Paperback Books and The Festival of Romance

This week, while my lovely editor is working away on Voodoo Child (planned launch date 31^st October) I’ve been busy preparing and formatting the paperback editions of Bagpipes and Bullshot and Reaching for the Stars. This means I’ll have ‘real’ books to offer alongside my ebooks at last and I’ll be able to carry paperback copies with me when I do my personal author appearances.

 

Bagpipes and Bullshot and Reaching for the Stars will be available to order from Amazon sites very soon if you’ve been waiting to read my full length novels in paperback!

These are the paperback covers!

  

 

It’s only four weeks to the Festival of Romance in Bedford! (8^th-10^th November) I’m going to this event for the first time and I’m really looking forward to spending the whole weekend talking about books and celebrating romantic fiction.

There are some fabulous events planned – check out the website and grab your tickets now.

I’m really looking forward to meeting up with writer friends I already know really well, those I have been friends with online for ages but haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet in person, and catching up with what’s going on in the romantic fiction industry - as there will be publishers and agents and editors to chat to about such matters.

I’m speaking at the Coffee and Cake morning on Saturday 9^th November at The Lane, Bedford. I’m also looking forward to attending the Festival of Romance Ball on the Saturday night!

Are you going…?

Do let me know so we can say hello!

Romantic meetings and writerly events…

Happy Friday everyone – I’ve had a an even busier week than usual as I’ve been out and about on writerly business. On Monday I was invited to the famous and very romantic location of Gretna Green for a meeting.

 

It was wonderful to catch up with writers I already know well through the Writers Scotland Group, to be reintroduced to one or two I’d met before through the Romantic Novelist’s Association, and to meet some new lovely writer peeps. The meeting was interesting, involving romance writers, commercial enterprise, media and PR, but as it was a preliminary talk, I don’t think I’m at liberty to tell you exactly what it was all about just yet - so I’ll tell you more when I can!

After lunch and the meeting itself, a few of us had a tour of the famous blacksmith’s shop and the wedding room and had our photo taken in front of the wedding anvil!

In this photo: myself, Lynda Denton, Eileen Ramsay and her husband Ian,
Michelle Styles and Gwen Kirkwood
 

The Marriage Anvil at Gretna Green

 

 

On Tuesday, I was invited to speak about my writing and my life as a writer at the first meeting of the season for the Dumfries and Galloway Tangent Club in a private room at a restaurant in Thornhill. It was an honour to be asked to talk to these lovely ladies and I was right to suspect that when I got there, it being a local group of professional and business women, that I would already know many of them. We had a glass of wine, friendly conversation and lots of laughs, and we also had a lovely dinner. I felt my talk went well, as the atmosphere in the room was so relaxed and warm. I rounded off my talk with a short reading from ‘Reaching for the Stars’ and we had a quiz/competition - the winner being the first correct answer drawn by the restaurant owner!

 

On Wednesday, I was asked if I was interested in doing a talk and a writer’s workshop on the afternoon of Sunday 20th October at an Arts and Crafts Weekend being held at a local village Hall. I thought it sounded like another good opportunity to get out and about and to meet people interested in reading and books. So I accepted.

All of this is of course great practice for the Festival of Romance event in Bedford on the weekend of the 8th/9th & 10th of November, which I am attending as an author. I’m speaking at this event on the Saturday morning at the ‘Coffee and Cake’ event. Tickets are on sale now at the Festival website.

 

The rest of this week I’ve been writing and reading, attending online book launches, and following some exciting blogs. It’s a very busy and exciting time to be a writer!!

Haste ye back here next Friday!

Help with The Work in Progress...

One of my current writing projects is a work of non-fiction – it’s a 'How To' on tackling aspects of online promotion and making it fun. I’ve been prompted to write this by lots of lovely fellow writers who, over past year or so, have emailed me for advice on hosting online parties to promote or launch their book/s.

Some of those writers are debut novelists and others multi-pubbed. Some are with traditional publishers and others are indie. Most have previously attended or taken part (and reportedly enjoyed) my launch parties and want to know how I did it and more to the point, how they can do it too.

The title of this new and fun look at book promo is ‘How to Promote Party Online’ with the emphasis on the party aspect, because everyone wants to have fun, right?

So, I have a couple of questions for you to help me with research and I’d really appreciate your comments. You can leave them here on the blog or in an email to me at: janice@janicehortonwriter.co.uk

Q1: Have you attended one or more of my launch parties - which one/s?

Q2: Did you personally find it fun and engaging – and can you say why?

