Young Muslim Writers' Awards 2017

by Catriona Troth

This December saw the 7th presentation ceremony for the Young Muslim Writers' Awards, and the second time I have been privileged to attend the event.

The Young Muslim Writers' Awards was founded by the Muslim Hands charity, and for the last five years has been supported of the Yusuf Islam Foundation. As organiser, Zainub Chohan, told us at the opening of the ceremony, the award seeks not only to raise child literacy in the British Muslim community, but to help every child realise that any career path is open to them – including that of being a best-selling author.

How important this is was underlined this week by an article in the Guardian (“Diversity in publishing – still hideously middle-class and white?”)

As one of the judges, poet Mohamed Mohamed said, of discovering the Young Muslim Writers’ Awards: “Oh my gosh, this actually exists!” 

Shortlisted authors, judges and sponsors at YMWA 2017

Awards are given in nine categories – for short stories and poetry in each of Key Stages 1-4, and additionally in Key Stage 3 (11-14 year olds) an award for journalism. This year all the short listed poems, short stories and essays were included in a beautiful anthology, which enabled everyone to share and appreciate the depth and breadth of writing the young people are producing.

Poetry ranged from six year old Umar Ibrahim’s hilarious and imaginative, Roald Dahl inspired Oggletrog, to Hanniya Kamran’s thoughtful and thought-provoking Am I? – which Tim Robinson of the Royal Society of Literature described has ‘having a complexity that challenges and undoes stereotypes.’

Themes for the stories were no less wide-ranging – with one taking place inside a refugee camp while another was about a super-strawberry who feared being turned into jam!

The KS3 Journalism prize, presented by journalist and lecturer Nabida Ramdani, covered topics from Women’s Rights, Child Soldiers, Acid Attacks and Grenfell Tower. The maturity of the work produced by these writers (aged 11-14 years) was humbling. The winner was Zaina Kahn for an essay on child soldiers, but the piece that sucker-punched me was Ameerah Abika Kola-Olukotun’s ‘We Must Take Action’ which sensitively recalled a visit to Nigeria. The shrewd observations of contrast between rich and poor and the ever-present fear of abduction by Boko Haram reminded me of Olumide Popoola’s When We Speak of Nothing.

The afternoon included entertainment too, provided by master storyteller Alia Alzougbi and beatbox poet DreadlockAlien (aka Richard Grant).

Patrice Lawrence, author of the wonderful Orangeboy and judge in the KS4 short story award, spoke with inspirational passion of growing up in Brighton with a Trinidadian mother and an Italian step-dad, “always knowing I had other stories to tell.”

Last year’s Writer of the Year, Lamees Mohamed offered advice to her fellow young writers (‘I’m only 14 years old – it’s just what I’ve picked up so far): to read widely, to look at the world around you, to listen, look and care.

This year, the overall award for Writer of the Year for 2017 went to 6 year old Umar Ibrahim, who won not only the KS1 poetry award, but the short story award too, for The Tree Kings, “the custodians of the secrets and scripts of the ancient library of Baghdad,” which opens: “It was night-time. The six moons washed the land in a gentle light."

Judging by Umar’s two entries, if his imagination continues to flourish and grown, we can look forward to a very special talent indeed bursting upon the literary scene in a few years.

Finally, the ceremony closed with the presentation of the Special Recognition Award. Two years ago, when I last attended, the award was given to Malala Yousafzai. This year, it was given to another survivor of an attack upon education. Muhammed Ibrahim Khan is a survivor of the 2014 Peshawar school attack. Muhammad Ibrahim was shot four times whilst trying to help his friends, after helping four other school children to safety. Initially expected to be paralysed for life, he has regained the ability to walk and is now studying for his GCSEs in Britain.

Here is just a flavour of some of the depth and breadth of writing on display:

“Raindrops hit the window and slide down like tears, tiny glass-like droplets through which I watch the sky churn up all the world’s pain and anger.”

Nada El-Hamoud, The Game, winner KS4 short story

“Their hearts shattered by the grief of losing their eldest daughters, they trudged through the village, ghost of what they once were.”

 Ameerah Abika Kola-Olukotun, We Need to Take Action, KS3 journalism

Every day, a large rumbling machine would come, with its four wheels running down the straight tracks either side of super strawberry. He could see two thick legs and heavy boots resting on the machine and between them would be a large, sharp knife that would cut the stems of the fruit.

The Adventures of the Super Strawberry, Haadi Siddiqui, winner, KS2 short story.

My fantastical name is Oggletrog
I live in a cave next to a bog
Each morning I munch-nibble a frog,
Each evening I munch-nobble a hog

Umar Ibrahim, winner, KS1 Poetry

Entries are now open for the 2018 awards, which so if you are eligible, or you know someone who is – tell them to get writing! Can’t wait to see what the next year brings.

Highlights from the Triskele Lit Fest

When the Triskele Books' one day Lit Fest came to a close in September, we knew that the conversations generated across the five panels were far too good not to share with a wider audience.

Thanks to sponsorship from Matador Books and sound engineering expertise from Live Box (who overcame some significant challenges in the form of noise intrusion from dance classes in the room above) we were able to record the panels and upload the videos to our YouTube channel.

Here are some of the highlights from the day, which we hope will tempt you to delve into the videos to watch the discussions in full.

Sci Fi and Fantasy

We kicked off the day with a lively discussion with Sci Fi and Fantasy authors Felicia Yap, CS Wilde, Jeff Norton, Eliza Green and Yen Ooi, chaired by Jack Wedgbury from Matador.

The panel showcased the vast range of modern Sci Fi and Fantasy. Felicia's upcoming Yesterday is a thriller about a murder being investigated in a world where most people only remember yesterday. CS Wilde's A Courtroom of Ashes is a fantasy about a lawyer in hell. Jeff Norton's MetaWars explores what happens when humans retreat from the real world into a digital one. Eliza Green's Becoming Human imagines humans competing for resources with another race on a distant planet, while Yen Ooi's Sun; Queens of Earth harnesses the powers of dreams to provide energy.

Between them, they reveal their inspiration and discuss how SFF liberates them to explore big themes from what it means to be human to the destruction of the Earth, but to view them through a personal perspective.

What do an oyster card, an iPod, a set of Bose headphones, a paintbrush and a passport reveal about their writing processes?

Romance

In the second panel of the day, Triskele's Liza Perrat talked to Romance writers Isabel Wolff, Charlie Maclean, Sareeta Domingo and Carol Cooper.

Isabel is an accidental novelist who began her fiction career when a newspaper column about the singles scene was turned into a novel. She has since written ten more novels.  Charlie Maclean's Unforgettable is a 'Sliding Doors' type story that explores the consequences of asking someone on a date ... or not. Sareeta Domingo's The Nearness of You, about a young woman falling in love with her best friend's boyfriend, also examines themes of bereavement and depression. Carol Cooper's multi-stranded narratives follow an array of couples at different stages in their lives.

They explore how far a Romance novel can play with the RWA's definition of "a narrative centred around two individuals falling in love and struggling to make their relationship work." They consider the role of sex in a romance novel - does it have a place in moving the plot forward and revealing character, or should the author keep the bedroom door closed? When men write Romance, does it get 'elevated' into a different category? What happens when you try writing in the dark?

