The House of Clementine

 

How we came to publish this one

This is the fourth novel in my Peace Child series. Book 1, The Prophecy was the novel that formed part of my PhD thesis: Peace Child, Towards a Global Definition of the Young Adult Novel. It was the first time I’d written for YA and the first time I’d written SF. The SF was a way of exploring society and the novel interacted with the theory of what a YA novel was. I researched this by reading a lot of YA novels in many languages and in other Englishes and examining their publishing and labelling  process.

I’m actually almost at the end of the edits of my sixth Peace Child novel. There is one more to come and there is one waiting in the wings to be published                

The title

All of the Peace Child novels have a very strong sideways sub plot. This one here is of that of the House of Clementine which started off innocently enough: a family became good at growing clementine and soon become a dynasty. Corruption set in The House of Clementine can never be fully inclusive. It has an outside. This is also important in the novel I am currently finishing.                                                                 

Some notes about the process

Although I own the publishing company this still went through all the normal processes.

The cover

The book is illustrated throughout by Ashleigh James, my older daughter. She has                       provided the cover of all of the Peace Child novels.  

Some notes about style

I’m told I have a very simple style and I believe in plain English. I believe there is good use of the senses in this book and that helps to portray the setting. I have tried to maintain a good narrative balance.

Who we think the reader is

As we have published through The Red Telephone we’re primarily seeing this as a Young Adult novel. It is at the older end of that. There is romance and implicit sex. Certainly those adults who enjoy reading young adult books ought to like this.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

What else

All of the Peace Child books grapple with current issues. In this one a president wants to build a barrier around his planet. However he is not orange and he is quite young and slim. He does indeed though have a special relationship with the House of Clementine. As with all of the Peace Child books a sub-plot includes or seems to include the supernatural.  

Review copies

It’s always great if you can buy the book and give us a review. Just click on the link to be taken to our bookshop. If you would like to review and you are strapped for cash, just get in touch for a free PDF. 

Find your copy here 

 

Don’t Resubmit Too Soon

 It’s always rather fascinating for me: writers complain about publishers and publishers about writers. As I am both a writer and a publisher I can see both sides. That actually helps me, as a writer, better to understand and tolerate rejection.

 

Rejections that publishers are reluctant to make

Recently Mslexia surveyed writers and publishers and identified a couple of forms of rejection that publishers are now less willing to make. The “we would welcome seeing future work” one and also the sort that goes into some detail about why exactly a piece isn’t quite right.

 

What not to do

There is often a knee-jerk reaction to these from the writers. In the first instance they immediately send another piece of work. In the second they do a quick edit and send the work back a couple of weeks later.

 

This isn’t the best way to proceed. Very little has changed. The publisher has to reject again and perhaps contrary to normal expectation we actually don’t like doing that. This may even have the effect of us deciding not to look at any more work from that writer: they’re not understanding how this process is working.

 

The six month gap

We’ve started adding something about “six months” to those sort of rejections.

 

If you just dig out another piece of work that you have filed away on your computer, the chances are that it will contain similar faults to the one we’ve just rejected. If you only take two weeks to revise something you’re probably not going into enough depth.

 

For our CaféLit site we can only take one story a day although we often see several more that are publishable. Rights remain with the author anyway and we welcome simultaneous submissions. We keep around thirty-four submissions on file just in case we have some barren days and then we “decline” with a note that if you’ve not found a publisher in six months to try resubmitting. Writers who revisit their work before sending it out again may make that story that little bit stronger so that next time round it is the one that we’re compelled to publish that day.

 

 

What you might do

We often receive submission for children’s books where the writer hasn’t got the length, the subject matter, the language or the tone quite right. There is no quick fix for this. In many such cases, the writer needs to read about a hundred books for the target reader to understand how those books really work.

 

Many other books as well have some weaknesses and it’s possible that the next book will be better but also important that the writer spends a little more time on developing their craft.  

 

So, if you’re rejected but the publisher has been positive about your work, put it away for a while and carry on developing as a writer.                 

 

A Word About Spacing

 

One of the most difficult jobs we have when turning a Word document into the text that will eventually be published is making the spacing right. There are several considerations here:

Extra spaces at the beginning of sentences?

No. This goes back to the days of the typewriter. It used to be the norm to put in an extra space before you started a new sentence. This isn’t needed now. The fonts are balanced in such a way that it is very clear from the upper case letter at the beginning of the sentence that we are now on to something new. This is relatively easy to fix and we have a computer programme that does this. However, even that takes a finite time to run and if you get it right in the first place you save us time.

