Posted on May 28, 2017February 7, 2021 in Blog, Books, eBooks, Indie Author, Self-publishing, Writing

THE DEFINITIVE SELF-PUBLISHING CHECKLIST ~ For People Who Aren’t Very Organised and are absolute beginners.

You just hit publish, right? That’s what all the articles say. Any idiot can upload a book in minutes. And yes, I suppose any idiot can, but it takes a very informed, dedicated, professional and talented individual to upload a book that people will want to read. A recent Facebook post from a first-time author seeking advice made me realise how long I’ve been doing this self-publishing thang and how I’ve kind of taken for granted that everyone has ‘the knowledge’. There are so many blogs, articles and how-to books on the subject, and yet authors can still struggle with the basics. The first author asked what she should be doing in the run up to her launch and another suggested that while there is a lot of information out there, it’s almost overwhelming. Where do you start? Where does it end?? So in an effort to share said knowledge, I’m writing a blog with an impossibly long title, which will (hopefully) be filled with all of the essentials, while trying not to bombard you with too much scary stuff.

Make a publishing schedule. So you’ve typed those blessed words, THE END and you’re mooching around the Kindle Direct Publishing website wondering where the publish button is. Whoa there Tex, what’s your rush? You’ve skipped the bajillion steps between finishing your manuscript and sending it out into the world for people to read. So roll back your wagon and follow step number one – create a publishing schedule. In my opinion, you’re going to need at least six months to get everything done before your book goes live, so first things first, DO NOT RUSH. This is not a race, unless you’re hoping to win a medal for the person least prepared to publish a book.

2. Polish your prose. Has your book been edited? Proof-read? Again, don’t rush out there and get the first editor you find on Fiverr. There are so many ‘professionals’ who are feeding off the self-publishing industry, so you want to find someone who has a proven track record. A great place to find all of the professionals you’re going to need is Indie Author Alliance Services Directory. At the very least, get some Beta readers whose opinions you trust and respect. It nigh on impossible to view your work objectively, so you need other eyes to see the things you cannot.

3. Hire a designer. Again, you’re going to need time to find a good cover designer and depending on their work load, you might have to wait a few months in a queue, so best to get in early. Again, look for examples of their work. Don’t worry if you are on a budget, there are plenty of websites that offer pre-made covers that are really good value and you simply add your name and title. The Creative Penn is a great resource for self-publishing and offers a handy list of tried and tested book cover designers. This is just one list however, there are lots of designers out there and a great way of finding them is finding covers you like and checking out who designed them.

4. The Blurb. You know, there are two sides to every cover and the back can be just as important as the front. The blurb. This is often the last thing authors think about and run up a quick summary in a ‘that’ll do’ kind of approach. Do not do this. Think about it, when you’re buying a book online or in a store, the cover is the first thing to catch your eye, but the very next thing you do is turn it over to see what it’s about. This is your moment to hook the reader. A few carefully-worded sentences are all that stands between them popping your book in their basket or placing it back on the shelf. Spend time studying blurbs in your genre, Google ‘blurb writing’ and keep refining what you’ve written until you’re satisfied with it. It’s not a summary and should be written in the same style as your novel. As author Susan Kaye Quinn explains on The Bestseller Experiement podcast, ‘a blurb is flash fiction, only you don’t end it‘. Write a killer blurb, or you’ll only have your shelf to blame (sorry!)

5. Formatting. Before you can upload your book to Amazon or Smashwords, you’re going to need to format it. You could pay someone to do this for you, but if I can manage it, I’m pretty sure you can to. Everything you need to know is in this post by Catherine Ryan Howard on Writing.ie. It’s pretty old, but I’ve yet to find a more user-friendly, dedicated formatting article that explains things as well as this.

The big question, should you publish a paperback version, is something you need to decide for yourself. Kindle Direct Publishing have made it easier than ever to do this, and as soon as you upload your eBook files, it asks you if you want to make a print version. In my opinion, you have nothing to lose but the time it takes to configure your cover (or pay your designer to do this). My print sales are relatively low, but it’s good to give your readers the option.

6. Pre-order. You know you can put your book on Amazon for pre-order, meaning that people can see your book before you launch (yay marketing!) and also order it ahead of time. This will give your sales a bump on launch day and it also means that you can start promoting your book earlier and creating a buzz, while you’re still doing all of the finishing touches behind the scenes. Confession: I did not do this. I was in too much of a rush. So is this a case of do as I say and not as I do? Well, yes I suppose it is, but only because I want you to benefit from my mistakes.

7. Reviews. If you are a new author, you will most definitely need the help of book reviewers/bloggers to review your book. Now is the time to start approaching them, as the most popular ones work to very tight schedules that can be booked months in advance. You’re probably starting to see that six months isn’t very long at all! But how do you find book bloggers? Easy, just type #bookbloggers into Twitter or Facebook or any social media platform and follow the links from there. The Indie View also provide an extensive list of bloggers, so if you’re still baffled by blogs, start there.

My best advice is to treat this like your typical manuscript submission process – find bloggers that are interested in your genre and contact them according to their book review policies. You can get more information on how to approach book bloggers here. Advance Reader Copies (or ARC’s as they’re known in the business) are essential if you want to have some reviews on your book’s page when you launch, so as soon as you have completed your edits and finalised your cover, start sending these out. As a self-publisher, I only sent eBooks for review and used the preview file from my Kindle publishing page, so I could send reviewers a .mobi version.

