Simon Scarrow

… in conversation with Gillian Hamer.

As historical fiction writers go, they do not come much more successful or prolific than Simon Scarrow.

Since the publication of his first novel, Under the Eagle, in 2000 he has published a further eleven books in his Eagle series set in the Roman empire, the last just last October, titled The Blood Crows. Not content with the success of the Eagle series, he has also written a four book series under the title, Revolution, set around the time of Wellington and Napoleon, plus a third series, Gladiator, aimed at the Young Adult 11-14 year old market. Oh, and let us not forget the five Roman novellas published under the Arena title.

So, when he finally found time to draw breath, Words with Jam were knocking at his door to ask what drives on his passion for historical fiction, the secrets of which genres he plans to visit in his future works, his thoughts about adapting books into film, and how he sees the future of publishing.

You're obviously best known for novels set during the Roman Empire, but you have handled a cross section of history including the Napoleonic Wars. What attracts you to particular periods in history?

It’s hard to say when you are talking about interesting periods in history. So often it is the human story that is the catalyst for a novel. A particular event or predicament that creates the drama around individuals. Aside from that there just happen to be some historical periods that interest more than others. The ancient world being one, and the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era another. At present I am about to return to a novel set in the Second World War which I started last year. It is about a tiny marginal event, but the themes are universal.

What is it about the Roman period that inspires you to write not only the Eagle series, but also your latest Gladiator series for the YA market?

Rome was always on the curriculum when I was at school (more so because I also studied Latin as well as history), and outside of school it seemed to be on television – hardly a week went by without a TV showing of Cleopatra, Fall of the Roman Empire, Spartacus, Demetrius and the Gladiators, Quo Vadis or later on I, Claudius. All great stuff.  At school I was an ancient world nerd and loved every aspect of the history and culture. As a result I would say that most of the research for the novels had already been done by the time I left school.  The YA series came about as a result of telling a story to my boys when I would walk them to school. Eventually they said they liked it so much that it would be a shame not to tell it to others.  All of which has pleasingly resulted in two sons who are also fascinated by history and studying hard for the subject at school.

Research, love or loathe? It must be a massive part of your books. How do you handle it?

I adore research. It’s the best way of putting off writing (and I mean that in a kind of positive way!). Seriously, I spend the vast majority of my working time immersed in books, visiting museums and historic sites and talking to re-enactors. There’s so much good material out there that I would need ten lives just to get through a fraction of the material I have gathered over the years.  But, once I commit to writing the books the research has to stop completely to focus on the story.

Location plays a central role in your books, how important is location to you when creating a new world or setting for your readers?

The sense of a lived in setting is at the heart of the craft as far as I am concerned. Your reader has to believe they are ‘there’ when they get stuck into a book. And that means that I have to create the sights, sounds, smells and general ambience of a place. Consequently, I do my utmost to travel to the places where the novels are set and soak up as much sensory detail as possible. For example, at the end of The Eagle in The Sand there is a knife fight in a desert by some cliffs where there is a single tree growing. That tree and the setting is a faithful description of a spot in Wadi Rum in Jordan. The same goes for many settings in The Legion, where I had great fun reconstructing ancient Egypt from three research trips down the Nile.

What other genres do you enjoy reading? Would you ever write in another genre?

I like a lot of historical fiction. The Hornblower series is still my runaway favourite. Other than that I enjoy some crime novels (though not many, since as a writer you know the nuts and bolts of storytelling and can usually work out who the villain is within the first 20-30 pages.). Most of my reading these days is non-fiction. I just love finding out about ‘stuff’. As for writing in other genres, I will be starting a crime series later in the year for which I have high hopes.

Are you a visual writer? Are there any of your books you would particularly like to see in film or television? Any plans in the pipeline?

