Book Covers and Novels in the PInk.

At my Middlesbrough workshop last week (great venue; lovely  writers) the perceptive Lorraine said to me, 'All your books are different from each other aren't they, Wendy? They all look different.' She paused.'When I have enjoyed one novel I like to move onto something similar. I can't tell whether yours are similar or not.'

She has a pint. You can see that each novel looks different from the books illustrated here on the right hand sidebar.

I didn't have time to tell Lorraine that in one way - the style, the attitude, the sense of character, the sense of history - my novels must indeed be similar. I love my characters; they are all original and live for and with me. And - without  necessarily intending to - I demonstrate my preoccupation with  recurring issues of identity, justice and the impact of history on the individual. And  creative, deeply characterful women and men are often at the  centre of my stories.

Though each book appears to be different  I feel that, if a reader has enjoyed one of them, it is very likely that they will enjoy another. I am asking them to trust my name as a good storyteller.

But Lorraine certainly hit a chord. I find myself these days to be  on a one  woman campaign against the fashion in  pre-digested literature and the  commodification of writers and their novels.

Pre-digested? Commodification? In this today I find myself very much in tune a great article on the Guardian Book Page**

'...the market is increasingly being shaped by sales and marketing people, rather than editors and others who actually know what a good book is. So if a book does well, during the next two years you'll see many echoes of that book on the shelves. The once kaleidoscopic book world risks becoming 50 shades of safe. If you are writing a book that doesn't fit into the categories of mass-market thriller or book-club friendly WI-lit, then it is going to struggle to find a publisher. If it does so, then it will struggle to find a publisher that can justify spending the marketing money needed to make an impact...'

So I will continue to write novels that - although written my me in my idiosyncratic  literary style - are different to each other and not pre-digested  so that my readers don't think they know the story before they have read it. My great ambition is that  each novel is a fresh experience, fresh fun, fresh insightt for my readers as it is for me. 

That being said perhaps there might be  something in what the marketeers say about covers!

  I noticed that at this same workshop the novel of mine  most picked up and most bought was Journey To Moscow,  which has a distinctive pink cover -

This made me think that if I made all my covers pink then in that way they would look somewhat alike and would encourage readers like Lorraine to trust me and read another novel of mine.

So here is an experiment. I've had mocked up a pink version of my novel Gabriel Marchant, originally in grey.  Here they are., Does the pink version make it seem more fun (it is fun)) and/or more accessible?

Are you attracted to this?

Or this?

Or does the colour of the cover make no difference at all? Let me know. I would value your opinion WX

* Guardian Bookblog Link.Here

T

Createspace and Orphans in the Social Media Storm

My recent sceptical post (scroll back two posts) about the use of social media in selling and promoting your fiction has drawn quite a lot of attention. Some people thought I rather had my head in the sand; others applauded my desire to keep the fun in these processes, reflecting my determination that writing has to be a joy in itself and anything that takes away from this joy is a negative for a creative writer.

And then I attended a talk in London by Richard Foreman of the excellent  Endeavour Press.  He is clearly very positive about the function of social media in the selling process for fiction and sees it as important in the present and the future for writers. His rational, pragmatic approach to the whole thing made me think again. He had evidence of successfully selling novels through Endeavour. I would trust Endeavour with my work.

Richard certainly made me think again about the whole thing. An open mind has to be one way to make progress in this approach to selling and promotion.

So, home from London with my mind wide open I clicked into my Amazon account to see what I could do for the five independently published novels on Amazon. These novels trickle out consistently without making any big splash. Suddenly these favourites seem like orphans in the storm who need some care to flourish.

And then, with my independent publisher shades on, I sat down to think of what I can do for these five orphans of mine, and came out with these intention: 

I will take my orphans and dress them in new clothes. My version of this is to revise them again, re-jacket and re-issue them. Make them into sharp children.

Then I will republish them independently as Kindles and Hardback using the excellent Createspace processes. (I had already done this recently with my novel Paulie’s Web – already on Kindle but now launched in paperback.)

I am now working on my novel Cruelty Games. Here is the new cover (much better now designed with the Createspace Cover Creator) and I am halfway through the re-edit and revision of the text. Four more to go...

At the end of this,  with the new versions all in place on my Amazon list I will work on the Kindles publications, following Richard Foreman’s excellent advice:

I will ensure the prices are all very keen. I now understand at last that the level of pricing is important, particularly so  as it now rivals the second hand price of my novels. The fact is that interested readers can buy my full length novels second hand for as little as a penny, plus Amazon postage. (One part of me is still happy that people are evidently still reading my novels.) I see there are some first collectors editions out there for rather more than a penny, of course...

