Title and Cover Reveal for My Debut Novel!

I am in the throes of final preparations for publishing my debut novel... or at least what I hope are final preparations - everything seems to be taking much longer than I thought it would! The admin associated with indie-publishing, pre-marketing, along with many decisions small and great are extremely time consuming. But - very exciting as well. In the next couple of weeks I hope to have conquered (or outsourced) formatting and all the other last bits and pieces.

In the meantime, I am ready to finally reveal the name of my book and the cover, as well as the blurb, which you can read on my Books page.

My regency romance is entitled: "The Vagabond Vicar", and here is the cover! I instantly fell in love with this painting (Planning the Grand Tour by Emil Brack). The characters are exactly as I imagined them, and my vagabond is enthusiastically showing his potential lady where his travels may take him. It also gives the reader a sense of this being a traditional, sweet regency. I hope you like it as much as I do!

Bookstore Shelves, Gatekeepers and the Brave New World: Why I’ve Decided to Self-Publish

We Love It, But....

When I last posted on this blog, I was in the thick of querying with the hope of being traditionally published. The fruits of my querying were positive: 5 partial requests and 7 fulls. And then, eventually, the feedback on the novel itself began to hit my inbox.

There were comments such as... "I am completely charmed", "there was a lot to like here", "you have a very nice voice", "I found your premise intriguing", "delightful", "please let me know if you hear from the other agents" and "We are really intrigued by your story—it sounds like just the kind of thing we love—and we would be very interested in reading it!"

But there was also: 
"After careful consideration, I regret to say that I am unable to offer you representation."
"I'm being particularly picky right now"
"Please do keep in mind that mine is only one opinion and that another agent may very well feel differently."

Two agents in particular struggled with passing on the manuscript:

Agent 1

After MUCH deliberation we have decided, unfortunately, to pass.  While we love the premise and were really struck by the caliber of your writing, we just don’t think this is the right project for us.  But we think you are a fantastic writer and we would be really interested in seeing more from you.

I think self-publishing is a great idea for you.  We really enjoyed the book, we just weren’t confident that we knew how to position it.

Agent 2

This was a tough one.  I enjoyed the story very much, and I thought that your writing was excellent.  I had two other readers take a look, but ultimately, we all came to the same conclusion.  Although there was much to enjoy here, an agent has a further job: finding the right way to sell it to the right editor and house.  I felt that the story was neither fish nor fowl, actually.  It wasn’t entirely a formulaic romance nor was it literary enough to be historical fiction.  Perhaps unjustly so, editors really do care about “slotting” a book, particularly women’s fiction and I couldn’t see how I would place your novel.  I’m so sorry.  This is a tough market and editors are ruthless. 

Of course, maybe it’s me and someone else will think I’m all wrong.  I do hope that you find appropriate representation, but I will say this.  If you cannot find a home for this novel, I urge you to keep writing.  Please do send me anything else you finish, as I was quite taken with the tone, your characters and your sheer ability to put words on paper. 

And after I thanked her, and mentioned I may self-publish... 

I agree that traditional publishing is not a perfect world! And I’m glad you’re sufficiently confident to self-publish. Of course there’s an audience for this – I love these kinds of books as you do.  The problem is the market!!! Publishers are buying fewer books these days, and it has so many people tearing their hair out (like me).  Again, I wish you the best of luck with it.  Prove these narrow-minded editors wrong!

I have found similar books to mine and they sit on the general fiction shelf, so I'm not quite sure it's such a problem. However, the agents have spoken, and they have not offered representation. So whether what they've said is true or not is irrelevant.

Other agents had varying reasons for rejecting it - no common threads, except that the various things don't fit with the conventions of the genre. I need to respect their opinion - and accept I am taking a risk by publishing something which is different to what modern romance readers may think of as "conventional".

I decided I would self-publish, and got quite excited about the idea. Then I decided to enter in the RWNZ national competition, the Pacific Heart, and I couldn't self-publish while I was in contention. I didn't final, and in the meantime life got very very busy (delightfully so). The results were sort of like with the agents: 2 judges loved it (giving it a score of 98%), while the third was a little less impressed (78%). I received comments such as: "A lovely story, well written and easy to read. Thoroughly enjoyed it", "I enjoyed all the characters in the is book" and "As I got more into the book, I couldn't put it down".

Why I'm Deciding To Self-Publish

I could decide to put this, my third completed manuscript, in a virtual drawer, and write something else with the aim of pleasing the market - the "commercial" market. The market that agents and editors live in. 

