An obvious (and slightly inconvenient) truth - Nicola Morgan

You know that thing when you realise something and then you realise it was incredibly obvious and you feel embarrassed for not having realised it before? Well, that. But, just in case there's anyone else out there who hadn't thought about this, I will share it with you. Please tell me I am not alone in my foolishness.

Non-fiction is much easier to sell than fiction. And now I realise why.

First, let me tell you how I realised that this was even the case. In August I published my book on Twitter - Tweet Right - The Sensible Person's Guide to Twitter. And in November I re-published Mondays are Red, which was my debut novel back in 2002. I published both books as ebooks only.

Now, Mondays are Red should have had an advantage because it has been published before and has a raft of lovely reviews from newspapers as well as readers; also, it's been out of print for a couple of years and people are still asking for it. But it's selling about a quarter of the number that Tweet Right sells on a weekly basis. (Which is not a vast number, let me tell you, but it's very respectable.)

And this is despite the fact that I did more to push Mondays. A blog tour, for example, which I didn't do for Tweet Right. And TR is more expensive. And shorter. It is, by word count, much less good value. With Mondays are Red, I pleaded with my blog readers and employed blatant emotional blackmail. I never did that with Tweet Right.

However, none of that really worked. (I'm actually a bit relieved - I don't like pleading or blackmail! And btw, let me be clear: I do NOT expect people to buy out of duty.) So, TR continues to outsell Mondays by about four times.

And it seems to me the reason is obvious.

When you try to persuade a reader to buy your novel, you're trying to persuade them to want this one more than thousands - hundreds of thousands - of others. Even if yours is the genre they like to buy, you're still competing in a crowded, often poorly differentiated market. It's easy to be invisible. (Especially since there are some things I won't do to get myself or my book seen.)

But if they are looking for a book about something - Twitter, or my next topic, writing synopses (Write a Great Synopsis - An Expert Guide, coming in January!) - there are very few books that I'm competing against. Very few indeed. It's easier to be seen. Also, it's relatively easy to find the audience, because you know where they hang out. But readers of novels are everywhere, everywhere, I tell you. And they are slippery. God, they are.

So, it's obvious when you think about it, isn't it? It's much more a numbers game than we'd like to think.


In view of this, I will not bother to plead with you to buy Mondays are Red. Honestly. Don't. There are hundreds of thousands of other novels you might like almost as much. But, on the other hand, there's only one at the other end of this link. :)

EDITED TO ADD: I have a suggestion: if any published* UK authors with YA titles which are also in ebook format for Kindle would like to get in touch, I'll do a blog post (on my blog) after Christmas which will list them, with links. SO, if your book is YA, published and in ebook format, email me, in this order: title, author, publisher, 25 words to describe including genre, and Amazon link (UK or US, just one). By Christmas Eve. n@nicolamorgan.co.uk 


(* I'm really sorry but I have to offer this only for authors who have had novels published by a trade publisher. This is purely so that I don't end up having to put eleventy million books in a blog post when I could be eating mince pies.)

No more postcards any more - Nicola Morgan

[After writing this, I saw Saviour Pirotta's post about school visits, in which he praises postcards. I don't disagree with him in that context but you'll see that I have come to a different conclusion, because I'm asking a different question.]

I recently conducted some modestly scientific research and I bring you the results: buying postcards in an attempt to support my books is a) far too expensive and b) utterly pointless if measured by ensuing book sales.

The only type of writer in a position to discover this is someone who has a self-published ebook-only books, because that is the only way precise, near-real-time sales can be monitored. With my ebook-only books, where I'm the publisher, I know for a fact whether I have sold an ebook in any given 24-hour period.

So, let me tell you two recent opportunities I had to test the value of giving away postcards to support a book.

TEST 1 - Mondays are Red
I do nothing to promote Mondays are Red and it sells the same (small!) number every week, with no variation other than an overall 10% decline in the last year. It is available only as an ebook and I will see every sale within a few hours.

Recently, I did a school event at a private school. 120 pupils in the audience, of the right age to enjoy Mondays are Red. Each pupil was allowed to pick up a Mondays are Red postcard, signed, on the way out. Each pupil did. So, 120 cards went into the world, carried home by a person who was a) fired up to enjoy a book (it was a very positive event) and b) almost certainly able to afford to pay under £3 for it.

Over the ensuing two weeks, how many extra copies of Mondays are Red were sold in the UK?

None. Zero. I know, someone might buy it later but I'd like to think at least one person was moved to buy it NOW.

TEST 2 - Dear Agent, Write a Great Synopsis and Tweet Right (all on one postcard)
I do a bit to promote these books, because they are featured visually on my Help! I Need a Publisher! blog, which gets good traffic and has 1600+ registered readers. They sell steadily - and by steadily I mean that I sell uncannily the same number every week. The weekly figure does not vary unless something has spiked it. Again, they are available only as ebooks and I will see every sale within a few hours.

