Publication day

Tomorrow is February 16th, which seems to have arrived in no time. It's an important date for me because it sees the publication of the mass market paperback edition of Pariah. A number of big outlets have agreed to stock it, including Tesco's and W H Smith, so it will be interesting to see how it does. I've had a flurry of fantastic Amazon reviews for the book recently, so I hope they'll help too. All my fingers and toes are crossed.

Ring out the old, ring in the new

2011 was an exciting and busy year for me. By far the biggest event was the publication of
Pariah, my debut novel. It appeared in March in the UK, and in August in Germany (under the
title Ausgestossen). So far, the novel has received glowing reviews, and I've had wonderful
feedback from readers.

The year also saw developments in my relationship with my publisher, Pan Macmillan. I
negotiated another contract with them, for a further two books, and I had a change of
editor, which can be a disconcerting event for any author. However, my new editor, Wayne
Brookes, has a fantastic reputation, and when I met up with him for lunch I found him to be
hugely enthusiastic, committed and full of energy. If he can't do great things for me then
I'm not sure who can.

Other things that happened in 2011 included doing radio interviews, blog interviews,
magazine profiles, and other forms of publicity. In July I attended the Harrogate Crime
Writing Festival, where I met many wonderful people, some of whom have become firm friends.
And, of course, throughout the year I have been working furiously on books two and three.

Which brings me to 2012...

Pariah has so far appeared only as a trade paperback. This is a large format edition,
similar in size to hardback, but with a soft cover. As paperbacks go, it is relatively
expensive, which can limit sales (although I am given to understand that sales of Pariah
have been respectable).

On February 16, 2012, Pariah will be published as a mass market paperback. This is of a more
conventional paperback size, and at a price more acceptable to consumers, especially when it
involves an unknown author such as myself. Whereas the trade paperback was used to generate interest and garner media quotes, etc, the hope now is that it is the mass market paperback for which the volume sales will be seen. In a sense, I think this will be the real test of whether people want to read my work, and so I am sure you can appreciate that I am growing increasingly nervous as D-day approaches.

The sequel to Pariah is called The Helper. Publication date for this is March 1, 2012.
Again, this will appear initially in trade paperback form, but it will have some advantages
that I didn't have this time last year. For one thing, my name as an author will be known a
little better, mainly because of Pariah, but also because I have put a lot of effort into
networking. Moreover, the publication date is a mere two weeks after that of Pariah, and so
the two books should appear side by side on retailers' shelves. This increased exposure
should help to assure readers that they are buying into an author who has a future (I
hope!). I am very proud of The Helper, and I hope that readers will enjoy it.

Book three (title still under wraps) is currently being written. At the moment, I can reveal
only that it continues the series with Callum Doyle, and that it picks up some of the
threads that were created in Pariah. It's a slightly different, more character-focused
novel, but still with lots of action and plot twists. My deadline for delivery of the
manuscript is March 1 - the same day that The Helper is published, and the day my daughter
finds out whether she has got her choice of secondary school! I have an anxious couple of
months ahead!

There are lots of other things lined up for 2012. A book-signing event with two other
authors (both more well-known than little old me) is planned for the end of February
(details to follow); I am taking an active part in Crimefest in Bristol in May, which should
be loads of fun; and then there is Harrogate again in July. Other things will no doubt
arise.

And did I mention that I also have a life outside of writing? I need to squeeze that in
somewhere, too.

I hope that your own year ahead is just as full and exciting. A very Happy New Year to you!

My Shiny New Covers

I haven't blogged in a while, but this one's a goodie, so I hope it'll make up for my lack of postings recently.

Why is this one a goodie? Because it's where I show you my new covers. I mentioned them in a previous blog, and now I can unveil them. I have to say that I'm incredibly excited about them.

The mass market paperback of Pariah appears next February, and this is what it looks like:

Totally different from the original cover, but I think it's stunning.