And a pocket watch, a photograph, some music and a bottle of bathroom cleaner reveal surprising secrets about their writing process.

(With apologies for the poor quality of sound in the audience segments on this video)

Crime and Thrillers

Next, Ben Cameron of Cameron PR talked to Crime and Thriller authors Kate Hamer, Adam Croft and Chris Longmuir.

Kate Hamer's The Girl in the Red Coat is a dual narrative about a mother and her lost child. Adam Croft's Her Last Tomorrow is also centres round a missing child, but in this case the father receives a ransom note with an impossible demand. Chris Longmuir's Devil's Porridge is a historical crime novel based around the first policewomen in Scotland, guarding a munitions factory during WWI.

They contrast the challenges of the different types of stories they tell, reveal the horrible secret of what Devil's Porridge really was, explore the new concept of Grip Lit, and explain how a bottle of perfume, a literary award and the scan of one's unborn child continue to inspire their writing.

The empty seat at the end of the row belongs to Nigerian author Leye Adenle, who was prevented from getting to the Lit Fest on the day. Catriona Troth caught up with him a few weeks later and you can read her interview with him here. 

Historical Fiction

In the last genre based panel of the day, four very different authors discuss Historical fiction with fellow author Jane Davis.

Orna Ross's Her Secret Rose is a fictional account of the real life lovers WB Yeats and Maud Gonne. Radhika Swarup's Where the River Parts looks at the largest displacement of people in human history, following the Partition of India, through the eyes of a young Hindu woman. JD Smith's Overlord series takes us all the way back to 3rd Century Syria and the life of Zenobia, the warrior queen who nearly toppled the Roman Empire. Alison Morton's Roma Nova series is an alternative history in which the Roman Empire survived into the 20th Century.

The four authors reveal why the chose their particular stories to tell, the different challenges and responsibilities of writing history from the recent and distant pasts, how to create a voice appropriate for a different time period , and the discovery that surprised them most in the course of writing their books

And an index card, a bracelet, 'the only book I have ever defaced' and a photograph of a Roman gladius reveal secrets about their writing process.

Preserving the Unicorn - conversations with literary authors and their editors.

The last panel of the day was a discussion with literary authors and their editors, chaired by Triskele's Catriona Troth. Sunny Singh discusses her novel, Hotel Arcadia, and the fascinating role her Dutch translator played in honing the manuscript. Alex Pheby and his editor from Galley Beggar Press, Sam Jordison, discuss his novel, Playthings, the fictionalised story of Daniel Schreber, of one of Freud's most celebrated case studies. And Rohan Quine and his editor Dan Holloway take the lid off the process of editing Rohan's latest novel, Beasts of Electra Drive.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Sunny reveals inspirations ranging from Dante's Inferno to Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas. Alex  explains how his novel grew out of frustration with blinkered 20th C analysis of Scheber. Sam  describes how he absorbed the emotional impact of the book and imagined telling a reviewer, "I've got this book and it's going to destroy you," before deciding "of course we've got to publish it."  And Rohan describes his book  as a 'love bite to the world,'  while Dan calls it 'a beautiful spectacle compiled of horror.'

Part way through the conversation, Alex Pheby threw a provocation to the audience. "All forms of masculine activity are vile and pernicious and should be weeded out." Sadly, time ran out before the implications of this could be explored. After the event, though, Orna Ross came up with some great questions for Alex. We hope to get the chance to put those questions to him in the new year. If so, we will publish his responses in Words with Jam.

TLF - The Triskele Lit Fest!

Saturday 17 September sees the very first Triskele Lit Fest!

This is a litfest with a difference. We set out with five aims:

• trade and indie authors together on the same platform
• literary fiction on an equal footing with other genres
• BAME authors talking about their books, not about diversity
• speakers paid an appearance fee
• admission free and accessible to all booklovers 

After a tremendous amount of hard work by Catriona Troth, TLF Administrator, plus the generosity of our sponsors, it's actually happening.

From 1pm-6pm, we have panels of authors to talk about their genre. Sci-fi and Fantasy, Romance, Historical Fiction, Crime and Thrillers, and Preserving the Unicorn.

In parallel, we have our trademark pop-up bookshop, where forty different writers will be available to interact with readers, sign books, talk about their work and make new friends.
 

And we've ticked every box.

• A near 50:50 mix of trade and indie authors, not talking about routes to publication.
• BAME authors like Radhika Swarup, Leye Adenle, Sareeta Domingo, Yen Ooi and Sunny Singh, talking about their books, not diversity.
• Our literary panel – Preserving the Unicorn – brings together literary authors and their editors to discuss working on a manuscript that defies the 'rules' of storytelling.
• And yes, we are paying our speakers and admission for readers is free.

Triskele Books is all about building bridges.
Words with JAM is a source of ideas and information for writers.
Bookmuse provides reviews and recommendations for readers.
The first Triskele LitFest offers something for everyone.

We know it’s far more important to build bridges than to erect barriers.
Seems people agree - here's an extract from our Tuesday #twitchat #bridgesnotbarriers

Living with Etty

by Catriona Troth

Photo courtesy of Ricardo Barros

Etty Hillesum was a Jewish woman from the Netherlands murdered in Auschwitz. Like Anne Frank, she kept a diary which was found and published after her death. But perhaps because Etty is a more morally complex and ambiguous character, it took 38 years before her diary was published, and even now it is hardly known.

A chance discovery at a yard sale brought Etty into the life of actress and writer Susan Stein. And now, through the one-woman play she wrote based on the diaries, Etty has become her life’s work. Between performances during her latest British tour, Stein explained how the play came about, and how it develops as she travels the world, bringing Etty to an astonishing range of audiences.

I began by asking Stein how she first encountered Etty Hillesum, and why she decided to turn her diaries into a play.

“I first heard of the book from a college roommate’s mother who did not recommend books lightly.

She said it had changed her life. Then a few months later, I found a copy at a yard sale in a little town in Maine for 50 cents. It was the abridged version, “An Interrupted life”. It would fit in your pocket.

“At first didn’t like her at all. Etty seemed self involved. She is sleeping with two different men, trying to figure out who she wants to be with. She has this very odd relationship with her therapist.

“But at some point in my reading something shifted. I am not sure when it happened. I have tried to go back and pinpoint it, but I’ve never been able to find it again. But somehow Etty got under my skin.

“It’s as if she were sitting next to me, whispering her life to me. It’s uncomfortable, awkward. And sometimes friendly. Not precious. Sometimes incredibly poetic. Self conscious. All those things. Sometimes I have the feeling I’m not supposed to be reading this. It’s way too intimate. Too naked.

“I had never experienced a book like this. Never felt someone so raw and vulnerable. Yet at this point, I was still reading the abridged version, which was somewhat sanitised. Not quite her at all. She was a little bit turned into ‘Saint Etty.’

“Even so, her sensibility is remarkable. When she gets to the place where she says, “You cannot help us, God. I shall have to help you,” I stopped breathing. Who is this woman? What does she find deep in herself that she comes to that understanding?

