Transcript
Speaker: This is the Crime Board Podcast.
Speaker: You're listening to the Crime Board Podcast.
Speaker: This is the Crime Board Podcast.
Speaker: With Sam West.
Speaker: Good morning, good evening, good afternoon and welcome to the Crime Board Podcast, a podcast dedicated to all things crime fiction.
Speaker: So yeah, as you've noticed, it's been a month and a bit since I have released any episodes.
Speaker: The burnout just hit like crazy.
Speaker: But yeah, it has been in the works.
Speaker: We've just been figuring out what we want to do and how to go about it.
Speaker: But that's all sorted now.
Speaker: And yeah, I'm very, very pleased to welcome our very first guest back, back, back into the hot seat.
Speaker: Once again, the lovely Claire Lads.
Speaker: How are you doing?
Speaker: Hi, Sam.
Speaker: It's absolutely brilliant to be back again.
Speaker: I'm really, really pleased to be here and to talk to you.
Speaker: I'm really, really excited.
Speaker: Yeah, me too.
Speaker: Yeah, it's really good.
Speaker: It's kind of come full circle now.
Speaker: And that's, yeah, I think I'm really grateful for that because it's been it's been really great.
Speaker: The first episode was really great, aside from the fact that obviously we were both nervous and it was the first one.
Speaker: um absolutely hopefully by now we've settled and to all of you listening you know it will be like a big old chat with a cup of tea or coffee or whatever um that is the goal so yeah no it's really lovely having you back
Speaker: Well, I've got my cup of tea sitting here.
Speaker: So yeah, I'm ready for a chat.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Go for it.
Speaker: So how have you been the past couple of episodes, obviously, because we've had different people on.
Speaker: So what has your life looked like in between all of that?
Speaker: Since I last spoke to you on the podcast, I have released a book.
Speaker: I released Hers or Mine in May.
Speaker: It was a little bit delayed from what I wanted to do with it.
Speaker: But yeah, it came out on the 23rd of May.
Speaker: And I am now working on another psychological suspense thriller, which I tentatively am planning on releasing in November, maybe early December.
Speaker: So that is what I'm working on currently.
Speaker: And a few other things.
Speaker: A few other things as well.
Speaker: Actually, no, you've released two books since we last spoke.
Speaker: Well, at least not.
Speaker: Have I really?
Speaker: Yeah, you did No Deadlier Time because we remember our first episode was like we recorded in January and that was still coming out.
Speaker: So, yeah, you've done that and hers and mine.
Speaker: Goodness.
Speaker: I'm trying to think the dates of when I release things now.
Speaker: I forget.
Speaker: I may well, in which case I may well, since recording the first episode, I may well have released the box set of the Darker Minds box set.
Speaker: And I'm just waiting to, I'm waiting for various technical things to happen.
Speaker: I'm just about to release the No Deadlier Time paperback and hardbacks as well.
Speaker: So they should be out within the next two or three weeks.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So actually, yeah, there's quite a bit going on.
Speaker: Yeah, quite a bit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: yeah and I can say having read both of those um obviously you know which one my favorite is but yeah no deadlier time was really good um I did a whole review on Instagram did not expect the ending and then hers or mine absolutely flawed me like for days for weeks I'm still thinking about it you still talk to me about it yeah all the time I love it so much so much
Speaker: I was so pleased you enjoyed it.
Speaker: I really, really am.
Speaker: Everybody who's read it has said the same thing.
Speaker: And I'm just delighted that I managed to pull off what I pulled off in that book.
Speaker: I don't know how you did it, to be honest.
Speaker: I know you don't either.
Speaker: But yeah, it was brilliant.
Speaker: No, I did.
Speaker: When I finished the book, I did look at it and go, I literally don't know how I managed to write this book.
Speaker: Because it did get quite complex in terms of putting it together.
Speaker: You know what I mean, because you read it.
Speaker: But yeah, I did look at it and think, I don't know where that came from.
Speaker: I feel like that's all of us most of the time.
Speaker: And talking of all of us, you, you have had some serious stuff going on in the publishing world yourself.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because you have released your first novel and it's sitting on my coffee table.
Speaker: Yeah, no traces out there.
Speaker: And it's absolutely brilliant.
Speaker: The book is wonderful.
Speaker: It's absolutely everything you could have hoped it would be.
Speaker: Oh, I'm really glad.
Speaker: I'm really glad.
Speaker: It is superb.
Speaker: I love the characters.
Speaker: I love the plot.
Speaker: I love everything about the book.
Speaker: I'm so glad.
Speaker: Yeah, well, I mean, to be fair, you were literally on that journey with me from the beginning with that one.
Speaker: Yeah, it was exciting.
Speaker: It was a really exciting journey.
Speaker: And I was extremely honoured.
Speaker: You have no idea how honoured and humbled to find that you dedicated the book to me, which was just, it was just, I was just honestly, I just teared up when I looked at the book.
Speaker: I teared up writing it.
Speaker: So there we go.
Speaker: Oh, there we are then.
Speaker: Both of us in tears.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh gosh.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, it's really weird to have it out there.
Speaker: Cause I mean, it's been what, three and a bit years.
Speaker: I keep forgetting how long it's taken.
Speaker: Cause then in the newsletters, I was like, it's been like two and something years.
Speaker: And on Instagram was like one and something.
Speaker: And then I look back and I'm like, actually, yeah, it's been three and a bit years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's easy to forget how long you spend with the project sometimes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's weird, isn't it?
Speaker: Cause it's like you, you work on it, work on it, work on it.
Speaker: And then when you're done, you're kind of like, I forgot that I actually put so much time into it.
Speaker: Cause it doesn't feel like it at the end.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Completely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well the end, I completely get what you mean because the end is, I think,
Speaker: I don't know whether it's the same in traditional publishing in the same way, but certainly for indie authors, everything, a lot of things happen at the end just as you're gearing up to actually publish the book.
Speaker: And time then feels like a bit of a lie because these things just keep coming at you and you completely forget how long you've spent gearing up to writing that book.
Speaker: You know, the things you do is prep work before you start writing.
Speaker: And then the writing process itself, which may,
Speaker: Depending on the writer, that may be something that happens really, really quickly for you and you get it all down in one go.
Speaker: Or it might be something that takes a long, long time.
Speaker: And I'm pretty sure I said on the first episode of the podcast that it took me 10 years to write my first novel.
Speaker: Yeah, because it was a stop start thing.
Speaker: I kept changing things.
Speaker: I rewrote it from, I can't even remember how many different viewpoints and how many different tenses and did all sorts of strange things with it.
Speaker: But you do that.
Speaker: You try everything.
Speaker: Yeah, you do.
Speaker: You have to.
Speaker: And experimenting in that way means eventually you figure out which is the best person to tell the story or people sometimes, which is the best timeframe to put it in, which is the best era to set it in.
Speaker: You find out so many things by experimenting with,
Speaker: early on and sometimes even when you're writing it um as you know I've said to you about hers or mine that there are there are characters in there that I didn't even know were going to be in the book yeah they surprise you don't they yeah they do that yeah yeah there was one in particular that really did surprise me I did not expect them to play
Speaker: such an integral part in the book believe me they surprised me too I know they did oh yeah gosh yeah it's really weird it's weird I think being on the other side now because when I started the podcast it was kind of like oh I'm gonna put it out there put out there and everyone's like but when and I'm like I don't know because I'm scared and you know one of those things and I don't feel it's ready I don't feel that the characters are ready or the story is ready and at some point you kind of either get to the point where you're like listen this has to like just get on with it or
Speaker: the story tells you when it's done and for me after three years it was like okay I'm done now like you it's fine if you don't let it go now you're never gonna let it go yeah I completely agree with that stressful it is stressful worth it yeah I'll compliment you worth it absolutely worth it there's no better feeling than just saying to yourself I've published a book I did it I wrote the story I wanted to write and I've put it out there for other people to read
Speaker: it's a wonderful feeling yeah yeah it is so yeah so yeah so we've both been busy um in between episode one um i've i've had a wonderful privilege of being able to chat to our other former not former guests but previous episodes um guests and previous episodes wow all wonderful episodes yeah all brilliant love love every single person like so much everyone's contributed a great deal
Speaker: And yeah, and seeing as this is our final episode for series one, it's been nothing but an honor to have everyone contribute and add value in the way that they did.
Speaker: Like to me, that was what this podcast was about.
Speaker: And people were able to bring that to the podcast for me, which is really good.
Speaker: And yeah, like I said, really glad to have you back for the final one, at least for now, because it's kind of, like I said, it's come full circle.
Speaker: And yeah, just been, I'm really, really, really grateful to everyone who has,
Speaker: put their time aside to actually come speak to me for an episode.
Speaker: It's been great.
Speaker: It's lovely to be back again, Sam, for the final episode.
Speaker: Yeah, for now.
Speaker: For now.
Speaker: We'll be back, yeah.
Speaker: For the fun episode of season one, yes.
Speaker: So obviously in episode one, we spoke about your journey as North and how you started and what you initially started, which was, as we know, short stories.
Speaker: But yeah, so now the thing I've been sort of interested to look at is
Speaker: sort of out contrasting experiences because obviously I still see myself as a new author even though I've been writing for much longer like now I feel like I can officially say okay cool now we can actually start looking at you know where we've both been so yeah so what was what your journey well not really journey but your experience like sort of getting to this point and I don't mean what you've written but sort of how you've experienced your journey in terms of the industry and in terms of
Speaker: publishing and all of that um because for me it was really just like I'd been writing and then I just decided one day okay I'm actually going to do this for real now and I'm going to pursue it um professionally I think in many ways mine was very very similar um I for a long long long time I'm talking decades um I'd wanted to be a writer um and then a few years ago I it was it almost felt like an arbitrary
Speaker: date in my head.
Speaker: I just went, this is a date.
Speaker: I'm going to say, right, I'm going to be a full-time writer and I'm just going to get on with it.
Speaker: And something must have clicked in my brain.
Speaker: I don't really know.
Speaker: But I had to get to grips with the business side of things as well as the craft side of things.
Speaker: Because for me, craft has always come first.
Speaker: The writing of the stories, whatever those stories are, has always come first.
