A New Thriller! (Publication Day) Plus, On Being Approached By A Publisher

 So here's an interesting thing. Along with a few caveats and warnings.

During the 2020 pandemic, I was approached by an editor from Lume Books who wanted to know how I'd feel about writing a book with a particular sort of whodunnit angle. I was intrigued, and after a few in-depth conversations back and forth, said yes to the idea. I produced a synopsis, we thrashed out a few details that needed to be altered, and then I signed the contract.

KEEP ME CLOSE, my latest thriller, out 9th September, is the result.

It's always flattering to be approached by a publisher. But this isn't the first time it's happened to me. I've had several such approaches during my career. One was for this book, BERTIE'S GIFT. 

Again, the publisher gave me the general idea - even some key characters and a loose plotline - and I was left to fill in the blanks and write the novel as I saw fit. 

Although I had to write it in only 6 weeks to catch the Christmas market, it worked out very well and we sold translation rights too for BERTIE'S GIFT, for editions in German, Italian and Portuguese. Though writers should be aware, I didn't retain copyright in the actual idea ... only the writing. So that's one drawback if a publisher supplies a large amount of material to a writer upfront. (That's not been the case with my new thriller, however, which is entirely my own work.)

Some time before that, I'd been suggested as a writer for spin-off original novels from a popular historical TV show. I won't name names, but I worked on the project for some months, producing a number of solid synopses, before it finally got spiked. I didn't get paid as nothing had been signed beforehand. So that was a bad experience. Later, I realised why things had ground to a halt when the next season of the show came out and I saw that the plots of the first few episodes were almost verbatim what I'd suggested for my synopses! 

They'd already been shot at the stage I was writing the plots, of course. But because it was based on a real historical location/theme, I'd been using the same sources as the screenwriters, so there was naturally a lot of overlap ... Perhaps they'd decided either that I was clairvoyant or someone had leaked the storylines to me! So all that came to nothing. Not a great feeling.

But this time, with Lume Books, everything worked very well, and there was no time pressure involved. (The pandemic was underway and we were locked down while I was writing much of it, so there were fewer distractions than usual.) 

It was a highly enjoyable experience. I easily wrote the novel to schedule, it was edited in good time, and the publisher has produced some excellent ad assets to accompany the launch. They've also been very supportive re promotion, putting the book up on Netgalley and monitoring reviews for me (as some readers have a sad tendency to write spoilers in thriller reviews, alas). 

Basically, KEEP ME CLOSE has been a success story all round and this time I'm very glad to have been approached.

There's even a blog tour happening this week and next! 

 

Here's the cover copy:

Someone is hurting the most vulnerable person in your life, but they can’t tell you who it is. What would you do?

When shy publisher Kate Kinley finds mysterious bruises on her mother’s arms she assumes the worst. Suffering with early onset dementia, her mother insists that nothing is wrong; it was just a clumsy accident. But was it an accident, or has her mother’s illness made her forget what really happened?

In desperate need of someone she can trust, her isolation and paranoia grow as the closest people in her life become key suspects.

With each heart-stopping revelation, Kate begins to realise that the perpetrator is no longer interested in inflicting bruises; they want blood.

Keep Me Close is a compelling story of gross immorality, a cautionary tale of how easily wicked people can take advantage of the vulnerable elderly people in your life.

If you love dark, psychological revenge-thrillers like The Sister-in-Law, The Babysitter and The Girl on the Train, you will love this twisty, sinister read. Perfect for readers of Gillian Flynn, Karin Slaughter, and Paula Hawkins.

Buy it here on Amazon UK: KEEP ME CLOSE

 

Or Amazon US: KEEP ME CLOSE

Week Forty-Eight: Breathing New Life Into Old Projects

Back in the early noughties, I had a sudden flash of apocalyptic vision and wrote a Young Adult adventure fantasy called The Book of Tongues. It ran to about 50,000 words, which was about right for the time, and involved a princess, magic, a quest, and the eponymous Book, of course.

But it was the first in a series, and I wasn't sure where it would go after Book One, or even if I'd taken it far enough in Book One for the first instalment to make a satisfactory read. I ummed and ahhed over it, did some rewriting, but ultimately had no idea what to do with it ...

In those days, I no longer had an agent. And easy self-publishing on Amazon did not yet exist. Only so-called 'vanity' outlets which would have embarrassed me - not to mention cost me more money than I had, still an impoverished poet with barely a penny to my name!

I was also busy churning out babies at the time, so my novel-writing career consisted merely of writing the occasional saucy novel under a dubious pen-name in order to a.) survive and b.) keep my hand in the fiction game while bringing up a parcel of tiny infants.

So The Book of Tongues went into the proverbial bottom drawer, as I really had no idea what to do with it.

