My latest book, A GRAVE FOR A THIEF, is published on Thursday (you’ll find it in all good bookshops, as well as on-line) so I thought I’d talk you though the excitement that is being a published author.
Okay, first you have to write the damn thing. Now, if I could skip this part, it would be great, thank you very much.
I mean, it’s hard.
No, really – writing books is HARD.
You write and you write and you write and just when you think you can’t write any more you have more to write. Right?
You get your mates to read it, they’re going to tell you it’s great and you’re the best thing to happen to crime fiction since the invention of the blunt instrument. One or two might tell you the truth, that some things don’t work.
So you fix those bits – more writing – and send it off to the publisher.
And you hold your breath.
Because, if you’re me, you believe they’re going to tell you never to darken their door again. When they don’t, when they officially accept the manuscript, the next thing they will do is a structural edit.
Breath remains held.
The editor will come back with amendments. They call them suggestions but really it means they feel this or that should be changed, moved, deleted. Rewritten. (Remember, it’s all intended to improve the book!)
That means more writing.
You haggle though. You defend some parts, explain your thinking. You stand on your soapbox. You rant about artistic vision. You reach a compromise.
Sometimes more writing.
Then comes the line edits, basically a look through the book electronically, agreeing or rejecting the changes and corrections – grammar, wording, perhaps making sense of something that seemed perfectly sensible to you when you wrote it but not to someone coming to it cold. Generally agreeing, if you know what’s good for you. (All intended to improve the book).
There is a pause then. You go about your life. You perhaps start writing another book. You read. You watch the telly. You wait.
Then the page proofs come back.
No writing here but you have to read your own work, which I abhor.
I never like it.
I mean it. Never.
I’ve just done one of those. I managed to out source the actual work. I mean, what’s the point of being in a relationship with someone who loves reading if you don’t use their particular set of skills? (By the way, thanks, Sarah).
Anyway, corrections, typos, errors, words you don’t like are all noted and sent back. Sometime later another proof comes back, basically to check that the changes were made and everything makes sense.
In the meantime you gird your loins because pretty soon that book is going to be real, baby, and you better be ready.
And then the big day comes. A box arrives at the door with your author copies. Five, six, sometimes ten.
And for the first time you hold your book in your hand. It’s been with you for at least a year, maybe longer. It began life as a vague notion in the bath or walking the dogs. Now it’s a thing. I mean, it’s a real thing, there it is, in your hand. There’s your name on the cover. Flip through. There are your words.
Hell, you’re proud of yourself.
After that it’s all over bar the shouting at events, trying to get people to buy it. Begging anyone you know to write something about it. Trying to get your name in print and your face on telly and your voice on the radio and inundating social media with links and hash tags and begging more people to do reviews on-line because, Jesus, there’s a lot of competition out there and a lot of it is good, I mean bloody good, and how else are you going to get into tax exile?
You take a deep breath.
Relax. It’ll be okay.
And then the reviews start. They’re good, sometimes great.
And then there’s a bad one – might be on the interweb, might be in a newspaper.
Oh God, you feel like you could curl up in a ball and die.
But get used to it because the nature of the beast is that everyone can now say what they like. It used to just be critics. Now everyone’s a critic.
Don’t let it get to you. Some of it is constructive, the person knows what they’re talking about. It’s too late to change it now though – unless it’s a huge mistake that can be amended for the ebook and any future editions – but it’s maybe worth keeping in mind when writing the next book.
Some just don’t like it, plain and simple. It’ll happen. It doesn’t matter why they didn’t like it, they just didn’t.
Some are baffling – were they reading the same book?
Some are just mean people who have no joy in their lives, so they sit at their computer and spew their bile over everything in their path. Ignore them.
In the end, whether it sells or not, whether it wins awards or not, you have achieved something. You have written a book, you have created a world, you have entertained.
And that’s something to be damn proud of.
I’d still like to get into tax exile though.
I quit.