What do you think of Literary Festivals?

[i] Many young people, after making a family and entering into challenging employment, 'put aside' aspects of their earlier life in order to focus upon their new nest or their job, and their love of things like reading, art, music, even the playing of sport, exits their life forever. To me, this is often sad. Because of the generated publicity, the discussions in the media, and resultant communal talk during 'festivals', a spark gained from these might revive their interest in their old love, and even save them from becoming self-absorbed drones!

This is one positive side of festivals.

[ii] Although the obvious motive behind festivals is commercial, a worthy author might gain deserved exposure through this medium that may never happen otherwise. Communal discussion of literature, rare though it is, must be the most effective way of 'spreading the word' about worthwhile reading, surely? Communal discussions happen most frequently as a by-product of literary festivals.

Another positive aspect.

[iii] Because literary festivals have a strong social side to them, people interested in literature are most likely to meet each other, and this would often intensify the love of literature, expand the horizens of many concerned, even seed new ideas in some authors, e.g.

Yet another.

[iv] Like all types of festival, however, the concentration of ones interest and focus into such a small amount of time, stirring a desire to buy books, e.g., may prove to be too big a strain on many people's finances, and books that may one day have been bought, would never get bought because there has been too much 'competition' for the available resources to supply everything wanted.

This is a major disadvantage of music festivals, obviously, but I imagine that it applies to a degree with literary festivals as well. With music festivals, asking people to attend multiple concerts is unrealistic, and many rehearsed performances never get heard by everyone interested because of this. This, with music, is an awful waste of rehearsal. With literature, of course, the books don't disappear because they are not purchased at the festival, but, to a degree, the disadvantage still sometimes applies, I imagine.

[v] Elitists, upon tall horses, always manage to expose themselves somehow. Is it fair to blame festivals for this? Elitists, although often pretentious, often say something really valuable. Authors, eager to be 'ordinary blokes' in the public eye, often err just as much as the very vocal elitist, and end up saying absolutely nothing of any value, even though they tell the public that meat pies can be gourmet food. I even sometimes prefer the honest elitist to the ingratiating ones that tell the public that their taste is impeccable.

On balance, I am in favour of Literary Festivals. What other motive than the commercial one has a chance of success, after all?

You have to see them for what they are: if you're an aspiring author then this is a chance to network. Some writers have gotten the chance to have their books read by editors and agents at book events. Some people have been encouraged by authors to submit their work to the author's literary agent; agent's value those types of suggestions over reading the slush because their clients usually know what kind of work they like. So, these events can be a huge opportunity to network and should be taken advantage of. Listening to professional authors speak gives you insight into the industry and they can often relay their experiences with getting published and what it takes for a new author to get published, and maybe even what editors are looking for.

I'd garner that most people submitting manuscripts go about it wrong and this is why the rejection rate is a whopping 98%. A lot of the time the writer doesn't even bother to research the agent to see if they represent the kind of work they've written. It's a waste of time and an automatic rejection to send a romance manuscript to an agent who doesn't represent romance. The number one reason, according to slush pile readers and agents and editors, that people get rejected is because they can't write. Most can't even string together a grammatically correct sentence, yet they actually expect to be published.

Someone else mentioned that there are a lot of good writers being passed up. Truth is, she's right. According to many literary agents, "Good" is not good enough, it needs to be Great. There are plenty of people who are writing great work, and they'll be chosen over someone who's writing work that's only "good;" unoriginal; badly written; has plot holes; and so forth. The truth is that most people write crap. The bad thing is that they actually think their crap is good. I've heard from the people who have to read that crap and they literally say that most of it is so bad that it makes them want to gouge out their eyes. So, yeah, the people who are complaining about publishers not giving them a chance or how they don't really want to publish good work, or how published authors are trying to keep competition out of the industry, fail to recognize that 9 times out of 10 it's the quality of their work that's keeping them from being published. All you have to do is read some of the stuff that's posted on Y!A and you'll see what I mean. The only people who don't know how dreadful it is are the people who wrote it, and they get angry when you don't give them glowing reviews for their work. As a writer, I can recognize crap when I see, more so than someone who isn't a writer. If you're a prolific reader then you'll be able to recognize it, too.

One more thing, many people seem to think that telling a great story trumps everything. They are wrong. Telling a great, marketable story AND writing it well is what gets you published. No publishers is going to buy a book that's wrought with grammatical errors, misspellings, wrong word choice, bad sentence structure, plot holes, under-developed characters and plots, horrible sentence structure, and so on. Yes, THAT kind of bad writing!

I think Literary Festivals can either be a lot of fun, or a disaster.

Many times, they are a combination of the scenarios you listed.

There's the opportunity to have a lovely, enjoyable time, meeting like minded people, and hearing their literary icons dispense wise words. There's an opportunity to start being extremely supercilious, and to go around with a little group of elitists, bashing anything and anyone you don't happen to agree with.

It can be a waste of time, if the aforementioned is present more than decent people.

I believe that reading the book itself is infinitely better than attending a Literary Festival. But usually one has done that, and that is why one is attending the festival in the first place.

I hope you have fun. If you meet those snobs, avoid them. Enjoy yourself!

Luthien

You are right, these are huge commercial enterprises with more emphasis on selling. There are hundreds of pretty good writers for every one who actually gets published. The competition is brutal, however writers who do get published usually say they met their agent at one of these hooplas. On the remote possibility that somebody actually gets on with an agent, going to these may not be a waste of time.