If you are not familiar with, or like me you were a bit giddy with virtual fizz at the time, then these links will give you a wee recap on our previous online frivolities:

Bagpipes & Bullshot Day

Reaching for the Stars – Wish I Was Here Party

How Do You Voodoo? – The Spellbindingly Fun Party

Voodoo Wedding – Facebook & Twitter Party

I’d really appreciate your feedback as it will help me enormously. The info you give will help me to focus on giving helpful advice. If I would like to use your comment as a quote – please be assured that I would always contact you first to ask for your permission. The book will be available soon from Amazon for Kindle. Thank you in advance.

Love, Janice xx

The End... or is it?

 

 

This is the end, Hold your breath, And count to ten
(Lyrics to Skyfall by Adele)

Today I wrote The End of my romantic suspense novella ‘Voodoo Wedding’ which is the sequel to ‘How Do You Voodoo?’ - Yay!

But of course, it’s not The End really because despite editing as I write, I do know the manuscript needs a bit of a polish and I still need to smooth over a few tiny plot holes. Then I’ll transfer the manuscript to my Kindle for reading it as a reader rather than a writer and I’ll go back and polish it some more. Next week, I’ll send it off to my trusted Editor for a story critique and I’ll take on board her thoughts, and if I agree (she’s very wise and clever so I usually do – and she has an uncanny knack of telling what I suspected all along) I’ll work on it some more. Then it will be edited again for grammar, spelling mistakes, silly typos, layout inconsistencies, etc - and then, finally, it will be The End!

I thought you might enjoy these quotes on writing The End:

Frank Herbert

 “There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”

 

J.R.R. Tolkien

“Bilbo – have you thought of an ending?

Frodo – Yes, several, and all are dark and unpleasant."

 

Rose Tremain

“In the planning stage of a book, I don’t plan the ending. It has to be earned by all that will go before it.”

 

 

John Geddes

“My novels are like life – I never know where they are going until the end.”

 

And my personal favourite:

 It’s by Winston Churchill

“Now is not the end. It’s not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

 

So writers – tell me - how do YOU come to The End…?

and how far off The End are you when you get there…?

 Readers – do YOU look for a happy ending every time…?

Have ya’ say and haste ya comments!

 

Edinburgh Ebook Festival 2012

It’s coming up to festival time – now you might be thinking music festivals, beer festivals, flower festivals but I’m thinking book festivals and one in particular - the one taking place in Edinburgh this month!

In August, something very special happens in Scotland’s Capital and that would be The Edinburgh Fringe, The Edinburgh Festival, The Edinburgh Tattoo and The Edinburgh Book Festival.

Edinburgh is my favourite city in the whole world and it’s where my eldest son lives and my middle son goes to university. It’s where I browse on George Street, go shopping on Princes Street and get my hair done on Fredrick Street. Its museums and art galleries are amazing and its restaurants are fantastic. – It’s where I set my book ‘Reaching for the Stars’ - and it’s a city close to my heart. Now there are those who can get to Edinburgh and those who can’t. Maybe you live too far away. Maybe you just can’t afford it. Don’t despair.

Indie Ebook Review is bringing Edinburgh to you via the Edinburgh Ebook Festival!

Edinburgh Castle
(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Please note this is an independent, virtual festival, with no ties or association to the commercial entity that is the Edinburgh Book Festival.

The inaugural Edinburgh Ebook Festival, in which I have been invited to take part this year, runs online and concurrently with the ‘real’ thing from August 11th to 27th 2012.

The Edinburgh Ebook Festival showcases some of the best of indie e-book writers around. The festival seeks to introduce you to writers, publishers, and to explore the whole world of epublishing from a new and distinctly Scottish perspective.

There will be around 40 featured and contributing writers and a total of around 100 specific ‘events’ including reviews, short stories, poems, features on all aspects of epublishing, writers comments and an insight into who is who and what is what!

The official ‘rolling’ launch of this website will happen at 10am on Friday 3rd August.

From then till the opening event on 11th August, there will be content added to the site by the organisers, who will be getting it shipshape and ready for you to enjoy, highlighting features of what’s to come and how to get the most from this unique festival.

It’s the Edinburgh Festival that you can attend without ever leaving home!

We will all look forward to seeing you ‘virtually’ in the weeks to come. Bookmark the website and Facebook Page and tell your friends. Everyone is welcome and everything is FREE. All it will take is some of your time and we hope to offer you enough interest to have you coming back every day right up until the close on 27th August.

Click here to go to The Edinburgh Ebook Festival Website

Click here to go to the Edinburgh Ebook Festival Facebook Page

See you at the Festival - virtually!

#edebookfest

My thoughts on #rnaconf12…

I'm still awash with conference-lag, happy friend thoughts, writerly inspiration and of course, wine - after spending three whole wonderful days at the Romantic Novelist’s Association conference - held this year in lovely Penrith Cumbria.

