So many questions - Jo-Anne Berthelsen

 

In my years as a writer, I have been asked some interesting questions. At first, some of these used to annoy me – or even offend. But more recently, I have learnt to laugh instead or at least smile inwardly. At this stage, I have realised it is silly to expect that everyone will understand how the whole writing process works and how books are produced. After all, I know nothing about so many fields of endeavour I have never had the opportunity to explore.

I can laugh now at some interesting questions put to me once while meeting someone new:

‘Have you two met before? Mary, this is Jo-Anne – she’s a writer.’

‘Oh, so what do you write, Jo-Anne?

‘I’ve written several novels and some non-fiction too.’

‘So … should I know you? Er, I mean … are you famous?’

How would you answer that? I think I explained that the sort of books I write will probably never be best sellers, so there was no reason this person should feel bad that she had never heard of me! Then again, perhaps it could depend on our definition of ‘famous’ – or on the circles in which we move?

On another occasion, I found myself trying to explain to someone how I write fiction and non-fiction, including a weekly blog, and how I also get to talk quite often on writing and other topics. At that point, this lady looked at me blankly and blurted out in an almost scathing, accusatory tone, ‘But … but what would you write about – or speak about?’

Her question may seem innocuous – after all, she may well have been thinking how she herself would hate to do such things. Yet I found myself rather gobsmacked at how incredulous she sounded. ‘Surely this woman must be exaggerating?’ her tone clearly said.

Then there is the obvious, natural question I have been asked many times: ‘Who’s your publisher?’ As it happens, I have had three different publishers and have also self-published two books. Usually, the person asking has never heard of any of my publishers, so my answers do not help. Instead, they want to hear the name of some large, well-known, secular publishing house so they can nod wisely in response.

Such interesting questions – and others – can still easily cause me to begin questioning myself, something I suspect writers in general are quite experienced at anyway! Is my writing really any good? Will anyone want to publish it? Will anyone ever even read it? Will it make a difference in this world? On it goes.

These days, my personal response to such self-doubting questions has become more and more grounded in why I write and how God views me. I believe God created me with the ability to write and called me to do so. I believe God has also given me things to say and all those opportunities too to share them wherever I speak. In God’s strength, knowing who I am in God, I can therefore face those curly questions with peace in my heart – and I hope and pray you can too.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27

Jo-Anne Berthelsen is a Sydney-based author of seven novels and three non-fiction works. She holds degrees in Arts and Theology and has worked in teaching, editing and local church ministry. Jo-Anne loves encouraging others through both the written and spoken word and is a keen blogger.

www.jo-anneberthelsen.com

www.joanneberthelsen.wordpress.com

Writing a variety of books

I currently have three middle grade books published, and am publishing a picture book next year. As well as writing for children, I also have a few novels on the go as well as short stories and other pieces of writing that are for an as yet undetermined age group.

Even with the three books I have published, one is a fantasy and the other two are issues books set in the real world.

In short, I'm not an author who fits neatly in the box as a 'children's author' or 'fantasy author' or whatever.

Listening to podcasts, reading articles, and attending workshops left me feeling a bit flat, almost as if I was doing something wrong in my writing career because I don't fit neatly in a box, and that made branding myself a challenge (according to experts).

I have never been good at sticking with just one thing - I get bored. I do all sorts of different crafts, listen to all sorts of different music, even at work if I'm doing the same thing too often, I need to do something else for a while. I have tried to just focus on writing for children, but there are so many great stories for grown ups in my head - I want to write a romance, a murder mystery, historical novel, non-fiction and so on. I can't just write for children. I don't fit in the box.

Last week, I posted the following on Twitter:

#WritingCommunity How many of you write in more than one genre/age group (eg picture book, MG, novel for grown ups)? If you write in just one, what made you decide on that age group or genre?

 I didn't get as many responses as I was hoping, but one from Jackie French stood out:

I write in most genres. I don't eat just one food, or read just one genre, or love one kind of music, so why restrict my writing?

I must say, Jackie French is one of my writing idols and I love the way she thinks about this. It has helped me feel so much better about the path I'm following and what I'm writing. It's a reminder that I don't have to fit myself into a box to make it easier for others to find me or put me in their own boxes. I can write whatever I want and publish a wide variety of books for different people to enjoy.

I may be at the start of my journey to become a full-time author, and I know I have a huge pile of half finished manuscripts just begging for me to finish them. I am feeling so much better about being a multi-genre author.

The lesson I've learned here is that none of us need to box ourselves into just one genre - unless that is where we really want to be.

Melissa Gijsbers currently has three middle grade books published and a picture book on the way in early 2020. She currently lives in Gippsland, Victoria with her two teenage sons and their pet blue-tongue lizard. She travels to Melbourne every fortnight to run a writer's group for teenagers and writes all sorts of different stories.

You can find her at www.melissagijsbers.com and on Facebook and Twitter.

Taking the Pain Out of Collaboration

Collaboration, or co-writing, is cool at the moment. Four of our own wrote the collaborative novel The Greenfield Legacy a few years back. A group of prominent indie authors recently took an overnight train ride and created a novel together.

The big issue with collaboration, when it comes to self-published authors, has always been the accounting. Somebody has receive the royalties and divide them up each month (potentially the rest of their lives). This needs to be done for each collaboration. Podcaster Joanna Penn has often lamented that there isn’t a platform that makes this process easier. Well, now there is.