I’m not quite sure what you mean by a visual writer. I suppose the nearest I can get to explaining my perspective on this is by drawing on Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’ when he says that after 20 mins of writing he begins to ‘see through the page’ and gets transported to the world he is creating. If that’s what you mean, then yes, it is the same for me.  Getting novels made into films is such a difficult process and frankly the experiences I have had with an American film producer with respect to his plans to adapt my YA novels were not encouraging. Apart from wanting to turn them into an animated feature, starting in the present and time-slipping back to Rome, he also wanted to cut out any references to slavery (“y’know, that’s a bit of a bad word here in the US, Simon”) and fighting to the death (“can’t do that in a family film, Simon”)  in a story about gladiators…  So, if it happens, it happens, and I’ll take the cheque and cry all the way to the bank. No writer should grieve over any adaptation of their material they have sold to film-makers, I think.  I know some who do, but if you sell something, it ain’t yours any longer. That’s how I look at it.

Cato and Macro have become quite iconic characters. What makes a great character for you, and as a writer, what do you consider are the vital ingredients when creating a new character?

Cato and Macro are like old friends to me. What makes them good to readers is that they talk and think like real people and frequently will take stories off in new directions, regardless of what the humble author may originally have planned. If they can do that, then to me that is proof that they work. Making up new characters is like meeting new people. There’s that process of probing to see what makes them tick, and whether you like them or not, and then analysing why.

This may be like asking you to choose a favourite child, but who is your favourite character to write, and why?

Right now, it is Marcus, the hero of the YA series who has undergone a process of change from happy child in idyllic home to slave, to gladiator, to hunted fugitive. It’s been an education watching him deal with loss, grief, determination, survival and most significantly, revenge.

You’ve obviously won so many awards and accolades throughout your career. What have been your proudest moments and achievements?

There have been many wonderful moments and opportunities which I have been lucky to enjoy as a result of the novels’ successes. It’s always nice to receive praise from readers from around the world, from schoolboys in Africa, to farmers in the outback, to the King of Jordan.  But my proudest moment was when a young reader told me she cried when she read the scene when Marcus’s mother forces him to abandon her and flee. If writing can do that, then I feel I have made it a real experience for someone.

You must have learnt a great deal about writing and publishing over your career. What words of wisdom would you impart to the next generation of writers?

It’s the obvious advice, I’m afraid. There’s no substitute for doing a lot of reading and writing. You have to be experimental with both. There’s no point in reading just vampire fiction or Harry Potter. It has to be far more eclectic than that. (And while we’re on the subject, Rowling has proved that she can outdo Potter with ‘The Casual Vacancy’ which I loved). Experiment with your writing. Try different styles out, a necessary process through which to discover your own distinct voice. Most authors are fairly interchangeable, but there are some wonderful writers like Chris Humphreys who have such a distinct ‘voice’ and if you can achieve that then I’m sure you will find success.

Can I ask how you see the future of publishing? In such a rapidly changing market and technological world, do you believe ‘real books’ will survive or that e-books are the future?

I’d like to think physical books will survive since they are brilliant pieces of technology. They don’t need recharging, they’re rugged, they are cheap, they are reusable and they are far more rewarding than films, computer games and even music and art. Interestingly, the evidence is that ebook sales are plateauing out. While I appreciate the opportunities for new authors afforded by ebooks, the sad fact is that most of the output is pretty poor and barely merits the low prices charged for it. That said, some very, very successful publishing stories have their origins in self-published ebooks. So go for it.

Finally, what are your plans for the future and what next do you have in the pipeline?

At the moment I have 9 more books under contract, which I aim to have cleared within three years. Macro and Cato will carry on until they pay my mortgage off and then I dare say they will continue for a while longer as there are some great stories they can be involved in. Other than that, I’d like to learn how to fly and get a private pilot’s license. Before I’m too old.

Lessons in Horticulture by Rachael Dunlop

Don’t plant things in the wrong place. For example:

Don’t plant a Japanese maple tree just outside the back door where you can see its heart-red, flame-red, blood-red leaves in the low autumn light, just because he said he loves maple trees. One day he’ll leave you, and you’ll grow to hate that tree in its heedless insistence on being beautiful.

