Writing Buddies in 2014!

Twenty-two Writing Buddies joined the first meeting of 2014, on Friday 7 February, at the Dolphin Hotel.  It was great to see so many and good to welcome new writers to the group.

Good News

James started the session by telling us that he had three books ready for submission through his own publishing company, Aloe Jimmy. The first will be a volume of the David Collins and the Sundance Gang series and then a children's book with the central character, Jayden the goldfish.  After this will be the first of the Far End of the Tunnel trilogy. 

Patricia was sending work to several websites, but was reticent to add further at this stage.

Jacqueline now has both her books on Good Reads.  Bottles And Pots has been described as 'a story of murder, rivalry and jealousy', which she likes. She did a book signing event for her 'Milly' detective novel at October Books, in Southampton. The Friends of Portswood Library group have selected her to judge a cake competition on National Libraries Day. The event has a children's books theme.

Brian signed books at Waterstones in Milton Keynes in January, as they were supporting local authors. However, Waterstones seemed to have different rules for different stores (Manager's Discretion), which they seem to change at will and it is hit and miss if an author is offered a signing or not. However, he was persistent and he was invited to the book shop.  He sold five copies of each of the books he was promoting. He commented that his persistence was really necessary and warned that writers, particularly self-published authors, must be prepared to stand their ground.
   Brian is also editing a work based on private letters from First World War serviceman, describing trench life. 

Josephine reviewed four books for Good Reads, and she was offered two new books to review. This was considered to be a good way of keeping in touch with what was new to the market. 

Mo was invited to do an interview at BBC Radio London, in conjunction with their reviewing her book, Blues for Shindig. However, when she got there, they hadn’t read the book, so she had to do a more general interview, about writing. She managed to ‘plug’ Writing Buddies, and later tweeted about the event.

Pat brought some samples of her Silverfinger Press books, which were shown to the group.

Tessa had previously had work on knitting published some time ago by Victor Books, all of which she had sold. She had made the decision not to do any more due to the typesetting problems associated with knitting patterns. However, it was a coincidence that she was contacted by the Bishop of Leicester (aka The Knitting Bishop), from Melton Mowbray, asking if there were any more of her knitting books  available, as he wanted to use them in a knitting group he was running.

Six new members introduced themselves.

Jane is interested in producing some historical work and has attended Cavendish College courses. A  teacher and radio journalist, she has also been heard on BBC Solent as a radio player (reader) for a full range of writers.

Steven has been in the book world for forty years. He has just started competition writing and is looking to share experiences, get tips and help. He also mentioned Cosmo Funnel as useful.

Margot said she has had ‘a book in her head’ for about three years. She went on an Open Study writing course by Diana Cambridge, but wants to learn more about the routine of writing. 

Andy is interested in paranormal type magazines and has written some articles and interviewed personalities for these. He is in the early stages of producing a version of a paranormal book, as he has ‘spotted a hole on the market.’ However, he has heard that someone else is doing something similar and wants to wait for this to come out and then analyse it so that his work does not clash with theirs. He wants his to be fresh and different.

Margaret is interested in writing short stories and is looking for inspiration.

Beryl has done some family history research and been involved in a local history competition. She is a member of the Eastleigh Local History Society but prefers to write her own work, with a short story bias, with a view to them being published privately.

Discussions

Waterstones

The position of Waterstone and their changing attitudes to author signing was the first topic of discussion.  Waterstones had approached Penny's publisher to ask if she would join other authors in a day of  book signing, but then cancelled at the last moment, despite ordering in huge stocks of her books for the event. She agreed with Brian that the company did not seem to have a clear set of guidelines on author book signings.

Independent Book Shops

Local book shops, or the lack of them, was discussed.  October Books in Southampton is still open, as are other independent shops in Lee On Solent and Petersfield, but the one in Hythe has closed and one in Salisbury is about to close. This makes life very difficult for authors as outlets diminish. It was also mentioned that Hampshire County Council might be a little interested in promoting children’s books at Readers Days.  Writing Buddies will keep an eye open for book promotion events and report them back to the group.

