Tag Archives: Crossover Appeal

Meandering Through Life

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February has been interesting.

Sold our house, subject to contract. The meander through to the actual move and the clearing out of ten years of accumulated junk has begun. How is it after numerous trips to the tip the garage still looks as full?!

The decluttering was put on hold while I nursed a swollen ankle and foot. Just tissue and ligament damage. Nothing fractured fortunately, unlike my editor who has her foot in plaster, but it did mean I couldn’t get a shoe on for over a week. Now back at work and despite the bruising the pain has gone, just left with an ache 🙂

Failing Flynn Matthews came back from my editor after a proof read/copy edit. Good news, she loved it and only minor copy editing amendments, mainly use of commas. For the laughs I have to share this one with you: Ellie says, “I am eating Dad.” No, I’ve not started writing crime novels! Think I should’ve consulted Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

True to form, the road to publication is slow – give me a story to write and I’ll do that quickly but when it comes to getting it out there I falter. It was meant to be published a few months after Ordering Flynn Matthews.  Oh dear, and I never really got round to promoting Ordering Flynn Matthews properly either. Maybe this time round! Failing Flynn Matthews is ready to go bar the Kindle formatting – eeek! I can’t quite face that yet. I need to push myself. So perhaps a cover reveal and a tagline might help. Drum roll, please…

failing-flynn-matthews-medium-sized-icon

Sometimes holding on hurts more than letting go

Out soon!

Ordering Flynn Matthews

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Drum roll … last week I published Ordering Flynn Matthews!

While struggling with formatting it for kindle there was a moment of regret in not accepting the publishing contract I was offered but in the end we got there. So folks it’s available on Amazon for only 99p!

Cover 3 D 143 x 220

Buy Me 🙂

 

To sign or not to sign

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The promised update about Ordering Flynn Matthews.

Gosh where to start! In November 2015 OFM was offered a publishing contract (yay!) with a US Indie, mainly ebook, publisher. They appear to have a wonderful set-up, great cover art, promotion and their authors seem very happy. I’ve signed contracts for my short stories before however this contract was more extensive. On the advice of my editor I applied to join Society of Authors and emailed the contract to them. Great piece of advice! They offer the service free although you pay to join – well worth it in my opinion. I didn’t have to wait long before I received a reply containing their valuable comments.

The SoA also queried if I’d considered self publishing as an option. The answer to that is no. In my head it was a last resort and here was a well respected organisation suggesting it as an option. With the reality of signing a contract scaring me with its deadlines and the fact I would lose a bit of control over my creation I started to give the idea serious consideration.  And although the publisher was willing to negotiate the contract I declined their offer. Cue thoughts of have ‘I made the right decision?’

Having finished his PhD a couple of years ago my husband declared he is now ready for another project. He is researching what self publishing entails while I re-edit OFM. Can’t believe I’m still finding typos! Gutted I’m unable to attend the Ebook workshops the SoA have organised for March as it would’ve been extremely helpful.

One of my son’s housemates, Tom, is a design student who wants to extend his portfolio and has offered to do the cover art for the ebook. So the poor lad is currently reading OFM for inspiration. Not his usual reading material! It’ll be interesting what he comes up with. He says I don’t have to use it if I don’t like it bless him. I have a couple of ideas and two friends (thanks Carrie & Jenni) have made good suggestions too.

So it looks like I’m heading towards self publishing Ordering Flynn Matthews as an ebook. Who’d have thought it. I think it’s a beach read so the month of May seems like a good time to publish!

It doesn’t mean I’d never sign a publishing contract. It’s just at this time self publishing seems the way to go.

We’re looking at going to Rome this year which is a good thing as the follow up to OFM Failing Flynn Matthews includes a trip to the city and prior to writing I did my research virtually! Be good to check out my facts and take some photographs.

Ordering Flynn Matthews is based in London and Bristol – I’ve been to both of those cities 🙂

 

 

Flynn Matthews

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After my last post about Ordering Flynn Matthews a kind friend sent me this:

Robert-Pattinson-Dossier-big-twilight-series-5480348-1221-1046

Looks like Flynn on a good day 😉 nah a bad day. So RPatz has at some point had blonde (ish) hair which makes him perfect for Flynn. I wasn’t searching hard enough. Perhaps there’s hope he might bleach his hair for a book cover photo shoot!

She sent another one too:

050df21a52ca84d2de92a319add17c6c

Sort of how I imagined Flynn on a good day however a couple of my lovely followers sent me some other blonde actors/singers smoking:

AlexPettyfer  Screen-Shot-2014-03-23-at-2.35.10-PM Flynn smoke

Thanks everyone! Now I can’t decide!

Ordering Flynn Matthews

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“Ordering Flynn Matthews is quality writing, original, fun, zany, has great dialogue and very credible characters however struggling with how to publish it in a commercial way as it sort of straddles genres in that it’s not traditional women’s fiction but tricky to categorise it anywhere else.”

Last week’s paraphrased rejection from the publisher who had shown interest in OFM. Disappointed as I love this publisher.

Original’s good, right?

Flynn’s a drug addict and foul mouthed. He uses the c-word and I don’t mean Christmas. He’s not the irresistible male hero that a romance novel has. None of the men in it are, they make big mistakes and so does Ellie who becomes unwittingly embroiled in a series of mishaps, and naïve judgements.

It’s a pacey contemporary novel that covers some tough subjects – obsession, addiction, loss, betrayal – in an original unconventional way.

Genre? Well it’s definitely contemporary with its social networking, fangirling and celebrity obsessed media. Probably more adult fiction with the language, drug taking and sex however it’s got crossover appeal as it’s contemporary and let’s face it young adults today know as many swear words as Flynn if not more. More women’s than men’s fiction although amongst my readers the men have enjoyed it too although I doubt as a gender they’ll be the ones picking it off a bookshelf. A romance novel? Not really although it does have elements of it but relationships with family and friends are as important as romance to our heroine, Ellie. And with a thread of humour running through the novel perhaps it’s Chick Lit.

So I think that’s how I’d market it.

True Ellie style I photoshopped up an idea for a book cover using an image of Rob Pattinson who imo looks better than anyone else smoking a cigarette. I wish I could credit the photographer however I only found the image on fan pages and I don’t have Ellie’s fangirl dedication to track down the source. Maybe someone out there does… If so, let me know and I’ll add the credit.

Flynn has blonde hair. Wonder if RP would bleach his hair for a photoshoot?

Here it is:

RP

I do not own image used.