Speaker: And it's still
Speaker: first for me is first and foremost it's the it's the priority because without that there is no story simple as that um but then I had to seriously sit down and make a list of all the things that I did need to know and I don't mean things that people necessarily tell you you're supposed to do or supposed to know or you should do this you should do that you know whatever but things that I knew for definite needed to be in place um and I think uh
Speaker: As I was writing, for the purposes of what we're talking about now, the Darker Minds books were the first group of books that I'm going to class as my crime stroke suspense stories.
Speaker: So for those, I had to work on the premise because I knew it was going to be a series, but that series was not going to be a character-led series as many series are.
Speaker: So there's a theme.
Speaker: There's a theme to the series, which is dark minds are at work.
Speaker: Sometimes it takes a darker one to stop them.
Speaker: So I knew each book was going to be like that.
Speaker: But within each book, it's a separate story.
Speaker: The feeling might be different as well.
Speaker: So I had to kind of plan that out.
Speaker: And alongside that, so that was the craft element.
Speaker: and the story element, but I also knew that in order that anybody was likely to read my work at all, there were things that needed to be in place, such as a mailing list in order that I could communicate directly with people that were interested in what I was writing, which then throws up other issues, like how do you get them on your mailing list?
Speaker: Okay, I need a reader magnet, so I need a free story or book.
Speaker: um to allow people to to be more interested in joining my email list um so then I had to come up with a story for that and um I remember you um reading that I remember that was the first contact we had it was it literally was um so that was what so to some extent we can actually say that it worked
Speaker: That part of thinking about it as a business, that worked because... I'm very grateful for that, actually, because if I hadn't done that, we would not be where we are.
Speaker: No, this is very true.
Speaker: Yeah, we've had a lot of perks based on the fact that I wrote a reader magnet.
Speaker: So that's pretty cool.
Speaker: But then from that, so the craft is going on one side and the business stuff is going on the other.
Speaker: I've got the mailing list.
Speaker: Then I had to get my head around things like
Speaker: cover design, that was a massive thing for me because it is, as a new author, it's extremely difficult to get your head around.
Speaker: I've been doing this sort of stuff for years and it was still really difficult because for me, I always felt it was one of my weak points and to pin down what it was I wanted my books to say to me,
Speaker: Because for me, I'm still my first reader.
Speaker: I'm still the person I write my work for because I like the kinds of books that I write.
Speaker: So therefore, if they don't appeal to me, they're not going to, you know, I don't see them as appealing to somebody else who reads the same kind of stuff as me, if that makes sense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's a lot of hard work to put in to...
Speaker: figure out what kind of covers work, not just for what you think your books are going to be, what your series is, or whatever, or, but also for those people that are looking at that book for the first time, as a thumbnail, as they're scrolling through on whichever site it is they buy their ebooks from, for instance, or the site that they might be looking at, the website that they're looking at to buy paperback.
Speaker: Obviously, I'm talking, you know, digital there, but
Speaker: the thumbnail is what you see first.
Speaker: And if that doesn't attract the reader in the genre that they're looking in, because readers, I think, don't work in the same way as writers do in a lot of respects.
Speaker: Readers tend to read what they like.
Speaker: Writers tend to read what they like and a whole host of other stuff.
Speaker: And we don't always have our reader brain on when we're analysing these things, or certainly not at first when we don't realise that that's what we need to do.
Speaker: And we need to focus in on what are those readers actually looking for?
Speaker: And I found that extremely difficult to try and channel what I liked and cross reference that with what readers might also like and what might stand out to attract them.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a different way of thinking, isn't it?
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: You have to put on different hats in order to... It's kind of like big picture.
Speaker: It's not necessarily, oh, I'm doing this because I want to do it.
Speaker: Yes, you are.
Speaker: But you're also taking into consideration what your readers or your audience would want.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Because however good the book is, if you don't attract them...
Speaker: in the first instance to even look to find out what it's about.
Speaker: Yeah, they've gone.
Speaker: They've just scrolled by or they've walked past it in the bookshop.
Speaker: You know, they've walked past your spine of your book or what, you know, however it works for them.
Speaker: And yeah, they're gone.
Speaker: And you may never ever see them again.
Speaker: And your book might have been the best book for them.
Speaker: But if you've not managed to attract them, then it's not.
Speaker: because they're never going to find out.
Speaker: And it's hard to remember that that's what you've got to do.
Speaker: First and foremost, when it comes to the business side of things, you've got to attract your reader in.
Speaker: And yet I found that a massive learning curve to get that anywhere near how I thought it might work for me and my books.
Speaker: So that was a big, a big part of my journey.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's really interesting because I'm still kind of in the source of, I would say, early stages of, I've learned a lot over the past three years.
Speaker: And that's definitely been thanks to speaking to people like you and Heath and, you know, actually asking questions and not being afraid to ask questions.
Speaker: Because I think in the beginning, as I said to Graham on our previous episode is,
Speaker: I almost felt scared to approach people and ask questions because I just felt like they were doing things that I wanted to do.
Speaker: And that put me in another camp entirely because I felt like I wasn't worthy of asking questions, as dumb as it sounds.
Speaker: Um, I just felt like I can't actually approach these people and ask questions because they're just going to be like, oh, I don't have time for you.
Speaker: Or, you know, I'm doing this, like, you're not even close to that.
Speaker: So leave me alone kind of thing.
Speaker: Um, which is not true because our entire circle of people that we have off the circle, everyone's really lovely.
Speaker: But yeah, I mean, I was really scared.
Speaker: And I think when I finally got past that, I was like, you know what, if I'm not going to ask, I'm never going to know.
Speaker: This helps so much.
Speaker: I mean, look at, it's been like three years and I finally feel like, okay, cool.
Speaker: Like I actually, I can speak to people.
Speaker: And again, like I've kept saying, my book would not be out if it weren't for you helping me through
Speaker: things that I had not even considered.
Speaker: Like one of the biggest things was cover design.
Speaker: I didn't realise, and again, this was recent.
Speaker: I mean, this was like, what, two, three months ago where I thought, okay, I'm actually okay now.
Speaker: And then something else smacks you over the head because that's just part of like the new author journey.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And you don't know these things until you realise that there's something else that you didn't know.
Speaker: And then the easiest way to find an answer is by asking somebody who does.
Speaker: And you are right.
Speaker: Asking the author community feels like a massive thing when you've not done it before and when you're releasing your first book or even your third or fourth or fifth one sometimes.
Speaker: But, you know, because there are people that have released 40 or 50 books and you're like, who am I to ask them anything?
Speaker: But people will help.
Speaker: I think it's the same as any walk of life.
Speaker: If you ask in the right way, you're not demanding information, you're asking for it.
Speaker: People are lovely.
Speaker: Authors are lovely people and they will help.
Speaker: with with pretty much any anything that you can throw at them that will that will help you if they can yeah and if if they if that's something they don't know I mean I've had people go out of their ways to try and find an answer for me yeah even though it's not something they directly knew like they go ask someone else and I get a message back saying oh I ask so and so and I'm like oh my gosh you'd actually do that like you know for me it was it was a new thing I was just like I can't believe people are being so supportive but I think that's the great thing
Speaker: you know, is having, and this is a, you know, something we'll speak about later, but it's a really good thing having a circle of people who you trust, who are on the same journey as you are, it doesn't matter how many books they put out there, like we're all still learning.
Speaker: And I think that's the thing I've learned, ironically, is that we never stop learning.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And I think that comes back to your point.
Speaker: I think
Speaker: When an author goes out of their way to find an answer for you, it's helping them as well as you, because it might be something that they, you know, if they didn't know the answer, it's like, oh, let's find out about that because you never know when I'm going to need it as well.
Speaker: Or somebody else I know will need it.
Speaker: And so, yeah, it comes full circle.
Speaker: They're helping you and they're also helping themselves find out more about their own business, which has got to be a good thing.
Speaker: Yeah, no, definitely, definitely.
Speaker: And we don't ever stop learning because there's just, there's something that someone else might have as a brand new author that you not really thought about, you know, like, again, I'm learning from all of you every day still.
Speaker: I'm just like, Oh, look, look how this person's done something.
Speaker: I mean, that's something I'd never thought about.
Speaker: Um, I was with cover design that I really struggled as you know, um, because we all do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I spoke to Meg about this on the previous episode, just in editorial context, where we just said, like, it's really important to have a relationship with that person that you're working with so that they know what they're sort of working with going in and you know what to expect going in.
Speaker: Um, and yeah, with cover design, I really struggled more because I had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker: I still don't, but at least I'm, I'm a little bit better now.
Speaker: Like I know what to ask for.
Speaker: Um, but I mean, I didn't realize, and it sounds really stupid, but I mean, these are things you don't know until you, you know, um, was that, oh, I had to have my final page count, like full thing formatted before I ordered a cover and before I settled on trim size, because obviously your page count determines your, um,
Speaker: like, well, yeah, your trim size and if it's actually going to, well, not your trim size, but the final cover dimensions, if it's going to work.
Speaker: I didn't know that.
Speaker: So I was freaking out messaging you like, I don't know what I've done.
Speaker: I don't know what I've done.
Speaker: Like now I have to reorder a cover and like I only have three weeks and I was a mess.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When you, when you don't understand what, what, how cover design works, it's really baffling because you can get an ebook cover design.
Speaker: No problem.
Speaker: A cover designer will know, they'll know exactly what they're doing with that.
Speaker: There's your ebook.
Speaker: It's flat.
Speaker: But yeah, when you're looking at paperbacks and hardbacks and spiral bounds and whatever else, workbooks, it's different because, yeah, that thing wraps around your book.
Speaker: It wraps around all those pages.
Speaker: And honestly, you don't think about it.
Speaker: You think, oh, well, I've got the front cover.
Speaker: I need something to put on the back.
Speaker: So, you know, I've got my blurb for the back.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: They'll do my spine for me.
Speaker: That's going to have the title and my name on it.
Speaker: That's okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you send it and they're like, but how thick's the book?
Speaker: Because it makes a difference to the thickness of the spine and the type of paper that you're deciding to use makes a difference.
Speaker: And what size is your book?
Speaker: Because the size of it makes a difference to how many words are on your page, which makes a difference to how many pages are in your book.
Speaker: And they need to know all this in order that they can create the spine for the paperback or hardback or whatever it is.
Speaker: And there's so much technical stuff that goes into it that when you've never done one before, you've no clue.
Speaker: You have no clue that you need all this information.
Speaker: And if you're trying to order your cover before you've gone on to one of the sites where you can publish your book, we're assuming self-publishing at this point as opposed to traditional.
