A Random Thought on the Coronation

On  Sunday we dropped in for a quick visit to Apsley House on our way to dance at the Argentine Ambassador's Residence (as you do). Someone at English Heritage had said that we had to see the Duke's robes, which were on display there and which had been worn at the coronation of Charles III. 

I always do what I'm told, so we duly went in to gawp. Apsley House doesn't allow photography but they have an excellent picture on their website: 

The robes are interesting to me, not because they were worn by the current duke, but because they were worn by the Iron Duke at the coronation of George IV in 1821. 

The robes say something about the whole ceremony of crowning the new monarch, which was true then and now. The robes worn in 1821 were not some traditional costume handed down through the centuries, but had been specially designed for the occasion. Say what you like about the Georgians, but they knew how to put on a spectacle. In this case, they decided that the robes should be designed in the style of Tudor and early Stuart dress to create an impression that these were ancient finery and that the ceremony was a continuation of a rich tradition. It was a "tradition" that the Georgians were anxious to emphasise as, in fact, their claim to the throne hung by a slender thread. (When you are next told that the king traces his ancestry back to Alfred, you might reasonably ask why his family is German.) It is a similar perceived need to appeal to ancient traditions that saw these early 19th century robes taken out of mothballs for a 2023 ceremony. In fact, we were repeatedly assured by the BBC that this ceremony was essentially unchanged in a thousand years. I wonder what people would have made of it had it been conducted in Norman French and Latin.

What did the first Duke of Wellington (a man famously thrown out of his club for wearing trousers instead of breeches) make of this fancy dress? He is on record as having said he thought it was ridiculous but seeing how the spectacle was received by the thousands of spectators he admitted that the magnificence of the display achieved the required effect.

Two hundred years later, it seems that this aspect the ceremony, at least, is following an established tradition.

Could I present this blog post as interpretative dance? Should I even try?

This week I've been to see two narrative dance performance ie performances where the dance is used to tell a story, rather than just to be pretty. The first was The Crucible by Scottish Ballet and the second was The Car Man by Matthew Bourne's New Adventures. I found it interesting to compare the two.

The Crucible used a generally traditional ballet approach: lots of point work, great technical skill from the company. There were more modern dance sequences as well but the overall approach was technically mainstream. However, they decided not to use traditional mime, but to carry the narrative by developing the relationships of the characters through the extension of naturalistic actions into ballet forms. For example, as the programme helpfully explains, “ If [the choreographer] wanted to work with gestures that truly showed intimacy, a caress of Johns hand on the side of Elizabeth thigh might then carry up to an arabesque." Even if you believe that 55% of communication is non-verbal (almost certainly a gross over-estimate) that still leaves the audience losing 45% of the plot. You have to watch with close attention, interpreting clues as if you are solving a non-verbal Times crossword. The synopsis provided in the programme is essential if you are to have any idea what is going on.

We saw The Crucible at Sadler's Wells, a theatre that has no really bad seats, but we were towards the back of the stalls. The stage is under-lit (the gloom is deliberate and certainly adds to the sense of menace) and simply seeing the details of expression (essential given that the big gestures of mime are deliberately not used) was a strain. (It literally gave me a headache.)

The costumes are excellent but the minimalist scenery adds little to help carry a complex narrative. When one character, according to the synopsis, "flees Salem" she simply travels from one side of the stage to the other before vanishing into the wings, the only clue that she is leaving the village being the canvas bag she carries which presumably contains all her belongings.

That just leaves the music to draw the audience in and carry them along. Peter Salem's score (nominative determinism gone mad here), the programme notes tell us, "draws on 17th century psalms, and evocative sounds such as the courtroom gavel or a church bell but also embraces the electro beat of rave music which heightens the repressed sexuality of the teenage girls." It is fair to say that it is not a high-energy audience pleaser.

The Crucible may not have been a particularly fun night out but critics loved it, in part, I suspect, because it takes on the challenge of telling a complex story through dance and surely that must make considerable demands of its audience.

