Category: writing

APRIL: FOOL

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FOOL to think the winter was over! Sitting here today, I’ve seen sunshine, rain, hail, thunder and lightening while I work – talk about four seasons in a day, I think it was four seasons in an hour! There’s not been much going on this month. I’m waiting for final edits from my agent to come back and I’ve been on a much-needed holiday in the meantime. My son is away for a week – a whole week! SOB! – which you would have thought would be the perfect time to crack on with writing but has ended up consisting mainly of meeting with friends. School starts again next week though, and I’ll be back to the desk then with the goal of finishing up my third manuscript by summer! Fingers crossed for more rain, I suppose, or I’ll never get it done!

APRIL BOOK CHOICE

I took the opportunity while I was away to catch up on some of the CWIP Prize short listers, in preparation for meeting them at the awards party this coming Monday! Of course I’d already read a few of them, but ‘Impossible’ by Sarah Lotz was one I hadn’t heard of before and thought it looked like a good book to get lost in while I was laying on a sun bed. I was right! I enjoyed the book a lot although I’m not entirely sure I agree with Amazon’s headline of ‘a twist you won’t see coming’ … I saw it coming from a country mile away. However, it was well written with strong characters and the author clearly had fun with the world-building, which, I assume, is how it got selected for CWIP. There aren’t a whole load of LOLs in this one, but it is touching and funny and I enjoyed it very much. Hopefully see you at the party, Sarah!

APRIL TV CHOICE

GUILTY PLEASURE WARNING: The return of Grey’s for the second half of the season would usually fill me with joy but I have to say, it is SO. DULL. It’s like they took all the utterly mind numbingly boring character traits of Dr. Meredith and then made all the other actors on the show say her lines because she’s left. The scripts for Grey’s have always been formulaic… even Shonda will tell you there’s a generic way to write the script for each episode – but in the past few decades they’ve had their moments of producing some really, really great medical drama which, very simply, is why they’ve made it this far. Season 19 would not be one of these moments. I DO NOT CARE about the new interns. Giving them all the screen time with their fragility and hormones will not make me care more about them either. Worse, I don’t care about any of the old characters either. They have turned into cardboard cutouts, as dull and boring and grey as Meredith herself. So, dear reader, I have defected. I’ve been watching Old Amsterdam, which is basically another show based around a talented but flawed set of doctors, set in a busy public hospital in NYC. But it’s fresher and faster and a bit down and dirtier than Grey’s and I’m still in the first flush of getting to know the characters, which is kind of like starting a whole new relationship, and I’m enjoying it. It won’t set the world on fire, but it’s a nice way to spend the evening after a full day procrastinating about writing books.

APRIL RECIPE

I’ve reached a new low in writing/editing/eating crap this winter. Every day I pull out the same food: a cheese sandwich with marmite/cucumber/pickle – delete as appropriate –  crips, biscuits with a cuppa afterwards… and then sit eating while I work, effectively leaving my desk for as long as it takes to boil the kettle and slice the cheese. (What kind of useless writer procrastination is that?)

As a result I’ve developed what I like to term ‘Writer’s Arse’, and with the prospect of it maybe stopping raining at some point in the next six months, along with the sheer boredom of eating a cheese sandwich every day for weeks on end, I’ve decided to take a proper break and make myself something healthy and attractive, in the hope that it will make me go the same way if I do it often enough.

Today was day 1 and I made a roasted grape, pecan and goat cheese salad. You can find the recipe here (thanks Waitrose) https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/recipe/roasted-grape-goats-cheese-salad. It was bloody lovely! It took 10 minutes to make plus the time the oven took to heat up and was pretty filling too.

I halved the ingredients and used croutons I had in the cupboard rather than making my own, popping them in along with the cheese. Okay, it’s not exactly the lowest fat salad in the world but certainly better than what I was eating! And as a had to use a knife and fork, I couldn’t type while I ate either. Procrastination WIN.

MY MONTH AHEAD

Well, Monday is a VERY important night as it’s the Comedy Women in Print Prize! The wonderful Helen Lederer has pulled it off again, managing to put together authors, slebs, publishers, and a slew of witty women to celebrate all the amazing literature that’s been published in the past year – plus change the life of the lucky winner of the unpublished prize! I’m really looking forward to reconnecting with everyone and can’t wait to find out who’s won!

The rest of the month is dedicated to writing. Not much on the horizon in terms of promotional stuff at the moment… so if you are reading this and fancy having me come along to talk at an event or appear on the radio, run a quiz night, do a virtual book club… do get in touch!

