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14 Emma Grae | Contemporary Scottish Fiction Author
225 Plays4 years ago
Scottish fiction author, Emma Grae tells us all about her book 'Be Guid Tae Yer Mammy', which is written in Scots. She tells us all about her experience crowdfunding the novel with Unbound and her commissioned work with the Scots Language Centre.
Signing up to the Patreon will give you access to the Discord server, where you'll be able to interact directly with Jamie as well as many of the previous agents, authors and editors who have been on the show. You'll also be able to see who the upcoming guests are and put forward questions for Jamie to ask them.
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The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes
Jamie, Melissa and Noami talk about the best and the worst writing tropes!
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Right and Wrong' Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
So our podcast is called Right and Wrong.
00:00:02
Speaker
Are these your notes?
00:00:03
Speaker
These are your notes about what we're going to say.
00:00:06
Speaker
What does it say?
00:00:06
Speaker
I thought it would be a good... I didn't even get the idea.
00:00:12
Speaker
Maybe I can just ask you the question.
00:00:16
Speaker
It's going well.
00:00:16
Speaker
It's going really well.
Meet Emma Gray: Scots Poet and Novelist
00:00:22
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Right and Wrong podcast.
00:00:24
Speaker
I'm Emma.
00:00:25
Speaker
And I'm Jamie.
00:00:25
Speaker
And today we're speaking to Emma Gray, who is a Scots poet and first time novelist of Be Good to Your Mammy, which is out soon.
00:00:34
Speaker
Hi, Emma.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello.
00:00:36
Speaker
Another Emma.
00:00:36
Speaker
Surrounded by Emmas today.
00:00:38
Speaker
It's great to have you on.
00:00:39
Speaker
We're really excited to talk about your journey with this book.
00:00:43
Speaker
You're actually the first guest we've had on who's going through Unbound and
00:00:48
Speaker
Oh, awesome.
00:00:49
Speaker
Yeah, crowdfunding publisher.
00:00:51
Speaker
So I'm excited to talk about that.
00:00:53
Speaker
But before we do, let's talk a little bit about the book itself.
00:00:57
Speaker
Be Good to Your Mummy, which I hope I'm saying correctly.
00:00:59
Speaker
You are.
00:01:01
Speaker
Just because the voice in this book is so striking.
00:01:04
Speaker
And we'd love to hear a little bit about that choice of vernacular and its meaning for you.
00:01:09
Speaker
Yeah.
Exploring Scots Language and Cultural Inspiration
00:01:10
Speaker
So it's in Scots language.
00:01:12
Speaker
That's basically how Scots language works.
00:01:14
Speaker
So good, that's the spelling of good.
00:01:16
Speaker
They're all legitimate words in Scots.
00:01:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:20
Speaker
So basically, I worked in a care home when I was 17 until I was 19, which was a really unique experience to have when you're at uni and everyone else is, you know, going out to parties and stuff.
00:01:31
Speaker
And I was just in a care home every weekend.
00:01:33
Speaker
But it was the best place I could have been from a writing point of view, because I was surrounded by all these older Scottish voices who would come away with lots of brilliant turns of phrase.
00:01:43
Speaker
And then
00:01:44
Speaker
I first wrote about it just after I left working in a care home, working there in 2013.
00:01:49
Speaker
And then I would occasionally go back to it time and time again.
00:01:53
Speaker
And then in 2015, I sort of had this idea of this old woman's voice, which was sort of related to an old woman that I knew very well, who was a family member.
00:02:02
Speaker
And then it was like all the old people combined into one, this sort of fictional old Scottish granny.
00:02:09
Speaker
And I started working one night with my parents talking in this voice.
00:02:12
Speaker
And then I moved to Dublin in 2015.
00:02:14
Speaker
And I told someone who was also an author in a pub that I had this voice.
00:02:19
Speaker
And he's like, you should just write that as a novel.
00:02:21
Speaker
That's a novel.
00:02:22
Speaker
There's no two ways about it.
00:02:24
Speaker
And it basically went from there.
00:02:26
Speaker
And I was very inspired by another novel set in a care home called House Mother Normal.
00:02:31
Speaker
And it's written in various different voices of residents in the care home.
00:02:35
Speaker
So although my book, it's only a very small part of it is set in a care home, that would give you the wrong impression.
00:02:40
Speaker
It's set in modern day Glasgow and it's about a family.
00:02:43
Speaker
So it switches location quite a bit, but all within the same town.
