The Apprentice – You're Fired

This Saturday I was on the Meet the Authors stand at Penshurst Christmas Market doing my first ever face to face sale of Unspeakable Things. I wasn’t speaking, blogging or posting – I was sitting with a pile of paperbacks to sell to the public.

My ex-boss always says that publishing is about creating books that people want to buy. And as a self-published author, you can’t just be a wafty creative type – you have to sell.

I started with an inferiority complex. The lovely author I took over from, Deborah, had spread out an array of published titles. She has an agent who moved to America and found her deals there. She wrote her most recent bestseller 'as a joke' and then ‘found that it was taken seriously.’

‘Better than the other way round,’ I quipped through a tightening smile.

Perhaps recognising a rabbit in the headlights, she asked all about my book and bought a copy before she left. Bless her – my nerves settled. At least I’d be able to say I had sold one.

My fellow stallholder was also friendly and frighteningly successful – he had written two bestsellers about Churchill. For the first fifteen minutes of my two-hour slot, I watched him sell three copies while Unspeakable Things lay unnoticed.

And why wouldn’t people see his books, think of someone they knew who was interested in Churchill, and snap up a copy for Christmas? He was relaxed and confident, able to chat about a popular subject with a mix of authority and gossipy titbits.

I was beginning to feel like the candidate on The Apprentice who can’t sell anything and gets fired.

I had watched Deborah enthusing about her book, its glowing reviews, the publisher wanting a second, the delights of the setting. I needed to shake off my feeling of failure, up my game and wax lyrical about Unspeakable Things.

Unfortunately I couldn’t remember a single thing about it. I read the cover as last-minute revision. Something about motherhood and madness.

‘It’s for someone who likes a dark, creepy thriller,’ I began to say to people who showed an interest.

Now there is a divide between people who can’t resist this kind of thing and those who avoid it like the plague, and you can’t tell just from looking at them. A few festive market-goers shuddered as if I’d said it was a story about hurting kittens. Perhaps they all had mad mothers. Or were mad mothers themselves?

After one couple bought a Churchill book, the husband looked at mine with benevolence and said to his wife, ‘What about this one for so-and-so?’ I didn’t hear her disdainful reply.

‘That’s not very nice, is it?’ he said to me.

My smile was becoming frozen. You see this happening to Lord Sugar’s young hopefuls, and from the comfort of your armchair, it is very entertaining.

After a passer-by stalked away from my offer of dark, creepy thrills, I got the hang of spotting those who were genuinely interested and throwing out a comment to entice them. I sold another copy and restrained myself from throwing my grateful arms round the buyer.

The hall remained busy and money was clearly no object. I had decided beforehand to reduce my usual price of £7.99 to a special offer of £5. Now I saw that people had brought enough cash to do some serious Christmas shopping while supporting local traders.

I began to suspect that my novel was the cheapest thing at the market.

A stallholder opposite explained why she had stopped selling a particular item. ‘They took hours to make and I could only sell them for a fiver.’

Unspeakable Things took me twenty-three years to write. I was literally underselling it.

In the end I found my readership and found myself selling and signing copies. My smile was now genuine as I remembered that many people have enjoyed the novel, and it is actually worth buying. I left with an envelope full of fivers and some really valuable lessons.

To begin with there were shades of I’m a Writer – Get Me Out of Here. Selling in a market is not my natural environment. But if you publish your writing, your books are your product, and if you can’t sell your own product, you shouldn’t be publishing.

So I wasn’t the candidate who couldn’t sell anything, but Alan Sugar would not have approved that I had sold at a knock-down price in one of the South-East’s wealthiest villages.

Thank you to the organisers of Penshurst Christmas Market! You were kind, welcoming and willing to stretch the boundaries of your village to include me as a local author. I had a lovely afternoon there in the end.

But on The Apprentice, I would still have been fired.

Me and Kate Atkinson

This summer I plucked up the courage to take a few copies of Unspeakable Things into a local bookseller. I mean an actual one – not a coffee shop or a secondhand bookshop.

I had been warned the manager was dubious about self-published books, but I breezed in with fake confidence and assured her I would advertise it through my vast social media following. To my delight, she agreed to try it out for three months (thank you Fiona at Sevenoaks Bookshop!)

While there, I bought a ticket for a talk the bookshop had organized by author Kate Atkinson.

I love Kate Atkinson. I loved her duo of wartime-set novels, Life after Life and A God in Ruins so fervently that I made my Dad read them too, implying that I wasn’t really interested in talking to him until he had done so.

When I turned up for the talk three months later, I felt like a tiny, unworthy fish in a huge pond dominated by the brilliant likes of Kate Atkinson.

To make things worse, I popped into the bookshop beforehand to discover that no copies of Unspeakable Things had sold. Fiona was busy with the real author’s talk so I told the salesgirl I would pick up my unsuccessful efforts later.

As the crowd gathered, I got chatting to a fellow admirer of Kate Atkinson and commented that you could assess who her readers are by looking round at the audience – for instance, most of us were women.

‘I hadn’t noticed that,’ she said. ‘What made you pick up on it?’

Now, this blog was my first big step out of the closet as a writer. Since Unspeakable Things came out in January, I am happier to declare myself.