Happy Springtime,

Fx

March: The longest month

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Anyone else just waiting for this month to end or is it just me? I am very definitely NOT a winter person, so this final slog towards spring always leaves me bad tempered and emotional and desperate for company while being fully, one hundred percent aware that I’m the person you least want to call for a good time. It’s also my least productive time of year to write, which is what makes it the perfect time for editing, an admittedly self-loathing task where, for the non-writers amongst you, you basically take all the work you did that you thought was great a few weeks or months previous, rip it to pieces at the behest of your agent/publisher/self and try to put it back together again without losing the plot (in both senses of the word). I actually enjoy editing for the first two thirds of a book but by the final furlong the doubt that I have written anything of worth always creeps in and by the end I always assume I’ve made everything ten times worse than it was before. Fortunately this is rarely the case. Editing – especially the final edit before submission – is a vital part of writing where you get to reshape and refine your work. It’s an opportunity to really take a good look at your characters and make sure they make sense and are consistent as well as ensuring they have room to grow. For crime writers, it’s a chance to add or remove red herrings, find places where suspense needs to increase and check that you don’t accidentally reveal how your book is going to end somewhere around chapter eight. For comedy writers, it’s an opportunity to cut gags that aren’t funny but maybe add more humour in places where the ebb and flow of writing requires it. If a book were a piece of music, the final edit before submission is that final dress rehearsal: making sure you aren’t just playing the notes in all the right places, but that you’ve thought about dynamics, ornaments, emotion and nuance, that you know your work back to front and upside down; that you’ll never be more ready to throw it out into the world that you are right now. Of course, this is where the comparison ends… being an author on submission is like playing the concert and then waiting six to eight weeks for applause, if indeed there is any to be had at all!

MARCH BOOK CHOICE:

Two books for this month, because they both deserve celebrating! The winner and runners up of the Comedy Women in Print Prize for 2021, Rebecca Rogers and Hannah Dolby have released two contrasting but equally fun books this month which deserve to go on your TBR pile!

If you like a bit of Terry Pratchett or Hitchhiker’s Guide, then The Purgatory Poisoning could be right up your street. A crime caper set in the afterlife finds Dave having to solve his own murder from his own personal purgatory, St Ives’ youth hostel c. 1992.

No Life For A Lady is a quirky Victorian mystery, centred around a young woman named Viola, who decides she would rather become a detective than marry any one of the young bachelors her father sends her way.

As one of the judges for the CWIP Prize in 2021, I’m extremely proud and excited for Hannah and Rebecca and wish them lots of luck now their book babies are out in the world! Have fun, you witty women!

MARCH TV CHOICE:

Okay – I admit it, my month has been a series of questionable indulgences when it comes to TV viewing. Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19 returned, meaning a happy withdrawal into the comforting world of Shondaland predictability. Chicago Fire is back as well, giving me the opportunity to wonder for the eleventh season in a row how on earth it is still being commissioned (and why I continue to tune in). I binged three series of Jack Ryan which left me befuddled as to whether John Krasinski is a really good actor or dead inside, and also whether anyone, CIA or no, would really be allowed to board a nuclear warship and have a chat to the captain while he prepared to start a war. I feel like this is exactly the sort of thing editors would never let an author get away with, even if it was convenient to the plot. After watching this, I feel fairly strongly that editors of TV shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it either.

Daisy Jones and the Six, currently streaming on Amazon Prime, is far from perfect either. But it’s fun, frothy, drug fuelled nostalgia for the 1970s and a ‘fictional’ (but uncannily reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac) story of the rise and fall of a world famous rock band makes for some serious ‘guilty pleasure’ viewing. I don’t think it’s brilliant: you can’t easily manufacture the magic of the Mac for TV and the whole ‘documentary’ style of the series is spoilt by the lack of any real effort to show the passing of time except for a few terrible wigs. But it has made for a pleasing watch and if you fancy kicking back with something not too awful and not too taxing either, this would be my recommendation.

MY MONTH AHEAD:

Well, mainly I’m celebrating it not being winter anymore! But my main excitement for this month is attending the Comedy Women in Print Awards, which I’m very much looking forward to. Fortunately, I’m off on holiday the week before, which means I will be able to read the shortlist of published novels before I hit up the party! Bring it on, April….

Fx

February: Old friends, new friends, no friends

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My feet have just about touched the ground again after four weeks of mayhem, starting with jetting off to Dubai for the wonderful Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature at the start of the month, which I was lucky enough to be invited to as a speaker and workshop facilitator. I don’t think there is any point in pretending that it wasn’t THE coolest thing I have done as a published author, because you’d all know I was lying. Highlights were many but included:

  • Delivering a workshop on being inspired to write and writing comedy to a sold out room!
  • Talking books and publishing and everything in between with readers, other authors, agents & generally bookish people for a whole week!
  • Being on a panel with Sudha Murty and the utterly lovely Alexander McCall Smith, and having the most fun and fascinating conversation about letter writing. You can find the transcript of my letter to Dubai here.
  • (Much later…) Discussing the merits (or not) of toilets with glass walls with Alexander and his wife.
  • Meeting a bunch of amazingly creative people and being surrounded by multi disciplinary artists from so many different places and cultures.
  • Seeing a bunch of old friends and making some new ones too. The theme for this year was ‘Old Friends’ and it couldn’t have been more perfect.
  • Sunshine and warm weather… working by the pool made for a nice change of pace!

