Tag Archives: indie publishing

A writer’s motivation

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I am pleased to say my re-write of No Justice, the fifth in my Scarborough Mysteries series, is going well. I am finding some inventive ways to tell the story and I am also pulling apart the time-line, giving the narrative more space to breathe. It all appears a bit messy at the moment, but I like messy and I am confident it will all come together in the end.

Last week I met with a friend of mine and we got into a discussion about the pros and cons of indie publishing against the pros and cons of having a literary agent. For those of you who are regular readers of my posts, you will know that I don’t exactly choose the indie route, it is more thrust upon me. I don’t feel it suits me as I am not good at marketing. I am very grateful for the readers I have, but it is fair to say, I appeal to a niche market. I am not terribly commercial. On the other hand during our discussion, I did come to appreciate the freedom of being an indie. The freedom to try out. The freedom to experiment.

We tend to think that because the publishing industry is as it is today – with large conglomerate publishers and literary agents as gate-keepers (at least for fiction) – thus it has always been. Not so. We only have to go back a hundred years to find a much more mixed picture. Authors who are now household names basically ‘self-publishing’ or publishing by subscription (the original crowd-funding). Sometime between then and now publishers and literary agents ascended to the power they currently have to decide what we shall and shall not read.

New technology should have brought some democracy. However, it seems to me, that the reading public has not embraced the possibilities as much as the listening public has for music. Reviews, TV/radio slots, bookshops, awards, festivals, long & short listing still dominate how readers decide on their next purchase. These are almost entirely closed to indie published novels.

I am as guilty as the next reader. If you want to sample indie, you really have to go looking forward it and do your own research. Having said all that, there are stories all over social media (and figures from Amazon) showing indie published authors who have readers in their millions and who make more money than traditionally published authors, so there are other experiences than mine.

My friend ended our discussion by asking the age-old question: why do we do it? If readers, exposure and money are not guaranteed, why do we keep slogging away? Plus, though the books we write are all-important to us, containing as they do our toil, our imagination, little particles of us, it must be realised that for most readers they are ephemeral. They are in a reader’s hands for only a short while before they land on the pile for the charity shop.

The only answer I could give my friend is that I do it for the love, because I enjoy the process. I find enormous pleasure in the splurge of ideas at the beginning of the writing journey and then in the crafting, crafting until I have something I feel I might want to share. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t do it.

Why do you do it? What motivates you?

 

Experimentation in Writing

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I have begun my read through of novel #5, No Justice. I put it away several months ago, so I am coming to it with a relatively clear head, in preparation for re-writing. I had set out to write a straight forward crime novel, but it seems I am incapable of straight forward. I break several ‘cardinal’ rules: there are many characters; there are many narrative voices; there are ‘poetic’ descriptions; we’re several chapters in and there is no crime to investigate.

On the other hand I enjoy writing (and reading) it, and since I may be its sole reader, isn’t that the point?

I admire writers and artists who break the rules and stick to their own creative vision. We would not have most contemporary prose without Virginia Woolf’s ‘stream of consciousness’ approach. Yet she had to self-publish as she could not cope with the rejections she got from commercial publishers. She and her husband Leonard set up the Hogarth Press to publish her novels in 1917 with a hand-press in their dining room. The hand-press cost them £19, the equivalent of £900 today. Hogarth press is now part of Random House publishing. Ironically perhaps, RH is one of the big conglomerates which currently so dominate the market that they can dictate what books we find on shops’ shelves and what reviews we find in the media.

I have written elsewhere about trends in experimenting with the narrative arc (https://bit.ly/2yTSX6Q). I recently read Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor and boy does he knock around with our expectations of story-telling. Each chapter is a year, there is no traditional paragraphing, human tales are given the same value/space as nature’s tales, there are no speech marks (this last, I personally found rather confusing). Not to mention the unresolved resolution. I had some complaints about the ending to my first novel, The Art of the Imperfect (for me the clue was in the title, it’s going to be imperfect). I would suggest these critics would hate McGregor’s finish.

I understand that some readers want an easy ride, they don’t want to be pushed or challenged, but I like it, and I want greater daring to come into my writing. In my last post (https://bit.ly/2xinR5B) I said I was entering a piece into a novella competition. I made the deadline and my submission included fictional prose (which moved between centuries), literary criticism and poetry. Maybe the judges will merely see it as a mish-mash, however, I was pleased to have attempted something different.

Currently I am wondering how to pull apart the timeline in No Justice without losing pace. Or, given I’m already transgressing various ‘cardinal’ rules, maybe it’s OK to lose pace?

How do you experiment in your writing?

 

Talks, Ideas, Inspirations

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Vanessa Bell’s cover for Virginia Woolf’s novel ‘To the Lighthouse’ British Library collection.

