No wonder I’m feeling exhausted. I’ve just published my
third book in the space of three months. Now, I’m usually a book a year writer,
so where did that spurt of productivity come from?
I suppose it all started at the end of last year’s summer. I
was working on my historical crime novel, The
Death Game, but I’d taken a bit of time out to act as the Crime Writer in
Residence for the Edinburgh Ebook Festival, and during that time I posted a
series of twelve posts on the different subgenres of crime. Once that was out
of the way I got my head down to complete The
Death Game. Things were trundling along and the book was taking shape when
a chance meeting with another indie author, Bill Kirton, suggested I turn my
Writer in Residence posts into book form. That was what planted the seed.
I went back to the Edinburgh Ebook Festival posts and
discovered they were no longer online. They had vanished into internet
cyberspace. All my lovely Pinterest postings now had no information behind them.
I suppose that was what spurred me on because I knew the posts had been
popular. The result of that find was all I needed to start working on my
nonfiction book Crime Writing and the
Indie Contribution.
So, I was now working on two books, one fiction and one
nonfiction. And, what I had assumed to be an easy task of converting the
festival posts into book form, suddenly became a massive task with lots of
research, new sections and rewriting the original posts. It’s damnable when
you’re a perfectionist who is never satisfied with your own work!
Anyway, the head was down and I was working hard, and it was
a race to see which book would be finished first. Well, the race was won by The Death Game, and the Kindle version
was published at the beginning of March, although the paperback was only launched two weeks ago.
Crime Fiction and the
Indie Contribution wasn’t long in catching up, and it was published at the
beginning of May. I must say I heaved a sigh of relief, both my babies had been
launched into the reading world. The Death Game launch was the usual Waterstones one in Dundee and I had a good turnout.
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| Original Dead Wood cover |
I relaxed a little, although anyone who knows me will
realise that I never truly relax. So, in between getting the next book underway
and preparing for my paperback launch, I gave a little bit of thought to my
Dundee International Prize winning book, Dead
Wood, which the publisher had allowed to go out of print at the end of
2013. I had contacted them at the time with queries about this, but no response
was forthcoming. Since that time Dead
Wood had never been far from my thoughts because it is book two of the
Dundee Crime Series, which meant there was a gap in the series.
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| New Dead Wood cover |
I decided to do something about it, if only to give me peace
of mind, and consulted the Society of Authors. I followed their advice and was
rewarded with an immediate result. Yes, you’ve guessed it, I got the publishing
rights back. I am now free to do what I like with this book which makes it my
number three to be published.
So, as they say in all good stories “All’s well that ends
well” and I think I’m going to make three my lucky number.
But now that’s all out of the way maybe I’ll find time to
getting back to writing the next Kirsty Campbell book. Watch this space folks!
(Post previously published on Authors Electric)
Chris Longmuir
2 comments:
I love the new cover for Dead Wood. So glad you got your rights back.
I remember shortly after it originally came out, arranging through your publisher to get signed copies shipped over to Canada.
I like the new cover too, Melanie. I think I prefer it to the original! And I remember going to Edinburgh to sign all those copies. I had to go to the publisher, they didn't come to me!
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