One by one I will go through my Amazon novels and apply the Amazon Special Offer  and Free Day process,

I will keep an eye on the Amazon Rankings, to which I have never before attended, as it seemed an impossible dream to be up there. But now, when I apply these processes to each book this will check out whether my actions have had any impact  on the rankings.

I will try to let people know about my progress using my social media, although I will feel impelled to avoid the in-your-face sell that put me off in the first place - that is before I heard Richard Foreman’s wise words.

Of course all this might come to nothing in terms of getting my orphans out there into the world and giving them a good chance in life. But at least I won’t be sitting there on the sidelines wringing my hands and saying if only I could give my babes a real chance in the world.

After Cruelty Games I will work on A Woman Scorned, then Where Hope Lives  then Lizza, then a fresh one called The Real Life of Studs McGuire. It's not at all like writing. It's a  bit more  like embroidery. It fills in the dark nights of winter and you end up with something beautiful. And your orphans are well clad,

I will report back on this process from time to time here on the blog. I thought it might interest other writers who have their own orphaned novel that they wish to nurture and send out into the world,

The elegant Nicholas Evans talking to the twinkly James Nesbitt

 
I enjoyed watching the elegant  Nicholas Evans talking to the twinkly James Nesbitt  on the recent  Sky Arts Living The Life. I particularly identified with Nicholas Evans when he asserted that for him the great thing was thatevery novel is a very different thing. ‘Of course the publishers agree with this but in reality what they want is the same thing time and time again.’

When you think that this ‘same thing’ is the phenomenally successful Horse Whisperer you can have a smidgin of sympathy with the publisher, while still bewailing their lack of creative understanding  and obsession with the ‘safe bet’. They and their accountants would clearly wish for more of the same,

I’ve heard similar regrets from equally successful writers whom I will not name as we all know  criticism of one’s publishers is a tight rope to walk.,

These days  there is so much advice in the widespread HowToWrite industry about knowing your market and building your brand – as though novels were soap-powder or mobile phones. We’re urged to become our own agents, editors, PR people and publicists and developing our brand.  

That leaves in fifth place the hardest and the most original aspect - the actual invention of a world, giving the breath of life to a cast of characters, the driving of an arc of narrative and the spending of a year or three actually putting coherent words on the page.

I had no such insight when I started.  I had written this novel about a very special girl of fourteen in the year 1926, I called the novel Lizza after the main character. Not having read any How To books I chose a publisher at random (Hodder and Stoughton).and posted the package in the large slot at Spennymoor Post Office and they published it in hardback and paperback in the next year.

This novel was bought by libraries and was still being borrowed ten years later.
They said it would be great for their Young Adult list. I’d never heard of Young Adult or any other genre. I wrote three more novels – very different to each other - which they guided into their young adult list.

But  all I did was write the novels that I wanted to write.

Then – still writing what I wanted to write -   I started to write bigger novels with a wider range of characters. These, I was told, were adult novels.  The first of these – a well researched intergenerational  historical novel - was taken by another publisher who slotted it very easily into what they were now calling the Saga category, Other novels followed – each very different - which also slotted into the convenient publishers’ category. They did moderately well sitting on the middle of the publisher’s list and were borrowed in hundreds of thousands from the libraries.

Then I progressed – pursuing the commitment that each novel should be different – to less easily categorised novels still with my focus on  good stories, original authentic characters moving now to accurate  twentieth century and contemporary historical backgrounds. Really my work was slipping out of the clearly marked saga territory and was, I sup[pose,  more difficult to market.

 Although distinctively twentieth century historical, Sandie Shaw and the Millionth Marvell Cooker and The Woman Who Drew Buildings are not by any manner of means sagas. Nor are my later novels An Englishwoman in France (a slightly spooky novel about a woman whose daughter has been murdered).The same goes for my most recent novel - first called The Art of Retreating, now renamed The Search For Marie France which recedes from the present day to France during World War 2.

So, in my writing life I’ve kept my faith with myself and written the novels I wished to write. Then my very decent publishers – along with most other publishers – lost their faith in the popular well written mid-list.

The paradox is that, without exception, my novels continue do very well in libraries where the greatest readers follow their fancy.  Readers have followed me as I kept faith with myself and wrote the novels I was impelled to write. They just seem to turn up again and again to read something with my name on the cover, whether or not it looks like a saga cover, (Surely in twenty first century business-speak this should count as the best focus group ever??)