There is also the hugely popular NetGalley where readers can request your book for free. This is quite an expensive option and it’s difficult to say if you will hit your target audience here (as opposed to approaching reviewers personally), but if you can afford it, it’s definitely a powerful promotional tool.

8. Author platform. If you haven’t already created an online presence for yourself, now would be a good time to start. Yes, it can be time-consuming to set up and to maintain, but not only do you need a profile that people can connect with, you also need a profile so you can interact with other people. The best way to get people interested in you is if you show interest in them. Blogging is a great way to let people know who you are, what you’re interested in and what you’ve got coming up. ‘But nobody cares!’ I hear you cry. Well, you can start driving traffic to your blog from your Twitter account and Facebook. While there is no way of calculating how much your online activity will result in increased sales, it’s definitely the best way to connect with readers and other people in the industry, which can lead to further opportunities for you and your writing. If you come from a marketing background, you’ll have heard of The Rule of 7, which basically means that a prospective customer needs to see your product at least 7 times before deciding to buy, so being active online can only help!

9. Price. I have never given my book away for free. Ever. It’s just not something I would endorse – you might get lots of downloads but chances are that most of those people might never even read your book. I also subscribe to the wacky notion that people deserve to get paid for their work. The prevailing wisdom is that £2.99 is the average price for an eBook. It might not seem like very much, but you get to keep 70% of your royalties. It’s really up to you to decide what price you want to retail your novel at and the beauty of being a self-publisher means that you can change your pricing and experiment with what works best.

10. Promotion – As with your ARC’s, you need to start booking promo spots as far in advance as possible. Book bloggers host author interviews and guest posts and there are lots of online eZines where you can submit articles (with links to your new release). It’s also worth trying traditional media, like local newspapers or radio stations that might be interested in your story. As for advertising online – most ad sites require that your book has a minimum number of reviews, so you might have to wait a while for that, but you can run a Facebook ad or a Goodreads giveaway to create some hype around your launch. (Caveat: Goodreads giveaways are for print books only. They are going to introduce an eBook version, but it will not be free, unlike the paperback giveaway).

And now that you have your own platform, why not run a giveaway on your own blog? Use Rafflecopter, the gold standard for managing giveaways and I promise, it’s easy to set up and use. If your book is part of Kindle select (which is absolutely worth doing) meaning that your book is sold exclusively on Amazon, you can start preparing your kindle countdown deal which you will be able to run 3 months after you first publish. At that point, you can make your book available for 99p (while retaining your 70% royalty rate) and give your sales another boost.

So there you have it, 10 practical ways you can prepare for your book launch. HOWEVER, if you’re reading this and you’ve scheduled your launch for tomorrow and haven’t done any or all of these steps – fear not! You have two choices here: go ahead with your launch and try to do all of these steps in hindsight or just postpone it. Trust me, unless you’ve done a fantastic job of promoting the launch of your book online, no-one will even notice. I remember when I published my debut novel, I sat at home all day, staring at the screen and wondering when the sales figures would start increasing. Seriously! That’s what I did. And you know what? Nothing happened! I had a handful of sales, but to my disappointment, the Internet didn’t stop what it was doing and congratulate me on publishing my book. Do you have any idea how many books are self-published every day on Amazon? Someone self-publishes a book every 5 minutes! The best chance you can give your book is to follow all (or most!) of these preparations ahead of time.

Final piece of advice, try not to get sucked into the marketing vortex to such an extent that you delay starting your next book. The best way to sell your first book is to write a second.

Best of luck! You’ve written a novel, now go publish it.

Posted on May 17, 2017May 17, 2017 in Blog, Books, Culture, Current Affairs, eBooks, Indie Author, Life, Literature, Self-publishing, Writing

A Party Of One

giphy (27) — The lovely Eva Green contemplating the futility of it all…… classic writer pose

The other day I read a tweet about preparing for festival season. I assumed that it was related to Electric Picnic or Glastonbury, advising us to get our ‘festival on’ by donning the obligatory uniform of wellies, trilby and cut off shorts. But imagine my surprise, dear reader, when I realised the tweet was referring to literary festivals and directed at authors who want to start booking their summer appearances now. When did this happen? When did authors become a troupe of travelling minstrels and what happened to the idea that writing is a solitary pursuit?

Writer Jason Guriel wrote a really interesting article this month ‘What Happens When Authors Are Afraid To Stand Alone?’ addressing this shift from what was always seen as an individual sport, to a community endeavour, and why he feels we are the worse off for it.

“writers have become more entangled than ever. Workshops, readings, book launches, conferences, artists’ colonies, and other glorified mixers increasingly press literary types upon one another.”

It’s a controversial argument, but a very interesting one. Are all of these gatherings, talks, residencies and teaching gigs taking away from the one job we’re supposed to be doing – writing? As authors, we have been tasked with the job of getting our work ‘out there’ and I think the writing community has grown from that. But while many authors really enjoy engaging with the community, Guriel argues that if everyone is being pushed in the same direction, what happens to the independent spirit?

It is true that we need time alone to develop our own ideas – it’s hard enough not to be influenced by trends and seduced by mainstream ideas. In order to really create something truly original, we need to be alone with our thoughts and in order to do this, we need to guard our privacy. It’s nice to share, but writers need to keep a certain amount to themselves (namely, their selves). There is a risk that if you become too much of a spokesperson for your work, or a writing personality, the authentic voice of your work could get diluted. Not every writer is a loner, but they do tend to seek solitude in order to hear their own voice.

