1.Tell me about your latest novel.
The latest
completed and published work is The Light From Far Below, which is
the sequel to my YA fantasy Summer’s Dark Waters. Events have moved
on quite a bit as it’s set almost a year and a half after the
events in the first book. Without giving away any spoilers, it’s
also wider in scope and even brings in contemporary issues such as
how social media has effectively opened the gates of hell in terms of
human behaviour. It’s as cheerful as you’d expect from me!
2. What are you
currently reading?
“Rebellion”
by Ian Irvine – dark, brutal and intense and (like all his works)
has a refreshingly different spin on the fantasy genre.
3. How do you pick
character names?
It takes a while
and can be quite a frustrating process, but basically I mess around
with sounds and syllables and eventually I come up with something
that I feel works for that character. The name has to “match” the
character in my head so it can take a while until I’m satisfied
with the name.
4. How does your latest story differ from your other novels?
In terms of the
one I’m working on at the moment (ok, I’m working on several
books at the moment but this is the one which is most advanced), this
one is very different in all sorts of ways. (1) It’s a standalone
novel (2) There are considerably fewer characters than in the Aona
books – this story follows four very different characters (3) While
it has a lot of elements of dark fantasy as you might expect, there
are other genres in the mix – industrial horror, detective noir,
steampunk… so it might be difficult to place in any one genre. So
it’s a different challenge in all sorts of ways.
5. Are you working
with an agent or publisher?
My publisher (for
the paperback editions of my books) is Completely Novel. I’ve
always been impressed with the quality of the paperbacks they
produce. The Kindle editions are with Amazon (obviously!)
6. What social media
do you use to spread awareness of your work?
I *try* to use Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads and have recently
also set up an Instagram account, although the difficult thing with
Instagram seems to be (for me anyway) trying to think of pictures to
post now that I’ve posted my individual book covers and also all of
them together. I’ve managed to post some which have an
“appropriate” look and feel, in other words they fit with my
“brand” but it’s difficult sometimes.
Facebook I use
quite a lot although it seems to be mainly interacting with people
who are already fans – so it’s great for telling people about new
releases, updates etc.
Goodreads I use
mainly for posting blogs every now and then, and checking for latest
reviews of my books. They seem to be very strict about authors so
much as mentioning their own works though, so these days I tend not
to message people directly on that platform- so consequently it isn’t
as much use as it could be.
And Twitter… I
have bouts of Twitter use, and I’ve made a list of all the “right
things to do” on Twitter – retweeting other people, making nice
comments, not directly messaging people, making sure I only post
about my own works something like 15% of the time… but it doesn’t
seem to really work for me, not so far anyway. I don’t think I’ve
made any direct sales on Twitter. Apparently it’s supposed to be
more about building relationships, but maybe I’m just not very good
at that, as I’ve tried doing all the right things but found that
people aren’t that interested. It’s odd because other platforms
have worked a lot better for me.
7. If you had
unlimited funds, how would you advertise your work?
I’d probably
take out wrap-around ads in every national newspaper and a load of
major websites and see what happens. Sadly though, my funds are very
limited indeed.
8. Have you sold
your work at book fairs or conventions? What kind of experience did
you have?
An author friend
currently has some copies of my books for his book stall (Hi Nils!)
and that’s about the closest I’ve come to selling at book fairs
and conventions. I haven’t attended conventions partly because of
the travel and hotel costs, but also because I don’t really come
across well in person (and quite often come across as boring) and I
know that the idea of trying to directly sell my books just wouldn’t
work for me.
9. What would you
tell beginning writers?
Ask yourself if
you really enjoy what you’re doing. If you do, then keep doing it.
If not, then don’t. And whatever you do, don’t even think about
trying to make serious money from writing. If you do end up making
serious money, well then great – you’re very, very lucky. If not,
then so be it. Try to keep a philosophical attitude to it all, and
above all, if you don’t enjoy writing any more, don’t put
yourself through it.
10. Which do
you find hardest: coming up with a story idea, writing, revising, or
marketing?
Marketing is by
far the hardest, because it isn’t something that comes naturally to
me. It means having to do the hard work of selling my books, and
convincing people that they should buy and read them. Because I have
no contacts to speak of in the real world, that makes it much more
difficult than it would for someone who’s lucky enough to have
loads of contacts or who has loads of money to spend on marketing and
advertising.
11. What are the
hardest kinds of scenes for you to write? Romantic? Sex? The death of
a character? Fight scenes? Others?
The trickiest
ones are sex scenes, partly because I have no idea what I’m talking
about when it comes to that subject, but also because all too often
they come across as ridiculous, without serious re-writing and
re-re-writing. Luckily I don’t tend to have many such scenes in my
books.
No comments:
Post a Comment