Words Magazine Short Story Competition
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Short Story, Successes on March 29, 2018
The results of the Words Magazine 2017 ‘Murder’ short story competition were published a few days ago. There were 139 entries and I was delighted to make the shortlist. Other writers I recognised on the list were Patsy Collins and Julia Thorley. Many congratulations to John Silver and Sharon Boothroyd for rising above us and taking first and second place respectively.
Words Magazine runs two competitions a year and the next one is now open for (free!) entry. The theme is ‘Christmas’ and the closing date is 30th June 2018. The winter weather is still fresh in our memories – so it shouldn’t be too difficult to get in a Christmas frame of mind! There is a limit of 2,000 words. First prize is £50 and second prize is £25.
The aim of Words Magazine is to raise money for the RNLI. An annual e-subscription costs only £6. Or buy the current edition on Kindle. Worth considering if you enjoy short stories!
Selling to Book Shops
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Promotion, Self-publishing on March 22, 2018
Following on from my previous little self-promotion post, children’s author Robert A. Brown has been in touch with some brilliant advice about how to sell to, liaise with and organise events at book shops. Robert is the author of William, the Hedgehog Boy. Over to Robert:
For the purpose of this blog I am differentiating between the national chain retailers such as Waterstones, W.H. Smith, Foyles, The Works and Blackwells and smaller independent bookshops or the WH Smith/Post Office franchises.
Engaging with the major book retailers.
• Choose a retailer that is appropriate to your book and possible events you can offer. Mine is a children’s book, aimed at fluent readers aged 7-9 years, and featuring a hedgehog as one of the main characters, so I was looking for retailers with a large children’s section and also those that show in an interest in wildlife. I wanted a children’s section that was bright, colourful, welcoming and featuring a wide range of children’s authors not just the most popular ones such as David Walliams, Julia Donaldson, Michael Morpurgo, Jaqueline Wilson etc. I wanted retailers who host children’s events at weekends and during school holidays. As the timeline for my book encompasses both Halloween and Bonfire Night I was particularly keen to secure bookings during October half-term.
• Once you have decided which major retailers to approach, work on building a relationship with the store manager and the events team (readings and signings). This should involve several visits and face to face discussions besides emails. The more they get to know you the more likely they are to be positive about offering you an event slot.
• For the pitch try to highlight the unique selling points (USPs) of your book and introduce these into these discussions.
• Leave the manager with a copy of your book and copies of any publicity and or reviews.
• After the initial meeting pop back into the store every week or so for a brief chat and find out what they thought of the book and the prospects of a reading and or signing event.
• Inform your publisher and get them to send the press release and advance information sheet to the manager. It helps to keep your book at the forefront of the store manager’s mind.
• Assuming you are given a date and time for an event it is very important to establish how the event will be publicised and by whom. The retailer, your publisher or yourself. Hopefully all three. You should try to maximise local media outlets, company website, social media, flyers and posters etc. Hint: Don’t expect too much from the retailer, some are excellent other less so. You will probably need to be very proactive at this stage. The larger stores will source copies of the book for the event from their usual suppliers at the usual rates. You will be paid royalties based upon this order.
• Also confirm how the event is expected to run, structure, timings, breaks, refreshments, permission for taking photographs for future publicity and social media posts.
For independent bookshops and smaller local retailers the principles remain basically as above however:-
• Having established a good relationship and confirmed their interest in stocking a few copies of your book, you may wish to supply them with copies of the book yourself rather than expecting them to go down the usual trade routes. This will enable you to fix a convenient price point for them, on a sale or return basis. I chose £5-00p per copy and the shop could then choose to sell at the cover price of £7-99p. Therefore, you receive more than the usual ‘royalty’ rates, whilst they too make a handsome profit per copy sold. Thus, it is in their interest to promote the book and display it prominently.
• My local Post Office started with 5 copies and I provided them with an invoice on a sale or return basis.
• You will need to provide publicity flyers for window and table top displays.
• Offer to pop in frequently to sign purchased copies with a personalised message, check on how sales are progressing and replenish stock.
• If stock needs replenishing, request payment for copies sold and provide a signed receipt.
The Event- reading and signing
• Arrive early to meet the staff, set out the space and make yourself comfortable.