“Let’s not share. Really. Go off in your own direction way too far, get lost, test the metal of your work in your own acids.” Kay Ryan, poet.

When I began writing, the buzz words were ‘author platform’ and if you didn’t have one, you’d never make it. So I made it my business to build my platform, one blog/tweet/post at a time. I got to know the main players and believed that I was on the right road to success. But then, I would see a complete unknown, an outsider if you will, speed past me to publishing fame with no platform whatsoever. No social media accounts, no blogs, no ground-works to speak of. While I was busy networking and making connections, they were writing and submitting. So you see, there really are no hard and fast rules when it comes to being a writer, you’ve got to do what’s right for you and more importantly, what works for you.

“‘What is the role of the writer to her society?’ was a question Wallace Stevens took up and his answer was: none,” says poet Souvankham Thammavongsa. A writer’s real responsibility, she suggests, is “to build a voice and to keep building that voice.” This stands in stark contrast to the civic-minded suggestion that writers apply their bricks and mortar to some cloud-city of togetherness.

Then there’s the whole ‘totes awky momo’ when someone you’ve been palling around with (in the literary sense) asks you to review their book and you don’t really like it… what do you do then? I know book bloggers (unfairly) get stick for this all the time, but it’s not just bloggers who get caught in this web of networking that make it increasingly difficult to go against the pack. I’ve noticed even with online bookclubs, when there is over-whelming support for a particular writer, anyone who feels differently is almost afraid to speak up. I have seen people apologise for not liking a book!

“It becomes harder to file an honest review of a book if you’re always rubbing shoulders.”

Still, I don’t believe in throwing out the baby with the bath water (I think there are laws against that now anyway). I believe that there is more integrity in the community than this article suggests, but I agree that we do need to challenge the status quo and question the prevailing wisdom around promoting the writing ‘scene’ as opposed to the community.

Personally, I love the community I have found, particularly online because I don’t have to dress up for them! Pretty much all of the writing opportunities I have found have been through social media. There is great support there, people share information on all sorts of things, particularly in the indie community and it’s good to meet people who are experiencing the same things. I love when other writers talk about how difficult it is to stay sitting down, or how your writing can seem like genius one minute and drivel the next. I feel a sense of solidarity. But I don’t discuss writing techniques with these people. I don’t learn my craft by talking to authors, I learn by reading their books. I learn how they deal with different challenges in their writing between the pages. Talk, as they say, is cheap, but if you really want to further your writing career, read.

While you’re here, The Heirloom is just 99p on Kindle all this week. Eva Green said she couldn’t put it down*

*Might have made that bit up

Posted on November 21, 2016November 22, 2016 in Blog, Books, Self-publishing, Writing

Women’s Fiction: The Big Cover Up

custom-wrapped-rose-and-pinks-31 Following a recent discussion with an online book-club (which I am now ripping off for this blog!) the subject of covers reared its’ pretty head. Pretty being the operative word, and a pejorative one in this case. A male reader asked the question, why do publishers insist of giving female authors the kind of covers that men wouldn’t be caught dead with? Of course, there was also the argument that some men wouldn’t be caught dead reading a female author, period; regardless of the cover. In this day and age, I find that a bit sad to be honest. It just perpetuates this idea that women can only write about things that concern women – as if men wouldn’t find anything of interest in ‘women’s things’. Furthermore, what does it say about a man’s sense of identity, that he can’t ‘be seen’ in public with a woman’s book? All big questions, which I will now neatly side-step in order to get to the side of the argument that best serves my agenda. Girlie covers – what’s it all about?

Just to be sure I wasn’t being a complete hypocrite, I made a quick scan of the books I’ve read over the past few years and there is an approximate 60/40 split in female to male authors on my list. I think it’s only natural that we will veer towards our own gender, but I was quite pleased to see that my reading has been fairly balanced. I never really think about the author’s gender when choosing a book. My decision is based solely on whether or not the story piques my interest. That… and the cover. It was at this point I realised that the guy in the book club had a point.

One of the most important jobs of a book cover is to let the reader know, as clearly and succinctly as possible, what they are getting with this book. If I see a dark and moody cover with blood stains, I’ll probably keep moving. Crime fiction isn’t really my thing, but how many good books have I missed because of these preconceptions? Readers make their minds up in a matter of seconds, based on the cover of a book. So it follows that the publishing industry, rightly or wrongly, create covers that they believe will sell; even if this is at odds with what lies between the covers. However, there is an even greater divide when it comes to books by female authors. Regardless of their literary merit, many publishers seemed determined to shoe-horn women’s books into the kind of covers that female readers themselves feel may be undervaluing the author’s work. It has long been argued that the Chick Lit genre has become something of a double-edged sword; on the one hand, it has introduced readers to a lot of very talented female authors, but it has been marketed in so much pink fluffiness, that many of these writers are doomed to spend eternity on a dusty shelf, trapped in pastel coloured covers and not taken seriously.

A recent article by Emily Harnett in The Atlantic reveals the thinking behind these covers:

Like any form of advertising, book covers tell women what they want by surmising who they want to be.