And when he does leave, don’t cut down the maple tree with a rusty saw that tears its juicy flesh, heaping fallen branches on the overgrown lawn, the red and the green, complementary colours singing to each other until you bundle it all into a black bag.

Don’t think that just because you’ve cut the tree down, just because all that remains is a small stump, its spongy surface hardening to a callous even as you watch, that the tree is dead. It is not.

Don’t be surprised when you see tiny clones of the felled tree appearing in the grass, and when you dig and pull you find a rope-like root, suckers thrown up along its length, all the way back to the stump. You’ll start to dream about that tree pressing against your bedroom window, tap, tap, let me in. You’ll scan the garden every morning for new suckers, pulling them up, pinching them out, for weeks, before you realise the error of your ways. Hydra-like, the stump pumps out three new suckers for every one you pull.

Don’t panic when the first sucker, a soft, fleshy stem with lime-green spiked palmate leaves, appears through one of the cracks in the kitchen floor, followed by another, and another, a new one every day. You’ll soon find out you’ve bought a house with no foundations, just brick on mud, and underneath the kitchen lino the earth is dark and damp. There is nothing under your feet.

Learn from your mistakes. Pack his things into boxes and send them back to him. Call the insurance company and get the house - the sagging, bulging house - pinned, strapped and stitched back together, after new foundations have been poured and pumped under it. Buy a box of poison from the garden centre and paint it carefully onto the stump of the tree on a cool, still day and cover it with a clear plastic bag, secured with a red-rubber band. Watch as the stump breathes and bleeds moisture into the bag until the wood is cracked and yellow and the suckers in the grass flop and retreat.

Consider the consequences before you plant another tree.

Winner of Flash 500 First Quarter 2014.

Big Brother by Lionel Shriver

Review by Cathy White

3 out of 5 stars

When successful businesswoman Pandora Halfdanardson picks up her brother, jazz musician Edison Appaloosa, from the airport to stay with her and her family, she doesn’t recognise him. This is because he’s put on a bit of weight since the last time she saw him. A 'bit' as in over two-hundred pounds.

On their arrival at the house, Pandora's fitness fanatic husband Fletcher is less than impressed and when it starts to look like Edison is going to outstay his welcome, he gives Pandora an ultimatum –her husband or her brother. Pandora, aware that her brother's weight could end up killing him, rents an apartment for them both while she supervises the strict diet and fitness regime she persuades him to do.

While the heft of the plot concentrates on Edison’s weight loss, this is merely the narrative that glues the novel together. The wider issues and themes woven through Big Brother are loyalty, marriage, family, relationships, jealousy, resentment, control, power struggles and whether one person can be or should be responsible for another.

None of the characters are particularly endearing. The nearest we get to someone likeable is Cody; Pandora’s step-daughter, although she can be so relentlessly nice you want her to rebel a bit like a normal teenager. Then again, her brother, Tanner, takes on the stereotypically rebellious teenager in this tale.

Shriver’s writing is flawless; each sentence is beautifully constructed and each word chosen with precision. However, the ending left me feeling so cheated I wanted to unread it to get rid of the disappointment I felt upon reaching the end.

This was a hard novel to give a star rating to – it would have been 4 or 5 out of 5, had it not been for the ending. 

Necromancer by Rob Mooney

High in his tower on a haunted strand

A wizard with a serpent wand

Gazed over his ensorcelled land

And upturned in a bony hand

An hourglass filled with night black sand

Beneath a mystical penumbra

To claps of cabalistic thunder

A people frozen chill as tundra

Began at last to peel asunder

Enchantments they’d been living under

Captives of theurgic rage

Enthralled in bondage to their mage

For one brief hour of every age

The wizard frees them from his cage

To let their fiendish bonds assuage

Chthonic sigils then unspell

A brief respite for those who dwell

Within the warlock’s eldritch hell

Until his occult tocsin’s knell

Begins again their hearts to quell

The wizard does this necromancy

Though its probity be chancy

To mire his subjects in a fancy

And thus impress the sorceress Nancy

To be his succuba fiancée

Winner of Flash 500 Humour Verse Competition for the First Quarter 2014

Question Corner with Lorraine Mace

Unblocking the Blockage

Gerard Young is suffering from something many writers have faced. He writes: I have a problem and I need some advice. I have a crippling writer's block that I can't get rid of. I have some ideas for stories but when it comes to writing the story, nothing. What should I do? Would enrolling in a writing course help in any way?

