A new member...and why this published author has gone down the self-publishing route

Today we'd like to welcome (quick blast of trumpets) the newest member of the Strictly Writing team, Tracey Sinclair!

Tracey works as a freelance copywriter and editor. She regularly contributes to online magazines Exeunt and Unleash the Fanboy and is the author of 3 books, the most recent of which is Dark Dates.
Over to you, Tracey...

I am a published author. Yup, several years ago I fulfilled a lifetime’s ambition and had not one but two books published. So why on earth would I choose to go down the tricky path of self-publishing?  

There are a number of reasons. My original publisher is a small ‘literary’ press and my new novel is the very definition of mainstream: an urban fantasy book (yup, vampires and everything), so it didn’t fit the publisher’s profile. Also, I’ve embraced the digital world with a vengeance: I love social media and write for several online magazines. I wanted a book that would be available digitally, which wasn’t an option with my existing publisher.

I tried the ‘traditional’ route: contacted lots of agents, most of whom came back to me saying ‘you write well, but vampires are over’.  But much I wanted – and, if I’m honest, still want – the shiny paperback on display at Waterstone’s – the whole process of traditional publishing seemed so… slow. So I simply put my book out on Amazon as an e-book.

This was a steep learning curve. Without an editor, I had to rely on trusted friends to give me feedback to help shape the story (and spot the typos!) I had to get the book formatted (this is surprisingly easy, but daunting if you have no clue where to start). I needed a cover - for someone with the artistic ability of wallpaper paste and no budget, this was a stumbling block, until a friend offered her services for free.

So how to get anyone to read it? Genre fiction has a big audience online, but people still have to find a book to buy it. I’m promoted Dark Dates via my Facebook and Twitter accounts, plugged it through my blog and the sites I write for, and set up author pages on Goodreads, Amazon and Facebook. But this is tricky: if you over-promote yourself on sites like Twitter it can backfire and lose you followers/readers. Also, as this strategy depends on building word of mouth, it’s necessarily a slow one (people don’t read books the minute they buy them - I’m as guilty as anyone of leaving books on my Kindle for months, unread) so it can be frustrating.

But it is rewarding. Pricing the book cheaply means people are more likely to take a chance on it, and the ‘conversational’ nature of social media means that readers can engage with you directly (luckily, most responses have been ‘I love it!’ – obviously that direct engagement might seem less appealing if they were saying it was crap…) I feel like I’ve taken charge of the process, rather than sitting around waiting for someone to like my book enough to publish it, which has freed me up from the dispiriting round of submissions /rejections to work on the sequel: that’s enormously liberating. I don’t think any writer who has an agent will be throwing them away anytime soon, but if you’re trying a new direction, or willing to put yourself out there and see what happens, it’s an option worth considering.

Read more: Adventures in self-publishing:

Tracey will be posting regularly on Strictly Writing. She also has a prizewinning blog here. We'll be back after the Bank Holiday break. See you then!

What We're Reading/Writing/Watching

Tracey - I am currently watching Game Of Thrones (hooked!) and reading what already looks like my book of the year, Bring Up the Bodies.

Fionnuala - I'm doing a 'Ross and Rachel' i.e. taking a short break - from writing... I'm about to read 'So Much For That' by Lionel Shriver and I'm also hooked on Game of Thrones on the telly.

Debs - Taking a breath from having just finished the second book of "Fifty Shades" series (too much in this heat) and reading "The Girl on the Landing" by Paul Torday of "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" fame. Watching "Grandma's House""The Voice" and anything with Graham Norton in it - which included the Eurovision Song Contest but we won't dwell on that! Writing wise I'm filling out conveyancing paperwork for imminent house move. Oh, its all go here :)

Caroline R - I'm planning the structure of my new non-fiction book, thinking about what I can include from my existing work and how much new material I'll need. This is a bit of a departure for me as I'm normally a pantser, but I'll have to make myself get organised for this one! I'm about to start reading Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson, and I'm watching The Voice.

Caroline G - I am just about to start writing a new project, having abandoned the last one I was writing. This book is contracted by my publisher and am a bit nervous about getting it right. The one I finished over the winter and early spring didn't work at all! Has had to be binned. (Ouch) As for reading, I've just started Julia Crouch's second book, called Every Vow You Break. Loved her debut novel, Cuckoo. Watching? Bored, bored, bored with TV. Need a good box set.

Gillian - I've set sail on my next book, provisionally called Arktanic - yes that's right - a fusion of Noah's Ark and the Titanic. I'm reading A Parachute In The Lime Tree by Annemarie Neary and watching Indian Ocean with Simon Reeve, as he's a friend of a friend!