Image result for typical chick lit book covers

I’m guessing the assumption is that we all want to be white, thin goofballs with a hidden intelligence, all wrapped up in designer clothes! Please don’t get me wrong – I am not criticizing this book or its readers, but I am questioning how the author’s work is marketed and whether or not this is a hindrance to women’s writing as a whole. If you are a woman and you happen to write about anything involving relationships or family life, chances are that this will be your marketing strategy.

The following graphics from an article on Flavorwire show some examples of how male authored books are marketed completely differently. The jumbo writing is a classic of the genre, which almost screams ‘This is important!’ It demands to be taken seriously, and as such, lends an air of gravitas to its reader.

The female authors have markedly different covers. They are warm, decorative and while they’re not as garish as the Chick Lit cover, we immediately assume that what lies inside is somehow more feminine in nature. Would a man pick up any of these books? I would like to think that in this day and age, yes, he would. But why are the publishers trying to divide us at all? As an author, I would hope that both male and female readers can enjoy my stories, but have I subconsciously placed a barely perceptible ‘Men Keep Out’ sticker on my book just by the covers I’ve chosen?

And it’s not just a male/female divide. There is also the question of what makes a book commercial fiction as opposed to the more highbrow literary fiction? Who decides this and what are the criteria? If you’re confused, take a look at these covers for the same book and tell me the publishers aren’t playing some sort of minds games!

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The first has a quote from literary heavyweight John Banville (a man!) comparing the author to Edna O’Brien, another literary biggie, and features a monochrome image of a child and an old man. The second, features a young woman with a tagline from one of Ireland’s most successful commercial fiction authors, Cecelia Ahern of PS I Love You fame. This is the same book, people!! How could a single story be marketed so differently? Well, on closer inspection, it turns out that the black and white cover is the hardback and the carefree young woman is the paperback version. According to author Jennifer Weiner, who treads the fine line between commercial and literary fiction, “Hardcover is when you get the reviews and the profiles, paperback is when you get the readers.”

So what they’re saying is, they don’t want to challenge us too much, but give us something wrapped in a package we are already familiar with. Are we such predictable repeat shoppers? I’m not so sure. One of my favourite novels this year was The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild. It’s a mystery art caper, that takes us from the auction houses of London to Nazi Germany, and questions the true value of art and man’s desire to acquire beautiful things in search of salvation. AND YET. One of the male readers in the book club said he would never have picked it up, but his girlfriend had it and so he started reading it (and loved it). A woman in the group said she wouldn’t touch a book with such a cover with a barge-pole (the cover in question was the red paperback). The hardback features original artworks, while the Kindle version on the end features a palette and dispenses with the swirly writing altogether. In this case, I imagine that the publishers are trying to cast their net wide and get as many potential readers as possible, so why not do that in the first place? I really feel for the authors who have absolutely no say in how their work is packaged or marketed. Perhaps self-publishing will change the face of cover discrimination, or will we, for lack of any better ideas, just perpetuate it? The question we are all trying to answer is, what do readers want? Perhaps a little less cliché and a little more originality.

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Sometimes I think we should just go back to the days when book covers were cloth bound and the title embossed in gold leaf. These days, we have grown accustomed to the kind of aspirational lifestyle marketing that bombards us for clothing, make-up, interiors and cars, but isn’t there something about books that should be held sacred? In reading, do we not seek to move beyond the shallow and superficial? I love book covers, just as I love design and art, but matching an image with a story is a tricky business and can often be misleading. I suppose the same can be said for blurbs, which are more often than not a bunch of sound-bytes to reel you in. The Blind Date Book Company is a fantastic response to the publishing world’s attempts to manipulate our reading habits. Their tagline, rather predictably asks us to ‘Never Judge A Book By It’s Cover’, but rather choose ‘blindly’, based only on a four word description. I think it’s a really lovely idea and an innovative way to broaden your bookshelf and find some new books to love. It is, after all, blind 😉

Photo 05-07-2016, 19 40 47

Whether you like my covers or not, you can get my books here:

Amazon (Paperback) ~ Kindle

Amazon (Paperback) ~Kindle ~ Nook ~ iTunes ~ Kobo

Posted on June 12, 2016 in Blog, Books, Indie Author, Literature, Self-publishing, Writing

It Takes A Village To Write A Book

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We’ve all heard the saying, it takes a village to raise a child, implying that parents alone cannot possibly provide everything a child needs to mature into adulthood. But what does this have to do with books?

I’ve been reading quite a few ‘bestsellers’ recently and they all have one thing in common: the acknowledgements section. There are a plethora of names in there, from editors to beta readers, agents to proofreaders, sales & marketing departments to cover designers. A small village of people (as opposed to the ‘Village People’) are involved at various steps along the way to get the author’s manuscript from first draft to first print. Author Nina George describes these professionals as the team of people who ‘deliver your book safely into the world’, like literary birthing partners, puffing their cheeks and announcing your book’s arrival to the world!

So what are we to take from this? That writers are complete morons who couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery? Or perhaps that successful, bestselling writers have the brains and the humility to say, ‘Maybe I can’t do everything myself.’ Now, as a self-published author, you may assume that I have done everything myself and to be honest, you’d be mostly right. But as I’m working on novel number three (have I said that enough times yet? No? I will – trust me!) I’m learning that it does in fact take a village to write a book. As a writer, I am fiercely protective of my manuscript. I don’t like to show it to anyone until it’s absolutely necessary (picture readers prying the book from my COLD. DEAD. HANDS!). But the fact is, once you’ve written a book and put it out there, it’s no longer yours. It belongs to the reader now and so it only makes sense to write your story with the reader in mind. I don’t just want people to read the story – I want them to feel it and be moved by it. But in order to get to that stage, I have to stop wincing at the idea of trusting other professionals with my work.