Public Libraries

Public libraries and their fate were a cause for concern. These can be immensely helpful to writers as their staff are knowledgeable and can sometimes answer questions that authors might have.  Massive cuts to libraries have happened, and further library cuts are to be announced in many areas. Calvin Smith has started a Portswood, Southampton, library support group to keep that local library open. Lymington library is being re-furbished – Margot is going to find out about it’s future.

Festivals

Literary and other festivals were discussed.  These can very useful to writers and readers alike.  Brian pointed out that authors should act like a medieval troubadour, touting their work around, as it is a very competitive market place. Authors need to target their market, know where to sell and even organise events. He mentioned the recent Lantern Festival in Milton Keynes, where he sold forty-three copies of his books, but even that was down on the seventy-eight he sold the previous year.  Mo mentioned the Winchester Writers' Festival, where she had won three prizes and sold some books and Christine mentioned how badly run the The West Cork Literary Festival, Ireland, had been.  Margot said the Sherbourne festival was small, but friendly enough, with lots of big names. The North London Literary Festival has a useful speed pitching event.  

Reviews

Some Writing Buddies had written book reviews but others had not.  In writing a review the author needs to be honest as reviews help to sell good material, but also identify what to avoid. Penny is about to review Jane Riddell's, Words'Worth: A Fiction Writer's Guide to Serious Editing, which covers the ‘nuts and bolts’ that perhaps many are not aware of. General consensus was that people DO READ reviews.

Local History Writer Needed
The Bevois Mount history group is looking for a local history writer.

The Writing Buddies Email Information Loop
One of the benefits of membership of Writing Buddies is the behind the scenes email information loop, run via the Writing Buddies Yahoo Group.  All Writing Buddies are encouraged to join the loop as it is a valuable resource between meetings. The loop can be reached via: https://uk.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/writingbuddies/info 

Fifth Anniversary Exhibition
To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Writing Buddies group in May 2009, there will be an exhibition of work at the Central Library, Southampton, between 12 - 17 May 2014.  All Writing Buddies, past and present, are encouraged to submit work for the display.

Guest Speaker

Josephine Shaw gave the first of the new series of writing-related talks. Her topic was Presentations.

At the March meeting, Margot will be speaking about her work teaching creative writing to the blind at Southampton Sight.

The next meeting is at 2pm on 7th March 2014.  Everyone is welcome.

  

National Libraries Day

For National Libraries Day in January, Buddies member Jacqueline Pye was invited to help judge a cake-making competition for children in Portswood Library. The cakes had to be decorated to reflect a children's book, and the other two judges were local councillors. Jacqueline presented the winner of each age category with a signed copy of her book Millie the Detective and the Diamond Ring together with a certificate signed by each judge. Sadly she didn't get to taste the cakes, but the competition was great fun!

Christmas at Writing Buddies - 6 December 2013

The regular monthly meeting of the sprightly group took place on Friday 6^th December 2013 at The Mercure Dolphin Hotel, High Street, Southampton between 14.00 and 16.00 hrs.

Fourteen Writing Buddies attended the Christmas meeting.

Karl Chapman was introduced to take minutes/notes. It was agreed that a fee of £2.00 per member in attendance, per week, would be sought to finance a note taker, with any residue kept in a fund held by the group to build up a slight reserve for future necessary expenditure.

During the meeting a new member was introduced as Brian Dunleavy, an author of some six books.    Southampton's local history. He has been approached by Amberley Publishing, but is not keen on their Then and Now format, and would prefer a narrative. He is currently working on a history of the Earls of Southampton.

There was lots of good news this month, which was great to hear.

Tessa has been approached to have her Dohlen Inheritance trilogy  published in German. She is presently having the translations checked and awaiting contracts.

Mo has been reading excerpts from her novel Blues for Shindig in London. She was also involved in a project on Black Culture in Southampton, with some involvement from Robert Elms.  

Lisa has been promoting Sophie Neville's latest book Funnily Enough, which is No. 2 in the Amazon newcomers list. Three newspapers (Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and the Saturday Times) have shown interest in serialising it. It is also now on Kindle, with a video, clicking back to the book.  

   Lisa is still waiting to hear from Mills and Boon, who asked for the full manuscript of her novel.  Lisa has started writing her next one, a modern day romance, which she described as a nice Christmas present.

