Meant to post this up earlier in the week but completely forgot about it.

Is anyone going to the Society of Authors event in Manchester tomorrow?

It’s members only, and fully booked now so if you don’t have your name down already it’s too late. However, if you are going, I’ll be there – and it would be great to meet up.

Dee

I often wondered if it was worth joining any of these societies because everything seems to happen down south. Nice to see something happening a little further north.

Colin M

Colin, I have to confess I joined because I can… I’m sad like that! But I think it’s been worth the money so far.

Apparently they have meetings in the north twice a year. This one tomorrow includes a talk, aimed at authors signed up with small publishers, about marketing a novel – so unmissable for me.

Dee

Dee, if it's anything like the one I went to about marketing for authors, you should get some seriously useful stuff from it. And more generally, I've yet to go to an S of A do that wasn't both fun and useful. Besides, all writers benefit from what the Society's wrung from the trade over the years, so it's worth supporting for that reason alone.

Emma

Actually, Dee - that's one seminar I really would like to hear. Time for an online report

Just got back, Colin. I've made lots of notes so I'll post something up soon.

Dee

Brilliant. Although I'm working on my YA novel for sending to agents, I've got plans to set up a small independent publishing company (specialing in childrens - so any WW members with a script to send, stand by (8-12 or YA, novellas or short novels. No picture books )) so I'm all ears for any ideas to do with promoting small press books.

Been trying to extend my patio all day, and generally failing. Why don't gardens come flat as standard?

Colin M

I've got plans to set up a small independent publishing company

Colin, that's exciting.

Why don't gardens come flat as standard?

Good question. Mine this afternoon is 'Why don't novels come written as standard?' I think I'd rather come and give you a hand with your patio.

Emma

I'll stoke up the barbie.

The publishing thing isn't that exciting. It's just something I've been thinking about for a few years. I can do most of the hard work myself, cutting out any overheads, which originally got me thinking about self publishing - but that feels like cheating, so I've decided to still try for the big deal with my own novel, but still pursue the publishing idea as a hobby - firstly with a small collection of stories (under a pseudonym) directed at boys who have difficulty in reading. A bit sexist, but girls can fill their boots with Jacqueline Wilson (who actually helped my own son see the attraction of books - so the boys have got her too!)

Colin

There's a market for that, I'd have thought, speaking as a non-boy with a child of each gender.

I remember realising with a shock that even my fiction-loving son still whooped with glee when the otherwise admirable Oxford Reading Tree scheme finally reached a level where he could read FACTS. My experience is that as well as a distinct lack of spaceshippy thrillers and football among the stories, there isn't nearly enough non-fiction around at all reading level, or fiction which delivers lots of fact and action. Plus children's non-fiction seems to have to be highly-illustrated and therefore expensive. You can reliable hook most girls with stories, but boys less so - hence the success of the Horrible Histories I imagine.

Emma

I think that's part of the attraction of Anthony Horowitz. Baddies never pull out a gun, they pull out a 9mm barretta with an active n-grade flat-muzzle silencer.

Tch! Boys and their toys.

I'm sure you're right. Horowitz knows his Bond, who invented that genre. It's Information, (safely divorced from any worryingly emotional overtones) plus it gives the reader that blissful sense of being part of the in-crowd. Mind you, he also writes a cracking story - my son and I were both riveted to The Devil and His Boy, which is set in Shakespeare's London, and I'm a fan of Foyle's War. AH good author too: I've seen him in action.

Emma

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What I meant was, AH gives good author too.

Another thought:

'The obsession with brand names in traditional chick lit has its origins in the writing of Ian Fleming, and performs the same function for the reader.' Discuss.

wow, colin, respect on the publishng business front! Stories for boys w. reading difficulties sounds like a very good idea, too. Do you know of Barrington Stoke books? Very good for dyslexic readers or readers with other difficulties.
I am about to get involved with working for a small poetry press in the West Midlands, so am interested in the whole small press thing. Let us know when anything definite happens!

Colon,

directed at boys who have difficulty in reading

Sorry if this has already been mentioned but have a look at Quick Reads - launched in March just gone. There are some pretty big names so maybe you could benefit from taht exposure.

Nik.

<Added>

SOooooooo sorry. I meant COLIN!!!!!! COLIN, COLIN, COLIN.

Embarassed now!