We’ve all read books that promise so much in the blurb, but fail to deliver on the page. An intriguing premise gets lost in a befuddled maze of stunted characters and confusing plot lines. Sometimes, it can be hard to see the wood for the trees when you’re writing. Your novel is an idea that has taken shape in your imagination as a beautifully formed thing, but somewhere in the process of getting it down onto the page, the message can get lost and the story can lose its clarity. Writers can be headstrong and determined (or is that just me?), convinced that if they look at the words long enough, they’ll start to see them with fresh eyes. But just like it takes a man who is secure in his masculinity to wear a sarong (am I right Becks?), it takes a secure writer to handle edits and critiques without flouncing off in a huff. And now that I’m on novel number one, two, ah yes, three! I feel like I have so much more confidence to take other peoples’ ideas on board without crumbling at the first sign of ‘kill your darlings’. I’ve just completed my first read through with my trusty alpha reader and I’ve already introduced a new character, cut an entire chapter that wasn’t working and given some weaker scenes a good re-tuning so that they sing in the same key as the rest of the novel.

However, it’s important to know the difference between constructive criticism and the other kind that makes you feel miserable and sore. Having completed Julia Cameron’s inspiring ‘The Artist’s Way‘ workbook, I discovered that constructive criticism makes you think ‘Aha! Now I know how to make my book even better.’ It doesn’t leave you feeling despondent and questioning your worth as a writer. Editors and beta readers are a fantastic tool to help you gain perspective and that all-important objectivity you need in order to see your manuscript as a finished product. It’s not about changing your work to please the reader, but rather using their feedback as questions that could produce interesting answers and perhaps a story with more depth.

I still don’t know if I’m going to submit this one to publishers or continue on my own self-publishing journey (both of my novels are still in Amazon UK’s Top 100, so I must be doing something right!) The advantage of traditional publishing is that publishing houses have all of these professionals in-house. However, an entire industry of freelancers has grown around self publishing and even on a small budget, you can hire editors, proofreaders and designers at competitive rates. As an Indie author, I am still the grand master of ceremonies. Nothing will get done if I don’t do it. However there comes a time when you have to acknowledge that producing a good book takes so much more than writing. It drives me nuts when I hear people saying that self-publishing is easy and just a matter of hitting the upload button. Serious authors want to produce a book that can stand head and shoulders with its contemporaries and we work even harder to achieve that. Writing is a solitary process, but producing a good book requires back-up from people who support your work, believe in your writing and want to see your book become the best it can be.

And remember, no man does it all by himself, I said young man, put your pride on the shelf 🙂

So get your Village People on and press play, you know you want to!

Posted on May 23, 2016May 23, 2016 in Blog, Books, Indie Author, Literature, Writing

Where Was Your Book Born?

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We’ve all heard how JK Rowling famously wrote Harry Potter in a local cafe. In fact, the chair she sat on recently sold for €344,300. That’s some indication as to the importance we give a writer’s creative perch. Writers and readers alike are enchanted by the idea of where a book was conceived, convincing themselves that even the chair they sat on must be oozing with literary genius. There’s something romantic about it, scribbling ideas in a local cafe. Writing at a desk wedged into the corner of your council flat while wearing old Primark pyjamas doesn’t really have the same ring to it, although one can only assume that Rowling must have written at home too. But does it really matter where you write your masterpiece?

I think I’ve written in every room in my house, bar the toilet. I would include a photo of my beloved attic (where I write in the summer and stare up at longingly during the winter as it transforms into a fridge) but I’m saving that for the OK! Magazine spread. The dawn of Pinterest has introduced us to a plethora of ‘designs’ to ‘inspire’ us with ‘ideas’ to create our own ‘writing nook’. In other words, Pinterest is the devil’s work which bombards us with over-styled images of unattainable shabby chic home offices we will never have. No I don’t have a pure white room with an old-fashioned writing desk which I’ve upcycled with chalk paint and I’m not surrounded by flower-clad boxes with all my papers neatly filed away in alphabetical order. I’m the kind of person who sees an empty space and immediately feels the need to fill it with bits n bobs (i.e. junk). I would love the perfect writing nook, but in the meantime, I generally pick the warmest spot in the house and write there. I’m basically a cat. With thumbs.

So what about venturing outside? Well, yes, writing en pleine air could be a nice change except…. again, I live in Ireland. I did try to write at the beach a couple of times, but there’s a lot to be said for a comfortable chair and while a large flat stone jutting out to sea might look attractive, my bum says otherwise. Then there’s the whole writing long hand thing. It can make a nice alternative every once in a while, but I’m the kind of writer who needs the entire manuscript in front of me when I write. So squinting at my laptop while my bum goes to sleep on a rock gets old very fast.