Talking of working, I’ve been going at it like a dog. I’ve barely left the house since I arrived back and I’ve forgotten how to talk to people but my latest manuscript is now nearly ready to go out to the world and there’s another one hot on its heels that I’m two thirds of the way through already! I’m really enjoying being at the end of the process for my second novel, and excited at the ideas I’ve had for the third one, to really make it zip. Putting an extra spring in my step this month has been the fabulous news that my agent, Davinia Andrew-Lynch, has joined Curtis Brown Books and taken me with her as a client! I am very much looking forward to stepping out on this new adventure with her.

FEBRUARY BOOK CHOICE:

Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano was a recommendation by Davinia, actually. The premise is simple but irresistible: a author and mom of two who’s husband has run off with the estate agent is mistakenly hired as a contract killer. If you like Stephanie Plum, you’ll love this. It’s fast paced, murderously good fun with lots of funny and familiar scenarios for the mums out there. A great palette cleanser if you’ve been getting too serious with your literature lately. I bought the audio book and it’s read pretty well – not sure about the ‘guy’ voices but it’s not as annoying as most!

FEBRUARY TV CHOICE:

There is nothing better than deliciously dark television that offers plenty of sass alongside – and Bad Sisters more than delivers. Nicknamed ‘The Prick’ by his sisters in law, JP really is the gold standard: his apparent playfulness towards his wife, daughter, mother, the neighbour and the sisters is in turns threatening, frightening, patronising, dangerous and downright evil. The sisters decide they’ve had enough and plot to kill him, but he proves a slippery fish to nail – and here is where the wonderful comedic turns can be had as the assassination attempts get more and more outrageous, with disastrous consequences. The story, in essence a ‘whodunnit’, moves forwards and backwards in time to finally reveal the who, what, where of the murder.  The only thing I didn’t think was utterly brilliant was the slightly annoying subplot of two hapless insurance agents trying to prove the women killed him to save their business from bankruptcy and a criminal action lawsuit. Yes, it was necessary to have someone investigate to create the motivation for the cover up, but I think the plot stretched a little thin at times in terms of the believability of these characters. However, it didn’t really take too much away from what was a brilliant story, beautifully shot, subtly acted and wonderfully written to keep us guessing most, if not all of the way.  

MY MONTH AHEAD:

Well it’s a quiet month for me after the storm that was February so I’ll mainly be focused on final tweaks for submission and cracking on with the next manuscript. But there’s a couple of things going on in the CWIP motherland that I should draw your attention to…. firstly, the shortlist is out and it’s fantastic! Very much looking forward to reading some of this stack that hasn’t already found it’s way to me.

Secondly… and admittedly, you don’t have long with this bit of information… but the Comedy Women in Print Prize is running a ‘Febulously Funny’ fundraiser, where if you donate, like, TODAY, you’ll be put in the prize draw to win lots of books and swag from the authors of the unpublished-but-now-published CWIP Prize books. The Prize relies purely on donations and Helen Lederer’s caffeine intake, and does great things for unpublished authors as well as championing funny female fiction – so if you’re a fan, please consider donating here. You can, of course, give generously after today, with absolutely no chance of winning anything except the adoration of all involved with CWIP!

See you next month,

Fx

The subjectivity of comedy

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Last week I made an off the cuff remark on Twitter about teenagers being worse than toddlers and it got more hits than almost anything else I’ve ever posted. Some people laughed in recognition, some mothers of toddlers were horrified at this window onto the future, some people told me off for stereotyping and one lady kindly noted ‘you reap what you sew’. Her reaction reminded me that the pressure put on women by other women is alive and well, but more than that, that comedy is always subjective (especially on Twitter).

When you’re writing comedy, it’s important to grow a thick skin, preferably right over the one you already had to grow as a writer anyway. Not everyone is going to find you funny, not everyone is going to laugh at the things that had you cackling into your laptop. For reasons I still can’t fathom, some readers consider it their civic duty to criticise comedy writers, loudly, warning others in brutal online reviews that You. Aren’t. Funny. As hard as it can be not to take it personally, you have to ignore them. Because what they mean, whether they realise it or not, is that it’s not funny to them.

