Hello, I’m Here to Help

Getting Started in Non-Fiction

 by Dan Holloway

I wanted to write something marketing- and/or social media-related in this issue for all the non-fiction writers out there. But for several weeks now I’ve been having one of those authenticity crises. You know the kind. Where you want to say something but you feel anything you say will be a fraud. I mean, I’m a novelist. And when I’m not writing novels, I write poetry. Or short stories. I’m not a non-fiction writer. Only...

Well, I had a think. What was the last thing I had published? Um, that would be the review I did for The Guardian website. And the first thing? Oh yes, that travel piece I wrote for The Observer. And the biggest audience I’ve ever had (or ever will I dare say)? That would be the 140,000 circulation for the booklet on debt and mental health I worked on. And the biggest paycheque for a piece of writing? Ah yes, the mental health article I wrote a couple of years ago. Oh, and I guess there’s that column I write for a really rather fabulous writing magazine.

So maybe I’m not such a fraud after all. Maybe I’m actually more of a non-fiction writer than a fiction writer. I’ve certainly written more non-fiction pieces in more respectable places than I have fiction. Or poetry.

So why do I still feel a bit of a fraud? I think it has to do with how I “got the gig” for my various non-fiction pieces. I wrote a blog post more than two years ago called “Chutzpah, Cheekiness, and Chance” which I opened with the lines, “I wasn’t expecting to write something about, essentially, online journalism, and how to break into the field. It’s something I know very little about.” I think I still feel the same, and if someone pushed me into a corner at a party and demanded I unburden my wisdom to them, I think I’d still quote those three words.

But chewing a little more of this particular cud, maybe there’s actually more than a little method behind those three little words. What you actually need is “the right kind” of chutzpah, “the right kind” of cheekiness, and “the right kind” of chance. And in that “right kind” there’s a surprising lot you can learn.

Chance

I want to take this little sucker first, because it, and its stepbrother, Luck, are so frequently misquoted. The thing about luck, of course, is that there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s what makes it luck. A lot of people who say you make your own luck have led charmed lives or are simply not particularly empathic. The rest actually mean, “Make sure you put yourself in a position to make the most of your chances.”

And putting yourself in a position to make the most of chances that come along is something you most definitely can do something about. It was chance that first got me in touch with the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP), with whom I’ve gone on to do lots of very rewarding work on debt and mental health, and through whom I’ve met many other people and organisations I’ve worked with. I was in the middle of writing a travelogue, and had started a blog to go with it that combined travel exploits with mental health and financial troubles (my wife and I had coinciding “ups” during our bipolar cycle, and ended up travelling to 23 countries in a single year on budget airlines). One of the researchers at the RCP was looking for people with mental health and debt problems. And Google did the matchmaking.

For me it really was luck. But the principle I learned has stayed with me. If someone’s looking for the thing you can do, make sure you’re the person they find. That’s the real knack to what people call platform-building. Whether it’s Google or a friend, if someone with stuff that needs writing asks “Who can write this for me?” is your name the one that’ll come up?

It’s worthwhile remembering that “Google or a friend” are quite different things though, and that people may go to either. For me, what comes first is a blog that has regular posts about the things I want to be asked to write about by others, and which you have carefully tagged and filled with the words that people will search for. Aside from being Google-friendly, this is your calling card.

There are many ways to make sure people know about you, but ultimately they will all point back to your blog (when someone asks, ”Can I see an example?” or some such, it is there you should be able to point them), hence the priority of starting by blogging and building out from there . But once you have that base, the next step is to research the places where other people talking about the things you are talking about hang out. If these are online places, you can go and interact on forums and blogs. I’m never a fan of the “look at me and this is my fabulous blog” approach. It is far better to offer help and insights, and link back to your blog subtly. If you are regularly helpful, witty, and wise (and if we’re not then you probably don’t deserve that gig in the first place), it won’t take long to get a reputation.  And then you’ll be the name on the tip of real people’s tongues as well as Google’s.

“Once You’re In”

There are lots of helpful tips about getting noticed, and making sure people come to you for the things you can do best. But there is one golden rule to transcend them all like some bad Tolkien rhyme:

Once you get your break, don’t blow it.

Simple, really, but we spend so long thinking about how to get that all important foot in the door that it’s all too easy to get it caught and end up with nothing more than an almighty blood blister. The thing is, once you do have a piece of work out there, that’s what people will be looking at, regardless of what’s on your blog or anywhere else. So make it an absolute zinger, because however hard it is to get a first chance, a second chance is ten times harder to get. But if the first piece you do is great, more offers will start to come very quickly.