The sequel to Pariah, called The Helper, should appear on shelves a couple of weeks later, at the beginning of March, and here is the jacket it will be wearing:

Again, I think it's really eye-catching. You can see now how the Pan Macmillan design team have taken a branding approach to the covers, with the blood, the broken glass and the New York skyline appearing in both.

To further whet your appetite, I'll leave you with the back cover blurb for The Helper:

‘I can help you, Cal. I can help you solve the murder of Cindy Mellish.’

A grisly murder in a shabby New York bookstore seems to hold a special significance for Detective Callum Doyle: the victim’s been marked with a message that could have been left especially for him. But why?

Then the sinister phone calls start. Doyle is told more deaths are planned but the caller will give him clues – on condition he keeps them to himself. So begins his dilemma. If he turns the offer down he will have nothing to go on. But if he accepts and gets it wrong, he will have concealed knowledge that could have stopped a killer.

As more deaths follow, increasingly vicious and apparently random, the pressure on Doyle to find a link becomes unbearable. Does he continue to gamble with people’s lives? Or must he sacrifice everything to defeat a ruthless and manipulative enemy?

Furiously fast-paced, totally unpredictable and unforgettable, this is a masterpiece from the acclaimed author of PARIAH.

Judging a book by its cover

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about how my second novel, The Helper, went through the editing stage. Other things have happened since then. In particular, I've been considering the book's cover.

To me, and I guess to many authors, seeing the proposed book cover for the first time is one of the most exciting stages in the whole process of preparing a book for print. For the first time you get some idea of how the book will look on the shelves. It somehow becomes more real as a product that people will pick up and (hopefully) buy. It follows, therefore, that the cover is of vital importance in attracting customers, and so it has to be fresh and different and have huge visual impact. As the author, I also want to be sure that the cover accurately reflects the pages it contains in terms of theme and concept.

Having said that, the author does not get much say in the cover design. The publisher's arts department will generate a variety of visual ideas which are considered at meetings comprising a whole load of people, including editors and those from sales and marketing. The publisher will also talk to retailers about their views on what will look good on their shelves. The author is, I'm afraid, at the back of the queue when it comes to being consulted about the cover, and I would guess (although I have not had to do this) that it would be difficult for an author - especially a newcomer - to insist on major changes after all the deliberation that has already taken place.

In the case of Pariah, my first novel, the first version of the cover design that I was shown looked like this:

And this eventually became the following:

As you can see, the major elements are still there - the New York skyline, the man with the case - but there are some important differences. The steaming manhole cover has gone, to be replaced by the expanding shadow from the man, and the slant now goes through the top of the book title rather than the bottom. The original idea to have the figure of the man as the letter 'I' in PARIAH has also now been abandoned. It was felt that 'Pariah' was an obscure enough word in itself without adding further visual confusion (I'll blog about the saga over the title another time!). And of course, there is the addition of colour - that bright yellow that really makes the book stand out.

Other aspects of cover design also have to be considered. There is the 'shoutline' - the line of text that sometimes appears below the title to add further enticement to read the book. For Pariah, my editor came up with 'What if the biggest threat to those you love was yourself?' which I really like. Extracts from newspaper reviews and author quotes might also appear on a cover. Then there is the possibility of an author photo on the inside cover, perhaps accompanied by a short bio. Last but not least, there is the 'cover copy' - the blurb on the back of the book that tells the reader what it's about in a couple of paragraphs that, hopefully, grab that reader by the throat and don't let go. In the case of The Helper, my editor drafted the initial cover copy and then I made some alterations which (I think) have now been accepted.

At the time that Pariah was accepted for publication, there was only one book to think about, and so the cover could be designed in isolation. Now that I have a contract for two further novels, however, the situation has changed. The cover design has to be considered more as a branding exercise, with a theme that can run over a sequence of books. This means that when the mass market paperback edition of Pariah comes out next February, it will have a new cover that looks nothing like the existing one shown above. The cover for The Helper, which should come out about a month later, will fit in with this new design, but still look original and exciting. I have seen both of these new covers and I think they're brilliant. I'll blog about them here as soon as they are finalised.