And that’s okay. The golden rule when I’m writing a funny scene, or inserting a bit of witty dialogue, is that if it makes me smile while I’m writing it, there’s a good chance there’ll be other people who will find it amusing too. They might even find it funnier than I do. Or they won’t think it funny at all. At the end of the day, it actually doesn’t matter, as long your writing is good. If you produce a quality story, with strong characters and snappy dialogue, being funny is just the icing on the cake. John Hodgman is quoted as saying “don’t concentrate on becoming a better humour writer, just concentrate on being the best writer you can be. If you’re funny, the work will end up being funny. And if you’re not, the work will still end up being good.” I think that’s a good rule to write by.

JANUARY BOOK CHOICE:

The book I’ve just finished up reading is actually pretty in keeping with the story at the start of this post. Other Parents by Sarah Stovell is set in the world of competitive parenting, PTA horror, secrets and small minded mentalities. I bought it for the title and the zippy front cover and because I assumed it would have protagonists who were over the age of 30 – still a rarity in the publishing world, despite there being a huge audience of middle aged book buyers out there who might like to read about themselves occasionally. I’ll dive into this another time, but suffice to say it’s something I base a lot of book choices around – plus I’m a sucker for a pretty front cover… so I admit I didn’t read the blurb and made several assumptions about the content. As a result I kept waiting for a murder to happen… spoiler: there is no murder! But there is plenty of action. It followed a few different storylines from multiple points of view that challenged and provided enough twists and turns to keep me interested. An enjoyable, sometimes dark, sometimes witty, horribly familiar-in-places story that’s perfect as a book club/holiday read.

JANUARY TV CHOICE:

I just finished up the third and final season of Dead to Me (Netflix), starring more wonderful middle aged women Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini, supported by Prince Charming himself, James Marden. I have simply loved this oh-so-dark comedy, and was sad to see it end, although it was definitely the right time. A masterclass in getting your characters into trouble, and then really leaning into that, I have really enjoyed the way the writing shifted from comedy to tragedy with such grace and presence of mind. It’s a study in female friendship and grief that I thought was beautifully, madly, deeply done, with thrash metal, copious swearing and high farce brilliantly executed by the cast.  

MY MONTH AHEAD:

January is half gone already but the rest of it is busy! On Tuesday 17th I’ll be joining Jo Good on BBC London as one of three guests on her ‘Chewing the Fat’ segment. I’m on at 11pm if you fancy tuning in.

At the end of the month I’m getting on a plane to Dubai to take part in the Emirates Festival of Literature, which I’m pretty sure is going to be a highlight of the year! I’m running a masterclass in comedy writing and appearing on a panel with Cecilia Ahern and Alexander McCall-Smith, amongst others – plus catching up with some other writers from the region, who I haven’t seen in a really long time. I really can’t wait to devote the week to all things books, and, having lived there for nearly a decade, spend some time in my old home with dear friends too. It will be wonderful to go back to where my writing journey began, and hopefully spark some new ideas for new stories as well.

See you next month,

Fx

A year! A WHOLE YEAR!

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Where the hell did my publication year go? I can hardly believe it’s a matter of days until it’s over. It’s been hard work. Super fun. Massive learning. I will admit, though, it’s all a bit weird now any semblance of excitement is gone. Back to square one, only not square one… Sometimes I wonder if it’s square two or square zero, it sorts of depends on the day and how positive I’m feeling about the whole experience. But the fact remains that I’m soon to be back on submission with a new manuscript, and I’m working on a third with the aim of finishing that by Christmas. Things are happening.

Plotting and writing and editing has taken a lot of time away from marketing Tinker, Tailor the past six months, but the truth is, while I feel bad about the lack of focus I’ve given to my book baby, I’ve had no choice but to scale back in order to get on with anything else at all. And anyway, am I a writer, or a marketeer? Probably a bit of both. But honestly, I’m not really very sure if all the hours of marketing I put in – especially on social media – made enough of a difference to book sales after the initial push to be worth it. I say especially social media, because I think it took up far too much time and my reach hasn’t increased anywhere near exponentially as I hoped it would. Your reach is your reach on social media, I now realise… and unless you’re very lucky and Dawn French retweets you and you go viral (she didn’t), you’re just another debut author.

