What is the value of literary festivals to the crime writing author? (Part Three)

In the second part of my research into literary festivals I asked crime writing authors what they consider the benefits of appearing in a festival line up are, and what they personally get out of teaching a workshop.

Next, I ask festival organisers and an agent: What can the genre festival offer that a general literary festival can’t?

 Clare Mackintosh, is the bestselling author of the psychological suspense novel, ‘I Let You Go’, a Richard & Judy summer 2015 Book Club selection. In 2012 Clare founded ChipLitFest.(21-24 April 2016). I asked Clare, as a crime writer, why she hadn’t chosen her own festival to be genre specific. “I wanted to create a festival with community values but with a national audience, and to involve as much of the town as possible so for us that meant keeping the genres fairly diverse.”

So can a genre specific festival be too much of a good thing? Clare disagrees. “No, I’d like to see more. You instantly have something in common and because they are genre based they are not as intimidating as some literary festivals can be.” Clare feels that dedicated crime festivals “tend to encourage a lot of mingling of authors and punters which makes for a lovely atmosphere.”

Clare also spoke about the incentives for an author to appear at festivals: “I think that every author has a different reason for going to festivals. Some authors are motivated by meeting their readers: that’s the big drive. Some do it because it raises their profile in terms of the publishing world. If they’re seen at literary festivals, it gives them an amount of credibility and that’s important.”

Graham Smith, is a successful crime writer and longtime reviewer for CrimeSquad, and founded the annual crime writing weekend, Crime and Publishment (February 26-28 2016). He is a crime festival enthusiast finding that other big literary festivals “can be prohibitively expensive”, and he echoes Clare on how some festivals can be intimidating: “You wonder if you’re going to turn up and feel like an idiot with talk about passive pronouns and discombobulated sentences.” Graham told me he puts together the line ups that he wants, “making sure that it has value for others.” Both Graham and Clare told me that they change most of the author line up every year, the same going for agents and publishers.

(For advice for authors pitching literary festivals see Joanna Penn’s excellent interview with Clare Mackintosh and following comments.)

 Finally, I asked agent David Headley, from DHH Literary Agency whether a genre festival might make a difference to an author’s confidence and self-belief. David disagreed: “I am not entirely sure that genre specific events are necessarily important. Writers who are with fellow writers is more important. They will feel the same regardless of what genre they are writing.”

My conclusion is that the value of literary festivals to authors – apart from escaping the laptop – is to network with other authors, agents, publishers, and to meet readers. You’ll certainly gain credibility. I was delighted to hear that workshop planning and analyses of students’ work might inform an author’s own work. The enthusiasm I’ve heard for genre specific festivals suggests that, for the genre writer, they seem the more relaxed option, even if they won’t make a difference to the agent looking for new writing.

 If you sell a few books along the way, it’s a bonus. And if you get paid enough to cover your time and expenses, you’re doing very well indeed.

 

What is the value of literary festivals to the crime writing author? (Part Two)

In the first part of this research into literary festivals I asked what value a festival appearance might have beyond the slim promise of a small fee. What do the authors say?

 M.R. Hall is the author of the deftly plotted Coroner Jenny Cooper series. He is an established speaker and runs several crime writing workshops a year, most recently at CrimeFest.

Matthew confirmed that the author’s fee is not a motivation. “Workshops easily take as long to prepare as to run. There is no financial reason for doing them other than in the vaguest sense that participants might buy your books and spread the word.” However there is a positive side to festivals. “The principal value to an author is getting away from the desk and meeting new people.

But do workshops raise professional profiles? Matthew said, “On balance, I feel there are better ways for me to connect with readers – giving an entertaining talk with plenty of jokes and anecdotes, that leaves people feeling they know you, but would like to know you better, is probably more effective in raising profile and driving sales.”

Emily Barr, who has written 12 successful novels and has most recently published ‘The Sleeper’, a tense psychological thriller, has a different view on workshops. “It seems to me that workshops have replaced the ‘talk by the author’. I always offer a festival a workshop rather than a talk if I can, because I really enjoy teaching and meeting readers as writers. Talking about when it’s ok to use an adverb is much more interesting than the ‘where do you get your ideas from?’ school of festival interaction.”

So can there be incentives beyond income? Emily thinks so. “Planning a talk about dialogue, character, setting or whatever it may be helps me to crystalise my thoughts on the matter, and that feeds back into my own writing.”

