Bring on the Sequel

Nowadays, especially with the digital-first imprints, it would seem writing sequels and series is a popular path to follow - which is odd, because when I started out years ago, I remember wanting to write one and the idea being pooh-poohed in literary circles. Apparently it was the typical thing any aspiring writer longed to do. Guilty as charged! Although over the years, I lost the urge and thought of my books just as one-offs. On 10^th November 2013 Harlequin’s new digital-first imprint, CarinaUK, published Doubting Abbey, my debut novel. When I wrote this romantic comedy, I always thought of it as a standalone story which came to a firm end.

However, as I went through the revisions it became clear to me that the characters had more to say. Fortunately, my publisher is wholly behind sequels and series and I can see the commercial appeal – especially for the digital imprints, where there is more flexibility and less to lose if the series doesn’t work. Several times recently writers, either traditionally or self-published, have said that to increase sales, this is the way to go. When the second book comes out, sales of the first will increase. The original one could be offered at a slashed price, if bought with the follow-up. Plus, each book can be advertised at the back of the other and the first one will, of course, be mentioned every time you promote your new book.

So, now that I’ve begun that project, what are the challenges? Well, if like mine, the sequel is not closely related to the first, with an on-going detailed plot, then firstly, you must make sure that the sequel tells a fresh, new tale – which sounds obvious but I sent off a synopsis for my agent to take a look, and unwittingly I’d put the characters into a similar situation as in the book before, just under different circumstances.

One solution might be to choose lead characters who were minor in the original tale. If the protagonists are the same, you must make sure that the new theme or character development doesn’t simply go over old ground.

Another pitfall to avoid is including too much backstory about the first book (again, if the two books are not, plot-wise, intricately connected). I am trying to make my sequel a standalone as well, so that readers aren’t put off by thinking they have to read another book first, to understand everything that’s going on. However, a degree of information, about the plot of Doubting Abbey, will need to be covered. Someone who pulls this off very cleverly is Sophie Kinsella in her well-known Shopoholic series, the success of which is no doubt majorly due to a strong, appealing very lovable main character.

Another frustrating aspect is that you could suddenly have a brilliant idea of where to take your characters in book two, but can’t because it wouldn’t fit with what happened in book one. For example Gemma’s mother died when she was young – I might have come up with an amazing story for the sequel that, say, needed her to have a fortune-telling actress for a mother who lives in Hollywood! However, as I’m finding already, with artistic license a lot of these wrinkles can be smoothed out.

So, if you already have a publishing deal, writing a sequel might be worth discussing with your agent or publisher. If you are still to snag that contract, perhaps keep the idea at the back of your mind and if you feel your characters might eventually have more to say, be careful how you end book one. Don’t close all the gates!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamTongeWriter

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SamanthaTongeAuthor

Website: http://samanthatonge.co.uk/

Novel: http://doubtingabbey.blogspot.co.uk/

Doubting Abbey was recently ranked #1 in the Amazon bestselling romcom kindle chart and is only £2.99. It's available here.

Butterfly thoughts

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Last month, Anne and I finally cleared the old books out of the garage and took them to a car-boot sale. You can learn a lot about people at car-boots - the tryers, the observers, those who know exactly what they want, those who are open to anything that catches their eye and the browers - who want nothing more than a brief distraction in their day.

As luck would have it - and the luck was mine - we waited almost two hours to be allowed on-site, were allocated the final spot in a dead-end and the weather wasn't entirely kind to us.

All that said, I rather enjoyed the event. It was a great opportunity to let the books see daylight and to appreciate some of them again, and the stories that lay behind them. A holiday book inevitably brought to mind that holiday in Turkey - the one where I not only had the trots, but also wrote three short stories (one of which was subsequently published). 

Some were books I used to favour, but had chosen to release them into the wild; likewise a Christmas gift or two from long ago. There was also an esoteric volume, bought to research material for my magical fantasy, Covenant. Away, away all, and sendback a quid.

And the people...

Some would-be purchasers spent time chatting and befriending us, before clearing their throats and asking for a friendly discount. The books were all £1 each, just so you know.

Other customers rifled through the piles of books, couldn't find what they wanted and sniffed derisively as they left me to tidy up the display in their wake.

One person paused to pick up a book and then waxed lyrical about how much he hated the subject. My suggestion that he buy the book and then turn said person's face to the wall, as a sort of protest, fell upon deaf ears.

I met a man on a mobility scooter, joyous and witty (though alas, not in need of a book). I also met people who, to quote our late mum, were probably enjoying themselves, deep down, but had forgotten to tell their faces.

And as we tried to shelter from the rain, while simultaneously holding down the plastic sheet over the books, three thoughts came to me:

1. It's time to pack up.

2. Let's never do this again.

3. This is a lot like being a writer. (Although, to be fair, I think that about pretty much everything. I'm a little like The Fast Show's fabulous character, Swiss Tony, only with writing.)

How so, I imagine you asking.

Well, some writers will cosy up to you and loiter in your presence precisely as long as it takes to extract whatever information they're after. And then they're off, like a fart in a packed lift.

Others know exactly how they see themselves - and what they want - and have no time for anyone or anything else. They stick to their genre and whatever rung of the ladder they believe they're on.

There are writers, too, who make time for criticisms rather than critiques. They'll rush to Amazon for the latest bestsellers, only to read the worst reviews - and perhaps write a few as well.

Now, I'm not saying that the world of writers is an egalitarian utopia and that we should all hold doors (and windows) of oppurtunity open for one another. Although, frankly, it would be a nicer landscape if we did. I'm not that naive, as the woman with the $4trillion dollars for me in an offshore account discovered when she emailed me.

However, when we're busy writing and rewriting, pitching, submitting and smediaing (neat word, huh!), why not make the best of it. Tell your face, and tell your face to tell the world.

In the car-boot of life, even being able to pick up a pen and write whatever you feel like writing about, is a bargain. Even if no one may be buying right now.

"Wait! Hold that Bandwagon!"