There always seems to be two different streams of wisdom around this: write from the heart, don't worry about the market: you need to write your own story and if it's good it will sell anyway. The other advice is: ignore the market at your peril. The conventions are there for a reason: give readers what they expect.

Here is what I know: most people who have read this book, or parts of it, have enjoyed it. I know not everyone will like it - this is a very subjective business after all. But I think that the risk of getting some negative feedback is worth taking, for the chance that other people may be glad to spend several hours escaping into the world I've created. That even a handful of people will have their hearts warmed or have their day made better would gratify me.  

My hope is that there is some sort of audience who share my tastes - who like love stories but don't gravitate towards traditional/commercial romance titles. The crowd who lapped up Cranford, love Jane Austen and can't get enough of Downton Abbey.

Why am I self-publishing? Because in this brave new world I can - and I believe in myself and my product. I have a background in digital marketing, and several people have told me I have a strong book. Because I love this novel and I hope someone else will love it too, I cannot bear to put it under the proverbial mattress.

Wisdom From Legends

The RWNZ conference was a great source of inspiration and authorial bonding, with a huge amount of insight around self-publishing and managing yourself as a writing business. One of the key learnings for me is that you need multiple books in the market to be successful. That may sound obvious, but more than just selling multiples, the idea is that your first book needs to be leverage to sell the next ones. A bigger backlist means more opportunity to keep yourself visible between book releases. So I need to get busy.

Fangirling: me with Marie Force and my signed copy of Courtney Milan's latest

Armed with Marie Force's self-pub checklist, I am embarking on the final stages of readying my novel for publication. These include going through the critiques I received over the last year, and making the changes I believe are required (and with the intervening time hopefully I am less sensitive to criticism of my darling child). I am fine-tuning my cover, figuring out US tax (avoidance) processes, and considering how to redesign my website. I need to sort out Facebook, an email list, and a proper book page. There's other admin like getting an ISBN and formatting. Lots to do, and I hope to get there by the end of this month... because I want to use October to plot the next book in time in NaNoWriMo. Onwards!

The Inane Ramblings of a Writer Who's Waiting

or, The Many Cool Things Starting with "Ch".

I'm doing quite a lot of waiting at the moment. Well, just mainly waiting to hear back on queries, partials and fulls, and waiting for the Christmas holidays. And my brain's gone a bill do-lally, unable to attend to any kind of sensible tasks. With that in mind...

So I was cooking dinner, and I had a little sneaky cheese snack ("cook's treat"). And I said to myself, "OMG I love cheese!". And then I thought, "and I really love chocolate." And it occurred to me: how many things, OK foods, I like that begin with the letters "ch".

So apart from the aforementioned...

Cheese

Image courtesy of Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

and chocolate....

Image courtesy of artur84 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

There's chips - both this kind:

Image courtesy of Keerati / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

and this kind:

Image courtesy of artemisphoto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

And cheesecake:

Image courtesy of Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

And chicken!

Image courtesy of Apolonia / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Then after I'd finished eating my chicken, I was actually compelled to leaf through the dictionary to see what other "ch" treasures there are. Champagne, cherries, choux pastry.

And then non-food stuff: champion, chamber music, chandelier,chapter, character, chain reaction, charade, charisma, charity, chaise longue, chalet, chalice, chameleon, charming, chateau... need I go on?! (please stop, I hear you say). Those are just the "cha"s. I haven't even got to chivalry or chimpanzee. Oh yeah, and Christmas.

 

Image courtesy of digidreamgrafix / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Photokanok / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of m_bartosch / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It's a pretty cool way to start a word... not that I'm biased or anything ;-) But on that note, the dessert called a "charlotte" is pretty amazing.

So many wonderful things! And I was like, "I can't believe I've never thought of this before!" Like it was some kind of genius insight worth sharing. Sorry about that.

While we're procrastinating and thinking about yummy wonderful things, here's some candy for your ears AND eyes.

Cheers!

Am I Strong Enough For This?

Image courtesy of tiverylucky
FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So, I've previously posted about this roller-coaster ride that is the journey to potential publication. And here I am, riding it again. I've been receiving feedback on my MS, and also starting to query. My baby is officially taking its first steps out in the world. And along with that comes the highs and lows of the writer’s journey.

My first couple of query responses are rejections. I’m down.

I received some encouraging feedback from a friend. I’m up.

I don’t final in a competition (although my scores were pretty good, some of the feedback flummoxed me). I’m down.

