SATURDAY 10^th August 2024

After a 19 year hiatus Worldcon returned to Glasgow for five event packed days from Thursday 8^th to Monday 12^th August 2024. The schedule included nearly 1000 separate programme items with over 400 panels where the passion and erudition of the sci-fi and fantasy community tackled issues ranging from ‘Systems as Villains’ to ‘How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse.’ This was my second Worldcon, having attended Dublincon in 2019. Over a series of posts, I will try to share a flavour of my own Glasgow Worldcon experiences drawing on photos and very rough notes jotted on my phone.

As a gathering of all the great and the good within the SFF community, for many Worldcon is an opportunity to do business rather than simply socialise.  Several of the agented amongst the ‘Bristolcon on excursion’ fraternity found they were fitting in meetings with agents between the barcon and the panels. And some of those agent meetings were themselves – by all accounts – pretty sociable occasions. It also meant that some of those industry professionals were available to give individual talks (rather than panel discussions) that would illuminate the inner workings of publishing.

Publishing in the UK (11:30 10/8/24)

Marcus Gipps, publishing director at Gollanz

My opening Saturday event was a very well attended and fascinating talk by Marcus Gipps, publishing director at Gollanz. He gave a brief overview of his own career trajectory from bookseller to editor to publishing director, which suggests an interesting progression path for those currently working in Waterstones and elsewhere.

Marcus gave us a brief overview of the publishing industry with each of the big publishers have multiple imprints to cater for different genre specialisms. I felt like I could do with a family tree to help me cope with the various inter-relationships.

Marcus said that their SFF list comprised some 4000 titles, but with a big overlap with YA, and that the Science fiction market is a bit static and small, although the back list is selling well and Epic fantasy sells well for established authors. It is confirmation that the industry uses the profits from its big banker authors to take a punt on new authors many (possibly the majority) of whom may not even break even.

There were many nuggets of information to be gleaned from Marcus’s wide ranging and presentation.

• There is a resurgence in the horror genre mainly in US
• The US market has three times as many titles as UK
• Romantasy and cozy fantasy are (as we know) new emerging trends.
• Spredges is a vile portmanteau term for Sprayed Edges, which is itself indicative ofa resurgence in the hard back market.
• Book-tok (Tik-Tok influencers) have had a significant impact in shaping the market, not least through their presentation of the book as ‘artefact/beautiful object’ rather than simply the story within it. Hence the development of hardbacks with spredges (sorry Marcis) and the purchasing of multiple copies of the same book (one to read one to show)
• The scope YA has to broaden the adult fantasy readership. While young children read a lot of fantasy, as adults people tend to drift away from the genre. However, the big sellers in YA offer a bridge to hold readers in the genre as they go through teenager into adulthood
• While there is a big range in the quality of agents, agents do perform a very important role as gatekeepers, so being agented does make a difference and is worthwhile.
• Personal relationships are important, particularly when you realise how small the SFF publishing community is. Marcus reckoned that there are perhaps 50 individuals in UK SFF publishing and 30 individuals within the agent sphere. That is a community of 8- people who do know each other and talk to each other, so the impression you make with one (for good or ill) may well send out ripples that reach others you may want to be on good terms with.
• Hybrid and self-published approaches have lost their stigma. But the self publishing route is only really available through Amazon and Amazon is awash with AI crap which impairs “findability.” (Ah findability – the reason Mark Lawrence started SPFBO!)
• The trend for bog doorstep Fantasy books in long series has fallen away – largely because of rising printing costs (I blame Brexit). There are apparently only two printers in the UK, which presents real capacity issues – especially for those limited editions sprayed edges.
• Printing slots are often booked 18 months in advance, which slows the already languid course of the traditional publishing process!
• 95% of ebook sales through Amazon
• 25% hard copy books through Waterstones!
• UK publishers also sell to New Zealand and Australia, although the US market is the remit of separate (sometimes sister) companies
• Audiobooks now account for about 40% of sales, 98% of which are through audible
• However, Spotify now expanding into audio books and have got up to 15% of the market.
• Audio rights are a redline contractual expectations for publishers.
• Hard book debuts sell around 1500 copies

I found some of what Marcus was saying seemed to link what I’d heard from an independent bookseller. It was confirmation that book-tok has become a key driver in the market and yet one that publishers were struggling to come to terms with. The fickle mercurial attention-span of the tik-tok influencers was at odds with the more ponderous supertanker-like manoeuvrability of the traditional publishing industry.  I get the impression that some books are being rushed to market to try and capture the crest of particular waves that are still long gone when the book hits the shelves.

There was also time for some questions, one of which was “What do you think of authors narrating their own audio books?” The room couldn’t supress a laugh at Marcus’s body language before he even began his answer. Eventually, diplomatically, he said “I tell them to record half an hour for me and then we go from there.” Suffice to say audio narration is an expert job (Fuck you AI) with a particular skill set that does not necessarily have any overlap with that of writing great books.

