Looking at something online this morning, I noticed a call for submissions – not from one of those ‘publishing’ companies that still hang around, offering to get your book out there as long as you empty your bank account into theirs. Not even from a perfectly legit new literary agency looking for its first crop of clients to nurture, or for a short story or poetry competition.
This was for One Big Book Launch, an annual event which propels a whole lot of books out into the world at a big party. The organizers invite ‘emerging’ authors to submit their books, and a selection process decides which will be included at the event.
It was that word ‘emerging’ that set my synapses firing. They don’t define it. The event isn’t restricted to debut authors, or fiction writers, or, as far as I can see, anything at all; they don’t even place a top limit on the number of books on an author’s backlist. I can only assume that they mean not famous and successful.
What I began to wonder was, at what point does an author become too famous and successful to qualify as ‘emerging’?
Success is relative, and often subjective Sometimes it comes with the first book; sometimes the one book is the only book. Until this week, To Kill a Mockingbird fell into that category, but Harper Lee can hardly be described as an ‘emerging’ author. She certainly doesn’t emerge into the public eye very often, unlike a lot of authors who are neither rich nor especially famous, but get out there to promote their books at any opportunity, and quite right too.
Once upon a time I used to go to book launches and crime fiction conventions regularly. Not so much any more, since I no longer have anything to promote, though I am going to a launch later this week, weather permitting – my good friend and occasional deputy blogger Chris Nickson has a new book out - Dark Briggate Blues, set in his beloved Leeds in the 1930s. REad it; it's brilliant.
Chris could possibly serve to illustrate what I’m blethering about: neither rich nor famous (though he does have a Wikipedia page – does that count?), a dozen or more excellent historical crime novels to his credit. Is he still ‘emerging’, or has he ‘emerged’?
My feeling is that one of these days Chris will step into the spotlight; I’ve thought so ever since I read his first book in manuscript. But at the moment he still stands in the shadows; his publishers don’t have the six-figure marketing budgets that would put his name on posters at railway stations and his books on every front table.
And so it was with so many of the authors I used to encounter year after year at the conventions: writers of quality and imagination on a par with the bestsellers, but somehow lagging behind in terms of public profile. Some of them had been around for quite a few years, and had a backlist in double figures; they clearly sold well enough to keep their publishers interested. I’m sure they would consider that their achievements qualify as success, but the top level of fame and fortune still eludes them.
So – were they still ‘emerging’ writers? If so, will most of them remain so, and quite happily? And if not, were they ever?
One Big Book Launch is a great idea. But I’d love to know how they pin down that elusive term.
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