singapore Neil bought a print book. It was a hand-stitched artifact by Math Paper Press. But he says, ‘In terms of the last mass-market [print] book that I bought… I can’t remember the last time I did that.’

Watch a video of Malcolm Neil presenting more choice info at the Copyright Agency's 2012 Annual Seminar 'Digital Publishing Today'.

Mini-magazines and long form distribution

There’s a session at the NonfictioNow conference that couldn’t be more appropriate for this blog: ‘Longform Nonfiction and Online Distribution’. Four emerging practitioners of the non-fiction form will, ‘explore the role that reading and writing online have [in influencing their] work, while engaging in a form of cultural activism, in which writers are found fighting for more space for longer works of nonfiction,’ (from the precis). As the words ‘activism’ and ‘fighting’ imply, there is a certain chutzpah involved in pursuing long form these days. Aggregate sites like longform.org and longreads.com as well as initiatives such as Kindle Singles, The Atavist and Byliner have provided new US-based venues for writers. The presence of these and other digital-first publishing initiatives (like Editia in Australia) have given me cause for celebration. But, as writer Elmo Keep reminds me, things aren't ideal in the Australian context.

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‘In terms of traditional mastheads where there’s a focus on extremely high-quality long form investigative-based journalism, we don’t really have many places to choose from in Australia. We’ve got a really rich and very alive literary journal tradition here. But that’s different to magazines. There are very few options to Australian non-fiction writers who want to write long, get published and get paid,’ Keep says.

Writers like Keep have successfully pursued overseas markets to publish their long form work. But pitching to overseas publications – such as those in the US – can be restrictive for Australians. ‘Unless it’s an exceptional Australian story that resonates universally [those stories getting published are] probably going to be something that appeals to American audiences,’ says Keep.

The US market is particularly strong (compared to Australia which can boast just a handful of print publications that publish long form work). ‘We do have places where our stories go but they’re niche places. We have nothing like a national magazine with the reach of The New Yorker for example,’ Keep says.

Keep values the opportunities overseas publications can give to Australian writers, but she is concerned about a trickle-down effect. There could be ‘a poverty of people writing Australian stories.’ The session at NonfictioNOW will consider the climate for publishing long form non-fiction in Australia. ‘We’ll be talking about that, about why our magazine culture is what it is or isn’t, and about how you can get your work out,’ says Keep.

These days, finding a publisher is just one challenge to establishing a career for new and emerging writers of long form non-fiction (this Venues and Resources page can be helpful). Another is in facing the call to ‘build’ an online ‘brand’ or ‘platform’ from which to promote our work (and/or determine how necessary this really is). To my mind, Keep has built her writerly brand relatively well. She has a strong online presence and over 3,000 Twitter followers.

Keep says acquiring this presence was organic. She’s a self-described nerd who has been online since 1995 (when the Internet was mostly about community). She was there, ‘before brands invaded the space. Before the idea of a personal brand was even a thing that someone would say.’

‘I just wanted to be someone on Twitter who you would want to follow because that person was always sharing things that were interesting or funny or hilarious... Just being like a miniature magazine,’ she says.

Having an online presence never hurts says Keep. ‘It can lead to great opportunities and it can lead to meeting great people.’ It’s useful for research, interviewing and being part of a community. But she warns that, ‘there can be a little bit of snake oil that goes around. The only thing that’s ever going to be good is [good writing. The writer’s ‘brand’] is always going to be auxiliary to everything else that goes into publicising a book. It’s not a replacement for being interviewed on Radio National or getting reviewed in The Australian,’ she says.

Using these platforms successfully is, ‘about catching a really wild tide on the Internet – which you can’t create. If you’re pouring all your time into that and not pouring that time into doing meaningful work then it’s completely self defeating.’

Elmo Keep will be presenting in the session Longform Nonfiction and Online Distribution with John Proctor, Ronnie Scott, Sam Twyford-Moore and Steve Grimwade on Friday 23 November at 3.00pm.

Visit the NonfictioNow website for more detail.

Reading and writing are social acts

‘One of the things that’s most annoyed me about the present debate [in publishing is that] it’s boiled down to one between techno-evangelists and technophobes,’ says Mark Davis Associate Professor (University of Melbourne) and non-fiction writer (Gangland: Cultural Elites and the New Generationalism). ‘We get caught up in that divide all the time and it doesn’t get us anywhere.’ While the neon light on top of the tallest building in town heralds e-books and digital media as the big challenges in publishing, Davis reminds us that the sector was in a state of crisis before these came along. ‘In Australia [that] oriented around questions of pricing, questions of distribution, battles for market share and how they play out,’ he says.

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In his keynote presentation at the Independent Publishers Conference Davis will draw on his research at Melbourne University to consider the various issues that have flowed from the last few years of ‘absolute doom and gloom’ in the publishing industry. ‘Everyone seems to think that it’s all over [in publishing] – it doesn’t matter which side of the digital divide they’re on,’ he says. Davis is interested in that notion, but encourages us to expand our thinking.