Writing Journey and Unbound Publishing Experience
00:02:48
Speaker
But yeah, I got the idea of writing in different voices.
00:02:50
Speaker
So you've got your grandmother's voice, you've got her daughter's voice, and then you've got the two granddaughters' voices.
00:02:55
Speaker
So it's across three generations.
00:02:57
Speaker
And I think that can be really good.
00:02:59
Speaker
insight into how people talk in scotland these days oh that's really interesting that is really cool i bet like being in a care home like you said was such an interesting experience to listen to other people's stories as well i guess and sort of not only listen to obviously the vineyard the scottish vineyard as well but you know different point of views and their stories did that inspire you in any way
00:03:23
Speaker
Oh, 100%.
00:03:24
Speaker
Like there was, there was so many sad stories, but so many ones that stood out.
00:03:29
Speaker
Like one woman told me that she went for a pee during the Blitz.
00:03:32
Speaker
And that was like the only reason she survived.
00:03:35
Speaker
And I'm like, she was in was because it was Clyde bank and Clyde bank.
00:03:40
Speaker
I think it was 98% of the town got destroyed.
00:03:42
Speaker
And then she was the librarian.
00:03:45
Speaker
And yeah, she was telling me about it.
00:03:47
Speaker
Things like that, that you just wouldn't have,
00:03:50
Speaker
you know, believed.
00:03:51
Speaker
And then we had one guy who was a paratrooper during World War II.
00:03:55
Speaker
And he actually showed me his arm one morning and it was, it was still messed up from World War II.
00:04:00
Speaker
I was like, what?
00:04:01
Speaker
And it was like, it was such a brief moment.
00:04:04
Speaker
It was maybe like a minute long, but I've never forgotten him showing me his arm and telling me to feel it.
00:04:09
Speaker
And I'm like, he would have been 98 or something like that at the time.
00:04:15
Speaker
So yeah, it was crazy.
00:04:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great experience to have as like a young girl as well, I guess, like looking on life from that perspective and hearing those stories.
00:04:29
Speaker
I know Jamie said at the start of the interview, you're obviously publishing through Unbound, which is quite a new way to get into the, like obviously getting your book out there and getting it published.
00:04:41
Speaker
So can you tell us about how, or a little bit about how you went around doing that and going into that route?
00:04:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:47
Speaker
Yeah, of course.
00:04:48
Speaker
So basically, Unbound was on my radar from when it was actually established in 2011, because after I left high school, I joined a writing website called Jotify.
00:04:59
Speaker
And Unbound, when they were just starting out, were looking on the website for a book to publish as one of the first titles.
00:05:06
Speaker
And they found a book called Conversations with Spirits by a guy called Edward Higgins.
00:05:10
Speaker
And that went on to be a bestseller.
00:05:12
Speaker
But I remember thinking, oh, I'd love to do that.
00:05:14
Speaker
But my writing just wasn't at the
00:05:16
Speaker
right level.
00:05:16
Speaker
I didn't have the story.
00:05:17
Speaker
I was only 17 at the time, but I always remembered Unbound.
00:05:21
Speaker
And then when I was, I knew another guy through that website.
00:05:25
Speaker
There was, I think there's been about three or four people who were there at that point and have actually gone on to get published by Unbound.
00:05:31
Speaker
And then through that, I'd sort of seen the process happen more than once.
00:05:34
Speaker
So I knew what was involved in crowdfunding a novel, but obviously the reality of it is something different.
00:05:40
Speaker
But basically I finished the manuscript for Be Good to Your Mammy in
00:05:45
Speaker
March 2018 and I spent the summer kind of tweaking with it a little bit it did need more editing and then just on a complete whim sent it to Unbound in the October and I really didn't think that it would get taken because I was unagented and it was just a complete
00:06:01
Speaker
like shot in the dark but I was familiar with their process and I had published a fair bit in literary journals beforehand which obviously helps and was a working journalist so again had obviously with Unbound part of it is like your platform that is they can't take on a writer who has no platform or else the book is just never gonna ever fund
00:06:23
Speaker
Yeah, no, that makes sense.
00:06:24
Speaker
I mean, how does the editing process work with Unbound?
00:06:31
Speaker
Did people help you edit your novel or were you just editing?
00:06:36
Speaker
What was that process like?
00:06:37
Speaker
just the same as in any other standard publisher.
00:06:39
Speaker
It's completely the same when she funds.
00:06:41
Speaker
So basically there was a structural editor.
00:06:45
Speaker
She was amazing.
00:06:46
Speaker
So she just sort of went through checking that there was no plot holes.
00:06:49
Speaker
She suggested rejigging things slightly.
00:06:52
Speaker
And at that point, the book wasn't written properly.
00:06:55
Speaker
entirely in Scots but we did change it so that two sorry three quarters of the book are now in Scots but that wasn't the case originally it was just the main granny's voice that was but we changed that and then just the standard copy edit and proofread really but because of the pandemic obviously things took a bit longer than they would have like it's been a slow process
00:07:17
Speaker
Yeah.
Pandemic Writing and Other Projects
00:07:18
Speaker
I mean, how have you found the pandemic in terms of writing and have you had, have you found it easy or is it, is it forced you to write more or do you think it's sort of, you know, being difficult to write during this time?
00:07:31
Speaker
I found it fine, but I have been fortunate in the sense that when I finished Mammy, I started writing little short stories just to keep people who'd supported the book interested because I knew it was going to be a while before the book was out, so I wanted to give back.
00:07:46
Speaker
So I did that, and then there's a place in London called Liars League, and they basically get submissions of short stories, and actors perform them at nights that are usually in the Phoenix at Cavendish Square, but that's obviously...
00:07:58
Speaker
Oh, that's not been a thing.
00:08:00
Speaker
So I wrote two pieces for them.
00:08:02
Speaker
I've had I had a piece in an anthology by Guts Publishing, and that all kind of helped me get going.
00:08:07
Speaker
But I also started working with the Scots Language Centre off the back of the book.
00:08:12
Speaker
And basically, Scottish Wikipedia was not written by Scottish people.
00:08:17
Speaker
So they've the Scottish government has given funding to Scots writers to fix it, basically.
00:08:24
Speaker
I mean, that is so crazy.
00:08:31
Speaker
That is so mad.
00:08:32
Speaker
It doesn't make any sense, does it?
00:08:34
Speaker
But at least it's getting rectified now.
00:08:36
Speaker
That's a good thing.
00:08:37
Speaker
Yeah, so I've been busy with that.
00:08:39
Speaker
And as part of that, I get to do a creative project.
00:08:42
Speaker
So I'm working on a novella right now in Scots, which will be published through the Scots Language Centre.
00:08:47
Speaker
Oh, that's great.
00:08:48
Speaker
It'll be done before Manny, just because of how quickly I had to get it out.
00:08:52
Speaker
And I have got a second novel that I've been sort of working on in the background since I finished this one.
00:08:58
Speaker
Wow, that's great.
00:09:00
Speaker
And is there anything from Unbound in terms of now that they are publishing one of your books, do they do like multiple book deals or do they just sort of give you more attention the second time around?
00:09:11
Speaker
There is a second book clause, so they do get first dibs on the second book.
00:09:15
Speaker
Oh, right.
00:09:16
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:17
Speaker
I think it's very much like the offers do, because it is so reliant on do you think you can fund again?
00:09:22
Speaker
Because there are offers who've published.
00:09:24
Speaker
There's a guy called Stephen, I can't pronounce his second name, Stephen Colgan.
00:09:28
Speaker
He's published about seven books with Unbound.
00:09:31
Speaker
He funded all of them.
00:09:33
Speaker
But he said it got harder and harder each time.
00:09:36
Speaker
But my platform now is a lot bigger than what it was when I started with Unbound.
00:09:40
Speaker
And basically towards the end, I sold...
00:09:44
Speaker
Basically, the last week where you could add your name to the supporter list, I got like another like 40 supporters or something.
00:09:50
Speaker
There was quite like a surge of support at the end, which I never got that much while I was actually funding it.
00:09:56
Speaker
It was much more.
00:09:57
Speaker
It took me eight months to fund it.
00:10:00
Speaker
And it was I knew I would get there, but it was a slow it was a slow process.
00:10:05
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:10:06
Speaker
What is the sort of day-to-day processes that you went through in terms of once Unbound has said, yes, we've signed your book and they work with you and the editing like that.
00:10:17
Speaker
What is then your role in the day-to-day pushing out your platform to get that funded?
00:10:24
Speaker
What did you do?
00:10:25
Speaker
Basically, none of the real happens until the book is funded.
00:10:29
Speaker
Nothing happens.
00:10:32
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:10:33
Speaker
None of that process happens because obviously the money that you crowdfund is what's used to pay the editor, the copy editor, the cover design.
00:10:40
Speaker
It's basically a risk-free process for the publisher, which is why they can take, for example, a book written in Scots, which is niche.
00:10:48
Speaker
So because of that, you can sort of take a chance on more niche fiction without the guarantee that it's going to sell hundreds of thousands of copies that the big five would be looking for.
00:10:57
Speaker
So yeah,
00:10:59
Speaker
How did you initially go about marketing your initial book just so that you could get that crowdfunding?
Promotional Strategies and Decision-Making
00:11:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:09
Speaker
I mean, I recorded a video to promote the book.
00:11:12
Speaker
And what I did was I did some readings around London of the book when that was still a thing in 2019.
00:11:19
Speaker
And I tried to come up with like incentives.
00:11:22
Speaker
I plugged it a lot on Twitter.
00:11:23
Speaker
Like it got, I got a lot of retweets, like Neil Gaiman gave it a plug, which was really great.
00:11:29
Speaker
So like, it was really about like, you know, kind of
00:11:33
Speaker
going on your tail between your legs and asking people to support it if they had a bigger platform than you.
00:11:37
Speaker
And through that, it's really good in the sense that I know who the first readers of the book are going to be because I found them myself, really.
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, that's so true.
00:11:47
Speaker
So there's a real connection there.
00:11:48
Speaker
Yeah, so that was really nice.
00:11:50
Speaker
But it was hard.
00:11:51
Speaker
Like it's definitely, there's a lot of books that don't fund because like the offer might have some sort of a platform, but they can't actually translate it into sales.
00:12:01
Speaker
is that it's not, if you've just written a book and you've never tried social media, you don't have a Facebook page, you don't have a Twitter account or anything like that, it's not for you.
00:12:11
Speaker
It's not going to, you just wouldn't want it.
00:12:13
Speaker
Now that you've done it once, would you be more confident about doing it a second time?
00:12:18
Speaker
I don't know.
00:12:19
Speaker
I really don't know.
00:12:20
Speaker
Like I think,
00:12:22
Speaker
It was such a slog.
00:12:23
Speaker
And I do feel my book was supposed to be published by now.
00:12:26
Speaker
It was supposed to be published in January, but it got delayed because of the pandemic.
00:12:32
Speaker
People have been waiting like a year and a half for the book after buying it, which I feel bad about because it's nobody's fault.
00:12:38
Speaker
But it's like, oh, that's a really long time to wait for a book.
00:12:42
Speaker
But they've come on the journey with me, I suppose.
00:12:45
Speaker
And I have been putting out content to the supporters the whole way through.
00:12:51
Speaker
But I'm also aware that it's a really long time to wait.
00:12:53
Speaker
So I'm like, I don't know if I would do it again.
00:12:57
Speaker
That's the honest truth.
00:12:58
Speaker
It really depends.
00:12:59
Speaker
But Unbound have been really, really good.
00:13:01
Speaker
And I do like the freedom.
00:13:03
Speaker
No one ever told... All the decisions that got made were my decisions at the end of the day.
00:13:08
Speaker
No one ever forced me to change anything that I didn't want to change.
00:13:13
Speaker
Did you have complete control over your page on Unbound as well?
00:13:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:18
Speaker
So you get to choose the different tiers?
00:13:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:22
Speaker
And then the rewards that come with those?
00:13:25
Speaker
But you can't set the base price of the book that's like set already.
00:13:29
Speaker
So there is a couple of options.
00:13:32
Speaker
I think that for e-books changed while I was crowdfunding.
00:13:35
Speaker
But yeah, the tiers are set by Unbound, the lower ones, and then the higher ones, it's up to you to set them.
00:13:41
Speaker
The amount of money that they ask you to raise has varied quite a bit over the years.
00:13:46
Speaker
The amount I have to raise is not the amount that other people have had to raise.
00:13:50
Speaker
It does vary per book and stuff like that.
00:13:53
Speaker
Because I know that's kind of like the million dollar question, like how much money was it?
00:13:55
Speaker
It was five and a half grand.
00:13:58
Speaker
Okay, right.
00:13:59
Speaker
Yeah, but that's like, apparently that's never going to be the case again, like because they're basically scrapping their digital list.
00:14:05
Speaker
So it will be over 10 grand from now on.
Transition from Journalism to Novel Writing
00:14:08
Speaker
Ah, okay.
00:14:09
Speaker
All right.
00:14:10
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:10
Speaker
That's good to know.
00:14:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:11
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:12
Speaker
And I see that you, uh, your highest one is called Horcrux level and you're offering, uh, and in your words, a significant enough piece of my soul to make a Horcrux of your choosing.
00:14:25
Speaker
Great.
00:14:27
Speaker
That's amazing.
00:14:29
Speaker
And apparently you have one pledge.
00:14:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:31
Speaker
I really love the biotic book press.
00:14:33
Speaker
And then I was like,
00:14:35
Speaker
Oh shit, how do I actually do that?
00:14:37
Speaker
I've got a little idea, which is cute, so I'm going to do that.
00:14:43
Speaker
Because I was like, I did not think that through, but it was funny.
00:14:45
Speaker
I'm sure you'll see the funny side.
00:14:48
Speaker
Definitely.
00:14:50
Speaker
And you've worked a lot, Emma, in journalism as well, in roles for many outlets.
00:14:55
Speaker
So...
00:14:57
Speaker
How did you get into obviously writing?
00:15:00
Speaker
How was the transition, sorry, from going from journalism into writing a novel?
00:15:04
Speaker
Was that quite seamless?
00:15:07
Speaker
I was writing a novel before I was a journalist.
00:15:11
Speaker
Ah.
00:15:11
Speaker
So then what was it like going from writing a novel going into journalism?
00:15:15
Speaker
it was kind of so I got a job as a sort of creative writer not quite as a journalist so I was writing long work content for a media company and then within about six months the role started to switch towards journalism and then I realised like I had to go and get my journalism papers like get my shorthand and all that which I've done now but
00:15:37
Speaker
Yeah, it was, it's good in the sense that it keeps you on your toes.
00:15:42
Speaker
Like you're very used to writing well and you're used to writing and editing your own work because journalism is obviously so fast paced.
00:15:49
Speaker
And a lot of the nonfiction writing that I've done, it's not a world away from fiction.
00:15:53
Speaker
It's just, you know, if you're writing personal essays or whatever, they're the truth.
00:15:57
Speaker
And like I said, if you're doing the news, it does keep you on your toes with your ability to produce content quickly.
00:16:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's such a quick turnover within journalism as well, isn't it?
00:16:07
Speaker
It's a very different world, but similar in a way.
00:16:09
Speaker
But that's such a good point in terms of, you know, you being able to write copy quite quickly now.
00:16:15
Speaker
And when you are writing in terms of your style, do you find that you'll just sit and sort of, you know, hammer at the words for hours on end?
00:16:25
Speaker
Or do you find it's better to take breaks and come back to it?
00:16:29
Speaker
What would your advice be on that?
00:16:31
Speaker
Well, pre-pandemic, I used to sit in coffee shops for three hours.
00:16:35
Speaker
I could really sit there for a while.
00:16:38
Speaker
That's not been the case so much because I find it harder to concentrate at home.
00:16:42
Speaker
I've had more success doing 20 minutes, but doing it consistently every night.
00:16:48
Speaker
And in that 20 minutes, I'm sort of averaging about 500 words.
00:16:52
Speaker
But over the course of a week, that does actually, you know, add up to quite a lot of writing.
00:16:56
Speaker
So, yeah, I am looking forward to things being normal, though, because I prefer the way I did it before.
00:17:02
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:17:02
Speaker
I think we're all with you on that one.
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
00:17:05
Speaker
Are you part as well, Emma, of any writing groups or societies?
00:17:11
Speaker
I'm not, no.
00:17:14
Speaker
Oh, so this whole journey has been you solo?
00:17:16
Speaker
It's been very solo, yeah.
00:17:18
Speaker
Right.
00:17:18
Speaker
No critique partners or anything like that?
00:17:20
Speaker
Well, I did a master's in creative writing at Trinity College at the Oscar Wilde Centre.
00:17:25
Speaker
So that's where I started writing the book in 2015.
00:17:28
Speaker
But it was a very different book back then.
00:17:31
Speaker
And we were very much...
00:17:33
Speaker
although it was written as a novel, we had to sort of, we had a limit on how much we could submit for our portfolio and it was a research masters.
00:17:41
Speaker
So part of it was, you know, write a research like project into publishing.
00:17:45
Speaker
And I actually chose Unbound before I was published by them as my sort of project.
00:17:50
Speaker
So I interviewed lots of Unbound offers because I already knew them and got in touch with a couple of others.
00:17:56
Speaker
So again, I was very familiar with how the process worked.
00:18:01
Speaker
before I went into it but I think the reality of it like John Mitchinson the guy that owns the company he said my campaign looked really really seamless from start to finish and I think the reason it looked like that from the outside was just because I'd seen so many people do it and what was expected of me and I was aware
00:18:21
Speaker
roughly how long it was going to take.
00:18:24
Speaker
I think.
00:18:24
Speaker
So you'd kind of, you kind of decided to do Unbound almost from the get go.
00:18:29
Speaker
Did you look into traditional publishing and submitting to agents and things?
00:18:33
Speaker
I never did it.
00:18:34
Speaker
No.
00:18:36
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:18:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:37
Speaker
I never, I mean, I think I would have, like it wasn't, it was just Unbound was always there on my radar.
00:18:41
Speaker
And fortunately they took it first time.
00:18:44
Speaker
And I know it's a really unusual situation to be in,
00:18:48
Speaker
like a dry skin agent is an on fiction offer i've only applied once and i never got one because she said she had someone similar on her list and i did submit a non-fiction book that got to acquisitions which again was really good but i just um i feel like fiction's where i want to be right now and i'm quite happy to stick with the scots language maybe that's something i'll do in the future but right now
00:19:09
Speaker
I'm going to stick with Scots and stick with building my platform in Scots and see what opportunities come as a result of that.
00:19:16
Speaker
Because like I said, like the novella that I'm writing right now, it's going to be published by the Scots Language Centre.
Commitment to Scots and Authorial Advice
00:19:21
Speaker
And I wouldn't have really considered that as like an option.
00:19:24
Speaker
And like I was commissioned to write it, like I got paid to write it.
00:19:28
Speaker
And these are all things that came through Unbound.
00:19:30
Speaker
So although I wasn't given an advance or anything like that at the beginning, I've certainly not lost any money as a result of doing it.
00:19:38
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:19:39
Speaker
It seems like it's giving you a really good advantage in terms of having, um, supporters as well, because like you said, it's, it's taking you through them through a journey of your writing as well.
00:19:50
Speaker
Um, and so hopefully those people obviously, because they've invested time and waiting for the book and, you know, they'll follow you throughout, you know, your career and especially writing, um, in the Scots language as well.
00:20:03
Speaker
Um, so that's,
00:20:05
Speaker
yeah that's really exciting are you I know you previously said you're are you working on something right now did you say you yeah I've got a novel that I've been working on since 2016 so it's actually taken me longer to like because Mammy was happening and then I crowdfunded it and I've got all these other things to do I'm hoping to get a first draft done this year so very keen to get back into coffee shops and sort of
00:20:27
Speaker
have my normality with that one but if I have to do it at home I have to do it at home it's not the end of the world but yeah it's called Kathy Get Your Dancing Shoes on and it's entirely in Scots but I actually am working with the same editor from Unbound I got in touch and asked her if she wanted to work with me on this one and we had like an hour long phone call so she's the only person who's really seen it and she liked it she was very glad that like I didn't scrap it because I do want to write a sequel to the first book but she very much thinks that this project's the right thing to do right now
00:20:58
Speaker
And I will go back to the main character of the first book at some point.
00:21:02
Speaker
I think.
00:21:04
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds really fun.
00:21:06
Speaker
And, you know, in terms of everyone having to adapt to what the world is like now, which hopefully, fingers crossed, will be out of soon enough, I think, you know, it has really helped in terms of, I guess, people's writing techniques, I guess, because you're having to find a new way, would you say, of things that you're not used to doing, I guess.
00:21:29
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:21:30
Speaker
It's been a key of...
00:21:33
Speaker
very consciously finding the time like before it was almost like oh I'll go to this place and I'll work and now it's like you have to work where you are you haven't got a choice you have to sit down and get it done wherever that happens to be um which is easier said than done I think I can I can see why people you know might feel pressured to do something worthwhile with this time when no one has to do anything but yeah it's definitely been an interesting one to adapt to it I think
00:22:04
Speaker
And you've had to, in terms of social media, you've had to have quite a presence on there, I'm guessing, because of obviously Unbound being crowdfunded.
00:22:17
Speaker
Do you think in general having a social media presence is important when thinking about publishing a book?
00:22:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's absolutely essential.
00:22:28
Speaker
I know someone who got an agent in 2017 and it
00:22:33
Speaker
when they got the agent, I was very much like, oh, it's going to be ages before it's my turn.
00:22:38
Speaker
And I'm actually, they've never had a book deal.
00:22:41
Speaker
And in my opinion, part of the reason for that is because they have no social media presence.
00:22:47
Speaker
And I know someone else who, again, you know, said to me, like, you know, maybe I would have taken a contract with Unbound when I told them that I'd been published.
00:22:55
Speaker
And I was like, trying to advise them and saying, look, you really need to start
00:23:00
Speaker
You know, as you're finishing your manuscript, start tweeting about it, start following publishers, start following other writers that you like, because you might be asking them for a cover quote down the line.
00:23:09
Speaker
And, you know, their response was very much, you know, if a publisher likes it, they'll do all the work for me.
00:23:14
Speaker
And that is really not how publishing works anymore.
00:23:17
Speaker
It's definitely the onus is on the offer.
00:23:20
Speaker
to at least look off the ground from what I've seen and I've spoken to people who've published with like HarperCollins and stuff and again it's like unless you're like already a famous whatever it's really on you especially with fiction because it is harder to you know as a first-time offer to find readers that are going to want to pick up your book definitely that's that's that's really true
00:23:45
Speaker
And going from new readers onto new authors, as our first guest who's been on Unbound and gone through that process, would you recommend Unbound as an avenue to new authors?
00:24:02
Speaker
I would definitely recommend it, but I would cautiously recommend it.
00:24:05
Speaker
And I would look at your circumstance and think, is this something that you can do?
00:24:09
Speaker
Because fundamentally, you're going to have to ask people for money.
00:24:12
Speaker
Is that something you're confident enough to do?
00:24:15
Speaker
Are you confident enough to tweet about your book every single day?
00:24:18
Speaker
And, you know, people may ignore it.
00:24:20
Speaker
And, you know, you might get people who say, well, you know, if your book was good enough to get published, the publisher would pay all the costs without realising that,
00:24:29
Speaker
you know there's a huge loss to a publisher and you know once you factor in the cost of producing a book you have to sell a lot of books for a book to justify its existence with unbound the book's already justified its existence so there's no there's no loss on the publisher's part whereas if you go that's a really nice way of looking at it i actually not thought about it that way yeah definitely yeah
00:24:52
Speaker
Whereas if you go for traditional publisher and they give you a big advance of like, you know, five figure, even yeah, five figure advance and your book doesn't sell.
00:25:02
Speaker
They've wasted all that money on you.
00:25:04
Speaker
You're basically like, as I was told, you're basically kind of blacklisted because they've wasted their money on you.
00:25:09
Speaker
Who wants to publish an offer?
00:25:11
Speaker
You've got a big advance and their book never sold.
00:25:13
Speaker
Whereas with Unbound, if your book doesn't sell, nothing's really lost.
00:25:18
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot more pressure on having it the opposite way.
00:25:22
Speaker
That's a very good light that you've shone on that, definitely.
00:25:25
Speaker
So I would definitely say look at your social media.
00:25:28
Speaker
If you've not got, so even if you're planning on going with a traditional publisher, an agent's going to ask you how many followers you've got.
00:25:35
Speaker
Like I know agents and I was told that, you know, they aim for about the 10,000 mark on at least one social media.
00:25:42
Speaker
I don't even have 10,000 followers, but apparently that's the sort of number that they're looking for.
00:25:47
Speaker
And then, you know, without a social media following, especially with fiction, it's like, who's going to buy this book?
00:25:53
Speaker
If no one knows who you are, do you have any contacts who would be willing to help you out?
00:25:58
Speaker
Who'd be willing to tweet your book?
00:26:00
Speaker
So it's definitely like start immediately when it comes to that.
00:26:03
Speaker
Like I don't have a website and personally don't think it's that necessary until you're, maybe you've got a book out.
00:26:09
Speaker
So I'm planning on doing one now, but definitely publishing as many literary journals as you can.
00:26:14
Speaker
even publishing essays, like say you're writing a book and it's, you know, to do with mental health, like write essays for different publications and, um,
00:26:23
Speaker
get your name out there and the more writing you've got out there the much better chance you'll have whether it's with unbound or a more traditional route.
00:26:30
Speaker
That's excellent advice.
00:26:31
Speaker
It really is really good advice.
00:26:33
Speaker
We were actually going to move on to what three pieces of advice would you give to would-be writers so I guess you've answered a couple of them but if you have you know any more pieces of advice or golden nuggets that you would give please yeah do share.