Speaker: It applies to traditional publishing just as well.
Speaker: It's just that other people are doing that job instead of you doing it yourself.
Speaker: And obviously they have to deal with the same technical issues.
Speaker: But until you've kind of gone into the dashboard where you're trying to publish your book,
Speaker: you don't see all this stuff coming up.
Speaker: And if you just think you're going to just get your cover and you've not looked at all these things and it's asking you, what's the page size and what kind of paper are you using?
Speaker: And do you need bleed on your pages?
Speaker: There's all this stuff where you're like, what is this stuff?
Speaker: And you have no clue when you first look at it.
Speaker: I mean, you just panic.
Speaker: It's really bad.
Speaker: I mean, and I love my design team so much.
Speaker: Excellent.
Speaker: I can go on and on about them.
Speaker: They've just done such a great job and they're so friendly.
Speaker: And this was like, bearing in mind, this is my third cover because the first two I'd rejected initially.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It happens.
Speaker: Yeah, it does.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it does.
Speaker: And obviously, like, I, I don't know, it was just it didn't like the relationship didn't click for me with the previous design.
Speaker: And that's okay, because it works for some people.
Speaker: It doesn't work for other people.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And when I found my current design team, I was like, Oh, my gosh, like, this is amazing.
Speaker: and so she messages me back like after I'd sent my my initial briefing and she's like okay cool we can do this and this and this but what is the size of your book and what is the final page count I'm like oh my gosh my book is still out with like my arc team being read I still need to edit it and I've gone and ordered a cover and I don't know what the final page count's gonna be and I didn't think about it and I was like oh
Speaker: Right, Claire, help.
Speaker: Help, because I've done it myself.
Speaker: I did it with my first book.
Speaker: I have no idea how big this book is, but can you do me a cover?
Speaker: Like luckily I was two or three pages out or, oh no, it was like 10 pages out or something when I actually got the cover and I finished my edits and it was fine.
Speaker: It was fine.
Speaker: But like, it could have gone the other way.
Speaker: And I think that's just, you know, those are things you learn.
Speaker: Those are things you don't know.
Speaker: Because obviously like, yes, you can ask people, but if you don't even know what to ask, it's not going to help until you've been there and you've done it.
Speaker: And that's fine.
Speaker: It's okay.
Speaker: It's absolutely okay to make mistakes.
Speaker: It's absolutely okay to be struggling with things because you'll get there.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And once you've done it, you have a much better idea of the kinds of questions you need to ask yourself next time and the information that you need to be able to impart to the designer or editor or whoever it is.
Speaker: You just have more of an idea.
Speaker: The more experience you've got, it's the same as any field, the more experience you've got, the more you know what you're doing, the more you know which questions to ask, the more you know which information you need.
Speaker: And then your process streamlines itself.
Speaker: which helps.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it definitely does.
Speaker: I mean, this time round, I'll be like, I still may not be 100% on the brief.
Speaker: Like I literally sketched out what I wanted on my cover because I didn't know how to explain it.
Speaker: But that worked for you and you got what you wanted.
Speaker: So however, whatever works for you, simple as that.
Speaker: I think whatever works between you and your cover designer, whatever your relationship is, if it works and you know when it works, you just get a feel and you just run with it.
Speaker: And then you're going to get the covers that you want and the designer is going to be happy because they know what you want.
Speaker: And it just works.
Speaker: And it's all good.
Speaker: Yeah, it does.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, so how has the industry changed since you started?
Speaker: Or at least in your own experience, have you found that it has changed or has it sort of stayed the same?
Speaker: Oh, since I started, Sam, everything's changed.
Speaker: I feel like a dinosaur.
Speaker: Oh, goodness.
Speaker: When I started, and I'm not joking, all submissions that you made to any publisher were postal.
Speaker: You literally printed everything off and you stuck it in an envelope with a stamp-addressed, self-addressed envelope inside.
Speaker: But listen, there's joy in that, isn't there?
Speaker: Because it feels...
Speaker: yeah it was it was I mean I remember having um the desk that I know you know I hate um I've still got it yeah it's massive um I bought it because it was massive um and it has been useful sometimes um and I remember having publications because at the time I'm I was you know writing a lot of short stories as you know and and I just had the envelopes all lined up and these things were going out like on some sort of I felt like I was in sort of
Speaker: working in the post office, the things were just going in these envelopes and the stamp address envelope went in and they all went, I took them all to the post box and I just waited for the thunk.
Speaker: Through the door, waiting for somebody to say, no, I'm not interested in that one.
Speaker: Okay, let's get a new envelope out.
Speaker: Let's check to see if the script looks okay.
Speaker: Yeah, it's not tatty.
Speaker: Right, bung it back out again and off it toggled again out into the world and through the postal system.
Speaker: There's a whole format for that as well at some point.
Speaker: Yes, it was double-spaced, A4 paper, Times New Roman, 12-point font.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it was very, very specific.
Speaker: And I think the publishing industry, traditional publishing industry still runs on that system.
Speaker: And to be honest, I don't have a problem with that at all.
Speaker: I like Times New Roman 12 point font.
Speaker: I can read it.
Speaker: It's really clear to read when it's printed out.
Speaker: And I get completely why it's done that way.
Speaker: And it's still what I do with my own scripts when I'm reading things back to myself.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: So that, yeah, that's changed dramatically.
Speaker: As we know, this, you know, you can submit pretty much to everywhere online.
Speaker: Not everywhere.
Speaker: There are a few places that still will only take postal or maybe if it's international, it will only take postal.
Speaker: Some things work in that way.
Speaker: But in general, we can submit to publishers, should we wish, online.
Speaker: through various systems.
Speaker: And then obviously, since I started, the advent of independent publishing has been a massive, massive disruptor to the whole publishing industry.
Speaker: I did not self-publish when it first started.
Speaker: I was maybe about five, six years further down the line,
Speaker: So I didn't hit that gold rush of people who published e-books on platforms that we know.
Speaker: And, you know, they just put them up and made lots of money because there was nothing else out there like it.
Speaker: But this was such a phenomenon at the time that, you know, there were people doing extremely well because the competition was so low because these e-books just didn't exist in this way where you could just actually just buy them.
Speaker: You could just get hold of them and read them.
Speaker: And then devices came out.
Speaker: You could actually get a device to read these things.
Speaker: That was a big thing, you know.
Speaker: So, yeah, so we had the advent of the e-readers from various stores, as we know.
Speaker: And beyond that, there was the advent of Kindle Limited with Amazon, which became a huge phenomenon in the...
Speaker: in the publishing world.
Speaker: And I'm not going to talk about the pros and cons of authors being in Kindle Unlimited or having their books on all stores.
Speaker: That's a completely separate thing.
Speaker: I will say I have been...
Speaker: one or the other at different times of my author publishing career.
Speaker: So I have tried both.
Speaker: I've done various things with regard to that.
Speaker: But just the e-book explosion in general has been a massive change in the way people read and the way authors can get their books into the hands of readers.
Speaker: And following on from that, then the popularity of audio.
Speaker: I mean, audio, you know, it's been there since the radio revolution.
Speaker: was invented.
Speaker: We know that's always been a thing.
Speaker: But for books, audio books has been a massive explosion.
Speaker: And I absolutely don't care how somebody consumes story.
Speaker: I don't mind whether they're reading a paperback or a hardback, whether they're listening to the story, whether they're reading it on an e-book.
Speaker: I don't mind what they're doing.
Speaker: The story is the thing.
Speaker: It's the most important thing.
Speaker: So it's great that all these different
Speaker: formats and mediums exist so that people can consume in whichever way they prefer.
Speaker: I would say the other thing that's changed quite massively in recent times with regard to authors, for sure, is the way that independent authors are adopting the idea of selling direct to their readers online.
Speaker: So not just through the stores.
Speaker: Lots of people who read e-books will know that you can buy them through many, many e-book retailers.
Speaker: But lots of authors are choosing to sell via their own websites or via some other way which links to their own website.
Speaker: But these authors are drawing the readers to their own real estate website.
Speaker: their own author real estate to their website to buy from them and bypassing those retailers.
Speaker: It's becoming a bigger thing within the author community.
Speaker: And yeah, that's got to be one of the biggest things of note for me, for sure, that authors are doing in the industry since I've started.
Speaker: Well, I say that since I started, I can think of authors that always used to sell direct to people, but probably not in the same way and probably not in the same streamlined way as it's being done now.
Speaker: We've always had authors selling direct to the public, you know, in person at events or maybe via somebody they know who owned a company.
Speaker: a shop.
Speaker: You know, if you think back to the Bloomsbury set of the 1920s, 30s, you know, some of those were publishing, they were literally printing their own books and selling them through some various retailers shops on their own, however, if they were selling them.
Speaker: So I think in some respects, some of this has come full circle.
Speaker: And, and authors have regaining
Speaker: and just taking ownership of the way that they are selling books and how they are choosing to sell their work, be it e-book or a print copy or audio.
Speaker: And again, it's just another brilliant aspect of being an author.
Speaker: You can choose how you want to get your work into the hands of people who want to
Speaker: read it in whichever format they wish to to read your work there's so many choices for both authors and for readers um so this massively changed since i started
Speaker: I think it's a good thing though, because I mean, the only constant is change.
Speaker: And I think, yeah, and obviously in some aspects, it's not been the best, but you can learn from that as well.
Speaker: And you learn what not to do, because I think with everything available now, with so many different things available to us,
Speaker: especially as as indie authors I was going to say publishers especially as indie authors oh wait publishers as well certainly you and I are yeah yeah yeah you know it's it can often and I felt this as well you know when I started I felt was really overwhelming I was like I don't know what to do I don't know what all of this means you know do I enroll in KU do I not and we've obviously we've had lengthy discussions about this by ourselves but
Speaker: You know, what's the right option?
Speaker: And I think the truth is that the right option is what works for you.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker: Couldn't agree more.
Speaker: You've got to want to do it.
Speaker: Whichever the option is that you choose, you've got to be happy with that decision.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And that's okay, because each of us, like we're on our own path and we're on our own sort of journey as authors and whatever works for you works for you.
Speaker: But I think it is worth it in the beginning, not necessarily throwing money at everything, but giving everything a try to the best of your ability to kind of figure out what it is, what the thing that works for you is.
Speaker: Because I think in the beginning, like I said, it's really overwhelming.
