Creative life

1 Comment Posted on June 3, 2016May 20, 2016 Authors, Book talk, Creative life, Inspirations, Juvenilia

Small Beginnings, 2: Nick Earls

A young Nick(foreground), with friends

I’ve taken Small Beginnings literally and gone back to the earliest existing examples of me coming to grips with the written word. In fact, written letters.

I turned up at school six weeks short of five years old. Storytelling was already a big part of my life by then – the revelation that it might actually be A JOB took another few years to happen. My family had always been big on books and full of stories, so I’d had a formula story that I’d told most days at Ballyholme Playgroup before lining up for one of the two classrooms at the sternly Victorian-looking Grangee School in 1968. In my stories, the central character, a bird called Tommy, would tumble into a toilet and be flushed all the way to a sewage treatment plant and another adventure among the poo and big orange diggers. My audience had all been four too, and what do four year olds love? Poo and big orange diggers. Since then, I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so astute about writing effectively for a market.

But Grangee wasn’t about stories, at least not that first day. It was about taking the first faltering step up the steep slope that led to literacy. I opened my school jotter (it says ‘Jotter’ on the front) and, as Mrs Pollock directed, wrote a page of ‘O’s. Note the big pink tick. Mission accomplished. Then I turned over and wrote a page of ‘X’s. Another tick. Then we went home for lunch.

Afterwards I was horrified to learn that I’d be going back. And not just going back – going back most days for the next twelve years. I thought I’d had the school experience. I’d turned up, done my page of ‘X’s and my page of ‘O’s, got my two ticks. What more could there be to know?

Quite a bit, it turned out. How to manage a page, for a start, as my increasingly huge and truncated attempts to write ‘Dick Has the Dog’ demonstrate.

Less than two years later, I’d learned enough to write the work that could, with generous definitional stretching, be called my first book. It’s a journal of a holiday with my grandparents in Yorkshire. I can remember sitting and writing it each night at the kitchen tables of elderly relatives and family friends – people who had featured in the books of James Herriot – putting a lot of thought and work into it, even though it comes across as just the facts:

Tuesday 7th July 1970.
It was hot and sunny so we went to Knaresboro’ to see Mother Shiptons dropping well, wishing well and cave
In the afternoon we went to Ripon and looked round the Cathedral and then on to Studley Royal Park where there is a large herd of deer.

If it had been overcast, would we still have gone to Knaresborough (I’m sure I picked up ‘Knaresboro’’ from a road sign)? I don’t know, but I can still remember the dropping well and its petrifying socks and teddy bears on strings. That stuff comes back to you in dreams at that age.

Since those days, I’ve turned to fiction, Grangee School has long closed and business seems to remain good at Mother Shipton’s, now in its 386th year as a tourist attraction. And my son, at the age of 6 1/2, is about to take a week off school for us to go to Hong Kong. In lieu of schoolwork, he’s been giving the assignment of keeping a journal of the trip.

Nick Earls has written more than twenty books for adults, teenagers and children. His latest project is the novella series Wisdom Tree, with a novella released (as a paper book, ebook and audiobook) on the first of each month from May to September 2016.

1 Comment Posted on June 2, 2016May 20, 2016 Authors, Book talk, Creative life, Guest posts, Inspirations, Juvenilia

Small Beginnings 1: Dianne(Di) Bates

Di as a child

The first writing I did as a child was, I’m told, a letter to Santa Claus. My mother said I asked for ‘a typewriter and a good temper’. I’m not sure how old I was, probably about 5 or 6. When I was in sixth grade at a new one-teacher school, I wrote an essay about my ideal home. After the teacher read it aloud, children came up to me in the playground and accused me of plagiarism. Their accusations hurt me so much I can’t remember working hard at writing thereafter.

However, in my first year of high school, I befriended Pamela, the daughter of our English head-teacher. Pamela and I loved a series that was currently showing on TV – Adventures in Paradise. We both imagined ourselves the love interest of the leading man, Troy Donaghue. Consequently we spent hours in the playground co-writing TV scripts where Troy Donaghue would fall in love with each of us.