For me, self-publishing has always felt like the ‘elephant’ in my room. That's the room called Rejection’ because it's where my manuscripts which were heartily rebuffed by Literary Agents, reside. Of course ‘heartily’ is completely the wrong word to use – that’s the infamous self-flagellation talking.   I actually had some really nice rejects – no, seriously, I did.  At one point I was even on first name, chatty e-mail terms with about three Agents.  Ah, those were the days.

So what’s my point? (note: excessive naval-contemplation and digressive meanderings – this will be referenced later).  My point is that if any of my 4 self e-published novels had any proper literary merit then it stands to pretty good reason that they’d have been taken on by an agent at the time of subbing.  But they weren’t.  One of them got quite close – you know the story – the re-writes – the end changes – the re-writes – culminating in (and I nearly said ‘inevitable’ but why inevitable? Why should I be such a defeatist?) Rejection.

I can’t say that I was buoyed by the e-publishing ‘movement’ and felt that the time was right for my rejected manuscripts to land out there in the w.w.world for A.Reader, his wife and his brother to buy and perhaps enjoy.  But I can say with hand on heart that I went into self-publishing with extreme trepidation.  In fact so trepidatious was I that I changed my author name to my maiden name so that nobody who knew me ‘properly’ would know it was me.  And I kind of sloped them onto the system.  Oh, I did tell some writer friends and announce it on Facebook but that’s never felt ‘real’ to me anyway.  Anyone on my screen is (in my head) a cyborg and part of the Truman show; not the real world where there are Sainsburys, dirty dishes and dog poo.

I never  imagined that I’d get good ‘sales’ figures.  I assumed (rightly) that if I advertised any of the books FREE for a few days, that downloads would increase because everybody likes something for nothing, right?  Right.  They do – the numbers stratospherically soar when there’s £0.00 to spend.  Especially if a freebie co-incides with a weekend or Bank Holiday. And I’m not knocking that.  For me, if it’s downloaded, that means it’s on somebody’s Reading Device and for it to have got on there, buttons would have been pressed, decisions made (it’s free – the opening paragraph isn’t sh*te  therefore I’ll have it) and my words have been passed on.  I could say that really this is enough and all I ever wanted but I’d be lying.

I’ve had some reviews on the books I’ve got on Amazon.  Only 3 of them (out of a combined total of no more than 10) are from ‘proper’ readers – i.e. people I have never ‘met’ either in the flesh or through Facebook/Writing circles.  So these three are the true judges of whether my books are good or not.  To me, anyway.  I’m  not knocking the ‘others’ who are FB friends or whatever but they’re bound  not to say anything  terrible about it because – well, writers have such fragile egos don’t they? And I’d never say anything detrimental about another writer’s book I’ve read. 

 

So here (endeth the blethering and meandering, naval introspection) is what I say to you  today, dear Strictly fellows.  I have only today noticed a previously undetected icon on Amazon.co.uk which asks you if you’d like to read your reviews from Amazon.com as well… Well, I answer: that’s very nice of you, I didn’t realise there were any, yes please and thanking you most kindly.

*gulp* (that’s me reading it)

*gulp* (that’s me re-reading it.  Also *wide-eyed*)

*gulp* (yep - a third time.  Please add a broadening smile, a nod and a loosening of the shoulders)

This person is my Simon Cowell – this person – who read my book from (brilliant, witty, hopeful) beginning to (rambling, hackneyed, bitter) end has explained everything to me that I already knew but was pretending might not be (all) true.  And along with telling me how poorly executed my story is, the reviewer also added that if re-written I could have pulled it off successfully.  Hope floats.

*Perhaps they’d consider becoming my Agent?

We writers are always banging on about not taking reviews personally aren’t we?  This book was the first one I ever wrote. It was started 10 years ago,  was written during an enormous personal upheaval and should have remained as torn, tear-stained sheets of therapeutic A4 in the ring binder it started out in.

It wasn’t so much a story as a confessional memoir. It was a cathartic key to dealing with the bereavement, divorce and disillusionment I was battling with at the time and the fact that I changed the characters names did nothing to protect any parties involved.  The dead stayed dead, the divorce went through, but I was able to work out why both relationships were doomed to failure.

The fact that the book is also littered with humour and wry observations doesn’t make it any more a ‘proper’ book.  It actually just proves I deal with personal tragedy in a very Carry-On way.   (Example: I can still remember the horror on my mother’s face as I laughed like a Hyena when she told me her own mother – my beloved Nanna – had just died.  See?  Wrong.).

So, even though the reviewer didn’t know it, they actually got very personal about some very real stuff I was going through.  My main character (that’ll be Me) was a big Nellie and a wuss and handled stuff badly. That was when she wasn’t being melodramatic and contemplating her naval.  Well, this I already knew.  I just didn’t realise I was such a badly drawn fictional character.  Maybe if people had told me at the time to stop acting like a drama queen, grow some balls and get my life sorted out rather than write it to death, then I’d be in a very different place from the one I’m in now.

Anyway, what this Review has taught me:

•  Never publish anything that’s personal. It could bite you on the arse.
•  If you want impartial approval you ain’t gonna to find it in the mirror. (That’s the creative writing mirror; I’m not suggesting your lipstick’s the wrong shade or anything).
•  Stop bloody waffling, woman and get to the point (that’s the creative writing point; I’m not suggesting I digress, meander or anything… although saying that…)

I have another book (contemporary women’s fiction – romcommy, wry, no cupcakes involved) that I was dithering over pressing ‘upload’ onto Amazon because it Wasn’t Good Enough for Agents.  I even made a cover for it  and everything, but I think I’ve learned a valuable lesson and I am going to start listening to my ‘gut’ a bit more.  Like I said, it didn’t ‘feel right’ at the start but I felt left out so did it anyway – but now I’m entering a new phase of my life called Second Guessing. And it’s about bleedin’ time.

Nice cover: shame there'll be no book

Guest Author Leigh Russell : Living the Dream from a Walk in the Park!

