Bookseller detectives are in! And I'm glad
Hooray! what a great start to National Crime Reading Month
Hello and welcome to Making Crime Pay! I love being a bestselling children’s writer, but I also have a secret plan to write crime for adults. So I’m sharing my creative paths here and useful things I’m learning along the way.
I read way too much and review my favourites so you can enjoy them too.
Thank you for being part of my journey and community. Thanks to everyone who is reading this and everyone who kindly supports me and my writing.
Nicki
An amateur detective that runs a bookshop - now that’s a great idea
I’m not long returned from the recent CrimeFest in Bristol. That means I now have a bundle of great reads to start National Crime Reading Month.
It was also a chance to catch up with crime writing friends and all the latest and best crime writing news.
My favourite talk was hearing all about Mark Gatiss’s new television venture - Bookish, set in London 1946, where the bookshop owner Gabriel Book assists the police to solve the strangest of crimes and the knottiest of murders.
I was so delighted to hear about this new series, not least because my own crime writing series launching this year also involves a bookselling sleuth - although it’s set in the present day.
More news about this soon.
Read on to find out the steps I am taking towards publishing my own bookshop detective series starting this autumn.
Clearly I am hoping this new Bookish television series is going to be perfectly timed to ignite a wish for more stories with bookselling detectives. Now wouldn’t that be great.
I also went to a fascinating discussion between Lee Child and his brother, Andrew, who has taken over writing the Reacher books (a discussion which was also about their childhood and how this brought them very close together).
I do love going to a literary festival and find the most fascinating talks are often found by accident (confession - I have never read a Reacher).
My first steps into self-publishing - ISBNs and editors
After taking a long time to finally make the decision to plunge in and go indie, it’s been full-steam ahead to get everything ready for an autumn launch.
My first six books were traditionally published, so I know how many new skills I am going to have to learn.
May Milestones:
found an editor (word of mouth)
found a cover designer (a very talented friend)
continued with editing to make sure the first book is as polished as it can be
carried on talking to pioneering self-publishing friends to get all their best tips
started investigating printers, how to prepare the kind of files they work with and how physical books actually get into the hands of readers
It is all fascinating and exciting. And frequently sends me into a panic. But like many new projects, it’s just a matter of making a big list and working my way through, mostly (I hope).
This month’s conclusion - ebooks are way simpler, but I am determined to simulatenously publish both ebook and paperback.
And big news about my life of successful crime
I was thrilled and delighted that my sixth book The Floating Witch Mystery was shortlisted as the Best Crime Novel for Children.
It has gone some way to quelling my panic that this self-publishing project is a terrible idea. It’s given me such a boost to feel the judges thought I wrote a very good crime novel. And against some of the biggest names in childen’s fiction.
Now I just need to prove I can do exactly the same but for an adult audience. Back to those edits I guess.
Huge congratulations to Sufiya Ahmed, the overall winner, with her amazing Rosie Raja Undercover Codebreaker. Will done Sufiya! And thank you CrimeFest.
Thank you so much for reading
Nicki