Writing Buddies March Onwards and Upwards

Southampton Writing Buddies met at the Mercure Dolphin Hotel on July 5th, with a good attendance.

We began with Good News, whatever members wanted to mention.

Jimmy is editing his first Sundance Gang novel which will then be published as an ebook along with his first preschool childlren's book. He is also working on the manuscript for a book about 1940s childhood. 

Janet was pleased to say that she has had a poem accepted for an anthology to be published by Forward Poetry.

Eileen reported sales of her ebook about a serial killer, Blood on God's Carpet. It's available also in paperback.

Lisa's book Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum is free until the end of July via Smashwords. May need code SW100.

Tessa is hoping for more reviews of her book Spellbinder - it has four 5-star reviews so far. A copy was available for Buddies to look over.

Penny reported on the recent launch of her and Jimmy's book A 1950s Southampton Childhood which involved a large number of people travelling in 1950s red buses to Victoria Country Park for a picnic then back to the Dolphin for a reception. The book is available as paperback or on kindle, or from Penny or Jimmy. They gave a talk together about the book at Bitterne library. 

Penny also mentioned that Jim Brown's book Southampton's Lucky Jim will be published by Mayfield Books in September - it's a memoir of his time in the local police force. She also reported back about Ray's recent very successful launch of Vol 1 of his memoir, From War to an Iron Fighter; the room was crowded and over 100 books were sold.

As well as the Southampton Childhood book, Penny has recently published Bloody British History: Southampton. Waterstone's currently has a large display of her books, which reminded her that her latest is the tenth that she's published. Not only that - she is currently working on three further books.

Jacqueline showed the latest printed issue of The Great War magazine which includes her article based on a family WW1 diary. She has been reading winning flash fiction pieces recently, and entered a flash fiction contest run by international site Writers' Carnival. Her piece was placed fourth with honourable mention. She also had a piece of flash fiction chosen to be featured on the online flashflood journal on National Flash Fiction Day.

Silma reminded the group about an online magazine for music and other arts, parkCulture published by Cultura Press; she has written an article for them and is working on another. The Christmas edition may be published in print. 

We then discussed points of interest. It's noted that many writers have uncertain confidence in their work, and praise from friends or family is pleasing but cannot be considered objective. Novellas were mentioned, as some publishers are beginning to accept this shorter form of the novel. An example is Harper(Collins) Impulse, inviting submissions of any length from short reads to sagas. It was agreed that writers need a significant internet presence with website and blog; potential publishers expect a digital presence so that they can easily check history and so on. 

One member mentioned a writing competition with a £25 fee; while the group thought this was very high, if the fee includes a sufficiently detailed critique then it can be worth while. Press releases were also discussed; members thought the information should be sent out to the appropriate magazines or press with details of the item, offers of pictures, and an accompanying letter with contact details and links to the writer's sites.

The next meeting will be at the Mercure Dolphin Hotel, High Street, Southampton on Friday August 2nd, 2pm to approx 4pm. Anyone with an interest in writing will be very welcome; although the blog mentions a good number of writing successes, many members have not yet published and may be just starting out, so wherever you are with your writing, do join us!

Blog notes by Jacqueline Pye.

Writing Buddies Meeting 7 June 2013

The group had lots of good news this month.

Tessa showed the group two new books published by her company The Thorn Press that we were delighted to see. The first is by Richard Warburg entitled Brush Strokes to Sponges and the second by Emma Lorant entitled Cloner. Both of these books are beautifully produced and the group congratulated Tessa.  

Eileen De Lisle’s book Blood on God’s Carpet is now out on Kindle.

Ray Dumper showed the Writing Buddies his new book From War to Iron Fighter.  The group were delighted to see this as Ray joined writing Buddies in order to gain advice about this book, which is his own life story. His progress through to having the book published has been remarkable. Ray will be having a launch for it at the Bridge Inn Woolston on 28^th June.

Janet is writing a ghost story and was able to gain advice about this from the group members. We all look forward to seeing how this progresses.

Ann told the group she entered a poetry competition run by the Great Barn Titchfield Theatre Group. Out of a huge amount of entries Ann’s gained a highly recommended, which the Writing Buddies congratulated her on.

JPF is busy building content on his blog.  

New member John joined the group looking for advice on how to write the book that he has had in mind for some time. A bus company owner, John ferried a number of pop groups around and has many tales to tell about this. The advice from the group was to write it all down first then edit it afterwards. So far John has yet to start writing.

A lively discussion on marketing followed.  This is an issue we all find difficult and Ray in particular stated he would like to know a lot more. It was suggested that this topic could become the main subject of a meeting soon.

 The next meeting of Writing Buddies is on Friday 5^th July.  Everyone is welcome.