So I replied that I am interested in such things because I am a writer, though of course, not a proper one like Kate Atkinson. She kindly she asked about my book and I told her a bit about it. I always have some postcard-sized ads with me for just such occasions, so I silenced the ‘don’t show off’ voice in my head and gave her one.

Most of us had bought a copy of Kate Atkinson’s new novel Transcription in the lobby, but this woman had decided to buy it later at Sevenoaks Bookshop and to choose two more novels to take on holiday.

And guess what? She promised to buy Unspeakable Things. It would have been lovely to chat to her anyway, but now my three-month trial had been saved at the eleventh hour by this encounter at the feet of Kate Atkinson.

The proper author came on, and her talk was great and Transcription looks excellent. I still felt utterly unworthy, but as she spoke I felt a tingle of recognition that said, yes, I get it. I am a writer too. 

When it came time for questions, a woman asked, ‘Your novels seem to flow so creatively, as though they just grow organically. Do you do any planning at all?’

Of course she does, I thought. She’ll plan meticulously. Writers don’t commit to a shopping list without working out how it will end.

Kate Atkinson smiled. ‘I’m delighted you think that my novels just flow organically,’ she said. ‘But the truth is, I plan everything meticulously.’

And it turns out we have something else in common. The plot for Transcription came to her when she was doing research for her other wartime novels and came across the story of a real spy from the era.

My new novel The Year of the Ghost is partly set in the war years. While researching the history of child evacuees, I came across some extraordinary facts and stories. Perhaps the effect of wartime propaganda, which encouraged people to see Operation Pied Piper in a positive light has lingered on, meaning that its darker side has not been much explored.

Courtesy of Defense Media Network

One of these stories, of evacuation with loving hosts, followed by the discovery of a shocking family secret, inspired a major plot line of The Year of the Ghost.

I’m not a million-selling author or a multiple prize-winner on a prestigious book tour. But I am a writer. I plan meticulously. I find inspiration from research. And apparently I promote my book wherever I go!

So yeah – me and Kate Atkinson. We do that.

What do people really think of your work? Meeting the critics face to face

Disaster and a consolation

Feedback about my psychological thriller novel Unspeakable Things has been wonderful. This was a great consolation after the disaster of my blog tour – Facebook blocked me for spamming.  I was in fact sharing unique content in groups with which I had built up relationships over months and years, but try explaining that to a broken algorithm! 

Feeling that I had failed to reach out to a readership I don’t know personally, it has been lovely to receive the encouragement of people I do know, and to share their excitement and kindness.

I just need to know more people…

Into the reader's den

I was delighted to get my first invitation to speak to a book group.

All did not go entirely to plan. I waited in the wrong place (they had moved to a different bar) and when I found them and went to buy a drink, I found that I had lost my purse. A lovely group member bought me a drink, but as I launched into my talk about how I came to write the novel, I was picturing thieves running amok with my bank account. I may well have been talking rubbish.

They were a great group – lively, interesting, intelligent and all really focused on discussing the novel (which has not always been my experience of book groups).

It was fascinating and enlightening hearing their thoughts. They had plenty of positive things to say – many had been gripped and read avidly to the end. 

One young man, usually a reader of Fantasy, said it was out of his comfort zone, but he really enjoyed it, particularly the character of David. His interest and insights into the character were very encouraging. As usual when receiving compliments, I tried desperately to erase them from memory to avoid embarrassment, but I did treasure up these gems of approval.

There were of course things they weren’t sure about – moments they felt stretched credibility or left them confused. Once one person is brave enough to bring up such points, others tend to wade in too. When something comes entirely from your own head, it is a revelation to hear how it reads to others. They all thought, for instance, that the injection John attacked Sarah with was the reason for her collapse. I had left this open, intending the reader  to fear this, but later realise it was her high blood pressure that led to the crisis.

Some questioned why Sarah would stay in the house after what happened there. I explained that she wanted to restore the past, making new memories over the terrible ones. But as with a joke, if you have to explain it…

What really struck me was how often the points brought up were ones already raised by my literary consultant, which I thought I had dealt with.

Top tip for expert feedback

When you have professional feedback, the advice is to leave the rewrite for a time, and ponder on it fully. Writers are all very excited at this stage, thinking, ‘If I just fix these things, it’s finished – I can publish it!’ The risk is that we rush in with quick fixes, following each suggestion. Perhaps it is better to wait for a solution to come from our own imagination. This might mean a fuller rewrite, but you will avoid the same issues being raised in future. In other words, don't do as I do, do as I say...

Dealing with  (ouch!) criticism

We all know that writers need rhino hide – if your work is published, it’s out there for the world to judge. But I’m not really a rhinoceros, and let’s be honest, any criticism of your creative baby is like a stab in your self-esteem.

Nevetheless, I was determined to keep a cool head, and learn from this. I made sure I discussed all the issues rather than becoming defensive, and the result was an open and interesting talk, with a lot of warmth and laughter.

The vexed issue of Codeine Linctus

The trick with criticism is to separate the useful from the … less useful. One woman, having heard that I am an editor, took issue with my capitalisation of Codeine Linctus. Having aired this grievance, she had other matters to get off her chest. But we are never going to please everyone.

It was a privilege meeting this book group. I am hugely grateful to every one of them for buying the book and reading it. Their feedback was invaluable, and so was the drink that they bought me when I was flapping.

I found my purse later in the car. And as for Codeine Linctus, look – I’m still giving it capitals!