Byte the Book's Justine Solomons has been asked to part of the judging panel for the New Media Writing Prize. Here are some more detail if you are interested in entering:

Bournemouth University in association with if: book UK announces the eighth annual New Media Writing Prize, now open for entries

This international competition encourages writers working with digital media to showcase their skills. It also aims to provoke discussion and raise awareness of new-media storytelling. There are five awards: Best New Media Writing, Best Student, The Dot Award, and the Gorkana Journalism Awards.

THE PRIZES ARE:

• The if:book New Media Writing Prize: £1000 donated by if:book UK. The Unicorn Student Prize: 3 months paid internship at Unicorn Training, Bournemouth, UK, working with Unicorn’s writing and design team.
• The Dot Award: £500 to get develop a new project. Donated by if:book UK. Click here for more info
• The Gorkana Journalism Awards, donated by Gorkana. Two awards: the UK award, and the International award, both £500 for the winner.

The judging panels are looking for great storytelling (fiction or non-fiction) written specifically for delivery and reading/viewing on a PC or Mac, or a hand-held device such as an iPad or mobile phone. It could be a short story, novel, documentary, or poem, using words, images, film, or animation, with audience interactivity.

Whether you’re a student, a professional, or simply an enthusiast, anyone can apply. It's an international competition, open to all outside the UK. Entries must be in English.

The deadline is Friday November 24th 2017 12 noon GMT

Closing date for students is Friday 15th December 2017 12 noon GMT. 

Shortlisted entrants will be invited to the awards ceremony on the 17^th January 2018 where the winner will be announced. There will be substantial media coverage for the awards, and winners will be given full acknowledgement in all press releases and related material.

An esteemed panel of judges will select winning entries which will be published on the high profile new media web-hub, The Literary Platform, the Bournemouth University website and will be showcased at the Awards Ceremony in January 2018.

For full details on what we are looking for, and how to enter, please visit the New Media Writing Prize website.

Literary Death Match returns to Miranda at Ace Hotel London to celebrate the launch of their founder Adrian Todd Zuniga's debut novel (Collision Theory), by putting on a night of epically hiiarious, literary proportions that will have you tap-dancing on your chair (or, more likely, applauding). Preorder now!

What is Literary Death Match? Part literary event, part comedy show, part game show, Literary Death Match brings together four of today’s finest writers to compete in an edge-of-your-seat read-off critiqued by three celebrity judges, and concluded by a slapstick showdown to decide the ultimate champion.

JUDGES:
Literary Merit: Yassmin Abdel-Magied, blogger, activist, 2015 Queensland Young Australian of the Year, and author of the memoir Yassmin's Story
Performance: Twayna Mayne, comedian, star of her critically-acclaimed debut hour Black Girl (Soho Theatre, June 9-11) and a Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year 2016 nominee
Intangibles: Shenoah Allen, actor, writer, one half of the award-winning comedy duo Pajama Men

READERS:
Round 1:
* Aidan Truhen (pen name of a writer gone AWOL), author of critically acclaimed thriller The Price You Pay
* Anbara Salam, debut author of the novel Things Bright & Beautiful

Round 2:
* Chris Power, debut author of the short story collection Mothers, and his Brief Survey of the Short Story has appeared in the Guardian since 2007
* Irenosen Okojie, Betty Trask award-winning author of the novel Butterfly Fish and the short fiction collection Speak Gigantular

Hosted by LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga. 

Where: Miranda at Ace Hotel London, 100 Shoreditch High St, London, E1 6JQ (map)

When: 7:30pm sharp; Doors at 7pm
Cost: £7 preorder; £10 at the door
Byte The Book Discount: Use the code ByteTheBook for £2 off so tickets are £5
Tickets: available via Eventbrite here.

Byte Consultancy's Hermione Ireland was at the Quantum Conference on Monday 13th March, here's her report:

London Book Fair’s Quantum Conference runs the day before the book fair opens and is focused on some of the hot topics in the industry at the moment, particularly focused on consumer insights and making the most of social media platforms, as well as lots of data coming from the partnership with Nielsen. Knowing your consumer and giving them what they want was the main theme of the day and applies equally to publishers, booksellers and independent authors. For half of the day there were two sessions running concurrently and I didn’t attend any of the How it Works sessions but learnt some interesting lessons from industry experts both old and new.

