My Guest this week is a bestselling, award-winning author who has even had some of his books picked up for TV series. He's here, however, to talk about something far more provocative... Ladies and Gentlemen...
Robert Wilson
Where are we now?
The
world is in the process of an extraordinary upheaval. We are living, perhaps,
in a period of greater uncertainty than at any time since the end of WW2 and
the onset of The Cold War. Never was the world economy so precarious as more
and more people question the neoliberalist ideas that have informed the basis
of global economic strategy. Never was the world in such a state of inequality.
Never has politics been so divisive and people so divided. Never have we felt
so threatened by implacable terrorists and the insoluble problem of climate
change. Never were there so many world powers capable of destabilizing global
peace. This should be an era for great crime and thriller literature.
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The
publishing industry was different then. Put simply: there was no internet.
Publishers were small companies producing books they wanted readers to read.
They were supported by reviewers who drew readers to new books in the culture
pages of newspapers read by significant numbers. They sold to bookshops that
knew the titles, authors and their readers and could recommend.
Most
of that has disappeared. Publishers are now huge conglomerates with accountants
and shareholders who demand profits. Editorial teams no longer decide on what
books will be published, but rather pitch their titles to sales and marketing
who judge whether they’ll sell in the market place. They have no mid list, just
best sellers and rookies. The few reviewers that remain in the diminishing
culture pages cover the books that follow the trend so that their newspapers
can maintain their dwindling readers. Readers have so many avenues through the
internet to find out about new books that it’s impossible to quantify their
effect. 75% of sales are made through Amazon who hoard all the information
about their buyers, so that publishers can do little but follow trend. Fashions
become imbedded and are much more difficult to break as we’ve seen from the
present wave of ‘psychological thrillers’ prompted by the success of ‘Gone
Girl’. The self-publishers are numerous, have no quality filters and sell their
books at rock bottom prices. Amazon are only concerned by numbers, not caring if
a thousand writers sell three books each or one writer sells three thousand. Bookshops
are heavily demarcated and have little relationship with their customers.
Everybody is following and nobody is leading.
This
is the industry with which writers now have to engage.
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I’d
always wanted to be a travel writer. I’d travelled a lot, had strong descriptive
powers and thought that this was the road for me until the travel writing
industry collapsed in the late 80s early 90s. I turned to crime as a way of
using the settings and my experiences to describe and understand the countries
in which I was living in the context of a rapidly changing world. As my first
book was published in 1995 the Fantasy wave was on the rise. By the end of the
90s children were into Harry Potter, teenagers were wrestling with vampires and
the world seemed to want to revisit Middle Earth. We are still in the grip of
that colossal trend.
My
point here is that those of you who are thinking that the best way to bring
readers on board is to attempt to explain the complex, uncertain world in which
we are now living, as John Le Carré did back in 1963, then think again.
Unless,
that is, the current change induces such a level of discomfort that readers feel
they’re in need of new tools for this brave new world.
BIO:
Robert Wilson has written thirteen novels: four West African noir, two WW2 Lisbon, four psychological crime novels set in Seville, and three international thrillers featuring kidnap consultant, Charles Boxer. A Small Death in Lisbon, won the 1999 CWA Gold Dagger. The first two Seville books were filmed by Sky Atlantic in 2012. The first Boxer book, Capital Punishment, was nominated for the 2013 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger.Stealing People is out in paperback now.
Thank you Robert, for an interesting post. As my own fans will already know, one of my own formative influences is Charles Dickens, a master of wrapping stinging social comment in to entertaining tales. They will also know that I strive to do this with my own novels - entertain while taking pot-shots at all kinds of issues. One of my favourites, again as my readers are aware, is the abuse of electronic surveillance in our present society, but everything from money-laundering by Vatican banks, through questioning what information our governments have the right to withhold, to the criminal side of the Internet have all come under my critical pen whilst entertaining with my tales.
What do you think? Do readers need new tools in our frenetic times? Opinions in the comments below, please. I'll figure out a prize for the best one.
Eric @ www.ericjgates.com
What do you think? Do readers need new tools in our frenetic times? Opinions in the comments below, please. I'll figure out a prize for the best one.
Eric @ www.ericjgates.com
