Tag Archives: writers’ lives

TEN YEARS AN AUTHOR… JANE CABLE SHARES HER MOST IMPORTANT LESSONS

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Jane Cable self published her first book in 2013, after it reached the final of a major national competition sponsored by Harper Collins. After a brief flirtation with an agent and another publisher, in 2018 she signed to Sapere Books, for whom she writes haunting romances. Two years later she achieved her dream of becoming an Harper Collins author, writing as Eva Glyn. So far four women’s fiction titles have been published by One More Chapter, three of them set in Croatia.

This week, lessons eight to ten:

Publishing deals are increasingly hard to find

One thing I really wish I had been able to tell my twenty-something self was to prioritise my writing then, because publishing would become an increasingly tough business. Sadly that still holds true today.

Think about it; when one of the mainstays of your business plan is the 99p ebook (of which the platform selling it will take a very large share), a huge number will need to be sold to make anything like a profit. And it seems to me a bit of a fallacy that the costs involved are lower; the only thing missing are printing and physical distribution, and those can be done very cheaply in bulk, especially when you consider the differential in price.

So publishers have to be incredibly careful about what they acquire. Celebrity authors are bankers who bank roll the rest of us, but very little else is certain. Even authors with contracts can find themselves in choppy waters if the first book of a deal does not sell well. It’s brutal, but it’s a business. And sadly, with a cost of living crisis gripping the country and beyond, I can’t see it getting better any time soon. Sorry.

 

You will spend more time marketing your books than you ever imagined

When new authors blithely ask what they need to do to make sure their book sells I do have a wry little smile to myself. If there was a magic bullet and I knew what is was, I would be top of the Amazon rankings.

The one thing I can say with a degree of certainly is that you need to choose your marketing channels and stick with them consistently. I can tell when some authors have a book out in the near future because suddenly they pop up on social media, after an absence of months or even years. In that time all but your closest contacts are going to forget you.

Of course marketing takes time. I spend at least an hour on it each day, mainly on social media, but also looking at other promotional opportunities such as advertising, preparing new graphics, polishing up my website and Amazon pages, writing guest blogs… The list is pretty endless, but it’s only by trial and error you will discover what works for you.

 

A good edit is the best learning experience you can have

The first book I wrote for One More Chapter was The Olive Grove, and when the structural edit came back it wasn’t so much a case of ‘could do better’ as ‘must do better’. I was devastated, but the notes I was given were so detailed they provided a roadmap for how to improve the book, so it could become the best seller that it has.

I learnt so much from that experience. How to fill the pages with wonderful settings and deep, credible emotions. How to take a reader inside the story and keep them there, turning every page. It was the most valuable learning experience of my entire writing life, and I have pumped what I learnt into everything I’ve written since. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m perfect and every time I receive an edit back from One More Chapter I am trembling not only with fear, but with anticipation.

Each and every one has made me a better writer. And that’s very exciting indeed.

 

Lessons one to seven have been published on the previous two Wednesdays.

 

TEN YEARS AN AUTHOR… JANE CABLE SHARES HER MOST IMPORTANT LESSONS

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Jane Cable self published her first book in 2013, after it reached the final of a major national competition sponsored by Harper Collins. After a brief flirtation with an agent and another publisher, in 2018 she signed to Sapere Books, for whom she writes haunting romances. Two years later she achieved her dream of becoming an Harper Collins author, writing as Eva Glyn. So far four women’s fiction titles have been published by One More Chapter, three of them set in Croatia.

This week, lessons five to seven:

Writers who have successfully self published tend to be more savvy

I started out by self publishing my first novel, The Cheesemaker’s House, because at that time in particular, publishers were afraid of ghosts. In romance books anyway. I knew nothing about the process, so put in into the capable hands of assisted publisher Matador, but even so it was a very steep learning curve.

I needed to understand retail distribution, I didn’t know book bloggers existed, and barely anything at all about Amazon categories, let alone going wide or narrow. The whole process of publishing and marketing baffled me, but I had to learn pretty quick. Also to moderate my expectations about the sales the book might achieve, although the ebook at least vastly exceeded them.

All of these were important lessons to take with me when I found a publisher. Everything from assessing the contract to understanding the control I would be giving up, and the promotion I would still need to do. If I hadn’t indie published first I would have been clueless.

 

Writer friends you really trust are invaluable

Ten years ago I had only one writer friend, introduced to me by a neighbour, and that was Claire Dyer. Through getting to know her I learnt the value of having someone to talk to about all aspects of our craft and of the crazy world of publishing we operate in, and we are friends to this day.

Writers talk about ‘finding their tribe’, and I found mine first in Chindi, a group of independently publishing authors in Chichester, where I was living at the time. Three of us moved on to find deals more or less together and we have remained close, but I learnt so much from almost every member of that group I will be forever in their debt.

As my career has changed, I have made many new writer friends, but there is a solid core of those I trust implicitly; people I can turn to when times are tough, and celebrate the successes too. Without them, being an author would be a very lonely business.
When you’re in the publishing wilderness, keep writing if you can

Overnight success in publishing is rare and most authors have periods they either feel they are never going to make it, or that they have been in the wilderness so long there is no possible way of crawling back.

It is so important to keep writing. One famous author described her work as her life raft when her publisher dumped her, and I totally understand that. Writing is as much a vocation as it is a profession, and without it many of us would feel even more lost. It can be a life, and mental health saver, but if you take a break then that is fine too. Your brain and body will tell you what you need to do if you listen to them.

Of course you also need to keep writing to have something to submit. Or even a drawer full of somethings, so that when that deal arrives you can offer more than one book, because you’re going to need it. It proves you have the work ethic, commitment and ideas it takes to succeed now it’s your turn to shine.

