What with Black Spring about to be imminently landing on the shelves, I thought it was time to shut down this blog and start another. So from now on I'll be posting at Reimkennar, my new novel blog. Please follow me there!
Read More...Yes, I am hard at work on one. Having sworn to everyone that I thought the quartet was all the Pellinor books there were, I woke up one morning a month ago with an idea that was just there. It must have been hiding behind all my excuses. I'm now past page 50, and so far, so good. On good days I think I might finish it in July; on my rather more sane days, I think I'll type FINIS some time in September. Then there will be the endless process of turning it into an actual book, which takes ages. AND AGES.
It's a prequel, and it's about Cadvan. And that is all I am going to tell you until the damn thing is out. I haven't yet been able to think of a title for it. Did I tell you I am very bad at titles?
If you're very nice to me, and I'm very sure about them - which means, not for a good long while - I may post the odd sample chapter.
In the meantime, my gothic fantasy BLACK SPRING is on the way - it will be out in Australia late 2012, and in the UK and the US early 2013. I am very excited about this one. Also, in other exciting news, Walker Books UK is reissuing the Pellinor books with some smart new covers - which I adore - and some new intros from their hapless translator. They'll be out some time this year.
I know, I know, I haven't posted here in ages. Part of the problem has been that, although I've been very busy, there hasn't been much to tell you. Black Spring, which I told you about months ago, is now in the publishing tunnel, but it won't be out until Christmas 2012. That's ages and ages away, and excited as I am about it - and I am - it's a long time to wait.
However, I have idly published a book over the past couple of days. Years ago, when my daughter was around 11, I wrote a book for her called Jimmy Wonderspoon. I wrote a chapter every day and read it to her every night. It's an absurd adventure that begins in a suburb very like the one we lived in at the time, before it heads off into another world, and it featured all the cats we knew. I started writing it after a very vivid dream in which I was flying in a blue shoe over a strange, purple land full of wonky houses.
Nobody has much been interested in the manuscript, and so it's been languishing in my drawer - or, more accurately, in the bowels of my computer - ever since. But then I read about an author who put her unpublished books on Amazon Kindle, and thought, well, why not? The worst that can happen is that nobody takes any notice. So I made it into an e-book, and now you can buy it on Amazon.
It's been very satisfying. I like publishing things, and have often published magazines (not to mention blogs), but I have never published a book before. I hope the cover is not too naff. It's the best I could do with my limited talents. I am still rather fond of the story, and my kids enjoyed it, so maybe others will too. Blurb below, with handy links for anyone who knows any young readers.
JIMMY WONDERSPOON
For Ages 9-12
An adventure story in sixteen chapters and eight cats.
Sam Gorey knew that she had an odd family, because other people said so. She lived with her mother Elena in a little house by the sea, and her uncle Jimmy Wonderspoon, who most people thought was even stranger than Elena, lived around the corner. Her father, David Gorey, had disappeared two years before. It wasn’t that unusual not to have a Dad, but it was unusual to have a father who had literally vanished in a puff of blue smoke at the supermarket while he was buying toothpaste. Just after her tenth birthday, Sam discovered her father was not only a wizard, but a spy, and not only a spy, but had been thrown into prison in another world peopled by cats and rats. And that was only the beginning of her accidental quest to rescue her missing father from the evil Ingkor of Wat...
A book for younger readers from the author of the best-selling fantasy series, The Books of Pellinor.
Sample chapters
Buy at Amazon Kindle on the links below
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.de
I am excitedly gearing up for the 68th World Science Fiction Convention, AussieCon 4, which very conveniently is on in Melbourne this year. And which will be my first World Con! I am so on the quivive you can barely see my limbs for the blur.
Below, for any of you who will be there and interested, are my panel appearances, where I will be chatting with some awesome colleagues, as well as a Kaffeeklatsche - a casual hour where I and anyone else interested get to hang out with caffeine - a signing, and a reading. I can't help wondering if anyone will turn up, since it's such a huge event, so if you can, do come!
The whole program for AussieCon4 is available here.
