The business of books and the writing life:
craft, mindset, interviews, tips and more.
Well, hey, it’s that time again: time to look back over the past year. Time to take stock. I’m starting by selecting some of the books I’ve enjoyed most in the past twelve months. My year has as usual involved lots of ‘professional’ reading: searching out examples of writing technique for workshops, books that compare with clients’ work so I can give guidance as to genre and market etc. To be honest, I’ve been feeling that I’ve lost some of the joy of reading fiction. Too often, my editorial brain kicks in and I start analysing, spotting flaws, inconsistencies and repetitions and coming up with ways to improve the structure or the prose. This means that I find myself enjoying non-fiction more and more, as you’ll see from the list.
It also means that some books disappointed me. Some of these were ‘big-hitters’ with huge marketing clout behind them. It wasn’t that they were bad, as such, just that they weren’t quite as mind-blowing as I had hoped they’d be. And two of them, one a heavily-promoted debut, the other a prize-winning historical novel, really could have done with serious editorial advice! The debut started brilliantly, then followed the law of diminishing returns, culminating in an unbelievable ending, sketchily executed. The historical had gorgeous language and detail but neither gripped nor convinced me.
Right, now I’ve got the Scroogey curmudgeonly stuff out of the way (and no, I’m not going to name the books in question!), time for the goodies. These are books that stood out for me as jolly good reads.
Fiction:
I like crime novels and the stand-outs for me were Lisa Jewell’s Watching You and JJ Marsh’s Behind Closed Doors (the first in her Beatrice Stubbs series – strangely, although I’ve read several, I hadn’t yetread the series starter!) and Bad Apples. I love how these books combine crime and mordant wit along with a wonderfully unconventional heroine and her eccentric circle of friends. A bonus is the range of European backdrops for Beatrice’s adventures. Her latest, Black Widow, is on my list for 2020.
Emily St John Mandel: Station Eleven. Now, it took three goes for me to get into this book but once I was in I was really in, increasingly awestruck by the architectural complexity of a post-apocalyptic story full of intelligence, pathos and the celebration of human creativity in a destroyed world. It was gripping, memorable, haunting, clever. One I will definitely re-read.
David Nicholls: One Day. I was late to the party on this one but loved how he captured the different eras of his characters’ lives. Great dialogue, great social observation.
Non-fiction:
Michael Palin’s Erebus is about a famous ship, lost for more than a hundred and fifty years under the icy waters of the Canadian Arctic. It was one of the famous Franklin expedition ships and that’s a subject I’ve been fascinated by for decades so I couldn’t wait to read the book. What was a revelation, though, was the story of that ship before it became part of that doomed expedition: the gallant Erebus had led a life of adventure for many years, including voyaging the stormy seas of the Antarctic. Palin is genuine in his enthusiasm and the deceptively light touch of his narration is a delight.
Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad about my Neck has all her trademark sharp wit. Wry laughter and recognition throughout. I wish she were still around.
Bernadette Murphy’s Van Gogh’s Ear is an extraordinarily detailed examination of the mystery of the famous event in Arles. She applies the skill of a detective and the familiarity of someone who lives in that region to unpick the legend and get to the bottom of what really went on. I bought this at the ‘Van Gogh in London’ exhibition at Tate Britain, one of the highlights of my year.
Robert Macfarlane’s Underland is an exploration of the hidden places of the world, deep under our feet, deep in the bowels of cities, caves and mines. It is gorgeously written and it is profoundly thoughtful, so much so that it’s one of those books you can only read in instalments because it feels like too much for you to take in. Plus some of his accounts are quite horrifying, if you are at all prone to claustrophobia. I remember when I was 19, crawling on hands and knees through a low passage in the Sterkfontein Caves in South Africa, utterly freaked out by the lack of light and the sense of the weight of rock poised above my skull – this book brought that sensation back to me. But if you want an erudite guide who will show you places you never imagined and take you on a journey of historical and ecological resonance, he’s your man. (Lofoten, Norway, oh wow – echoes of Michelle Paver’s Dark Matter.)
Clare Josa’s Ditching Imposter Syndrome helps you to do just that. It’s inspiring, direct and encouraging, waking you up to how imposter syndrome manifests itself in your life and career. Like her earlier Dare to Dream Bigger, it is one of those books you devour fast, knowing you’ll go back for a slower, thoughtful read after.
