Tag Archives: PD Martin

August 4, 2012

Just do it

Filed under: Murderati blogs,Writing — Tags: Hell's Fury, PD Martin, Pippa Dee, writer's block, Writing — PD Martin @ 2:00 am

I’ve always been the kind of writer who LOVES applying expressions like this to my writing…

Just do it!
Bum on chair!
Focus!
Never surrender!

I eat those phrases up for breakfast! (Sorry, I know that’s way too many exclamation marks, not to mention clichés, but they need to be there.)

I’ve also been lucky enough that I’ve never really suffered from ‘writer’s block’. In fact, the hard-ass part of me says writer’s block is self-indulgent. Now, I’ve probably got loads of readers (well, the authors) up in arms at this point. I know there will be lots of people who disagree about writer’s block.

The thing is, I’m not saying there aren’t days (or even weeks) when writing seems harder than normal—sometimes WAY harder. But, I’m a practical kind of girl, so I either write through it (eventually it starts flowing again) and edit later, or sometimes I move projects all together. That way, I’m at least writing. Besides, at this point I know I can finish a novel, so it’s not like I’m going to wind up with loads of unfinished manuscripts. It’s just a temporary focus shift.

I did this earlier this year. My plan for 2012 was to finish my mainstream drama novel and then while I was querying agents, I’d work on my Pippa Dee novels as part of my ebook strategy. But after I sent my mainstream novel to Beta readers, there was one problem I simply couldn’t decide how to solve. There was one character who everyone disliked. But what to do with her?

So I guess that was kind of writer’s block, but it didn’t feel like it because I decided to move on to my Pippa Dee novels while I waited out the decision. I could let it tick over in my subconscious. No way was I going to let it interfere with my productivity. Told you I was practical.

So I focused on The Wanderer and Grounded Spirits and once they were finished and up on Amazon, I moved back to Crossroads and Deadends. Two weeks ago I finally finished the editing process and started querying agents. Remember my blog on the writer’s rollercoaster?

Anyway, obviously the querying process has taken up a chunk of time over the past two weeks, but I still feel extremely unproductive. And I’ve been bringing out the big guns, internally telling myself to:

Just do it!
Bum on chair!
Focus!
Never surrender!

But, to no avail. Well, not much at least.

However, it’s not writer’s block. In fact, when I do spend time on my current work in progress (the follow-on to The Wanderer) it flows very easily and I’m excited by it. But for some reason I’ve really been letting the distractions rule these past two weeks. Facebook, emails, scheduling Amazon freebies, and who knows what else? Where have the days gone?

And there have also been some days, when I haven’t felt like writing or trying to write at all. I mean, the rest of this year I’ve been eating lunch at my desk to maximise my work time. Seriously! With Grace starting school in February this year and my shift to ebooks, this has been my year for working hard.

So what’s going on? Where’s my bad-ass writer gone?

I think part of the problem is when I finished Crossroads and Deadends I was conflicted about what to work on next. My 2012 ‘project plan’ says next in line is The Guardian Arises, book 2 in my Wanderer and Guardian trilogy under Pippa Dee. Problem is, sales of The Wanderer and Grounded Spirits have been such a small percentage of the sales of my PD Martin stuff, that I’ve realised that middle grade/YA fantasy novels aren’t the most popular ebooks. So, from a financial point of view, I probably should work on the follow-up to Hell’s Fury, but that book will take me about six months to write, whereas I reckon I can write The Guardian Arises in six weeks, especially because I’m already 20,000 words in and it’s officially middle grade so will probably be around 50,000 words.

Something’s gotta give. I think maybe the answer for me is to go away for a couple of days without internet. That’d sort me out!

Comments (2)

July 10, 2012

Rediscovering an old love

Filed under: Murderati blogs — Tags: PD Martin, skiing — PD Martin @ 4:31 am

For my Wildcard Tuesday at Murderati, I wanted to look at rediscovering old loves—not lovers (!), that’s an entirely different sort of blog

I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the past week, as I prepared to go skiing for the first time in over 12 years. Maybe longer, actually. I thought it had been 10-12 years but if I do the maths it’s probably more like 14 years. That’s a long time. Particularly given I used to LOVE skiing.

So, what stopped me from pursuing my love? I’m afraid it’s plain and simple – money. In fact, if I had money, I’d definitely ski every season, probably several times a season. I’m not sure what skiing is like in other parts of the world, but here in Australia it’s an extremely expensive pursuit. A day lift pass at Mt Buller is $108, then there’s ski rental, clothing, accommodation, etc. etc. Not really in the budget of most authors.

This trip was actually spurred on by my daughter and my dad. Grace has wanted to ski for a couple of years (since she was 3), and Dad was going up (also for the first time in 10+ years) with his new wife and step daughter. They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse; they’d pay for all of Grace’s expenses, including ski school. And so, we planned our two-night, three-day trip.

It was Grace’s second time ever seeing snow and her first time skiing. I hoped she would love it, but we took it easy, booking her in for the afternoon session on the first day. I warned her that falling was part of skiing and not to worry about it! But she’s not very fond of falling, so I was worried it would completely put her off.