Lessons one to four were published last Wednesday, and lessons eight to ten will be published next week.

 

TEN YEARS AN AUTHOR… JANE CABLE SHARES HER MOST IMPORTANT LESSONS

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Jane Cable self published her first book in 2013, after it reached the final of a major national competition sponsored by Harper Collins. After a brief flirtation with an agent and another publisher, in 2018 she signed to Sapere Books, for whom she writes haunting romances. Two years later she achieved her dream of becoming an Harper Collins author, writing as Eva Glyn. So far four women’s fiction titles have been published by One More Chapter, three of them set in Croatia.

Today, lessons one to four:

Making connections through social media is fun

I know social media isn’t for everyone, but I do feel sad when authors say they hate it. I love interacting with other writers, bloggers and readers, chatting about books in general and hunting around for interesting content to post on my feed. On Twitter especially there are people from around the world who share my posts most days, and I of course reciprocate. I even feel I know them quite well.In my business life I used to do a fair bit of face to face networking, which being a shy person I did not always enjoy, but it taught me to treat my virtual networks in the same way; that to make it enjoyable (and successful) you need to put in more than you hope to get out. Although some days it seems like a uphill struggle to think of something to say, if I keep this in mind I still enjoy the interaction.

Twitter is LinkedIn for writers

So often people dismiss Twitter as ‘just talking to other writers’. Firstly, I don’t see the problem with that. Writers are readers too, and big recommenders of books other than their own. They have blogs and mailing lists you can swap with, and what’s even better is that their natural audience is the same as yours.But more than that, there are a large number of book reviewers and publishing professionals using Twitter every day. Pitches are announced, book deals, new publishers even. By connecting with these people they at least know your name. And you never know when that could be important.

You never stop honing your craft

And you never should. Every single book you write is a learning experience. If I had the time I would love to go back and rewrite my first novel, The Cheesemaker’s House – my skills as an author have improved so much. But perhaps I’m being too fussy, because readers still absolutely love it.Like most authors I take great pride in everything I produce. And I want that pride to be justified. After all, I am asking readers to invest not only their money, but their valuable leisure time, and in return they deserve my best.

 

Publishers acquire books because they think they will sell

There is no other agenda here. It doesn’t matter how beautifully you write, or how lovely a person you are; publishing is a business and money talks. Of course your contacts and reputation as a writer will put you a notch further up the slush pile, but without a book that will work in the market of the moment (which of course changes all the time), you will still be rejected. It’s nothing personal.It is the way of the world, and understanding this will help to protect your mental health. I’m lucky that I have a reasonably thick skin, but of course rejections still hurt. I have just learnt not to dwell on them. It only takes one book to land on one desk at the right time. Keep believing.

Lessons five to seven will be published next Wednesday.

 

 

 

WRITERS ON THE ROAD: CHARLIE COCHRANE

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Imagine a castle. A castle that was confiscated by Henry VIII after he’d chopped off the owner’s head. A castle that may not have been “knocked abaht a bit” by Cromwell, but which went seriously downhill after the civil war. One that was restored in the 19th century and may—rumour has it—have been where they hid the crown jewels during World War Two. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Better still, it’s a place where you can stay because it’s now a hotel, so it provides a tremendous venue for an author who writes historical novels and who wants both inspiration and an opportunity for immersive research. That’s my story about why we’ve stayed there several times and I’m sticking to it.

There’s nothing better than experiencing the era you write about, albeit at several removes. Work a sash window and see how tricky—and draughty—they can be. Trot up and down a spiral staircase and discover how that fight scene you had in your mind could physically never work. Stand next to a thick stone wall and see how much cold the thing radiates. While none of the detail might make its way into your story, it’ll give you a clearer idea of what your characters experienced in their everyday lives and why, for example, people wore bed socks and night caps, because their rooms would have been so flipping freezing.

Research is little use unless it turns into or backs up a story, so inspiration for what that story will be is the other factor writers can find when on the road. The Cochrane family first stayed at Thornbury Castle back in 2006, which was just before I started work on my first murder mystery. I needed a family home for Jonty Stewart—one of my pair of amateur sleuths—and it was obvious that Thornbury had to provide the template for it. I could so clearly see the characters occupying the place in its new guise as The Old Manor, especially the glorious walled garden which is a little jewel of colour and tranquillity. That garden was the setting for some significant scenes, and the strange grey cat we encountered there had to be incorporated, especially when the staff said he didn’t belong to the hotel or to any of the local houses. This mysterious moggy became a ghost cat who had inhabited The Old Manor since the time of Shakespeare and may just have been the “harmless, necessary cat” the Bard refers to in The Merchant of Venice. A small thing, maybe, but the kind of element that can enrichen a story and provide a useful thing for your characters to chat about while you’re fleshing them out.

Real life occurrences can spark a fictional equivalent, too. That rumour about the crown jewels being stored at Thornbury Castle…where would you hide such valuables? In a hidden vault, surely. What else could you hide there? A body. All of a sudden there’s a story up and running. In my case, it inspired the cosy mystery The Case of the Undiscovered Corpse, which is part of my 1950s Alasdair and Toby series. (Imagine two actors who play Holmes and Watson onscreen and off and you’ve got the idea.)

I’d always advise aspiring authors to keep their eyes and ears open and their imaginations ready to be launched, whether they’re on their travels or simply in the local supermarket. So often I hear fellow authors talk about the tiny seeds—a snatch of conversation overheard, an interaction observed or a place visited—which have subsequently developed into full-grown stories. Be alert!

 

Link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Undiscovered-Alasdair-Cambridge-Fellows-Mystery-ebook/dp/B0BHLN5HB8