Where was I? Oh. With the elegant Mr Evans and the twinkly Mr Nesbitt
Their discussion was imbued with an almost feminine insight (compliment, that..) about their common  and uncommon backgrounds. We learnt about the bad karma of great professional success surfing the wave of personal misfortune. They spoke movingly about their mothers and with dealing with their different but equally tragic deaths.
It was fascinating watching these very different men with substantial artistic egos winkling from each other revelations which would have been unavailable in professional interviewers. There were signs of editing and cutting which indicated that it was part of a much longer, perhaps more rambling (perhaps even more interesting) conversation,
This is a great  format for exploring the field of popular culture. I would watch it again if your machinery allows it.

If this has caught a smidgen of  your interest – all my novels are in your library, on Amazon or on Kindle . Click.
Or to see a complete list of possibles categories  click here

Exciting Times - Designing New Covers

Months ago, on someone's recommendation ( I can't remember who ...) I downloaded a copy of  Katherine R Howard's  book called Self Printed - about self publishing through Print On Demand and eBooks.

With the rush, and the reading and the writing and glorious Ireland (see Postcards from Ireland: 1-10 below on blog)  I didn't get down to actually reading it until I was on the plane from Ireland. It is a great book with a great voice and in it (the book is very successful ) the medium is the message.

And here on the plane was this distinctively witty Irish voice giving me very savvy advice about the self-publishing process. Catherine takes no prisoners, she dismantle's myths, scorns self-pitying writers who blame publishers, agents and the world of publishing for their lack of presence in the world of books. She scorns lazy writers who think typing is writing.  She spots so many things which seem obvious but which haven't been articulated in this way before. You need to read the book to get the full flavour and advantage of her eminently practical advice.

The very best thing about this book is its tone - the joyful sense that this is an exciting, even privileged, world in which to work and we should make our own success by our joyful professional attitude and focused professional work..

Now! I thought I knew something about all this. I have self published on Kindle six of my novels and they are selling fairly well, bit by bit. However Katherine R Howard has shown me I need to do more than just publish them on Kindle. There is serious (and joyful) follow up-work to do.  She has a great philosophy about this and some great suggestions. Inspiring is a cliche these days, but this book is just that.

And now - halleluyah !-  next week from 19th July,  the whole back-list of my novels will be  live on Kindle, published by Headline.So my self published books have to sit well alongside them.

So I have to say that the best (but not the only) thing I took from Catherine's book was how much serious professional work you should do on your self published book and Kindle covers. Her mantra is they must, must look professional, not home made. This sent me back to my own covers with a critical eye and since returning from Ireland I have done some concentrated work on two of those.

Here they are. What do you think?

New Mary Ann cover for Kindle

New Cover for Paulie

Treasure Trove: Discovering an Unknown French Version of My Studs Novel

2003 French Edition
 Just discovered by me (2012)
Hachette?

Now here's  funny thing!

I am about to put a young adult novel of mine The Real Life of Studs McGuire onto Kindle so I am checking out existing editions of this book. 

It was published by Hodder & Stoughton in the Seventies and seemed to have traveled all over the place. My son-in-law (who surfs the net more than I do ) once emailed me to say did I know it was on the required reading list of some outback education authority in Australia?

There was a French edition published by Hachette  under the title  Pour Venger Mon Copain (Avenging My Mate/Buddy)  (See cover below)  I had letters from French readers singing its praises.. Apparently it was on some French Schools' recommended reading.  Being such a Francophile I loved this. My story in French. Great!      
 

Original French Edtition - Hachette

Its popularity might just have been down to the universality of the story of Studs hunting down the gang of boys who enticed his best friend Tony to sniff glue which made him jump off the high roof of a car-park. Tony spends the whole of the novel in a coma while Studs, bit by bit, finds the culprits.

I have a son (and grandson now) and used to love teaching boys. I  loved Studs. and admired him. The novel is set on the day  he and Tony leave school  and shows two boys can love and admire each other as a normal part of growing up under all kinds of pressure..

All this means I was delighted  that the novel proved popular across the planet.


But this week, on my Kindle research I find a newer French Edition of  Pour Venger Mon Copain  published in 2003. And with this spanking new cover.

I have to say it looks great - the cover, cool, contemporary and well keyed into the novel - I love it. But all I have is an image of it (courtesy of Amazon). I don't even have a copy of it!  Of course I will check all this out with my agent and maybe she can hunt down the whys and wherefores of this. (Stop Press later - and so she did! - thank you J!)

Still it's great to see Studs living and thriving years after he was out of print in the UK. Somebody has loved him. It warms a writer's heart.,

And it bodes well for the Kindle of this novel -  maybe some insightful publisher will scoop it up again! - And I will ask Fiona who designs my Kindle covers to be inspired by this cool 2003 French Edition of THE REAL LIFE OF STUDS McGUIRE.

Original Paperback H&S

Look out for Studs on Kindle. I'll let you know.

The original Hardback
 Hodder & Stoughton