Author Interview: Danny Gillan

"So many Scottish, and particularly Glaswegian, authors feel compelled to write gritty crime thrillers or gangland tales full of grittiness. And guns. And cynical coppers."

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

I’m still not certain that I do. I started writing fiction almost by accident, it was never a ‘dream’. I didn’t study creative writing or lust after the bohemian lifestyles of Beatrix Potter or Agatha Christie from a young age.

Basically, about twelve years ago this grey box with a screen and keyboard attached appeared in our house and I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it. So, out of boredom and a sense of it being silly not to have a go, I started trying to fill the screen up with words. I know, profound.

When I was younger, what I actually wanted to be was a rock star. I only allowed that ambition to morph into ‘writer’ when I passed 30 and every inch I lost to my hairline seemed to result in two being added to my waistline. Plus, typing is less tiring.

Your first book, Will You Love Me Tomorrow, won a competition for “undiscovered authors,” which I’m guessing led to a publishing contract. Tell us about this book and its route to publication.

WYLMT was what I ended up writing while trying to fill up that screen. The idea for the story appeared pretty much fully formed one day and I’d got almost a third of the way through the opening paragraph before I realized writing books was hard and gave up. However, because I actually knew where the story was heading I kept going back to it and, after four short years, I had a 176,000 word first draft. It was awful. Another two years later and I had 130, 000 words which weren’t quite so terrible.

The prize for winning the Undiscovered Authors competition was a publishing deal with a small UK Publishers. It was very exciting. Given that the publishers had a habit of seemingly going out of business every couple of months I was actually pleasantly surprised when, in 2008, the book finally appeared in print. It sold in the tens of, oh, tens and made no one any money anywhere. That was when I first felt like a proper writer. Then the publisher really did go out of business.

I’m still very fond of the story and its characters. I was an unsuccessful musician long before I became an unsuccessful writer and WYLMT allowed me to write about music as well as other interests such as depression, suicide and bad haircuts.

I was actually genuinely surprised when I realized the book was becoming a comedy. I hadn’t planned that, particularly. I was just writing the story and hoping it made some sort of sense, and the jokes that kept appearing during the opening suicide scene were a little embarrassing and felt in poor taste. However, since I have dubious taste in almost every other aspect of life I figured I might as well leave them, in the interests of consistency.

Slightly more seriously though, it was important to me that I treated the more serious aspects of WYLMT’s plot with due respect and hopefully I achieved that. Both through personal experience and via my day job working in Social Care, I know how important humour is when helping people through tricky times, and the plan became to reflect that in the characters’ dialogue and responses rather than trying to find laughs in the circumstances themselves.

Every time I see the title of this book I think about the Carole King song, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, that was a hit for the Shirelles. I know you’ve also done a trailer for the book featuring this song. When you gave the book its title, were you thinking of the song? Did the title come to you early in the writing process or after the book was mostly finished?

I was indeed thinking of the song, in fact I was thinking of the specific version  used in the trailer. My friend Shonagh Frazer and I recorded it many years ago and I’ve always thought it was one of the strongest vocal performances I’ve ever heard. It fits well with the book’s themes and obviously, being a song title, reflects the plot. The title was there from the beginning and in fact I think the song (or Shonagh’s version) was one of the several things running around in my brain when it came up with the stupid idea of trying to write the book in the first place.

Your published your second novel, Scratch, as an indie. Tell us about it.

While WYLMT had, dare I say it, some depth to it (only some, mind), Scratch was really an attempt at seeing how funny I could manage to be while still telling a hopefully coherent story with believable, engaging characters.

Plot-wise, there’s nothing all that unusual or original about Scratch. In many ways, it’s a straight-forward romantic comedy. That was the challenge. So many Scottish, and particularly Glaswegian, authors feel compelled to write gritty crime thrillers or gangland tales full of grittiness. And guns. And cynical coppers. And grit. Although I love many of these writers I don’t particularly want to be one of them, and thought it would be interesting to write about Glaswegian characters who are just normal, everyday people making terrible decisions and messing up their lives in normal, everyday ways.

So, I came up with a very simple premise – a guy meets his first love again after twelve years. She’s now married. He still loves her. Her dad’s mental – and tried to avoid as many clichés as possible while figuring out what happens to them all.

I had great fun writing Scratch, in particular the supporting characters. I also had the lead character, Jim, go back to working in a pub like he had when he was a teenager, which allowed me to relive some of the fun I had back in the day.

Scratch seems to have resonated with a lot of readers so hopefully that means I got at least some of it right. I find it interesting that there are some readers who respond well to the plot twists, and especially the ending, and others who feel a bit betrayed by it – that tells me I achieved my goal of side-stepping the tropes and clichés while reminding me that some people like their tropes and clichés.