I read Robert Poyton’s Do/Pause during my research for my book The Unputdownable Writer’s Mindset (coming out next year - sign up for the wait list here!) It’s a small book but a really wise one, highlighting that in our fast-paced hyper-productive lifestyles we become our to-do lists and lose sight of what truly matters or how to manage our lives. He is ‘not so interested in how you cram more in to your life but in how you get more out.’ At this time of the year, at the solstice, at the season of festivals, this would be a good book to read and remind yourself that sometimes it is important to step off the treadmill.
Good reads yet to come:
Of course, like you, I have a vast to-be-read pile. Here are some I own but didn’t get to this year: Marion Turner’s Chaucer – A European Life; Peter Moore’s Endeavour (another ship book!); Maria Popova’s Figuring – I have followed her amazing Brain Pickings blog for several years and highly recommend it. Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls and C.J. Sansom’s Tombland (I was given it last Christmas and cannot believe I haven’t read it yet!) Plus many novels by my writer friends, a whole range of clever, enchanting and gripping fiction queuing up on my Kindle or my bookshelves!
Which were your favourite books of 2019 – I’d love to know! Do please comment below and share your recommendations! I have no single book of the year this year but you can read about my choice last year - the amazing and powerful Smash all the Windows by Jane Davis here.
I’ve just returned from a week by the sea. I planned the trip for ages and in the run up to it I often lay awake, heart racing with gleeful anticipation. I had run retreats for other writers before, in St Ives and Oxford, where my focus had been on enabling attendees to access their creative energy and get productive.
This one, though, was all about me. Which made me feel a little guilty. I’m a woman, a mother, a mentor to other writers. I’ve run my literary consultancy for a decade now and before that I was a teacher. I’m a little out of the habit of putting my writing first!
I arrived late on the Saturday evening. I couldn’t get into the rental property at first, which is a whole other story! On Sunday morning, I laid out my papers, notes and laptop. I thought about the six precious days ahead and how this book, already more than half-written, was going to make giant strides forward.
Then, quite simply, I panicked.
So here, at the other end of that precious week, are some lessons I’d like to share with you to help you if you’re considering going away to write: they’ll also remind me when I go on my next solo retreat – and yes, there will definitely be a next one!
1 If life has got in the way and you haven’t been working on your book for a few weeks or months you can’t expect it to jump and greet you like an old friend the minute you decide to pay it some attention. It’s going to be like my sister’s cat: whenever she’d been on holiday, on her return, instead of rushing to be petted, it would turn its back on her. It would have to be coaxed round. So it is with your abandoned masterpiece. You’re going to have to sweet-talk it. You’re going to have to give it time to thaw out towards you.
2 Which leads to the next problem. You don’t have all that much time. You don’t feel you can wait for it to warm up naturally, so you try to force the issue. You open up Scrivener. You reread some older bits, dismayed because they feel as if someone else entirely wrote them. You can’t remember what your fine intentions were. You’re all at sea. The panic grows and with it, the paralysis. You go out for a walk, hoping that will help. It doesn’t. Force is not flow. Thus endeth Day 1. Only 5 to go.
3 You stay indoors the next day. You think that relentless application of the seat of the pants to the chair will help. It doesn’t. You read inspirational work connected to your topic. At first, all that does is spark envy and a sense of inferiority. What were you thinking – that you could contribute an individual vision to this overcrowded subject?
4 You picked one of the loveliest places in the world for your retreat. You start to think that may have been a Very Bad Idea. You leave the laptop and sit in a chair by the window, watching the light change ceaselessly. The weather is mostly bad. But you see a rainbow plunge its arc into the bay in front of you. You are seduced by beauty. It is a distraction. You might as well have paid for this week as a holiday and let yourself enjoy it as such.
5 On Day 3 you see another rainbow (you see 10 by the end of the week – is that a sign?). You take more notes from that inspirational book. You start grabbing at post-it notes and jotting down ideas and phrases. Some of those ideas seem to reach out to others, like those films you see of neurons sending little tendrils out at the synapses within the brain. That evening, for the first time, the spirit moves you to write. You write nearly 2000 words in one fell swoop. An immense relief floods you. An immense weight drops away.
6 On each of the days that are left you write 4000 words. You know other writers would write more. You don’t care. Those words, damned in your brain, have suddenly started flowing and you are in an altered state of consciousness. You don’t edit, you don’t reread, you don’t think too hard – you just let them rise.