A Book By Its Cover

Do we make judgements about what book we want to read from what’s on its cover? I love books. I love reading them. I love writing them. I love the feel of them. I love the smell of them. I love book covers. I became more interested in book covers when I volunteered in the library here in Scarborough and picked for clients of the home library. I became more aware of how the book cover influenced my decision over whether a certain book would be suitable for a certain reader. My interest was further developed when I became involved in designing covers for my own novels.

the idea of having an illustrated cover came slowly. Right through the 19th century books were sold with ‘dust jackets’ but these were merely to keep the book clean, were usually made of stiff brown paper and were thrown away once the book was taken home. It would be into the 20th century before this dust jacket would be routinely illustrated. By 1911 a writer was complaining of a new commercial turn, publishers being “convinced that a book, like a woman, is none the worse, but rather the better, for having a good dressmaker”

What to learn more? Come to my talk on Book Cover Art which I will be presenting at various venues in April:

Saturday, 7th April, Scarborough Library, Vernon Road, 1045-midday for Friends of the Library (all welcome).
Tuesday, 17th April, Woodend Creative, The Crescent, Scarborough, 1-2pm. Ticketed event. Please call: 01723 384500.
Monday, 23rd April, Filey Library, part of World Book Night. 6pm-715pm. Please call: 01609 53 6608

The Human History of Walking

Women walked in protest to get the vote.

People have walked because they had to, to get from one place to another, to explore, to go on pilgrimage. And they have walked as protest. If we look back at a revolutionary time in the UK’s history, the 17th century, when we beheaded a king and, for a brief time, had a republic, pilgrimage and protest became intertwined. 

It’s 1655, two women are walking the muddy bye-ways towards Salisbury. They are wearing plain dresses and bonnets, stout boots, a warm cloak. They are the itinerant Quaker preachers Katharine Evans (my namesake) and Sarah Chevers. They believe – as preached by George Fox – that God’s light is within them, as it is within everyone. It is a type of pilgrimage, but it is also a protest. A protest against a church where the power rested in the hands of a few rich men. A protest against a religion which said God’s words had to be mediated through a male priest. A protest against a church which gives divine authority to unjust wars and injustice in society.

….

Some 18 years ago, I was in the grip of a severe depression. I had always enjoyed walking, but during that time, it became a necessity, it became a way for me to untangle some of the mess that was in my head. Since then, I have become more interested in how walking is essential to wellbeing and to creativity – which is, in itself, nourishing of wellbeing. 

I am a writer and walking has become an intrinsic part of my writing process. In September 2015 I walked St Cuthbert’s Way with my sister, a 100km route from Melrose in the borders of Scotland, to Lindisfarne in Northumberland. This long-distance walk also gave me an opportunity to experience the intertwining of walking and writing.

Want to learn more? Come to my talk on Tuesday 24th April, Woodend Creative, The Crescent, Scarborough, 1-2pm. Ticketed event. Please call: 01723 384500.

 

 

Author Interview: Maggie James

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This week I am delighted to invite fellow writer, Maggie James to my blog. Living in Bristol, she writes psychological suspense novels. Her first book, His Kidnapper’s Shoes, was completed in 2011 and self-published in 2013. It has now been republished under a contract with Lake Union. Maggie’s next three books, Sister, Psychopath, Guilty Innocence and The Second Captive followed, along with a free novella, Blackwater Lake. She has also written a non-fiction book aimed at would-be authors, called Write Your Novel! From Getting Started to First Draft. She recently signed a two-book deal with Bloodhound Books for Guilty Innocence and The Second Captive. They will be republished later in 2017. 

Her latest novel is After She’s Gone, published by Lake Union on March 16, 2017 (http://smarturl.it/aftershesgone).

Before turning her hand to writing, Maggie worked mainly as an accountant, with a diversion into practising as a nutritional therapist. Diet and health remain high on her list of interests, along with travel. Accountancy does not, but then it never did. The urge to pack a bag and go off travelling is always lurking in the background. When not writing, going to the gym, practising yoga or travelling, Maggie can be found seeking new four-legged friends to pet; animals are a lifelong love.

What are you currently working on?
I have two writing projects on the go at present. One is plotting my sixth novel, title as yet unknown, which will examine the theme of betrayal. I got the idea from a TV documentary centred on con artists and the suffering they wreak on their victims. The concept is still in the early stages, but I’m keen to start writing. The other book I’m working on is a revised version of my second novel, Sister Psychopath.

What has inspired your most recent novel/writing?
My latest novel is After She’s Gone, released on March 16, 2017. I’d been drawn to the theme of arson for a while, as well as examining how a family copes with murder. Somehow the two ideas became interwoven and ended up as After She’s Gone. In the book, the dead body of a teenage girl is found in a burning building, and as her grief-stricken relatives struggle with the fallout, the fires move ever closer to their home. Who is setting them, and why are they targeting the Goldens?

How much do you think fiction intertwines with real life?
Very much so in some cases, as I’ve found out. After I finished the first draft of His Kidnapper’s Shoes, a case came to light in America of a young child who was snatched as a baby and brought up by her abductor. A similar situation, also in the USA, emerged recently. My book wasn’t inspired by such events – I got the idea after a casual conversation – but the similarity was spooky. Sister, Psychopath was also inspired by a real-life murder. As for Blackwater Lake, I suspect that somewhere buried deep in someone’s compulsive hoarding may indeed be the solution to a crime, as happens in my novella.

