The Best of Times/The Worst of Times?

I've just received my new edition of 'The Author' magazine (the journal of the Society of Authors), and noted with some amusement that they're planning a discussion, after their AGM in September, on the subject of 'the best of times/the worst of times?'

Now, as it happens I'm giving a talk at my local village library (Galleywood in Essex, if anyone is down my way!) on Saturday 30th, and I'd planned to talk about the state of publishing these days (as I see it!), how much difference the e-book revolution has made to everyone, and where we might be going from here. And I might just pinch that title for my talk! 

I think it really sums up where we are today - in a state of flux. Some might say things have never been worse for authors; it's certainly never been harder to get a new publishing contract, with editors seemingly terrified of taking on anything, or anyone new, and agents just as wary. Unless you're already a best-seller (or a celebrity) it's also never been harder to make much money from writing. The days of big advances are long gone. And as for short stories, the markets have shrunk to almost non-existent and the odds of having a story accepted are diminishing all the time.

But is it all gloom and doom? As one of the many authors who have experimented with self-publishing on Amazon for Kindle, I do feel that this option has at least given us back some kind of control, in a world where we never had much before. Regardless of whether we earn very much from our sales, at least we can set our own price, choose our own cover image, publish when we're ready without waiting months or years for replies from agents/editors and stoically bearing the inevitable rejections.

Of course, I loved the kudos of being traditionally published, and despite everything this would still be my preference again. But meanwhile, I and many others are enjoying the freedom of having things our own way for a change! And publishers are waking up to the need for e-book-first lines, and the need to price competitively.

I don't know whether these times will turn out to be the best or the worst, but I do think they're exciting. And although I can't promise my talk at Galleywood library will be as exciting as the discussions at the Society of Authors' event, please do come along if you're anywhere in the Chelmsford area on Saturday 30th at 11am!

Meanwhile I've just been interviewed for the  'This Writer's Life' blog - pop over and learn a few of my secrets!

Oh - and I did write the 'Something Old, Something New' story eventually - and it's been submitted to W.Weekly. Fingers crossed. I haven't submitted anything there for a while, but I DO have a story coming out in their next 'Woman's Weekly Fiction Special' on 3 July.

Happy writing - and let me know what you think ... are these the best of times or the worst for writers?

Something old, something new

'Something Old, Something New' - as soon as I'd written the title for this blog post, I thought what a good title it'd make for a story. Why can't I think of snappy titles like that when I need one?!

I'll explain the Something New first.  Thanks to fellow short story writer Susan Wright, who shared the news of her own success with the new short story website www.alfiedog.com ,  I recently submitted four of my own stories, which have all been accepted and are due to go live on the site from 20 June.
Alfiedog is a pay-to-download site featuring only short stories - they're very reasonably priced and I think it's a brilliant idea - it's about time there was a dedicated site where we could go to buy short stories. Please do visit the site and take a look - you'll see some writers' names you recognise! My four stories are all previously unpublished, so remember to pop back after 20 June too, to pick up an original read!  I'll be submitting more ...

Something Old?  It's my 'Tales from a Hen Weekend' book (written under the Olivia name) - which was first published in 2007 - and since I published it as a Kindle edition on Amazon, it's out-sold all my others on there. (Five original Sheila Norton books plus one new one, and one other Olivia Ryan book). Now, I'm thrilled of course that it's doing well, but I've been wondering what it is that makes one book sell better than the others - and I've decided it must be the title. Titles are what attract us to a book first, after all, even more so than the cover, I think - especially with Kindle books where there's just a small image rather than a proper cover.  The 'Hen Weekend' in the title of this book tells you exactly what you're getting (although one reviewer from the USA mentioned that they're not called hen weekends over there - they're 'bachelorette parties' apparently. I prefer 'hen weekends'!).

