Guest Blogger Lisa de Nikolits and (ahem) Naughty Readings...

Observations by the author of an ‘erotic literary thriller’

Imagine you’re a novelist and your latest offering is six months old and you’ve (repeatedly) knocked on every door on your list, you’ve exhausted the goodwill of your promo squad and you’re boring your Facebook friends to tears. What’s next?

You sit around gnawing on your fingers, feeling the pressure of keeping your book ‘out there’ and then it comes to you; it’s time to whip up a YouTube reading.

Saved by yet another outlet in social media, you start paging through your third novel, A Glittering Chaos, trying to choose a reading and you’re somewhat startled by what you find.

Where did all this sex come from? No wonder your mother emailed to ask when you were going write a book she could actually read… You were affronted by her comment at the time but now you can see it from her perspective… masturbation, cock, foot rubs with incestuous intent, a black dildo named Kurt, Sapphic stairwell passion and an entirely new way of enjoying an innocuous shower at the end of a long day… yep, there’s a whole lot of sex going on in this book and you realized that it’s not going to be easy to find a family-friendly reading, unless of course you unapologetically just read whichever page you happen to crack open.

But seriously, you ask yourself, where did all this sex come from? As much as you don’t want to admit it, when you trace it back, it’s there because the Chatelaine Book Club ‘complained’ that there wasn’t any sex in your second novel, West of Wawa, and they were hugely disappointed when things with the heroine and her über-sexy bad boy closed the door on the readers and the scene faded to black.

You felt mildly insulted by their criticism. Did they think you couldn’t write sex scenes? Of course you could.  It was simply that sex had no place in West of Wawa, sexy bad boy or not.  But later, down the line, there you were, in Las Vegas, getting a shiny new idea for a shiny new story and you’d show them you could write about sex; baby, you’d knock them out the water, they’d regret having said you can’t write about sex…. Wait, okay so they didn’t say you couldn’t write sex scenes, they said you hadn’t… there’s a difference but your little writerly ego couldn’t bear the blow of such literary judgment.

Granted, you didn’t plan for that much sex to be in the book; just a scene here and there but then, as will happen with sex, one thing led to another, and - next thing you know - the fires were burning wildly and your mum didn’t feel comfortable reading the book and your close friends said they never thought they’d hear you say the word ‘cock’ and you tell them it’s not you, it’s your protagonist – but that’s a whole other topic for another blog post – how friends and family simply cannot separate you from your protagonist, no matter how astoundingly different you are.

But back to your conundrum…  it’s time for to record your YouTube reading and you can’t seem to find a page that isn’t in some way controversially sensual…

So, what do you do? Well, readers if you’d like to find out what this author did, I invite you to take a look at http://bit.ly/1ahnDIU and I hope you’ll enjoy!

(Oh and PS, the 'erotic literary thriller' comment was a tweet by one of my readers, Terri Favro, author of The Proxy Bride)

Originally from South Africa, Lisa de Nikolits has been a Canadian citizen since 2003. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Philosophy and has lived in the U.S.A., Australia and Britain.

Her first novel, The Hungry Mirror, won the 2011 IPPY Awards Gold Medal for Women's Issues Fiction and was long-listed for a ReLit Award. Her second novel, West of Wawa won the 2012 IPPY Silver Medal Winner for Popular Fiction and was one of Chatelaine's four Editor's Picks.   
 

Her third novel, A Glittering Chaos, was launched in Spring 2013 and is about murder, madness, illicit love and poetry. 

Find Lisa on FACEBOOK or  GOODREADS 

and check out her website  www.lisadenikolitswriter.com 

Check out Lisa's books on AMAZON and follow her on Twitter @lisadenikolits

Two Publishing Paths with guest blogger Valerie Poore

Since I joined the Twitter community, I've 'met' some really great writers and read some fabulous books as a result of those introductions. I've also read and still read some great book blogs, Jill's being one of them. Judging from what I've seen, something that's hotly debated time and again is whether a writer should aim to be published or to go the self-publishing route. 

I'm one of those hybrid creatures. I've done both! Two of my books are self-published: my first, African Ways, and my latest How to Breed Sheep, Geese and English Eccentrics. The middle two books, Watery Ways and The Skipper's Child, are published by Sunpenny Publishing. So why the mix?