7 You realise that next time you won’t book a week. You will book 10 days or more. You will factor in that you need to depressurise before you can begin to let things flow. Writing is not a switch you flick at will. When you care about it the way you do this book, you must let it rise like the water in a well, slow, silent, inexorable, until it reaches the brink and spills.
8 You learn that the beauty of the place was not a distraction. It was part of a meditation. It was part of a mental state. You needed it and you will again.
9 You learn that a balance of intense burst of writing with going for a walk (even if your ears are falling off with the cold) or simply sitting, watching the waves and hearing their rhythm, has worked for you. What’s more it has restored something in you.
10 On the train home, still writing, you look up and see that 10th rainbow. A gift.
Now I am back home, the next task is not to let the magic evaporate. I still have part of the book to write and life will inevitably get in the way. But I will make steady forward progress, heading for publication in early spring. If you want to hear how I get on and later read special advance excerpts, for this is a book I am writing to help other writers, you can sign up at www.unputdownablewriter.com. And if you want to keep helping me make this book as relevant as possible, please do take my quick anonymous survey: https://forms.gle/rSxHNhMuduvERJdPA
Are you in Europe and interested in learning how to self-edit? I will be teaching a half-day workshop and offering one-to-one consultations at Zurich’s WriteCon on 30 November! Visit www.writecon.ch to see the full programme and speakers and make your booking.
Three years ago, I met one of the men who walked on the moon. Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. Go out this evening and look up. The moon is a symbol of change: a few nights ago it glowed red as our planet cast its shadow on it during a lunar eclipse. It can glow pale silver, it can be dark grey. It can be a sphere, a semi-circle, a sliver – and it can disappear entirely. We cast it in the role of goddess of love and inspiration, haunter of our nightmares, presider over inspired madness. The moon visits us – but half a century ago, we visited it. Humankind, the lover of this mistress of our imaginations, came calling.
So, in honour of that, here’s the post I wrote about the time I met Buzz Aldrin (from my previous blog, Literascribe, in June 2016).
‘I’m sitting in the gallery of the Sheldonian Theatre, one of the most beautiful if not one of the most comfortable venues in Oxford. Looking down across the packed floor, I see a tanned face and a white beard through the glass of a side door. Moments later, in he comes, wearing a beige blouson jacket with embroidered badges on it. He waves like a king and air-punches like a prize-fighter as he makes his way through the applauding crowd.
He’s Buzz Aldrin.
His sassy, witty ‘Mission Director’ Christina Korb conducts the interview, trying to keep him on the straight and narrow, but she has trouble managing the blurted reminiscences and anecdotes. The man is bursting with things to tell us. He’s opinionated, forceful, waving be-ringed hands, talking about the Omega watch he wore on the outside of his spacesuit because it’s kinda hard to see the time otherwise.
I read Andrew Smith’s fascinating book Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth several years ago, struck by the poignant reason for its composition. At that time, only nine men were still alive who had walked on the surface of the moon, so he set about interviewing them while he could.
Well, there’s fewer than nine now. That is why several hundred people have queued in the chill rain outside and will later queue for the best part of an hour to get their books signed. I’m one of them. For a moment, we’re in contact with history, with what now seems a lost idealistic era. I grew up with the sense that space held all potential. I’d read Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Martian and Venusian series. I’d read Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury. The stars, the planets and the dear old moon itself held out dreams of adventure and fulfilment.
So tonight we lap up the bombast and the showboating, enjoy the clearly oft-repeated wisecracks, the whole display of it all, because although this man is 86 now he is more alive than most we’ll ever meet and this man walked on the moon! He wears a t-shirt saying ‘Get your ass to Mars’ and is passionate about sending humans there, saying that a human can do in a week what took Spirit and Rover five years. He describes his spacewalk, saying he ‘wanted to putt putt putt around like George Clooney in Gravity.’ He says yes, the Russians put Sputnik up there but ‘if you put up a dumb satellite you don’t give it a parade and everybody loves a parade!’ What’s more, they put a dog in orbit and left it there – ‘at least we brought our monkey back.’ He expresses regret at the loss of Neil Armstrong. He talks of his family and his sense of destiny: his mother was Marion Moon and his father knew the Wright brothers. Yup, it was all meant.