Speaker: You don't know what to do.
Speaker: You don't know what works.
Speaker: You've never done it.
Speaker: you're kind of, sometimes you pick an author and you're just like, oh, I'm going to follow what they're doing because I think that's right.
Speaker: And it's taken me three years to like, be like, oh, this is what I want to do.
Speaker: And I'm still figuring it out, obviously.
Speaker: But yeah, I think it is really worth it in the beginning, having a look at everything, looking at traditional publishing, looking at self-publishing, figuring out, figuring out, sorry, what your goal is and where you want to be and ultimately why you're doing what you're doing.
Speaker: And it keeps coming back to the why, I think for me as well, because if you're not,
Speaker: If you know what your why is, that kind of determines your trajectory and where you want to go.
Speaker: I completely agree.
Speaker: My why is the thing I go to first and foremost.
Speaker: If I can't figure out why I'm doing something, then I actually cross it.
Speaker: I've started now crossing it off my list of things to do.
Speaker: Because if I'm just doing it randomly because somebody said I should, well, what does that mean for me?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Why should I be doing it?
Speaker: And if I can't figure out why I should be doing it, why waste time on it?
Speaker: And people do tell you lots of things as an author, both from the writing community and from, you know, other sides, because they're trying to help, hopefully, most of the time.
Speaker: Some people, yeah, maybe in your family, maybe just don't get it or, you know, they're trying to protect you.
Speaker: And that's understandable if you've got somebody who's trying to protect you from getting hurt by doing something they can't understand why you would be doing it.
Speaker: But ultimately, you kind of have to figure these things out for yourself as a writer.
Speaker: And it's the same as what you're writing as well.
Speaker: I've tried very, I've probably written in most genres, all except, and these are just off the top of my head, all except westerns and sci-fi.
Speaker: Because I just don't know where to, I haven't got a clue where to start with the Western and sci-fi.
Speaker: For me, it does not appeal to me as a writer.
Speaker: So I'm just not going to touch it because I know I couldn't do a good job of that because I genuinely don't know what to do with it.
Speaker: And I don't want to learn how to write sci-fi because it doesn't interest me enough.
Speaker: That doesn't mean I don't have respect for sci-fi writers or programme, because I do.
Speaker: And I do what, you know, I watch them and sometimes I'll read a bit of sci-fi, it depends on what it is.
Speaker: But it's not what I'm into.
Speaker: And for me, when I came to writing, I wanted to write what made sense to me, what I enjoyed, and take my writing from there.
Speaker: Yeah, I think when you start, there's always an element of emulation because you have writers that you really enjoy.
Speaker: People, you know, authors that you look like, I really want to be like them.
Speaker: And I kind of think that's often where you start.
Speaker: Some writers will decide by...
Speaker: looking at what's selling really well.
Speaker: You know, if they've never written anything and they're really not too worried what they're going to write, they just know they want to write.
Speaker: They might look at what's selling well and go, I'll give that a go.
Speaker: Let's see if I can write that.
Speaker: But again, it comes back to what you mentioned a minute ago about experimenting with
Speaker: and experimenting with what might work for you.
Speaker: Because sometimes you try writing in a genre and it absolutely fails.
Speaker: It just, whatever you write just does not work for you.
Speaker: You can't make the plot work.
Speaker: The characters don't seem right.
Speaker: Literally at a craft level, it just doesn't work for you.
Speaker: So I probably shouldn't have used the word fail.
Speaker: It's a learning curve.
Speaker: You decided that actually you learned that that's not for you.
Speaker: And so you try something else.
Speaker: And occasionally you happen to hit on the thing
Speaker: first go, or you just know what it is you want to write.
Speaker: And that's where you, you focus your energies.
Speaker: By the same token, that doesn't mean that you have to write the same thing throughout your entire author career.
Speaker: It is okay to change what you do.
Speaker: It's okay to pivot to a different genre.
Speaker: It's okay to write under a different name.
Speaker: If that is what you want to do, you can write under a pen name should you choose to.
Speaker: for whatever reason.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: I have done in the past.
Speaker: There have been me the last few months, I've been thinking about whether I should separate various sub genres of what I do into variants of my name.
Speaker: I think I've decided not to because I didn't want to complicate lots of other things as well.
Speaker: But but all these all these ideas are absolutely valid.
Speaker: And it's whatever works for you in your situation.
Speaker: And there is no right or wrong answer because the only right answer is the one that is best for you as the author.
Speaker: Yeah, it's I think, yeah, it just comes down to personal preference.
Speaker: And again, coming back to your goals and sort of ultimately what you want to get out of it, which again goes back to the why.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Straight back to the why.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I mean, were there any things, you know, speaking about things that, you know, people said you must do or, and I think we find this especially, yes, we may still find that now, but I think we choose to ignore it because we know what we want.
Speaker: But I think in the beginning when you're still new to it, and I don't mean new to writing in your genre, but new to writing in general, you know, people tell you things and you sort of take that as gospel.
Speaker: You're like, oh, okay, this is what I'm supposed to do.
Speaker: And if I don't do this way, I'm going to fail.
Speaker: So were there any things for you that, you know, as a new author, things that people told you to do or things that you sort of watched someone else doing and thought that this was it, this is what you're supposed to do?
Speaker: Yeah, I can think of a few.
Speaker: One of the, I think once you start taking writing seriously, I don't know how to use that word because... Professionally, I guess, I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm not quite sure how to term it because obviously you can be writing for 40 years and never publish a thing and that doesn't mean you're not taking it seriously.
Speaker: Of course you are.
Speaker: When it comes to publishing and thinking about how you want to develop that, one of the biggest things that always comes up is you must write in a series.
Speaker: It comes up all of the time.
Speaker: We have had many a discussion about this, have we not?
Speaker: I'm not calling you out about it.
Speaker: I absolutely promise.
Speaker: But you do get voices in the community that say you must write in a series and they say it with absolutely the best intentions, A, because it's worked for them and they are doing extremely well in writing a series.
Speaker: It might be that somebody said it because they see other people who are doing extremely well at writing in a series.
Speaker: But for me personally, and this is purely a personal point of view, I am struggling.
Speaker: And you know, I am struggling to write in a series.
Speaker: And when I'm talking about this kind of series, I'm talking about a character led series or one that is set in a certain place.
Speaker: And I know a lot of romance authors do this.
Speaker: They'll set it in a certain place and different characters will have different stories and they will be the books in the series.
Speaker: I think in our sort of crime genre and there or thereabouts, it's offshoots.
Speaker: We're talking more character-led series in general.
Speaker: I've struggled with this from the beginning, and it's almost to the point where I've digged my heels in and I've just gone, no, I'm not doing it.
Speaker: I don't care what you say, I'm not doing it.
Speaker: You know what I'm like about this.
Speaker: Yeah, I do.
Speaker: And I really do have a problem.
Speaker: I have two series in mind.
Speaker: at the moment and they're just playing around in the back of my mind one comes to the forefront and then I can't decide what to do with it and it sinks back again and it keeps coming back so because it keeps rising in my thoughts I know it will come out eventually I'm just not ready for it yet
Speaker: For me, I know you can't wait.
Speaker: Yeah, there are a couple.
Speaker: There's also one, as you know, that is based on a place as opposed to characters.
Speaker: Again, they're there.
Speaker: They'll come out eventually.
Speaker: They will, given time.
Speaker: But for me, I don't know.
Speaker: It's obviously the way my brain works.
Speaker: I like to write the book.
Speaker: And that's it.
Speaker: I've written the book.
Speaker: And then that one's gone.
Speaker: And I just want to write another book.
Speaker: And I just want to create another story with a whole load of other characters.
Speaker: And I just can't get my brain to train itself into the whole series itself.
Speaker: idea.
Speaker: I have nothing, please don't get me wrong, I have nothing against series at all.
Speaker: I read series.
Speaker: I've read Agatha Christie since the age of 10 and I've read every single Poirot book there is a going and I'll watch every single film.
Speaker: You know this and probably everybody who ever had any contact with me probably knows this.
Speaker: And there are lots of series on my shelves as I look around this room.
Speaker: I've got series of all sorts of different crime books and I love them.
Speaker: But for some reason, my brain just goes, no, you're not writing one of those right now.
Speaker: That's okay.
Speaker: And so it's okay.
Speaker: I've just come to terms of it.
Speaker: I've absolutely made my peace with that.
Speaker: have got lots of stories that are in various stages of production that are all standalone books.
Speaker: But it is one of those big debates within the author community about, you know, you must write in a series versus, no, it's okay.
Speaker: You can write standalone books.
Speaker: I will say from a business perspective,
Speaker: it can be, it isn't always, but it can be harder to get traction from a readership with individual standalone books.
Speaker: Because once they've read that book, where else is there for them to go?
Speaker: There is nowhere else for them to go in terms of character.
Speaker: But having said that,
Speaker: Once you've written more than one book, you have got somewhere else to send them.
Speaker: You've written another book and they may well like that one.
Speaker: Just because it's not a series with a character in it and it's a different book with a different set of characters and a different story doesn't mean they won't like it.
Speaker: Your job as the author is then to actually channel them towards having a look at it.
Speaker: You can't make their decision about whether they're going to buy it, but you can't in a series either.
Speaker: Somebody could read the first book and then go, no, I'm not interested anymore.
Speaker: So it's just as easy to lose a reader in a series as well because they may or may not like it.
Speaker: We don't know.
Speaker: We don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, there's one series in particular that I won't mention, but it's been running for, I don't know, I say running as if it's a TV show, but I mean, you know.
Speaker: It will be in your mind some.
Speaker: Yeah, it will be.
Speaker: It's been running for years.
Speaker: But yeah, no, it's just one series in particular that is very popular, but I just, after like the first book, I'm just like, eh.
Speaker: I kind of, you know, I want something else now.
Speaker: Like I'm bored.
Speaker: Not bored, but I just feel like this character's been pushed to their limit and I'm over it.
Speaker: Yeah, it does happen.
Speaker: Which is fine.
Speaker: It happens.
Speaker: And then there's another series I absolutely cannot get enough of.
Speaker: So it depends.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: It's the way it goes.
Speaker: And I do know people that will, I see a lot of it in various social media groups that I'm in.
