Still trying to figure out what’s precisely gone wrong, but I think I’m mostly back on track with wordpress now. As long as I don’t want to edit anything…

I was hoping to start posting interviews this week, but between the website troubles and the fact I’m disappearing south for my birthday and my mother’s wedding (well, that’s one way to celebrate your fifteenth anniversary!) means I’m not sure I want to risk it when I probably won’t have time to fix it if something goes wrong. It’s the lack of editing that’s the problem; I need to get the post perfect first time. Unlikely, alas.

Publishing: Dean Wesley Smith’s ‘Killing the sacred cows of publishing’. Apparently this is something of a ‘must read’ for writers, so I felt kind done-out of something when I discovered it for the first time last week! Admittedly, I don’t agree with all of his points, such as the chapter on why authors don’t need agents. The publishing landscape has changed so dramatically over the years, and I think he may be underestimating the sheer volume of slush publishing houses receive. They say “no unagented submissions” because it absolves them of the need to read them. Most of them aren’t worth reading; these are, after all, people who can’t follow basic instructions or failed to pass the chosen gatekeepers. Hamish Hamilton have had  “no unagent submissions” up for ten years and still receive around four a week. In that time they hadn’t found a single novel worth publishing in the slush pile.

Which doesn’t mean the most determined take any notice. Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin, for example, gets four or so a week – despite a note on the website that declares “Sadly, we’re unable to consider unsolicited manuscripts. The best way to find a publisher is through an agent.” These four are given to people in the office for a week or two on work experience; if they think there’s any merit in the submission, it goes to publishing director Simon Prosser or one of his permanent colleagues. Yet nothing in the past 10 years has actually ended up in print that way. The only books that have been published and not arrived via an agent were recommended by friends in the publishing industry, or by Hamish Hamilton’s writers, “which is slightly different, because there is some connection,” says Prosser. He has recently established an online magazine called Five Dials, and hopes to receive news of more unexpected (but higher-quality) writers that way.

So, yes. Take DWSmith with a pinch of salt; it may be a myth that you have to have an agent to get published, and a bad agent is definitely worse than no agent at all, but when the vast majority on unagented stuff is from people agents wouldn’t touch with a barge pole you have to admit there’s a reason there’s more than one set of gatekeepers in this game. You’re less likely to get thrown out of the palace if you came in via the gates than if you jumped the wall.

Interest-Piquing: Ashes to ashes, the ruins of Pompeii. As a bit of a classicist, this hits me hard. Pompeii is such an important site, but as such it requires so much funding to keep it in any kind of decent condition. And in this financial climate, it’s not going to get it (not that it has for some time). I’d love to visit, but I fear that by the time I can afford it there won’t be anything left to visit.

InsPiring: The art of building. Absolutely gorgeous shots of buildings and architecture, with the opportunity to vote for your favourite.

Procrastination: One million giraffes. By the power of the internet, one man has decided to collect 1 million giraffes by 2011. And he’s not doing too badly! Just over 100k to go.