Writers and publishing, then and now
I am on the beautiful island, and as I have done all my workshop reading, I'd thought today I'd rent a bike and go off exploring. Alas, there is rain with intermittent hail, and while it is novel and charming to look at, though I brought winter clothes, these are SoCal winter clothes--not even remotely adequate for the temperature here.
So I am curled up reading Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World, by Claire Harman; I had avoided this book, having stupidly judged it by the title, but my friend Greg Feeley gave me this copy before I left yesterday, and I crammed it into my bag.
I had assumed from the title it would be burble and squee about Jane fans and fan sequels, all of which I've seen I have intensely disliked as sequels to Austen, whereas if the writers had fashioned their own silver fork novel or romance, I might have liked it just fine. (But I'm sure they laughed all the way to the bank!)
ANNNNyway, it's not that at all, at least at the front end. What we're getting is a picture of Austen's family, who were all not only indefatigable readers, but many of them were writers as well. So at one point, a connection of the family found Madame d'Arblay (AKA Fanney Burney) living across the street. She was by then famous all over Europe for the publication of Evelina (which she sold to her publisher, or bookseller as they said then, for thirty pounds) and her second novel, Cecelia, which she'd sold for 250 pounds, the first having done so well.
Austen's relation, a Mrs. Cooke, passed on to Madame d'Arblay that a relation of hers who was an insider with booksellers revealed that the very first year of Cecelia's publication, they had made 1,500 profit.
Mrs. Cooke talked Madame d'Arblay into publishing her third novel by subscription, at which time she promptly made a thousand pounds--after which she sold the copyright for another thousand.
Publishing today in so very many ways reflects publishing at Austen's time. It was changing rapidly, different models being tried. Some were successful, some not; one of Austen's aunts wrote novels that apparently the family enjoyed but sold so poorly there is no trace of them now, not even a title. Jane Austen's brother James, while at college, published a magazine that for a time was distributed through several counties--now he a lifetime writer is unknown except as a footnote in Jane Austen biographies.
Subscription is a dicey model, one we now call crowdsourcing, usually through Kickstarter or one of those outfits. It can work for those who already have an audience, as Madame d'Arblay had. When she first sold Evelina, she was an unknown twenty-something, still living at home with her dad, who wrote about music. Though she was part of Samuel Johnson's select coterie, if I remember right, she didn't tell him about the book until it was already out. So the bookseller took the risk, for thirty pounds, and reaped a spanking profit.
Nobody knows what's going to take off or sink: authors can work tirelessly to get the word out about their work, and it may or may not pay off. Notoriety will often do the job for you, but that can be like playing with lightning. Publishers might give your book a massive budget for publicity, which I guess usually garners at least a certain level of order numbers (never been in that situation, so have no idea), or very little publicity, as rachelmanija and I have had for our book coming out next month from Viking. It's almost a stealth release, other than their having duly sent ARCs to the main reviewers.
Who decides what gets gigantic publicity budgets and why (other than notoriety, authors being male, or likely film prospect?) is a mystery, as much a mystery as why books take off--or don't. One can raise the Q word, except one person's quality is another's trash. Trying to suss out likely trends in popularity and interest seems to be about as scientifically predictable as it was two hundred years ago, in spite of sophisticated statistical studies and newly-emerging patterns hoovered out of social media by sekrit means. But human behavior has always been as changeable as the weather.
Anyway, it's interesting reading this book, and thinking of Jane Austen as a young writer watching the mysteries of publishing playing out among her elders before she finally decided it was time to ride the wave herself.
So I am curled up reading Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World, by Claire Harman; I had avoided this book, having stupidly judged it by the title, but my friend Greg Feeley gave me this copy before I left yesterday, and I crammed it into my bag.
I had assumed from the title it would be burble and squee about Jane fans and fan sequels, all of which I've seen I have intensely disliked as sequels to Austen, whereas if the writers had fashioned their own silver fork novel or romance, I might have liked it just fine. (But I'm sure they laughed all the way to the bank!)
ANNNNyway, it's not that at all, at least at the front end. What we're getting is a picture of Austen's family, who were all not only indefatigable readers, but many of them were writers as well. So at one point, a connection of the family found Madame d'Arblay (AKA Fanney Burney) living across the street. She was by then famous all over Europe for the publication of Evelina (which she sold to her publisher, or bookseller as they said then, for thirty pounds) and her second novel, Cecelia, which she'd sold for 250 pounds, the first having done so well.
Austen's relation, a Mrs. Cooke, passed on to Madame d'Arblay that a relation of hers who was an insider with booksellers revealed that the very first year of Cecelia's publication, they had made 1,500 profit.
Mrs. Cooke talked Madame d'Arblay into publishing her third novel by subscription, at which time she promptly made a thousand pounds--after which she sold the copyright for another thousand.
Publishing today in so very many ways reflects publishing at Austen's time. It was changing rapidly, different models being tried. Some were successful, some not; one of Austen's aunts wrote novels that apparently the family enjoyed but sold so poorly there is no trace of them now, not even a title. Jane Austen's brother James, while at college, published a magazine that for a time was distributed through several counties--now he a lifetime writer is unknown except as a footnote in Jane Austen biographies.
Subscription is a dicey model, one we now call crowdsourcing, usually through Kickstarter or one of those outfits. It can work for those who already have an audience, as Madame d'Arblay had. When she first sold Evelina, she was an unknown twenty-something, still living at home with her dad, who wrote about music. Though she was part of Samuel Johnson's select coterie, if I remember right, she didn't tell him about the book until it was already out. So the bookseller took the risk, for thirty pounds, and reaped a spanking profit.
Nobody knows what's going to take off or sink: authors can work tirelessly to get the word out about their work, and it may or may not pay off. Notoriety will often do the job for you, but that can be like playing with lightning. Publishers might give your book a massive budget for publicity, which I guess usually garners at least a certain level of order numbers (never been in that situation, so have no idea), or very little publicity, as rachelmanija and I have had for our book coming out next month from Viking. It's almost a stealth release, other than their having duly sent ARCs to the main reviewers.
Who decides what gets gigantic publicity budgets and why (other than notoriety, authors being male, or likely film prospect?) is a mystery, as much a mystery as why books take off--or don't. One can raise the Q word, except one person's quality is another's trash. Trying to suss out likely trends in popularity and interest seems to be about as scientifically predictable as it was two hundred years ago, in spite of sophisticated statistical studies and newly-emerging patterns hoovered out of social media by sekrit means. But human behavior has always been as changeable as the weather.
Anyway, it's interesting reading this book, and thinking of Jane Austen as a young writer watching the mysteries of publishing playing out among her elders before she finally decided it was time to ride the wave herself.