The next day, I receive a request for the full manuscript from an agent. I’m up.

I cast my eye over the manuscript, fixing a few small things noted by the contest judges and beta readers, and I decide the whole thing is pretty much crap. I send it off anyway. Feeling down and generally like a scaredy cat.

And it makes me wonder: do I have the strength to cope with this? Am I actually going to go insane?

It’s only the beginning. If I make it over the first hurdle of getting an agent, there’s revisions, submissions… and then whether I end up publishing traditionally or self-publishing, along with the satisfaction there’ll be negative reviews, anxiety around sales numbers… and so on and so on.

This whole thing is tough, and it won’t ever let up, unless I choose to quit. 

I've done this before, and experienced the same highs and lows before, but each time I go through this process I’m that much more invested; the stakes seem that much higher. I'm probably more vulnerable than usual due to life events of the past 18 months. My day job is also a quagmire of stress, and it’s possibly the combination that threatens my sanity. I know publishing a book through either channel won’t be enough to take the day job out of the equation… but maybe one day… a girl can dream.

I had a full request early in my querying last time, and then I got not one, but two form rejections from that agent. So I am prepared for the sting, but the chance an agent will like it persists in the back of my mind, and it’s enough to spur me on to keep querying. I know this MS is not like a lot of single title romances out there – the comments from the contest judges confirm that. But I know there are others out there who have similar tastes to me, it’s just whether anyone in the industry thinks there is a big enough audience to take a chance on it. We shall see.

Am I strong enough to cope with all these crazy ups and downs? Well, the answer is that if I am ever going to make these dreams come true, then I have to be. There are no rewards without risk, and the greater the potential heartbreak, the greater the possible triumph.

The silver lining is the high you get when someone likes your work. And the more I put my stuff out there, hopefully the more positive feedback I’ll get. And that means I have to create more stuff, just keep working, and keep opening myself up to the hurts as well as the highs. Why am I doing this? Because I’m creating the kinds of stories that make me feel good, and I hope that they will make other people feel good too. It’s an explicable compulsion to create, to share, and hopefully, to enrich the lives of others.

How about you? Do you ever wonder if you’re strong enough to make it through all the insecurities? Do you have the perseverance required to make it to the next goal?

On to the finish line

So, I was away for a while. I made some long-held dreams come true, and I gained confidence in getting out in the world on my own.

Here's some evidence of my travels:



Now I'm in the home stretch on my second draft, deep in the the third act. I'm very conscious of not ruining things as I rearrange, edit and polish the final pages. It's a struggle between not rushing through scenes, while keeping up the pace. I feel as though I can see the finish line... at least the 'send it out for beta readings' line. I can't wait to get this baby out into the world, whether that's traditionally (which I'll attempt first) or via self-publishing. It's also nerve-wracking as my heart and soul is in those words, but I'll save stressing about that for another day.

Here's a song inspiring me at the moment - what's inspiring you?
(unfortunate freeze-frame)

How to Beat Writer's Block

Image courtesy of Sorapop / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Here's what works for me:

1. Shut down your computer.
2. Tell your brain you are NOT going to write.
3. Go and do something which prevents you from writing/typing your ideas, but won't involve any active thinking. Suggestions: scrub dirty dishes, have a shower, brush your teeth, go to bed and turn out the lights.
4. Relax and let your mind wander.
5. As the ideas start to flow out of nowhere, curse your inability to make notes.

When you finally get your computer back on, the words and phrases you end up typing are never quite as magical as the vivid movies playing through your head in the shower. Sigh.

The Mystery of Artistic Magic

Image courtesy of nirots / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I'm deep in the thick of editing (when I get around to it!).

I love those moments when you’re reading over your work and you’re like, “Wow, this is good! Where did that come from?”

Those epic moments where inspiration, talent and some sort of artistic magic combine to make words, phrases and paragraphs that are music to our ears. Perhaps they may not impress anyone else, but they make us smile in a deep place. There's a sense of pride in that work. Most of the time I don’t remember the actual moment of creation. It’s almost like the muse had completely taken over and delivered the story, pure and simple, in the best possible form. The wonderful part is, the muse is just part of us. We create that gold. All the tools are within our minds and hearts; we just need to create the right vehicle of expression.

Then there are those moment when you’re like, “This sentence doesn't even make sense. What was I on when I wrote this?”

…Just in case you were tempted towards artistic arrogance. I don’t see that happening any time soon – the mediocre moments far outweigh the sublime. But the fact that the sublime art does exist – that is what makes it all worthwhile.