Many novels have intertwined fiction with real life, of course. Take Robert Bloch’s novel, Psycho, based on the killer Ed Gein. Or Lionel Shiver’s We Need to Talk about Kevin, inspired by the 1999 Colombine shootings. Real life can provide fertile materials for novelists, and that won’t stop anytime soon.

Could you give five tips on how to tackle either characterisation or plotting or dialogue or descriptive passages?
I think I’ll go with dialogue on this one. Here are my five tips:

  1. This one gets mentioned a lot by authors and editors, but it’s important: don’t overuse speech tags. For the most part it should be clear who’s speaking, so you don’t need to add ‘he said/she said’ to every sentence. It’s unnecessary and clogs the flow of the discourse. Less is more.
  2. For dialogue that does require a speech tag, keep it simple. ‘Said’ is often the most effective one. You don’t need verbs like ‘averred’, ‘theorised’, ‘opined’, etc. The brain tends to skip over short, familiar words like ‘said’, whereas ‘expostulated’ will cause it to do a double take. You don’t want to write something that will jar the reader’s attention away from your story.
  3. Make it sound natural, but without all the ‘ums’, ‘ers’, ‘likes’ and ‘you-knows’ that clog most people’s speech. Contractions such as don’t, shouldn’t, won’t are good, though, because we all use them.
  4. Dialect is a difficult one to get right. Don’t attempt to convey regional speech by changing the spelling of words, as it irritates many readers. It’s best to use speech patterns and colloquialisms instead.
  5. Read your dialogue aloud. What better way to discover if your written conversations sound authentic? Or try text to speech software.

 How would you describe your writing process?
I’m a planner by nature; I couldn’t write a novel without a road map to get my story to where it needs to go. I use the Snowflake method of plotting, whereby I take an idea, and expand it until it’s a fully-fledged outline, complete with character notes, timeline, etc.  For writing software, I use Scrivener, and I love it; it’s excellent and worth every penny of the paltry purchase price. It’s customisable, flexible, and enables me to keep everything I need – research, notes, etc. – all in one place. Then it compiles my document into a formatted e-book in a couple of clicks. Magic!

After I’ve done the basic plotting, it takes me about two months to write the first draft. The next part, editing and revising, takes me much longer. I can spend forever tweaking my narrative, so when I can’t stand the sight of it any longer, I know it’s time to release it to the world.

What helps you to write/what gets in the way?
As I’ve mentioned, I couldn’t write without a structured outline. I could just about make do without Scrivener – after all, my first novel was written using Microsoft Word – but I wouldn’t want to. I need silence to write as well, although white noise such as traffic is fine. Definitely no music, though. As for what gets in the way, sometimes my motivation isn’t as high as I’d like, and I procrastinate. If I’ve had a great writing session one day, completing lots of words, I often need to take it easy the day after. It’s all about balance, I guess.

What kind of research do you do & how do you go about it?
It depends on what the novel requires. I’m not keen on doing lots of research, as I’d rather be writing, but at the same time I don’t want inaccuracies in my books. For police procedural matters, I use Michael O’Byrne’s The Crime Writer’s Guide to Police Practice and Procedure, along with picking the brains of a couple of friends who are retired police officers.

Google is my friend when it comes to research. Like many novelists, I often joke that the police would have a field day should they ever inspect my browsing history. I’ve used Google to check out topics such as identity theft, computer hacking, body decomposition rates, etc.

I also often visit the locations involved in my books. They’re all based in my home city of Bristol, so I can easily check whatever I need. For example, The Second Captive involved a very pleasant afternoon wandering round Siston, taking notes and photographs.

If you are indie published, why did you choose this route? What are your five tips for would-be indie authors? What are the pros & cons to indie publishing?
I’m a hybrid author, meaning that some of my books are with publishing houses and others are self-published. I’d recommend anyone to try self-publishing, even if they hanker after a traditional contract. More and more publishers are keeping an eye on who’s doing well in the self-published world and signing them up. It’s happened to me, as well as to other author friends.

My five tips for indie authors? Here they are:

  1. Don’t skimp on editing. Hire the best you can afford, and listen carefully to his/her suggestions. My editor, Gillian Holmes, has been invaluable in helping me polish my books. Please don’t be like some authors who think correct spelling, punctuation and grammar don’t matter. Self-publishing equates to low standards in the minds of many readers, and it’s a perception with some basis in truth, given a few of the books I’ve read.
  2. Get the best cover you can afford. I often see real howlers on Amazon that look as though I’ve created them; they’re that bad! (There are websites devoted to poking fun at these gems, but I digress.) People do judge books by their covers, and a sloppy one with amateurish fonts might well sink your novel.
  3. Build your author platform as you write your book, so that it’s ready for when you launch. I didn’t, and regretted it later. Set up a website and start cultivating readers, book bloggers and other writers on social media as soon as possible.
  4. Develop a thick skin if you intend to read your reviews. Many authors choose not to; the Internet can be a brutal place and some readers can be unnecessarily vicious.
  5. Learn as much as you can about book marketing. Check out successful authors on social media and find out how they operate. A good start is Joanna Penn’s blog The Creative Penn. It’s packed with advice for indie authors, and Joanna’s written several useful books about marketing.