Recently, I was speaking at the York Festival of Writing. There were hundreds of people there but I decided not to leave piles of postcards because I wanted to know they'd been picked up. I did leave one small pile but I also properly handed out 110 over 24 hours.

Over the ensuing two weeks, how many extra copies of any of those books have been sold in the UK?

None. Zero. I know, someone might buy them later but...

And yes, of course, we don't know whether those cards will find their way into other hands and whether sales might ensure but I'm not anticipating a pre-Christmas rush, tbh.

So, let's look at the cost of this embarrassing failure
I buy my cards from Vistaprint. Maybe there's somewhere cheaper (though they aren't known for being high-end) but I like being able to design them easily and I do take advantage of the special offers. (For example, if I want 500, I know that I should just order 250, because, when I've clicked "buy" I'll be given the chance to buy another 250 for a far cheaper price.)

But the unit cost of a postcard is still pretty shocking, even when bought in bulk. I looked at my last order, in which I ordered 250 of Mondays are Red and 500 of the writing/publishing one. And I worked out that each card cost me just over 13p.

So, it cost me £30 to fail to sell a single copy of four books. And when I think how many postcards I've handed out over the years... Well, I'd rather not, to be honest.

And that's why I won't be buying postcards any more. (Oops - see PS...) I'll be signing jotters and arms and scraps of paper and punishment slips, but not postcards bought by me. I may order some business card sized things, but not postcards. I can't afford the waste, pretty as they are.

What about bookmarks? Don't get me started on bookmarks. I researched bookmarks years ago and decided that, as well as the greater cost (usually) they don't work well as marketing tools because people put hide them inside a book and they've already bought the book so it's unlikely to prompt a sale. Again, they're pretty and it's nice to give something to a reader, but...

You see, don't get me wrong: I'd love to be able to give pretty presents to everyone who smiles at me and asks for a signature and if money flowed from my pen I'd happily go back to buying postcards. But I can't afford it.

I'd love to know what everyone thinks. I am sure loads of you will disagree with me, and you might easily be right.
_____________

*cough* The books mentioned above are available on Amazon, but, apart from Tweet Right, they are also available on my own online shop, which is the cheapest place to buy them and you get all formats in one package... But no postcards!

PS Added later: Erm, I capitulated. I just ordered postcards again. One for all my books on one card, including the forthcoming ebook of The Passionflower Massacre and Sleepwalking. Why? Because I ordered 1000, making them cost just under 8p, and because I like pretty things. I am a fool! 

Shameless - Savita Kalhan

The Long Weekend is my debut novel. When it was published I was disgustingly naive (I’ve blogged about this before). I had never spoken to another children’s author much less met one. I was utterly internet illiterate and didn’t have a clue about so many aspects of the publishing industry. I didn’t even know that book bloggers existed.

Over the last couple of years I’ve learnt so much. I wish I’d known all of it before my book had been published, but at least I’m better prepared for when the next one is published. My list of book bloggers and reviewers is ready. I have sourced where to get book marks made, and now that I’ve found an amazing director, I know where to go when I want the book trailer for the new book done.

Book trailers are supposed come out before the book. They’re supposed to promote your book, create awareness of it, and stick in people’s memories so that they remember to buy it.

Well, rather than wait for the next book to be published, I’ve just had a book trailer done for The Long Weekend. Why? Because I always wanted one for The Long Weekend, and although it has come out a considerable time after the book, it can still tick all the other boxes, which it has been doing.

My agent was very pleased when she learned of this. She said that publishers like it when the author takes a pro-active role in marketing their books. She is submitting my manuscript to various publishers and said she will definitely be including the link to the book trailer too.

My book trailer is directed by Mal Woolford – an exceptionally talented film director. You can watch some of his work on Vimeo. They are not suitable for children, so I won’t post the link here, but go and watch them if you get the chance. RedBlack is a personal favourite. I was confident that he could capture the mood and the feel of my book – and he did! He did his research, read my book a few times, sourced the music, discussed his ideas with me, and this is it -

Take a peek at the book trailer – it’s less than two minutes long. I’d love to hear what you think.

In which I control my addiction - Nicola Morgan

I am probably the last person you expected to say what I'm going to say: the internet has all got too much and I am going to take control. It's become like one of those eat-all-you-can buffets and it's making me feel somewhat sick.

After I spoke about "building your online platform" at the Society of Authors conference, people said they were terrified by my apparent energy. How did I find the time? Vanessa Gebbie asked on my blog for advice about how to use the internet without wasting time. Blithely, I replied, a) define wasting time b) when it feels too much, stop - don't let it take over. Discipline, my child!