Enrolling in a writing course might well be the answer to your problem, but I doubt it. If you have ideas already, but can’t bring yourself to write them, being on a course might add to your woes, rather than easing them.

There are as many reasons for writer’s block occurring as there are suggested ways of dealing with it. As I don’t know you on a personal level, I will have to put forward several things for you to try. I hope one or more of the following will do the trick for you.

Have a set time to write

Whether it’s first thing in the morning, an hour when you get home from work, half an hour during your lunch break, set aside the same time every day. It doesn’t matter what you write. The important thing here is to train your mind to accept that this part of the day is writing time.

Another trick under this heading is changing the time you’ve set aside to write. If you have already made the decision that mornings are your writing time, but it no longer works for you, change the time. Write in the evening instead.

Relax and stop looking for perfection

Don’t read what you’ve written so far. Just get on with the next bit. Turn off your internal editor. Many people stop writing because they cannot produce perfect prose in a first draft. Nobody can! Don’t allow the fear of imperfection to get between you and your writing. There will always be time to polish that imperfect prose. Get it written and edit it later – much later!

Don’t write

Sounds like a contradiction, I know, but maybe your brain needs time to formulate the ideas properly before you settle down to write. You might have so many ideas in your head that you aren’t able to decide which one you want to develop. Go for a walk. Take a train journey. Spend an evening with friends. Forget about writing for a while. You’ll come back to it refreshed and raring to go.

Read more

Reading helps the creative juices to flow. I find reading in a different genre to the one I write in is beneficial, but you might find you get better results if you read material similar to that you want to write.

Set deadlines with a writing buddy

Find a friend, online or in real life, who also wants to get back into writing on a regular basis. This works well if you lay out some ground rules first. Decide how many words per day, week or month you will each write. Then set deadlines for exchange of material. It’s a bit like running with a friend, or going to the gym. It’s easy to backslide when you’re on your own, but much harder to drop out if you’ve committed yourself to a word count and deadline with someone else.

Work on more than one book, story, article or poem at a time

This doesn’t work for everyone, but some writers find it easier to switch between works, depending on what moves them for that day.

Writing exercises

I’ll be honest, writing exercises for the sake of it isn’t something that would work for me, but I have been told that many writers swear by it as a way to overcome writer’s block.

However, there is one thing that I do, which could be considered a writing exercise. Try interviewing the characters you want to write about. Put together a series of questions and then write up the answers as if you were the character. I find characters come to life if I allow them to answer for themselves. Believe me, once that happens, your characters will live in your head, nagging nonstop until you write their story.

Make sure your writing space works for you

Is your desk covered in scraps of paper? Do you feel hemmed in and uncomfortable? If your work area doesn’t make you feel creative, it will stifle the urge to write. Spend a bit of time making your writing area somewhere you want to be.

Remember that writing is fun!

This is the biggie, for me. Most of us write for pleasure. It’s fun. We create worlds and people to populate those worlds. Then we make life difficult for them so that they have to overcome obstacles in order to succeed in whatever we have decided they should do. We have the power to make them fall in love, fall out of love, go to war, lose a battle, find a friend, betray a colleague, become a saint, sup with the devil, rise like a star, fall into despair. How can we not enjoy ourselves?

Let go of your inhibitions – write and have some fun.

If you have a question for Lorraine, comment here or email lorraine@quinnpublications.co.uk

Lorraine Mace is the humour columnist for Writing Magazine and a competition judge for Writers’ Forum. She is a former tutor for the Writers Bureau, and is the author of the Writers Bureau course, Marketing Your Book. She is also co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam of The Writer's ABC Checklist (Accent Press). Lorraine runs a private critique service for writers (link below). She is the founder of the Flash 500 competitions covering flash fiction, humour verse and novel openings.