Pros of self-publishing? In my view this option holds most of the cards. You can set the pace for your writing career, writing as little or as much as you want, and pocketing 70% royalties from Amazon. You’ll need to work hard on your marketing, and put in a lot of hours, but big rewards are possible. A con of self-publishing can be the lack of support and the feeling that you’re going it alone, although that can be mitigated by forming strong support networks with other writers.

If you are traditionally published, could you say something of your journey and your experience?
Until last year, I was entirely self-published, and happy to be so. Having been offered a traditional contract a while back, and rejecting it, I was clear I wanted to remain self-published. My reasons? Higher royalties along with total control over every step of the publication process. That was until I got a phone call one afternoon.

I found myself talking with an acquisitions editor from Lake Union, one of Amazon’s publishing imprints. She enthused over His Kidnapper’s Shoes, and we chatted, with her saying she’d like to explore ways to work with me. More phone calls and emails followed, the end result being the offer of a publishing contract for His Kidnapper’s Shoes and my latest novel, After She’s Gone. Lake Union, being a digital publisher, can offer a far more attractive deal than the traditional publishing firms, and after a lot of thought I accepted, thus becoming a hybrid author.

Since then, I’ve signed a two-book deal with Bloodhound Books, who will re-release my novels Guilty Innocence and The Second Captive later this year. At this stage I’m unsure what will happen with future books, but I suspect I may retain my hybrid status. It seems to offer the best of both worlds.

The question you wished I’d asked you.
I think I’ll go with, ‘Have you always wanted to be a novelist?’ I chose that question thanks to my delight at being able to write fulltime, as it’s the culmination of a lifelong ambition. As a child, I devoured books (nothing has changed!) and never doubted I’d become a novelist when I grew up. Instead, when I reached adulthood, I went into accountancy, where I stayed for the next twenty-eight years. The urge to write never left me, even though I did nothing about it. In my forties, I started penning some short pieces, which were well received online, but I found the idea of a novel daunting. Then I ran into issues at work, which I used as a wake-up call. I booked flights to Asia, Australia and South America and travelled for a year, with the aim of writing the first draft of a novel while away. And that’s what happened, with me finishing His Kidnapper’s Shoes while enjoying the splendours of Bolivia.

How can readers find you and learn more about your writing?
My website and blog can be found at http://www.maggiejamesfiction.com. You can find links to all my books, including my non-fiction offering, Write Your Novel! From Getting Started to First Draft. You can also download my free novella, Blackwater Lake. I blog weekly on all matters book-related, including reviews, discussion topics and author interviews. You can also sign up for my newsletter and receive free books.

Here are my social media links:
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/MJamesFiction/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mjamesfiction

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/maggie-james/64/381/727

Google+ : https://plus.google.com/101511690389687930651

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/828751.Maggie_James

Pinterest:  http://www.pinterest.com/maggiejamesfict/

Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Maggie-James/e/B00BS9LVMI

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/maggie-james

 

 

End of another year

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The dwindling pages in my diary tell me that 2016 is running to its close. It’s been the year when I published my third novel, The Art of Breathing, and had new covers designed for the other two, so that they look like a handsome three-some. As part of the launch/re-launch of the #Scarboroughmysteries:

  • I ran a workshop at Beverley Literature Festival;
  • I was interviewed on BBC Radio Humberside and Beverley FM. I had a piece in the Scarborough Review;
  • I was interviewed on several blogs, including by Margarita Morris https://goo.gl/AYxKHA , by Kate Colby https://goo.gl/IjEFzS , by Anne Goodwin https://goo.gl/t34qi8
  • I had my launch at WH Smith in Scarborough on the 29th

    October;

  • since then I have given/facilitated five talks or workshops;
  • local book shop Wardle & Jones (http://wardleandjones.co.uk/) has stocked – and sold – my books. My books are also available in Book Corner Saltburn (http://www.bookcornershop.co.uk/) and The Book Shop, Kirby Stephen. As well as on Amazon in Kindle & paperback.

To be honest, I am not entirely sure what my next writing project will be, my creative reservoir (as Alan Garner puts it) needs to be nourished and re-filled. I expect to write #scarboroughmysteries 4 at some point. But at this precise moment I am also exploring other possibilities, at least partly aided by doing the Curtis Brown on-line novel writing course with Lisa O’Donnell.fjordjune16

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Beach cleaner volunteers 2016

2016 wasn’t just about book publishing – though it feels like it! Hubbie & I had a lovely trip to Norway. Plus, along with a sterling group of volunteers, we did a beach-clean every evening of the summer hols. And I partook in the thriving cultural life of my little town – Coastival; Beach Hut productions; Hull 2 Scarborough Line; Open Mic; and the Mark Hearld exhibition at the Art Gallery, to mention a few.

Of course, I have not been unmoved by the many national/international events which have punctured the year. I have felt anger and deep sadness at the war in Syria and the other evidence of humanity’s potential for unfathomable inhumanity, including the EU’s disappointing response to the migrants attempting to escape persecution, violence and poverty. Then there was disbelief at ‘Brexit’ and Trump. The only way I get through is by concentrating on the random acts of kindness and the extreme bravery of those who do take a stand and make a difference.