Cafes seem like the ideal place to get the creative juices going, but the only problem with that is that they are full of OTHER PEOPLE! At the best of times, people in public places can be tiresome, but when you’re trying to write a novel, they are downright intrusive! I have no idea how writers can focus on their own thoughts while they are being drowned out by clattering delph, noisy conversations and earth-shatteringly loud baristas (do they have to smash that coffee filter like a judge’s gavel Every. Damn. Time.!!) Seriously, doesn’t anyone drink tea anymore? Sartre had it only partly right; hell isn’t just other people, it’s other people who drink coffee.

If I do decide to venture out, I usually go to a hotel. These are much more sedate affairs and best of all, they usually have comfy armchairs so you can really settle in. No-one really cares how long you stay or whether you order coffee (but if you do, they thankfully prepare it out of earshot). My nearest hotel has a conservatory that is, for the most part, empty and pipes out a nice mix of chilled-out tunes in the background. The best part is, you can’t come up with a million excuses to leave your desk when you’re writing outside of the home. You can’t start attacking the hotel toilets with bleach and a brush, so you just have to stay put and keep typing – not least to make everyone else think you’re extremely busy and important and overflowing with intelligent ideas.

So are there any benefits to having a ‘special place’ to write? After all, we’re not like visual artists who rely heavily on their surroundings for inspiration. Writers inhabit the interior world, the imagination. We create worlds. We mine our memories and nose through nostalgia for material, then spin all of these threads together into a fine cloak to envelop ourselves and our readers. In fact, I think the plainer your surroundings, the better. I’m not talking a monastic cell here, but the truth is that even if you bag yourself one of those writing retreats in rural Italy replete with red tile roofs and cypress trees, you still have to retreat to the solitude of your own mind and write the book.

I think we all saw this coming ☺

Posted on April 15, 2016January 19, 2017 in Blog, Books, Indie Author, Writing

Things I’ve Learned About Writing… 15 of them!

Having reached the ‘Thank God the first draft is over’ stage of novel number three, (number four if you count my first unpublished manuscript) I feel I have come to understand a lot about the writing process and what works for me. Not content to sit here and keep all this useless valuable information to myself, I’m gifting it to the world!

Your first book will probably be a bit shit. That’s okay – it would be far more disconcerting if your first attempt was your magnum opus (that’s Latin for ‘get the posh ice-cream out – I’ve just written a bestseller!’). You will often hear writing referred to as a ‘craft’ and as such, you are doing an apprenticeship. Get yourself down to the library – yes, the library – and find some really good books about writing novels, from arcs to POV’s, characterisation to pacing. The only way to get better is to keep writing and not get too upset when you have to put that first manuscript in a file called ‘Why world? Why?’ or as I labelled mine ‘That’s the end of this writing malarkey!’
READ. This is not optional. Just like artists study the great masters, you have to study the great authors. The trick is not to compare yourself to them. That’s the quickest way to end your writing career. As the poet Jane Kenyon said —“Read good books, have good sentences in your ears.”
There is no ‘one way’ to write a novel. Some people have mood boards with photos of their characters and settings, along with floor to ceiling post-it note maps, all tied together with a lattice-work of red thread. Personally, I like to just sit at the computer and write. ‘It’s all in here!’ I assure people as I tap my head. Then I like to really ramp up the tension by doing things the hard way, like writing chapters out of sequence, creating different timelines and then frantically trying to match them all up at the end. Bliss.
Define your idea of success. This is really important – in all areas of life. In this age, I think we all suffer to some extent from the ‘nothing is ever good enough’ bug. We are constantly bombarded with other peoples’ amazing success and so our own expectations keep shifting, as we are always looking for the next thing and the next. When I started writing, I just wanted to write a book that I was proud of and that readers would enjoy. My goals have grown and changed since then, but my idea of success hasn’t.
Staring out the window is writing. It just is. Taking a bath. Going for a walk. Reading a book. It’s all writing – so give yourself permission to spend time away from the screen.
I used to think that your ‘writer’s voice’ was important. I probably blogged about it (see point number 8). Now I realise that a writer’s voice is the last thing you want to hear when reading a book. I want the writer to be invisible. I want the book to feel like a lost story I just happened to pick up by accident. In other words, good writing shouldn’t sound like writing.
I like to write ideas down as I get them – preferably on random pieces of paper I will spend the next 48 hours searching for in the bin, while my lovely ‘writer’s notebook’ lies idle and pristine in some far-off corner of the house.
There are an infinite number of bloggers online telling you how to write. ‘100 ways to write that snogging scene’. ‘150 ways to beat writer’s block.’ After a while, you realise that you would be better served spending your time reading the back of a cereal box. (Who doesn’t love a good word maze?!) What’s worse is, you waste valuable writing time trying to learn a load of rules you’ll probably figure out for yourself anyway. Unless it’s an established author that you admire handing out this advice (who’s at least on novel three!) – ignore it.
I edit as I go along. There I said it.
Give yourself permission to write a terrible first draft. I once heard it said that a first draft is telling yourself the story, so just let it be that. A rudimentary ‘he said she said’ gawky-looking manuscript that will, after much love and attention (and unhealthy dollops of frustration) turn into a beautiful swan.
If you ever want to get those odd jobs around the house that you’ve been putting off for years finished – start writing a book.
Adapt or die. Well, you probably won’t die, but in this highly competitive space it’s always good to be able to adapt your writing plans. You may not get the publisher you wanted, or you might get an agent you hadn’t foreseen. Maybe you’ll end up writing children’s books instead of crime. Allow yourself to be open to opportunities, but that doesn’t mean you should write something you don’t love. If you don’t love it, what’s the point?
Connect. Whether you are self-published or traditionally published, you are the best person to promote your writing and the best way to do that is to connect with your audience, peers and industry professionals. Even though Twitter and Facebook are the MORTAL ENEMIES of your writing time, they are a vital tool when it comes to marketing your book.
If you write – call yourself a writer. Simples.
Creating a book out of nothing is a kind of alchemy. Enjoy the magic! Writing is the best thing in the world because you get to tell a story that is uniquely yours, and in a way that nobody else could. Write it, because no-one else can.

