This Made My Blood Boil . . .

Stirling

I found this on Val McDermid's website:

"I've always said that writing is a process of challenge and change. Now it's time for me to stand by my own maxim. After fifteen years, I'm moving publishers in the UK from HarperCollins to Little, Brown. It's been one of the hardest decisions of my professional life, but the bottom line is that I feel HarperCollins just hasn't been delivering the sales results I feel my books merit. For me, this is a time of mixed feelings. I'm excited at the prospect of working with a very dynamic team at Little, Brown, but inevitably I'm sad to part company with Julia Wisdom, who has been my editor for seventeen years and seventeen books. There's no better editor in London than Julia and she's a significant part of the reason I'm the writer I am today."

Now I *use* to be a fan of McDermid; her first book where brilliant. However I feel she has a cheek blaming HarperCollins for sales when the reason I stopped buying her books was because they where poor. I would love to know how many writers at HarperCollins that would have killed for the publicity she was getting . . .

Carol

Sure I read something in the Bookseller website about other authors changing publisher too. And Little Brown took on another known writer recently.
So there may be something about the latest ethos at Harper Collins that is creating unease.

Stirling

Maybe; but if Val McDermid believes publicity is the reason for falling sales she couldn't be more wrong.

A review from Amazon of McDermid's latest book (not me!):

"I've always thought that Val McDermid's has a journalist's grasp of the chapter as a literary form but until now she has always compensated with good storylines and interesting characters.
As well as being lacking in literary style, this book contains all the psychological agonies of the Brannigan novels plus the snappy humour of the Tony Hill novels, which together with a weak plot make it one of her poorest novels to date.
I think Ms McDermid has been watching far too much TV.
I got 'A Darker Domain' from the library and wouldn't bother buying it for my McDermid collection until it arrives in paperback at the nearly-new shop.
Maybe it will improve on a second reading."

Carol

Looking back at the items in the Bookseller the publisher has gone into a lot of new things in the last six months- good/bad moves, time will tell.
Every author has bad patches- she's obviously hit hers.

Stirling

It's been the last four books. Hence why I didn't even bother to buy the new one.

caro

I bought a copy of A Darker Domain. It was the first book I'd read by McDermid, and I thought it was awful!

Stirling

I suspected that so I didn't bother. A lot of people are complaining about the ending. I think she lost me at The Grave Tattoo.

Which is a shame because Killing The Shadows is one of my favourite novels.

Kaz

Agree totally, Stirling.

caro

Do you think that famous writers just get sloppy, or do you think they've got bad editors? I was on holiday in the lake district with my family and just by chance I met an author who was staying in our hotel. She's quite well known (I had actually read one of her books) and she told me that quite often an editor would change her work without telling her. She sounded really angry about the whole thing and said that it was a constant battle and that a lot of the editors didn't have a clue. It made me want to give up writing. Very depressing.:(

Kangaroo

I used to be a Patricia Cornwell fan (main character Kay Scarpetta) until a few years ago. In one of her books the action took ages to happen and when it did, it finished too quickly. There are also seemed to be a lot of rehashing of past events.

Col B

The quote from Val's website sounds somewhat conceited.
Has success gone to her head?

HPRW

The other possibility is that as writers get more and more successful--particularly those who enjoy the sort of success that McDermid has had--they get less and less inclined to agree with their editors' proposed changes.

Some of them are right not to: they are their books, after all. But some of them are completely wrong, and their books (and sales) suffer for it.