I am taking a break now, but will be back blogging in January 2017. Wishing all my readers the very best for the solstice (winter or summer, depending on where you are) and the attendant festivities which you may choose to celebrate. Here’s to a creative and nourishing 2017 for all.

 

Author interview: Margarita Morris

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margarita-m-in-green-400Today I am thrilled to welcome Margarita Morris to my blog, not least because she sets novels in my home town, Scarborough, and (from her writing) appears to be entranced by the place as much as I am.

Margarita Morris is an indie author. She lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and two sons. When she’s not writing, she enjoys swimming, yoga and singing with a local chamber choir. To date she has published four novels. Oranges for Christmas is a Cold War historical thriller about a family separated by the Berlin Wall. Set in 1961, it tells the story of Sabine in East Berlin and her brother, Dieter, in West Berlin and Sabine’s attempts to escape the East German secret police. The Sleeping Angel is a Young Adult mystery/thriller set in 1870, 1970 and the present day. Set in and around Highgate Cemetery it intertwines a Victorian mystery, a vampire hunt and a murder. Scarborough Fair and its sequel, Scarborough Ball, are mystery/thrillers set in the seaside town of Scarborough, England. Scarborough Fair combines a Victorian mystery with a modern day crime story. Scarborough Ball continues the modern day story but moves the historical story on a generation to the 1920s, the age of cinema, flappers and wild parties.

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Click to order: Scarborough Ball

What are you currently working on?
This year, 2016, has seen the publication of Scarborough Fair and the completion of Scarborough Ball which is up for pre-order and will be released on 16 December 2016. It’s taken me around 20 months to write and publish both books. I’m not entirely sure what my next project will be. I have a few ideas lined up which is a good position to be in. I intend to take a little time to play around with those ideas and see what takes root.

What has inspired your most recent novel/writing?
I like books that have a strong sense of place, for example Berlin, Highgate Cemetery and Scarborough. Scarborough is the quintessential Victorian, British seaside town and as a family we’ve had many wonderful holidays there. You can stand on the beach in Scarborough and see the medieval castle on the headland, the Victorian hotels and spa buildings, the old 1920’s Art Deco cinema and the modern amusement arcades all at once. It was this sense of layers of history in one place that inspired me to set a dual-time story in Scarborough.

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Click to order: Scarborough Fair

How would you describe your writing process?
I do a lot of rewriting. It takes me a few months to hit 60,000 words, at which point the story is essentially in place. I take quite a few wrong turns along the way and quickly build up an outtakes file. Once the plot is sorted, I then add in more layers and bring the scenes to life which substantially increases the word count. My husband is my first reader and he always provides constructive feedback. After he’s read it, I do a major rewrite and another edit and polish. Then it goes to the proof readers for final checking.

What kind of research do you do & how do you go about it?
So far all my books have been set in places that I’ve visited. I went to Berlin (including East Berlin) in 1987 before the Berlin Wall came down so I have first-hand experience of Communist East Germany, although fortunately I wasn’t interrogated by the Stasi. I took my family to Berlin in 2013 and we visited the Berlin Wall Memorial site at Bernauer Strasse, the former Stasi headquarters and the former remand prison.

For The Sleeping Angel I booked myself on a tour of Highgate Cemetery and also spent time just wandering around the streets of Highgate and Hampstead Heath, soaking up the atmosphere. As for Scarborough, we’ve had lots of holidays there.

But most of my research comes from reading books. For Oranges for Christmas I did a lot of research into the building of the wall, life in communist countries and the methods people used to try and escape from East Berlin. Whilst writing The Sleeping Angel I learned about spiritualism, Victorian burial practices, the work of Christina Rossetti at Highgate Penitentiary and the events surrounding the so-called Highgate Vampire in 1970. Scarborough Fair saw me exploring the world of Victorian lunatic asylums and for Scarborough Ball I learned about early cinema and popular dance tunes of the period.

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Click to order: Oranges for Christmas

Maps often play an important part in my research. For Oranges for Christmas I invested in a huge fold-out map of Berlin and marked the outline of the wall in highlighter pen. Otherwise Google Maps works just fine.

If you are indie published, why did you choose this route? What are your five tips for would-be indie authors? What are the pros & cons to indie publishing?
I chose indie publishing because I was frustrated with the slow process of submitting to agents and then not hearing from them for ages. I actually wrote The Sleeping Angel before Oranges for Christmas and a couple of agents were interested in it, but it got no further. So I put it in a drawer and moved on to Oranges for Christmas. It was whilst writing Oranges for Christmas that I started to hear about indie publishing and by the time I had finished the novel, I decided I wouldn’t bother submitting it to agents. I’d lost faith in them and was keen to try this new route.

There’s a lot to learn when it comes to indie publishing, but that’s something I enjoy.