• Welcome everyone and explain what is going to happen and when.
• Be prepared to ‘ambush’ store browsers and have a chat about the event.
• When you have an audience, and let’s be honest here, you are not John Grisham, they will not be queuing outside the door, so only a very small audience is sufficient to commence your presentation and introduce the reading. Hopefully, others are likely to be curious and join you.
• Offer bystanders a ‘well thumbed’ copy to flick through.
• When somebody wishes to make a purchase, accompany them to the till and offer to sign the purchased copy for them. This is less embarrassing than sitting alone at a table at the end of the event with nobody taking any notice of you.
• TIP at the end of the event offer to sign a few unsold copies for the store. Retailers like to having a few author signed copies available, perhaps at a discounted rate for a later date. The benefit to you as the author is that they are considered sold and will not be returned.
This is really good advice from Robert, an author who is proactive at sourcing sales outlets for his books. I shall be following some of these tips. If anyone else has techniques that work when engaging with book shops, please feel free to share them in the comments. Regular followers of this blog may remember that Robert also dropped by last summer to share some tips on organising a book launch.
And if you know any children who deserve an Easter treat, I’ve heard very good things about William the Hedgehog Boy.
How to Sell Books?
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Promotion on March 13, 2018
It’s about six weeks since The Promise was published and I’ve tried not to flood this blog with constant references to it. However, today is my birthday and so I’m going to indulge. Here is a look back at what publicity the book has received in its ‘honeymoon’ post-publication phase (on a less self-centred note, I hope there might be some ideas here that you can use for your own books).
Speaking at Boldmere Library
Author Events
So far I’ve done three author talks for The Promise, one at a library and two at community groups. A bonus from the library talk was the sale of two books to the library and the satisfaction of seeing them borrowed whilst my talk was still taking place.
I have another three talks lined up for April and May. The title of my talk is ‘How to Make Money Out of Murder’ and it covers writing a novel, readings from The Promise – and the best tools to use when committing a murder. The flushed cheeks in the photo show that I still get a bit nervous when speaking but hopefully it doesn’t show too much!
Print Media
I find this the hardest way to generate publicity, however the Warner Times (posted to all guests of the Warner Hotel Group) interviewed me and I was thrilled when below the interview, in their ‘Armchair Thrillers’ recommendations, The Promise was placed next to Cover Her Face by P.D. James. Not sure that will happen again!
The lovely Margaret James also gave The Promise a much appreciated and well-timed mention when she asked my views on grip lit for her column in the March issue of Writing Magazine.
Retail Outlets
The Promise is available via bookshops but it was particularly pleasing to see a display of all three of my paperbacks in the window of my local WH Smith Local.
Internet Publicity
Lots of lovely bloggers supported me during the first couple of weeks publication.
In week 1: Helen Yendall and Julia Thorley published guest posts, as did the online magazine Female First. Anne Harvey and Janette Davies interviewed me with lots of interesting (and sometimes difficult!) questions. Lou’s Book Blog did a spotlight post.
In week 2: I went on a 21 stop blog tour with Rachel’s Random Resources. This threw up some lovely reviews and the full tour list is on Rachel’s website.
“Sally Jenkins has woven a dark tale of murder, blackmail and retribution. As the plot thickens it’s hard to imagine where it will all end for the characters caught up in a web of intrigue and deceit.” – Amazon reviewer.
I’m very grateful to all the people and organisations mentioned above (if I’ve missed someone out, please let me know!) for the interest they’ve shown in my writing and their willingness to help. The Promise is also available in e-book format and from a range of online retailers such as Amazon and Waterstones.
Chicken Soup – On Stage
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Events, Writing on March 6, 2018
It fascinates me how our past affects our present and future lives. The past might be our upbringing and parental influences, it might be something we did that makes us ashamed and secretive, it might be the impact of external events on our everyday lives.
Recently I went to see Chicken Soup in the Studio Theatre at the Crucible in Sheffield. 
