An open rant to the world of publishing:
Aug. 27th, 2011 12:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clo_again(This got much longer than I intended. Er. Skip if you're not a book reader?)
Dear Gollancz,
Last week I picked Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley up in the library, a science fiction book published by your esteemable selves. This looks interesting I thought, it says it's won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the blurb makes it sound like fascinatingly intricate sci-fi, and all the quotes on the cover say it's marvellous (though I take those with several heaped tablespoons of salt since Neil Gaiman was somewhat scathing about them). I feel like some good sci-fi this week. I think I'll try it.
For one reason and another (namely a sudden inexplicable desire to re-read Diana Wynne Jones' The Dark Lord of Derkholm again, as you do every so often) I just got around to picking it up today. The first page was interesting, the second intriguing. The third was the start of the second chapter and the first sentence introduced a character called Sri Hong-Owen who, I am ashamed to admit, I knee-jerk assumed was male and was utterly delighted when the text not only immediately said "her", but revealed her as captain of a ship in the next paragraph. Excellent! Intriguing female characters! In positions of power! In science fiction! \o/ All excellent signs that I might like the book.
By the third paragraph, I was thinking with some assured delightfulness, I'm definitely going to enjoy this book.
By the fourth paragraph, dear Gollancz, a nagging doubt crept in.
No, not about how much I would enjoy the book; it was already endearing itself to me with the character names, the female ship captain, the readable-yet-authoritative science speak and how easily interesting the first three pages had been. No, I was still convinced that picking it from the library shelf had been an excellent choice.
My nagging doubt was because the first three pages - with nothing obvious in the text except a vague feeling - hadn't felt like an introduction.
They'd felt like a continuation.
I checked the front cover, assuming I'd missed a reference to a series or previous related books. Nothing; just title, author, praising quote, note that it'd won the Arthur C. Clarke. Back cover, more of the same; just blurb, quoted praise. The only thing that caught my eye was the teaser sentence you'd put in sightly larger orange font at the start of the blurb: The Quiet War is over. Hhhmm. 'Quiet War' is oddly capitalised, like a book title perhaps? Flipping to the inner pages at the start, I found a list of books Paul McAuley had previously written and sure enough, one of them was called The Quiet War.
But it wasn't first on that list, so it wasn't the first in the series. It was last which suggested perhaps it was only the preceeding book and maybe the eight books before it were the rest of the series in order (the list was only labelled ALSO BY PAUL MCAULEY IN GOLLANCZ, with no indication of what relation they had to each other or if they were standalones).
I sighed at the thought of perhaps needing to read eight books before I could dive into the rest of this particular intriguing book - because you see Gollancz, several times now I have read books that were average to good but that gave me at best a vague sense of dissatisfaction, of missing the point, all of which became clear when I inevitably discovered they were sequels or later books in a series. Sometimes, the sequels were good enough for me to go back to read the preceeding books (see the pre-mentioned Dark Lord of Derkholm; I read the sequel Year of the Griffin first by accident and it was so marvellously wonderful that there was no question of not reading Dark Lord.... On a side-note, these books are published by you! Isn't that amazing that I accidentally read another Gollancz sequel first. Imagine the chances. Hhmm.
Sometimes, as in the case of Ravaged by David Wellington, which is a book with the added confusion of being renamed for British audiences from the American title Overwinter for some reason that no doubt made sense to you wise and knowing publisher-types at the time; it's not as if the British would understand a concept such as 'overwinter' now is it, and I can't imagine anyone who liked the author would mistakenly buy copies of both Ravaged AND Overwinter from Amazon.co.uk which helpfully sells them both and makes no note, obvious or otherwise, on them being the same book. Of course no one would be confused! Pfft. But, dear Gollancz, that's a problem created by another publisher and this tangent has grown too long.)
But, even as I sighed over this list of books and wondered if I'd have to slog through every one of them before reaching the intriguing adventures of Sri Hong-Owen, lady captain, another perculiarity caught my eye. The book I held in my hand, Gardens of the Sun, was on the list. And it wasn't after The Quiet War as the blurb would suggest but was fifth of nine book titles.
Did that mean it was published before The Quiet War? Did that mean I could read it without worrying about references to previous books since the list made The Quiet War look like a later-published prequel and therefore Gardens of the Sun should be readable first? Or should I read the book that was before it on the list, Fairyland? Or the book that was first, 400 Billion Stars? Were they even in order?
