Newsletter of the Society of Editors (NSW) Patron: Hazel Hawke

Quoting for freelance

editors

The following is a non-exhaustive summary of the types of things to remember when compiling a quota-tion for a freelance editorial job. Not all points will apply to every job, and some jobs may require items not mentioned here.

Prime rules: A. Never quote sight unseen. B. Don't assume anything. C. Don't say it, write it (and keep

a copy). 1. Full manuscript or sample

chapter. You may have to extrapolate from a sample chapter. Ensure that your interim quotation clearly indi-cates the basis on which your quota-tion is made and that variations from the extrapolation will require an amended quotation (e.g. quantity of art per ten, say, pages).

2. Meetings. Often best charged separately. A twenty-minute meet-ing in the city translates to at least two hours out of your day.

3. Authorial contact. Faxes, let-ters, phone calls (remember, as you get friendly with authors, they like to talk longer on the phone), travel-ling time to author's home or work.

4. Unnumbered MS pages. You will need to number and check or-der of pages, so charge for it.

5. Permissions. Who will clear permissions? Allow time for mak-ing lists.

6. Indexing. Publisher pays for indexer, but if you contract an in-dexer on behalf of the publisher, charge a fee for brokerage (ten per cent is normal).

7. Photo research. Find out who is responsible.

8. Blurb. Will you be expected to be involved in writing blurbs, and

in compiling copy and/or sample pages for publicity brochures?

9. Manuscript on computer disk. Find out what software, if conver-sion is needed for your system and who pays, if the disk is to be coded for typesetting. Don't forget com-puter time, disk supply, conversion, etc. Do you have to supply edited hard copy as well as corrected disks? Are you required to produce clean copy (i.e. retyped for scanning)?

10. Artwork. Allow time for masking and sizing (if part of the job), writing artbriefs, extracting/ editing art type.

11. Who sizes art? More and more desktop designers, layout artists, etc. expect the editor to do precise sizing and fitting of art on to pages.

12. Table setting. Make notes on table setting for later computer make-up.

13. Photocopying. Check how many copies of the MS will be needed, how often throughout the job, how they will be forwarded to the author.

14. Stationeiy. Will you have to supply disks, special folders, etc.?

15. Postage. Large parcels of manuscript are heavy and cost money to send through the post. Will you use Express Post, registered

mail? Do you need special enve-lopes?

16. Mark-up. Will you be ex-pected to do a full mark-up of the MS, or just indicate the hierarchy of headings? If you have corrected on disk, a clean print-out will be needed and marked up for typesetting/for-matting.

17. Extra work. For any work that you are required to do that is not your fault (e.g. author's rewrite of a chapter), quote an hourly rate. It is a good idea to stipulate conditions, such as this in your quotation.

State clearly what you will do, and what you won't or can't do. Aide-memoire for quoting Part 1: Specifications

1. List title and author of manu-script.

2. List number of pages, quanti-ties and types of artwork (photos, maps, tables, line art, etc.).

3. List what is missing, i.e. what is unsighted to date. Part 2: Defining the stages and

pricing

1. Initial edit, including captions, checking references, coding manu-script for typesetter, compiling

Next meeting - Political Correctness A panel of speakers of wide and varied experience in communication will air and share their views with you on the use of non-discriminatory language and its implications for those who work with words (see details of the panel on page 8).

The meeting will be held on Tuesday, 7 June at 6.00 p m at the Rooftop Function Centre, 4th Floor, Australian Museum. Enter through William Street.

Drinks and light food will be provided. Bookings should be made by 31 May by phoning or faxing Robin Appleton on 560 1017. Cost $15 ($5 for full-time students) Note the different time (6.00 pm) for this meeting and book now.

permissions, correcting on disk. 2. Liaison with designer and art-

ist (including travel). 3. Compiling artbriefs and check-

ing artwork and art type. 4. Liaison with author and meet-

ings. 5. Galley, proofing (including

C1P, etc.) compiling prelim pages, acknowledgments, back matter.

6. Checking page proofs. 7. Recheck of final art. 8. Checking dyelines and cover

proofs. 9. Checking colour proofs. 10. Miscellaneous: photocopying,

phone calls, faxes, travelling time, postage and envelopes (registered, large parcel of manuscript, Express Post), stationery (disks, folders). Part 3: Conditions

1. State when invoices will be sent (e.g. after each stage, at end of job) and when payment is required.

2. State extra charges for autho-rial changes which require further editorial work.

3. State extra charges which will be made if final manuscript varies from the specifications listed above.

Wynne Webber and Jan Whelan Reprinted, with the permission of the authors, from the March 1994 issue of OffPRESS, the newsletter of the Society of Editors (Queensland.) Ifc

Welcome to new

members

Eight new members have joined us since April: Danielle Curnow, Rev. Dr Michael Giffin, Jane Hazel, and Steven Jones, Helen Joyce, Susanne Read, Jennifer Xangger, and a new corporate member, Marketing Services, TAFE, NSW. Welcome all; we hope you find the society activities to be both interesting and sat-isfying.

