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The Secret Dreamworld of an Aspiring Author – Nearest and Dearest Book Grabbing

by Anna Bell

Authors need to sell books to make money. It’s not rocket science. It’s a fact of life. Like any profession, they need to be paid for the service or job they provide, so why do so many people want free books?

When Don’t Tell the Groom was released in paperback I was bowled over by the support of friends and family buying the book. It seemed everyone bought a copy, even people in my old sixth form – friends that I hadn’t spoken to in years. It was really touching to see people posting photos of their copies on my Facebook page. Yet, now I’m on book three, that has disappeared, and now only those who really enjoy the type of books I write keep buying.

My sister and I were off to a spa evening at the weekend, and before we left she text me to ask if I could bring a copy of my book for her to read. I told her that she could go and buy a copy for the bargain price of £3.85 at our local supermarket, but she turned up at the spa without one. I also saw my brother at the weekend, and he also hadn’t bought a copy. Luckily, my mum has purchased three copies, or else I’d feel a bit unsupported by my family!

So why won’t my own siblings buy my book? Well, there seems to be an expectation that they’ll get one for free as I’m their sister. And they’re not the only ones. Friends – and even friends of friends – often ask me for copies. It might surprise the freebie hunters to know that authors get very few free books; I get just ten with each release. Now, you might think that ten seems like quite a big number to have filling up your shelves, but I use those copies for special competition giveaways or to give to people that need to be thanked for helping with the book research. I also like to keep a few for posterity as you never know when a book will go out of print!

Ten Books...Naughty Reads

You may have heard talk of the Fifty Shades of Grey movie, which is absolutely everywhere right now. If all the hype has put you in the mood for another erotic read, we've put together a list of top naughty books. What others would you add?

1. The Naughty Girls Book Club by Sophie Hart – Estelle owns a cafe called Cafe Crumb. To help business she decides to start a book club, but when the group first get together it doesn't all go as Estelle plans. Her first book choice doesn't go down well. Then one of the group spots the erotic novel in Estelle's bag and, from then on, they work their way through erotic fiction titles with life-changing results. 

2. Bared to You by Sylvia Day – The first in the Crossfire series, this is the story of Eve and what happens when she meets the incredibly wealthy Gideon Cross. Amanda writes in her review that this novel 'takes readers on a hot and steamy ride.'

3. Bad Brides by Rebecca Chance – To be fair, anything from Rebecca Chance could be in this list. Bad Brides is described as having 'sizzling sex scenes' along with 'steamy encounters'. As Kirsty says in her review: 'I know that when I pick up her novel I will be drawn into a world of sex, intrigue and women behaving badly.'

4. Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour – This diary follows high-class prostitute Belle De Jour, who started writing on her award-winning blog about her secret sex life. It's not for the faint-hearted and I can vouch for that *fans self*.

5. In Too Deep by Portia Da Costa – Gwendolynne Price is a young librarian who starts receiving erotic love notes in the suggestion box at work. Who is the mystery admirer?

Fifty Shades of Grey #bookvsfilmclub Reactions

by Amanda Keats

‘Creative differences’ between author and director, casting changes, rating challenges, debate over the content – Fifty Shades of Grey has had it all!

But does the film – based on EL James's novel – live up to its notoriety and actually offer anything worthwhile to cinematic audiences (beyond a few awkward giggles)?

Here’s what people had to say on the adaptation in the latest #BookVsFilmClub.

People were quick to *ahem* praise the film, with @tyates01 tweeting: 'The film isn't a total disaster, but it's probably still one of the most worrying films I've seen in a while.' @AndrewDEvans added: 'To be fair, all my major criticisms are really of the 'novel'.'

@thommoj03 was full of compliments too, tweeting that it was 'not the complete car crash I expected'. He added: 'Wasn't bowled over but still found positives. It looked stunning'. Though the colour scheme seemed to irk @EmzFinn who asked: 'Was it necessary to have his entire house/wardrobe/office dressed in shades of grey? Too much?'

Review – Coming Up Roses by Rachael Lucas

Reviewed by Zarina de Ruiter

When Daisy's parents decide to take some time out to travel the world, she is more than happy to house sit their home, Orchard Villa, in the quiet village of Steeple St John. Hit hard by a recent break up, Daisy is looking forward to tackling her parents' out of control garden and spending some quality time with a tub of ice cream and a box set of her favourite TV show.

