What Form Should a Prize for Self-published Writers Take?

OK, there are lots of prizes for self-published books already. There are even some prizes where the self-published can compete alongside the mainstream. This post was occasioned by the latest renewal of one of the book world’s most raucous and high profile events, the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize.

Never short of controversy, as I know, having been the publisher, at eight cuts gallery press, of one of last year’s shortlisted books, The Dead Beat, Not the Booker is also a great platform for small publishers and edgy literary books. The rules of entry have always been the same as those for the Booker. But this year, for the first time, the competition’s infinitely patient organiser Sam Jordison has made reference to the elephant in the room:

“But leaving [self-published books] out does seem increasingly anomalous in the brave new world of electronic publishing”

and he even hints at more to come

“we've even discussed the idea of a new and separate award for self-published novels”

The reaction has been predictably mixed. On the one hand, commenters have welcomed the thought of a self-published prize run on such a high profile forum as the Guardian. On the other, concerns were expressed about the ghettoisation of self-published books. There has been, however, an amount of consensus behind the idea expressed by the commenter lemonworld:

“I’d  love to live in a literary world where we don't spend so much time talking about HOW something is being published and instead talk even more about WHAT is being published”

I think that’s a sentiment all of us, except maybe for a few sub-editors, would concur with. The question is how to get there.

There are two issues involved here. First, and probably not foremost, we have to settle the issue concerning writers of whether the best scenario is to adopt an all-or-nothing approach (with self-published books only being considered alongside those from the mainstream) or whether to accept what’s on offer and try to win the doubters round. I can see the point of the former approach, but I don’t think it’s the way forward. If we want prizes seen by the mainstream, we can’t hold them to ransom. Things are changing, but the media holds the power. But even more to the point, there are many self-published authors who won’t cede the ground – and if we don’t join the bunfight, the sales-oriented, pushy-marketing self-publishers we want to take the media spotlight off will be the ones who shine. Also, as lemonworld also says, there’s no shame in being a fringe – in other branches of the arts, it’s a badge of pride. And I’ve experienced first hand how by taking your place on the fringe and grabbing the chance by the scruff of the neck and giving it your all, you can make your way into the mainstream. I was given the chance to do exactly that at this year’s Chipping Norton Literary Festival, where our New Libertines spoken word show delighted a full house as part of the fringe and will be part of the main festival next year.

Second, any competition has to engage readers, and that means addressing their concerns. When it comes to the threads on the Guardian, the principle concerns all focus on the same thing – the behaviour of self-published writers and their denizens of supporters. This, of course, is not a concern that transfers to all prizes – many are not accompanied by blogs, and many do not encourage participation in the way Not the Booker does. But it’s a concern I very much sympathise with.

How and how much to talk is such a tricky one for self-publishers. We are given so little air that whenever we are offered any we want to grab it and make the most of it. But everyone’s concern, going back to the start, is for it to be about the books. And for that to be the case, everyone needs to keep their end up. Prize organisers need to make sure those who shout loudest don’t get more read-time, and self-publishers need to make sure they keep their contributions focused on keeping the attention on the books and the unearthing of the genuinely best work – it’s the one thing that above all else will be in self-publishing’s interest in the long run. I am tempted to add that readers should ignore what is said and try all books equally – but I’m not sure it’s our place to make any demands of readers.

As writers, we have no control over anything but our own conduct. We can – and should – make a constant case to the organisers of prizes to run things in such a way that the best books have a genuine chance to shine. As self-publishers, we are constantly complaining about lack of media oxygen – for us then to in any way advocate a system that advantages those with followers or sales or platforms of any kind would surely be hypocrisy. More than that it would be an arrogation of our duty to place the interests of literary culture above those of our own books.

So what format would I like to see? Well, I don’t think you could better the Guaridan First Book Award. Anyone can nominate a book – their own or someone else’s. Only one nomination is needed for entry, and at least two readers from a panel then read each book and post their reviews. A panel of reviewers and Guardian columnists then come up with a shortlist that is reviewed by a staffer (or Sam) – reviews of each book are posted and discussion encouraged, but the winner decided upon NOT by a vote.

