Publishing
Thought I'd post some musings on publishing, from a purely personal perspective. Over the past 20 years I've been the author of 17 published novels, 18 if you include the novelisation of a film. So I feel reasonably well qualified to do this.
I wrote four novels as Francis in the early noughties. They were historical fiction, set in or around WW2. So when I began the novel that would become The House of Lost Souls in 2005, I needed to differentiate between those and the paranormal thriller I was working on. Different subject matter needed a different name, so I decided to include ghostly goings on writing as F.G. Cottam.
THOLS did well. It was a Times Book Club choice, won the Dracula Society's Children of the Night Award and was translated into 18 languages. It was the first of my five novels published by Hodder & Stoughton. The others being Dark Echo, The Magdalena Curse, The Waiting Room and Brodmaw Bay.
Then I wrote The Colony, a sort of reaction to the tightly-knit, almost claustrophobic character of Bay, just to see if I was capable of handing something panoramic, with a large cast of disparate characters. The trouble being that when it was completed, no one wanted to publish it.
I self-published. And The Colony immediately became the best-selling book I had written. And the audiobook was recorded and became my strongest selling title, both in the UK and in the USA in that format. And a couple of years later, my agency PFD launched their own imprint and published a revised version of The Colony in paperback, and I suggested writing two more full-length books to complete a Colony trilogy.
Partly, but not wholly as a consequence of the pandemic, there is a huge amount of uncertainty right now in publishing about what fiction readers want. And I have never sold enough books to be immune to that uncertainty. I think that the book I completed last year is the best I have written for a decade, but that's no guarantee of anything.
I would say to any aspiring fiction writer that persistence is a vital attribute and that unless you are extremely lucky, disappointment is an unavoidable aspect of the craft. So, however, is self-belief (not to be confused with self-delusion). Either someone will make an offer for The Fourth Haunting, or someone won't. But either way, it will see the light of day. I write because doing so makes me feel more contented and fulfilled than I otherwise would. But I very definitely don't write for an audience of one.
I wrote four novels as Francis in the early noughties. They were historical fiction, set in or around WW2. So when I began the novel that would become The House of Lost Souls in 2005, I needed to differentiate between those and the paranormal thriller I was working on. Different subject matter needed a different name, so I decided to include ghostly goings on writing as F.G. Cottam.
THOLS did well. It was a Times Book Club choice, won the Dracula Society's Children of the Night Award and was translated into 18 languages. It was the first of my five novels published by Hodder & Stoughton. The others being Dark Echo, The Magdalena Curse, The Waiting Room and Brodmaw Bay.
Then I wrote The Colony, a sort of reaction to the tightly-knit, almost claustrophobic character of Bay, just to see if I was capable of handing something panoramic, with a large cast of disparate characters. The trouble being that when it was completed, no one wanted to publish it.
I self-published. And The Colony immediately became the best-selling book I had written. And the audiobook was recorded and became my strongest selling title, both in the UK and in the USA in that format. And a couple of years later, my agency PFD launched their own imprint and published a revised version of The Colony in paperback, and I suggested writing two more full-length books to complete a Colony trilogy.
Partly, but not wholly as a consequence of the pandemic, there is a huge amount of uncertainty right now in publishing about what fiction readers want. And I have never sold enough books to be immune to that uncertainty. I think that the book I completed last year is the best I have written for a decade, but that's no guarantee of anything.
I would say to any aspiring fiction writer that persistence is a vital attribute and that unless you are extremely lucky, disappointment is an unavoidable aspect of the craft. So, however, is self-belief (not to be confused with self-delusion). Either someone will make an offer for The Fourth Haunting, or someone won't. But either way, it will see the light of day. I write because doing so makes me feel more contented and fulfilled than I otherwise would. But I very definitely don't write for an audience of one.
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caz
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Sep 24, 2022 05:12PM
Really miss your books, re-read all of them so many times ... would love more about New Hope 🙏
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There is a fourth New Hope novel to come. I wrote 30, 000 words of it and then put it to one side. When I re-read what I'd written recently it did seem to add something worthwhile to the overall story, so I'll complete it. I should think by the end of the year. And thank you for those kind words.