Fast-forward about ten years to 2013, and my career as a commercial novelist had been kickstarted. I now had a new agent and was actively writing and selling novels, including a YA paranormal romance Trilogy. One of those books - Witchstruck - even won the Romantic Novelists Association YA Novel of the Year Award in 2013.

Now more aware of the YA market, I picked up Book of Tongues and re-read it. Having developed greater skill as a novelist, various issues leapt out at me immediately, and I saw at once how to fix them. But the long-term trajectory of the series still escaped me. I had a great set-up, but something was 'off' about the overall world of this fantasy.

So I sat down and worked on a range of possibilities for where the series would go next, and in doing so, I stumbled across the reason why my first book felt wrong in some way. I had been basing everything on a certain well-worn trope in fantasy ... and now I realised how to escape that trope by introducing a different story strand altogether, and so bring something wholly unexpected to the story!

I rewrote the book with this new plot idea in the mix, and enlarged the book at the same time, as during those intervening ten years, YA Fantasy had become much larger and longer, almost unwieldy in length. So the 50K book grew to 75K.

I sent it to my agent, with high hopes of finding a publisher ... and had those hopes dashed.

The idea was exciting, my agent said kindly, and the writing excellent, but the characters were under-developed and some of the confrontations between my main characters and the antagonist were too complex and therefore confusing. 

In other words, the idea was sound but the manuscript still needed work.

At the time, I was snowed under with other projects. I'd just come out of two 3-book contracts with Random House, and was embarking on a third 3-book contract with Hodder. I was also working on some side projects for self-publishing, as Amazon KDP had come along and I'd started self-publishing shorter and unsold fiction manuscripts. 

So I put Book of Tongues back in the drawer.

Fast-forward another seven years to early 2020. (Do you see how long this book has been in development?)

The pandemic of Covid-19 strikes. We are in lockdown. Everyone has decided they have a novel in them, so I'm not alone in spending my days slaving over a hot keyboard.

I have about three projects on the go, under contract. But I finish all those during the lockdown, and look about restlessly for something 'different' to work on before I need to start my next contracted thriller. (I get bored writing in the same genre all the time, and need to blow off steam periodically with different genres and styles of writing.)

The Book of Tongues calls to me.

I re-read it yet again, while studying my agent's notes from 2013. Suddenly, I can see what needs to be done, which was not easy while I was still so close to the project. I find a new thread between my main characters that allows them to bond in a richer, more provocative way.

And I rewrite the book for the third time!

Here's what I think the problem was. When you're fresh from writing a book, especially if that book has been developed over a long period, you can suffer from 'brain fatigue' and feel exhausted at the thought of rewriting it yet again! So although you may get great notes on a manuscript, your brain can't get to grips with what they mean in real terms, and unless you're up against a contractual deadline - which introduces adrenalin and fear into the mix, so allowing your brain to function again! - you are likely to throw the messed-up manuscript away from you and start something else, something less taxing to consider.

This time, I had no brain fatigue but was eager to work on something different.

So I saw the editorial notes clearly and was able to act on them, also drawing on my increased skill and experience as a novelist since back in 2013 to improve other elements of the story and create a smoother read overall.

I also changed the title to THE SPELLWORKER, as I felt the original title, The Book of Tongues, might struggle in today's market. But I retained that concept in my series title.

The book is now nearly 90,000 words long!

So, off it went to my agent again.

Reader, she declined it.

The YA market is tough right now, my agent told me, and the book has elements which might make it less appealing to publishers in 2020 than would have been the case back in the early noughties. There may also be other similar or clashing projects out there right now. Better not to send it out to publishers when I can write something more apposite to the times and find a buyer more easily.

Back to square one, it seems.

Happily though, I still believe in the book, and in 2020 I have options that were not readily available to me in earlier iterations.

I ask my agent's blessing to self-publish and generously she gives it.

As with everything I've self-published, I believe in this book, even if others might not, and I want it to find readers out there, and I also want to be able to write Book Two knowing there are people waiting for it.

The YA market is incredibly tough, I agree. And finding YA readers without going through the usual channels of a traditional publisher is going to be extremely tricky - perhaps even impossible.

But unless I want this book to languish forever unread in a dusty bottom drawer or - these days - in a forgotten computer file, then I must take the plunge and self-publish. Life is short.

Finding value in abandoned manuscripts involves seeing what worked when it was first written that won't work now, because times and the market place have changed, but also what was good about the project and should be preserved. 

It also allows you to see the whole thing with more clarity than was possible when you were still too close to it, perhaps even bringing a little indifference to its fate, so making edits easier to implement.

But you must have full confidence in the project and in yourself as a writer. 

Just because others have said NO to what you've written, and even if it never sells more than a few dozen copies, almost seeming to justify that negative opinion, you must retain confidence in your ability and judgement as a writer. 