Thursday September 2, 5pm: Signing, Room 201;
Friday September 3, 3pm: : Eowyn and Sam: underappreciated heroes in The Lord of the Rings, Rm 219;
Saturday September 4, 10am: Science fiction and the theatre, Rm 217;
4pm: Micro-audience and the online critic, Rm 219
Sunday September 5, 10am: The eternal stories: myths and legends in YA spec fic, Room 213;
2pm: The fantasy plays of William Shakespeare, Rm 217;
3pm: Reading, Rm 207;
4pm: Let’s get lyrical: poetry in YA spec fic, Rm 211;
5pm: Mary Poppins: from the Outback to Cherry Tree Lane, Rm 219;
Monday September 6, 11am: Kaffeeklatsche, Rm 201.
The lovely children's author Lucy Coates - with whom I spent a most pleasant summer afternoon in London a couple of years ago - has recently been running a weekly series of interviews on her blog Scribble City Central, in which she asked different writers about what myths mean to them. They're all worth reading, but I'm rather egotistically posting about it, because this week's instalment is with me. They were fun questions to answer, and interesting to think about.
On another note, a couple of weeks ago I finished the first draft of Black Spring, the novel on which I've been working since last year. That's kind of Wuthering Heights, set somewhere in an alternative 19th century Eastern Europe, with vendetta and wizards... It turned out a bit stranger than I thought, and the last month of writing was really difficult because, well, difficult things happen to the characters, as you'd know if you've read Emily Brontë's book. In a way, the book is for Emily, for whom I've always had a strong fellow feeling. One of my earliest poems, written when I was 16, is about her. Here it is:
Emily Brontë
The bell of my loneliness
Is a note so high and pure
It leaves you breathless.
These windy slopes are shorn
of the things that make life comfortable:
broad trees, broken bread, the swell
and supple curve of a lover's back.
These come only in dreams,
fade achingly before the besom dawn
sweeps away sleep's comfort. I
can sit here in my window, catch
the rough sweet scent of heather in my nostrils
and write of death and love entwined
like adders together. The poetry
lies wild in my veins, the poetry
of windy slopes stabbed by rocky outcrops,
the giving spring of turf, the taste
of solitude like aloes on my tongue,
the bare, unchanging moors, which take
my sisters and myself with mute indifference
and conquer under soil all our passion.
(From The Common Flesh, New and Selected Poems, Arc Books UK).
The novel manuscript has now been sent to my agent, which means that it's dropped out of my head. Until I have to start work again on editing, of course; but I like editing.
Right after finishing the novel, I also finished a music theatre script for young adults, Night Songs, that I've been co-writing with my husband Daniel Keene for the Bell Shakespeare Company. And after that, I had unusually busy couple of weeks of journalism - four theatre reviews and a couple of big articles for the Australian. And I've driven myself straight into the ground.
As a result, I've caught a bad cold and have been feeling a bit sorry for myself, which is never a good look. And the problem is that I can't blame anybody - it's all my own fault, dammit!
Oh, I am a bad Pellinor blogger. Keeping up two blogs is more than my capacities allow. Even one blog is more than I can deal with, frankly. Apologies to all...
You'll be glad to know - I hope - that 2010 is Croggon's Year of the Novel. I am now around half way into Black Spring, a kind of Wuthering Heights-with-evil-shepherd-wizards and vendetta (but no vampires of any description). I love you, speculative fiction, for permitting me to pretend that I am the bastard child of Emily Bronte and Ismail Kadare. My present ambition is to finish this ms to first draft by the end of February. Wish me luck.
After that, I'll be working on a number of other things. Too many, really. Ambitions include three pieces of theatre, including an opera on the poet Mayakovsky, and three unfinished novels. We'll see how that all rounds out at the end of the year.
In Pellinor news, the US paperback edition of The Singing will be out in spring with Candlewick. It seems strange that it is still evolving there! There are other English language editions proposed, including audio books for the Australian/New Zealand and US markets. I'll be fascinated to see who will be reading them. I guess Cate Blanchett is too busy...
Meanwhile, I wish you all a Happy New Year, and the best of luck in all your own activities!
