Ask the Author: Nick Louth
Answered Questions (17)
Nick Louth
Hi Jannelies,
I do apologise for the delay in replying. (I've only just discovered I ticked the box to answer readers' questions.) First of all, thank you for listening to my books! Book 12 of Gillard is the last one, though I may yet add another. The new series, DI Jan Talantire, set in Devon comes out this in May, and there will be at least 8 of them. The narrator, Mandy Watson has a lovely voice!
I do apologise for the delay in replying. (I've only just discovered I ticked the box to answer readers' questions.) First of all, thank you for listening to my books! Book 12 of Gillard is the last one, though I may yet add another. The new series, DI Jan Talantire, set in Devon comes out this in May, and there will be at least 8 of them. The narrator, Mandy Watson has a lovely voice!
Nick Louth
This answer contains spoilers…
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Nick Louth
From 8 years ago (huge apologies for the delay!) you must be talking about Bite. That was inspired by my time working at Reuters in Amsterdam in the 1990s when I went to a conference on tropical diseases. At that time, they killed 2m people or more every year, but there was a poor press attendance compared with the AIDs conference I'd been to earlier. likewise, the drug industry didn't seem interested in curing diseases where the customers were so poor.
Nick Louth
I have far more ideas than I could ever write. There are maybe half a dozen partially written novels on my computer. I'm working through them at about two a year, but more still keep popping into my head.
Nick Louth
Most books cost £7.99, but are discounted to £4.99 say, with the retailer taking half, and the publisher taking 80% of the rest. Deduct an agent fee (plus VAT) and the writer is left with pence.
(OK, this is niche horror but it still sends shivers up the spine of most writers!)
(OK, this is niche horror but it still sends shivers up the spine of most writers!)
Nick Louth
Gosh, I'm so late with this one! Back then in 2014 I was working on Heartbreaker, but now in September 2022, I'm just beginning to think about a new detective series, with a female lead, based in Devon and Cornwall beginning in 2023/24. Remember where you read it first!
Nick Louth
Like many writers, I'd fancy a quick trip to Tolkien's Middle Earth, but only so long as full accident and emergency insurance was included. (I might pass on the Mordor Travelodge - quite noisy, apparently.)
Nick Louth
Hi Jackie. That twilight moment whene dream recede and wakefulness gathers is an ideas factory to me. I sometimes think that there is an underground river of plots gushing through my subsconcious, and every night I lower a mental bucket down a deep well to gather some up. It's writing them up that takes the time! If you want to write a novel, I would say: Do so, because you have to, and if nothing else can fill that part of you. Above all, carry on and NEVER give up. You'll get there in the end. (So sorry to take so long to answer - I've only just discovered that I opted to receive qns on Goodreads!)
Nick Louth
Sorry to have taken so long to answer this: Pig Island, by the brilliant (and sadly deceased) Mo Hayder*, the Gathering by Anne Enright, and a whole host of non-fiction, including The Forger's Spell by Edward Dolnick, about a great post-war Vermeer hoax.
*Did you know that Mo Hayder had been a page 3 girl, appeared as a glamorous secretary in 'Are you being served' She was an extraordinary writer, and smasher of stereotypes.
*Did you know that Mo Hayder had been a page 3 girl, appeared as a glamorous secretary in 'Are you being served' She was an extraordinary writer, and smasher of stereotypes.
Nick Louth
Interesting question. I travelled to Uzbekhistan in 1991 (tail end of Soviet times) and with a group, visited the tomb of the great conquerer Timur (Tamerlane) in Samarkand. I stayed after everyone left, and then the janitor started to lock up. Finally, he indicated that this wasn't the real tomb, which he said was in a deep basement beneath, to protect it. With him, I descended a dark staircase to a cold, dark vault and saw the real tombs of Timur and his two wives, much less ornate than the ones above. I always thtought it would make a good horror story.
Nick Louth
Thank you for your question, Michele. Yes, you can usually order my books a month or so in advance of publication on Amazon and other platforms. The next book The Body in the Snow, is likely to be published in January.
Nick Louth
Hello Michele,
Thank you for your message, and delighted you enjoyed the books. The Body in the Snow is due out early in 2020. Sorry about the wait - I'm working as fast as I can!
Please write me a review for each or any of the books on Goodreads or Amazon. These things are so important to us authors.
Best wishes
Nick
Thank you for your message, and delighted you enjoyed the books. The Body in the Snow is due out early in 2020. Sorry about the wait - I'm working as fast as I can!