I am in Germany

Or rather my debut novel, Pariah, is in Germany. Or rather, Ausgestossen, as it has been titled over there, is now officially available, and has been since the start of the month.

It's a curious thing, being published in a foreign land. I still haven't held a copy of the German edition in my hands, and I wouldn't be able to read it if I did. (I was actually pretty good at German at school, but that was more years ago than I care to remember).

It's probably a good thing that I can't read it. It must be incredibly difficult to translate any novel, but one which contains a lot of slang and local dialect must be doubly difficult. For example, I often have characters say 'I wanna' rather than 'I want to', because it gives more of the flavour of New York speech. But is there an equivalent for that in German? Or in other languages for that matter? What about 'diddly-squat'? Or 'shit-for-brains' ? Can one translate those things and still retain authenticity? I worry, therefore, that if I were able to translate the novel back into English, I would discover that it bore little resemblance to the original.

But perhaps that doesn't matter. English-language novels and films get translated into other languages all the time, and generally you don't hear complaints about it. Clearly, though, there must be good translators and not-so-good translators. Fortunately, the German translator for Pariah is one of the excellent ones. Her name is Tanja Handels. I have never met her, never even corresponded with her, but I have heard great things about her work. She has translated works by Zadie Smith, Ann Cleeves, PJ Tracy and John Grisham, to name just a few. I also have a top-notch German publishing company. Rowohlt have published authors such as Kingsley Amis, Michael Crichton, PD James, Albert Camus, and Roald Dahl, so I feel honoured to be on their lists.

There is really only one way to discover how effectively Pariah translates, and that this is to see what the readers think. My first German review appeared recently, and you can see a roughly translated version here. As you'll see, the reviewer gives it a thumbs-up, awarding it 10 out of 10 'bookworms'. One thing I particularly liked about it is that the reviewer has me pegged as an American author! Even if the novel loses something in the translation, it's nice to know that it has some authenticity about it beforehand.

What I Did at the Weekend

On Sunday I returned home after spending three days at the Theakstons Crime Festival in Harrogate. I had never been to the festival before, but I knew that there would be a number of big authors there and that some fascinating panels and discussions were planned. That's literally all I knew. I hoped to be amused, educated and entertained, and to come home feeling that it was money well spent.

Well, I can tell you that it was much, much better than that.

What made it special were the people. There were no cliques, no elitism, no friction. Everyone got on with everyone else. Big names rubbed shoulders and downed alcohol with the littler fish. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the luminaries were doing everything they could to encourage newly published and aspiring authors. Special mention must go to Mark Billingham, who could almost invariably be found at the 'front of house', welcoming people and having coffee with them. I chatted to him several times during the festival, and although I am a fan of his work anyway, I came away feeling that he is such a nice guy.

The talks and panels were excellent. Val McDermid was hilarious and Lee Child gave a highly entertaining performance in the Room 101 session. I particularly enjoyed listening to Dennis Lehane at the end of festival. He was refreshingly honest and frank, but also such a cool customer. Since he's a hero of mine, I joined a long queue to get him to sign some books, and he congratulated me on my debut novel and wished me good luck. I got a similar reception from Tess Gerritsen and David Baldacci in their book signings too.

On the Friday evening the Pan Macmillan team took a number of us out to dinner at the very posh venue of Rudding Park. I sat between Jeremy Trevathan, Fiction Publisher for Pan Mac, and Philippa McEwan, my publicist. They made for fantastic company, as did everyone else at the table (how often do you get to have dinner with David Baldacci?). Following champagne and a wonderful meal, we were transported back to the bar of the Old Swan, and the party continued. The whole weekend was as fast paced as that: I hardly slept, because even when I managed to get back to my hotel room in the wee small hours, my mind was racing too much for me to relax.

