Authors Electric

Good titles often whisper sweet nothings in our ears to keep us on track as we work on our books while letting readers know what to expect. A color can remind us of the mood or tone that we hope to sustain. John D. MacDonald knew all about that: The Turquoise Lament, Darker Than Amber , etc. The title of Lawrence Sanders's breakthrough book The Anderson Tapes alerted readers to the ingenious structure of the book and the author to his mission to stay on track with that POV tack. His two best-selling series, the Deadly Sins and the Commandments divided the offering into gritty police procedurals and shorter, lighter mysteries while his McNally mysteries offered comic froth. Ira Levin on the other hand had a title in Rosemary's Baby that helped him fix his focus on realistic details of Rosemary's pregnancy and the birthing to help ground the far-out horror in his mind and ours. These are all Type 1--or what I would call Onesie titles.               ...

One of the great things about being an independent author is the freedom of choice; you can choose your author name and book titles with impunity. One of the great hazards of being an independent author is the freedom of choice; you can choose an author name or a book title in ignorance and sabotage your chances of success. This freedom of choice can find the tiniest chink in an author’s self-confidence and subject them to flag in the wind decisions on all kinds of aspects of publishing. When sales are disappointing the independent author often jumps to a conclusion that isn’t based on fact. No one is buying the book because the cover is crap; so change the cover. No one is buying the book because the blurb stinks; rewrite the blurb. People are not drawn to the title; choose a new title. Nobody wants to buy something written by an obviously made-up name; choose a new pen name. Re-invent everything because you got it wrong the first time. Or did you? I’ve seen perfe...

Book titles either arrive instantly in my head or it takes me forever to tease them out of my subconscious. Sometimes they reflect the actual story; sometimes they suggest a theme or a tone. I’ve used song titles for short stories – The Leaving of Liverpool comes to mind. This was written originally for a competition, the "theme" for which was that stories should have a "strong sense of place", so I wrote about a plot to blow up the Liver Birds and the folk song just seemed to fit (I remember the version done by The Seekers in the 1960s). My YA fantasy Edge of Dreams is about dreaming and how dreams may in fact be other worlds and become just as real as this world. The title for my thriller Hamelin's Child was one of those that arrived fully-formed. This was more of a theme-title, in that the book is about people-trafficking and the sex-trade. I think it's a strong title and it works, especially in context with a book cover that suggests genre. Its ...

Amazon 0689836368  Recently I've been asked to narrate one of the story-apps I'm doing with Flying Books. The last time I used a mic was at the launch of FOR MARITSA WITH LOVE  amazon.co.uk/dp/0689836368 and on that occasion I nearly wrecked it, so I regard the things with great caution. I don't have a mic on my computer, so we bought a tiny clip-on one. It was strange to be doing a reading without a visible audience. Now, don't misunderstand - I have always read aloud - for me, it's an essential part of working - but it's a private thing, and I hate having anyone around while I'm doing it. Reading finished work to an audience is something else. It's a special kind of sharing, and audience feedback is an essential part of it. A formal reading with a mic, pausing briefly for each page turn, has been a curious experience, and I still haven't got it right - I was told it had too much echo, so I may have to give up and hand over to one of their pro...

          I've been thinking about names quite a lot recently. A friend asked me why I had called my most recent book The Amber Heart.  (She hasn't read it yet, otherwise she might have guessed!) But if I'm honest, this is a book that has had many different titles over the years, including Noon Ghosts and The Sorrel Horse. I still quite like Noon Ghosts but it didn't 'stick' for some reason although I used the title for a radio play set in Poland instead. One of my previous agents had an aversion to the word 'horse' in any title, so the Sorrel Horse had to go. When I was doing the last major set of rewrites to this novel, I began to see that the piece of jewellery which runs through the story and is central to the plot had to be amber: a heart shaped chunk of this precious resin, set in silver filigree. When I first visited Poland, my Great Aunt Wanda gave me a necklace which she had managed to hang onto throughout the war and beyond...