The 4 Rs Conference A conference on scholarly editing, called the 4 Rs: WRITING, REPAIR-ING, RE-PRESENTING, RE-CRE-ATING THE TEXT, was arranged jointly by the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University and the Australian Schol-arly Editions Centre at the English Department of the Australian De-fence Force Academy and was held at the ANU on 8-10 April 1994. It was convened by Associate Pro-fessor Paul Eggert, who a couple of years ago had started the ball rolling with the conference called "Editing in Australia' which had resulted in the publication of a book. Although I am not involved in scholarly edit-ing, I had read the book Editing in Australia, and when I saw the pro-gram for the 4 Rs conference, I could not stay away.

At first, the program seemed to be too varied to take in in full, but Paul Eggert had so skilfully put the papers together that, once the speak-ers got going, connecting themes kept popping up in such interesting ways that it became very hard to leave anything out.

The scholarly editor is usually concerned with (I'm giving a rough sketch here) repairing, re-presenting, or re-creating a text in something like a definitive or authoritative ver-sion and filling it out with explana-tions and commentary in footnotes. Complications occur when there is more than one version by the au-thor, for example, where the author was not entirely satisfied with the first published version and re-worked it later, or where there are several manuscripts in cases where the author is not known. The editor may resolve such problems by pro-ducing parallel text editions or by footnoting to such an extent that there is hardly any room left on the page for any manuscript text. Some of these problems were dealt with at the Editing in Australia conference. At the 4 Rs conference, some of the same themes came up, and also fur-ther developments of them.

One of the themes that seemed to be dominating at the 4 Rs confer-

ence, emerging in several papers like a brightly coloured thread in the con-ference tapestry, was that of the per-formance of a work. The perform-ance can be seen as a definitive text, whether or not written down. In the oral tradition, both in the Middle Ages and wherever it still survives, the performance of a work is the definitive version. The presenter can create his or her own version of the work and, even when it is a well-known story, the version is not worth less than the account it may have been based on. The original version in such circumstances, if there is one, need not be regarded as more au-thoritative.

The performance of an Aborigi-nal oral work can include singing, dancing, the use of musical instru-ments, many performers, and, of course, a three-dimensional setting. Every recording, including filming, of the full 'texf of such an occasion involves so much editorial interven-tion that it can be claimed that it is not possible to produce a definitive version in a recording medium. Every camera only records from its own angle. If several cameras are used, the final film does not show the record of each camera but an edited assemblage of their footage. Every aspect is edited in its own way in order to record the perform-ance. Awareness of this makes us realise that the written records we have of other oral performances, such as some from the Middle Ages, must be limited too.

The problem of performance as text was further highlighted in a pa-per on dance notation. It reminded us that although both music and lit-erature have a long history of in its own way quite adequate recording which permits reconstruction and re-creation of works from several centuries ago, effective dance not-ation is a very recently developed tool. Only anecdotal information is left to us about many famous danc-ers and choreographers, and any real examination of their work is impos-sible.

The idea of performance was taken further into the conservation of historic houses and the restoration of

2 Blue Pencil

a 15th centuiy painting. In spite of the many analogies drawn, houses and paintings bo th differ from manu-scripts in that the restoration or con-servation work in a sense eliminates the original and results in only one version. Once the new version is fin-ished, there is no way of going back and capturing another version. Manuscripts can be re-edited and re-produced in several versions if desir-able. Houses also present the prob-lem that they may have a long life span during which innovations and alterations can be introduced, and they may end up not representing any given period but a collection of many styles and influences. An ex-ample of this is Rouse Hill House near Windsor in New South Wales, which has been lived in by the same family for over a century (or was it more like a century and a half?). Since it is not possible, and probably not even desirable, to freeze it in a particular architectural period, it is being conserved as something more like a sociological document show-ing the condition in which it was handed over to the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales.

In a session on electronic editions, four papers were given. The last one included a demonstration of a prom-ising software system called IntelliText, which permits cross-ref-erencing in a manageable and very flexible way via a pattern of paths which the user can select.

The conference concluded with a session on a project covering the His-tory of the Book in Australia. It is an-ticipated to culminate in the publi-cation of a two- or three-volume work in 2001.

This brief report does not do jus-tice to the breadth, depth, and schol-arly extent of the papers presented -it is merely aiming to show why I found the conference so stimulat-ing.