Well, I was OK at that point. After all, I only had a few blogs and three FB pages and Twitter and a new website in progress (now done!) and three existing websites and Audioboo. And this collaborative blog. And the Authors Electric blog, which I'd just joined as a newbie ebook publisher. (And immediately volunteered to manage their Twitter account...)

But then, my behaviour tipped over some kind of precipice: I investigated (purely for research, you understand) LinkedIn, where I found groups and threads and discussions, and where I spent a lot of time deleting randomly-generated emails. And Google+, which everyone said was "better" than Facebook, and where I found circles and groups and threads and discussions and hangouts to hang out in with people I already knew from Twitter and Facebook. Then (purely for research, you understand), I thought I should join the Kindle Boards (because I am interested in ebook publishing) and the Kindle UK forum (ditto and because it exists) and the Absolute Write Water Cooler (ditto and ditto and because people asked me to) and in all of those places I found forums and groups and threads and discussions and spent a great deal of time in a great many similar conversations.

In those places, I kept seeing the same people. Often lovely people. "Fancy meeting you here! Do you come here often?" So I was communicating with existing friends in umpteen places. They were everywhere, all at the same time, and so was I.

As well as that, within 24 hours of arriving on one forum, I had THREE private messages warning me to be careful what I said because the conversation could sometimes be vicious. The word "vicious" was actually used in each case. I didn't see any viciousness but I know people who have experienced it. And I don't want to.

After a couple of weeks of all this gorging on the buffet, and working longer and longer hours to get any actual work done, it all became too much and I thought, "Blimey, this is wasting time." And I reminded myself of what I'd told Vanessa Gebbie: Discipline, my child!

Also, I was getting more and more frustrated with Facebook - I seemed to be force-fed information and photos and quiz results and Farmville pink rabbits from people I literally didn't know. At. All. I am sure many of them were lovely people, but I didn't know them and they didn't know me and there are actually only so many hours in the day. And to be honest I don't want to know the Farmville activities of even my closest friends.

So I began slipping away from some of the afore-mentioned places, without wanting to offend the perfectly decent and sensible people there. Today, I began to try to untie the strings of Facebook. And what long FB conversations that caused! Facebook has this horrible word, "Unfriending". In order only to interact with people you actually know, you have to unfriend the others. It's horrible. You have to do it one name at a time and a little - well, OK: big - message comes up asking if you're really sure you want to unfriend so-and-so. Meh.

What's my point? I actually think there's a reassuring message to all this. I think that any of you who also feel that your online life has got or is getting too much, if it feels unhealthy, might take comfort from this: if I, the ultimate internet junkie, addicted to communication with as many people as possible in as many ways as possible, can call a halt and take control, anyone can! it feels very cleansing and sensible. Like a detox diet after over-indulgence.

I don't think we should do any of these online things just because we feel we "ought" to, only when we want to. We should eat when we're hungry or to be sociable and human, not when someone waves a piece of chocolate cake in front of our noses. Not just because it's there. Not because people try to tempt us.

If only it was as easy with real food...

Has anyone else reached this point of online saturation? Some of you, I know, have resisted it. It's all about balance - but that balance is different for each of us. When you reach it, I urge you: stop. Discipline, my child. Or desperation.

Nicola Morgan is the author of around 90 books for children and adults, including Tweet Right - The Sensible Person's Guide to Twitter. £2.74 on Amazon and you don't need a Kindle!

Blurbling On: Penny Dolan.

The blurb is so simple that Year 1 children – the five to six year olds – can recognise the thing. They point to the patch of text on the back of book cover, proudly telling you “It’s the bit that tells you about the book.”

Is that truly what a blurb does? Does it tell you too much? Or not enough? I’ve been thinking about this because I’ve had examples of both.

In books I’ve written for an early reader series, the standard blurb format sometimes gives the twist of the plot away.

Eight enormous elephants turn a little boy’s house upside down.
It seems nothing can stop them . . . until a little mouse appears.

Or

When Ed dropped his gum on as stormy day, little did he know what would happen. Can Granny save him from the Big Bad Blob?

Why? I wanted both the mouse and the Granny to be a surprise.

Does it help the young reader’s reading and enjoyment to know what the surprise is? Would it help readers of Christie’s “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” if the blurb contained the words But the narrator did it all along?

The writer doesn’t usually write the blurb, in my experience. The words comes from someone at the publishing house. The copy editor? The editor? Are the words agreed with marketing who must surely know what aspects of the book might make it sell? It’s all a mystery to me.

However, for my long novel for upper junior readers, A BOY CALLED M.O.U.S.E, there was some information missing.

