Can live book readings work and really captivate an audience? We'd like to hope so. authonomy member Dan Holloway tells us all about his experiences when he gave a reading of his authonomy entry SKIN BOOK ...
“Live gigs are all very well for musicians but it doesn’t work for writers.” That’s a comment I’ve heard a lot over the last year. I’ve spent much of 2009 thinking (with apologies and due respect to Harper Collins) about how writers can survive outside the mainstream. One of the things I like the idea of most is following the so-called “gigs and merch” model of the music industry, largely giving the actual content (one’s book) away for free online, and making one’s money from live performances and merchandise (and yes I DO mean T-shirts). The reaction (from writers, not, not readers) was based on a simple principle: words without music just don’t get the crowd whooped up.
Well…
We all know that’s not true of slam poets, but what about us, average writers, is it really true of us? Are our words that uninteresting? Have we gone so far backwards since the days of the enthralled campfire crowds that our stories no longer cut it in a communal setting? I can only speak from experience. I’ve given two live readings now and my experience of last night’s, at Oxford’s arts venue Café Tarifa, is recounted below.
Last night’s gig was the live tie-in with the Free-e-day festival I’ve been putting together to celebrate Indie culture. It featured an art exhibition, three music acts (local singer-songwriters Mol Hodge and Nikki Loy, and London-based band The Joker and The Thief), belly dancers dressed as skeletons, and three writers – seasoned and fabulous slam poet Nikesh Shukla, Authonomy’s very own Roland Denning, who read from the Beach Beneath the Pavement, his gold star book, and me, reading the whole of my current Authonomy offering SKIN BOOK, a 3000 word arch urban gothic novel.
The reaction during the set-up is fascinating. “We must get this right for the band”, “Oh, I hope the band are OK with the PA”, “Oh, you’re the writer”. I had the same at my previous gig, launching my own Autho gold star book Songs from the Other Side of the Wall at the Albion Beatnik. People tripped over themselves to take care of the (admittedly amazing) musician whilst I got 30 seconds to sound check.
And then the reading started. And the noise died down and a few minutes in I could hear people gasp and sigh and giggle, and through the spotlight (“don’t worry about that, The Band will be used to it”) I could see a room full of eyes, and by the end when I said “I reached beneath my pillow and pulled out my SKIN BOOK” there was a mass intake of breath. The audience were with me. Every bit as much as if they were moshing to the band. And the reaction afterwards was wonderful – people who were there for the music came up to say how much they’d enjoyed the readings – even the band (great band, by the way) loved the readings.
As a writer, standing in front of an audience reading your work and connecting directly with your readers; seeing their enjoyment and fear and surprise (albeit dimly through dazzling lights); working them and working with them – that has to be THE most rewarding thing imaginable. And from the readers’ point of view – well, they certainly weren’t complaining. It’s hard to imagine three more different pieces – Roland’s Beach Beneath the Pavement; Nikesh’s hilarious twists on Indian culture; SKIN BOOK. But the audience engaged with every one of them.
I’m only beginning to get a feel for live shows. But from the end of this month, the Year Zero collective will have a new anthology, Thirteen Shadows Waiting for Sunrise, to go with our 7 novels, and we intend to tour it like an album – WITH T-shirts (courtesy the awesome Sarah E Melville – smelville on Autho). There’ll be music and there’ll be words, and sometimes there’ll be music and words together. But the gigs will be every bit as much about the words as the music.
I would say to all Authonomites – go on, try it. After all, it’s about the audience, isn’t it?
Friday, 4 December 2009
A Night of Words and Music
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30 comments:
Thank you to HC & Authonomy for allowing me to burble.
There is a picture of me at this event at http://freeeday.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/free-e-day-live-write-up/
but I concur with HC - Roland is more photogenic than me.
I recently listened to Paul House read from his book 'Harbour' and I was completely enthralled. To hear the author read his own words was a real treat.
Thanks Dan, I'm amazed.
Best Wishes,
Kat
...oops, didn't mean to leave out Jason Horger, M.M. Bennetts and Matthew Dick--they were all wonderful also.