Jimmy, celebrating his birthday, entered a 500 word story, (which he adapted from a previously produced 3,500 project) to a competition. He has finished his 1940s childhood book.  His publishing company is now set up, and ready to go. He is also re-reading one of his previous works, which he thinks he might resurrect.  

Ann, a keen photographer, sent in some work to a competition. They have selected one for the front cover of a calendar, and a further one for a month’s photograph (along with 10 published words), she is extremely happy.

Jill has been sorting through her late father’s material. She has inherited the copyright of some published work, including some textbooks, comics and 20^th century history material. The most astonishing find is some diaries and letters. She was reading through these letters between friends, and found they were conscientious objectors. Her grandfather was an objector during the WW1 and her father during the Second World War. She is going to see if she can track down some photos to add weight to the story. It would make a good drama/documentary, but it needs a little more research. She has sent outlines to two publishers.     

Jacqueline told us about www.Goodreads.com (owned by Amazon). She put forward two children’s books to selected countries through the company.  The promotion was run as a competition with signed copies as prizes. Of the two copies she selected for the American (USA) market, 200 tried to buy. She put forward a further ten for the English (UK) market, 100 registered to buy, and hundreds more wanted to read. She has the 12 e-mail addresses to contact in the future.

         

Penny apologised for her absence from the last meeting, but explained that she was at an intensive 3 day ‘Millionaire Authors’ Bootcamp’, attended by over 500 delegates.  12 speakers, fiction/non-fiction, each spoke for 90 minutes. The aim was to look at writing from a different perspective. The speakers were all self-made millionaires, made from either writing or writing related areas. They advocated ‘thinking outside the box’, and all had a successful formula to share.  She signed up for two workshops: with John Leah, a motivational public speaker for authors and with Mark Donnan, a marketing guru.

   Penny is currently finishing three writing projects, which will be completed in the early new year.

Discussion turned to the three-month experiment the group has been conducting to sell books and to raise the group's profile. The group have had events and market stands in Winchester, Hedge End, Weston, the Marlands' Shopping Centre in Southampton, Lymington and Titchfield.  Not all of these had been successful and it was decided that some of these venues would not be repeated. Jacqueline had attended four events and these were not entirely successful. She found she had lots of ‘chats’, but not many take-ups - a lot depends on the audience.  Several of the group were looking forward to the week-long stand they had at Marlands in the run up to Christmas and hoped that sales would be good.  Generally, Marlands was thought to be a good venue and this would be continued in 2014.  The opportunity to take up a stand at the huge West Quay shopping centre on Saturday 1 March would be taken up.

Writing Buddies Jacqueline Pye, Eileen Long and James Marsh at Lyndhurst Art and Craft Market

The thorny issue of copyright was discussed.  Lisa had looked into this in depth. With characters, one had to determine whether the character had a copyright placed upon it, and whether it was in or out of the public domain. Examples cited; John Connor (the boy in the Terminator films) and a Young Gandalf (The Rings Trilogy) would they have been minor characters, or would they invoke derivative works? It was agreed that these two probably were covered by copyright, which would cover his future in the first instance, and his past in the latter.   Unless special copyright terms had been obtained, work would be out of copyright 70 – 100 years after the authors death, but it was not automatic, as it can be passed into the estate of the author, so be very careful.  Discussion then ensued about historical characters (e.g. General Custer), care would be made not to offend living relatives. Would you re-imagine the character?, it would be your prose, a work of fiction, but who would own the copyright?  Lisa said that her book’s character was always referred to the terrible Wizard of Oz. A title such as ‘The Housesitter’ may be available to use if it was clear that it was an entirely different entity to any other. Useful website, The Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/index.html

   The issue of photograph copyright came up. Lisa mentioned www.morphfile.com, where you can search free images and can morph a bland face into the image to use as your own work, but ‘unmorphed’ images cannot stand alone as own work. Francis Frith photographs are under copyright, and permission is required to use, although the postcards are out of copyright.

    It was asked if lyrics of songs could be, and it was advised that the copyright file should be consulted.

   All effort should be made to find the copyright holder, and this should be stated. All care should be taken to avoid legal infringement. It was also deemed to be wise to try to protect your own work.