It felt a little weird leaving her in the ski school. While Grace does go to school now, she’s never been to day care or a holiday program – the benefits of working from home. However, once she was settled I hit the slopes. I had two hours of skiing time to myself. After only two green (easy) runs, I felt ready and confident enough to hit the blue (intermediate) slopes. I should say, I was never an advanced skier, mostly because I would only get up for a couple of days a season. That money thing again. So I was always a blue run girl, rather than a black (advanced) skier.

Anyway, it was definitely a case of rediscovering an old love. We were blessed with the weather … blue skies and sunshine. I only had two hours that first day, but I made the most of it up on the top of the mountain before heading back to pick up Grace. Then Grace went on her first ever chairlift with me, and I took her down a long (easy) run. I was glad that the skiing process had come back to me enough that I felt confident taking her down with me. And she LOVED it. It also gave her the incentive to learn to ski, because she wants to go down the mountain fast like Mummy.

The next day she was keen for an all-day lesson (9-3.30). I dropped in on her a few times and got some great video of her learning to snow plough. In the afternoon it was up the chairlift with her again for a hot chocolate with my dad, then up a little higher on the mountain. This was when this pic was taken.

So, I’ve rediscovered an old love. I’m not sure when I’ll be up again (comes back to the lottery/best seller solution) but I hope it won’t take me another 14 years.

Comments Off

July 6, 2012

Back on the rollercoaster

Filed under: Getting published,Murderati blogs,Writing — Tags: literary agents, PD Martin, Phillipa Martin, writing process — PD Martin @ 4:20 am

And so, the rollercoaster begins…again. This week I finally finished my mainstream drama/fiction project. Hooray! It’s been a long time in the making, mostly because I had to come off it several times last year to take paid freelance jobs (ghost writing, corporate stuff, etc.) and this year I’ve been focusing on my ebook strategy. However, I launched myself into the re-write in mid-May and now it’s done. It’s a wonderful feeling to be finished the novel and to be happy with it (for the most part).

The bad news is, I’m on the rollercoaster again. Sigh. I really don’t know if I’m mentally prepared for the lows as well as the highs. Sigh. You see, while I’m committed to the ebook path for some of my books (some genres), I feel that I’d like to give traditional publishing a go with my mainstream drama. Which means finding an agent. <Insert a million sighs>

Yup, THAT rollercoaster. Picking a shortlist of agents based on their recent sales and the authors they represent, then querying one to three at a time. And that’s a whole other thing—so many agents don’t like or insist on not being part of multiple submissions. But if you do one agent at a time, it could take you a year or more to get through your top 10! Of course, any author hopes that their first or maybe second pick will leap at the opportunity to represent them. But it’s getting harder and harder, even for authors with a publishing record (like me) to get an agent to take the plunge. I’m in a time warp, back in 1998-2004, when I was an aspiring author, looking for an agent or publisher. Looking for my first break. And in some ways, it feels like I’m back at square one. Sigh.

This week I start querying, and I’m both excited and petrified. I know I need to tighten the query letter and synopsis, so that’s my next focus. Although the timing truly sucks. This week and next week is school holidays in Victoria, Australia so I’m a full-time mum for the next two weeks. Not that I can complain—I’m also going skiing. In fact, when this post goes live I’ll be at Mt Buller, skiing for the first time in 10 years. And it will be my daughter’s first time ever. Exciting!!! Can’t wait. Although it does also mean I might not be able to respond to comments until the weekend (or perhaps I’ll be very brief from my Smartphone). Anyway…

Being an author truly is a rollercoaster—or more accurately several rollercoasters, sometimes happening simultaneously.

First, there’s the creative process itself, the creative rollercoaster. One minute you think that sentence, paragraph, chapter or book is brilliant; the next, you think it’s crap. And those highs and lows just seem to be part of the creative process. I’m still really on this rollercoaster for Cross Roads and Dead Ends (working title). I said above that I’m happy with it (for the most part), but like many authors I question whether you can ever be truly 100% happy with a book. I could edit and tweak for eternity, I think.

Then there’s the agent rollercoaster. The rollercoaster I’m currently on. Once you get an agent, there’s the publisher rollercoaster. Will your agent’s first round of publishers be interested? Will they all be so interested that it goes to auction (best-case scenario) or will they all pass (obviously worst-case scenario)?

Then there’s the rollercoaster once your book is published, the marketplace rollercoaster. Will the reviewers like it? Will the readers like it? And even if both reviewers and readers rave about it, will it actually make a dent in terms of sales? The making-a-living-as-an-author rollercoaster. See? Lots of rollercoasters!

Ultimately, my aim as an author is to take my readers on a rollercoaster, but with very different highs and lows. In the case of Cross Roads and Dead Ends, I want my readers to experience the characters’ pain, their loss, and feel that sense of resonance. I want to take my readers to soaring heights, but also sometimes the depth of despair. But that means I have to go on all the other rollercoasters first. So here I go. Ready for the adrenaline high and the possible motion sickness.

Deep breath…

Comments Off

June 22, 2012

Where’s the sweet spot?

