Home Away

Home Away is an interesting collection of stories because some are fiction and some are true. They are written by South Africans travelling elsewhere. The book is arranged to cover 24 hours on the clock, over 24 cities around the world. It's about their reflections on their problematic home when they are not there.

I resisted mentioning this book on my blog because I personally know many of these writers. As I've written before sometimes it can be seen as a conflict of interest for a writer to review books especially books written by friends. I think I've settled on the position- if I like it, I like it. I liked Home Away.

Like most collections of this type, written by different writers, there are stories I don't like as much as others. My favourite in the whole collection in the end is written by a person I don't know and have never heard of before, "Hair Shirt" written by Ivan Vladislavic is set in Oklahoma City. It's creepy and stuck to me like a bit of tar. You're not sure what has just happened when you're finished reading but you have a feeling it wasn't very nice.

I've raved elsewhere about Sarah Lotz's "Maun of the Dead", a story about our very own Maun being invaded by zombies. I also loved Sarah's writing partner, Louis Greenberg's story which takes place in Ushuaia Argentina on his honeymoon, called "Last Chance at the End of the World". It's so tender and loving and laugh out loud funny.

The royalties from the sale of this book go to charity, another reason, besides the fact that it is a very good read, to buy it.

I'm Going to London!!!!

I saved this for Friday on purpose- Friday should come carrying gifts. My gift is good news. I've already mentioned this on Facebook but not here on my blog. (For Facebook friends who are also Blogging friends- please excuse the repeat)

So what's my good news?? I'm going to London from the 16-19th February as a speaker at the London School of Economics and Political Science Space for Thought Literary Festival 2011.
I will be giving a talk titled,"Writing Across Borders A Botswana Perspective".

I'm really excited about it. I'm a bit scared of the UK coldness, which I'm not quite sure I'll be able to handle. Cross fingers a spell of spring hovers over London for those few days.

And please, if any of my fabulous readers happen to live in London or will be there at that time, I'd love to meet up with you. One of my favourite things is to turn internet friends into flesh and blood ones, it's like some kind of magic.

So that's my Friday good news- what's yours??

Homing by Henrietta Rose-Innes

Many people say, "I don't like short stories, they're so unfulfilling." There is a fad in short story writing at the moment of leaving the reader hanging high up there with their legs swinging in the air and you the writer walk away waving "bye-bye". I always feel a bit undermined by such stories. As if I haven't been let in on a private joke. It's not fair and I completely get readers' frustrations since I feel it myself when a writer treats me so.

There is something very comforting about reading a short story written by Henrietta Rose-Innes. From the second you begin you feel safe, you know she will not leave you up there hanging as she walks away with a knowing smirk on her face. You will, instead, leave the story satisfied, like you were allowed dessert after a big plate of lasagne. You will want absolutely nothing else.

I'm a bit of a manic short story writer. I don't plan, unlike my books which I plan incessantly. With short stories, I get a tiny bit of an idea and then sit down at the computer and hope the story will have legs. Sometimes it doesn't and I put it away. Sometimes it has ugly, useless legs that carry me to a place I don't like very much. Other times the story walks calmly and with certitude to its conclusion and I am pleased. But it is all about chance.

With Henrietta Rose-Innes you feel as if it is never about chance. You feel she is always firmly in control of things and you need not worry at all, you will enjoy the ride and arrive at your destination safely.

In her first collection of short stories, Homing, I cannot pick out a single story that is lacking. I finished the collection some weeks ago and still certain stories are sitting stubbornly at the front of my brain demanding I take spare moments to give them a thought.

One in particular is "Promenade" about a middle aged man who takes his evening exercise walking along the edge of the ocean in Cape Town. Each day he passes a certain man, he later decides is a boxer, and they develop an odd connection for the few seconds each time they meet. It is a haunting story about our connections to our species-mates and how our actions impact on everything around us.

"Homing" the first story in the collection is another that will not leave me alone. It is about an elderly couple and how a new fancy hotel built next to their modest home upsets their lives. Rose-Innes builds the tension by showing us the couple's vulnerability created by this intrusion into their settled, safe life.

Besides her confident and competent way of approaching short stories, Rose-Innes does not try to dazzle the reader with bells and whistles which is highly appreciated by this reader. She tells her story plain and simple and then pops the reader with the human truth laid bare. This is an excellent collection I read in nearly one sitting, and will definitely be pulling down off my shelf to read again.

My Reading List from 2010

Emmanuel Sigauke, writer and owner of the blog Wealth of Ideas interviewed me over the holidays. He asked me to make a list of the books I read during 2010. It was a huge task to try and remember and I'm not sure my list is correct, almost positive it is not, but I tried my best.