And so to Exhibit Two: The Car Man.

Matthew Bourne is committed to telling stories through dance. Many of his works pay homage to cinema (most notably The Red Shoes, which is a re-telling of the famous film). His work seeks to tell stories, sometimes complex stories, in an accessible way. So how does he do it?

In the Albert Hall production we saw last night, the huge performance area is inhabited by the boys and girls of Harmony (we know it's called Harmony because there's a huge town sign telling us it is) as they gather around the diner. The set is beautiful and it tells us a lot before the dance even starts. We're in America, probably the mid-West, and it's the late fifties or early sixties. The style of the diner and the clothes (costumes are brilliant) tells us that. (Later we learn it's 1957, but you'd have to pay attention to pick that up.)

The music starts. It's a rearrangement of Bizet's Carmen and the powerful rhythm pulls you immediately into the action as the young people start with a performance that gives more than a nod to West Side Story. It's bright and cheerful, well-lit and upbeat. Even in the vastness of the Albert Hall it's easy to watch. (It goes without saying that, this being New Adventures, the quality of the dance is stunning.)

The Car Man is not a cheery crowd pleaser. The story, of lust, infidelity, rape and murder ends in tragedy. Harmony, once a peaceful town of happy young people has descended into a hellish place where bare-knuckle boxing and drag racing have replaced the fiestas that used to characterise it. Tough though the story is (and when it was first produced bits were truly shocking) it's never difficult to watch. Emotionally draining, yes, but in a good way.

Narrative dance can be accessible and entertaining, though Matthew Bourne is one of the very few choreographers still around who can consistently make it work on the scale that he does. But if you can't make this form work, it's maybe better to stick with the pretty stuff. Done well, narrative dance is thrilling; done badly, it might impress some critics, but it does audiences no favours and that, ultimately, drives people away from the theatre, which is, I think we can agree, A Bad Thing.

Agents and publishers

 

This is a response to a Facebook post by a friend. It's partly a genuine attempt to contribute ideas for Anna and others, partly a personal exercise in self-justification, and partly in the hope that there is an outside chance that someone may be able to help. ‘Facts’ are based on my own experience and a bit of research, so treat with caution but they may help. It’s really long. If this isn’t a subject that you are seriously interested in, don’t read it.

Please do not post this link. It's publicly viewable because this was the easiest way to post something that Facebook didn't want to put up (too long probably) but it's not a blog that is linked to anywhere, so it's sort of private and hence a safe space.

AGENTS

1/ As far as I can see you can reasonably expect to make 40 submissions before you are accepted by an agent. This is based on my own experience and that of others who have shared theirs. This is for people who eventually *do* get an agent, so it assumes you have a reasonably professionally written, commercially viable book. I imagine this is the case for everyone here.

2/ Agents will routinely take 4 – 6 weeks to reject a book. If they like it, this can stretch on for months until you get: ‘I really enjoyed your book but, regrettably, in the present publishing situation I do not feel …’

3/ Everybody seems to agree that you shouldn’t blitz agents all at once. It’s considered bad manners; it reduces your chances if two agents express interest at the same time (you will have to pick one and it may be the wrong one); and it means you don’t get the chance to respond to any feedback you might get. Personally, I submitted to four at a time.

4/ SO… Let’s do the maths. Four agents at a time. Let’s say an average of five weeks to get a rejection. So that’s a full year to cover the 40 agents you will, on average need to submit to. It’s also 40 rejection letters. I’ve had 40 rejection letters. However much you tell yourself that JK Rowling had 40 rejection letters and however nice one or two of them may be, that’s 40 times that a little bit of your soul dies. I’m not saying, ‘Don’t do it.’ I am saying, ‘It’s going to be a miserable year.’ And one in which, unless you are incredibly self-disciplined, you will write less than you would have otherwise.

