A Busy Week: Interviews, Debates, Readings, Signings, Meetings and Tours

As per my previous post, I visited London last week for a few days. This was a spur-of-the-moment thing; I could have done the interview at the BBC World Service just as easily from Belfast, but I wanted to make the trip and do the interview in person, and meet some of the good folks who have been working on my behalf. I hadn't intended to cause a fuss, but all of a sudden meetings and dinners and office tours were being organised, and it turned into a very busy, but very worthwhile, trip.

At various dinners, office tours and visits to the pub, I met, amongst others, my editor Geoff Mulligan, my other editor Briony Everroad, Harvill Secker publishing director Liz Foley, my UK agent Caspian Dennis, my lovely and very patient publicist Kate Bland, and marketing director Roger Bratchell, as well as a host of other marketing, editorial and sales people far too numerous to mention. Suffice it to say that I was met with hospitality and warmth wherever I went.

I learned more about the publishing business over these three or four days than I have done in two or three years of following all the agent and editor blogs out there. Don't get me wrong - I still believe the wealth of information out there on the Internet is a key factor in my getting as far as I have. But actually meeting the people who are working on my book, finding out how they deal with the press and the retailers, how hard they have to strive to get me out there on the shelves and into the reviews - well, I have a whole new respect for what they do, and a whole lot more gratitude.

I'm a good example of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing, and I have gone into publication expecting a fight. All those blogs out there tell us writers we have to be ready to push and push, and as a result, those of us lucky enough to make it over the transom might wind up on a strange combination of the offensive and the defensive. For example, and I shall confess a big lump of naivety here, after the brilliant review I received in The Observer, I felt a little let down when it wasn't immediately followed by a plethora of reviews in other publications. It wasn't until I met the good people at my publisher that I realised those reviews have to be fought tooth and nail for, that there are dozens and dozens of books duking it out for those precious column inches. Then I realised how incredibly fortunate I've been to get the reviews I've had; there are any number of authors who would gladly give a significant body part to get in depth reviews in both The Observer AND The Guardian. And I also now know how very lucky I am to have gotten so much shelf space in the chain stores, like Eason's and Waterstone's, not to mention the fabulous placement I've had in the airport branches of WH Smith's.

Another valuable lesson has been having realistic expectations in terms of sales for a debut trade paperback. I am told my sell-in is fantastic, enough to make many more established authors envious, and the sell-through is very good from early indications. But something I didn't know, and this may be UK specific and/or particular to the thriller/crime genre, but next year's mass market paperback release is where the real show is. This is where the publisher wants the sales, the hard numbers, and consequently this is where the marketing budget is focused.

Anyway, some photos:



(l-r) Geoff Mulligan (editor at large), Yours Truly, Liz Foley (HS publishing director), Caspian Dennis (my UK agent), Briony Everroad (editor)

And here is my publicist Kate Bland outside Foleys bookshop on Charing Cross Road, where she took me to sign books:



And finally, in this particulr branch of WH Smith's at Stansted Airport, I was #1! I was #15 in a couple of others, but let's just focus on this particular branch, shall we?:



One of the big surprises of the trip came when I went to the offices of the Abner Stein agency in Kensington to meet my UK co-agent Caspian Dennis. I had no earthly idea who else this agency represented, and my jaw must have made quite a noise when it hit the floor upon seeing some of the names. I won't mention them, but we're talking the biggest of the biggest of the big among contemporary authors, as in none more big, like mastadons of modern novelists. I am in quite extraordinary company there.

And finally...

There were a couple of interesting radio bits and pieces recently, and I have saved the audio for anyone interested. The first is the aforementioned BBC World Service interview, which can be listened to here at this link, complete with sound effects during the reading.

The second, and most interesting, was a debate that aired on BBC Radio Ulster just over a week ago on the Sunday Sequence programme, in which the presenter Robbie Meredith discussed the ethics and politics of The Twelve with journalists and authors Henry McDonald and Ruth Dudley Edwards. It's about ten minutes long, and well worth listening to by clicking here.

Readers of the Lost ARC

My apologies for using a pun worthy of Declan Burke for my title, but I'm a little over-excited because I received the advance reader copies (or ARCs, or Uncorrected Proofs, or whatever you wish to call them) of The Twelve today from the wonderful Briony Everroad at Harvill Secker. I got ten, and they're already all spoken for. I'll be lucky if I get to keep one for myself. See, aren't they lovely?



For the sharp-eyed amongst you, the white cover is not a departure from the original design - it is simply to mark these out as advance copies, rather like white label demos from music's vinyl days (yes, I'm that old).

I've been flicking through my single copy all day, and something strikes me as very odd: This doesn't feel like my book any more. I recognise words and passages, remember what was going through my head when I wrote that particular line of dialogue and so on. It is all comfortably familiar, yet somehow different, like a friend who moved away and has come back changed.

Almost two years of growing and nurturing this strange thing, gutting it and putting it back together again, then months of incremental changes - they're almost over. There have been minor tweaks since the version I now have in my hands (like the word 'Acknowledgements' really needing an 'A' on the front, or several continuity blunders I spotted on the last read-through, e.g., magical disappearing and reappearing coats), but the next version I see will be it - done, finished, final, forever cast in stone.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. To steal a line from the wonderful movie Swingers, "Baby's all growed up."