Written by Ray Castleton and Kieran Knowles, the play focuses on three miners’ wives and shows the effect the 1984/85 miners’ strike had on the rest of their lives, their family relationships and on their enduring friendship. There are three acts, each one in a different year: a 1984 soup kitchen/foodbank during the strike, a 2002 Queen’s Golden Jubilee party and a foodbank on the day of the 2016 EU Referendum. To add to the atmosphere the audience are given vouchers to claim a free serving of soup in the interval – forced to form a queue at a makeshift ‘soup kitchen’.
By 2002 and 2016 the lives of the three women have taken different paths. Following the strike one has become more politically active and is now a councillor. One has bettered herself by taking accountancy exams and ends up a high-flying career woman. The third seems stuck in the past, still carrying a hatred for her brother who crossed picket lines during the strike. Each has been affected in a different way by the past.
This made me think about my own characterisation when I’m writing fiction. Do I think sufficiently about how each character has come to be where they are? Am I dropping the important parts of their past into the story subtley or am I shoehorning in great hunks of backstory? Are the characters acting realistically, given what they’ve been through in the past? Why are different characters affected in different ways by the same past event?
What about you – do you think about how the past is motivating your characters’ actions in the present? How do you tell the reader about that past life? Do you know their past before you start writing their present?
Tips for Reading Aloud
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Authors, Books, Promotion on February 25, 2018
Julia Thorley has published a collection of monologues and first-person stories, Nine Lives. 
The tales are meant to be read aloud. Julia recently launched the book with some readings and has very generously agreed to share her experience and some great tips on reading aloud to groups:
In my other life as a yoga teacher I am used to speaking to groups of people, but this didn’t stop me being incredibly nervous. An audience is a different proposition from a class of students.
A couple of years ago, I was asked to read my story ‘Scoring an Own Goal in Tennis’ at the awards evening of the H E Bates short story competition. At the time, I sought the advice of my friend Kezzabelle, who is a performance poet. She gave me some excellent tips, which I applied not just on that occasion, but also at the launch events I held for Nine Lives:
- Wear the right glasses! Print out your text extra-large, if you think you might struggle to read from the original.
- Punctuation for reading aloud isn’t necessarily the same as that for reading in your head. Be prepared to tweak, and practise before you perform. Dialogue can be particularly problematic. On paper, the implied ‘he said, she said’ of a conversation is obvious, but unless you plan to use different voices it can be hard to follow out loud.
- Highlight in colour words that need particular vocal emphasis or provide the chance for a gesture.
- Turn your pages at the end of a sentence, so you don’t break your rhythm.
- If you’re reading before and after an interval, pop to the loo just before the end of the first half. That way you’ll be able to avoid the queue and, more importantly, be available to chat to people and, all being well, sell a few books.
While I had a voice in mind as I wrote each story, I said in the introduction to Nine Lives : ‘. . . if you hear a different voice, that’s fine with me.’ I’ve asked other people to read some of the stories for me – I have written some from the male POV, for instance – and it’s very odd hearing another person’s interpretation. I wasn’t prepared for that!
I’m never going to be able to recite my tales from memory, but my confidence is increasing each time I read in public. I’m no Victoria Wood, but I’ve managed to raise a laugh in the right places and make people cry at the sad bits, which is pleasing.
Why not give it a go? If you read aloud anything from your copy of Nine Lives, I’d love to hear how you get on.
Nine Lives: monologues and first-person stories for reading aloud is available as an e-book from Amazon for 99p. Paperbacks are available via www.juliathorley.com for £5 + p&p. Or contact her through her Facebook page: @JuliaThorleyAuthor or her blog: Life, yoga and other adventures.
Growing Up with Enid Blyton
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Authors, Books on February 19, 2018
We can all pinpoint particular books or authors that got us reading as a child. For my daughters it was Harry Potter and Jacqueline Wilson.
For me it was Enid Blyton. Her books offered children a different series for whatever age they were at. My ‘ladder’ of Enid Blyton series was:
Mr Pinkwhistle
Mr Pinkwhistle is half brownie and half person, and he has the ability to make himself invisible at will. He’s always helping people in trouble and this often leads to funny situations. There is a moral to the stories – people who do bad things always get punished. For example a brother and sister have pet rabbits and neglect them. Mr Pinkwhistle sets the rabbits free to enjoy the grass and the children lose their pets (if I remember correctly!).