A new service by the company BundleRabbit has just launched a service that will distribute a co-written book to all the major retailers, and pay each individual contributing author, for a small percentage. Payment is handled through PayPal. They take care of currency conversions.

Essentially, this makes them like Draft2Digital, but for multi-author projects. This could be a game-changer. I suspect we will see a lot more co-written books in the near future. As with any third-party distributor, you lose a portion of control. The book is uploaded to the retailers by BundleRabbit, so you won’t see the sales information on your KDP dashboard. Instead, sales information is provided by BundleRabbit. However, given the convenience of letting them take care of all the royalties, it sounds like a good compromise to me.

Collaborating on a project can bring some advantages. By accessing each other's reader base, you can expect awareness, and possibly build some new fans. It also brings it own set of challenges, as is inevitable when more than one human being is involved in something.

But BundleRabbit have been around for a while, so what else do they do? In addition to this new service, they make it easy for authors to put together bundles of books, in the same way that the popular sites like Humble Bundle and StoryBundle do. Books can be combined on a subject matter, or other grouping. These bundles will be distributed to the retailers, but customers can also buy direct from BundleRabbit. That’s where it gets interesting. Customers can choose what they want to pay for these bundles (there is usually a minimum price specified). Unlike other bundling sites, anyone can be a curator and make their own bundle (out of books that are on BundleRabbit). For that reason, it may be worthwhile for authors to submit their books. You never know when somebody might include it in a bundle, which will give you sales. (The author has to approve the inclusion of their book.) The curator receives 5% of sales, plus the author share if any of their own books are included. This provides fundraising opportunities. Imagine a bundle of books by CWD authors. Something along the lines of the Super Series Spotlight that our own Jeanette O’Hagan was recently involved in, except that all the books can be purchased in one go, for a discounted price.

My Dream

So all of that said, I have a dream. It’s not something for now, maybe in a few year’s time, after I’ve built a little more experience writing and publishing my solo works.

I imagine getting a group of Christian spec-fic writers together in a video conference, to set up a virtual writer’s room like they use for American TV shows. Together, we’d plot out a season-wide arc for a series. Then, each writer would be assigned an ‘episode’ and write it as a novella. These could be brought together and published as a box set using BundleRabbit.

Just think, a full length book could be produced in the time it takes to write just one novella. The contributing authors could all chip in for the cost of editing, or maybe even have the editor take a percentage of royalties. The possibilities are endless.

So what about you?
Have you ever though about working on a collaborative project?

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Adam David Collings is an author of speculative fiction. He lives in Tasmania, Australia with his wife and two children. Adam draws inspiration for his stories from his over-active imagination, his life experiences and his faith.
Adam is a great lover of stories, enjoying them in books, movies, scripted TV and computer games. Adam discusses these on his own youTube show – Stories with Adam Collings.
Find him at adamdavidcollings.com or sign up to his email list for a free short story.

Create, Cultivate, Collaborate

The English language is amazing. I fell in love with it as a young child, wondering at the plethora of words that could be constructed from 26 letters. The different sounds that flowed as consonants and vowels worked together seemed incredible to my young mind. I have never lost that sense of wonder and still love to weave letters and words together in such a way as to touch those who read them.

Create

As writers, we take words and by combining them, tell stories, set scenes and build atmosphere. As our words flow into readers’ minds, they create an inner world that they can escape to as they read our stories. I always pray when I write, asking God to help me with fresh ideas that will resonate with my audience. In the case of my latest novel, Broken Shells, the whole story-line unfolded on a road trip. I was driving along the East Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, past neat rows of grape vines, turquoise seas and grey beaches and in my mind this became the backdrop to the story of Taylor and Logan.

Cultivate

Once the creative spark has been ignited, I work on cultivating it. With Broken Shells, I wrote several pages of notes about my characters. I developed a soft spot for Donny, a young man with Down Syndrome and from a small role at the beginning of the story, he ended up being a significant part of the book. Logan and Taylor also developed over the weeks and by the time the story was done, I knew far more about them than was ever revealed in the book. By cultivating this type of knowledge, our characters come out as flesh and blood, real and believable. Take time to cultivate them and bring them to life.

Collaborate

I learned many years ago that writing the story is just the beginning. For it to reach its full potential, it needs input. This is where collaboration comes in. I have beta readers who read the competed manuscript and comment on it. These are not professionals, but rather people who love reading. Broken Shells went to several such people before I submitted it to the Rose & Crown New Novel Competition 2012. To my joy it placed first in the contest but the initial report back was that there were areas that needed to be rewritten. Fast forward to late 2015 when it was undergoing the editing process. Two editors went through the manuscript and marked errors, things that didn’t tie up, and weaknesses in my writing. Back and forward it went until we were satisfied it was the best it could be. It then went to another person who checked it for accuracy, dates, time line and other such details. Only then was it ready to go to print. While it remained my story and work, I was able to improve it greatly by collaborating with others. 

Learning to write well is a lifelong process and as I look back over the decades, I see how the stages of creativity, cultivation and collaboration have improved my work. Twenty six letters, countless words, God’s touch, and help from people around us. What a wonderful way to bring life and inspiration to our world. 

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