This point was given further poignant emphasis elsewhere in the convention. One of our number, having missed pout on one very popular panel by finding it full, was sat in an author reading next door. The disappointment at the raucous laughter echoing through the partition wall was heightened by the lacklustre delivery by a much loved and respected author.

Women and military science fiction (13:00 10/8/24)

Anna Smith-Spark, Emily Tesh, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Marina Berlin, Sabine Furlong

My next panel featured an all women panel with diverse experiences of writing and living militarised female lives.  It was a very well attended panel in one of the larger Armadillo rooms, such that – seated at the back – I couldn’t always identify the speakers. However, key thoughts that arose from a lively discussion included

“A pedestal is another kind of box” so to idolise is not to equalise

“The overemphasis of the nurturing aspect is a denial of women’s rage!”

“I would wear a chainmail bikini so long as the men are in chainmail mankinis”

“We’re told that Male figures are idealised just like female figures are … but idealised for who?” Arguably both men and women’s physical appearance is idealised to suit the male gaze.

I also learnt the curious anecdote that the women assessed for NASA’s Mercury 13 programme actually outscored the men on everything except brute strength, but were marginalised because of fears that a female fatality would have shut down the programme! Interestingly, with all the recent controversy about men and women competing in sport and the supposed intrinsic advantages afforded the male physique, I recently learnt (well saw on Facebook a report) that women actually have physical advantages over men in certain sports eg ultra long distance running (100km plus) – inequality/advantage is a matter of context as much as gender.

You Never Walk Alone: The Best Animal companions in SFF (16:00 10/8/24)

Andrea Stewart, Garth Nix, H.G.Parry, Julia Vee (moderator), Peter S. Beagle

With a panel of animal lovers this became not so much a discussion of animal companions in SFF as an account of animal companions of the authors themselves, with David Beagle in particular delighting in a fireside tone as he regaled the audience with stories of cats who had come into his life, selecting him as their companion rather than the other way around.

How the Rise of Self publishing is changing the SFF landscape (19:00 10/8/24)

Claire E Jones, David Wake (moderator), George Sandison, Oriana Leckert, Ryan Cahill

Having started the day with traditional publishing perspective, it seemed fitting to finish with a look through the self-publishing lens. In one of the (relatively) smaller conference rooms this was a standing-room only panel. The discussion ranged through the history of self-publishing and on into its potential future.

The panel tended to prefer the term indie publishing, as self-publishing as a term is perilously close to the predatory practice of vanity publishing which still foes on. The panel were at odds to emphasise that “Money always goes from the reader towards the writer” as a key mantra to keep people from being duped into paying a ‘publisher’ to publish their book.

The game changer for indie publishing was Amazon opening up its KDP platform in 2010. It was salutary to realise that my own excursion into self-publishing (back in 2013) was so (relatively) close to that start up point. I almost felt like Elrond “I was there, 3000 years ago.” In the decade and a half since then the plethora of books launched through kdp has become an avalanche and issues of self-marketing and enhancing findability have only become greater!

The indie market is reputedly now bigger than traditional publishing market total (I assume by the metric of total sales). The indie/self-publishing approach has the capacity to trail blaize new potentially high-risk or niche themes and approaches (anyone for cosy fantasy?). This can demonstrate their marketability and so having a knock on effect on trad-publishing by showing that the audiences are there! Echoing some of what cropped up in Marcus’s talk, Book-tok and special editions are now driving traditional publishing, which may be to the advantage of Indie publishing’s greater agility and faster responsiveness. As one panelist pointed out, “If you’re trying to predict the future, by the time the slow trad publishing machine has taken it to market, it’s actually alternative history!”

“If you’re trying to predict the future, by the time the slow trad publishing machine has taken it to market, it’s actually alternative history!”

As with other panels the pithy comments and observations came too thick and fast for me to always note down what was said as well as who said it. However, Ryan Cahill in particular came across as exceptionally articulate and passionate about his subject with a good understanding of the issues.

While Indie authors can hanker after the prestige of a traditional published author the point was made that losing control over pricing can be a significant downside. Traditional publishers tend to re-price e-books at very close to the physical book price, where the Indie approach is more price it low and sell it loads. The impact on total sales of a significantly higher e-book price can be quite drastic.

Other observations were

• So much is about discoverability!
• Kickstarter – sells books before they are printed!
• In marketing it’s about relationships over transactions! Solidify that bond.
• Diversify your income streams try to sidestep Amazon!
• Don’t buy hard copy books from Amazon!
• Never self-publish just because your querying is not working. Don’t make it your second choice!
• Approach it as a business – decide what your goal is and work towards that.

This last one may be a bit intimidating for those authors amongst us who ‘just want to write a book’ – which is hard enough without having to be a businessperson as well. But there’s the rub – as an indie publisher you are in a business and you are taking upon yourself all the obligations that a traditional publishing house might lift from your shoulders. It is freedom, but as always – with great freedoms come great responsibilities!