Her debut novel for children, Vlad the Inhaler, was published in the USA on 2^nd April 2014.

Writing as Frances di Plino, she is the author of the crime/thriller series featuring Detective Inspector Paolo Storey: Bad Moon Rising, Someday Never Comes and Call It Pretending.

Writing Critique Service

www.lorrainemace.com

www.flash500.com

Frances di Plino

Cornerstones Mini Masterclass

with Kathryn Price, Co-director at Cornerstones Literary Consultancy.

Each issue, Cornerstones Literary Consultancy explore and critique a reader's opening page. If you would like to participate in their Opening Page Mini Masterclass, send your opening page (400 approx words) as a Word Document attachment to submissions@wordswithjam.co.uk with the subject ‘Cornerstones Masterclass’. Pieces for critique are chosen at random from those submitted to Words with JAM.

The Dark Lies Within by Sam Payne

Most people have a will to live, a deep psychological force buried within, which means when faced with death, they will do anything to survive. But this desire depends on one thing and one thing only. Hope. People need a reason to cling to life.

He’d been generous. He gave them both a reason. He offered them their freedom, but they disappointed him, much like they’d disappointed him over the past few years. What was wrong with them? All they had to do was run.

He slung his rifle over his shoulder and made his way back to the van. The ground was still saturated from the recent storms, the spongy earth yielded underfoot, but tonight the midnight sky was clear. The moon lit up the rolling moorland of Dartmoor making it possible to see across the vast wilderness of a place he knew better than anyone else. He opened the back of his van. She was crouched right at the far end, eyes wide, legs pulled tight to her chest. She looked him right in the eye. That’s what he liked about her, always defiant. Out of all three of them she was his favourite. He would miss her. He stood to the side and gestured for her to get out. ‘I’ll give you ten seconds and then I’m coming for you.’

She didn’t move.

He shrugged, took his rifle off his shoulder and aimed it at her, ‘Or I could just shoot you here, your choice.’

She scrambled forward, cautiously at first, but when she got to the edge of the van she leaped out like a cat. He watched as she sprinted straight into the darkness. He counted to three and then went after her.

Jimmy Hart was perplexed by the body at the bottom of the stairs. She was lying at an awkward angle. Her head rested on the first step and dirty blonde hair half covered her face. Her mouth gaped open and a line of dribble dangled from her lip like a single thread of a spider’s web. Her body was twisted, her legs splayed out at different angles and her left arm stretched away from her, reaching for something that wasn’t there. He should just go, leave her there. She’d wake up soon enough, but it made him uncomfortable, her being there, so close to his front door. What if? 

Critique by Kathryn Price

This is a creepy, compelling opening that generates a real air of menace. We immediately want to know more; there are so many questions posed here and that’s the essence of creating page-turning fiction in any genre but particularly with thrillers. Who’s the man in the first, murderous scene; what’s his motivation; how does he know the character(s) he’s hunting? Likewise, who’s Jimmy Hart and why does he have such a strange, chilly response to the discovery of a body at the bottom of his stairs. Who is the body? What’s she doing there … and is she dead?

Over and above any of this though is the absolute must-read-on cliffhanger the first scene leaves us with. The relentless pursuer who gives his victim the most unsporting of sporting chances to get away; and the girl – defiant, sparky, cat-like – who we already know is his ‘favourite’. Does she have what it takes to survive? Great stuff.

The writing is sharp and sparse, which works well for this kind of tense, breathless material. There’s minimal, functional description which still manages to create a clear picture, and the author has mastered the intimate third person or free indirect viewpoint so that we’re at once inside the POV characters’ heads but also able to view them from a distance. For less-than-sympathetic characters, this is really the only choice of viewpoint, as first person can be far too claustrophobic.

So, the fundamentals are all in place here. What we need to complete the picture is more of everything. At the moment, the details of character, location and tension are so fleeting that it’s only on reading this back a few times that the piece starts to carry impact. On first reading, it seems fairly unmemorable because everything is skimmed over so quickly.