But all is not lost, and I’ve got some great things coming up thanks to quite a bit of persistence, tenacity and maybe a bit of borderline stalking over the course of the past year. Networking, radio interviews, book signings, workshops – getting out there and talking to people who might just be able to help has proved to be fruitful and I’ve definitely had exposure as a result, ranging from my own table at Waterstones to a couple of book festival appearances, including Barkway Lit Fest in October and the Emirates lit fest in Dubai next February, which should definitely shift a few copies! Personal and in person stuff has definitely been more effective, in terms of self promotion and sales. Maybe that’s just me – better in person. Not sure that’s a great advert for a writer haha. But it’s helped me learn where my strengths are and how I can best sell books. I do remember someone saying once, that back of the room sales are the most effective way to sell books. Of course, getting a room to be at the back of is actually the challenging bit – the festivals are all about the big names and it’s hard getting a look in, especially as my publication year is now at a close and I’m not considered a ‘debut’ author anymore. (The irony being that last year, no one would consider me because my book wasn’t out yet… if you can figure out how that works, do let me know.) Going forward, I figure the best way to sell more books is to write more books and publish more books so that people invite me to a room I can be at the back of. So that is what I’m going to do. Stay tuned.

Doing a number two

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I learned a lot about writing from Tinker, Tailor, Schoolmum, Spy; certainly, my writer toolkit has improved dramatically and while writing my new manuscript I’ve patted myself on the back a number of times for not falling into any classic bad-writer traps this time around. But if I thought I was done learning how to write a book, I was sorely mistaken.

Way back when I understood nothing of how publishing works, I thought my next book would be a sequel. It’s not, before you ask (lots of people have). I’d love to do one, but I need each of you to sell the first book to another 3,000 of your closest friends before I get to write Vicky again. It didn’t matter, in the end; I had loads of ideas, although it took a while to land on the thing that felt right, not least because of lockdowns and covid and, well, you know the rest. In the end, after a spring getting Tinker, Tailor, Schoolmum, Spy ready for publication and a summer spent reading, musing and generally procrastinating (as well as promoting my very new, very real book), I started writing properly in September. It was just after TTSS launched, and I was buoyed up by the amazing experience that was having my first book in print and raced through the first third of the story, however, as autumn crept towards winter, my enthusiasm and positivity quickly turned to fear and general paranoia, that I would never be able to write another book.

Things may have been slightly easier if I’d had a plot. I hate plotting. I’ve convinced myself it takes all the spontaneity out of writing; I loathe the idea of post-it notes and spreadsheets and notebooks and whatever else wise people who meticulously plan their books use. I wrote Tinker, Tailor, Schoolmum, Spy in a proper seat-of-the-pants style. I didn’t ever feel like I needed a plot plan. I knew what I wanted from my story and my characters and was happy to rework it over and over again until I got it right. This time things weren’t quite so clearcut, and the fact that the book didn’t come out of me fully formed has been a source of great frustration.

As the end of the year approached, I was stuck in the dread zone, two thirds of the way through, at the point where nothing makes any sense anymore and I assumed I would never finish. However, I was thankfully wrong; by the end of January, forcing myself to stay off social media and going into hibernation thanks to yet another covid wave, I was done with a first draft. It was 10,000 words too short, had a big chunk in the middle that didn’t make any sense and a character who was completely superfluous to requirements, but it was done. The whole thing took me five months, which isn’t bad going at all, especially when at least half of that time was taken up with deleting huge tranches of copy in fits of anguish and scrolling past all the more successful writers on Twitter every day.

I sent the first draft to my agent at her (misguided) request with a message that read: ‘I am aware this is shit, please don’t drop me’ and then rested up for a few weeks before starting the first big edit. Lots of writer friends said they were sure it wasn’t as bad as I made it out to be. Bless them and their unwavering loyalty. It was.

But looking back, so was the first book. I just didn’t know it – I had no means of measuring my writing, back then; it’s only now that I know what a finished book looks like – and the effort that goes into getting it to that point – that I can be honest with myself about the probable state of my first draft of TTSS. And the second. And the third. It’s the knowing that knocks you sideways, of course; Book number two is not so much of a learning curve as a sort of virtual torture chamber where your self-confidence goes to die. But a few months and a lot of red pen under the bridge, things are much improved, and I’m just about reaching that delicious point where you realise you do actually have a whole book and it’s quite possibly not shit anymore, and you’re ready to talk about it with friends in pubs without desperately trying to change the subject when they ask ‘how’s the writing going?’.

I wonder if this really was a difficult second album, or whether every book is agony once you’ve written the first one, because every time after that debut, you’re so acutely aware of the mountain you have to climb. I might have already got to the summit, but each book is like taking a new route… so is it really the same mountain, and does it get any easier? I guess I’ll find out when I start number three. But for now, I’m just crossing my fingers that my new book baby will find a place in the world. Watch this space…

How it started… how it’s going…

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Someone asked me last week, what it was like to be a debut author. It’s weird, because to be honest, I don’t feel very debut-like anymore, although as far as the glacial timelines of the publishing industry go, it’s entirely possible I could be considered ‘new’ for another 23 years. But the initial excitement and sense of achievement of publishing a novel is certainly in the past; and while I’m still learning a lot about my role as a published writer, it’s quite an interesting question to answer, six months in, with the benefit of quite a bit of hindsight. Now the euphoria has worn off, what does it really feel like to be a debut author?