“I had read the book jacket, so I knew she didn’t survive. I didn’t want to let go. An intimacy I’d barely experienced with my closest friends. I am the slowest reader I know, but I could feel myself slowing down even more as I neared the end.

“I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t better known. I remember thinking, ‘I know, I’ll make a play, bring it to people and they will want to read the diaries for themselves.’ (Which is still my goal, by the way.) But I didn’t do it straight away. A few years later, I was in a car accident. That night, in the emergency room, the thought came to into my head, ‘I didn’t do that play.’ Where did that come from?

“I’ve worked on it now for eight years. Now it is a full time job, and it is still evolving.”

Photo courtesy of  Ricardo Barros

As a writer, I was fascinated to know how she went about taking someone’s words and turning them into a play.

“I spent over a year, just distilling it. To begin with I thought I could just take the bits I liked. But then I started working with the director, Austin Pendleton. He made me see that it had no dramatic spine. He started giving me assignments to help me shape it.

“He asked me first to outline, not Etty’s life, but the story of the diary itself. Three weeks later I was still struggling with that. Then someone said to me, ‘Are you reading academic work about the Holocaust? You know more than Etty knows, about what’s happening and what will happen. It’s getting in the way.’

“I was very focused on dates. Austin pushed me to abandon chronology. At first I couldn’t do it. I had dates fixed in my head. ‘On July such and such, 1942, she said this!’

“I remember having coffee with a woman writing her Ph.D. on Etty. She encouraged me to ‘let Etty guide me to the script.’ Then I spent some time with Etty's actual diaries in the Jewish Museum in Amsterdam. I saw how her handwriting evolved over time. It helped me move closer to her words, and the words began to take me to a deeper place.

“Another thing Austin asked me was “Where is her shame?”I had to get underneath her words, figure out what she is NOT saying. I didn’t like where that took me.

“I could deal with certain parts of her shame. I knew she was ashamed of how large her breasts were. I imagine her stripped naked at Auschwitz. I worry about how she felt then, in front of all those people.

“But I had to take Etty off a pedestal. I was protecting her. I was struggling with my relationship with her, and I was also struggling as a Jew, especially about her menial work for the Jewish Council. That’s a thorny piece of the play. A thorny piece of history. It’s been one of the most difficult and time consuming parts of the play to get right.

“At one point, I performed Etty at a Quaker Meeting House in Aberystwyth. After that performance, some people were seeing Etty as a collaborator, which shows how easy it is for people to view victims as collaborators. It made me realise I still had a lot of work to do. By choosing to include the Jewish Councils, I had set myself a difficult task of introducing a complicated piece of history into the play, history most audiences were not familiar with. To clarify the Councils, I had put too much focus on them and the play seemed more about the Councils than about Etty and her remarkable sensibility.

“The Nazis were very smart in the way they created the Jewish councils. They put Jews in an untenable situation. Etty is caught in the middle. She refuses to go into hiding and save herself. Yet she accepts a menial role with the Jewish Council, which delays her deportation for several months.

“Where the bind comes, for her, is when her parents and brother get to Westerbork camp. She feels obligated to do everything she can to keep them off the weekly transport to Auschwitz. Yet she knows, if she succeeds in keeping them off the transport, then three other people go in their place. She becomes part of that cat and mouse game.

“Etty is agonized by the privilege her position affords her. But Etty is not corrupt. She is a human being caught in an inhuman situation. When I talk about this to students, I tell them – we are all privileged or we wouldn’t be here today, speaking about this. It’s not wrong to have privilege. Sometimes we earn it; sometimes we just get lucky. So what do we do with that privilege?

“What I have come to realise is that, within 10 days of keeping the diary, something is released in Etty. This is my interpretation, but I believe that force is what she is calling God. I believe that when she gets to Westerbork, she understands that this is the role she has been cast in. She has to be open to it and be present. She wants to ‘pass the test’. I hope she thought she did.

“So the play keeps evolving. It’s like scaffolding – when you move one thing, other things have the change as well. Each stage is different, and I don’t even realise I am in a different stage till I get there.

“The second ‘act’ of the play is now the discussion with the audience. That was something we discouraged at first – we wanted the play to be enough. But people weren’t leaving! Etty starts a conversation. Others want to continue it.”


Stein has performed Etty at an extraordinary range of venues – schools, places of worship, Native American reservations. It’s an intense emotional experience, for Stein as well as for the audience. As a film maker recently described it, ‘It’s as if this woman from 1942 walks into the room, sits down and starts talking to you.’

“I remember, before the first performance, Austin asking me, ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ I decided it was someone going to sleep. But Austin said, ‘No, going to sleep is a GOOD option. Let’s make it worse. Let’s have them walk out. One at a time, till you are looking at empty chairs where there had been people. What would you do?’ I said, ‘I’d keep talking.’ And he said, ‘Good. If that happens you will get to the place where Etty was when she started writing.’

“The nearest I came to that happening was in a prison in Scotland. They brought men and women brought together when they don’t normally see each other, so it had failed before it had even started. By the time I got to the prayer, they were all but throwing things. The only reason they didn’t walk out was that they weren’t allowed to. And I kept going. I had the experience of staying with her words when no one else cared.

“Despite that, prison performances are some of the most powerful. And I’ve met the most amazing people. A teacher at Shotts prison near Glasgow. Some severely disabled children at Braidburn school in Edinburgh. Etty has brought us together.

“I had no idea the project would have the life that it’s had. I didn’t know I would travel to all these places. Sometimes I have to ask myself, am I doing this right? It’s never had a theatre run. Never reached the point where it has a momentum of its own. Every day, it’s waking up and calling people, trying to let them know about Etty, finding the next venue to do it.

“But maybe travelling round the world with a suitcase and Etty’s words is the venue for this piece. Taking her to those who wouldn’t normally go to the theatre.

“Etty’s feels like a voice we need for our times. She refused to choose the divisive. She refused to 'tilt towards the savage.’ She found another way. She paid a price for it and was willing to do that. But her words and her spirit still live and inspire.”

To find out more visit about Susan Stein and Etty Hillesum, visit http://ettyplay.org

Inside the Mind of an Author: with Richard Beard, Emma Healey and the National Academy of Writing

by Catriona Troth

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I attended my first Public Edit with the National Academy of Writing (NAW).

NAW was set up to give writers the chance to learn directly from other writers. It is not linked to any university, and does not issue degrees or certificates. But it does offer an exciting range of events and courses of varying lengths. This particular event – run in conjunction with Writers & Artists and held at the London offices of Bloomsbury Publishing – was my first taste of what they had to offer.

NAW Public Edit

We had been invited to submit short pieces of writing, of which two would be selected at random for editing. But what sort of editing were we in for? Presumably it would be more than just an exercise in proofreading, but would we just be given a lecture of the overuse of adverbs, or would this go deeper?

We had all been sent the selected texts in advance, so we could read them through and form our own ideas. The person guiding us through the edits that evening was novelist and Director of NAW, Richard Beard. I was impressed that he immediately focused on the type of work it was – its genre, in the most specific sense – and then examined the issues that arose from that, with concrete examples from the texts presented.