Because THAT is all we have, deep down. 

Confidence. 

That's what it's all about for writers. So embrace your confidence, and enjoy what comes with it. And don't let anyone tell you no. If you believe in the work, then let's see it.

And here is The Spellworker, a YA Fantasy which I have just indie published under my YA writing name, Victoria Lamb ...

 

THE SPELLWORKER: out now (UK)

 

Available NOW in ebook, paperback, and via Kindle Unlimited: support indie authors!

THE SPELLWORKER: Amazon UK

THE SPELLWORKER: Amazon US

THE SPELLWORKER: Amazon AU

THE SPELLWORKER: Amazon CA

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-Three: To Blog Tour or Not to Blog Tour?

A book blog tour is when a writer promotes a book at a different blog every day for a set number of days, often during a crucial time in the life of their book, typically publication week or month.

I've had various book blog tours in the past, always organised by my publishers around publication week, and though I'm sure they helped get my name out there a bit more, I don't recall any massive sales boost during the tours or in the immediate aftermath. They are lovely for the ego, but can take a great deal of energy to prepare for - all those blessed blog posts and endless Q&A's that steal time away from actual writing - and it can become very repetitive, going on Twitter or Facebook each day to point people towards the latest blog stop.

Blog stops can involve some fun and interesting posts, it's true. But also they may result in some same-old, same-old posts, or a few less than exciting questions, like 'What is your favourite colour?' or even, 'Where do you get your ideas from?' (See this post for more about that old chestnut!)

So if, a few months ago, you had asked me if a book blog tour was worth the expense and hassle, I would probably have murmured, 'Unlikely, no.' But very quietly, as I know many people - publishers, in particular, and book bloggers, in general - put great store by such promotional tools, and rejecting that opinion can make you look like a Difficult Author.

However, something happened last month that has drastically changed my attitude to blog tours. Possibly forever.

My latest psychological thriller, FORGET HER NAME, came out with Thomas & Mercer.

FORGET HER NAME, UK AMAZON

To celebrate this event, and in the hope of reaching a wider US readership than I've enjoyed so far with my psychological thrillers, I decided late last year to pay for a blog tour.

It felt like a gamble. A real shot in the dark. But for several years I had been online friends with a lovely blogger called Rachel Gilbey, whose enduring love for my romcoms (written as Beth Good) had made me love her in return and got me to the sweet spot where I was pretty much inclined to trust her with anything. So when she started running blog tours, under the fun name Rachel's Random Resources, I became interested in the idea of asking her to run a tour for me. But being a busy person, I kept putting it off. Until FORGET HER NAME was nearly due out, and I thought, what the hell, and sent Rachel an email ...

Rachel is a total star. And a hard-working star at that. She asked me for a few basic details about the book, and some jpgs of me and the cover etc, and charged me an extremely reasonable fee. She did everything else at that stage. She asked around her blogger friend contacts, and got together a group of bloggers interested in my book and willing to take part. She sorted out dates for each blog stop, and made a poster for the blog tour. She also sent me a list of blog posts I would need to write - about nine in total - sorted out review copies for everyone, and which blogs would carry reviews or just straight promo for the title.

And for some weeks, that was it. I forgot about it. No sweat, no worries. I just cracked on with writing my next book. Until the deadline for my blog posts approached, and I had to sit down and write them.

That was quite hard work. But nothing comes of nothing, so I did my best to make all the blog posts lively and informative and strongly differentiated from each other. I sent the posts to Rachel, and she liaised with the bloggers on my behalf, and again, that was it. I just sat back and waited for publication day. No hassle!

Publication Day dawned. There were three blog stops on that day, all promoting FORGET HER NAME, and it was the same every day for the next fortnight. (Rachel very kindly allowed me a longer tour than most, as so many bloggers were keen to be involved, which was nice.) All I had to do was retweet bloggers' tweets and occasionally mention the tour myself ... Though I'm sure I could have got away with not even doing that. Except I was enjoying the process too much to take a back seat.

Rachel's Random Resources blog tour was the only promotion I had for the book. But it worked. Boy, did it work!

FORGET HER NAME rose steeply into the UK Kindle Top 100 almost immediately. Later it reached the Top 40. It rose into the top 2000 on Kindle US, higher than any other of my books previously, except for a couple of one-day Bookbub promotion spikes organised by my publisher. The first month sales figures blew me away. And my publisher was pretty pleased too.

But it didn't stop there. Although FORGET HER NAME has since settled into a nice position just above the UK Top 100, its stablemate LOCK THE DOOR, my previous thriller from 2017, has shot past it into the Top 100. In fact, at the time of writing this post, LOCK THE DOOR is at number 14 in the UK.