At the end he interviews me. Here was one of the questions:

You have written more than thirteen books? Are you a satisfied writer?

Is anyone ever a satisfied writer? No, I am not. I’m learning as I go along. My only hope is that I’m getting better, and even this I’m not always sure about. I have a story I wrote very early on that I try not to read. It’s a short story, a flash, and I think it may be one of the best things I’ve ever written. I don’t read it because it makes me wonder if what I believe, that I’m learning and getting better, is really true. Anyway, I suppose that’s the typical insecurities of a writer.

Satisfied writer- do those words EVER go together??

See the list and read the rest of the interview HERE.

Resolutions for Superheroes

Here is my last column for 2010 (quite a fabulous year, acutally) from The Voice.
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I love a new year, just like I love a new day, and a blank piece of paper. Each is 100% potential. Every possible thing could happen. Hesitations and back tracking have yet to make an appearance. No does not exist. Perhaps I’m an eternal optimist but a new year always puts me in the right frame of mind- my superhero frame of mind- I can do absolutely anything and everything.

The world is wide open waiting only for me. Any experiences in the previous year that might be evidence used against my super hero-ness are rubbed clean. They are not allowed to cross that magical line we all step over at 11:59 pm on the 31st of December. Anti-superhero evidence, in its entirety, we drop at the threshold as we walk though the door into 2011.

So this year when you cross the door, in your imaginary blue tights and red cape, where will you be heading? It’s all fine and good to be equipped with x-ray vision and the ability to fly but if your talents are not used positively things can go decidedly pear shaped quite quickly. Even superheroes need goals and it’s best to make them when your mind is still untainted by the faltering steps and cracked pavement waiting to catch you out beyond the magic door. When the slate is clean, you can decide what will go where. Once you let Life get involved, it will start filling up all of the good spots, leaving you only leftovers- and no one likes leftovers.

As writers, despite rumours to the contrary, we design our course. Do I want to write a book about ghosts? How about win a short story contest? Do I want to get an agent? Will I self publish? All of these questions help us to define the path we take. Other jobs you have a boss handing out the goals and even laying down the bricks on your path. Not as a writer. It’s all up to you.

So make some new year’s resolutions- serious, specific ones. Make them now before it gets too late. You’re the boss, lay down those bricks.

From my point of view, as writers we have some main areas where specific goals should be made. We must write. We must learn. We must read. We must be published. We must publicise.

We Must Write
You call yourself a writer- but do you write? Make a resolution. Come the end of December 2011 what writing do you want finished? Do you want to end 2011 with an 80,000 word novel in your hands or five solid poems? How will you accomplish that? Will you write only on weekends? After work? Everyday? How many words must you write at each writing session to accomplish your goal? Commit to that word count. Give yourself quantifiable goals.

We Must Learn
Writing is an endless journey of learning. Tomorrow’s writing will be better than today’s if we make sure we progress in learning our craft. Attend workshops. Read writing books. Go to author talks. Learn online. But don’t only learn the craft, make sure you learn the business too. Know how the publishing business works. Pay attention to up and coming technologies. What learning resolutions do you have for 2011? Write them down; commit to them.

We Must Read
I know you’re getting tired of me singing this song BUT we must read to be good writers. Again make a new year’s resolution. How many books will you read each month?

We Must Be Published
Are you going to start a blog for your writing? How often will you post? Do you want to get your poetry or short stories published? Which literary magazines will you submit to? Do you have a novel that needs a publisher? Which agents or publishers do you intend to send it to in 2011? Write your goals down. On the 31st of December 2011, how many poems will you have published? Where will your novel be?

We Must Publicise
Though most writers would like to stay hidden in their writing room, the game decides that is no longer viable. In 2011 how are you going to get your work out there? Will you set up a website? Will you read at public events? Will you attend book fairs? Make a personal marketing plan for your superhero self.

Writing is a tough, tough business. By the 3rd of January 2011 evil forces will be tugging at your cape, your blue tights will start to fade under their hot gaze, but if you’ve marked out your path with stakes made of steel, at least you’ll know where you’re heading. They’ll bash you around with their rejections and losses. They’ll tell you your characters are flat, your plot predictable and your poem riddled with tired clichés- but it won’t matter. You are a writer with a plan and you expect next New Year’s Eve to be a time of celebration. So, get to work now, my Superheroes- your new day is just about to arrive.