You have a lot in common to the protagonists in both your novels. How much of Bryan Rivers and Jim Cooper are actually Danny Gillan?

I have no idea what you’re talking about.

I think because Scratch is written from a first person point of view people tend to assume it’s more autobiographical than it actually is. Almost none of the things that happen to Jim in the book have actually happened to me. At least not in precisely the same way. (I have never met an Irish, Bruce Lee obsessed retired psychologist, for example.)

Similarly, with Bryan in WYLMT, people sometimes assume there’s a lot more of me there than they should. If anything the character of Adam, Bryan’s best friend, is a lot closer to me in real life than Bryan is. Apart from the fact that Bryan is uncannily, uniquely talented of course. That’s all me.

Who is the biggest wanker, Jim Cooper or Danny Gillan, and why?

Oh, Danny Gillan, definitely. He’s a dick. At least Jim develops some level of self-awareness by the end.

After publishing Scratch, you released a collection of short stories called A Collection of Meats and Cheeses. Tell us about this book and what led you to writing it?

When I finished writing WYLMT, I was conscious of that fact that my writing skills and experience were still very limited. I had written precisely one thing from beginning to end. It was quite a long thing and took bloody ages, but it was only one thing, nonetheless.

I set out, therefore, to have a go at some short stories. A Selection of Meats and Cheeses is the result of that ‘go’.

The twelve stories were written over a period of about two years, moist of them between WYLMT and Scratch. I enjoyed the opportunity to experiment with different genres, tenses, points of view etc and there is no real theme connecting the various stories other than they all feature Glaswegian idiots of some description or another.

Shorts allow you to play around in genres you might otherwise avoid if it meant a novel length commitment. Hopefully there’s a vein of humour and whatever ‘me’ is running through all of them, but the plan with the collection was to showcase their variety. I even had a go at crime, just to prove I really am from Glasgow.

Another project you’re involved in is the magazine Words With Jam. Tell us about it and your role.

Words With JAM was created by my friend JD Smith - a writer, graphic designer and all round talented swine. It’s a free online (and now in print) magazine written by writers, for writers. There are a bunch of core contributors and columnists who try to be funny, helpful or interesting every issue, plus we manage to get some pretty big name interviews and articles from the wider writing world, too.

While the aim is to provide aspiring writers with as much help and advice as possible, we don’t want to be po-faced about it, and think it’s as, if not more, important to have a laugh and show that writing doesn’t have to be so serious all the time, as it is to figure out how to be successful at it.

My job title on the mag is Contributing Deputy Editor. No, I don’t know what it means either.

What are your future writing plans?

Plans? I’m supposed to have plans?

Fiction-wise, I honestly don’t know. I haven’t actually written any new fiction for a couple of years and often think that if that remains the case then that’s okay. I got a couple of novels and some decent short stories out of it, and maybe it’s time to move on and do something else now.

I enjoy writing for the magazine and intend to keep that up, and might be looking to expand into more freelance writing at some point. All job offers welcome.

There is, however, a small but surprisingly vocal element of my readership who seem to think they have the right to demand a sequel to Scratch, like I’m some kind of performing word monkey or something. I may have to write that eventually just to shut them up.

What do you like to do in your leisure time?

Class-A drugs and prostitutes, mainly. I’m kidding, I gave all that up weeks ago. I’ve recently taken up myocardial infarction as a hobby. I had a wee heart attack last week and, while I may not choose to continue with it long term as a repeat activity, it’s certainly provided me with some unexpected free time and actual medical justification for my already inherent and well-developed abject laziness, so I can recommend it on that basis.

NHS-mandated bed rest aside, most of my spare time these days is devoted to music once again. A friend and I have an acoustic act called Tales of Jake, and we’ve been gigging regularly. We’re so in demand that we’ve played pretty much every venue within walking distance of my house. If things continue to go well we’re hoping that one day we might be asked to play somewhere big enough to require amplification, though that’s probably a few years off yet.   

Tell us one thing about yourself that you think would come as a surprise to most people?

I speak eight languages and work part time as a peace envoy for the UN, am a volunteer for Médecins Sans Frontières and do one Saturday a month with NASA training the next generation of Mars astronauts. I also never lie.

That last one was a lie.

For More Danny:

You can sometimes find Danny blogging here, and can like him on Facebook. If you missed the link above, be sure to go now and listen to the trailer for Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.

Visit the website for Words with Jam.