The papers from this conference, too, will be published in a book. I am looking forward to being able to go through them again at my own pace in the published form. If you are interested in the publication, write to Paul Eggert and ask to be

put on the relevant mailing list for information. I understand that copies of the book Editing in Australia are still available and can also be or-dered by writing to him at the Aus-tralian Scholarly Editions Centre, English Department, University Col-lege ADFA, CanbeiTa ACT 2600.

Maria Karlsson-Lillas

Language Expo

Australia

Lovers of language can look forward to Language Expo Australia, an ini-tiative of The National Language and Literacy Institute of Australia Lim-ited, to be held at The Sydney Con-vention and Exhibition Centre from 21 to 23 July. The Expo program will include sessions on communication and culture in business and the workplace, cultural entertainment, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, and current research in linguistics, to name but a few.

To find out the details of Expo, contact Clare MacAdam by phone on (02) 211 6711 or by fax, (02) 211 6608, and ask for the Expo brochure to be sent to you. / \

DEADLINES FOR

1994 BLUE

PENCIL ISSUES:

14 June, 12 July,

16 August,

13 September,

11 October, and

8 November.

TO TALK OF OTHER THINGS

How many manuscript assessors would agree that they see an oc-casional manuscript which de-serves a contract, is ripe for an audience, but is never given the chance to appear on bookshop shelves? Again, how many editors would agree that many manu-scripts are 'edited', often with a very short time allotted to the ed-iting, that would have been better returned to the writers for their files, or for total re-writes? As an editor I'd like to know why.

As some manuscripts are con-tracted on the strength of a syn-opsis and three chapters, or on occasions, the submission of a complete manuscript, and other manuscripts are rejected out of hand, could there be a more equi-table method of determining which is to be published and which is not? Many of these do not go to an assessor. I do not have an answer. Do you?

Assessing should be impartial, giving the writer the opportunity to engross the first reader in the plot, if fiction, 'faction', or bio-graphy; or to startle the first reader with the way in which the writer presents the information and. reaches conclusions in a general title.

Many proffered manuscripts are returned unread. Is this be-cause of the number of unsoli-cited manuscripts received; the lack of a stimulating title; the un-known name on the front page; the sheer bulk of some manu-scripts? Many writers would like to know. The set phrases in rejec-tion letters from publishers, such as 'not suitable for my Iisf; 'the titles for the next two years have been contracted', can deter a fu-ture bestselling author from re-submitting a manuscript.

Thank goodness David Malouf kept trying!

Robin Appleton

June 1994 3

BULLETIN BOARD

• FOR SALE •

Find a buyer for your early model computer or fax

machine by advertising in Blue Pencil.

The Galley Club June meeting The next meeting of the Galley Club will be held on Wednesday, 15 June 1994 at the

Crows Nest Club, 31 Hayberry Street, Crows Nest. The speaker will be Angelo

Loukakis, author, editor, scriptwriter, playwright and noted Literature and Adult

Paperback Publisher at HarperCollins. Angelo's talk — 'Inside the Whale' — will examine the publishing process within a

large publishing organisation, the conflicting demands and counter-balancing forces.

Look forward to a taste of publishing v e r i t e and a fascinating view of the process by one

who has been on both sides.

Time: 6.00 pm for drinks 6.30 pm for dinner

Cost: $20 members $25 non-members $5 meeting only

RSVP: Amby Davies Phone: 950 3955 or fax 950 3883 by 4.00

pm Monday, 13 June.

JULY EDITING WORKSHOP

The society is planning a workshop on Editing Scientific and Technical Writing, to be led by Sharon Paull on Saturday, 23 July. The form and length of the workshop will depend upon the number and needs of the participants, so if you are interested in attending, contact Robin Appleton by phone or fax on 5601017.

Details of the workshop will be confirmed in the July issue of B l u e P e n c i l .

WANTED TO BUY •

If you're looking for secondhand office equipment, advertise in Blue

Pencil.

The successful applicant will be required to prepare

copy and research linguistic style for the sixth and

subsequent editions of the S t y l e M a n u a l for A u t h o r s , E d i t o r s and P r i n t e r s in consultation with

government, academics, publishers and editors.

The position requires the incumbent to conduct, as

well as participate in, seminars on matters of writing

and editorial style and to act as the custodian of

AGPS and Commonwealth style.

Contact officer for further information on this position is

Terry Gillmore on (06) 295 4604. Selection

documentation can be obtained by calling the

Recruitment 24-hour answering service on (06) 295

4855.

For Shy Members

There is a suggestion box on the. table by the door at every society meeting. If you have any ideas for improving any aspect of the society's activities, drop a note in the box.