Blog notes by James Marsh.

Glen Jayson

The Writing Buddies were sad to hear of the death of one of our most popular members, Glen Jayson.  It was not so long ago that Glen's book, Voices of Eastleigh, was published to great acclaim by The History Press.

Glen was an enthusiastic member of Writing Buddies, having acted as Competition Secretary when we ran our Anthology Competition.  She contributed regularly to meetings until illness forced her to slow down.

Several Writing Buddies attended her funeral and the group sent a donation to her chosen charity in her memory.

We will miss you, Glen.

Writing Buddies - 05 April 2013

Several new members were welcomed to the Writing Buddies meeting at the Mercure Dolphin:

JAMES - Has been going to writing classes in Woolston and has had short stories and poems printed in The Echo’s ‘creative corner’ spot.

JEZ - Poet and photographer, watercolour artist who has printed four different books to share with friends and family over the last few years, using Southampton Design & Print on London Road.

BILLY - Has been writing short dystopian/sci-fi stories of around 5-6k words and is now working on longer stories.

Good News announced at this meeting:

MONICA was sent a contract by an Austrian company ‘United Publishing Company’ (www.united-pc.eu) who were interested in publishing her children’s book ‘Welsh Yeti’, but was unsure about the details and the terms as they stated ‘free to publish first novel’ and asked for advice.

JACQUELINE had attended a talk at Southampton Writer’s Circle and will be judging an article-writing contest next season. She had pitched a teddy-bear themed article to a magazine, which had accepted the idea, but only then revealed that they don’t pay for articles.

TESSA has released her new book ‘Spellbinder’ and is keen to get some reviews online to raise interest.

EILEEN has published a book on Smashwords ‘Blood on God’s Carpet’

JEZ has just printed his latest book of poetry ‘Lazy Days’

CHRISTINE tried out speed-pitching to agents at North London Literary Festival, where an agent said yes, and asked to see the first three chapters of her latest novel ‘Spectacular Times’

ANN currently has 3 pictures (2 prints and a painting) and a poem in Central Gallery

LISA has had an honourable mention in the Jeffrey Archer/Kobo/Curtis Brown short story contest and is being published in the free Kobo anthology along with Jeffrey Archer and the twenty semifinalists, the finalists announced at the London Book Fair.

Selma emailed with apologies as she is busy rehearsing the musical show ‘Ragtime’ at the Regents Centre in Christchurch.

The discussion around the table ranged over many subjects:

LONDON BOOK FAIR held on 15^th-17^th April at Earl’s Court. Very focused on indie and self-publishing this year, with a burgeoning Author Lounge and opportunities to meet editors, agents, and directors of Kobo, Amazon’s Kindle/Createspace, and Goodreads among others.

CHAOS Creatives in Southampton are based at Central Gallery.

PRINTING - George Mann outside Winchester will print books from £300 per 100 copies, and can provide ISBNs.

PUBLISHERS/PUBLISHING:

Self-publishing platforms offer an exciting opportunity to writers who don’t want to wait for agents and publishers to notice their work, and can be a way of raising your profile to the mainstream. Createspace offer free ISBNs, matte colour interiors if required, and no special requirements such as editing or formatting by a professional before making your book available. Lulu.com are slightly more strict in that area if you want an ISBN distribution, but you can publish a book and make it available as Print-on-Demand direct to customers through Lulu only (dispatching worldwide) without an ISBN or any paid-for upfront services, and link it to your website or blog for direct sales, including as ebooks in PDF or epub format (for which they also distribute for free to Nook and the Apple iBookstore). Lulu also pays more regularly via Paypal, even if your Royalty is less than £3.50 for that quarter! For LIGHTNING SOURCE, research suggests you need to set up a publisher name and official bank account in that name, and the file must be formatted by a professional, and then you pay at every stage of the title and upload process. Uploading a revised version also costs, if you then find typos in your proof. They have good distribution reach on all online stores as selected, can do matte covers for paperback, and cover prices are lower for the customer, but they do not market or promote your work to street bookstores for you - customers can order them in any bookstore, but it is up to the individual shops what they order in as regular stock.

Some publishers are folding and leaving their authors unpaid and unrepresented - DB Publishing, which went under in December 2012, was recently bought by JMD Media. JMDMedia can be contacted via their Managing Director, Steve Caron, at steve.caron@jmdmedia.co.uk. He will look at any book submitted (in digital format, "Word" files are OK) and consider turning them into Ebooks.

JIM BROWN - Writing for local history societies, which can have their own publishers e.g. Bitterne. They also publish as ebooks and take the first £50, thereafter pay 25%. No publishing cost to the authors. (Reviewed in the Echo)

SELF-PUBLISHING via blogs and websites: A blog is a good way of ‘copyrighting’ your work as it shows up with an exact date and time when you publish a post, which will always be searchable via Google etc and visible as your own work first, on the date you published it.