Bibliography

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow        Amazon US UK  Paper

Scratch                             Review Amazon US UK 

A Selection of Meats & Cheeses        Amazon US UK

Fervor / Chantal Boudreau

Reviewed by: Pete Barber

Genre: Dystopian Fantasy/Science Fiction

Approximate word count: 100-105,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES

Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

Chantal Boudreau illustrates fantasy and horror stories, and has authored a number of short stories in the same genres. Fervor is her first novel.

Description:

This story begins with a compelling scenario when Sam, an eight-year-old boy, wakes in his own bedroom on the island of Fervor, suddenly deaf and with a cacophony of screaming people inside his head. An unknown teenager appears at his bedside and communicates telepathically with Sam—a new experience for him. The teenager is able to telepathically compel Sam to do his bidding and they leave the house, find a young girl (who was suddenly struck blind that same morning), and trek for a couple of days to “The Gathering” where they become part of a group of three hundred children who all have had one of their primary senses snatched away—sight, sound, touch etc. At the gathering, the children are compelled to listen to and obey a few directives about what they can and can’t do on the island, and then they split into fifty “families” of six children each. Five of the children in each group are able to communicate telepathically via “The Connection.” The story follows Sam’s family to the house allocated to them.

At this point, the story is about ten percent done. The remaining ninety percent revolves around the interaction between the family members and their musings and attempts to find out what the heck is going on.

Appraisal:

To engage a reader, a story must have conflict, but in each family, each child has a specific skill: The Finder finds stuff. The Fixer fixes stuff. The Watcher watches stuff. The Keeper keeps information. The Teller tells everyone else what to do. Consequentially, every time a potential for conflict happens, such as when The Watcher, who has lost his sense of feeling, blunders into things and cuts himself—a possible source for placing him in danger and involving the reader in wondering how will he recover—no conflict happens, instead we are “told” he has cut himself and then the Fixer fixes him.

Sam is presented as the most intelligent in the group. He is inquisitive about what’s going on and could be the source of a revolution in the home, but anytime he or any of the other “Connected” children start to push past the boundaries set for them, The Teller tells them to stop and they have to obey. The only character not Connected—The Control--has an argument with the Teller and leaves the house early in the story—neatly getting rid of that potential for conflict.

The scope of the story is narrow at best—mostly confined to the house and the nearby beach. Much of the action and dialogue seemed trivial. The author repeatedly had one character tell another character that although they had more information, but wouldn’t tell them yet—this was irritating—if you’re not going to tell me something then don’t tell me anything.

Finally, the Point of View (POV)--the signal the reader needs in order to understand which character to follow and root for--slipped and slid around so much that most of the story felt muddled. As an illustration, here’s a paragraph chosen at random (comments in parentheses are mine):

“Sam took everything in stride (telling me what Sam did and in his POV), but the same could not be said for everyone. Sarah had put her fork down and had pushed away from the table. She had not been expecting Elliot’s brutal honesty (telling me what she feels, now firmly in Sarah’s POV). Perhaps, at first, the scholars had not realized just how much they would be playing with the lives of their subjects (now we’re in the multiple POV of the scholars who set up the experiment, this is omniscient POV because only the author can know this, no one on the island has the information needed to draw this conclusion).

This, remember, was one paragraph, and after dutifully finishing a whole story written like this, I felt as if my head had been put through a mincer.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant typos, the grammar and punctuation were clean.

Rating: ** Two stars

A Romantic Buffet?

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In addition, they're having a giveaway with lots of prizes. Those of you who love giveaways (Linda, I'm talking to you), should run over there now and see what the prizes are.


Visit The Book Lovers Buffet for details.

Until My Soul Gets It Right / Karen Wojcik Berner

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Contemporary Fiction/Women’s Fiction

Approximate word count: 60-65,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: NO Paper: NO

Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

An award winning magazine writer and editor, Karen Wojcik Berner’s first novel, A Whisper to a Scream, was the initial book of a planned series, with each focusing on one or two members of a book club. This book is the second of the series.

Berner also has a blog called Bibliophilic Blather, which features flash fiction (either her own or a guest’s) each Friday. Another frequent feature is Editing for Grammarphobes, short grammar, language, and editing tips that are beneficial for everyone, whether they think they are a writer or not. I know her tips help me. For more, visit the author’s website.

Description:

“You can’t run away from yourself.

Catherine Elbert has never been good at making decisions, whether it was choosing an ice cream flavor as a small child, or figuring out what she wanted to be when she grew up. The only thing Catherine knew for sure was there had to be more to life than being stuck on her family’s farm in Wisconsin.