I very much hope I get to a DIIArts reading soon. I can imagine being utterly under their spell.
A note to all that Year Zero Writers will be performing Thirteen Shadows (including all of SKIN BOOK and some Daisy Anne Gree shorts) at Rough Trade Records in Brick Lane on Feb 4th. T-Shirts will be on sale, as will posters - you can even, heaven forbid, buy our books :p
What fun! Wish I'd been there.
Serious question - we'll be doing some gigs in your neckl of the woods - would Queen Tantrum be prepared to play if we provide a good venue?
Dan, thanks for sharing your wonderful report here. Thanks, also, to HC and Authonomy for hosting this report.
Hi Dan
Sounds like a blast - hope you'll be telling us your tour dates and venues - and that there might be something down in these 'ere parts.
AliB
Shayne, thank you - and yes, HC and Authonomy are very generous with the space they give to their writers here.
Ali - We'll be wherever will have us (I don't think my local audience at Jaffe & Neale in the Cotswolds would quite know what to make of us, though!)
Can I just very seriously say, 'Go Dan!':-)
As one of the people who listened to you read at the first gig in Oxford (and part of Year Zero), I can say that you're a wonderful, remarkable writer and an awesome reader too. SKIN BOOK is fascinating.
I haven't been here very much lately. I spent a year on Autho and sort of fizzled out a bit. So it's nice to see that it's still a friendly place.
Anne, at the risk of this sounding like a back-slapping exercise, when I was new to Authonomy and it all felt rather bewildering and scary, your kindness and helpfulness with my terrible pitch was one of the things that made me feel so welcome and at home.
I think live readings are great! I teach reading to adults and students say that sometimes they are not sure how to pronounce a word or without sound they struggle to stay focused. Listening to someone read allows them to follow along if they like to discover proper ways of speaking words, and those with ADD can stay focused!
Dan, I have found there is no greater high than live book readings. I performed 18 readings last year and loved every minute of it. This is what most writers long for, positive feedback from their audience. I recommend talking directly to the gathering and limiting the reading, it works magic. Barbara Silkstone, author of 527 Naked Men & One Woman - The Adventures of a Love Investigator and coming soon... The Secret Diary of Alice in Wonderland, Age 42 and Three-Quarters.
Cara, that's a great point - and getting people to read aloud must be an even better focus than listening?
Barbara - good point - one needs to keep an audience engaged, and simply sitting behind a desk with one's nose in one's books reading aloud for half an hour isn't always going to do that.
Congratulations Dan!
Free e-day is a totally brilliant idea and I was honoured to be involved. Hopefully I can do the same next year!
I love the idea of writers 'gigging'... As a musician myself I know how cool it is to share your work with a live audience - scary but incredibly rewarding.
Here's hoping for lots more of this and huge congratulations again!
Miranda x
Thank you, Miranda. I hope your music is as successful for you as your writing :) And thank you so very much for getting involved. There will certainly be a next year :)
I've never heard of mixing book readings with music and belly dancers. How brilliant! I've gone on three lonely book tours, sometimes with only three or four people showing. Soooo depressing. Why didn't my publishers think of planning an event? Food, music, entertainment, and oh, yeah, some writer is going to read from his book. Thanks for the idea.
You should try to create a party atmosphere around a book reading. Give it a theme. Don't just sit behind a desk and read. Get up, walk around, be dramatic, be funny, whatever fits you and your book. Make it an EVENT not merely a book reading. With love & laughter, Barbara Silkstone
Hi Ruth - I'd love to hear from Authonomy/HC (HELLO HARPER COLLINS!!) on this - I honestly don't know how much control a writer would have over their publicity events if they were signed to a publisher - it's one of the reasons I'm no longer seeking representation. 50% of my day job is events management; I also do music journalism; and am, er, I belive the polite phrase is a "media tart" - I am never happier than when in front of an audience, so PR is something I enjoy almost as much as writing the books. I think the other thing about making events multi-arts is that you reach out to a whole new audience - always play up the musicians in the publicity. They naturally attract big crowds - but if you 1. make sure they're musicians who will appeal to your readers and 2. do your bit of the night well, you will win over a whole new group of fans to your work - and as gig-goers, they're the kind of proactive people who will go and tell their friends - it's a great way to seed that word of mouth we authors are always talking about.