Penny mentioned the facebook page, and needs someone to help run it. (https://www.facebook.com/writingbuddies)

Writing Buddies will be five years old in 2014 and it has grown from 10 at the first meeting on 2nd May 2009, to over 50 members today. Penny has decided it needs to add more content to each meeting. The last half hour of each meeting would be devoted to a writing related topic, to tap into the experts amongst the group. Different aspects such as publishing trials and tribulations, marketing, punctuation, self publishing and support for independent bookshops were all put forward as possible subjects for these sessions.  Penny will take this forward.

Mention was made about the blog: http://pennyleggswritingbuddies.blogspot.co.uk; which will also contain more useful content in 2014.

The Writing Buddies were looking forward to the Christmas break and to catching up again at the next meeting, on Friday 7 February 2014.

An Autumn Meeting - Writing Buddies 1 November 2013

14 Writing Buddies were gathered for the afternoon's get together at the Mercure Dolphin Hotel. 

New Writing Buddies discovered our group discovered in various ways, including the new Writing Buddies page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/writingbuddies?fref=ts  We're still looking for a long term administrator for this important means of Buddies exchanging information, sharing and promoting and, for those who administrate it, gaining valuable experience.

SHABNEEZE, who started writing as a school project in Mauritius, (from which she relocated to Southampton just three weeks prior to our meeting!) found Buddies thanks to Penny's invaluable blog: http://pennyleggswritingbuddies.blogspot.co.uk/ . Shabneeze's writing project was born as part of a project at Dr Maurice Curé High School, and it involves working on 10 stories, with illustrations by Shabneeze herself, and her mother.  Shabneeze feels nervous about completing this first writing project, and would appreciate support, tips and advice from Buddies.

DEBORAH has recently self published her first book - Mouse and the Dragon Crystal, published in July, available here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mouse-Dragon-Crystal-Deborah-Tipp-ebook/dp/B00ATT31MG and here: http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/deborah+tipp/mouse+and+the+dragon+crystal/9962721/  The Print-on-Demand edition was produced by http://emp3books.com/, a company Debbie found via the Writers and Artists Yearbook. She found the cover artist on Twitter. Setting up a Kindle edition was costly. Debbie has hit a "brick wall" as to how to market further.  Responses to this focussed on social media, with discussion of the advantages, pitfalls and demands on writing time of such an approach.

JILL inherited her father's work and correspondence, and now hopes to edit this and trace the people who wrote to him during the 2nd World War years, as youngsters and teens; fascinating material! As individuals and a group, the Buddies will no doubt have many suggestions and more to help Jill with this quest.

LINDA has travelled, written poetry, humorous articles and life writing.  Now she is considering her future career as a writer and poet. Perhaps she will venture into the world of spoken word artistry!

A warm welcome to these new Buddies, and please let us know if any of their contact details and linked pages have been left out or recorded erroneously!

JAMES MARSH chaired the meeting. His next book, A 1940's Childhood - From Bomb-sites to Children's Hour is scheduled for publication in May, with illustrations including photos sourced via Kent's War and Peace Archives. He is still on the look out for photos featuring http://www.outdoored.co.uk/BewerleyPark/Contact.aspx

LISA received warm congratulations, as she has completed her latest manuscript (at 2am!) ready for further consideration by Harper Collins' Commissioning Editor, who may accept it or pass it to their Harlequin or Carina Presses, the latter being an ebook platform. Now she's waiting for a phone call to discuss the next stage, or rejection by email, which HC can at least be relied upon to furnish with good feedback. In the latter case Lisa, whose skills we know and admire, is ready to publish herself!

JIM (whose The Illustrated History of Southampton's Suburbs is still available) told us about his outside broadcast with Radio Solent, relating the fascinating information that the Great Train Robbers first thought of having a go at the gold stored regularly in Southampton by the Bank of England at that time. One sight of Jim and they no doubt decided that a train would be easier to "turn over"! The branch of Waterstones located in Above Bar Street should not feel "railroaded" into accepting ten copies of Jim's latest book - Southampton's Lucky Jim   - for Sale or Return, but grateful for the opportunity!

Many thought Waterstones had given up on local authors altogether, but Jim's success shows that it's always worth trying locally.