These days writing is such a necessary part of my life, it's hard to believe that five years ago I had no expectations of becoming an author. I've been quoted as saying that I "fell into writing like Alice down the rabbit hole” because there was never any grand plan to write. 

If anyone had told me five years ago that my books would all hit the bestseller charts on amazon, kindle, iTunes, WH Smith's and Waterstones, I would have laughed because I hadn't written anything. So when people ask me about my future plans, I can only say that the future is mysterious and full of exciting possibilities. There's no telling what might be around the corner.

The story of my writing begins with a walk in my local park. It was summer in England - so of course the sky was overcast and as I reached the middle of the park it began to rain. Just then, a man appeared round a bend in the path walking towards me. In that instant an idea for a story struck me, and when I returned home I started writing. The story took shape so quickly in my mind that after six weeks the first draft was finished. Having sent it off in a large brown envelope - as you did back in those days - I almost forgot about it. Imagine my excitement when a publisher telephoned me two weeks later to express interest in my writing!

You can read the story inspired by my walk in the park in Cut Short, published in 2009 as the first in a series of crime novels. The book introduces my detective, Geraldine Steel, a single woman dedicated to her job. Thanks mainly to word of mouth recommendations, Cut Short sold incredibly fast. Fortunately it was also very well reviewed, and went on to be shortlisted for a CWA Dagger Award for Best First Crime Novel.

Since the publication of Cut Short, I am frequently approached to give author talks. The first reading group I visited were interested to hear about Road Closed, the second book in the series I found myself writing. My audience were all disappointed to hear that I had given Geraldine Steel a different sergeant in Road Closed. "But we like Ian Peterson," they chorused. Always keen to please, I duly reinstated Ian Peterson as Geraldine Steel's detective sergeant; little dreaming that he would one day feature in his own series.  

I was initially offered a three book deal. In Cut Short, Road Closed and Dead End, Geraldine Steel works for the Kent constabulary. Following the success of all three titles, my publisher offered me a second three book deal. In Death Bed and Stop Dead, Geraldine has moved to London, leaving her sergeant behind. So when my publisher wanted to explore the possibility of my writing two books a year, a spin off series for Ian Peterson was the obvious answer. The new series launches this year with Cold Sacrifice.

Sometimes I stop and think: "This is me. I'm writing books, and people are reading them all around the world, in translation as well as in the original English". It seems unreal. I'm not sure it's really happening. But if it's a dream, I don't want to wake up yet. I'm only half way through writing the second Ian Peterson novel which has to be finished before I turn my attention to the edits for the sixth Geraldine Steel novel, and then there's my idea for the seventh Geraldine Steel investigation.... and the eighth.... and Ian Peterson's third story... No, I can't stop yet! Because however exciting it is to know my books are bestsellers, the real thrill is writing.

Links to all Leigh Russell's books can be found on her website: http://leighrussell.co.uk

All I want for Christmas...

Most writers have a pretty standard Christmas list that reads something like this:
- More Twitter followers, FB likes, blog readers and website visitors. (I've grouped them together because it's all the same fairy dust.)
- To be on the best seller list for their genre in Amazon (step forward Martin Bodenham).
- A contract with an agent or a publishing house. Dora Bryan might have settled for a Beatle, but that just won't do any more.

For one of my fellow contributors to Beyond the Horizon (Bamboccioni Books), Christmas has come early. Chloe Banks, a first time novelist, has signed a contract with David Haviland of The Andrew Lownie Literary Agency. I picked her brains to find out where others - including me - might have been going wrong!

1. I have to start with many congratulations, Chloe. It's every novelist's dream - has it sunk in?

I think so! The first couple of days after getting the offer I was unable to concentrate on anything – I was so excited but also overwhelmed by the speed it all happened. I was expecting months of rejections but I had an agent within about five weeks of finishing writing, after only one rejection. I sent my book to David one Tuesday and he made an offer on Friday. Once we started talking about everything that needs to be done to the book now, it made everything feel more normal. I still sometimes have to pinch myself though.


2. Have you met the agent in person yet? Is it true that they are surrounded by humming birds and creatures of the forest? (I might be confusing the words 'agent' and 'Disney cartoon' here.)

No humming birds, just thousands of Londoners rushing to get places! I travelled to London to see David. It wasn’t strictly necessary but I thought it was better to have met in person and I’m so glad I did. I think agents had always been mythical creatures to me until then. But he was a normal person (he actually recognised me in the street – rather than me spotting him by the glow of sheer agently awesomeness surrounding him) and very lovely. If all goes well, an agent could work with you for your whole career, potentially over several decades, so it’s good to get off on the right foot. We did a very unglamorous and unceremonious signing of the contract in a basement café, but I liked the workmanlike feel to it – writing is a job not an “experience”.


3. What led you to the original premise for your novel and did it change much along the way? (Tell us about the book)

TheArt of Letting Go started in the least sophisticated way possible. I wanted to do NaNoWriMo (the annual event where participants try to write 50 000 words of a novel in a month) in 2011 as I had nothing else on my writing horizon. I had three or four short stories that hadn’t worked at all, but that contained an idea or two that I still loved – an abstract artist, a man in a coma, a missing god. So I decided to try to mash them together as an experiment!

At the end of the month, I had the world’s worst book – my draft zero. I decided to do one “real” draft to see if it had potential. I almost gave up after that as it was still awful. But the characters had trapped me. A year after I started and two more drafts later it was unrecognisable, but I thought I had something.

The book is about lies and art, secrets and madness. It tells the story of physics professor Rosemary Blunt who is leading a double life, split between respectable retirement in a seaside village and secret visits to see a comatose man lying in a nearby hospital. It’s her decision whether he lives or dies and nobody in the village has any idea he even exists. When Ben – an abstract artist – turns up, his attempt to paint a picture of God disturbs Rosemary more than it should. Despite this, an unlikely friendship develops and begins to threaten the security of her secret. But she’s not the only one with a past she’d rather forget. As summer passes they have to decide whether they can trust each other enough to set themselves free, or whether their secrets are just too terrible to be told.