"V is for..." the troubling subject of voice

It’s the most important thing for any writer yet it’s the hardest of all to master. Largely because so few people seem to be able to give a coherent explanation of what it is. A few years ago I wrote a couple of pieces about it (here and here) but starting a new advice blog for self-publishers (and having three more years of getting to know the work of thousands of self-published writers) seems like the perfect time to revisit the subject of voice.

I very rarely see self-published authors talking about voice, which is a shame, because it’s an essential topic. And, to be perfectly blunt, you can spend an arm and a leg on proof reading, editing out the holes in your plot, and whizzifying your cover, but if your writing’s voice doesn’t sing off the page and make your work stand out from every other author in your area then you will never develop your 1000 true fans or have a long, sustainable writing life – your books will be interchangeable with any similar book. The way to proof yourself from that kind of reader indifference is to have a voice that is unique, to make *your* next book a must have.

The problem, of course, is it’s not as simple as saying “I’m going to get my voice right” the way you can with selling or even ironing out your saggy middle. A genuinely original and brilliant voice is something very few writers achieve. I do think, though, if you’ve got one it can often get hidden if you’re not letting it sing out – which means there *is* an appropriate conversation about voice.  

And a lot of that conversation will involve understanding what voice is and what it isn’t. You will sometimes see people distinguishing the voice of your characters from your voice as a writer. To me that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what we’re talking about. The “voice of your protagonist/character/blah” is simply a tautologous way of saying “your characterisation”. Which is important. Vitally so. But it’s not your voice. Brilliant characterisation can only take you so far. Benjy Compson in The Sound and the Fury is one of the most perfectly-drawn characters in literary history. But if he’d spent the book using his “voice” to talk about eating his greens for dinner the novel wouldn’t be quite the masterpiece it is thanks to Faulkner having him focusing on oblique references to the slow and systematic abusive deconstruction of his sister, Caddy. Which is as good an explanation as I can think of for what voice is – and isn’t.

Your voice is, at its most basic level, what you have to say.

Now that’s a hugely knotty thing to say, I know, because at least a gazillion awkward sods will jump on it to assume I am talking about your book’s message. I’m not. If you know me at all, you’ll know the one thing a book shouldn’t have is a message. But you should have something to say. And the success of your voice will be a combination of what you have to say and how successfully (clearly) you are able to say it.

So, what is the difference between what you have to say and a message? At a surface level, quite possibly nothing at all. But the dynamics are very different. Your voice, the thing you have to say, feel compelled to say, is simply what it is – it comes from you and you have done your job if you take it from inside and put it out there clearly. A message seeks to go beyond that, sees your commentary and your articulation of that commentary as simply a means of persuasion. There are all sorts of reasons why I think that makes for lesser literature – from theoretical assumptions about what you can and can’t communicate to the practical observation that if your writing is made subservient to some kind of higher purpose then the writing will suffer and the reader will feel (and be!) used.

The second reason people struggle to find their voice is they are not really sure what they have to say. There can be many reasons for this, from writing for a reason other than the compulsion to write through trying to channel that compulsion to write into marketability to confusing your characters and their dilemmas with the thing you have to say.

The first two of these I won’t talk about here. There’s nothing wrong with writing for a market and many many people produce wonderful books by doing it. But this blog isn’t primarily for them. The third seems strange. Isn’t everything about your character and what happens to them? Well, on one level yes. They’re the nuts and bolts that comprise your book. They’re how you hook your reader in. How well you characterise (the fact I’m using that word, the one I’ve said isn’t voice, should be a big clue), and how well you plot are part of the process of ensuring your voice is heard. But they aren’t *it*.

Let’s have a look why. Now, my writing process/journey is probably like many of yours. Characters, situations, plot snippets, dilemmas, times and places pop into my head all the time. I write them own an see if anything more comes of them. Most of the time nothing does. But sometimes a fragment will stay with me. Its tendrils will creep out, take root, throw up shoots of their own, and before I know it there’s the seed of a story/poem/novel. The first time it really happened was when I started Songs from the Other Side of the Wall. I couldn’t shale this teenage girl, Szandi, looking out of her bedroom window over a vineyard covered in morning mist, catching sight of another young woman and falling instantly in love. It’s a vignette. Like hundreds of other vignettes I’d noted down. But *this* one wouldn’t leave me. *This* one kept growing. She would never see the woman again but her life would be shaped by the desire to find out more about her. This desire would pull her into a different world, one far removed from her rural family life in Hungary. It would take her to England, to the city, it would leave her caught like a bug in a spiderweb ever more tangled with every step as she was pulled apart between tradition and modernity, east and west, country and city, art and commerce, family and lover, mother and father, living in the past or creating a future. Now, Szandi was interesting in herself. I wanted to spend time with her. But the thing is there was a reason why I found her interesting in a way I hadn’t found other potential protagonists interesting at all. Her story as it unfolded in my head said something to me. It resonated with me, with my fascination with modern Europe, with the way we construct our identity, with the way we define ourselves by some of the choices we make and not others.

