21st December - Book Two has started its publication journey!

Book One: The Mystery of the Missing Brooch, was published nearly two months ago! How is that even possible? I've had some fantastic feedback from people who have read it and a few of those have kindly left reviews on Amazon, giving me a rating of 4.6* out of 5 - thank you!

At the beginning of December, I signed a contract with The Choir Press to publish Book Two: The Mystery of the Missing Wallet. My manuscript was sent to my lovely copy editor, Ann-Marie, who was almost as excited as I was! She has now marked it up with her corrections and suggested improvements and I have the manuscript back to work on between Christmas and New Year. Meanwhile, my wonderful artist friend Heather has started work on the cover - I've seen a preliminary sketch and it's going to be great! I'm hoping for a publication date in spring 2025.

 

29th October - I am now a published author!

Last night I hosted my Book Launch Party at Cafe My Place in Killingworth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Okay, it wasn't quite as well attended as I would have liked, but those who came were very enthusiastic and gave me great feedback. Maybe I expected too much for a totally unknown author publishing my debut novel? Or maybe it says more about the fact that I have friends and family scattered across the UK and France, most of whom live too far away from Newcastle to have come to my party. 

The important thing is - today my book has been published! 

Yes, I am super-excited.

Now, I feel motivated to get a move on with writing more books.

And I'm waiting anxiously for the first review - please God may it be a positive one!

 

19th October - ten days to publication!

Ten days to publication and I'm working hard at marketing my book. What can you do to help?

- Like or follow my Facebook page : Wendy Boynton - author

- Add me as a friend on my Facebook profile : Wendy Boynton - author

- Follow me on Twitter @wendyboyntonuk

- Like and share the competition on Facebook, to win a signed copy of my book. Every share helps to spread the word!

- Pre-order the paperback or ebook online

- If you're in Newcastle on Monday 28th October, come to my book launch party

- From Tuesday 29th October - READ and REVIEW my book - please!

3rd October - nearly there now!

Today I have just confirmed with The Choir Press that everything is on track for publication on 29th October 2024. The inside pages are finalised. The cover design is finalised. The book is going to the printer's next week for the 100 copies that I have ordered to be sent to me - so that I can sell signed copies at the Book Launch Party. And, fingers crossed, it will be listed for pre-sale on Amazon by the end of next week.

The excitement is building!

26th September - Book Launch Party!

I have finally booked and arranged my book launch party!

 

13th September - what a week!

This has been a busy week. Second page proofs checked and returned. First version of the book cover design received. Amendments requested. Version two received. A few more tweaks. Version three received - and we're there! Book cover design done.

And now I have a firm publication date: Tuesday 29th October 2024!

This is a whole month earlier than I had been hoping for. I am so excited. And now I need to get busy with arranging a book launch party and upping the marketing campaign.

26th August - the publishing process

Write your manuscript - edit it numerous times - get some constructive feedback from your friends and family - re-write your manuscript - get it proof-read. 

Decide what you want your book cover to look like - I worked with a friend of mine who is an artist and she produced some original drawings for me to use. Or you can use a photo or other image.

Then the copy-editor gets to work on your manuscript to make it look more professional.

Meanwhile, fill out a long questionnaire to help identify key words to be used as metadata when your book is listed for sale online.

Having finalised your manuscript with all its corrections - receive some page styles to choose the font and appearance of your book - get your first set of page proofs. OMG - I can now see what my book is going to look like - kind of - as the page proofs are a print out of each page as it will appear in the book, printed in the middle of a sheet of A4 paper.  Spend hours checking the page proofs carefully and marking all corrections in red pen with clear instructions in the margin. 

This is when I realised that I needed to add a paragraph of "Acknowledgements" to go in the front of the book - and a trailer for book two to appear in the back of the book. 

Get everything packaged up and send it back to the publisher. That's how far I've got ... still to come: 

Receive and revise the book cover design.

Receive and check the second set of page proofs.

Agree a publication date - and receive your author copies of the finished book!

Meanwhile, I'm trying to build a social media following so that I actually have an audience to announce my publication date to!

And I've yet to organise a launch party and any book signings. 

 

10th August 2024 - about self-publishing

First, and most importantly, I do not consider myself an expert in the field of self-publishing. This is just a few notes on my research into it.

It is a fact that it is getting increasingly harder to get your work published in the traditional way. Big publishers receive thousands of unsolicited submissions each year. Of course they can't read them all, so the process is fairly brutal. A very small percentage of wannabe authors will actually land a publishing contract. Even the best authors have had to try multiple publishers before finding success (JK Rowling's Harry Potter books were famously sent to twelve publishers before being accepted) or have opted to found their own publishing company to do the job (LJ Ross' DCI Ryan books, Dark Skies Publishing). It's no wonder that self-publishing is becoming the way to go.