Filed under: ebooks — Tags: ebooks, PD Martin — PD Martin @ 4:24 am

One ebook tip is to experiment with pricing and that’s what I’m doing at the moment. There seems to be a few common price points for self-published ebooks, namely:

Free (ahhh!!!)
$0.99
$2.99
$3.99
$5.99

A friend recently forwarded me a great graph that was presented by Smashwords founder Mark Coker. Admittedly, for most authors sales from Smashwords make up an incredibly small percentage compared to Amazon sales, but it’s still interesting to look at this data.

So it seems the sweet spots are hitting at $0.99, $2.99 and another small spike at $5.99. Interesting, huh?

I noticed from Brett Battle’s post that my pricing points seem to be in sync with his for the most part, with shorts at $0.99, my one novella at $2.99 and my full thriller novel at $3.99. But, when I released my Pippa Dee books (YA and much shorter than my thriller novel at 50,000 words) I priced them at $2.99. I thought this seemed fair. Reasonable. Attractive but without de-valuing my work.

However, these books simply haven’t been moving. Was it the new name? Establishing a new brand? Possibly. Or the genre? While they’re books I believe most adults would read and enjoy (and they have), they have teen protagonists and so that ‘officially’ makes them targeted to the middle grade and YA market. Maybe not a good market for ebooks? So as part of my experimentation I’ve lowered the price to $0.99. I should say, this move to the $0.99 was partly because of the above graph, and partly because I have a friend who’s doing well in the ebook business and has priced ALL her books at $0.99. She felt that low price point was a key part of her strategy to build her brand and name. I only reduced the prices a few days ago so it’s too early to tell if this strategy will work or not. But it means I have been thinking of ebook pricing a lot recently and wanted to post about it here, too. Here are the two for $0.99, by the way.

The Wanderer on Amazon

Grounded Spirits on Amazon

So, what do you like to pay for your ebooks? Maybe the graph above reflects your buying patterns too. Note: I actually asked what people like to pay for ebooks on Facebook and, incredibly, got answers around the $5-10 mark. Then again, I posted during Aussie daytime and so I think all the respondents were Aussies—who are used to paying a fortune for books!

Comments Off

May 26, 2012

Long time between drinks

Filed under: Getting published,Murderati blogs,Writing — Tags: Getting published, PD Martin, spy thriller — PD Martin @ 1:39 am

My last PD Martin book (Kiss of Death) was released in Australia in January 2010. That’s nearly two and a half years ago. Last week finally marked the release of another full PD Martin novel—Hell’s Fury. Today I wanted to share a little bit about the long, hard journey from Kiss of Death to Hell’s Fury. And while I have released a novella, a couple of shorts and a Pippa Dee children’s/YA book on Kindle, Hell’s Fury is the first full “PD Martin” book…and it feels like a long time between drinks (cheers, by the way!).

The idea for Hell’s Fury was born nearly 10 years ago. It came to me at a time when I’d been trying to get published for a few years and self-doubt was taking over. I was beginning to think maybe writing wasn’t for me. So, I took some time off. But the ideas didn’t stop and so I jotted them down. By the end of a three-month hiatus, I had four ideas that I liked enough to pursue as full novels — but they were all very different. I narrowed it down to two: one based on a nightmare I had about a serial killer, and one about a spy or ex-spy. I wrote the first few pages of both; deliberated, and then pursued option 1. That book turned out to be Body Count, my first published novel.

Then, my agent and publishers wanted more Sophie Anderson books and so I wrote another four novels in the series. After Kiss of Death I knew it was time to move onto a different character. But what would I write? The spy novel? Something else? I delayed the decision by working on Coming Home (ebook novella). Then I got offered a great corporate gig (interesting and some much-needed cash) and while it was only about 12 hours per week, working those hours in around looking after our then 3yro … well, it was full time for me. I did try to juggle both the corporate job and creative writing for a month or two, but I was simply too tired.

Eight months later, my contract was up … and I still didn’t know what to write. I toyed with two ideas and sent them to my agent. I waited. I went on holidays. Then I got an email to say my agent had passed away.

A few months later I did the rounds with the first four chapters of two novels (one of them was the spy thriller—Hell’s Fury). But Borders had just collapsed, GFC had hit and the agents weren’t jumping for new clients. Times were tough and my sales figures for the first five Sophie books were ‘pretty good’ rather than ‘great’. The consensus was that I’d have to write one of the novels completely and then get back to the agents.

So I did. And it was probably the hardest slog, ever. Was it because I’d had more than six months off and was out of practice? Maybe I’d just ‘lost it’ as a writer? Or maybe this wasn’t a book I was supposed to write. Regardless, I stuck it out. I kept writing, even though nearly every word felt like pulling teeth. Finally, I was done. But there were problems—it would be a massive rewrite for the second draft.

Happily, the second draft came easier. I got into the main character’s head more, worked out new sub-plots and back story. I had new ideas. I was back in the zone. And so, I started thinking maybe this WAS a worthwhile project after all.