Derek is: 1. Writing job applications. 2. Rewriting an old novel, plus an edit, to have a go at self-pubbing through Lightning Source (having received author contribution requests of £1300 and £5000, in the last couple of months, from conventional publishers!). 3. Collating stories. 4. Writing plans. (Yes, that's writing writing plans!) 5. Reading The Little Book of the Great Enchantment by Steve Blamires.

Guest Author Clodagh Murphy gets steamed up in a cupboard with... well, you'll never guess!

Where do you get your ideas?...  has to be one of the questions readers most frequently ask (so much so that it's become a joke), and one of the most difficult for writers to answer.  'Out of my head' or 'everywhere', while accurate, can seem dismissive and unsatisfactory.  We're suspected of being evasive, even mean-spirited, refusing to share our secrets (which may be true – the secret being that we haven’t a clue).  I want to answer, like Philip Henslowe in Shakespeare in Love, 'I don't know.  It's a mystery.'

Maybe it's different for planners, but as a pantser, my stories evolve as I write.  Characters, scenes and whole threads emerge that take me by surprise, and by the time I get to the end of a book (or even the middle) I've often forgotten where most of it came from – if I ever knew in the first place.  Sometimes ideas literally seem to spring from nowhere.

That was certainly the case with my latest book, Frisky Business (out on June 1), about a woman who has Darth Vader's baby ... kind of.  So where does an idea like that come from?  I'm still not sure, but I do know that it was very much a product of the marvellous institution that is NaNoWriMo.

When I signed up for NaNo 2010 all I had was a character called Romy, who was a property developer, and the house she lived in, which was inspired by a gorgeous house I'd seen while out walking one day – a big pink house with a green gate.  I had a strong sense of who Romy was, but no idea what was going to happen to her.  However, in true NaNo tradition, I didn't let lack of plot stop me, so on November 1^st I just started writing.  Being that time of year, I suppose it's no surprise that the first scene I wrote was a Halloween party  – what was a surprise was that next thing I knew, Romy was having sex in a cupboard with a guy dressed as Darth Vader.  Then it was a year later and she had a baby, and no idea of the father's identity.  I certainly hadn't seen that coming.

All sorts of other things fed into the story as it went along.  A magazine article I read about adult children who ended up moving back in with their parents due to the recession inspired another character's story.  It got me thinking – what if you'd been working abroad and leading a life that your family knew nothing about, but then found yourself forced to move home?  That's what happens to Kit, Romy's first boyfriend, who has lost his Wall Street job and returned to Ireland.

Other elements came from all over: some BDSM stories I'd been reading; a Groupon deal for an adventure weekend; blog posts by Médecins Sans Frontières volunteers; property renovation TV shows ...

So, like I said – out of my head, and everywhere.  But mostly it's a mystery.

GIVEAWAY! If you'd like to win a signed copy of 'Frisky Business', leave a comment below telling us who you'd like to be up close and personal with in a cupboard and who knows, you could get a nice surprise!

Clodagh is the author of 'The Disengagement Ring' and 'Girl in a Spin'.  She can be found on Facebook, Twitter and she has a website that's nearly as lovely as she is where you can even read the first chapter of 'Frisky Business'!

Sodding technology

Technology frustrates me so much. I’ve no patience. I’ve been known to unplug the printer and threaten to throw it across the room. I haven’t yet followed through on this, but I’ve come close to it. I am aware however that a simple act like this could make me come across as a complete psycho. ‘Charles Dickens didn’t have this sodding problem,’ I mutter.

Let me tell you about the printer, the device I was hoping could produce quality print-outs, so that Mr Big Agent would be really impressed. It’s manufactured by a very well known company and I was impressed with the sales advisor’s pitch when I went in search of a new model.

‘Yes it churns out fifty pages a minute or something like that,’ he said.
‘Wow,’ I replied. ‘I’ll take it.’
‘The print quality’s great too,’ he added.
Better still, I thought. Mr Agent won’t need his glasses as he squints at the botched printing. He’ll be impressed with the quality of the pixels and the glorious sheen, so much so, he’ll e-mail me back and ask me the name of the manufacturer.

(As I drove home, with the printer in the boot, I cast my mind back to the good old days. I got a typewriter from Santa for Christmas 1983, when I was eight. And I loved it. Each night I diligently sat at the breakfast bar and created beautiful asymmetrical lines of:

QWERTYUIOP
ASDFGHJKL
ZXCVBNM

If I made a mistake, I borrowed my mum’s special rubber and erased the mistake. The page, when complete, was so pleasing to the eye. It was the most beautiful square.)

