The Author's View (June 2024)

Hello and thanks for dropping by! So my wife advises me that its June already - how did that happen? There I was merrily trucking along enjoying a bit if spring sunshine when bam, it's Summertime (...and the living is easy!)

As usual in this blog I will be giving you a monthly update on my current writing projects. Along with this there will be a quick book review before I delve into the minefield that it, the world of traditional publishing which you will be pleased to hear will be kept brief - life really is too short!

The White Haired Storyteller

The Dark Harvest

It's now 6 months since the launch of my debut novel and it's fair to say that sales are lower than I had hoped for (1 in the last month). Does this mean that the book is rubbish? Absolutely not, in fact it's got 5 star reviews on Amazon and the feedback from other readers has been amazing.

However, the simple truth is that book sales in general are down, the cost of living crisis certainly doesn't help in that regard. there is also the huge issue for independent publishers in trying to get their work seen. The competition is fierce with thousands of books all waiting to be read. The marketing of books is a specialist skill that I, along with hundreds of 'indie' authors simply don't have.

You should however be aware that I am not complaining. I knew when I went into this 'game' that the chances of financial success are incredibly slim. Less than 1% of novelists make a decent living from their storytelling efforts. For me, it was simply a desire to write, something I had dreamt of since I was a kid. The idea that someone, anyone, would be prepared to read a story'wot i wrote' and actually enjoy it simply blows my mind, and, I am extremely grateful to those people who have taken a chance on this old, white-haired, storyteller.

The Keyholders Apprentice

This is the first story in my World Of Rock fantasy series - hence the main picture at the top of the blog.

Due to the feedback I have already received, along with the fact that I have several World Of Rock stories already lined up, I decided that I would pursue the more Traditional Publishing route. To do this you need a literary agent as the major publishing houses will not deal with authors direct. I have therefore written to several agents so far without success. I talk more about traditional publishing later in this blog. For now I will keep plugging away.

THE KEYHOLDER’S APPRENTICE is an 86k word comic fantasy novel set in a world that is a mirror to a pre-technology Earth. It’s full of fun with popular music and other cultural references. It is a satire on the world of music and the glorification of rock icons, but told through an original story with contemporary and diverse characters. It also satirises societal views on misogyny and diversity.

The Elemental - working title

Orphaned at 16 her life was about to take her in a different and at times violent direction. Unbeknown to her, there is a path she must follow, it is her destiny but there is a price to pay. It is ultimately a tale of maternal love with strong female main characters who have to fight to survive in a male dominated world where violence is common place.

The first draft of this story was completed a couple of months ago. After leaving it alone for several weeks I am now committed to getting the edit done and copies issued to my beta readers this month. Their feedback is invaluable and impacts the next steps in the publishing process.

In anticipation that my initial readers won't hate my story I have engaged with a digital artist to help me come up with a book cover design which hopefully I will have ready to reveal in next months blog - fingers crossed! You never know I might also have come up with a proper title for the book - who knew how hard it was to come up with something original and attention grabbing!

Girls Allowed - working title

This story follows the adventures of The Keyholders Apprentice and his crew. It's now a year after their arrival and things had begun to settle down but something is amiss. The number of child births the witches have to help with has dropped off, there are more and more ghosts wandering around and Death is having a mid life crisis.

The initial draft of this manuscript is now done and will be left alone for several weeks to allow me to have a reasonably fresh view of it prior to a review. As a writer you get so involved in your storytelling that sometimes you aren't aware of grammatical and spelling errors. worse still are the unseen plot holes or heaven forbid, character inconsistencies. I have previously described a main character as having steely blue eyes to then find later in the story that I have changed their eye colour to emerald green - oops!

Book Review

A SHOT IN THE DARK by Lynne Truss

So the first thing I need to say about A SHOT IN THE DARK by Lynne Truss is that this is definitely not my normal reading material. My go to reading is primarily based around Fantasy and Science Fiction.  However as a writer I need to acknowledge that reading across other genres is definitely going to help with my own story telling development. So based on a friend’s recommendation I decided to give this a go, and I am so glad I did. Not least because when discussing the book with the same friend they hadn’t got the fact that it is a satire. What was obvious to me as a writer of satirical fantasy novels had somehow been ‘lost in translation’. Let me explain:

Summary:

The story is set in 1950’s Brighton which at the time was a relatively small coastal city on the UK’s south coast. The basic premise is that following a violent gang fight a few years before, which destroyed the cities two largest gangs, the inspector of the local police department is convinced that there is no crime left in the city. He wanders around oblivious to all that goes on around him. He is however particularly annoyed when a new constable shows up and starts investigating a series of burglaries. The upstart namely, PC Peregrine Twitten is a dewy-eyed smarty pants who had been moved from one post to another. Following the murder of a hated theatre critic Twitten becomes convinced that only he can solve the crime.