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Click to order: The Sleeping Angel

The pros and cons of indie publishing are two sides of the same coin. Yes, you have to do a lot of work yourself, but on the other hand it puts you firmly in control of your own creative process. Here are five key tips:

  • Make the effort to learn about the industry. There are some excellent resources out there. One of the best is The Creative Penn website and podcast by Joanna Penn. Another excellent podcast is The Self Publishing Formula with Mark Dawson and James Blatch. I listen to podcasts whilst I’m doing the ironing or cooking.
  • Make sure your work is edited and proof read. You don’t want to look like an amateur.
  • Get a professional cover. I tried designing my own first covers for Oranges for Christmas and The Sleeping Angel. They weren’t terrible (I hope) but they certainly weren’t brilliant. Since then I’ve had all my covers professionally designed and I love them.
  • Connect with other indie authors through your website (WordPress is recommended) and social media.
  • Be prepared to pay for marketing and advertising. You can get a big sales boost if you advertise a sale on a site like Bookbub or EReaderNewsToday. Unfortunately Bookbub is very difficult to get on, but I keep trying.

How can readers find you and learn more about your writing?

My author website is margaritamorris.com. Here you can find out about all my books and read my blog.

I also run the good writer where I blog about grammar tips, self publishing and creative writing.

You can find me on social media:

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Goodreads

Instagram

 

Book links:

Oranges for Christmas

The Sleeping Angel

Scarborough Fair

Scarborough Ball

 

 

Author Interview: Ruth F Hunt

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the-single-featherToday I am thrilled to welcome Ruth F Hunt to my blog. She is author of the novel The Single Feather (http://www.tinyurl.com/ziaz82m) which has a protagonist who just happens to have disabilities. It asks searching questions about our attitude to disability. She is columnist with The Morning Star, freelance features writer and creative writing workshop facilitator. She is also a perennial student and is finishing off a degree in Creative Writing from The Open University as well as studying for the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCRJ) Diploma. She is an associate member of The Society of Authors and a member of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ).

What are you currently working on?
My intention was to take a brief sabbatical from novel-writing while I finished off my studies, but suppressing ‘the writing monster’ hasn’t been easy at all, and at times I’ve had to let it come out. It isn’t a sequel to The Single Feather, but it does have a social justice element to it, and features characters that are on the margins of life. With Brexit, Trump, the migrant crisis and so on, I think it has become more important for writers and artists to show we have more in common with each other than not.

 What has inspired your most recent novel/writing?
As someone who has both used and worked in the provision of Local Authority (and NHS) services, I’m very much inspired by social issues. I don’t preach politics, but I do examine what is happening in the world and look for ways stories could deepen our understanding of those who may be left behind or disregarded. The Single Feather was told from the point of view of a young woman with paraplegia, who along with others was facing hardening attitudes towards disability, encouraged by sections of the press. It featured characters with disabilities, and some over the age of 60-65. I’ve been delighted with the reviews that show readers have connected with the storyline and have come away with a deeper understanding of what it is like to be disabled. 

Can you give 5 tips about tackling characterisation?
Well rounded, interesting and believable characters should be the aim for any fiction writer.

1) Don’t just look at your character’s life now, but look at what triggers, events, and personal history made them who they are. If they are abrupt and cold, why is this case? If they are needy, find out why. What motivates them in life? What kind of life have they lived up to now? Do they feel fulfilled, or is something missing?

2) Try to spend plenty of time on your minor characters, so they don’t just seem like cardboard cut-outs.

3) If you are a white, straight, able-bodied male or female writer – think about diversity. I’m not talking tokenism here, but instead reflecting the diverse nature of any population. Be careful not to fall into stereotypes.

4) Once you’ve developed your well rounded character, you should already be ‘hearing’ what they ‘sound’ like, so make sure your dialogue fits the character, in terms of age, class, background, education, where they were born, where they live now, and so on.

5) When describing the physical features of your character leave some aspects for the reader to imagine. You should be giving pointers and clues, which help a reader form an image in their mind. 

How would you describe your writing process?
I can spend months and months getting an idea right in my mind. I then do a lot of notes including character profiles and chapter plans, so that when I’m writing my first draft I have a plan. That’s not to say I don’t change anything. During my next drafts, I chip away, like a sculptor with clay, writing and rewriting, until the story emerges. 

A first draft can take two years, so my poor family get sick to death about hearing about the book, to the extent that when I open my mouth ready to talk about the latest development, I’m interrupted and the subject of the conversation gets changed. I don’t think I could ever write without knowing what is going to happen or how the book is going to end – though this method does sound exhilarating. 

What helps you to write/what gets in the way?
I live in a terraced house next to a family who have four children under the age of 10. Even with my noise cancelling headphones I can sometimes hear children screaming. So, I tend to write early in the morning and late at night, when it is much quieter. 

I suffer with a lot of pain, and find writing at my desk for a prolonged period of time, harder and harder each year. I now use a Freewrite, which I carry around with me. It is lighter and easier to use than a laptop, and ideal for when I can’t sit at my desk. 

Why I chose the Independent Route for The Single Feather and some tips for would-be indie authors
The Single Feather was published by the small independent press, Pilrig Press. I was delighted to accept their offer, especially when I knew of other writers who had published with them and was impressed by the quality of book production and care they took with their authors. They have published the likes of comedian/author, Bill Dare and Scottish writer, Marianne Wheelaghan amongst other talented authors. If you are approaching independent presses there are a few things you need to look out for. 

