by admin | Nov 26, 2016 | Amazon, cover, crime fiction, Cruel Tide, Fahrenheit Press, Fatal Reckoning, promotion, Publishing, Uncategorized
This is a bit complicated. Just to start things off, here are the covers of the two crime fiction books I’ve published, last year and last week.
I think they’re quite good, but what they indicate more than anything else is the setting – Morecambe Bay in ‘Cruel Tide’ and Whitehaven harbour in ‘Fatal Reckoning’. The fact that they deal with dark deeds is implicit, not unmistakeable. These are the covers on the paperbacks that are in the shops, but they will not be the covers of the ebooks. How come?
Here’s what’s been going on ‘behind the scenes’. The ebook versions of both these books are being published not by me and my imprint ‘HoadPress’, but by an international crime fiction publisher called ‘Fahrenheit Press’ fahrenheit-press.com. They specialise in ebooks and POD, but rarely if ever publish paperbacks, unless there’s an enormous demand, at which POD becomes impractical. Casting around for a way to avoid the ‘agent’ route to publishing I found Fahrenheit Press a few months ago, sent them a copy of ‘Cruel Tide’ as an example of my work to date, and said that the sequel was in production. Long story short: the MD of Fahrenheit, Chris McVeigh, and I met in London, talked about the various routes to market and made the deal outlined above. I find the business of Amazon algorithms etc quite puzzling – as I wrote about a week or two ago. Chris understands that whole business better than I ever could, so why not give it a go, just to see what happens? He’s preparing both books for digital production right now, and when he’s ready I’ll take down my Kindle posting for ‘Cruel Tide’ and he will replace it immediately with his, adding ‘Fatal Reckoning’ as an ebook for the first time. The difference will be the covers, which we have been discussing this week. His preferred covers are completely different than my originals, denoting not setting but ‘genre’. They are very dark and stark, as befits a dark tale in two parts, and he’s called both of them ‘Judith Pharaoh novels’. So simple. When they’re finally agreed and published – in a week or two – , you be able to see them on the Amazon and Kindle websites and make your own comparisons. This is the first time that anyone else has published my work, in any format, I’m fascinated by the experience, so different from a traditional publishing deal.
by admin | Aug 2, 2016 | cover, Fallout, Publishing, title, Uncategorized, Windscale fire
There’s no copyright on book titles. I didn’t realise that to start with and fretted that I couldn’t ever use a title that had been used before, but I can, although it’s still needs thinking about.
The easiest way to check is to do what I did yesterday – draw up a shortlist and then look each title up on the Amazon data base. I know it’s lazy, but it’s quick. Looking carefully at what comes up helps me to decide whether a previously used title could be used again. If the title has been used before, which almost all titles have, I look for various criteria:
- Was the previous book the same genre? I want a title for my novel: if the previous title was for non-fiction, it’s unlikely that someone looking it up would be confused.
- Has the title been used in the UK, or just in North America or elsewhere around the world? If it’s just in the US, for example, I wouldn’t hesitate to use the title again.
- Was the title previously used for a paperback, or just for an ebook? I publish in both formats, and I might still choose to use the title again, although I might slip down the priority order
- How long ago was the title I want used previously
? If it’s within the past year or two, that could be a problem. In 2014, when I was looking for a title for my novel set in and around the Windscale reactor fire in Cumbria in 1957, the title ‘Fallout’ was an obvious choice, and I really wanted it. Just three months before we went to print another novel appeared with that title, published in the UK, and I had to make the choice. In the end I decided to go ahead, but I’ve noticed that since publication we’ve had two copies returned – which I guess arose from the confusion over the title. I still think I made the right decision, though, and the cover is pretty special too. ‘Garish’ someone called it, but at least it gets noticed.