Speaker: um the readers will say you know i've been reading this series but i just want to take a break from it at the moment can you recommend a standalone but i just want to read something different that's just a book on its own and that's fine so people do read both different kinds of books um and your job as the writer is to write the best book you can and that is the book you put out there for readers to find
Speaker: and that really is your job to write the story that's in your head, in your heart, in your soul.
Speaker: You write that book, you put it out there, and then it becomes the reader's book.
Speaker: You've done your bit, and they will either like it or they won't, and you really can't control what a reader thinks about your work.
Speaker: You can control how good it looks and whether it's got
Speaker: a million and one spelling mistakes in it or whether it hasn't.
Speaker: You can control whether you've formatted it so it looks nice on the page.
Speaker: Those are the things you can control if you're an indie publisher.
Speaker: If not, and you are traditionally published, your publisher will be doing those jobs and they will do a fantastic job of it.
Speaker: But those are the things that you can control.
Speaker: Once it hits the shelves, virtual or real, it's completely out of your hands.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: in terms of the story itself, and you've just got to let it do its thing.
Speaker: Yes, in terms of business, you can advertise, you can push the book towards people.
Speaker: You cannot make them read it, and you cannot make them like it.
Speaker: All you can do is write the next one, or choose not to if you only ever wanted to write one book.
Speaker: It's your author choice.
Speaker: You do what you want.
Speaker: But that's what we can control as authors.
Speaker: They are our controllables beyond that.
Speaker: The reader chooses what they want to do with that book and you can only hope that they're going to love it.
Speaker: And I mean, I can say on that point that, yes, you're right, standalones.
Speaker: I've enjoyed every single one of them.
Speaker: I know you do kind of have a series, like your Dark and Mine series.
Speaker: I would say that's a series, even though it's different characters.
Speaker: I still sort of class that as a series.
Speaker: The one, though, and I'm going to say it, the one that I would love to see more of, as you know, is Huzzah Mine.
Speaker: I knew you were going to say that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I didn't know that was going to come up.
Speaker: I'm way too invested.
Speaker: I've made a Pinterest board.
Speaker: I've made a video.
Speaker: Like, I just want more.
Speaker: Oh, good grief.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Come on, Blair.
Speaker: Okay, so what I will say about that is that I'm going to try not to give away anything in this book at all.
Speaker: Yeah, it's hard for me to do.
Speaker: I know it's hard for you to do.
Speaker: I'm going to try really hard not to.
Speaker: So what do we have?
Speaker: We have three main characters.
Speaker: There are three main characters who are all equally.
Speaker: Yeah, they've all got issues.
Speaker: Let's call it that.
Speaker: Yeah, they do.
Speaker: And then we have a large part playing side character and a more, I would say, not so important.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He doesn't play such a... He's not so prominent.
Speaker: Yeah, but he flawed me, so to be fair.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love him.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So I... From... It's really difficult without giving spoilers away in this book because it's... Yeah, it's very, very twisted.
Speaker: There are characters...
Speaker: who are still there at the end, which is really difficult to talk about.
Speaker: You have characters that have potential.
Speaker: Yeah, basically it's not a book where everybody dies.
Speaker: Yeah, it's fine.
Speaker: There are people left at the end.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a close call sometimes.
Speaker: Yeah, quite.
Speaker: But there are some of those characters certainly have the potential to have a story beyond that book.
Speaker: And I also believe there is a character in that book that has a story.
Speaker: In fact, there are probably two characters in that book that has a story, maybe even three.
Speaker: Oh, crikey.
Speaker: That have a story that could come before that book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I want that.
Speaker: I know you want that.
Speaker: I want all of it.
Speaker: So maybe, maybe I might write those.
Speaker: Listen, Claire, by the time I'm 30, please.
Speaker: You've got, you've got what, three years?
Speaker: I'll do my best.
Speaker: The thing is that you say this and it was me talking about, you know, you must write in a series and you must do this and, you know, stand the lens or whatever.
Speaker: But every time I write a book,
Speaker: I keep coming up with these characters and I go, do you know what?
Speaker: They've got a great story to be told that happened before this book even happened.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know you've not read it yet, but Show Me Dead is for me.
Speaker: Oh, I'm getting on that this week.
Speaker: I know you are.
Speaker: Don't worry.
Speaker: Please don't worry.
Speaker: Don't worry.
Speaker: I'm still reading yours.
Speaker: You know I am.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But there are characters in Show Me Dead that absolutely have more to offer beyond just the book, Show Me Dead.
Speaker: The villain in particular has a backstory that is definitely a book in and of itself.
Speaker: And it ties in with the main character to some extent as well, or the mother of the main character.
Speaker: So there is definitely, definitely a book there.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: because people are still alive at the end of that one as well.
Speaker: Um, because, yeah, actually somebody still left, um, because of who is left at the end of that one.
Speaker: And I'm really being careful because I know you've not read this one yet.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: there are i think stories to be told beyond um what happens in that by the end of that book because that book is set in a theater and there are there are people who perform in that theater i have to be so careful this non-spoiler thing um who are um
Speaker: not dead, but at the end, and could potentially go on to do other things.
Speaker: I know what you mean.
Speaker: So I see kind of what I seem to be doing is creating these standalone books that then have potential to have spin-offs around them.
Speaker: I know, I know you keep telling me this.
Speaker: So they're kind of in a line, if you look at the Darker Minds books, they're kind of in a series by theme.
Speaker: And then around each one, it's like they've got their own little circle that then could have spin-offs.
Speaker: So I don't know, maybe I'm creating a weird way of my own to create, I don't know, strange spin-off series.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I have no idea what I'm doing sometimes.
Speaker: Yeah, that's all of us, to be fair.
Speaker: I told you, innit, it starts like a T-shirt line.
Speaker: I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm doing it anyway.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: But I always find it really interesting, like talking to you, as you know, we've had very lengthy discussions about we're kind of on different sides of the fence, but in the same field, essentially.
Speaker: You know, where for me, writing series, like it's easy for me because as you know, I've got one character that will not leave me alone.
Speaker: It doesn't matter what I do.
Speaker: She doesn't shut up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: trying to work on something else now.
Speaker: And she's like, but look at me, I'm in the corner, like, hello.
Speaker: And I think, yeah, for me, when I get a character like that, I know that it's more than one book because it's a kind of, it's too much to fit into one book.
Speaker: So I know I have to kind of split it up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I would struggle to write standalones, which is why, as you know, I've had such an issue writing a novella, like that short thing that I put out in January, that's turned into a series.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just the way it goes.
Speaker: Yeah, it's just I can't.
Speaker: I see I do one thing and then I'm like, oh, but what if?
Speaker: And the what if always gets me into trouble.
Speaker: And then 10 books down the line, I'm like, sorry, oops.
Speaker: Which is why I find it so fascinating talking to you, Sam, because of the fact that you are dealing with this character led series and you just keep bringing up these what ifs and they keep adding to your story arc for your character.
Speaker: So for me, because you know, for me, it's always about what, what you feel inside you, how you should be working and not necessarily about what somebody says you should or shouldn't be doing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, there are, I don't want to use the word should, but there are certain things that certainly are beneficial from a business point of view.
Speaker: You know, having a mailing list is an excellent idea in order for you to be able to keep in direct contact with your readers, for instance.
Speaker: But there are no, there are no real, there are no real shoulds at all because you, you,
Speaker: you plan and create your author journey in the way you want to create it.
Speaker: It's as simple as that.
Speaker: I think the only should would be if it works for you, you should do it.
Speaker: Oh yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker: You should do it.
Speaker: And that's it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I'll add to that if you want to.
Speaker: Yeah, of course.
Speaker: I'm just trying to shut it out of the window.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, we change the weather, don't we?
Speaker: It's like one day we're doing this and the next day I'm like, oh, but this thing's bothering me.
Speaker: Let me do that.
Speaker: It's just how it is.
Speaker: And you embrace it as part of the process, but also know when to have deadlines for yourself and boundaries for yourself.
Speaker: Yes, I think deadlines and boundaries are a thing in and of themselves as well.
Speaker: Particularly if you're trying to... If you are somebody who is aiming to publish...
Speaker: And if you're aiming to publish on a regular basis, whether that's with a publisher, I mean, if you're with a publisher, they're going to give you arbitrary deadlines.
Speaker: And that's fine.
Speaker: When you're an indie publisher, it's different because it's all on you.
Speaker: You've got to choose what your deadlines are if you want them.
Speaker: They're movable.
Speaker: There are things that occasionally you can do as an indie author where they're not quite so movable.
Speaker: And that usually is something like making your book a pre-order on retailers and then finding that actually that was a really daft idea because you've not written it yet and you're never going to write it by the time that your book comes out.
Speaker: And then there are things that you can do about that.
Speaker: There are there are workarounds.
Speaker: But, yeah, it's you really have to think long and hard about the decisions that you make when it comes to deadlines and making them arbitrary.
Speaker: Yeah, I would certainly advise anybody who is thinking about making a preorder on a book.
Speaker: and choosing that date and hitting the button that actually sends a pre-order live so that people can pre-order it to think very, very carefully about whether you're going to be ready to release that book by release date.
Speaker: I mean, some authors, and I absolutely admire them because I don't know how they do it, they will...
Speaker: They will be releasing books really, really quickly.
Speaker: They obviously write exceedingly quickly.
Speaker: And their books always come out bang on time.
Speaker: And these books are just going and going and going.
Speaker: And it's flabbergasting to watch.
Speaker: I am not that kind of writer.
Speaker: I freely admit it.
Speaker: Those that are brilliant, it works for them, great.
Speaker: There are other authors who will put a book out on pre-order a year in advance.
Speaker: Um, and I've thought about this so many times.
Speaker: Oh, you know, it works for them.
Speaker: It absolutely works for them.
Speaker: Um, they've got such a system in place where they know exactly what they're writing in what month and that book is going to be ready and it's up and it's, it's gone for the deadline.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: My concern for me would be that I would forget that I put the book up, but forget that I actually need to write the thing because I get distracted by a different book.
Speaker: And then I get to a few weeks before that book's due out.
Speaker: I think, hang on a minute, I haven't started it yet.
Speaker: And so I've refrained from putting a pre-order of a book up massively in the distance because...
Speaker: I want to keep control of my deadlines.
Speaker: I have made the mistake in the past of making a book on pre-order and then not being able to fulfill the deadline.
