Top Three Ways to Support Local Writers for FREE

I get it, books are expensive. As much as you want to buy books, there’s bills to pay, kids to be feed, and you’d really like a pair of sneakers without holes so you can walk your dog through puddles without having squelchy socks afterwards – or is that just me?

So you might have found yourself asking: 

How can I support local authors for free? 

Good news, there is a number of easy ways that you can help your favourite local authors without spending cold hard cash. 

Here's my Top 3 Ways to Support Local Writers for FREE 

 

Number 1: Visit Your Local Library.

Libraries want to provide books that their members – that’s You – want to read.

And speaking from personal experience Libraries are extremely supportive of local authors.

[I am certainly Thankful to my local library the Dunedin Public Library for all the support they’ve given me and my fellow Dunedin Speculative Fiction Writers as pictured below]

The DPL Hosts Dunedin Speculative Fiction Writers' Panel "Genre8: Flights of Fantasy"

So go in and find out if your local library stocks the books of your local author – if not, find out how you go about recommending a book. Yes, that’s right, You can recommend books to libraries!

And when they get the book in, or if they all ready have the book on the shelf BORROW it. 

The Dunedin Public Libraries display a Collection of Local Authors books acquired during 2018

This may seem obvious, but actually borrowing a book from a library helps your favourite local author because here’s the thing, libraries keep stats on how many times books are read and authors get paid via a library fund system if their book reaches a certain threshold.

So if you feel badly that you can’t afford to buy a book, by actively borrowing those books from libraries you are still helping your local author. Win-win.

And you know what? Even though you don’t own the book, You can still write a review for the book on Goodreads.

Number 2: Join Goodreads.

What’s Goodreads? I’m glad you asked...

"Goodreads is the world's largest site for readers and book recommendations. Our mission is to help people find and share books they love."

After joining go look up your favourite authors and hit the Follow Button on their author profile page. As per the example below of local Dunedin writer Deb E Howell:

Then go through their books and add them to your hypothetical To-Be-Read pile by clicking the Want to Read button.

If you’ve already read those books even better, Click Read, and give a star rating.

Undoubtedly the best thing and most supportive is to Write A Review at this stage. A star rating is nice, but reviews get noticed, reviews count, reviews are worth three times their weight in gold.

Relax though, this isn’t hard.

Reviews don’t have to be a grandiose statement of delightful prose discussing the finer points of theme, whimsy and narrative arc versus narrative drive. They can be, but they don’t have to be.

A review can be a comment “I enjoyed this book a lot”. You’re not expected to write an essay, this isn’t a school report, just say what appealed to you. Was it funny? Sad? Who was your favourite character? Do you want to read their next book?

Trust me, Writers love feedback. Think about it, have you even had a compliment from a stranger? It makes your day, right? Same for writers. Even a simple line like, “This book made me see my city in a whole new light” will make an author’s day. Your single line review might be the difference between someone giving up or not. Seriously. You have that power.

example of a brief review that made my day :)

[By the way, If you do want to learn how to write reviews, read my Guide: How to Write A Book Review ]

Number 3: Social Media.

But maybe you’re not a member of Goodreads, maybe you don’t read all that much and just want to help your writer friend.

Well, even in this high-tech-age, it turns out that good old-fashioned ‘Word-of-Mouth’ is still valid and helpful way to support local authors, and Thanks to Social Media it’s easier than ever.

Take a photo of their book (which you borrowed from the library, or saw on the shelf in a bookshop, or perhaps you did buy a copy) and share that photo of the book cover on Your social media.

Maybe a quick post on Facebook/Instagram with “Here’s a good book I read recently” or “Here’s a book my friend wrote, you might like it” – this is something my friends have done and I’m extremely grateful. 

 

Speaking of Social Media, don’t forget: Find your local author friend on various social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest etc etc and FOLLOW them, but more than that ACTIVELY ENGAGE by liking, commenting and sharing their posts.

So that’s it, my Top Three Ways to Support Local Writers for FREE and none of that was hard, right? No money spent but plenty of support given.

You can do it! And if You have, as one author, may I say Thank You! Thank You, Readers everywhere!

Because at the end of the day Writers and Readers are a partnership, and I for one am grateful to have You on My team.

Now go read something, I’ve writing to do.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kura Carpenter is a Dunedin Fantasy Author 

and Founding Member of the 

Dunedin Speculative Fiction Writers' Group. 

Follow her on Facebook | Goodreads | Instagram | Pinterest 

Author Interview: LP Ring

LP RING author

Today I’m chatting with LP Ring author of Korean Crime Thriller Senior Inspector Choi series, Ring’s second novel in the series Long Snake Moan is just about to be released in Oct. Available Amazon HERE

Liam, you mention on GoodReads that there are 5 novels in your Senior Inspector Choi series. So, are you a plotter or a pantser? Are these all planned out in advance?

