Iain Cameron's Blog, page 10
September 17, 2015
Got a Good Idea for a Book?
This another in my occasional series on the book writing process.
Have got a good idea for a book but are not sure where to start? Here are some things to consider:
Develop Your Idea
Every new book starts with an idea but often it doesn’t end up with it.
The first thing you need to do is try and flesh out the idea. Mull it around in your mind for a few days, asking questions, such as, ‘what if I change this’, ‘what happens when I do this,’ ‘what if I add this.’ When you’re happy that your idea has some form and shape, you should write a one or two-page summary then start to develop it into the style of a book by writing it out chapter-by-chapter. You can do this linearly with a list of chapters, starting with chapter 1 and finishing at say, Chapter 40. Add what you know about your new novel into each one, but of course at this stage many of them will still be blank.
If a linear list seems a bit boring to you, you could use a spatial approach such as Mindmaps but whatever you do, a chapter-by-chapter guide will help you. It not only gives you guidance when you are about to write, it keeps track of plots and sub-plots, characters, threads etc., and at a glance gives you the balance of the novel; the balance between action and inaction, the appearance of certain characters, frequency of fights scenes, love scenes etc.
I said earlier you might not end up with the idea you started with, this is because as soon as you begin to develop a novel, stories often take on a life of their own and you might find that your idea is no longer the main focus of attention. In some cases, the idea might not be strong enough to be developed into a novel and could end up as short story, part of another book or a blog.
In the same way as you developed chapters, you should now do the same with characters. Write a bio for each one and get to know them well. This helps to maintain consistency throughout your novel and at this stage, you should decide their status in life – if they are married, do they smoke, drink, drive fast cars etc.
Can you Write?
It’s a discouraging thought but it takes around 100 hours to learn anything proficiently and in book terms this equates to about a million words. It goes without saying that the more we do something, the better we get at it, and this is equally true of writing. What about all those successful ‘first-time’ authors we are always reading about, I hear you say. In many cases, they are nothing of the sort, as many have already written half a dozen novels that were never published or were previously involved in a job such as journalism or editing that requiring much writing. In my case, I wrote several complete books, numerous half-books and developed dozens of ideas for novels before I published my first novel. That said, it is not impossible to find authors who have not written a word since leaving school and are now riding high in the sales charts – look at E.L. James.
Will it Sell?
Lofty authors will say they don’t care if their book sells, they just want to see it published. Let me tell you, there is nothing more dispiriting than finding your book unloved and un-reviewed at number 350,000 in the sales charts, while other less worthy novels are riding up the charts, supported by dozens of great reviews. Two questions to consider.
1) Is your book aimed at a particular segment of the market, be it romance, crime, paranormal? Cross-over books, e.g. a vampire detective, rarely work as they are difficult to target at a particular audience, and it is best to avoid tired and over-supplied segments, e.g. misery memoirs and another ‘girl on the train.’
2) How will it be marketed? This, for many, is the difficult part, as after spending months writing, editing and re-editing, you can expect to sell around 35 copies with just the support of family and friends. To improve this, we have to move into the realms of PR and advertising, but as a first and relatively inexpensive stage, you should copy the good habits of established authors with a well-edited and proofread script, an eye-catching cover and blurb, a professional website and a presence on social media.
The Future
Do you only have 1 novel in there? That’s a shame as nothing sells a novel quite like another one. Imagine you are the author of six novels and a little piece of advertising done for your new book attracts a number of new readers, chances are you will sell copies of your new book and a number of your earlier titles to each new reader.
Further Information
There is more information out there than you can ever hope to read in books, courses, websites, blogs etc. Look on author websites as many offer book writing guides and many publishing and writing courses are a good chance to meet other people in the same position as yourself.
The main advice I can offer is to keep writing, whether you think it’s any good or not. The next day you might think of a way of making it work and if you still don’t like it, you can always remove it at the editing stage.
September 2, 2015
Bond is Back
Hot on the the heels of the fourth book in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy (?), The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz, Anthony Horowitz has just released the latest James Bond book with the dubious title of Trigger Mortis. I’ve read the Sebastian Faulks and Jefferey Deaver efforts and while both books are enjoyable, they didn’t quite capture the essence of Bond as depicted in the original Ian Fleming novels (as opposed to the films). The initial reviews of Horowitz’s book are favourable while those of Lagercrantz are not, which just goes to show what a poisoned chalice it is to carry on someone else’s work.
August 24, 2015
iPhone Powered by Hydrogen?
In my second book, Driving into Darkness, Markham Microprocessors perfect a new technology for charging mobile devices using radio waves, an invention that is set to make them millions. This is not the stuff of science fiction or an overactive imagination, as battery life is a real issue for the likes of Apple, Samsung, Dell etc. Many companies have been working on a solution (including using radio waves) and now researchers at a British company have come up with novel solution using hydrogen. They have developed a fuel cell that fits into an existing iPhone 6 and using a patented mix of hydrogen and oxygen, will charge the phone for up to a week. It will be few years before you see something like this in the shops, providing the company can contain the highly flammable nature of Hydrogen, as nothing will kill its early adoption better than exploding iPhones.
Link to Telegraph article:
August 12, 2015
A Book in Textspeak Anyone?
A former chairman of the Booker Prize has come up with a unique way of presenting books for the Twitter generation, at a time when a recent survey reveals that 10% of 18-25 year olds have never read a novel. He has condensed the 25 best beach reads into 140 characters. I offer a selection below but WARNING! spoilers ahead.