The conference was well attended by Romance Authors, Editors and Literary Agents. The workshops were interesting, thought provoking and varied. First up on Friday afternoon, straight after the welcome get together, there was an Industry Panel that tackled the subject of International Sales, which in our global economy was incredibly valuable. On the panel were Top Agent Carole Blake, Bestselling UK/US Author Nicola Cornick, Irish Author Ruth Long, and Author and Translator Henriette Gyland.

On Saturday morning, I did a recorded interview for BBC Radio Cumbria and spoke about the business of being an Author and the importance of Romance. I’ll let you know as soon as I have an audio link to the show when it gets aired!

My first workshop of the day was with Talli Roland, my lovely online friend whom I got to actually meet for the first time at Penrith. Talli’s workshop was entitled ‘Online Marketing for Writers’ and proved to be a fabulous masterclass.

Then it was straight into ‘A Woman’s World – the future of Women’s Fiction’ by Kate Harrison. This was an in-depth look into the research Kate had done on reader trends in the current women’s fiction market. The talk was attended by top industry professionals but it was also very useful session indeed for an independent writer like me.

Other highlights of Saturday were the Author Panel on being ‘In For The Long Haul’ with Judy Astley, Freda Lightfoot and Anne Ashhurst (who writes as Sara Craven), who between them have published hundreds of books over their long and prolific careers to date, and a session with the knowledgeable and incredibly humorous Moira Briggs, from the top book review blog, Vulpes Libres.

Then, just before wine o’clock we were treated to An Audience with the fabulous Carole Matthews, who spoke to us about her amazing career, her books, her ups and downs and who afterwards generously answered lots of questions from the audience and then shared valuable writer tips.

The Gala Dinner was a chance to dress up, catch up with writer friends and generally have a fantastic time while consuming lots of wine. I’m pleased to report that the bar did not run out! (The staff at Penrith know us all too well by now!)

Me and Talli Roland on Saturday's Gala Evening

On Sunday morning, in the hangover slot, we were soon splitting our sides with laughter in the fabulous Jane Wenham-Jones’s session ‘What a Way to Earn a Living…’

If I had to pick out just one session as a real highlight then it would have to be the last session I attended on Sunday, which was Julie Cohen’s workshop on ‘Learning Story Structure from Pixar Films’. It not only had me in tears (there were lots of Pixar film clips to demonstrate building emotional content!) but it was certainly the most valuable lesson on creating a story arc that I’ve ever had. Julie really knows her stuff and she is SO much fun!

The fabulous Julie Cohen

So what did I ultimately get from attending this conference…?

Well, aside from the absolute thrill of catching up with my wonderful writer friends and meeting new ones, it was getting to chat in the coffee break queues with people like top literary Agents Carole Blake and Dorothy Lumley, and Gillian Green - an Editorial Director at Random House, Heather Osborn from Samhain Publishers, and Editors Linda Filgrew, Sheila Hodgson and Megan Haslam from Mills & Boon. I came away not only inspired to get on with my writing but feeling entirely optimistic about my writing career.

I felt that I’d put my finger on the pulse of the industry – and found it to be alive and kicking!

Jane Wenham-Jones and me at the Gala Evening

Scottish friends Rae Cowie (me) and Jenny Harper

Celebrating my lovely friend Liz Harris's debut book deal with Choc Lit Publishers

More Scottish friends - Joan Fleming, Gwen Kirkwood & Rosemary Gemmell

Me and my loveahappyending.com buddy Sue Fortin

Enjoying the Penrith sunshine

Enjoying wine and the company of new friends

The Romaniacs - who from their singing efforts really should be a girl band!

Writer friends from Annie Burgh Group - Katy, Bex & Pippa 

The conference dining room where the food was always so yummy!

STOP PRESS NEWS

I just heard the exciting news that magazine style blog FRONTROWLIT is featuring my novel 'Reaching for the Stars' this week. If you get a moment, please do pop over to read an excerpt from Chapter One. Any Comments, Shares and Tweets will be most appreciated!

Click here to go to Front Row Lit

An Exciting New Venture...

This week, I’m sharing with you an exciting new venture. I’ve been asked to give a talk at the Loveahappyending  ‘Summer Audience’ taking place in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, on Saturday 16th June.

Now, I’m not an experienced speaker - but I certainly do have a tale to tell - as my experiences of becoming an author by the traditional route and more recently as an indie, are rather unusual and sometimes rather amusing! I was a little hesitant at first but our middle son, who lives in Edinburgh and struts past the likes of Neil Gaiman and Ian Rankin et al in the streets at Writer’s Festival time, insisted that I give it a shot. He said, “mum, you really should be out there giggin’”.

So I’m going to try and I’d love you to consider coming along. The ‘Summer Audience’ is aimed at all readers and anyone who aspires to write and the programme is now available. You can check it out by clicking the link below.