While watching a PBS travel show, Catherine becomes entranced by Portland, Maine. The ocean. The lobsters. The rugged coast. Nothing could be more different from the flat, nondescript farmlands of Burkesville.

Despite her parents threatening to disown her and her brothers taking bets on how many days until she comes home, Catherine settles on Peaks Island, off the coast of Portland.

She is finally free.

Or so she thought.”

Appraisal:

I loved the first book of The Bibliophiles series, A Whisper to a Scream. I knew the remaining books in the series would each focus on specific members of the book club introduced in the first book, and wondered how that would work. Would the stories be chronological, happening at the same time (which seemed like it would present problems), or something else. It turned out to be something else, at least in the case of Until My Soul Gets It Right.

If you’ve read the first book, you’ll remember Catherine as the “actress” who, if you reacted to her the same as I did, might have been a bit of an enigma, and who possibly rubbed you the wrong way at times. This book goes back to Catherine’s childhood, and brings her story forward to the present. It changed my opinion of Catherine for the better. It’s a story that anyone should be able to relate who has wanted to escape where they grew up, for whatever reason. Berner has a talent with prose that flows smoothly and puts the reader right where they belong, inside the character’s head. Until My Soul Gets It Right is another winner.

FYI:

A small amount of adult language and adult situations.

Although the second book in the series, reading the first book is not a prerequisite for full enjoyment of this book

Format/Typo Issues:

The review copy I received was an advance reader copy, so I’m unable to comment in this area.

Rating: ***** Five stars

Intoxication / Tim Kizer

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Approximate word count: 10-11,000 words. Bonus story: 4-5,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: NO

Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

“Tim Kizer is an author of several novels and numerous short stories in the suspense/horror and action thriller genres. He loves to travel and lived several years abroad.”

For more, visit the author’s website.

Description:

“Leslie has a suspicion: someone at work is trying to poison her. Can she prove it? No, and she doesn't care that she can't as she takes the law into her hands.”

Includes a bonus short story, Hitchhiker, the first story in the author’s As the Darkness Falls series, which is described as follows:

“When a serial killer hitches a ride one sunny day in a beautiful California valley, he does not suspect that he may have met his match, who is dead set to take another life. The battle of wits begins and only the most devious mind will survive.”

Appraisal:

The version of this ebook I received had two stories. Intoxication, at just over ten thousand words, is long enough to qualify as a novella, and Hitchhiker, a bonus short story of not quite five thousand words. In both cases, the basic story was creative. I especially liked the twist ending of Hitchhiker, which was very clever.

The problem I found is both stories needed a lot more polish to rise to their potential. Part of this is inadequate copy editing and proofing. These stories passed my threshold for the acceptable number of such issues for a novel, in spite of being around a quarter the size of a short novel. Additionally, there were many sentences that read awkwardly and the author fell into the clichéd problem of telling instead of showing. The worst offense in this regard was a clunky narrative in Intoxication explaining what one of the characters had done the night before that didn’t fit with the flow of the story and was clumsy to read, despite describing a critical plot twist.

FYI:

Some adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

A large number of copy editing and proofing misses which include missing words, extra words, and wrong words.

Rating: ** Two stars

Dashing Druid / Lyn Horner

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Western Romance/Historical Romance/Supernatural

Approximate word count: 115-120,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES

Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

Originally trained in the visual arts, Lyn Horner has worked as a fashion illustrator and an art instructor for Art Instruction Schools (famous for their “Draw Me” heads). Looking for a creative outlet after her kids left home, she started writing. Darlin’ Druid was the first of her Texas Druids series, which this book continues. She also has a Kindle ready memoir, Six Cats in My Kitchen. For more, visit Horner’s website.

Description:

“Dashing Druid continues Lyn Horner’s unique Texas Druids saga. This sensual western romance stars Tye Devlin, the eldest of three psychically gifted siblings. Descended from legendary Irish Druids, Tye is an empath. He ‘feels’ others’ emotions. Over time, he has learned to block out most of the ‘racket’ in order to save his sanity, but when he meets Texas cowgirl Lil Crawford, he has no defense against her hidden pain.”

“Set in the 1870s, against a backdrop of Texas ranch life and an iconic cattle drive, this epic love story pits Tye and Lil against dangerous enemies and their own feuding families as they fight their personal demons. Will they decide love is worth the consequences? Will Tye’s gift turn out to be a blessing or a curse?”

Appraisal:

I enjoyed Darlin’ Druid, the first book of this series. Its combination of a solid western romance storyline with a unique twist on the formula, provided by the infusion of a significant amount of the supernatural was a fun read that was very different. Dashin’ Druid continues the story, this time focusing on Tye Devlin, the brother of the heroine in the first book, and the romance that kindles between him and a neighbor who has a history with his new brother-in-law.

