by Ruth Harris

Somerset Maugham famously said, "There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, nobody knows what they are."

But pretty much everybody you meet in the publishing business will give you a list of them. (One is "never start a sentence with 'there are'" —so watch yourself, Mr. Maugham.)

Last year I read a great post by editor Jamie Chavez about what she calls the "Secret Fiction Rule Book." I wrote about it on the blog last year at holiday time. I got so many grateful comments, I decided to talk about breaking rules again this year, and offer a new version of my little verse, "The Beginning Writers' Rule Book."

The "secret writing rules" are the ones you hear at conferences, critique groups, and forums: the ones people say you MUST follow to be a successful novelist—although as an avid reader, you somehow never ran into them before you started writing.

Jamie pointed out that nobody knows where these rules come from, or why so many great books have become classics without following a single one.

Don't get me wrong: most of these rules involve solid advice, but if you follow them rigidly, you'll end up with wooden, formulaic prose that nobody is going to want to read.

Do learn them. It's much more fun to break rules when you know what they are. But then go ahead and smash them with happy abandon.

Here are some more of my unfavorites.

1. Show, don't tell  

Authors who follow this rule closely can write such murky stuff you never know what's going on.

Liza Perrat contacted me a few months ago, asking for permission to quote me in a book about her author collective, Triskele Books. I've been fascinated by the idea of authors forming their own publishing companies, so I asked if she'd like to guest post for us. I was eager to hear more about her experiences and share them with our readers.

Some writers take to the "indie" route easily, but others prefer to work with a team, the way it's done in traditional publishing. But traditional publishing can be very scary these days. Not only is breaking in daunting, but "non-compete" and "in perpetuity" clauses, rigid rules, low royalties and glacial schedules can turn a lot of writers away from the whole process.

The author collective offers a way to have the best of both worlds. If you're a "team player" who wants the control indie publishing offers, but you don't want to go it alone, the collective may be for you. But you do need to choose your team carefully, and dedication is a must, as you will see from Liza's story.

The Triskele Books website is stunning and professional and the covers are beautiful. I could tell they have a team that includes a fantastic designer. Triskele was formed in 2011, by UK authors Gillian Hamer, JJ Marsh and Liza, who's originally from Australia and lives in France. In 2012, three more authors joined the team, Jasper Dorgan, JD Smith and Catriona Troth.

Although they write in slightly different genres, their books are aimed at a similar audience. All the books are "serious" works of fiction, mostly historicals, set in exotic times and places. They look fascinating.


As they put it, The Triskele Trail is a story about "a writers' collective who made some mistakes and some smart decisions; who discovered opportunities, found friends and dodged predators in the independent publishing jungle...This is not a How-To book. This is How-We-Did-It."

I'm so grateful to Liza for guesting for us while I recover from the flu and the loss of my mom. Liza has been amazingly gracious while I've been kind of a dragon-lady. Thanks a bunch, Liza! ...Anne

An Alternative Route to Publishing – The Author Collective

by Liza Perrat 

Once upon a time there were three authors. They met via an online writing group where they honed their writing skills, critiqued each other’s work, and where, attracted by the quality of each other’s writing, they gravitated towards each other. Around the end of 2011, each with manuscripts they believed were fit for the public eye, these three writers found themselves in a similar predicament.

‘Cross-genre won’t sell,’ Gillian’s agent said, of her historically-based crime thrillers with a touch of
the otherworldly.

‘Your crime novels are far too cerebral,’ one agent said about JJ Marsh’s European crime series.

‘Love it, but can’t see how to sell it,’ publishers told Liza’s agent, of her Revolutionary France novel.

Frustration at traditional publishing routes became a common topic of conversation so, spread across Europe and the UK, they got together and discussed their fears, hopes and plans.

At that stage, even as self-publishing was becoming an increasingly attractive option, the market was still littered with poorly-written, badly-presented vanity projects. They expressed their reservations about this, and about the lonely prospect of trying to tout their books in such a crowded marketplace, not to mention the frightening thought of taking on all that responsibility alone.

The idea of a team emerged. Sharing it between three, with that sense of mutual support, made it not only appealing but quite exciting. Apart, they were nothing, but together, they could make one hell of a team!

With all the administration of establishing a business, and because, legally, each member wanted to retain her own rights, they did not want to be a small press. So, they became simply a group of authors working as a team to promote their writing. Along the way, they picked up two more valuable members, and today the Triskele Books Author Collective remains a core group of five, inviting associate members from time to time, to publish under their label.

This is their story.

If you're reading this blog, you're probably relatively tech-savvy. But now that we're in the midst of holiday season, most of us are running into the inevitable friends and relations who are threatened by new technology and maybe even hostile to the whole idea of e-books and e-readers. Some of them are probably your grandparents.

1) Learning new technology keeps us young.

2) The e-book revolution is ending age discrimination against older authors.

3) Older readers get to read books about their own issues.

4) E-readers offer physical advantages to the older reader.

•  Adjustable fonts. I'm getting to the stage where I can't read books with tiny fonts, and I'd be much more comfortable with large-print books, if I weren't too embarrassed to be seen reading them. With an e-reader, all it takes is the click of a button to adjust the font to our own vision requirements.
•  Lighter Weight. A friend told me she stopped enjoying reading hard-cover books a few years ago because of arthritis in her hands. But she loves that e-readers are easy to hold and getting lighter all the time. The new Nook GlowLight weighs only  6.2 ounces.
• Immediate new books. When I finish a book I love, I get an empty feeling. I often want to read another book by that author immediately, especially if it's the next in a series. But as we age, getting out to a bookstore can be more of a hassle. (And I stopped night driving when I realized it felt like driving by Braille on dark winter nights.) With an e-reader, you can have the new book in minutes.

5) E-books have got more people reading now than ever before. 

6) Because of the new paradigm, independent bookstores are making a comeback.  

• Amazon is now selling devices and ebooks through indie bookstores with "Amazon Source".
• Kobo has been selling its e-readers through independent bookstores for at least a year (If you listen to NPR in the US, you've heard their ads.) 
• Now that the marketplace isn't a monopoly of the Big Five and their cozy relationship with Big Box bookstores that sell advantageous shelf space to the highest bidder, the small independent bookshop has a more level playing field.
• Newsletters like E-Book Bargains UK that advertise bargain e-books to global markets also carry ads for indie bookstores.

7) Paper books aren't going anywhere.

• Four years of consumer data shows clearly that e-book consumption has reached mainstream readers and has expanded well beyond early adopter 'power readers,' but that physical books remain a popular format for many consumers, especially in certain categories.
• Consumers are very interested in "bundling" print and digital versions of a book, with 48% of survey respondents willing to pay more for bundles. 
• Consumers do not distinguish between e-books published by traditional houses and independently published options when making buying decisions.