Authors Electric

“May you live in interesting times” – a (probably fake) old Chinese proverb, which circulated humorously among us as students, many years ago. Well, now we do . Far too interesting… people have complained about "lock down", and other people, as it began, invested in craft materials, knitting yarn, or jigsaws, because they would have so much free time . And some even decided that this would give them a chance to try writing that book which they often thought about… Although many contemporary fiction writers have mentioned that this is a time when they are struggling to write ! The shock of the new and peculiar circumstances surrounding us have left experienced speechless, as it were. Its significance has overwhelmed them, the unusual lifestyle and added insecurity has robbed them of all creative energy. What can you write, when your planned and half written story may now bare no relation to present or future, once it is hopefully published and offered to the public? Wh...

Whether it is throughout history or within a single lifetime, cause and effect interest me. The great question: what is it that turns us into the people we become? In the case of my protagonist from My Counterfeit Self , Lucy Forrester, I knew from the very beginning that childhood illness was part of that complex equation. We meet Lucy in the first chapter, outwardly a wonderfully eccentric albeit cantankerous seventy-something poet and political activist. Imagine a cross between Edith Sitwell and Vivienne Westwood, standing in the magnificent rose garden she has created, dressed for the funeral of her on/off lover of fifty years, who also happens to have been a literary critic. Her husband brings her the day' s post, saying that it looks important. Lucy opens the letter. Unfolding the single sheet, she experienced a quiver of pleasure at the way both ends had been folded towards the centre, rather than the more usual Z shape. She admired the precision of it, remind...

Jane Davis How to Plan a Box-Set In 2014 I experimented with producing two box-sets, firstly releasing my own three novel box-set, and then collaborating with six other authors to produce a multi-author limited edition box-set.  'Outside the Box: Women Writing Women' a bundle of 7 novels by 7 different authors in a limited edition. I called my own box-set Second Chapter  as it contains what I consider to be the results of the second chapter in my journey as an author, which began after my first novel, Half-truths and White Lies  won the Daily Mail First Novel Award in 2009 and was published by Transworld. Second Chapter contains three full-length novels, I Stopped Time , These Fragile Things, and A Funeral for an Owl . The idea was simple. I wanted to attract new readers by offering three books for the price of two. Of course, single author box sets are the perfect solution for authors who write a series, as JJ Marsh explained about her European...

One of the drawbacks of Indie authorship is that you're a one-man (or in my case a one-woman) band. You have to do what would normally involve an office full of people in traditional publishing all on your own. You are author, editor, proof-reader, publisher, printer and publicist. It can be exhausting and is one of the main reasons cited by authors for dropping out of the cyber-publishing sphere. It's also very hard for one person - a minnow in a very large lake - to make much of a splash. So, when Australian author, musician and book designer Jessica Bell came up with the idea of some of us banding together to publish a Box Set of novels, it was the kind of intriguing experiment I couldn't refuse. 3D cover by Jessica Bell There are seven of us.  It might have been more, but some authors decided that they didn't want to commit their work to a group project and risk losing individual sales.  So we became 'The Magnificent Seven'. We're all members ...

Jane Davis lives in Carshalton, Surrey with her Formula One obsessed, star-gazing, beer-brewing partner, surrounded by growing piles of paperbacks, CDs and general chaos. Her first novel, Half-truths and White Lies , fulfilled every young writer’s dream. It won a major First Novel Award and was described by Joanne Harris as ‘A story of secrets, lies, grief and, ultimately, redemption, charmingly handled by this very promising new writer.’ She was hailed by The Bookseller as ‘One to Watch.’ But then things didn’t quite go according to plan.  Last month she published her fifth novel ‘ An Unchoreographed Life’ with Amazon – her fourth as a self-published author.  I was interested to know how and why she had taken the path from traditional to independent author. Q. When Half Truths and White Lies won the Daily Mail First Novel Award and was endorsed by Joanne Harris, you must have thought your path to the top in traditional publishing was clear - you were a high-pr...