A thorough overview of 2016’s book sales showed that the book market was buoyant for the second year running with audio growth still in double digits. 360 million books were bought in 2016 and while printed fiction was flat, non-fiction and kids print books were both up. And as we know, ebooks continued to fall although they now account for 25% of all books sold and are still selling strongly across several fiction genres, self-help and business books. The price of ebooks has risen and there was debate on whether Amazon’s self-published title sales have plateaued, although other conversations around the fair also question whether there are many unrecorded ebook sales out there. Bricks and mortar bookshops had a great 2016, up 4% but more books are still bought online by both volume and value. One slightly disturbing trend has been the fall in books bought by women over the last five years, attributed to a significant fall in books bought as gifts. The audio growth has largely driven the success of subscription services, while the same channel has not been significant for ebooks.

Sophie Corcut from GDR Creative Intelligence may work mainly with large FMCG and financial services clients with large budgets for both insights and brand campaigns but made some good points about the value of customer centricity. Don’t just know your customer, be your customer and partner with them, don’t just think about things like loyalty programmes. When using data on what your customers do, fail and repeat, don’t just keep looking at it. Even failing can show that a brand has a personality. She showed a brilliant US ad from Organic Valley, here.

The next session included examples that were much more useable to smaller publishing businesses. ‘Leveraging Data for Insightful Publishing’ included PRH’s Head of Insight, Louise Vinter and Lauren Romeo from Tekstum Solutions which extracts data from social media, but Flame Tree’s Nick Wells was a great advocate for small businesses testing ideas with their engaged customers. He uses Facebook and listens to his consumers more than the retailers (which got an appreciative laugh from the audience). They were agreed on the value of qualitative research over and above quantitative. Flame Tree are very focused on growing their mailing list and visits to their website - their use of metadata with book descriptions as well as tags has made a huge difference not just to site visits but also to direct sales. And PRH look at data to understand wider trends and use that understanding to put back into the business.

Sara Lloyd from Pan Macmillan and Katie Roden gave a great walkthrough Pan Mac’s 2016 Christmas campaign which was all about video. Wrapped with Love was about doing something that was focused on the audience rather than the titles but that was also sales driving, and that was charming enough to be shared. They came up with 15 short videos that were optimised for all platforms with the book up front but which was about personalising the wrapping of presents for different people in your life. They were able to test calls to action and paid media, and looked at audiences’ intentions rather than their demographics. Their click through rates far outperformed the norms on both Facebook and Outstream. Their main takeaway was that people love non-hard sales messages and videos that tell a story.

Continuing with the video theme, Lisa Sharkey from HarperCollins US and Erin Murray Manning from Facebook walked through HC’s use of Facebook Live, which they’ve been using since it’s launch last year. This is a great tool for any author with a reasonable following - their audiences want to engage with them in an authentic and real way, with handheld filming from phones being preferred significantly over expensive studio productions. HC have had 150 authors doing it so far with 11 million views and 290,000 reactions, and it’s free to use. Videos need to be from 15 minutes up to 45, audiences need to know you’ll still be online if they hear about it on the day.

The YA session chaired by Jane Harris from Bonnier explored the most literate generation ever. They discussed horror being the next big genre and how the young don’t want books on diversity, they want diverse books. The importance of social media and the way in which successful authors engage and immerse themselves in the platforms are not coincidental in its huge success in the last few years.

Two short presentations on social media (Charlie Cottrell from We are Social) - avoiding being a condescending brand, make your communications 80% emotional to 20% functional, and plotting what people are doing at every point in the day to make sure your comms are appropriate, and building communities (James Woolam, F&W Media) to whom you can then sell to/commission for both linked back to data and knowing your consumers. Video again was king as the content form of choice for how to communities.

The conference ended with a light hearted conversation between Nigel Newton and Dominique Raccah, moderated by Jacks Thomas. Nigel called this the golden age of independent publishing and said he’d never regretted setting up Bloomsbury. Lots of useful learnings for both publishers and independent authors throughout the day.

Words by Hermione Ireland and picture by Jasmin Kirkbride

The Westminster Media Forum is an invitation-only group including politicians, policy makers and people from industry, and is one of 16 run on different industries and sectors. Justine was invited to speak at one of their Keynote Seminars which was attended by people from the DCMS and the DIT amongst others to talk about book publishing and the wider creative market, with particular interest in cross-sector collaboration and copyright.

While Chatham House rules prevent me from naming the participants and sharing every point I can say that some of the topics were aimed at explaining to non-industry members how important the protection of copyright continues to be regardless of our EU membership and what other support the UK book publishing sector needs from government.