The book blurb emphasizes Mouse’s earlier life and his time in a dreadful school. Here’s an extract:

Mouse cannot know there are people who want to kep him hidden away . . . or worse. Frightened and alone, what Mouse does know is that he must get away from Murkstone Hall – and fast.

The blurb is gripping and compelling stuff, but nowhere does it mention that the final third of the book takes part in the busy backstage world of the Victorian theatre, nor that the play that involves Mouse is A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Originally I had decided this had been missed out because someone at my new publishers felt that any hint of “the theatre” might put readers off. Maybe it would have attracted readers? I’m not sure. Or perhaps it just was that, with a long and complex story, there just wasn’t enough space for everything? Ah well.

I looked at quite a few book blurbs before writing this post and must admit that one stood out:

Once I escaped from an orphanage to find Mum and Dad.
Once I saved a girl called Zelda from a burning house.
Once I made a Nazi with toothache laugh.
My name is Felix.
This is my story.

I can’t help wondering whether it was Morris Gleitzman or his publisher who wrote that blurb for "Once".

Can any of you explain the mysteries of blurb writing? Or do you have your own favourite “blurb” blurbs?

Domain name - tick; blog - tick; twitter - tick... (Anne Rooney)

It used to be the case that when you thought of a title for your book or series you were pleased, tried it out on a few people, and got on with writing. You might check whether someone else had used the title for anything similar. Now there is a whole post-title task-bank to work through.

Task 1: buy the appropriate domain names and put up holding pages. Tick.
Check the domain name for your title is available, or something you can plausibly use instead. If you can't use the title, is that being used for something you don't want your child readers to visit by accident? My series title is Vampire Dawn: it would be entirely plausible for a steamy temptress called Dawn to have taken this domain for her page of naughty vampire photos, in which case I would have changed the title. Luckily, no such vamp is operating. VampireDawn.com has gone (to someone respectable), but VampireDawn.co.uk is now secured and a holding page in place.

Task 2: set up twitter account @VampireDawn. Tick.
Get any useful twitter names and start using them. This might be the title, or the name of a key character. Gillian Philip has @sethmacgregor for one of her characters, for instance.

Task 3: set up blog. Tick.
Now the blog. This was trickier as the blogger name had already gone. Wordpress, then. Pick a vaguely appropriate off-the-peg theme for now and put up a post or two promising what is coming.

Task 4: set up Facebook page and start using it. Tick.
And the Facebook page. For now, this will have updates on progress and a few snippets, but it's important to get the name now in case it goes to someone else. It's better to have a few followers on it before publication day, too.

Task 5: set up YouTube account. Tick.
We'll need a trailer, eventually. Here I ran into problems, as there is an independent film in production called Vampire Dawn. That's the group that has taken vampiredawn.com and vampiredawn.blogspot. And they have the YouTube account. So I grab VampireDawn2012 quickly. No need to make any films yet, but it's a good idea to start commenting with the account occasionally.

From the publisher, I needed the logo for the series and an early cover image - nothing else. Depending on your book, you might need something else - or nothing at all. And you might think this is all too much faff and you aren't going to do it. The characters in my series will be using Facebook and an iPhone app to keep in touch, so some online traces of these make it all more real. If your story is set in the eighteenth century - or even the 1980s - that won't be necessary. Phew.

Now - time to get on with writing the books....

@VampireDawn
Vampire Dawn website
Vampire Dawn on Facebook
Vampire Dawn's blog

The Dreaded P-Words - Nicola Morgan

One of the problems with modern life is too much choice. Choice is offered as a good thing and, on the face of it, it is. Certainly, lack of choice is lack of power and the ultimate lack of power is slavery. But too much choice can be horribly paralysing and lead to great dissatisfaction. 

There's an area of choice in which I think writers are becoming panicky and paralysed. It's the P-Words: Publicity, Promotion, Profile, Platform. Oh, and pro-active.

Time was when a writer wrote a book, waited for Publication Day, was wheeled out for a few signings and tottered back to a hotel for a claret-laden dinner with editor. (Actually, I have no memory of such days, but allow me some imagination.) Now, we have to be pro-active, partly because often our publishers don't do enough or we have better ideas, or simply because there are so many opportunities and our publishers rightly encourage us to use them. We see other authors Doing Stuff and want to Do Stuff too. For a pro-active, interfering, control freak such as me, this is, in theory, great.

In theory.

In practice, it's a flipping nightmare, a feast of choices, incitement to wake in the night with Yet Another Stupid Wheeze Which I Usually Actually Carry Through. And then there's the panic when we hear what someone else is doing - why didn't we think of that? The blog tour, the sponsored marathon, the one-woman festival, the colour-coded Tweet-up, the mail-shotting of the fan database. What?? You don't have a fan database, in a spreadsheet, with the ability to identify each category of reader, by postcode? You mean you haven't set up a Twitter persona for each of the characters in your book? You don't have a special blog, posting every day for six months? You haven't organised a book giveaway throughout all continents of the world? Bad, lazy author.