‘All the talk has been about the economic side of publishing [but] reading is a social act,’ Davis tells me. What we write in long form is tied to a human need to communicate and debate ideas, be they personal, cultural, historical, political and so on. We can discuss delivery and distribution of writing from an economic or commercial perspective. But we must also consider how changes in delivery and communications help or hinder society.

It’s a timely reminder in a week when US citizens are deciding their next president – many on the basis of information and opinions they have gleaned from a wider socio-political debate (to which writing, and long form have contributed). Of all the questions that circulate around publishing, and the future of publishing, the one that engages Davis is how to create (or maintain) a sense of polity and democratic purpose for society in a new media galaxy.

‘One of the things that interests me about the post-digital transformation is the de-professionalisation of writing,’ says Davis. It puts power in the hands of many and provides forms of access. But it’s a double-edged sword, ‘At the same time it completely fragments audiences and the notion of a polity,’ he says.

‘All of our traditional models of intellectual culture are around print,’ says Davis. Given this we need to ask ourselves how intellectual cultures operate in a digital world. ‘Do we need intellectuals? Do we want intellectuals? Are they just elites that we could do without anyway? Or did they have something to offer? If so, what did they have to offer and how was it presented?’ Davis asks. Oftentimes, he says, it is presented via long form non-fiction.

Long form has been central to the whole idea of modernity and democracy. A downturn in the numbers of readers for long form may well be perceived as a commercial issue for writers and publishers. But Davis says the bigger issue is understanding, ‘what that social compact [of modernity and democracy] looks like if people aren’t really interested in long form.’

Technical, commercial and economic disruptions in the publishing industry need to be considered. But a greater concern for long form writers and readers may be finding a ‘social common purpose’ in a fragmented world. ‘[That’s] what long form’s always been about… exposing ideas, exposing wrongs and saying, “This is something that should be on our social agenda and it isn’t,”’ Davis says.

Speaking with Davis takes my outlook above the mechanics of delivering long form. ‘[A] commercial model might work or might fail. But who cares?’ he argues. Though the future for long form is in immediate terms uncertain, he says that, ‘where social problems are deep and acknowledged, and where they require thinking, there’ll always be a place for that sustained argument and that complicated, sophisticated approach.’

Mark Davis will be presenting a keynote speech, ‘Publishing in End Times’ at the Independent Publishers Conference 3.30pm, Thursday 8 November at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne.

If you want to be a writer, you have to be a reader

Are you reading as much as you’re writing? And if you are, what are you reading? Are you reading – and buying – the kinds of publications you want to be published in as a writer)? ‘So many people want to write, and less want to read,’ says Amy Espeseth, writer (Sufficient Grace, Trouble Telling the Weather), publisher (Vignette Press) and academic (NMIT). ‘If everyone who submitted to Geek Mook had bought a [copy] we would be able make a lot more future publications… our goal is to break even and we’re certainly not breaking even,’ says Espeseth.

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It’s a reality for small publishers echoed by Zoe Dattner, General Manager of the Small Press Network (SPUNC) , ‘So much goes into [publishing a work], and when it disappears without a trace [it’s disappointing].’ Dattner says this happens ‘all the time’.

I’ve heard the calls to writers to buy the publications we want to write for – as has Espeseth, ‘Oftentimes as writers we get kind of frustrated at the lack of money [and] the lack of support. I’m very much in support of all of the conversations,’ she says. But Espeseth has the publisher’s perspective too, ‘at the same time I’d like to acknowledge that (for me as a publisher) the money is coming directly out of my pocket. I’m gambling on you. I’m betting on you. And more often than not those gambles or those investments don’t work out financially,’ she says.

It’s a reality that the writers’ debates don’t always acknowledge. ‘Everything doesn’t have to be about money. It can be about producing beautiful books,’ says Espeseth. Even now I can hear a few writers calling foul. But I have to wonder about our priorities when Espeseth tells me, ‘It is difficult when you see people be at a launch celebrating and paying the equivalent of the cost of the publication for beer and then not buying the publication.’

The money debate aside, the relationship between writer and publisher has always been one of co-dependence. Writers don’t work in a vacuum. We need good writing and stories to read. We need new ideas to consider. We need guidance on our phrasing, structure and grammar (plus proofreading!). And of course, we need ways to get our work to readers.

While new media does give writers more options for distribution, going through a reputable publisher would be the choice of most. Validation from a publisher is a kind of vindication (not to mention flattering to the ego). And publishers are more able to get our work to readers. As well as that, publishers (and their editors) can vastly improve the quality of our work.