For much of this book, the supernatural aspect of the series felt almost absent; mentioned, but low key and insignificant to the plot. However, the sexual tension between the hero and heroine was so strong that throwing in too much of the supernatural would have felt like overkill. During the later part of the book, the supernatural talents of the Devlin family come more to the fore, as tension of all types increases.

In the final analysis, I enjoyed this book even more than the first. I suspect part of that is that I (and I’m guessing most people) are able to become engrossed in a book easier and quicker if they have already “established a relationship” with the characters by reading and liking a prior book in the series.

FYI:

Some mild adult content.

Could be read as a stand-alone, although reading the initial book of the series first is probably preferable.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues

Rating: ***** Five stars

Out of Touch / Rusty Coats

Reviewed by: Pete Barber

Genre: Suspense/Thriller/Supernatural

Approximate word count: 85,000-90,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: YES  Paper: YES

Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

Rusty Coats started his career as a reporter for his hometown newspaper, progressed to investigative reporter and columnist, and now works as an interactive media executive. This is his first novel.

Description:

Jonah Morgan inherited the ability to “wick” memories and foretell futures. He receives the information as flashes when he touches everyday objects, such as a pen, or a ticket. Although Jonah “sees” the past and future of the people who have left their residual mark on these objects, he has no ability to change what he sees, so his gift is a mixed blessing. He is haunted by a vision of his wife and children dying in a car crash that he was unable to prevent, and since that event has worn gloves to inhibit his powers.

When his glove is accidentally pulled off just after boarding an airplane, Jonah foresees the plane crashing. He tries to stop the flight, but is escorted off as a nuisance and the disaster occurs. The novel revolves around the effects this disaster had on those lost, in particular a high-school basketball team who were traveling to a playoff game.

Appraisal:

The premise—a man having this “wicking” ability—is compelling. The crash event itself is well told, exciting, and action-filled. Much of the book focuses on the small town that lost the kids in the basketball team. Here the storyline gets muddied due to the large number of minor characters (over thirty in all). This leads to a lot of “head hopping” and fast switches in point of view which makes for confusing reading at times--not quite knowing who’s who, or who’s talking.

The action builds throughout and the climatic final twenty percent makes compelling reading that moved me close to tears at times.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that if only the piece had been edited more closely it would have been a far better read. Many scenes started in italics, which the author used to indicate Jonah’s imaginings and also to indicate external information sources (such as TV or radio broadcasts); or they started in dialogue, which meant reading a paragraph or more before I knew where I was in the scene. There were a few occurrences of characters doing things that are physically impossible such as “catching” or “holding” someone’s eye or turning “the wheel into the school parking lot”. Nothing heinous, but enough to take the shine off a solid story premise. Better choices would have been gazing into someone’s eye or turning the vehicle into the parking lot.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant typos, however there were some issues with copy and content editing as well as formatting discussed in detail in the appraisal section.

Rating: *** Three stars

Author Interview: Beth Orsoff

"Every author thinks (or used to think in the pre-Kindle days) that a traditional publishing contract meant that your publishing career had finally begun. Unfortunately for me ..."

Have you always wanted to be a writer?

This should be an easy question but it isn’t. I think I did want to be a writer when I was a child, but it didn’t come naturally to me and I was easily discouraged. Since I was better at other things I focused on those instead. But the writing bug never really left me. It just got buried for a while. I didn’t purchase my first

“How to Write a Novel” book until I was twenty-six years old. And I’ve been pursuing a professional writing career ever since. 

Who are your favorite authors?

I hate his question because the answer is too many to name! Since I write chick lit I’ll name some of my favorite chick lit books instead. In no particular order:

Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding – The one that started it all. Although it really is just an updated version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Really. If you don’t believe me, read the two books back to back and it will be blindingly obvious. But hey, if you’re gonna steal, than steal from the best (and preferably from a book that’s in the public domain).  

Something Borrowed and Something Blue by Emily Giffin – Her heroines do some despicable things and yet you root for them anyway. You have to be a talented writer to pull that off.

Skipping a Beat by Sarah Pekkanen – This is a book that I wish I had written. And I’ve recommended it to so many people Sarah Pekkanen should be sending me royalties!

Your story is an interesting one in that you’ve been published traditionally, self-published, and now have a multi-book contract with Amazon Publishing. Let’s start from the beginning by having you tell us about your first book—both what it’s about and its publishing history.

