Out of time and patience

Regular readers may remember that last year I was lucky enough to be invited to speak at the Alderney Literary Festival.  The lovely people who run that event have kept in touch, and today they have put a little piece by me on their blog.  It is about accuracy in historical fiction, which is something of a bugbear of mine.  And this demand for accuracy includes dialogue, of course.

My husband is away at the moment, which gives me the opportunity to go to the cinema and see whatever I want.  It’s not that we differ wildly in our tastes – the last film we saw together was “Fences” – but I have rather more tolerance for costume drama than he does, and his appetite for “bang crash” action is far greater than mine.  So when I saw that Hugh Bonneville’s latest outing “Viceroy’s House” was coming this weekend (lots of costumes, very little banging or crashing), I gave a literal little squeal of joy.  And then I read a review and watched the trailer…

The review is in the Guardian, with whose star ratings I often agree, and they call it “soapy”.  Now, soapy I can tolerate, but reading in the very first sentence that Lady Mountbatten says, “Our time frame for leaving won’t work!” – well, that goes beyond the pale.  “Time frame”?  In 1947?  I think not…  According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, which I consult regularly, that phrase came in by 1964, which sounds about right.  But perhaps one clunker can be overlooked, and so I played the film’s “official trailer”, linked to in the review.  And in that we have Lady M – a serial offender, it seems – saying to her husband, “We’re giving a nation back to its people; how bad can it be?”.  “How bad can it be?”  In 1947?  Very bad, it seems.  And so I won’t be watching Hugh this weekend; if the writers cannot even hear the thud of linguistic anachronisms landing around them, how can I possibly trust their account of historical events?

Does talk lead to sales?

As regular readers will know, I have been indulging in a few promotional activities recently – talks to groups (another one tomorrow, at a local library), appearing at the Alderney Literary Festival, and allowing Sam to be interviewed for Helen Hollick’s A-Z Blogging Challenge.  And I thought you might like to know whether all of this activity has translated – so far, anyway – into sales.  So I have examined the figures, and here’s the result.

After my talk at the Rotary Club, I sold two paperback copies of “Fatal Forgery” (i.e. “Plank 1”) to people in the lobby afterwards – it was not a promoted sale, exactly, but they asked if I had any with me, and (surprise, surprise) I did.  At Rotary Club meetings, you are not allowed to engage in commercial activity, so I couldn’t set up my usual post-talk bookstall.

My leftovers have just been returned by the organisers of the Alderney Literary Festival, and over the three days of the event their bookshop sold all twenty paperback copies of “Fatal Forgery” that I had supplied (hurrah!), eleven copies of “The Man in the Canary Waistcoat” (i.e. “Plank 2”) and seven copies of “Worm in the Blossom” (“Plank 3”).

And after Sam’s interview went live on Helen’s blog on 4 April, I sold four “Fatal Forgery” e-books, four “Canary” e-books and one paperback “Canary”.  The reason that “Canary” did so well is that this is the book that Helen’s blog mentioned – whereas other sales figures suggest that “Fatal Forgery” sells best (I suppose because it’s a series, and although each story does stand alone, I guess people like to start at the beginning).

So what to learn from all of this?  I think that people are more likely to buy if they can see and hold the physical books, and they seem to like them to be signed as well.  And promotion does increase sales – not hugely, to be sure, given the amount of time it takes to do the promotion in the first place, but who knows whether this drip-feed will lead to increased sales in the future?  And I always hope that each sale will lead to more, as people read the books, enjoy them, and recommend them to friends.

Sam practises his alphabet

The life of a writer (or at least the part-time life of a part-time writer) is an odd one: you spend hours and hours alone, talking only to the people in your head, and then you realise that, in order to sell books, you’re going to have to communicate with other people.  And some of the friendliest you can meet are other authors.  I had a whale of a time a fortnight ago at the Alderney Literary Festival, where I found that other – professional – authors are so generous with their time and their expertise and their suggestions.  And now, for the whole of April, I am joining another community of authors via Helen Hollick’s A-Z Blogging Challenge.

This A-Z Blogging Challenge has been running since 2010, and in short bloggers are challenged to blog every day in April (except Sundays) on an A to Z theme.  Helen Hollick is a prolific and wonderful blogger on the theme (among many others) of historical fiction – she’s an author herself, so knows whereof she writes.  And she has taken up the A-Z gauntlet this year by asking her writing friends to allow their leading characters to be interviewed by her.  I’m involved because she chose Sam to be interviewed for the letter C (“The Man in the Canary Waistcoat”).

Today is the big launch day, and Helen’s first post – letter A – is an interview with Aurelia, the title character from the novel by Alison Morton.  It’s not a book I have read, but Aurelia sounds a hoot and I’m off to buy it right now!  Tomorrow it will be… well, I can’t give away all of our secrets, can I, but the letter B will be much in evidence.  Helen will take a well-deserved rest on Sunday, and then on Monday, it’s Sam’s turn to be grilled.  He’s more used to asking the questions, so this will be quite an experience for him.

Festival round-up

Doubtless you’re all agog to hear how I got on at the Alderney Literary Festival this past weekend.  Well, what a lovely event it was: the authors were made to feel like honoured guests, and the attendees were so interested and so engaged.  (I’ve been warned by the other authors that this is the gold standard of literary festivals, and heard some horror stories of others – including one where an author was roundly told off for not bringing her own bottle of water to drink and was offered a glass from the rather murky tea urn in the corner of the room!)

