Flaming Nora: Swapping genres, loving libraries

Friday, January 08, 2021

Swapping genres, loving libraries - my writing week

This week I received the sort of news that every author likes. Each time a book is borrowed from a library, the author receives a small fee from Public Lending Rights (PLR). Those small fees add up and this week I received my statement for the last year, up to June 2020. The money received means I can go mad and have chips and rice for tea. Seriously though, thank you very much indeed to every reader and each library, because money earned from PLR means a great deal.

In other news this week, I was invited by Sunderland University to write a lockdown diary and let them know what I'd been up, as an author. I wrote about how having time on my hands last summer meant that I turned in my saga novel to publisher Headline well ahead of schedule. This left me free to write a fun cosy crime called Murder at the Seaview Hotel.

My lockdown diary went live on Sunderland University's staff and student site, which isn't available to read by the public, but here's the fantastic picture they used. Why Elvis? And why so many of them? All is revealed here.

This week has very much been a week of two halves. The first half was spent polishing the edited manuscript of Murder at the Seaview Hotel before returning it to Headline this week. I've been working hard on the tricky structural edits for the last couple of weeks.

And then, somehow, I had to turn from murder and cosy crime to carry on writing my new saga (title tbc) set in 1919. I found this more difficult than anticipated and a lot of faffing ensued. Changing from one genre to another was tricky, and so I left a couple of days before picking up the threads of my saga again. Of course, once I started writing again, it's like I've never been away.

Also this week I started planning promotion and PR work for my novel which comes out in paperback in March, The Paper Mill Girl.

I even made a very short (30 second) video to share on social media. Put your sound on, there's music!

While the book's publisher Headline takes care of some PR, as all authors know, the bulk of promotion for our work falls squarely on our shoulders. I can do as little or as much as I like. After working hard researching and writing for months on end, of thinking about little else while I'm immersed in my work, of course all I want to do is make a song and dance about my books when they're released. Who wouldn't? However, it's not easy and I don't really know what I'm doing. Plus, all I want to do is write stories, not press releases. I find myself reliant on others, brilliant people, friends and ex-colleagues, who do know what they're doing. I'm fortunate to have these supportive people in my life.

This time around, I've also enlisted the help and advice of a PR professional who's on Twitter at @HypeThatPR1 Not only does she take care of promoting my books, she gives me so many ideas for more way to promote the book that I can do on my own, things I've never considered. I've already arranged an online talk on the day of the book's release. More details to follow.

I also had time to send off two short stories to women's magazines this week. These weren't new stories, as I don't have time to write short stories at the moment. They were old stories that I've rejigged and refreshed and made relevant to what the magazine is looking for. There's no guarantee they'll be accepted, however.

I crafted another episode of my weekly soap opera Riverside for The People's Friend magazine. I've been writing Riverside weekly since 2016 and you can find out all about it here.

And finally, I wrote another Coronation Street weekly update and sent it to my emailing list of thousands of Corrie fans around the world. I've been running this list since 1995 and if you'd like to sign up to receive these weekly updates, all details are here.