But Daisy's idealistic image of the town doesn't quite match up to reality. The villagers are busy preparing for Open Gardens and the neglected garden of Orchard Villa doesn't fit the picturesque vision her neighbours have of the area, so they make sure to let Daisy know at every available opportunity that she had better spruce things up before the event kicks off.  

Add to that a blossoming romance when Daisy wasn't looking for another relationship quite so soon, and pestering developers wanting to buy up the house she had so quickly fallen in love with, and Daisy's hope for some peace in a remote village turns out to be anything but that.

With BBC's The Big Allotment Challenge having just aired its second series and Cathy Bramley's Ivy Lane (our current Novelicious book club read) hitting the shelves in paperback, gardening has shrugged off its somewhat stuffy image, and rightfully so; when we're still knee-deep in frosty weather the thought of catching the first rays of sunshine while pottering about with beautiful bouquets of colourful flowers and delicious home-grown vegetables paints a picturesque image.

My Writing Room by Helen Humphreys

Even though I have a perfectly nice office on the second floor of my house, with a view over backyards to a distant line of trees, I never work there. Instead, I sit hunched over on a tatty leather couch in the living room, next to my vizsla, Charlotte, who dominates the space; and if she is cold, squashes up so hard against me that it is difficult to type.

Dogs love routines, and Charlotte loves her routines more than most dogs. It was a mistake to spend a lot of time with her on the couch when she was a puppy, because now she has an expectation of this being the norm and it is very hard to convince her otherwise. Frankly, I have given up trying, and most days, after the morning walk, she sleeps at one end of the couch, while I work at the other. Being an intelligent dog, when she isn’t sleeping she needs to be busy, hence the bone that is visible in this photo next to my coffee mug.

Review – Postcards From The Past by Marcia Willett

Reviewed by Jennifer Joyce

Billa and her brother Ed live together in their childhood home in a rural Cornish village. The old converted butter mill holds many dear memories but it also contains reminders of a past that Billa and Ed would rather forget. But when they start to receive postcards from a mysterious figure from that time, they start to panic. It has been decades since they last saw or heard from him – what does he want from them? And why now?

Postcards From The Past sounded like such an intriguing read and I couldn’t wait to dive in and find out about the sinister character who is encroaching on Billa and Ed’s idyllic lives. The book begins with the first postcard and its simple but unnerving message and I was glad that we were being thrown straight into the action. Unfortunately, the pace of the book wasn’t what I expected and it slowed right down from there and didn’t really pick up until around two thirds of the way through the book. Along the way, we are introduced to characters from Ed and Billa’s lives, as well as from the village and I thought this slowed down the plot greatly, especially as some of these characters seemed superfluous to the plot. These unnecessary storylines got in the way of the main plot for me, which was frustrating. Eventually the pace did pick up and my intrigue was heightened, but I was disappointed again with the ending, which was rather abrupt and not as satisfactory as I would have liked.

Novelicious Chats To...Helen Giltrow

Helen Giltrow is a former bookseller and editor whose writing has been shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award and the Daily Telegraph’s Novel in a Year competition. Her debut novel, The Distance, is a dark suspense thriller set in the world of criminal espionage, with a strong female lead. We’re big fans of strong female leads around these parts so sat down for a natter with Helen to find out more.

Where do you find inspiration for your books?

Stories always start with the characters. I have no idea where I get them from – certainly not real life. Usually I’m just meandering around the house and suddenly there they are. I find I often know a lot about their pasts, but not necessarily what will happen to them next. I guess I write to find out.

Can you tell us a little about your average writing day?

I always try to start at 9 a.m. I make a cup of coffee (Taylor’s Rich Italian, hot milk, one spoon of demerara), then take the coffee and my kitchen timer up to my office and set the timer for one hour. Then write. When the timer pings I make myself leave the office for ten minutes – load the washing machine, put the rubbish out, wipe round the bathroom sink, water the plants ... Then come back upstairs, set the timer for another hour, and write again. I’ll do three one-hour stints in the morning, take a long break at lunchtime (I’m rubbish in the early afternoons), then put in another three hours.

Review – No Known Grave by Maureen Jennings

Reviewed by Verity Wilde

No Known Grave is the third book in the DI Tom Tyler series by Maureen Jennings – who also wrote the Murdoch Mystery books. This time though, instead of late nineteenth century Canada, the setting is England during the Second World War. 