You can buy my novels in eBook and Paperbook format here:

Amazon UK : Amazon US : Barnes & Noble : Kobo : iTunes : Easons

new heirloom1

Posted on March 10, 2016November 14, 2016 in Blog, Books, Indie Author, Life, Self-publishing, Writing

The Cinderella Complex

The Cinderella Complex is defined as an unconscious desire to be taken care of by others. And let’s face it, we all have times in our lives when we feel like that, which is perfectly okay. But pinning all of your hopes on being rescued by someone or something outside of yourself won’t really get you very far in life (unless you are in fact Cinderella). For the rest of us though, we have to become our own champion and make our own dreams come true. The following article, in which I compare waiting for Mr. Right in our personal lives to waiting for Mr. Write in our professional writing career, features on Books By Women.

The Cinderella Complex – Waiting For Mr. Write

March 6, 2016 | By Evie Gaughan | Reply

Go on, admit it. We’ve all day-dreamed about being the writing world’s equivalent to Kate Moss and being spotted in an airport (although, I’m not sure how likely it is that an author would be spotted in an airport). But let’s face it, unlike Kate Moss, most of us have to work at being discovered and believing anything else is, well, a fairy tale.

The Cinderella Complex, a term first coined by Colette Dowling in her ground-breaking book of the same name, describes women’s hidden fear of independence. However, I don’t agree that this is purely a ‘woman’s issue’. Men are equally guilty of hoping someone else will swoop in and give them their happy ending. (Ahem.) For years however, it was women who were encouraged to place all of their hopes and dreams on the arrival of Mr. Right, who would magically make all said dreams come true.

Read the full article on Books By Women here.

Posted on February 10, 2016 in Books, Life, Writing

Pink For Girls And Blue For Boys

Don’t get me wrong, I like pink. And I’m sure there are many men out there who like the colour blue. The problem is what these two colours have come to represent in terms of gender specific marketing, both for adults and more worryingly, children.

Buster Books, publisher of colouring books for ‘Brilliant Boys’ and ‘Gorgeous Girls’ are the latest publishing house to succumb to pressure from the Let Books Be Books campaign to switch to ‘gender neutral’ titles in future. As a follow on from Let Toys Be Toys, this campaign asks ‘Why can’t a story just be a story?’ Why do stories have to be aimed at a certain market, when they can just be enjoyed for what they are?

colouring books

It’s clear from these covers that boys and girls are being very limited in what they are supposed to find interesting and enjoyable. Boys are brilliant, and get to colour spaceships and dinosaurs, while girls are beautiful and get to colour hearts and cupcakes. With backing from such prominent authors as Neil Gaiman, Philip Pullman and Joanne Harris, the campaign has already persuaded nine other publishers (including Ladybird) not to release any new boy/girl labelled titles.

Speaking about the campaign, author Joanne Harris commented that gendered packaging of books gives “the false message to a new generation that boys must be clever, brave and strong, while girls should aspire to be decorative”.

And the funny thing is, this gender packaging is still a relatively recent phenomenon. I remember my first bike was yellow and blue, as was my brother’s. Primary colours were more popular in the 80’s, but somewhere along the way, pink became associated with femininity and blue with masculinity. Which wouldn’t be such an issue if the colour pink wasn’t used to reinforce the negative stereotype of what a girl should be. Another organisation working to change this is Pinkstinks, whose tagline reads ‘There’s more than one way to be a girl.’

Pinkstinks confronts the damaging messages that bombard girls though toys, clothes and media. Girls’ products overwhelmingly focus on being pretty, passive and obsessed with shopping, fashion and make up – this promotes a dangerously narrow definition of what it means to be a girl.

It concerns me that, in this day and age, girls are still being told that their appearance matters most, while boys are still being told that they are somehow cleverer than girls. Not only that, boys face ‘gender shaming’ if they do somehow drift into the girl’s section at the toy store and vice versa. Why can’t we just let our kids be kids?

In one of the most provocative ad campaigns of 2016, Lidl addressed the whole ‘pink is for girls’ issue to launch the ‘Ladyball’. Twitter went into a frenzy over the pink #Ladyball campaign that encouraged women to ‘Play like the lady you are’.

The real motive behind the campaign was to start a debate on women in sport, cleverly using all of the typical stereotypes we hear like ‘women may find contact sports intimidating’, to really drive the point home. Highlighting the challenges that women experience in getting the same recognition as men in sport, this campaign also proves how truly limiting and derogatory these kinds of gender specific messages can be.

As a writer, I would like to think that my books will be enjoyed by both male and female readers. I think it’s important to teach our younger readers to see beyond these gender boundaries and encourage them to find out what they like for themselves, rather than being told that in order to fit in, you have to like puppies or football. However, we can see the same thing with adult books, where ‘Chick Lit’ books are packaged in sickly pink covers, essentially devaluing the content and the readers who enjoy the genre. Would a man feel comfortable reading a book with a pink cover? Or reading a female author for that matter? I would certainly hope so, but if we insist on dividing the genders at such a young age, I fear that this might not be the case.