Income Generating Activities for Underpaid Authors

I am a big fan of David Sedaris thanks to my friend Mark Pocan who arrived at my house in Botswana (travelling all the way from Madison Wisconsin, USA) bearing gifts among them books written by Mr Sedaris. I think he is Fabulous (yes with a capital F) and I think this idea is one of his best. Put a tip jar at your book signing table. Wow!! I could do with an extra $4000 I don't know about you.

Writers are notoriously underpaid and I think it might be time to climb out of the box as Mr Sedaris has and come up with some ways to expand that income base. (I wouldn't advocate the selling of drugs as one commenter on the Guardian article suggested)

So what ideas do you have? I'm keen to hear- and of course promptly steal.

Menage a Trois- Part 2

A few months ago I was involved in a three-way email discussion/interview with two writers I admire Tania Hershman (author of the short story collection The White Road and Other Stories) and Sue Guiney (whose most recent book is A Clash of Innocents). Today we are posting the interview on our respective blogs in three parts.

Read Menage a Trois- Part 1 at Tania's blog here.

Menage a Trois- Part 2

Tania:
This is fun! And very interesting. Is there anything you'd like to ask each other while I am formulating my thoughts?

Sue:
Ooh yes. Lauri, my dear: you once mentioned on a blog comment that agents aren’t used or needed in the Botswana publishing industry. I’m ashamed to say I know almost nothing about how the business works where you are and I assume you might know something about the UK or US industry. Are there any other differences that you’ve noticed, and if so, do you find some differences better than others?

Thanks both...

Lauri:
Hello Girlies!
I thought what Sue said in this bit below about plays being visual and short stories and novels appearing more in a certain time frame to be very interesting. Maybe you can speak a bit more about this. Being a child of TV, almost everything I write is in scenes- especially genre stuff. I almost even break for commercials. I find it interesting that you compartmentalise in such a way.

What I meant about writing for money is that many people believe it compromises the work. I’d lie if I said it does not stop me from writing certain things- it does. If I can’t see the market, I don’t write it I just don’t have time for that and in that sense I suppose it does compromise the art of my writing a bit. But then too, I feel like I’m a bit more of a technician than an artisan.

Sue, you asked a bit about the difference between writing here and the writing climate in UK. Since most of my stuff is published here and in South Africa I can write about both of these places as they are similar, though Botswana on a much smaller scale. Publishers in Botswana (exclusively) and in SA (mostly) publish books for the school market. That is where they make their money and that is where writers will make their money if they intend to. There is a microscopic trade market in Botswana that is filled to the brim with international titles. Botswana titles do not stand a chance. I have two detective novellas, one published in 2005 which has earned P290 (USD 48) and one published in 2008 which has earned P799 (USD 133) from sales in bookstores. The publishers know nothing about marketing such books. That first book (2005) has now been taken as a prescribed book for junior secondary schools here. In April I will get a cheque for P130,000 (USD 21,600) and I will get about half to a third of that each year for the next five years. You can see the difference. In SA the trades are a bit better and occasionally you get a break out novel from SA- for example the Spud books, which exploded selling maybe 80,000 and now are going overseas and there will be movies etc.. A bestseller in SA is normally 2000-4000 books sold in bookstores, they have a population of about 47 million. We have 1.8 million. It is tough to make a living from those kinds of figures.
Of course there are writers here and in SA that don’t use local publishers and have agents etc and publish overseas. They of course do better in the trades.

I don’t really know about this one but I hear writers in USA and UK talking about editors and the big role they play in their success. Here we deal directly with publishers, even in SA, at least in my experience, except recently with the editor I was dealing with for my short story collection,. But we deal with publishers. They get editors, usually on a freelance basis, and then give you a report. I’ve never really known my editors or communicated with them and they are very ephemeral so I don’t think they’d play a very big role in my career. Then too, I’m not loyal to a single publisher. Currently for my published books I have five publishers, only my local Botswana one am I slightly loyal to.


Tania:
This is very interesting stuff, really enlightening about the book market in Botswana/SA. Sue, can you shed any light on any differences between UK and US from what you've heard from US writer friends?

This may be a ten-part series, this interview - with commercial breaks!

Sue:
Hi kids,
Monday morning after a somewhat sleepless night where I couldn’t turn off my brain. Of all the crazy, counterproductive stuff I was thinking about, this conversation of ours is one of the few things that isn’t driving me crazy right now, so I’m thrilled to start the week off with some responses to this latest instalment.