I wish when I was young someone would have given me books – both to read and to write in. But books were simply absent from my home. Their substitute was hard work on our farm. The only books I read as a child were borrowed once a week when I took myself to the local public library. I don’t remember the librarian ever offering me any books to read other than my regular diet of Enid Blyton books. Nowadays I am never without a book in my hands! Unless I’m writing, of course.

Di Bates is the author of 130+ books, mostly for young readers. Her website, which she shares with her YA author husband, Bill Condon, is http://www.enterprisingwords.com.au. Since 2006, Di has been producing a twice monthly magazine, Buzz Words, for those in the Australian children’s book industry http://www.buzzwordsmagazine.com She is a recipient of the Lady Cutler Award for distinguished services to children’s literature.

4 Comments Posted on June 1, 2016May 20, 2016 Authors, Book talk, Creative life, Creative work, Inspirations, Juvenilia

A new blog series, Small Beginnings: Introduction

I’m starting a great new series on this blog today. It’s called Small Beginnings and it’s a unique look at how authors and illustrators began creating–not their published work, but much earlier than that, as children, teenagers or even young adults (up to early twenties). I think that this is absolutely fascinating in terms of showing how an author or illustrator begins to shape their craft well before the time they even start to think about the possibility of sending off work for publication.

So I’ve asked a number of fellow authors and illustrators to write about what they created in their early years, and if they still have examples of such work, to show us extracts from them. The response has been fantastic and so I’m delighted to inaugurate the series today with something of mine, as an introduction to Small Beginnings.

Me aged about 6, with older sister Beatrice(11) and my father.

I wrote a lot as a child and a teenager. I came to Australia from France with my parents and sisters when I was nearly five, and by then I could already read and write a little in French taught by my grandmother, who’d looked after me for some years(due to illness when I was a baby, making me unfit to stay in Indonesia where I’d been born and where my parents were working). I was already mad for stories–oral as well as written and I loved making up my own too. But it was arriving in Australia and starting to write in English that really got me going creatively speaking. I was lucky enough that in all the schools I went to, creative writing was very much encouraged, and at home, we were so surrounded by books and also by the great stories told by my parents that bathing in an atmosphere of story felt totally natural, though the idea that you could be a writer, as a job, didn’t really enter my head till I was well into my teens.

I don’t remember much of the very early stuff I wrote, but a few titles from primary school-age literary projects still stick in my mind: such as The Adventures of Princess Alicia–a lavishly illustrated, multi-episode comic strip story about a heroine who had two attributes I dearly wished I had–not, not a crown, but magic powers: and long blond hair (my hair was long but very dark!) I illustrated this masterpiece too I might add, in the days before I became embarassed by my lack of talent in that direction. And The Life of a Stamp, a

Aged 16, with younger siblings Gabrielle and Bertrand.

Aged 16, with younger siblings Gabrielle(10) and Bertrand (8)

mystery/travel story centred on yes, a wandering stamp which gets posted on the wrong letters and gets in some sticky situations..There was The Twins’ Highland Holiday which was heavily influenced by Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, and there were several poems including one about a ladybird that I got a gold star for in class(I presented the poem written on the back of an illustration of a ladybird). Much of it I remember ‘publishing’ in little books, simply sheets of paper stapled up with hand-drawn covers, with perhaps a little stamp or sticker added to make it look more ‘official’. For a while I even ran a little story club at primary school which I called ‘The Bluebell Club’ (no doubt influenced by Blyton!) in which members read out their own stories. We even had a competition once in which the prize was a book, bought by my mother, who judged the competition–I was very miffed that she didn’t choose mine! As I loved the theatre–I used to go to after school drama classes–I also wrote a lot of plays, very often adaptations of fairy tales, which I wrote, directed and produced and forced my siblings to act in and my parents to watch. My mother was always very kind about these thespian efforts but my father could be quite sardonic about it, slow-hand-clapping and pointing out the narrative flaws rather loudly: an experience which hardened me up for later and occasional poor reviews!