When I started out I knew who the characters were and what would happen to them. I also had an idea of how these events came about and the themes I wanted to discuss within the stories – the crimes being investigated reflect some of my views on society and the importance of a country’s history. However, I freely admit that characters have a habit of doing things I don’t always expect them to do, so it’s entirely possible that Choi and his team might end up not following my plans for them at all. I’ll have to wait and see.

How did you come up with 5 being your ideal series number?

I feel that sometimes a series of novels can go on too far and the stories can become repetitive. Some writers can end up with 10, 15 or 20 novels in a series and the stories and action seem to blend into each other to the point where even hard-core fans are left wondering who was in what story. Also, I’d love to give another genre and character a try before I’m in my dotage – it’s something that we are a lot freer to do in the self-publishing market – so five seems the number at which I’ll have said enough with these people and this situation. I’ll be ready by then for a new set of paintbrushes and a new canvas.

What drew you to writing crime novels?

I was kidded for years by this intellectual snobbery that crime fiction - isn’t as valuable as literary fiction; indeed that snobbery has fallen by the wayside in the last decade with writers like John Banville entering the crime genre. As time has elapsed I’ve realised that the characters in novels like these end up dealing with problems that can happen to anyone in any walk of life.

I’m really interested in social issues and I think that a lot of what irks us about society can be looked at in a crime novel format. Just having these themes within a story will hopefully make people think about issues they ignore on a regular basis. My favourite novel of all time is probably The Secret History by Donna Tartt. She isn’t someone you’d term a crime writer and yet that and her other two novels both feature crimes and criminality as a major motivator.

Long Snake Moan
Book 2 in the

Senior Inspector Choi series

by LP RING

What era and city is Long Snake Moan set in?

The novel is set in the modern day in Seoul, South Korea. South Korea is a potentially fantastic subject as it’s a first world country that was decidedly under-developed only 50 years ago. Its history as a former colony as a country riven by civil war also makes it a fascinating study. In addition, its status as a mega-city means that a lot of things go on in it every day – things that can involve an insane number of people. On a more mundane point, Seoul also gets hit by these pretty tough winters sometimes – minus 20 degrees is not uncommon – so choosing the winter as the time of year for the first three in the series gave me the chance to add some claustrophobia to the story.

What part of East Asia were you living in before moving to NZ – is it safe to guess Korea as your novels The Tiger Awakens and Long Snake Moan are set in Korea?

I taught English in Japan for a number of years before moving to South Korea where I taught at a university. That job gave me space to write during the vacations. The winters are long and quite harsh too so there wasn’t much to do outside.

Why did you decide to go the self-publishing route?

I’m my own boss and although that means a lot of extra stuff to do besides writing, I only answer to myself at the end of the day. I had a look at a few publishing companies – quite small, niche ones - and sent off a few query letters (I think it was 4 in the end). I immediately got an automated response from one company that said if you haven’t heard from us in six months, we aren’t interested. It just struck me as incredibly disrespectful, and if the company was going to be like that, even if they were interested in my novels I just wasn’t going to enjoy the overall experience. I’d also seen how people like Hugh Hovey and J.F. Penn had been successful and happy without any publisher backing and thought I’d enjoy the process a lot more just taking care of myself.

What have been some of the hard things to overcome with your self-publishing journey?

Technology can be a major pain. I’m a bit of a technophobe so have found some of that quite tough. I’m using draft2digital at the moment though, and I’ve found that the learning curve isn’t as steep with them. It also gives me a decent ‘time spent to results’ trade off that I’m comfortable with. So I have published two novels so far this year and learned some things along the way.

If you could go back and give yourself tips as a young writer, what would you advise?

Write what you like. Don’t force yourself into writing in a genre you don’t like. It sounds obvious but for example, I’m not a romance kind of guy so my trying to write a romance novel would be absolutely crazy (even though romances are often the most popular sellers in self-publishing). I wasn’t reading the right things when I was younger as well. If you want to write anything - space opera, thriller, harlequin romance… anything, you’ve got to read as much as you can in that genre. You’ll learn how the experts do it and it will gradually filter into what you do. You’ll at least structurally be a better writer for it and have a fair idea of how the experts go about things. You don’t learn to cook or do carpentry from scratch. Writing isn’t any different.

Great advice Liam, Thanks for answering my questions today. I wish you and Senior Inspector Choi all the best for the rest of the series.

Please check out Liam's Latest novel Long Snake Moan on Goodreads.
Or  Long Snake Moan on Amazon
You'll also find him on Twitter: @l_p_ring

Or for more info checkout his Blog LP Ring on Wordpress


And Don't forget his Amazon Author page LP Ring where you'll be able to keep track of the entire series as it progresses.

The Tiger Awakens
Book 1 in the 

Senior Inspector Choi series

by LP Ring

Author Interview: Lennard Gillman

I was approached recently by Adrienne Charlton of AM Publishing after a recent collaboration rebranding book covers for Vicky Adin, to help with a fantasy cover design for New Zealand author Lennard Gillman.  