I finished it and over the course of the next seven months I sent it out to my top 10 agents. And while I got lots of compliments on my writing, no one signed me up. So then I started questioning myself and those writerly self-doubts reared their ugly head again. I decided I was washed up when it came to “PD Martin”. But, I did have another idea, a very personal story. And so, I moved onto the next project, a women’s drama, while also juggling full-time motherhood and writing projects that would actually help to pay the bills—now.

Ten months later, I’d decided to launch into the ebook space. Could my spy thriller be part of my ebook strategy? Was it good enough? I gave the spy thriller to a voracious reader friend and she promised to be brutally honest. She read it within less than a day and absolutely raved about it. Loved it. Wanted to know when she could get her hands on the sequel. And more importantly, she said it was definitely up there with the best thrillers and spy thrillers she’d read.

My confidence was restored and I sent it to a few other Beta readers. Everyone agreed that the book was really good. So, rather than sending it to my ‘next level’ of agents, I decided to get it ready for self-publication on Kindle. So after a professional edit and a cover design, Hell’s Fury was launched and is now on Amazon and Smashwords.

It feels like it’s been a long time between drinks … certainly Hell’s Fury was many years in the making. But it’s out there and I’m extremely happy with my new ‘baby’. It hasn’t been up very long so has only got one review, but it was a five-star one. And from a reader who’s new to me, new to PD Martin. Happy days!

So, when did you feel full of self-doubt? And did you power through it?

Hell’s Fury synopsis

She lies in an Afghani prison cell, disowned by the CIA and regularly tortured. Seven months into her prison term, a lone operator stages a daring extraction. But who is Decker, the mysterious man behind her rescue?

He claims to represent The Committee, an international group made up of ex-professionals from the CIA, FBI, Interpol, MI5, Scotland Yard, Mossad and ASIS; a private organization that serves and protects where the current intelligence or justice agencies fall short.

Decker also claims to know her long-dead father, and brings to the table an offer she can’t refuse; “Go on one mission, and I’ll tell you about your father’s secret life.”

Her assignment: John Hope. Her orders: kill him.

Comments (1)

February 14, 2012

National Year of Reading

Filed under: Murderati blogs — Tags: national year of reading, PD Martin, reading, Writing — PD Martin @ 3:49 am

On Tuesday 14 February I launched the National Year of Reading at Kew Library. As the City of Boroondara’s ambassador for the National Year of Reading, this was my first official duty. Below, I’ve included some of the things that I spoke about in my speech.

First off, I was lucky because I always loved reading. I didn’t need Harry Potter or fancy ebooks on iPads to engage me – I just needed a book. Sure, there were books I loved more than others, books that I read over and over again. Childhood greats like The Wishing Chair, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and Famous Five and Nancy Drew come to mind. But pretty much any book would do me. I’d devour them, keen to move on to the next story, or the next book in a series.

So, what did I love about books and reading? Some people talk about the feel of a book, the feel of turning pages. But for me, although my childhood reading was solely hardcopy based, it was never about the feel of a book, it was about the words on the page, or more specifically about where the book would take me. You can pick up a book and be anywhere in the world, or not in this world at all. Whether it’s reading about a cop in the US, a bodyguard in England or reading about the hobbits travelling to Middle Earth, books take you somewhere else, give you another experience. Sometimes that experience can be grounded in reality or what might be possible, like crime fiction, drama or even romance stories (although many would argue they’re not based in any realism at all!). And at other times, the world you’re transported to is fictional, fantastical. Whether it’s travelling with Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter to Narnia or following the lives of Bella and Edward in Twilight, these books take you to another world, a world that is appealing, interesting or intriguing in some way.

Reading’s also about emotion, about how a story makes you feel. Reading has the ability, the power to take you on emotional highs and lows. You can be inspired by triumph, moved or heartbroken by tragedy or drama, intrigued and challenged by a whodunit or you can simply get away from it all with an escapist read. These escapist reads could come in the form of classic fantasy novels, horror books, paranormal stories or even romance. And while some people like the more literary style of writing and others prefer a good vampire book, it’s all reading. And it’s all story telling. Sure, it’s changed a lot over the years. Originally it was people telling stories around campfires or ‘drawing’ stories. Then, as we evolved, stories became about the written word rather than the spoken word. They were about reading, not listening. And now, well in some ways we’ve come full circle with audio books that allow people to listen to stories, but they’ve also evolved to another level with ebooks. Our kids may read online, and via ereaders or i-Somethings, but they will still read. In fact, I think ebooks give these technology-savvy generations the ability to combine reading with gadgets and hopefully that will lead to an increase in the love of reading, and most importantly of literacy.

Reading is also ultimately why I became a writer – I think why anyone becomes a writer. Authors love hearing and reading stories, and most importantly we love telling our own stories.

However, I do have a confession to make. My reading is currently in a massive trough, which actually started when I got published. Like many authors, I found myself juggling tight deadlines and reading non-fiction research books instead of reading for pleasure. Plus I became a mother soon after I became published, which meant juggling the dual acts of motherhood and writing; and I’m also one of those authors who prefers not to read while writing. These things add up to not much reading.

However, I am inspired to read more this year. Inspired by the National Year of Reading, and by my role as an ambassador!