The story is told from four points of view. Interwoven with the action, Ben tells the reader a very potted history of abstract art – leaving the reader to draw their own parallels between the deceptions practised by the characters, and the deceptions practised by abstract artists. I suppose if I was to pick one theme it would be that of ‘things not looking like what they are meant to be’!

4. A tricky question, but what do you think it was about your novel that attracted the agent?

I think David liked the position it holds on the novel spectrum. It’s not literary, but it’s also not a family saga or romance – and definitely not chick lit. It’s at that cross-over point between the two and therefore (hopefully!) is quite commercial. Good writing and commercial potential are the two most important things to an agent. I seem to have managed to do enough of the former – though there’s loads more work to do – and I was lucky that it happens to have the latter too! I think the use of multiple first-person viewpoints worked in my favour, which I’m very glad of as it was a gamble for a first novel. I was worried it would seem pretentious rather than interesting! But you have to find the voice that works for the story you’re telling – no point trying to imitate another book or author. I didn’t feel like I could write it any other way.


5. What happens next in the process?

I’ve got a fair bit of re-writing to do now that I have David’s notes (I’m doubly blessed that he is a very experienced editor and writer as well as an agent). Once that’s done – hopefully in a month or so – we’ll put together a proposal for publishers and then David will do his stuff, sending it out to editors seeing if he can get anyone to bite! I’ll be glad to hand it all over to him and get started on the next novel.


6. I know that you have had significant success with short stories. How did you apply that experience to writing longer fiction?

My short story successes aren’t really that significant – it’s all been in small, low-key competitions. But it has been significant to my development – both the times I’ve won and the times I’ve got it horribly wrong. Short stories and novels are such different skills, once you know how to write I’m not sure they really help each other much. But when you are just starting out, as I was three or four years ago, all writing teaches you so much, and short fiction is great because you can get it wrong 20 times over and learn 20 times as much in the time it takes you to get your first novel wrong! Short stories taught me how to build characters and plots, carry tension and create satisfying endings. They also gave me a confidence boost and a handy couple of sentences to put in my cover letter to agents!


7. How will you balance any rewriting with working on your next book?

Oh, I am itching to get on with the next book. But I’m not very good at writing two things at once. So I am compromising by concentrating on the re-writing for now, and just allowing myself the occasional hour to jot down some planning notes for the next one. I’m so excited by my initial idea, I can’t wait to get going! But I’m also not completely bored by The Art of Letting Go yet so it shouldn’t be too much of a chore. I’ll be interested to see whether writing a novel feels different when you know you already have an agent for it.


8. Does your success change how you see yourself as a writer and how you interact with other writers?

I never expected to be a writer so it’s all been a bit crazy. I have a first-class science degree, nothing more! I was only playing with writing as a hobby until – and I know how much this can make me sound like a crank – I felt like God was telling me to write. I’m a Christian and my faith is the most important part of my life (even though I don’t write Christian books). I tried to ignore God for about 18 months, and only took it semi-seriously. Then one day a visiting pastor came to speak at our church. He’d never met me and knew nothing about me and yet, as I left after we’d chatted, he told me, “God wants you to keep writing. You’ve got what it takes.” So I’ve spent the last two years trying to have what it takes. We moved to Devon and I started to tell people I was a writer – however embarrassed I felt by it.

At times I’ve stepped back and thought, ‘Seriously? Your whole life is based around the hope that you heard God right when he told you to get writing?!’ But I kept going and God was faithful even when I wasn’t. My husband is amazing too. He trusted that it was what God wanted and never put pressure on me to get a “proper job”. Now, of course, he says I’m his pension plan for the future when I’m selling Hollywood rights to all my books!

Even though I know the most crucial factor in getting an agent is writing a good book, I still find it hard to believe that I “deserve” to have got one. I felt a bit guilty that my book was recommended to David by a friend of mine, rather than having been discovered on the slush pile. There was another agency who were interested in my novel, and they did find it on the slush pile, so that helped me get over the guilt, but I don’t think of myself as a better writer now particularly – just a very blessed one! And, I suppose a bit more of a confident one. The quality of my writing didn’t suddenly change because somebody thought it was good. Getting an agent is great but it doesn’t mean a lot unless I also find a publisher. Success – whatever that is – is made up of thousands of steps and this is just one of them.

I find in this early stage I’m very wary of how I come across to people who have been reading my blog for ages. I’m worried if I say anything encouraging that I’ll sound patronising now, whereas I wouldn’t have thought twice before – we writers need all the encouragement we can get! I know I’ll still need it. In the space of a couple of weeks I posted on my blog about getting my first rejection and about getting an agent, and both times I was so glad of the encouragement of other writers. There will be writers who I know who will never get an agent or publisher – some because they just won’t ever be good enough (just like I will never be picked for the Olympic athletics team despite spending my whole youth running round a track), but others just because. That sucks; that’s life. I’m so aware that writing requires luck as well as talent. But we can get hung up on the luck part and worry about the submissions process and wearing our lucky pants when we post our manuscript and all sorts of silly stuff, when really the bit we can control is writing a good book in the first place.

I'd be delighted if people want to come and say hello on my blog, chat on Twitter or find out more about me and the book on the agency website.

My thanks to Chloe for being so open and honest. There you are folks - it can happen the way we've always wanted to believe. Time to get writing!

On sockpuppetry

So, another day, another woeful tale of authors behaving badly, as a couple of crime writers have been unearthed as creating ‘sock puppet’ accounts to write good reviews for themselves and, even more dubiously, slag off their rivals’ books on Amazon, while apparently on an author discussion panel the writer Steven Leather cheerfully admitted to creating fake accounts to go on discussion forums to create ‘buzz’ about his books. (I must admit it took me a while to pick up on this story, as I thought the headlines on Twitter about ‘vicious sockpuppets’ were a joke, or a news item about a children’s party gone terribly awry).

