Authors Electric

They do say that there is no such thing as bad publicity: ergo, the only bad publicity would be that which is ineffective. But how to judge effectiveness? Is it the number of Amazon reviews we get? Or the number of books we sell? Or the best margin of profit we can get on each sale? Or might it be that delighted smile on the face of one old lady who clutches your arm and whispers, 'I couldn't put it down', shamefacedly, as if she has been very naughty reading such lightweight stuff. Novels! Shocking! Mrs Gaskell, eat your heart out. My third novel,  Eleanor's Journey,  is decidedly a woman's book, about five friends and their families and shenanigans. It is head-and-shoulders-above my other three in the spiciness stakes. I have had several shamefaced ladies of varying ages (I think the oldest was 89) confiding that they like it best. And hastily adding, 'Don't tell anyone.' We giggle together and I feel - strangely - effective. Of course, if she is...

Ali Bacon at the St Andrews Photography Festival  We Authors Electric are a far-flung bunch, but this month, through a happy coincidence, Wendy Jones and I found ourselves in roughly the same place at the same time.  On Friday September 9 th I was reading a programme of short stories in St Andrews in Fife as part of the town’s first Festival of Photography . Wendy, who lives just over the Tay Bridge in Dundee – said she could make it to St Andrews – and by the way, she had a book launch in Waterstones in Dundee the following day.  Some mutual writerly support was on the cards! I won’t elaborate on my own event right now (more coming soon on my own blog ) except to say that I had an appreciative audience (including Wendy!) most of whom were fellow photography fans and some of whom were movers and shakers of the early photography world. As well as getting some great comments from the audience it was a fantastic networking opportunity for me.  ...

As a writer there is no end to the things which happen in your life. Opportunities come along when you are least expecting them. Recently I went in to The Royal Bank of Scotland in Broughty Ferry, Dundee to pay in a cheque. The teller who served me asked what I would be doing for the rest of the day. I said that as it was sunny (yes the sun does shine in Dundee) I would be writing in the garden. It turned out the teller was Rachel, the Bank Manager, and she asked me to do a book signing. Never one to let an opportunity go by I agreed. To put this in to context I had never set foot in this particular bank previously. So it all came as a complete surprise.  As the title of this blog suggests I believe that this may a first in terms of book signings. Banks are not the usual place that you find an author. So I wasn't sure how this would go. I took along books and set up my signing table complete with a noose as can be seen in the picture.  The noose is crucial ...

Psychologist and author Alan Kennedy was researching wartime conditions in Vichy France for his fourth novel   Lucy   when he remembered that there was something he wanted to know about the bombing of Coventry in November 1940. Did Winston Churchill have advance warning of the raid? Could he have saved the city at the cost of alerting the enemy that their Enigma code had been broken? Coventry, November 1940 All of us, I’m sure, will have had the experience being led astray from our main path of research along some elusive but compelling byway which, startlingly often, turns out to be relevant in some way we could not possibly have anticipated. Alan Kennedy was born in the West Midlands, about thirty miles from Coventry. He was a baby in his cot at the time of the bombing: his father left for work every day - often at night- but what did he do? Why wasn't he in uniform? His mother was terrified for the rest of her life by the sound of the air raid siren. Why? Anyone a...

Wendy Jones talks about her book, Killer's Countdown Things have been very exciting for me recently as my first book, Killer's Countdown, was launched in November last year. If you are about to launch your first book, or are even writing your first book, I can assure you it is a heady feeling. It is also a whirlwind ride. In the midst of all this euphoria I also had to bear in mind that somehow or other I had to let the public know that my book was out and readily available. Now that was a sobering thought. So what have I learned about marketing in the midst of all the fun and excitement. I thought I would write this in order to help others. 1. Gradually build the level of interest. Having been reading about writing and marketing for some time, I was aware that marketing starts long before the book is hot off the press. It is important to build up excitement and anticipation so that people are waiting for it's arrival. The minute I started writing the book it wa...

When I researched my new novel The Death Game which is set in 1919 Dundee I came across some interesting facts. The main character of my novel is the first policewoman in Dundee, and in the process of researching the origins of women police I came across many fascinating details. Did you know? 1 – The first women’s police service was formed by the suffragette organisations in 1914 when they abandoned their militant actions on the commencement of the First World War. 2 – There were two women’s police services in London at this time. The first of these was the Women’s Police Volunteers which later became the Women’s Police Service. The second service was the Voluntary Women Patrols. 3 – Between 1914 to 1918 the women’s police service was voluntary, although they worked closely with the official police forces. 4 – In 1918 the Commissioner of the Police, Sir Nevil Macready, appointed one of the voluntary services as an official women’s police force. Interestingly, h...

     I’ve recently been thinking about what constitutes a series in crime fiction. I started to think about this after describing my Dundee books at the recent launch of Missing Believed Dead , and whether I was right in labelling the three Dundee crime books as The Dundee Crime Series.      You see, in my books the police are not the main characters, they are secondary characters. The main characters are either victims, suspects or perpetrators, and they are completely different in each book. So, because my main characters are different in each book, does that make the books standalone crime fiction rather than a series?      Julie, the main character in Night Watcher , disappears into that space all characters go to when we, the writers, are finished with them. Admittedly she appears in Dead Wood as a distant memory, but she’s not there in the flesh.      Kara, my feisty single mother, who...

          The market for short stories is even more limited these days than it was in the past, to say nothing of the market for poetry. Gone are the heady days of the daily story in the Evening News . That was my first taste of paid publication, and it was a terrific outlet. The only requirement was that it had to be between 1050 and 1100 words, and not be offensive. So I did science fiction, historical, contemporary…  Capital Radio had a slot where you could do weird surreal stories there, of a similar length. The short story competition has filled some of these lamentable gaps, and poetry competitions are invaluable for undiscovered bards who are notching up rejection slips in three figures from magazines.             The first competition I ever entered was Bridport, in 1987, and I came third. These days they publish anthologies, which gives you an idea of the sort of thing th...