 

Paragraph and section breaks

Paragraphs should normally be indented except where a new section begins. As we do the first stage of book design, we your text in Word on to another Word document where all the parameters and styles are set, paragraph and section breaks may look different. We’re never sure whether you want your work to look the way it looks on your page or the way code embedded in the text makes it look. To be really sure, it’s best to use the Word paragraphing tool. First paragraphs should have no indent and subsequent ones should have 0.5 inches on an A4 sheet.  

 

 

 

Levels of section breaks

There really is only one level though some writers try to force an extra one by having normal paragraph breaks and some divided by a line of stars or points. The latter should only be used if the section break comes at the top or bottom of a page. E- books don’t like them anyway and they kind of become irrelevant as readers pick their own fonts and size of fonts so the pages are different for every reader. If one section break is more relevant than another it may be better to use a subtitle.      

Blocking text

We still block text. This was done in books originally to stop ink accumulating at the side of the page. On the whole texts are now produced digitally so in theory there is no need for this. It is easier in fact to read texts with ragged right; texts are often left like this for early readers, academics and publishers. And on computer screens. You may like to work out why. Blocking spreads the text across the page and if an unnoticed extra space slips in it can make the page look very odd.

 

Avoiding rivers, orphans, widows and runts

Our programme helps us to avoid these.

Rivers this is where you can see a ‘river’ as you look at the gaps between words going down the page. It can distract you form reading

Widows A paragraph-ending line that falls at the beginning of the following page or column, thus separated from the rest of the text. Mnemonically, a widow is "alone at the top" (of the family tree but, in this case, of the page).

Orphans A paragraph-opening line that appears by itself at the bottom of a page or column, thus separated from the rest of the text. Mnemonically, an orphan is "alone at the bottom" (of the family tree but, in this case, of the page).

Runts A word, part of a word, or a very short line that appears by itself at the end of a paragraph. Mnemonically still "alone at the bottom", just this time at the bottom of a paragraph. Orphans of this type give the impression of too much white space between paragraphs.

 

Our software can only do this for the hard copy of the book. Those who read e-books may reintroduce them as they change font and font size.

 

Avoiding hyphenated words

Blocking can lead to some words being hyphenated at the end of lines. Our programme determines that there are between very few and none. However if we eliminate them altogether, some blocked lines can look very “stretched”.       

 

We often find that authors query our spacing yet they read books with this sort of spacing all the time. They’re only noticing it now because they’re looking at the text more closely.     

 

The Life of Our Books

 

No two of our contracts are exactly alike but all of them contain a clause about when the rights revert to you. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the book has to go out of print at that point and if the book is still viable and you haven’t requested that we take it out of print, we’re happy to keep it going. In fact, that tends to be the default.

I mentioned recently the difference between us using Ingram or Amazon KDP for paperbacks. In fact, we incur no annual expense for Amazon KDP and can keep those books going forever.

It costs us £8.40 a year to keep an Ingram’s book going

Even if you request us to withdraw your book form print, we can still print you author copies if you so wish. We can’t do the same for Amazon KDP. If we take it out of print we can no longer print it. There is always the option in both cases anyway of keeping the e-book going.

One of the advantages of Ingram is that we can continue to provide author copies even if we take the book out of print.

Amazon KDP has two advantages: making export of books easier and not incurring an annual fee.

 Note, even if by mutual agreement we take your book out of print it is likely still to a appear in all sorts of places. The book remains in some of the supply chains still and some retailers are still able to source copies that are out there.

If you ask us to take your book out of print and you go to another publisher, that version of the book will get a new ISBN anyway. So, it is very much a different book. Amazon and other retailer sites will often show multiple editions of a title.  

Navaselva, The Call of the Wild Valley

 

How we came to publish this one

Author Georgina Wright was originally a client of Debz Hobbs-Wyatt and Debz recommended this book for The Red Telephone. I agreed that the writing is beautiful and the theme very pertinent to our life today.     

The title

Navaselva is Georgina’s own invention. It is based on her a ‘not quite so wild’ region in Spain. You can read more about it here.  

Some notes about the process

Georgina had pretty well gone through a full structural edit with Debz, so our team only needed to do the copy edit, and the five usual proof-reads.  

The cover

The book is illustrated throughout by Ruth Koeningsberger, We’ve given a special  finish to the cover picture so that it looks textured.  

Some notes about style

Georgina uses a very lyrical voice. She give us a very strong sense of time and place.