Diversity was a hotly discussed issue with criticism coming from those in other media sectors and, to be honest, more of the same discussion as has been heard recently at Futurebook and other events with little conclusive resolutions, although we are expecting to hear more from the Publishers Association shortly on work they have been doing. At the end of the day, publishers will have to walk a fine line between tokenism and just publishing more outside of their comfort zone - of 170,000 new titles published in the UK in 2016 only one was a debut title from a black British male author. Non-traditional events and media forms could well be an effective way of reaching previously under-addressed readers.

On copyright we were given an update from a copyright lawyer about the latest amendments currently on the table for the EU to bring into the existing Copyright Framework, most of which make little difference to the UK’s existing domestic laws which already reach further than those tabled; with the exception of allowing text and data mining for scientific research, which has currently only been allowed for non-commercial research in the UK - this would be a wider reaching amendment assuming that the research was in the public interest. Great transparency for authors and performers to get revenue information from licensees could also make a difference in the UK (and clearly be a positive move) but ultimately the whole exercise is only amending a directive not a law, so domestic legislation would be needed for it to be applied in the UK anyway. If the amendments are accepted at first go by the ministers in the European Parliament (not very likely I think), they would go through in two years but are likely to create a lot more uncertainties. The amendments would require resolution centres to be set up, particularly to deal with content creators’ attempts to get more information from their publishers.

Justine’s panel included some other friends and members of Byte the Book including the redoubtable Sam Missingham from Harper Collins and they discussed competing in the new content economy with a lot of discussion about hybrid authors who publish both with traditional publishers and on their own. Audiences, both knowing them and being able to reach them affordably, was a key topic of the day, with the Booksellers Association showing how high street retailers’ improved offerings to their communities has been one of the main reasons behind the impressive resurgence in the last ten years, possibly also helping the upturn of print books.

All parts of the industry from the Society of Authors through the Publishers’ Association to the Booksellers Association skirted round but alluded to the dominance of one big online retailer and the impact that all the players. A note to government, if they were listening.

There was criticism from a film industry representative who accused publishers of not making the most of successful film adaptations which frankly amazed me, as I can’t imagine why any publisher wouldn’t do everything they could to sell more books on the back of one, nor has it been my experience from inside a big publisher nor looking at the bestseller charts. And some from the gaming industry suggested we should be checking data  all the time, A/B testing books in small markets to see if characters should be changed and getting Amazon to share their information on how ebooks were read (because we haven’t thought of that ourselves). Some frustrating comments from those outside, but some valid criticisms too, about how long the traditional publishing chain takes to get books to market and about the lack of risk with new forms of storytelling. I think one of the fundamental lack of understanding from those in other sectors is how much books are not a collaborative product compared to films and video games, but as an industry we could undoubtedly learn more from outside, particularly finding better ways to reach our audiences and creating more for wider audiences that we currently do.

The brilliant people at Girl Friday Productions gave us some top tips on how to edit and also need some help from UK based editors.

Here's what they have to say:

Ten Tricks of the Trade

1. Look for the chronic problems. All writers have blind spots (and so do all editors). Once you’ve identified them, focus your attention there. It will make your job, as well as the author’s, easier.
2. Edit with economy. This is not to suggest that you shouldn’t make all the edits you think are warranted. However, keep in mind that a sea of red on the page can get an author’s defenses up before they’ve seen all the good work you’ve done. This means surgically editing instead of striking and recasting whole sentences. Also, using Word’s comment tool to suggest rewrites rather than making them straight on the line can help soften the blow and keep the author in control.
3. Respect the author’s style. This is one of the biggest concerns writers have about editing, that their style or voice will be lost during the editing process. You don’t want to rob an author of their voice, but you don’t want to allow confusing or just plain clunky writing in the name of “style.” It’s a fine balance to be sure. When offering suggested rewrites, make sure they adhere as closely to the author’s voice as possible.
4. Always be tactful and constructive. Authors are taking a risk in putting their art out into the world, and as their first critical reader, your tactfulness, clarity, and enthusiasm for their work is essential to developing a productive relationship.
5. Be specific and clear in your comments and queries. Clarity is essential to making an edit successful. Not only does it promote a smooth editorial process, but it helps guarantee that your message is received. Try to avoid more general comments such as “awkward,” and rather point out the specific error or errors.
6. Edit with the mindset of the first critical reader. In other words, shift your perspective from finding all the errors and issues to advocating for the reader—telescoping for the writer all the joy, excitement, and beauty a reader will find in their work, as well as any points of confusion, missed opportunities, or places where certain characters or narrative points could be better drawn or delineated.
7. Invite the conversation and propose solutions. Editing is nothing if not a conversation and collaborative process. And no editor is worth their salt if they don’t propose solutions and offer advice on how to fix what’s wrong.
8. Educate your author on editing vs. collaboration. Editors can do a great deal to restructure and polish a novel, short story, or memoir. They cannot make a bad writer into a good one. A ghostwriter on the other hand…
9. Avoid archetypes. Even Darth Vader had a softer side. Don’t let your writer create characters that are one-dimensionally evil (or good). This goes double for memoir.
10. Help create realistic dialogue. Characters, like people, don’t always use good grammar. However, they also rarely speak in meaningful soliloquies that conveniently further the plot! And don’t forget to educate on the proper use of dialog tags. 