POSITION VACANT

Australian Government Publishing Service Style Manual Editor $53,447+

4 Blue Pencil

EVENTS CALENDAR

7 June

Lunching with Style

Venue: AGPS Training Centre, Wentworth Avenue, Kingston ACT Cost: $25 ($20 if you book four or more lunches or are a member of the Canberra Society of Editors) Contact Christina Carter, AGPS Edi-torial & Design, GPO Box 84, Can-berra ACT 2601, ph: (06) 295 4937, fax: (06) 295 4738

This first in a series of weekly lunchtime lectures is hosted by AGPS. Each week, a chapter of the AGPS Style Manual will be discussed. At the first luncheon, the topic will be 'Introduction: Why a Style Manual?' 21-22 June

The Australian Publishing Conference Venue: Sheraton Wentworth, Syd-ney Cosb $1,395 (2-day conference); $495 (each workshop) Contact: AIC Conferences, GPO Box 3924, Sydney NSW 2001, ph: (02) 210 5700, fax: (02) 221 7773. Topics:

• Analyse the dangers facing magazine publishers

• Explore the implications of digital media

• Find solutions to challenges in design, editing and covers.

There will be two half-day work-shops on Thursday, 23 June:

• Extending your magazine's brand franchise

• Building a subscription base for your magazine or newsletter.

22-24 June

Australian Book Fair

The 1994 Australian Book Fair will be held from 22 to 24 June at Darling Harbour. Mark it in your diary now. 23 July

Editing Scientific and Technical Writing Workshop

See page 4 for details. 27-29 July, 1-2 August

Principles of Writing and Editing Organised by: Australian Institute of Professional Communicators Inc Venue: Board Room, Artarmon Inn, 472 Pacific Highway, Artarmon Cosb $1,150 ($1,050 for members of the Institute) Contact: The Course Controller, Australian Institute of Professional Communicators Inc, PO Box 204, Terrey Hills NSW 2084, ph: (02) 450 1342.

27-31 July

6th International Feminist Book Fair Venue: Royal Exhibition Buildings, Nicholson Street, Melbourne Contact: 6th International Feminist Book Fair, Waldron Smith Manage-ment, 93 Victoria Avenue, Albert Park VIC 3206, ph: (03) 690 6744, fax: (03) 690 7155

More than 100 feminist writers from across the globe will gather to explore the theme 'Indigenous, Asian and Pacific Writing and Pub-lishing'. People directly involved in the book trade are invited to attend the trade-only days on 27 and 28 July.

30 September-3 October

Spring Writing in 1994

The NSW Writers' Centre invites the participation of the Society of Edi-tors (NSW) at this event. This festi-val for the general public is staged and attended by the writing com-munity. We'll announce more de-tails closer to the time.

DIRECTORIES

Indexers Available The 1993/94 edition of Indexers Avail-able, published by the Australian So-ciety of Indexers (AusSI), is now available. The cost is $7, including postage, if you are a member of AusSi or an affiliated society, $10 for non-members. Copies are available from The Secretary, Australian Soci-ety of Indexers, GPO Box 1251, Mel-bourne VIC 3001.

Register of Editorial Services 1994/95

Members who submitted entries for the new register will receive a proof copy in June to check before printing. Please return the corrected proof as soon as possible after re-ceipt, so that the register can be fi-nalised and printed.

1994 ABPA Directory The Australian Book Publishers

Association Directory of Members for 1994 is now available. The direc-tory costs $10 for ABPA members and $20 for non-members. For or-ders or enquiries ring Robyn Lowe on (02) 281 9788.

June 1994 9

COMPETITION

attention a

B • COLLEEN • McCUIIOUGH

ELLE magazine, in conjunction with Random House Australia Publishers, is looking for a bright, new, Australian literary star. The prizes are: • a $5,000 advance on royalties from Random House Australia and a contract to publish the finished novel; • an extra $2,500 in cash from ELLE magazine; • a credit note worth $2,500 to be spent at any Country Road store; • a Macquarie Dictionary in hard coverand CD-ROM software package from Weldon Publishers;

a dozen bottles of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin non-vintage champagne.

y June 30,1994, contributors should have submitted a substantial piece of work towards a finished novel and a synopsis. By substantial, we mean about three chapters or enough to give the selection panel a good idea of

your writing style and how the finished novel would read. Contributors should also fill out an original entry form found on page 141 of the June

issue of ELLE magazine. By August 31,1994, a short list of finalists will be notified by mail or phone and asked to FINISH the novel by last mail December 22, 1994. Partially completed manuscripts may be considered at the judges' discretion. The short list will be published in the October 1994 issue of ELLE. The winner- chosen by novelists Tim Winton and Glenda Adams, Matthew Kelly of Random House Australia and Debbie Coffey, editor of ELLE - will be notified as soon as possible and announced in the April, 1995 issue of ELLE. An extract from the winning novel will accompany the announcement.