When I’ve checked all these criteria, I find that some titles don’t feel so appealing, as they have been used before many times, and quite recently. The exercise yesterday brought the list of eight possible titles down to two or three, which was helpful. Once my trusty editor returns from her hols the fateful decision will be made and possible covers will then be designed. Still on schedule for publication in November 2016.
by admin | Jun 19, 2016 | cover, crime fiction, Cruel Tide, Morecambe Bay, Publishing, readers, self-publishing, title, Uncategorized
I always struggle with titles, and then with the cover image that should illuminate the title and engage the reader: as an independent author/publisher, these decisions are all mine. The image on the cover of ‘Cruel Tide’ developed before I even started the book. It came to me when I did the walk across Morecambe Bay and was struck by the menace of quicksand very close to the northern shore. The snaking, threatening tide that covers these huge mudflats twice every day connected with another cruel tide – of abuse, cover-up and corruption that have damaged so many children’s lives. The decision about both title and cover came to me quite quickly.
Not so with the sequel to ‘Cruel TideI’ that I’m currently completing. My editor Charlotte and I have brainstormed possible titles, but nothing really stood out. Then in the final stages of the first draft, in one of those times when the story seems to be writing itself, the words ‘Seize the Day’ became suddenly significant and I could see them on the cover, with a dark image of one of the settings – no details for fear of plot-spoiling.
The first thing you do is check how many other books already exist with that title. Of course there are several, but then you have to take them one at a time and decide whether the replication is significant. The most recent was non-fiction, an autobiography, so that was OK. Another appeared to be a religious tract, too different to bother about. There was one fiction book, but a very different genre.
I think I have my title. Next I’ll think hard about the image, and start working with the cover designer Kevin Ancient who did such a wonderful job with ‘Cruel Tide’. Crime fiction covers seem to be have some common characteristics, to ensure that readers understand what may lie between the covers. Decisions to make. Watch this space.
by admin | Jan 31, 2016 | promotion, Publishing, readers, self-publishing, selling, title
As any regular reader of my blog will know, I’ve always been puzzled by the complexities of ‘genre’ and its effect on those in the book business whose role is to decide what gets published and what doesn’t. Apparently in the latest edition of the ‘Bookseller’ magazine, which I haven’t seen myself, is an article about a new ‘sub-genre’ label ‘grip-lit’, a term used to describe psychological thrillers, such as ‘Gone Girl’ and ‘Girl on a Train’. (I’ve already noted the repeat of ‘girl’ in the title, to bring one’s work instantly to the notice of a literary agent.) ‘Grip lit’ is hardly a new idea; it’s been around for decades, displaced more recently by the new wave of ‘detectives’. Perhaps literary fashion, like its clothing counterpart, has a ‘retro’ phase, when the delights of a previous era are re-discovered and claimed by a younger generation.
If genre is indeed driven by the vagaries of fashion, writers like myself face some choices. We can scour the landscape of current trends to find what sells, analyse the component parts and imitate them as quickly as possible, before the trend fades. And if we’re really clever, we’ll use a trendy title book too. Alternatively, we could aspire to something more timeless and run the risk of being ignored by the bandwagons that sweep by so relentlessly. The beauty of aiming for the timeless is that the books’ shelf life is much longer. If you’re self-publishing in paperback – which you probably are as no agent is interested in anything so untrendy – shelf life is an important consideration. Self-publishers can’t afford the ‘launch’ and promotion budgets available to traditionally published books, and have to rely instead on steady sales over a longer period to get any return on the initial investment.
In the Saturday Guardian review section, a few pages on from the piece about ‘grip lit’, there is an article by Hilary Mantel about the life and work of Elizabeth Jane Howard. Howard’s work is often disparaged, with a genre definition of ‘by women, for women’. Mantel believes that this category existed ‘until very recently’, but I think it’s still around, and just as disparaged as ever. The difference is that now such novels rarely if ever penetrate the net thrown around the publishing business by the professional agents on whom the business now relies. Confusions abound. When does fashionable ‘chick lit’ grow up into unfashionable ‘by women, for women’? Is this another example of the confusing irrelevance of genre? Isn’t it time we dropped the whole labyrinthine idea, or a least cleared away the clutter and returned to a smaller range of overall ‘categories’ of fiction which is not defined by assumptions about who will read them?
by admin | Nov 23, 2015 | crime fiction, formula, plotting, self-publishing, structure, writing
Two things have prompted this question. The first was a response from a well-known crime writer I asked to read ‘Cruel Tide’ a few weeks ago. I was pleased that he said some positive things about it, but he ended his note with words to the effect that I needed a specialist editor. I thought about what that implied, but then put it out of my mind in the flurry of activity leading up to publication.