‘It’s a not very well kept secret for people who work in the industry that your editor or your publisher will sometimes change the trajectory of a work,’ says Espeseth. The Raymond Carver / Gordon Lish ‘partnership’ is an example at the extreme end of the spectrum, one which resulted in the later publishing of Carver’s stories uncut. But writers like Espeseth daily express their gratitude, ‘Without [Aviva Tuffield and Ian See’s] help and assistance I don’t think I would have ever finished [Sufficient Grace]. And it certainly wouldn’t be the book that it is without them,’ she says.

The secret may not be well kept, but it is, as Henry Rosenbloom of Scribe recently wrote, a ‘dirty’ one. ‘Everybody has internalised the editor’s role, without ever acknowledging the contingencies it has to deal with. Nobody outside the publishing house knows the challenges that were presented by a given manuscript, and nobody knows how much or what it did to help improve it,’ he writes on the Scribe website. The writer’s name is most often noted outside the publishing industry. But without the publisher there wouldn’t be a book, or at the very least, there wouldn’t be the same book.

‘Although the writer does a lot of work, the publisher does as well. And it shows a lot of foresight and commitment when people choose to put their time, energy and money into publishing someone else’s work,’ says Espeseth. That’s why the literary prize that she’s recently judged (with Bethanie Blanchard and Andrew Wrathall) awards both writer and publisher.

As its name implies, nominees for the Most Underrated Book Award (MUBA) can’t have won any major awards as a published book. It’s the kind of prize you would never aim to win, but having won it, would certainly celebrate (with your publisher). The shortlist comprises four fiction titles (The Dark Wet by Jess Huon (Giramondo), I Hate Martin Amis et al. by Peter Barry (Transit Lounge), Two Steps Forward by Irma Gold (Affirm Press) and The Cook by Wayne Macauley (Text)). The winner will be announced on 8 November and all four titles will be discounted 20% at Readings for a month.

Although this year’s final list comprises fiction, Espeseth says that nonfiction titles were nominated. It’s anticipated that next year’s awards will involve different genre categories.

The MUBA acknowledges the intrinsic ties (between writer and publisher) that lead to beautiful books and great reading. But as Espeseth reminds us, ‘the most important thing is to sell books. And without selling books … the publishers can’t continue to publish and then the writers have nowhere for their work.’

The deal at Readings will do its part to support the writers and publishers of the MUBA shortlist. Meanwhile I hope that writers will reconsider their budgets for beer and books.

Writing tight and loving hard arses

Revise your work. Write tight. Kill your darlings. Schya! I believe in these tenents. I do. But actioning them can be easier said than done. When I’m at the tightening phase of my work I check against Sol Stein’s 'Solutions for Writers', ‘Liposuctioning Flab’ chapter. This chapter has helped to surgically remove some baaad writing habits. And I workshop, too. Still, I have a sense that my work remains flabby. There are love-handles hidden that I am yet to grasp.

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‘I think it’s pretty hard to review your own work,’ says Ann Bolch, freelance Writer/Editor with ‘A Story to Tell…’ and ‘Clarity in Words’. I’ve known Bolch for a few years but it wasn’t until she reviewed my essay, ‘After shock’ that I realised she’s a literary nutritionist, a writing personal trainer. She grabbed those wordy love-handles and trimmed my essay.

While it’s true reviewing your own work is hard (distance and objectivity are often missing), Bolch gave me the kind of feedback that I take to every piece I write. She says that our common mistakes fall into a triad of ‘writing, trust and music’.

Review your work with these in mind to burn excess fat. I asked her to tell more and to edit this post to show you an exercise in writing tight.

‘Of course, writing is about the nuts and bolts. The grammar, the punctuation, the words ... and getting them in the right order,’ Bolch says. Failing to be tight on the writing level can make a piece, ‘just a bit overlong’. Beware of prepositions (for example ‘get up on top of’ when all we need is ‘get up’), adverbs (in ‘We finally wandered up the hill’ axe  ‘finally’) and superlatives.

Superlatives such as, ‘It was spectacular day’ take up too much space while at the same time getting in the way of description. Writers try to, ‘make sure that people understand where they’re going in the first sentence of a paragraph and then give a beautiful example. I call this a tell-show. Sometimes writers will even go the tell-show-tell just to make completely sure the reader has understood,’ says Bolch. We need to either tell or show. ‘If efficiency requires it, then tell. [There’s] nothing better than a quick this-is-what-we’re-talking-about to introduce [an idea],’ she says.

We should trust our readers says Bolch, ‘it’s also about trusting that you will have another brilliant idea sometime in the near future. You don’t have to get them all down in one go,’ she says. Kill your multiple-birth darlings. Remember also that the presence of a superlative, ‘can be a kind of throat clearing. It’s about getting that first sentence of the paragraph started,’ she says. Once that is on its way, piff the superlative.

‘The writing and trust aspects [also] affect the voice and rhythm of your work. Too many adverbs, superlatives or prepositions get in the way of the voice,’ says Bolch. ‘Voices are bound in word choice but it’s also about the rhythm.’ To check the rhythm, read everything aloud. Your unique voice will be in the way you describe what you feel, hear and smell.