 

Accipitri and the battle for Heliosa - Lennard Gillman

Accipitri and the battle for Heliosa is Lennard Gillman’s debut novel, and today I'm interviewing him about the novel and his journey into self-publishing.

Hello and Welcome, Len,

• Please tell us a little bit about yourself:

I have climbed in many parts of the world, camped on beaches, mountain tops, Arctic glaciers in Baffin Island and the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. I am Head of Science at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) and a Professor of Biogeography. My work as a scientist has taken me to the hot deserts of Namibia and Australia and to the Dry Valleys of Antarctica where I have flown drones to map protected areas. I also have a keen interest in conservation and sustainable development. I have worked as a conservation manager in the past and I am on the AUT Sustainability Task Force. I live in Laingholm on the fringe of the Waitakere Ranges, southwest of Auckland and have three wonderful children and a beautiful partner.

• What is your novel Accipitri and the Battle for Heliosa about?

It is about a boy (Ferobellus) and a girl (Tess) struggling against a harsh mountainous wilderness and a king who wants to annihilate a neighbouring kingdom. It is also about the development of relationships and respect among people with different behaviours and abilities. Tess is strong-willed, resourceful, and an expert archer while Ferobellus is fit and skilled at surviving in the wilderness, but they both have their weaknesses. It is set in a fictional land in the southern hemisphere approximately 1000 years in the past. The genre is low fantasy because of its fictional setting but it is nonetheless grounded in reality. The novel brings together medieval European and African cultures in a landscape that draws on a prehumen New Zealand.

• What sort/age of readers would most enjoy it?

Eight to thirteen year-old boys and girls, although adults appear to enjoy it too.

• I believe Accipitri and the Battle for Heliosa is set in a pre-industrial age, did you do a lot of research into earlier civilisations, or prefer to make things up?

Yes, I did do a fair amount of research but I also had the freedom to create unique cultures and an entirely unique continent. The landscapes and situations, such as the 3000-foot descent down a vertical granite escarpment, are derived from my personal experience in the mountains and so it should be possible for people to enact them. I would like to challenge a couple of modern climbers to repeat the feats of Tess and Ferobellus on a similar rock face using the equipment described in the story.

• What type of magic/technological is there which is unique to your world?

My story is different because there are no magical powers or unrealistic abilities. The technology is of the middle ages and faithful to the reality of that time. It is the mixture of cultures and the setting that makes my world unique.

• Where did the idea for the story come from?

I invented the overall plot and then got inside the heads of my characters and acted it out.

• Which character do you most identify with and why?

I think I identify equally with most of the main characters but I like Tess best because she is the most complex and conflicted character.

• Why did you decide to venture into self-publishing?

Just for fun. I find fiction relaxing and a nice contrast to scientific writing.

• What tips would you give to others considering self-publishing that you wished you knew when you started?

I don’t think I have any pearls of wisdom other than to get a good editor and artist for the cover – I could not have done it without Adrienne Charlton and Kura Carpenter.

• Where can we buy your books?

Email: lennardgillman@gmail.com NZ$19.50 plus postage.

You can also find Len's author page on Amazon HERE

 

Book Festival Tips for Indie Authors

Are you an Indie Author looking for tips to guide you in attending your first book festival?

Today's discussion will provide you that insight, so sit back and drink in the knowledge as Vicky Adin, Cassie Hart and Darian Smith share their NZ Book Festival experiences, and Vicki Nelson discusses her time at the Bay Area Book Festival (BABF) held in Berkeley, California.

What was your main aim in attending?

Vicky Adin: I wanted to raise my profile as an author and make connections with other indie authors. Selling a book was a bonus.

Cassie Hart: Mostly to give it a go - do something new, challenge myself, see how it all worked, and hopefully sell some books while I was at it!

Darian Smith: My aim was to raise awareness of SpecFicNZ authors and, of course, my books in particular!

Vicki Nelson: As a self-published author, I have really had to struggle to promote my work. My reason for attending the book festival was threefold: To sell books, make connections, and to gain experience interacting with people who showed an interest in my novel.

Bay Area Book Festival

Tips learned from attending book festivals (things to do/not do)

Vicky Adin:

• Have an enticing and well laid out display that says who you are at a glance – create a talking point.
• Do not overcrowd the table.
• Have some give-aways eg: merchandising products (as much as you can afford). Bookmarks are excellent or mini pocket calendars & postcards etc, and enticements like lollies, balloons or colouring in for the kids (especially if you are a children’s author).
• Talk to people – say hello, ask what they like to read, tell them where you’ve seen a great book that fits what they described (they may buy from you later).

Cassie Hart: Take snacks, take breaks, take plenty of drinking water as you’ll be talking heaps and your mouth will get dry. I packed a ‘magic box’ before the festival with several kinds of tape, pins, blutack, painkillers, bandaids, a usb power box for emergency charging, spare pens, sheesh, I can’t even remember everything - it wasn’t very big but it had a lot in it, and was our saviour.

Darian Smith: Bring snacks!