Boys AND girls are welcome to buy my novels on Amazon – just click on the cover!

Posted on April 8, 2015May 3, 2015 in Blog

Online Book Club Review

Check out the latest review for The Mysterious Bakery On Rue De Paris by The Online Book Club. Then get your copy for just £1 on Amazon!

At 35, Edith Lane feels like life is passing her by. Having recently lost her mother and working a dead-end waitressing job, she feels like her life is going nowhere. In the throes of a midlife crisis, Edith responds to an advertisement for the job of a manager at a little bakery in Compiègne, France.

Believing she will be starting a new life in Paris, Edith packs up her belongings and leaves her home of Ireland for the first time to board a plane to France. However, her dream is quickly shattered when she arrives in Paris to discover Compiègne is actually one hour north and not in the City of Love at all.

Edith gets off to a rocky start with her boss, Madame Moreau, who’s cold demeanor makes Edith regret her decision to leave Ireland and her father behind. Despite the cold welcoming, she befriends a local French hairstylist, Nicole, and her husband Johnny, and meets an attractive man whom she quickly falls for.

Just as Edith is feeling like she’s settling in and making a life for herself, she learns her new boss may have some secrets that threaten to take that away and an even bigger secret that Edith struggles to believe. Will Edith be able to overcome her fears and help her seemingly distant boss or will she run back to the safety of Ireland, leaving the mysterious bakery behind?

I liked this book a lot, although it did have a slow beginning. I struggled at first to get into the book and wasn’t sure if I’d be able to finish. I also initially didn’t really like Edith; I thought she whined too much and made everything into a bigger deal than necessary, however, as the story went on I really grew to love her and all the other characters as well.

The character development for Madame Moreau is the most impressive because once the reader learns about her history everything begins to make sense and the reader can really understand why she seems to hold everyone at arm’s length.

What I loved most about the book was the description of this tiny town in France. I could almost see the old, antique houses, cobblestone alleyways and the cozy cafés serving fresh cheese, baguettes, and wine. It was these descriptions that really began to draw me into the story.

Once I got into it and, along with Edith, began to uncover the history of Compiègne and of Madame Moreau I found there was much more to this story than I thought. It is about love, dedication, family, and friendship and despite the bumps along the way gave the happy ending I was hoping for.

Overall, I’d rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. The reason I give it that rating is because I did find the beginning a bit slow and some parts a little unbelievable, but I still think it was a sweet story that ultimately made me smile at the end. This book would be ideal for someone who likes a bit of mystery alongside romance, but also travel as well.

Posted on April 3, 2014June 13, 2016 in Blog, Books, Indie Author, Literature

How To Be Original

images When I recently read Graeme Simsion’s novel ‘The Rosie Project’, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling of deja vu. Not surprising really, considering one of my favourite movies in recent years is ‘Adam‘, the story of a young man with Asperger Syndrome and his efforts to connect with a young woman who moves into his building. It’s a really touching love story, as is The Rosie Project, because we can all see a piece of ourselves in these characters as they fumble unsuccessfully on the road to true love and self-determination. Anyway, my point is that, as I was reading Simsion’s novel, I realised that it’s practically impossible to have an original creative idea. But should that put you off writing your next novel?

I believe that it is our job as writers to bring our unique viewpoint to these stories, regardless of whether the idea has already been explored. Because nobody can truly write the same story in the way you’ve written it and that is your gift as a writer. Imagine if ‘The Rosie Project’ had never been written because the author felt the story had already been done? What a loss that would be to the hundreds of thousands of readers who have enjoyed Simsion’s wit and style of writing, not to mention his interesting characters. And just to prove that there really is no such thing as an original idea, only the writer’s perspective which makes it ‘new’, I searched the internet for opinions on the subject and found a great article by Melissa Donovan on Writing Forward. She states that “Originality isn’t a matter of coming up with something new, it’s a matter of using your imagination to take old concepts and put them together in new ways.” The following is a little test to prove her theory:

A young orphan who is being raised by his aunt and uncle receives a mysterious message from a stranger, which leads him on a series of great adventures. Early on, he must receive training to learn skills that are seemingly superhuman. Along the way he befriends loyal helpers, specifically a guy and a gal who end up falling for each other. Our young hero is also helped by a number of non-human creatures. His adventures lead him to a dark and evil villain who is terrorizing everyone and everything that our hero knows and loves — the same villain who killed his parents.

If you guessed that this synopsis outlines Harry Potter, then you guessed right. But if you guessed that it was Star Wars, you’re also right.

We hear a lot about plagiarism (hello Shia Leboeuf!) but that’s not what I’m talking about here. Most of us don’t set out to write novels that have already been written, but it’s almost impossible not to end up treading on the toes of stories that have already been told. The challenge is to find your own unique voice as a writer and tell a story as only you can tell it. That is what will make your work original.

The other reason why ‘Adam’ is one of my favourite movies? The soundtrack – which introduced me to ‘The Weepies’. Enjoy 🙂

Evie Gaughan

Author of The Story Collector, The Heirloom & The Mysterious Bakery On Rue De Paris

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