Some honest thoughts on... everything?
Hello people. I am back from another year at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival and I can honestly say it was the best yet. My seventh time!
I bloody loved it.
As I walked around, I saw smiling, familiar faces everywhere. There were too many people to talk to. And of course I missed talking to so many people, which sucks. But I am so grateful to have caught up with the ones I did have time with, and also so grateful to have met a ton of new authors too.
A huge thank you as well to all the people who came up to me and thanked me for my blog posts.
As always, I am slightly stunned when it happens and this year, it happened more than ever!
Thank you so much for reading my rambles and I am glad if they make you feel less alone.
(Sidenote: my viral ‘Harrogate’ blog post had a massive spike in hits this weekend! 4am despairing re-readings of Eat Pray Love abound…)
On the way home, I was thinking a lot about what a great time I had had - and how much more relaxed I felt about it all, and I realised that it was most likely because I am out of contract at the moment.
Which is SO WEIRD.
The joy of being out of contract
You’d think that being out of contract would make you antsy, or drown you in imposter syndrome (I rarely feel this - am I a freak? I suspect it’s because it took me so long to get published - I earnt my stripes!!) – but actually it meant I didn’t have to be in ‘promo’ mode, I didn’t have to listen and compare with all the other people there about what was going on with their books, I didn’t have to go to an awkward publishing lunch and try to be impressive or memorable and it just meant I could relax and treat it as a lovely weekend away filled with the best people I know (aka writers).
And on that note…
Perhaps it’s time for an update on my writing career.
I have been holding my cards so close to my chest lately because… well, because that’s what publishing tells you to do, isn’t it? Fake it til you make it. We must all project images of success at all times because if we don’t then… what? I don’t know. We start to whiff of failure and then everyone turns away from us.
Well, I am not a failure and I refuse to see myself as one.
Ahem.
I am currently out of contract after my latest novel, Connie, came out in January.
My editor left her job at my original publisher last year. I had six books with them. I loved working with her, and the rest of the team. But especially her. She was my one constant, and she believed in me. She was a truly excellent editor (editors do not get enough credit for the work they put into shaping a book!). She really championed me and pushed me and made Connie into the best book I have ever published.
I guess naively I hoped that as my original publisher had six books with me, when she left they would still support me, despite all the evidence to the contrary from both my own past experiences and those of friends.
But basically, she left and then no-one cared about my book, and my book - the book that took me two years to write and had some of the best reviews of my entire career (a 5* Netgalley average is not to be sniffed at!) - has done nothing. Gone nowhere.
My one review. Like… what?
It’s sold reasonably in digital. But nowhere near the levels of my past books because it has had very very little in the way of marketing.
I got no PR at all, except for one lovely review in Prima magazine, which only came about because the lady who reviews for Prima messaged me on Insta when I first announced the book, to say she loved the sound of it and to make sure she got a proof.
All my other books were reviewed widely across the usual press outlets, I wrote guest posts for media outlets, I was on podcasts… I had a really decent amount of press each time.
This time, there was nothing. Just Prima (thank you Nina!).
Maybe this has nothing to do with my editor leaving. Maybe?
A caveat here that I love people who work in publishing. I do not hold any of this against anyone. I know how stressed publishing folk are.
It is the system. We play the game, these are the rules.
It is a shit game for writers.
It is a really, really shit game for writers.
How do we reconcile this?
In Harrogate, no one I spoke to was particularly happy or secure when it came to their publishing experience. Everyone was stressed and worried.
Midlisters are struggling to get contracts renewed. Established authors who want to leave their agents in search of a career boost are being told it’s really hard as so many agents’ books are already full of established authors who also need a career boost.
Amazing books are languishing on submission for months and months (one friend just got an offer nine months after her agent submitted - wtf? How can anyone sustain a career like this? We have bills to pay too!)
Writers love to moan and things have always been tough, but there has been a definite shift.
It is even more tough than it was before but now, it also feels a bit hopeless.
I don't want to talk about AI. But, well, AI looms over us all. I think the issue at the moment is that there is no clear path and no one knows exactly what is going to happen and so everyone is sitting tight and waiting for the storm to blow over, and to see what remains once the dust has settled.
I have friends who have been told by their agents that it’s better to hold off going on sub to editors until next year. ‘Sit tight’ seems to be a common message.