Bolch believes that every writer needs to find a loving hard arse, ‘Someone who wants the best for you and your work and isn’t afraid to help you get it.’ A loving hard arse leaves their ego at their own desk, cares for what you’re doing and is both capable and brave enough to help you meet your goals.

‘Just a few pages of your work reviewed by a loving hard arse can improve your writing no end,’ Bolch says. ‘The flaws that you have, or the improvements you need to make in your short writing are going to be very similar [to your long form work]. All you need to do is add structural elements to longer pieces. [You’ll] probably learn 90% of what you need to learn,’ she says.

Rewriting those pages using the feedback will help reveal your voice and rhythm.

Need a loving hard arse? Hiring an editor can be an option. But Bolch warns against choosing an editor based on testimonials. Instead look at the editor’s work. See how they’ve marked up other writers’ manuscripts. Communication is crucial – so make sure an editor’s style is not too assertive or couchy for your needs. ‘If an editor can’t communicate [with you] then so what? Their [other skills] won't amount to anything,’ Bolch says.

‘All writers need a few people to draw on. And that’s what you need to be for yourself as well,’ she says.

At my desk I now have a list of action items: bad habits Bolch squeezed from my essay, which must not appear in the next. Like any weight loss program, slimming will take persistence. Let’s hope I can also develop a hard arse.

See this post with Bolch’s edits marked up.

Make way for long form

I have two TVs in my garage. They sit near the door, one covered in an old blue and white striped sheet. They’ve been there on two years now. A thick lick of dust has formed on the sheet. Every time I open the garage door – just after I feel its cool air on my cheeks – I see them wide, heavy and useless. Their cathode-ray shapes form techno-carcasses on the concrete floor. All they need is electricity to come to life again. But I know that won’t happen. Sometime soon I’ll have to find the strength to get them into the car. They’ll be at the tip before the year is out.

Those TVs came to me less than a decade ago – and not without a little domestic fanfare. One was bought new, the other a second-hand bargain I couldn’t refuse. They both have ginormous screens which I sat before daily in darkness. The shadows of hundreds of stories were cast in colour on the walls of their rooms. Then one day those TVs found their way to the garage. When I bought them I didn’t realise that it was possible for technology to change our habits so quickly. Now I don’t even have the need for a TV anymore. As a medium for storytelling those TVs have seen their last days.

In the early 1990s I thought this was a resonating quote:

The world has changed less since the time of Jesus Christ than it has in the last thirty years. (Charles Péguy, 1913)

Today it seems twee. Thirty years? Try three. Three years is all it’s taken me. The way I consume media over that period has changed so significantly that I now have a phobia about acquiring new hardware. New hardware that is: I’m still interested in stories.

In Australia we’ve just had another washout of journalists from our leading dailies, causing more prognostications on the so-called ‘questionable’ future of long form. ‘Long form is dead in this country,’ I heard a journalist recently say. To me that’s the same as saying that because my old TVs are now in the garage there’s no point in Aaron Sorkin ever putting pen to paper. True: the traditional formats for delivering long form to readers are fading. False: there will be no more long form. As Staff Writer for The New Yorker, David Grann recently said, stories are things that are, ‘in some ways wired into our DNA… People have been telling stories for centuries and centuries… It’s always [been] a part of our culture.’ The desire to read and write stories isn’t changing. Only the formats for delivery are.

Business models for delivering written work are in flux – but that doesn’t mean they won’t find equilibrium. Many print media organisations have been slow (if not resistant) to digital evolution. Part of that grogginess is a notion that everything in digital format has to be short – ‘for snackers’ as Executive Editor of ‘The New York Times’ Jill Abramson said in this conference presentation.

This idea that focus and interest are lacking in readers of digital content is a misnomer. Abramson, for example says that ‘The Times’’ long form pieces are among the most popular on their site. So why is it that so many feel that reading content digitally requires a different state of mind to reading it in print?

With a virtual inferiority complex, the early days of the Internet celebrated things that the printed page couldn’t offer. Hyperlinks, sound and animated gifs were cool while plain words were not. Circular storytelling was engaging but linear narratives were droll. Of those who had access, most were excited by the technology – yet uncertain of its future applications. It took visionaries like Steve Jobs to show us what was possible. But they didn’t have all of the answers. In 2008 Jobs added fuel to the virtual end-of-long-form fire, ‘It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,’ he said.

People do read, but where they get their reading from is changing. Our dailies are fast becoming anemic of good in depth and investigative content. I will miss reading them with a pot of tea in a comfy chair on the weekends. But I won’t go without those stories. I will find them somehow.

‘In my beginning is my end,’ TS Eliot wrote in 'East Coker', one of the 'Four Quartets':

‘In my beginning is my end. In succession Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.’