The other thing about chance is that you can tune yourself to be aware of it. Look out for stories about your area of interest in the news. Have a press contact sheet ready to go that you can tweak ever so slightly to make it relevant to this particular story, then fire it off straightaway. Make sure you follow all the organisations and publications that might be interested on twitter, and tweet them offering a story the moment the news breaks (and make sure you regularly search key words on twitter so you know when the news breaks). Then, two minutes after the news breaks (because minute one was firing out that contact sheet and those tweets), write a short, crisp, informative blog post about the story with a very heavy angle, and post links to it on twitter. I had a huge spike in interest and contact when I managed to post an article about Stacey Slater being revealed as Archie’s killer on EastEnders – I almost burned my fingers getting a post up within 20 minutes lambasting the BBC for undoing all their good work on sensitively creating awareness of bipolar disorder through Stacey’s storyline, and by getting in first, my article was the one that everyone re-tweeted on the subject.

Cheekiness and Chutzpah

I often joke that 90% of the things I end up doing happen because I stuck my hand up at an (in?)opportune moment. Only it’s not really a joke. Unless you’re interested in the paints used on 1986 computer keyboards, then the chances are there are organisations and magazines and events going on around you all the time that relate to your interest (with apologies to anyone interested in 1986 keyboard paint – there may well be conferences held on a weekly basis, and I’m sure there’s more than a passing forensic interest). Go along as often as you can. And offer to do things. That’s what I mean by sticking your hand up. Could you write an article for the UK Stapler Appreciation Society? Why not go along to one of their events, join in the fun, and then offer to write something. Or go along to a local history group and volunteer to organise a day trip to London Stapler Museum for them?

The problem is this all sounds a lot like cold calling. A lot like those annoying people on twitter who are always spamming agents saying “look at my fabulous book!” Have you ever noticed that there are two kinds of people, and they seem to ask the same things and say the same things, but one group’s treated like needy pariahs whilst the others are welcomed with open arms? That’s where cheekiness and chutzpah come into their own. Always be helpful, always be kind, always be warm and witty, and always, when you’re asking something, do it with both conviction and your tongue firmly in your cheek. Even online, people can spot someone who’s self-serving as opposed to someone who’s genuine.

And remember, the very best question you can ask, and one you should ask as often as you can: Can I help? You’d be amazed how many doors it will open. As well as being immensely rewarding in its own right.

To Summarise:

Make yourself easy to find through Google by having a regularly updated blog filled with all the words people are likely to be looking for.

Make yours the name everyone knows by offering interesting, helpful comments on blogs and forums.

Make sure you have an interesting take on things – make people want to get your opinion.

Once you get your foot in the door, make it count!

Look inside, find “your” voice (using twitter a lot, and letting yourself emerge, is a great way to do this), and turn up the volume

When an opportunity comes along, ask!

Be courteous to everyone; be helpful to everyone; act like you belong; never be arrogant; don’t take yourself too seriously.

Next Saturday is National Libraries Day

Saturday 4^th February is National Libraries Day. Set up last year in response to threat to libraries around the UK, it aims to be a nationwide celebration of libraries, librarians and library staff across all sectors. If you’d like to take part, you can click on the link above to find out about events near you. Or you can buy or borrow, The Library Book, published especially for National Libraries Day, in which twenty-three writers, from Alan Bennett to Zadie Smith, describe libraries real or imagined, why they matter and to whom.

More Libraries in Upheaval

The situation for libraries in the UK is changing so fast that the Library Cat column in the February edition of Words with Jam was out of date almost before the final proofs had gone to the printers. So here is a flying update.

Celebrations in Gloucestershire, when a judicial review ruled in favour of the protestors are starting to look as if they might have been premature. The council has published new plans, emphasising concern for equality. (The grounds given for ruling the original closures unlawful were that the council had failed to give due regard to issues of equality.) Seven libraries and five mobiles under threat compared to ten and six last year, but the library budget is to be halved over two years.

Thirty-one library authorities now have at least one library run by volunteers, without a professional librarian on the staff. We have also now had the first ‘community’ library to propose charging for membership. Bexley Village Library in London has been taken over by the charity Greener Bexley, who are offering additional benefits to those users who are prepared to pay for privilege.

Suffolk is going ahead with the idea of setting up a charitable trust to run its libraries. Several others are considering following suit, among them Ealing, Durham, Warrington and Greenwich. But there seem to be hints that the tax relief for such trusts will soon be lost.

One such not-for-profit group looking to move library provision is GLL, which currently operates leisure centres in the south-east and may be poised to take over libraries in Greenwich, Croydon and Wandsworth. But the prospect of libraries in the UK being outsourced to private profit-making companies may have receded. The American company LSSI, which had stated that it wanted to take over 15% of UK libraries within five years, has backed off, telling the Independent, “we're still waiting to see if the UK is ready yet for the idea of library privatisation.”