For me, if you leave it with the characters not only will your voice be unclear, it’s rather uninquisitive (a better word than lazy) of you as a writer. The key to it all is why you are attracted to this character, and why, having chosen them, you are drawn to a particular part/time of their life (there is a reason why so many novels are set at transitional moments in our lives – and, conversely, why seeing this there was a new wave of writers in the 80s and 90s looking at non-transitional moments). And once you have latched onto that you have reached your Archimedean Point.

And it is using that fulcrum as just that – the point of leverage for your entire novel, building up the layers of character and story always and only as they come back to, are illuminated by, or are fleeing from that single point – that you will make your voice clear.

Be inspirational

I began this post after having lunch with one of my favourite poets, Clarissa Pabi. I am very lucky to spend my days in a city that has an absolutely bustling creative scene and a hub, The Albion Beatnik Bookstore, where you will almost always find someone creative doing something exciting any hour of the day or night. Clarissa is one of many wonderful creative people it’s been my privilege to meet in the past three years I always leave feeling a buzz in my head and a need and desire to go out and do something interesting, inventive or just plain different.

A week later, as I sit down to finish it, I have a very personal reason to talk about inspiration (which also explains why I have been, and will be for a week or so) absent from here. Last Monday, my mum lost her lengthy battle with cancer. She introduced me to the word Beatnik when I was about five, and it was her love of books, the wonderful tales of her travels across Europe in a Morris Minor van, and the way each new edition of Virginia Woolf’s diaries and Colette’s letters was a household event that set me on the insatiable writing path (those things and the old school desk my parents got me for my third birthday at which I sat scribbling in the middle of the night from my earliest memories). The day after she die it was my privilege to be able to perform a set of performance poetry in her memory at the night Full Fat at The Book Club in Shoreditch. This post is also in memory of her inspirational qualities.

“Surround yourself with inspirational people” is one of those truisms of the creative world. It’s how collectives come together, how vague perceptions are refined through the polish of another person’s perspective, how we find ourselves challenged and inflamed with enthusiasm to do the things that would otherwise remain the vaguest of dreams, how diverse ideas bounce off each other, the friction creating a heat that cooks them into delicious creative recipes, how – at the bottom line – new movements are formed.

Before I’m accused of adding yet another page to the extrovert’s charter, consider what originally gave you your love of the arts. Most of us can point to someone who pointed us in the right direction, however gently and however long ago. I have been blessed with a life filled with inspirational people, from my mum through to people I work with now like Clarissa.

But my point here isn’t about how to draw inspiration, or how to make your artistic journey smoother by surrounding yourself with “the right people” (however important those things are). My point is the unquantifiable debt we owe our inspirations. Without those inspirational figures we would never have set out on the path we love. The way we can best repay that debt is simple. Be inspirational.

What does that mean? Well, it’s as indefinable as being spectacular, of course. But like being spectacular it’s a mindset that we can all aspire to and adopt. Think back again. We are surrounded every day by people enmeshed in the world of arts and letters. What is it that made the few who inspired you stand out?

Ever one to look for alliteration where none exists in nature, the following five things feel like a good place to start.

