Completed Novel & Crime Writing Festival Chat

Our room at 'The old Swan'

Well, we’re back from a very interesting weekend.  Our room was large and spacious with an en-suite and it overlooked an overgrown orchard as we were on the third floor. The staff at the hotel was wonderful and we became great friends with Emma who always had a smile for us as we dashed from one talk to the next.

What did I learn as a writer from the weekend?  To start with things are not quite as they seem and sometimes this can be both disappointing and enlightening.

Stephen Leather

One of the talks was about E vs. Print…. This is slowly becoming a bit of an old stick as far as I’m concerned. Horses for courses. On one hand, Kindle is great and some people are finding a route to being published in printed form. Writers like Stephen Leather are making the eBooks work for them which are great as the market for Ereaders is growing and more of the mainstream writers are having their books published in eform.  I can’t see where the problem is with publishing your work on Kindle, though one lady in the audience did shout out that it had taken her five months to write her book and three months to try and find a publisher, but all she got was rejections so she published on Kindle and her book is now selling well.

So there you have it. You can after five months of writing produce a book good enough to have it published… Only on Kindle could something like that happen. I say, good for her, if that has made her happy and her family and friends are buying her book, then who are we to burst her bubble, but it’s not for me. I’m far more serious about getting my work published.

At the crime writing festival, I spoke to agent, Philip Patterson who I had met before at the RNA Winter Party, last year. Philip had said he would look at my MS, but I had lost my nerve and not sent it. I was surprised when he recognized me at the CWF, so I’m going to send my completed novel this time.

Well that’s enough for now, I shall write more about my amazing weekend.

Yours, busy editing my second novel,

Paula R C