Author Trap

You've heard of traps in general? Maybe you've heard of fox traps, and man traps? But have you heard of author traps? You haven't? They're typically known by other names, including ""vanity publishers", "money sinks", and other more colourful terms that I won't sully your eyes with on this website.

I bring this up because I've had to be wary of such things. New writers are always susceptible to this. The "lure of the shortcut", as I remember a Dragon Age game referring to the concept of Blood Magic. But it's no fantasy. That lure is real, but while fantasy is able to paint such things with big and clear warning signs, real life isn't so forgiving. I think one of the best ways I've seen concerning agents it summed up in relatively polite language is on Erica Verrillo's blog;

And one more word - to the not-so-wise. There are a few unscrupulous people out there who claim to be agents, but who are really out to ensnare writers who are desperate to publish. Do NOT under any circumstances pay an "agent" to read your work, or to edit it. Do NOT get sucked into having your work crowdfunded, or placed before "beta readers." [...] You've worked hard on your book. It deserves good representation. (Source)

And another quote for publishers specifically.

Remember – legitimate publishers don’t need to advertise for authors, they already have a rich pile of pickings to go through, and the only time you should be asked for money is if you are self-publishing. And if your book really is that fantastic – someone will pick up the phone to talk to you. (Source)

I probably couldn't have put it better myself in either instance. Unfortunately, I've had reason to be wary of these kinds of operations. But fortunately, they haven't cost me anything yet. My first taste of this was a publisher who didn't say anything about cost on their website. They responded positively to my submission, and sent me a contract. As I read through it, I saw that they were asking upwards of £300 for their services. I politely rejected their offer, and kept my eyes open after that.

A different type of "scam" are marketing websites such as "Publishing Push", which for a "modest fee", would promote self-published works. A different yet similar thing was something posted in a comment on one of my posts, claiming to monitor which Amazon tags. Their lowest quote was something over $240. I investigated the whole thing fully, as they weren't that upfront about the costs.

This whole post can be summed up in this sentence: The waters navigated by fledgling writers are full of sharks, so take care.

The Fictional in Pursuit of the Autobiographical

Now we've got the Oscar Wilde paraphrase out the way, I'll get down to the subject of this week's post. Something that many authors have said is that when creating their stories, they look to real life for inspiration as much as other stories. And having recently experienced (and still experiencing) several different autobiographies, I have to agree. The following post will contain minor spoilers.

The first one that struck me was Wings On My Sleeve, written by Eric Melrose "Winkle" Brown. He was a Royal Navy test pilot who flew in every type of Allied aircraft and a few Axis planes during WW2, and was one of the early jet fighter pioneers. Wings On My Sleeve begins in the 1930s, and goes into detail about his war career. I also remember watching a television documentary from 2014, two years before he died. In it, he went over his career and war memories, including a candid view of Air Marshal Goering from when he helped interview him as part of the Nuremberg trials. To read a description of the book, you might hardly believe it. But it is the real life of a remarkable and admirable man, whose exploits -- I think -- put many another war veteran's in the shade.

The second notable non-fiction work is Just Williams, a radio-exclusive autobiography written and read by famous British comedian Kenneth Williams. Like with "Winkle" Brown, my experience with Williams's life is drawn from both Just Williams and interview clips from the less sensational retrospective TV programs. It's enlightening and hilarious, and some of the stories seem lifted straight out of a sitcom or sketch show. From the antics he heard of or was part of during Army service post-WW2 in the Far East, tales from his work in radio and theatre and television. One of the highlights of his theatre stories is an incident during a performance of Chekhov's The Seagull when he was Richard Burton's understudy. It is eye-opening and hilarious by turns.

The third and final example is something unique. Spike Milligan's wartime memoir Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall. Rather than a straight memoir, it mixes actual facts with anecdotes and the brand of surreal humour and asides Milligan became famous for through his work on The Goons and other shows. Once you get used to his pace and style, the actual facts are just as funny as his little interludes. While there are genuine dark moments (what else in a WW2 memoir), there are also descriptions of the hilarious life of a British soldier. From calamitous army exercises and setting up camps, to the nighttime athletics of soldiers with local lasses and necessary bouts of lunacy to preserve general sanity, you'd never believe things like this happened. But they did!

When listening to all these, I was being constantly inspired by create elements of these antics in my own stories. Whether an insertion into fantasy or sci-fi, or something realistic that's more along the lines of these memoirs, these stories show that nothing is beyond reality. It also shows that an author's undernourished imagination is nothing compared to life's infinite variety. This may be taken as an extension of the necessity of every author to read (or listen to) new and/or classic stories. But let me ask you; how many people really include non-fiction in that category of "things every author must read"?