When I was a kid, I assumed that the way my world conducted itself in my little corner of suburbia was the way everything worked the world round, ie that we all had the same electricity, the same tv shows, the same brands of cereal. But then I met my first box of Weetabix. I feel the same now as I learn about the way the publishing industry runs around the world. What you have described, Lauri, is as different from what I have experienced in the UK and US as could be. Where I write and attempt to be published, writers are completely compartmentalized. Writing for schools is a very separate, specialized segment of the market. They have their own divisions of publishing houses, their own requirements and procedures. All that has nothing to do with the writing world I function in. My writing world is also very compartmentalized, but by genre with the most successful ones (financially) being in whichever genre is deemed to be the most popular at the time. Right now it seems to be memoir and celebrity bios, with some high profile detective/suspense novels thrown in. Agents are the gatekeepers to the large houses, and that means to the big distributors. You can’t break in without them. This is especially true in the US. Holding an academic position is also helpful — especially in the States, or so it seems to me. This has caused me to think quite seriously about trying to get a teaching position in a Uni somewhere, although to teach because I want to write instead of because I want to teach seems churlish to me, but that may change. I now find myself wondering if I would be approaching what and how I write very differently if I lived in a country whose markets and industries were run as yours are. It’s fascinating to me how our work is affected by such things. You say you are “a bit more of a technician than an artisan “. A very interesting and telling statement. Shouldn’t we need to be both? How do the vagaries of our individual markets force us into feeling one way more than another. I do want to say, though, that I think new technologies are forcing changes in the industry as it is run up here. I know you’ve heard me say this before and I don’t believe it’s only wishful thinking. The fact that books can be printed on demand or downloaded may well be the saviour of the small press. If small presses which are not only willing but eager to publish things like poetry, literary fiction, short stories can remain viable, then the reading public will have a greater choice of what to read and writers will have more freedom to write what they wish.

But if I can go back to my midnight brain override, one of the things I was worrying/wondering about does affect our discussion, namely how do we decide what we write. It has always been my experience, as I’ve said, that the genre dictates itself depending on the concept, image or character. I’ve also found that this often is directly related to the time frame the piece will develop in. But I now find that I am in a complete muddle about something I’m writing, and Tania, you know where I’m going with this. I have a character who’s been living in my head for years. I know everything there is to know about this man and I’ve tried to write his story in short story form twice. But I now am wondering if his story really would work better as a novel (God help me) and if so, why? But even more to the point, why do I want to insist on this being a short story? Because I haven’t written one in a while? Because I want to have something to enter into a competition? If I had an agent and a publisher presenting me with a 2-book deal, would I even be considering writing this as a story? Technician or artisan?
_______________________________________________

Ready for Menage a Trois Part 3?
Pop over to Sue Guiney's blog-Writing Life!

Botswana Music Camp

I've been gone for a week to Botswana Music Camp. I play trumpet, not so well, but each year I attend the camp I jump three or four steps ahead and this year was no different. The camp lasts for a week. You sign up for a major group; mine was instrumental band. For that group only you must be able to play your instrument before you come because once you are there it's all about getting the people who have shown up to learn songs as quickly as possible and to play together. There is no time to teach the instruments. For other groups you learn the instrument at the camp. Normally for band we have a lot of guitar players and keyboard players but nothing of anything else. This year I was lucky to be with quite a good saxophone player, a music teacher at Ledumang Senior Secondary School in Gaborone. Our leader for the band is Tshilo Baitsile, a very accomplished saxophone player. He appeared in the Mma Ramotswe movie playing his sax. He's an excellent teacher.

The sekgaba group performing at the Saturday final concert at Maitisong

There are many other groups for campers to choose from including: marimba, setinkane, sekgaba, African drums, pop singing, classical singing and dance.

African drums group performing at the Saturday concert

From the minute the camp starts on Sunday you are immersed in music. Each day starts with camp choir which everyone must be in. Then you have your main class for most of the day except for about an hour when you go to one of the other classes for appreciation, to learn what they do there. Each night we had entertainment, always something musical. One night we had a fantastic traditional dance group from Old Naledi in Gaborone. Friday night we attended the President's Concert at Maitisong which was also pretty fabulous. On Saturday we had our end of camp concert.

The Old Naledi traditional dance group that came for evening entertainment

It really is a fantastic thing. This year was the 25th anniversary of the camp. It was started by Batswana and exiled South Africans including Hugh Masekela in 1985. We pay only P900 per person and that includes accommodation and food (both basic but we're not there for that in any case). The real cost for each participant is just over P2000 but the fee is subsidised by donors like Standard Chartered Bank.

Many accomplished musicians in Botswana got their start at Botswana Music Camp since currently we do not have a school of music in the country.