1) The first thing I would do is to type the name of the publisher in the Amazon search engine, and look at what and who they are publishing. Do you recognize any names? How many reviews are the authors getting?

2) You want a publisher who will be able to devote time and energy to your book, so beware of publishers who have three or more books out each month. Yes, it shows they are popular, but does that mean your book won’t get the attention it deserves?

3) If you are paying money to have your book published, then please do your research. Some vanity publishers, who operate under a multitude of names, and disguise themselves as independent, hybrid and traditional book publishers can charge excessive amounts for a relatively poor service. Look for forum discussions; see what other authors are saying.

4) There are pros to working with indie presses. The time it takes for your book to get to the market is often much shorter than going down the traditional route and you may also find indie publishers who are more willing and able to take on risks. However, make sure they are prepared to spend the time and resources to ensure, for example, that your book is carefully edited and well produced.

5) The down-side is that there is less money to devote to marketing so the onus falls onto the author to generate interest. However, more and more traditional authors have to do the same, as cuts bite and budgets tighten. 

Find out more about Ruth F Hunt:
Her website is http://www.rhunt4.com
The Single Feather book trailer is http://youtu.be/Ysu3QKPDjU0
You can find her on Twitter as @RFHunt1
The s shortened  link to buy The Single Feather on Amazon is. http://www.tinyurl.com/ziaz82m
The link to buy The Single Feather from the publisher is: http://www.pilrigpress.co.uk/books.html#feather

 

7 things you need to know about proofreading

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Today I welcome fellow author, David Powning, who is also an experienced copy-editor & proofreader, to guide us through what we need to know as writers about proofreading. Learn more at: www.inkwrapped.com and find out more about his novel The Ground Will Catch You go to: https://goo.gl/wtkdod (10% of the proceeds goes towards the struggle against breast cancer).

David1. Copy-editing and proofreading are not the same thing.
This foxes a lot of people, and understandably so, mainly because there is a certain overlap between the two disciplines. The aim of a copy-edit is to not only find errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation, but also to address issues around style, usage, consistency and repetition, among other things. In other words, it involves editing the text. 

A proofread, on the other hand, is the final read-through before publication. Its purpose is to look for errors and inconsistencies in spelling, grammar and punctuation that were missed by the copy-editor or have subsequently crept in when the author made amendments to the text. Your proofreader will also check layout, page numbering, chapter headings etc.  

The important thing to remember is that a proofread is the last read of the text to make sure everything is as ‘clean’ as possible. It is not an edit. 

2. It isn’t particularly cheap. And if it is, you should be hearing alarm bells.
The bad news is you will have to shell out a bit for a copy-edit, and for good reason: when done properly, it’s time-consuming. The copy-editor has to get inside your text, hunting out mistakes and discrepancies, and that includes keeping tabs on people’s details (the colour of their hair or eyes, for example) or what car they drive (if it’s a green Ford Fiesta on page 24, it can’t be a grey Ford Fiesta on page 238), as well as the timeline to make sure events are happening in the logical order. There’s a lot involved, and, as with everything in life, you get what you pay for.  

The good news, however, is that a proofread is cheaper. 

3. You can’t proofread your own work.
I know, it would be lovely if we were all able to proofread what we’ve written – and of course I’m not suggesting that you don’t continuously check your work – but it’s a fact that even the best writers have to hand over their efforts to a professional. The problem with proofing your own work is that you know what you’ve written, so, like it or not, there will be times when your brain fills in the words simply because it ‘knows’ what’s coming. And that’s where mistakes occur. You need a neutral person to look at it, because they don’t know what’s around the corner so to them everything will be fresh.

Also, logic dictates that if there are some words you always mis-spell or grammatical constructions you get wrong, how would you know the difference? You can’t spot what you don’t know. 

4. A good copy-editor/proofreader will respect the author’s wishes.
Sometimes as a copy-editor you come across stylistic curiosities that aren’t what you would call, erm, ‘traditional’. Grammatically wrong, even. If it’s a one-off, nine times out of ten you would automatically just correct it. However, if it’s something that crops up repeatedly, then you have to bring it to the author’s attention. And if they say it’s deliberate, then you have to respect that, even if it makes your red pen quiver every time you see it happen. It’s a delicate balancing act. Readers may well go, ‘Ah-ha, I’ve spotted a mistake there, and there, and there…’ but if your client is happy and views it merely as their own stylistic quirk, you must take that on board. It may go against a copy-editor’s natural instinct, but as with a magazine’s house style, sometimes there will be things you disagree with.

5. Proofreading is important.
I’ve often heard it said that readers are not fussy these days about coming across typos when reading a novel, but, you’ll be shocked to hear, I don’t think it’s acceptable. Of course, even with the best will in the world, the occasional error may slip through the net – and that’s true of all books – but to me anything more than that is the thin end of the wedge. If you start to think, ‘Oh, I’m not too bothered about a few spelling mistakes in my novel’, then what’s to stop you being bothered about half a dozen in the next one, and ten in the one cover-jan2016-dpowningafter that? 