LOCK THE DOOR at #14 overall, and #2 in Women's Fiction, 26th Feb 2018

Although other factors may be at play here, including a price reduction to £1 by my publisher, I also attribute that massive success to Rachel's blog tour. Especially since I've been able to promote my books using some of the lovely quotes from bloggers that you can see in this post! (Which Rachel also organised for me, another of the useful services she offers to save busy writers time during promotions.)

So the blog tour was a catalyst for the success of my backlist thrillers, which are now all selling strongly after a few lacklustre months. And I don't think any of that would have happened if I had not reached out to Rachel and booked a blog tour with her excellent service. Running a launch tour with Rachel's Random Resources is the best thing I could have done for my book, and has made the publication of FORGET HER NAME a resounding, spectacular success.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Rachel, and ... I'll be back!!

And if you are a writer considering the expense and hassle of a blog tour, I would certainly recommend taking the plunge if you have a book which might respond to that kind of promotion.

Yes, it costs. But not a massive amount. Not given the possible success you could have. (Unless you have to pay for review copies or a Netgalley presence.) And yes, it's hard work when you have to write blog posts for the tour. But you can ask for a tour without author-contributed posts, or just write a few and request reviews or promo for the rest. And I can testify to the fact that it is wonderful to see bloggers' reviews going up on Amazon, Goodreads and Netgalley within days of your book's publication ... There is no guarantee that bloggers will give you the thumbs-up, of course. That's the risk you take when giving out free copies in large numbers. But I was lucky and most seemed to enjoy my book!

Getting the word out on your new book, or a backlist of books, is always difficult. But when you can hand over some of that work - if not the bulk of it! - to another person, especially someone as friendly and efficient and gifted at working with others as Rachel Gilbey, then you should find launch week a little less tiring than usual.

Not to mention the chance of it being mind-blowingly successful!

You can find Rachel's blog tour website here: Rachel's Random Resources.

FORGET HER NAME UK

FORGET HER NAME US

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 Thirty-Seven: Six Steps To Writing A Page-Turner

This week sees the publication of my second psychological thriller, LOCK THE DOOR.

Amazon UK: LOCK THE DOOR (only 99p)

Early readers have very kindly described this new novel as 'Simply compelling' (Andy Martin, crime writing expert and critic) and 'Exhilarating ... heart-pounding' (Rachel's Random Reads) as well as variously complimenting its 'pacing', 'momentum' and 'urgency'. 

So I thought I'd write a 'how to' post on creating that all-important quality in a thriller, that of being unputdownable or a page-turner. And to keep it simple, as I could waffle on forever on this topic, I'm restricting it to six steps.

Step One - Write action/reaction-only at the planning stage

If you're not a planner, you might as well stop reading now. My advice will be lost on you, and that's fine. But for planners, the outline or synopsis is where you will make your first errors in terms in creating a page-turner. So don't plot a story that starts before the main action.

For instance, young mum Jane is sitting in her house one day when her grandmotherly neighbour knocks and asks her round for tea and fresh-baked scones. They discuss knitting, and then Jane leaves to pick up her kids from school. Later, her husband bursts in and discloses that he has just inadvertently killed their neighbour's husband and hidden him in a wheelie bin. STOP. Go back and start the story with the husband bursting in ...

Readers are sophisticated. They can join up even invisible dots! So a couple of sentences about the delicious whiff of her neighbour's excellent scones  - perhaps the unfortunate woman is seen baking them as Jane and her careless husband hurry past her house with a curiously overladen wheelie bin - would be sufficient backstory/character revelation here.

When planning, think hard about pace and impact. Don't draft in backstory. Write in blocks of action and reaction instead. Start running and keep running, in other words. Otherwise your reader may put down the book at a quiet moment and go off for a scone, and perhaps never come back.

Her husband stuffed the old man's lifeless body back inside the wheelie bin and slammed the lid shut just as the patrol car rounded the corner ...

Step Two - Use dialogue to leapfrog or break up prose description, and impart info

Prose description can be very important for setting a scene. But you need far less of it than you perhaps realise, at least if you want to write a page-turner. A whole paragraph - or three - on how lovely the sparkling sea looks in summer, and you may have just lost your place on the bestseller list. Snip it down to a sentence here, then another later on. The same applies to character description or identifying and describing a new location. Yes, you need these. But make it a few bold pencil strokes, not a leisurely watercolour.

Maybe the book is all about atmosphere and local colour though. You need those descriptions to augment the sinister feel of the physical backdrop. One way to deal with that is to interleave descriptions with bursts of dialogue. This breaks them up for the rapidly moving eye of the reader, and increases reading pace without stinting on local colour. Most writers end up doing this naturally. But sometimes you get weary and can't see how to avoid the weight of description.