This year, there was a big group of campers from Walter Sizulu University in South Africa. There was a talented young guitarist from Germany and a beautiful young singer from Finland- all participants in the camp. I thought when I was there what a fantastic thing Music Camp would be for a visiting tourist. They would have to pay the full price P2000 ( about 350 US dollars) for a whole week of instruction, accommodation and food. They could learn about the beautiful traditional instruments we have such as setinkane and sekgaba and go home with something so much bigger than photos of giraffes and lions.

I always leave Music Camp a better player but also a better person, with a new list of friends. It really is a wonderful experience. Now I must wait another year to go back.

Acacia Flowers

Acacia trees can be so stubborn and stingy with their tiny leaves and wicked thorns but I'm always amazed come spring when they are so extravagant with their flowers. It's so unlike most trees with their brown, green non-showy flowers. Acacia trees in full flower look like a tree decorated for Christmas. I took a couple photos so you can get the idea.

Writers Reviewing Books

This morning I read a very insightful article written by author Fiona Snyckers about reviewing books as a writer. I often get asked to review books, publishers even send them to me nowadays and there are many issues that come to the fore. If I know the writer how do I approach the review? If it's a good book- no problem, but what if it's not. What then? I've often taken the cowardly approach and wrote nothing.

Though Fiona speaks about the small South African publishing world, with internet the publishing world all over has become very small. Getting a black mark against your name for bashing some one's book is not a good career move and may come back to get you. And too, is it even correct for writers to judge other books? Isn't it a bit like the bosses at Ford critiquing the new Toyota Hilux?

Here on this blog I don't consider my posts reviews. They're my opinion just like my opinion on my performance in the recent bird count (BTW- the woman called me and was full of praise for my work. I told her the truth about what went on but she would not be subdued). As writers we read, and there are books we love and books we don't. On this blog I speak only about the books I love. Perhaps I'm rationalising it and trying to get away from the label 'book review' but somehow I feel it's different.

What do you think? Is it right for writers to review books? Do you? And how to approach these ethical issues?

Difficult to Explain- a Poetry Guidebook

Difficult to Explain, edited by South African poet Finuala Dowling, is a great way to enter the murky water of poetry gently and without fear. The book is published by Hands-on Books an imprint of Modjaji Books. (It can be bought HERE)

The book starts with Ms Dowling explaining her initial reluctance to teach poetry. She finally decides to prolong a summer writing course by holding sessions in her home that teeters on a hill with a window looking out to the ocean where passing whales often mean breaktime for the students and their teacher.

The book starts with Ms Dowling explaining how the classes are run and her approach to teaching poetry. The remainder of the book is poems written by her students. At the beginning of a section she explains what the assignment was and then gives examples of how her students interpreted the assignment.

I don't write poetry though I have an interest in doing so, not for publication, more for exercises to get my creative juices flowing when I'm feeling stale. This book is lovely for me as I intend to try and do some of the assignment too. So the book is an introduction to poetry and poetry writing, with exercises that are safe to do at home without supervision and yet it is also full of fabulous, funny, touching poems. How can you NOT love an assignment that asks you to write a poem with a title that is significantly longer than the poem itself?

I can't deny I'm dead jealous of each and every one of Ms Dowling's students. I would love to sit in that room at the end of Africa looking at whales while writing poetry, but I'm very happy the group put this book together. They've laid out some sturdy step-stones to start me out on my poetic way. Thank you- you lucky devils!!

Counting Birds

On a particularly optimistic morning I was reading the paper and came across an article about how Birdlife Botswana was doing a national bird count and needed volunteers. I thought - "Hey I have a field guide, I have binoculars. I could do that". So I called them.

The woman on the phone was very enthusiastic and I immediately regretted my decision to call. I thought if she's this excited about the call she must not get a lot of volunteers. Then I thought if she's not getting a lot of volunteers there may be a reason and that reason is likely to not be very pleasant. But I listened and everything seemed okay. You count along a 2 km distance, stopping every 200 metres and then you count all of the birds you see for 5 minutes. I like quantitative exercises and it seemed the perfect little outing for me and Mr K so I agreed.

I thought the difficult part was all of the measurements so being the anal Capricorn that I am, I decided the best thing to do was to go out into the bush the evening before and mark off all of our stops on the chosen path so early the next morning we would be ready and prepared. We tied bits of blue cloth at each stop and went home to a nice Saturday evening.

Now I'm no expert on birds in Botswana. I like them. I take out my field guide when I'm in the bush and look up the pretty ones. I know the regular ones that come to my bird bath. I know birds like the lilac breasted roller, the blue wax bill, hornbills, starlings, doves, red eyed bulbuls, pied crows, hoopoes, masked weavers- so I thought I was pretty knowledgeable and the actual counting would be a breeze.