Obviously – obviously – this is morally reprehensible behaviour, undermines the whole value of reviews and the honour system, etc, etc. But what boggles me about the whole thing is: where the hell do they find the time? Seriously, people: I want me some of that. I’m on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Goodreads, and 3 different blogs, as well as contributing to 3 different websites and, y’know, working for a living. I can barely keep up with all the things I have to do as myself, never mind create fake personas who have to go writing reviews on Amazon. I spend half of my life having to reset passwords: imagine the hassle of having to maintain accounts where the actual bloody name needs to be remembered, too. And thinking up new names! One of the things I hate most about writing it having to name characters (it’s no coincidence that in both of my novels there is a character with virtually the same name, just spelled differently). If I had to create fictional reviewers as well, I think I’d have a nervous breakdown.

It does make you wonder, if they applied that energy to actually writing their books, they might turn out so good that they don’t need fake reviews, or they could at least come up with more original ways to promote them. Still, disapprove as I might, part of me is impressed by all that effort. I might even give it a go. How about: “Tracey Sinclair transformed my life: this is not only a Booker-worthy effort that should be made into a movie at once, but it’s clear from the writing that the author is generous, attractive and spectacularly good in bed.” Whaddaya think? Too much?

 



Authors! Need a reviewer? Make your own!

Sock puppet kit available, ironically, from Amazon.



Doin' the e-Math

Luckily I had no preconceived ideas about what would happen to my fledglings once I'd flung them out of the nest that had been their home for the past 2-8 years i.e. the dusty bowels of the C-drive and into the world wide web-o-sphere of e-publishing.

Okay then, so half of me (and this is where my *maths gets REALLY shonky) thought maybe I'd have a lucky break and my Big Brave Move would be the absolute making of me; I'd soar the dizzy heights of self-publishing stardom and I'd have the world eating out of the palm of my hand-held-e-reader.
Another half of me was dissecting the world of writing whilst breaking blueberry muffins with Kerry Wilkinson and Amanda Hocking in Starbucks. And the other half (*see what I mean?) was rocking plaintively and dismally in the darkest recesses of the smallest room in the house wondering what the hell had possessed me to be so utterly reckless in the first place.

Because I hadn't a clue what to expect and equally hadn't a clue how to 'promote' the fact that I'd done it  - or even if I should promote the fact I'd done it at all.  And anyway, what would 'friends' on Facebook think? *in my head* "Oh ffs, there she goes, she can't get an Agent, she's clearly plummeted the depths of desperation and she's self-published.  I'd better 'like' it and say I'll buy it just to make her feel better". And that wasn't what I wanted.  Not what I wanted at all.

I am not one of life's natural 'sellers'.  Give me a vanful of double glazed windows and I will paint pretty pictures on them rather than push them on unsuspecting members of the public.  Give me a bag full of leaflets to hand out and I'll turn them into swans and fans in lieu of squashing them into unyielding palms of strangers. Give me a market stall and instead of bawling "Grabba bargain over here love, pound of spuds fer a pound!"   I'll  hand out steaming cups of tea and slices of cake and have chats with anybody who feels like stopping by.  In short, I don't 'do' selling.  If somebody wants something, they will, as Darwin would probably corroborate, go out and look for it and ask for advice if they need it.  After all, that's what I'd do.

So I didn't want to make a song and dance.  I wanted my words to just be Out There.  Like they would've been had they been printed on paper and bound and wrapped in a lovely enticing cover and placed nicely on a shelf in a bookshop. Only the e-way. And anyway my Facebook friends weren't my target audience.  Hell, some of them don't even know what a book is *waves to husband*.  So I did a couple of 'Promo's i.e. I put my books on for free for a 24 hour or 48 hour stretch to see what would happen.
And guess what?
The figures speak for themselves.

January:

'Dead Good' = 11 'Re:Becca' = 1

February :

'Dead Good' = 583  'Re:Becca' = 276

March:

'Dead Good' = 12 'Re:Becca' = 1 'Let's Go Round Again' = 626

April:

'Dead Good' = 13 'Re:Becca' = 2 'Let's Go Round Again' = 12

May:

'Dead Good' = 3 'Re:Becca' = 241 'Let's Go Round Again' = 5

So, when I've promo'd my book for free on the 3 days that I've done it (Amazon do their own freebie days and authors get 5 days per month of their own choosing) the 'sales' figues have absolutely rocketed (*see above*). BUT this doesn't mean that the book is getting read.  We've all done it - I'm not without blame.  If there's a free read going and the opening sample is interesting enough and makes me want to read on, then I'll download it.  I might not read it right now, but I have it on my system ready for when I remember it's there and I need something to read.

And it's this little spark of knowing that somewhere someone has - during the free promo at least - read the opening sample of my books and thought 'yeah, that looks good enough to save for later' and has gone to the trouble of actually bothering to press a few keys and downloaded it for ... whenever.  I don't mind.  It's out there and even if it never gets read or reviewed, I know that for a few brief minutes it was worth it - because they thought that it was.

p.s. I won't mention the very hurtful (and ambiguous) "units refunded" column on the download report and how I'm automatically drawn to the *1* that sits sadly in that list.  I have already assumed the worst.  It was such a sh*t read that the purchaser felt compelled to demand the 99p refund or it was an accidental download which wasn't even worth keeping as a back-up... sometimes I really don't like the Math 'cos the imagination gets way too involved.

p.p.s  I've just added it up and I'm averaging approx £5.38/month in 'royalties'. I'm sure that must say something but I don't think I'm listening!

Shamless Plug...

So...today is just any other day for most folk. Wondering about where might sell petrol and Easter eggs.
Perhaps you're in work, planning how to kill the boss with only a teaspoon and a mousepad. Or perhaps you're at home with the kids, wondering how to keep them entertained for the rest of the holidays with only a teaspoon and a mousepad.

Well stop.

Today is not just any other day.

Today is the publication day of my fifth book!