AN ELLE/RANDOM HOUSE LITERARY AWARD

A N N E T Y L E R

The winner will receive one dozen bottles of the French champagne Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin non-vintage; a $2,500 credit note at Country Road stores;a CD-ROM software package and Macquarie Dictionary in hard cover. Below: Some of Random House Australia's publishing successes.

THE GRASS CROWN TO ENTER, FILL OUT THE ENTRY COUPON IN THE MAY, JUNE OR JULY ISSUES OF ELLE MAGAZINE

THE ROLE OF THE PUBLICIST IN PUBLISHING

The address by Debbie Mcinnes to the society meeting in May

During the past 15 years that I've been in publishing, I've been in-volved in many facets of the indus-try including sales, marketing, and publicity. Until January this year, I'd been Publicity Manager at Pan Macmillan and for seven years prior to that I was with Collins (pre-Murdoch, I might add). In between those two Goliaths I had a short time with a very small publishing com-pany where I sold books one day, publicised them the next, delivered the books to the bookshops the day after, and then a couple of months later, took delivery of the returns — which was soul destroying, to say the least—but thank goodness there weren't that many. It was only a short time, but quite an extraord-inary one; it taught me a lot about publishingat the absolute grassroots level.

A couple of years ago I had a baby and found that for me the cor-porate life didn't work. I thought that if I had a computer and a fax I could set up at home. I have recently struck out on my own and started a public relations consultancy, and at this stage I seem to be getting lots of work, which is great. I have a few friends who work in Public Rela-tions and they've informed me that there is lots of money to be had out-side publishing, but I think that once you're in publishing you're in it — and it's the publishing that grabs me more than the publicity, so I'm lucky I can combine the two at this stage.

Publicists have been called many things: slave drivers, nurse maids, and minders (one of my least fa-vourite), but when you're lucky, they call you a friend. I've worked with some of the best and least known Australian and overseas authors, and the one thing they all have in common is that they're human be-ings — mind you, some more than others. We've all worked with au-

thors, and some of you may be au-thors, but it seems to me that when a person publishes a book and steps over that line and becomes an au-thor, something changes.

But the same principles apply to all authors, and I've been very fortu-nate in my career to have worked with the likes of David Attenborough, Eric Newby, Wilbur Smith, Graham Swift, Linda La Plant, Morris Gleitsman, Robert Drewe, Betty Mahmoody, Dr Oliver Sacks, Judy Blume, and Clive James. I've worked with a lot of great au-thors because I've been lucky to work with big publishing houses that publish these people.

But the work has to begin some-where. When publicists meet an au-thor for the first time, they must evaluate the media potential of that person, because not all authors are media friendly. It must be terribly difficult to be a writer, a creative person, who by definition leads a fairly solitary life, and to be thrust into the tornado of an author tour after about 12 months of waking up in the morning, going into your lit-tle office, and writing away on a typewriter or a word processor, no one else to talk to except the family. Then, 'Hey presto' you're taking 40or 50interviews, you are talking to peo-ple you have never met before, a lot of them have never read your book, a lot of them don't even know your name. Ifs very difficult; i fs a very daunting experience. The publicisf s job is to make sure that experience is a bit easier, and that's probably one of the most important roles I see the publicist has.

Often an author is not suitable for all forms of media. Some authors are brilliant in press interviews, but when it comes to radio or television, they can't quite get the message across — and Unfortunately, the media is cutthroat. If you haven't got a talking head that can deliver, they don't want to know about it. If you put somebody on that doesn't shape up, they don't forget it and the next time you go along saying 'But this person is fantastic', they

say 'Not so fantastic last time'. We all know that the media does sell books, but your reputation is at stake, so the decision about which medium suits a particular author is pretty important.

When I first started in publicity, I promoted an author who was very intelligent. She was certainly articu-late and had written a good book, so I put her in front of a radio micro-phone. The book that she had writ-ten was a novel, but it was based on real characters, and I remember standing outside the interview vir-tually pulling my hair out because every time the interviewer asked her 'Who is the character based upon?', instead of changing the subject and getting onto something else, she'd say, 'Well I can't tell you', or 'No'. At the time, I was working for a small publisher and the next day I was selling in Grahame's city book-store. One of the people in the store that I knew quite well told me that a woman had come in and said, 1 would like to buy a copy of a book by a woman I heard on a radio sta-tion yesterday. I can't quite remem-ber the name of the book, but I can't believe that she ever got a book pub-lished and I certainly can't believe that she got onto radio, so I think I should buy the book'. At least we had sold one copy. I leamt a lot from that situation, and now when I talk to authors, even on the telephone, I am listening and thinking, 'No, not good for radio... good story, so we'll just do press'.