Philippa, my publicist, was brilliant. She introduced me to lots of important people in the business and the media. At one point she whisked me in to meet the manager of the Waterstones store that had been set up in the hotel. I had noticed on the previous day that copies of my book were on the shelves, even though I wasn't on any of the panels. It was pleasing enough when Kirsty, the manager, told me that they were selling well, but then it got better. I was invited to sign the remaining copies, they were stickered appropriately, and within an hour they were all sold!

I have to say that the organization of the whole event was fantastic. The logistics of such a huge festival must have been horrendous, but to me as a punter it seemed to run like clockwork. Sessions ran perfectly to time, stragglers were only allowed in at appropriate junctures, and the audio-visuals were spot on. There were also nice gaps between sessions in which we could grab a much-needed cuppa and some fresh air, and the lunches were superb. All of this in the remarkable setting of the Old Swan Hotel, and the fact that Agatha Christie was once found staying there after her mysterious disappearance only added to the atmosphere.

I must give a mention to Twitter here. As a social media tool, Twitter did its job excellently. I arrived at the festival feeling that I already knew some people, and when we finally met up I was not disappointed. The rapport was immediate, and I left having established friendships that I know will last a long time.

So that was my weekend. Exhausting, but also electrifying and inspiring. I can't wait to go back next year.

Edits, geddit?

One of the things I did recently was to send off the edits for my second book (currently titled 'The Helper') to my editor at Pan Macmillan. This got me thinking about how, before I was published, I had no idea of all the stages a book goes through before it finally hits the shelves. I imagine there must be many aspiring authors in a similar position, so I thought I would take this opportunity to demystify the process if I can.

Once you are taken on as an author, an editor will be assigned to work with you. In my case, it's the editor who accepted my book in the first place, and I imagine it's the same for most publishing houses. One of the first jobs of your editor is to re-read your novel and then try to identify how it might be improved. He or she will then write back to you with a whole load of suggestions. Some of these are trivial; others can require a lot more thought.

The editorial suggestions that were sent to me for The Helper came in two parts. The first part consisted of general story points - points about the plot and characters that I may not have considered. One of these in particular helped me to add a nice twist to the story.

The other part consisted of more detailed comments, with references to specific points in the manuscript. The form this took for The Helper was a large table, divided into four columns. The first column of each row gave the page number of the manuscript; the second specified the line number(s); the third held the editor's comments; and the fourth was left blank for me to indicate my response.

Here's an example of one of the easier edits to deal with:
page 12, line 8: Do skateboards clang? 'Clatter' ?

I had referred in my book to the clanging of skateboards. My editor suggested that 'clattering' might be a better word, and of course he's right. I changed it and simply wrote 'done' in the column reserved for me.

Here's a slightly more substantial revision:
page 26, line 6: Is this paragraph vital? Began to feel that Doyle's triumphalism was a bit overextended!

The editor is calling here for the removal of a complete paragraph. On re-reading it, I realised he was right, deleted the text, and wrote 'Cut' in my column.

Deleting text is often painful, but excisions don't end at paragraphs. I have deleted whole pages at the suggestion of my editor, and even a complete section. In his blog, Ryan David Jahn has explained how he once cut a whole chapter from a novel after the editor queried its usefulness.

Sometimes edits require text to be added. This may occur when the editor feels a passage needs further clarification, or feels that something extra is needed to add to the impact of an event.

When I had worked my way through all the suggestions, I sent the table and my general comments back to my editor. We then went through one more iteration - a few more suggestions, a few more edits, and then we were done.

What you may have gathered from all this is that an editor's comments are not dismissed lightly. In the vast majority of cases, I made changes in line with what the editor suggested. In one or two cases I let things stand, but only after serious thought, and I always explained why I had taken that decision.

The end result of all this work is, I believe, a much tighter and faster-paced novel, with a nice extra twist thrown in for good measure.

But that's not the end of the work on The Helper, as we shall see in future posts...