GFP finds ourselves in need of some freelance editorial help in the UK. Fiction editors—copyeditors and proofreaders—wanted. Genre fiction, with emphasis on thrillers and historical fiction, as well as women’s fiction. You need to be familiar with New Hart’s Rules and OED, and willing to create solid style sheets and detailed timelines and character lists. Interested applicants should send their CV and a list of published works and publisher clients to copyteam@girlfridayproductions.com. Please put “UK applicant” in the subject line.

The brilliant people at Girl Friday Productions gave us some top tips on how to edit and also need some help from UK based editors.

Here's what they have to say:

Ten Tricks of the Trade

1. Look for the chronic problems. All writers have blind spots (and so do all editors). Once you’ve identified them, focus your attention there. It will make your job, as well as the author’s, easier.
2. Edit with economy. This is not to suggest that you shouldn’t make all the edits you think are warranted. However, keep in mind that a sea of red on the page can get an author’s defenses up before they’ve seen all the good work you’ve done. This means surgically editing instead of striking and recasting whole sentences. Also, using Word’s comment tool to suggest rewrites rather than making them straight on the line can help soften the blow and keep the author in control.
3. Respect the author’s style. This is one of the biggest concerns writers have about editing, that their style or voice will be lost during the editing process. You don’t want to rob an author of their voice, but you don’t want to allow confusing or just plain clunky writing in the name of “style.” It’s a fine balance to be sure. When offering suggested rewrites, make sure they adhere as closely to the author’s voice as possible.
4. Always be tactful and constructive. Authors are taking a risk in putting their art out into the world, and as their first critical reader, your tactfulness, clarity, and enthusiasm for their work is essential to developing a productive relationship.
5. Be specific and clear in your comments and queries. Clarity is essential to making an edit successful. Not only does it promote a smooth editorial process, but it helps guarantee that your message is received. Try to avoid more general comments such as “awkward,” and rather point out the specific error or errors.
6. Edit with the mindset of the first critical reader. In other words, shift your perspective from finding all the errors and issues to advocating for the reader—telescoping for the writer all the joy, excitement, and beauty a reader will find in their work, as well as any points of confusion, missed opportunities, or places where certain characters or narrative points could be better drawn or delineated.
7. Invite the conversation and propose solutions. Editing is nothing if not a conversation and collaborative process. And no editor is worth their salt if they don’t propose solutions and offer advice on how to fix what’s wrong.
8. Educate your author on editing vs. collaboration. Editors can do a great deal to restructure and polish a novel, short story, or memoir. They cannot make a bad writer into a good one. A ghostwriter on the other hand…
9. Avoid archetypes. Even Darth Vader had a softer side. Don’t let your writer create characters that are one-dimensionally evil (or good). This goes double for memoir.
10. Help create realistic dialogue. Characters, like people, don’t always use good grammar. However, they also rarely speak in meaningful soliloquies that conveniently further the plot! And don’t forget to educate on the proper use of dialog tags. 

GFP finds ourselves in need of some freelance editorial help in the UK. Fiction editors—copyeditors and proofreaders—wanted. Genre fiction, with emphasis on thrillers and historical fiction, as well as women’s fiction. You need to be familiar with New Hart’s Rules and OED, and willing to create solid style sheets and detailed timelines and character lists. Interested applicants should send their CV and a list of published works and publisher clients to copyteam@girlfridayproductions.com. Please put “UK applicant” in the subject line.

