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TIME MAGAZINE, JUNE 4, 2001, VOL.157 NO.22
E-books E-merge
One prize-worthy novel couldn't get printed. Enter online publishing
By BARRY HILLENBRAND
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Gilles Rolle/REA/SABA for TIME.
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Le Roy at the Eastern Orthodox cemetery in Paris, one of the settings in her e-novel "The Angels of Russia".
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Ever since she was a 10-year-old in Liverpool, England, turning out adventure stories, Patricia le Roy wanted to be a writer. But aside from some love poems written at university and a bit of journalism for a Paris expatriate newspaper, le Roy remained unpublished and got on with her life—a degree in French at the University of Sussex, a husband in Paris, two children, a job as a manuscript editor at Radio Liberty. Then in 1997, a British e-publisher, Online Originals, snapped up her fourth novel, The Glass Palace Chronicle. Her next e-book, The Angels of Russia, was chosen one of the five finalists for Britain's prestigious Booker prize in 1998—to the shock and consternation of the country's staid literary establishment. A print version soon followed. As befits an interview with an e-publishing star, TIME chatted with le Roy via e-mail about her experience.
TIME: Tell us about the steps you went through getting published.
Le Roy: I never approached publishers directly myself. I always had an agent who did that—until The Glass Palace Chronicle, when my then agent refused to handle it. Burma [its setting], she said, was going nowhere. The Glass Palace was turned down by every publisher I approached.
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TIME: So how did you end up getting e-published?
Le Roy: I heard about Online Originals at a writers' workshop in Scotland. One of the other writers mentioned it, and right away I thought it was a great idea. A low-cost, high-reach, tree-preserving way of putting one's works at the disposal of readers, not just in one country, but in the English-speaking community worldwide. My experiences with Online Originals were extremely positive. They put The Glass Palace Chronicle on the site six months later with virtually no editing. I got hooked and gave them The Angels of Russia without bothering to submit it to print publishers.
TIME: Are the Net and e-publishing the wave of the future?
Le Roy: Quite honestly, I don't know. In the short run, I think the prospects for nonfiction, particularly academic texts, are better than for novels. As regards novels, I can think of two factors that may increase electronic readership. One is technology, when better reading devices that look and feel more like "real" books but can store several novels at a time are available. Two is finance. Producing a book in print form is an expensive undertaking. It seems to me that the Internet would be an ideal medium to put out literary works that are of interest to a minority of readers but not likely to draw a big audience.
TIME: What has been your experience with reader feedback?
Le Roy: When someone tells me that they stayed up reading one of my books till two in the morning or finished it walking along the street on the way to work or went to a lot of trouble to download it and print it out because they wanted to know what happened next, that's when I really think I've achieved something.
TIME: What did the Booker attention do for your sales?
Le Roy: Sales went up, but you have to realize that for electronic sales we're talking about figures in the hundreds at most.
TIME: Does e-publishing offer a chance for writers to make a living?
Le Roy: I have e-publishing to thank for getting me started. On the other hand, like most writers, I do not make a living from writing!
TIME: Should all unpublished writers take heart from your experience?
Le Roy: Yes, definitely. I still think Internet publishing has potential, even if it's not quite here yet.
Related Sites
Online Originals
Piatkus Books
Authorlink
iPublish.com
Random House
iUniverse.com
MightyWords
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