Eliot’s poem continues to describe loss and melancholy – a sense of things that might-be or once-were. He was of course writing on far deeper issues than I am now. But there’s a melancholy he expresses in 'East Coker' that is infused with what I feel about the demise of print media. Something I value is ailing and I want to somehow nurture it to health. Yet at the same time a part of me wants to put it out of its misery, to euthanise print media, so that digital can show us what it’s got.

Eliot concludes his poem, ‘In my end is my beginning.’ For a little while now words have been moving from the printed to the digital space. I wonder – if we can eventually get past our ‘grief’ – would the complete absence of print media give us a new beginning? I think it would. I think it would show us that though the business models for delivering long form are changing, the form will continue to exist. Long form hasn’t been killed by digital media anymore than screen culture has by the fact that my old TVs are now in the garage.

Robin Hemley on breaking rules

‘I write what I want to write,’ says Robin Hemley, author of eight books, winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Director of the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa and Editor of Defunct Magazine. ‘I tend to break the so-called golden rule [of knowing where you’ll pitch a story before you write it] all the time. Sometimes I’ll pitch it to a magazine and they’ll pick it or they won’t. But other times I just write it because it’s just a weird idea,’ says Hemley.

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He gets inspiration from all around, and has written on a huge range of subjects from the personal, through the anthropological and even academic (though I hasten to add, he’s not an academic writer). Hemley writes fiction too. His most recent book, ‘Reply All’, is a collection of short stories.

‘What I find is that you write the piece you’re going to write. If it’s any good at all you’ll find a home,’ he says. Hemley gives an example inspired in Prague, ‘One of my friends got pick pocketed on the train right in front of us. I started being interested in the whole notion of pickpockets and the art of pick pocketing,’ Hemley says. This began, ‘The Pickpocket Project,’ an essay that was completely written before being picked up by Jill Talbot in ‘Metawritings: Toward a Theory of Nonfiction’. More recently Hemley did a reading of it, and another editor expressed interest. ‘[Your good writing] will make its way through the culture in some way or another,’ he says.

Hemley uses social media to help his writing into our culture, ‘A part of me hates it. A part of me likes it,’ he says. ‘Increasingly writers are becoming these “circus barkers” having to draw a crowd to them. That takes up so much of their energy that when you get to the three-ring circus, what’s in the middle? Not much.’ On the other hand Hemley recognises the advantages of social media, ‘You’re able to very quickly make people aware of something you have written,’ he says. And using social media has resulted in increased sales of his recent book of short stories.

New technologies aren’t considered crucial in the Nonfiction Writing Program at Iowa University (where Hemley is Director). Students are given the opportunity to study radio and video essay production, but they aren’t made to learn these skills. ‘It always helps to be conversant in different technologies but when it comes down to it, it’s how good you are as a writer. It’s about content – not ultimately about the presentation alone.’ Hemley says that, ‘the most important thing is to hone one’s skills as a writer, and to have something that's worth writing about.’

What non-fiction writers choose to write has always been a popular subject in writing circles. The definition of truth has been the centre of countless discussions. But the release of a book earlier this year, ‘The Lifespan of Fact,’ by Hemley’s University of Iowa colleague, John D’Agata (co-authored with Jim Dingle) has fuelled the debate. (This review in the New York Times gives an overview). And it’s something that Hemley, Kate Holden, Lee Kofman and Lee Gutkind will be discussing at the Melbourne Writers Festival this weekend.

Gutkind, Editor at Creative Nonfiction magazine, is a big advocate for truth in nonfiction. By contrast, at the Melbourne Writers Festival ‘In Conversation’ session last weekend, Hemley puts forward an alternative perspective. ‘Fabrication and manipulation are a part of any artistic endeavour,’ Hemley says. ‘Lying,’ he says (using air quotes), is a part of the artistic process, ‘The sooner you understand that, the easier it is to write.’

Hemley won’t comment on D’Agata, but does question some of the decisions his colleague made in his original essay (which is the subject of the book). Hemley argues that even if a writer has meticulous notes, there is always some ‘lying’. To illustrate the point, Hemley does an exercise with his students. He makes them close their eyes and describe the room. ‘They always distort, that’s just part of it,’ he says.

The debate at ‘Fact, Fiction, Truth’ will no doubt be a corker. It’s on Saturday 1 September at 2.30pm.

Yes, but did you ask?

‘One of the primary joys of being a writer comes from the people you meet and the situations you get in.’ Sarah Marshal, Portland Review (April 2012). Getting into these situations takes a little chutzpah. Personally I’m an advocate of the ‘don’t ask, don’t get’ philosophy. If I’m really interested in a topic or a person I will ask for interviews. I wouldn’t say that I was ‘ballsy’ but I don’t see the benefit of staying mute.

For example, as a first year writing student I approached Toby Young, author of the hilarious book, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. Young generously gave me the interview, and I wrote up my piece. My teacher (David Astle) allocated points for chutzpah but David chided me for my final line. It read:

‘“I love being married and I love being a dad,” Young tells me. But when I ask him to elaborate, he declines.’