5/ You may think that these are the thoughts of a bitter loser. But, no, I GOT AN AGENT. A good one, I think. He got my book (it was ‘The White Rajah’) read by four leading publishers. I got considered by people who would never have looked at me if I hadn't been represented. Three of them were nice about the book, but there was general acceptance that it was "too difficult for a first novel from an unknown author". My agent told me to try again with another historical novel which was more commercial. I outlined ‘Burke in the Land of Silver’ to him and he said that he did not think that there was a commercial market for stories set in Argentina. This struck me as a completely daft thing to say, but sales suggest he might have been right. In any case, I decided to persevere with Burke and then I didn't have an agent anymore.

PUBLISHERS

6/ ‘The White Rajah’ was eventually published by a one-woman outfit in the USA who worked just one day a week publishing novels featuring gay heroes. She was the best publisher I ever had. Sadly, though, I decided I couldn’t keep writing about gay heroes, so I moved to Accent. We all know how that worked out. After that I was published by Endeavour (now Lume) who still publish the Williamson books. This year, though, I got back the rights to Burke and now I self-publish.

7/ I know successful authors (the sort of people who have their books reviewed in the quality press) and I hear moans that nowadays only the most successful authors on a publisher’s list are given any marketing support. Publishers demand that authors blog, run their own websites, maintain a social media presence and (if they are very lucky) go to do readings and signings. It is the authors that bear the trouble and expense of doing this, but the publisher is happy to take their share of profits. Side-note: one of the nicest things about being self-published is that if I put in the work that ships more copies of my books, I get to keep the money.

8/ I was once at a meeting of the Historical Writers’ Association where almost everybody bitched that their publishers put inappropriate covers on their books. (The main bone of contention was historical inaccuracies, which can turn off readers in their target market.) Accent was actually one of the best for covers. The really big publishers seemed rubbish. By contrast, the covers I get done for my self-published books are a source of continual delight to me.

9/ My publishers (and reading about this suggests they are typical) are really bad at basic things about modern publishing (especially digital publishing). They don’t seem to understand how Amazon meta-data works and they don’t seem to care. Honestly, sorting this out took me hours (probably days) and it wasn’t fun, but it really isn’t that difficult. Why don’t publishers do it? Traditional publishers also seem to underestimate the potential income that writers can get from Kindle Unlimited.

10/ Endeavour even told me that because the sold through Amazon they couldn’t give me discounted copies of my paperbacks. (Accent, who really were quite good in some respects, were good about this.) This meant that when I went to give author talks or presented at a book fair, I made no money on any of the books I sold. Book-sellers at fairs sold my books with no profit as a favour. It made me look pathetic. It was embarrassing as well as losing me money. Being self-published I now get my paperbacks from Amazon at a substantial discount.

SO ARE AGENTS WORTH THE EFFORT?

11/ Remember that agents are costing you a lot of money. 15% of all you make (including the sales at the book fair that you managed to get a spot with and the responses to the Facebook ad you paid for) will go to your agent. I have seen authors on Facebook thanking their agents for getting them deals with indie publishers (like Accent) and, honestly, I think that’s disgraceful. You don’t need an agent to get an indie deal if you have a half-way decent book.

12/ I would like an agent, in part because I have spent my working life writing non-fiction (anonymously – really boring stuff about market research or the tobacco industry or whatever I was paid to do) and I’d like to broaden beyond novels and I don’t know how. For example, I’d love to write pieces for travel magazines tied to place I’ve visited researching my books. I’d love an agent to help with things like that, or like getting more speaking engagements. I’ve been told, though, that agents don’t do that sort of thing. If anyone knows one who does, please tell.

13/ I have heard people speak very positively about the help their agents have given them. Laura has pointed out here that a lot of this is down to personal chemistry. You need to decide how much effort you want to put into getting an agent who you may then decide you don't particularly like. I suspect there is somebody out there who would really help me, motivate me, get me more work and generally improve my positioning as a "brand", but I have no idea who this paragon is and my chances of lighting on them by just working my way through the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook seem slim. You have to make your own decision as to what you think the odds are for you.

