by admin | Jan 14, 2016 | crime fiction, Cruel Tide, genre, Uncategorized
I’m off to London this weekend so I’ll do this post now, and hope it doesn’t get lost in the Twitter and FB clutter that seems to fill my timeline and probably yours too.
I’m surprised to say that having waited years for a decent review of any of my books, I’m both looking forward to and dreading the review that’s been promised in February’s issue of Lancashire Life, which will probably be out in a couple of weeks. First, I wonder if it will ever appear. Editing a monthly magazine must be quite a job, and whatever’s been written might just hit the cutting room floor, as they say in the film business. But if it does actually appear, what will it say, and how will I feel?
One of the hardest things about self-publishing is the absence of professional feedback in the form of reviews. The national newspapers take their books for review from the traditional publishers, apparently, to avoid being swamped by unreviewable rubbish. Understandable, assuming that much self-published fiction is indeed rubbish, and therein lies the dilemma for those of us who have chosen to take that route direct to our readers. Apart from Amazon reviews and star ratings, which are mostly welcome but don’t represent considered professional feedback, authors like me have no way of helping readers decide what’s worth buying and reading. How do you pick from the plethora of stuff out there, except on the questionable criterion of price? You could use the star ratings as a guide, but they’re pretty questionable too.
I managed to get two very kind writers to give me a ‘quote’ about ‘Cruel Tide’ for promotion purposes, but I couldn’t ask them to undertake a full-scale review. Apart from that, and some mentions in the local press, nothing about this book or any of the others. I’ve asked for reviews, of course, but have been told repeatedly that they don’t have the time to read full-length fiction, or people to do it, or space to print them. One national organisation I’m actually a member of, which has a book page in its monthly magazine, claimed that they couldn’t review my books without upsetting other members who are writers. Really?
That leaves me with no experience of getting public written feedback on my novels from a professional who reads and writes critically about books as part of their daily work. The Lancashire Life reviewer doesn’t live in Cumbria, so the ‘local’ flavour probably won’t be of interest. I assume that the reviewer will come at ‘Cruel Tide’ cold, without reading my preceding trilogy where some of the characters have been heralded, and she has been told that this is crime fiction, and will therefore have certain genre expectations, which may or may not be satisfied. Any of these factors could have a bearing on her reaction.
I can cope with specific criticism: I generate plenty of that myself about anything I’ve written. What I fear is overall dismissal, scorn, disinterest, or the suggestion that I’m wasting my time and should find something else to do. You don’t see reviews like that very often, but they do happen, and the author must be crushed, unless they’re far more resilient than I am. I don’t expect to be told that the book is badly written, but I could be told that the structure is poor, the characters unbelievable or the ending is a let down. I’m in the early stages of the next book, and specific feedback could be useful, if I can bring myself to accept and act upon it. Or I could have faith in myself and stick to my guns. I can’t anticipate how I’ll react until it happens, and I can’t do anything about it either, so I’ll just have to wait and see. How do other inexperienced novelists cope with reviews? Are they as nervous about them as I am, and does this anxiety wear off with more experience and confidence?
by admin | Dec 13, 2015 | character, crime fiction, Cruel Tide, readers, stories, Uncategorized
It’s been a busy week for meeting readers, and I’m always interested to discover what they want from me and from the books. Here are a few of the questions that crop up most frequently:
Q. Do you base your characters on people that you know? Do you people-watch and use it in your books? (The sub-text here is ‘Are you watching me now?’)
I never really know how to respond to this. The details of characters for the story don’t just appear from nowhere: from a few decades of people- watching there are hundreds of people in my head, but memory retains only bits and pieces – the metaphors someone uses, or the voice or style of clothes, or something they did. I remember, for example, a boy I was at school with who had wide shoulders and a short body, and how his jackets always looked too long. He and I were walking near my house one afternoon and were overtaken by a sudden violent thunderstorm. We’d never shown much interest in each other before, but in the middle of this violent weather we kissed passionately, just once, galvanised by the energy around us. That was a moment of intensity that has lingered in my memory: I haven’t used it in a story yet, but I will.
There are countless fragments like that, some visual, some emotional, that surface suddenly while I’m writing. It’s not really an intentional process. It just happens, and I think my characters and the stories are the richer for them. When I’m writing I do so for hours at a time, reaching a level of concentration which is sometimes called called ‘Flow’, (defined by Wikipedia as “the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does.” That’s it. In that state, fragments of memory appear and find their way on to the page: the outline of a character might have been created earlier, but many of the details emerge during the writing.
