Sandra Gulland's Blog, page 25

In search of Josephine … and youth

Well, I finally did it. I watched In Search of Josephine, the documentary in which I am one of the “talking heads” featured. And I didn’t die of shame.

In fact, it was fun to watch, bringing back memories of last summer in France as part of the crew.

Watching it was, however, one of those signal moments—that one moment when I had to acknowledge that I am most decidedly in what we so euphemistically call “The Golden Years.” Apparently I’m not getting younger every year. 

Aside from the more vain aspects, I should note that it was quite a nice documentary. If you are at all interested in Napoleon and Josephine, I highly recommend it.

I personally loved seeing Andrea Stuart in it, the woman who wrote Josephine, The Rose of Martinique, an excellent biography. When I was with the film crew last summer, I was reading her book to refresh, and I suggested to the producer that he contact her. I’m so glad that worked out. Her contribution is fantastic! It’s hard to imagine the movie without her. 

I met Andrea in London when I was still writing the Trilogy. Her own book was not yet out. We met because we were both researching Josephine’s life, both heavily immersed in all-things-Josephine.

It was an explosion of excitement meeting with her: “Don’t you hate Alexandre!” (Josephine’s first husband.) Who else could understand? We both confessed to having a crush on Napoleon, both were furious at how Josephine had been slighted by early biographers. She’d trashed one book in a rage, in fact, a book about Napoleon that didn’t even mention Josephine. 

We kept up a correspondence. About the fortuneteller’s prediction that Josephine would become “more than a queen,” I emailed her that I’d read that the prediction had been printed in a journal years before Josephine became empress. I sent her the name of the journal and its date.  If she could find a copy of that publication, it would be proof.

She emailed me back days later: “Got it!” Electrifying.

On the chaos of departure, wisdoms at a literary festival, baby-love and sniffles

{Photo: Daughter Carrie and grand-daughter Kiki.}

Fall is upon us, which means, chez nous, that the suitcases have been hauled out and long To Do and Packing lists placed on the kitchen counter. We’ve begun to prepare for the annual migration south—but this year the voyage is complicated (enriched!) by a trip to Europe immediately after Thanksgiving, a raucous and fun-filled meal for twenty-four of our nearest and dearest. 

Some time ago I thought it might be nice to go to the Kingston WritersFest immediately before Thanksgiving and departure. A crazy if lovely idea—it is, after all, a great festival—but somehow I managed to catch a nasty cold. (Me: who never gets sick!)

And so I’ve decided to leave Kingston in the morning and nurse my cold at home—alas! I did attend memorable workshops by Charlotte Gill and the amazing Helen Humphreys, among others. I also finally met historical novelist Eva Stachniak (author of The Winter Palace); we’ve corresponded by e-mail and through Facebook for a very long time. Writing is a solitary vocation, and it’s wonderful to meet other writers. 

A Book Report

I finished reading Canada by Richard Ford (thumbs up!), and then plunged frenetically into one-two-and-then-three books on book promotion. They are:

Make a Killing on Kindle by Michael Alvear—which I read for obvious reasons. I learned quite a bit from it, and recommend it to anyone who is publishing on Kindle. 

What to do Before Your Book Launch, by M.J. Rose and Randy Susan Meyers. Excellent! I’ve been through this book-launching process four times, and I’m amazed how much I’ve forgotten. The time-table alone (what happens when) is worth the price of admission. I recommend this book for all published and to-be-published authors.

And then, if these two weren’t enough, I dove into the book promotion-wizz M.J. Rose (above) referred to as “her bible”: Publicize Your Book! by Jacqueline Deval. 

I’m exhausted at the thought of all I should be doing. No wonder I came down with a cold! 

 

Send!

It’s often said that to writers, the words “The End” are the most beautiful in the language. I would add to that: Send! 

The final draft of the 8th draft of what is (right now) IN THE SERVICE OF THE SHADOW QUEEN just went out to my editor at Doubleday U.S. and my agent, who is preparing her client offerings for the annual book fair at Frankfurt. 

And so now my To Do List has lightened considerably, although it’s still far too long (and heavy: taxes to finish!). 

I leave you now with a photo from years past of our sweet Arabian palomino Bailey, looking in my (then) office window, watching me at work. (I think she’s saying: Ahem! I need my forelock combed!)