If your character is alone, maybe exploring an environment or locked in a room, you can bring in a line or more of dialogue from earlier and repeat it in italics, with some reaction perhaps. That's your narrative character 'remembering' a previous conversation. A bit cheesy, maybe. But again, it can break up the paragraphs and make the pages turn faster. Or have a phone ring. 'Hello?' etc. Or a text message arrive. Anything to increase interaction.

Whatever you do, don't TELL the reader plot information in a prose paragraph. Always use dialogue to impart new plot information or discuss events if you possibly can - even if this means making them WAIT until the next chapter. (Tip: another way to keep the pages turning is to sneakily withhold vital information, or dripfeed it over a number of chapters.)

Step Three - Use short sentences in your prose. No, even shorter than that.

Verbose sentences stuffed with meandering clauses and pretentious semi-colons are strictly for literary fiction and those who feel a prize nomination coming on. You want to write popular, page-turning, mass market fiction, you have to use short, eyecatching sentences. Especially if they feel highly informal and don't involve verbs. You may even need to resort to italics (or even capital letters) on very special occasions, but I wouldn't recommend going too far down the ornate route, as that can rapidly become tiring for the reader.

Like this?

NO.

This.

Step Four - On a similar note, avoid being too formal in your phrasing

To help people turn the pages in large numbers, you need to get their confidence en masse that you can tell a story that will please, intrigue, excite and engage them. See above.

But this isn't just about the mechanics of writing shorter sentences. It's about using verbs to catapult an action off the page. It's about not being afraid to be casual in your references and phrasing. It's about using abbreviations like 'I'm' and 'can't' as the norm, not simply in dialogue but within prose paragraphs too.

The majority of your readers are also television watchers and film-goers. They tweet and share on Facebook. They text each other in informal ways. They communicate via email, both at home and work. You need to sound like you're one of them. Or they'll reject you.

'Cup of tea, love?' Mrs Crumbles asked the intruder as he lumbered towards her tea trolley, swinging a blood-stained axe ... She always had been a little shortsighted.

Step Five - Keep Your Main Characters In Crisis

Characters that are not in a state of crisis can be lovely. But they're not always terribly engaging for readers, especially if you're aiming for suspense. In real terms, this means making sure there are no scenes in your novel that do not need to be there in order to advance the story in some quantifiable way. No aimless, character development chats over tea. See step one above.

Or incorporate the chats, if you must, but squeeze them in alongside plot developments. Have the chat in a car screaming at top speed toward a developing crime scene. Have the chat with one character dangling another character out of a window.

Okay, I'm pushing the envelope here. But seriously, check that scene is required. Otherwise you run the risk of boring the reader.

Step Six - Keep Asking Questions

A book needs to ask a question that will intrigue the reader enough to keep reading. This can - and probably should! - happen from as early as the first sentence, or at least paragraph. I don't mean it has to be a literal question. Sometimes an intriguing first line will ask a question simply by virtue of an intriguing premise or implied backstory. 'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.' (I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith) Why on earth the kitchen sink? Wouldn't a desk or chair be more comfortable? So immediately you're asking questions about what kind of narrator would kick off their story in such an informal way, and yet in a curiously formal, almost stylised manner. Themes or ideas can ask questions too, not just quirky narrators. 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.' (A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens.) How can these two apparently contradictory statements be true simultaneously, we ask? And so we read on, curious to find out ...

The best page-turners often start with a huge, impenetrable question, and don't answer it with any degree of truth or accuracy until the final chapter. That takes massive skill, as the reader still needs a series of smaller questions along the way, or semi-answers, to keep them reading through to the big reveal. Good luck!

But maybe you have to answer that first question on the first page, or at the end of Chapter One. What then? Well, then, you ask another question. Preferably at the very end of the chapter. The reader frowns, and turns over. What the hell, they think?

Then they reach the end of Chapter Two, and blimey, there's another question. The heroine is clinging by her perfectly manicured nails to the edge of a cliff, with the waves washing to and fro hundreds of feet below. The reader pauses, glances at the clock, then reads on, sure there's no way the character can survive this time ...

The main thing with a page-turner is to stop the reader feeling able to stop reading and put down the book. It's cruel sometimes, but they'll thank you for it. Everyone loves a page-turner!

So ask a big question at the start, and try not to answer it until the end of the book. Until the very last page, if you can get away with it. And keep asking smaller questions all the way through. Even ending a chapter with something ostensibly tiny and insignificant like, 'The telephone began to ring ...' will make a reader turn over. Why would they do that? To find out who is calling, of course. Then you just have to make sure it's an interesting, plot-moving call, and lo, they are hooked again!

So there you are, friends. Six simple steps to writing a page-turner. Go to it!

My latest page-turner is LOCK THE DOOR: Amazon UK, Amazon US

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!

Week Thirty-Four: The Ups and Downs of A Writing Career

This time last year, I was in a bad spot, career-wise.