AND WHAT ABOUT PUBLISHERS?

14/ I obviously don’t think traditional publishers have a lot to offer. That said, I was talking to Endeavour/Lume about getting the rights back to the Williamson books and they have promised (though cynics will notice that it's not the first time) that they really are going to do better with the marketing, so we’ll have to wait and see. On the whole, though, I honestly think not. James Patterson has repeatedly said in public that if he was starting again he would self-publish. If that applies at his level, it certainly applies at mine and, I suspect, that of anybody who is reading this.

15/ Self-publishing does involve a lot of hard work. But it is worth it. My books’ Amazon rankings are a matter of record. They are embarrassingly poor, but here’s the thing. The ranking of books that I self-published after taking them back from Endeavour at the beginning of 2020 are consistently better than those I left with Endeavour, although all of them have been on the market for some time. **I simply sell more copies of the titles I self-publish.** This is despite the fact that I charge more for them than when they were published by Endeavour. So I sell more copies and I make more money per copy. Plus I get the satisfaction of having control over the appearance of my titles and the way they are marketed.

CONCLUSION

16/ I am not actively seeking an agent, although if somebody can recommend a wonderful agent who is going to help develop my brand, I'd be very happy to talk to them. I am definitely not looking to have my future books published by a traditional publisher (old school or modern indie). As everybody in this group will be all too aware, publishers nowadays are not committed to making any serious marketing effort with your book, so what have you to lose by self-publishing? If you just stick it up on Kindle with a decent cover and do absolutely nothing ever again, you will still be giving it as much support as many of you are currently receiving from Accent and at least you get to keep all the money.

I will be very interested in your comments.

Using book blogs to promote your novel

It's interesting self-publishing and realising that you are responsible for all the publicity your book will ever get. The truth is that this was pretty well true when my books went out through publishers (though Endeavour put some real effort into 'The White Rajah' before succumbing to the sort of internal ruptures that seem to bedevil all small presses these days). Now, though, I'm having to look at every aspect of marketing and decide if I want to spend time/effort/money on it or not. So, for example, I decided I would spend time/effort/money on cover design but I economised by proofing 'Dark Magic' myself.

Today I am looking at blogging sites. I don't have to worry about the cost of these, because I'm only looking at free ones. However, I'm honestly not sure about the time and effort involved in submitting to them. That may seem quite silly. After all, in the time I’m spending writing this I could probably submit to several. But not, as it happens, that many. Everybody says – and my own experience bears this out – that you can't just send out blanket submissions to blogging sites. You need to read the site and decide if it's suitable for your book, then check the submission requirements and then send a personalised request for consideration. This is not the work of a moment and there are so very many blogging sites.

The first thing to do is to find sites that might be interested in your book. There's a really useful guide at https://bookbloggerlist.com/. I looked to see how many of the book blogs listed here cover historical fiction. The helpful search function produced 37 pages each with 14 blogs, so 518 blogs. That’s a lot of submissions.

Not all blogs are equal. I do very strongly recommend Rosie Amber (https://rosieamber.wordpress.com/). This is not only popular and well-regarded, but Rosie runs a team of reviewers and they will feature you on their individual blogs as well as posting through Rosie herself. You may find that you reach blogs by more than one reviewer too. Rosie’s reviewers are also generally happy to review Kindle copies, which is a huge plus as well.

Beyond Rosie, where to turn? My own research suggests that most of the hundreds of blogs simply consist of book review after book review. They are often uncategorised and the quality of the reviews themselves is, to put it politely, mixed. Does anybody really read through them looking for their next book? Do you?

Some reviewers feature their reviews on #TuesdayBookBlog. It’s well worth following that and maybe picking out a few of the best reviewers there to approach.