Authors are reasonable people if you explain the media to themthe right way. Some authors can per-form, some cannot. It has to be said, however, that some authors do per-form beyond expectations. I recently had the privilege of working on a book called Searching for Charmian, the story of Charmian Cliff s illegiti-mate daughter. It was written by Suzanne Chick, who had never writ-ten a book before. Sue had been a teacher,but had never done any pub-licity — no television or radio or press interviews. Certainly she had talked to assemblies of a thousand

June 1994 5

fidgeting children, but she'd never talked to an assembled group of peo-ple about her story. I talked to her and thought, 'Well... yes... you seem good', but you never know until a person gets in front of a microphone or a camera.

The first interview she did was with Peter Ross, a taped interview for his Sunday Afternoon program. It was a Friday afternoon and we weren't starting the bulk of the me-dia until Monday and we had all afternoon, so I thought, 'Well... if she's no good they can keep doing tapes and itwillbe OK'. Idon' tknow whether any of you saw the inter-view, but she was absolutely bril-liant; I was gobsmacked. I thought, Hello, you've been living on the South Coast all your life and you've not done any media?' It was one of those fantastic situations where you just thank God that it has all come together, and thaf s what Sue was like.

I was selling for William Collins a few years ago when The World of Charmian Clift was reissued. I had sold that book and had remembered the interest that people had in the book and the whole idea of George Johnson and Charmian, so I had the feeling that a Sydney Morning Herald literary lunch would work. I spoke to the Herald literary editor and he said, 'Well... maybe', so I spoke to the. woman that organises the lunches and said, "Took, just lefs have a go'. The thing about the Her-ald is that if s got such strong pulling power. It was a good story, and I thought there would still be a lot of Charmian Clift fans that used to read her columns and her books who re-membered her. A lot of her fans are quite young; if s extraordinary how many young people do like reading about Charmian and her stories. I thought, 'Well... she'll probably at-tract a crowd'. Sue did. About 600 people turned up at the Grand Park Hotel in Sydney to hear her story, and she ended up speaking at about eight, literary events. She probably talked to about 40 interviewers, ra-dio, press, and television, and eve-ryone walked away with something from that woman. She has a writing talent, she had a story to tell, and

she put it across brilliantly. That ex-perience with Sue was a really high point for me.

Other authors I've come into con-tact with over the years are consid-ered mass market writers, and some are the nicest and most professional people I've had to work with. To them, selling the book through the media is anaccepted part of the proc-ess. They don't resent working with the media, they know they have to do it, and that's the way they ap-proach it. Moist of them have made it in America, where sometimes they go on three-week tours hitting a city a day without a break. I fs incred-ibly hard going. They usually don't go with a publicist, they are given a whole book of tickets and told, 'Off you go', and it must be horrendous for them I know I'm tough, but I'd never do that to an author, thaf s for sure.

Some of the authors I've toured with were among the biggest-sell-ing writers in the world. They in-clude people like Jackie Collins, Wilbur Smith, Barbara Taylor Brad-ford, Dick Francis, and Judy Blume. There is a contention sometimes about the work theyproduce. In their own words, they 'entertain people'. Thaf s all they set out to do, and judging by their sales, they do it well. They certainly work very hard, sometimes completing up to 80 in-terviews in eight days and in that time attending cocktail parties to meet the media and the booksellers. They all realise how important the booksellers are to them. They speak at literary lunches, sign hundreds of books, and in between all that, are onbreakfast television and late night television (thankfully we have only a small amount of late night televi-sion now), but media is media, so they've all done it knowing that they've got to do that job. Most au-thors are absolutely exhausted at the end of a tour, for i fs so emotional and so tiring, but they mostly do it with good grace.

Some people think that publicists are machines, and if by machines they mean they are able to operate for 24 hours and not break down, then that description is accurate. Linda La Plant, the author of Prime

Your Committee 1994

President and Publicity Robin Appleton Ph: 5601017 Fax: 5601017

Secretary Val Phillips Ph: 6974345 (w)

9187031(h)

Treasurer Charles Beelaerts Ph: 3881456 (w)

3276273(h) Fax: 3718635

Catering Teny Johnston Ph: 805 7465 (w) Fax: 805 7480

Membership RhanaPike Ph: 569 7831

Newsletter John Heming Ph: 529 8638 Fax: 529 9764 Robyn Hemming Ph: 326 2925 Fax: 327 2963 Carol D'Costa Ph: 954 0711

Suspect, who has made it in the tel-evision area as well as with her nov-els, was in Australia last year pro-moting her new novel Entwined. We'd been on tour for about a week when she said to me one day, T)o

6 Blue Pencil

you ever go to the loo? I've never seen you go to the loo'. When you're organising, you're right into it. Most of the interviews are set up with five or ten minutes in between, and they've just got to happen on time. You just get into the rhythm of it. I suppose i fs like anything you do that you're totally involved in, you forget about things. It helps to have a strong bladder, but Linda was quite shocked, couldn't believe it, because, I might add, she had a Japanese blad-der. I kept saying to her, 'You can't go yet, we haven't got time'. 'Oh please can I go?' 'No!'. You get to know authors quite well on tour.

