My much beloved, who normally is a very patient man said, “I told you we should have left sooner.”
Me, “But I thought started at ten, and I was up at 4.00 writing.”
M. M. B, “Why did you have to go back upstairs when I told you we’ve got to get going?”
I huffed and said, “But why come this way, it would have been quicker the other way. And, we would be on the right side of the town for the library?”
M.M.B “Because I did.”
I stared out of the window, for a moment, at the back of a slow moving lorry then taking a deep breath, I reached over, took hold of M.M.B’s freehand, and said, “Next year, we’ll just have to make sure we leave earlier.”
Well, there isn't any point in spoiling a day by getting cross over something which can't be changed, is there?
Anyway, by the time, we made it to town it was spot on nine o’clock. Lucky for us the library is right next to the multi-storey car park, so it was just a quick dash, and we were there.
I managed to pick up one or two helpful tips. The author, Elizabeth Lord, who I was hoping to see at the Festival, didn’t make it as she had a doctor’s appointment but her dear friend, Sylvia Kent passed on a message to me to call her. When I phoned, we chatted for quite a while. She told me that she had to reduce the word count on her latest novel down to 90k because of the recession and the fact her publisher were trying to cut back on paper. I asked her, if she was allowed to choose the titles of her books. Only two titles of her twenty-two published books, she had to change, and that was mainly because there were other books with a similar sort of name. The one thing she did have to change was her name. Her real name is in fact Ivy, but the publishers felt it was too old fashioned at the time and they weren’t keen on her surname so she changed back to her maiden name and her grandmother’s first name.
So, dear readers, beware that you might have to change not only the name of your book, but your own name too, to make it into print.
Elizabeth said, in her early days, she was more than happy to make any changes they wanted, if not, she might not have see her book in print. Now she is just as happy to allow them to make changes, as they know what is right for her books. Even the editor, Juliet Annan, who works on Penelope Lively’s books,said
, New writers give her more problems when it comes to making changes to their work, than the more established writers.
MMB and I always take our festival programme with us to collect the autographs of the writers we meet. When MMB asked Malcolm Burgess for his, he said, “I’m not an author, I’m a publisher.” We got chatting. I said, he had a worried look in his eyes that said I was a woman with a manuscript.
“And, are you?” He laughed.
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m always on the lookout for more books. What do you write?”
I explained it was fiction and as it turned out he only deals in ‘Travel Guides’ but he did pass on the name of a publisher, ‘SnowBook’ who are on the lookout for my kind of writing. I had heard of the publishers before, but that’s the problem, at the time I couldn’t remember what it was about ‘Snow Books’ I wasn’t too impressed by. He saw my hesitation, and said, ‘you will remember the name, won’t you.’
Well, I did, and looked them up for you, and here’s the link , if you want to read their guidelines for submission, but for me, at the moment, I won’t be getting in contact with them.
I also met an amazing group of Essex writers, Jean Fullerton, Maureen Lee, Fenella Miller, Sheila Norton, and Fay Cunningham. They gave me signed copies of their publicity cards( I must remember to get some business cards of my own made, as I was asked at least twice for contact details, and a piece of paper out of my notebook isn’t quite the same.) I stood chatting to Sheila Norton who also writes under the name of Olivia Ryan. She is a local writer, I’ve followed with interest, and it was lovely to chat with her. She seemed taken back by the fact that I knew that she once worked at the local hospital. The one thing in the local newspaper’s interview with her at the time, I remember most, all those years ago, was the fact most people thought because she’d had a book published she must have made lots of money. She explained in the article, it hadn’t, not even when her second novel came out she wasn’t able to give up work. I would like have to gone along to the talk given by the Essex Writers on the 17th March, but it’s in the afternoon, and I don't have any free days left.
While M.M.B was talking to the Dutch writer, Otto de Kat the question of proof copies of books came up. The author hadn’t seen a proof copy of his book before and asked M.M.B where he had come by his.
“I thought,” M.M.B said, “The author got a copy of his book.”
“No, only the critics got a proof copy. The author got a draft copy before it went to the printer.”
Now I’ve always wondered where all those copies came from that are for sale on the internet auction sites and now I know.
I hope you all have a great writing weekend,
J
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