• Enthusiasm – it’s infectious, almost epidemiologically catching. Do you love literature? Really love it?  Let it show!
• Encouragement – those who inspire us are always looking for ways they can support others. They often have an uncanny knack of seeing beyond the one who shouts loudest in a group, seeing what it is that burns unseen, even unnoticed, in the quiet kid at the back of the class, making a line straight for them and helping it catch fire. See a glimmer of interest in someone? Don’t say “that’s nice?” or even walk on by. Stop and figure out what you can do to help it burn brighter.
• Enjoyment – it seems obvious but it’s something we forget so often. One of the main reasons we do things we see others doing is that we see just how much fun they’re having. There will be times when the last thing you feel like doing is tapping anything on the keyboard. I know that all too well, and I know how important it is to vent sometimes. But some writers seem to make a virtue out of grumbling at every turn. There are times we need to keep those conversations among friends because, after all, if we didn’t at a deep underlying level love what we do, we wouldn’t do it.
• Energy – I’m not talking about tweeting 100 times an hour or generally being one of those always bright and breezy smiling people who thinks the world is always one long cocktail. It’s more a question of giving what time you have. People who inspire us are just as susceptible to depression and the vicissitudes of life as the rest of us – it’s what they do with the time they have that matters.
• Engagement – this is pretty much where I started with this blog and it’s still the most important thing. Speak to people, and not just to tell them what you’ve done now. Take an interest in what they do, listen, respond to their comments.

Of course not everyone can do all of those things. And certainly not all the time. But when we are able, then we should put this right at the top of our priority list. It’s the least we owe the people who got us started.

Be Spectacular

This post originally appeared here, on my other blog, but it feels as though it belongs here, in the context of recent discussions about who we are as self-publishing writers.
The inscription at the front of my book (life:) razorblades included says simply
"be spectacular and die living"
That's still about as much as needs to be said on the subject of either life or art. The rest, as it were, is just unpacking. It's so incredibly difficult to keep it plastered to the inside of our eyelids as we wade through life, and, to get more specific, as writers setting out "to be published" or "to sell books" or even "to connect with readers". The line itself is something I've become a dab hand at churning out but singularly bad at reflecting upon and aspiring to. My recent lift in spirits and creative direction has been largely a result of thinking about that simple mantra.

Which brings me to one of the catalysts, which in turn got me thinking. One of my favourite films, Man on Wire, was on TV a week or so ago. Watching it, spellbound (for those of you unfamiliar with it, this a documentary about Philippe Petit, a tightrope walker who, with a few co-conspirators, in 1974 illicitly rigged a cable between the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, and proceeded to walk across - and then back, and back again, stopping to lie down, to look down, to kneel to the dawn, almost dancing as he played dare with the police waiting to arrest him at the other end), one line struck me. One of the first things the arresting officers asked him was "why?" Petit's response was one of those lightbulb moments. Odd, because it's a common question - we all think of those "why?" "because" exchanges about climbing Everest. But Petit's response wasn't "because", it was to shake his head and despair that after such a beautiful moment the officer had deflated it with something as banal as a question.

For me, that exchange is a perfect commentary on the cultural life.

It also set me thinking (national cultural stereotyoe alert!). One of the things I'm researching for a new book is parkour. Don't worry, I'm not actually doing it, rather I'm researching those who do, and the philosophy behind it.

Parkour (the art of movng through a space continually forward by finding ways for your body - and mind - to overcome obstacles - you may not realise it but you saw it in that BBC ad a few years ago that you thought was all stunts and mats and tricks but wasn't) was given its shape and identity by David Belle (that's him in the video), who developed it with his friends in Fecamp, in France. And then I thought about the incredible "spiderman" Alain Robert. And the stereotyping part of my brain took hold of the fact that the three people I was thinking about were French. Now, we're used to people talking about literature and philosophy in France and their place in French life, but maybe it's not really Bernard Henri Levy and Michel Houellebecq we should think of but the likes of Belle, Petit, and Robert.

Petit's words have blended sowly into that mantra over the last few days - the need to do something spectacular, beautiful, memorable and, possibly equally important, inexplicable. But for those of us whose bodies are closer to Henri Levy than Belle, and dabble in creativity with our minds, what does that mean? "Be spectacular" - the rest, as I said at the start, is just the unpacking, and yet absolutely everything is in that unpacking. In focusing on a thing - a single, spectacular, beautiful thing, and moving always and only towards it. Sometimes it seems to me as though the thing is life itself - but life, as my last two collections have been written to demonstrate, is nothing without content, without relentless energy and celebration. At other times I think asking the question at all is the problem - a sign of my Englishness? - and yet these remarkable characters don't have the aimlessness of people who haven't honed down their goal to absolute concreteness in the  way we imagine when we think of a lack of questionning.