 Historical Fiction author Emma Darwin, and author of the excellent blog ‘This Itch of Writing’ is currently completing a non-fiction book about teaching historical fiction. To find out if it’s the same story for authors in other genres, I asked Emma about the value of festival workshops. “The underlying principle of the writing workshop, whether you’re in it or teaching it, is that it’s much easier to work out what’s going on with someone else’s work than your own. It’s a fundamental skill to bring that back to reading your own work as someone else would read it.”

And what about the Indie author who works outside the traditional publishing house structure? I asked Joanna Penn, thriller author, international speaker and entrepreneur: “I see the main advantages of festivals as networking with other authors – which gives the author community and often results in joint promotional activities.” Joanna also pointed out with realistic pragmatism: “I’m also a paid professional speaker so I am paid to do workshops – a slightly different focus than most authors.”

So it seems that time invested by authors in festivals does yield positive results. Meeting readers and other writers, networking, and thinking about the writing process whilst planning and critiquing to inform your own work are all valued by the authors I spoke to.

In the final part of this blog I talk to organisers/authors and an agent about crime genre festivals.

 

What is the value of literary festivals to the crime-writing author? (Part One)

The opportunity to meet your literary hero, or listen to a new author talk about their debut bestselling book, is what draws punters to literary festivals. And the benefits of a festival writing workshop to the fledgling, unpublished would-be-writer, seem obvious.

But what does an author gain from devoting umpteen hours to planning a talk or a taught workshop? Is there significant income to be made? Are genre specific festivals different to general literary festivals? Will appearing in the line up of an important festival boost a professional profile? Will it help you sell your own work? Or can there be another reason to go out and share your wisdom with eager readers and aspiring writers?

According to literaryfestivals.co.uk there are 350+ literary festivals in Britain, with genre festivals Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival (July 16-19) in Harrogate and CrimeFest in Bristol being in the top three of the Guardian’s best crime writing festivals in the world. Which would suggest that British crime authors have plenty of opportunity to showcase their author talks and teaching talents. But what is the incentive to do so?

Most authors would agree that there is little or no financial motivation. Carl Wilkinson writing ‘On the Economics of Book Festivals’ in the Financial Times says “authors are rarely paid more than an average fee of £150 for speaking at a festival. And that’s if they’re paid in cash at all…. a handful of festivals pay in kind: a rather delicious local cheese (Bridport); fizzy wine (Oxford) or inexpensive plonk (Hay).”

Scotland is a little more generous. Kirsten Innes speaking for the crime writing festival Bloody Scotland (September 11-13) told me that Scottish festivals overall have agreed a standard fee for all their authors this year of £180 for an event.

Sarah Shaffi writing in The Bookseller on festival appearance fees quotes Clare Mackintosh, founder of ChipLitFest (April 21-24 2016). “This year ChipLitFest will run a profit-share model for authors for the first time. When the bills have been paid and our projected outgoings accounted for, our profits will be divided between the 70 authors booked to attend.”

If speakers can look forward to cheese and wine in lieu of cash, or a cut of the likely gate profits (which are universally agreed to be slim), is the outlook any better for a writer running a taught festival workshop?

It doesn’t seem so. A spokesperson for Harrogate Festivals told me that an author running a workshop at Theakstons Crime Festival Creative Thursday could expect to be paid the same as a panel member or speaker, with pro rata remuneration for longer workshops.

Neither do increased book sales necessarily entice authors away from their desk. Joanna Penn told me that events “can provide exposure to new readers although I personally haven’t seen increased book sales that I can track directly to festivals.” Independent bookseller Ron Johns of Falmouth Bookseller, who will be at the Port Eliot Festival, said that sales would depend on the author and associated media impact. For one author it might be very few, and for another he would be “very happy to sell in excess of 100”. A spokesperson for Goldsboro Books in London told me that they use Nielsen’s BookScan, where a spike in sales of a title might then encourage further trade interest.

But what about raising a professional profile and promoting sales? Here things look more promising. Carl Wilkinson in the Financial Times again quotes Simon Prosser, publisher of the Penguin imprint Hamish Hamilton and a co-founder of the Port Eliot Festival (July 30–August 2), “I think they’re now an essential part of the ecology of publishing and writing,” he says. “These days, how else do you meet readers?”

So do festival appearances have a value beyond the fee related one? In the second part of this blog I shall be talking to authors to hear their thoughts.

 

Literary festivals and the crime writer

As part of an MA project I began researching literary festivals and why authors need to go to them.  The first thing I discovered is that there are a lot of them – more than 350 festivals in Britain each year. I decided to narrow the field and look at genre festivals. In this case, crime writing festivals.

I spoke to authors, organisers, agents and booksellers. I’ll be posting what they told me in a three part blog.