Authors are at their most vulner-able during tours because, as my friend Kathy Lette says, They're down to their emotional underwear'. They are stripped bare, so I think it is very important for publicists to anticipate problems and head them off at the pass if they can, and also to take things with a grain of salt.

Tours are quite stressful, and even the meekest of authors will turn into a tiger when they're faced with a full week of interviews, are ex-hausted, and have to keep going. But unlike the music industry, au-thors rarely make outrageous de-mands; they don't have to have a certain champagne or all that sort of rubbish. I don't know how the film publicists deal with that. I did hear once that Harold Robbins used to ask his publicist at the end of the day, "Hey girlie, where's the drugs and where's the girls?' He did all his interviews and then wanted his treats at the end of the day. I'm glad I wasn't his publicist!

Authors are generally reasonable people, and if the publicists do their job properly and provide an atmos-phere in which the author can pro-mote the book, problems are mini-mal, but there is always the X fac-tor. You may have organised a ma-jor launch and then a politician re-signs or an earthquake occurs, and there is just nothingyou can do about it. You try to retrieve the situation if you can, but maybe if s irretrievable.

Someone once told me that pub-licity was an art and not a science, which I must say cheered me up no end. The art of the publicist, as I see

it, is to achieve optimum coverage for a book without killing the au-thor. The challenge is also to walk through the media minefield where the pecking order reigns supreme. Trying to balance the coverage with the pecking order is an ongoing bat-tle; you are constantly up against the attitude in the media that every person in Australia watches the same programs. You all watch the same programs — you watch the Today Show, the Midday Show, A Current Affair, everything. Don't you? The producers and the major TV execs obviously believe you do. They are the people who watch all the pro-grams and they're the ones that are really concerned that their show wasn't first. Thafs what we're up against; if you go on the Midday Show, you can't go on A Current Affair, and if you go on Sixty Min-utes, then you just may get on to one or the other. Radio is not so bad, but you don't go on John Laws first, then you don't go on John Laws. Walking that fine line is very diffi-cult. In a sense, if s like playing Rus-sian roulette and I've been caught a couple of times. All we're hying to do is get coverage for the book, but all the producer at a radio or TV station is trying to do is to please their audience. We hopefully meet up in the middle somewhere.

So what makes a book sell? Thaf s the question I quite often ask my-self; is it the cover, is it the story, is it the fact that it was on the Midday Show, or is it all of the above? If we only knew, we'd probably all be mil-lionaires and on a desert island somewhere reading books and hav-ing time to enjoy doing the things we never have time to do because we are so busy producing or publi-cising them. Can an author tour make or break sales ? An author tour can be just sitting an author in a radio station at the ABC in Sydney, doing lots of down-the-lines and not moving out of Sydney, or an author tour can be an all-states extravaganza. It depends on the au-thor, and it depends on how much money you want to spend. If the author's got something to say, the book warrants it, and you've made a decision that the person will at-

tract media, then you might tour the author. You know by dealing with the media whether you are going to have a good chance or not. I quite often ring around a few people that I know and say, 'Look, I'm looking at publicising this, what do you think?' There is no data on it. How can you research the number of ti-tles that are published every month? I've worked on author tours where we've had fabulous coverage and the book hasn't sold. Why? The me-dia loved it and certainly we had the recognition for it to sell, but why didn't it? That question will go on for evermore. You have to go on your gut feeling and your experi-ence. We know a few things, we can rely on some advertising demogra-phics and so on, but what makes a person buy a book? I worked with Kathy Lette on the last four books that she wrote, in-cluding Foetal Attraction, which came out this year. It had lots of coverage (Kathy always attracts lots of cover-age, for she's fantastic media fod-der) and it is selling like the clappers. They've had to reprint and reprint, yet the previous book didn't sell quite as well, but we had a lot of coverage as well. I don't know why.

Do some publishers insist that a book has to have a launch? All authors want a launch, but i f s your job to point out that money could be better spent elsewhere. Cer-tainly, when I worked at Pan Macmillan, we always discussed it. There are ways around it, you could have a dinner or something. Not every book is launched. The review list itself costs you a lot of money and you also need to print bro-chures. You mean the press releases. Yes, I do all of that, but the only cost you should incur is for photocopying, for you just write your press release, illustrate it from die book, and send it out.