The first text selected was the opening chapter of an intriguing piece of speculative fiction by Felicia Yap – whose book I am now eagerly awaiting.

Beard identified two key issues for speculative fiction. First you have isolate the essential difference between your world and the normal world, push the consequences of that difference to the limits, drilling down and asking all the questions a reader might ask. Secondly you must be wary of raising other types of questions, especially early on, because the reader will have enough uncertainty to deal adjusting to this new world. If you achieve both things, the reader will sense your confidence in your world and trust you to lead them through it.

The second piece was a more straightforward contemporary short story, written in reportage style. Here the issue Beard skewered was the danger of letting a character, ‘look away,’ ‘say nothing,’ or ‘have no idea.’ All of those, he said, are lazy writing that make a character look weak or passive. Much better to get inside the character's head and work out what idea they DO have.

POSTSCRIPT: Very excited to hear that the UK and Commonwealth rights to Felicia Yap's book have been snapped up by Headline’s Alex Clarke ahead of LBF2016. Not a bit surprised, after reading the 'taster' here.

A Glimpse inside Emma Healey’s Notebooks

The second part of the evening was truly fascinating. How much would you give to have a peek inside the notebooks of one of your favourite writers? Well, that was that opportunity we had, as Emma Healey, author of last year’s Costa First Novel Award winner Elizabeth is Missing, opened the doors to her writing process.

And yes, I do mean a literal peek inside her notebooks. Despite what you might expect of today’s computer born generation, 23 year old Healey is still wedded to physical notebooks, for collecting notes, for sketching drafts, and for organising her editing. She showed us snapshots from those treasures, and even handed round copies of her colour-coded and hand-annotated planning charts for Elizabeth’s dual timeline.

Intriguingly, those notebooks included plans of Maud’s house, in the present and during the war, and a town plan made, apparently, from cutting and pasting a map of Bournemouth to bring things closer together.

Plans of Maud's House (photo oourtesy of Clare Povey)

Healey confessed to being a disorganised writer, whose daily writing routine rarely matched the idealised one she set herself. She is also clearly a very visual writer, who uses pinboards full of pictures to inspire her and give depth to her descriptions.

“The picture might have nothing to do with your story, but they might suggest colours or textures or the way someone sits ...”

She is a squirrel, keeping a ‘commonplace book’ of photos, newspaper articles and other things that have caught her attention, and writing down snatches of overheard dialogue wherever she goes. And she is also a great believer in physical research. For Elizabeth, she not only spent time talking to people in care homes, but with impressive attention to detail, also put an advert in the Bournemouth local paper to make sure that she knew both the process and the physical surroundings.

When it came to editing, Healey described her processes, which included:

• Reading it over and over
• Reading out loud
• Reading it at one sitting (even if it takes all night)
• Printing it out so you’re not just reading on the screen
• Asking questions
• Creating timelines and checking against them

And then, of course:

• Independent proofreading and copy editing

Inside the cover of one of her ‘editing’ notebooks, she had pinned a list of things to check for.

• Prepositions (something she is inclined to overuse, apparently)
• Repetition
• Texture (how to add it)
• Observation (ditto)
• Linking back (to earlier scenes via objects etc)
• Misremembering (Elizabeth’s)
• Uncanniness
• Physicality
• Progression of symptoms (of Alzheimer's)

Healey’s willingness to reveal herself was refreshing and inspiring. If other guest authors are as frank and entertaining, I can highly recommend booking yourself onto another of these events, should the opportunity come your way.

Literary Dragon's Den

In April this year, the London Book Fair opened its doors for the first time in its new home. Olympia is light and airy, much less enclosed than Earl's Court. It is also a maze of interconnecting halls in which it is only too easy to get lost. And a very long walk from the nearest Tube station.

The other first for this year was the institution of a 'Dragon's Den' style pitching opportunity for authors. For the last couple of years, it has been possible for authors to book a precious ten-minute slot at the Fair to pitch their book face-to-face with an agent. (WWJ reported on it back in 2013.) But this time, instead of a private session with an individual agent, authors were invited to make their pitch, in public, to a panel of agents.

Pitching your book is challenging in any circumstances. But doing it in front of an audience sounds downright terrifying. We asked Carol Cooper, who was in the audience, and Caroline Mawer, one of the brave souls making their pitch, to tell us what is was like.

Inside the Dragon's Den

Carol Cooper

by Carol Cooper

The London Book Fair (LBF2015 to the in-crowd) had a demob flavour on its final afternoon, but for 10 hopefuls the serious business was only just starting.

The Write Stuff was a session organized along Dragon’s Den lines. Ready to breathe fire on the aspiring authors were agents Mark Lucas, Toby Mundy and Lorella Belli, along with non-fiction publisher Alison Jones.

While they didn’t look too fierce, you had to admire the contestants for standing in front of the panel plus a packed Author HQ to sell themselves. Each had just one minute to say who they were, two minutes to pitch their book, and five minutes for questions and comments from the panel, who had already sampled the titles.

Dragons Alison Jones (left) & Lorella Belli 

Some might have been in the audience for fun, but the session provided insights into how agents think, and trenchant observations on things writers should know.

Lucy Brydon, a young Scottish film-maker, pitched a novel set in China where she had worked. While The Boy Who Died Comfortably was redolent of the culture and highly filmic, Toby Mundy wasn’t sure that, as a foreigner, the author had ‘a place to stand in this story.’

Characters came under scrutiny when Catherine Miller presented her novel Baby Number Two. The panel was clearly impressed with her perfect title, as well as her blurb, her writing, and her Katie Fforde bursary. Not so much with the motives behind her characters’ actions, however, and Alison Jones felt she had shoehorned in too many topical subjects.

Caroline James had also written primarily for women readers. Coffee, Tea, the Caribbean and Me was aimed more at women in their fifties, and drew on her background in the hospitality industry. ‘Highly relatable,’ thought Mark Lucas, relatable being the buzzword around LBF2015.

The authors received all comments with good grace, though Olga Levancuka seemed a tad combative. Dressed in a Guantanamo-orange coat, she looked every inch the Skinny Rich Coach (her alias). She responded feistily when the panel questioned her approach, even her authority. While she didn’t win that afternoon, she did subsequently land an agent.

Jaunty Mike Rothery spent decades in the Navy, and his novel The Waiting-Pool involves an ocean voyage. A good thriller, thought the panel, but it took too long to get started, and Alison Jones didn’t care enough about the characters. The protagonists began life in another book, so getting the amount of back-story right may have been an issue.

Italian satirist Vittorio Vandelli had an account of the dystopia of the Berlusconi period. It was, he explained, a dire warning to Western democracy. He soon digressed from his blurb and just gave us his tirade. As entertaining as it all was, Vittorio and his book came on a little strong. Mark Lucas felt that he was being smacked too regularly over the head with all the things he should be outraged about.

