Guinevere Glasfurd-Brown and Deborah Arnander,
both Words And Women members, Guin from Cambridge and Deborah from Norwich, had
success recently with The Literary Consultancy’s Pen Factor competition which was awarded at this year’s
Digital Age Conference. Both were shortlisted and Guin went on to win first
prize!
Over this week on the blog we’ve been posting our Q&A with Guin and
Deborah about the competition. Here is the final part. You can read parts 1
& 2 by scrolling down. Many thanks to Guin and Deborah for their
informative and open responses!
Part
3:
What did you learn from the TLC Digital Age Conference in
general?
 |
| Guin reading at Words And Women's Cambridge event |
Guin: The conference turned my head
inside out. I loved it! It really made me think about independent publishing as
a hybrid model, something that can augment being 'traditionally' published, as
a means to grow a readership. It has made me hugely ambitious for my work, and
I know that I am a key part of making that happen.
Deborah: The
conference was brilliant and although the ticket price is high I would
recommend it to anyone interested in writing and the new possibilities for
writers. It was fascinating to see the difference between the traditional
agents and publishers, who were predominantly male, interested in stats, and
pretty much all doom and gloom (the market is narrowing, kids don’t read, what
will happen if the supermarkets decide to stop stocking books, with literary
fiction you have to kiss a lot of frogs (!) etc.) and the ‘independent’ or
self-published writers (an all-female panel) who were full of enthusiasm about
the new possibilities for reaching readers, were achieving good sales, could
sell their books cheaply and therefore reach people all over the world, and
were emboldened by their autonomy to write the kind of books they wanted to,
rather than being forced by traditional publishers into a pre-established
pigeonhole. The man from Nielsen on the previous day had shown that there
was a big hike in sales of self-published books last year. The caveat:
you have to become an expert in marketing and publicity to successfully
self-publish. But as one of the panel pointed out, you will have to do
that with a traditional publishing house anyway if you want your books to be
read. I recommend anyone interested in self-publishing checks out the
Alliance of independent authors website. Also Kobo writing life, and
Unbound, among others.
From the conference I learned that the market for
writers is changing enormously at the moment, and we really need to keep
ourselves informed about it. Knowing not to tick the box that gives
Amazon or whoever your Digital Rights Management for life, for example. I
don’t feel nearly as depressed as I did about the demise of publishing. I have
reversed my position on self-publishing too. I’m now seriously
considering it. There was a woman among the shortlisted writers who was older
than the rest of us and had an abiding interest in psychoanalysis; she’d
written a book that sounded fascinating to me about a woman's inner journey
with a cast of archetypal characters. Her pitch was received with blank faces
by the agents, but I bet it’s great. She self-published it. She’s
done something she’s proud of that may not fit on the shelves of Waterstones.
I think it’s good to ask yourself what success means for you and what you
want from your writing career. Is it money? Readers? The satisfaction of
having made something good? How much external affirmation do you require?
Would
you recommend the competition to other writers?
Guin:
Yes,
absolutely. I had enormous fun pitching, and listening to the other pitches
too. I came away from the event having made many new friends and with a slew of
new ideas.
Deborah: I would wholeheartedly
recommend it. Not only did I learn a lot, but I made some friends. It was
a room packed with interesting people. The atmosphere among the delegates
was one of encouragement and mutual support - the chair Rebecca Swift had a lot
to do with that. And she got together an extraordinary panel of speakers
- I haven’t had time to talk about most of them here but they really were
impressive. So I’d recommend it even to people who feel reluctant to
expose themselves to a world that’s potentially quite daunting. Plus the
East of England needs to hold on to its crown, so all you brilliant writers out
there need to submit next year.
Finally
Guin – Congratulations! - You won the competition – What does this mean for you
and your work?
Guin: Thanks, it means a great deal
to me. My novel has taken up the last two years of my life. At times this has
been extraordinarily stressful, and more than once I thought, I can't do this,
I can't write it. So it was fantastic to have the work validated in this way;
to have complete strangers come up to me and tell me they loved it. I feel I
have created something worthwhile, and that's great.