Well, firstly, I’m a bit knackered. Every debut author will know (or very quickly find out) that the lion’s share of day in-day out marketing and publicity comes down to you; publishers simply don’t/can’t invest the same amount of time and energy in debuts by unknown authors as they do if you’re, say, Richard Osman or Dawn French. Trying to get noticed or stand out from the crowd is incredibly difficult; longer tail ‘reach’ feels like the holy grail. I can’t even begin to calculate how many hours I have spent campaigning to get into bookshops, do signings, appear in the local news or on the occasional radio show in the hope of selling a few more copies; social media is easier, but even so, to get followers up in the thousands could send you mad or die trying. And, after the initial few months, I’m possibly not alone in having the niggling thought that no matter how hard you work, it might not be gaining you any traction at all in terms of book sales. Not that you know one way or the other; there’s no way of knowing how your book is selling for at least six months so you are pretty much working in an informational void, with no idea if anything you are doing is paying off at all. Still, you can’t stop; you have to keep pushing, and hoping, and praying that it does.

But as time passes and people move onto the ‘next big thing’, it’s hard to keep the momentum going. And here’s where it gets tricky, as a debut author, to remain sane and grounded about your work. You have A LOT of other debut authors to compare yourself to and with each passing day you watch more and more of them launch into the world. We’re all making out like we’re so popular and successful and supportive in order to try and convince readers to give us a spin, but deep down in places we don’t like to talk about at parties, we’re all still really wondering if our books are shit in comparison to everyone else’s and that’s why we’ve only got 573 followers on Twitter and no one will answer our emails about appearing at book festivals. I’m not going to sugar coat how difficult that can be sometimes – I think it’s important to be honest with myself and a good thing, to check my ego and say, wow, you did an amazing thing but other people do it better, or got luckier than you, or both. But I recognise that in comparison to a lot of other authors whose books never see the light of day, I’m very lucky too, and I’m not saying I’ve been hard done by – I’m just saying it’s hard.

There’s a lot to celebrate, of course. Reviews, for one thing. Fan mail, too. I’ve had some amazing messages from complete strangers who felt compelled to write and tell me how much they loved the book. That I inspired someone to do that, to actually reach out, is a massive compliment and incredibly meaningful. I’ve been very fortunate to have a stonking set of reviews and actually only a few negative ones (my top three favourite 3* reviews, btw, are: 1. awarded for ‘ an unnecessary sex scene’, 2. ‘it’s not as good as Motherland’, and 3. ‘I’m going back to Ken Follett’). The variety of these comments will tell you that what readers like or want is very subjective so you can’t set too much store by them – and anyway, reviews aren’t really about feeding your ego – they’re more about feeding algorithms; still, it’s comforting to read what people are saying and know you didn’t write a complete load of rubbish. But ultimately, it IS about algorithms… so it’s hard to remain relentlessly upbeat about a product that you believe in and have invested so much of yourself in that almost everyone says is great when they read it, when you’re watching your Amazon sales nosedive because you haven’t hit the number of reviews that would propel you to be ‘noticed’ by a computer. That’s the other thing I’ve learned – don’t be shy about asking people to leave reviews!

Although I might sound a bit jaded I should point out that there’s still a boat load of things that make me buzz, that I don’t think I’ll ever tire of. Seeing my book on the shelves in a book shop. Friends messaging me to tell me they’ve seen my book on the shelves in a book shop. Getting on ‘the table’ in Waterstones. Being asked to talk about my book, the writing process, and yes, about being a debut author. God, I love the talking. I could do it all day long. When I’m not busy writing, of course (just in case my agent is reading this, I am actually writing too, I promise).

As I move from being debut author to an author with a debut novel (and I do think there is a distinction to be made) it’s great to take the time and consider all the stuff I’ve learned so far – which is A LOT. Next time – and there will be a next time, I am determined of that – my expectations will be set. I will know how to do a book launch, who to call, I’ll know what the publisher does and what my agent does and what I have to do and I’ll know a whole bunch of hugely supportive bookshops, radio stations, magazines and social media pals who will help me to get my book out into the world. I will reap the benefits of the hard work I put in this time around and cross my fingers and hope for that tiny little bit of luck that will get me on the shelves of Waterstones without having to go in and ask, appear on the supermarket top 10 or get me an invitation to a book festival where I can share all the things I’ve learned with other new authors too.

What’s it really like to be a debut author? Exhilarating, exhausting, joyous, tough… but most of all, memorable. But I have the sneaky feeling it’s like that every time; and that’s why I’m hoping to do it all over again.