Then I thought on, of my recent conversations with friends who know far more than me about zen, Trevor Barton and Viv Tuffnell, and I wondered if they would tell me that the key is not to question but to "know", whcih made me think "but I don't know". But maybe the answer is that it is the questionning - of ourselves, our lives, our world, that stops us from "know"ing what we have to do, and then giving ourselves to doing it. Maybe the answer lies in learning to know oneself well enough that one does not have to question - which sounds a lot like what I have said about confessional art and stripping everything to your most basic truth. I'm still not there, but maybe I'm starting to learn which questions not to ask. The fundamental mantra seems unchallengable, though, for us as artists:

"be spectacular"

How Many Baskets?

Social media is one of the elephants in the room, the monkeys on the back, the metaphors still in the forming of being a self-published writer. Pretty much everything that needs to be or can be said has been said - and will probably keep on being said for years to come. I'm as guilty as anyone of contributing to the noise - for more than two years I've been writing a column on using social media for Words With Jam magazine.

I was writing this piece anyway, but then I came across Jane Friedman's article on platform on the Self-publishing Advice blog. She advocates
"Producing a body of work on your own platform—e.g. blog, e-mail newsletter, social network, podcast, video, digital downloads, etc.—that gathers quality followers. This is usually a long-term process."
Now absolutely this is very sound advice, especially that last bit about the long term.

But it got me thinking - and asking (though I have yet to see an answer - note to anyone out there contributing guest blogs - answering comments is rule number 1 for guest blogging) what this means. There are so many forms of social media and "platform" sites it's easy to get totally flummoxated both knowing where to start and knowing where to stop! And there's the secondary problem that most of us don't set out from a standing start to build a community around our work. Many of us will already be on Facebook, or have a blog, or be on twitter at the least, and because we've only just thought about building our communities we probably didn't give "branding" much thought.

Which I suppose is tip one - if you can, use the same distinctive username everywhere. That's very much a case of do as I say not do as I do. Before I proceed any further, this is a sample of my sites that will show you what I mean:

I'm on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/user/lastmanoutofeden/videos

here's one of the videos I have there - it's a site I use for putting up poetry readings I do



And here's my tumblr - look, it has the same username! Huzzah!
http://lastmanoutofeden.tumblr.com/
here's my twitter - er, wait, that's not Farmer Barleymow
http://twitter.com/agnieszkasshoes
My main website at least has my name on it
http://danholloway.wordpress.com
as does my Facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/DanHollowayWriter
but my other blog is back to its old tricks
http://agnieszkasshoes.blogspot.co.uk/

And then, of course, I write articles across the web, and I'm part of a couple of great collectives like Authors Electric, the Alliance of Independent Authors, and the League of Extraordinary Authors.

And the list goes on. In other words, my internet presence is somewhat hit and miss - in fact the only place where you can get to everything I do is on my website.

Which leads to two questions.
1. Should this worry me?
and
2. What should you do?

This is a series that will run to many episodes, and I'll tackle each website separately (I originally thought of my social media contribution to Words With Jam as a single article. Two and a half years later I'm just getting started!), but I want to do some thinking around teh first question today that will hep with the second - I also want to open the floor for thoughts and tips.

Common sense tells me absolutely, yes, I should be very worried. I've done it wrong. I've not branded myself consistently. The single greatest danger this poses, as I see it, is that someone sees something I do and is desperate to know more, to find a book, to purchase it - yippee!! But wait, there is no click-through. We are told again and again that one-click is everything. And, yes, that's right.

Only...

we are looking here at commuity-building, at creating a group of "true fans", people who really want to know what you're up to, to be part of the conversation with you. Yes, they may start as browsers, they may stumble across you, but if, having done so they are still at the stage of casual interest, they will probably never be part ofthat core community. I have no interest in parting people from their money on a one-off basis. I want people to buy my books because they are desperate to see what I've written, because they are so engaged with what I say and what I do. The absence of a single omnipotent click is not such a disaster.