The Magic Faraway Tree
The Faraway Tree is a huge tree that reaches up to the clouds. Each day there is a different land to be found above the clouds e.g. the land of spells, the land of toys, the rocking land (the land tips up and sideways and you keep falling over). A group of children discover the tree and have various adventures in the different lands.
What really captured my imagination was the the slippery slip – a helter skelter that runs down the middle of the tree.
There are lots of amazing characters who live in the tree, such as Saucepan Man and Dame Washalot (the children have to dodge her water as she empties down the tree).
The Famous Five
Four children and Timmy the dog have amazing adventures which involve camping on deserted islands, tracking down jewel thieves and more. I wanted to belong to this group of children. The eldest, Julian, was like the big brother I would have loved to have had. George (real name Georgina) was the brave tomboy I’d like to have been. Timmy was the pet dog I never had. And I longed to camp out on a bed of springy heather and drink lashings of ginger beer (although I had no idea as a child what ginger beer was!).
In the 1990s potentially offensive language was removed from the Famous Five, with words like ‘queer’ and ‘golliwog’ removed. In 2010 things went a step further. An attempt was made by the publisher Hachette to modernise the Famous Five. Old fashioned words were swapped to their modern day equivalents. For example ‘frocks’ was changed to ‘dresses’, ‘mother and father’ to ‘mum and dad’ and the expression ‘Golly!’ was removed. The children wore jeans instead of shorts. I’m glad to say that the 2010 the changes were deemed a mistake and were reversed in 2016.
Can you imagine if they’d gone further with their ‘modernisation’ and given the children mobile phones and tablets!
Malory Towers
This is a series of six books set in a girls’ boarding school. The books follow Darrell Rivers from the first term in her first year to the last term in her last year. School life is full of midnight feasts and playing tricks on the teachers, with no parents getting in the way. Memorable characters were the unpopular, malicious Gwendoline Mary, little Mary Lou and Darrell’s best friend Sally. French teacher Mam’zelle Dupont was often the butt of the girls’ tricks.
Apparently the school is based on the boarding school, Benenden School, that Blyton’s daughter attended, during its wartime relocation to the Cornish seaside. And Darrell’s name is taken from Enid’s second husband – Kenneth Darrell Waters.
This series’ continued popularity with modern youngsters was recognised in 2009, when Pamela Cox wrote another 6 books in the series, they continued where Blyton had left off but focused on Darrell’s younger sister, Felicity, who joined the school when Darrell was in the 4th form.
Do you have a ‘ladder’ of Enid Blyton books? Or did you grow up with something different?
Improvements to KDP Paperback Offering
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Self-publishing on February 5, 2018
In 2017 Kindle Direct Publishing introduced the facility for authors to self publish in paperback as well as on Kindle. This meant it was no longer necessary to use Createspace to produce paperbacks for sale on Amazon. However, there was a downside to moving away from Createspace towards KDP paperback publishing – unlike Createspace, KDP paperback publishing didn’t allow authors to order proof copies or author copies (i.e. books for the author to sell direct to the public). I blogged about this previously.
However, that has now changed!
It is now possible to order proof and author copies of paperback books via the KDP Author Bookshelf. According to Amazon, authors will pay just the printing costs plus delivery and any taxes. And the really good news? Copies for the UK and Europe will be printed and shipped from within Europe – an improvement on CreateSpace, which ships from America.
Chris McMullen has written a detailed blog post comparing Createspace and KDP paperback publishing, which is well worth a read if you’re wondering which path to take or whether to switch from Createspace to KDP. He concludes that for most authors KDP is now the better option.
On a personal note, I’m now glad I tried KDP paperback publishing for A Coffee Break Story Collection and will consider switching from Createspace when I need more author copies of Bedsit Three.
Publication of The Promise
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Books, Promotion, Successes on January 28, 2018
Today The Promise goes out into the big wide world! 