Q. Do you always know how your story will end?
I’ve certainly improved my planning since the random chaos of the first attempt at writing a novel, but I can’t say that I know exactly how my story will end when I start it. It’s trite to claim that the characters take over, but to some extent it’s true. If the story is character-driven, that’s bound to happen. Crime fiction, with its requirement for structure and ‘clues’ sprinkled around makes that more difficult, as I found when writing ‘Cruel Tide’. I knew quite early on how the penultimate climatic scene would work, but the final scene of reaction and resolution was written several times before I found a way of closing the story that was true to both the characters and the authenticity of the events and the setting.
Q. When is the next book coming out?
It’s a welcome question in as much it indicates an willingness to read on, but my hear sinks whenever I hear it. ‘This time next year,’ I’ve been replying as cheerfully as I can muster, thinking as I do so of the months of work that are entailed, the planning, the problems, the research, and then the days of purdah, sitting at the laptop for hours at a time, reading, re-reading, worrying, dreaming, talking to my editor, worrying some more. Sometimes I wonder if I really want to go through it all again at such speed, but my commercial sense tells me that a year is about as long as my readers are prepared to wait for the next one before they lose interest.
by admin | Nov 11, 2015 | Cruel Tide, self-publishing, selling
Well the books are here, 400 plump pages in each one, fresh from the printers in Cornwall, boxed and shrink-wrapped and fork-lifted into the storage space, ready to be sent out again as feverish demand mounts. I wish, but we did ship out six boxes straight away to waiting customers and that number should grow over the next few weeks in the run up to Christmas, and with the various planned ‘launches’ and events. I earned more through direct sales last year than any other route to market, which is interesting but unsustainable, and I’m constantly looking for ways to increase sales through the regular bookshops beyond the reach of Hills of Workington, the Cumbria-based distributor that takes most of my stock.
The other big distributors, Gardners and Bertrams, keep small publishers like me at something of a distance. We’ll have to pay them a big discount for the privilege of having them store my books ready for despatch. As it stands, they email us whenever they get an order and we send it off, one or two at a time, which is so wasteful and inefficient. With sales relatively low we’re just too small to be taken much notice of.
These distribution issues, and the cost of storage, make the ‘ebook only’ alternative sometimes seem very attractive, but I still can’t bring myself to take that road and abandon the ‘book in hand’ altogether. I love books: ebooks are OK for travelling, but I love the feel of a book, the smell of it, the touch of a page under your fingers, the sight of the spine on the shelf or by the bed. So for the time I’ll carry on playing the real book publisher game and enjoy it, rather than berating myself for making less profitable choices. If you’re proud of what you’ve done, back yourself.
by admin | Nov 6, 2015 | cover, Cruel Tide, marketing, selling
I veer between positive and fearful anticipation from hour to hour in this final run-up to the publication of ‘Cruel Tide’. Very occasionally I imagine what it would be like for it to be a runaway success, with sales off the scale and a rushed reprint. But most of the time I know I’m probably not doing enough to overcome the self-published author’s biggest challenge – getting people to read what you’ve written and created when there are so many other books out there competing for attention.
I’m actually going to get a review for this one in Lancashire Life, the offer of which was unexpected, but what if they don’t like it? Perhaps the value of getting any kind of review is greater than the downside of a bad one. I’ve put out so many feelers, and so few of these get any kind of response that it can be very disheartening. I wonder if those who don’t respond understand the impact they have. Maybe they do, and just shrug. I wish I understood that world better and could handle it with more equilibrium.
This general anxiety wasn’t helped this afternoon when I took an advance copy of ‘Cruel Tide’ to show to one of my strongest local supporters in her shop where she’s sold heaps of my books over the past few years. ‘Do you want to see it?’ I asked, preparing to pull my advanced copy of the book out of the envelope for the big reveal. She grimaced. ‘I’ve seen the poster, but I can’t look at it because I can’t bear hands.’ For a moment my heart sank. ‘I’ll sell it,’ she added, ‘and I’m sure the cover won’t bother anyone else, but I won’t be able to have it on the counter.’ What??? That’s a strong reaction: I know the cover image is striking, but it was meant to spark curiosity not revulsion. Surely someone would have advised against using the cover if it was that bad?
