Speaking of my new covers…

In light of the topic matter of my lastest blog I thought you’d like to see the actual covers for my next publication in hardback and paperback in August.  I hope they both whet your appetites enough to want to read the stories inside.

 

What goes into a book

I was in the supermarket the other day and bumped into a long standing fan who recognized me from a talk I’d done that she’d attended.  Having told me she had read all my books twice she loved them so much, she asked me when my next book was out as she was desperate to read it…. compliments every writer wants to hear.  August, I told her and it was called A Mother’s Sin, a departure from my usual saga as it’s classed as a fiction misery (I am now writing one saga a year and one of the misery types) … and what poor Dee has to suffer through the stigma of having a hard nosed prostitute for a mother in the prudish 60’s and the terrible legacy she is left on her death is just awful… but I digress… “I’ve got to wait until then,” my fan wailed and then moaned.  “Can’t you write them quicker.”  “Well I do write two books a year,” I reminded her, “And me trying to fit in any more would not only result in no sleep for me, or high days or holidays but the quality of the stories wouldn’t be as good as they’d be rushed and there is no way I will ever put quantity before quality.”  She seemed to appreciate that.  Then she asked me what the story was about of the book I was working on right now, so I told her that it was just about finished and was of a happily married family man who is unjustly accused of molesting a woman at work and of the terrible repercussions for himself and his family, and of course there is always the mystery of why the woman falsely accused him in the first place.  My fan said she couldn’t wait to read it and asked when she would be able to buy it.  Not until next Feb I informed her.  She was so dismayed she had to wait so long and wanted to know why the publishers couldn’t publish it sooner.

            Until I had my first novel accepted, I had no idea whatsoever what went into publishing a book.  Disregarding the length of time it takes the author to write it, on arrival at the publishers it is firstly read by the authors editor to ascertain that it is indeed worthy of being published in the first place, which hopefully for the author it is.  Providing the editor does not feel the need for any rewrites… something I work hard not to be asked and to date, touch wood, have never been asked to do… it then goes to a copy editor who reads it through twice, the first time to familiarize themselves with the story, the second time to correct spelling, grammar and query any issues they have over the plot or discrepancies in technical details or period it is set in.  That done, it is then returned to the writer (who more than likely has to break off from the new book being worked on or is in the middle of promoting a previous work) who reads through it again to agree and make any changes the copy editor had suggested.  It is then returned to the Editor at the publishing house for them to read through again to make sure they are happy with the changes. The manuscript is then sent to the printers. 

During all this time book cover are being designed. Unless the book is by a mega star writer when the cover is neither here nor there as it’s the name on the cover that sells the book, a cover design can make or break it.  It has to appeal to the audience it’s aimed at and hopefully entice new readers to buy it, so a lot of thought and effort goes into the design. A wonderful and extremely talented artist called Gwynneth Jones used to produce my early book covers. She would first get an overview of the book from my editor and  having a feel for what the book was about, then sketch a few ideas which she would present back to my editor, who would in turn present them to the sales and productions teams to decide which they feel is the best. That is then sent to me for my approval and any input.  That done, Gwyn would set about her business.  First she would hire a model and dress them in hired period clothes and take snaps in the pose agreed upon.  From the developed photographs she would make drawings of the characters and background which would then be painted.  The process took several weeks to complete. 

Over the years she did my book covers I became very friendly with Gwyn and was very honoured to receive as presents from her two of the original paintings of my covers, Annie and Peggie, specially sighed by her to me, which proudly hang in my home. Fashions change though and these days my book covers are designed by Headline themselves and the pictures on them are decided upon by my editor along with the design team them having sifted through hundreds of photographs sourced from a photograph gallery. The book cover for ‘Onwards and upwards’ was actually three separate photographs and I do know the one of the milk float cost £500 for the right to reproduce it as it was originally shot by a very reputable photographer.

The book cover design all done, then what we call the blurb has to be written.  I find it easy to write a book containing approximately 140,000 words but ask me to write a taster for the book of approximately 100 words or less, I find impossible, so my lovely editor Clare writes a draft which she knows I will completely change but between us hopefully we produce a blurb tantalizing enough to entice people to want to read the book.  The printers return a first draft version of the manuscript to the publishers and a copy editor reads through to correct any printers errors but also a copy is sent to me to  read through to as it’s my last chance to make alterations.  By this stage though I hate the sight of the book as I have read it through so many times by now.  The first print copy  complete with alterations and corrections is then returned to the printers for the final version to be produced. 