Six things I’ve learned from publishing a book

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It’s six weeks since I woke up a published author. SIX weeks! I can barely believe it, still – and yet I don’t rightly remember what it was like before I painted my nails to match my book cover (oft-commented on during signings, although looking a little off-season as winter looms) or wondered if anyone would even buy the book never mind like it (they have – mostly!). I can honestly say it’s been a blast, and also incredibly hard work. I’m not sure any of it has really sunk in properly but I’m hoping by sitting down with a cuppa and writing it all down, it might.

Truth is, I’ve been thinking about this post for a while and wondering what to write that hasn’t already been said a million times before by every slightly deer-caught-in-headlights debut author. I’m not sure I’ve come up with much that’s new, but as it’s my six-week anniversary, here’s six things I’ve learned – or am still learning – about being a published author:

  1. Getting your book noticed is hard. Unless you happen to strike it really lucky or know someone who can get you on the cover of the Sunday Times Magazine, after any initial buzz around launch, you’ll realise that your circle of influence really is very small. Being surrounded by supportive, like minded people on social media is great, and makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something, but it doesn’t necessarily convert to sales. Writers support other writers, and they share and like your stuff on social media – but they don’t necessarily buy your book. Some do – but a lot don’t. And they follow/are followed by a lot of other writers. The snake eating its own tail, so to speak. The group of people you really want to get noticed by – readers – are a lot harder to engage, and I think it’s important to recognise that you will probably need to be a little more inventive than relying on your Twitter following to get the word out. Interestingly, though, Insta has been the relative social media front runner for me in terms of new follows and likes/shares. I was quite surprised by this and am trying to keep up momentum, although I do find it more time consuming to generate content than, say, tweeting.
  2. Reviews are important. One obvious way of getting noticed is to get good reviews. At first I thought reviews were about my ego but actually it’s nothing to do with that and everything to do with ALGORITHMS. I was on a blog tour which was great (thank you to ALL the bloggers – amazing people!) – I almost certainly sold books because of this, and combined with being part of the September Kindle Book Deal, it was a very positive first month. On Amazon I was in the top 20 for my genre (Women’s Action and Adventure) for the entire four weeks and I even got to number 1 in Audiobooks for a day! But now the blog tour is over and it’s not September anymore, I’m reliant on algorithms. The more reviews I get, the more the algorithms will love me and plonk me in someone’s ‘If you like this, you’ll love this’ suggestions box. I’ve spent a lot of time asking the people who bought my book to review my book – because it’s actually their recommendation which will make the difference, not the fact they bought the book in the first place. So if you’re reading this and haven’t left a review yet, please do!
  3. Bookshops are brilliant places. Well obviously they are. But I hadn’t truly appreciated the support they could offer, when they are really behind a product and its author. A book signing might seem like a bit of an ego trip, but actually, you have to remember that for everyone involved, it’s also good business. If you can create buzz for the bookshop, they will create it for you. I’ve met some amazing people the past month who have really made the experience magical – both independent bookshops and Waterstones. These people love books and they know their audiences and if you can just get up the courage to walk in and talk to them and sell yourself and your book, for the most part, you’ll find they are willing to listen. Ditto bookshop customers. Talk to them! They are wary at first – the look in their eye says ‘you’re trying to sell me something, so I’ll actively avoid you’ but then they remember you are trying to sell them a book and they are in a bookshop, so it’s actually okay to stop and chat. Sometimes they buy, sometimes they don’t. There’s no point in taking it personally – if it’s not their thing, it’s not their thing – but whatever the result, it is helpful to talk about your work in any capacity – and it’s also lots of fun getting to know readers at a grass roots level.
  4. Publicising your book can be a full time job. If you aren’t careful, all this ‘getting noticed’ can consume you. Between visiting bookshops, being active on social media and writing guest blogs, articles and so on, I’ve barely had time for anything else in my life this past month. I don’t know how you would do it if you had another full time job. I suppose you wouldn’t – or you’d be much better organised than me. The hard work did pay off – I have at least one event booked for every week from now until December, and so I feel like I can relax a bit now, and start again after Christmas to build momentum back up for spring/summer. How this reflects in my book sales I have no idea… and won’t for another few months yet. If indeed, I can ever measure the effectiveness of the things I’ve been doing vs. organic sales. I’m not sure how I ever would, to be honest. Blind faith it is, then…
  5. Find time to write again. Gosh, the second book is hard. Your brain is so busy congratulating itself on the first one (as it rightly should – it’s an amazing achievement!) that it tends to forget what got you there in the first place. Actual writing. I’ve realised/been told repeatedly that the best way to sell Tinker, Tailor, Schoolmum, Spy would be to get a second book published. But in order to do that I have to sit down and write again, with the same commitment and energy as I did for the first one. It’s taken me a long time to get to that point; I’ll admit at one point last year during the lockdown/homeschooling horror I wondered if I’d ever be able to do it again. But getting back in the habit of writing is half the battle, and now the first book is out there, I feel I have the time to devote to creating something again, the courage to put words down and the confidence that they are going to work out just as well as the last lot did.
  6. Finally… Have a launch party. Big and brash or small and intimate, do celebrate and make some memories with the people who love you. You just published a book!!!

