Harkaway’s Curious Questionnaire…
[+++UPDATE+++ I'm going to have to close the floodgates now; so many of you have responded - AMAZING - and I need to sit down and actually learn from the answers. I may have to hire a teenager to do data entry. I shall draw the draw or pour your names through a sieve or have the neighbour's cat chew all but one of them or something and announce the result of the bribery next week. THANK YOU SO MUCH for making this a thing which was worth doing, and I shall do more - and more fun - stuff as and when. NH +++UPDATE+++]
If you don’t care about this bit and want to get to the questions, they’re… um. Well, they’re at the bottom where it says ‘questions’. (I feel stupid now.)
So, anyway. This will of necessity be a profoundly qualitative bit of research, because a) you’re all self-selecting to the nth degree, b) I’m not constructing this list of questions in a very formal way and I doubt I’ll get very formal answers and most importantly c) I am horribly bad at quantitative measurement and proper stats and – possibly as a consequence – incredibly mistrustful of them. Also, I propose to bribe you in order to increase response and I’m not even slightly clear on how that will affect the results, or how the choice of bribery will skew things.
“How does it work?”
There is a list of questions below. (In fact, as I type that, there is no list. I have it written on a scrap of paper. However, by the time you read this there will be one. Weird.) I would greatly appreciate it if you would answer some of them, or even all of them. I don’t want you to answer any questions which make you uncomfortable. Also, my first thought is that you can answer them in the comments section, but if that makes you in any way unhappy I would be delighted to receive answers by email. You can get me through the form on the site or via Facebook (where my email address is in my info) or you can ping me on Twitter and I’ll PM you an address.
“But Mr Harkaway, why are you doing this?”
Because I have no idea who you are. Not really. I know who some of you are. But it’s kinda weird that however many thousand people bought The Gone-Away World – indeed, are still buying it (thank you), and will probably at least think about buying the next one – and I have only the vaguest notion who they are. It’s not writerly in the old-fashioned sense to worry about that, but I do, because the world is changing and I don’t think we all can afford to be so relaxed about the business side of this any more. I think that is how writers go broke while others make fortunes from them. So yes, make no mistake, this is a commercial thing. But not in an evil scary corporate way. In a slightly fuzzy, garage industry, crap-how-will-I-create-revenue-streams-in-the-21st-century kinduva way.
“And why would I do this?”
Love, fun, and bribery.
To expand a little: because you enjoy the stuff I do and you want more; because actually I’m incapable of doing anything this boring and I am therefore using it as an opportunity to screw around and I hope you will manage to give me the information I need and screw around as well (the snazzy academic name for this is apparently ludus, and it comes with all kinds of slightly naughty things like jouissance, thanks to a French bloke called Lacan, who was in a course of lectures I may have slept through at university owing to a slight overdose of jouissance…); and finally because, knowing a little about human nature and the interhighweb, I am also offering you free stuff.
“What is this Free Stuff of which you speak?”
I’m glad you asked. I will select, pseudo-randomly, in a manner of my own devising which will not be subject to scrutiny, although if I can come up with something suitably Great Egg Race I will try to film it and put it online if I have time, one person from among the respondents. This person will get a copy of the special edition of The Gone-Away World inscribed in whatever way they would like (within the laws of man, Mrs H, God, and libel etc.) and/or a bottle of decent wine or something similar. If the number of respondents is large, I will stretch the prize so that two or three people come away with cool stuff. (I wish I could offer you a copy of the next book, but we’re months away from that. Sorry.)
In future, it is my intention to do a couple more give-away kinsda things, in which I will pass on things like old notebooks (scourged of unused ideas but containing bits of thought process for TGAW and the new ‘un) but I’m incredibly nervous of doing that – particularly in case it emerges that no one would want them – so I’m nerving myself up. Encourage me.
“Okay, dude, you have bought me with your cheap glass beads. Where do I sign?”
Bwahahaha.
(Feel free, by the way, to cut and paste this and send it to people who have read TGAW and enjoyed it but who don’t read my blog in the slavish fashion it so obviously deserves. They, too, shall be loved and cherished.)
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(Legal: this entire enterprise will be conducted according to my arbitrary rules. I will alter them randomly and without warning. There is no recourse. I am not liable for any decisions you may make as a consequence of this questionnaire. It is not to be used as a life raft. You should not put it over your head or swallow it. I am the judge, the jury, and all the rest, and my decision is final and will be influenced by my arbitrary rules and not much else. Also, this is not a competition or even a draw, it’s a thing which shall be defined entirely according to my arbitrary rules which may change at any time. So you cannot sue me over this. At all. Even if the world ends or whatever. Are we clear? Good.)
The Questions:
1. Who are you? I don’t mean your name, I mean how do you see yourself?
Give me, say, six concepts. So, for me that would be: author, husband, mid-30s, former film industry, former martial artist, geek
2. How did you find out about The Gone-Away World?
What brought you to my door?
3. What else do you read?
Genres, authors, titles… all of it. Hit me. Apart from anything else, I always love finding out about good books.
4. Do you / would you read books on an ebook reader?
The million dollar question of the moment. Tell me what you think. I’m about to have some pretty intense conversations on this topic with some fairly involved people, so you’re not just talking to the wind here.
5. Jacket designs and blurbs… Did you like the jacket on the edition of TGAW you read? Which one was it? Did it suck you in or did you have to overcome it? Same with the cover copy, the blurb: was it any good? What would you have said about the book?
The HB was a bit controversial in the US, but the grass is always greener. So many people in the UK thought the US jackets were great… and vice versa.
6. I’m thinking of making up some tea towels and stuff with “the tree of nonsense is watered with error and from its branches swing the pumpkins of disaster” on them. Does that sound like fun, or is it just a totally dumb idea?
Seriously. Tea towels. Rivalrous and excludable, you see. Tea towels may be more effective than the iPad at saving the publishing industry. :)
7. TGAW spinoff comic or something: fun? Dull? Sellout garbage?
Because selling out is totally the new British Racing Green… Nah, I just always wanted to do a comic one day, and I figure now I have a chance at least of getting in through the door without everyone laughing at me and throwing bits of sandwich at me.
8. What should I have asked you?
I now realise I’m horrible at this. Help! More seriously… what should I know about you which will help me understand who my readers are and what they like? (And therefore produce, of course, more cool stuff. Which is what this is all about.)
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As I say – use the comments box, email me from the site, drop by Facebook and message me… anything goes. Over to you…
NH