Caroline Mawer is a doctor, globe-trotter, and author of A Single Girl’s Guide to Rural Iran. The panel thought there wasn’t enough of herself in the work, the book was trying to do too many things, and the title didn’t quite match the text. Wouldn’t Skinny-Dipping in the Spring of Solomon have been more arresting? Maybe literally?

Up stepped Julia Suzuki, whose children’s book The Crystal Genie was, appropriately enough, all about dragons. The panel sat in rapt attention. Was it about them? They all claimed to love dragons. Alas, Suzuki’s characters were ‘a bit too black and white.’

Sanjiv Rana, receiving his award

Lenox Morrison, an award-winning journalist from Aberdeen, offered a collection of short stories. She writes ‘like a dream,’ but the consensus was that short stories are very difficult to sell on a grand scale.

The winner was another journalist, Sanjiv Rana, with his topical and controversial The Insignificance of Good Intentions. This first person novel is about a 33-year old virgin who’s sent to prison charged with rape. The panel agreed that Rana has a very original voice. But that didn’t stop them comparing him to other writers.

Nonetheless, Rana won a certificate and an appointment with Toby Mundy. I think Rana will be big news, and you’ll be hearing a lot more from the other contestants too.

Carol Cooper is a journalist and author from London. Her novel One Night at the Jacaranda was self-published after a string of traditionally published non-fiction. In her spare time she’s a doctor.

On twitter @DrCarolCooper

Blog Pills & Pillow-Talk

Better Than Pitching

by Caroline Mawer

Caroline in the Dragon's Den

This year, ten lucky authors win the chance to pitch Dragons Den-style at the London Book Fair. I was one of them. And I want to share some what I learnt: especially two things that are maybe even better than pitching. I sent in a 250 word summary for my book, and the judges liked that enough to ask for three chapters. Then they liked the sample enough to ask me to pitch. It was all very exciting. Actually, the email “we’d love to invite you …” was very very exciting. Although kind of weird that they then asked me to confirm I still wanted to take part.

Hold on a moment though! 250 words? To summarise my precious book? To include tempting morsels about myself as a person and a writer and how perfectly I’ll fit into a sensational book marketing campaign?

I’d already submitted to several agents. Spent what feels like innumerable lifetimes honing my elevator pitch, and buffing up my cover letter and synopsis.

But writing only 250 words that glide as elegantly as a swan, whilst simultaneously doing as much hard work as an army of labourers, forced me to focus on really understanding what Skinny Dipping with the Mullahs is trying to say, and who I’m trying to say it to. I thought about the weakest points in my book, as well as the strongest.

And all of that is something you need to do too. Whether you want to sell to an agent or  as an indie publisher - more directly to your readers. A 250 word summary is something you not only can do now, but I think should do now. At whatever stage you are in your book.

If you don't find any gaps, great. If you do, that’s also great. Since you can only solve problems you know about.

Then there was the pitching itself. I’m not scared of speaking in front of an audience, but I was allocated the final slot in a time-limited session, so it was difficult not to feel anxious that the time-keeping was initially so generous.

When my time eventually came, I was taken aback by the advice I was given.

I was told to focus more on my Unique Selling Point. No big deal there, you might think, except the judges told me that my USP is myself. Which I confess I hadn't understood.

Skinny Dipping in the Spring of Solomon (the pitching session also helped me finally decide on the title!) is a close-up view of daily life in modern Iran, written from the viewpoint of a single woman, travelling alone. I’m not Iranian, but I’m a Persian speaker. I have been to Iran many times and, to be honest, I don't feel special doing that. Personally, I’m fascinated by the historical and political context and the stories I share from and about Persian women. But, the LBF judges told me, the story that will resonate most with readers is about me, about why I would work so hard to visit some of the most hostile terrain in the world, even if I do get to swim naked in the Spring of Solomon along the way.

And I hope you may be able to learn from my surprise. Are you really thinking from your readers point of view? Or are you perhaps so close to your book that you can't appreciate what is so particularly special about it?

If you’ve got those two things sorted, though - if you can focus down on a 250 word summary, and also stand back to see through your readers’ eyes - then that, well that is better than pitching.

Caroline Mawer is a writer and photographer. You can find out more on her website: http://www.carolinemawer.com/ or follow her on Twitter @caromawer.

My Name Is...

by Catriona Troth

Sudha Bhuchar - photo by Robert Day

My Name Is... is a play by Sudha Bhuchar, currently on a short tour with the Tamasha Theatre Group.
It is based on the true story of a twelve year old Scottish/Pakistani girl who disappeared from her home on the Isle of Lewis.

When the story first exploded onto the front pages of British tabloid newspapers in 2006, it seemed like a classic tug-of-love, clash-of-cultures story – a young girl ‘kidnapped’ by her father and taken to Pakistan to undergo a forced marriage with an older man.

The true story was far more nuanced, as Sudha Buchar’s script, drawn from many hours of interviews, reveals.

At the Platform Theatre at Central St Martins in London, a tiny stage encompasses two sitting rooms, one in Pakistan and one on the Isle of Lewis. At the back of the stage, half obscured by a gauze curtain, are the newspaper headlines that sought to force them into one or another stereotypical box. More newspaper cuttings litter the floor.

The picture that emerges is complex and layered. By allowing us to see each family member as a true individual, by allowing their stories to unfold over time, we see how the free and easy mixing of communities in the 1980s was slowly warped by events happening in the wider world. How a damaged young woman’s need to belong drove her to create a version of herself as a perfect Muslim wife until, in her own words ‘Suzy was gone, well and truly gone.’ This is a pressure cooker created, not by the clash of cultures, but by these families and these individuals.

Bhuchar has resisted the temptation to fictionalise the story (apart from altering the names) and instead stays with the authentic voices of the three family members - father, mother and daughter – as they tell their story from different sides of the world. And those voices have extraordinary directness.

But this is not strictly ‘verbatim’ writing either. Bhuchar has shaped the script, interweaving the stories and letting the voices cut across each other, so that we hear two versions of the parents’ first meeting, two versions of family’s hajj to Mecca. At times the actors cross the invisible divide to take part in a remembered scene or speak words attributed to them by one another. At times, too, they break through a kind of ‘third wall,’ to address, not the audience in the theatre, but the original audience of Bhuchar and her tape recorder.

Afterwards, playwright and actors took part in a New Writing Platform discussion with the audience, looking the process of creating My Name Is... and the challenges of verbatim theatre This was first in a new series of events presented by the MA Dramatic Writing course run by University of the Arts London, to explore, discuss and share new ideas.

Bhuchar began by explaining how she was drawn to the story by an article in the Guardian, the first that attempted to reach beyond stereotypes and accusations, and how she approached the family and asked to interview them. She flew to Pakistan and spent several days with father and daughter. The daughter then persuaded the mother to see her, and she spent several more days on Lewis with her. The result was 120 pages of interview transcripts which took eight years to shape into this play.

“The technique came in layers,” Bhuchar explained. “I’d never worked like this in my life! To begin with I thought that I would fictionalise the story, but nothing I wrote had the power of the original words. In the end the promise I made was that, however I shaped it, I must not make up any words”

Asked about her interview technique, Bhuchar spoke of not having her own agenda, about having empathy, about being interested in simply ‘overhearing.’ One of the ways she got the mother to open up was to go back to the very beginning of the story, to when the two of them met, when they had been happy together. “Usually people don’t ask me that,” she was told.