Which brings me back to my original point - how to come up with a good title? When one of my Sheila Norton books, 'Sweet Nothings', was published, I didn't particularly like the title. I'd wanted to call it 'Penny's Passion Pudding' because it's the story of a woman who accidentally becomes famous for her pudding, which people believe is an aphrodisiac! But my publisher didn't like that, saying the word 'pudding' is stodgy and not suitable for a title. In self-publishing the book as a Kindle edition last year, I toyed with the idea of changing the title. But past experience has taught me it's a bad idea.

The American publisher who bought two of my earlier books published them both under different titles from the UK editions. It wasn't made clear on Amazon that they were the same books, and one disgruntled reader who'd bought the US edition, believing it to be a new Sheila Norton book, gave it a one-star review because she was cross that she'd wasted her money. (I wish she'd just returned it to Amazon!). A one-star review really hurts an author's overall rating average, and although I was fairly philosophical about it, it has taught me the dangers of changing a title!

We just need to come up with good ones in the first place! So ... 'Something Old, Something New.'
I feel a short story coming on ...

Where Have I Been?

 I'm quite shocked, on returning to Blogger after what I thought was a not a very long absence, to find two things - one, that I haven't posted on here since February; two, that the whole damn thing has changed completely while I've been gone. What's this all about then, and why didn't anyone ask me? Oh, well, yes, I suppose because I haven't been around to ask ... !

We stopped for 2 nights in Bangkok

So let's see how this new Blogger set-up works, then, and find out whether everything I write vanishes into the ether. Firstly, apologies for absence - but I've been away, you see. Somewhere beginning with A, where I saw creatures beginning with a K, and where (through the rain) I saw a famous bridge and a famous Opera House. Right!  We had a month in Australia, starting out in Sydney where we had three days of almost solid rain, resulting in flooding throughout the whole New South Wales area. 

Sydney Harbour Bridge on a dismal rainy day!

Remember, back then at the beginning of March, it had been dry in England for a long time, so this came as a bit of a shock! (And it feels like we brought it back home with us!) .

From Sydney we spent four days driving along the coast road to Phillip Island in Victoria, where my brother and sister-in-law now live. Fortunately the weather improved! 

Scenery on Phillip Island

    

Mallacoota - one of the beautiful places we stayed at along the road.

Melbourne from the Yarra River

A wallaby we 'met' on Phillip Island'

The Grotto, Great Ocean Road



The 12 Apostles, Great Ocean Road



Perth





We stayed for 10 days altogether on Phillip Island, seeing the lovely scenery and lots of wildlife as well as spending time with my family. We were close enough to visit Melbourne city from there, and eventually drove on  to Adelaide, seeing all the amazing sights of the Great Ocean Road on the way.

Our final stop in Australia was the beautiful city of Perth, where we spent three days before flying to Singapore for our stopover on the way home.

And we arrived home just in time for the last few days of the nice weather you had here in March - before the deluge began!

It was an amazing holiday - part of which was useful research as part of my next book is set in Australia!  But I must admit I'm finding it hard to get back into the writing groove now.  Of course it was great to be back with our lovely family - the babies had grown, and changed, so much while we were away!  And we've since had a great three-day break with the entire family down in the New Forest - in the rain!  I'd love to add some photos of that too, but adding pictures in this new Blogger set-up has just about done my head in, which explains why the pictures above are a bit all-over-the-place.  I hope it's going to get easier with practice!!



Good news!

It's so nice to have good news to report for a change! What with the awful weather, an awful sinus infection I've been fighting since Christmas, and nothing but rejections lately on the short story front, I didn't really have anything positive to say ... until now! So I'll waste no more time in telling you - I've got a new agent!

I've been 'around' in the writing business (and had enough disappointments, trust me!) to know this doesn't necessarily mean a cause for huge celebration ... having an agent doesn't necessarily spell success or even publication. My last brief experience with an agent was frankly, a disaster. But what it does mean is that someone, a professional, who knows the business, likes my new book enough to feel they can give it a chance.

As I've hinted on this blog already, the new book is a complete departure from my previous work - a different genre, because although I've had some success, the market for 'Rom Com', 'Chick Lit', Contemporary Women's Fiction, whatever you want to call it, has become so much more difficult that I realised I needed to make a change. Although I was pleased with the new book, I had no idea whether anyone was going to like it - so if nothing else, my lovely new agent has given my confidence a boost and convinced me it's worth a shot!

