tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076725205410370436.post1773190251114472669..comments2024-01-29T10:16:00.995+00:00Comments on CALLED TO THE BAR : On beer writingAdrian Tierney-Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05421802854011395300noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076725205410370436.post-25345060018364445832014-01-23T11:04:28.581+00:002014-01-23T11:04:28.581+00:00Hello Adrian,
Some trainee journalists at UCLAN a...Hello Adrian,<br /><br />Some trainee journalists at UCLAN are making a B2B Brewery magazine, and we would be interested to know your views. <br />As you have been writing about beer for a while, it would be really helpful to get some advice from you.<br /><br />Email me on egb08so@gmail.com<br /><br />Kind Regards,<br />Saima OmarAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08007483277305255357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076725205410370436.post-71277102957954123412014-01-07T14:28:48.664+00:002014-01-07T14:28:48.664+00:00Interesting stuff, Adrian. Sorry if I'm late t...Interesting stuff, Adrian. Sorry if I'm late to respond, but I realized I could add some information, especially to what Pete wrote, given my experience putting out "Why Beer Matters" and "Triplebock" as self-published e-books. <br /><br /><i>We're appealing to a niche (what I've learned is that while interest in beer grows, interest in reading about beer remains a very small niche of it...)</i><br /><br />This is the main problem: the market for beer writing simply isn't that strong (yet). A clear illustration is on Amazon's bestseller lists. For example, sales rankings tell us that the top 20 e-books in the category of "Beer" sell about 1/3 as many copies as the top 20 e-books in "Travel Essays & Travelogues." If readers aren't buying a lot of good beer books, we're not going to have a lot of writers writing good beer books. <br /><br />That said, there's always room for good writing. And the potential is there, especially if readers have a chance to find it. I can tell you that "Why Beer Matters," a self-published e-book, sold more copies in five months than "Good Beer Guide: Prague and the Czech Republic" sold in five years.<br /><br />Another thing to think about: the advantage with indie publishing is the long tail, which exists for both e-books and print-on-demand options. Two years after "Why Beer Matters" came out, it's still selling plenty of copies every month. (Two years after "Good Beer Guide: Prague" came out, CAMRA wanted to remainder it.) <br /><br /><i>Maybe there's a market for freelance editors to come in and help out self-publishers in return for either a fee or percentage cut of revenue?</i><br /><br />Actually, this was fixed for us by Big Publishing Houses, who — in a fit of cost-cutting years ago — made many of their editors and copyeditors contract workers (i.e., not staffers). That means that many editors and copyeditors are already there, willing to work freelance on whatever project for which you, as an author/publisher, want to hire them.<br /><br />It's generally not done for a percentage cut of revenue, however. Nor would you likely want it to be, because that would involve you performing the busy work of math and sending out payments instead of what you are supposed to be doing: writing. Moreover, given the long tail of indie publishing, under a revenue-share agreement you could end up sharing income with your copyeditor for twenty or thirty years. That means twenty or thirty years of sending payments: as the lady said, ain't nobody got time for that. <br /><br />What most of us do instead: hire a copyeditor or developmental editor on a contract basis, either per-page, per-project or per-hour. You pay the money out of your own pocket and once you do, you're done.<br /><br />(Alternately, you can trade editing, proofreading and copyediting services with fellow indie writers.)<br /><br />Hope that helps. If you have any questions about indie publishing, formatting, etc., just give me a shout. <br /><br />Evan Evan Railhttp://www.amazon.com/author/evanrailnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076725205410370436.post-78347187683393986992014-01-03T14:06:04.128+00:002014-01-03T14:06:04.128+00:00I believe the traditional descriptions of styles, ...I believe the traditional descriptions of styles, and taste notes of examples will wither in the traditional publishing media. Probably beer travel tomes - and the genre goes back at least to the Middle Ages and a guy called Heinrich Knaust - also will become less appealing to commercial publishers who will want to save their reduced publishing picks only for "sure things". However, the flipside is e-books, paid online subscriptions (e.g. Jancis Robinson's longrunning service for wines), self-publishing ventures and other non-trad media. Even the well-trod taste note area can always be given a fresh look and anyway every few years people want to read someone new.<br /><br />GaryGary Gillmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076725205410370436.post-15171079975518191512013-12-31T03:32:36.439+00:002013-12-31T03:32:36.439+00:00Why not simply walk the same path from Rotterdam t...Why not simply walk the same path from Rotterdam to Istanbul and just make detailed notes about the beer? The bit about the Munich beer halls in A Time Of Gifts is a fantastic piece of writing.Jordanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14524631093409227405noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076725205410370436.post-74022881840129720002013-12-30T12:16:32.789+00:002013-12-30T12:16:32.789+00:00I've been mulling over an idea about a beer/tr...I've been mulling over an idea about a beer/travel book along the lines of Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts for a few years now (so I'm glad you mentioned that - sounds like there would be at least some interest). And I've pretty much nailed down the who/what/why/where. It's the 'how' I'm having trouble with. I just don't have the time or money to do the 'research' and it's unlikely in the extreme (especially given Pete's comments above) I'll ever be granted the advance to make it a reality. Having chatted to one or two agents and publishers, I'd agree with the assertion beer has 'been done' and that things definitely need more mainstream appeal. A shame, but probably a commercial reality.