Sunday 5:30 am we are up and ready to go. But what I didn't realise is that on Sunday all of the normal birds are off. Maybe they go to bird church. Maybe they visit their birdy relatives and have a big Sunday meal of worms and seeds. Maybe they're chilling at the Bird Hotel with their Chinas. I don't know where they go- but they go- and they leave behind two groups of birds to man the shop: the brown, nondescript little birds and the fast-as-lightning-no-one-can-see-them birds.

One would really be astonished to know that there are many brown, nondescript birds, perhaps thousands. Do what you will with your field guide, but you will never be able to identify those birds with any confidence. I did my best but I fear major scientific decisions may be based on the faulty data I've collected. One can only imagine the havoc that could ensue. And the worst part about the whole thing is that apparently once you sign up for this bird count, you must do the same area every November and February for eternity. It's a life sentence.

In any case, I've learned my lesson. Next time I'll do it on a Monday when all of the full time birds are back on the job.

Excitement Excitement!

I've had a spate of fantastic news lately. I'm still glowing from the Golden Baobab win. Yesterday there was an article about it in our only private national daily paper, Mmegi, and another article in our national Sunday paper.

I've also been invited to run a writing workshop in London in February. I don't want to give out too many details now because I'm waiting to see if our Department of Arts and Culture will be able to find money to fund the trip. When all is clear I'll let you know everything.

The other very exciting thing is that all of the Sapphire Press' titles, including my romance novellas Kwaito Love and Can he be the one? have been optioned to be made into television movies. The production company is allowed two years to decide which books they want to go with and to see if they can secure funding. I've worked in television before writing scripts but I've never had a book of mine made into a movie. I'm crossing fingers something wonderful happens.

"Publishing a book is like bringing a bucket of water to the ocean"

The title of this post comes from this fantastic article based on an excerpt from Betsy Lerner's book, The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice for Writers. The article is about the importance of an author marketing their own book.

When we get into this business we think the job roles are: writer writes, publisher publishes and sells- and if things go well writes the writer big cheques. But once our book is out we realise that this model is a work of fiction. If we as writers sit back and wait for things to happen nothing will. Especially when you're new to the game.Publishers have a limited budget and they will focus it on the big names that bring in the big money.

It's not all gloom and doom though, as the article points out. We live in the time of blogging, Facebook and Twitter. There is no better time to market a book. And you can pinpoint your marketing with a blog book tour. You know your book best. Hit blogs with readers that look like the potential readers of your book.

You can wax lyrical about the wonderful writing and your in-depth characterisation but if your book doesn't sell then it was a waste of every one's time. Build your connections now, before you get published. Pay attention to how other authors do it. Copy them. Arrive at your potential publisher armed with your own marketing plan. Proactive marketing is the new name of the game.

What ideas do you have for marketing your book?

The Problem with Local Publishers in Botswana

I was recently at a workshop and had breakfast one morning with one of Botswana’s musicians. He said that when he tours Botswana, his producer pays for it. He’s promoting himself so more CDs are sold which is good for both the producer and the musician. I sat there thinking how far the situation is between local writers and their publishers and local musicians and their producers.

Book publishers in Botswana work like this:
They wait for the Ministry of Education to put out a tender for the books they need. The publishers then run around trying to get writers to write those books. They submit the books to the government. The government chooses a tiny, minuscule, fraction of them and then the local publishers print up the books, take them to the schools and get a cheque. That’s how it’s done and always has been. This is what they know. They’re educational publishers and the government pays their bills.

This does absolutely nothing to improve the situation of literature in this country. It does little to promote writing and writers. It does nothing to develop writers. It does nothing to improve the status of reading in the country. Local publishers do not care about any of that. It’s not their concern. This applies to both the international big guys who have set up a storefront and the local publishers who claim they are here for the long term. If tomorrow the government stops buying books, I can assure you there will be no more publishers in Botswana. None. They know nothing else but selling books to government and they have no interest in learning something new. Perhaps I’m being harsh; for sure I am firmly biting the hand that feeds me, but it’s time we look at this situation face on and stop pretending it is something that it is not.

Let’s imagine a world where a publisher wants to sell books to the people- how does that work?

First- they call for submissions. Then writers write books- all sorts of books. Books for little children, books for adults. Stories from our past and our present, stories from the future. Immediately the possibilities for writers and what they can do expands and the books available to readers expands too.