Tom Tyler has just arrived in Ludlow to take up a new job with the local police force, when a disabled Great War veteran and his son are found brutally murdered in their cottage in the grounds of a convalescent home, run by Anglican nuns in a former manor house. He has to figure out who carried out the crime from a list of suspects which includes patients who can’t walk or who are blind and others who are traumatised – and some who are a combination of the three. And then the anonymous letters start arriving.

Firstly, I was a little worried that I might feel like I was missing something because I hadn’t read the first few books in the series. But because Tyler has just moved to a new town, that really didn’t feel like it was the case.  Yes I was missing some of the backstory about the mysterious (to me at least!) Clare – and his failed marriage, but that didn’t affect my enjoyment of the detection – the plot is interesting enough to outweigh that.

Feasting on Romantic Comedy – Cathy Bramley's Scrumptious Scones from Appleby Farm

When I think of home, the place I grew up, scones would feature high up in my foodie memories. They're the sort of bake you can throw together in a hurry – a recipe you can memorise and a recipe that won't let you down. It's one that's easy to pass on, too.

For Freya Moorcroft, in Cathy Bramley's new four-part series of eBooks called Appleby Farm, scones are the only bake she can create. She makes them in the cafe where she works, close to the Ivy Lane allotments, being careful not to over-mix them. It's her Auntie Sue's recipe. Her dear Auntie Sue lives with her husband, Freya's Uncle Arthur, in the Lake District on a farm called Appleby Farm. It is the place Freya calls home. And it is the place she is called to when there is a phone call, out of the blue, asking for help.

Appleby Farm features some of the characters from Ivy Lane, which is now out in paperback. Cathy has, once more, delivered an eBook installment that is just like these scones. Warm and delicious, leaving you desperate for the next one.

Cathy has also, very kindly, allowed me to reproduce her recipe for Scrumptious Scones from Appleby Farm: A Blessing in Disguise. 

Novelicious Chats To...Brooke Davis

You might have heard some buzz about Australian author Brooke Davis, whose debut novel, Lost & Found, turns the abandonment of a fictional little girl named Millie Bird into a rollercoaster of an adventure. Today, Brooke joins us to talk about her love of people-watching, drawing encouragement from the wise and ever-inspirational words of Ira Glass, and sharing her book deal moment with the friendly patrons of a Canadian pub while travelling.

Where do you find inspiration for your books?

I feel like I’m always taking in art and life and that those things are always having an impact on my writing: music that might open me up to something, paintings that blast me with colour, photographs of very ordinary people. A landscape, a newspaper headline, a tiny insect. My writing feels like it’s a process of absorbing everything around me and trying to turn all of that into language, and subsequently into narrative.

People, in particular, are really important to my writing. I love writing in cafes to absorb the behaviours of people around me. It’s often called ‘people-watching’, but that implies a certain kind of voyeurism, or staring. But I don’t do that. I don’t sit there with the intention of staring at people and stealing their lives. I promise! In fact, I barely even look at people: it’s more of a process of incidental absorption. A person nearby brushes their hair away from their face, or looks at someone, or walks in a certain way and for some reason the image sticks in my mind and I feel a sense of urgency to nail the moment in language, because it feels like it might represent something.

Can you tell us a little about your average writing day?

I’m a pretty disciplined, hard-working type, but I’ve also learned that I need to be

kind to myself to get the best out of myself, so I focus on living in a balanced way. I love to write and it’s important to me, but I also love my life outside of that. I love being social, I love thinking about things that don’t relate to writing, I love healthy food and exercise. Time away from writing is really important to my life as a writer.

I try to keep my life calm and quiet when I’m writing. I make sure I bookend my writing days with some sort of exercise and time for self-reflection. I treat the day like a job and usually work solidly for eight hours, with a few breaks. I sometimes work from home, and other times, when I’m a little stuck and need a change of scenery, I write in cafes. The disadvantage of working in public is that you can’t work in your pyjamas and you can’t nap when you want to.

Review – The Cake Shop in the Garden by Carole Matthews

Reviewed by Zarina de Ruiter

Forty-something Faye Merryweather is a kind-hearted woman who always takes care of everyone but herself. Her mother is bed-bound, though more out of stubbornness than necessity, and Fay is her sole caretaker. She does have a younger sister, Edie, but she lives in New York and is too caught up in her own life to consider the feelings of her sister and mother. The only reason she regularly Skypes Fay is to complain about her boyfriend and to beg her sister for money. Even though Faye barely scrapes by from the earnings of her cake shop, located in the garden of her home, time and time again she helps Edie out as she can't stand seeing her sister in distress.

