The business of writing

Press, 23 February 1980, Page 17

The business of writing

The Australian and New Zealand Writers’ Handbook (Second edition). Edited by Joan Clark. Published by the Australian Society of Authors. $13.95. (Reviewed by Michael Morrissey) The first edition of this book was published in 1975. In a rapidly changing :'Zd a more up-to-date -■ Jon was long over due. This second edition, a vast improvement on the first. has several more chapters such as “A Guide to Marketing and Marketing Poetry." It must be pointed out that this is very much an Australian writers’ handbook with only seven pages in the directory section directly relating to New Zealand. However, this brief section does pack in addresses of almost all literary societies, awards, magazines, publishers and so on. A major ommission from the publishers must surely be Hawk Press, which has been one of the most prolific and high quality poetry publishers in New Zealand in recent years. Coromandel and Nag’s Head Press are not mentioned either; nor are the various magazines that publish Maori creative writing. In the main body of the text are chapters dealing with marketing, editing, royalties, proofs-, defamation.

copyright — all written for the Australian scene. But it is interesting to see chapters by New Zealanders such as A. W. Reed and Tim Curnow, (son ot Allen Curnow). Tim Curnow’s chapter On marketing (one of the longest and most detailed in the book) notes that first runs of fiction in Australia and New 'Zealand are comparable: 2000 to 3000 copies. Similarly. Shapcott notes that a first: edition ot poetry should not run to more than 300 which is again comparable with the New Zealand figure. So it might app - t’-.-.t a kind o- cultural parity exists; or f„t a creative writer can expect to do no better initially in Australia than here. However. New Zealand can boast a superior author’s lending right payout: $1.13 per copy as opposed to 50 cents in Australia. No doubt the Australian Literary Fund has a lot more authors to pay. Some of the chapters are ludicrouslv i-ydequate. A chapter on “The Craft of Writing" by a little known author of c 1... xi's book; is scarcely more than a page long and contains nothing more than a few cliches on being “tenacious” and "learning your craft” without a:i> practical advice on how these virtues might be attained. But in general this is a useful guide to the business of writing.