It’s been a long time coming. I signed with The Book Guild last June and since then there’s been cover designs (back and front), proof reading, a marketing meeting, sorting out a blog tour etc. etc. Lots of people have been involved in bringing The Promise to publication. As well as the lovely people at The Book Guild, there’s my writing friends who have cheered me through the whole process of blank page to finished manuscript, my husband who puts up with a wife hiding herself away with a computer (at least I’m not hiding myself away with another man!), my mum who totally believes in me, everyone who bought Bedsit Three and made me think it was worthwhile trying to write another, all the followers of this blog who let me know I am not alone in my endeavours plus everyone in my non-writing life who has asked when the next book is coming out. The dedication at the front of The Promise is to you all with very many thanks:
For all those who have helped along the way – your support continues to be invaluable.
The Promise is dark fiction and the back cover blurb reads:
Olivia has recurring nightmares about the murder of a man which took place when she was a teenager. She refuses to explain the dreams to her worried fiancé, Mark.
Petty criminal Tina is diagnosed with a terminal illness and becomes concerned for the future welfare of her younger brother, Wayne.
When Tina finds a forgotten letter from her ex-cellmate, Audrey, a promise made decades before links the two families.
But the letter also contains a sinister secret…
The book is available in paperback from all major online book retailers and in high street bookshops. It’s also available on Kindle, iBooks, GooglePlay and Nook.
In the coming week I’ve got wonderful bloggers helping me get publicity for The Promise off to a flying start:
Monday 29th January – Helen Yendall’s Blog About Writing. Helen is my longtime writing buddy and fantastic womag writer.
Tuesday 30th January – Lou’s Book Blog. The lovely Lou will be shining the spotlight on The Promise.
Wednesday 31st January – Anne Harvey’s Passionate About The Past. I met Anne through my contact with the Birmingham Chapter of the RNA and we’ve helped each other along the way.
Friday 2nd February – Julia Thorley’s Life, Yoga and Other Adventures. Julia is a woman of many talents. She and I are virtual friends.
And week commencing February 5th there’ll be a 21 stop blog tour organised by Rachel’s Random Resources.
Jelly Working
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Lifestyle, Resources, Writing on January 16, 2018
The concept of writers and other home-workers pulling out laptops and working in coffee shops is familiar. It lets us escape those same boring four walls of home and all the domestic distractions. And it makes us feel part of society, even if the only person we speak to is the barista.
UK Jelly takes this a step further. Their aim is to ‘to bring home workers, freelancers, small business owners and entrepreneurs together in a relaxed, informal, working environment to maximise creativity and minimise the isolation that being your own boss can bring.’ It is not networking to sell yourself or your business. It’s about having some company whilst you work and maybe exchanging help and advice. At Jelly events the venue, wi-fi and parking are free, the only charge is for refreshments.
I went along to my first Jelly event last week. There were only a few of us and we had introductions and a bit of a chat before getting our laptops out to work. I deliberately didn’t connect to the free wi-fi because I wanted to do some distraction free editing. By the end of the session I’d done two hours solid work and met some new people. It beat coffee shop working because I didn’t feel guilty about taking up space for a long time with only one drink and I liked that I was part of a group. My local Jelly only meets monthly but I’ll definitely be going back in February.
Why not find out if there’s a Jelly near you?
January is Hot Month for New Crime and Thriller Releases
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Books on January 7, 2018
If you’re a crime or thriller fan, January is your month. The first month of the year used to be the post-Christmas dead slot in the publishing world but not any more.
An article in today’s Sunday Times reports that January is the hot time to release new titles in these genres. The trend started with the January release of The Girl on the Train in 2015 and that book occupied the UK hardback number one spot for 20 weeks.
Nicholas Clee, joint editor of the book-trade newsletter, BookBrunch, says, “You’re making a statement putting your book out in January — you’re saying it could be the next Girl on the Train.” And there’s no sign of the popularity of this type of book diminishing. Alice O’Keeffe, books editor at the Bookseller magazine, puts it down to the “blurring of the psychological suspense thriller with the women’s fiction market. It pulls in two readerships.”
So what have fans got to look forward to in January?
Dark Pines by Will Dean is Nordic noir by a British author.
Need to Know by Karen Cleveland is about a CIA analyst who believes her husband could be a Russian sleeper agent.
Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka investigates the death of a teenager in a small Colorado town.
It looks like The Promise by Sally Jenkins, about a vow made in prison 30 years ago, will be in good company when it’s released on January 28th!
Sally Jenkins 