My first novel, Romantically Challenged, is about a thirty-two year old entertainment attorney named Julie Burns who becomes convinced that finding The One is “just a numbers game” so she sets out to increase her numbers by any means necessary. From chance meetings and blind dates to dating services and the wonderful world of the Internet, Julie will try anything to meet her man.

I wrote the first five drafts of this novel between 2001 and 2002. When I started querying agents I received lots of requests for “partials” (that’s publishing parlance for when an agent asks to read the first few chapters of a manuscript), some requests for “fulls” (that’s when after reading and liking the first few chapters the agent asks to see the rest of the manuscript), and lots of lovely (and lots of not so lovely) rejection letters. I felt like the book was about ninety percent there, but I didn’t know how to get it to one hundred percent. By this point I had taken many writing classes at the UCLA Extension Writer’s Program so I went back to UCLA and signed up for their manuscript consultation service where one of their instructors reads and edits your manuscript like a professional editor would. What I received back was an eight-page single-spaced e-mail telling me all the things that were wrong with my manuscript with suggestions of how to fix it.

What I remember most about that experience was that my friends who had read the book were defensive—they felt like the editor was attacking the book. Whereas I felt like the editor was trying to make the book better. In the end I took about ninety percent of the editor’s suggestions. After two more drafts I started querying agents again. This time I was offered representation relatively quickly and that agent sold the book to Penguin six weeks later.

Romantically Challenged was originally published by Penguin in April 2006.   

After Romantically Challenged was published, what happened next? Why did you eventually decide to self-publish?

What happened next was a whole lotta nothing. Every author thinks (or used to think in the pre-Kindle days) that a traditional publishing contract meant that your publishing career had finally begun. Unfortunately for me my first chick lit novel was published about six months after the chick lit market had imploded. Brick and mortar bookstores no longer wanted to stock chick lit and publishers didn’t want to publish it.

Penguin had an option on my next book too, but since it was also chick lit they weren’t interested. Nor was any other publisher. And since publishers were no longer buying chick lit, agents no longer wanted to represent it.

Agent #1 and I parted ways and I wrote a comic mystery entitled Honeymoon for One. I signed with a new agent relatively quickly—she loved the book and was anxious to shop it to all the major publishers. And although the plot was definitely a mystery, the characters and “voice” were still chick lit, so that book didn’t sell either.

So I wrote another book entitled How I Learned to Love the Walrus, which I considered chick lit with depth, but since the term chick lit was verboten in publishing circles, I had to call it “humorous women’s fiction” (to distinguish it from the Jodi Picoult-type depressing women’s fiction). Unfortunately agent #2 hated this book no matter what I called it. I wrote several drafts for her trying to get the book to be what she wanted it to be, and I even worked with a freelance editor that she had recommended (the editor loved the book in its original form, by the way), but no matter how I twisted and shaped the story it wasn’t the story that agent #2 wanted it to be and we agreed to part ways. Thus the hunt for agent #3 began in earnest. 

I signed with agent #3 in December 2009, around the same time I started reading Joe Konrath’s blog and started hearing more and more about e-books and self-publishing. I had already requested my rights back from Penguin for Romantically Challenged, which had been out of print for some time. Penguin finally reverted the rights back to me in spring 2010. 

By this point agent #3 was shopping Walrus to all the major publishers and although it was often praised by editors, it was always rejected, usually on the grounds that the book was unmarketable—or at least they didn’t know how to market it. The book wasn’t really women’s fiction (too funny for that) and it wasn’t really romance (although there is a romance in the book, it’s not the main thrust of the story). Essentially the book was chick lit and publishers still weren’t buying chick lit because the chick lit market was dead (so sayeth the publishers thus making it a self-fulfilling prophecy).

So while agent #3 searched for new publishers who might be willing to take a chance on Walrus, I decided to update Romantically Challenged and self-publish it as an e-book. And to my amazement, it started selling. Then I pulled out that comic mystery novel that agent #2 loved but couldn’t sell and self-published that one too. To my even bigger amazement, Honeymoon for One immediately started outselling Romantically Challenged (this trend would later reverse and to this day Romantically Challenged is my all-time bestseller).  

By September 2010 all the major publishers had rejected Walrus and my agent told me she wanted to start pitching it to e-publishers. That’s when I put the brakes on. My question to her was “What can an e-publisher do for me that I can’t do for myself (or hire someone to do for me such as cover design and editing)?” I never received a satisfactory response to that question so in November 2010 I self-published Walrus too. That was the first month I had three books for sale, and the first month I sold over 1000 e-books. Then Christmas came and my sales exploded. What started out as a self-publishing experiment turned into a career.  