Words by Chris Russell, photos by Tamara Craiu

On the evening of Monday 14 November, Theresa May declared during her Mansion House speech that “we meet today in a world transformed … change is in the air”. Meanwhile, across town at Byte The Book, HarperCollins’ Sam Missingham (who would have a good shot at Prime Minister herself if the publishing industry were in charge) said to a packed house at the Groucho Club: “Writing and publishing books has never been more important in taking the moral high ground against fascism”. Which earned, quite deservedly, a resounding round of applause.

Our sponsors Ingram Content Group, who own Aer.io,  pictured here: Andrew Bromley and Ruth Jones

The subject on the table at November’s event was non-traditional sales and retail channels, and how they can be utilised to sell more books. Sam, who was chairing the discussion, opened the floor by asking the panel to talk briefly about what these non-traditional channels actually are. Popular book blogger Leena Normington explained it this way: the kind of people who attend Byte The Book probably self-identify as “bookish”; we go to bookshops, we actively seek out books and consider them central to our lifestyle. Non-traditional sales channels, she explained, are for everyone else. The people who “don’t know they want a book”, and maybe enter a bookshop once a year at Christmas, if at all. Ruth Jones, director of business development at the Ingram Content Group, echoed this sentiment, adding that one of the biggest challenges facing writers and the publishing industry today is attention span. In the online world, there is always some other nugget of content a customer can turn to, and it’s this alternative content that we’re competing against.

Our panel from left to right, Ruth Jones, Leena Normington, Sam Missingham (chair) and Alison Jones 

Publishing services specialist Alison Jones agreed, reflecting that “this economy runs on content … it's voracious, and it is never satisfied”. The challenge, she concluded, is figuring out how to reach your audience. Nothing happens without awareness and attention - and people rarely buy a book cold - but if you can find out who has the ear of the people you’re trying to reach, you’ll be halfway there.

The panel made us smile and we learnt lots too!

Ruth then moved on to discussing the role of aggregators: companies that open up the traditional publishing supply chain to individuals, allowing them to make their books available across multiple platforms. Ruth’s own company, Ingram, runs a popular service called Spark, where authors can sign up online, upload their files, pay a modest sign-up fee (which is waived when a certain number of books are ordered) and then sit back as their product appears across all the recognisable outlets, from Amazon to Kobo. The reader is offered a consumer experience they can be confident in, and the time-starved writer is freed up to return to their masterpieces. On this topic, Alison also name-checked a service called Overdrive, which does a similar job for the library sector, a route to market that indie authors often neglect.

Audience member, Radcliffe Harris (pictured here smiling in glasses and white shirt) was called upon to give insight into special sales at Harper Collins

Finally, Leena talked about her work as a booktuber, which began “largely out of boredom” but has grown into a hugely popular channel with over 40,000 subscribers. When she posts author interviews on YouTube, affiliate links direct readers to the Book Depository, and she earns a commission on each sale. The Book Depository is popular in the booktube community, chiefly on account of its free shipping policy, and Leena revealed that she often earns between £100 and £200 a month on commission (which, based on her cut of 5%, demonstrates that she’s helping to generate monthly sales in excess of £2000). When asked by writers in the audience for her tips on approaching booktubers, Leena stressed the importance of “organic” interaction. Rather than bombarding people with review requests, she advised becoming part of social media conversations, joining the community, and getting to know the tastes and reading habits of individual bloggers before approaching them.

Quite a bit of networking was done, a considerable amount of alcohol was consumed

All in all, Trump or no Trump, agreement was unanimous. In a changing, unpredictable world, we need great books and inspiring stories more than ever before.

If you enjoyed this report and want to keep up with the latest happenings in publishing as well as network with publishers and authors alike keep yourself posted by visiting our events page here. You can join us from £30 a quarter here

More photos can be found on our Facebook Page

1. As a 'hybrid' author whose non-fiction work is traditionally published you have experienced the benefits of both publishing routes. What, to you, are the benefits of publishing your own work independently?

The main benefit is how speedily one can get a book into the market place and see it in print. I was thinking about Indie publishing - but had done nothing about it – at the beginning of 2016. On a whim, I attended a workshop, run by Clays, on February 4^th. This made up my mind to go for it, and my novel came out on June 10^th! The other huge benefit is the control you have. I love Who’d Have Thought It? more than any other book I’ve written, and I’m sure this is because I’ve made all the decisions about it myself, and feel that it is truly mine. This might sound slightly pathetic, but I just love looking at, and touching, the finished product!