Of the three actors, only Kiran Sonia Sawar who plays ‘Gaby/Ghazala’ wanted to listen to the interview tapes to catch the nuances of the original voices. Umar Ahmed, who plays ‘Farhan’, grew up in Pollokshields and actually knew the father by sight. Karen Bartke who is from Glasgow but from a different background to ‘Suzy’, didn’t want her performance to descend into mere imitation and found it easier to connect with the emotion through the scripts – something she did with incredible power.

Early this year, the cast had the chance to perform the play with mother and daughter (now back living in Scotland) in the audience – something that was terrifying but also profoundly gratifying. Seeing their parents’ early lives together played out, in their own words, was particularly moving for the daughter. She told the actors afterwards that, as the youngest child, she had almost no memory of her parents being happy together.

At the end of the discussion, one of the audience members commented that he had been waiting all through it for the author to come down on one ‘side’ or another. Yet that never happens. By allowing each of the characters their own authentic voice, she manages to preserve a balance, so that your heart reaches out to each of them in turn.

You can read the Guardian article the first inspired Bhuchar to write the play here.

And you can read my interview with Sudha Bhuchar about her time as Artistic Director of Tamasha here.

Authors at the London Book Fair: how things change!

by Catriona Troth

This year was my fourth year attending the London Book Fair, which gave me a chance to reflect on how things have changed for authors since that first, tentative visit.

My first impression, back in 2011, was of the vast stalls of the big publishing houses, crowded with people holding earnest conversations in twos and threes. But if you weren’t part of this arcane world, then they were essentially advertising space for the publishers’ most highly promoted books. And as for those agents you might long to corner and impress with that carefully honed ‘elevator’ pitch, they were secreted away in the International Rights Centre, where admission was by appointment only.

However, if you made it past those, there was still plenty to enjoy. Dotted around the Fair were theatres and speaking areas, each of which has their own programme of seminars and interviews. The Children’s Zone, the Digital Zone, the Translation Centre, The English Pen Literary Café … the programme was so crowded that it is impossible to see everything you might be interested in.

Blink and you might miss it, but even back then, there was an author lounge. As I told Gareth Howard of Authoright recently, I recall sitting literally at his feet to hear him explain the difference between marketing and distribution, because his audience far exceeded the handful of cuboid pouffes furnishing the Lounge.

My second visit, in 2012, saw the beginning of an author revolution – the London launch of ALLi – the Alliance of Independent Authors. In a room overlooking those very publishing stands I’d stood in awe of the year before, Orna Ross, proclaimed:

“Hello. We’re here. We’re at the London Book Fair and we’re here to stay!”

Orna Ross Launching ALLI, LBF12

And how very right she proved to be. By the following year, those upstart authors had made it down on to the floor of the fair itself, with a considerably expanded Author Lounge, sponsored by Authoright and an exciting schedule of seminars and workshops. What’s more, in its first year, ALLi had created a virtual network of authors, all of whom were eager to meet in person and exchange ideas. There was a tremendous buzz of excitement and a sense that here – rather than anywhere else in the Fair – was where the real innovation was happening.

Unfortunately, despite the expansion, space became a major issue. On Monday, the audience for the talks was spilling out into the aisles outside, with people craning to hear and waiting in line in the hopes of getting a better spot for the next session as some people moved on. By Tuesday, the organisers had got twitchy about this. Those acting as gatekeepers, with their little clickers scanning our badges, were limiting the numbers coming into the lounge, and the security folk were moving people on if they even stopped outside to grab a quick photo. It all left many of us with the sense that, as authors, we were expected to play quietly while the grownups conducted business.

So what of 2014?

Arriving through the main entrance, you would be forgiven for thinking that very little had changed in the past three years. Earls Court One was still dominated by the massive stands of the big publishing houses. Literary Agents were still tucked away in their eyrie above the main floor. But head for the back of Earls Court 2, and you’d find a new confidence among the author community.

The Author Lounge – now redubbed Author HQ – was no bigger than the year before, but the layout was more ‘open plan’, allowing a greater numbers to access to the seminars. It was also placed in a corner of Earls Court 2 with a wide aisle in front of it, so that people overspilling it were no longer a health and safety issue.

Seminar at Author HQ, LBF14

There was, as always, a great programme of seminars for authors – from ‘Breaking Through: what Independent Authors know about Reaching Readers’ to ‘Negotiating Author Contracts’, ‘How to Get the Best From Your Publisher,’ and ‘Top Ten Things to Know about getting your book made into a Film/TV show’ (to name but a few). You can read about a selection of them here.

It was wonderful, this year, to be able to share the Fair with my Triskele colleagues, as well as reconnecting with friends from the Alliance of Independent Authors (now sporting the shiny new badges by which we could identify one another). The huge sense of energy and innovation that I’d felt the year before culminated, this year, in the ALLi/ACX party, where amidst the noisy chaos of a crowded pub, we heard readings from authors such as Dan Holloway, Polly Courtney, JJ Marsh, Jessica Bell and Jerome Griffin .

JJ Marsh - reading at the ALLi/ACX party

In some ways, I felt as if I ‘came of age’ at this LBF. Now I was one of the people having meetings over coffee (or wine) with the likes of ePubli, Silverwood Books, Nook Press, Writers and Artists Yearbook and Chorleywood. Unfortunately, all this meant that, despite being at the Fair for all three days, I scarcely had time to visit the English Pen Literary Cafe, where author interviews take place. Previously, I had heard crime writer Margie Orford talk about her first-hand experience of South African prisons, discovered the Anthony Horowitz seeds his books with hidden names, anagrams and other puzzles , heard William Boyd announce the title of his new Bond novel and heard the judges of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize discuss the shortlist. This year, I caught a few minutes of Jim Crace talking about why he doesn’t write political novels – and even fewer of the magnificent Malorie Blackman. But that was all.

For me, though, the most memorable part of the whole three days has to be the impassioned speeches from Dan Holloway and Debbie Young at the Open Up To Indies Launch on the Kobo stall on the first day.

Holloway challenged the publishing world to decide whether to ask, “How do we keep all the bad books out?” or “How do we make sure to let all the good books in?” and warned that the first alternative “denies reader whole swathes of the outstanding.”

Young described Open Up to Indies as “an exercise in stepping beyond my self-published author’s mindset to empathise with the parties that influence that important end-user of all authors’ products: the reader. It was about viewing the bookshop from the other side of the till; seeing the literary festival from the frantic desk of the event manager; perceiving librarians as more than just the people who stamp your ticket.”

So if you are wondering whether it might be worth making the trip to LBF15, in its new home at Olympia, here are a few reasons why you should:

• To meet other authors, exchange tips and be inspired

• To hear interviews with writers from around the globe

• To take advantage of the huge array of free seminars and workshops available

• To connect with the passion and dedication behind campaigns like Open Up to Indies

See you there!