Please write me a review for each or any of the books on Goodreads or Amazon. These things are so important to us authors.
Best wishes
Nick
Nick Louth
Hi Tim, thank you for youre question. The twist was the very first idea for the book. I constructed everything else - the characters, the setting, and the relationship between them - to bring out this most unusual piece of misdirection. My wife and I discussed how to bring the twist to fruition on a long continental car journey in 2016.
Nick Louth
Be optimistic - If you HAVE to write there are always methods now to reach an audience. You must never give up! Indie publishing has democratised the whole process - you no longer have to go through the protracted and often one-in-a-million lottery of having to impress first an agent, then a publisher. You can reach an audience directly and keep a better proportion of each book's price than ever before.
Having said that - you need to do for yourself what they would have done for you. Any book will need professional proofing and editing from someone who's not afraid to challenge you - nothing loses your readers faster than glaring errors, typos or factual mistakes. Most often a book will be too long. Cutting may be agony, but it almost always helps the final product.
Finally, don't expect to make a living at it. The average published writer makes something like £10,000 a year from their work - the average self-published writer probably a fair bit less. But treat it like a business - with a marketing plan, promotional tools and a list of customers whom you engage with - and you can do better.
Having said that - you need to do for yourself what they would have done for you. Any book will need professional proofing and editing from someone who's not afraid to challenge you - nothing loses your readers faster than glaring errors, typos or factual mistakes. Most often a book will be too long. Cutting may be agony, but it almost always helps the final product.
Finally, don't expect to make a living at it. The average published writer makes something like £10,000 a year from their work - the average self-published writer probably a fair bit less. But treat it like a business - with a marketing plan, promotional tools and a list of customers whom you engage with - and you can do better.
Nick Louth
I love the idea that you can take perfect strangers on a guided tour of your imagination - and if you get it right you can enthrall them, frighten them, elicit sympathy, love or hatred - all through the power of the words you deploy. What a privilege! It's the best job in the world.
Nick Louth
I'm very lucky - I never get it. in fact my head is so stuffed with ideas that I could do with several more pairs of hands to type them up.
Nick Louth
I'm delighted you enjoyed my other thrillers, and yes, I do have another one coming out (In Kindle only for the moment) on June 7. It's called Mirror Mirror. Here's the blurb.
Helmand campaign veteran Virgil Bliss is used to earning a living under fire, in dirt, heat and cold. So when he is offered a lucrative job in London as close protection officer to one of the world’s most beautiful women, he can hardly believe his luck. How hard can it be?
Twenty-three-year-old Mira Roskova is admired, envied and desired. With a world-famous footballer for a boyfriend, her rise to celebrity and wealth comes with what her millions of Facebook and Instagram followers imagine to be a perfect life.
But celebrity extracts a price. Mira is assailed on all sides. Trailed by those who adore her, threatened and stalked by strangers online, and beaten up by a man she trusted. Virgil finds this isn’t the cushy number he imagined. Her home isn’t safe, her friends can’t be trusted, and her freedoms melt away. Then there is the enigma of the woman herself: where does the image end and the person begin?
As the threats multiply, the biggest danger is overlooked. In Broadmoor, Britain’s most notorious psychiatric hospital, one man has long been obsessed with Mira. His crimes are so awful that a judge ruled they must never been revealed to the public. But his plans to possess a unique beauty are well advanced, and he has the charm and the cunning to make them work.
Helmand campaign veteran Virgil Bliss is used to earning a living under fire, in dirt, heat and cold. So when he is offered a lucrative job in London as close protection officer to one of the world’s most beautiful women, he can hardly believe his luck. How hard can it be?
Twenty-three-year-old Mira Roskova is admired, envied and desired. With a world-famous footballer for a boyfriend, her rise to celebrity and wealth comes with what her millions of Facebook and Instagram followers imagine to be a perfect life.
But celebrity extracts a price. Mira is assailed on all sides. Trailed by those who adore her, threatened and stalked by strangers online, and beaten up by a man she trusted. Virgil finds this isn’t the cushy number he imagined. Her home isn’t safe, her friends can’t be trusted, and her freedoms melt away. Then there is the enigma of the woman herself: where does the image end and the person begin?
As the threats multiply, the biggest danger is overlooked. In Broadmoor, Britain’s most notorious psychiatric hospital, one man has long been obsessed with Mira. His crimes are so awful that a judge ruled they must never been revealed to the public. But his plans to possess a unique beauty are well advanced, and he has the charm and the cunning to make them work.
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