The goal of this line was to draw on the idea that there was a public Toby Young and a private one (or that’s what I told myself). But David saw that it revealed something else: I wasn’t prepared to ask the difficult question.

‘It’s a really common fault in emerging writers,’ says Margaret Simons, award-winning journalist, Director of the Centre for Advanced Journalism and coordinator of Masters in Journalism at the University of Melbourne. She’s referring to, ‘an unwillingness to do the difficult interview’ – a trade skill that has traditionally been taught in the newsroom.

Toby Young's book (also made into a movie) is about a writer who asks difficult questions.

Most emerging writers fear that an interviewee could become angry. Some simply don’t want to interview those with highly contentious or disagreeable opinions. Others don’t ask for interviews because we think we know what the interviewee will say. But as Simons says, ‘You don’t know. We’ve basically got to discipline ourselves to do those difficult interviews. It’s part of the job. It’s not an escapable part of the job.’

You may think you can fudge over your lack of questioning. But Simons says it's evident in your work. In its simplest form it shows in a bias (because you’ve interviewed people from only one side of the debate). More subtly it can be evident in the quotes (or lack of) from your main interviewee - like my first-year profile on Toby Young. (I didn’t want to push it. After all, Young is a hero of mine).

I ask Simons if she has any tips for those who do find themselves in an awkward situation with an interviewee. ‘Well,’ she takes pause, ‘Deal with it.’ We both laugh - but that’s the sum of it. ‘It’s not necessarily wrong to make people angry,’ she says. ‘They might not like the line of your questioning. But most people are mature enough to handle that. Usually what happens is that the reporter’s own discomfort with emotion in an interview… prevents us from doing the best possible job.’

Simons says her newsroom training taught her to ask the difficult questions, ‘If you filed a piece that didn’t have the other point of view, then you were told to go and get it.’ She recalls one incident during her cadetship where, ‘I was being fed a line by one side of [a] campaign and failed to get the other point of view.’ She ended up being on the receiving end of, ‘an extremely stiff and entirely justified,’ letter to the editor. She says she’d effectively ‘taken the drip… and people tend not to see it as taking the drip when it’s a point of view which they agree with.’

I like to think of myself as media savvy. I watch our local program, the ABC’s Media Watch. I think I can recognise bias in work. But I take heed in the fact that I am outside a newsroom of any description, working alone and very much within my own head. Though I like to see myself as objective I know I must take care. In the new media galaxy writers must be certain that we’ve asked the difficult questions.

If you’re in Melbourne (or will be in late August) checkout the schedule for the New News conference at this year’s Melbourne Writers Festival.

For writers of long form non-fiction Simons recommends:

‘What cost news’ ($19.50/$21.50) and the discussion afterwards ‘New News: Future of Journalism’ (free).

Also, Alan Missen’s Keynote ‘Oration Literature and Global Citizenship’ ($27/$30).

Do you have a Kindle alternative?

A book is a book is a book is a book. But an e-book? If only it were that simple. Once you’re ready to send your long form non-fiction into the new media galaxy, you will be presented with a smorgasbord of publishing choices – each with benefits and limitations. Eventually you will choose from them. It will be a very personal choice.

Before I hung up my shingle as a writer I worked in the digital industry. In over decade with that sector I learned that technologies come and go and that with each new development a new set of complications occurs. (If you’re interested, I wrote an article about this quagmire).

When I made my choice of publishing platform I went with the monolith, the dominant: Amazon. It was not only among the most popular formats, but also could be accessed through platforms beyond the Kindle. Readers could download it to their iPad or iPhone Newsstands (via the Apple store) or install a plug-in for their standard browser. Still the question came from a few readers, ‘I don’t have a Kindle. Do you have an alternative?’

The idea of an alternative ignited anxiety. I knew that if these readers couldn’t download a plug-in for their browser they needed something as simple as an attachment in an email. I wondered how I could control my copyright once I’d sent someone an attachment. How could I stop them from uploading my e-book to an Internet site, or forwarding it to others? (Whether they did it deliberately or not).

At first I looked into online systems developed to address this very dilemma. These systems manage the entire sales and copyright cycle. Users select the ‘digital goods’ they’re seeking, pay and get an electronic copy that is smart enough to control how the recipient distributes it (well, most recipients anyhow). This was exactly what I needed, but there are set up costs. And I’m just a writer, already behind on this particular venture.

Payment gateways (like Paypal) can be set up very quickly and with no cost. Paypal can even be used to sell digital goods automatically. (ie. Once the user has paid, Paypal will provide the digital file directly). But alone, a payment gateway like this couldn’t help with copyright control.

I pondered for weeks. How I could get my essay to this handful of readers? Eventually I came up with a simple, manual solution, which is based on an automated system I’d read about.