Like most writers, I've been writing my whole life, one way or another. When I was living in South Africa in the eighties and nineties, I started writing short stories and radio plays for broadcast on local radio stations. I also had a great job as the communications manager of a largish company, which meant I wrote a lot there too - advertising copy, brochures and that sort of thing. But I didn't start writing for publication until I came to the Netherlands where I now live. Without a creative job, I needed a creative outlet, so I decided to try writing a book.

My first two books, both memoirs, were self-published. In fact, I wrote them on a blog and had readers encouraging me all the way through. It was a great way to keep myself motivated and I would recommend it to any first time writer. When I decided I wanted to publish my first book, I used Lulu.com, the POD company. I just loved the experience of creating my books. I took hours over the formatting, although now when I look at them again, I see all the mistakes I made! Even so, they weren't all that bad. The problem for me was the marketing. You might think that's strange coming from someone with my background, but I live outside my own language market, so it was really difficult to reach people effectively and promote my work.

 

The result was that I submitted my second book Watery Ways (a memoir about living on a Dutch barge) and The Skipper's Child, the 'kidult' novel I'd just finished, to Sunpenny Publishing in the UK. They were just about to launch an imprint called Boathooks Books, so I thought it would be perfect to have my books published in my home market. 

The experience has been great! Sunpenny are enthusiastic, professional and supportive. However, as with all publishers, when it comes to marketing the author still has a lot to do. In many respects, the promotion of a published book is a joint effort. But, and this is a big but, it leaves me with the problem I started with. I am not in my home market or my language market, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to find new outlets and interest in a small country - one with an even smaller English reading market.

So when I reached the end of my latest novel - the one about the sheep and eccentrics - I had a re-think. The production of the book itself, while being a lot of hard work and costly for a publisher, is actually the easier part. It really is!  And I think most authors now agree that promoting their work and selling books is the most challenging aspect of a career writer's job. It's the one that just goes on and on. Hence my decision to take the 'easy' route and self-publish the fourth book. I don't have the back-up, it's true, but then I don't have the pressure to promote this one either. 

For the moment, two in publication is enough. Besides, most people are more interested in my watery world than anything else anyway. I might add that my current work in progress is a sequel to Watery Ways. That says something about market forces!

For more on Valerie, check her out on 

AMAZON or LULU or FACEBOOK

And follow Valerie on Twitter @vallypee

Mixing Genres: by guest blogger Garry Ryan

Mixing Genres by Garry Ryan

Trying new foods, new restaurants and new places has always been a bit of a thing for me. It’s a way to discover surprising new flavours, ingredients and spices. The odd time it is a disaster. For the most part it has led to enjoyment of Italian, Lebanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Persian, Chinese, Singaporean, French and Japanese cuisines.

Perhaps that’s why switching cuisines/genres from mystery to historical fiction wasn’t a difficult choice. I read Stephen King’s On Writing. He suggested that once a first draft of a manuscript is finished, start something different then come back to the original piece after a few months. Up until that point, I would finish a manuscript, go right back to the beginning, work on rewrites, send it away then wait for the publisher to respond in six months or a year.

           

King’s advice changed that approach. After a first draft of the mystery series was finished, I would work on the historical fiction piece. This required switching time, place, characters, conflicts and gender. A different combination of ingredients if you like. There are several advantages to this type of approach:

1)    I wasn’t wasting so much time waiting for publishers to get back with rejection/acceptance letters.

2)    The two genres required different approaches, which turned out to be complementary.

3)    Editing a first draft after working on something different meant that my head was in a different space. A myriad of minor and major manuscript glitches became much more obvious. That meant that they could be corrected before the manuscript was sent to the publisher.

4)    Finishing one manuscript often meant being energized about starting another project rather than feeling let down with nothing to do and nothing to occupy the imagination.

5)    Two separate series ended up being published.

There is one pitfall that needs to be noted. Different series require different marketing approaches. Historical fiction usually has a different audience than mystery. The mystery series seems to have a wider readership in the States. The historical fiction series has a more Canadian audience.

The other complication is that I’ve begun thinking about another genre and started work on something altogether different. It has its own complex set of requirements, which is appealing.

So switching genres is complicated. It requires some mental gymnastics. It’s also a stimulating experience where the writing is continually being adjusted and honed.

For more on Garry, check out his website HERE.

Follow him on Twitter @GarryGarrettRya

Get Garry's books on AMAZON.