As a matter of interest I was informed that it roughly costs about £10,000 to publish a book from start to finish and having explained the process it can easily be seen why.

My fan was looking rather guilty when I had finished enlightening her over why it wasn’t possible for me to finish writing a book one day and her to be reading it the next in book form.  Until I told her she had no idea what went into getting a book on the shelves, mind you, as I said earlier, neither had I until I had my first book accepted and looked at my editor in amazement when she told me the date it would be released which then was a year later but then I didn’t know then what I know now. 

Well I had better get on with finishing the book I am working on or my supermarket fan will be in for a big disappointment next February.

Best regards

  Lynda x

Hopes and prayers for Madeleine McCann

Dear All, 

 

It seems most inapproriate that at this moment in time I write a lighthearted, jokey blog when most of us are deeply concerned over the disappearence of the beautiful four year old, Madeleine McCann.  I can only imagine what her poor parents are going through.  I cannot imagine what would possess anyone to snatch a child away from it’s parents and not think of what suffering they are causing to both child, parents and extended family and friends.  I personally feel so helpless that I cannot do anything physically by way of reuniting Maddy with her family but only along with the rest of us bystanders pray hard for her safe return.  Please let that be soon.

Soapy bubbles and snooty managers

It’s been one of those days when you feel that the world has a personal vendetta against you.  I was getting no-where fast today so decided to hide myself away in the bath for a long soak.  I think best in the bath, have in fact plotted most of my books surrounded by soapy bubbles but today I wanted to lose myself in my current reading matter.  I have just finished a Tess Gerritsen, her books grip me from start to finish and I devour them but the book I currently have on the go couldn’t be more far removed than the sort Tess writes as it’s Peter Kay’s autobiography which I am finding bellyaching funny.  I don’t usually read autobiographies as I never believe thay are the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth but only what the person wishes you to know about them (fiction in most cases in fact) but I wanted to read Peter Kay’s as it has received such rave reviews and he seems the sort of man to me to tell it like it was, warts and all and half way through the book I have no reason to think otherwise.  I’ve only read one other autobiography before which was Adam Faith’s and believe it was an honest account of his life and thougherly enjoyed it. I had the good fortune to interview him once for cable television and found him such a nice bloke, no airs and graces and I fancied him something rotten and not that he would have looked at me twice but a relationship with him was doomed before it started as I am five foot eight and a half, him five foot two or three and odd couple springs to mind…

 

Anyway, I was in the bath reading about Peter Kay during his youth.  Well something he wrote which had nothing whatsoever to do with what it reminded me of but nevertheless it resurrected a memory for me.  At the time I was temping as a secretary for a head doctor at the Towers mental hospital and there was a senior manager there that thought he was far above conversing with us clerical minions and until this incident I don’t think he actually said more than two words to me but somehow he must have found out I’d had several books published and therefore worthy of his attention.  ‘I hear you’re a published author,’  he addressed me as we were passing each other in a corridor, his tone of voice leaving me in no doubt that what he had heard couldn’t possibly be true as I obviously wasn’t from a silver spooned family or had a private education. When I told him I was, five books at the time to be precise, he was stunned into silence for a moment before he said.  ‘Well you’re in very good company,  my dear.  As an author you’ve got to be well read, well I am too, very well read in fact. There isn’t a literary classic I haven’t read at least twice. Who’s your favourite author?’ 
Well I might not have a private education but I’m certainly not thick and knew he was expecting me to say Tolstoy, Virginia Woolfe, (I once attempted to read Orlando and couldn’t get passed page 4) or their likes and us have an in depth discussion on what in our opinions these literary giants where setting out to achieve through their works.  I wish I could have captured the look on his face and posted it for all to see on this site, when I truthfully responded.  ‘Agatha Christie.  I’ve read all her books at least a dozen times.’  The great woman was then and still is my favourite author. The snobby manager gave me a look of utter contempt and sneered, ‘You’re no more a published author than I am as if that’s the kind of books you read then you couldn’t possible possess the brains or the mentality to write anything worthy of reading..’ He then stormed off, me never to breath the same air as him again during the rest of my time working at the mental institution. But his rude behaviour towards me made me wonder just what is perceived as literature? 

