I can't believe that in just eight days time, What She Saw - my debut thriller set in the Lake District - will be published!
In my last post, I mentioned I was getting nervous. Little did I know that a week later something would happen to make it all the more real.
This happened...
Yes, (on my birthday no less) a large box arrived and it was filled with beautiful paperbacks. What a birthday present! I took them out. I sniffed them. I stroked them. In fact, I did everything an author is meant to do when her book baby is finally in her hands. How proud I felt. Bursting with it, in fact.
But yesterday, I was even prouder when I was finally able to give a copy of What She Saw to each of my children and step-children at a family BBQ (even though all of them have already pre-ordered their own copies). One of my daughters started to read it there and then and was so engrossed in it she didn't move from the swing chair. She finished the book this morning and messaged me to say how much she loved it (she's a Katerina Diamond fan, so I'm chuffed). This was swiftly followed by a message from my step-daughter, telling me her husband had taken the book to bed with him and had woken her up this morning with the words, 'This book is really good'.
I've had over sixty reviews on NetGalley to date, and am delighted with them, but most book reviewers are women. I love that a guy likes my novel too!
The other thing that happened is that I received a fifteen minute clip of my audiobook to listen to. I just love the narrator. The strange thing was, it was such a different medium that it felt as though I was listening to someone else's book. When I came to the end of the clip and wanted to hear more, it was a huge relief. Imagine if I'd fallen asleep!
Last year, I was at Horsham Library listening to a talk by Katerina Diamond and her audio narrator Antonia Beamish, as part of Love Audio week. You can read about it here. I was brave and had a go at narrating when they asked for volunteers, but never did I think that a year later, it would be my own thriller that would be narrated.
My next post will be after publication day. Apologies in advance for any over excitement!
I look a bit serious, don't I? This is my 'I must concentrate or I'll get it wrong' face. I'd like to tell you that I'm in a recording studio narrating one of my story collections for Audible... but I cannot lie. I was in fact taking part in a demonstration of how to narrate as part of an afternoon talk at Horsham Library. The event was called 'Audiobook secrets' and was part of Love Audio week. It was put on by Harper Collins and audio book publishers, W F Howes.
It was writing chum Tracy Fells who suggested we went along (she likes to drag me out of the house at regular intervals) and I wasn't sure at first. I don't actually listen to audio books, preferring to read them in print, but then I remembered my husband listens to audio narrations every day on his hour drive to (and back from) work. He'd be interested to know how a book gets from print and into his car and I could report back.
So along we went to said library, not really knowing what to expect... but it was great!
For a start, I got to meet the lovely Katerina Diamond, author of the thriller 'The Teacher', who talked about her path to success. Apparently, she started off by writing film scripts but wasn't brave enough to do anything with them. Then luck shone on her when she won an opening chapter competition. This excerpt was to become the opening chapter of The Teacher. The prize was to finish the novel and be introduced to an agent. Unfortunately (for the agent as it turned out) they didn't like the end result but, undaunted, Katerina took it elsewhere and it was snapped up by agent, Diane Banks.
I also won a novel opening competition... hmm.
We then had a talk by professional narrator, Antonia Beamish. Before she was a book narrator, Antonia was an actress (playing Rita in Educating Rita for a European tour) but, before that, she ran off with a circus. Yes really! Apart from her lovely clear voice, what made the audio companies love Antonia was her skill with accents. As the only accent I can do is the one I was born with, I know that narration would not really be my thing! Antonia is the narrator for all of Katerina's novels, she read an extract from one of them and we were instantly transported.
We had coffee and cupcakes and then sound engineer, Lewis Hampson, asked if any of us would like to have a go at narrating. It involved reading a paragraph into a microphone, Lewis would do something clever at his end and then it would be played back to us. I just had to have a go. Of course everyone was listening, so I just had to pretend they were a class full of children otherwise I would have stammered and stuttered. When it was played back, it was actually perfectly okay but don't you just hate listening to your own voice?
All in all, it was a fabulous event. We had fun, we learnt a lot, we got a complimentary book of Katerina's to take home and it was free! What wasn't there to like. A big thank you to everyone involved.