2. What was behind your decision to go down the indie publishing route for your novel?

Although I had written a novel before, it was 29 years ago! In the meantime, I had penned more than a dozen self-help and other non-fiction books. All the publishing people I’d worked for therefore – who include Piatkus, Hodder and Quercus - were in that area. I did contact one or two fiction editors, and indeed agents, but this was taking up a huge amount of time - and it was time I didn’t feel I wanted to waste. Meanwhile, I had friends and colleagues who, like me, had been conventionally published for years but who had ventured into indie publishing. I was inspired and influenced by them.  

3. Why did you decide you wanted your book in print?

I believed in this manuscript and very much wanted it to be a paperback. For a start, the story is about mid-life people and I think readers of that age – of whom I am one – have a preference for the feel and smell of a real, physical product. Having said that, I wouldn’t  be without my Kindle and never get on a train without it. But, like many readers, I feel there’s nothing like the thrill of being in a lovely book store, and I very much want to support the people who run them. I also wanted to produce a delightful book that someone might buy for a friend.

4. There are many indie print services, what made you choose Clays?

I have been familiar with Clays for more than 30 years. When I was a news presenter for Anglia Television, they were a major firm in our patch. And at one time, I lived very near  their factory. Also, many of my published books were printed by them – notably my Hodder self-help books. But it would not have occurred to me that such a traditional firm might have ventured into indie publishing – I learned that they had through the wonderful organisation, the Alliance of Independent Authors (Alli). I found all my experts through their website, and was overjoyed to see the name of Clays listed under ‘printing’. It just felt right to go with them and I could not be more pleased with the result.  

The cover of Christine Webber's book, Who'd Have Thought It

5. You also have an e-book. Why do you think it is important to have both e and p, and how do you think they work in collaboration?

I just think that it’s essential to offer both formats, though as yet I’m not sure which will be more successful for me.

6. As an indie author, you are responsible for the entire manuscript to market process, how did you navigate this?

I mentioned Alli in an earlier answer; I could not have coped without them. At every step of the way, I sought support and ideas from other members of the group and I used the Alli website to find everyone I needed to help make this product a reality.

Also, both Georgina Aldridge and Rebecca Souster at Clays have been marvellous. I am sure they must have been fed up with all my queries, but they never showed it. Amazing

7. You used professionals throughout the publishing process such as proof reading, cover design and typesetting. How much do you think using professionals enhanced the final product?

It would be madness to do this without professionals. Having said that, I know indie authors who are total whizz kids at technology, who do their own formatting and know how to put their own book online. I am in awe of them and their skill – but I don’t have it. If I had to learn how to do all that stuff as well, I’d never find time for writing.   

The crucial expert, I think, is a good editor and proof reader. I found an absolute marvel in the shape of Helen Baggott (through Alli, naturally). I paid for three reads with her. That was money very well spent. Like many writers, I have always prided myself on producing clean manuscripts, but Helen picked up little mistakes that I had failed to notice. In an ideal world, I’d persuade her to live with me so that I could run queries past her morning, noon and night! Her knowledge is phenomenal. I was so fortunate to find her.

After my work with Helen, I moved on to the typesetting process with a company called BORN. They were wonderful to deal with. So helpful, and efficient – and I really want to pay particular tribute to Daniel Knight who worked on my book. He could not have been more patient.

As for the jacket, as we all know – and contrary to the old saying - we do judge a book by its cover. And I found a wonderful designer in Jane Dixon-Smith (another Alli member). She too was very sympathetic and tolerant. It took a while to arrive at exactly what I wanted, but she helped me get there, and everything I asked of her, she did. I loved working with her. I adore my cover. And I will definitely use her again, if she can bear it!  

Christine Webber at her book launch earlier this year

8. What impact has using professional services had on your indie publishing experience?

I was determined that Who’d Have Thought It? would look as professional as any traditionally published novel. I believe I have achieved that, which makes me very happy indeed.

9. One area you didn't need any help was in publicity, creating a fantastic schedule of radio and TV interviews, blog appearances and magazine articles. How important do you think creating your own publicity is as an author?