Once I have a payment receipt from Paypal I make a PDF of the article with the recipient’s name and email address in the footer, then email it as an attachment.

With their personal details on every page of the e-book, I hope a reader is deterred from passing the file on. And if the PDF does accidentally appear on a website, I’ll know where it came from. It’s not going to stop someone who is genuinely determined to undermine my copyright, but it should at least make some people think about it.

If you’re going to follow the same route that I did, make sure you understand the fine print in your Amazon agreement. Mine stipulates that the Amazon price has to be 20% less than anywhere else (even my own site). I didn’t notice this at first, but when they adjusted my Amazon sale price without telling me I soon realised my mistake. Still, it’s worth having the alternative: with the Paypal / PDF model you’ll get closer to 80% of the sale price (verses 35% on Amazon – depending on your pricing).

I will say one other thing about people who ask for an alternative. Of the half a dozen who have asked, none of them actually bought a copy via me. So if the idea of making fiddly PDFs doesn’t appeal I wouldn’t worry too much. Truth be told, I think most of them were hoping that I’d give them a copy for free. I have no problem giving out review copies, but I’m too determined to gain an income from my writing to give free copies willy-nilly. If I must do that, I at least ask the reader to make a donation that supports the community that my article is about.

Tweet like it’s 1999

Writers’ lore states that though writing for publication is a challenge, the bigger challenge is in promoting your published work: getting sales and readers. Without the support or contacts of a big publishing house, promoting your work as a self-published writer surely has to be harder. I imagine self-published writers as lone hitchhikers, holding their thumbs up along the shoulder of the information superhighway, trying to get noticed.

They say that social networks of the digital kind are crucial to getting picked up. Yet apart from ‘Don’t spam,’ solid tips on promoting your work this way are absent.

I confess that Twitter – and how to approach it – puzzled me for quite a while. But I think I get it now: Twitter is just one big party. Thus, when promoting your work on twitter, party etiquette applies.

1. Don’t stay in your clique or be anti-social

The day I published my article I sent out a tweet with a link:

My long form essay about my experience in Japan is now available to download on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007F8M7Y2

Are you still awake?! Apart from its dearth of worthwhile prose this tweet failed because it was addressed only to friends who knew what, ‘my experience in Japan’ actually meant. I didn’t specify the topic of the essay. Had anyone retweeted it (they didn’t) it would have been meaningless to others. It was the same as going to a party and only hanging out with people I knew.

Tweets promoting your work must be able to be understood and accessible by complete strangers.

2. Be charming and interesting

A few days later I tweeted again:

'After Shock', Experiencing the 2011 Japanese earthquake http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007F8M7Y2  #longreads‬

This at least referred to the topic of my essay - but the writing is still dull as! I had over 6,000 words which I’d laboured over. Yet all I did was tweet the title (a title which I now regret). A pull-quote from the article may have piqued more curiosity. I did better with this one but it’s still lame:

One week until the anniversary of the disaster in Japan. I remember the experience in my essay, 'After Shock' http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007F8M7Y2  Please RT

Hah! ‘Please RT’ (retweet) I’m not surprised that only four friends did.

Tweets promoting your work are as important as your article’s opening line. Make those tweets take potential readers right into what you are writing about. Take it as seriously as your lead.

3. Be polite

After a few days I used hashtags and included @ handles of people and organisations that I thought would be interested in my topic. Here’s one I sent to the US Ambassador in Japan:

@AmbassadorRoos I was in Sendai 3/11. I thought you & your followers might be interested in my essay http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007F8M7Y2  よろしくおねがいあします　

[This last part in Japanese roughly translates a classic Japanese saying, ‘Please be good to me.’]

Had I been at a party, I’m not sure I would have walked up to Ambassador Roos and said ‘Oh Hai! Can you promote my essay? Thanks! Please be good to me!’ and then walked away. I would introduce myself. I would take the time to learn a bit about him. I might comment on things we had in common. And once I develop that rapport I would mention my essay and ask Ambassador Roos what suggestions he had on how I could promote it.

Before you send a tweet to a stranger make sure you’re approaching them the way you would in person. Don’t barrel right in. Start a dialogue.

4. Make introductions and join conversations

A part of the challenge of using Twitter is getting a sufficient number of followers who are interested in your work and will help you promote it. You can do this using Twitter search (http://search.twitter.com). Search for keywords relevant to your work or knowledge then:

1. See what strangers are tweeting about and join their conversation.
2. Find people who are asking questions and answer them (or refer them to another twitterer/writer/subject matter expert who can [including @ handles]).

This is a great way to meet interesting people whom you might never have met otherwise!

Introduce people who have something in common, and when you hear people talking about something you are interested in, join the conversation.

5. Avoid boors and don’t become one

It's one thing to follow sources for news, information and entertainment. But just like at a party, there are occasionally people who monopolise the conversation. I have a few people that I follow who follow me back. This reciprocal arrangement can be nice. But beware of being a followee among hundreds (or thousands).