June 1994 7

THE 'PC' PANEL FOR 7 JUNE

Each of the members of the Political Correctness panel has extensive ex-perience in publishing, be it in writ-ing, editing, production, or admin-istration. Each has an individual view of the nature of discriminative language and the implications of its use to literature and society in gen-eral.

Wendy B aeon, who will chair the discussion, is the Director of the Aus-tralian Centre for Independent Jour-nalism and an investigative journal-ist who has worked for The National Times, Channel 9, and SBS. Wendy is a feminist, has had a long-term interest in anti-censorship causes, and is co-ordinator of the Master of Journalism at the University of Tech-nology, Sydney.

Judith Curr joined Transworld in 1980 when the company began in Australia, in the position of Public-ity and Promotions Manager. In 1983 she was promoted to Marketing Manager, then Director and then in 1987, when Transworld set up an Australian publishing division, was made Publisher. Not long after, Transworld also bought the Doubleday imprint. Since that time, the company has mostly concen-trated on non-fiction publications dealing with a wide variety of sub-jects, both politically correct and in-correct! More recently it has pub-lished The Rise and Rise of Kerry Packer, Dr Thiering's Jesus the Man, and Roberta Sykes' Murrawiruv Black Women of Achievement. In August it will be publishing Dr Peter Cameron's book Heretic, which warns against fundamentalism in all its politically correct guise.

Joshua Dowse is precariously balanced between the legal and pub-lishing professions. As a lawyer, he worked as a solicitor for an Austral-ian corporate law firm and in-house for a UK media corporation before writing Australian Corporation Prac-tice, a tome of offensive proportions. In publishing, he has written and spoken on post-war Australian pub-

lishing and nationalism, served time as a freelance editor and reviewer, and is now Managing and Commis-sioning Editor in charge of Butterworths' commercial law pub-lishing. As a white, Anglo-Ameri-can male of privileged upbringing, he defies his own belief in rational-ism to dare to speak on this topic.

Robyn Lowe has been the Train-ing Manager at the Australian Book Publishers Association for the last year. Before that she worked as an editor for Harcourt Brace for three years and then Butterworths for the same length of time. Robyn has also been involved in training with Women in Publishing for the last two years.

Sasha Soldatow is 46 1/2; born in Germany of Russian parents he is the author of five books which in-clude Harry Hooton: Poet and Philoso-pher of the 21st century (1990) and Mayakovsky in Bondi (1993). He stud-ied history and music in Melbourne, has travelled extensively, and in the past 20 years has been involved in gay liberation and anti-prisons ac-tions in Sydney. He has worked in radio, theatre, performance, and has been a filmscript editor.

Lynne Spender finished school and headed off to university and a teaching career — 'a good job for a girl'. She taught for eight years in Australian schools and then moved to Toronto, Canada for several years where she wrote her first book (pub-lished by Pandora Press, UK). She was a founding member of the Fem-inist Party of Canada, and found it was politically incorrect to be a woman, a feminist, and a 'political' creature. She returned to Australia, studied law, taught at the Univer-sity of Technology, managed a small publishing company, edited and wrote numerous books, and in 1993 took on the job as executive officer of the Australian Society of Authors. As she spends most of her time now as a negotiator and mediator, she is looking forward to a lively debate about 'political correctness'. So as not to appear ill-informed, she would like to know if any universi-ties are currently carrying out

funded research into whether 'pc' has a genetic component.

Dr Peter West is senior lecturer in Education at the University of Western Sydney, Nepean. He con-venes the Men's Academic Network which keeps men, and women writ-ing about men, in touch with each other. Last December he convened the first Australian Conference on Men's Issues, the proceedings of which are being edited as a book, How Men are Changing: Australian Men in the Nineties. Peter is currently finalising the details of a book called The Secret Lives of Men, based on in-terviews with men who grew up in Penrith from 1920 to 1990. He writes for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age and is the father of Stuart, Kirsten, and Joanna.

Yes, you can just turn up on the night, but PLEASE book first if you can so that we can cater for all who attend. Ring Robin on 5601017.

National freelance

editing rates

Following our disappointment at the representative of the Media, Enter-tainment and Arts Alliance not be-ing able to attend our meeting in April, we received material from the Alliance about their superannuation package; their application form for the freelance register for members; and the payment rates for book edi-tors, writers, artists, and broadcast-ers.

The rates for book editors are: Per day $208.00 Per half day (2/3 or less) $139.00 Per hour $52.00 For writers, the rates are $500 for

1000 words or less and 50 cents per word after 1000 words.

If you have any questions for the Alliance about editors' rates or con-ditions, send them to The Editor, Blue Pencil, 49 Evans Street, Sans Souci NSW 2219, fax: (02) 529 9764. We will send them to the Alliance and print your questions with the responses.

8 Blue Pencil