Essex and Kent councils are employing an American debt collection company, Unique Management Services, to collect unpaid fines for library books. Kent estimates that is has £100k in unpaid fines, and Essex £650k. But the individual amounts recovered are likely to be tiny: the largest fine incurred in Kent last year was £25.

The Parliamentary Select Committee on Culture Media and Sport finished collecting written evidence for its enquiry into Library Closures on 12^th January, and we are now waiting to hear who will be called to give verbal evidence before the committee.

Meanwhile, the response from Secretary of State Jeremy Hunt and Minister Ed Vaisey remains a deafening silence.

On Tuesday 13^th March, library campaigners from around the UK are due to lobby Parliament to protest at cuts to services around the country and the continuing uncertainty over the government’s role in defending them. They are calling on everyone who loves libraries to join them at Central Hall, Westminster (1 Wimpole Street) at 12 noon.

22 Britannia Road - Our 1st anniversary podcast!

This is our first anniversary. Yay! The podcast has been going for a whole year. And our anniversary podcast comes from an old friend of the magazine, Amanda Hodgkinson. She reads the opening chapter of her book, 22 Britannia Road.

At the end of the Second World War, Silvana and eight-year-old Aurek board the ship that will take them from Poland to England. After living wild in the forests for years, carrying a terrible secret, all Silvana knows is that she and Aurek are survivors. Everything else is lost. Waiting in Ipswich is Silvana’s husband Janusz, who has not seen his wife and son for six years. He has found his family a house and works hard planting a proper English garden to welcome them. But the six years apart have changed them all. To make a real home, Silvana and Janusz will have to come to terms with what happened during the war, accept that each is different and allow their beloved but wild son Aurek to be who he truly is.

When 22 Britannia Road came out in hardback last year, it was chosen as one of Waterstone's 11 best debut novels of 2011. The paperback edition is coming out on 2nd February, and we are delighted to announce that it has been named as the Orange New Writers Book of the Month for February.

You can listen to the podcast at http://wordswithjam.podomatic.com/. If you like what you hear, please don't forget to click to let us know!

Bookcrossing at the Starbooks Occupation Library

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the Starbooks Occupation Library at Occupy London’s now threatened camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral.

Housed under the same canvas as the Tent City University, which runs lectures, music gigs and poetry readings, the library’s atmosphere is cheerful and welcoming and the selection of books is eclectic. “No porn and no Barbara Cartland,” the middle aged man in charge told me. “Apart from that we’ll take anything.”

The library operates strictly on an honour system. Those who borrow books are trusted to either return them or replace them with another donation. Or for a small donation, you can buy a book. While I’m there a teacher makes a donation for an old copy of Teach Yourself Speaking and Debating. “I work with a group of young boys,” she says. “This is just the sort of thing I need to help build their confidence.”

On my first visit, I had no books to leave at the library, but a week or so later, I went back with two that I had registered on Bookcrossing. I had a feeling that a book set free here could end up having quite a tale to tell. And I was right. This morning, to my delight, I received the following notice, passed on by the Bookcrossing Alert Robot:

I found this book [The Women’s Room] at Occupy London's Library and was told that I could take it home with me if I wished. I had hoped to bring it back to Occupy Boston, but encampment was shut down the very day I flew home (to Boston). Now it's in Massachusetts with me, and I'll take it up to Saratoga Springs New York in a few days where I plan to pass it on.

Can’t wait for the next instalment!

Joseph Škvorecký, Czech Writer and Publisher

One month after the death of Vaclav Havel, his fellow dissident writer and publisher, Joseph Škvorecký, has also died. Škvorecký fled to Canada after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and set up 68 Publishers which, for the next twenty years published dissident Czech and Slovak writing banned in his own country.

Last year, WWJ published a review of his novel, The Cowards. It's republished here, as a tribute to a fabulous writer who should be much more widely read.

We were all sitting over at the Port Arthur and Benno said, ‘Well, it looks like the revolution’s been postponed for a while.’

‘Yes,’ I said and stuck the reed in my mouth. ‘For technical reasons, right?’

I happened to have been searching out Czech literature written behind the Iron Curtain recently, which is how I stumbled across The Cowards.

Set in the final week of the Second World War, The Cowards tells the story of Danny, saxophonist in the best jazz band in Czechoslovakia. Danny has grown up in the small town of Kostalek, near the border with Germany. For most of the war, the town has been under Nazi occupation. But now the occupying forces are on their way out, the SS are retreating from the Eastern Front, the Red Army is advancing and everyone in the town is talking about Revolution.

Danny quite fancies the idea of being a revolutionary hero – provided it means he can persuade the elusive Irena to go to bed with him. The reality is something else again. Conscription, tedious military drills, pointless patrols – all this just gets in the way of making music.

Throughout the book, Danny fantasises about the girl he will meet in Prague, the one who will make him forget even Irena – something which lends a touching note to Škvorecký’s dedication, ‘To the Girl I Met in Prague’.