MARKET STANDS: Only recently explored by the group, with appearances by Writing Buddies themed stalls at several local markets, have achieved sales and good publicity for the group already. There was only one real wash out (apologies have already been received from those who organised but did not adequately equip a day in Winchester) and James and Penny enjoyed a really good day at St Mark's Church Hall in Archers Road. 

Future chances to represent the Buddies as a whole and sell the work of those involved include

NOV 17TH (Sunday) LYNDHURST - Penny, Jacqueline, Eileen and James will be venturing to this and would love it if any Buddies showed up on the day to support their effort.  This market will appear next on December 15th, and the group look forward to meeting local readers there once again.

DEC 6  LEE ON SOLENT No word back from the organisers of this event yet, but keep a look out!

DEC 16, 17, 19, 20 and 21 MARLANDS SHOPPING CENTRE Plenty of chances to meet the public here, and this has been a lucky venue for our group so far, so please contact Penny if you'd like one of the places still available on Dec 16 and/or 17.

EGG HEADS Yes, it's the BBC TV quiz show we're talking about here. James is a great fan and would love to lead a Writing Buddies team to victory over the brainy panel, whose defeat could mean a big cash prize! James knows the panel's weak spots, so the chances look good. Penny, James and Lisa are in our team already, with two more needed plus one reserve.

CREAM TEA CELEBRATION This is for the Buddies to exchange seasons greetings and enjoy a friendly teatime treat together (non dairy alternatives will be available on the day) 13th December, 2pm in the Mercure Dolphin. Tickets for this event are £5.95 per person. 

Notes by JP Goodman

Full Steam Ahead for Southampton Writing Buddies

The group met again on Friday October 4th at The Dolphin/Mercure Hotel to exchange news, discuss matters of interest, and tackle any writing problems raised.

Good News

Pat has started up a small press with two of her own publications, and she will produce small runs for other poets or writers of short books. It is called Silverfinger Press.

Josephine has an article in Everton News, and there is to be another about eight men aged seventy-plus who went around the world in two Suzuki Jimney vehicles. She also has a short article in the newsletter The Voice published by Wessex Writers, and others are planned.

Mo gave a reading from her book A Blues for Shindig at The Wool House in Southampton, which went well and was enjoyable. She has a monologue in which the actress Celia Imrie has shown interest, and they are meeting soon to discuss possbilities.

Jacqueline passed round the proof copy of her short story collection, Bottles and Pots; she is hoping to sell copies at some of the fairs at which Writing Buddies will have stands. It was pointed out that buying a physical proof copy is more expensive than proofing digitally, but she felt the need to check the complete product before publication, as it's her first with CreateSpace.

Ray's memoir From War to an Iron Fighter is still doing well, and will be featured shortly in a local magazine. He has volume 2 ready and will be launching it soon.

New member Simon has just left university, and is features editor for a magazine showcasing students' writing. 3000 copies are distributed among the students.

Ann has entered a short novel competition and awaits results and a critique.

Discussion

Penny has arranged stalls for Writing Buddies at various markets in the area, and would like members to let her know of any in which they are interested. So far these have been at Winchester and Hedge End; the latter was especially successful, and the event may be repeated. The day was organised by Tudor Roses Ladies' Barbershop Chorus. Apparently there are regular craft fairs at Hedge End Village Hall.

Although Richard was not able to be at the meeting, we were told that he and his wife are exhibiting their artwork with the Nomansland Art Group at the Hanger Farm Arts Centre in Totton until November 1st.

Mailchimp was discussed as a way of sending email messages to people on address lists. It's free, and once learned it's easy to use and reliable. The programme will also reveal who opened the information and who did not!

Lisa reminded us that she mentioned the Rubery short story competition on our information loop. Also, the Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller competition is open - the first 10-12k words of a novel, which need not be finished. Closes January, free to enter.

Penny and Lisa had been to a Bizpedia breakfast networking meeting near the airport. The meetings are free and attract business people of all kinds. They also hire out a working/meeting room for £10 per hour, including reception facilities (special offer via gift card in Staples).

A possible additional page for our blog was mentioned, relating to reviews of our books by others. Josephine and Penny will discuss.

Our hosts at The Dolphin told us about an afternoon concert and cream tea they are holding on October 20th at 3.30. £5 including the cream tea - more details are on this blog below.