So what is self-publishing? At its most basic, it's the author paying a publishing company to produce copies of their book. But that doesn't even begin to cover the vast range of services on offer. 

From my research, there are three types of companies offering self-publication options: 

The scammers - these companies will offer you a cheap price on an unbelievably good deal - and you know what they say - if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. At best, you will get a few copies of your book printed, most likely at a substandard quality. At worst, you'll pay your money up front and never see your book in print.

The vanity publishers - these companies will produce printed copies of your book at a (usually) reasonable price. But their aim is in pandering to the vanity of the author - after all - who doesn't want to see their name in print? The quality of these varies immensely, so I would not dismiss them all as bad. Just be careful, do your research, and ask yourself the question: what am I hoping to achieve? If what you want is a few copies to distribute to friends and families, then this might well be right for you. But don't expect a lot of follow-up after the initial process.

Self-publishing specialists - these vary hugely in size and in the range of services they offer - but you'll be paying for a reputable company to do a good job. They should be completely upfront in what services they offer and the likely cost of these services. A quote from them will describe in detail each stage of the process that is included, plus information about additional options and what they will cost, and they will ask for a deposit, not the full amount, up front.

Of course, I'm generalising, but I hope you get the picture? It's a minefield ... and then there are so many options!

To print hardback books (more expensive to produce and for the reader) and/or paperback books (less expensive to produce and for the reader) and/or e-reader formats (usually the cheapest option). Not to mention audio-books - an area I haven't looked into yet!

To go with print-on-demand or take a more traditional approach, producing a print run of hundreds or thousands of books. Print-on-demand is both cheaper and less risky for the novice author. Books are advertised on a range of online book sellers and are literally only printed as and when they are ordered. There's no trying to guess what size print run to go with and no having to store a large quantity of books that may or may not sell. But, the lag time between ordering and delivery of the book might put some readers off, and most physical bookshops won't stock print-on-demand books, so it has its limitations. Doing a large print run of a book makes the unit cost of each book that much cheaper, which is more attractive to physical bookshops, plus they can access enough books to stock them in all their stores. But you risk being left with a lot of unsold books, if things don't work out well for you.

There are some authentic cheaper options out there, such as KDP. Kindle Direct Publishing is free. Your book is listed on Amazon (print-on-demand) and on Kindle. But there is relatively little support for the novice author, you need good IT skills to navigate the process, and you have to do the bulk of the work yourself. There are also publishing companies that are little more than glorified printers - again, you have to do the bulk of the work yourself and they will then do a small number print run for you. I'm sure these options have their advantages, but they weren't for me.

There are a lot of self-publishing companies who offer genuine services - proof reading, copy editing, page style and layout, typesetting, cover design ... etc. etc. The next big question is how much effort do they then put into marketing your book for you? It's no good having a book if you can't sell it - but marketing services cost money! At the very least, you need an ISBN (International Standard Book Number), a barcode, and metadata to facilitate online sales. And you need to register a copy with The British Library. Then you need your book to be available online - with one or more booksellers - and/or stocked in shops - again with one or more book shops. Who does all this? Who responds to orders? Who stores your books (if you've gone with a print run)? Who dispatches them to customers? So much to think about!

Then there's the whole world of marketing - to be honest, this is still a bit of a mystery to me!

Not all self-publishers offer a marketing package. And for those that do, the price goes up, the more services you take advantage of, so your budget might have something to say about the amount of marketing you can pay for. However, I would say that, from my research, it would appear that your books stand a better chance of being successful if you can afford to pay for marketing.

Or you can choose to handle the marketing yourself. That's what I'm doing. My budget is limited, so I'm paying for the publishing process because I want it to be as professional as possible, and I'm not paying for an add-on marketing package. Actually, the publisher I've gone with doesn't offer a marketing package. But they will produce a professionally edited book, with an ISBN, barcode and metadata, and they will list it for sale on multiple online booksellers, on a print-on-demand basis, and will handle the orders, printing and distribution. And whilst I haven't seen the finished article yet to make any kind of judgement, I will say this - The Choir Press has been incredibly friendly and helpful at every stage so far. Fingers crossed, I've chosen wisely.

 

 

9th August 2024 - some background to the books

It was lockdown 2020 - the COVID pandemic - and I was bored. I'd tried reading, baking, gardening, jigsaw puzzles, and I needed a new challenge. I had always wanted to write a novel - so I gave it a go! 