I know, I know, the excitement in the air is palpable. Amazon has crashed twice through sheer demand and WHSmiths are handing out hot drinks to those who have been waiting patiently in line through the night...

Or not.

Either way, I thought I'd tell you lot about it because, frankly, it's the most interesting thing that is going to happen to me today and at least it will save me wittering about the state of the publishing industry, or the evils of Facebook.
HB x

Kerry Wilkinson, bestselling e-author answers some Quick Fire Questions

Kerry Wilkinson, sports journalist and self-published crime writer has become the most popular author in the Kindle charts after selling more than 250,000 e-books in six months.

 
He told futurebook (http://futurebook.net/content/reader-first-approach-writing-and-self-publishing): “Ultimately, I'm a kid from a council estate in Somerset. I grew up reading those thin Doctor Who paperbacks which were almost entirely written by Terrance Dicks. I love books, I collect them.
There is no way I should be able to compete with a massive major publisher - let alone beat them. How have I done it? I'm not sure I really know. I can only ever continue to act on instinct. After all, I'm a reader first.”

We were thrilled when Kerry said he had time in his manic schedule to answer a few Quick Fire Questions on Strictly Writing.

1. Who is you favourite Doctor from Doctor Who and why?
- I always like whoever the current guy is so, at the moment, Matt Smith.

2. Where do you write?
- Pretty much everywhere. Sometimes, if I'm on a day off, I'll use my netbook in bed and write through the morning. I mainly write on the sofa at home, but I also write on my lunchbreak at work, I've written on trains and on planes, everywhere really.

3. Best writing snack?
- I don't think anyone can function creatively without biscuits (cookies for our American chums). I have, in the past, nicked out the supermarket before settling down to work because the house has been devoid of sugar-based snacks. I'm also a fan of a good old fashioned biscuit tin. There's something endearingly British about all that crumbly crap you end up with at the bottom.

4. Soundtrack (if so, what) or peace and quiet?
- I pretty much need the house to be silent but I'm also a walking hypocrite because I can write on a train, etc, where it isn't quiet at all. The ideal soundtrack is the noise of the ice cream man pulling up outside our house. I always move quickest when I'm trying to find my shoes and some money to get out the door before he pulls away. Then I can settle back on to the sofa with a bonus ice cream to aid my creative process.

5. Which book/writer has/had any major influence on you?
- I don't know really. I don't particularly follow individuals. I read more comics and sci-fi stuff than I do prose fiction. Through that, you could say Ed Brubaker or Brian Bendis but I've read some really great stuff. People are missing out big-time if they don't think comics can tell good stories. Things like Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, The Walking Dead, Preacher, Supreme Power, Blankets and many many others. Comics teach you about plotting too because they rely on finishing on a belting cilffhanger every 20-odd pages. If they don't do that, people don't buy the next issue, which means the writer has to stop telling his story.

6. What are you reading right now?
- Chris Jericho's first autobiography. It is very funny and very good. I just finished the Alan Partridge autobiography for the third time. It's the funniest book I've ever read. I think I could read it over and over and not get bored.

7. Has (and how) ‘overnight success’ affected your ordinary daily life?
- Basically, not at all. I'm still the same person I was a year ago. I just now have better excuses for not tidying up around the house. "I've been writing all day" garners more sympathy than "I've been on the PlayStation all day".

8. Laptop or paper?
- What's this paper you speak of?

9. Where do the ideas come from?
- The broad ideas usually come from small stories which you might stumble across in a newspaper or on the radio news or something like that. Sometimes it will just be one line that will sets your imagination off. The whole of book two, Vigilante, was born out of a throwaway line at the bottom of a much wider newspaper feature. The funny thing was, someone left a review saying that certain part of the book was "unrealistic" when it was the only part based on fact! I think people are very quick to call things "unrealistic" because real life will always be stranger at some point. Think of things like the David Kelly saga, or the Stockport saline story. That's far "better" in a story sense than most things you could make up.

A lot of the character stuff comes from incidents I've seen over the years or people I've met, although not necesarily directly. Again, sometimes you might see the startings of an event in real life, then you reimagine them with your characters.

11.The best advice you could give to an aspiring writer?
- Not even a writer, just anyone who wants to do something creative: Do it because you want to. I never feel pressured to write. I only keep going because I have something left to say and pads of unused ideas. It's why I never have writer's block. I've never once sat around wondering what happens next.

12. What would you have liked Q.10 to have been?
- I prefer to think of question 10 as like those 11 days in 1752 when Britain jumped from 2 September to 14 September because the country switched to the Gregorian calendar.

Kerry's website/blog is here: Kerry Wilkinson.com  and you can read the openings of Kerry's first three books,  'Locked In', 'Vigilante', and 'The Woman in Black' on Amazon.  Look out for the fourth and fifth books in the Jessica Daniels' series, 'Think of the Children' and 'Playing with Fire' which will be out later this year.

Gotta Wear Shades

Last week I received my royalty statements for the period January to June 2011.

Yeah, I know it's November, but you remember the publishing industry works on glacial time right?

Anyway, late or not, the statements brought a smile to my face.

Not immediately, you understand. For anyone who has never seen a royalty statement they are possibly the most complicated documents known to man. And I say that as a lawyer in my previous life. So obviously it took me half an hour of knitted eyebrow gymnastics to work out even the basics of what is going on with my books, before the smile broke out.

And no, before Mr Black starts packing for Rio, it wasn't because I'd just sold my millionth copy.

The reason was that for the first time my ebook sales outweighed my paperback sales.

For some time now we've all been told that the digital revolution was on its way. That the ebook reader was about to take its place alongside the ipod. And like many a writer I've been somewhat sceptical. Would the general public really want to read novels from a screen?

The answer seems to be a decided yes...which in turn has made me consider a number of other convictions I've held.

I've always said, and there's no point denying it, that distribution was the key to selling books in any numbers. I've ranted here for example, about authors who have been dropped by their publishers for poor sales when their books never made it into the shops.