Vicki Nelson: The first thing is to give oneself plenty of time to think about and prepare.

• Books need to be purchased and shipped in time.
• Posters, banners, and bookmarks need to be designed and also shipped in time.
• In addition to the books and marketing materials, it is important to have a few book display stands and a tablecloth.
• A cash box is essential with plenty of change on hand as well as a credit card reader for the cell phone. It is important to set up a PayPal account in advance with an app that works with a cell phone.

Cassie Hart's shared stall at NZ Book Fest, pictured TG Ayer

Often when we go into a new situation we’ll have assumptions/expectations. What assumptions proved wrong or different, the first time you a festival?
 
Vicky Adin: I am never grumpy about the hard work other people put in to make a festival work. You are reliant on the public and they are fickle at best and often downright cantankerous. Do not blame the conference organiser if your expectations are not met. They already know if the day hasn’t gone the way they had planned.  
For newbies to the game:

1. Never expect a sale. Selling in a Festival environment is hard work. People come to look first and foremost. They may buy if you engage them, but don’t be too pushy or they’ll walk away.
2. Always smile when someone is walking past. Hand out your freebies willingly, not attached to something else.
3. Don’t spend all your time talking to your companion or neighbour. Potential customers won’t want to disturb you and will walk on by.
4. You want to catch the eye of every person heading your way.
5. Wear comfortable clothing and shoes – you will do a lot of standing. And always have a coat with you in case the venue is draughty.
6. Take enough food, nibbles, a flask and water to last the day. If it is busy and you are manning your own stall by yourself, you may be able to get to the toilet but you won’t have time to wander off and have lunch.
7. Make sure you have enough cash to give change.

Victoria Nelson, Author and Greg Brown, Director and Founder of The Studio Santa Rosa, the oldest, largest, and longest running art studio in Santa Rosa, CA. (Greg will be celebrating The Studio's 31st year this November 5th and 6th).

What’s the best part for you personally attending?
 
Vicky Adin: Meeting people

Cassie Hart: Facing my fears, trying something new and putting myself out there! I felt like it was worth it for those things. Hanging out with my friends was also awesome ;-) Oh and meeting new people! I met some twitter friends for the first time when they came out to buy my books and that was amazing!

Darian Smith: Finding people who enjoy my books. As an author, it’s not that often we get feedback from people who read our work so when I had a fan bring her friends over to the stall and tell them “You HAVE to buy this book” it absolutely made my day!

Vicki Nelson: I believe the best part of the festival was meeting people. Berkeley is a unique city (I was raised there), full of creative individuals, writers and artists, with creative ideas.

What are your tips for connecting to Readers/potential buyers who stop at your stall?

Vicky Adin: Know your blurbs.

Vicki Nelson: In spite of evidence promoting the pitch approach, my best advice for drawing people to one's stall is body language, presence, and facial expression. At least that is how I seemed to have attracted people. My aim was to put people at ease and to feel free to come over and casually thumb through a copy of the book and read a few pages without having to say anything. This is also why I put a couple of obvious display copies on the table for people to pick up and handle. I find that if I am calm and don't act like I am too anxious to make a sale, people are more apt to stay and chat a bit, asking questions about the book.

Mairangi Writers’ table at NZ Book Fest

Do you put out a display copy? (so people can feel free to check out that copy without worrying about creasing/damaging etc)

Vicky Adin: Yes.

Vicki Nelson: I put out two display copies at either end of the table. In addition to my novel, I had written two other books and put out display copies of those as well. I also placed a price list at each end of the table. My price list showed colored copies of each book cover, a short synopsis, description of the genre, and target audience. By presenting this information in a colorful, informative format, people were more apt to spend a longer time investigating my booth and striking up a conversation about my work.

SpecFicNZ Table at NZ Book Festival

Do you hand out bookmarks/postcards, something to give to everyone who stops at your stall? 
 
Vicky Adin: Yes.

Cassie Hart: We had a range of ‘book swag’ as they call it. Bookmarks, and fridge magnets as well - what I found was that every other stall had bookmarks, so they were a hard thing to give away. The lovely woman in the stall next to us had bookmarks but they had beautiful designs on them (not book covers) with her details on the back - these went down really well, and were some of the only bookmarks I kept!

Darian Smith: Yes, I do offer bookmarks and I give them to anyone who passes. It’s a free gift that helps people engage a little and has a link to where people can by the book in e-format.

Vicki Nelson: Colorful well-designed, sturdy bookmarks are essential. They are also more useful than brochures or postcards since people tend to retain them longer.

Bay Area Book Fest

Do you have a sign-up newsletter form, (paper or electronic) or some other method to get Reader’s email on your stall? If not, why not?
 
Vicky Adin: Yes. And follow up. I usually have a ‘Win a Free Book’ option to encourage them to sign up.

Cassie Hart: We did, but again, it was hard to get people to fill it out. Maybe if the prize was really amazing, but there wasn’t a lot of interest for ours - a bottle of wine or something quick, tangible, and not necessarily directly related to your book/product seemed to go down the best.