And now, Portugal! I thought I had mixed up Spain and Portugal (for which neither nation would ever forgive me). But no, the Pellinor books are coming out in both places. Thanks to the Google ego alert, I stumbled across the cover for the Portuguese edition of The Gift - which translates into O Dom - and it looks pretty groovy. In one of the mysteries of cover art, Maerad has transformed into a rather pretty redhead, but she certainly has a Bardic eye.
Babelfish translating service also serves up some wondrous translatorese. "The Bertrand goes to edit “the Dom”, of Alison Croggon, Australian writer who already gained diverse prémios with its poetical workmanship, beyond being finalista of two Aurealis Awards," says the web page. "The first book of Alison Croggon published in Portugal, intitled the Dom, counts the history of a child who loses the parents in the war of Pellinor. Maerad, the child, comes to discover that it has one I astonish Dom, but does not know what to make with it. When it is only discovered by Cadvan, one of the great bards of lirigion, the truth of its inheritance is disclosed and Maerad will know that it has to survive to the forces of the darknesses. On this book it wrote the Bookseller that is “… a magical history that in remembers Tolkien to them. It is a full adventure of passion, cativantes personages and scenes of enormous beauty. The Dom is a powerful history and marks the beginning of a magnificent Saga fantástica."
I also does not know what to make with it, but those cativantes personages are Go!
I've been bad on this blog. This is partly because I've been so busy on my other blog, Theatre Notes (for which I recently won a big prize, the biggest - and in fact, the only - prize for critical writing in Australia). But a side effect is that I've dropped the ball on my own writing lately. Ridiculous, I hear you cry! And I agree with you. So this is an attempt to catch up on some things.
Anyway, I do have some news. One is that The Gift (The Naming for any Americans reading) has just been bought by Poland. I am looking forward to seeing what it looks like in Polish! And yesterday I received copies of the Spanish edition, El Don, which is published by Ediciones Ambar. It is a gorgeously designed book - a hardback, in fact - with an eyecatching cover that is, for anyone who knows the story, rather mystifying - Maerad in woad? bows and arrows? ...and isn't that wolf from The Riddle? But no matter, the book really is very beautiful and lovely to hold, and I hope it entices a lot of Spanish readers to pick it up and read it!
And now, a bunch of YouTube Pellinor stuff. One of the great (and for me, wholly unexpected) pleasures of writing this series has been the creativity it sparks, not only among book designers, but among its fans. I've just spent a little time on YouTube, where to my astonishment I have found some fans have set some of my poems to music.
Here you can listen to Passionblack's version of the poem at the beginning of The Riddle, which is not exactly simple to set to music: I think it's glorious.
And behind this link is her lovely setting of a verse from my poem on Ardina and Ardhor.
Meanwhile, Littlelyric has made an exquisite song from The Lay of Adomian and Beruldh, which features in a charged moment at the beginning of The Gift. What can I say? I'm knocked out.
And if that's too much beauty for you, you can always contemplate Irc singing Evanescance's song Lithium. Which is a trailer for something called Pellinor The Musical. My goodness!!!
And with a merry disregard for copyright, here is another hopeful trailer for the upcoming (fictional) movie: I rather liked the pace of this.
And I also discovered ME, talking about the books. This was something I did for Penguin Books Australia a while back, and had forgotten about:
Sorry again for so neglecting this blog. I am, you will be glad to know, halfway through my next book: its working title is The River and the Book, a short (and very different) book with a heroine called Sim whom I am already very fond of. And a very opinionated cat called Mely whom I can't seem to prevent from wanting to take over the story. The bad news is that I've been stuck for the past three months. But fingers crossed, it will begin to move again soon.
Update: The Australian Publishers Association, the Printing Industry Association of Australia, the Australian Literary Agents’ Association and the Australian Society of Authors have banded together to form Australians for Australian Books. Those concerned at the proposed changes can sign their petition online, which is a counter to Dymock's aggressive campaign which misleadingly claims to be about cheaper books for consumers. I urge everyone interested in Australian literature to do so, and before this Friday, the deadline for responses to the Draft Proposal.