This applies right from the word go. The very first paragraph, a little vignette of philosophy, is, we assume, the protagonist musing on – justifying, perhaps? – his actions. However, in isolation here it’s too brief, too general and clichéd to really tell us much about him. Anyone could have come up with this – it doesn’t feel specific to the protagonist. Perhaps the aim is to show us that this character is a bit of a pseud, thinking that he possesses great insights into human nature because of what he is and what he does, while in fact he’s actually still scraping at the banal surface of things. However, it’s a bit early on to rely on your reader interpreting this subtext, so as a first line it risks feeling overly generalised.

A good solution here might be to go with specific detail rather than generalised observations. Rather than philosophising in the abstract, might our protagonist think of a few snippets – brief flashbacks, if you like - of what he’s just done, allowing the life lesson to emerge organically from the events that have taken place? For example:

People would do anything to survive. It never stopped surprising him. That woman – the shock of it in her eyes, not believing death was upon her after everything – still battling till the end. Her fingernails had been bleeding, he remembered. She’d said to him, ‘Anything, anything you want’. There was nothing he’d wanted, but the fact that she’d offered – well.

It was hope, he’d decided as he slung his rifle over his shoulder. That was the key. Without hope, they’d just give up. Everyone needs something to live for, after all. That’s why he’d given her – them - the choice. He gave them both a reason … etc

The detail of this is very similar but it hopefully feels more specific and rooted in this particular character’s experience. It draws us more into the protagonist’s world, because it is an interpretation that could only have come from him, at that particular moment.

We then have some brief description of the moorland. Again, more detail here would add richness and depth. We’re told that he knows this place better than anyone, but little of this personal knowledge and experience comes through in the way he perceives it. Could we have more sensory input here, more hints of his history and ties to the land? For example, the ground is saturated: might he know instinctively that it’ll be dry by morning but that any footprints will have disappeared back into the mud? In the moonlight he can see far across the hills, but what shapes does he pick out? A tor, whose nooks and crannies he climbed in as a boy; or whose rocks remind him of a burial ground? Hillocks which look like good hiding places but where, he knows, the marshy ground is treacherous? Not only would this level of additional detail help to create a more atmospheric picture but it would help to cement the reader’s sense that he is, in some way, implacable and inescapable; so familiar with this place that running from him is like trying to run from death itself.

Likewise, a touch more detail about the girl in the van can only be a good thing. We have no idea what she looks like – is she small and fragile or tall and rangy with legs built for running? Cat-like is a common simile so it doesn’t tell us much that’s unique about her. By lingering over her a little longer you’re again giving the reader a chance to know her and care what happens to her.

By playing out this opening scene more fully, the subsequent shift to Jimmy’s POV should feel less jarring. At the moment it comes out of the blue and it feels as though we’ve barely had the chance to orientate ourselves before we’re whisked away. Here, again, further detail would be helpful. Jimmy seems to have a rather unusual way of looking at the world – why is his reaction one of discomfort to the woman being so close to his front door, rather than distress at her being there at all, or concern for her safety? And how does he know she’s going to wake up? (If he knows what’s wrong with her – drink? drugs? – then it feels disingenuous and tricksy to describe her as a body and make it sound as though she’s dead). The uncertainty here combines to make Jimmy feel impenetrable and even psychopathic; without another layer of information we can’t know whether this is what you intend.

The overall benefit of extra detail throughout this opening would be to slow down the pace. It’s often tempting to play exciting or tense scenes out as quickly as possible but, though it might seem counter-intuitive, a slower pace is often more suspenseful: it gives the reader time to absorb what’s happened and guess at what’s coming; to build expectations and rapport with the characters; to begin to fear for them. After all, like the characters themselves, the reader needs hope.

A strong start, though, and I for one would read on.

Know Your Rights

Alex Hardy, Harbottle and Lewis

Alex Hardy, of law firm Harbottle and Lewis, ran a workshop at London Book Fair’s Author HQ on how best to exploit your Intellectual Property Rights.