My view has always been that the main way to sell books is to have them out there. That the public need to see them. Sure, the punters will go to Amazon et al for a bargain, but what they are buying online are the books that are visible in the shops.

Well hang on a moment. My royalty statement tells me that my very first book, Damaged Goods, has been flying off the eshelves. This, a novel, that was published five years ago and, as far as I can tell, isn't in any shops at the moment.

So what is it that is making people buy them? I'd like to say I'm a household name, but I'm not that delusional. So what is making people who have probably never heard of me buy my oldest book?

The answer seems to be a clever viral campaign by my publishers, very low pricing (readers will take a chance on things they haven't shelled out too much for) and high ranking on Amazon. The latter of course is a self fullfilling prophesy; the more you sell the higher you rank, the higher you rank, the more you sell.

When readers have emailed saying they liked DG, I've asked them how they came to buy it and quite a number have confirmed that they saw it in the top ten female detective list on Amazon and given it was selling for a couple of quid, they thought what the hell.

Now sales at low prices aint ever going to make me rich, I'll grant you. A percentage of fuck all is...well you get the picture. But if a section of this new audience likes what I do and goes on to buy my other stuff, then it's absolutely worth it to me.

All this has also made me reconsider whether self published authors can make a success of it. In the past, I'd have said no. That without the sales and marketing team of a publishing house behind them, an author can't get the necessary distribution. But does that still hold true? If a self published author produced an ebook, marketed it aggressively online and sold it for a song could they sell in numbers? Thre answer in truth is I don't know.

The times they are a-changing. And I think I like it.

Book report

I try to read as many newly released books as I can, mainly those in the so-called literary genre, but as you know, it’s like taking on the role of a goalkeeper when a thousand balls are heading toward you. As much as I desperately want to read every book as soon as it's released, I fully appreciate that even the keenest (and fastest) of readers will only select from those newly released books that most interest them. I’ve only read a handful of books this year – the first half of the year was obliterated thanks to having severe hyperemesis. I’ve missed so many good books in recent months but I always try to add them to my Amazon wish list so they don’t slip through the net altogether.

I’ve just ordered this year’s entire Booker shortlist as a Christmas present for myself (!), not only because it looks like a fine combo, but also to see if I agree with the judges’ decision. I have a feeling I won’t though. I’m especially looking forward to reading The Sisters Brothers (shouldn’t there be an apostrophe there?) Then there’s Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan published by the highly respected Serpent’s Tail. My first inkling when I saw the cover was that this particular book had been written by a man. Just goes to show you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

Talking about having missed many fine reads over the last year, I dug around Amazon and added quite a few ‘must have’ books to my list, not all of them literary though. I really want to read The Pink Hotel by Ana Stothard, but I may just keep it as my summer sunbathing read. I also added Submission by Amy Waldman, a September 11 novel, The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon, The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal, Saraswati Park by Anjali Joseph, The Pleasure Seekers by Tishani Doshi (I love the cover), The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht, and The Privileges by Jonathan Dee. I could go on and on and tell you about the 319 books I have on the list. I hope I live long enough to get through the list which isn’t yet complete, and which grows each week, thanks to the Sunday Times Culture section among other supplements.

It’s nice to cosy up with a good book on a cold winter’s night, listening to the gentle patter of snow on the window pane. That, I suppose, is the only good thing about winter. And I'm looking forward to getting through this long list I have. Sadly though, even if I spent every minute of every day of every year for the next fifty years, would I be able to be goalkeeper to all these wonderful books?

Envy? Dream on!

Should anybody mention online that they’re not particularly keen on Twilight, they face the prospect of die-hard fans popping up to say ‘OMG ur soooo stupid how can u hate my edward ur just jelus!!!’

I’ve noticed, however, that assumptions of literary jealousy aren’t confined to the inarticulate. They're a standard way of comforting an author who has received a bad Amazon review.

‘Ignore him,’ the author’s friends say. ‘He's obviously jealous because you're a better writer than he is.’

Whether or not they technically mean 'envious', comforting a distressed author is a nice thing to do, so I’m not going to suggest people tell their writing chums to stop whining. I don’t believe, however, that bad reviews are automatically the result of jealousy or envy. Books are commodities purchased by readers, who have no obligation to see the author as anything other than a name on the cover. It's a bit conceited to imagine they give you a second thought, let alone be so awestruck by your talent that they're seething in resentment about it.

No doubt there are some occasions when a reader has a personal grudge against a writer who once refused to help with their English homework in 1989. But the average book-lover is an intelligent individual choosing a product that they hope to enjoy, not a supervillain on a mission to destroy the mental state of the person who produced it.

The reading relationship surely isn't between the reader and the writer but between the reader and the book. Sometimes it doesn’t work out and the reader is disappointed. Maybe they feel misled by the cover or bewildered that the story doesn't live up to a friend's recommendation. Maybe they are amused at how far-fetched they found the plot, or maybe they're downright angry at having wasted their money. Expressing an opinion about this is natural, even if writers wail: 'What sort of miserable little person could put so much time and energy into writing a bad review?' Well, people are free to use their time and energy how they like – after all, you used yours writing an entire book for some reason.

If I had a disappointing meal in a restaurant, I might tell other people not to bother going there. This does not mean I was jealous of the chef and determined to crush his delicate feelings. If a recently fitted tap starts to leak, I might find this annoying - but I'm not therefore responsible for the plumber's depression and alcoholism. (Incidentally, why are plumbers the standard unit of measurement when comparing writing with other occupations?)

The difference with these situations is that one can get some money back or have the problem fixed. It's more difficult to return a book to the shop just because you didn't enjoy it. Negative reviews are perhaps a way of redressing a perceived imbalance of power and enabling the reader to get a refund on their emotional investment. This does not need to have anything to do with envy. Are we writers so awash with talent and all-round amazingness that everyone envies us? Yeah, right!