It is vital – but not easy! I mentioned the skills of different authors earlier on. Unlike many of them I’m no expert in the technological areas, but promotion is something I’m quite good at. This is partly because I’ve worked in theatre, television and journalism – and basically if you are to survive and thrive in any of those careers you have to be able to sell yourself, in the nicest possible way! Also, I do know a lot of broadcasters, and almost all of the ones I contacted were keen to interview me about the new book. My novel is set in East Anglia so I have enjoyed most of my publicity there. I had two TV interviews – one of which was at my old station, Anglia TV – and some good print journalism and extensive radio feature slots.  

I also had a brief mention in The Guardian when I agreed, with my psychotherapist hat on, to do some quotes for a journo. And so, I suppose you could say I have maximised my contacts. On top of that, several indie authors, including Jane Davis, Carol Cooper, Victoria Goldman and Maggie Christensen, very kindly featured me in blogs. The indie community is very supportive, but of course you need to be supportive in return. Also, Bel Mooney – who has often recommended my self-help books – wrote a really lovely post on her Facebook Writing Page about the novel. I was thrilled with that.

In a nutshell, if you don’t tell people about your book, you’ll be unlikely to sell it. It’s as simple and as difficult as that. But it can be time-consuming and expensive. However, what authors should remember is that local press and radio stations need to fill their pages and websites and schedules with interesting material. And you may well be able to provide that. So always ask. You might get lucky!  Also, you must be active on social media. I don’t have huge numbers of followers on Twitter, or masses of friends on Facebook, and plenty of people reading this could probably teach me a thing or two, but I find what I do have works quite well. 

10. What would be your one stand out piece of advice from your indie publishing experience to others embarking on the same journey?

Make your book as good as it can be, then use all the experts you can afford to make it even better.

==============================================================

You can buy Christine's book, Who'd Have Thought It from Amazon here

You can find out more about Clays indie publishing services on there their website here, or get in touch with Rebecca Souster at rebecca.souster@clays.co.uk  or on 02079026474 or georgina.aldridge@clays.co.uk  or on 02079026288.

Words by Chris Russell, photos by Nicole Kavanaugh.

Children’s publishing came under the microscope at Byte The Book’s September event, in the plush surroundings of Regent Street's Café Royal. Jo Henry (VP of Insight & Analytics at Nielsen) chaired a discussion between three diverse industry experts: Jane Harris, a publisher at Bonnier Fiction; Arabella Stein, a senior agent at Bright Group International; and Louie Stowell, an in-house author at Usborne.

Our sponsors Nielsen from left to right: Mo Siewcharran, Anne-Claire Woodfield, Hazel Kenyon and Jo Henry

So what, currently, is the role of digital in children’s publishing? Arabella opened the floor by stating that digital’s role changes incredibly quickly, and what was true yesterday may not be true today, and certainly won’t be tomorrow. “We’re still at an exploratory stage,” she said, and while authors’ hearts do generally still lie with the physical editions of their books, the benefits of digital when it comes to marketing and promotion are obvious to all. Jane argued that children’s publishing has recently experienced a renaissance, and this is something that digital can only enhance. Publishers, she said, need to “experiment and investigate” as much as possible.

Our panel from left to right: Arabella Stein, Louie Stowell, Jane Harris and Jo Henry

Louie then spoke about the use of digital in schools. Her projects with Fiction Express have included episodic educational stories where students vote on multiple choice cliffhanger endings, and these have proved enormously popular. She’s noticed that these stories attract comments from children along the lines of “I hate reading, but I love this!”, and observed that this kind of digital interaction really helps young people to feel invested in a narrative. Arabella also extolled the virtue of digital in schools, explaining that books on tablets are particularly helpful for children who struggle with their reading skills. On a digital device, students can’t tell how far through the book their peers are, and this helps diffuse the competitive element that can often creep into class-time reading. Expanding on this, Jane pointed out that digital has been a huge boon for dyslexic readers, children from disadvantaged backgrounds and boys in general, the latter of whom respond much better to the “cool factor” of tech gadgets than they do to traditional books.

Another sell out event

Finally, the panel discussed some digital marketing Dos & Don’ts for authors. “The key thing is authenticity,” stressed Jane, “especially when it comes to the teen market”. Teenagers, she explained, are extremely discerning, and they don’t like being sold to, or patronised. Arabella agreed, adding that teens are obsessive about finding out the “inside story” behind the book. They like to feel they “know” the author, and social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram provide all the tools a writer needs to facilitate this process. Louie reminded the audience that the immediacy of social media, while fantastic for connecting with readers, can also be dangerous, and that publishers should seek to invest in some level of media training for all their authors. You only need to say the wrong thing once, and the world will know about it.