NO! No more, I say, no more. I reject paralysing choice. I will not be panicked into doing stupid things that sound good but wreck me. Never again will I set a world record of school visits in one day, as I did for Deathwatch. Or organise a blog tour AND set up a new blog, as I did for Wasted. Nor will I ever lie awake wondering what mad things to do for the next book. I will reject panic. I will calm down, be sensible and moderate. We do too much, worry too much, glance in too much fear at other people, fret about what we're not doing instead of focusing on what we can do well.

So, here, for what it's worth, is my advice on approaching publication in a state of zen:

1. Play to your strengths: do what suits you. If the idea curdles your stomach juices, spit it out.
2. Focus not on the excitement of the Bright Idea but the feeling you will actually have when you have to put the idea into practice. Will you regret it? If so, stop it in its tracks.
3. Choose a couple of things to do and forget the other possibilities. You have another book to write and a life to live.
4. Ignore everyone else: no one is doing everything and most people are not selling as many books as you fear.
5. If you wake in the night with a crazy idea, go back to sleep. 
6. Be strategic and time-focused. Six months before publication, make a plan (in conjunction with your publisher); then do virtually nothing till two months before P-day.Then, look at your plan and follow it. This planning eliminates the need to wake in the night in a panic. Besides, you're not panicking, remember?
7. Remember that what happens to your book will depend mostly on luck and the book, more than how many hours you spent promoting it.
8. You do not have to have a launch party - it's fun (for some people) but it usually doesn't sell books so only do it if it will make you happy, not if it will stress you.
9. Do as I say, not as I do. But I'm trying - I really am.

ARGHHHHH.

By the way, in case my publicist is reading this, the book is called Write to be Published. But it's not published till June, so I'm doing nothing yet.

Caaaaaaaaalm. Ommmmmmmmmm.

Donning Hats and Juggling Acts Savita Kalhan

Why write if it's not to be read?

I’ve been writing for a number of years, almost solely for teens, and so far I’ve had one book published. I’ve written several books, and I have ideas for several more. In my last blog I talked about my need to start on a new book each Autumn. It’s now January and yes, I am deep into my new story and loving the main character, although I’m not sure the main character loves me for what I’m putting her through! Regardless, I’m writing and I know I’ll continue writing until the book is finished when I’ll read it through and edit it, and agonise over it before sending it off to my agent, who will cast her critical eye on it and deliver her judgment, and if it’s a positive one it will get sent off to the publisher who will do the same etc, etc...

But this is just one aspect of being a writer – of intrinsic importance, of course, and you can’t call yourself a writer unless you are prepared to go through all of the above – there are other aspects that might be perilous to ignore.

To be a successful writer these days, several other hats should be donned once the writing has been done. The same is true even to be a moderately successful writer. There was a time when writers did not have to don any other hats – there were people who did that for them. These hats include upping your profile, trying to get (hopefully rave, but no guarantees!) reviews – online and in the press, making sure everyone, including the right people know about them, doing signings, visiting schools, blogging about your new book, blogging about yourself, being active on twitter and facebook, getting interviewed, networking, courting bloggers and librarians, speaking at conferences, and finding as many platforms for yourself and your book as possible. (Even Margaret Atwood maintains an active Twitter profile)

Creating a bit of a buzz for your book is important. The books that find their way onto all the shortlists and often win prizes haven’t got there all by themselves, unless their authors have been extremely lucky. The writers have been doing all the above and more to ensure their book’s success.

Not as many people read my first novel, The Long Weekend, as I would have liked. There are so many factors that contributed to that. I’m putting my hand up and saying that one of those factors was my naivety as a newly published author. No one knew about my book and as I wasn’t shouting it from the rooftops or even holding it up for people to see, things stayed that way. I didn’t know about all the other hats I needed to wear if I wanted my book to reach its readers, I just assumed that others were donning them for me. Consequently my book was only in a few book shops and found by very few readers.

Now I know what I have to do and I have been trying to do that, if somewhat belatedly. I still can’t wear all the hats I’d like to wear, but that’s okay. Some hats are easier to wear than others and are less time-consuming, so I try to wear those. I know I need time to write and to have a life outside of writing! So one of the things I decided to do was to promote my book on the internet, and that’s where I found those wonderful book bloggers from around the world. Luckily for me, book bloggers don’t mind at all that a book has been out for a while because what they love doing is reading good books, and they’re more than happy to review them, and if they like the book they rave about it. They are avid book readers and they’ve built up reputations and followers who want book recommendations.