Below is a slightly extended version of my submission to the Productivity Commission, which is presently conducting a study on the copyright restrictions on the parallel importation of books. Parallel importation is the practice of importing overseas editions of books which are already available here through Australian publishers. The recommendation in the present draft report is that copyright restrictions are dropped after 12 months. The commission claims, on its own admission on slender or non-existent evidence, that this will make books cheaper for consumers.
By effectively removing ownership of the copyright of a book in a writer's home country, this would have a devastating effect on Australian publishers. And also on Australian writers. Publishers, agents, authors, unions, many readers and most booksellers are overwhelmingly against changing the present situation (their submissions can be read online here and here).
I would like to register my opposition to the proposal to lift restrictions on the parallel importation of books. Such a move would have a significant impact on my ability to earn an income as a writer.
I make my living from the sales of my popular fantasy books, and am now - for the first time in two decades of writing - earning an independent income. This means I no longer apply for grants from the Australia Council to support the production of my poetry and prose. The income from my fantasy books subsidises my poetry (I am a prize-winning and internationally published poet) and the theatre criticism I write on my blog Theatre Notes, both time-consuming activities I pursue for reasons other than financial reward.
My fantasy books are published first in Australia, by Penguin Books Australia, and overseas publication follows in the UK, the US and Europe. This means that there are at least two English language editions of my books sold overseas, as well as the Penguin editions.
There is a small but significant fact that is being glossed by booksellers’ blithe claims that authors “still earn their royalties”. I earn a significantly higher percentage of royalties from books sold in Australia than from those sold overseas. Books that are published and sold here earn me the full 10 per cent royalty of the cover price. Books that are sold in overseas markets often have a smaller royalty – ranging from 6 to 8 per cent – and after that, under the agreements from my original publisher, I lose from 25 to 50 per cent of the gross royalty to the original publisher. This is a standard agreement which publishers all over the world use to ensure that their initial investment in an author is financially recognised.
This means that for every book sold in Australia that is NOT published by Penguin, I could lose up to half – or more – of the income I would earn if it were published by the local publisher. Worse, if a foreign publisher decided to dump remaindered copies on the Australian market, I would earn precisely nothing.
The Australian market is a significant proportion of the income that I generate as an author. And this is why territorial copyright is important to my financial independence.
Territorial copyright is a right for all authors in the United Kingdom and America. Neither of those countries, for good reason, is considering abolishing this protection for their own authors. Under the Productivity Commission’s suggested changes to the copyright law, Australian writers will no longer be able to compete on the same terms with writers in these countries.
My books are selling much more strongly now, seven years after they were first released, than when they were first published. The 12 month rule would only punish their further success, and would provide no protection for years of hard labour to writers like myself, who depend on a book’s steady longevity rather than a burst of sales.
The argument as presented by those who seek to lift restrictions is that it would make books cheaper for the consumer, and that those who oppose it are greedy corporate publishers. This is a populist argument with little regard for facts: the relative expensiveness of Australian books is far from proven, and it is less than certain that removing restrictions of parallel importation would make books any cheaper. And it certainly ignores the potential impact on authors.
The best way to make books cheaper for consumers would be to make them exempt from the GST. It was always a scandal that books were included in the first place.
This proposal would have a devastating impact on the local publishing industry – it certainly had negative effects when it was introduced in New Zealand, where the publishing industry now struggles to survive – which, on top of cutting my income, would have indirect effects as well on my ability to continue to write and publish in this country.
The only benefits that seem likely are increased profits for some retailers, from being able to import cheap or remaindered copies of books. This limited benefit would come at a heavy price to our presently healthy and competitive publishing culture, and would significantly affect the diversity of the books available to consumers.
My situation is far from singular. Artists are routinely urged to become self-sufficient, but parallel importation would make this goal even more difficult than it already is. If the Rudd Government claims to be backing a Creative Australia, why is it entertaining a proposal which would make it much harder for authors to earn a living, in a profession in which earning a decent living is already a rarity?