Tell us about each of the three books you self-published after re-publishing Romantically Challenged.

Disengaged is classic chick lit. Here’s the blurb:

When L.A. accountant Allie Zenet's fiancé proposes she's thrilled, both with her fiancé and her brand-new sparkly diamond ring. As wedding plans progress, Allie still adores her ring, her fiancé less so. Is it just the stress of trying to plan a wedding with the mother-in-law-to-be from hell? Or is Allie about to make the biggest mistake of her life?

How I Learned to Love the Walrus is a romantic comedy set in Alaska. Here’s the blurb:

When Los Angeles publicist Sydney Green convinces her boss to let her produce a documentary for the Save the Walrus Foundation, the only one Sydney Green is interested in saving is herself. The walruses are merely a means to improving her career and her love life, and not necessarily in that order. Sydney would've killed the project the second she learned she'd be the one having to spend a month in rural Alaska if it had been for any other client. But for rising star and sometimes boyfriend Blake McKinley, no sacrifice is ever too great.

But a funny thing happens on the way to the Arctic. A gregarious walrus pup, a cantankerous scientist, an Australian sex goddess, a Star Wars obsessed six-year-old, and friends and nemeses both past and present rock Sydney Green's well-ordered world. Soon Sydney is forced to choose between doing what's easy and doing what's right.

Honeymoon for One is a comic mystery. Here’s the blurb:

There are worse things in life than being dumped at the altar. Like being accused of killing your fake husband in a third world country where you can't speak the language, for example.

When Lizzie Mancini booked her honeymoon to the secluded Blue Bay Beach Resort on the small Caribbean island of Camus Caye she thought it would be relaxing to spend the week at an isolated couples-only retreat. But that was before she knew she'd be honeymooning sans groom. Touring alone, dining alone, and worst of all, having to explain to the resort's thirty other guests why she was staying in the bridal suite alone--Lizzie was dreading it. But it still beat the alternative, eight more days hibernating in her empty apartment feeling sorry for herself.

Then Lizzie meets Michael, a gold-chained antiquities dealer who offers to play her husband for the week no strings (or sex) attached. The plan works perfectly until Lizzie spends the night with scuba instructor Jack, and Michael's body washes up on Blue Bay's pristine shore. Lizzie becomes Polizia Nationale's number one suspect and the only way she can prove her innocence is to solve Michael's murder herself.

From your experience what are the pros and cons of traditional publishing versus self-publishing, both from the author perspective and from the reader perspective?

From the author perspective, the major pro of self-publishing is that you are in control of everything. You don’t like your editor? Hire another one. Not happy with the cover? Create a new one (or hire someone to create it for you). Think the price should be higher or lower or you want to run a special promotion for a week? Do it. And you also get to keep the bulk of the money, which is quite nice too J. But the major con of self-publishing is that you are now responsible for everything. If there’s a problem with the editing, it’s your problem. If the cover’s not working, it’s your responsibility to come up with a new one. Any promotion the book receives (and all books need at least a little push) has to come from you. And if it’s a disaster, it’s your disaster. You have no one to blame but yourself.

From the reader perspective, the pros of self-publishing are that readers are offered a much wider variety of books at much lower prices. Almost all self-published e-books are $4.99 or less (often less). Unless they’re running some sort of a limited-time promotion, most major publishers charge $9.99, $12.99, or even higher for their e-books. Readers can buy three, four, sometimes even five times as many self-published e-books for the price of one traditionally published e-book. And with so many formerly traditionally published authors now self-publishing, readers are getting professionally written and edited books—the same book an author would’ve written under contract for a major publisher—but at a fraction of the price.

Readers are also getting to choose from books that may not have mass market appeal (or at least publishers believed these books didn’t have mass market appeal), but may still appeal to them. Traditional publishers love to follow trends. It’s not a coincidence that after Twilight became a hit every other book on the shelves contained a vampire. And if you’re a reader who doesn’t happen to like to read vampire books you’re out of luck. Or at least you were out of luck in the pre-self-publishing days. Yes, there are plenty of vampire books among self-published novels too. But there are also plenty of other types of books as well.

From the reader perspective, the con of self-publishing is that there are now some truly awful books lining the virtual shelves. Books that never would’ve gotten past those traditional gatekeepers and aren’t ready for publication. But if you read samples (even just the first page or two) and blogs like this one, it shouldn’t be too difficult to avoid the truly awful books. And if you happen to purchase one by accident you can always return it.   

  

How did your deal with Amazon come about? What can you tell us about it?