Dear Gollancz, there is only one thing I could do when faced with this conundrum, only one thing anyone does these days when one can't work out a publishers' ineffable reasoning: Bugger this for a bunch of bananas I thought. I'm going to look on Amazon.
To Amazon I went and searched for Gardens of the Sun. And there, in the very first sentence of the very first review, was the most helpful thing I'd read in the last ten minutes:
"This book is the second of a pair. The first was The Quiet War. See its reviews for the background to this one."
At this point, Gollancz, you should be seeing what my question will be. Why, with both front and back covers and all those inner pages at the beginning, why not anywhere, could you be as helpful as that reviewer on Amazon? S/he isn't getting paid to help. S/he doesn't work for you or for Amazon; there is no reason why I would expect s/he to be explaining to me what order I should read books in to get the maximum enjoyment from them or to avoid mistakes like buying the wrong book in a series. Why, instead of just one sentence of those repetative praising quotes that everyone knows you lift out of context for the sake of attracting attention, why could you not print Sequel to the award-winning The Quiet War?
Sure, I would've read that in the library and immediately checked the shelf for The Quiet War. Perhaps if it wasn't there, I would've put Gardens of the Sun back and moved on. Or perhaps I would've done what I do everytime I see or am recced an interesting book these days; perhaps I would've gone on Amazon on my phone and added The Quiet War to my Wishlist. Given my craving for sci-fi and how much Gardens of the Sun appealed to me, there's every chance I would've got it out the library anyway and bought The Quiet War immediately to read first, so I could read Gardens before I had to return it.
Was the chance, the chance, that I would return the book to the shelf and forget about it so much more important than how annoyed I would be when I got home and discovered I had a book that I wasn't going to enjoy reading because I would miss half the references? Or, had I been in a bookshop and suspected the book was in a series but bouldn't find out for sure, that I'd give up and return it to the shelf because who wants to pay for a book they won't enjoy because they won't understand what's happened previously? Or the very real possiblity that I'd read the book without realising it was even a sequel and that I'd find it needlessly confusing and unsatisfying? Especially when that very helpful reviewer on Amazon who did your job for you concluded by saying Gardens is good but you really need to read Quiet War first to fully enjoy it?
This is a request Gollancz and all publishers- no, not a request. A plea, from the bottom of my book-loving-and-buying heart.
Please, please, please put on (preferably) the front cover cover in clearly visible type if a book is a sequel or a series (if a sequel, put "Sequel to *name of previous book*", if a series put "Book *number* in the *name of series* series or similar). If it's a series or there are books linked to each other already published, especially if they need to be read in some sort of order, on the list of author works inside the first few pages, clearly label which books are linked to each other and print them in the order they should be read. You wouldn't expect anyone to enjoy Orson Scott Card's Speaker For The Dead without reading Ender's Game first, for example; read in the correct order both books are good (Ender's Game moreso than Speaker arguably) but read first, Speaker would seem like absolute nonsense. That's why it's very helpful that they've printed in larger font than the blurb on the back cover of my copy, Sequel to ENDER'S GAME
Apply this logic to all the books you publish and you will have much happier readers. I even bet you will sell more books, because books bought full price in shops are a. expensive and b. surrounded by many, many other tempting books. If I'd had to spend ten minutes working out if Gardens of the Sun was the first in the series while standing in Waterstone's? I would've got bored about minute two and put it back on the shelf. I might've remembered to look it up when I got home but more likely I would've bought another book and never got back to looking at Gardens.
Clarity makes buying easy, dear Gollancz. Buyers want buying to be easy. Be clear and you will sell more books.
Oh and I've spent so long trying to work out your obtuse publishing methods that you know, I'm bored now. I might write Paul McAuley off completely and move onto A Princess of Landover by Terry Brooks. It's the sixth book in the Landover series. I know because I've read the previous five, but for those who haven't it has "A Magic Kingdom of Landover Novel" printed on the front and inside there's a wonderfully organised-by-series list of books Terry Brooks as written. It's so helpful, I would've happily picked it off a shelf in Waterstone's.
It's published by Orbit (interestingly, one of the authors listed as being published by Orbit on their Wikipedia page is Orson Scott Card. Hhmm.)
Take notes, Gollancz.