Speaker: um it upset me greatly i did um manage to come up with a workaround for that with the um the stores that i put the pre-order up with um and that was great they were they were very very understanding and very very lovely and the problem got solved but for me that was very much a once bitten twice twice shy kind of thing um
Speaker: And I am very, very careful now about my deadlines and about when I choose to announce when I'm going to release a book.
Speaker: because things do happen.
Speaker: Things don't always work out to plan.
Speaker: Sometimes you think you're going to get your first draft done in X amount of weeks and it takes double that amount of time or longer.
Speaker: And you don't always know until that book is written.
Speaker: Until you've got that first draft of a book,
Speaker: and I find certainly with the things I write because sometimes they get a bit complicated in terms of the suspense and just the structure of the book at a purely craft level.
Speaker: I'm trying to filter these things in and sometimes I get very, it takes me a bit longer than I would have liked to make sure that they all work and all the strands work in the right place and the twists all happen and make sense as well.
Speaker: They make sense to me but they need to make sense to somebody else.
Speaker: Yeah, that's my thing, isn't it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, kind of useful for the reader as well to know what on earth is going on.
Speaker: And so that sometimes can take longer.
Speaker: So therefore that first draft might take double the length of time that I've planned on it being.
Speaker: I now, I have promised certain people in my life,
Speaker: who I love very, very much, that I will not put a book up on pre-order until after I have definitely written the first draft.
Speaker: I'll say the first draft, the first clean draft.
Speaker: So I know that it's really, it's now just going, it's going through the editing process and then it needs proofreading and formatting.
Speaker: So the story needs to be complete is what I'm saying.
Speaker: before I will even contemplate putting a book on pre-order because the stress of trying to get that book out to a deadline when things aren't going right with the book is just too much for me to bear.
Speaker: I've been there, I've done it, I don't like it.
Speaker: So I'm not doing that anymore.
Speaker: It was a lesson learned for me specifically that I don't want to have to learn that lesson again.
Speaker: And I think like it really is it's just one of those things I think either you can do it or you know you need to really think about it because some people just do it they don't you know they everything's fine yeah but I do think with us specifically knowing how we both write I think it is difficult because often yes you can say okay I'm gonna put this thing on pre-order for whenever and I'm halfway through the book but
Speaker: So much can change character-wise or plot-wise or whatever, like in between that time or even like the admin stuff, like the formatting and all of that stuff.
Speaker: But I often find like if a character wants to change direction, they're going to do it after I've put the thing up for pre-order because then I'm screwed.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a little bit of a problem when you've then got to rip your book apart and start talking to it again.
Speaker: It totally delays what you're doing.
Speaker: Yeah, that's...
Speaker: definitely a thing and it does happen and you know with me I write out of order as well so sometimes I don't know I write out of order just because it helps me get the words down quicker stresses me out
Speaker: And this is the thing with writers, we all do it differently and there is no right or wrong way.
Speaker: It's literally the way that works for you is the way that you need to be doing it.
Speaker: I need to be doing it.
Speaker: This is the way you choose to do it.
Speaker: Because, yeah, I would absolutely, I've tried to write in the way that you do, where you just write literally, literally, everything's in order.
Speaker: And I can't do it.
Speaker: I get about five chapters in.
Speaker: And I get bored.
Speaker: It sounds dreadful.
Speaker: It's my story and I love my story.
Speaker: So I have to go to the bits that I've already pictured in my head and I'm absolutely got them.
Speaker: I can't do that.
Speaker: I'm driving you mad.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: I literally picture certain scenes and I'm like, yeah, I need to write that and I will write that.
Speaker: And then I will, they will get joined.
Speaker: And by the time the things get joined together, um,
Speaker: the bits that I've already written, I will then be thinking very much with bits, I could just write bits of things all over the place.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I will be joining them together very much with a structure view in mind where I will have had my fun writing these scenes that I'm really invested in.
Speaker: And they will usually be the scenes that are full of conflict.
Speaker: And that may be not necessarily physical conflict, but either emotional or psychological conflict, psychological in particular with the kind of books that I write.
Speaker: Or they could be a really emotional scene.
Speaker: I'm usually very invested with those.
Speaker: And as you know, with me, I will always write the end first.
Speaker: So the first thing will be the end.
Speaker: Yeah, that stresses me out.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Always write the end.
Speaker: And it rarely changes.
Speaker: I mean, an odd word or two might change.
Speaker: But the ending, once I fix that ending, that stays for the entire book.
Speaker: It will not change.
Speaker: And then I'm making that book.
Speaker: make the book fit the ending I'm making the book move from where I want that book to start to that ending it's literally finding its pathway to the destination that I've already preset and it's just how I work I don't know I do know other authors that do the same
Speaker: And I did hear about an author that actually writes their books backwards.
Speaker: I cannot remember who it is.
Speaker: And if that works for them, then great.
Speaker: I've never tried it.
Speaker: And I don't know if I ever will, but because I start at the end, maybe it would work for me.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: But, you know, it's whatever works for you and whatever works for the story.
Speaker: Sometimes the story dictates that.
Speaker: how the book is written.
Speaker: Because I know I've spoken before to friends of mine who write police procedurals and they tend to write very linearly because of the way that clues need to be set and various bits of procedure need to come into play and writing out of order just would...
Speaker: for them it would make no sense.
Speaker: And so I completely understand, I completely get why certain types of books maybe need to be written in more of a linear way.
Speaker: It doesn't mean that you couldn't leave gaps for certain things, but...
Speaker: That being said, actually, then like one of my other friends who, well, yeah, we had a whole discussion about how we work as well.
Speaker: And he said that he just kind of goes in.
Speaker: He's like, he has a basic idea, but then he just jumps in.
Speaker: Like now it's different.
Speaker: When he started, he kind of just jumped in.
Speaker: Now he's got like separate files for each thing or each character, whatever.
Speaker: But in the beginning, he just jumped in.
Speaker: I'm just like, that stresses me out even more because you don't even have an outline.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't completely pants it, I have to admit.
Speaker: I'm not a full on plotter either.
Speaker: I've tried sitting there and writing out.
Speaker: line by line, this happens and this happens and this happens, literally just kind of a script for the plot.
Speaker: And I can't, I get antsy and bored and I don't know, I start to twitch and make six million cups of tea and go out for a walk and then just delete the document.
Speaker: So I don't work like that at all.
Speaker: I sometimes wonder how I get any words down on a page at all.
Speaker: I don't know why.
Speaker: But I feel it.
Speaker: I feel the book.
Speaker: I completely feel it.
Speaker: And I have to work.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know how many authors write like that.
Speaker: I just, I feel the story and I feel the characters and that is how the book comes about.
Speaker: Every book I write, regardless of series, standalone, whatever, it's character driven and led very much by the
Speaker: emotions and psychology of the characters that that's what leads the story.
Speaker: And sometimes I know the beginning, a beginning bit of the story.
Speaker: And sometimes I know something further down and then it's a bit so right.
Speaker: And it will all come together eventually.
Speaker: By the same token, I don't completely pants a book.
Speaker: I will know what I want to write because with writing something like psychological suspense type books, the,
Speaker: there's a structure that still needs to be adhered to in order for the story structure to work from a reader perspective.
Speaker: And so I tend to work in a five-act structure, the fifth act mainly being the very, very end stroke epilogue of the story.
Speaker: So I've got, in essence, split my story into quarters plus the ending.
Speaker: And it works for me.
Speaker: For these particular kinds of books, that works for me.
Speaker: So I know that by the time I've got to the end of the first quarter, there will be some kind of twist and or revelation that leads into the second quarter of the book.
Speaker: By then there will be a midpoint where something major enough happens that is either a big twist or leads the characters to do something
Speaker: either dreadful or that leads them to do something that's quite important to the book in, in the, between the halfway point and the three quarter way point.
Speaker: Often there'll be a twist and something that's, that's revealed that leads them the chaos to happen.
Speaker: The third quarter is, it tends to be,
Speaker: um chaotic in terms of action chaotic is probably not the right word but that's where the bulk of the action it's not like i don't know what i'm talking about again there's a surprise um that's where a lot of my action happens in terms of really moving the plot before that a lot of it might have been quite psychological things happen that you know things do move but um
Speaker: more things happen in the beyond the halfway point and then the that three-quarter way point will have some massive um tweak to the story that then leads to the complete fallout that is act four and if you think to any of the stuff that you've read of mine you'll kind of know what i mean so
Speaker: Yeah, no, I definitely do.
Speaker: And again, like I said, it's really interesting hearing the difference.
Speaker: And I know we've spoken about this many, many times.
Speaker: But I think in a sense, we are quite similar because when I get an idea for something, it's never at the beginning.
Speaker: It's always a scene or a piece of dialogue or whatever.
Speaker: Or it's from a song and then I start listening to music and I'm like, oh, I'm getting this scene in my head or whatever.
Speaker: I also feel it and I feel the characters as well.
Speaker: And it shows in your book.
Speaker: I'm really glad.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: You can really tell.
Speaker: It's just beautiful characters.
Speaker: I'm really glad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wait, wait, wait.
Speaker: Wait for book two.
Speaker: You might not feel the same about them.
Speaker: I will.
Speaker: I will.
Speaker: They're going to be beautifully written regardless, Sam.
Speaker: Whether I love them or hate them is irrelevant.
Speaker: They'll still be beautifully written.
Speaker: I love a beautifully written villain.
Speaker: So that's absolutely fine.
Speaker: I've got no problem with that.
Speaker: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Okay, fair enough, yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, I think we are similar in that sense where, you know, we'll get those initial ideas down wherever they may be in the book or in my case in the series, like I can get an idea for book six and it's, I'm on book one.
Speaker: So, and it's just organizing those thoughts and figuring out where you want them on the timeline kind of thing.
Speaker: But then, like where you said you've got like your structure, I have a similar thing in terms of like, and I've shown you in my outlines, I have like every five chapters, I have an incident or something interesting.
Speaker: Not to say the chapters in between are not interesting, but I have like a key, I call them like key plot points.
Speaker: So for every five chapters, I've got something happening.
Speaker: Like, I don't know, someone died, someone this, someone that.
Speaker: I don't know where that came from.
Speaker: I think for me, it's kind of, I'm almost taking...
Speaker: a personal TV writing approach in the sense of like, if you watch an episode, if it doesn't grip you, yes, from the beginning, but also it needs to keep your attention right throughout, you're just going to switch off.