Unfortunately none of that early writing was kept. It’s only when I was in mid-high school that I protested about parents’ tidying-up urge to chuck everything out and hung on to my writings like a determined limpet! So I have quite a few things from that time–lots of poems, a few short stories, and the beginning of a massive fantasy novel started when I was around 16(and in which I intended to reunite every mythology in the world: nothing like teenage ambition!). And then, from a little later, at 19, a picture book–the text written by me, the illustrations by my youngest sister, Gabrielle, who was 13 at the time. That one survives in its entirety(you can see some pages from it it below).

In all of this what I can see is a young writer who is trying her hand at all sorts of things, enjoying playing around with different forms, flitting around from fantasy to realism, contemporary to historical, light hearted to rather serious, long to short. The craft is rather wonky, but the passion and curiosity–yes, and persistence too!–is very much there. I see, in short, an apprenticeship taking place without my even being aware that it was happening; how could I, when it was so much fun?

2 Comments Posted on May 18, 2016May 17, 2016 Authors, Book talk, Creative life, Interviews, Publishers, Publishing business

Double Act 7: Anna Solding of Midnight Sun

Today, I’m revisiting my ‘Double Act’ series of interviews with authors who are also publishers, and who started their own publishing houses. And I’m interviewing Anna Solding of Midnight Sun Publishing, a small press that has gone from strength to strength since it started a few short years ago.

Anna, when and how did Midnight Sun start? What motivated you to start your own publishing company?

It started one day when I had lunch with a close friend who is an entrepreneur. Even though my novel manuscript The Hum of Concrete had been nominated for three awards for unpublished manuscripts, no publisher had picked it up. My friend thought this was a shame so he suggested: ‘Why don’t we start a publishing company?’ You know, as you do, over lunch, just like that. My, quite logical and heartfelt, reply was: ‘Because we are not crazy…’ Five years later, we are crazier than ever and MidnightSun is beginning to take off in a big way. My friend’s initial expertise and help was invaluable and I would never have contemplated starting a publishing company if he hadn’t come up with the idea. My novel The Hum of Concrete went on to be nominated for another three awards once it was published, including the Commonwealth Book Awards, which meant we were off to a promising start and we felt that perhaps we could keep doing this.

How did you initially persuade booksellers to stock your books?

I was lucky enough to convince Wakefield Press, another independent Adelaide publisher, to distribute our books nationwide. It’s not really what they normally do so they only did it to be kind and give me a break, which was very nice of them. For the last couple of years our books have been distributed by NewSouth Books, who do a terrific job, getting our books into bookshops (and occasionally even into discount departments stores) around Australia and New Zealand.

Have your aims and strategies as a publisher changed from the beginning? How?

Yes and no. The aim has always been to publish amazing books, both in terms of content and design; books that you can lose yourself in, books that look stylish and feel good in your hand. That is still our main aim. On our website we say: ‘MidnightSun Publishing has grown out of a disenchantment with the established publishing houses in Australia. We know there are plenty of fabulous manuscripts about unusual topics floating around, but publishing new and unknown writers poses a big risk. MidnightSun is prepared to take that risk. We want our readers to be entertained. We want to challenge, excite, enrage and overwhelm.’

When we started, we were mainly focused on adult literary fiction but now we also publish a wide range of books for children, from picture books to YA. I have always said that I will only publish books that I love and I think that is a good strategy for a small publisher. Because we spend so much time with each book, we really need to be comfortable talking about all aspects of it to anyone who will listen. Originally, I thought we’d just publish one or two books to see how they went but as all our books have made a profit it has always been easy to keep moving on to the next project. The more well-known MidnightSun becomes, the more high quality manuscripts are sent our way and the more projects we take on. When we started publishing in 2012, we did two books per year, in 2017 we are planning to do five. To publish five or six books per year would secure a more regular cash flow situation, which is something MidnightSun is still struggling with. The more I learn about the business, the more confident I get about all the small steps that need to happen for each book, including the metadata, the AI sheet, different ways to promote the book and which festivals and media contacts to approach.