I was out of contract with all the publishers with whom I had previously worked, my debut thriller had been rejected by multiple publishers, and I was only surviving by self-publishing romcom novellas under the name Beth Good.

We were forced to leave our lovely rented farm on the edge of Bodmin Moor and rent a very small terraced house in a Devon town instead, jettisoning over half our possessions and having to part with some of our beloved pets in the process. It was a traumatic time. I started editing other people's manuscripts freelance, but the workload was heavy and the money not quite good enough to get us through. I decided that if I couldn't make money from writing or editing, I would have to get a 'proper' job again. But as I was home educating my kids, it would have to be an evening or night job. Which would mean no time left at all for writing. Or sleeping, in fact!

In the run-up to my job search, I self-published my debut thriller GIRL NUMBER ONE. I hoped for the best, but planned for the worst, in other words.

GIRL NUMBER ONE came out in late September 2015.

After a sluggish start, it began to climb the charts.

In mid-December, it hit the Number 1 spot in the UK Kindle chart, and stayed there nearly a week, selling many thousands of copies.

By then, it had already excited huge amounts of interest and comment, and had come to the attention of an editor at Thomas & Mercer, an Amazon Publishing imprint. I contacted my agent and signed with AP for a life-saving two-book deal. My second psychological thriller, LOCK THE DOOR, is already finished and on pre-order: it will be published January 2017. 

Today, August 9th 2016, a new, revised edition of GIRL NUMBER ONE has been published in digital form. A gorgeous paperback edition will follow in September.

Following on from that two-book deal, possibly because GIRL NUMBER ONE's meteoric rise had come to the attention of the team I had worked with previously at Hodder & Stoughton, I was approached by that publisher to write a Christmas book for them. That story is BERTIE'S GIFT, a whimsical, feel-good adult read about a Beagle on a mission to save both his sister and his adopted family.

BERTIE'S GIFT was a delightful change from my thriller writing - I had to write it almost in tandem with LOCK THE DOOR, sometimes morning for one book, afternoon for the other. It will be published in hardback and ebook on October 20th 2016. It is coming out under yet another pen-name, this time Hannah Coates, in order to differentiate it from my other writing.

I am now working on a third thriller, with a side venture into a brand-new romcom for my Beth Good persona, as I know many readers have been waiting for a new one from me. We are back on our feet financially, and I have been able to abandon the idea of getting a 'proper' job in order to pay the bills. Thanks to the fantastic success of GIRL NUMBER ONE, which came utterly out of the blue, I already have a 'proper' job as a full-time professional writer again - and am very, very happy indeed.

So this post is not only an indication of the often terrifying vicissitudes of a writer's life - even a relatively successful writer - but also a massive thank you to everyone who bought, read and/or supported GIRL NUMBER ONE.

However hard a writer works, they can't get anywhere without readers, and I have been incredibly lucky to have such loyal readers, many of whom have followed me from historicals to contemporary romcoms to thrillers. And hopefully will now follow me to feel-good adult doggy fiction as Hannah Coates!

Thank you, and happy reading!

Week Twenty-Four: Writing My First Contemporary Thriller

Those who know me well will agree that I am a genre-hopper. I hop from one genre to another with scant regard for market positioning, or what publishers and retailers like to call 'author branding'. This is one explanation why, despite having written several dozen novels, I am not a star in any one genre. (I will leave the other possible explanations for you to guess at on your own.) But that does not mean I would not like to be!

About a year and a half ago, while I was still knee-deep in an historical fiction series, it was suggested to me by a senior editor that I should write a contemporary thriller. A crime novel, but not a police procedural. Being a rabid fan of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels, I embraced the idea with enthusiasm and excitement. At last, a chance to show what I could achieve as a contemporary writer within a popular mass-market genre.

But of course it's also an over-crowded market, and the novel I produced over the next year did not appeal to the editor who first suggested it. It went through several laborious redrafts, then was sent out to other publishers. Nobody wanted it. The rejections differed as to detail but the overall message was the same. Like the three bears' porridge, it was too hot, too cold, too salty, too sweet etc. for the market.

The project was then handed back to me, with the suggestion that I should self-publish.

To say I was disappointed is grossly to understate the matter. It was a serious blow to my self-confidence as a writer, especially as I was by that stage out of contract with all my publishers. After some years in traditionally published historical fiction, that book represented my calling-card script as a contemporary writer. A calling-card that had been handed back to me by a disdainful majordomo, and the door slammed in my face.

After some time nursing my wounds - I wish I could say 'downing tequila on a desert island' but I'm not that cool - I sorted through all the rejections I had seen and picked out the main thrust of their issues. I worked out how I could rewrite the book to 'fix' it. One key change was making my main protagonist older. A simple enough change, on the face of it. But of course that involved rewriting every single page of the book, because in the process of recasting her character, her narrative voice had to change, to mature, to harden. Rather like me as a writer ...