Speaker: And I think crime writing in a sense is quite similar because if you're switched off while reading, you're just going to put the book down.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And I can definitely vouch for the fact that something major happens in chapter five of No Trace.
Speaker: Does it?
Speaker: I don't remember.
Speaker: Yeah, I do.
Speaker: I remember.
Speaker: And it's funny because I know you mentioned about this every five chapter thing to me.
Speaker: And I've got that in mind as I'm reading your book because I am reading it kind of with a right of the head on as well as really loving the book.
Speaker: And I'm like, and I knew obviously what the first thing was going to be in your book.
Speaker: And I was like, I had to look back and I sort of flick through back through the pages and thought, yeah, it was.
Speaker: It was chapter five.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As long as it works.
Speaker: It works.
Speaker: It absolutely works.
Speaker: It was perfect.
Speaker: Perfectly placed.
Speaker: And that's how I do my outlines.
Speaker: I will have like a 60 chapter outline or whatever, maybe depending on the length of the book.
Speaker: And every five chapters, I will start by filling in those key points and then I'll flesh out the outline from there.
Speaker: So it is an order.
Speaker: I obviously I write an order, but then sometimes the outline changes as I write.
Speaker: And I think that's just everyone with everything.
Speaker: It's never what you initially planned.
Speaker: No, not at all.
Speaker: Which is interesting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I find, I think with, I'm trying to think, I think every single one of the Darker Minds books I've done so far, and definitely with hers or mine, not the very, very, the very, very ending has stayed the same because I'm a real lover of epilogues.
Speaker: I love prologues and I love my epilogues.
Speaker: But the chapter or maybe a couple of chapters preceding that, so literally the end of the main story, they're the bits where sometimes I've absolutely not known quite how the book's going to end.
Speaker: No Deadlier Time was definitely one of those.
Speaker: And I've said to you before, hers or mine, I really did not know what was going to happen at the end.
Speaker: I was invested in that as a reader while I was writing it as I was doing it.
Speaker: I just wasn't sure quite how that was going to pan out.
Speaker: The thing is, obviously, I knew what we'd
Speaker: I knew who needed to be around at the end because I'd already written the epilogue.
Speaker: I'm trying to be careful what I say.
Speaker: Yeah, but then you plot twisted yourself, let's be honest.
Speaker: I did.
Speaker: I plot twisted and then twisted that twist, I think, to be honest.
Speaker: Yeah, you did.
Speaker: That's why I can't.
Speaker: We need, I'm just going to say, we do need an episode to talk about that because I can't shut up.
Speaker: about it like I taught your ear off about it anyway but I want everyone else to be in on that conversation because it was really good I was so pleased that you love that book so that book is something else it felt like it when I was writing it as well I can tell you
Speaker: yeah i'm thinking like i want to do fan art i want a poster on the wall oh goodness one of those start thinking it was extremely complex yeah yeah it was and it really was and i think you know what the beauty of it yes we will have separate episodes sorry i just need to say this but the beauty of it was that um was that i never knew who signed to be on at any given time where where my loyalties um were and i think that is if you can pull that off that um
Speaker: Well done, Claire.
Speaker: Thank you very much.
Speaker: And it's really interesting because my mum's reading it at the moment.
Speaker: And as a rule, she doesn't read crime fiction of any subgenre.
Speaker: But she's loving it.
Speaker: Every single one of the suspense books I've written, she's absolutely loved every single one.
Speaker: And she's reading this one.
Speaker: And it's really weird.
Speaker: She'll ring me up and she'll say exactly the same things about it as you've said to me if you were reading it.
Speaker: but is this person doing this oh I don't like that person anymore oh no I like them again oh actually no I don't I don't trust that person oh actually they're not so bad I sent you like a full essay as I was reading on what's up I'm just like oh my gosh and you're like what and I'm like I don't know I haven't gotten there yet but oh my gosh it was it was really funny to watch your messages coming yeah you really were flitting between who it was that you liked and who you didn't like who you trusted or not it was it was fun it was real fun
Speaker: I mean, don't get me wrong.
Speaker: Obviously, I love all your other books, but this one hit me in a different way.
Speaker: I don't know how to explain it.
Speaker: It was just
Speaker: read a police it's very good and definitely go by no trace everybody it is superb if you if you love police procedurals honestly it is the characters are absolutely wonderful and you are going to get emotionally invested in them i don't know how well my research came out but yeah sorry graham i tried sam this is you your research yeah absolutely it's brilliant it is it is because you're so conscientious
Speaker: Yeah, I'm way too stressed about it.
Speaker: Way too stressed.
Speaker: Now I'm a bit more relaxed.
Speaker: When I started, I was like, oh my gosh, what am I doing?
Speaker: I think that's all of us.
Speaker: It's paid off.
Speaker: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker: I think everybody who starts, yeah, we all stress about some element of it, whether it's the writing, whether it's how to actually put a book together, how to get it out in the world, where do we put it, who do we send it out to, who are we trying to aim it at?
Speaker: There's so many things that we can worry about and we do worry about.
Speaker: Yeah, and it's actually not really necessary.
Speaker: Some things are not really necessary.
Speaker: No, some things we worry about more than we needed to.
Speaker: Too much.
Speaker: We overthink it.
Speaker: Yeah, we do overthink.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Certainly you and I do.
Speaker: We know we do.
Speaker: Oh, my gosh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, we're sending each other messages like, I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker: Is this working?
Speaker: Yes, it's fine.
Speaker: No, you're actually stressing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you don't have to be a first time author to have those sorts of conversations, as you know, when I send you stuff.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, that's true.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: But that's why and that's actually coming into our next point is having a community of people who you can trust and who you can talk to about things.
Speaker: And I think, yeah, I think the thing that really hit me when I really started engaging with people, which now it's a lot easier.
Speaker: And I think knowing that we're on the same boat, essentially, we're all stressed about things.
Speaker: We all don't have the perfect run the first time around.
Speaker: or even the 20th, you know, it keeps going.
Speaker: We keep learning.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Things can go wrong at any point.
Speaker: And they do.
Speaker: You know, we just learn from it or we just go, oops, and carry on.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: It all works out.
Speaker: It's okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: it's okay to make mistakes.
Speaker: It is okay.
Speaker: Oh, it definitely is.
Speaker: It is like, we call it a work, we call it failing forward because you're learning, you know, it's never backwards.
Speaker: But yeah, I think, you know, I think the biggest thing I learned was that we don't need to isolate ourselves.
Speaker: And I think when we start out, that's something we think about, you know, we think that, you know, because no one else gets it, at least in our personal lives, I think, you know, most of the time, you know, we feel like no one else understands what we're doing.
Speaker: We need to isolate ourselves.
Speaker: And
Speaker: I do think that that's not the case at all.
Speaker: Like we do writing as a solitary thing, but sharing what we're doing and being part of a community doesn't have to be.
Speaker: No, absolutely.
Speaker: I mean, when it comes down to actually writing, it's absolutely possible to write and not talk to anybody else while you're doing it, if that's what you want to do.
Speaker: You know, lots of authors will speak to other people as they're writing, asking questions about things.
Speaker: I think particularly in our genre,
Speaker: People do it because they want to get that bit of police procedural correct or, you know, a setting correcting it.
Speaker: You know, I don't know.
Speaker: Would that lamppost really bend if somebody was ramming it with a car?
Speaker: Whatever those things are.
Speaker: And they want to get those facts right as they're writing or ahead of time.
Speaker: And that's fine.
Speaker: But you're still writing on your own.
Speaker: Some people will sit in a room completely wrong.
Speaker: on their own with no noise that they literally can't bear a sound while they're writing that's fine some people love writing to music but they're still on their own that's fine some people love writing in um more public places like libraries or cafes or wherever it is they go and sit in the park i a few weeks ago i went and sat in the park and uh and plonked myself down on a bench and
Speaker: sat there and h ad a cuddle with somebody's dog and then carried on writing my book.
Speaker: It was very nice.
Speaker: I enjoyed it.
Speaker: And the dog is now featured in Chabot.
Speaker: No kidding.
Speaker: I don't know if that particular dog's in a book yet, but you never know.
Speaker: But, you know, this is how we actually write.
Speaker: You know, we may be in a room on our own or we may be in a room with lots of other people.
Speaker: We may have kids running around.
Speaker: I mean, when I first started writing, I had children...
Speaker: literally running around me while I was writing and I would often find that I was I was working with my laptop at the side of the cooker um and did a lot of a lot of writing while I was literally cooking somebody's food um and it's just it's just how I worked just got on with it um but that's how we actually do it at a technical level that's how we're writing but when it comes to more of a
Speaker: An emotional level, I guess.
Speaker: We don't necessarily need to isolate ourselves from a community unless we want to.
Speaker: If we prefer not to speak to other people about things, that's absolutely our prerogative.
Speaker: But having other people who we can call upon just to, even if it's just to commiserate because you knew you wanted to write X number of words today and you've managed to write three.
Speaker: because the computer decided to update and then it's still doing it six hours later.
Speaker: Or, you know, people just kept turning up, like visitors kept appearing.
Speaker: It was like, no, this writing's not happening.
Speaker: But, you know, and you really wanted to get it done, but you just need somebody to just say, this isn't working.
Speaker: And it's fine.
Speaker: And that's okay.
Speaker: We're, you know, having people around us who can do that for us is really, really important.
Speaker: And those people could be,
Speaker: Anything.
Speaker: There could be just one other writer.
Speaker: I mean, just in terms of numbers there, not just because you're a writer.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Or it could be an organised community of authors who have some sort of business whereby they gather together authors.
Speaker: It could be events that you go to in order to talk to other people.
Speaker: There are so many ways you could be part of a writing community.
Speaker: whether that is just you and one other person or lots of you.
Speaker: And it comes down to the individual.
Speaker: But I don't know, certain things work for certain people is what I'm saying.
Speaker: And you find the thing that works for you.
Speaker: You find the community, however big or small that is, that works for you.
Speaker: And they can help you in so many ways, whether it's finding out information on how to, just how to write something,
Speaker: you know, the craft of writing, where we appoint you in directions that you've not looked at before, or how to actually create the book itself to get it into readers' hands, or whether it is having a great day and you want somebody to celebrate with, or whether it is something that's happened and you kind of just want to vent or have them commiserate with you.
Speaker: Those feelings...
Speaker: are all important to us because we're not little machines that just sit and write words.
Speaker: That's the typing aspect.
