Posted by Stella Calvert-Smith on 4 May 2021, in Byte Connects, Member news, News
Byte the Book loves bringing people from all areas of the publishing world together so that they can learn from each other and collaborate, and we want to highlight some wonderful collaborations that have come about via the Byte The Book.
Here's Byte the Book member Amelia B. Kyazze (author) talking about getting published through Unbound, a connection she made via Byte Confluence 2019...
If you've found some great collaborators through Byte The Book and are keen to share your stories in this series please send us an email to info@bytethebook.com.
How did you find out about Unbound?
At the Byte Confluence in 2019, held at Google’s offices, I met my editor from Unbound, Xavier Cansell. He was a speaker on a panel about innovations in storytelling, and we got chatting in the break afterward. We talked about how Unbound was open to books that were a bit more unusual and cross-genre.
What did you work on together?
Unbound agreed to publish my debut novel, Into the Mouth of the Lion. It is a fast-paced mystery about a photographer going into the last days of Angola’s civil war, trying to find her missing sister. It is also a love story that crosses from 1960s Lisbon to London, and on to the highlands of Angola.
What was Unbound like to work with?
Unbound uses a crowd-funding model, which means the funding for the editing, cover, and printing of the first edition needs to be raised before the book can go ahead. It can seem daunting, but as an author who has worked all over the world, I reached out to my connections from my humanitarian experience and my photography. I managed to raise the funds fairly quickly. It was very moving to have the backing from friends, family, and strangers, supporting my book and helping it come into the world.
After that, Unbound were very professional, and I have really enjoyed all the colleagues who have worked on the book. I particularly love the cover design, made by Unbound’s art director (and fellow Byte the Book member), Mark Ecob (@mecobtweets on Twitter).
Into the Mouth of the Lion is published 6 May 2021 by Unbound, available on Amazon Bookshop.org.uk, and independent bookshops. Follow Amelia on @abkwriting on Twitter, or Abkyazze.com
Meet your next collaborator at Byte Confluence 2021. Click here to find out more and get your ticket.
More about Amelia.B. Kyazze
Amelia B. Kyazze is a writer, photographer, and editor based in southeast London. Her debut novel, Into the Mouth of the Lion, was published by Unbound in May 2021. Based on her notebooks and photographs from when she worked in Angola in 2002, the book is about a photographer searching for her missing sister at the end of Angola's civil war.
More background: for 18 years she worked with humanitarian aid organisations such as Oxfam, Save the Children and the British Red Cross. She travelled to more than forty countries documenting humanitarian crises and efforts to rebuild or prepare for future disasters. Her work took her to Angola, where Into the Mouth of the Lion is set, as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Darfur (Sudan), Uganda, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Nepal, India and many other countries across Africa, Asia and Southern Europe.
She also writes short stories, and Covid in Brixton, a light-hearted story about friendship during the time of the pandemic, was story of the month for the Byte Shorts showcase in May 2020. Another piece Rush Hour is included in the National Flash Fiction Day Anthology 2019 and a new story will be included in the 2021 Anthology In addition, she writes book reviews of children's literature.
She was encouraged to find that she was long-listed for the Mslexia Woman’s First Novel Prize 2017.
Amelia is a member of the Greenwich Writers Meetup, sharing drafts and tips with other writers. In January 2020 she started a new venture, Writing the 7 Senses, facilitating creative writing workshops for children and adults, in schools and at local festivals.