Comments (2)

October 14, 2011

It’s a wrap

Filed under: Events/appearances,Murderati blogs — Tags: Alison Goodman, Angela Savage, Katherine Howell, Kathryn Fox, LA Larkin, Leigh Redhead, Lindy Cameron, Malla Nunn, Margie Orford, Marianne Delacourt, Narelle Harris, PD Martin, Shamini Flint, SheKilda, Tara Moss, Vanda Symon — PD Martin @ 12:14 am

On the weekend I attended the ten-yearly (yup, not annual, not bi-annual but once a decade) SheKilda. It was actually the second ever SheKilda, to mark Sisters in Crime Australia’s 20th anniversary and the 10th anniversary of the first SheKilda. Happily, they are talking about maybe having another one in five years! I’m going to push for two years.

Anyway, having attended Bouchercon once, I was hoping that SheKilda would follow a similar format and, of course, be as wonderful and successful as the US convention. And I was NOT disappointed. It was an amazing weekend. A time for authors and readers to talk, exchange ideas and in the case of the authors complain that our partners don’t understand what we do and how tough it is.

One of the key differences between SheKilda and Bouchercon is that SheKilda was conceived and produced by Sisters in Crime and so all the authors were women. In terms of the audience, I’d say it was probably about 95% women too, but then again most crime readers are female.

The main difference between SheKilda and most of the other writing events I’ve attended (except Bouchercon) is that it was set up as a convention rather than a writers festival. The sessions and activities were centred almost entirely around the hotel venue (Rydges in Carlton, Melbourne). To my knowledge, this makes SheKilda the only one of its kind in Australia. They even served morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea in a common area near the venues, so we didn’t have to stray too far from the action or pound the pavement in the search of lunch.

The weekend kicked off with the Friday night gala opening. It was a chance for all the authors and attendees to mingle (with free champagne, red wine, white wine and beer – oh, and soft drinks too). There was also some extra yummy finger food! Then it was into one of the rooms for the official opening. MCed masterfully by Sue Turnbull (she’s an amazing interviewer and MC), it kicked off with a traditional welcome from Joy Murphy Wandin, who’s an elder of the Wurundjeri indigenous people. Then it was on to the entertaining (funny) City of Melbourne Councillor Ken Ong, then Mary Delahunty of Writing Australia and then the keynote address from Margie Orford, one of the three international guests for the convention. She gave a stunning speech about the setting for her novels and hometown (Cape Town). Apparently the murder rate there is so high that forensics will only be called if they think the murder might make the TV news. There have even been cases of people travelling to Cape Town to specifically arrange murder – hoping their victim will simply go into the massive pile of unsolved murder cases on some homicide cop’s desk. Margie’s police contact will often have 200 files on his desk.

Saturday kicked off with a joint session with all the international guests, Margie Orford, Shamini Flint and Vanda Symon. It was a great opening to the day’s events and was followed by Tara Moss launching Scarlet Stiletto: The Second Cut, a collection of award-winning short stories by women crime writers.

For my other morning session, I attended Drawing the Line: Whatever!, which looked at how the line is drawn between a young adult novel and an adult novel. YA authors Marianne Delacourt, Karen Healey and Nansi Kunze were led by Alison Goodman. It seems violence was one key determiner, but sex was a more important one. For example, editorial notes removing the word “straddled” were discussed!

After lunch, I was on a panel with Narelle Harris, Marianne Delacourt, Alison Goodman and Kim Westwood, chaired by Tara Moss. The panel looked at bending the rules in terms of genre — mixing genres, moving genres, etc.

After my choc-chip cookie at afternoon tea it was time for my second panel of the day, Conquering the World: Heroes Abroad. This panel was chaired by Angela Savage and together with Lindy Cameron, Malla Nunn and LA Larkin we all explored setting our books overseas. Angela’s are set in Thailand, Lindy’s Redback is set in several locations, Malla’s are set in South Africa in the 1950s and Louisa’s first book is set in Zimbabwe and Australia and her second in Antarctica. And then of course mine are set in the US.

Saturday night was the Davitt Awards, which were created to support Aussie female crime writers – who often seemed to be overlooked in our other crime awards. The winners that night were (from left to right):

Best true crime: Colleen Egan
Best YA crime fiction: Penny Matthews
Best fiction honourable mention: Leigh Redhead
Best fiction: Katherine Howell (who was my guest here in July)

There was also a reader’s choice award for fiction, which went to PM Newton (not in pic).

I kicked off Sunday morning with a panel called Brave New World: Or Death of the Book. As you can imagine, we spent the hour talking about ebooks in Australia and around the world. A recent stat for Australia is that the current $35million ebook market will increase to anything from $150 million to $700 million in the next three years. Big numbers!

After morning tea, I was an audience member for In the Face of Evil: Encounters with the Guilty, where true crime writers Rochelle Jackson, Robin Bowles and Ruth Wykes talked about their interviews and encounters with real-life crooks and murderers. And then I sat in on Them that Really Do it, which featured authors who used their past/present careers in their writing. Katherine Howell (ex-paramedic), YA Erskine (ex-cop), Helene Young (pilot), Kathryn Fox (ex-doctor) and PM Newton (ex-cop) were on the panel.