Darian Smith: Yes, I do have a way to sign up to a newsletter. I would prefer to have a tablet or laptop so it can be done right away but this can get tricky in terms of security of the item and battery life. It can be tricky to find a power socket at these events! Especially if you don’t want to spend extra to have one as part of your stall.

Mairangi Writers’ table at NZ Book Fest

Why do you think Readers like buying straight from the author?

Cassie Hart: I think readers get a kick out of meeting the author - if they know you from social media and live in the town there is a good chance they will come out to see you. Most of my sales were made that way. 

Darian Smith: I think readers enjoy talking to the creator of any artform. The personal connection can encourage them to try the book if they like the author. Also, people like to get their books signed!

Bay Area Book Festival

Assuming the venue allows it, would you recommend a couple of authors team up to share a stall?

Vicky Adin: It has its advantages to reduce costs, and for indie authors that often is a major drawcard. A writing group working together can work, if you are prepared to sell your fellow authors books as much as your own. If not, then don’t share.
Two authors can work – again if you are willing to sell the other person’s books as hard as you would sell your own. You never know what the pay-off will be.
Being an indie is about sharing – especially knowledge.

Cassie Hart: Definitely! I did this last time, and am doing it again this year. Share with people you like to hang out with because it makes it more fun. It reduces the cost of going, and means there is plenty of interesting things for people to come and see - and more people to talk to! If you need to go and get a drink or have a bathroom break it means there is always someone to cover the stand. All in all, I just think it makes for a more fun, easier time of it. 

Darian Smith: My experience of sharing a stall was a good one, especially as it was my first time. It meant a reduction in costs and the ability to share the time spent there. It also meant company in the quiet times.
The down side is that if you’re sharing with a lot of authors that means a lot of books competing for limited space in the stall. Also, my experience was that people bought the books of the authors who were present more often than those who weren’t. That’s not to say that those of us at the stall weren’t promoting all the books – we were!
But I think that readers enjoyed meeting the author and talking to someone who was knowledgeable about the book and who had made the effort to be there to meet them and that translated into sales. So if you’re sharing, still try to be there as much as you can  No one can sell your books like you can. 

Vicki Nelson: No matter how well one prepares, there is no substitute for a good booth partner. How else does one expect to use the restroom or take a short stroll? (It is important to know where the restrooms are located in advance.) A two-day festival can really take a toll on one's energy and it is also nice to have a booth partner to keep one company.

So here we have it. Book Festivals give Indy authors a chance to meet and make fans, hopefully sell some books, but also make business contacts and new friends with like minded writers.  

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cassie Hart writing as JC Hart

Cassie Hart is a lover of pizza, coffee, and zombies (in no particular order). She was raised on a healthy diet of horror, science fiction, and fantasy, and despite many attempts by various English teachers has refused to budge on her position that these are the best genres ever.
When she’s not raising her horde of wonderfully creepy children or dreaming of the day she’ll have an army of ninja kittens, she’s writing speculative fiction, or binging on TV, movies and games. Visit Cassie's website: JC Hart

Darian Smith

Darian Smith: I’m a writer and reader of fiction and live in Auckland, New Zealand. While I have dabbled in non-fiction, my true love is crafting exciting stories that interest and move me. And hopefully have a similar impact on readers! I mainly write fantasy and contemporary fiction. I am a member of SpecFicNZ, an organisation for writers of speculative fiction here in New Zealand, and also of RWNZ. 

 Visit Darian's website: Darian Smith

Vicky Adin

Vicky Adin is a New Zealand author living on the North Shore of Auckland within walking distance of the beach, the coffee shops and inspiration. 
Vicky is particularly fascinated by the 19^th Century pioneers who undertook hazardous journeys to find a better life. Especially the women, who needed strength of mind as well as body to survive, let alone flourish, in a new country still coming to terms with its existence. Being a genealogist in love with history, these men and women and their ancestors drive her stories.
Visit Vicky's website:  Vicky Adin

Victoria Nelson

Victoria Nelson is a freelance writer from California who holds an MA in English Literature from Holy Names University. She is a writing and research tutor for graduate students and a homeschool curriculum consultant. Publications include a stage play, L. is for Sayers, a screenplay, Jack Marlin, Private Eye: The Case of the Barbary Blackbird, and a novel, Romana Volume I from the Annals of Romana. She is also a contributing author to the Saint Austin Review (StAR), an international journal of Catholic culture, art, and literature.

Author Interview: Patrick G Cox

I really enjoy time-travel books, the standard format being a present day person travels back in time. Harry Heron: Into the Unknown is a neat twist on the time travel genre. Characters from the Napoleonic era are transported hundreds of years into the future. 

In 1804 the Napoleonic Wars rage. A freak accident during a sea battle catapults Midshipman Harry Heron and his shipmates four hundred years into the future.