Speaker: That's what, that's what your computer or your typewriter or whatever it is you do.
Speaker: That's what it does.
Speaker: It just creates words on the screen for you.
Speaker: You're the, you're the element in this whole writing lark that feels and, and you need to be able to do that.
Speaker: You need to have somebody who you can do that with because you can do it on your own, but it, it,
Speaker: It does help if you've got somebody else who understands what you're trying to do and how it may work sometimes and not work so well another time.
Speaker: And to just just be there with you through the process.
Speaker: It's just a lovely feeling.
Speaker: And you can create some amazing friendships.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, yeah.
Speaker: We know that some, don't we?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I mean, yeah, it's true.
Speaker: It's helped me so much.
Speaker: Like I said, this book wouldn't be here if it weren't for, you know, the number of people that I actually spoke to.
Speaker: Not for professional advice, but just for like, am I, is this the right thing?
Speaker: Should I actually be doing this or should I give up?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No, you shouldn't give up.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: But, you know, in the beginning, you have all those feelings and those thoughts.
Speaker: I think even now, even now, like, yeah, it's a whole separate episode.
Speaker: But, you know, we do get days where we think, should we be doing this?
Speaker: Like, are we good enough?
Speaker: And yeah, like, you know, that's why you need people around you to be like, listen, I think you should keep going.
Speaker: So yeah, no, ready is, it's really, really useful.
Speaker: And again, and I keep coming back to it, but it's true, is like we learn things from each other.
Speaker: It doesn't matter how long you've been in the business or not, there's always something to be learned.
Speaker: And I think that's really, really valuable.
Speaker: Absolutely, I completely agree.
Speaker: Everybody's always learning something because, as you said earlier, the only constant in this whole writing business, and particularly if you're looking at it from a business point of view, is change.
Speaker: And somebody will always know that little bit more about something than you do.
Speaker: And if they can help you, then fantastic.
Speaker: And this author community, as I've said before, is they're just willing to bend over backwards to help somebody who...
Speaker: they genuinely see is having a problem and they just need help.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: So on that note, I know that, you know, there are things that when we both started out actually ended up being extremely valuable and things that we've sort of held on to.
Speaker: I know I have.
Speaker: So is there any sort of bit of advice or anything that you've learned along the way or that someone's told you that's kind of stuck with you?
Speaker: I think there are two things and these are not specifically author business things.
Speaker: These just apply to anybody who is writing or wants to write.
Speaker: whether they want to publish their own work or send it to a publisher or never, ever publish their work at all.
Speaker: It's absolutely fine.
Speaker: But the two things are very much to take your time,
Speaker: And try not to do all of the things.
Speaker: Don't pressurise yourself with things that aren't maybe necessary at the time that you're doing them.
Speaker: You don't need to learn about, I don't know, formatting your book when you've only written the first sentence of a short story.
Speaker: It's not important at that point.
Speaker: What's important is that you figure out your story, you figure out your characters, and you keep learning about craft and
Speaker: And you write the story that you want to write, that story that belongs to you and nobody else can write.
Speaker: That's the important thing at that point.
Speaker: So take your time and learn the craft, learn your processes, learn how you work, learn what you want.
Speaker: I think that's a massive thing to remember because...
Speaker: There is so much advice, and particularly if you're looking at actually going into the publishing world, publishing books yourself or sending it out to publishers.
Speaker: So many people tell you so many things.
Speaker: There are lots of voices saying you should do this, should do that, whatever.
Speaker: And you listen to it all because you're trying to get ahead of the game for yourself.
Speaker: You're trying to get ahead of where you are to be prepared for what's going to come next.
Speaker: But then it becomes very, very overwhelming.
Speaker: And so a second part to this first answer is that don't try and do all of the things because you will just completely overwhelm yourself and just focus on one thing at a time, understand what you're doing with one thing and then move on to another thing.
Speaker: As you become more experienced at it, as you do it more often or you just get to grips with your own process, you can do multiple things at once or probably not literally at once.
Speaker: But, you know, you can have you can have lots of balls juggling.
Speaker: But at first, don't try and juggle all the balls in the air because they'll all drop.
Speaker: Just just focus on getting your story.
Speaker: into the best position, or just into the best position you can get it in to start with, and then build up on the other things in order to get your story out there.
Speaker: And the other thing I would say is, and this is something that I have learned through bitter experience, is to follow your instincts for what it is you want to write.
Speaker: because over the years I've had people, individuals tell me to write something because that's what they want me to write.
Speaker: And, okay, I've done it, but it's not had any longevity about it because, okay, I might have been relatively good at it or even maybe very good at it, I don't know, but it's not something that has been in my heart of hearts, so I've dropped it along the wayside.
Speaker: The experience of doing it has been fine, but it's still not something that has gripped me.
Speaker: I have written for commercial purposes pieces of work because they fit a particular remit and not as a journalist or something like that, because obviously that is their job.
Speaker: They write what they have to write by a deadline and that's part and parcel of that kind of job.
Speaker: But when you're...
Speaker: a freelance fiction author and you're looking for places to submit your work, there are remits for things.
Speaker: Sometimes those remits just don't work for you.
Speaker: And sometimes you try them just to see if they do.
Speaker: And when you've not written anything to a particular formula or for a particular magazine or whatever it is, to a particular style, you don't know.
Speaker: And you can try it if you want to.
Speaker: but I found that there were certain things that I had to stop doing because they just did not bring me joy.
Speaker: Um, and the writing suffered.
Speaker: I felt that the writing suffered because I was writing to a formula.
Speaker: Um, please don't get me wrong in this anybody, because I don't mean that writing to a formula isn't something you should do.
Speaker: We in genre fiction, tropes exist for a reason.
Speaker: There are things that readers expect.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And we, as genre writers, they're the things that they're looking for.
Speaker: So that is what we're doing.
Speaker: What I mean is that these pieces of work were written to be in a particular way, and I wasn't finding it fulfilling at all.
Speaker: In fact, it made me extremely miserable.
Speaker: And in the end, I had to stop doing it, which meant I actually took a break from writing altogether for a little while because it made me so miserable.
Speaker: So what I would say is write, definitely follow your instincts in terms of finding that thing that you love writing.
Speaker: And it could well be the thing that you love reading.
Speaker: It may not be, but more often than not, it probably is the thing either you love reading or the thing you enjoy watching on television, or it's in your life in some way, in a big way.
Speaker: And don't let anybody persuade you of anything else because you know what your instincts are.
Speaker: about what you enjoy and what you want to do with your work.
Speaker: It applies to what you want to do with your work as well because people will say, you know, you should send it to this publisher or you should publish it yourself or what do you want to publish it at all for?
Speaker: Go find a proper job.
Speaker: All these things that people say to you.
Speaker: Do what feels right for you.
Speaker: And if I'd done that a long time ago, I probably would have felt a lot better about myself as a writer over the last...
Speaker: best part of 20 years.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that is true.
Speaker: And I think for me, it's very similar.
Speaker: It's just, you know, one of them is just be yourself, being true to yourself as an author or sort of what you want to do.
Speaker: I think that is the best advice I've gotten.
Speaker: And the other thing, a really big thing that stood out to me and that I struggled to sort of hold on to for the longest time was just that it's okay if you're not where you think you're supposed to be yet, because it will come.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because the word yet is important.
Speaker: Completely.
Speaker: And it's okay to change your mind.
Speaker: If something doesn't work for you, it's okay to change your mind.
Speaker: No one says that if you've decided you're going to write, I don't know, horror suspense, that is what you've got to do for the rest of your life.
Speaker: You can write police procedurals or Westerns.
Speaker: But yeah, but you can, if that's what you want to do, you can change your mind and you can alter the trajectory of not only the craft, but
Speaker: and the kinds of stories you write, but your author career, you can choose to stop if that is what you want to do.
Speaker: It's entirely your choice.
Speaker: You're the writer, you choose.
Speaker: Yeah, and it's all good advice.
Speaker: And I think, yeah, if you're doing what you want to do, like it's no one else's business, whether you stop or not, like it's up to what you want to do.
Speaker: And if it's not working, it's not working.
Speaker: If it is, it is like, you know, do whatever works for you.
Speaker: And I think that's where I don't want to say we'll get the best results, but at least you'll know that what you're doing is ultimately exactly what you wanted to do.
Speaker: And that will be good.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: You'll be authentic to yourself and you will be
Speaker: making yourself happy.
Speaker: And to me, that is the most important thing about writing, the joy of doing it.
Speaker: Because if you are not finding any joy in it,
Speaker: For me, certainly, I don't want to do it.
Speaker: And if I'm not finding any joy, I won't do it.
Speaker: It's as simple as that.
Speaker: So you'll always know if I'm not enjoying writing because I literally won't publish anything ever again.
Speaker: That's how you'll know some.
Speaker: Yeah, I doubt that will happen.
Speaker: But yeah, because I'm waiting.
Speaker: I'm waiting for a sequel.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: But yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker: It was really lovely having you back.
Speaker: Yeah, and here's to many more because we are not done.
Speaker: We are just taking a break.
Speaker: I think it is that time of year where everyone's just crashed and burned.
Speaker: I've definitely crashed and burned, so.
Speaker: Yeah, I've had a summer like it.
Speaker: I, as you know, I don't like the summer.
Speaker: I just, I just don't like the summer anywhere.
Speaker: I just wouldn't matter where I was.
Speaker: I struggle in the summer.
Speaker: So yeah, I've had a little bit of a break myself.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it's good.
Speaker: It is good.
Speaker: And yeah, so we'll have a break.
Speaker: We're going to be planning what's coming next.
Speaker: Obviously, we're not going to stop entirely, but we will stop for now, at least we'll stop recording or doing live episodes, but we will get there again.
Speaker: We'll pick up for season two.
Speaker: So yeah, so thank you so much to every single person who has joined us along this journey.
Speaker: It's been crazy.
Speaker: I can't believe that we're actually, yeah, we're actually wrapped for season one.
Speaker: It's insane, but I'm really, really grateful.
Speaker: Everyone's been amazing.
Speaker: And yeah, stay tuned for the next one.
Speaker: I will be updating as soon as we can.
Speaker: But yeah, as always, thank you, Claire.
Speaker: And yeah, you know where to find us.
Speaker: Thank you very, very much, Sam, for having me yet again.
Speaker: It's been brilliant, as I knew it would be.