Even Faye's long-time partner, Anthony, seems to only still be around for convenience as she makes him home-made meals, irons his shirts and yet rarely asks for anything in return. However, her nondescript existence is turned upside down when the gorgeous Danny Wilde sails into her life. Having recently walked out of high-flying city career, he bought a boat and is enjoying his new fancy-free life. Danny initially stops by The Canalside Cake Shop for a sandwich, but he sticks around to help out with some of the jobs that needed doing around the place for a long time.

Danny brings with him the spark that had been missing in Faye's life and she soon finds herself attracted to the much younger man. However, with her mother to take care of, the cake shop to run and not wanting to betray Anthony either, will Faye once again ignore her own feelings and desires for the sake of others?

Literary Love Letters: Dear Miranda July, From Claire Fuller

Have you ever been so inspired by an author’s work that you wish you could tell them exactly how much they have impacted your life? In our new series, Literary Love Letters, we will be doing just that – sharing open love letters to inspiring authors. Today, Our Endless Numbered Days author Claire Fuller writes to Miranda July.

Dear Miranda July,

Back in the winter of 2008 when I had just met my future husband, Tim, he introduced me to your collaborative art project, Learning To Love You More. (For those reading this letter, who aren’t Miranda July, Learning To Love You More was a book, a website and a series of assignments set by July and her co-artist, Harrell Fletcher, that anyone could do, such as, take a picture of your parents kissing, draw a constellation from someone’s freckles or ask your family to describe what you do.)

Tim and I did many of the assignments together. We made an encouraging banner (‘Life is an Adventure’) and hung it on a pub garden fence, we carved a bust of Steve the taxi driver from a sweet potato, and we made a sign and protested with it (‘Less Driving, More Walking – holding up traffic on the westbound A4 in central Reading*). We did all sorts of things that we would never have dreamed we were capable of, and felt more alive for doing them. We had such fun and I want to thank you for it.

The Secret Dreamworld of an Aspiring Author – Shelf Lives: Traditional vs Self-Publishing

by Anna Bell

My latest book hit actual book shelves a few days ago and it got me thinking about shelf life. There seems to be a buzz around my book at the moment, but when it leaves the supermarket in a few weeks, will that be it for my book?

In my Novelicious column last week, I was asking people about book marketing and author Carol Hedges commented about how her publishers only market a book for a few weeks and then it is down to her. It was something I hadn’t considered, but that’s true of my publishers, too. It made me think about my own marketing experiences with my print books and my self-published eBooks, and I realised they’re quite different.

For my self-published books, I behave in the same way my publishers did for my traditional books; getting reviewers involved and writing guest posts. The main difference though is the control you have over your self-published books as you are able to change their price and offer as many copies as you like for competitions. When I self-published my Millie and the American series, I was able to drop the price of the original, and sequels, when a new book came out in order to drive sales. I also made use of Amazon Countdown deals – offering a reduced price on my eBooks for a five day period. I have even, in the past, had charity days, where for every book I sold on a particular day, I donated my royalties to a chosen charity.

News – New Book from The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Co-Author Annie Barrows

We talk about The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows fairly often here at Novelicious. Just last month it was named one of our top five books of the century so far, in fact. Imagine our delight then when our attention was drawn (by Cesca – loudly and with great excitement) to a tweet from Ben Willis, head of Transworld digital publicity, yesterday.

“So… We’re publishing a new novel by The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society co-author Annie Barrows in June!” he said.

Naturally, we had to find out more.

Titled The Truth According to Us, the long-awaited historical fiction novel will be published on Thursday 18 June and will be set in a small town in West Virginia. Here’s what we know about it:

1938, Macedonia – a small-town in West Virginia: twelve-year-old Willa Romeyn is awaiting a visitor from the North, a Miss Layla Beck of Washington DC, senator’s daughter and debutante, who has been packed off to West Virginia for disobeying her father’s wishes. Layla is to be a researcher for the Federal Writers’ Project, for which she must investigate the long years of Macedonia’s uneventful past ...

When Layla secures a room with Willa’s eccentric family she finds herself irresistibly drawn into their tangled history. Who caused the fire at the American Everlasting sock factory? Why does Aunt Jottie always look so sad? Where does Felix Romeyn disappear to every night, leather suitcase in hand?