April 9, 2009
Alison Croggon is a poet, novelist and theatre critic based in Melbourne. As a poet, she won the Anne Elder and Dame Mary Gilmore Prizes, and has been shortlisted for several Premier’s Poetry Awards. Her critically acclaimed fantasy quartet The Books of Pellinor is a popular success in Europe, England and the US and was shortlisted in three categories in the Aurealis Awards, as well as being a Children’s Book Council recommended book. She is Melbourne theatre critic for the Australian newspaper and runs the theatre blog, Theatre Notes.
We all love a competition, don't we? And now there's a special Pellinor comp, to celebrate the US release of The Singing, in which you can win a copy of the rather smart galleys Candlewick distributes before the books are printed in their final form. All you have to do is to visit the updated (and rather beautiful) Candlewick website for the books. (Afternote: Actually, they've done alot to the website, and there are all sorts of unexpected goodies there - it's well worth a browse!)
Not to mention - which I only just noticed - the chance to download an exclusive short story, The Friendship, in which you can get a glimpse of what happened when Cadvan met Saliman.
So here goes, hot off the press from Candlewick Books:
You can win an advance reader's copy of The Singing!
Please visit the newly updated series website, www.booksofpellinor.com
QUESTION: How many times does author Alison Croggon say she drafted the final book in the series?
Please note: No purchase necessary. All entrants must be at least 14 years of age. Entries must be posted/received no later than April 1, 2009. Galleys will be shipped to the winners no later than April 15, 2009.
Shadowhunter asked me a few questions in the comments below:
I'm wondering if you have any tips or advice for aspiring Australian authors - or international for that matter - when writing and publishing a manuscript. How do you cope with writing and then sticking to that writing? Were there times when you were writing the Pellinor series that you thought: 'Oh, what have I done?'
And so I sit here in poses of thought. The truth is that every writer's experience is individual, and doesn't apply to everyone else. And I'm not at all sure that my experience would be very useful to aspiring writers, since as an author I have been, well, vague and feckless in the matter of my so-called "career". (The word "career" in connection with the word "writing" makes me think of a horse bolting, completely out of control, downhill).
For example, I sometimes feel embarrassed when people ask me about how to get published. I have never done the kinds of things that agents and "industry experts" advise you to do, and it all just seems to have happened anyway. For example, a poet is supposed to regularly send out work to magazines, in order to build up a "reputation" that then will attract a publisher. I haven't done that for about two decades, largely out of laziness and for other less admirable reasons, and for years have only sent poetry to those editors who ask for it. Nor have I ever sent a manuscript to a publisher. Publishers just seem to turn up when I've written enough poems.
Similarly with the Pellinor books, I never hunted for a publisher. Penguin Australia contracted me on spec, when I asked for some advice on what to do with this book I had just started... (But I could ask them to do that because they published my first book of poetry, and that came out of the blue too). I was very surprised, but the contract did mean that I was motivated to finish The Gift, which might otherwise have languished unwritten in a file marked "good idea". Deadlines are wonderfully motivating.
I have one piece of good practical advice. If you have a contract with a publisher, get a good agent. I have a wonderful agent who is worth her weight in gumdrops, and I couldn't manage without her. My business nous is about equal with that of Bernard in Black Books (look for the scene when he's doing his tax return). I can't even understand my royalty statements, except for the figure at the bottom. My agent takes care of all the stuff that makes my head spin. And negotiates better deals for me, of course. She is a Good Woman.
As for the actual writing... yes, I often clutched my forehead and thought, "Oh God, what have I done?" I was never sure until I actually typed THE END that I would ever reach the end of the story. (I can admit that now, since if my publishers read this, they won't have a fit. Having typed THE END four times, I feel a bit more confident these days).
The odd thing about writing is that once you finish, you forget how painful it was. (People say this about childbirth, but believe me, I remember that was painful - but I truly don't remember with the books, although I know it was very hard labour with all of them). There were, to balance out the days when writing every sentence felt like pulling a tooth out, also moments of exhilaration, and days when I emerged from the haze of creativity to tell my sceptical family that I was a GENIUS. But the best day of all was when I finished the series. I didn't get off that high for about a month. I suspect that might be the real addiction of writing novels: that wonderful feeling you get when you actually find out what happens in the story. Because you don't really know until you've written it.