MONETISING YOUR BLOG - You can sell books directly on your blog, either by having print books that you package and mail yourself, or by offering PDF downloads that can be read on tablets and smartphones. Automatic downloads have to be set up using an automated ‘storefront’ code to set up your blog, of which there is a mind-boggling choice, and some are expensive to set up (just google ‘ebook sales storefront for blogs’ - e.g. shopify.com storefronts start at £19 per month) - and if you are managing an open source-style code yourself from your site, you have to have the time available to deal with glitches, customer enquiries, file download problems, payment problems, and to manage your own Paypal or other online payment/receipt method. You also have no ranking or visibility on other online stores using this method. The alternative is to publish via a third party as above, and link to your Lulu, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, Sony, Apple, Diesel or Amazon products via a ’Books’ page, and not worry about the customer services angle, although you do have to wait for your (smaller) Royalties via your publishing platforms.

WRITING FOR FREE? Is there ever a time when it is OK to write for free?  The group was generally scathing about the increasing expectation that writers would be happy to spend time and energy writing for nothing, particularly if the market is large and expensive to readers.  However, it was recognized that there are several legitimate reasons for writing for free:

For charity

To get your name known

To test the market

For fun

Magazines and newspapers often don’t pay but there is a market for the determined and those who have done their homework. E-publishers give books away, often for reviews.  For more detailed advice about writing for magazines and newspapers, see the Help and Advice page on this blog site.

AMAZON REVIEWS: Amazon has blocked some established authors from leaving book reviews, or is working to remove them. However, they have just bought Goodreads (www.goodreads.com), which is free to join as a reader or an author. Just set up an account, search for your books already on the site (if they are on Amazon and other mainstream sales sites, they will usually appear already), send an email to admin and apply for an author profile. You will then be able to customise it rather like a Facebook profile page, and add your own books if they aren‘t already listed. It is likely that most of the reviews left on Goodreads will soon be migrated to Amazon, and Amazon will lose the ‘review mafia’ who have been complaining of too much ‘author activity’ in the Amazon forums, and reporting mutual reviews between authors.

LITERARY FESTIVALS & READING GROUPS are hugely popular. Reading groups are often quite welcoming of authors, especially if there are free books in it for them. Be prepared that comments will be honest, and reviews are given face-to-face in the group discussions, not on Amazon!

SUBMISSIONS OPPORTUNITY:

HarperCollins have set up a rolling (ongoing) direct submissions route for Romance authors (details on the loop). It is for a new digital-first imprint called HarperImpulse, and accepts unsolicited, unagented Romance novels in any genre or style, and of any length. Send full Word.doc mss and other details as on the Facebook ‘About’ page for HarperImpulse (not partial, proposals or incomplete works) to romance@harpercollins.co.uk

Southampton Library is going to run a short story (up to 5,000 words) contest about Southampton (TBA).

Notes by Lisa Scullard

Writing Buddies 1st March

Friday 1^st March and Writing Buddies met for the second time at the new venue the Dolphin Hotel. The meeting was held in the foyer as we had been told a wedding party was due and they needed the restaurant space.

Jimmy stood in for Penny and gave this news to the meeting.

Jimmy told the meeting about the launch of his new book Not a Guide to Southampton and showed a copy at the meeting.

Jim Brown gave a talk on his latest venture. He showed his i-pad on which all of his books are stored. Jim believes that this is the way publishing is going. He also told us about the way the police force is now being run. As a former Police Officer himself, in his day there were far more police personnel on duty at all times.

Publisher Tessa agreed with Jim about publishing as e-books.  She again pointed out that manuscripts offered in this way must be properly edited before they will be considered for publication.

Ray Dumper told us of his plans for the book he has written about his life. He intends to self publish and knows that quite a lot of his family and friends are showing an interest in this. He has enough material to write his story in two editions and the Writing Buddies wish him luck with this venture.

The meeting ended early due to the noise in the hotel foyer and the Writing Buddies will meet again, at the Dolphin Hotel, Below Bar, on Friday April 5^th.  Everyone is welcome.

Notes by James Marsh

New Year, New Format, New Venue!

Writing Buddies turned out in force on February 1^st for the first meeting of 2013. It was agreed that the Mercure Dolphin Hotel was a good choice, and there was ‘table service’ for drinks of all kinds at the start of the meeting, but no pressure at all to order. We were very pleased to welcome several new members, too.

From now on, instead of each member telling everyone about their writing projects at the start of the meeting, it is open to anyone who wishes to volunteer their good news.