Plenty of opportunity for networking

So what’s the future for digital in the world of children’s publishing? Hybrid formats. Augmented reality. Ever more bespoke reading tools, designed to ensure that every child, regardless of background or ability, can benefit from the power of storytelling. Deeper and more sophisticated author-reader interactions through social media. Dinosaurs coming to life on the page.

And that’s just the beginning…

Thanks once again to our sponsors:

If you enjoyed this report and want to keep up with the latest happenings in publishing as well as network with publishers and authors alike keep yourself posted by visiting our events page here. You can join us from £30 a quarter here

More photos can be found on our Facebook Page

Words by Chris Russell, photos by Zoe Sharples.

The Groucho Club was packed wall-to-wall for Byte The Book’s ‘back to school’ event, which set out to tackle the sticky issue of how authors can generate book sales. Chair Stuart Evers, Community Manager at Netgalley and himself a prize-winning author, led a lively discussion between David Headley (literary agent and owner of Goldsborough Books), Orna Ross (author and founder of The Alliance Of Independent Authors) and Matthew Lynn (author, Daily Telegraph columnist and founder of Endeavour Press).

Our sponsors Clays, in the front row from left to right Vicky Ellis and Rebecca Souster (with author Carol Cooper) and behind them from left to right Greg Manterfield-Ivory, Kate McFarlan and Paul Hulley

Stuart opened the floor by asking each panellist for their top sales tips for authors. “Be yourself,” recommended David, pointing out that, when it comes to social media, authenticity is key. Think of your writing as a business, he added, but don’t act like a salesperson, as readers will see straight through this. Orna advised writers to develop a clear sense of who their target readers are, and then consider why those readers would want to open the book in the first place. Once you’ve defined your audience, you can speak directly to them, and carve out a niche (she also pointed out that while any individual niche may seem like a limited market, in an eBook industry that allows you to sell globally, a niche can prove lucrative in the long run). Meanwhile, Matthew advised authors to “be relentless”, and remember that a book may take months, years, even decades to reach its true sales potential. Although traditional publishers often give up on books rather early in their shelf lives, in the eBook world a novel can be given a fresh marketing push every three or four months, for an indefinite period, until it finally reaches tipping point.

Our panel from left to right, David Headley, Orna Ross, Stuart Evers (chair) and Matthew Lynn

Next, Stuart flipped the discussion on its head and asked the panellists for some advice on what not to do when selling a book. Matthew warned writers against allowing marketing and promotion to cut into their writing time. “One of the best things you can do to promote your current work is to get on with your next one,” he explained, adding that “the machine likes to be fed”. He also pointed out that bandwagoning - the practise of trying to follow the latest trend, be it ‘chick-noir’, say, or YA dystopia - is usually a mistake, as by the time your book makes it to market, readers may well have moved on. David echoed this sentiment, suggesting that writers are much better off finding one genre they write well, and sticking to it. He admitted that not all authors are able to do this, of course, and Orna agreed. “There are no rules here,” she reflected, “and there is no one thing that’s right for all authors”. She did have some top tips for things to avoid, however: “Don’t be boring, don’t be obvious and don’t try to please everybody”.

Another sell out event

A significant portion of the evening was spent on the importance of book jackets. “Quite simply, jackets sell books”, said David, adding that a book must deliver on the promise made by the cover. The reader must be able to trust that the image on the front matches the story inside. Matthew picked up on this point, suggesting that part of the reason novelists need cover designers is that they are too close to their own work to objectively judge the cover art. Writers tend to worry too much about representing the themes of the book, he said, when the primary function of a jacket is actually to signify to the reader “this is a book like X”. Orna added that, in the modern marketplace, cover art must be just as readable in thumbnail format as it is at full-size. If your book doesn’t pop online, it might not pop at all.

Byte the Book is always about networking

Selling books has never been easy, but the difference today is that you don’t have to be on the high street or part of a multinational corporation to do it - you can sell books from your living room. The real challenge, concluded Orna, is maintaining interest in books when there’s so much other media out there to consume reader attention. At a time when bookstores are closing all over the country, it’s up to the entire industry to raise our game, whether that game’s online, in a publishing house or on the good ol’-fashioned shop floor.

If you enjoyed this report and want to keep up with the latest happenings in publishing as well as network with publishers and authors alike keep yourself posted by visiting our events page here. You can join us from £30 a quarter here

More photos can be found on our Facebook Page