As it will be the Writing Buddies' fifth anniversary in May, we are still thinking of ways to celebrate. The group came up with a number of suggestions including an evening of book and/or poetry readings, some performance, appearances on local radio, and a second anthology competition. Any further thoughts can be sent to Penny.

Next Meeting

Friday November 1st at The Dolphin/Mercure Hotel, High Street, Southampton, 2-4pm. We are a mixed bunch where writing is concerned, and anyone with an interest in writing is very welcome to join us.

Blog notes by Jacqueline Pye.

Afternoon Concert and Cream Tea

We don't usually put advertisements on this blog but we felt that this event was worthy of wider attention, so here goes:

The Dolphin Hotel, our venue for Writing Buddies meetings, and St Michael's Church in Southampton are holding an Afternoon Concert and Cream Tea on Sunday 20 October at 3.30pm in the Jane Austin suite at the Dolphin Hotel.  Cantores Michaelis, the Choir of St Michael's Church and Choral Scholars of the university of Southampton, will be the star attraction.

Tickets, which include both the concert and the cream tea, cost £5.  The event is being held in aid of the Friends of St Michael's Church and the Hampshire Autistic Association.

Tickets are available from the Dolphin Hotel, from Tim Daykin at St Michael's Church or via: concert@buglestreet.co.uk

Enjoy!

Writing Buddies September 2013

The Writing Buddies met at the Mercure Dolphin Hotel as usual. This venue is proving to be a success as the group are well looked after when we visit. The meeting was chaired by Jimmy, in Penny's absence.  

Tessa started by telling the group about her book Somerset Scenes. It is an enchanting book of paintings from the county of Somerset and all of the Writing Buddies looking at the copy Tessa had brought with her.  She also told us all about the methods of colour printing used in the book.

Mo is giving an evening talk from 8 pm at the Woolhouse on September 25 on her book A Blues for Shindig.  

Ray has sold over three hundred copies of his book From War to an Iron Fighter and the Writing Buddies agreed that this was very good for a first book, particularly as the average total sales for a book is just 500 copies.  Ray now fits kitchens nationwide and he decided to write to his many customers to tell them about his book. He wrote 800 letters in all and posted them all off but the Post Office lost the whole batch. He has, of course, taken this up with them and they have accepted responsibility. But they told Ray he now needs to fill out a separate form for each of the letters he posted in order to have anything done about it. Ray sensibly turned to the daily Echo about this and they have taken up the case. He feels that this alone will give publicity for his book.

Janet has entered another poetry competition.

JPF told the group about the forthcoming poetry contest in Titchfield with a Shakespeare theme.  Entry for this is free and the deadline is 8th September. The contest takes place at a gala evening on 29 September at the Barn, Titchfield.  

Lisa told us she is working with her friend Sophie and helping her with her memoirs. She has also met the actress Susana Hamilton and now wants to get back into writing for films.

Jim Brown told the group he is enjoying life as an ebook writer because he gets royalties from this without the hassle of public appearances. Jim told us all about It’s A Hard Knock: Childhood Reminiscences of Southampton, Brockenhurst and Lyndhurst By Shiela Hansford Nee Souch that is published by the Bitterne Local History Society.  He also showed us the information on his latest book Southampton’s Lucky Jim.  He describes this as a look at policing in Southampton in the 1950s with nothing held back, or as Jim put it 'Warts and all'. 

Jimmy then told the group of his plans to visit his family. While there, he plans to work with is son to publish, under his own publishing name of Aloejimmy Publishing (AJP) the first two titles, Davie Collins and the Sundance Gang Vol 1 and Jayden the Naughty Goldfish Vol 1. He will also take advantage of the opportunity to cross over into Yorkshire and visit the oldest sweepshop in England, in Pately Bridge. The photos and information he gets there will complete his next project for the History Press, a look at the 1940s, which is due out in May 2014.

There was then a lively discussion around the table, centring on assistance with computing problems during the self-publishing process and Royalty payments from ebooks. Blogs, a regular discussion point, also featured, as it is felt important to have an internet presence.  A blog is free and easy to set up and use.

The next meeting of Writing Buddies will take place at the Mercure Dolphin Hotel on Friday 4^th October.  All writers are welcome, published and unpublished, in all genres.

Blog notes by James Marsh.