Mad (wo)men

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With just under two months left to go until publication day, I thought I’d reflect on the journey so far. It hardly seems real, still, that my book will be in the actual shops in eight weeks’ time. The creative process has been relatively smooth sailing, if I’m honest. The hard stuff is all the rest of it!

Being published for the first time is a strange situation: you go from lolling about in your writing bubble bath to being thrown into the publishing equivalent of a lazy river, constantly wondering whether you should kick your legs a bit to influence the outcome or just go with the flow. Throughout the past six months I have been constantly second guessing whether I should be more or less assertive with my publisher, or more or less proactive; not wanting to appear a control freak or tread on any toes, and at the same time trying to prove myself a competent, commercially savvy and enthusiastic individual who wants to work hard to sell my books. As an author, you have to be calm, patient and understanding that while your book matters to your publisher, they have a million things to juggle; and accept the fact that you’re a long way from the top of the pile, and that to get that vital airspace with bookshops and bloggers and influencers to propel you a little further up the food chain means pitching yourself against authors who are better, faster, more experienced, more known, with bigger budgets and better relationships with which to gain traction. It’s not easy. And I’ve found negotiating the choppy waters is all the more difficult because, like a lot of writers out there with their first book deal, I have absolutely no idea who does what.

Google ‘how to get an agent’ or ‘how to get a book deal’ and you’ll get a million articles. Try searching ‘who does what when you publish a book’ and the answers are less consistent. It’s quite a minefield, and from conversations with other authors, appears to vary from publisher to publisher, agent to agent, and author to author. Thankfully, I have an amazing, hands on agent who’s willing to steer a rather green debut author through the confusion of their first publication. But I’m sure it’s not the same for everyone.

One thing that’s very consistent though, is that authors need to market their own books. Although I was expecting to take on a lot of the responsibility to sell mine – I’ve read a million articles telling me as much – nothing really prepared me for how much there would be to learn and to do in order to make even the tiniest dent on the consciousness of the nation. Plus, I massively underestimated the sheer quantity of time it would take. Before this month, I thought doing social media was just a case of chucking a few tweets out a couple of times a week. Now I seem to be in a constant battle between being a writer who writes actual books and a marketeer promoting the one I’ve already written.

In truth, keeping up with the demands of social media admin in order to grow my online presence, generating book signings and organising launch events has become an almost full time job. To help me get some new ideas to help with promoting the book, I went on a marketing course for authors, which was great in terms of really focusing on my brand, but also made me aware of just how much there was to do. Today, I have a spangly website and several promises of book signings, and I’m feeling rather chuffed to have increased from 300 to a massive 434 Twitter followers (please do follow me, by the way, @Writerfaye – I’d quite like to make it 500 by the end of the week). But the amount of work that’s gone into it in the past four weeks or so feels faintly ridiculous and I have begun to wonder how anyone has the time to do this and write.

There’s a rumour that publishing a book in the good old days was vastly different. Allegedly, there was a time when the publisher did all of your marketing while you quaffed champagne and signed the occasional book. I’m not sure that’s entirely true. But I do know, that as a 21st Century debut author it’s very definitely not like that – and while confusing and fairly exhausting on occasions, that doesn’t always make it a bad thing. If I wasn’t before, I am super, super invested in my book now. I am not afraid to walk into a bookshop anymore and talk to them about stocking my book, or asking about an event. It’s yielded far better results than emailing, although taken about ten times the amount of time and effort. The @womenwritersnet and @debutsuk2021 groups on Twitter have really changed how I interact and I’ve learned a lot from other writers promoting their work too.

Whether it really makes a difference or not is quite impossibly to say, at this stage. But I keep telling myself it will! And honestly, after the last year and a half, I’m so excited to talk to strangers again I don’t really care. In talking to people and putting myself out there, on social media and in real life, I feel like I’ve tapped into a new community who really cares about books and writers.

Publishing a book is long, and crazy. I’m sure I’ll look back on this post in a few months and there will have been a whole other set of learning too. But to anyone reading this and wondering, is it really worth it, I would say yes. With bells on. Writers learn for a living: every edit is a lesson in how to be better. As I see it, the end part of the process is just an extension of this. So I embrace the next few months, and cross my fingers that it all pays off. If nothing else… WHAT a ride!