Today I'm interviewing author Patrick G Cox to discuss his novel Harry Heron: Into the Unknown.  
It’s a cliché to ask an author where they got their idea from, but I love the Harry Heron: Into the Unknown premise so I must ask: where did you get the reverse time-travel idea? Taking characters from history and sending them into the future?

The idea originally came from the realisation that my grandfather’s generation had seen horse and cart/carriage replaced by steam engines, then internal combustion engines, flimsy flying machines, airliners and the space ships that took men to the moon. So I wondered what they might have learned, and what they might have known or been able to do which most people today would not be able to do. I was surprised by just how much we take for granted, but which they would have needed to have either special skills or knowledge to do. When I came across an article about how we, as a species, lose skills with each ‘convenient’ leap in our technology, the concept of Harry and his friends leaping forward was born.

Although there must be a lot of resources for researching sailing ships of the Napoleonic wars, how exactly did you go about researching (or creating) space ships?

As you say, there are loads of resources for researching sailing ships, not so many when you want to ‘create’ a ship capable of interstellar transport. Obviously there are loads of concepts in many science fiction stories, and, of course, there are a lot of concepts from the scientific world as well. I based my concept ships on the big nuclear submarines operated by several navies. These ships are self-contained to the extent that their only limitation is the capacity for carrying consumable stuff like food, and the endurance of the crew. Remove those limits by making the ship big enough and give it the means to produce food, perhaps by means of having a ‘green lung’ that doubles as a oxygen producing filter and food production, and couple that with recycling of water and water recovery and suddenly the only limitation becomes the crew endurance.

“Patrick Cox's Harry Heron: Into the Unknown is a great sci-fi book, combining characters from the great age of sail with a future we can easily imagine.” - Amazon reviewer 

Researching such a ship involves not just the ship, but the possible controls, manoeuvring, power sources and the things that would limit it. So you have to look at a range of things including some that exist only in concept, and others that are already being developed. It gets quite challenging in a way because technology that was a ‘concept’ yesterday could be reality by tomorrow. A good example is my concept of ships run, under human command, by Artificial Intelligence systems that make them ‘self-aware’. When I started writing these stories AI was a ‘dream’ pursued by some to the amusement of others. Now it is slowly becoming a reality, and I suspect that we are not far from creating an AI that is truly independent and intelligent.
 

What are some of the historical references you used when researching this novel?

The obvious historical reference material is drawn from the naval histories of the Napoleonic war. France maintained a squadron in the Indian Ocean, based primarily on Mauritius (then called Ile d’France) which preyed on the British East India Company’s ships. The Dutch were also active, based on the Cape and Java, and this forced Britain to maintain their own squadrons in India and Ceylon, and the Honourable East India Company maintained its own ‘Navy’, the Bombay Marine, in the Indian Ocean, so I drew on a lot of that, plus a lot of the social history of Ireland and its relationship with Britain in providing Harry and Ferghal with their own ‘history’.

Since ‘history’ shapes and sometimes informs the future, I have tried to use current ‘history in the making’ to project a possible future world shaped by the politics, commerce and so on of the present. One aspect of that is to remember that history tends to repeat certain trends at fairly regular intervals, largely because we have a tendency to forget the failures and the reasons for them. Particularly in politics.

So the answer to your question is ‘many sources’, which include national history, military history, demographic studies, political trends and people.

Who is your favourite new character introduced in Harry Heron: Into the Unknown?

Hmmm. I think I’d have to say Harry’s twelve times great-nephew, the Commodore James Heron, but it’s a difficult choice, and there are several other candidates including the Surgeon-Commander Len Myers and ‘Aunt’ Niamh, Harry’s twelve times great-niece …

What would Harry, the main character, have to say about you?

Something good, I would hope! I suspect that he would say I had set him some very difficult goals, and sent him and his friends on a very exciting adventure.

Anyone reading Shakespeare’s four hundred year-old scripts can see the way we communicate changes. How did you work around the issues of language? Did the historical characters and the future people understand each other?

That was a challenge. In similar books (though with the switch usually going the other way) it is one of those things that is ignored. It is very difficult to see how our language will develop in the next two hundred years, let alone four hundred. We can already see how texting and ‘street slang’ is changing the way we speak. What I attempted to do in the opening chapters was to indicate that the accents had changed sufficiently for it to be difficult to understand each other, but then eased up on it as the story developed and implied that Harry and Co had adapted to the new version of the language. In the beginning of the story Harry finds he recognises some words, but has difficulty understanding everything. He thinks the people in his new surroundings are speaking French …

Harry Heron: Into the Unknown is a neat twist on the time travel genre. Characters from the Napoleonic era are transported hundreds of years into the future.

And finally, what are you working on currently?

I have two projects on the go. I’m in the process of publishing a work of biographical fiction titled Magnus Patricius. It is based on the life of one Magnus Sucatus Patricius — better known as St Patrick. I started research this book almost eight years ago, and I quickly discovered that once you get past the legends and mythology, a very modest, but very tough and determined man emerges. He left us two documents written by himself, and a wealth of material undoubtedly based on other writings now lost to us, but I have used his ‘Declaration’ as the framework for this story.