Who we think the reader is

As we have published through The Red Telephone we’re primarily seeing this as a Young Adult novel. One of the main characters Jo Ray is in fact a young adult. The story could also comfortably be read by younger teens. Certainly an adult readership that is interested in ecology would also enjoy the novel.     

What else

Georgina has arranged a series of events and we’re even thinking of including one that involves a choir. This is a hot topic so is of interest to many.

Review copies

It’s always great if you can buy the book and give us a review. Just click on the link to be taken to our bookshop. If you would like to review and you are strapped for cash, just get in touch for a free PDF.

 

Grab your copy here.       

Soft Lauch, Hard Launch?

 

Three people have asked about this recently so I thought it would be useful to go over it here. You may find it interesting that in our work patterns and on tracking sheets we also name these “Pre-market” and “Post production”.

The soft launch happens as soon as the book is ready to go. Note it generally won’t really be out in the world for about four to six weeks. This is why I often suggest a launch for the final Thursday of the month in which we “hard launch”.  Thursday, early evening, is a traditional time for book launches. The last Thursday in the month is a safe bet.

By “soft launch” time the book has had two proof reads, we have seen a hard copy and the Kindle book is up and running. We’ve put it into our online bookshop. We’ve registered it with Nielsen’s – a really important step in making it available.

They used to reckon that from registration with Nielsen’s it would take up to fifteen days for the book to reach all databases. Post-Covid that has become six weeks. You may now appreciate why there is a gap.

At the point of soft launch we provide you with four different copies of the cover – small, medium, full and 3D, two files for e-readers, a PDF, an order form so that you can buy author copies and an updated version of our marketing plan for authors.

The soft launch period is an ideal time to start getting reviews and persuading friends, family, fans and followers to buy.

By the time of “hard launch” the book should be widely available on all online platforms – Amazon, Waterstones, Tesco and all book shops can order it through their normal distributor / wholesaler.  Hopefully it will already have several reviews.   

The failsafe is that customers can always order directly from us.    

Good News ...?

 

This was quite a tricky one this year. We were kind of asking you to write about good news that wasn’t perhaps good news after all. In any case, here is the final list.

Anna's Secret Mission                                    Sara Knapp

Cinderella Rising                                               Penny Rogers

Doc's Last Trip                                                    Ian Inglis

Far from the Poppy Fields                            Gillian Brown

Floored                                                                Fiona Ritchie Walker

Fran's Birthday Party                                      Veronica Robinson

Helping Angel                                                    Peter Collins

Hero                                                                      Mike Wilson

Impossible Promise                                        Barrington Gordon

Janet, More Than a Friend                           Lynne English

Mistaken Identity                                            Liz Cox

Ms Tidy                                                                Keith Willson

Once Upon a Time in America                    Nick Padron

The Changing Pool                                           Mark Tulin

The Day IInternet Died                                  Boris Glikman

The End of the Beginning                             S. Nadja Zajdman

The Hymn of the Bees                                   Andrea Stephenson

The Liberations of Cassie Youmans          Norman Thomson

The Litter                                                             Jeanne Davies

The Pursuit                                                         Michael Noonan

The Silver Card                                                  Seth Pilevsky

Time to say goodbye                                      Karítas Hrundar Pálsdóttir

Where the Land Ends                                     Clare Dean

White Elephant                                                 Tom Kirkbright

 

 Read more here about how we selected the stories.

 

Debz and I separately awarded each text points for the story, how well the story fitted the theme, the quality of writing and professionalism. The writers’ identities were hidden from us at the time.

Story: This must have a beginning, a good story arc and a satisfying ending. Is there tension and pace?  Are characters well developed? 

Theme: As many of you know we take a vaguely Christmassy theme and hope that you will subvert it. Yes, this was a little tricky this time.

Quality of writing: Does the writing flow? Is there a strong voice? Is there a good balance of longer and shorter sentences? Is there overall a good narrative balance? Does sentence structure work well?

Professionalism: We often find that writers who present their work professionally are easy to work with. Have you followed the instructions on formatting? Is dialogue set out correctly? Are there no or very few typos, grammatical mistakes and spelling mistakes? Is the paragraphing  correct?      

 

We then both did a rank order. Every story that appeared in both of our top twenty-four made it into the anthology. That was fourteen in total. Then we took the next off mine, then the next off Debz’s and so on. All of these stories were in our top forty-eight. When we deanonymised the texts we found we had two stories by one writer so we picked the next one in the list to replace the lower ranked one.

And there we have it. We are now into editing the texts and a handful of stories have already been filed in the “Final” box.