An excellent session for a maximum of eight participants, she tailored the session to our specific questions and shared her experience of publishing law. After ascertaining that seven out of eight of us were authors, she began by outlining the key pitfalls for authors when negotiating rights contracts.

The Whole Farm

One of the authors asked about the term ‘rights grab’. Alex explained the term is used to describe a publishing contract in which an author assigns or licenses much more than just the book or ebook rights in their work. For example, an author may license or assign to a publisher the copyright and related rights in their work “in all media and formats now known or hereafter invented”. Authors should instead license those rights that the publisher is committing or expecting to use.

Ask yourself why a digital-only publisher need the rights to a paperback/cartoon/film version? At best, they might sub-license the rights to your work to another party but at worst the rights will remain unexploited. And if you’ve sold the rights for merchandising to a publisher and you are offered a film deal at a later stage and the film producer wants the merchandising rights, it will be very difficult to get those rights back.

Sheep and Goats

These negotiations are very commercial so get hard-headed. Think everything through first. Publishing contracts can be quite general; spell out exactly what you are selling and specify that anything else not mentioned is excluded – this is a reservation of rights clause. Check everything is on paper. Insist on getting precise definitions such as what ‘enhanced ebooks’ actually means.

Understand Time Terminology

‘Legal term of copyright’ means your lifetime plus 70 years. Always try for shorter licence period if appropriate and ensure you can get out of the contract (terminate) if something goes wrong. A termination of contract clause, with an acceptable notice period for both sides is essential.

Get Them Back

In such case as the publisher’s routes are no longer selling your work, you may want to get your rights back. You will likely need a reversion of rights clause in your contract: in an electronic era, the phrase ‘out of print’ may no longer be relevant. It may be better to negotiate a sales figure to trigger reversion of your rights: such as how many (or how few) copies are sold in a year.

And what happens if the publisher goes bust/gets taken over or merges? Have a clause covering those eventualities, aiming to put the control back in your hands.

See You In Court

One of the party enquired about libel. His book refers to real figures in a fictional context, so is the disclaimer at the beginning enough? Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Disclaimers may make no difference whatsoever. If the person is recognisable (even if not named), a claim may still be brought against you for damage to their reputation.

Most large publishing companies have media liability insurance in the event of these kind of claims – check yours does. If you are a small publisher, consider consulting a broker. Some of Alex’s clients have used La Playa.

Accusations of plagiarism can arise, particularly in non-fiction or ‘How To’ books. They rarely reach court but it is vital to document and acknowledge your sources to show how you have created your material. The Society of Authors provides helpful advice on quoting copyrighted material, but there are grey areas. One area which is clear is claiming false association with another author’s work. Avoid that or face the consequences.

Options and exclusivity

If you are writing in various genres, be careful with granting your publisher an automatic option to your next work. Publishers may add an option clause to the contract, entitling them to buy or at least have the first option to negotiate for the next work in your canon. One idea is to reword this clause so it includes only the same kind of work, ie, the next in the series of your romance novels, but not the collection of erotic short stories.

Agent or lawyer

I asked Alex whether an author actually needs an agent at all. If you have a foreign publisher interested in translation or a production company keen to purchase TV/film rights, would it make sense to hire a lawyer to deal with the contract instead? Acknowledging her bias, she said there are many differences between the two roles, the main one being legal training. Agents’ expertise offers contacts and experience. A lawyer will charge a one-off fee, as opposed to the ongoing commission charged by agents.

She also mentioned working with foreign rights. If it is important to the author, you should ask for approval of the translator – see their CV, get samples of their work – and where possible, make sure the copyright of their translation belongs to you as originator of the material.

A fascinating, thought-provoking session with a genuinely knowledgeable expert.

By JJ Marsh – author, reader, Triskelite, journalist, Nuancer, reviewer and blogger. 
Likes: pugs, Werner Herzog and anchovies. Dislikes: meat, chocolate and first drafts.