Caroline Smailes

Today’s guest post is all about authonomy^TM, a writing community site for writers, readers and publishers, conceived and developed by book editors at HarperCollins. The idea stems from a desire to find the brightest, freshest new literature around and (for an unpublished writer) authonomy is ‘the place to show  your writing on the web’.

And, today, authonomy’s Digital Project Editor – aka ‘the fabulous lass that runs authonomy’ – Rachel Faulkner is talking about the changing face of publishing and authonomy’s first published novel, Mary Vensel White’s (very brilliant), ‘The Qualities of Wood’ (and I’ve 3 COPIES to give away at the end of this post…):

People talk a lot these days about the various negative changes going on in book publishing: lists are getting narrower, the market’s getting tougher, and hardly anyone gets taken out for wine-laden lunches anymore. What is less regularly acknowledged is that digital publishing is an exciting antidote to many of the challenges facing the industry. It’s good for publishers, because they no longer rely quite so much on traditional retail support, and it’s great for consumers, who can now get their hands on almost anything they can imagine without having to leave their house, or even change out of their pyjamas.

To capitalise on this, earlier this year we launched HarperCollins UK’s first digital only imprint with the publication of Mary Vensel White’s novel, ‘The Qualities of Wood’. Since then HarperCollins has launched several others (including this one for erotic fiction, discussions of which are guaranteed to spice up an internal meeting). But why publish Mary’s book as an e-book original? And why choose her novel to launch a digital list? Pretty basic really, it’s a truly good book.

‘The Qualities of Wood’ caught attention thanks to our online writing community authonomy – indeed, the imprint under which ‘Qualities’ is published is to be dedicated to the crème de la crème of authonomy authors. The novel follows the story of a young married couple, Vivian and Nowell, who take a break from city life to prepare the house of Nowell’s late Grandmother for sale. Nowell leaves first to begin work on his second mystery novel, and by the time Vivian joins him, a real mystery has begun: a local girl has been found dead in the woods behind the house. The death is ruled an accident, but even after this Vivian can’t forget the girl, can’t ignore the strange behaviour of her neighbours, or her husband.

After being ‘voted’ to the top of the authonomy chart by the community, Mary’s manuscript reached the desk of Scott Pack, publisher at The Friday Project of writers such as Andrew Kaufman, and, of course, Caroline Smailes. Scott liked the book a lot, and gave it a rave review, but didn’t feel it was right for his particular list. The manuscript then made its way around various other departments, to largely the same response: great writing, nice concept, difficult market, no thanks. As sadly is not unheard of, a good book was passed over because of the challenges of launching an unknown author into a difficult market.

So, when the decision was made to start an authonomy imprint, Mary’s novel was an obvious choice to publish – and not only because it meant we could take on a book we were unable to place traditionally, but because ‘The Qualities of Wood’ is a great reflection of the quality of some of the manuscripts on authonomy.  Authonomy is a website for aspiring authors that is currently home to more than 11,000 titles.  Given that it’s an open platform, some of these titles are naturally going to be a little – er – rough around the edges, but some of them are great. There are more than a handful of brilliant titles –bestsellers-in-the-making – just waiting to be discovered, and ‘The Qualities of Wood’ is testament to that.

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I rarely read eBooks, but I made an exception for ‘The Qualities of Wood’. I found it haunting, delicate and utterly controlled. I thought it truly beautiful. I loved the use of gossip and rumour and legend that threaded through the narrative, making ‘Qualities’, very much, my kind of novel. I savoured, I slowed down my reading, I absorbed. ‘The Qualities of Wood’ is a strong and convincing debut and Mary Vensel White is one to watch.

And, I have 3 COPIES of ‘The Qualities of Wood’ (epubs and/or kindle files) to give away. Simply leave a ‘please pick me’ comment by 3pm (GMT) April 27, then I’ll pop all names in a mug and ask a small child to select 3 winners. This competition is open to all.

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Jen Campbell has written the VERY fabulous ‘Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops’  and, today, to celebrate the launch, I’ve a copy to give away at the end of this post. But, for now, Jen tells us how the book (which I HIGHLY recommend) came about:

Some days bookselling is the best job in the world. Take today, for example. I work in an antiquarian bookshop in London, and I just got an email from a customer who ordered a book from us that she loved when she was a child. The book had arrived at her house that morning and she’d opened it to discover that it was actually her copy, with the gift inscription from her great-aunt inside. The book had been sold in a jumble sale forty years ago, and now she’s reunited with it. How wonderful is that? Stuff like that gives me the best kind of bookseller warm fuzzies. Lovely.

On the other hand, some days bookselling can leave a bookseller with a big ‘WTF’ expression on their face. One of these moments happened when I was working at The Edinburgh Bookshop a few years ago. It’s a wonderful bookshop in Bruntsfield, and I worked their part-time during the final year of my English Literature degree. One day, a customer came up to the desk and said:

Customer: Hi, I was wondering, did Anne Frank ever write a sequel? I really loved her diary.

Bookseller: Her diary isn’t fiction… it’s fact… She actually died at the end.

Customer: Oh, really? That’s such a shame!

Bookseller: Yes, it was –

Customer: I mean, she was such a good writer! What a waste!

I’m not sure what you can say to that, but after that, I started writing these things down…

Customer: Do you have a book that has a list of aphrodisiacs? I’ve got a date on Friday.

Customer: You know how they say that if you gave 1,000 monkeys typewriters, then they’d eventually churn out really good writing? Well, do you have any books by those monkeys?

Customer: I’m just going to nip to the supermarket. I’m going to leave my sons here, is that OK? They’re three and five. They’re no bother.

Customer: If my daughter wants to buy books from the teenage section, do you need to see some ID? It was her 13th birthday this weekend. I can show you the pictures of the cake. You can count the candles.

And so they go on. I started putting them up on my blog last May, and the links were thrown around Twitter, retweeted by Neil Gaiman and I was contacted by Hugh at Constable and Robinson asking if I’d like to write a longer version for a book. I’d just got myself an agent [Charlie Campbell, who works at Ed Victor] for my fiction, so my agent and Hugh had chats, contracts were signed, we brought on board the wonderful Brothers McLeod to illustrate the book and now, the book is here! It’s surreal to say the least. The book launch is tonight, so perhaps I’ll believe it more after that.

So, dear blog friends, I’ve a copy of  ‘Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops‘ to give away. Simply leave a ‘please pick me’ comment by 3pm (GMT) April 11, then I’ll pop all names in a mug and ask a small child to select a winner. This competition is open to all.

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About the author: Jen Campbell can be found on Twitter, at her blog or on Facebook.

A John Cleese Twitter question ['What is your pet peeve?'], first sparked the “Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops” blog, which grew over three years into one bookseller’s collection of ridiculous conversations on the shop floor.

From ‘Did Beatrix Potter ever write a book about dinosaurs?’ to the hunt for a paperback which could forecast the next year’s weather; and from ‘I’ve forgotten my glasses, please read me the first chapter’ to ‘Excuse me… is this book edible?’

This full-length collection illustrated by the Brothers McLeod also includes top ‘Weird Things’ from bookshops around the world.

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