One Day by David Nicholls – ?1day thru yrs. 15jul, Dextr+Emma gradu8+hav 1nitestnd. Life promising. Then: marriage, loss, breakdown :'(
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn – Amy&Nick r married. Amy fakes own murder 2 frame N. (who is rite?) A manipul8s every1, killz her ex. Evil A makes N stay w/ her 4 baby ?
Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James – Shy meek virgin Ana meets V rich control freak + BDSM dom: Christian Grey. Mild erotica + Xtreme wealth in feminism-free zone
If you would like to see the full list, it can be found at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newst...
August 7, 2015
Happy Birthday Kindle Store!
It’s hard to believe but the Amazon Kindle Store is 5 years old. There was a time when books could only be bought from a bookshop and ebooks were the preserve of a few computer savvy individuals. Now with the latest Kindle eReaders, you can download a book wherever you are and often for free. To celebrate, Amazon have released a list of their top-selling authors and books over the last five years. As you would expect, EL James tops the chart but what is more interesting is the independent chart, those not published by a traditional publisher:
Top-selling independent books
1. Only the Innocent by Rachel Abbott (#43 overall)
2. Sleep Tight by Rachel Abbott (#55 overall)
3. No-One Ever Has Sex On A Tuesday by Tracy Bloom (#59 overall)
4. The Half-Life Of Hannah by Nick Alexander (#66 overall)
5. Love… From Both Sides by Nick Spalding (#74 overall)
6. Locked In by Kerry Wilkinson (#86 overall)
7. The Back Road by Rachel Abbott (#89 overall)
8. The Basement by Stephen Leather (#110 overall)
9. The Magpies by Mark Edwards (#113 overall)
10. Single Woman Seeks Revenge by Tracy Bloom (#137 overall)
Rachel Abbott has three books in the top ten, which is hardly a surprise as she has sold over a million ebooks (see earlier blog post). I think what we are seeing is the future of publishing.
July 18, 2015
Theakstons Crime Writing Festival
I have just returned from the Theakstones Crime Festival in Harrogate and if you look at the ‘READ’ pic carefully you’ll see it’s made up of books. I attended a panel discussion entitled, ‘Your Perfect Match’ which was supposed to be about how book readers discovered their next favourite read, but it was more about how authors used different channels to try and reach readers. On the panel were:
David Mark – author of DS McAvoy books set in Hull.
Isabelle Grey – author of Good Girls Don’t Die
Stewart Bain – Librarian from Orkney
Anya Lipska – author of a series of detective novels with a Polish slant
James Oswald – highly successful author of a number of detective novels with a supernatural twist
Sarah Hilary won the prize for the crime novel of the year (and £3,000) with her first novel, Someone Else’s Skin
July 13, 2015
Theakstons Isn’t Just a Beer
This week I’m off to the Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. It runs from the 16th-19th July in various locations around this pretty Yorkshire town and is one of the few literary festivals dedicated solely to crime writing. Pick of the interviews, in my opinion, is Lucy Gardner in conversation with Ann Cleaves. Lucy is a prolific crime writer with over 20 books to her name and Anne Cleaves is the well-known author of the Vera Stanhope books and the basis for the ITV series Vera, starring Brenda Blethyn.
The books shortlisted for the Theakstones Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year are:
Belinda Bauer – The Facts of Life and Death
Ray Celestin – The Axeman’s Jazz
Elly Griffiths – The Outcast Dead
Sarah Hilary – Someone Else’s Skin
Antonia Hodgson – The Devil in The Marshalsea
Peter May – Entry Island
Ray Celestin should win for having a book cover that looks like a beer bottle label, something that should appeal to the sponsors if not the judges. I’ve read The Outcast Dead and Entry Island is my holiday read, so I don’t feel qualified to comment although I do think Peter May is a fine writer and if I had a vote he’d get it.
The pic is Radio 4’s Jenni Murray being interviewed by novelist Tess Gerritsen a few years back.
July 11, 2015
A Home for Old Books?
What do you do with your old books? If you are like me and you read most of your new novels on Kindle, then the paperbacks you bought years ago are taking up valuable shelf space or gathering dust in the corner. Here is an interesting solution. Leave a favourite book (or one you didn’t like) on a park bench, in a hotel bookcase, on the table of your holiday apartment, in fact any place where someone else might pick up the book and read it. If you also put a BookCrossing (www.bookcrossing.com) label on the inside of the cover, and with the cooperation of the lucky recipient, you will be able to track your donation’s travels around the globe or within the confines of your holiday hotel. Try it, the results might surprise you.
July 8, 2015
For Book Lovers Everywhere
You may not be aware of the Bookbub website (https://www.bookbub.com) but if you love books and don’t want to spend all your money on them, you should. Using your book reading preferences and your preferred reading medium (e.g. Kindle), Bookbub scans Amazon, Barnes and Noble, the Apple store, and many others and alerts you to all the good deals. This includes time-related deals set up by publishers to give a quick boost to some of their big-name authors, and highly-rated free books that are available on Amazon. The site is free.
July 1, 2015
The Silence is Over!
Yes, it’s true. My new book is out today. It is available on Amazon.co.uk at £1.99 in Kindle format at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B010M2LKKE, in other territories you can find it by keying my name or the name of the book into the Amazon search box. In the Home page of this website you will find a summary, and in the Books page you can click on Characters and Q&A. If you click on any of the book covers, you can read chapter 1. Happy reading!