<br /><br />Interested to see what effect ebooks have and whether that's an avenue to explore, though. I get the feeling the DIY route will be the one most if not all of us will have to follow if we're interested in longer, more narrative beer writing. <br /><br />As Pete says, time to get off our arses and do it. Eddie Gracehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12308640224702903953noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076725205410370436.post-70835975526409478202013-12-30T12:09:03.631+00:002013-12-30T12:09:03.631+00:00cheers guys, some good comments and thoughts herecheers guys, some good comments and thoughts hereAdrian Tierney-Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05421802854011395300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076725205410370436.post-25990888076488297752013-12-30T10:09:55.372+00:002013-12-30T10:09:55.372+00:00You know my fondness for endless music analogies? ...You know my fondness for endless music analogies? Well I think indie is the way forward. <br /><br />I was very lucky to get a mainstream publisher to publish and market MWIAP - lucky that the my editor saw the potential, lucky in the timing. Lucky that it sold so well they commissioned two more from me. But they and other big publishers like them will not be commissioning any more beer books from me or anyone else in the near future. It's been 'done' for now, and the numbers are not big enough on today's market.<br /><br />That's a shame because I have many more ideas for beer books in the vein of my first three. But they would be for the beer 'scene' rather than having the mainstream appeal MWIAP did. Having said that, even MWIAP would not be published today because of how the market has changed. <br /><br />I'm very excited about Boak and Bailey's book and their publisher, Aurum, is still in the market for books like this, and then you have someone like Storey in the US who publish most of the beer books over there, but there are only so many books on they can publish on one subject and their slots are hard won.<br /><br />One of the things I'm looking at for 2014 is a series of ebooks, or at least the first one in a series. There's no advance, but you get to keep about 70% of the sale price as opposed to the 8% royalty I make off sales of my books. We're appealing to a niche (what I've learned is that while interest in beer grows, interest in reading about beer remains a very small niche of it - my total sales of MWIAP over ten years are still less than half the size of CAMRA's annual membership, for example.) But it's a big enough niche to be viable if you can invest time up front. And, of course, if your work is good enough to sell. Having read some self-published stuff, if you expect someone to shell out money for it it needs to be much more rigorously done than a blog post or even a magazine article. Maybe there's a market for freelance editors to come in and help out self-publishers in return for either a fee or percentage cut of revenue?<br /><br />The publishing model will change, is changing. And those of us (me included) who want to write longer, more narrative stuff about beer need to get off our asses and write it and publish it ourselves.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03011702209832734676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076725205410370436.post-250215546347654572013-12-29T13:23:16.619+00:002013-12-29T13:23:16.619+00:00In my particular niche, beer history, I think ther...In my particular niche, beer history, I think there's been a massive improvement in the last 10 years. The good stuff is unlikely to sell huge numbers of books and without new publishing models - blogs, self-published books - probably wouldn't exist.Ron Pattinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03095189986589865751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076725205410370436.post-38877240199427350332013-12-29T09:17:52.435+00:002013-12-29T09:17:52.435+00:00Interesting post and I know this has been percolat...Interesting post and I know this has been percolating around on your desk for a while now...I still can't really compose a coherent response to this, as so much 'begats' everything after it. As you know, the market dictates, so....the heightened interest in all things beer - fuelled by bloggers, mostly, I think - leads to the current interest in guides. in terms of books, Lists will also be popular because they straddle different markets - food/drink, niche, coffee-table, and the all-important gift market. It is, however, a shame that more 'serious' (or thoughtful) beer writing still struggles to find a market; Pete Brown's work probably being the UK exception at the moment. Plenty of regional papers have regular beer columns, but you could argue that the death knell sounded for regional papers a few years ago - and there's that bubble of speaking to the same people week-in, week out. I do agree wholeheartedly with your last assertion, though - the future of beer writing will be perhaps about communicating and keeping up with both the aforementioned markets and technology. (apologies for the rambling nature of this comment, just trying to get some thoughts down - probably one more for having a heated discussion over a beer or three, ha!); there's so many more facets to this story; printed word in general, self-publishing, old-boys networks, audio/video....think of how many cookbooks there are in relation to 'serious' food discourse. It's not just beer writing. Only difference in there's plenty of food discourse in the national press. Leighhttp://www.goodfoodgoodbeer.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076725205410370436.post-15846904299956156752013-12-29T08:51:54.869+00:002013-12-29T08:51:54.869+00:00Enjoyed the article. I love writing about beer and...Enjoyed the article. I love writing about beer and pubs too. I have a weekly column in the Lancashire Telegraph and a monthly 'Talking Beer' page in a group of local papers. <br />I like to think I am raising the interest and awareness in beer and pubs - hope so. :-)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00471253310229041882noreply@blogger.com