I found that the main thing I needed to be was patient. Very patient. I spend a lot of time thinking about the shape of a novel before I write it. (Not the plot, the shape, which is a different thing altogether). When I did get around to writing, I never looked ahead, past the page I was actually writing, because if I did all I saw was the 60,000 words I hadn't written, and it made me panicky. By the time I got to The Singing, I was also aware of the weight of expectation from the fans who had read the other books. That made approaching that novel very intimidating indeed. Before I could write it, I had to forget about all that and try to write the book that I wanted to write. I figured if I did that, I had the best chance of (a) pleasing myself and therefore (b) pleasing others.
My only trick was to write down how many words I had written every night. That was the measure that helped me know that, despite how it felt, I was actually getting somewhere.
The other thing I needed was trust, a faith that I wasn't wasting my and everyone else's time. This is wholly unsupported by anything, because you won't know whether the writing has worked until you have finished it. This is why writers often appear a bit foolish. You have to believe that, as William Blake said, if a fool persists in his folly, he will become wise.
In Virginia Woolf's book To The Lighthouse, she has a character who is a painter. During the course of the book, she completes a painting of the lighthouse that features in the novel. There's a passage where she describes the process of creation, and it has stuck with me for years. At first, she says, you have the vision - you can see the whole thing, the landscape, the sea, the lighthouse, all in one complete picture. But painting it is like going over there in a boat. You can't see anything except the waves around you, and the wind keeps buffeting you in unexpected directions, and the spray gets in your eyes. You often feel lost. Completing the painting is like arriving at the lighthouse, and at last you can see what you've done.
That's certainly what writing is like for me. I just keep rowing that boat, until I get there.
Last week, we went for a family holiday. This event, by no means unusual in most families, last occurred in ours nine years ago. (That's the downside of having writers for parents. Of course, as we keep reminding the beloved offspring, there are lots of upsides...)
However, when we do go on holidays, we have good ones. As we did nine years ago, on that other legendary occasion, we went to Queenscliff, an old-fashioned and very pretty seaside resort on the Bellarine Peninsula, a shortish train trip from where we live. It's notable for its food and its spectacular Victorian hotels, all of which escaped the evils of "development" and then were restored when Victorian splendour became fashionable again.
There we rented a townhouse with a giant tv (and other more modest ones distributed about the house), and plenty of room for the six of us to read, or play games, or hit each other with cushions, or snooze. (It wasn't the building above glimpsed through the cypresses, which is one of those towered hotels, but it was right next door to the famous Queenscliff Hotel, where we had a most memorable lunch). We took up a bunch of books, dvds and games, and spent the week in glorious idleness.
The most important decision each day was where we should eat. If you like eating, Queenscliff is a good place to be. It's a bit of a foodie's paradise, bristling with specialist delis selling exquisite concoctions bewitched from the excellent local produce, and, of course, restaurants. As you might surmise, I'm not the action-holiday type, so it was a week short on thrilling narrative and very long on leisurely pleasures. And all of us agreed that the only criticism to be made of our holiday was that it was too short, and that we shouldn't wait nine years before we tried it again. I certainly feel more relaxed than I have for, oh, nine years...
Sadly, I am not a very good photographer. The picture above is of a beautiful sunset behind the Queenscliff lighthouse. Just looking at it makes me feel good, because I have the memory to fill it out, but I'm certain it won't have the same effect on you. But you can see, I hope, something of the charm of the place.
But anyway, to get to the point: while I was away, the news came through of an offer for the Pellinor books from Spain. They plan to publish all four through 2009/10, which is quick work! So the Pellinor Plot to Rule The World (very quietly) still proceeds apace...
Which seems a very good omen at this year's end. Prost!
Hello, Pellinorites. I see that I haven't written anything here, except answers to comments, for far too long. But now it's getting near to Christmas, I'm going on an actual holiday next week, and I've shut up shop on my theatre blog, which gobbles up all my blogging time. And I thought I should wave a hand and sprinkle some Christmas dust for my faithful readers.