I'll say no more just yet - I've only just signed the letter of appointment. But I'll keep you informed!

In the news

I'm expecting to be in a nice feature in the Essex Chronicle newspaper this week - together with Elizabeth Lord from http://elizabeth-lord.blogspot.com. We're both Essex authors and members of the Essex group of the Romantic Novelists' Association. I contacted the paper a week or so back, as part of my promotion for 'Sophie Being Single', my new Kindle e-book. Local papers can be a great source of support (so can local radio) - and the Chronicle have been very good, giving me a mention every time I've had anything new to report on my writing career, right back to when my first book was published in 2003. I told them about the Kindle book, and offered to tell them more or even write a bit myself for the paper, explaining about why writers (especially those of us who are previously published) are making the decision to self-publish e-books. Instead, they called me to say they'd decided to produce a double-page spread about the subject, interviewing me and hoping I could suggest other Essex writers who would fit the bill.

Luckily Elizabeth Lord did fit the bill - but my other friends from the Essex RNA happen to live in the wrong area of Essex for the paper! What a shame. So I'll be interested to see whether the paper has managed to produce any other suitable Essex authors themselves, to be interviewed, or whether it's just going to be the two of us! (In which case I doubt whether it'll run to a double page spread!)

So this morning I had a date with their photographer, which is always a bit of fun - posing with my Kindle and a pile of books. Hope I don't look too ancient in the pic they choose ... but as they always like to quote people's ages in articles like this, I suppose it won't make any difference!

Ode to my Kindle (with apologies to Frances Garrood!)

Blogging mate Frances, over at

http://francesgarrood.blogspot.com/

really made me laugh the other day with her 'Ode to my new Kindle'. Like many of us, she confesses that she didn't think she'd like one until she got one. I admired Frances' ode and she challenged me to write one myself, so here goes - hope it makes someone else laugh!

I Love Him

Slim, smooth good looks!

He carries my books

on buses and trains

and even on planes.

He doesn't run out

when I need him about.

He's lovely to hold

and easily controlled.

Oh, if I were single

I'd marry my Kindle!

OK, it's not the best piece of writing I've ever done, and not likely to get me a new publishing deal! (although I think maybe Amazon should pay me for advertising!). Anyone else want to try an ode? It doesn't have to be to a Kindle ... maybe your laptop or favourite pen or whatever. Right, that took my mind off the Taxman for a minute ... now to try once again to sort out the muddle of my tax statement. Grrrr ....

Happy New Year!

New book!

So how was your Christmas? I hope you had a lovely time, and that Father Christmas brought you everything you wanted. I have it on good authority that lots of people have been given new Kindles for Christmas so I've timed my most exciting news for this post-Christmas period!

I now have a brand new book available on Amazon as a Kindle e-book, under my own name (Sheila Norton). It's called 'Sophie Being Single', it's the first of a series of three books about three sisters - one single, one married and one divorced. And it won't add too much stress to your post-Christmas bank balances, at only £2.29 for a download.

At thirty-four, Sophie Jennings is still single, and that’s the way she likes it. She has her own flat, a good social life and a gorgeous boyfriend, Charlie, who feels exactly the same as she does – settling down, marriage and children aren’t on the agenda for either of them. She also has her own business, ironically doing wedding hair and make-up. While her married and attached friends think she’s weird and her family think she’s selfish, all her bridal clients for some reason seem to want to use her as an agony aunt! Hearing about so many horrible husbands and bastard boyfriends convinces her she’s definitely best off as she is – satisfyingly single. Or is she ...?


'Sophie Being Single' is a feel-good read for the New Year with lots of laughs and some emotional anguish along the way - I really hope my readers will enjoy this new book and will be looking forward to the other two sisters' stories when they've finished reading it.

If you do read the book please let me know if you enjoy it!

And Happy New Year to everyone! Let's hope it's a successful one for us all.