I was the lucky recipient of an Amazon promotion as a self-published author. One day Amazon sent a mass email to customers listing six chick lit books – four were traditionally published and How I Learned to Love the Walrus was one of the two self-published books. I saw an immediate increase in sales not only for that book but for my other books as well. I experienced firsthand Amazon’s ability to sell books. 

And even though agent #3 was not then shopping any of my manuscripts to publishers, we hadn’t parted ways. I would sometimes get inquiries regarding foreign rights or from smaller publishers and I would forward them to agent #3. One day we were talking about a rights inquiry when I mentioned that Amazon was probably the only domestic publisher I’d be interested in doing a deal with at this point because they were the only publisher that could actually sell books. She told me she had just made a deal with Amazon for another one of her clients and asked if I wanted her to contact them on my behalf regarding Walrus.  I said yes, figuring that since they had of their own accord promoted that book for me someone over there probably liked it. (To be honest, I have no idea how they choose books for their promotions.)

Amazon said yes they were interested but not just in Walrus. They wanted the rights to all of my books. Thus began a negotiation. In the end they picked up the rights to Walrus, Honeymoon for One, and Disengaged, and bought a new book from me entitled Vlad All Over. The three existing books, which have been re-edited and will receive new covers, will be re-released in September; and the new book will be released in October.   

Do you view Amazon Publishing as the same as a traditional publisher or as something different?

I consider Amazon Publishing similar to a traditional publisher, but definitely not the same. They are much more open to input from authors than traditional publishers. They also have the ability to sell books in a way that traditional publishers don’t and likely never will have. 

What are your future writing plans?

I’m currently writing the sequel to Vlad All Over. After that, I’m not sure. But I have no doubt that whatever I write next, even if not a traditional chick lit book, will have that chick lit voice.

What do you like to do in your leisure time?

Since I spend most of my day sitting in front of a computer, I try to either swim or work out at the gym four or five days a week. My husband and I are also big movie and television fans so most evenings we can be found in front of a TV or movie screen. And when we have more time, we like to travel. In fact, it was a recent trip to Romania that inspired me to write Vlad All Over.

Tell us one thing about yourself that you think would come as a surprise to most people?

I LOVE Elmo (yeah, the red guy from Sesame Street).

For More Beth:

Visit Beth's blog, like her on Facebook, or follow her on Pinterest. (She "doesn't get" twitter.)

Bibliography

(Note: Nook and other non-Kindle owners should grab these now, as all but the first will no longer be available once they are republished by Amazon Publishing.)

Romantically Challenged                Review  Amazon US UK B&N Smashwords 

Honeymoon for One                                  Amazon US UK B&N Smashwords 

How I Learned to Love the Walrus  Review  Amazon US UK B&N Smashwords 

Disengaged                                 Review  Amazon US UK B&N Smashwords 

The Secret Files of Hugo and Victoria / J. E. (Buck) Buchanan

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Noir/Paranormal/Satire

Approximate word count: 40-45,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO Paper: NO

Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

A former member of law enforcement in Florida, Buck Buchanan now works as a law enforcement consultant as well as having his finger in several writerly pursuits, including editing, conducting writers’ workshops, and writing crime fiction.

Description:

“At last, a novel that seeks to answer the age-old question of whether a hardboiled private eye writer and a goody-two-shoes vampiress-in-denial can find redemption and true happiness.”

Appraisal:

Hugo Rongg is a “private eye writer” (think of your favorite “hardboiled detective”) who drives a “classic Yugo.” Victoria Station is a sexy dame with a “little genetics problem”; specifically she’s a vampire who falls hard for Hugo and, with his guidance, hopes to become a private eye writer, too. The Secret Files … satirizes two genres, both noir (the genre of the hardboiled detective) and the paranormal genre with vampires, werewolves, and such creatures, especially the hybrids. Can you guess the difference between a vampig and a hampire?

Relatively short, I read straight through The Secret Files … laughing constantly. For a few examples of things that tickled my funny bone, it makes fun of the language of the hardboiled detective, i.e., “The joint had been tossed, trashed, rifled… you know, searched” and the silly nicknames often hung on villains in those novels, “Nickel is Dime’s half-brother …” At times I got the feeling that despite my constant laughter that there were many jokes sneaking past me. For example, there was a subtle political statement that I almost missed and a little dig at those who are too dogmatic about religion. If you’re into satire, especially if you like the genres being satirized and don’t mind a little fun being poked at them, The Secret Files … should be a perfect fit. I’ll leave you with one more quote. This is for the paranormal fans:

“My head spun. I’d just learned I had vampire, witch, and werewolf blood in my veins and a parrot for a grandfather. Talk about a bad heir day.”

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: ***** Five stars