They love my book, and this has led to a blog tour across the States and Canada in February.
http://theteenbookscene.weebly.com/the-long-weekend-tour-details.html

Followed by another blog tour in March, details to be announced here in February:
http://www.iswimforoceans.com/

More people will get to hear about my book and hopefully more people will read it. Finally, my book is reaching its readers.
I haven’t got a new book coming out – yet. But when I do, I won’t be making the same mistakes as I did when my first book came out.

I don’t think I’ve got my head buried in the sand anymore, although I’ve still got a few stubborn grains of sand in my ears. I’ve learnt an important lesson this past year - I know what I should be doing, I know how much I am comfortable doing, and I’m learning how much I want to do and how much I can fit in. I’m finding a balance that works for me.

And, yes, I guess in the end I do write because I want to be read.

A Sort of Life - Celia Rees

At the end of his autobiographical memoir, Graham Greene says:

'For a writer, I argued, success is always temporary, success is only a delayed failure. A writer's ambition is not satisfied like the business man's by a comfortable income, although he sometimes boasts of it like a nouveau riche.
...
The writer has the braggart's excuse. Knowing the unreality of his success he shouts to keep his courage up. There are faults in his work which he alone detects...'

The real satisfaction lies in putting those things right, in other words in the writing itself.

Graham Greene was a great writer, one who understood not only how prose works, but the inner workings of those who produce it.

As I read this, I was struck by the truth of it. I'm sure there will be many who will deny it, but they know in their hearts that this is true. We ARE never satisfied. Once we are over the first great hurdle, that of getting our work published at all, then there are other goals to achieve: prizes, sales, money, fame, recognition. We need other people to recognise the worth of our work, and through that, ourselves. Even if we gain everything, prizes, fame, money, the whole works, then we still know that our star will inevitably fade. Success is fleeting, at best.

We now have more ways to shout, to keep our courage up. We can blog, tweet and twitter, post videos on YouTube. We can be out there, like barkers at some virtual literary fair, shouting out out wares, bidding readers to come see, come buy, know about us. I wonder what GG would think about all that?

Yesterday, I came across the wise words of another great writer: Margaret Atwood.

I was directed by Adele Geras to fictionbitch.blogspot.com where I found this quote from an interview in the Literary Review:

'...people are trying to pile stuff onto authors, like you have to blog, you have to have this, you have to have that. Various party tricks. You actually don't ... an author's job is to concentrate on the writing, and once the writing is finished what you essentially do is throw it into a bottle and heave it into the sea... There is still a voyage between the text and the unknown reader; the book will still arrive at the door of some readers who don't understand it - who don't like it. It will still find some readers who hopefully do...'

I guess people will say, she would say that, wouldn't she? Just as it is easy to dismiss Graham Greene's words - how much more successful can a writer be? But I don't think these observations come from self satisfaction and complacency. They come from the very things that make these two such successful writers: their powers of observation, depth of insight, honesty and courage to express thoughts that might be unpalatable, but are nonetheless true. The only real satisfation has to come from the words we put down on the page and the connection we make with readers, no matter how many, or how few.

Three years on. By C.J. Busby

I have just had the second book of my second series for children published. It feels like a bit of a milestone.

It's called Dragon Amber, and it's part of a multiple worlds adventure trilogy that started with Deep Amber last March. The cover's lovely, as all of them have been (thanks to David Wyatt), and there's nothing quite like holding the physical copy of your new book in your hands (or even clutching it to yourself as you do a little dance...!!) But it being the second book of the second series made me stop and think. It's my sixth book to be published. While I'm far from being 'established' (whatever that means), it certainly means I'm no longer a total newbie.

Which feels ever so slightly weird, as I still think of myself as a novice, pretending to be an author.

This business of feeling as if you're pretending seems to be something quite a few children's authors suffer from. (It may be related to the fact that very few of us are actually making enough money to feel writing is a 'proper' job, but that's another story...)

Anyway, I thought I'd take this opportunity - as someone who can no longer consider herself a novice - to try and sum up what I have learnt over the last three years of being part of the world of children's publishing.

1. First and foremost: other children's authors - whether well known, just published or still hopeful - are almost all lovely, warm, friendly and modest (and there are not many professions you'd be able to say that of.) Getting together with them, at festivals, conferences, retreats or book launches is a wonderfully affirming thing to do - and helps quite a lot with that feeling of being a bit of a fraud (I AM a children's writer - because I am accepted by all those other lovely children's writers!!)

2. I have almost no control over whether my books do well or not - so I should just relax and maybe cross my fingers occasionally! Being open to opportunities like school visit invites or festivals is fun and part of getting to know the publishing business - tweeting and face booking have been similarly good for getting to know other writer friends. And sometimes opportunities have come from that. But none of it has turned my book into a best-seller, and I don't think there's any magic way of doing so!

