Good Grief!

One of my very good friends has had an offer to publish her novel today. (That's not the 'Good Grief' part, incidentally.) When it's all settled and the ink has dried on the contract I'm sure I'll be telling you a whole lot more about that.

But, the point here is that it sent me off on a trawl around the web looking up information on different publishing houses - and I happened upon some information about the Oxford Literary Festival. In itself, because I already know all about it and won't be there, not particularly interesting.

But, then I found this:

So what is the secret of writing a good Doctor Who story, apart from an inexhaustible supply of strange people in hoods and shadowy figures lurking in dark corners of the universe? Justin Richards and some of his fellow writers – Terrance Dicks, Mike Tucker, Colin Brake and Steve Cole – will explain all at the festival on April 5.


And I read on. You can, too, if you click here.

The bit that made me splutter on my coffee was this:

There is a team of 10 writers, but not all of them write full-time. They are paid a flat fee of £5,000 per book, with a bonus if a title sells more than 50,000. That’s about the average sale, says Richards, but bonuses are not unknown.

Authors, we are told, have four months to 'turn out a story'.

Am I reading that right? £5000 for four months work? I just bet 'not all of them write full-time'! You couldn't on that money, could you?!?!

And then there is this bit:

These reasons might put off some big-name authors who have been linked with Doctor Who. Philip Pullman, JK Rowling, Anthony Horowitz and Stephen Fry have been mentioned. “I have spoken to a few big names,” says Richards, “and the attraction is obvious but there are reasons why they wouldn’t want to do it.”

Hmmmm, yes! Can't say I'd be keen either.