The second project is to get the sequels to Harry Heron: Into the Unknown ready for publication. Watch this space, the next one will, I hope be published early next year.

That sounds very interesting, Pat. Thanks for taking the time to chat with us today.

Patrick Gray Cox is a writer that combines his love of Historical Fiction with Science Fiction writing; a mix of CS Forester and Isaac Asimov. 

Cox is the author of A Baltic Affair, a popular historical romance Limehouse Boys, which takes readers to the grimy, gritty streets of the East End of London in the 1830s and follows the struggles of three orphans caught up in a web of crime, corruption in high places and poverty.

Harry Heron: Midshipman's Journey, the first book in the Harry Heron series. Harry Heron; Into the Unknown is the sequel.

• Follow the Harry Heron Adventures onFacebook
• Visit Patrick Cox’s blog
• And see Patrick G Cox author profile ofGoodreads
• Patrick G Cox author page on Amazon
• Follow Patrick on Twitter: @patrickgcox

And if you liked the Harry Heron: Into the Unknown book cover I designed for Patrick G Cox and are looking for a custom design for your novel Please click here: Kura CarpenterBook Cover Designer for Hire to find out more. 

Author Interview: Mary Brock Jones

Mary Brock Jones' novel Torn, the first in her romantic science fiction Arcadian series, is being launched today.

Mary Brock Jones has written several historical and science fiction novels. Her novel Pay the Piper, the second book in Mary’s Hathe science fiction series was a finalist in the 2016 RUBY’s Romantic Book of the Year awarded by the Romance Writers of Australia. 

Mary, welcome, Please tell us a little bit about yourself:

1) What sent you down the path of writing romantic science fiction?

I've always loved science fiction, right from my early teens.  I started out with Asimov and Heinlein, but then gravitated towards writers such as Anne McCaffrey, Orson Scott Card, Robert Silverberg, Lois McMaster Bujold and Catherine Asaro. Writers of scifi where character was as important as technology. But I am also an avid reader of the romance genre, as well as historicals.  

I found that the stories of people, how they live in strange worlds and what matters to them, interest me more than just the science alone. I love gizmos, and creating new ones is part of the best fun of the world building side of scifi, but always it's the people in the story that fascinate me most, finding what is at the heart of my characters. And romance  is the most fundamental driver of stories we have. Humans are a social animal, family is important as are the bonds that unite them, and so it seems very natural to me that stories with a romantic element will capture our interest. I know they do me, and romantic science fiction just seems to unite all the strands of storytelling that I enjoy most - world building, adventure, intrigue and suspense, all spun together in a deeply satisfying romantic tale.    

"Requirement for anyone wanting to go down the self-publishing route:
First is a good, strong story - get it professionally edited, that's absolutely essential.

Next you must have a professionally designed cover.
An effective cover is the first and best chance to capture your reader,  so it has to be enticing, look good in thumbnail and immediately tell the reader the genre of the book." - Mary Brock Jones

2) What appeals to you about bringing romance to a genre that has atypically been lacking in romantic elements?

I think romance has always been a part of the science fiction world, but too often it is assumed that women don't like science, have no interest in mathematics, and are solely concerned with the humanities. Whereas 'proper' science fiction only deals with hard scifi stories. This is not true. Women have been writing science fiction and  telling stories about science and people for a long time - after all, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" is recognised as the first science fiction novel. 

But too often publishers, reviewers and the general literary world assume that science fiction is written for and by men only. Well, I love scifi and so do a large number of women out there. I think it's more that scifi with a romantic element is not talked about much, but as a genre, romantic scifi is gaining increasing popularity.  

"I think romance has always been a part of the science fiction world, but too often it is assumed that women don't like science, have no interest in mathematics, and are solely concerned with the humanities." - Mary Brock Jones

 

3) What sort/age-of readers would most enjoy Torn?

I would have to say that Torn is best suited to an adult audience, those who enjoy both adventures and stories that challenge their ideas.

 

4) Torn involves ecological themes that reflect problems currently faced in the real world. Was there a particular real world crisis/discovery that sparked ideas for your novel?

I've thought for some time that climate change is the most critical issue facing our world at present, but I've also long had a fascination with ecology. I can still remember as a young child being taken for a visit to a local creek, and being totally fascinated by the various bugs and critters our teacher showed us that day. My first degree was in Zoology and I was raised on a farm, so I guess ecology has been a part of my life for a very long time.

An event that did galvanise me though was the GFC, and the worldwide pattern of governments sacrificing the public sector to keep big business happy, culminating in the US congress stopping the pay of ordinary officials for some weeks for pure political gamesmanship. Officials that included the US park rangers we had met a year previously. Men and women deeply committed to preserving the history and environment of the US and always ready to share their knowledge but treated as of no consequence on that occasion by the so-called establishment.