Now the publishers look at the submissions from the writers and choose the best, the ones they think they can sell. They would set up a marketing plan for the books. How could they sell the books? Which media would they choose to publicise their authors? Where in Botswana could the authors go to talk and read from their books, to sell their books like the musicians sell their CDs?

And what about the internet? They would organise the books be sold online. They would have the book selling as an ebook on the company’s website and the author’s blog or website so they can easily sell internationally. Botswana publishers would make books one of Botswana’s export commodities. And soon writing would be a career people with talent could choose. Botswana might start to be known as a place of writers just like Nigeria, Kenya and Zimbabwe.

But that won’t happen. Publishers have little interest and zero incentive. It would require teaching an old dog a new trick and that old dog likes its old tricks very, very much.

So if you’ve written a book that has very little chance of being chosen as a schoolbook, you’d be cutting your throat by handing it over to a local publisher. No matter what they tell you, there will be no marketing. They will have made you sign a contract that gives them world rights when they fail to even sell it in our tiny country, so you will not be able to give it to another publisher. For all intents and purposes that book is dead. All your work, all your creative energy -gone. So if you’re serious about making money from your books outside of the school market, give the local publishers a miss.
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This was my November 5th column in our newspaper The Voice. After the column came out I had numerous conversations with other writers about it. What we need badly in Botswana if our literature is to grow at all is a trade publishers run by someone who reads and loves literature. It would be the best thing for writers in this country.

A Golden Baobab Happy Dance!!

Yesterday I found out that my story "The Mechanic's Son" won first prize in the Golden Baobab Prize for the senior category and my story "Lightning and the Thunderers" was highly commended in the junior category. I was also very pleased to see another Motswana writer, Gothataone Moeng being highly commended as well as our honorary Motswana, Jenny Robson, who still holds a South African passport but has lived most of her life in Botswana.

Last year "Lorato and her Wire Car" won the same prize in the junior category and "Birthday Wishes" was highly commended in the senior category. Both are now published with Vivlia Publishers in South Africa.

Congratulations to all of the winners and thanks to the Golden Baobab Prize organisers and judges. They're really doing a lot for African writers of children literature.

The Bed Book to Be Launched in London!!

YES!! The Bed Book of Short Stories which I helped compile and I have a story inside of is to be launched in London. A wonderful sort of culture has developed around this book. The writers organise launches wherever they are. There have been launches so far in Windhoek Namibia, Gaborone, Johannesburg, Franschoek, and now there will be one in London.

If you're around London please stop in. The writers who will be reading are South Africans Margot Saffer, Melissa Gardner and Zambian Ellen Banda-Aaku who is just fresh from winning the continent wide Penguin Prize for African Writing for her novel, Patchwork.

For a recent review of the book stop by Helen Ginger's blog.

The London Launch
Date: Wednesday, 17 November 2010
Time: 5:30 PM for 6:00 PM
Venue: OXFAM BOOKS, 91 Marylebone High St
London W1U 4RB
RSVP: Melissa Gardiner, melissagardiner@gmail.com
If you get to the launch stop by and let me know all about it!

The Invasion of the Flying Termites

After the first good rains, in the night, maybe the next night or the night after that, the flying termites emerge. Last night was our flying termite night and it was crazy!

They fly for about an hour, hour and half at most. They fly straight to the light. If you forget to close your window, as we did last night, you will be swamped with them. They all fly to the light and then they lose their wings and are back to being pedestrians. But since they've all congregated at the light already it makes it easy to find a date, which is the whole point of this exercise.

In the morning after the invasion of the flying termites, you will find big piles of wings:



...and other big piles of mostly dead termites. I don't know this but I assume they must have mated and laid eggs somewhere before their demise or else the whole thing seems a very dramatic waste of energy and I know nature doesn't do that.



I understand that some people around Africa fry these termites and eat them. I've never seen it but it does seem a waste, all of these piles and piles of perfectly good morsels of protein. Buster the African Sausage Dog ate a good share of termites this morning and he barely made a dent in the piles.

Pula e a na!!!

It has been raining in Mahalapye for the last few days off and on and this morning I got a lovely surprise- a mophane moth outside my bedroom door!

These lovely creatures lay eggs which hatch to form the fellows below:

This caterpillar is voracious. I remember one year when we lived in Lecheng we had had fantastic rains and the mophane trees (from which these guys get their name) were in full leaf. We went away for a week or so and when we returned I remember being out on my daily walk with the dogs and thinking everything seemed so dry somehow. Then I realised suddenly that the trees were completely de-leafed! These guys were long gone but they'd stripped the trees nearly bare. I have stood quietly under a mophane tree when these fellows are around and you can hear the crunching- that's how mad they are about their food.