The book is a wonderful evocation of what it is like to be a teenager - self-obsessed, image conscious, writhing with hormones and muddled ideals. When all that comes hard up against the brutal realities of War, it’s as if Holden Caulfield has walked into the pages of Catch 22.

Jeanne Nĕmcova’s translation cleverly captures the way these kids have modelled themselves on the films and music of Britain and America. When the British POW’s leave on the train, Danny is half aware that his hopes are leaving with them – but we know better than he what his future holds.

Written in 1948, when Škvorecký was 24, The Cowards was published ten years later, when it was immediately banned by the Communist authorities, who couldn’t tolerate Danny’s irreverent attitude to the sacred concept of Revolution. Škvorecký left Czechoslovakia after the Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968 and settled in Canada. There he set up 68 Publishers, which continued to publish banned Czech and Slovak literature until the Velvet Revolution in 1989.

Funny, moving and brutally real, this is a book that deserves to be much better known in the West.

Catriona Troth

Small Fish

Our first podcast of 2012 is the opening chapter of Pete Morin's fabulous legal thriller, Diary of a Small Fish, read by the author.

http://wordswithjam.podomatic.com/

When Paul Forte is indicted by a federal grand jury, everyone suspects prosecutor Bernard (don’t call him “Bernie”) Kilroy has more on his mind than justice. Then the FBI agent in charge of Paul’s case gives him a clue to the mystery: Kilroy is bent on settling an old family score, and he’s not above breaking the law to do it.

Paul is already dealing with the death of his parents and divorce from a woman he still loves. Now, with the support of an alluring grand juror, Paul must expose the vindictive prosecutor’s own corruption before the jury renders a verdict on his Osso Buco.

Who ever knew playing golf could be a federal offence...?

Diary of a Small Fish is published in paperback and as an ebook.

If in Doubt, Invent Your Own - your chance to win a printed copy of WWJ AND invent new meanings to words

- a new initiative from the makers of Words with Jam

How many words do we have at our disposal? The OED lists over 500,000, not including scientific terms and most teenage expressions. In comparison, German has a vocabulary of less than 200,000 and the French only half that, even when you include words they stole from us, like le weekend, le snacque-barre and le hit-parade. So, yeah, we like totally rule.

But the thing with words is that there are never enough of the bloody things, and we continually find ourselves using hand-gestures, sulking and mindless violence to get our points across instead. So, are you fed up with being grunted at by husbands, continually hearing “fine” and “nothing” from your wives and nursing your swollen and bleeding knuckles after yet another alcohol-related pub-disagreement? Fret not, WWJ is here to help. We’re inventing new words that sum up those feelings of frustration you get when you can’t find the right way to express yourself, and ways to describe those day-to-day situations which are familiar but for which words just don’t exist. Here are some examples:

Bileptic (adj): relating to the ability to hold two widely differing mindsets at once, and to switch between them depending on the company you’re in. Nick Clegg is a famous sufferer of Bilepsy.

Dooky-noo (n): A medieval Barbie-type doll game for girls, based on the witch/ducking stool test. How to play: your daughter’s dooky-noo was thrown into the village pond by the local witchfinder-sergeant. If it floated, your daughter was burned alive. If it sank, your daughter was thrown into the pond after it. See also Kenny-noo for boys. Lutheran or heretic? Same principles apply, each sold separately.

Zonambric (adj): A technical term describing the hypocritical suspension of political correctness in certain circumstances. In last week’s episode of Gok Wan’s Fat Birds Catwalk Special, Gok Wan was heard to shriek “Ooooh get a load of those bangers, love. You go girlie!” In an obviously zonambric reaction, his comment was met with laughter and applause, but when football commentator Andy Gray made a similar comment to a Sky News weathergirl a few months ago, it resulted in his immediate suspension and later sacking.

So, over to you. Define meanings for the following words, please. The best entries will be printed in WWJ and a select few will win prizes including trips to see Jedward live, holidays in Albania and a free printed copy of this magazine! Your words will be judged by misanthrope and potty-mouth Perry Iles, whose bi-monthly WWJ columns are known to literally dozens, so please don’t hold back – expressions that encompass the wide swathe of vileness and cruelty that define the human spirit will receive an especially warm welcome:

Zongue

Felp
Overcramb 

Chemlish
Shargle 

Glemp
Flictuise 

Womph
Gabbulate 

Flenstery

And finally, we need your help in this verbal initiative. Please send us your words, and our resident expert will provide you with definitions of them. In this way, we will do our bit to improve the state of humanity as a whole, and the degree of literacy that exists within it. Your cultural future needs you!

Email them to us at editor@wordswithjam.co.uk with the subject 'Invent your own' or post them on our Facebook wall.