Feeling mortified and upset (in private) is a valid writerly response to a bad review. But that does not make the reviewer jealous, stupid, evil, lonely, bitter, twisted, untalented, or any of the other adjectives our well-meaning buddies might come up with.

A person just didn't like your book. That's about it, really.

Online Book Promotion for Idiots

Today, I am cheating. I've been ill for two weeks with swine flu. (Actually, it's sinusitis, but I'm a writer, I'm allowed to be melodramatic.) It has killed my last remaining brain cell and I am not up to writing a proper article. So, bearing in mind only five people ever read my own blog, I'm taking a gamble on you not noticing the fact that I have rehashed this post from something I wrote last year:

With fewer publisher pounds going into publicity these days, authors are increasingly expected to do the bulk of their own book promotion. Fortunately for us, the web provides a wealth of free opportunities. Unfortunately for everyone else, some authors don't realise what will do more harm than good. Here are the instructions for becoming one of those authors...

1. Join every book-related forum you can find – the members are waiting with bated breath to hear about your opus. Don't read the forum first, or introduce yourself – there’s no time for that in the fast-paced online world. Your first (and only) post should be:

You all should read The Undertaker by Doug Graves, ISBN 978-14M4N1D10T. This hilarious comic fictional novel has been described as Terry Pratchett meets The Da Vinci Code!!! Buy it now!!!

If it's a forum for writers rather than readers, add:

Yes, it happened to me!! I'm living proof that you should never give up! Be inspired, because even you miserable wannabes might one day manage to get published like ME!!

Then move on to the next site and wait for your Amazon ranking to shoot into the top 10.

2. Just think of all those stupid agents who rejected you. There's nothing that will humble them so much as a mass email with your ISBN and a huge attachment of the cover image. Ha! The joke’s on them now. They'll realise that they made the worst mistake of their life and will buy your book to serve as a constant reminder of their own fallibility.

3. Did some ignorant Amazon reviewer only give your book three stars? Don’t worry – you can turn this to your advantage. Use the comments facility to say:

Wow, did I upset you in a former life, you moron? This is not *supposed* to be great literature – are you too stupid to see that? Well, obviously you ARE, because there's a typo in the third line of your “review.” I know where you live, so if you keep telling people you only found my book “fairly amusing,” you’d better watch out, OK? And I'm getting all my friends to mark your review as unhelpful. So there.

The reviewer will be so scared he’ll give your next book five stars, and everyone else will be so in awe of your feistiness that they’ll place an order straight away. Result!

4. Put a SIGNED FIRST EDITION!!!!! on eBay. The key to success is to have at least ten identical auctions running simultaneously – you wouldn’t want anyone to miss out now, would you?

5. This is the most important one: plug your book in the comments section of blogs. DON'T just stick to relevant blogs, either – you never know who might be interested:

This sounds like a fun lake to go carp fishing – if you're sad enough to like that sort of thing LOL! By the way, if you’re interested, my latest novel “The Hound of the D’Urbervilles,” ISBN 978-5UPER1D10T, is a pacey thriller featuring Tess as a jaded detective and Angel Clare as her bumbling sidekick. It’s available from Amazon for only £17.99. Happy angling or whatever you call it!


Good luck! You'll need it.

Most of this post originally appeared on Writing and all that.
Oh yeah, and... you all should buy my book!!! Visit http://www.carolinerance.co.uk/ to find out how!!!

Quickfire Questions with...Imogen Robertson

Imogen Robertson was born in Darlington in 1973 and is a TV, film and radio director. Her first novel, 'Instruments of Darkness', is a historical thriller set in 1780 and will be published by Headline in May 2009. The opening section of the book was chosen as one of the winners in the Daily Telegraph's 'First thousand words of a novel' competition in 2007, which inspired her to write the rest of it. She also received a commendation in the National Poetry Competition in 2005. She lives in London with a lot of books and a cello and is currently writing full time.

Longhand first or straight to computer?
Computer for prose and longhand for poetry. I'd never have a writing career without spellcheck and the cut and paste function.

Poetry or prose?
I like both. Same way I like pies and cakes. Never, never make me choose.

The hardest thing about writing is…
Starting. After that the hardest thing is stopping.

First drafts are…
The fun bit.

My underlying themes are…
Sex and death, same as everyone else!

The writing achievement I am most proud of is…
Getting a two-book deal with Headline. The lovely, lovely people.

I wouldn't have got this far without…
A great deal of patience from my friends and family. Oh, and whining a lot.

I'm most inspired by…
Long walks by the Thames and hearing people talk about their enthusiasms.

My shameful writing secret is…
I smoke like a chimney when I'm writing, and I'm afraid if I give up I won’t be able to do the work.

My writing dream is…
To earn enough to pay the mortgage by looking out of the window and making things up.

The most exciting thing about writing is…
When characters take over and do things you didn't expect; or the moments when the right word seems to drop right out of the sky and land in the right place in your sentence.


Which 3 writers, dead or alive, would you invite to dinner?
Dostoevsky, Tess Gerritsen and Georgette Heyer. Not sure they'd all get on, but I'd enjoy it.

Independent bookshop or Amazon?
Independents are the best places to browse; Amazon's where I go when I know just what I'm after and want it NOW!

You really must read…
All of William Boyd, Akmatova and Hilary Mantel's Beyond Black

If I were to try writing in another genre it would be…
Fantasy, or some brilliant semi-auto-biographical work of dodgey erotica. Actually, that's pretty much the same thing, isn't it?

Email or phone?
Email as a rule. I have a bit of a phone phobia...

The best thing about being a published author is…
Signing copies, and having the necessary cash to write full time. That's just paradise.

A writer should never…
Get lazy.

If I could pass on any tip it would be…
Challenge your work. Always ask is this good enough? Am I engaging the reader, am I delivering, are my characters behaving like themselves or am I forcing them into things for the sake of my plot? Is this real?

If I could go back and do it all again I would…
Make all the same mistakes. It's how we learn.

Thanks to Rebecca Kay for the author photo. And to Susie for the interview!