These worms are a source of income and food for many Batswana. They are a serious job to collect and process as they have hard, thorny bodies, but they are collected and gutted and dried. People cook them in various ways and eat them with maize porridge. People who like them like them a lot. My children and my husband will eat them one after another like a snack. In a year of good rains there are often two crops of mophane worms.

I cannot comment on their taste I'm afraid. Though quite adventurous with my eating, I've yet to dive into the world of the mophane worm.

Sue Guiney's Blog Book Tour Stop

Though born and raised in New York, Sue Guiney has lived in London for twenty years where she writes and teaches fiction, poetry and plays. Her work has appeared in important literary journals on both sides of the Atlantic, and her first book, published by Bluechrome Publishing in 2006, is the text of her poetry play, Dreams of May. Her first novel, Tangled Roots, was published in May ‘08, also by Bluechrome. Her second novel, A Clash of Innocents, was chosen to be the first publication of the new imprint Ward Wood Publishing and was published in September, 2010. Sue is also Artistic Director of the theatre arts charity which she founded in 2005 called CurvingRoad.

Sue Guiney has stopped by Thoughts from Botswana today as part of her blog book tour promoting her new novel A Clash of Innocents.
Welcome Sue!!
Let's get into some questions.

All of the "expats" in your books seem to be running away from something. As an expat of sorts yourself, do you think we're all doing that in one way or another?

The expat community is a very funny one, I’ve found. There are some who are dragged kicking and screaming into the experience and spend their entire times waiting to go ‘home’. There are others who stay abroad happily for years and years but always seem to be looking over their shoulders wondering what’s happening ‘back there.’ If anything, those sorts of expats don’t start their running until after they’ve moved. But then there are others who leave without the intention of going back to wherever, with the full determination of making their new country their ‘home.’ And of those people, some are running away and others are running to. I think I am one of those running to. But I agree, my characters are usually running away and that is a predicament that fascinates me.


Why did you decide to use first person with Deborah as your narrator? How did that limit you?

This is an interesting and important question for me, because it goes to the heart of something I still haven’t gotten my head around as a writer. After writing my 1st novel. Tangled Roots, in the 1st person I was determined to write my next book in the third. I didn’t want to have to limit myself to the knowledge or understanding of only one person which a 1st person narration necessitates – ie, unless you are the one having the sex, or you are there peeping through the keyhole, you can’t really know or describe what is actually going on. But I seem to need to know who my narrator is. In order to write in a voice of any kind, even an omniscient 3rd person voice, I need to know about the person from whom that voice is coming. In other words, the narrator becomes another character to me and from there it’s a slippery slope into 1st person. I don’t have this problem when I read. I can readily accept other writers’ 3rd person narrators. I just can’t seem to do it myself. But I’m determined to keep trying. But having said this, I didn’t conceive of this book as Deborah’s story. It was always supposed to be Amanda’s story only with somebody else telling it. But Deborah is a pretty strong and pushy broad. Once she got started talking, the story became more and more about her as well.

It felt to me when I finished the book that perhaps this story might not
be finished. Will there be a sequel? If so, I sort of hoped Deborah would get together with the doctor. Any chance you could work that in?


Wow! I’m so glad you got that inkling of a relationship between them. I thought maybe I had been too subtle! Well, I don’t want to give too much away, but I will say that I am thinking long and hard about setting my next novel in Cambodia as well. There is still a lot there I’d like to explore. And I love having characters weave their way from one book to another. Careful readers of Tangled Roots might recognize that the character of Amanda in A Clash of Innocents is the same young woman whose wedding opens up that first book. So I wouldn’t be surprised if Deborah and the others end up in a new novel, though I would be surprised if it was a sequel. I’d prefer the novels to be able to stand alone. Though there is something delicious about realizing you already know a part of the life of a character you are now meeting.

Where is Cambodia now? Is there hope?

Cambodia is much better off than it was, but it is far from being sound. It is still a country with some of the worst poverty anywhere in the world, with terrible problems of human trafficking, a very corrupt government. It is a country at a crossroads. But yes, there is hope. There is always I hope, I believe.

What is your next project?

For now I am concentrating on getting as many people to know about A Clash of Innocents as possible and I am planning a trip to SE Asia where I will do a series of charity workshops and events – my way of bringing the fruit of my inspiration back to the people who inspired it. But I am starting to plan my next novel and, unofficially, there’s a good chance that interested people will be able to read a lot more of my poetry soon.

Fantastic! Thanks for stopping by Sue. Best of luck with the book.
If you want to buy Sue's book A Clash of Innocents click HERE.