Why write a murder-mystery? Because it's a genre I love to read and to watch on television.

Why set it in Salisbury? Because I spent a large part of my adult life living in the Salisbury area, and it's a city I love and know well. And, as it turns out, there aren't too many fictional series set in Salisbury.

The first draft was entitled Mystery at The Cedars. It featured a solo amateur sleuth called Meg Thornton, an eighty-one year old resident at the eponymous care home. I finished writing it in about six weeks. Then I sent it to a select few friends and family members, asking them to read it and give me feedback. By and large the feedback was positive, with some very useful constructive criticism, which is just what a budding author needs. My good friend Andrew kindly proof read it for me. Then I sent it to two publishers, just to see what kind of a reaction I would get.

Nothing from one. But the other, who had requested I submit just the first chapter, was interested enough to request the full manuscript for consideration, on the proviso that they would not publish a one-off book: was this going to be a series? Of course I would like to write a series! I started work straight away planning the second book. But then I heard back from the publisher and they said that although the book was well-written and enjoyable, they didn't feel that the care home setting lent itself to a series. There is a limit to how much a care home resident could do without the risk that the plots would become repetitive. I was disappointed, but they made a fair comment.

By the way - several people have asked me if I was inspired to use a care home setting by the Richard Osman Thursday Murder Club books. The answer is a resounding NO - I hadn't read any of his books at the time I started writing! I have read them since - and love them - but I think my books are very different to his.

Anyway, I put my manuscript to one side, trying to decide what to do with it. In May 2021, my husband and I made the decision to leave France, where we had lived for more than eleven years, and to move back to the UK. The pandemic was partly responsible for this, as I hadn't seen my granddaughter in eighteen months because of travel restrictions. We settled in to our new home near Newcastle upon Tyne in the North East of England, an area that was unfamiliar to both of us, so we had lots of exploring to do.  I didn't really do any serious writing until a couple of years later, although I did experiment with various ideas.

In 2023, I made the decision to completely re-write my novel. A friend, who read my first draft, had commented that she was disappointed to find that Lauren, who featured in the early chapters, faded into the background as the book progressed. My grateful thanks to Patsy for the inspiration to completely change Lauren's character and role. With Meg and Lauren now working together as amateur detectives, a lot of the problems in the first draft were easily resolved. And with Meg's knowledge and experience and Lauren's youth and enthusiasm, I had a partnership that I could build on.

I finished re-writing the first manuscript and immediately started work on the second. Where Lauren is young and inexperienced in the first book, her character starts to gain confidence in the second. In the first book, Meg does a lot of the investigating; in the second the pair work together more closely and their friendship develops further. And in the second book, the action starts to move outside of the care home. And I introduce a new romantic side-story for Lauren.

I was happy with my characters - but not with the title of the books! If I followed in the same vein as the first, the second would logically have been Mystery at Britford Lodge.  That was not too bad, but if I wanted to write a third novel - and I did - then I would run out of ideas. The Cedars is where Meg lives in the first book. In the second, she moves into Britford Lodge, following the closure of The Cedars at the end of book one. But that's where she's going to stay for the rest of the series! Hmm. 

The actual mystery of the missing brooch in book one is, on the face of it, a relatively minor incident. But it is a catalyst to everything that follows. And I liked the sound of The Mystery of the Missing Brooch - it's slightly enigmatic, and it's unusual in a genre where there are so many "death in ...",  and "murder at ..." titles. And it lends itself nicely to the idea for subsequent titles in the series. The missing wallet in the title of book two is also a catalyst for what follows, even though it is almost unrelated to the motive for the murders. The missing child in the third title is more literal, as is the missing bequest in the fourth and the missing chalice in the fifth. But again, the disappearance of the child in book three is only one part of a much darker and more tangled web of deceit and lies.

In book three, I have continued to move the action outside of the care home where Meg lives. This is largely facilitated by Lauren passing her driving test and getting her first car. My dynamic duo are now mobile! And I have them travelling to various locations around Salisbury and even as far afield at Ludgershall. But there are troubled waters for Lauren's romance.

By March 2024, I had finished the first three manuscripts. I sent the first one to a number of different publishers, but had no responses. I was just about ready to give up when I made a new friend at a community choir I sing with. She introduced me to another friend of hers, both of whom have published pieces of writing in a self-published anthology. They not only gave me fabulously positive feedback, but they also encouraged me to look at self-publishing. This is something I would definitely not have considered if it hadn't been for Dawn and Izzy. 

So, the first book is in production and should be published by the end of this year - 2024 - and I've also started writing book four. Exciting times!

 

 

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