When I eventually reach the head of the queue and he signs my copy of No Dream is Too High, I burble something about looking up at the moon from a Scottish garden when I was a little girl, amazed to think he was up there. ‘My mother came from Edinboro…’ he smiles and I pass on, past the selfie-taking crowd. Outside the Sheldonian I wish the clouds would part and I could see the old man’s stamping ground.
I remember another night, years ago, when I looked at the moon and it gave me an idea for a story of ‘something strange, spectacular and out of this world.’ This idea grew into a children’s book, Hinterland, which made it to the shortlist of a significant prize for unpublished novels. I remember the magic of writing that story, of describing grey dust and a terraced crater like an amphitheatre and ‘hanging like a jewel against the dense black void, with fat blue oceans and swirling white clouds’, our planet. And I think to myself, I need to rediscover what that story meant to me and maybe, just maybe, roll it out onto the launchpad once more and send it into the ether myself.
So thank you, Buzz.’
Three years on, after a week of TV programmes celebrating the moon landing mission, what are my thoughts on re-reading this post? The moon missions and the space programmes still speak to us of heroism, imagination, persistence, resilience, and all the power of human aspiration. We are in awe of the courage of the astronauts. We are in awe at the sight of the mighty and beautiful Saturn V thundering into the sky, fuel roaring and crackling as it burns its way into the heavens. This is wonderful. Fifty years on, it is still heart-stoppingly wonderful.
Yet we live on a riven planet, despairing as prejudice and the meaner aspects of human nature hold sway. Our planet is in more danger than ever before – and that is down to us. No stray asteroid or conquering alien race threatens us: we threaten ourselves.
Buzz and his like remind us that even in imperfection, in in-fighting and rivalry, in near-misses and tragic accidents, in times when it doesn’t seem worthwhile to believe in any ideal at all, that vision and a sense of human destiny still matter.
Keep going out there and looking up. Keep dreaming. Keep asking for the moon. And the stars. And everything we as humans are capable of. Keep trusting we can be the best we can be. (And by the way, that doesn’t mean going back to the moon simply to wrest the mineral riches out of it. I would rather we never went back than that we went back as raiders and exploiters. We have done enough of that on our own sublunary globe.)
As for Hinterland? Still waiting on the launchpad – but that doesn’t mean it won’t blast off sometime! In the meantime, the next book on my personal launchpad is The Unputdownable Writer’s Mindset. Because writers dream and take their own kind of risks; they need to believe those risks are worth taking. Even if they’re not flying to the moon.
Visit www.theunputdownablewriter.com to sign up for advance news and sneak peeks ahead of publication.
Many years ago, I arrived in the beautiful and ancient city of Winchester, carrying a novel I had nearly completed. I was wrestling with guilt because for the first time, I had left my two young children with their father, so that I could have a couple of days to myself. I had set off on a bold adventure: I was attending what was then known as the Winchester Writers’ Conference, an annual event attended by hundreds of writers from all over the world.
Shortly after my arrival, a slender dark-haired woman with a Canadian accent came to chat with me. Back in the days when there was scarcely any internet and certainly no Facebook groups for writers, we were used to working in isolation. I had come seeking information but more than that, I was looking for connection. I didn’t really understand at the time just how significant those connections were going to be and that meeting Barbara Large MBE, the conference’s founder and Director, was going to change my life.
Barbara, who died in March of this year, was an extraordinary person. Her will and energy were phenomenal. I was always in awe of her dedication and her genuine concern that no writer should feel alone or adrift in the literary world. She welcomed and encouraged every single delegate and she celebrated the success of conference attendees with as much pleasure as if that success was her own. Even when she retired in 2013 after 34 years of presiding over the conference, she kept on reaching out to writers and running her own Creative Words Matter courses, with the help of Adrienne Dines and Sarah Mussi. At last year’s conference she was physically frail but her will undaunted, her joy undimmed. Her indomitable spirit was still an example to us all.
Barbara’s favourite expression, when she made her annual welcoming address and when she drew each conference to its close, was to call us her ‘family of writers’. She listened, sympathised, and encouraged. She drew us together, establishing connections both personal and professional.
When I was at last a published author, I started a whole new relationship with Barbara. She first invited me to give a talk at the conference and then to run workshops and give one-to-ones. Winchester became an annual feature in my working calendar. I ran some weekend workshops for her in Shawford at other times of the year. Barbara opened up a whole new career for me as a creative writing teacher and editor, culminating in my setting up Fictionfire Literary Consultancy ten years ago.