The second nudge to my thinking about this question has arrived today. This evening I do my first public outing of the new book,at the library in Ulverston, and I’ve thinking about what to say. Why did I turn to crime fiction after the character-driven trilogy that preceded it? What does crime fiction entail, and what have I learned from this experience? The remark about a specialist editor came back to mind and now I’m thinking harder about it.
The role and function of an editor is always tricky for someone like me who’s written a lot over the years and always alone. Many education writers do their work collaboratively, sharing ideas, reading each other’s stuff, getting feedback as they go. I never did. I wrote, read it over a few times, made some adjustments and that was it. Only with the final education book, about school progression for the Canadian market, did I write with others and then have an editor employed by the publishers. I didn’t expect the editor to change much, but she did and all of it for the better, not about the content but in terms of the clarity and economy of expression. I analysed the changes she suggested and learned a great deal about how to write more clearly.
The role of editor, it seems to me, is three-fold: first there is ‘content’ editing. For a novel, this is the story edit, that looks at structure and character and chronology, how the whole thing flows and fits together. Then there’s the way that meaning is communicated, the structure of a paragraph or a sentence. Finally there’s the proof read, checking spelling, punctuation, speech marks and so on. All three functions have been undertaken in my books so far by the same person, a friend who has worked in publishing for decades, but almost exclusively with non-fiction. As a reader and book group member she’s analysed my stories in their various iterations, suggested changes, and pointed out anomalies or others mistakes to be ironed out in the final drafts. She would not describe herself as an expert fiction editor and she has – as far as I know – no links with current fiction publishers.
I’m hesitating to go back to my crime writer colleague and asks him what a specialist editor could do that my current editor can’t. He’s a busy bloke, and I’ve probably imposed on his time enough already. I did follow up with a phone call to a specialist editor he knows, and during the conversation what became clear was not so much the editing function as the networking that lay behind it. The person I was speaking to was well-connected, to other crime writers, to agents and publishing houses. She lived at the other end of the country and was already very busy, so I took it no further, but I was left still wondering what this editor could do for me.
I was back yet again to the issue of genre and the specialised protocols that seem to apply to different genres, and even sub-genres. Obviously a crime writing specialist editor would be more familiar with these protocols than me. She/he would know the insider tricks of the trade that would distinguish my book, and make it more interesting to an agent who would probably also specialise in crime fiction. Editor and agent would have a shared language and recognise my attempts to join that club.
The idea of this shared understanding and its unwritten rules is not attractive for me. It plays to my innate and sometimes unhelpful aversion to following rules of any kind that I don’t understand or see the point of. I still ask myself, what do readers really want? Do they get a buzz from seeing how the crime fiction rules are followed in different contexts and with different protagonists. Do they smile in appreciation as they recognise the genre features that they expect as soon as something is described as ‘crime fiction’? Do they only ever look on the crime and mystery shelves of the library or the bookshop?
‘Cruel Tide’ is not classic crime fiction, as far as I can judge. It doesn’t have the closed group of potential suspects, or a single dysfunctional detective with a drink problem, or even a genius problem solver. The story is propelled by the characters as much as by ‘events’. There is no final reveal that ties up loose ends and looks ahead to a certain future. The goodies do not necessarily triumph. What would a specialist editor have made of all this, I wonder? If the advice was to follow the rules of the genre more carefully, how would I react? It’s my story after all. If the editor told me that an agent or a potential publisher would expect me to do things differently, I’m not sure I would have warmed to that advice. I’m too old and too awkward, and I’ve chosen to self-publish with all its attendant risks rather than chase any commercial publishers’ approval. If it doesn’t work, so be it.
But still, the notion of a specialist story editor lurks in my head. If I could learn from that interaction, it’s probably something I should do, for myself, but it would have to be someone I respect, and I’d offer no guarantees about my response. Maybe I’ll wait and see the reaction to my first crime novel and go from there. I need feedback, people: specific, considered, detailed feedback and suggestions about alternatives before I embark on the next book in what will probably be a series, although I’m not sure how many more books I want to write. It’s hard work!
Recent Comments