 

To my mind why is it that a work of fiction is not seen as literature unless it is difficult to work out just what the story is actually all about and written in such a way you wonder if the writer studied the same form of English at school as you. 
To me all written works are literature whether they be classic tales by Austin, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Oscar Wilde or mass market modern day gripping page turners by the likes of Martina Cole, Tess Gerritsen, Harlon Coben, Lesley Pearse or even myself.  We shouldn’t be judged, like that snobby manager did me, by what we read.  Surely the whole point of delving into the pages of a book is for the reader to be transported into a world they’d never experience in real life had the writer not opened their eyes to it but most importantly, whoever that particular book had been written by, whatever tone it took, at the end of the book the reader enjoyed their journey through it and gained something from it.

 

 After that snobby managers treatment of me, I never again judged a person by the title of the book I saw them reading or…. the book itself purely by it’s cover!!!

 

Best regards

 

Lynda x

Books jackets and exploding toilets!

I sometimes wonder if my lovely editor regrets the day she discovered me. 

Clare and I have been together right from the start of my writing career, approaching eighteen years.  At the time she had just been promoted to junior editor and my agent had just sent my first manuscript to Headline which was lying in the in tray, Clare herself was doing some photocopying, started to read it to pass away the time and before she realised was on page 14 desperate to read the rest of it, so took it home and enjoyed it so much persuaded the management team to put me under contact which I have been ever since.  Clare is now a Senior Executive Editor and I really am lucky to have her as it’s not always the case that writers gel with their editors and successfully manage to have a business but also friendship relationship which we do.  Clare called me yesterday to discuss the very serious business of new jacket design not only for my next book due out in August but also for the very exciting launch at the same time of a new venture for me into far more grittier style of stories labeled fiction miseries.  It’s the story of the daughter of a prostitute in the 1950’s and the poor girl has a right time of it… but that’s another story.  Anyway, there we were yesterday afternoon deep in discussion over the jacket’s, me very aware and appreciative that I am not the only writer Clare deals with and her time is very precious, also that book jackets are as important as the pages inside, if they aren’t striking enough to entice a potential reader to pick it up a sale can be lost, when in the distance an urgent voice boomed.  “MUM, QUICK. You’re got to come now.”  Why is it that your family always decide they need you when you’re taking an important call! 

Over the years this is far from the first time that Clare and I have been rudely interrupted by one or both of my daughters demanding my attention when we’ve been in conversation.  I’ll never forget the most embarrassing one when Clare called me and right in the middle of it my then teenage daughters decided this was the moment they were going to ferociously murder each other using language a navvie would have blushed at… boy did I murder them when I had finished that call…  Some telephone conversations are not interruptible by anything… floods, famine or fire and talking to Clare about the exciting plans Headline have for furthering my career is top of the list for me.  I ignored Lynsey’s summons and carried on my conversation with Clare. The summons for my attention came again, so loud, tone of voice so desperate that Clare heard it too down the other end of the telephone line and we both had no other reason but to believe my daughter was in dire danger, at least at deaths door. Telling Clare I was sorry but would have to call her back, I ended the call and shot through the house, my heart racing, terrified of what I was going to discover. Lynsey meanwhile summoned me again and to my surprise I realised she was in the downstairs loo.  I live in an 1930’s ex farm worker’s cottage and the house has really thick walls but I would have heard an explosion and as I hadn’t knew the toilet hadn’t erupted beneath her for some reason and she was lying in a pool of blood, so what had transpired to her that she was so desperate for my immediate help over my brain couldn’t fathom.  Banging on the door, I demanded.  “Lynsey what on earth has happened?” as visions of a mad dash to the hospital flashed before me along with emergency surgery to her, me pacing the corridor worried beyond belief, praying the surgeon was skilled enough to save her life.  My 30 year old daughter’s response flawed me, speechless.  ‘The toilet paper has ran out in here, so can you get me some please.”

The fact she didn’t need the skills of an eminent surgeon to put her back together was purely down to my self control.

Best regards

Lynda x  

Taxes, Tours and Bicycles!

Just finished book signings for Onwards and Upwards which I really enjoyed meeting readers and the wonderful staff who help sell the books but it is very tiring and it’s good to be back home although no rest for me as I’ve book number 22 to get finished and having my eldest daughter back home who at 30 having lived on her own for quite a number of years has reverted back to a sixteen years old and under the impression that Mum takes care of her every need and as for board money…. What’s that!!!!