Over the more than two decades I have been attending what is now the Winchester Writers’ Festival I have made friends with so many fellow writers – a couple of whom I met that very first year. It all comes down to that first tentative visit, where Barbara made me welcome and made me feel seen and understood.
This year’s Winchester Writers’ Festival starts on the 14th June and you have until the 10th to book your place. I won’t be teaching there this year but I will be raising a glass to Barbara and all she stood for: an unselfish commitment to sharing knowledge and experience, a dedication to being an encouraging voice, cheerleader and guide. I’ll be sending my good wishes to everyone there this year.
We writers are far less alone than we used to be, thanks to the internet. We know more about the world of publishing than we used to do. We are able to self-publish in a way we couldn’t before. We can research agents, attend events online and offline. We are connected.
But still in the wee small hours we may be full of doubt about the value of our work. We may feel alone with those doubts and wonder if we will ever be able to complete that book or find a publisher.
Barbara would say to you: ‘Yes, you can! You’re not alone! You are part of the wonderful family of writers – welcome!’ And she’d go on to regale you with the famous anecdotes of the delegate lost in the nearby cemetery and the pink nightdress on the bed of one male delegate’s room …
I hope that in your writing life you find true guides and cheerleaders. Seize every opportunity to attend events where you may meet them – you never know where it may lead!
You can read some of my blogposts about the conference on Literascribe, my previous blog. Just follow the tags in the sidebar - Winchester Writers’ Conference and Winchester Writers’ Festival.
I will be teaching on Oxford University’s OUSSA summer school programme and the Creative Writing Summer School at Exeter College as usual this year.
I’m also working on my new book, The Unputdownable Writer’s Mindset - visit www.theunputdownablewriter.com to sign up for advance news and sneak peeks ahead of publication in the autumn.
There’s not a lot to celebrate right now in the British political scene, so as I write this post about my visit to last week’s London Book Fair the word that comes to me and comforts me is this: alliance. I could say a whole lot more about politics but I am going to accentuate the positive. The day I spent at Olympia was a positive one in every way.
Reason 1: Recognition. It was so good to get back to the London Book Fair for the first time in a few years. I first visited in 2012 when my overwhelming feeling about it was of being a stranger in a strange land, no matter that I was a published author. LBF was not, after all, created for authors. It is a trade fair and as such it’s all about publisher promotions, negotiations and deals. As an author (unless you’re a big name and the biggest names are awarded ‘days’ when they are wheeled out to the book trade public), you feel like an invisible cog in a very big wheel that’s capable of turning without you, thank you very much.
Reason 2: Actually, scrub that last sentence. However small a cog you are, you are integral to the smooth turning of that machine. Every cog connects, with ratchets, pinions and other cogs. Every author is part of creating the book industry. Every author produces the fuel for that industry, through imagination, dedication and productivity. Every author should be recognized and appreciated for his or her contribution to the British economy and the respect shown to creativity in our nation. (Oh dear, am I heading towards the political again?)
Reason 3: Buzz. It is exciting to enter a hall like a nineteenth century railway station, gaze around at the publishers’ stands and the lines of posters, see the trade names we grew up with, hear the hum of conversation, watch people stride past, mobile phones to ears, wheelie-cases trailing. Self-important and self-satisfied, a lot of it, yes, but still, it’s alive with action and conversation. I find that invigorating.
Reason 4: Opportunity. Any writer, whether aiming for traditional or independent publication, needs to be informed. You need to tap into how the industry really works. Visiting a book fair helps you understand that industry better, which increases your chances of being able to approach publishers in the right way (not, by the way, by tugging their sleeves at the Fair, without appointment or preparation!) Listening to talks, getting into conversations – who knows where it may all lead?
Reason 5: Connection. Opportunities come from the connections you make. More than that, true friendship and a sense of community arise when, as I did back in 2012, you meet people in person whom you may have known before in the digital world. Or you are introduced to new contacts. You realize that as a writer you don’t need to be alone. Your challenges are their challenges. Your successes are celebrated. There are shoulders to cry on. There are teams cheering for you.
