After the glitz and glam of winning an award – if you missed it, visit Loveahappyending Lifestyle emagazine for all the news and gossip – I thought I’d share the slightly less glamorous side to writing!
I was delighted to be asked to speak at the 2013 Festival of Romance conference panel about ‘my path to publication’ and what I’d learnt. Here’s what I shared and I really did ‘bare all’, because no path is ever smooth, or straightforward. But I’ve survived to tell the tale and I’m still writing, my bookshelf of published books is growing and every day I discover something new!
“As a new writer whose newbie mistakes are all fairly recent, this is a rather daunting experience for me, sitting here. Being very honest, I learn best from the mistakes I make, and I will explain why I made the mistakes I did and give my five top tips, things I wish I’d understood at the very beginning, but circumstances meant I was the greenest newbie. I didn’t even know enough to understand what I didn’t know.
Four years ago I gave up my career as an interior designer and sales & marketing manager because my mother wasn’t very well. She died just 3 months later and whilst I sorted her affairs I needed something that allowed me to escape my grief. My dream ‘time to write’ had come earlier than expected and I sat down and began writing. Three months later I submitted my first manuscript to two publishers and continued writing.
My debut novel took 18 months to come out and was published in hardback only at £16.99. I was totally unknown and I didn’t know any other writers. By then I had another four completed manuscripts. Three weeks before launch day my publisher mentioned ‘author platform’. I wasn’t on FB or Twitter and I didn’t have a website, so I turned to Google.
I joined the social media scene – Twitter, FB, Linked in and then I set up my personal website. As I started to chat to other new writers on Twitter and began my new daily regime, it struck me that it was as easy to promote a group of people, as it was to promote just one. The bonus also being (wearing my marketing hat) that as one lonely writer I didn’t actually have an awful lot to say at that point because I was so new. My debut novel made the Amazon charts briefly and I now realise that was because some fab friends and family loved me enough to spend their cash supporting me, but I was invisible to anyone who didn’t know me. So the initial idea for Loveahappyending was born – a group of new writers banding together to pool and share their knowledge, and grow together. I learnt that there was an army of book reviewers and bloggers out there, and it seemed natural that they too should be a part of this project. After all, without those committed and very professional people, writers like me would go unseen.
Having learnt from the publication of my first book, I self-published another manuscript so that I could learn the process. It was, I felt, a form of apprenticeship. I contracted two more to Sapphire Star Publishing in the US and then self-published the fifth and final manuscript, simply because it was a quicker process. It was necessary as my writing had moved on with what I had learnt and I recently wrote a series of three novellas. At my very first RNA conference this year I was able to sit down with the awesome Charlotte Ledger, from HarperImpulse, for a one to one. I consider it to be a very real turning point for me and for the first time I felt like a round peg in a round hole. I now have two books out with them and a third coming in January.
So the 5 main things I’ve learnt so far are:
Writers need to be around other writers and reviewers – so network. They are the kindest, most understanding people because you share a common passion and common highs and lows.
Self-publishing allows you to understand the process from start to finish and then on to the rigors of marketing. I believe it’s a baptism by fire but you will learn so much.
Make informed decisions. Writing is a business, so take off the rose tinted glasses and be honest with yourself. My debut novel should never have been published in hardback only, it was a bad decision. It took me 18 months to get my contract back so that I could put it out in Kindle format and it’s been my best seller to date, frequently making the psychic romance charts.
Your writing will develop with each manuscript you write and you will learn so much during EACH editing and publishing process. I now have a spreadsheet of my common mistakes (I love using just, as if, whilst instead of while – it’s a BIG spreadsheet). After I finish my own editing prior to submission, I go through every item on my spreadsheet doing word counts to reduce over-use of words etc. So I will never again write a series of manuscripts, but instead I will see each one through to conclusion to maximise the learning potential. That way each work in progress is the best it can be at that stage in my development.
Finally (and oh so importantly), make sure you are a good fit with your publisher. If you like to think outside the box and try new things in this exciting new era of publishing, then look for a publisher who is pushing the boundaries too. As a newbie I wasn’t making informed decisions and it is only now that I feel I am at last moving forward with confidence knowing that I’m giving it my best shot.
What I will add is that personally I don’t regret any of the mistakes I’ve made so far because it has helped me to learn quickly. It’s a fast-paced environment and you can’t afford to stand still. Loveahappyending was a group of new writers and amazing book reviewers working as a team. It changed in February of this year into a life and style magazine, in which books are featured, but the emphasis is on a wide range of topics. If it had stood still, our readers would have become bored and drifted away. Instead last week our hit counter passed the 3 million mark.
It’s the same with my writing, I continue to press forward and every day I learn something new either about the craft of writing, or new avenues for promotion. I consider myself to be a very different writer now from the one I was only four years ago when my writing journey began. I still have an awful lot to learn and I’m still over-whelmed when I’m in a room full of authors – but it’s an experience of a lifetime.”
If it hadn’t been for this journey I would not have been at the Festival of Romance, I wouldn’t have my eighth book coming out this week and number nine due out in January 2014. It all happened one step at a time. I’m not saying it’s easy and it’s very hard work. You burn the candle at both ends and the house doesn’t get cleaned – not easy when you are borderline OCD! But if you have a passion you have to follow it and I’m so delighted I did!
My advice? Follow your dream – whatever it is – the saddest two words you can ever utter is ‘if only…’.