One of the most serious, and I think least recognised, of the effects of that whole financial crisis was the huge brake it put on getting the world to focus its efforts on dealing with climate and other environmental issues. Luckily there is a huge groundswell of people who know that as a planet we cannot put this off. People power will win the day!

5)What was your favourite part in researching for the novel?

I'm not sure if it was my favourite part, but working out the meteorological aspects of the story were certainly the most challenging!

6) What has been the hardest part with promoting your work?

Just getting it out there. Like most writers, I tend to be somewhat introverted, so having to push yourself forward and praise your own work is hugely challenging. Plus I am a decided technical clutz when it comes to IT stuff, and to self-publish you have to learn a whole pile of new computer skills. My poor laptop has been subjected to some truly awful verbal abuse at times. 

There are so many books being published at present; finding ways to push your own book above the parapet to be noticed is a definite challenge, and something that you have to keep reminding yourself can only be done one step at a time. You have to somehow keep believing in yourself while you inch those books slowly, so slowly up the pile. 

7) Can you please offer any tips to others considering self-publishing especially ones you wished you knew when you started?

Oh my, when I started out I think I made every mistake possible! Beginning with trying to  publish two full-sized books simultaneously, one of which had a cliffhanger ending (readers hate that, I have since discovered). 

So the very first requirement for anyone wanting to go down the self-publishing is a very good sense of humour (and a big wad of cold hard money to fund it helps too.)

So first you have to have a good, strong story. Then get it professionally edited - that's where the cold hard cash comes in. Proper editing is expensive, but absolutely essential. 

Next you must have a professionally designed cover - thank you for my lovely cover, Kura. An effective cover is the first and best chance to capture your reader, so it has to be enticing, look good in thumbnail and immediately tell the reader the genre of the book. That's why the cover of Torn has a spaceship and horses on it. This is science fiction adventure with a big dollop of the romantic - and I hasten to add that, yes, there really is horse-riding in the story, much to my heroine's horror.  

Formatting for e-book is not hard, but I would recommend getting it done for you the first time round. Far less stressful. I just about had a nervous break down when I tried it, until V.L.Dreyer came to my rescue and did it for me. I have since learned how to format for e-book, mostly by following the instructions in Mark Coker's "Smashwords Style Guide", but needed to refer back to the original formatting as a template to make sense of it all - not being technically literate at the best of times. It's not hard once you get the hang of it, as long as you set aside a time when you will be free from distractions and can take it methodically step by step. 

"There are so many books being published at present; finding ways to push your own book above the parapet to be noticed is a definite challenge, and something that you have to keep reminding yourself can only be done one step at a time." - Mary Brock Jones

The hardest part for me comes next - Marketing! Discoverability is the name of the game in Indie publishing - and for that you need REVIEWS - and yes, the capitals are deliberate. Reviews are that important - most particularly, reviews on Amazon. Further, they  must be legitimate ones - Amazon has very strict rules aimed at protecting their customers from fake reviews, so read the guidelines and make sure to follow them. This time, Torn is on netgalley, courtesy of a netgalley coop group ( found through http://www.kboards.com/ ), plus I have sent ARCs [Advance Reader Copies] to a number of review sites and put out a newsletter (another of those new tech things I had to learn about).

Most importantly, before trying to self-publish, learn as much as possible through reading, websites, podcasts etc. The self-publishing community is widespread and very generous. My best source of advice is Joanna Pennat The Creative Penn, who also includes a large number of references in her podcast, website and various books, but join writers organisations, facebook groups, and some of the Indie support groups. Indie publishers are a very supportive community of writers and always willing to pass on what they have learned.  There is also a huge amount of advice on the KDP (Amazon), Smashwords and Draft2Digital websites. 

8) Torn is the first in your romantic science fiction Arcadian series, are you working on a sequel and what’s it about?

I'm still working on the third in my Hathe series, but after that I will be writing the story of Caleb's brother, Ethan. He is a man who loves the business that his family has created. It's all he has ever wanted, but Caleb's actions in Torn have both put that in jeopardy and forced Ethan to question everything he thought he knew. 

And then he is brought up short by a woman on the other side of the business divide. A union organiser who has never known what it is to be rich and comfortable, but one who will not back down to anyone when it comes to protecting those she serves. This book continues the climate change theme, but also brings in the economic divide. Can we judge people only by the size of their bank balance - big or small? 

Thank you so much for sharing your advice and experiences with us today, Mary, I wish you every success. Here's where to learn more about Mary and her novels:

Mary Brock Jones

• Mary Brock Jone'sAuthor Website
• Mary Brook Jones on Facebook
• And see Mary BrockJones author profile of Goodreads
• Follow Mary Brock Jones tweetson Twitter
• Mary Brock Jones authorpage on Amazon
• Mary Brock Jones on Google+

And if you liked the Torn book cover I designed for Mary Brock Jones and are looking for a custom design for your novel Please click here: Kura CarpenterBook Cover Designer for Hire to find out more.