Life has been jogging along quite undramatically. The US edition of The Singing is getting closer and closer, and the odd proofing query is still dribbling in (amazing, really, by the time the books get to the States, I calculate they've been proofed by about 10 people, including me...and there are still tiny corrections...) I keep getting boxes of German books, which are piling up in the garage. I don't know any German fantasy readers, so I'm not sure what to do with them. But what each box means, when it arrives, is that another print-run of the book has been released in Germany. Judging by the boxes, Pellinor readers in Germany are beginning to add up. As they are elsewhere. The Gift is now on its 12th reprint in the UK - I've lost count here. And apparently it's been sold to Portugal, with things in the works in France. So Alison's Plans to Take Over The World continue to move. Bwahahaha...
It's all very cheering, and it's all because of you readers. I am very grateful. Because the Pellinor books aren't a big advance, glamorously hyped series. These sales haven't been driven by publicity, but by word of mouth. Your mouths. I'm grateful to all of you.
So may you all have a brilliant Christmas/Solstice/Hanukkah/Muharram/holiday/Bardic festival of your choice. And I'll be back in the New Year, hopefully with a new book. Not a Pellinor book. Just another one. That's the plan, anyway. It's about time I wrote something else. Wish me luck!
My rather unscientific mode of tracking how my books are going no doubt leaves a lot to be desired. I get reports (and sometimes photographs) from family and friends who lurk in bookshops, turning the books cover out when the shop assistants aren't looking (they're a loyal bunch, and I guess the family has a material interest). Anyway, I heard two bookshop reports which pleased me very much this week.
I was totally delighted when I heard that my new collection of poems, Theatre, was in the front window of the Paperback Bookshop in Bourke St, Melbourne. Poems? In the window? Now that is cool, even if poetry is never going to pay the rent. And then I heard that The Singing was spotted in the Best Seller shelves at Borders. That must mean I can officially call myself a Best Selling Author. I've ordered the badge...
Life otherwise has been, to say the least, chaotic. I feel like I'm running like a loon just to stay in the same spot. Despite this, I really have started a new novel. It's a fantasy novel, but it's very different from the Pellinor books. Shorter, for a start. It's written in the first person, which I am enjoying, and it's set in a world and time very like ours. It's not quite what I expected I would be doing, which I take as a good sign, and I have no idea if those who like the Pellinor books would go for this one. But this character has taken hold and is demanding to be written. It's coming slowly but steadily. Writing is very mysterious sometimes...
I've always been a little confused as to what constitutes "best seller" status. Aside from phenomena like Dan Brown and JK Rowling, I mean. How do you tell? When people say "best seller", does it mean the top ten of all books? Or just some top tens? Or what?
Anyway, now I might be able to claim that I am an international best seller author. The Singing has made it to No 2 in the fantasy and science fiction categories on amazon.co.uk, and is also No 2 on children's SFF. And is at No. 31 overall. I've no idea how amazon reflects general book sales, but in this list I'm currently beating Pratchett, Rowling and Pullman, with only Christopher Paolini beating me to No. 1. (So not quite a No. 1 Bestseller! But I'll settle for No.2.) I doubt this will ever happen again, so I might as well enjoy it. Just to prove it, I took a screen shot (click the image for a clearer version):
Just to prove I really am an Author - moreover, an Author Of The Month - a friend of my son's (thanks, Mel!) sent me this picture of a display in Borders.
Meanwhile, I've finished my first week travelling around with the Books Alive! campaign. Except for Tuesday, I've been in tandem with the charming Toni Jordan, and it's been a hoot (Tuesday was a hard gig, and I am very grateful to Pellinor enthusiast Ann for providing a friendly face in the audience, lugging 15 kilos of books into Fitzroy for me to sign, and for laughing at my jokes...) I met another fan, Patrick, on Wednesday, and that was charming too. The real pleasure of this is the chance to meet readers.