Catriona Troth is the author of the novels Ghost Town and Gift of the Raven. She is a member of the Triskele Books Author Collective, and of the Alliance of Independent Authors.

In Perspective - London Author Fair 2014

by Catriona Troth

The first time I attended the London Book Fair, in 2011, I sat literally at the feet of Gareth Howard of Authoright, in the tiny space designated as an Author Lounge. His audience far exceeded the handful of cuboid pouffes that furnished the Lounge and the rest of us sat cross-legged, gazing up at him like kiddies at story time.

The following year, the Author Lounge was a little bigger, but demand was growing faster than space. By the first day of LBF 2013, every talk was packed to bursting and eager authors were crowding the aisles of the Fair’s Digital Zone, trying to catch the words of wisdom as they fell. By Day Two, the Fair’s organisers had called security to ensure the walkways were kept clear and the cry was going up from every corner:

Little Luxuries

“We’re going to need a considerably bigger lounge!”

Well, Authoright tried, but when it became clear that the Author Lounge (which they sponsor) was not going to be allocated any additional space in 2014, they took matters into their own hands. The result was the first ever London Author Fair, which took place on 28th February 2014 in Covent Garden’s Hospital Club. On a cold, wet, windy day it was a delight to be able to check coats on arrival rather than having to lug them around for the rest of the day. Goody bags included tokens for two free coffees. Lunch, provided in elegant black cardboard boxes, included a potato salad with quails eggs and a lemon panacotta.

I suspect some of those attending would have foregone a few of these luxuries for the sake of a cheaper entry price. But what none of us would have foregone was first of all the space we were allotted and secondly the flexibility and responsiveness of the organisation.

The lecture room where the seminars were held comfortably seated at least 200. There always seemed to be somewhere to sit down when your feet grew weary. And when, after the first hour, it became apparent that the space for the workshops was oversubscribed and the groups were competing with each other to be heard, matters were smoothly and efficiently rearranged.

Space that put authors at the centre of things

The variety of talks and workshops was impressive too. They ranged from Dan Holloway running a workshop on performance poetry and artistic collaboration to a panel entitled: ‘Agents of Change: the evolution of the literary agent.’ Many of the speakers hung around for a good proportion of the day, mingling and chatting with the attendees, which contributed to the feeling that the audience were being treated on equal terms.

One end of the gallery, where the coffee bar was located, was decked out as a Bedouin tent. Here, authors who had booked their places in advance could pitch their books to one of a selection of literary agents via the offices of LitFactor. My sample of those who were making the pitch was small. However, it’s interesting that, on the one hand, all three had previously self-published – but on the other, only one was now actively seeking representation.

Jane Davis, author of Funeral for an Owl and the soon-to-be published, An Unchoreographed Life, felt that the opportunity to pitch it to an agent face-to-face was too good to pass up.

"The experience wasn’t quite as expected. I had nailed my ten-word pitch. I had been told to bring two sets of submissions (letter of enquiry, synopsis and first three chapters), one for the agent and one for myself. The suggestion was that the agent would critique the work there and then. In fact, I was asked to use the full 15 minutes to describe my book. The agent really wanted to see how I would sell the concept and my passion for the subject-matter.”

So did she feel it was worthwhile? “Absolutely. To have an agent wanting to jump to the end and asking with real concern, 'But what happens to Belinda?' made it worthwhile. She also assured me that the concept for my novel was commercially viable, which is great news.”

Rheagan Greene had crafted every aspect of her Samurai Revival Trilogy, teaching herself everything from file formatting and type setting to cover design. But having proved to herself she could do it, she now wanted to get back to focusing on the writing.

“Agents make themselves so inaccessible it seemed like an opportunity which should not be missed. I had the impression my agent was not in 'buying' mode for the sort of books I was pitching – a risk given one had to pitch to whoever one was allocated. Also, the agents were probably exhausted after seeing so many people that day (for just 15 minutes each). But even though I didn’t feel I got anywhere, all such experiences are beneficial.”

Rohan Quine was actually using the London Author Fair to launch his novel, The Imagination Thief and a collection of novellas, The Platinum Raven. He admitted that he had chosen to pitch to an agent here, “On a whim, because it was easily available.”

“It was all very straightforward and informal, sitting on a pouffe in a Bedouin tent -- and sometimes sitting on a pouffe in a Bedouin tent is simply the best way forward, literarily. Just a chat between two parties from different contexts, and we'll see if those contexts happen to want to mesh. Either way, an intelligent conversation was had, among many intelligent conversations at the Hospital Club that day.”

The best of the day’s seminars was saved till last. This was ‘The Big Publishing Brainstorm: How can we get to where we want to be in 2020?’ - chaired by the formidable Porter Anderson.

To begin with, each panellist was given exactly 30 seconds to say where they thought the publishing industry would be in 2020, and it was fascinating how diverse opinions were.

Patrick Brown of Goodreads anticipated a rise in ‘social reading.’ Gareth Thomas envisaged a future where there would be “as many authors as readers and authors will be at heart of the industry.” Eileen Gittins from Blurb believes that images are the new lingua franca and that in the future all books will be illustrated.

Andrew Lownie, a literary agent, foresaw yet more consolidation at the top of the industry, that perhaps 20% of authors will be handled by agents and as much as 75% will be self-published. Fellow agent Piers Blofeld didn’t anticipate a massive sea change, but said that what Amazon chose to do would affect everything.

Self-published author, Polly Courtney, made an appeal that readers should be at the heart of the industry. “New developments should be all about connecting us with readers.”

Trade Published author, Adele Parks found much of this vision ‘grim.’ “I worry that we will end up with a lot of short, pretty, crappy books. I hope there will still be a place for great literature.” She was also concerned that, as self-publishing involves an up-front investment, being published could become “a plaything of the rich.”

Courtney countered that authors were “sick of the ‘sink or swim’ mentality from publishers” that had driven so many mid-list authors into self-publishing. There was an agreement that everyone in the industry – authors as much as publishers – were in need of more and better data about how books sell. And there was discussion about different models of selling – such as the Chinese model of buying a chapter at a time on mobile devices.

After much intense debate, there was a sigh of relief when Gareth Howard declared it was ‘drink o’clock’ and we repaired upstairs for a very welcome glass of wine.

So what were my overall impressions of the inaugural London Author Fair?

Here, at last was a space where authors were made to feel welcome and at the centre of things – not like children being told to play quietly while the grown-ups discuss business. The entry price was steep and perhaps some of the luxuries could be trimmed in future to make the event more affordable, but on the whole what was on offer probably represented value for money.

Nevertheless, there were significant disappointments. Although several speakers – Roz Morris, Dan Holloway, Ben Galley – were members of the Alliance of Independent Authors, there was no official representation, which seems a shame when this could have been a perfect opportunity to talk about, say, the Open Up To Indies campaign, or their evaluation of self-publishing service providers.

It was disappointing, too, when the talk on Distribution degenerated into a sales pitch for the likes of Ingram and KDP. Where were the booksellers and the librarians to talk about how books get onto their shelves and how authors can build relationships with them?