3. If I don't want to become mad and bitter, I have to try not to compare my book sales/prize nominations and festival invites with others - and must remember NOT to check the Amazon ranking of my books more than  once a week! There is a great deal of luck and randomness in this business and then there are the unfathomable whims of publishers, reviewers and the reading public (Fifty Shades of Grey, anyone?). Generally (but not always: see aforementioned Fifty Shades) it's Very Good Books that get attention and prizes - equally there are thousands of Very Good Books that don't, and which category mine end up in (even  if they were to be considered Very Good!) is mostly down to serendipity.

Oh - and marketing spend.

Which brings me to no. 4.

4. Publishers put serious time, energy and money behind only a select few of the books they publish. These books are plastered all over websites, magazines, 'hot new trends' lists, twitter, reviews, front window billing at Waterstones and W.H. Smiths.

In the absence of this push, you are lucky if your book ends up in a select few Waterstones branches, or garners an online review from a kind blogger. This is no reflection on the quality of your book - I've met too many other brilliant people with fabulous books who can't get them noticed to think it's entirely a meritocracy. Publishers are scrabbling to find the next Wimpy Kid or Hunger Games, and even they don't know what will trigger that response. Often it's something they have all roundly rejected as too dire to waste ink on (cough, Fifty Shades...) So they put money behind a few, and publish a hundred others in a kind of scattergun approach, in case any of them builds a following by chance. I've learned to treat having a book out as a bit like having bought a lottery ticket - whether it does well or not is as random as whether I win the jackpot or a £10 prize for three numbers.


5. So, finally, after a few years of trying to find the 'magic key' to making a go of this publishing lark, I've learned to just enjoy the moment: to hold my new book in my hands, and do a little jig at having pulled it off one more time. In the book I'm currently reading (The Blade Itself, by Joe Abercrombie) one of the characters is a Northman, hard, battle-scarred, always getting into more impossible fights. At the end of each one, he repeats, as a kind of mantra: 'Still alive, still alive...' I think I feel a bit like that about writing - 'Still there, still there...'


C.J. Busby writes funny fantasy adventures for ages 7 upwards. Her first book, Frogspell, was a Richard and Judy Children's Book Cub choice for 2012. The series is published in Canada by Scholastic and the UK by Templar and has been translated into German and Turkish. Deep Amber, the first of a new trilogy, was published in March 2014. The second instalment, Dragon Amber, came out on 1st September.

"A rift-hopping romp with great charm, wit and pace" Frances Hardinge.

Nominated for the Stockton Book Award 2015.

www. cjbusby.co.uk

@ceciliabusby

Why I don't want to self-publish again

(Kate Wilson of the wonderful Nosy Crow asked me to write a guest post for her on my experiences of self-publishing as a published author. For your info, she didn't know what those experiences were, so there was no direction or expectation. I have re-posted it here, with permission. Note that this is personal experience, not advice.)

Many writers, previously published or not, talk excitedly about why they enjoy self-publishing. Let me tell you why I don’t.

I’ve self-published (only as ebooks) three of my previously published YA novels and three adult non-fiction titles which hadn’t been published before. From these books I make a welcome income of around £250 a month – a figure that is remarkably constant. So, why have I not enjoyed it and why won’t I do it again?

It’s damned hard to sell fiction! (Over 90% of that £250 is from the non-fiction titles.) Publishers know this. They also know that high sales are not always about “quality”, which is precisely why very good novels can be rejected over and over. Non-fiction is easier because it’s easy to find your readers and for them to find your book. Take my book about writing a synopsis, for example; anyone looking for a book on writing a synopsis will Google “books on writing a synopsis” and, hey presto, Write a Great Synopsis appears. But if someone wants a novel, the chances of finding mine out of the available eleventy million are slim. This despite the fact that they had fab reviews and a few awards from their former lives.

But some novels do sell well. So why don’t mine? Because I do absolutely nothing to sell them. Why not? Well, this is the point. Several points.

First, time. I am too busy with other writing and public-speaking but, even if I weren’t, the necessary marketing takes far too long (for me) and goes on for too long after publication: the very time when I want to be writing another one. This is precisely why publishers tend only to work on publicity for a short while after publication: they have other books to work on. We may moan but it has to be like that – unless a book does phenomenally well at first, you have to keep working at selling it.

Second, I dislike the stuff I’d have to do to sell more books. Now, this is where you start leaping up and down saying, “But published authors have to do that, too!” Yes, and I do, but it’s different. When a publisher has invested money because they believe in your book, you obviously want to help them sell it. But when the only person who has actually committed any money is you, the selling part feels different. It’s a case of “I love my book so much that I published it – now you need to believe in me enough to buy it.” I can’t do it. Maybe I don’t believe in myself enough. Fine. I think books need more than the author believing in them. The author might be right and the book be fabulous, but I tend to be distrustful of strangers telling me they are wonderful so why should I expect others to believe me if I say I am? And I don’t want to spend time on forums just to sell more books.

