Shaun de Waal
IN a literary world beset by the dual burden of too many books and too few readers, self-publication can be an option for the author who hasn’t found a commercial enterprise willing to subsidise his or her efforts.
Sometimes there are considerable rewards – — EM Macphail’s self-published novel Phoebe and Nio won the CNA Literary Award some years ago — but not always. Timothy Mo, a British writer whose earlier novels were successful, chose to publish his latest, Breadfruit Boulevard, himself and thereby avoid editorial meddling. Unfortunately, the consensus among reviewers was that the novel badly needed such meddling.
That thought hovers as one reads a range of recent works of fiction self-published in South Africa. While many display talent and determination, far too often they suffer from typographical and grammatical incapacity, not to mention covers that look amateurish. Admittedly, such lapses are not confined to self-publishers, but without the compensation of a professional marketing machinery they can reduce sales to practically nothing.
Alec Papageorge’s novel Observe or Die (Quill Press, R42,95) appears to be autobiographical: protagonist Philip Stavros is, like his creator, a newspaperman of Greek descent in Sixties South Africa, caught up in crime and politics. Perhaps this is what gives the story its undeniable conviction, though it still suffers from unnecessary turgidity and an over-reliance on cliche. It could also have done with an editor — or at least a proofreader — who knew the difference between “its” and “it’s”.
The same might be said of Nicholas Williamson’s The Buffalo Hunters (Williamson, R95), a Tarantinoesque tale of gangsters in “post-revolutionary” Gauteng. This violent novel has pace and snappy dialogue, but it is hard to keep track of who’s who, and the narrative (like the typesetting) descends into confusion at times. With some streamlining, it could yet reach a professional standard.
Gordon Chasakara’s novel The Bank is My Shepherd I Shall Not Want (Chasakara, R50) is also set in the new South Africa, and deals with a man caught up in a scam concocted by renegade policemen. Chasakara tells his rather fantastical story with verve, though much needs to be fleshed out in narrative terms, to be dramatised instead of simply related.
Going Private by VEF Jaeger (Smeltcor Publishers, R39,99) is a novel about a caper involving a Russian spy, Vincent Roganoff, and “a beautiful, determined thief”, Rosalind Felten-Green, set in the Eighties in South Africa. There is something quaint about the novel; it has more in common with the work of Geoffrey Jenkins than that of a Frederick Forsyth. It is freer of errors than many of the texts considered above.
Rhynie Greeff’s novel Daughter of the Stars (Marathon, R80) is, like all the works under review, going as a thriller. Of them all, it comes closest to a professional standard. The text is almost immaculate, though not quite, and the story of a big- game hunter trying to uncover his brother’s murderer is no worse than many a thriller brought out by a mainstream publisher.
One has to admire the confidence and entrepreneurial spirit that pushes authors to self-publication, but it must also be noted that without professional standards of typesetting, cover-design and printing — let alone marketing — works such as these will find it hard to attract readers.
The market is already overwhelmed by the huge choice available (especially of fiction), and anything that looks homemade is likely to be dismissed at a glance. In the end, writers who submit themsleves to the processes of an established publisher may find greater hope of a sustainable career. Raw talent, even coupled with do- it-yourself gusto, is not enough.