Tweeps who follow hundreds of people are generally boors. They follow anyone (and everyone) only because they want to be followed . When someone with a huge number of followers follows me I seldom follow back. Most of the time they’re only interested in their agenda. They don’t read tweets – they just write them. (How could they read those hundreds of tweets each day?!).*

Conversely, be thoughtful about who and how you follow others. Don’t ask your followers to retweet then not return the favour. Don’t expect them to read your tweets while blissfully ignoring theirs.

Avoid bores and don’t become one: read tweets, respond to tweets - engage with your followers and those you follow.

So, remember to twitiquette as to etiquette.

Getting it out there

In 2011 I found myself experiencing a very newsworthy event. I was in Northern Japan when the triple disaster hit (just in case you missed it, there was an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown). I was aware of opportunities to report from Japan during the disaster, but I knew I had a good story, and I wanted to give it time.

I eventually researched and wrote a 6,500 word piece, which I hoped to publish to raise awareness at the time of the anniversary. I broke the golden rule of knowing what publication it was for before I started writing. But because there was so much popular interest in the event, I was confident I could find a venue. Plus I wanted an international audience (so would publish online).

6,500 words is a long article - but the Internet is a big place, and I had structured my article so that it could be published in two parts of 3,250 words. I had no reason to think that pitching opportunities would be limited. In fact they were.

I spent days searching for publication venues. All I wanted was an audience for my work. I found many publications for non-fiction work but the vast majority – be they big or small, popular or boutique – limited their online word counts to 1,000 words. Those publications that had longer counts (eg New Yorker, Harpers, Vanity Fair) expected maturity in their writers (big names).  In the end, I found but one publication I could pitch to (I pitched, and got nothing back).

Writers know that sometimes we have to shelve an idea. But I had spent a lot of time on this article, and many people were interested in the experience. I couldn’t let it die on the basis of just one pitch! I considered publishing it on my own site to have it out in time for the anniversary.

But my site was just brochureware. I didn’t have an audience, and if I was going to self-publish I had to get an editor to review the work first (and this would cost me money). I would not only be giving my work away for free, but also spending money to do that. Self-publishing on my site would put me well out of pocket. (And anyhow, what’s that about? A fledgling publishing their own work? Where was the editor to validate and guide me? How could I get an audience for my work?)

I had to explore different avenues to get my work out there, and I did this from the perspective of an emerging writer. In the next post, you’ll get an overview of what I uncovered.

How important do you think it is to have an editor 'validate' your work via the old 'pitch' model?

Give up the newsroom or your career gets it

Last year I went to see a panel discussion at the Wheeler Centre and walked out feeling miserable. I expect a bit of melancholy after a sad film. But after a panel discussion...? Not so much. The panelists had a jaunty chat about newsrooms – full of anecdotes and great scoops.  For the most part I was enraptured. My mind’s eye cast their characters with Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. My props department furnished their newsrooms with Hollywood sets. I saw rows of typewriters, rotary telephones, moody lights and victorious moments.

My reverie had been sustained by fictions – that in itself should have been discouraging. But I’m a relatively practical person. I believe that if you don’t ask, you don’t get. So next I pondered how I might get into a real newsroom. Who did I know who could take me to one? Could I convince an editor to let me hang around for a while? For a good portion of the panel discussion I was dead serious about trying to get some experience in a newsroom. And then I realised… these newsrooms don’t exist any more.

It’s not as if I didn’t know this on some level. When I left my fulltime job to pursue a freelance writing career I knew I wouldn’t be a ‘reporter’ (or even a ‘journalist’). I knew I’d be alone at my desk when I wasn’t out researching. I knew I’d be sending pitches into the world with very few returns (successful or otherwise). Plus, my previous career was in digital media – so I knew the writing was on the ‘website’. I love getting published online because I get instant feedback from readers. Yet I felt an absolute loss that night. Great writing is most important, but what use was great writing when all I knew about publishing was now in flux?

It wasn’t just that new media had changed advertising models and thus affected budgets (and sizes) of newsrooms. In that panel discussion I realised that I had completely missed the boat as far as traditional publishing models went. I always presumed that I would be pitching to editors, and that even though the delivery formats might change, there would be venues (more than ever) for the kind of work I want to produce (non-fiction features).

I don’t believe that there are fewer readers out there (there are more). I don’t believe that citizen journalism heralds the end of professional writing. Nor do I believe that search engines negate the need for an ‘editorial package’. But in acknowledging the death of the traditional newsroom that night, I came to understand that if the newsroom had gone, then maybe the models on which I hoped to publish were gone too.

That certainly won’t stop me from writing long form (creative or narrative) non-fiction pieces. But it has made me wonder how my fellow emerging writers and I will get to our readers in the new publishing paradigm. And it has made me ask, What’s the future of long form? What do you think?