Has working as a publisher impacted on your own career as an author–whether that be positive or negative?

Yes, I don’t think of myself as a writer first and foremost any more. Publishing has taken over my life, but I have let it happen and I love my job passionately so I’m certainly not complaining. I work with interesting people who all love books, so that has to count for something. Last year, I was fortunate enough to be awarded two writers’ retreat residencies, one month in Finland and one month in Perth, which were both fantastic months when I felt like a writer again. For years, I’ve been working on a ‘companion novel’ to The Hum of Concrete, also set in Sweden where I grew up, and it’s almost finished but I think I need one more retreat to get there. I would like to incorporate more writing into my everyday life, but when I can’t even get a Q&A like this one written until weeks after I should have delivered it, I’m not quite sure how to manage it.

What are the challenges and pleasures of small-press publishing, in your experience? Any memorable anecdotes?

I love finding new talent and nurturing the writers from the beginning. Kim Lock, whose novel Peace, Love and Khaki Socks, was published by MidnightSun in 2013 has since evolved into being our regular designer. Her new novel has recently been published by big publisher Macmillan, which we think is fantastic. Last year, we published Amanda Hickie’s An Ordinary Epidemic and that book will come out with a new cover and new title (Before This Is Over) in the US next year. There are so many pleasures.

The challenges are plentiful, as they should be. It took almost a year to design the cover for Cameron Raynes’ First Person Shooter and we finally decided on one we all liked after rejecting about 30 others. Fortunately, we have a very patient designer. However, one of the biggest challenges for small publishers is to get noticed in the mainstream press. MidnightSun has a loyal following in Adelaide but it’s always a struggle to even get a tiny review in the larger newspapers, let alone a feature article. The other main challenge, at least for us, is to manage our cash flow. Because MidnightSun is doing really well, our first picture book One Step at a Time by Jane Jolly and Sally Heinrich has been nominated for several awards including the important CBCA award, we are in a position where we need to reprint the book but we have had to take out a loan to be able to do so.

As much as there are plenty of challenges for small publishers, the pleasures of seeing a project through from manuscript form to the final product, a beautiful and thought-provoking book, clearly outweigh the challenges. The buzz of opening a box from the printer to see a new book for the first time is very special and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that feeling.

Any advice for aspiring author-publishers?

Go for it! If you are passionate about books and have some sense of business, publishing might be the perfect place for you. I’m not going to pretend that it is easy, because it certainly isn’t, but if you surround yourself people who can help you with aspect that you might be less familiar with, it could be worth giving publishing a go. I have had a bookkeeper and a designer from the start as those were two aspect of the business that I didn’t know that much about. Other than that, you have to learn to wear many different hats; as editor, publicist, sales director, head of marketing and the one who is ultimately responsible – whether things go fabulously or the complete opposite.

Distribution is extremely important and it’s very hard to find a distributor so it’s worth doing some research on this before you take the plunge. Dennis Jones distributes many small publishers. Talk to other small publishers, research printers, become a member of Small Press Network, learn the terminology (what is metadata? AI sheets? ISBN?), subscribe to the daily newsletter from Books+Publishing and, most importantly, find amazing manuscripts to publish. Without intriguing content and stunning production your books won’t be noticed. MidnightSun started in 2011 and we published our first book a year later, which felt right as that is how long it took to learn a bit about how the business works. The longer you have to prepare for a book, with marketing material, review copies, interviews, the better. Now that we are more established, we often work on a book for two years before publication. But don’t be scared, if publishing is your passion, just go for it!

Anna Solding

P.S. Metadata is the information that is put into search engines so that it will be easy to find. AI sheets are advance information sheets about the book, which often contain the cover image, a blurb, an author bio and photo, size, price, publication date and the all-important ISBN. The ISBN is the 13 digit number that is under the barcode, which is used by booksellers to identify the book.

Feathers of the Firebird