Barbara - yes, I think often we're almost apologetic about book readings - you go to some (or I do anyway) and you feel like the author is embarrassed to be there and the audience are there under duress, and the whole thing feels strained - we should be proud of what we do. We've worked for months, even years to get ourt material to the stage where it's audience ready - this is the fun reward bit, not the punishment!
Unsurprisingly, there’s no simple answer to this. The amount/type of publicity a book receives is completely dependant on who the author is, what kind of person she/he is, what his/her circumstances are (maybe has a full time job on top of being an author and therefore not able to take time off for lots of events); what the book’s like, what other books are being published at the same time and much more.
The way it works at HC is that every new author is asked lots of questions about what they would and would not be prepared to do, such as travel into London, make public appearances, be available for interviews and so forth. The publicity teams then take all this into account when putting their strategy together. Some contracts dictate the amount of time the author is obliged to spend publicising the book (normally a few days) but generally speaking this is only for high profile authors who are much harder to pin down for signings, talks and other events.
On the whole, there are so many books out there, it’s incredibly difficult to get a good amount of publicity for any book without a huge amount of work being put in. The more willing the author is to get out there and promote his/her work, the more likely the book is to be a success.
Thank you, Authonomy!
My biggest worry would be that I would say "I want to put on this gig and that gig and I want to arrange the venue and the bands and the publicity for it" and the publisher would say, "hold on a minute, you're only doimg talks at Waterstone's, and we'll produce the promotional material". Or worse still, they'd say "not sure about that band, what about this one" or "we don't do T-shirts". I would LOVE it if a publisher expected me to do more, but I have a feeling they'd want me to do less. Or maybe I have an exaggerated sense of how much control people like to exert. I msut say, Harper Collins are always on the progressive end of the spectrum (whatever it seems to Authonomites) for a big publisher. Good on them
It's largely up to the author to generate the events and that's fine. Readers want to attend the book readings to meet the author, to get to know and like that person. They already like the book or they wouldn't be attending. Barbara Silkstone
Totally inspirational Dan - Year Zero seems to me to be like the Factory Records of the writer's world! I want in - how do I join the collective?
This year I did three readings, had six signings, and all of them were terrifying. Nothing I couldn't get over of course, but I was surprised at how nervous I was. The only reason for my surprise is because I am no stranger to performing for strangers. I did speech and debate in high school and all through college, becoming a national champion in multiple events. I also performed in musicals, plays, etc. throughout my life. But when I stood in front of the five filled seats, twenty empty chairs, three wandering customers not listening to a single word I was going to say or that I even existed for that matter, I was shaking and sweating uncontrollably. However, I will have to say, standing up and reading my own work to a group of strangers is extremely rewarding, embarrassing, and revealing. In those few moments, that seem like an eternity, the author is completely naked to the audience. It's scary, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.
http://kennethrogersjr.com
Oliver, yes, it has to be embarrassing - at the risk of coming across like an actOR, you have to lay yourself totally open to get the most out of it - and to give the most to the audience. But it's worth it!
Stephen - :) Unfortunately we are running at capacity at the moment:)
Spoken like a true publisher, Dan!
(ha ha... sorry, couldn't resist)
You think that wasn't written with a little twinkle ;)
It's interesting, actually - I'm sure Stephen is having a larf, but some people have asked to join up. It never really occurred that might happen. Partly because back in January I mooted a mass collective and was met with stony silence. Partly because, well, I don't know, really. Just never occurred! One thing about a collective that's very different from a company is that the chemistry has to be 100% right - and even if someone's fantastic and a great mate, that could still end up going wrong.
nice post.
you are right there,. gigs are just for musicians and singers but not for writers. singers do the tasks in singing the song the writers does for it to be famous. that's how it works.
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