Reason 6: The Alliance of Independent Authors. In 2012, what led me to LBF was the amazing Orna Ross, who had just set up ALLi as a non-profit organisation to help writers understand the industry and make their independent mark within it. I have been a member from the start and am in awe not just of Orna, but of all the other ALLi members who have contributed to its growth as a respected powerhouse of information and support. During LBF I hung out with my ALLi friends and there was a fantastic ALLi party afterwards. Fellowship, shared stories, plans for the future, a total sense of vibrancy. Buzz, connection, opportunity. Book love. Writing love.
Reason 7: Optimism. Yes, even in these troubled times! I talked to novelist Alison Morton at the Fair, who said she was optimistic about the book business. Publishing expert Dr Alison Baverstock echoed this, saying, ‘We’re in political crisis, aren’t we, and it seems to me the book business is quite a bright star within that, that we have strong exports and also that in times of political crisis, cheap treats do quite well, so traditionally publishing’s done OK when there is a national crisis. And we all need something to take our minds off the awful B word.’
Keep taking your mind off the political horrors! Keep writing, buying and reading those cheap treats! Maybe I’ll see you at LBF 2020?
Want to know more? ALLi held an inspiring online digital conference last weekend and anyone can listen to the huge range of sessions and presentations until 25th March: follow this link. ALLi members will have lifetime access to it.
If you’re interested in joining ALLi you can find out more here. If you do want to join, go here ( full disclosure: this is my affiliate link).
If you’d like to read about my very first visit to LBF go here.
Gallery: First row - with Alison Morton and Debbie Young, the ALLi stand, Dr Alison Baverstock of Kingston University. Second row - Rohan Quine, with Carol Cooper, Dan Holloway and Selfie Prizewinner Jane Davis (see my last blogpost!) Third row - Orna Ross, the ALLi party after the Fair, with Orna.
Last week I went to the London Book Fair for the first time in a few years. I’ll be talking about that again on this blog, but first I wanted to share some fabulous news about a book I love and a writer for whom I have such admiration.
In December 2018, I sent out a newsletter to my subscribers, listing the books I had enjoyed during the course of the year. The list ended with this: ‘Finally, my book of the year is Jane Davis' Smash all the Windows. This is a powerful novel about the reverberations down the years of a public tragedy and how it has affected the lives of individuals caught up in it and its aftermath. Jane's research is second to none. You find yourself braced for the description of the event itself, and totally involved in every character's life. This story is beautifully structured and resonates a long time after you've read it. It reminds us that people are not statistics and that press intrusion over-simplifies experience. Wise, memorable and moving. Highly recommended.’
So, I was absolutely delighted to hear that Jane won Book Brunch’s inaugural Selfie Award at the London Book Fair, for the best self-published novel of the year. This award is given not just for the quality of the writing but for the quality of the published product. Jane has published a number of books now and she takes a wholly professional attitude to the process, as good self-publishers should, employing a whole team to help her with developmental and line editing, proofreading and great cover design. When she made her acceptance speech, she thanked no fewer than 35 people who had played a part in bringing Smash all the Windows to her readers.
Last March, Jane guested on my previous blog, Literascribe, discussing how she came to write such a powerful and memorable story. Read the interview here.
Buy Smash all the Windows here.
Connect with Jane:
(By the way, if you want to find out about the other books I chose as my books of 2018, here’s the full text of December’s newsletter.)
I’ll be back with more on the London Book Fair soon. In the meantime, just a quick reminder that my current special offers, a consultancy hour with me for a third off and my online self-study masterclass How to be a Happy Writer at half-price, expire 19th March 2019 at midnight. Head to the consultancy and courses pages of the Fictionfire website to find out more and make your booking!
This week, Alison Morton, author of the successful Roma Nova series of thrillers, discusses the when, why and how of changing your book covers. Given that she and her cover designer, Jessica Bell, have done a damn fine job of it, you’ll be interested to read on!
First of all, apologies to Bill for mangling Hamlet’s lines, but weighing up whether to change covers for an established series does make one ‘draw [one’s] breath in pain.’
Excited in the run-up to the publication in 2013 of INCEPTIO, my first book, I was stunned by the cover that SilverWood Books produced. Here was the embodiment of my book: imperial purple, a gold eagle, symbol of Roman power, yet in a thoroughly modern design. Added to that, the ‘proper’ Roman font – Trajan Pro – as seen on inscriptions still visible across Europe. Brilliant!
And so it has been for the past five years and eight books. Each book has been published with a different jewel-like cover echoing the contents, but the eagle graphic constantly present, making the Roma Nova brand distinctive.