Jimmy’s next book, Not a Guide to Southampton, is about to be published, and he is hosting a launch on February 28^th at The Red Lion (High Street, Southampton) from 5 to 7 pm. All are welcome. He is also expecting publication of his book for young children soon.

Josephine has a chapter in the Institute of Management Services Handbook, and she has now been asked to write an article for their quarterly journal.

Tessa has now published her novel as an ebook and a paperback - The Girl from the Land of Smiles; it is an exciting and unusual murder mystery based around the Buddhist belief that the dead are reborn as other forms of life. She is also soon to publish Thou Shall Not Kill, her novel set in Guernsey.

Jacqueline has a piece of flash fiction published in Paragram’s anthology, Connections.

Silma told the group about a local publisher who produces a free magazine. She has been invited to write an article for it. The editor is Rachel Muller, and the publisher is Cultura Press based in Whitefield Road in New Milton.

Penny has commissions for two further books, on crime and a sequel to Under the Queen’s Colours, this time about military wives.

We heard from Yvonne, a visiting student, who is preparing a dissertation that will be submitted to Southampton City Council. She is looking at better ways of promoting Southampton as a city to visit and as a place to live, and wanted some ideas from members; there were several suggestions made along these lines. Anyone with further ideas could contact her at ygclemmen@gmail.com

Penny read out a letter she’d received from a writer who had lost his royalties when DB Publishing (from Derby) had gone out of business. The letter explored the problems of failure of publishers and presented a cautionary tale.

Tessa recommended Lightning Source as a reliable printer for print-on-demand. Penny mentioned Oceans, the café/shop/tourist/exhibition centre which recently opened just a few doors from The Dolphin. They are interested in hosting book launches, talks and other events.

It is planned that this blog will soon have some attached pages that will cover the basics of some aspects of writing. There were offers of contributions for self-publishing, preparing manuscripts for submission, planning a book launch, writing articles and fillers for magazines, writing non-fiction books, formatting for kindle, marketing on Amazon, setting up blogs and websites, and proofreading.

It was suggested for anybody wishing to have their own novel writing software, 'yWriter' can be downloaded for free at www.spacejock.com. 

Lisa mentioned that free courses, including writing, are offered at www.coursera.org and they can be helpful for research. Two members offered to be ‘welcome Buddies’ to contact new members by email to pass on any information. Penny is looking for speakers for future meetings. 

The next meeting will be on March 1^st at The Dolphin Hotel, High Street, Southampton from 2 to 4 pm. Anyone with an interest in writing is very welcome to join us.

~ Notes written by Jacqueline Pye 

New Year, New Venue, New Routine for Writing Buddies!

Southampton Writing Buddies met at The Art House on December 7^th. This was to be an important session to discuss which direction the group should take in the new year, and there was a good attendance. At the same time it was the last meeting before Christmas, so wine and mince pies were laid on for us all.

Penny had circulated members to ask their views, and had collated the replies as well as laying plans herself. Everyone present gave their opinions and suggestions, and these are the decisions that were made.

•  The concept of ‘creeping death’, where each member spoke briefly about their recent writing, had been felt by some to be a little intimidating. Those who had not been working on specific projects could feel awkward. It was agreed to drop the name, and instead start future meetings with ‘Introductions and News’, where people could say who they are and what type of writing interests them, adding detail only if they wish.

•  Several members had been finding the current venue noisy at times, making it hard to concentrate or to hear others. Penny has therefore arranged for us to meet in future at The Dolphin Hotel in the High Street; she has found the manager keen to host us, and there is the restaurant area and quiet rooms available at no charge. This was felt by most to be an excellent choice. The venue could also be used to host book launches, rooms would usually be on the ground floor (otherwise there is a lift and disabled access), and refreshments are available.  Writing Buddies will be sorry to leave the Art House, which has looked after us well for two years, but needs must.  Writing Buddies thank the Art House staff for their hospitality over the years.

•  At some meetings there will be a focus topic for discussion, but meetings will remain informal and monthly on the first Friday – except that there will be no January meeting.

•  It had been mentioned that while we heartily welcome new members, they may sometimes raise topics that have been previously discussed at length. We thought there might be opportunities to provide links to internet resources, or a member could volunteer to meet with the newer Buddy after the meeting to answer any queries.

•  The blog will eventually have extra pages to vary the content, for example single-topic information by an appropriate person – self-publishing was mentioned, and tips for writing for magazines. Any members who would like to offer a specific page should get in touch with Penny.

We’ll meet again on Friday February 1^st at 2pm at The Dolphin Hotel, High Street, Southampton. Going through the Bargate, it’s about 300 metres south on the left. And finally, a successful and happy new year from Writing Buddies.

Blog notes by Jacqueline Pye