I realised this morning that BETRAYAL is five years old. Well, it's been published for five years, the actual process was a lot longer. Twenty years ago, when I was fifteen, I had an idea for a story. I knew it was going to centre around a group of friends and a murder. I spent the whole weekend in my bedroom, when I should've been revising for my GCSE's writing a twenty page story that I called 'Thicker Than Water.'
Every now and then I'd go back to it, I'd make notes, I added extra characters, I moved them from some random house in a random place to some where I'd love to live, a penthouse in New York (no pesky estate agents to deal with). I glammed them up, I made them beautiful and I gave them all a motive to kill, then my tag line popped into my head 'flawlessly Beautiful, but fatally flawed'.
I kept going back to it every few months and almost a decade after I started writing it, I finished it at the age of twenty five (I had got married, had two kids and a job, so it wasn't like I was being lazy!!!)
What did I do to celebrate the completion of my book? I stuck it in a draw and let it gather dust, never thinking it'd see the light of day. That was OK, I'd done it, I'd written my book.
Then, in the winter of that same year, I went on a Caribbean Cruise and I came back with my head full of a new story, so I began writing what would become, Love Overboard.
I was more than happy writing away, I'd sent 'Thicker Than Water' off to a few agents and wasn't surprised to not hear anything, that was ok, I was writing because I love it.
A few years later a friend introduced me to a site called authonomy , writers would upload chapters of their book and you 'swap reads'. This site gave me lots of help and helped me make the plot of 'Thicker Than Water' a lot tighter. It's also when I changed the name, the previous title felt clumpy, I wanted a one word title and at some point in the book, all the characters feel betrayed, so 'Betrayal' it became.
I got really positive feedback about my books (I'd also uploaded the first few chapters of Love Overboard). Which gave me the confidence to think maybe I could make a go of writing.
I published it via Amazon as an Ebook (which would soon become kindle). Very slowly (and I mean snails pace slowly) it began to sell.
Once Love Overboard came out my sales began to rise again, very slowly. By the time I was getting towards the end of Love Overboard an idea popped into my head for a prequel /sequel to 'Betrayal.' Which was ace as I thought I was done with those characters, but there was a tiny bit of the plot in 'Betrayal', that I hadn't quite tied up....I'd love to say I did this on purpose, but I don't think I did!!!
So Twisted Sister arrived and I loved thinking of new characters to go with the existing ones. Never for once in a million years when I wrote those twenty pages in my bedroom, when I should've been revising for science, did I think I'd end up with two books out of those characters!!
Hot on the heels of 'Twisted Sister', came 'Famous and Shameless'. Which along with 'Betrayal' is my biggest seller.
So, five years after publishing my first book, some great reviews, rising sales and getting well on the way to establishing myself as an Indie author, I want to say thanks to everyone who has downloaded it, reviewed it, told a friend about it, you have helped me live my dream.
'Betrayal' is no longer gathering dust in a draw, it's in pride of place on my book shelf!!!
Every now and then I'd go back to it, I'd make notes, I added extra characters, I moved them from some random house in a random place to some where I'd love to live, a penthouse in New York (no pesky estate agents to deal with). I glammed them up, I made them beautiful and I gave them all a motive to kill, then my tag line popped into my head 'flawlessly Beautiful, but fatally flawed'.
I kept going back to it every few months and almost a decade after I started writing it, I finished it at the age of twenty five (I had got married, had two kids and a job, so it wasn't like I was being lazy!!!)
What did I do to celebrate the completion of my book? I stuck it in a draw and let it gather dust, never thinking it'd see the light of day. That was OK, I'd done it, I'd written my book.
Then, in the winter of that same year, I went on a Caribbean Cruise and I came back with my head full of a new story, so I began writing what would become, Love Overboard.
I was more than happy writing away, I'd sent 'Thicker Than Water' off to a few agents and wasn't surprised to not hear anything, that was ok, I was writing because I love it.
A few years later a friend introduced me to a site called authonomy , writers would upload chapters of their book and you 'swap reads'. This site gave me lots of help and helped me make the plot of 'Thicker Than Water' a lot tighter. It's also when I changed the name, the previous title felt clumpy, I wanted a one word title and at some point in the book, all the characters feel betrayed, so 'Betrayal' it became.
I got really positive feedback about my books (I'd also uploaded the first few chapters of Love Overboard). Which gave me the confidence to think maybe I could make a go of writing.
I published it via Amazon as an Ebook (which would soon become kindle). Very slowly (and I mean snails pace slowly) it began to sell.
Once Love Overboard came out my sales began to rise again, very slowly. By the time I was getting towards the end of Love Overboard an idea popped into my head for a prequel /sequel to 'Betrayal.' Which was ace as I thought I was done with those characters, but there was a tiny bit of the plot in 'Betrayal', that I hadn't quite tied up....I'd love to say I did this on purpose, but I don't think I did!!!
So Twisted Sister arrived and I loved thinking of new characters to go with the existing ones. Never for once in a million years when I wrote those twenty pages in my bedroom, when I should've been revising for science, did I think I'd end up with two books out of those characters!!
Hot on the heels of 'Twisted Sister', came 'Famous and Shameless'. Which along with 'Betrayal' is my biggest seller.
So, five years after publishing my first book, some great reviews, rising sales and getting well on the way to establishing myself as an Indie author, I want to say thanks to everyone who has downloaded it, reviewed it, told a friend about it, you have helped me live my dream.
'Betrayal' is no longer gathering dust in a draw, it's in pride of place on my book shelf!!!