If you know somebody who runs a book blog, it makes obvious sense to ask them if they would be interested in reviewing their book. Interestingly, I review about 25 books a year, often with quite detailed discussions of the books running to 500 words or more but, although I often see people claiming they can’t find reviewers, I am not often approached by authors. (Publishers are another story, suggesting that at least some of them are making an effort that their writers aren’t.)

Does it make sense to send multiple requests for reviews to bloggers you don’t know? My feeling is that it doesn’t, despite the widespread view that book bloggers are important. I suspect most of them shift very few books for the authors they review. But I’d be interested in your views and, in particular, if you have any book bloggers you think are worth reaching out to (or if you blog reviews yourself), I’d love to hear from you. Comment here or email me at tom@tomwilliamsauthor.co.uk.

Tango: Group lessons or private?

The question of whether you're better off with group or private lessons is a bit of a controversial one.

This is my (strongly held, but very personal) view.

I started learning in group lessons and I have had both group and individual lessons. I have also taught groups and individuals. I can see the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches. In the end, though, I think that the advantages of individual lessons for beginners are quite pronounced.

In my experience (as a student, not as teacher) the overwhelming majority of people who turn up to a group tango class give up within a few weeks. This is why.

When you arrive there will (if it's a successful class) be anything from ten to twenty people in the room. The economic reality means that the organiser will be wanting twenty or more. The chances are that the week that you join you will be the only newcomer, or one of two or three. Therefore, by definition, everybody else in the class will be better at it than you are. This leads to feelings of inadequacy, which are not helpful when you are dancing with partners and you are conscious that they do not think that you are very good.

What you need is the teacher to give you a lot of attention to help you master the very basics that will let you understand what everybody else is doing and join in. Unfortunately, the teacher has twenty other people to bother about. Let's suppose the class runs an hour. Probably half an hour will be whole class instruction. You will stand there while the teacher demonstrates stuff and asks you, collectively, to repeat what s/he is doing. The rest of the time, they will correct individuals and give them feedback. Twenty individuals in thirty minutes means about 90 seconds of individual instruction. In fact, it's worse than that. The teacher knows that, as you are a beginner, you are quite likely not to come back. S/he therefore concentrates on the regular students with whom s/he already has a relationship and who, economically, represent their bread-and-butter. In fact, I know one teacher who takes the view that they will not spend time on a student until they have come for long enough to have demonstrated some commitment and an ability to take instruction in a group setting. So, if you are lucky, you will get 60 seconds of personal attention teaching you the fundamentals that you will need if you are going to be able to follow the rest of the class. That's less than the amount of time I might spend helping a beginner at Tango del Domingo, where they're not even paying for it.

Then, if you get to the stage where you are dancing more or less successfully with someone else in the class, the odds are they're not that good. It's a beginners class after all. So when something goes wrong, it might be you or it might be them. Sorting out the mess takes forever. Tempers fray and any fun you were having evaporates.

Traditionally, tango was always taught by dancing with someone better than you and learning from them. There are some very kind and generous people who enjoy going to class and helping less experienced dancers, but, given the cost of a class, most people will be understandably more concerned with their own progress than with yours. It's really not a good place to be.

The exception to this is structured courses. If you have a good teacher who has a group class of absolute beginners who start together and who are expected to progress week by week, with no new people joining in part way, this is probably an excellent way to learn. Unfortunately, there aren't that many such classes and most people I know are unwilling to commit at the same time every week for the full length of the course. And, of course, if anybody drops in and out, you're back to the same situation as with the drop-in classes. And, even then, you're not dancing with someone more experienced than you, which everyone knows is the best way to learn.

Once you have mastered the basics, there's a lot to be said for group classes. Tango is, after all, a social dance and group classes get you used to dancing with a variety of different partners and navigating a space that you are having to share with others. Many people enjoy the social aspect of group classes. Indeed, I suspect that many people in these classes are there primarily for the social side of it. They're not the best place to start, though. 