Self-publishing has really taken off in the past few years, and I think indie authors have a duty to keep their standards as high as possible so that the public can buy with confidence, as when purchasing a novel from an established publisher/author. Is it okay for a CD to jump half a dozen times? Wouldn’t you return it if it did? Well, the same goes for books. Typos and grammatical errors stop the flow of words and momentarily take the reader out of the imagined world you have created, thereby undermining all your hard work. What’s okay about that?

6. Track Changes is a wonderful thing.
For those not in the know, Track Changes is a function in Microsoft Word that records each amendment a person (i.e. your copy-editor/proofreader) makes in the document. This means that when your novel is returned to you, you simply go through each change and either ‘accept’ or ‘reject’ it. I mention this only because chances are you’ll be sending your work to a copy-editor as a Word file, and I’d be very surprised if they didn’t use Track Changes. It’s simple to use and gives you complete control over the final product. Brilliant.

7. Proofreading is very satisfying.
I love copy-editing and proofreading, whether that’s for magazines or books. To me it’s a challenge to find things that aren’t quite right, and not because I want to feel clever. Every writer makes errors (my novel went through the wringer quite a few times until I was happy), so when you discover something amiss you know you are doing your bit to improve the work, and that’s a good feeling.  

Ultimately, when you’re working for an author, it’s a partnership. You’re both striving towards the same thing – high standards – and to help someone achieve that, after all the hours they’ve put in creating a story, really is very gratifying.

#Scarboroughmysteries – Halloween Treat!

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art-of-breathing-coverI am very proud to announce that my three novels – The Art of the Imperfect (https://goo.gl/JrGat2); The Art of Survival (https://goo.gl/6RPzk5); The Art of Breathing (https://goo.gl/ZqJZjN) – are safely launched. Available in paperback and on kindle via Amazon or from good independent book stores such as Wardle & Jones in Scarborough (http://wardleandjones.co.uk/) and the Book Corner in Saltburn (http://www.bookcornershop.co.uk/).

The signing at WH Smith on Saturday went really well. Thank you to the manager, Russell White, and everyone who helped or came along. Twenty-two books sold and several people going away clutching cards with the book details on so they could download to their favoured kindle. It was great to meet readers and potential readers and just to chat about books.

I was very happy to re-meet Andy. He had seen by chance on Twitter my signing last year and had come down and bought the first two. He turned up again to buy the third, declaring he had art-of-the-imperfect-cover‘loved’ The Art of the Imperfect and The Art of Survival. He then, bless him, went home and tweeted the books he had bought that morning – mine and one by Lynda La Plante – including the authors’ handles. And, yes dear reader, I was retweeted and then followed by Lynda La Plante (or whoever deals with her twitter account). How chuffed am I? Thank you Andy.

Associated with the launch, I have been lucky enough to be interviewed on Radio Humberside: https://goo.gl/xAUWDg (scroll forward to 11.15am) and by Margarita Morris: https://goo.gl/AYxKHA.

And there are a few more events and interviews to come art-of-survival-coverbefore I can put my feet up – or rather get back to my writing, which I fear has been sadly neglected for the last several months.

Still, for the moment, I can bask in what I have achieved so far!

 

Crime novel based in Scarborough – launch 29th October

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art-of-breathing-coverThis post is going to be undeniably self-promoting! Despite the dream I had last night.

In my dream I was pregnant and I was wary of telling friends in case they ridiculed or criticised me. I come from the therapeutic stand-point that it is for the individual to interpret their own dreams, this is, therefore, my take. I am pregnant with my book and my launch is the ‘birth’. I am afraid of a poor reception. However, the main feeling in the dream was of being replete with a precious treasure which I was proud of and wanted to keep safe.

The Art of Breathing (https://goo.gl/7oOwrT) is the third in a crime series set in Scarborough. The Art of the Imperfect (http://goo.gl/z7HFgz) was published in 2014 and was long-listed for the Crime Writers Association debut dagger and The Art of Survival (https://goo.gl/6RPzk5)  was published in 2015. In all three, there is a mystery, but there are also the intertwining and unfolding narratives of Hannah Poole, DS Theo Akande and Aurora Harris. Hannah is dealing with depression while training to be a counsellor. Theo is trying to find his place in a new town and new police force. Aurora, art-of-survival-coverneighbour to Hannah, is struggling with the challenges of being a new mum. In The Art of Breathing, I explore the academic community and pay homage to 1930s crime author, DL Sayers, in doing so.

I am extremely proud of all of my titles and also of the funky new covers designed by http://www.electricangel.co.uk/ Undoubtedly I want people to read and appreciate them. What ‘mother’ doesn’t want their ‘child’ appreciated? But I’m also aware they won’t be to everyone’s taste and I am still learning as a writer. I am, therefore, very much looking forward to working on my fourth book on the Curtis Brown novel writing course starting in a couple of weeks time.

art-of-the-imperfect-coverI will be officially launching The Art of Breathing on Saturday the 29th October 1030am-230pm at WH Smith in Scarborough. If you can, come along for a chat, it would be lovely to see you.