Once the new printer was rigged up, I tried to print my fifty pages/first three chapters. But the useless lump of a thing kept sucking the pages back in, creating a big blob at the bottom of each page. I ended up with thirty spoiled sheets. I was convinced it did this deliberately.

‘Sorry, trees,’ I whispered as I loaded yet more sheets into the tray.

At that point, I wanted to kick the printer, pull the leads out of the back and hurl it across the study. Deep breath.

I think it’s a problem we all encounter at some point in our writing lives – the inability of technology to co-operate. I am comforted by the fact it’s a universal problem. But it sucks up so much time. If only we could journey back to pen, paper and Tippex.

Not impressed with this printer*

*I could be doing something wrong. In all honesty, it’s probably not a manufacturing fault and more to do with the fact I refuse to read installation and instruction manuals.

It was on special offer though and the cynic in me believes that this is the shop’s way of clearing out what falls short of the mark.

Today is the official publication day for my second YA novel, Cracks.      

Woohoo! Etc...look away for a minute while I attempt a cartwheel.

*adjusts clothing and tidies birds-nesty hair*

 

But they’re funny things, publication days, because they don’t really exist. Or at least, not in the sense of their being one particular day on a calendar.

Cracks has been available on Amazon for about six weeks. My publisher has tried to explain the complex system by which warehouses operate and how Amazon is able to get books in early sometimes, but I still don’t really understand it. It remains one of those mysteries of my life, like why my son likes Call of Duty so much and how to make custard  in the microwave (if anyone has ever done this successfully, do share your secret).

So I’m glad I decided to go for a launch party. Last week I had a wonderful evening with friends and family at the Camden branch of Waterstones (who were brilliant hosts...thank you again to the staff there) to launch the book.

This felt like the day when all that hard work, angst, re-writing, biscuit and wine-consumption and gnashing of teeth became worthwhile and I was able to say, ‘This is my book. Hope you like it.’ Today I’m ‘officially’ saying it again. Here’s my book. I really hope you like it. 

Oh and here’s my trailer. Hope you like that too (thanks again to Nick Morgan who made it and brilliant young actor Bailey Pilbeam).

What's In a name?

When I meet a character for the first time, I can very quickly decide whether I love/hate, dislike or empathise with him or her. For instance, if they’re commiting some heinous murder in the first few pages, then I’m not going to be inclined to like them.  However, if they’re committing a monstrosity and their name is Holly Golightly, then I’m at least intrigued.

How do you name your characters? For me, the process is instinctive. Before beginning to write, I think about the character’s characteristics and use the name that comes quickest and feels right. In fact, I’ve rarely changed the name that I’ve first given a character.

Sometimes, names are easy. If I’m writing about an elderly Amish character living in a small Pennsylvanian community surrounded by tumbleweed, something like Elijah Kaufmann feels right. Pete Wong would be wrong, so to speak. (Okay, don’t write in; there’s no reason that a man of Chinese origin may not be living amongst the Amish, but that, in itself, sets the scene for another story)

Naming your character right is vital for the set up of the story.  If my character is a young woman, living in the heart of modern Essex, left school at sixteen, works as a hairdresser - naming her Chardonnay or Helena will speak multitudes. Which of them is more likely to have a monthly direct debit to Amnesty International? Helena! Helena! I hear you cry. Possibly, but what about an Amnesty supportive Chardonnay – they exist and probably have a tale and a half to tell. As would Helena – it all depends on the story you want to tell.

So, let’s have a bit of fun with character naming today.  Here’s a list of ten Christian names and ten surnames. Pick one from each list and quickly write a few lines on them. Who are they? Where do they come from? What do they look like? What are they wearing? Have they siblings? How old are they? What’s their favourite song? Etc etc.

Annabel                                                                                   Radanovic

Chuck                                                                                      Smith

Pete                                                                                         Morley

Sally                                                                                        Williams

Henry                                                                                      Ford

Lettie                                                                                       O’ Sullivan

Klaus                                                                                       Handcock       

Ellen                                                                                        Appleby

Isabella                                                                                    Eddison          

Stan                                                                                         Gonzalez

Hmmm... I picked Sally Appleby, and here’s my instinctive response:

She’s a middle aged wife and mother of two grown up children, lives in rural Wales, though  hates it and dreams of returning to Sussex, where she grew up by the sea. First, she has to figure out how to divorce her husband. She’s at her still life painting class in the village, wearing dungarees that she wore in the seventies and still fit her. She knows she was once beautiful but no longer believes this applies. She’s restless. She needs her roots done.