No love for souring with frustration what looks like two fantastic science fiction books,
Clo
Dear Gollancz,
Last week I picked Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley up in the library, a science fiction book published by your esteemable selves. This looks interesting I thought, it says it's won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the blurb makes it sound like fascinatingly intricate sci-fi, and all the quotes on the cover say it's marvellous (though I take those with several heaped tablespoons of salt since Neil Gaiman was somewhat scathing about them). I feel like some good sci-fi this week. I think I'll try it.
For one reason and another (namely a sudden inexplicable desire to re-read Diana Wynne Jones' The Dark Lord of Derkholm again, as you do every so often) I just got around to picking it up today. The first page was interesting, the second intriguing. The third was the start of the second chapter and the first sentence introduced a character called Sri Hong-Owen who, I am ashamed to admit, I knee-jerk assumed was male and was utterly delighted when the text not only immediately said "her", but revealed her as captain of a ship in the next paragraph. Excellent! Intriguing female characters! In positions of power! In science fiction! \o/ All excellent signs that I might like the book.
By the third paragraph, I was thinking with some assured delightfulness, I'm definitely going to enjoy this book.
By the fourth paragraph, dear Gollancz, a nagging doubt crept in.
No, not about how much I would enjoy the book; it was already endearing itself to me with the character names, the female ship captain, the readable-yet-authoritative science speak and how easily interesting the first three pages had been. No, I was still convinced that picking it from the library shelf had been an excellent choice.
My nagging doubt was because the first three pages - with nothing obvious in the text except a vague feeling - hadn't felt like an introduction.
They'd felt like a continuation.
I checked the front cover, assuming I'd missed a reference to a series or previous related books. Nothing; just title, author, praising quote, note that it'd won the Arthur C. Clarke. Back cover, more of the same; just blurb, quoted praise. The only thing that caught my eye was the teaser sentence you'd put in sightly larger orange font at the start of the blurb: The Quiet War is over. Hhhmm. 'Quiet War' is oddly capitalised, like a book title perhaps? Flipping to the inner pages at the start, I found a list of books Paul McAuley had previously written and sure enough, one of them was called The Quiet War.
But it wasn't first on that list, so it wasn't the first in the series. It was last which suggested perhaps it was only the preceeding book and maybe the eight books before it were the rest of the series in order (the list was only labelled ALSO BY PAUL MCAULEY IN GOLLANCZ, with no indication of what relation they had to each other or if they were standalones).
I sighed at the thought of perhaps needing to read eight books before I could dive into the rest of this particular intriguing book - because you see Gollancz, several times now I have read books that were average to good but that gave me at best a vague sense of dissatisfaction, of missing the point, all of which became clear when I inevitably discovered they were sequels or later books in a series. Sometimes, the sequels were good enough for me to go back to read the preceeding books (see the pre-mentioned Dark Lord of Derkholm; I read the sequel Year of the Griffin first by accident and it was so marvellously wonderful that there was no question of not reading Dark Lord.... On a side-note, these books are published by you! Isn't that amazing that I accidentally read another Gollancz sequel first. Imagine the chances. Hhmm.
Sometimes, as in the case of Ravaged by David Wellington, which is a book with the added confusion of being renamed for British audiences from the American title Overwinter for some reason that no doubt made sense to you wise and knowing publisher-types at the time; it's not as if the British would understand a concept such as 'overwinter' now is it, and I can't imagine anyone who liked the author would mistakenly buy copies of both Ravaged AND Overwinter from Amazon.co.uk which helpfully sells them both and makes no note, obvious or otherwise, on them being the same book. Of course no one would be confused! Pfft. But, dear Gollancz, that's a problem created by another publisher and this tangent has grown too long.)
But, even as I sighed over this list of books and wondered if I'd have to slog through every one of them before reaching the intriguing adventures of Sri Hong-Owen, lady captain, another perculiarity caught my eye. The book I held in my hand, Gardens of the Sun, was on the list. And it wasn't after The Quiet War as the blurb would suggest but was fifth of nine book titles.
Did that mean it was published before The Quiet War? Did that mean I could read it without worrying about references to previous books since the list made The Quiet War look like a later-published prequel and therefore Gardens of the Sun should be readable first? Or should I read the book that was before it on the list, Fairyland? Or the book that was first, 400 Billion Stars? Were they even in order?