Front and back covers, with the offending hand.
Anyway, it’s too late now. The books are printed and the full shipment will arrive on Monday. I’m taking a copy through to Waterstones in Barrow on Tuesday and will see what a professional bookseller thinks. I hope she doesn’t have a hand phobia. There must be a special word for that condition, and I hope that it’s extremely rare.
Beyond that the dates and events for presenting the book multiply, in libraries and bookshops all around the area. I’m grateful for all of them, and will enjoy them all too, but I wish I could break out into the wide sales uplands of Manchester or London. What would that take? Maybe I should just rock up to the huge Waterstones on Manchester’s Deansgate, book in hand, and tell them how lucky they are. That’s what I need – more chutzpah.
by admin | Oct 24, 2015 | Cruel Tide, self-publishing
At last! I’ve worked out how to add an image to my blog – the front cover of the new book. I think it’s an arresting image, and pertinent too. See what you think.. It’ll be available from around the end of November 2015, from any good bookshop, from Amazon as a paperback or Kindle ebook, or from me direct via ruthsutton.co.uk. If you’re in Cumbria, your local bookshop should have copies. If you’re in Canada, go through Portage and Main Books in Winnipeg. If you’re in New Zealand, order through Unity Books in Wellington.
The ISBN is 978-0-9929314-0-7
by admin | Sep 23, 2015 | crime fiction, Cruel Tide, promotion, self-publishing
As soon as I get on a plane, this happens. In the days before actually setting off on a trip my head is full of logistical arrangements, blocking out the deeper bigger picture of what I’m doing and planning. As soon as the seat belt snaps on, the noise clears and my mind is free to roam again, with minimal distraction. It’s a form of mental hibernation, necessary to deal with the tedium of the journey itself.
Yesterday, it happened again, and by the time I checked into the hotel in Edmonton where I am now my head was busy with the decisions that I was rehearsing in the last blog post. In the past week or so, some of the picture has cleared a little, and the mental hibernation pushed that thinking along further. Realistically, my chance of finding an agent and surmounting the subsequent hurdle of a publishing deal, remains minimal. Infinitesimal actually, and as such probably doesn’t merit a major investment of my time. The submission to a potentially sympathetic agent has gone in, but my expectations remain very low.
I’ve also been prompted to re-think my use of an editor. My current editor has done a wonderful job for me, but she’s not part of the fiction publishing and bookselling network, and not a specialist in the genre I’m trying my hand at now – crime fiction. She knows a good story, but I suspect there’s more to the nuances of this genre that neither of us still know much about. We need to talk about that, and I might set out to find a specialist editor for feedback if not for further help.
Another chance encounter has also made me think about the stage of the paperback self-publishing process that is the most difficult for me – marketing and distribution. The two hang together of course: you need good promotion and marketing to raise the volume of sales to the point where the national distributors and bookshop chains are interested in putting your book on the shelf or storing them in a warehouse. The distribution deal I currently have covers only Cumbria, and what I need now is coverage elsewhere. More internet searches reveal a raft of ‘service providers’ who claim to be able to do that, but they’re expensive! Do I want to invest that much? Are my books worth it? The trilogy ‘Between the Mountains and the Sea’, set in West Cumbria, benefits from local distribution, but the new title ‘Cruel Tide’ is aimed at a wider market, at crime fiction readers wherever they be, although its links to the north-west of England are strong. Maybe investing in this would be worth it. There’s be less profit per book, but that could be offset by selling more books.
The cost of the ‘service’ is for each book, putting the cost of involving all four books is well beyond my means. But if I employ specialist help for the fourth book, might this bootstrap interest in the previous ones? The main female character of ‘Cruel Tide’ is the grand-daughter of the main female character in the trilogy, and the trilogy provides the extensive backstory of ‘Cruel Tide’ although the new book stands alone, and will probably become the first book of a new series.
As I’ve found so many times before, writing about these choices is clarifying them in my mind. Writing takes the early shape of ideas and sharpens them into the next stage. That’s one reason blogging is helpful: writing for an audience makes you concentrate harder than writing a few rambling notes for yourself. Five more weeks of travel lie ahead. By the time I arrive home I should have it all sorted out. Yeah, right.
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