Have You Been to Booktown?

Today I went to Clunes in country Victoria, where each May they hold a Booktown weekend. Over the past few years, more and more bookshops have opened in this old town, and during Booktown, many more come in and set up and sell (mostly secondhand) books. Kind of like a mini Hay. Clunes Booktown has the perfect venue, as there are many historic buildings that are "unrenovated" and they add to the feel of old books and historic happenings.

What the Booktown organisers have also done is add a variety of writers' events to the weekend, including soirees, master classes and talks. As I'd not been to a writing class of any kind for quite a while, I decided to sign up for the master class with Peter Corris. I've been a fan of his Cliff Hardy crime novels for a long time and was keen to hear what he had to say. I have to confess that I went along with some trepidation. Everyone has a different idea of what a "master class" should be, and we were specifically told NOT to bring manuscripts. Hmmm...

The limit for the class was 10, and in the end there were four of us, plus Peter. We settled in a circle of old armchairs and waited to see what he would say. It turned out to be over an hour of simply talking about the ins and outs of writing crime and historical fiction. Relaxed, informative, insightful and enjoyable! We all got to ask every burning question we had, we got to talk a little about our own trials and tribulations in writing our novels, but mostly we listened to Peter talk about how he does it (and isn't that what we always seek - the experiences of others who've been around longer than us and gone through it all many times?).

Some of the things I can share include: Peter never writes outlines - he starts with Cliff Hardy and a client with a problem, and goes from there. I was interested in how he perceives the PI novel, with a very simple structure I'll share with my class one day! He talked about pacing, how much information and characterisation to put in, and how he thinks the writer firstly charms the reader (with that stuff) and then grabs them with immediate action. He used to write a Hardy novel in about six weeks, and now it takes him 9-10 weeks (and he mentioned Simenon who wrote Maigret novels in 48 hours!).

It's easy to sum up the time with a few quotes, but I came away feeling as though I had received some great insights, and confirmation that really, when it comes down to it, we all have to write our novels in our own way. What counts most is finishing them, seeing your vision through to the end. Peter said he thought that whatever we are writing, it needs to matter to us, and I agree.
(How many books did I buy? Two. Must be a record for me!)

Writing at the Business End

This semester I have a small class of students who are all serious fiction writers, and we are combining a high-level critiquing regime with an intensive program of what you need to know if you want to be professional and published. Among other topics, we've looked at contracts, the publishing process, how manuscripts are acquired, and talked about resources and organisations. This week, we started to focus on marketing, which meant a very interesting excursion to Carlton, where Borders and Readings bookshops are right opposite each other.

Before they got to the bookshops, each student had to choose three novels similar to what they were writing, then focus on one that had been recently published - what publicity had there been for the book, what reviews, by whom, did the author have a website and/or blog, how else has the book been publicised? When we got to the actual shops, I sent them off to find their chosen books. Where were they shelved? Face out or spine out? Anything extra? (Nobody reported their book on the special front-of-store displays!)

You can guess the results. Some of the books were not on the shelves at all. Some only had one copy available. Many were spine out. The reports on publicity and marketing were spotty (not the students, the results!). Several authors had no blog, a couple didn't have a website of their own. One well-known author had a website and a book trailer and lots of reviews. One dead author had a million things about him and his books, but hardly anything was generated by him (obviously - but also he was 75 when he died last year, so he probably thought it was all a waste of his time).

Then we compared bookshops. Borders was the obvious winner in terms of the range available, and the number of copies. But I also asked them - which bookshop would you prefer to shop in? Which bookshop would you feel did a good job of selling your book if you were published? Readings came out on top, unanimously. This was not just about prospective published authors analysing which shop would promote them better - it was also about where they would prefer to shop. I think it's a great validation of why independent bookstores are thriving in Australia - real customer appreciation and creating a sense of the "traditional bookstore" where you can browse and find gems and new writers to enjoy.

I wondered how many writers ever do this - look seriously at several different bookshops in their area and investigate how they operate, how they sell books, how they keep customers happy. It's all a business. As a writer, it's valuable to know in order to understand what happens when your book becomes a consumer item. What do you think of your local bookstores? Where do you prefer to shop?