Loveahappyending Summer Audience Programme

Tickets are now available too at the fantastic price of £25 per person, which includes a whole day of informal talks by various authors in different writing genres, a light lunch, a keynote speaker, and several short but informative workshops. Plus, of course, the aforementioned riveting and hopefully amusing talk by Yours Truly, which is enticingly entitled ‘From Zero to my Latest Hero…’.

It’s not to be missed - so don’t wait until the tickets are all sold out – get yours now!

Buy Your Summer Event Tickets Here

Getting Connected…

Well, I have to say that we haven’t had a particularly good start to 2012 here at Horton HQ. We have been coping with high winds, persistent power cuts and (shriek) a laptop that refused to see in the New Year with us.

It’s shocking (or it would be if we had any power) how much we (I) now rely on the internet to work and connect with colleagues and friends on social networks, forums, Twitter, Facebook and Blogs. All of these things, together with the checking of ones Amazon rankings (okay, so it’s probably better if I don’t do that more than once a day!) means connecting on-line for at least a couple of hours each day.

I’m only able to be with you now, dear readers, because Mr JH has ingeniously managed to connect my new Touchpad (a present from Santa!) with his mobile phone ‘hot spot’ and made it possible for me to blog to you via satellite – how cool is that?!

So, what news do I bring you may ask…?

Well, my getting connected plans for 2012 of course…!

First off, I’m planning a writerly getaway to connect with writing a new novel!

I’ll be popping in from time to time over the next couple of weeks of course, and have some fabulous Author Showcase features for you, but otherwise I will be making a start on Book #4 or The WIP (work in progress) as it must be called because as yet this new venture does not have a title.

However, in true Horton style I have already done all the necessary and extensive research needed to identify with my lovely lady lawyer heroine, by actually working in a Solicitor’s office to get a real feel for her world!

I was hoping that when I’ve written a brief synopsis of the story, you might come up with a suitable title for me – what do you think? Let’s have some suggestions with something legal sounding in the title – but it’s a romance remember!

And also, to connect with my wonderful writer friends and my lovely readers, I plan to attend these amazing events being organised throughout 2012!

The Loveahappyending Summer Audience is a one day reader/writer event being held on 16th June in Tetbury, Gloucester. As an editor with Loveahappyending and co-organiser of this event, I’ll be posting more information as soon as the Lovehappyending.org information and ticket site is launched in early February.

The Romantic Novelist’s Association Conference is being held over the weekend of 13th to 15th July at Penrith, Cumbria. Information can be found on the RNA Website.

The Festival of Romance is being held over the weekend of 16th to 18th November 2012 in Bedford: more information from the Festival Website.

So that’s my plans so far – what are yours – do tell?

Please pop back next week as I have a couple of fabulous author showcases lined up for you and I’ll be blogging from my secret writerly hideaway - probably via satellite!

A Working Title...?

Do you decide upon the title of your novel first and write the story to suit or do you finish the manuscript and choose a title afterwards?

Me, I start with the title. It 'pops' into my head while I'm pondering the theme, the premise and the characters, then it is fixed. Even my next book, the one I haven't yet started writing, already has a title. See, I just can't help myself.

Of course, it might not be a good idea to get too attached if you have a publisher, as I know lots of writers who thought they had the perfect title, only for it to be changed later. Famously, Jilly Cooper's latest blockbuster Jump had a working title of 'Village Horse' during the four years she was writing it.

So what makes a good title? Well, surely, it has to be the minimum number of words that sum up the feel of the book. If you can relate genre, setting, time period and premise, as well as attracting attention to the cover, then you have to be backing a winner.

I had an interesting time on Better Book Titles  today - a website that features recognisable book covers of bestsellers and classics and updates them, with a twist, and gives a much more descriptive title. The site is run by Dan Wilbur and he aims to give you the meat of the story in one condensed image. Great fun!

My advice if you are struggling to name your magnum opus would be to think about what you want the title to convey and to make notes, jotting adjectives, verbs and nouns, which can be associated with the story. Use a thesaurus and refer to a reverse dictionary - a reverse dictionary allows you describe a concept and get a backlist of words which have definitions conceptually similar to the words you search with - a good place to find a reverse dictionary is www.onelook.com

Next I would suggest giving yourself some time and space to process your ideas and to allow your subconscious to work. Then, when you have a title or a selection of title ideas to work with, go to Amazon and look up other books with titles that are similar or the same - noting in particular the ones in the same genre as your work. Originality is always best but remember that there are no laws of copyright on titles.

If you are deliberately trying to be controversial with your choice or simply like to be a little different then don't be suprised if you find yourself shortlisted for next year's Oddest Book Title Of The Year Award. This year's worthy winner was an inspirational guide: Managing a Dental Practice:The Genghis Khan Way  - as announced recently by the Bookseller magazine.

So how did you come up with  the title of your book and at what stage in the writing process did you do it...? All comments appreciated.