But times change. People change. Habits and wishes change. When historians write about our age, the one expression to characterise it will be ‘continuous change’.
My book sales have been steady, occasionally spiking. From the comments and reviews written by readers, I gather they enjoy the stories enough to give them hundreds of five stars across the series. But I wanted to introduce Roma Nova to more readers. So I dived into the murky business of marketing, beginning with an analysis.
What did potential new readers expect when they saw my book covers? Did they see adventure thrillers featuring strong heroines, a touch of history and mystery, tales of courage, failure, triumph, heartache and resolve? Hm. Perhaps the eagle image, dark colours and formal Roman script no longer had that elusive ‘pick-me-up’ element. Learning point: Emotion and character needed to be brought in.
Did the existing covers convey action and movement? Certainly, they conveyed strength and purposefulness, but there was no hint of risk, personal danger or taking the initiative. And you can’t say that either of my heroines, Carina or Aurelia, is backward in any of those aspects!
Learning point: Show some dynamism.
People vs. patterns. I rejected a cover with a face in 2013 because I couldn’t see it fitting within the graphic. It would have confused the impact of the eagle. From a five years’ later viewpoint, I still think that was the right decision then. Trying to fit everything together is not a good approach, nor is overcrowding a cover. The whole concept needed a rethink. Learning point: Don’t tinker – start again.
It’s hard-headed, but in marketing terms a book cover needs to tell readers what the book is about and entice them to pick it up – all within a second or two. If the cover isn't compelling enough to make passers-by (real or virtual) look further by reading the summary and reviews, they won’t buy.
Researching this was a hard process; I’m not a trained or professional marketer. However, I have run small businesses and am aware how important marketing is. And these days, more than ever, the impact must be instant.
Taking the decision to change the whole look of the Roma Nova covers was excruciating. But by now I had five solid years of experience in the book world: interacting with readers, absorbing reviews, listening to fellow authors, discovering new techniques and trends. I was also expanding the series, firstly by dropping in a novella (CARINA), then a collection of short stories (ROMA NOVA EXTRA). Currently I’m drafting a novella set in the 1970s featuring Aurelia, set between AURELIA and INSURRECTIO, something that would further mess up the existing numbering order!
A fresh approach was needed, and this was the perfect time to reassess and restructure the whole series. So I split the stories into two strands within the Roma Nova series: Carina Mitela adventures and Aurelia Mitela adventures.
Readers have described my books as a cross between Lindsey Davis’ Roman detective Falco and The Hunger Games. They’ve also been likened them to Manda Scott’s and Kate Mosse’s books. Conn Iggleden, Simon Scarrow and Elizabeth Chadwick (among others) have said nice things about them. I’d like to think they’d also appeal to readers of JD Robb and Robert Harris (or is that hubris?).
Back to the covers…
I commissioned designer Jessica Bell to draw up some concepts for the whole series.
I asked her to keep the original background colours: INCEPTIO purple, PERFIDITAS blood red, CARINA in between, SUCCESSIO blue, AURELIA green, INSURRECTIO black and RETALIO amber, and to include the signature eagle graphic in the mix.
She would draw up three concepts and I then had to choose one. But was it really up to me? Did it matter what I thought or felt? No. Definitely no. Which would most appeal to readers? And address the learning points from my analysis?
Disassociating yourself from your book, your baby, that part of your soul that you’ve put on public view is the hardest part of the process.
Jessica was a joy to work with: imaginative, professional and supportive, especially of some of my dafter ideas. But she was also ruthless in a very friendly way when my suggestions were off-piste; she was right every time.
Delighted isn’t the right word. Thrilled is a bit nearer. Shocked and overwhelmed in a very positive way is better still. After five years of beautiful but rather sober covers, the books have taken on a new, dynamic life. I think Roma Nova is about to storm off on some exciting new adventures.
Late 1960s Roma Nova. Retrained as an undercover agent, ex-Praetorian officer Aurelia Mitela is sent to Berlin to investigate silver smuggling, but barely escapes a near-lethal trap. Her lifelong nemesis, Caius Tellus, is determined to eliminate her and ruin Roma Nova.
A former military commander, Aurelia is one of Roma Nova’s strong women, but she doubts in her heart and mind that she can overcome her implacable enemy.
And what part does the mysterious and attractive Miklós play – a smuggler who knows too much?