In fact, go back to what Jane says about the long term. She's absolutely right. What people who coordinate their tweets with their Facebook with their linked-in pinterested tumbling don't get is that a great online platform-building site is great precisely because it does something specific. And you use it best if you use it for that specificity (if you, as it were, enter its narrative community to bring Wittgenstein in again). So whilst, yes, I wouldn't say go out of your way to hide your identity and make each platform you use an utterly discrete parcel, I think the main thing is to treat each separately, on its own terms, using it for what it does best and using it because it fits with what you are trying to do as a whole.

Over time, and without harping on that really is the key, each tendril you send out into the ether will strengthen and send out its own branches, and each of those will gradually converge so that each community you build aruond yourself will begin to blur at the edges with others. Don't worry if there always remain large sections that overlap nowhere - different "true fans" of yours will engage with different sides of you. Remember this:

The only reason to keep all your fans in the same place is to make your life simpler - and how is that related to the central artistic principle of giving?

So, use platforms judiciously (though by all means play aroudn to see what works rather than just taking my word for it over the coming weeks - after all, you can only know a conversation from the inside...) and don't worry if you are part of separate conversations. What matters is the integrity and your commitment to each of them. Perhaps, just perhaps, you could, even should, just stick to one...

Read Me! Or, why do self-published authors care who will review their book?

" It's simply not good enough for cultural pundits not to engage with self-publishing"...

Getting someone to open the cover of your book. That's always been one of the major battles a self-publisher faces. It almost certainly will infuriate you at many points during your self-publishing life. After all, you *know*, if they'd just open the first page...

The first thing to say is it's not something exclusive to self-publishers. Many of my author friends published by small presses have exactly the same problem, and Kevin Duffy, who runs Bluemoose, one of the most inventive - and brilliant - small presses around is frequently outspoken about the Big Six and London-centrism of most reviewers.

That said, why reviewers, especially bloggers, won't review self-published books is something that has become a heated debate in the past few weeks. Well-respected blogger gavreads posted on 27th May his "Reasons Why We Reviewers Won't Read Your Self-published Book." Self-publishers were furious (and believe me, what's said on the comments is nothing to what was said on forums and groups all over the web. And to be fair, paragraph titles like "we know it's going to be rubbish" were probably designed to stimulate a certain amount of, er, debate.

And today, the on site Awesome Indies Tahlia Newland has issued a clarion call that seems aimed as a rebuttal, entitled "Come on Guys Give Indies a Fair Go."

Now, both articles make some good points - the former is, as the author says, simply an explanantion of a tendency and not a justification, the latter makes a call for equal treatment rather than especially harsh scrutiny. And both have their faults - traditionally published authors aren't exactly tantrum-free and genre-busting is sort of what self-publishing's for; whilst "be big-hearted" has the ring of desperation to it.

I don't want to take sides, but I do want to offer a series of observations about reviews and book bloggers. Take them as the beginning of a debate. Reviewers - take them as the start of some self-questionning about what you do; writers - take them as the start of some self-questionning about why you want to be reviewed.

• Most of the anecdotal evidence I've heard - and the outspoken words of indie guru Joe Konrath - suggest reviews don't create sales
• There are book blog reviewers I go back to again and again because I know I share their taste. They are few and far between - Tony Malone, Farm Lane Books, Winston's Dad - and I think of their reviews more like recommendations from friends who share my taste. Furthermore their reviews feel less like advertisements than parts of an ongoing discussion of which the book in question is only a part - and more often than not I enjoy the review more when I've read the book as opposed to when I'm looking for a new book - though when I do buy a book recommended, as when Farm Lane Books introduced me to Beside the Sea, it's so I can join the conversation. So...
• Reviews are part of a community built around a certain taste. This feels much more like the 1000 true fans model than the "review-as-plug" model. I wonder if, within such communities, there is such resistance to self-published authors who are part of that community - the first of Gav's main points "we don't know who you are" certainly doesn't apply
• Writers, ask yourself why you would want a review from somewhere where you're not part of the community. Why are you not already part of the community? Quite probably, or at least possibly, because people who are part of it don't share your taste - why would you want to foist your book on them in that case?
• People have review blogs for a lot of reasons. Some of them for their own glory. I thought Gav's point "We know you’re not going to generate hits" spoke volumes - I have no interest in being reviewed by someone who reviews books to generate hits. Just as I have no time for people who self-publish "to get rich" so I have no time for people who review "to get hits." Most people review books because they love books, plain and simple. I go back to my point above - if their passion is not for your kind of book why would you want to hack off another human being by being a pest, and if you just know they'd love your book that's probably because you're a regular at their blog and chances are they will take a look at some point.
• If a reviewer isn't looking at self-published books, chill - blogs will soon appear that do - gaps will be filled, niches plugged, communities built. Take a look, for example, at Cally Philips' excellent Indie ebook Review (interested party alert - I do some reviewing there and have had a couple of books reviewed there). If nature hates a vacuum, that's nothing compared to the internet's sheer abhorrence of them!

