Anakana Schofield on being a debut novelist:

First: why do the media care so much about the novelist – what pen she uses, what time she gets up in the morning – when they should be concentrating on the novel? .... Second: why can't I get paid for many of the articles I write? (Though I am getting paid for this one.) .... Third: why is there so much fuss in the media about how to write a novel – "everyone can become an author" – when the more important thing is how to read one?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jul/25/anakana-schofield-how-to-write

My reply to her three questions would be:

1. No publicity is bad publicity.

2. Market forces.

3. Silly question. It is like saying "Why is there so much fuss about how to build a house when the important thing is to live in one?"

I saw that article. Was going to post a link to it here, but you have beaten me to it, Emma.

Yes, the obsession with personal details about authors really annoys me. I don't want to be forced to give away bits of personal information and to have my photo all over the place - it's one of the things that is putting me off continuing to chase writing success. One of the nice things about being an author used to be that it was a profession one could pursue in a very private way.

I love Mrs Gaskell's (sp?) reaction to a journalist writing to her to ask for some personal details. She turned the request down flat, and said that the public simply didn't need to know anything of that nature, because it was only the work that mattered. I totally agree with her.

It's a consequence of a general dumbing-down, isn't it, as well as a result of the rise of celebrity culture.

It's a consequence of a general dumbing-down, isn't it,

I disagree, I think it is about human nature - we are, as a species, curious about each other and there is nothing wrong with that.

She has every right to refuse to answer any questions she doesn’t like, but shouldn’t be surprise, or moan, when they are.

The point is, Bunbry, that these days one almost isn't allowed not to answer at least some of the questions. It's an accepted thing that the public will have some personal piece of an artist.

I'm not sure that's an accurate perception Catkin. I'm sure lots of famous people manage to maintain a private life.

I'm sure lots of famous people manage to maintain a private life.

Oh really? Which ones, and why are you sure that they do?

Well in the world of books, there seem to be names that never really make it into the media for anything other than there books.

Phillip Pulman, Alexander McCall Smith, Sarah Duncan, Vince Flynn - four authors from my own bookshelf. I couldn't tell you how old any of them are, what they look like or what previous jobs they have had.

Keeping you life private ain't rocket science if that's what you want to do.

Some years back I was at a children's writers' conference in Oxford, talking to Jan Mark in the bar. Philip Pullman strolled in and sat down to talk to us (he was an old friend of Jan's). At the time, he was the biggest children's author after JKR. He'd just turned up; no one knew he was coming. There was no press following him. As for invasion of privacy, no one swamped him. He stayed for most of that day; was even happy to have his picture taken with an ex-WWer's arm around him. Okay, this was a convention for writers, editors and agents, not fans. But all the same, I think at least where writers are concerned you don't need to fight too hard for a private life. Another factor, I think is the way a writer projects himself. Pullman has always had the demeanour of someone who puts writing first, who isn't the slightest bit interested in the celebrity side of things; and people treat him accordingly.

Another example: a few years ago I was on a panel at a convention with Neil Gaiman. Again, he just turned up on his own. Yes, fans talked to him but there was no invasion going on. And with the panel itself, there wasn't a single question about his private life from the audience.

I think it was Cliff Richard who once said, if you see a photograph in the news of someone famous coming out of a restaurant, it's because their agent tipped off the press that they'd be there. And doesn't Samuel R Jackson take the tube on his own when he's in London?

I looked up the first two of Bunbury's examples of "private" authors, and the very first thing that comes up is exactly how old they are. And there are enough photos of both of them to fill a dozen family albums.

I challenge you all to find me an example of an author who is well known and currently writing, but who does not have lots of information about and photos of himself or herself all over the internet.

JKR said that before she was outed, it was becoming very difficult to keep the deception going.

I believe that having a lot of personal information easily available on the internet can be dangerous - lots of authors have trouble with stalkers, and I bet you anything that this problem was nothing like as severe when there was less personal information available.

I suspect we might be talking about two slightly different things: the inevitable appearence of personal details on the internet and keeping out of the public celebrity eye.

But, taking up your challenge - it occured to me that I know next to nothing about one of my writing heroes, William Kotzwinkle (I love his earlier stuff anyway). Then again, I'm not one to be that interested. Be that as it may, I just had a quick look on the internet and could find zilch about his personal life. Even his Facebook page is maintained by fans.

And I still think demeanour plays a big part. I just finished a fantastic biography of Ray Bradbury. It was written with full co-operation of the author, and is a brilliant read for other writers. However, the personal stuff is thin on the ground. But I think that's because Bradbury never pushed it in his demeanour. Therefore people were never really interested.

I think you do have to make a very clear distinction, though, between authors who established a following before the literary circuit and the internet were an almost-unavoidable part of the deal, and authors who are trying to establish themselves now.

That's not just because the Bradburies, and Pullmans, say, get enough offers of work and media attention that they can to some extent pick and choose which they want, and go for the stuff that has some value for them. It's also because there are plenty of people who don't need much reminding about who they are and what the new book is, to buy it. (And even so, there's a big difference between, say, the sales of the otherwise very comparable (in market terms) Graham Swift and Ian McEwan. And it's not just because GS didn't write Atonement; it's also because he does very little eventery and so on. Even more so Barry Unsworth, who's not nearly as well known as he should be.)

But for those who haven't been around as long... The world is a lot noisier now. The book-buying public is wider than ever before (remember: 60% of the population has never set foot in a bookshop, even before they all started closing. We have a lot to thank the supermarkets for, on that score) but there's more non-book competition than ever before for their attention - and not just in the CDs and DVDs next to the books in the supermarket and the downloads on the websites.