After lunch was Body in the Pool, which gave the SheKilda attendees an insight into how things would really happen if/when a dead body is found. The body had been on display by the pool all weekend and the experts included someone from police (actually our ex-assistant commissioner, Sandra Nicholson), a bug expert Mel Archer and a forensic pathologist. Timing (real versus that portrayed in crime fiction and crime TV) was also considered. At least 6-8 weeks for the entomology report and 10 weeks for the autopsy report.

It was an amazing, amazing weekend. A chance to talk to other authors, share stories (often complaining about how badly we’re paid!!) and expose ourselves to some great authors who are new to us. I kept my hand in my pocket over the weekend, but only because I’m sure Santa is bringing me a kindle for Christmas so I’ll wait and purchase the many fabulous books now on my ‘to buy’ list as ebooks!

What authors have you ‘found’ at a convention and then bought their books?

Comments (2)

September 29, 2011

The photo shoot to kill for

Filed under: Events/appearances,Murderati blogs — Tags: Angela Savage, Leigh Redhead, PD Martin, publicity — PD Martin @ 12:02 am

Part of an author’s life is publicity. And, let’s face it, for the most part publicity is fun! You write in a cocoon for many, many months and then you emerge and get to flap your wings and show off all the pretty patterns. Well, it’s kind of like that.

For many authors, I know publicity can be a drag. For the shy, retiring type of author, publicity can be daunting and scary. Then there are the really, really big authors who do world tours and get a few weeks taken out of their writing schedule each year. They’re shepherded from city to city, country to country and plane to plane. I can see that after the first world tour (or maybe the tenth) that might get a little old.

For most of us, the publicity rounds are more sedate. And it depends on your publishing house and publicist too. My five books are released in Australia through Pan Macmillan Australia. They assigned me a fabulous publicist and for the two weeks around the launch of each book I’d block out time for media interviews. Lots were over-the-phone radio interviews, but then also some print stuff with the occasional photo shoot. However, in the US I didn’t have a publicist and so the publicity and media stuff was pretty much non-existent. The other weird thing about publicity is that by the time a book is released, you’re already well into writing the next book. So you have to get your head out of the current WIP and back into your last book.

But that’s not what this blog is about…today I want to talk about the best photo shoot of my career to date. And it’s not to publicise an upcoming novel. Next month, 7-9 October, I’m part of an Australian crime convention called SheKilda. It’s only the second of its kind (the first/last one was 10 years ago) and I’m hoping it’s going to be like Bouchercon for Aussies. It’s being hosted by Sisters in Crime Australia, so it’s only female crime writers (authors, journalists and TV writers) but there are still over 70 authors on 35+ panels. Needless to say, I can’t wait!!!! I’m using the pun – a killer weekend.

But I’ve digressed again. So, a couple of weeks ago, as part of the publicity for SheKilda, I was asked to take part in an interview with two other Melbourne-based authors, Angela Savage and Leigh Redhead. First I went into city and talked to the journalist over coffee, then the next day we met at the Victorian State Library for the photo shoot. The theme: modern-day Cluedo. The three of us had to pick a colour – my first difficulty. You see, like many Melbournians about 90% of my wardrobe is black. Anyway, I managed to hunt out some purple and so I was Professor Plum (in the library – literally).

The first pose was on a Chesterfield with magnificent lights in the background. Angela Savage lay on the lounge with a dagger, Leigh Redhead had the gun and I had a magnifying glass. The second pose was Leigh lying on the lounge, me lying on the top of it (balance was required, people!) and Angela behind us, looking a little too excited to be holding a rope in her gloved hands. This one made it into the article and I also got a way less slick pic on my little camera.

Next we were near an old marble staircase. I was sitting, magnifying glass in hand (I sooo wanted a gun) and Angela and Leigh were behind me, backs against the wall like they were about to kill each other (or maybe me). That one made the front cover of the Melbourne Times Weekly and is also the pic featured in the online version.

Then we did a Charlie’s Angels style pose. Again, I got one on my camera. This was a special moment for me, because I was able to play out one of my childhood fantasies — I was one of Charlie’s Angels! Sad, but true

I don’t know if you can see it in the pics, but it was a seriously fun shoot. Angela, Leigh and I were like excited school girls – with fake guns, knives, etc. And while most photo shoots take 5-15 minutes, this one went for nearly two hours!

It’s all in the look
When you’re posing for photos, it can be hard to work out what expression to use. Even though we were having fun and getting into it, do you go for sexy? Serious? Smug? Leigh and I joked about the classic crime writer “look”. Crime authors need to refine a little sexy smirk that says: “I know something you don’t know.” And the thing we know? Whodunit. And that’s kind of important in a murder mystery.

Comments Off

May 17, 2011

Switching teams

Filed under: Murderati blogs,Writing — Tags: changing genres, genre, Nora Roberts, PD Martin, Philippa Gregory, Tess Gerritsen — PD Martin @ 2:48 am

My latest Murderati post…

Baseball player When you talk to agents or publishers about switching genres it’s usually met with jaws dropping, heads shaking and anything from mild disapproval to screams of “No!”