I really wish I had not chosen to write this scary scene so late at night ...

The main differences I noted between writing GIRL NUMBER ONE (the title of my thriller) and my previous novels, mostly either historical fiction or romances, were as follows:

Pace - a contemporary thriller is fast and furious. It has to be, to deliver the requisite thrills and keep an easily distracted reader turning the page. So introspection and description take a back seat, and action comes to the fore. The verb becomes king here, the adjective and adverb have to be rooted out. Not 'I thought' or 'I saw' (I chose a first person narrator) but 'I did'. Dialogue can take the place of internal monologue, which means it has to work harder, to underline character, drop clues and turn the plot.

Tone - the narration of a contemporary thriller is terse, or at least that's how I prefer it. It's also highly self-aware. This is someone who observes everything around them, whether a trained or natural detective, constantly noticing, examining, deciphering, unravelling, understanding. And often without an excess of emotional response, as emotion tends to hamper that process. (Emotional response being the sine qua non of the romantic novel, I often found myself working at the opposite end of the narrative spectrum to my other books.)

Character - the characters in a contemporary thriller are not, in general, those you might encounter in other genres (though that rather depends on the writer). They have to be boldly drawn, sometimes even starkly and at speed, because a thriller is about action and reaction, rather than a leisurely character study. But the main protagonists also need qualities that others around them noticeably lack: massive intelligence, strength, resolve, courage, generosity, kindness, plus a few special skills. They must leap off the page without being caricatures, and linger in the reader's memory, not least because some of them may become suspects later.

Where the narrator is concerned, assuming that is your chief protagonist, we need the reader to care about that person deeply. Otherwise, there will be little reason to keep reading when he or she is put in danger. Such a character must be sympathetic and strongly-drawn enough to elicit an emotional response from the reader. By which I really mean, he or she must feel true.

Truth - a contemporary thriller should seem realistic, even more so than romantic or historical fiction, and the actions of its characters must be completely believable too, even when your plot is unlikely or even preposterous at times. So how to achieve this? In the same way as a sci-fi or fantasy novel, you have to anchor the world of your novel somewhere that feels very realistic, and therefore works to distract the reader from the unlikeliness of your plot.

In my case, I decided to follow the well-worn advice, write what you know, and achieve narrative truth that way. So I based the world of my debut thriller on the Cornish village in which I was actually living at the time of writing. I was then able to describe, with absolute accuracy and consistency, the village layout and its surrounding area, the views, the flowers in bloom at each season, the likely weather, the very feel of the air ... A bit of a cheat, perhaps, but I wanted to nail that 'truth' element of the thriller first-time-out.

Did I manage to nail it though?

The proof of the thriller is in the reading, and I hope you will give mine a shot. You can find a free sample or buy GIRL NUMBER ONE on Amazon. Digital only at the moment, with paperback POD to follow.

GIRL NUMBER ONE Amazon US

GIRL NUMBER ONE Amazon UK

UPDATE: GIRL NUMBER ONE is currently at #3 in the UK Kindle Store (as of December 3rd 2015)

Week Twenty-Two: Criticisms, Mistakes, and Mosquito Stings

HOORAH! I'm off to the Romantic Novelists' Association annual conference in a couple of days. There will be wine, women and, very probably, song. Kitchen parties. Important lectures. Coffee and meal-time networking. Secret deals may be brokered, book ideas suggested, agents and publishers hooked, new writers inspired, and much booze will be drunk.

So don't expect any writerly coherence from me until at least a few days afterwards. You can follow the mayhem on Twitter though if you like: https://twitter.com/janeholland1

Meanwhile, here's a question.

Question: should novelists ignore critical reviews or take them on board if they seem honest (rather than, say, the venom of an anonymous rival)?

Allow me to elaborate on this.

Some writers resent readers who like to broadcast their opinions on social media and blogs or Goodreads. They may consider their feedback to be artistic interference or, even worse, wholly unimportant to them. These are writers who proudly do not read their reviews, and sometimes not even the novels of their peers. They may write in solitude, keeping their writing unpolluted by outside influence.

Other writers see publication as an open exchange of ideas, and embrace feedback, both positive and negative, weeding out responses to find what works best for them - and even changing the way they write at times in response to reviewers.

You can probably guess which side I would pick in a tug-of-war, given the nature of this blog.

However, while thorough and thoughtful reviews, either positive or negative, are always welcome, they are no longer in the majority. As places like Net Galley continue to grow, seeding free novels left, right and centre, inexperienced or hostile bloggers seem to have grown in numbers, and sadly some take free books for granted. They trash new novels without a second thought as to the damage they may be doing to a budding career, or even to an author's psyche. Who cares about such things, eh? Authors get paid, after all, so they deserve a good kicking.  (Erm, they get paid peanuts, in general, dear readers, and sometimes not even that.)