Third, I love being part of a team. Yes, I’ve had my share of frustrating experiences in the course of 100 or so published books, but I enjoy the teamwork – even though I’m an introvert who loves working alone in a shed; I love the fact that other people put money and time and passion into selling my book. It gives me confidence and support. They won’t make money if they don’t sell my book and I still like and trust that model.

And I especially love that once I’ve written it and done my bit for the publicity machine and done the best I can for my book, I can let it go and write another.

See, I’m a writer, not a publisher. I may love control – the usual reason given for self-publishing – but I mostly want control over my words, not the rest. (That control, by the way, is never lost to a good editor, and I’ve been lucky with genius editors.) So, yes, I am pleased with the money I’ve earned from self-publishing and I love what I’ve learnt about the whole process, but now I’m going back to where I am happy to do battle for real control: my keyboard.

It’s all I want to do.

Nicola Morgan has written about 100 books, with half a dozen "traditional" publishers of various sizes from tiny to huge. She is a former chair of the Society of Authors in Scotland and advises hard-working writers on becoming and staying published, and on the marketing/publicity/events/behaviour that goes along with that.

She has also just created BRAIN STICKS™, an original and huuuuuuge set of teaching resources about the brain and mental health.

Who do you think you are? by Anne Rooney

On Saturday, I'll be in London chairing a debate on authors, branding and publicity at the Society of Authors. It's an issue that bedevils writers now, but wasn't an issue twenty years ago. Brand? Isn't that applicable to soap and sausages rather than authors?

We're all used to the idea of 'brand' in retail. A brand is identified by a logo, it is a recognisable characterisation that manages our expectations. We know what 'Marks and Spencer' stands for, how that brand is different from, say, Aldi or Tesco. Do we want to apply it to authors? Many authors do write the same type of book, and readers know what to expect. Jacqueline Wilson had a 'brand' long before it was a thing. But do we really want to cultivate a brand?

Branding irons - heat them up in a fire, use
them to brand your author

I have to say, I'm not 100% comfortable with the term 'branding'. Originally, a brand was a mark of identification and ownership burned into an animal or, more horrifically, a slave. These days, freeze-branding is a near-painless way of marking an animal. But still. Ownership? Cattle? Slaves? *shudder*


Nowadays publishers are keen on authors 'building their brand', preferably through social media, blogging, events, and so on. A cynical view of this would be that it saves the publisher some marketing effort. If the author writes only for one publisher, the two are in league and it's fine. Promoting the brand serves both equally. But what if the author has several or many publishers? The brand is then the author's own, it is not tied to a publisher. The publisher loses enthusiasm for the brand aspect of the author and wants you to build a brand for the series/book. (I'm the ultimate publisher-harlot and some of them don't care for my brand at all.)

Brand, of course, is an artificial construct. It's not the author's real personality, but the bit that's allowed out in public. When it was just created by our books, it didn't really need managing, but now we are on display in other ways, too - from Facebook to TV and radio, from blogs to Pinterest and Instagram - we need to keep a grip on it. It can be hard to imagine how our particular, personal 'brand' is seen from the outside. Building a brand, thoughtfully rather than by default, requires deciding who you are, who you want to be seen to be, and then creating that public image. To do it successfully, you have to do it consciously and deliberately. For many writers, that seems too calculating and perhaps even directly counter to the emotional honesty and openness that good writing demands. Building your brand is to ask Who do you think you are? And Who do you want people to think you are? Answer with caution. "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be," as Kurt Vonnegut said.

While a 'brand' might make your books more immediately recognisable, does it make it harder to step outside the brand and try something new? If as an author you always write (say) upbeat friendship novels for 8-11s but then want to try your hand at a gritty, hard-hitting teen novel, does your brand stand in your way? Is it a way of stifling your freedom to make life easy for the publisher? Or a way of making your life easier, too, by setting boundaries to what you will do and demand of yourself? Is it safe or constraining?

And what does brand mean to the people at the other end of the transaction - the readers, librarians, teachers and parents? If you have come to expect upbeat friendship novels from Fifi Ambergris, what do you think of her writing a gritty teen novel? Is it confusing, misleading, dangerous? Would you rather she changed her name to Amber Fifigris for those books to leave her brand intact with younger readers?

What do you think, as author, reader, librarian, publisher or whatever you are in the publishing-reading transaction?

Anne Rooney
aka Stroppy Author
Most recent publication: 'The Colours of the Day' in Daughters of Time, edited Mary Hoffman, Templar Publishing, 2014