 

I bought a wonderful scanner this year (a ScanSnap S1300), and in addition to being able to scan research documents, I’ve enjoyed making digital copies of our treasures. 

A brief follow-up: I’ve received the documentary IN SEARCH OF JOSEPHINE, but I’ve not had the gumption to watch it yet. You will be happy to know that the mistake in the trailer has been corrected.

Here is my Sept. newsletter, in case you missed it: http://bit.ly/Sept2012News

Sandra Gulland INK sales are coming along nicely. If you know a reader outside Canada and the U.S. who might like them, let them know! (At some point I’m bound to come to my senses and raise the prices.) 

A reader Tweet from Australia on the INK aesthetic

 I love these Tweets from a reader in Australia! 

@sandra_gulland I slip off my wedding ring, a simple gold band. Inside, I see an inscription. I hold it to the light: To Destiny #LovedIt!

— Taflach (@Taflach) September 19, 2012

 

She just read the new INK e-book edition. 

 

@sandra_gulland It was also the prettiest E-book I’ve read – Just downloaded the next two:) #WillNotGetAnythingElseDoneToday

— Taflach (@Taflach) September 19, 2012

 

This Tweet is especially pleasing, because Kris Waldherr is such a beautiful book designer (and writer!), and it was important to us that the e-books be special.

Just so you know: INK has a lovely Facebook page here.

Back to work! I’m making “final” changes to IN THE SERVICE OF THE SHADOW QUEEN. 

 

E-book publishing: why book categories are important

Forgive me—this is going to be a bit of an academic post. 

But first, the good news: last night, four INK e-book publications made the UK Amazon top 100 list for Biographical Fiction.

They were the three Trilogy titles, and the one Trilogy omnibus edition. The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Jospéphine B. even made an appearance on the top-20 list. 

What’s great about this is visibility.

Unless a reader has heard about a book from a friend, or read about it on a blog, or seen it when scanning the top-100 list in their genre of choice: it’s invisible. Perhaps it might show up on Amazon’s “If you like this title, you might like … ” display, but how a title gets chosen for this honour is a bit of a mystery (and possibly has to do with the number and quality of reader reviews and “Likes” a title gets). 

So: I’m happy! 

Inclusion in a top-100 list would not have happened if I hadn’t chosen the category “Biographical Fiction” when I registered my titles with Kindle.

Here’s where it gets technical, but for those of you interested in e-book self-publishing I’ll give it a go (and keep it short). 

On Kindle, you get to choose two categories for a title. Would you rather put it in a pool with 100,000 other titles, or in one with only 500? What chance would your title have of making the top 100 if in the former? None! So it behooves you to see how big the pools are before plunging in. 

Here’s how to find out:

Go to Amazon.com, then scroll down “Shop by Department” on the left. Click “Books.” 

Scroll down to “Book Categories,” and click “Literature & Fiction” (or “Fiction” in some countries). You will be given a number of sub-categories to chose from. Click, say, Historical Fiction. At the top of the middle column you will see something like this:

 (Note that on Amazon.com, Historical is automatically considered “Genre.”)

So Historical Fiction is a pool of 70,014: not small! 

But, as it turns out, it’s a great deal smaller than the category Literary Fiction, which is a pool of 684,885 titles. You do the math. 

What’s a bit challenging is that the categories and size of the various pools vary country to country. You really need to explore. The categories in the U.S. are different from those in Canada and the UK. Amazon UK, for one, has the very sweet and unique category Biographical Fiction, and there are only about 4,500 titles in it—and so that’s where Josephine was able to make an appearance. 

End of lecture … for today.  If you find this confusing it’s because it is confusing! I’m just learning as I go. 

P.S. Did you read my newsletter?  

 

Broad-casting news—literally

As some of you may already know, I sent out a newsletter on Monday. It’s always a Big Deal, and always A Thrill. 

Here it is if you haven’t seen it: my September 2012 newsletter.

When people sign up for the newsletter—(here: do it!)—I have no idea what part of the world they are from. Now, because the newsletter mailing service I use provides stats, I know I have readers everywhere:

The newsletter was read by many readers in Canada, US, UK, Mexico and France—of course—but also by readers in Australia, Germany, Argentina, Italy, Brazil, New Zealand, Thailand, Malta, Norway, Ireland, Israel, India, New Guinea and Russia! 