Last night we were in Warrnambool, at the local library, and that was enormous fun. Despite Penguin sending the bookshop 15 copies of Book 3 - instead of the more immediately useful Book 1 - people bought it and asked me to sign it, promising they would buy the first two books. They even (yes) laughed at my jokes, and paid attention, and were all-round a friendly and warm audience. Toni has been on the author trail since February, and is a trooper - two weeks is, I suspect, my personal limit. I must be a delicate flower: it's very hard work doing this stuff! But the Books Alive people - on the Warnambool trip it was Fiona Lange - make sure we're well looked after and very well fed. Last night's treat was a dinner at a wonderful Italian restaurant, just down the road from the Warnambool Library. I consumed with great pleasure a chicken breast stuffed with chestnut and a rocket and pear salad, rounded off with some roquefort washed down with a botrytis wine. If being an Author means this kind of thing, I'm all for it...
Update: the Sydney date on Monday night has been cancelled (see comments) - my apologies to those Sydney readers who might have been there - maybe we'll catch up next time!
August is going to be a very busy month for one Ms Croggon. This is because The Gift has been chosen as one of the Books Alive 50 Books You Can't Put Down. Which is very cool. Books Alive is a huge annual reading campaign involving lots of authors, and which is launched officially this Sunday; but I'll wickedly leak some details here, exclusively for Pellinor readers. Especially because I hope people turn up. You can catch me being a fantasy author here:
August 11, 6.30pm: Diamond Valley Library, Civic Drive, Greensborough, VIC FREE
August 12, 1.30pm: Fitzroy Library, 128 Moor Street, Fitzroy, VIC FREE
August 13, 1.30pm: Lilydale Library Anderson St, Lilydale, VIC FREE
August 14, 6.30pm: Brunswick Library, cnr Sydney Rd and Dawson St, Brunswick, VIC FREE
August 15, 6pm: Warrnambool Library, 25 Liebig St, Warrnambool, VIC FREE
August 25, 7pm: Mosman Library, Reference Library, 605 Military Road, Mosman, NSW $8.80/$6.60 conc
August 27, 6.30pm: East Melbourne Library, 122 George Street, East Melbourne FREE
It seems a bit hard that Sydneysiders have to pay... Meanwhile, my Melbourne Writers Festival sessions, which cover some other writerly hats, are threaded sometimes rather hectically through these ones...I'll certainly be running from Federation Square to the East Melbourne Library one busy Friday. For the record, diehard Croggon fans can also catch me at these sessions, at Federation Square in Melbourne:
August 28, 5.30pm: ACMI 2 - Poetry now
Where are we? What’s the next big thing? Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Justin Clemens, Alison Croggon and Robert Gray will name check the movers and the stayers in Australian poetry.
August 29, 2.30pm: ACMI 1 - Legacy or burden?
Melbourne's APG and Sydney's Nimrod were the hippest places to be in the ‘70s. Their impact on future theatre generations is discussed by Gabrielle Wolf, Julian Meyrick and Alison Croggon.
August 29, 4pm: BMW Edge - One not used to happiness – Anna Akhmatova
Before the Soviet nightmare changed her song, Anna Akhmatova wrote some of Russia’s finest love poetry. Orlando Figes, Alison Croggon and Ellen Koshland discuss the life and work of the magnificient Anna Akhmatova.
Amazon Germany tells me that the Pellinor books are doing nicely over there (many thanks, Bastei-Lübbe: you've done me proud). They've just bought The Singing, which is apparently due out there in March next year, hot on the heels of the US edition. No one can say the Germans are not efficient.
But the cover image suggests that the designer is yet to read the book. At least, who is that bearded Bard looking all, well, wizardly on the cover of Das Baumlied? Any suggestions gratefully received...
Meanwhile, Pellinor's plot to take over the world continues with the purchase by a Portuguese publisher of The Gift and The Riddle...
I have always said my characters have a life of their own. And they just proved it - they have their own Facebook pages! Imagine my surprise when one Cadvan Lirigon, looking rather more ruggedly handsome than I anticipated, asked to be my friend. He's a "Dark ass-kicker" who enjoys "a good game of pool". Hem and Dernhil (who seems to have generated his own little fanclub) have their own pages too. They're all loyal viewers of a tv show called Days of Our Bards (wot, no Dr Who?) Wow. I look forward keenly to further revelations...
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