So why is it that switching genres can produce such a strong reaction? You’d think you were announcing to your family that you were switching teams. (If you’re a Seinfeld fan you’ll be following my analogy, but if you’re a little lost, here’s the missing piece of the puzzle: the characters in Seinfeld used to talk about people “batting for the other team”, which meant they were gay rather than heterosexual. And, as you’ve probably guessed, switching teams means changing sexual orientation.) So….

Why does something as seemingly small and insignificant as switching genres produce a jaw-dropping reaction? I mean, it’s just a genre, right? A story is a story. Right? Well, it’s actually more complex than that.

At this point, I should come clean. I’m a chronic genre switcher. (Although you wouldn’t know it by looking at my published novels – on the surface I appear to be a mystery novelist firmly entrenched in the police procedural/forensic thriller zone.) However, I DO believe a story is a story and I often get story ideas for a range of genres. For example, before getting published I wrote two children’s fantasy novels (which remain unpublished). Then for my third book I was deciding between three different ideas, all in different genres! I had one crime fiction, one action/espionage thriller and one mainstream women’s fiction. In the end, as you may have guessed, I chose the crime fiction story and wrote what became my first published novel, Body Count.

Bodycount-AUSTRALIA

But the other novels and ideas have stayed with me, as well as new ideas. Another example…I’m a bit of a closet vampire fiction fan (I know, big confession) and after I’d written three Sophie books I wanted to write a vampire fiction book. But my agent convinced me to stay focused on crime, and Sophie. Why upset the apple cart?

What about my first two children’s books? People often assume it would be easy to get them published now that I’m a published author. To a certain extent the first books an author writes tend to be learning experiences, a way for them to refine their craft. Having said that, I still believe in one of my children’s books; I believe the writing is good enough. Problem is, it’s a different genre. Publishers and agents think of an author’s name as a brand. Promote the brand and keep the brand ‘strong’ by ensuring the author’s name is synonymous with a certain type of book. ‘P.D. Martin’ is crime fiction/mysteries/thrillers. And obviously I wouldn’t want to bring out a children’s novel under the same name anyway because I definitely wouldn’t want 8-12 year olds who enjoyed my fantasy novels to pick up one of my crime books!

So why not publish under a different name? It’s all about time and focus. After all, if you go and write a romance novel or a children’s fantasy series, that’s going to take time away from the mysteries, right? Basically, your agent and publisher(s) try to convince you to focus on writing in your current genre and at least one book a year. It seems that’s the magical formula in publishing. Of course, genre hopping can be more easily done if you can write two books a year – then you’d still be bringing out one book a year in each series.

I’ve scrapped the children’s fantasy novels, at least for now. But I still want/wanted to do something different. After five Sophie novels and one ebook novella, I went back to my action thriller idea and I’ve just finished writing that book. While it is very different to my Sophie Anderson series, crime fiction and action thrillers aren’t SO different that my new one couldn’t be a ‘P.D. Martin book’. At least, I think it’s okay.

Of course, there are authors who have successfully crossed the divide. One that comes to mind is Nora Roberts. She started off with straight romance novels and then moved on to romantic suspense, writing as J.D. Robb. Although, interestingly, the books bear both of her names, with the byline “Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb”. I also noticed from Wikipedia that she’d always wanted to write romantic suspense but was persuaded by her agent to stay focused on romance until she built a following. In fact, it was over 10 years before she finally got her wish to write romantic suspense and it was partly in response to her prolific output.

Scottish author Val McDermid also has a series she writes under V.L. McDermid. However, the rationale is not genre-based because all her books are mysteries. Rather, her V.L. books feature a lesbian protagonist (batting for the other team), while her Val books are considered more ‘mainstream’.

Murderati’s own Tess Gerritsen is another example of an author who successfully switched genres. She started with romantic thrillers and then moved to medical thrillers, then crime thrillers. Interestingly, she HAS written all her novels using the same name and said when she changed from romantic thrillers to medical thrillers she considered releasing them under a different name but ultimately decided against it. Tess sees advantages and disadvantages. When she switched genres, she felt that she’d built up an audience and didn’t want to lose them. However, she says the romance novels continue to annoy her purist thriller readers. “But in the long run, I think it’s been good for sales,” Tess said.

Another author who’s shifted genres but all within the same ‘brand’/same name is Philippa Gregory. Probably most well known for historical fiction she’s also written thrillers and her Amazon bio describes her as the pioneer of “fictional biography”. The Other Boleyn Girl is a well-known example.

I guess these genre-switchers are good news for me…especially given the book I’ve just started working on is best described as a “mainstream women’s fiction”. I know, something different again! (Please don’t shake your head at me.)

Unfortunately my agent passed away late last year and I’m currently on the hunt for a new agent. This means I don’t have anyone to berate me for switching genres or to warn me against it. A new found freedom? But will querying with an action thriller and a work in progress of a women’s fiction make it harder for me to find a new agent? Only time will tell. And maybe I should be on the lookout for an agent who’s also open to children’s fantasy – just to really get their jaws dropping and heads shaking. Come on, people…I’m switching genres, not teams

So do you like your authors to keep their genres straight up? And the writers out there…are you closet genre-switchers like me?