I participated in two sessions: the first was a solo session, where I talked about my novels for thirty minutes and then took questions for another thirty.  The theme of my talk was “New dogs, old tricks”, and I focussed on how financial crime has always been with us and will continue to happen as long as there are people who are greedy or gullible or ruthless.  I did have flash-cards to remind me of key points to cover, but I generally find that I have little difficulty talking about Sam, and the time flew past.  The questions were excellent – from the philosophical “Why do you think people will take such risks for money?” to the practical “Will you miss Sam when you’ve finished the seventh book?”.  I was told that a local book club is currently reading “Fatal Forgery”, which is a bit scary!

My second session was a panel one alongside William Ryan (writing crime novels set in 1930s Russia) and Karen Maitland (medieval murders).  It was great fun to discover what motivates us and how differently we approach research and writing, and I was greatly flattered to be on the same platform as two professional writers who do this full-time, with agents and contracts and all the proper stuff.  One thing Karen said has been fascinating me ever since: we all agreed that one thing we like to explore is why people commit crimes, but Karen said that she is also exercised by why people don’t commit crime.  We all have the capacity for murder, she believes, and she likes to consider what it is that holds most of us back from acting out our darkest wishes.

And of course you will want to know whether all of this translated into book sales.  Well, the final figures are not in yet, but I sent sixty books to the festival bookshop – twenty copies of each – and I was delighted when they said that “Fatal Forgery” had sold out (the only title by any author at the festival to sell out, in fact).  There were a few “Canaries” and “Blossoms” left over, so that’s a lesson to learn: people generally like to start with the first in the series, so always have more of those than the others.  But for me, the real value of the weekend was meeting other writers of historical crime, and hearing all about their methods and techniques, and talking to them about agents and marketing and social media and all the other components of the professional author’s life.

Talleyrand’s limp

It’s been one of those strange writing weeks, where I’ve done hours and hours of research and ended up with only 1,286 words to show for it.  But such is the lot of the slightly obsessive historical fiction writer.  Here’s my thought process: I wonder if art forgery was common in 1827 – I’ll just read a bit about art forgery in general – and here’s something about art plunder during war – and yes, the French were involved – and after the wars there was a congress in Vienna, talking in part about “cultural items” – the French ambassador was called Talleyrand – he had a limp – I wonder how he got that….  And before you know it, I’m researching the physical impediments of a man who is not even going to appear in “Plank 4”.  (It was a foot injury he sustained as a child, apparently.)  Self-control, that’s what I need.

It’s an issue I’m going to raise this weekend with my fellow authors (get me!) at the Alderney Literary Festival.  They are all historical fiction writers, so I assume they are plagued with the same temptation to follow research leads that will likely be of no use at all, yet feeling justified in doing so because “it’s for the book”.  Indeed, and Talleyrand’s limp is interesting, but if a book is ever to be finished we have to draw the line somewhere.  I’ll see what they suggest.

On an entirely unrelated matter, I have just read an interesting article about self-published authors approaching agents, and how to do this.  As point one, the article says that it’s only worth bothering if your self-published book has good sales figures: “With print books, you’ll need to show at least a few thousand sales.  With low-priced e-books, you’ll need to show sales in the tens of thousand.  With free e-books, you probably need 50,000 downloads to convince a publisher that there’s a large enough paying market for your work.”  Heavens above: with those sales figures, what need would I have of an agent?

Benchmarking sales

Just a quick mid-week update for you, by way of encouragement.  We self-published authors need plenty of that!  One of our main hurdles is not so much writing the book as publicising it, and without the might of a professional publishing house behind us, we have to grab every opportunity we can to get the word out there.  I am a magistrate, and every quarter all magistrates are sent an e-newsletter called “Benchmark”.  Last time round, I spotted that “Benchmark” – alongside all the legal updates – always has a little story about a magistrate’s life outside the bench, so I contacted the editor and asked if he would be interested in hearing about how, in my day job, I earn money from crime.  I thought the little joke might amuse…  Well, it didn’t offend, and he said yes – and on 2 March a few paragraphs about me and in particular about my crime novels appeared in “Benchmark”, along with a lovely image of the cover of “Fatal Forgery” and a link to the purchase page of my website.

So did it work?  I have checked my sales figures for the day on which “Benchmark” appeared and the following day, and I can report that I sold six copies of “Fatal Forgery” (one paperback, five Kindle), three of “The Man in the Canary Waistcoat” (one paperback, two Kindle) and two of “Worm in the Blossom” (one of each).  This is a significant increase on normal sales, so I think that little article has been a great success.  Sadly for editors around the country, this means that I will be pestering more of them.  Other promotional activities coming up soon: the Alderney Literary Festival, and a talk to the local Rotary Club.

Will I need wellies?

After years of attending them as a listener, I am going to my first literary festival as a speaker.  It is the Alderney Literary Festival (Alderney is one of the Channel Islands, part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, and I am familiar with it through my day job – anti-money laundering).  This is the second annual festival run by the Alderney Literary Trust, and it has a particular bent, as explained on their website: “[This is] a ‘boutique’ literary festival where historians and novelists meet to explore the boundary between historical fact and fiction and discuss their writing approach to bringing the past to life.”  Right up my street – my Great Marlborough Street, if you will.

Like most of the speakers – so far, we number ten – I am doing a solo talk and taking part in a panel discussion.  My solo piece is entitled “New dogs and old tricks: historical financial crime fiction”, and I will be looking at how much we have learned – or, more accurately, not learned – about how to avoid falling victim to scams, frauds and financial cons.  And my panel discussion, where I will sit alongside Karen Maitland (who sets her books in the Middle Ages) and William Ryan (1930s Russia), will concentrate on crime writing.

I am, of course, rather nervous – this is stellar company (and even Stella company, with Dame Stella Rimington coming to talk about her books and the challenges of writing autobiography).  But I keep reminding myself that the audience will be there because they like books and authors, and I do genuinely know more about Sam Plank than anyone else.  And I cannot wait to meet other people who spend as much time as I do not just in the past, but in an imaginary past.