The only real sensible comparisons, when you're trying to think about these issues, are between authors first published in - say - the last twenty years who have gone along with a lot of this, and authors first published in the last twenty years who've refused to.

The media want personal stories because human stuff is the quickest and strongest way to catch the interest of humans.

It is possible to think through the wills and won'ts, as Jerusha Cowless discussed here:

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2013/01/am-i-single-handedly-ruining-my-career-by-not-talking-personally.html

The real art is being able to establish your own boundaries, and then stick to them. But that's difficult when you're on a festival platform, or with a journalist who's had twenty years' experience compared to your three months. We all know that "no comment" can sound not just grumpier, but also more suspicious, than any amount of soul-baring. I've had to email a journo and say, "I know I said X, but will you please leave it out?". Luckily he's a nice bloke and it was a glossy mag and a lot of the merry-go-round does actually work on everyone being happy with what gets said. Learnt my lesson, though: it was only the second interview I'd ever done of any sort.

Of course you do have to take the consequences of your decisions about this stuff, as presumable Graham Swift has. The difficulty is that, in the nature of consequences, it's very difficult to predict how and what they'll be. It's one thing to think "I'm not prepared to splurge all over the gutter press, even though the Daily Mail does want a big article about how my hideous divorce and off-the-rails children inspired my debut novel. I'll settle for smaller sales."

But if - rightly or wrongly - you believe that not playing the public's game, as interpreted by the media, and channeled through to your publicist, won't merely result in smaller sales, but in your publisher not wanting your next book, it's hard to resist.

But though no publicity may be bad publicity, at least in the short term, at least in terms of sales, it can be very bad indeed for the central core of yourself, which is infinitely more important, because that's where your writing comes from. You do have to have and protect some kind of central integrity, which includes some kind of central privacy. Otherwise you're killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

I think you do have to make a very clear distinction, though, between authors who established a following before the literary circuit and the internet were an almost-unavoidable part of the deal, and authors who are trying to establish themselves now.

I think this is so true.

Also, I think part of the problem is that the industry doesn't have a huge budget (and to be honest, isn't that great at marketing) and is constantly trying to second-guess the media by looking for angles that might generate publicity in the mainstream press/ social media etc.

I have personal experience of this in a tiny way. A few years ago I wrote a novel which is about a woman who, unintentionally and unwillingly, finds herself in the full focus of media scrutiny. Some of you will know I hoped for a while that it might be the one that got me a deal as it triggered quite a lot of requests for the full. Anyway, while this novel was doing the rounds, I met with a very well-known uber-agent, and the first thing he asked me was if I'd had personal experience of this kind of media scrutiny. I said I hadn't, but that wasn't completely true. The idea of writing about voracious tabloid interest was originally triggered by something that happened to a member of my family - a terrible tragedy that for a while, meant they lived with the curtains drawn and the press camped at their garden gate.

My book wasn't a tragedy - the story was very different and totally made up - but the starting point came from watching real life. Now obviously, the novel didn't have what it took to get a deal, but it elicited enough interest for me to know it wasn't complete rubbish. Who's to say that a willingness to spill the beans and tell a juicy, Daily Mail friendly story might not have tipped the balance? Obviously I couldn't have done that in this case, it wasn't my story to tell, but it made me think about what I would be willing to do to get a deal. I think I had felt very compliant up to that point, but the fact that the agent was clearly much more interested in the potential background story than in the writing made me less star-struck than I otherwise would have been (and I haven't subbed to him with my new book).

Edited by saturday at 11:48:00 on 29 July 2013

Saturday, that is such an interesting story - and yes, as you say, you can't know that baring all would have got the deal, but you can't help wondering.

And if it was your story, rather than someone else's, it would be much harder, I suspect, to hold onto the conviction that you wouldn't talk about it, if it might actually get you published.

the industry doesn't have a huge budget

This is so true.

The one session I managed to get to at the RNA conference a couple of years back, was given by an editor, talking very interestingly about process of having your book published.

She didn't put it quite so bluntly, but it was basically a nice, women's fiction debut of quite some charm, and no obvious mega-stratospheric prospects, more the hope of establishing a solid readership with a book-a-year, and if it hasn't succeeded in doing so in three or four books the author will be dropped. Standard stuff, in other words.

And it was clear that they had virtually zero to spend on publicity and marketing. Yes, the book was - say - about knitting, and they mailed knitting circles and so on. I rather think the whole dept knitted little favours to send out with the proofs, and had a witty competition on the author's knitting blog - that kind of thing. But what there really wasn't was hard cash for marketing. And publicity - which is basically the coverage you can get for free - takes huge amounts of energy and time, which is money in a company of course, and as I'm sure Flora will confirm, sometimes with an unknown (or even a known) it can be like banging your head against a brick wall.

Edited by EmmaD at 12:02:00 on 29 July 2013

I agree completely with all you say, Emma. Great blog post, too.

I just had a strange thought: one of the reasons I don't enjoy modern writing as much as I enjoy older work is that in the older work, the personality of the author shows much more. The modern trend is against what's called "author intrusion" . One of the so-called 'writing rules' is to stay in the character's viewpoint and not allow the appearance of the writer's point of view. But one of the things I most love about older work is that I get a very good idea of what the author is or was like as a person, and what I most love about my favourite fiction is the little "irrelevant" bits where the author drops in a brilliant thought about life in general, rather than just the life being represented in the actual book. It seems very odd that in an age where the trend is for fiction that presents itself as having no narrator or viewpoint beyond that of the characters, there is also a huge trend for wanting to know personal things about an author. Could it be that because the personality of the author is no longer so much in the work, this lack is somehow felt and that this is one of the things (apart from the growth of celebrity culture) that drives the desire to know personal details about writers?