Comments (8)

May 2, 2011

Cinderella made me do it

Filed under: Murderati blogs — Tags: Cinderella, Kate Middleton, PD Martin, Prince William, Royal Wedding — PD Martin @ 10:10 am

Murderati post – Sunday 1 May 2011

Here’s the thing…this week I found myself getting into the hype surrounding the wedding, the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton (unlike Cordelia’s post yesterday, I am going there!). There…I’ve said it. I have publicly confessed! But why was I suddenly so intrigued in the few days before the wedding? What is it about this ‘story’ that captures our attention?

At this stage, I’d like to point out that although I’m an Aussie and therefore officially part of the Commonwealth, I would prefer it if Australia was a republic. In other words, I’m definitely NOT a monarchist. I also do NOT have a fascination with the royals. In fact, I really don’t care what they do and don’t do in their daily lives. I certainly never read the tabloids, nor am I into royal fashion. And while I’m not a tom-boy, I’m certainly no girly-girl either. So I was only vaguely interested in what the dress might look like. Despite all this, somehow the story of the ‘commoner’ Kate Middleton marrying a prince…well, it was making my heart flutter! Yup, there’s the second confession of this blog. I was totally into the hype and my heart was fluttering before the wedding even started.

Despite these confessions, in NO way do I take responsibility for what I was feeling. Instead, I blame my daughter. It’s because of her that I was swept up in the romanticism of an average girl marrying a prince. My daughter may only be four, but she’s got a lot to answer for!

About six months ago, I first read her the tale of Cinderella. As a woman today, this fairytale (and many others) does unsettle me a little. Will my daughter be waiting for a man to sweep her off her feet or rescue her like the fairytales? I know chivalry isn’t dead, but it is on the decline. And the idea of a man falling in love with a woman he dances with for a couple of hours and then marrying her as soon as he finds her? Mmm…I guess that’s why they call it a fairytale. Don’t get me wrong, I am an optimist and my husband and I met, fell in love, and got married very quickly, so I know it’s possible to feel like it was meant to be, like it was out of a fairy tale. But still…Cinderella? One night?

Anyway, just about every night for the past six months Grace has pleaded for Cinderella as her bedtime story. See…it’s not my fault I was intrigued by the wedding! The Cinderella story has been rammed into my brain just about every night for the past six months. Who wouldn’t succumb? And that’s what I told myself when I switched on the TV at 7.30pm Aussie time and watched the wedding.

Cinderella is a powerful story – and I think that’s the other reason I got caught up in the wedding mania this week. It’s weathered the storm of time (don’t you just love that expression) and it’s had many new twists.

According to Wikipedia (all hail Wikipedia!) the roots of Cinderella may be in 1BC, and in the story of a girl called Rhodopis who lived in Ancient Egypt. In that story, an eagle snatched one of Rhodopis’s sandals and carried it to Memphis, dropping it on the King. The King was so taken by the sandal and the fact that it had been delivered by an eagle, that he ordered the girl to be found and brought to Memphis to become his wife. Yup, that sounds like Cinderella, doesn’t it? We have the shoe.

There’s also a version that’s been found from 860(AD) China. It’s called Ye Xien, and in that story a young woman befriends a magical fish that is the reincarnation of her mother, who was murdered by her stepmother. She loses a slipper after leaving a festival and guess who finds it? The king, of course! He falls in love and I think you know the rest. So now we have the wicked stepmother. And is the fish effectively the girl’s fairy godmother?

There are also aspects of the Cinderella story in Arabian Nights, and in the story of Cordelia from pre-Roman Britain (around 55BC). Both of these tales feature jealous siblings. A more recent similarity can be found in the 1634 tale of Cenerentola. This story had a wicked stepmother and stepsisters (plus the slipper and the King searching for its owner). So now we have the stepsisters.

And it was in 1697 that the Frenchman Charles Perrault added in the pumpkin, fairy godmother and the glass slippers.

If this Cinderella history has you intrigued, check it out on Wikipedia (even if it’s purely to justify why you watched the royal wedding).

There have also been many modern day twists on the Cinderella fairy tale. There are far too many to list here, but a few come to mind. Pretty Woman was deconstructed by many as a modern Cinderella story (even though many elements were missing). And then there was Ever After (starring Drew Barrymore) and Happily N’Ever After (a retelling of the story from the point of view of one of the royal servants who’s in love with Cinderella).

And in terms of the power of the Cinderella story, we also have the theory that the Cinderella tale is one of the ‘base’ plot lines, a story arc that many modern books and movies follow in some way.

So what does all this mean? Simply this: If you watched the royal wedding, rest assured it wasn’t your fault – you were wooed by the historic power of the Cinderella fairytale. We’re all excused.

And yes, the kiss was short but at least there were two of them. I clapped excitedly both times (confession number three), just like my four year old. Did you?

Comments Off

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »