Week Forty-Seven: Experimenting with Unusual Story Ideas

Sometimes you get an idea for a story set-up that doesn't fit what's selling out there, or you know most publishers would pull a face if presented with the idea. Yet you can't get it out of your head.

Amazon UK

That's what happened to me when I came up with my idea for the Stella Penhaligon mysteries.

Stella Penhaligon is an astrologer who helps the police with their enquiries.

As someone with a background in astrology, this was a fun idea for me. I could use all my knowledge and skill with astrology (basically my hobby for the past few decades!) and merge it with my knowledge and skill as a novelist (my job, in other words). 

The merger was a dream come true for me.

The only fly in the ointment was that my idea didn't fit with the kind of books I'd already been writing under my Jane Holland - very straight, hard-edged contemporary psychological thrillers. And I suspected that most publishers would have a hard time with an astrologer as a main character helping the police.

To add to this, I'd never before written a story with a police officer as a main character!

Yet I knew I wanted two main characters in this series - Stella, the astrologer, and DS Jack Church, the local officer with whom she has most contact.

Finally, I was aware of a need to make money as a novelist, which means not wasting time on books that might never get published. But also that self-published books provide a small amount of money to keep me ticking over from month to month, while book contracts can take anything up to six months to produce any income from the point of acceptance by a publisher, sometimes longer.

I approached my agent and we discussed this. I suggested that I self-publish a short series of novellas about these characters, and see how readers took to them. Thankfully, she agreed. (Coz she's amazing!!)

And so I sat down and wrote the first novella. It's called UNDER AN EVIL STAR. (See below for US link.)

The series is set in Cornwall, where I live, which feels like a suitably spooky, gothic region for a crime novella involving astrology.

A severed head is found by the police. Stella's father, a local vicar, is missing. She casts a chart to find him and falls under suspicion when the severed head turns out to be his ... But who would kill a vicar and why?

I put the novella on pre-order, and had a few sales come in at once. Not so shabby! So I made a space in my writing schedule and wrote a second and third novella, THE TENTH HOUSE MURDERS and THE PART OF DEATH. I then put all three on sale at Amazon.

All are now out on sale. Early days yet, but after a sluggish start, I changed the covers and sales have become more promising. I will need to leave it a while to get an overall sales picture, but if it seems worth doing, I may write a full-length Stella Penhaligon mystery in the next year or so, and see if any publishers would like to acquire it for a series.

Sometimes, you need to take a punt on an unusual idea, and hope it works out. Some ideas flop. Others need some massaging to succeed. What you need for them as a writer is CONFIDENCE and TIME. Be bold and write it, regardless of your fears that it won't succeed. Stay true to your vision and see it through to the end, never abandon the project partway through.

You can't tell if an idea is 'bad' until you've finished it, and that's a simple truth most newer writers don't get. Most writers have a tendency to panic, jump off too soon, and start afresh with a different idea. A "better" idea, or so they tell themselves. But they are likely to get scared again with this new idea and repeat the cycle.

Until you've gone the distance with a story and reached the end, you can't be sure if it was working or not. Because you can't see the pattern clearly when you're too close to the loom. Keep weaving, steadily and confidently, and not listening to internal or external voices, and when it's done, step back for a better look.

Only time will tell whether it was worth my while making these three novellas. Meanwhile, new readers are finding them every day. Will you be one?

UNDER AN EVIL STAR: AMAZON UK

UNDER AN EVIL STAR: AMAZON US

Week Forty-Four: THE HIVE: when books get rejected

As part of an eleven-book contract with my publisher, I have written a new dark thriller.

It's called THE HIVE.

The Hive on Amazon UK: 99p

THE HIVE on Amazon US

THE HIVE on Amazon AU

THE HIVE on Amazon CA

If visiting that link though, you will see this book is self-published, not traditionally published.

On sending my finished thriller to my publishers a few months back, I noted it was rather darker than previous psychological thrillers I had written as Jane Holland, leaning toward horror in places, and suggested we might want to use another pen-name instead.

They didn't reply for two weeks. Then they wrote back, declining THE HIVE and terminating my contract with them, except for the final romance in a series due later this year.

Just like that!

I was devastated. I talked the situation over with my very supportive agent. I explained how much I'd been depending on that contract to keep me afloat financially. Everyone knows it can take anything up to a year from acceptance for a new publishing contract to be signed and the initial advance paid. Assuming there even is an advance in these digital-first days.

Only I don't have a year to pay my bills. They need to be paid every month, or things start to fall apart. A full-time writer's life is precarious like that. Which is why I first turned to self-publishing back in 2011 and still regularly publish short fiction online under an array of names. But I rely on my traditional contracts to add cash advances to that income.

So we both agreed that self-publishing this rejected book was the best way for me to keep solvent, while I work on a completely new book to be submitted to other publishers later this year. And I thank my agent profusely for being so understanding.

But that plan, of course, depends on THE HIVE actually selling more than a few copies. So I've decided to publish it as a Jane Holland thriller, as that is my best-selling name.

Worried about the future, with three dependent children still in school, I've now started several online shops as well as my self-publishing sidelines. More on that anon. Jobs are hard to come by in rural Cornwall, and in my fifties with no work experience to speak of, online hustles are probably my best bet. So I'm learning new skills in that area, and working hard to get by.

Curiously, this is not the first time a book of mine has been rejected by publishers (though not while under contract!) and then self-published. Last time, it was GIRL NUMBER ONE. I self-published that in 2015 after multiple rejections, and it reached #1 in the UK Kindle store within a few months of publication. It has since sold over 100,000 downloads.

If THE HIVE manages similar success, I'll be ecstatic. But times have changed since 2015. All I'm hoping for is that this book helps me stay afloat as a struggling writer. (Buy it here!)

I'm not well-off. I didn't marry a wealthy person. I rent my house, I drive an old banger, I have no capital or investments or savings. But I am a hard worker. I write several 'big' books a year, and also self-publish multiple novellas and short stories under other names to supplement that. I am constantly working on something new. Yet still I struggle to pay my bills.

The book market is saturated. Only top names seem to do well these days. Writers get the tiniest slice of the publishing pie, often only a few pennies per sale. Publishers do not support writers by growing them and investing in their careers, as was once the norm, but discard them at the first sign of low sales. Nobody is safe, not even established writers.

Readers who want to keep their favourite writers in the game need to help them compete in this dog-eat-dog marketplace, via word-of-mouth and retweets etc. Because what publishers want most is the next shiny new thing ... and while I may be shiny on occasion, I'm not new!

So it's PUBLICATION DAY! 👏💪😍👍

Please, if you like thrillers - or me! - help me get THE HIVE out to new readers. Especially in the US market, which is yet to discover me en masse.

Share, retweet, mention, read, discuss ... Amazon, social media, Goodreads. It all helps. And I've initially priced THE HIVE at 99p/99c to encourage impulse buys!

THANK YOU!!  

The Hive: a brand-new thriller for 2019 from Kindle #1 bestseller Jane Holland

Scarred by fire from infancy, with a persistent stammer, Charlotte has always been in the shadow of her glamorous theatrical parents. So it's a shock when her mother commits suicide.

Left to care for her sick father in the dark maze of her childhood home, Charlotte begins to unravel. First, there's the mysterious arrival of a box of dead bees. Then buzzing noises in the attic. People are watching her. Listening to her.

Everyone thinks she's losing her mind. But an old photo suggests another, more sinister possibility ...

Jane Holland's bestselling thrillers have sold more than 220,000 paid downloads across several continents, and she loves finding brave new readers! 

 The Hive on Amazon UK: 99p

Also

THE HIVE on Amazon US

THE HIVE on Amazon AU

THE HIVE on Amazon CA

Week Forty-One: When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Self-Publish

I have a new book out.

It's a thriller: ALL YOUR SECRETS.

Much like my other thrillers, this is a full-length psychological thriller, with a twisty page-turning plot and a strong local atmosphere.

But unlike my other thrillers, this novel is self-published.

Why?

ALL YOUR SECRETS (UK Amazon)

Apparently the setting wasn't what my publisher wanted. My other two thrillers were set in Cornwall. They wanted a thriller set in London. This new book is set in the gorgeous South of France, a place I have visited many times and with which I have a natural affinity.

Last summer, I submitted two synopses and a 25,000 word sample of my South of France thriller to my publisher. Following a miscommunication of some kind, I mistakenly thought my editor was excited by the sample I'd sent and was planning to acquire the book.

Some months passed while I knuckled down and finished the book before my contract arrived. (Which is something many full-time writers end up doing, working on a book before the contract arrives.) I loved every minute of it though; it was a delightfully tactile, sensual book to write, and deeply sinister too.

In December, a few thousand words shy of finishing ALL YOUR SECRETS, I asked again about the contract. It was only at this point that I discovered my publisher did not want the book.

However, I received a contract for the other synopsis. The book I had not written. With only 8 weeks in which to write it, apparently.

I did the only thing I could.

I wrote the new book. And I did it within the required 8 weeks. It's currently at copyedit stage and will be published in January 2018.

Bizarrely, this is not unusual in publishing. It's the kind of thing that happens to writers all the time. Talented writers. Hard-working writers. Established writers. Full-time writers with bills to pay and no other way to pay them but through their own skill with a keyboard.

Most established writers can tell publishing stories to make your toes curl. Trilogies that flop and are abandoned as a lost cause, leaving one or even two books unpublished. Novels that are commissioned in conversation - like my own bestselling thriller, GIRL NUMBER ONE - and then rejected later, leaving a writer stuck with a book written to a very specific brief that they now need to sell elsewhere. Not always easy.

In the same vein, I was once tipped the wink at an editor-author coffee meeting that my latest outline wouldn't be acquired unless I converted the setting to Faeryland, because 'we're desperate for those'. I wrote 50K of the blasted thing before the editor was made redundant. Needless to say, the remaining editors were politely baffled by the Faeryland setting, and my agent was less than impressed too. I never did finish that one. Though maybe one day ...

So two years after I was forced to self-publish GIRL NUMBER ONE (a book rejected by over a dozen publishers, mind you, which subsequently sold 50,000 copies in a few months as a self-published title, hitting #1 in the UK Kindle Chart), I found myself with yet another unwanted novel on my hands.

You'd think I'd have learned my lesson by now. But hope springs eternal!

This time, I was not contractually permitted to offer it to another publisher - not under the name Jane Holland, at any rate, which has become my 'thriller' name.

However, I was given permission to self-publish ALL YOUR SECRETS.

When the going gets tough in this industry, the tough often end up having to self-publish. Not the most ideal situation, especially when a book has been written with a rather different arena in mind. But I have three children to feed and clothe, and this book took about 4-5 months to write and edit - an expensive time investment for me - so heigh-ho, self-publishing it was.

I proofed the book, made a cover, wrote a blurb, and started telling the poor, long-suffering souls on Twitter that my book was about to go live.

I had a pleasing number of pre-order sales. Those are my fans, and I thank them wholeheartedly for sticking with me!

Then it came out.

A self-published novel that isn't priced at 99p - instead, it's a modest £1.99 - is not the easiest thing in the world to persuade random punters to buy. Nor do I have the surprise of writing in a new genre to help me, as I did with GIRL NUMBER ONE.

So any sales you can waft my way will be hugely appreciated. This book has been written with all my skill and knowledge behind it, the experience of writing several dozen novels, and I feel certain many thriller-reading people will find pleasure in it.

I thank you all in advance for any retweets or Facebook shares or reviews or other promotional help you can offer this new and highly atmospheric book-baby of mine ... The blurb follows.

Thank you!

Jane x

ALL YOUR SECRETS (Amazon UK)

What happens when love is perfect? Too perfect?

When her glamorous cousin Emily drowns, Caitlin flies to the South of France for her funeral, full of bitter-sweet nostalgia for the summer they spent there as wild teenagers. Her aunt Tamsin, once a film star, now suffering from dementia, invites Caitlin to stay at her chateau high above the beach at Cap d'Antibes.

Suddenly the gorgeous, charming Robin is back in touch, son of a Hollywood film producer. 

Tamsin warns her to stay away from him, but Caitlin can't resist her teenage crush. Soon the pair are falling madly, deeply in love ... all over again.

But something doesn’t feel right. What was Robin’s relationship with her beautiful cousin? And what is her aunt trying so desperately to conceal? The chateau on the Cap may be beautiful, but it hides dark secrets.

Was Emily's death an accident? Or could it have been murder?

-- ALL YOUR SECRETS is an atmospheric psychological thriller that simmers with tension and will keep you guessing, from the bestselling author of GIRL NUMBER ONE and LOCK THE DOOR.

Week Forty: Building Your Author Brand

I've noticed an odd phenomenon recently. On Amazon, new books have begun to crop up. But not like any books we've seen before. These are pre-orders on books not due out yet.

Nothing strange about that, of course. Books have always been promoted before publication day. What is strange here is that some of these pre-orders, on books from big-name authors, are for books not published for almost another year. Most are going on Amazon with no proper covers, only a glossy publicity shot of the author. A few haven't even got a title yet, they are so early in the process that turns an idea into a published novel.

In the past - and indeed still today - these early books would go live with only a 'placeholder' cover. A grey space with 'cover not yet available' across it.

Now we get these ...

UNTITLED: Jojo Moyes (out Feb 2018)

This says to me that publishers are focused on a new way of selling books. And that new way is based on the idea of the author brand.

Nothing new there either, of course. The idea of the author brand is as old as, well, authors. In the Regency era, polite society eagerly purchased new volumes from Romantic poets like Byron or Shelley because they bought into their 'brand' or personality. It wasn't only about the tortured poet, the romantic soul, but the real person behind that trope, with reports of outrageous behaviour and naughty goings-on to thrill readers and feed the salacious gossip machine ...

But in these days of social media, once again we are talking about authors, rather than books. Books are the product, but authors are the draw for readers, the brand.

That's why we have these covers with the author mug-shot, reminding browsers whose book it is they are buying, putting the manufacturer front and centre, before the product, the book itself.

On social media, we see profile pictures. Pictures of authors. We hear about their day, their cats and dogs, their kids, their cookery disasters and triumphs, their struggle with writing or editing ... We identify with them and turn to their books with an increasing sense of familiarity. Ah yes, there's Jill's new sequel. There's Jojo's new novel. I must get them.

This Could Change Everything: Jill Mansell (25 January 2018)

Putting out books on pre-order as many as nine or ten months before publication is about sales, yes. Let's not be naive. But it's more about increasing long-term sales' potential than any short-term, 'make a quick buck' mentality. It's about the long tail, the backlist, the whole show, not just the headliner act.

And we as authors, particularly as indie authors perhaps, need to emulate that thinking if we want to build a brand around our author name like these publishers are doing. Not just by making all our covers look similar, or writing a series, though these tricks also help to build an author brand. But by building ourselves as the force behind the fiction, by selling the author, not just the book.

Selling an author rather than a title means greater sales overall, because readers will then come for the author regardless of the book on offer.

That's the theory, anyway.

The Image Of You: Adele Parks

But how to achieve this in real terms?

Not being a publisher or a marketing expert, that's not so easy to answer. One way I would suggest is to increase visibilty on social media and elsewhere online, and to be consistent with it. I know this is old hat to most writers now, but I would suggest there's a new emphasis here that we can adopt. To propel readers towards us as people, and as authors, rather than towards one individual title we happen to have released. To adopt an overall author promotion strategy rather than single 'book' campaigns.

I don't always follow that advice very well myself. Although I've published about forty books traditionally - I lost count some time ago - and maybe ninety titles self-published on Amazon now, mostly shorts and novellas, my own career has been very scattered, across various names and brands and genres, none of which have been particularly well-developed in promo terms. (With the exception of my romcom persona, perhaps, Beth Good.)

But some authors do manage very well in building a brand. And I am gradually beginning to see how it could be done better ...

One way, highlighted here with these pre-orders, is to keep your author brand ever-present by putting out pre-orders on books not yet written, or written to a certain extent. This is hard for indie authors, who need a file to upload on Amazon for a pre-order. Not only that, but Amazon don't allow pre-orders to go live more than three months before publication date. Which means we can't put up books for sale a year in advance like one of the big five publishers, for instance. It's not a level playing field in that regard. But it can be done with an unfinished file, three months in advance, which is then replaced nearer publication time with the finished book.

And perhaps you could experiment with one of these author 'New Book Coming Soon! covers, if you're particularly photogenic and have a good, well-lit professional shot to put up there. To heighten awareness of you as the author, as a real person, as a saleable brand.

If you have other ideas to share about how to increase awareness of an author brand, do let us know in the comments below ...

My new thriller, ALL YOUR SECRETS, on pre-order now!

By me: out 2017

Week Thirty-Five: Narrative POV and Tense Choices

I've talked about narrative point-of-view (POV) on this blog before, and brushed against the use of tenses in narrative, but never looked at either of those in any depth.

I have two new novels out this week.

One is an indie (self-published) short romantic novel written under my quirky romcom persona of Beth Good: THE COLOURING BOOK CLUB.

The other is published by Hodder & Stoughton under a new name, Hannah Coates, and is a feel-good Christmas tale for the whole family entitled BERTIE'S GIFT.

I'd like to explore the widely-differing techniques I used for these books, as they come at POV and tense from totally opposite ends of the narrative spectrum.

 BERTIE'S GIFT is a first person, present tense narrative in the voice of the eponymous Bertie, a young and highly inquisitive beagle.

Yes, that's right. It's written in the voice of a dog. And in the present tense, which means the reader is right there from the first sentence, living the story as Bertie. It's a fast, snappy and exciting choice for a feel-good action story, so perfect for BERTIE'S GIFT.

THE COLOURING BOOK CLUB, on the other hand, uses third-person narration and the past tense. This choice came about largely because the events in the book are seen through the eyes of two narrators, Crystal and Emma, and using first person would have been too confusing (for me, let alone the reader) when switching between narratives. Plus, third-person POV more naturally lends itself to the past tense, I personally feel, so the latter choice came along with the former.

This may be because 'She walks across the room,' has a more sinister and 'knowing' feel than the more traditional, 'She walked across the room.'

We're accustomed to the past tense in storytelling, and indeed it makes more logical sense. The past tense is an author or narrator looking back on events with some degree of hindsight, just like the oral storytellers of ancient, pre-lettered cultures. 'Once upon a time' is still a magical invocation. It allows us to settle down for a gripping yarn, secure in the knowledge that we are to some extent passengers and not in any danger from this story. However scared we may get, it was all over long ago!

Present tense narration, on the other hand, puts us right in the picture - with no escape. We open a book and find ourselves in the position of an unseen observer, an inadvertent eavesdropper, hiding behind the sofa or the arras. An uncomfortable - and potentially dangerous - position to be in. (Remember what happened to poor Polonius in Hamlet.) It can make us feel complicit in events, like a bystander who fails to step in and help at some crucial moment. Thus the present tense lends itself to narratives that deliberately push our boundaries as readers: horror or spy stories, thrillers, chillers, psychological fiction, and so on.

I was also aware that THE COLOURING BOOK CLUB is a romantic novel. I had no desire to stand out as unusual in narrative terms - and so put off romance readers looking for a quick comfort read - and while things are rapidly changing in women's fiction, past tense is still the most common choice for traditional romance and its sister genres.

I could easily have chosen present tense for both books, however. I've written a string of books in the present tense over the past couple of years, and it's becoming a far more natural mode of expression for me than when I first tried it. Present tense is also trendy right now, great for engendering a sense of urgency and immediacy, and can feel quite strong as a narrative technique. Perhaps a little too strong. Like an onion.

So while it's useful for writers hoping to make an impact straight out of the gate, and draw readers deep into the heads of their characters, present tense can also overpower your narrative if it's not right for the story.

I've often been asked, 'Should I write my new novel in past or present tense?' My answer is always, sit down and start writing your story without considering that question.

Whatever comes most naturally in your first few lines is probably the correct choice.

To force a story to be told in a particular tense over some technical or external consideration (because it's fashionable, for instance) may lead to later changes of heart, massive and painstaking rewriting, and then misery, followed by flip-flopping and more massive rewriting to 'fix' it. This is often because the chosen tense can inform the way you tell a story, and just changing the tense can lead to narrative issues you didn't intend.

I've done this myself, fretting over technique instead of devoting my energies to the storytelling. So don't worry too much about such choices before beginning your novel. Just start to write in an instinctive way, and the right person and tense should come naturally in your very first line ...

To combine present tense with first-person POV is the most in-your-face way of telling a story, as I do in BERTIE'S GIFT, and is hugely trendy at the moment.

The immediacy and emotional impact of that combination makes it an absolute winner for people raised on film and television, where they can follow lovers into the bedroom, and murderers or victims right up to the moment of death - and even beyond. They're not so keen on 'Once upon a time' anymore - though there's still a perfectly valid place for that technique, and indeed it may become fashionable again in a swings-and-roundabouts way.

At Killer Women Fest last weekend in London, I went to a workshop run by Tammy Cohen and Amanda Jennings, where the use of second-person narration in psychological fiction was briefly discussed. We all agreed that, while it's quite powerful to read a 'You walked across the room' narrative - and second-person can feel very creepy indeed in a psychological thriller - it should be used sparingly. More like garlic than onion, to continue the metaphor.

But I then went home and made use of that insight, as a dab of second-person POV might help solve a dilemma in a current work-in-progress. It may not make the final manuscript but it's worth trying. Everything is worth trying.

So don't be afraid to experiment with POV and tenses, but remember: if it feels right, it probably is right. And vice versa. Just like cooking up a sauce, always go with your gut.

BERTIE'S GIFT is out Thursday 20th October.

THE COLOURING BOOK CLUB was out yesterday, only 99p the ebook. Ppb coming soon!