Review:

The series of apparently unrelated events that the author describes are eventually reassembled into a brand new ‘ball of string’. Adapted from the author’s British radio series, this is a terribly chatty novel. This is not a literary piece of work by any stretch of the imagination. Nor is it a high brow, intellectualised discussion regarding the ‘state of man’. It is to my mind a droll and witty satire of the British cosy crime novel. Once I accepted that it began to make sense. All of a sudden the preposterous coincidences and even more difficult to believe character traits began to coalesce into something more meaningful. It reminded me a lot of P.G.Wodehouse, in particular his tale of The Inimitable Jeeves, in the way that he told his stories and the attributes he gave to his characters.

This is very much a compliment from my point of view. It is both a witty and charming story and in my opinion a damn fine book.

Highly recommended - 4.5/5

The View From Here

This month I wanted to talk about how books are actually published. In essence its a very simple and straight forward process. An author writes a book and it gets printed and made available for a reader to purchase. Historically, the author would get a Literary Agent to work on their behalf. these are subject matter experts who would guide the author through the publishing process and liaise with these companies to ensure that the author receives their due payments etc. This allows the writer to do what they do best and tell their stories.

This is a very simple overview of what is now called Traditional Publishing. As with all things when money is involved everyone involved wants to protect their interests. This is not meant in any way, shape or form, to 'diss' those involved. I merely state it so that we can be clear why the process is what it is.

As a novelist myself, can I be absolutely sure that what I write is going to be read by a consumer and, more importantly, will that consumer be willing to spend their hard earn cash on my tales of derring-do?

In essence this is the role of the agent. They know the market and they know what the buying public wants to read. They are paid a commission based on their authors payments, usually this is 15% i.e. if a author receives £100k payment from the publisher then the agent gets £15k (as usual there are other nuances but this is the basic idea).

The agents also enjoy good relationships with publishers. At the end of the day publishers need to trust that the agents are not going to try and get them to invest serious amounts of money into a 'dodgy' project. The publisher has to make money remember. For the main publishers this relationship is such that they will not deal directly with an author. I might think that my thriller is perfect for Penguin Random House or Harper Collins etc but they will not talk to me direct. They use the agents as 'filters' - that doesn't mean, of course, that they publish everything an agent sends to them.

So to get into the world of Traditional Publishing with the big publishing houses and all that goes with it you need a Literary Agent. However this is a tough ask. Generally speaking as an author we submit a request to a desired agent via what the industry calls a query letter. This is our opportunity to set out what our book is about. Normally you would send, along with your query letter, the first 3 chapters of your work (for non-fiction writers this is more of a pitch of an idea). I also like to personalise my queries to the agent similar to the approach of applying for a job.

Literary agents are understandably busy people. They have existing clients that require their attention. In short less than 1% of all works submitted to an agent will progress onto the next stage. The vast majority of time they will not even bother replying to the query letter let alone provide feedback. Again not 'having a go' simply a statement of fact. There are so many examples of really successful authors who endured hundreds and hundreds of rejections before their got their big break, including Stephen King, JK Rowling and a whole host of others.

Novelists should also understand that what they produce is an art form. As such it is subject to the same vagaries of other art media. Its subjective and some would argue based on luck. So what one agent rejects another may not. Maybe an agent is absolutely swamped one week but quiet the next. Maybe the agent is having a bad day, we are all humans after all, and see things differently one day to the next. But lets assume you are fortunate enough and the agent agrees to represent you and your work (again there are some intermediate steps to get to this stage), what happens next?

The agent assumes the role of advocate and touts your work to various publishers. once again there is no guarantee that they will take this on. But, for the purposes of this blog, you are successful. A top 5 publishing house believes that they can make money from your book. They will negotiate with your agent an upfront royalty payment for the rights to your story. It could even be a multi book deal but for now lets work on the previous example of £100k. It should be noted that at this point the author has effectively handed over control of their work to the professionals.

It is they who will now employ editors, proofreaders, designers, distributors and marketeers. All with the express aim of making your book available to the buying public. They will want to ensure it is fit for purpose and as good as it can be. For example, the author may need to do rewrites if it is felt that the story is not strong enough is some areas. All of these things take time. It is not uncommon for it to take 2 years from the initial contract being signed to the book arriving on a bookshelf in your local bookstore.

This is one of the reasons why agented authors often receive upfront payments. The amount of the advance can vary widely depending on factors such as the author's track record, the book's potential sales, and the publisher's budget. However the author will not receive any more money until the book has 'earned out' the value of that upfront payment. Again depending on the contract the author might get 10% royalty on all sales so you can imagine that for the £100k upfront payment that an awful lot of books have to be sold just to 'break even'.

Clearly if you can write the next Harry Potter you can be 'set up for life' but the chances are incredibly slim. In traditional publishing there is only one guarantee and that is, it takes time, so much precious time.

And Now The End Is Near

Anyway I have just about finished with my musings for this month. I sincerely hope you found it interesting. I am always happy to hear from any bookworms, so if you have any comments/opinions please drop me a note, I would love to hear from you - my only request is to be civil - oh and to be a real human!

Til next time - take care and stay safe!