During our jaunt a heated debate on road taxing was on the radio. Now I consider myself an intelligent woman and know that mankind is killing our planet and drastic action needs to be taken to revert the damage we are doing if we as a species are to survive but if we are going to be charged £1+ a mile for journey’s by car in future then book signings etcetera for me might become a thing of the past as with all else we are heavily taxed on by this government I won’t be able to find this extortionate extra cost as contrary to belief writers aren’t all rich. I live very rural, have no public transport at my disposal apart from the rural rider bus that comes past the end of my lane once a week on a Saturday morning and only travels into Leicester, returning an hour and a half later, so to take advantage of any sort of public transport I need my car to access it. I am hoping that another solution can be found other than this one as cutting drastically down on book signings, talks etcetera will mean me loosing touch with my readers and book sellers and greatly upset me, although my grandson has come up with a solution for me…. he has offered to lend me his bike and said he will buy me a container to strap on my back to hold my books!!!

Best regards

Lynda x

“A blog? What on earth and why?!”

‘Everyone’s’ doing a blog these days, so why aren’t you?’ a very dear friend said to me as we were driving along the other day during a two day stock signing tour around Yorkshire.  Rob’s a wonderful young man I met several years ago through his working for my daughter Lynsey whilst he was doing his degree at Sheffield University, is a true book lover, and since then somehow he’s became my unofficial tour manager.

‘Blog sounds disgusting,’ I responded, narrowly avoiding driving up a one way street.  We were trying to find a certain book shop where I had a signing to do… the fifth of that day and my advancing years were beginning to severely tell on me.  Actually I’m not that much of an internet dinosaur that I didn’t know what a blog is… well I think I do.  ‘Anyway I haven’t time with all else I have to do,’  I said purposely disinterestedly,  hoping that would be the end of it.

Rob though had the bit between his teeth.
‘That’s what you always say to people who tell you they haven’t time to write the bestseller they know they have in them.’
‘Yes, I know I do, but I really haven’t got time.  I’ve a book half finished that should have been before Christmas, haven’t cleaned my house for weeks, I fear my family have forgotten what I look like and… well  anyway, why would people want to read about what happens to me on a regular basis.  My life is boring.’
‘Boring!  It’s anything but.  Your day to day has more drama in it than what happens to your characters in your novels… well nearly as much, and thousands of people love reading about them so I’m sure they’d like to know what’s happening to the woman who writes them while she’s writing them if you see what I mean.’
‘Do you think?  Are you sure we’re in the right town as we’ve been around this bit three times and there’s no sign of the shop we’re after?’
‘Of course we’re in the right town as it’s me that’s navigating.  So you’re going to do one then?’
‘Do what?’ 
‘Oh, for God’s sake, a blog?’

The shop I was looking for then miraculously appeared  so blog’s and all else but the matter in hand was forgotten about and another  miracle happened as right at the front of the shop was a parking space, miracle indeed considering we were in a busy town centre. Obviously the council planners thankfully hadn’t gotten around yet to full predestrianisation in that particular town.

When we emerged from the shop an hour later me armed with a bag of books I’d bought, doing severe damage to my bank balance, I’d completely forgotten about blog’s but Rob though hadn’t.  Immediately we were on the road to the next venue twenty or so miles away and only ten minutes to get there through rush hour traffic, I was mortified to hear.  ‘So about this blog…’

‘Oh, for f…’s sake I’ll do it, I’ll do it, if it’ll only just to shut you up about it,’  I cut him short.

So under extreme pressure I agreed but still hadn’t a clue what I’d write about.  As I fought to drive amid other’s hell bent on getting to their destinations ahead of us seeming unmindful whether all of us arrived in one piece, my brain started working then.  There was the time when… that would give the readers a laugh.  Then there was…. Oh, they’d relate to that…. And they’d definitely have a shock when I told them about what happened to me a week ago in the snow when I narrowly escaped death…. And sometimes it’s good to air your views on topical issues.  Actually the more I thought about it the more I liked the sound of it. The rest of the journey was spent recounting past incidents during my seventeen years of beavering away trying to write my books, up until six years ago whilst still working full time in an office, some hilarious incidents, some not so hilarious, ones even needing wads of tissues to dry tears and always ending off with ‘That’s one for the Blog.’ 

So here I am.  I can’t promise to write every day or the two books a year I am under contract to write will never get done and then I risk the wrath of my legions of ardent fan’s and possible new ones, and my publishers won’t be very happy and neither will the taxman but certainly as regular as I can… I’ll try for once a week but do promise once a fortnight. 

See you shortly then with the tails of the trials and tribulations of life as a writer, woman, mother, grandmother, friend and all else heaped over this head of mine that I have to deal with.  Sometimes I do question why I was put on this earth and hopefully one day I’ll find out!!!

Best regards

Lynda x