When Caius Tellus strikes at her most vulnerable point, Aurelia must make an agonising decision – her country, her love or her child?
First in the Aurelia Mitela adventures, where Roman fiction is brought into the 20th century through an alternative history lens and first of the AURELIA trilogy. INSURRECTIO and RETALIO complete the trilogy.
– Historical Novel Society’s indie Editor’s Choice for Autumn 2015
– B.R.A.G. Medallion
– Finalist, 2016 HNS Indie Award
Paperback: https://myBook.to/AURELIA
Amazon: https://myBook.to/AURELIA_Kindle
Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/ebook/aurelia-30
B&N Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/aurelia-alison-morton/1121827041?ean=2940151557450
Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/aurelia/id1378216297
Alison Morton writes the award-winning Roma Nova thriller series featuring modern Praetorian heroines. She blends her deep love of Roman history with six years’ military service and a life of reading crime, adventure and thriller fiction.
A ‘Roman nut’ since age 11, Alison misspent decades clambering over Roman sites throughout Europe. Fascinated by the mosaics at Ampurias (Spain), at their creation by the complex, power and value-driven Roman civilisation, she started wondering what a modern Roman society would be like if run by strong women...
Now she continues to write thrillers, cultivates a Roman herb garden and drinks wine in France with her husband.
Connect with Alison on her Roma Nova site: http://alison-morton.com
Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/AlisonMortonAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/alison_morton @alison_morton
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alisonmortonauthor/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5783095.Alison_Morton
Alison’s Amazon page: http://Author.to/AlisonMortonAmazon
I just came back from a magical three day retreat in the Nottinghamshire countryside (the photo above is blurry because it was taken through the window of my room – the sunrises were gorgeous). In the run-up to the retreat, I really agonized about whether I could go, whether I should take the time out of my work-schedule, whether I would gain anything from it.
And, most of all, whether I deserved it.
On the first evening, I really wasn’t sure I’d made the right choice. Not because there was anything wrong with the retreat – far from it! The venue was superb, the atmosphere warm and friendly, the other participants the most lovely women, the retreat leaders Elizabeth and Emma Buckley-Goddard brilliant hosts. There was generosity and fun all around me.
The real problem was me. I was tired, out of sorts, full of stress. I couldn’t settle into the experience. I started to worry that maybe I didn’t fit in.
The next day, that all changed as we took turns talking about our businesses, learning from Elizabeth – and what’s more, from each other. I felt like a cushion or pillow that’s been flattened by pressure for too long, and then the pressure comes off and air starts to seep in and the pillow plumps up. (I was plumping up from Jo Hodson’s amazing food, but that’s another story!)
So what did I learn? So much! About myself, about how other women cope with business and how they balance business and their daily lives. Here, then are some key takeaways:
That diverse business-owners find they have the same issues: discoverability, impostor syndrome, deciding which direction to take next, deciding which offers to make to their clients/customers, finding the strength to jettison what doesn’t work anymore and move on to what has the potential to take their businesses to another level.
That there’s an extraordinary paradox at work: women who are teachers, communicators, marketers, whose lives are all about reaching out and helping others, start their hot-seat sessions with the phrase ‘I’m an introvert but…’! We agreed there are misconceptions about being an introvert. Introverts do like people and do like talking to them, but they also need to factor in the time and space to step back, be silent, refill the well. Constantly putting ourselves out there drains energy and we have to find ways to restore it. Ways like this retreat, for instance.
That business and creativity co-exist. You can’t run your business without creative imagination but that imagination has to work within the parameters of what is practicable in a business sense.
That women in a workshop space create an amazing instant bond and a vibrant energy, punctuated by delighted cries of ‘Me too!’ (not, I hasten to add, in the Hollywood sense). I’ve noticed this in my writing retreats – how quickly women meet and recognize one another and open up to one another and cheer one another on.
That tough love and accountability are necessary. We’re all good at dreaming, but need to be good at doing too.
If you’re a writer or want to start writing I think you can see how many of these lessons also apply to you. Find your peers, your encouragers. Find those who are experiencing what you experience. Find mentors who will give you that tough love, that shoulder to cry on, and the practical advice you need to keep soldiering on.
I’m still absorbing what I learned and I’m buzzing with new plans and intentions – but that’s a story for another day :)
In the meantime, keep dreaming. And keep doing.