How a customs union with the EU might work

I've been talking a lot to somebody whose job involves knowing about the way the EU works and some of the issues involved in Brexit. They get frustrated at the way that basic issues are not addressed in most discussions. I suggested that they talk about it, but because their job touches on these issues they feel they can't blog publicly. So I'm lending them this page. They are convinced nobody will read it and they may be right, but if you want to sound vaguely intelligent about some of the issues regarding the new proposed customs union you might like to have a look.

Comments are welcomed, but will be moderated. Unsubstantiated expressions of opinion will not be published. This is an attempt at a serious discussion around Brexit, not yet another re-hash of the referendum arguments.

Wise (anonymous) words

Turkey is only example of a non-EU country which has a customs union with the EU – so it worth understanding how it operates.

1) It does not apply to agriculture.

2) It does not prevent border checks: Where Turkey does not follow EU rules for the production, labelling, movement and storage of these goods, it still faces border checks for compliance, ranging from document checks to testing product samples. According to the FT, trucks on the Turkey-Bulgaria border may back up as far as 17 kilometres. This is partly because the customs union does not cover transport and Turkish hauliers must apply for transport permits for each member state they travel through.

3) Where either the EU or Turkey feels that imports are unfairly damaging its own producers, it can impose sanctions. These are common. A World Bank study showed that in 2014, the EU had actual or proposed anti-dumping duties on $500 million of Turkish exports to the EU, and Turkey had actual or proposed anti-dumping duties on $1billion of EU exports.

4) Turkey has to grant tariff-free access to goods from a third country with which the EU has negotiated a free trade agreement – but doesn’t necessarily get access to that country’s markets. For example, Turkey cannot export tariff free to Algeria, South Africa, or Mexico, but must grant those countries tariff free imports to Turkey.

None of this is mentioned in the Government’s paper in the negotiations. For God’s sake – time for a grown up debate, folks.

Buenos Aires

This is not a travel blog, but for the benefit of friends who haven't been to Buenos Aires and don't want to spend all their time dancing, here are some of the highlights of the place.

San Telmo

The old port area, though now a distance from the sea. Often thought of as the home of tango. Was seen as a bit dirty and dangerous, but now getting a bit touristy. We lived there for six weeks and loved it.

Lazy morning - San Telmo

Sunday Market - San Telmo

We generally spend a lot of time in San Telmo, even when we aren't living there. If you are just going to visit to see the sights, go on Sunday. The market extends all the way down Defensa (the main road towards the centre) right to Plaza del Mayo.

It gets very crowded. Watch for pickpockets.

There is lots of music and street performers there.

These guys performed outside our front door every Sunday evening

There is dancing in Plaza Dorrego after the fair. Free.

The Museum of Modern Art is in San Telmo and is well worth a visit. I also strongly recommend a meal (or several meals) at Desnivel.

Matadores

Go on Sunday when they celebrate Argentine traditions. Exhibitions of riding and folk dance. Free. The museum of Argentine history there is also worth a look.

La Boca

This is where the docks migrated to after San Telmo was left inland by the growing mud banks of the Plate. There is still some port activity associated with the area, but not much. It's now a decidedly dodgy part of town, but the centre is very touristy indeed and very safe. It's probably compulsory to go there.

Puerto Madero

Like London's Docklands. Actually a commercial failure as a docks, but now a beautiful place to have a coffee and wander aimlessly.

Churches

Lots, especially from the 18th century. Beautiful

Museums/galleries

There are loads, mostly free. It's worth getting the bus to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes.

Cemeteries

Sounds a bit weird, but cemeteries are a big thing in Buenos Aires. If you do go to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, you'll be close to one of the most famous, the Recoleta Cemetary where Evita is buried.

Reserva Ecologica

People always talk about the lack of green space in Buenos Aires but there are lots of city parks, some very beautiful. On the edge of the Plate there is also a huge nature reserve, UNESCO listed and well worth a visit. Easily walkable from the town centre.

If you like wetlands, you can take a train to Tigre. (It's not far – we've skated there.) It's an area of river delta and worth an afternoon trip.