Now where I think it's different is the cultural media. I think I would still go along with point 1 - a review in a big paper won't make you millions. Speaking from experience, I can say that coverage in the Guardian, both of The Dead Beat and The Zoom Zoom, did lead to a sales spike - in double but nowhere near triple figures. But I very much do think it's the job of the cultural media to go out and trawl the world of self-publishing looking for the inventive and the ingenious. The cultural pages should be full of trendsetters not trend followers, people whose own journalistic career is built on innovation, on not being afraid to champion the unheard of (though it's so much easier to snipe than cheer). Hats off to Damien Walter for exploring the world of self-published weird fiction, even actively soliciting self-publicists! But that's one example. It's simply not good enough for cultural pundits not to engage with self-publishing.

The point here is that cultural pundits are there to give a picture of both the general landscape and the new, exciting things bubbling up on it - and by failing to give a complete picture they are failing the public that look tothem for advice of where to turn next for exciting things - and when people get turned off books because they are told only a fraction of what's out there, some of the blame for that lack of interest lies with those who didn't give a complete picture.

So, book bloggers and cultural pundits do two different things. The former are engaged in ongoing discussions with devotees. The latter exist to chart those discussions and provide entry points to them. We writers need to get those clear in our heads before we start complaining and campaigning. If a reviewer won't review us, the chances are, to bastardise Wittgenstein, both parties aren't part of the same community - in which case, why worry about missing a review, and if you are worried, take the correct step and join the community. If a cultural pundit won't talk about the exciting liminalities of the self-publishing world, however, campaign from the rooftops and call them out on it in the blogosphere and anywhere else.

Self-publishing Excellence: Amniotic City

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Over at eight cuts today, I interview Lucy Furlong about her extraordinary book, Amniotic City. It is a perfect example of self-publishing excellence so I thought I'd have a look at the object itself here.

Amniotic City is a map of the part of East London that cradles the Thames, produced by the wonderful Lucy Furlong. Only it's not just a map, it's a psychogeographic poetic tribute to a side of this wonderful city too rarely see. Looking at the city's architecture and liminal spaces, the poems and the walks through which they lead you as your guide, transforming your view of the city around you, uncover and explore the eternal feminine as she manifests herself all around.

This is a niche book for sure, but to me that's both a fascinating and very strong concept. I've done shows about Lilith and uncovering the ancient feminine, hidden but never eliminated by thousands of years of patriarchal design, is always invaluable. This book brings that process to life in situ, leading you through a hidden London, making you open your eyes and not only that, when you go anywhere, you will look at the "MAN-made" landscape around you through different eyes, and it will be as though the scales have fallen from them.

So, tick one - a book that is specialist and knows exactly what it's doing and has something great to offer readers.

The execution is also brilliant. Presented like a fold up map (not just a gimmick - this means you can - and will - put it in your pocket and use it as such), this opens out into just that - a map. On one side a map leads us around London, with photos taken on Lucy's own travels that both guide us ground us and help us to see the city through her eyes, intimate how we might look differently (such as the coins in the crack in the wall, clearly photographed as fecund or prostituted [is the money going in or coming out? the photograph makes us ask and consider the ambiguity] genitalia).

Lucy uses the device of coloured pins and string to lead us to the reverse on which she has printed the poems, the coloured pins indictaing which is associated with which location. Some of the poems appear suggestively on the page - a tree, swarming bees. All of them make us question the place to which they refer, like an archaeologist's brush delicately uncovering the feminine around us.

In other words, every aspect of the purpose and production of this book have been thought through and work well together. Which is exactly what self-publishing should do.