Overall, though, this was an immensely positive experience. I hope that whose who attended will give Authoright plenty of feedback that will make the London Author Fair 2015 an even better event.

Catriona Troth is a freelance journalist.  She is the author of the novella, Gift of the Raven, and the novel, Ghost Town and a member of the Triskele Books author collective.

Creating an Author Platform

by Catriona Troth

Having attended November’s Byte the Book event, with its head to head between Polly Courtney and Richard Charkin, CEO of Bloomsbury, I was thrilled to be asked to take part in the first Byte the Book of 2014.

Byte the Book is the brainchild of Justine Solomons. The organisation aims to bring together authors, editors and others in the publishing industry, give them a networking opportunity and also educate them about the impact on the industry of technological.  Their live events at The Club at The Ivy in central London attract audiences of around a hundred and are followed on Twitter by many more.

The subject for January was Creating an Author Platform in a Digital Age.  As someone who is pretty much on the nursery slopes when it come of creating a platform, I might have questioned what I had to offer, but Justine was keen for me to talk about Triskele Books and how our approach, as a collective, differed from that of a lone author.

My fellow panellists on this occasion were:

Alex Heminsley [@Hemmo], freelance journalist and author of Running Like a Girl – “a practical exhortation to ‘ordinary women’ to lace up their trainers, and see what they are capable of.”

Jeff Norton [@thejeffnorton], author of the high-tech thriller series Metawars for young readers; through his production company, Awesome, he is also currently producing a pre-school television show, developing his first feature film, and co-writing books with other talented authors.    

Byte the Book has a close relationship with Twitter.  The events are not only promoted via Twitter, but those attending are encouraged to tweet live from the event, with their tweets appearing on an interactive board behind the participants.  So it was only natural that Justine should begin by asking each of us about our relationship with Twitter. 

Alex Heminsley was an ‘early adopter’.  “I joined Twitter when it was still rather a silly place,” she said. (“It still is, isn’t it?” said Justine.) In some ways, it could be said that Running Like a Girl grew out of Twitter.  A lot of her tweets were about running – “When you’re running, you can still have spare energy in your thumbs,” – and she began to find people tweeting to ask her to recommend a book about running.  There were plenty of them, but they tended to focus on technical things like training plans.  That wasn’t what she was looking for and she sensed that it wasn’t what her followers were looking for either.  So classic answer to the problem – if there is a book you’d like to read that doesn’t exist yet, write it yourself!

My relationship with Twitter was much more recent. I only joined about eighteen months ago.

“I was pretty sceptical at first, but I have become a massive enthusiast. I made a conscious decision from the start that I wasn’t going to chase the maximum number of followers.  I couldn’t see the point of having ten thousand followers if only ten of them were actually interested in reading what I had to say.  So well before my book was published, I focused on interacting with people who were interested in the same issues as I was, following them and posting stuff I thought they would engage with. I guess you could say my aim was to find what author and self-publishing guru Dan Holloway calls ‘A Thousand True Fans.’ I am still a long way from achieving that, but the goal is there.”

Jeff Norton’s position is different again.  Although he is an enthusiast for Twitter, his audience is not to be found online. (“Either they’re not allowed on social media, or they don’t use it because, now mum and dad are doing it, it’s no longer cool.”) On the other hand, he has a captive audience.

“My readers are legally obliged to be in school six hours a day, five days a week – I always know where to find them. And you know what?  They love to be in the same room with you and be able to look you in the eye.”

All three of us agreed that the most important thing – however you achieved it – was to make a real connection with readers.

As Alex said, “If you went to a party and someone came right up to you and just kept saying ‘my book’s out on Thursday; my book’s out on Thursday,’ you’d pretty soon start to avoid them.”

Justine asked Jeff about his background in branding, and how an author might define their own brand.

“It’s much harder to create a brand for an author than it is for a product.  You take a glass of water; you give it a name – that’s Febreeze.  It can be painful for an author to reduce themselves to three words, but it can be useful.  But more important than that is to be compelling and to be consistent.”

I was then asked to explain the difference between being self-published and working in a collective.

“First of all, Triskele is not a company. (We took one look at the fact that we lived in three European countries, one of which was not even in the EU, and decided not to go there.) We each pay for the publication of our own books and receive our own royalties.  So what do we do together?

“We hold each other to a high standard.  We co-edit one another’s books, as well as using the same thoughtful and meticulous proofreader, Perry Iles. We share a wonderful designer – JD Smith – who creates all our covers and does our interior formatting.  But most importantly, we share the marketing.

“We have a shared website and blog, and we take turns to write for it and for other guest blogs. That way we are not constantly trying to come up with something new to say but can pass the buck to the next in line.  

“As Jeff said, it can be pretty tough to try and define yourself as a brand and then keep talking (however politely and obliquely) about how good you are.  But to talk about how great everyone else in the group is, and at the same time to share our experiences with other writers – that’s something else again.”

At this point we arrived at the coolest part of the evening for me. In my enthusiasm, I had been talking faster and faster and the microphone had been drifting away from my mouth, so the back rows were having trouble hearing me. But Jeff Norton could hear me all right.  He took the microphone from me and said, “These guys sound like the Wu Tang Clan of indie publishing.”

Now, I am old and boring and I have to admit I had to look this up – but I understood enough to know this was a damn fine compliment.  (For those of you who share my ignorance, the Wu Tang Clan are a New York hip-hop group known for launching the careers of affiliated artists collectively known as the Wu-Tang Killa Bees.)

From Alex’s early background in publishing, she was asked what she thought was the most effective way of promoting oneself to sell books.

“Well, the first thing is, you can promote yourself as much as you like, but as a writer you need a text people will engage with. But then you need to think about how you project yourself.  If a reader meets you first via social median they are going to want to know: is the person who’s written this going to bug me the whole time I'm reading it?

“And you don’t always have to be super-professional and glossy.  Take a book trailer, for example – there is something the Velcro tackiness of a video shot on an iPhone that is very appealing.”

Did I think authors were better placed to promote themselves than publishers?

“I don’t know if they are better placed, but whether they are trade published or indie, it is a pretty sure bet these days that they are going to have to do it.  The trick is to find a balance between what is effective and what you are comfortable with, and then go for it.”

Jeff’s view is that your book is always going to be more important to you than it is to a publisher. “They get their pay check at the end of the month whether your book sells or not.

And Alex’s final advice to authors to help them build a profile?

“Show authenticity and integrity, and create a generous space around you.”

Which sounds like good advice for anyone – in real life as much as on social media.

The next Byte the Book is on Pricing: What are the most effective publishing pricing models? It’s on Monday 10th February, starting at 18:30 at The Club at the Ivy.  Tickets are FREE to Byte the Book members, but must be reserved.  Non-members pay £15.  You can book here.

Future events can be viewed here.

If you can't make it to an event, you can get live updates during the evening – or catch up with it later – by following the hashtag #bytethebook on Twitter. 

Catriona Troth is a member of Triskele Books Author Collective and the author of two novels – Gift of the Raven and Ghost Town. The story of Triskele’s adventure in independent publishing can be read in The Triskele Trail – a collection of shared wisdom and foolishness.

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