Lucy Atkins's Blog, page 9

This week a group of Oxford Crime writers gathered at dusk in the Quaker Meeting House Library (Yes. Really. It’s the opening scene from an Inspector Morse episode…)

Oxford CWA. In the library. With the lead piping.

Alison Barrow, the superstar Director of Media Relations at Transworld, and indie writer Dave Sivers offered nine helpful tips for promoting novels, whether you’re with a publisher or going solo. We thought we’d share the magic, so here goes:

1. Go to Literary Festivals and events. This is good for networking and building your profile. Some of the best for Crime/thriller writers: Harrogate, CrimeFest, Goldsboro Books 1st Mondays and Bloody Scotland. Online there’s Britcrime organized by Helen Smith

2. Use a Facebook page. Great ideas include all day ‘virtual book launches’ and paying for sponsored posts that target possible readers.  Keep your Facebook page personal, talk about your inspiration, working process etc. And include pics! (not of your breakfast)

3. Use Twitter. It’s a great way to network with writers, readers, bloggers and promote your books. Alison’s top tips: don’t post endless pics of your cat, instead talk about books you’re reading, popular movies/tv shows you’ve seen or want to see, and other things you’re interested in.

4. Be friends with your local media. Make their job easy by giving them an interesting ‘story’ with a great hook (hint: ’40 year old man writes book’ is not a great hook). Photos are also helpful. Local newspapers may share stories so you might even get beyond your own county.

5. Develop a great (very brief) novel pitch. Put this in press releases and send to literary editors to get your books reviewed. Make it a snappy one sentence pitch: ‘this book is about…’ What it’s about should intrigue people.

6. Use your website to build an email list. Offering a quarterly newsletter is a good idea – encourage visitors to your website to sign up for it.  Subscribers should get access to exclusive content such as: deleted scenes, a free short story, the first chapter of your next book, your top writer’s tips, a competition or give away. Many authors even give away free copies of novels in return for signing up for newsletter.

7. Copy other writers whose books sell well. They have this promo stuff sorted. Do what they do (well, sort of).

8. Give talks: offer to talk at libraries and local groups such as W.I, book clubs, and colleges. Dave even leaves bookmarks that promote his books/website in cafes (he saw a spike in US sales after he did this on a visit to USA so yes, it really works).

9. Support other writers  – and they (or at least, the kind ones) will support you.

Last time on ‘Prever’s Page Turners’ I was talking about the shortlist for the 2016 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, and, to tie-in with the Charlotte Bronte bicentennial, I discussed Claire Harman’s biography, Charlotte Bronte: A Life, and a story collection put together by Tracy Chevalier, with stories from some of our best contemporary women writers, each inspired by that famous line in Jane Eyre Reader, I Married Him. I also discussed a new Le Carresque thriller A Dying Breed by debut author and BBC journalist Peter Hanington.

Listen to the BBC clip here

I’m doing two events at this lovely, lively festival in beautiful Greenwich, London at the end of May.

How to Get Your Book Published, with Fanny Blake on Saturday 28 May 2016 from 10:30 to 11:30.

This is always a sell-out workshop. Fanny is an incredible authority, a senior publisher for many years, now Woman & Home books editor and a successful novelist. She’s a very good egg – I love running this workshop with her. Read more about the event here.  Buy tickets here for How to Get Your Book Published.

I’m also delighted to be chairing Inside Grip-Lit on Saturday 28 May 12-1pm.

Come and meet marvellous thriller writers Fiona Barton (The Widow), Sam Baker (The Girl Who Ran) & Gillian Slovo (Ten Days). We’ll be exploring what it takes to produce gripping psychological suspense, and how their careers in journalism, magazine editing and playwriting have influenced their novel writing.  Buy tickets here for Inside Grip-Lit 

One of the unexpected pleasures of the last couple of years has been getting to know other writers and meeting many readers.

These days I’m spending very long hours alone in my shed in trackie bottoms thinking about lies and dung beetles. It’s easy to become (even more) misanthropic and mad so getting out, once in a while, putting on real clothes and talking to book lovers is probably essential. So here’s a silly snap from this weekend’s Chipping Norton Literary Festival where I was lucky to be on a panel with writers Amanda Jennings, C.L. Taylor, and Hannah Beckerman.

I was talking about one of my favourite books, The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.  Highsmith – a somewhat complicated woman – once showed up at a literary cocktail party with a large handbag containing a head of lettuce and one hundred snails. These, she said, were ‘my company for the evening’. See. I could be much worse.

Seriously, it’s *99p* this week. That’s basically FREE.

Kindle Offer here 

Really looking forward to talking about Charlotte Brontë with Tracy Chevalier, who has edited a collection of short stories inspired by Jane Eyre (Reader, I Married Him) & Claire Harman, author of a new biography (Charlotte Brontë : A Life).

For more info and to buy tickets click here:  Oxford Literary Festival Bronte Event

I thought a lot about generating the right amount of tension at the right time, when writing The Other Child and I just did this piece for booksbywomen.org: my tips on how to create tension in your fiction and why it matters, whatever genre you’re working in (come to think about it, tension matters for a lot of non-fiction too).

http://booksbywomen.org/how-to-create...

Who are literature’s best liars? Who do we love for their duplicity?

Authors C.L. Taylor, Amanda Jennings, Lucy Atkins and Hannah Beckerman debate fictional fibbers: Amy (Gone Girl), Tom Ripley (The Talented Mr. Ripley), Jay Gatsby (The Great Gatsby) and Briony (Atonement). Audience participation is encouraged – who’s your favourite fictional fraud?

Tickets on sale here: Liar, Liar 

Well, it has to be official as it’s on the Barnes & Noble ‘New Releases’ table in Washington DC. My lovely writer friend Priya Parmar (author of Vanessa & Her Sister – an amazing novel) snapped this evidence for me, then moved it, obviously, onto the Bestsellers table. That’s what writer friends are for.

BBC Oxford’s David Prever has launched The Oxford Book Club online, featuring bite-sized podcasts of Oxford writers, such as Clare MackIntosh or SJ Bolton who come into the studio for a weekly book talk. Here’s my latest choices:

The Oxford Book Club