In Other News...

Here's the revised Soho Press cover for The Ghosts of Belfast, as The Twelve will be known in the USA (the grey type will be silver in reality, by the way). I like it a lot more than the previous version. In fact, I like it a lot.

A Nice Surprise: The CCV Catalogue

The postman delivered another nice package today, courtesy of my editor at Harvill Secker, Geoff Mulligan. It was the June 2009 CCV catalogue. CCV (Cape Chatto Vintage) is the division of Random House that encompasses Harvill Secker amongst others, including the Vintage mass-market paperback imprint, where I will eventually end up. Anyway, I was shocked and delighted to find that THE TWELVE is featured on the back cover, presumably as a preview for the July catalogue. Needless to say, I am chuffed!

In other news:

Two blogging friends have recently had short stories published online, and I read both stories one day apart, which given the nature of the pieces, may have left me traumatised. These authors are sick puppies, and neither story is for those of a nervous disposition. You have been warned...

Gerard Brennan's Hard Rock, in which sex, drugs and rock'n'roll lead to worse than rehab, is in Issue 29 of ThugLit. Start running a bath now. You'll need it when you're done reading.

Chris F Holm's flash fiction horror piece The Well just appeared at Flashes in the Dark. The claustrophobic among you should proceed with caution.

Proof of Life

So, I received the proof of THE TWELVE yesterday and it looks great. As far as I know, this is the version that will be printed as bound proofs, or ARCs. It's starting to feel like a proper book now, complete with copyright, epigraph, dedication and acknowledgement pages.

It struck me as I was reading through the proof how much better this novel is than the one I sent to my agent less than a year ago. That version had already benefited from detailed critiques and been redrafted several times, but this version is still way ahead. There are a couple of significant differences in the meat of the story that came from the revisions I did under Nat Sobel's guidance, and there are a host of smaller, more subtle enhancements that were made during that time and in subsequent edits. These all add up to be more than the sum of their parts, and the result is a more streamlined, smoother read.

In realising that, I also realised how much I've enjoyed the editorial process. My editors at Harvill Secker, Geoff Mulligan and Briony Everroad, have been a huge factor in that. I've been very lucky in the way things have turned out. I have the advantage of a more select imprint in that Harvill Secker doesn't put out a large volume of books compared to some others, so I've had the personal attention that many authors complain they don't receive from their editors, but at the same time I have the mega publisher clout of Random House when it comes to selling it. Working with Briony on the line edit process was enlightening, and she and Geoff have been shepherding me through the various steps with great understanding and tolerance of my inexperience. Really, I couldn't have asked for a smoother road to publication.

Next up, hopefully, will be the bound proofs, as in actual proper honest-to-God books.

A New Website for a New Title

I've been a busy boy over the weekend and built myself a brand spanky new website. This is largely because no suitable variant on THE TWELVE was available as a domain name, and the old site needed a good going over anyway. Have a look at the links section - I've tried to include as many people as I could in the rush to get it online, concentrating mostly on authors with specific promotional sites, and I've left the 'Friends' section rather bare. If you'd like a link and I've neglected you, please let me know in the comments.

In other news, I have received editorial notes from my other editor, Briony (yes, I have two editors!), and I have to say I'm astounded at her eye for detail, and slightly embarrassed at all the mistakes she's found. I've got another busy period to come as I work through revising the manuscript.

And finally, just thought I'd mention I'm off to New York in March, and I'm as excited as the first time I went.

A Cover, and an Announcement

Here's the jacket design for my debut novel. I just got this yesterday, and I must say I'm delighted. The eagle-eyed among you may notice something amiss, though. Have you spotted it yet?

Yes, the title for the UK edition has been changed to THE TWELVE. The title for the American edition will still be THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST, but it was felt that that title would regionalise the book within a UK market when my publisher Harvill Secker is thinking Big Bestselling Thriller. And I'm happy for my publisher to think Big Bestselling Thriller, thus the change. Outside of the UK market, specifically the USA, the original title will have more resonance, so my American friends get to keep the ghosts.

Anyway, title aside, what do you think of my cover? :)

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!

The Ghosts of Belfast to be Published in the USA by Soho Press

I'm delighted to report that THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST will be published in the USA by Soho Press, the independent New York house. Laura Hruska acquired it as part of a two-book deal from my ever-excellent agent Nat Sobel, and the book has found a wonderful home. Soho Press publish a range of literary and crime fiction, often set in foreign locales, and quite a few UK authors pitch their American tents there.

I'm particularly excited to receive this news among the doom and gloom currently shrouding the publishing industry. This report at TheBookseller.com was especially discouraging. It's good to know there are still publishers like Soho Press, and indeed Harvill Secker in the UK, who are willing to take a chance on a new author even in these uncertain times.

I'm told I'll have a cover design for the UK edition very soon, and when it appears I'll share it here along with some breaking news...