To add to this problem, a vocal minority of bloggers appear to hate authors and everything they stand for, I'm unsure why, but you get that vibe as soon as any unfortunate author is naive enough to announce their identity on Twitter or Goodreads when replying to their conversations about books. 'Live tweeting' books has become part of that trend, nearly always undertaken to crush an author by reading their new book and tweeting instant (nearly always hostile) reactions: 'OMG, I hate this heroine, that scene was totally shit!' and so on.

And even if you are not being given a kicking, but are merely dismissed as incompetent or boring, some critical reviews can be very difficult to swallow. Sometimes they contain nonsense best left by the wayside, like comments about the author's appearance or character, or views which indicate ignorance of the book's subject matter. This happens quite frequently with historicals, for instance, where a blogger decides they know more about an historical period than the writer who spent a year or more researching it. This is often based on the watching of a television series like The Tudors, which contained more errors and historical inaccuracies than you can shake a stick at, but is frequently taken for truth by readers who then complain your book did not contain the same errors!

I have had furious reviewers trounce my Tudor novels for not being respectful enough towards Queen Elizabeth II (sic) or for retreading the boring familiar territory of Henry VII (sic) and his nine wives (sic), and even listened to one expert blogger explain to her friends that she had given my book a lower rating because she had done history at college and I had used twentieth-century names for some of my Tudor characters. One was a medieval name, the other from ancient Greece. Oh dear ...

It can be particularly frustrating when hostile reviews are lauded by other readers and taken as an indication that the writer's research is flawed and/or her books not worth reading. When every new book is struggling for attention in a desperately overcrowded marketplace, and editors look at places like Goodreads and Amazon for signs that an author has a promising career ahead, enough of these uncomplimentary reviews could perhaps depress initial sales and get a writer dumped by her publisher.

So, as writers, should we read our reviews or not? Should we engage readers - as many publishers press us to do - or run like hell for the nearest exit? And do hostile reviews make any difference to our careers?

Having been foolish enough to 'correct' a mistaken reviewer in the past and have my head bitten off by dozens of her outraged friends, I now feel it is best to smile grimly at such mistakes and trashings, and move on. Perhaps even to join the ranks of those writers who disdain the reading of their own reviews and prefer to work in an ivory tower, considering the mosquito stings of blogger critiques as below their attention.

But of course my feet are firmly on the ground. No ivory towers for me, alas.

And there are still plenty of very lovely reviewers out there, doing their best for the writers and books they love. As writers, we have to focus on those people, and thank them for their efforts, and be grateful for what we are given. Otherwise we would very swiftly give up writing books and hide in a dark cave for the rest of our lives.

So I shall continue to muddle along, occasionally reading reviews of my books when I can't avoid it, groaning at the bad 'uns, smiling at the lovely ones, and trying not to be so swayed by all those differing opinions that I can no longer make my own decisions about the books I write.

And now for the gratuitous book plug.

My latest rom com as Beth Good, published five days ago by Thimblerig Books, is THE ODDEST LITTLE BEACH SHOP.

No historical characters, you'll be relieved to hear. Just a sexy ogre for a hero, plus plenty of Cornish pasty and sandy beach scenes, as requested by my friends on Facebook.

Why not enjoy the FREE sample available now on Amazon?

21 Ways To Write A Commercial Novel

I'm thrilled to be able to announce that the first twenty-odd weeks of this Creative Writing blog have been turned into an ebook!

Many thanks to everyone who contributed comments.

Bursting with up-to-date information and entertaining anecdotes from the world of writing and publishing, this guide also features helpful comments on writing from both new and established writers, including Rowan Coleman, Katie Fforde, Judy Astley, Lesley Cookman, Nuala Ni Chonchuir, Alison Morton, Elizabeth Moss and many, many others. A goldmine of advice for writers from an author of over twenty commercial novels, covering these general topics:

Beginnings
Fake It Till You Make It
Commercial Ideas
Research
Planning
Hooks And Teasers
How To Open Chapters
How To Close Chapters
Writing A Commercial Scene
Location, Location, Location
Writing Complex Characters
Staying Commercial
Novel Avoidance Syndrome
Writing The Commercial Synopsis
Dealing With Rejection
Other Writers
Four-Point Commercial Checklist
Changing Identities
Ten-Point Guide To The Commercial Novella
Writing Your Novel
Rowan Coleman’s Advice To New Writers 

It's entitled 21 Ways To Write A Commercial Novel and is out now as an ebook, only available on Amazon Kindle. 

Grab your digital version of this CW blog now - enlarged and with comments added! - from Amazon