Or she could be a single librarian, or a music executive, or a jewellery designer working from home, or an ambitious detective. They all fit - just depends on the story you want to tell.

Have a go? And do let us know if it leads to a story or scene...

The name's Res... Des Res

single storey detatched with far-reaching views

Words are great, aren’t they?  They can seduce, they can reduce the hardest of hearts to what our American friends would call Jello; they can construct, de-construct and they can transport us to places we've never been to, never heard of and lead us to destinations that only exist in the the writer's mind.

And we all wouldn’t be here - and by ‘here’ I mean on the Strictly Writing site - if we weren’t in love with the written word, would we? 

We ALL LOVE words *group hug*.

Okay that’s the preamble over with.  And isn’t PREAMBLE a great word? 

(preamble [priːˈæmb^əl]n

1.     a preliminary or introductory statement, esp attached to a statute or constitution setting forth its purpose

So it makes unutterably good sense to me that I care about what words I say, how I say them, how they are said to me and how they are laid out to construct meaning and create atmosphere. I still pick people up when they say a soft ‘huh-aitch’ when spelling out a word with an ‘H’ in it.  I can’t help it; it’s one of those colossal bugbears that really grates on my sensitive Writerly nerves – like the fingernails down a chalkboard *can’t say blackboard anymore… sigh* - and now I’m over the hill, it seems I can speak my mind about a lot more things, because people of a ‘certain age’ are expected to be irritable buggers. Much like crabbity indifferent Doctor’s Receptionists, for example.  Anyway, where was I?  Oh yes.  The Aitch word becoming an eff word. 

But, like any other Wordsmith, I do enjoy seeing those misplaced apostrophe sign’s (see what I did there?) – at least I like them now there’s Facebook and Twitter because it makes me feel less anally retentive when I get all privately hot under the collar by their misuse.  Jeez the weight I must’ve lost in the past, before the advent of social networking sites, when I’d spot a sign that said ‘vegetable’s for sale’ or *shudder* ‘bargain book’s.  My spleen was never more relieved than the dawn of this technological age where everyone shares everything with everybody else whether they want to or not.

So it understandably confounds me that people who are being PAID as part of their job to WRITE stuff for general public consumption are allowed to use words that are misspelt, or written to mislead and entice in ways they really shouldn’t be.

Of course by ‘People’ I mean Estate Agents.  Of course I do.  And by ‘General Public’ I mean my husband.  Oh - and me.  Alright then – just ME!

I know it’s not meant to be great literature and I know it’s not exactly a job which requires the firmest grasp on the basic use of the English language, but.. well…  I am maddened beyond belief to report that the following details seem entirely acceptable to use in the land of Estate Agent:

The property enjoys gas central heating and

The property enjoys a South facing garden. Really?  Can an inanimate object enjoy anything?  Really?

The property delights in a rural location. Well, that’s nice for it - wouldn’t we all?

The property boasts superb pitch roofed outbuildings. On actual inspection, the only factually correct word in this sentence was 'property'.  I don’t know anybody – not least a building – that would boast about having an outside toilet and attached coal bunker, especially if neither doors opened due to the jamming of beds and/or wheelbarrows from within.  This description has, I noticed, changed on the particulars since I pointed out the vagaries of its veracities whilst trying to extricate my foot from an errant mattress spring and ducking out the way of a falling tile.

There is a garage en bloc. This, I have noticed, is quite a popular term to use these days for ‘there is a garage in a block round the corner’ but is meant to sound fancier, like it’s in deepest rural Brittany and not the arse-end-of-nowhere-near-the-house.

But I did come across a description that plucked at a heart string or two as I read them; evidently written by somebody who has more things than monthly commission on their mind:

“The soft neutral schemed bathroom is perfect for relaxing in after a hard day at work, and with the kitchen on the same level it means that the chilled wine isn’t far from reach….

..Imagine curling up in front of the roaring open fire on a chilly winter’s night or entertaining guests on the block paved sun-trapped rear garden which enjoys* panoramic views to the countryside beyond….”

This person is clearly overpaid as an Estate Agent.  They should be struggling to find a Literary Agent and tearing their hair out in Rejection Hell like the rest of us. 

Actually, it's making me think of a career change - if I got paid to make up lovely little scenes like this for the general public, wouldn't that be one step closer to proper recognition?

 

*I let them off this one minor indiscretion