It’s wonderful—wonderful!—to see. 

I also get to see which of the links in the newsletter were the most popular. On the first day, it was—surprisingly!—my blog post on 17th-century breast pumps. Perhaps it was the warning that the reader would be grossed out. How can one resist?

The second favourite was a blog post on the revision process with the ominous title “The Slough of Despond (the swampy middle)“—which indicates to me that there are a lot of writers on my mailing list. Nobody but a writer would really resonate with the words: Slough of Despond. 

Not one person has responded so far to the announcement of the (likely) (so far) title of The Next Novel:

IN THE SERVICE OF THE SHADOW QUEEN

What do YOU think? 

In search of Josephine—the documentary

Last summer I was flown to Paris to be interviewed for a documentary on Josephine. Needless-to-say, this was an honour, as well as a wonderful experience.

And now: here it is, the English edition of the documentary! It’s being sent to me, so I haven’t have the (I admit, nerve-wracking) experience of watching it.

Here’s the trailer on YouTube:

Other than that, I just read through the changes and additions I’ve made to The Next Novel. I’m pleased! Two and a half weeks and out it goes.

Deadline crazy!

Sorry to have been summer silent. I’ve been revising The Next Novel (last draft!), and launching Sandra Gulland Ink (so exciting), plus all the usual end-of-August fun.

We’ve moved back from the lake into our log house, and I’ve confronted my piled-up desk. Found this:

 

 

Starting up: the procrastination method for getting things done

It never fails to surprise me: starting to write (or rewrite) has stages—and the first stage is resistance, otherwise known as procrastination. 

Everyone knows the expression “like pulling teeth.” Getting back into the world of a novel in order to revise is like that. It’s amazing how much I can get done avoiding it: 

I went through all my computer applications, throwing out ones I never use. 

Looked for duplicate photos on iPhoto. 

Made a dental appointment. 

Stared at my datebook. 

Checked—for the zillionth time—my e-book sales on kdp.amazon.com. (Addictive.)

Explored research destinations for our next trip to Europe. (Coming on soon.)

Scanned texts. (I adore my new ScanSnap.)

Wrote notes for this blog. 

Organized tax receipts. (!)

But then, eventually—when there was only an hour left in the day—I began. 

And it wasn’t all that hard! In fact, I enjoyed it. 

The fact is, resistance/procrastination is the first stage in writing/rewriting, and it’s best to allow time for it.

So: I’ve begun to revise, tuning up here, researching for the telling detail there—but now I realize that I need to go to the third step: production. I’m aiming to add 50 pages to The Next Novel (an editor’s suggestion)—which means I should write 70 and cut back.  And that means I need to shoot for a daily quota of so many words and keep track of my progress in a datebook. I will begin with an easy goal—100 words a day—and then crank it up. 

Perhaps you are wondering about the covers at the top? My e-books are on Kindle and iTunes (Kobo soon to come). I’m enterprise-proud! They are available now to readers outside Canada and the U.S. Have a look! 

The thrill of cutting book pages

Have you ever had to cut the pages of an old book in order to read it? It’s like venturing into virgin territory, a frontier. It never fails to thrill. 

I’m head-over-heels charmed by the “packaging” of Merilyn Simonds‘ limited edition letterpress collection of stories, The Paradise Project. 

The book is inside, and included is a paper-cutter to part the pages.

And have I mentioned? My copy is #1!

The book can still be reserved simply by e-mailing the publisher at h.w.barclay@sympatico.ca. 

For other posts I’ve written on this wonderful project, click here. 

For other news, I’m thrilled that almost all the Sandra Gulland Ink e-books are now on-line. I was shocked to discover that some have even sold. Imagine that.

I’ve created a Sandra Gulland Ink Facebook page which is picking up steam. Have a look here. The image of the covers is from the line-up on iTunes. Yes, I’m proud!  

I’m working on The Last Revise of The Next Novel, due at the end of September. I’m super pleased that in addition to HarperCollins Canada, it’s to be published by Doubleday in the U.S.

What do you think of this title? 

In the Service of the Shadow Queen

I’m also researching the life of Hortense, Josephine’s daughter, for the YAs I will write this winter (she said bravely). 

Yes, my head is spinning!