00:26:48
Speaker
I think the main one is to like, don't try and be anybody else but yourself.
00:26:53
Speaker
I think when it comes to writing, there's definitely, especially these days, there's definitely a tendency to think, oh, these types of books are selling right now.
00:27:01
Speaker
So I'm going to make my book tick all these boxes.
00:27:04
Speaker
And it's like, by the time your book's ready, it's probably going to be something else that's in right now.
00:27:09
Speaker
Just write the book you want to write and it'll, it'll either do something or it won't, but at least you'll have written the story that you wanted to write and you'll have,
00:27:18
Speaker
you know, put that thing into the world, regardless of whether or not anyone sees it.
00:27:22
Speaker
Like with my book, I wanted to write this story, regardless of whether or not anybody saw it.
00:27:28
Speaker
It was definite, it was very cathartic for me to write.
00:27:31
Speaker
There was a lot of, it deals a lot with invisible illnesses.
00:27:34
Speaker
It deals a lot with OCD.
00:27:35
Speaker
It goes into different sort of things.
00:27:36
Speaker
And I wanted to write that story for me, not for anyone else.
00:27:40
Speaker
It's just been a bonus to sort of
00:27:43
Speaker
I like the fact that by publishing, I've been able to draw a line under it.
00:27:46
Speaker
And it's not just this file on my computer that I could, you know, endlessly tweak.
00:27:50
Speaker
Like it's nice to sort of have a handover date and have a date to let it go.
00:27:55
Speaker
I like that.
00:27:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:57
Speaker
That's a great piece of advice.
00:27:58
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:27:59
Speaker
And I think we have our final question now.
00:28:01
Speaker
So Jamie, would you like to answer?
00:28:04
Speaker
I would love to.
00:28:05
Speaker
Ask answer?
00:28:06
Speaker
No, don't answer it.
00:28:07
Speaker
That's for Emma to answer.
00:28:08
Speaker
I can't answer this.
00:28:09
Speaker
Only Emma has the answer.
00:28:10
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:28:11
Speaker
Yeah.
Desert Island Book: '1984'
00:28:12
Speaker
And Emma, the final question we have for you is, if you were stranded on a desert island with only a single book, which book would you take?
00:28:22
Speaker
1984.
00:28:22
Speaker
Oh, straight away.
00:28:24
Speaker
No hesitation.
00:28:25
Speaker
Nice.
00:28:26
Speaker
That was the quickest answer we've ever had for this.
00:28:29
Speaker
I love that.
00:28:30
Speaker
The confidence was there.
00:28:32
Speaker
I love it.
00:28:33
Speaker
I remember the first time I read it and I was only about 15 and I was like, this is just great.
00:28:38
Speaker
It's still simply written as well.
00:28:41
Speaker
it is and it feels like it gets more true and relevant as time goes by yeah like I love it maybe there was a day when I would have maybe said like Gatsby or something like that but that's definitely the one book that's really really stuck with me and don't get me wrong there's some great books there's even unbound books I would like totally recommend there's a book called Pure um about OCD which is really really worth a read um
00:29:05
Speaker
I'm reading one right now by a lady called Erica Bust called This Party's Dead about her travelling to all the world's death festivals.
00:29:11
Speaker
And I know that even like a little bit in that it's one that's going to really resonate with me, I think.
00:29:16
Speaker
Oh, great.
00:29:18
Speaker
Oh, thank you so much, Emma.
00:29:19
Speaker
Thank you for your time.
00:29:20
Speaker
And thank you for having us.
00:29:23
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:29:24
Speaker
We've, we've loved speaking to you and, um, it's been great to hear about your journey and we wish you literally all the best of luck with everything that happens with your, um, good to your mammy.
00:29:35
Speaker
And I can't wait to read it.
00:29:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:37
Speaker
Thank you so much for your time and take care.
00:29:39
Speaker
I hope the rest of lockdown isn't too bad to you.
00:29:41
Speaker
Oh, thank you.
00:29:42
Speaker
Hopefully it isn't long.
00:29:45
Speaker
And I hope extracting part of your soul isn't too painful.
00:29:55
Speaker
To keep up with everything that Emma is doing, you can follow her on Twitter at Emma Gray Author or on Instagram at Emma Paints Things.
00:30:02
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss an episode of this podcast, follow us on Twitter at Right and Wrong UK or on Instagram at Right and Wrong Podcast.
00:30:08
Speaker
Thanks so much for listening and we'll catch you in the next episode.