BEST ENDEAVOURSJane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.
BEST OF SPIRITS
For a writer of ghost stories Hallowe’en offers apparently boundless opportunities to promote your work. I benefitted greatly from this when my first novel, The Cheesemaker’s House, hit the bookshops one September and my friend and PR Lisa Holden was able to secure some wonderful reviews in seasonal features.
2016 is The Cheesemaker’s House’s fourth witching season so once again I decided to make the best of it by running promotions on Twitter and on Facebook to give away iBooks. While I won’t ‘sell’ my books for a big fat zero on Amazon (or anywhere else, for that matter) I’m happy to give iBooks – and paperbacks – as competition prizes because it opens the doors to new readers and requires a certain amount of engagement from them. And as you may have gathered, I just love engaging with people who love books.
This year my local writers’ group, Chindi Authors, has been supporting #LovetoRead (more of which in a few weeks) and as part of our efforts those of us with sufficient courage have been videoed reading from our books. My offering – the first chapter of The Cheesemaker’s House – can be accessed via my website here http://janecable.com/the-book/
Much as I love writing ghost stories I fell into it by accident. The Cheesemaker’s House didn’t start out that way, and The Seahorse Summer began life with a very different ghost. But I have a genuine fascination with the fictional possibilities presented by the ripping of the veil between this world and the next and with every new character from beyond the grave I want to stretch the boundaries a little bit more.
This year the Hallowe’en fear factor increased when Reading Writers asked me to judge their autumn competition which was for a short format ghost story. One poem and eight prose pieces later I realised that writers across all genres had been prepared to give it a go. Fantasy, thriller and humour were all represented and the winner used characters from his military work in progress to brilliant effect.
It was also a new experience sitting in front of a room full of writers and giving them feedback on their work. Most were extremely gracious (although I did detect a pursed lip or two), but technical errors aside at the end of the day a winning story is a matter of personal choice. It made me realise just how lucky I was that The Cheesemaker’s House found people who loved it… and just happened to be judging competitions.