As for me…
I wrote a bookclub novel last year that I loved. I think it’s the best book I’ve ever written.
But there is something fundamentally wrong with its structure, and I don’t know how to fix it.
I did multiple edits with my agent, then I paid a (very expensive!!!) structural editor to work on it, and even she didn’t know how to fix it.
In the end, we sent it out to editors late last year and I had some deeply lovely feedback, but it didn’t sell and I am not surprised because there is something fundamentally wrong with it and no one knows how to fix it.
I was desperately hoping it would connect with an editor who could see what I was trying to do and help me shape it.
But it wasn’t meant to be.
And that’s OK.
Perhaps editors don’t have time to do that kind of deep editing these days. I don’t know.
I still think there’s a brilliant, important idea in there. I KNOW that it would resonate with so many readers. I know these readers exist because they are my people and I am in communities stuffed full of them!
I still believe in that book fiercely, in a way I haven’t ever believed in any other book.
It’s a weirdly nice feeling? 😊
And yes, I still think it’s the best book I’ve ever written. The most important book I’ve ever written. Because it’s the truest. It is a reflection of my soul.
That book didn’t sell to publishers, but ironically that book is also why I don’t feel like a failure (even if I don’t know how to fix it so that it becomes something the marketplace wants).
I can see myself self-publishing it at some point. I toyed with doing a super limited print-run - say 50 copies - and only selling it to a select few people in those aforementioned communities.
But not yet. I am still hoping that, eventually, the way to fix it will come to me.
But I am completely at peace because I know that writing that book was not a waste of my time.
After that experience, I decided to lean into my ‘success’ (from a publishing POV at least) and write something super commercial.
I wrote a 7k partial of a psych suspense and sent it to my agent. She loved the premise and agreed it was very commercial. A few months ago, she sent it to a few publishers to gauge interest.
And within a very short amount of time, I got two offers from amazing publishers and - more importantly - editors I would love to work with.
All the other editors said they couldn’t offer on a partial but would love to read the whole thing when it was ready.
Great, right?
Except… when those offers came in, something weird happened.
I got cold feet. I decided I wanted to write the entire book before accepting a contract from anyone.
I wrote the whole book (in a rush, with the weird pressure of these offers hanging over me), and sent it to my agent. Her verdict: it needed a big edit. The end result wasn’t commercial enough, but a weird bookclub-suspense mashup that fell between both stools.
Fair enough. But every time I opened my laptop to work on the book, something would happen. I would literally freeze. I was completely unable to think, or concentrate, or care about the people in this book.
Was I broken?
Is that burnout thing real?
I don’t know.
And when you don’t know the answer, you have to live with the question.
So I have decided to have this summer off (big things happening in my personal life, including my daughter leaving primary school), and revisit the book in September.
I have published eight books in eight years. And written ten in ten years.
I am really tired.
Not just of writing, but of all the disappointments that come along with publishing. And yes, I know that’s the game (see above) and no-one is forcing me to play, but it is HARD. And I am human and I am tired.
I guess it’s easier if you’re David Bowie?
I love writing. It is what I do and always have done. But I am struggling to reconcile having a career as a commercial author with writing something I really love and care about.
The book I wrote last year - that felt so important and necessary and urgent - didn’t sell.
The partial I wrote - as an experiment ‘for the market’ - got snapped up.
**Caveat: I am not saying one type of fiction is superior. Only that I seem to enjoy writing fiction that is not that that commercial 😢
People always tell authors NOT to write for the market, but but but… it’s disingenuous advice.
Again, how do we reconcile this?
I wish I had the answer. At the moment, all I can think is that, somehow, I need to make the partial book into something I also care deeply about without making it even less commercial.
I also have another idea for another bookclub novel that I really want to write!
So… who knows.
People need to buy more books, that’s for sure.
I have many many other thoughts about the way publishing is going that I will attempt to wrangle into something of interest for you to read at some point.
But for now, I’d just like to say that I have come back from Harrogate feeling weirdly at peace, and that everything will somehow work out for the best.
Is it a coincidence that this sense of peace comes when I have stepped off the publishing rollercoaster? Again, I don’t know. But peace is good for a writer, and so I am embracing it.
Thanks for being with me on this journey. Writers are the best. I hope you find your peace too. ❤️
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