Dear Gollancz, there is only one thing I could do when faced with this conundrum, only one thing anyone does these days when one can't work out a publishers' ineffable reasoning: Bugger this for a bunch of bananas I thought. I'm going to look on Amazon.
To Amazon I went and searched for Gardens of the Sun. And there, in the very first sentence of the very first review, was the most helpful thing I'd read in the last ten minutes:
"This book is the second of a pair. The first was The Quiet War. See its reviews for the background to this one."
At this point, Gollancz, you should be seeing what my question will be. Why, with both front and back covers and all those inner pages at the beginning, why not anywhere, could you be as helpful as that reviewer on Amazon? S/he isn't getting paid to help. S/he doesn't work for you or for Amazon; there is no reason why I would expect s/he to be explaining to me what order I should read books in to get the maximum enjoyment from them or to avoid mistakes like buying the wrong book in a series. Why, instead of just one sentence of those repetative praising quotes that everyone knows you lift out of context for the sake of attracting attention, why could you not print Sequel to the award-winning The Quiet War?
Sure, I would've read that in the library and immediately checked the shelf for The Quiet War. Perhaps if it wasn't there, I would've put Gardens of the Sun back and moved on. Or perhaps I would've done what I do everytime I see or am recced an interesting book these days; perhaps I would've gone on Amazon on my phone and added The Quiet War to my Wishlist. Given my craving for sci-fi and how much Gardens of the Sun appealed to me, there's every chance I would've got it out the library anyway and bought The Quiet War immediately to read first, so I could read Gardens before I had to return it.
Was the chance, the chance, that I would return the book to the shelf and forget about it so much more important than how annoyed I would be when I got home and discovered I had a book that I wasn't going to enjoy reading because I would miss half the references? Or, had I been in a bookshop and suspected the book was in a series but bouldn't find out for sure, that I'd give up and return it to the shelf because who wants to pay for a book they won't enjoy because they won't understand what's happened previously? Or the very real possiblity that I'd read the book without realising it was even a sequel and that I'd find it needlessly confusing and unsatisfying? Especially when that very helpful reviewer on Amazon who did your job for you concluded by saying Gardens is good but you really need to read Quiet War first to fully enjoy it?
This is a request Gollancz and all publishers- no, not a request. A plea, from the bottom of my book-loving-and-buying heart.
Please, please, please put on (preferably) the front cover cover in clearly visible type if a book is a sequel or a series (if a sequel, put "Sequel to *name of previous book*", if a series put "Book *number* in the *name of series* series or similar). If it's a series or there are books linked to each other already published, especially if they need to be read in some sort of order, on the list of author works inside the first few pages, clearly label which books are linked to each other and print them in the order they should be read. You wouldn't expect anyone to enjoy Orson Scott Card's Speaker For The Dead without reading Ender's Game first, for example; read in the correct order both books are good (Ender's Game moreso than Speaker arguably) but read first, Speaker would seem like absolute nonsense. That's why it's very helpful that they've printed in larger font than the blurb on the back cover of my copy, Sequel to ENDER'S GAME
Apply this logic to all the books you publish and you will have much happier readers. I even bet you will sell more books, because books bought full price in shops are a. expensive and b. surrounded by many, many other tempting books. If I'd had to spend ten minutes working out if Gardens of the Sun was the first in the series while standing in Waterstone's? I would've got bored about minute two and put it back on the shelf. I might've remembered to look it up when I got home but more likely I would've bought another book and never got back to looking at Gardens.
Clarity makes buying easy, dear Gollancz. Buyers want buying to be easy. Be clear and you will sell more books.
Oh and I've spent so long trying to work out your obtuse publishing methods that you know, I'm bored now. I might write Paul McAuley off completely and move onto A Princess of Landover by Terry Brooks. It's the sixth book in the Landover series. I know because I've read the previous five, but for those who haven't it has "A Magic Kingdom of Landover Novel" printed on the front and inside there's a wonderfully organised-by-series list of books Terry Brooks as written. It's so helpful, I would've happily picked it off a shelf in Waterstone's.
It's published by Orbit (interestingly, one of the authors listed as being published by Orbit on their Wikipedia page is Orson Scott Card. Hhmm.)
Take notes, Gollancz.
No love for souring with frustration what looks like two fantastic science fiction books,
Clo
