Susan Parry's Blog: Dales Festival of Food & Drink

It is always exciting when the final version of a cover arrives. This one is rather different to the others because it is black and white. Most of my books are brightly coloured and stand out from other crime novels on the shelf. This time the title and the contents suited a more sombre approach and I am very happy with the result - a view across the Gunnerside meadows in Swaledale, intersected bylines of stone walls.

There is something very satisfying about typing “The End”, but I know it is just the beginning of the next process: editing. Over the lockdown I have completed draft 1, left it for a few weeks, read it through for glitches in the story line, for expression, style, for punctuation and expression again. The latest draft (number five) is now ready for my beta readers, including an expert who works for the police. The publication date for “Killer Lines” is 31st August in case you were wondering.

I was due to talk about my new book at the Richmond Book Festival. I am particularly disappointed that the event had to be cancelled, because I was also going to interview Sally Magnusson about her new book, “The Ninth Child” published in March this year. Like many authors, I’ve had a number of events cancelled over the lockdown and I’ve just heard that the Harrogate Noir will not go ahead in October.

Meanwhile, in case you are a Kindle Unlimited reader, all my books in the series are now available for you to borrow free of charge. Readers are sometimes concerned that e-books are less rewarding than print copies for authors, but I am happy to have Kindle readers whether they purchase or borrow books, Amazon have ways of recompensing authors either way, so don’t worry. But remember to post a review!

The Public Lending Right Act 1979 gave British authors a legal right to receive payment for the free lending of their books by public libraries. Under the Act funding is provided by Central Government and payments are made to eligible authors in accordance with how often their books are lent out from a selected sample of UK public libraries. The UK Public Lending Right office is part of the British Library. The British Library receives funding for PLR from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. For the current spending review period PLR funding amounts to £6.6 million per year. To qualify for payment authors must apply to the PLR office which maintains a register of eligible authors and books. The scheme prescribes a minimum payment threshold of £1 and a maximum of £6,600. It is interesting to note that in 2016-2017 a total of 22,018 authors/illustrators etc received PLR payments. Less than 300 recipients were paid over £5,000, and more than 16,000 received less than £100

For the last 200 years gamekeepers have burnt long narrow strips of mature heather on a rotation. By creating a patchwork of different aged heathers a gamekeeper knows he will always have some young heather for grouse to feed on that is nutritionally richer and more digestible. There has been considerable research on the effects of such activities and the impact that poorly controlled fires can have on the peat substrate. However, I am keen to get a good image of the fires because I am looking for a suitable cover for my current ‘work in progress’. So, yes, a thread running through the book may involve a fire and I am playing with words like embers, ashes and flames to come up with a suitable title!

My ninth book is being edited and the draft of the front cover is ready, so now I have to write the “blurb”. It is what goes on the back cover and in my case that means a paragraph or two to tempt the reader with a flavour of the storyline without giving too much away. AND IT IS REALLY DIFFICULT! I agree with an author who said she would rather write the entire novel than produce the blurb. How do you tempt your readers with a dead body when any mention of it seems to give away who the victim is? You don’t say who but there are clues in the where and the how and the when. I guess the trick is to provide a flavour of the story. When browsing in a bookshop I will read the blurb and return to the shelf any book that mentions a nude found horribly mutilated – clearly it is a winner for some readers but not me. I will similarly reject any book that has a cat solving crimes or if it involves knitting in the solving the crime. So it’s back to the drawing board. What about starting my blurb with: "The nuclear bunker at Tan Hill has remained locked for over fifty years – or so Dr Mills Sanderson believes." Let me know what you think.

So it’s officially Spring and suddenly every sheep in the dale appears to have given birth and after just a few days the youngsters actually bounce as they play together. The snowdrops are dying and wild garlic is in leaf on the river banks, a sign that we will soon be mass producing pesto for the freezer. Despite the promising signs of the new season, recent light snow covers the tops and there is still a chill in the air. I am ignoring the weather and spending Easter writing #9 in my ‘Yorkshire Dales Mysteries’. I am finishing the last chapters and expect to have completed the first draft in a couple of months. A number of edits will follow and then publication. By then the buttercup meadows will have come, and gone and farmers will be contemplating the first mowing of the summer.
Meanwhile, #5 in the series is available free for download on Kindle until 1st April.

The first time I visited the Muker Show was in 2005. My first novel had just been published and I remember the excitement of seeing it on the shelves of Ottakar's bookshop and being interviewed by the Northern Echo. I also remember visiting the Sedbergh book festival that month and giving Reginald Hill a copy of 'Corpse Way' - he asked me to sign it 'To Reg'. I took a box of books to the Muker Show and shared a table in the history tent. On that occasion it poured with rain all day and often the weather has spoiled what is a lovely small, local show in a beautiful setting. It is small compared to other shows in the Dales but it has all the important components, including the produce tent, the Muker band playing, sheep dog trials and the all-important fell race. This year the weather was perfect and the show was well-attended; I signed my books and met some of my readers. Twelve years and seven books later it is lovely to chat about Mills and the series and answer the usual question of when they might expect to see the next one in the shops.

Since it is buttercup time in the Dales, we thought it would be fun to offer 'Craven Scar' - the one with the yellow cover (as readers are wont to call it) - as a free download on Kindle this weekend. Please review if you do read it - thank you.

Why do I feel so guilty when asked when the next book is going to be published? If a reader asks, then it is because they are waiting eagerly to find out what Mills is up to, which should be a good feeling, but in my head I can hear the unsaid follow-up ‘Well why aren’t you getting on with it then?’ I am not a full-time writer – but then, who is? Most of us have day jobs, like the lady in the local paper last week who has twelve novels published but still works in the Co-op. Such interactions with the public are surely potential sources of inspiration which we can’t derive by simply looking out of the window. This is the time of the year when groups such as the U3A or WI begin to organise their speakers for the following year and I am contacted to confirm dates that are, in some cases, over twelve months away. It is a serious obligation and I would never dare ask to postpone after such a long term commitment. This year I have been talking to groups up to 50 miles away, sometimes in the daytime but often in the evening. In the summer it is pleasant to visit one of the villages in the Dales to meet interesting folks and sometimes they are already familiar with my books. The size of the groups varies between a dozen and over a hundred but always there are interesting questions to answer and often a cup of tea with home-made cake to follow. I am often asked by readers where I get my ideas from. The internet is a wonderfully random way to get ideas, particularly local news and social media. For example, as I was beginning my last book I knew that it would be based at a posh boarding school and that there would be a school production of Hamlet. I was on twitter and offered my 1,000th follower the opportunity to be named in the book. A certain Jo Rhodes came along and it turned out she was an expert in medicinal plants – and poisonous ones. Suddenly I had a possible cause of death and a title taken from Hamlet: ‘Potent Poison’.

In case you are interested, my publisher is offering my 4th crime novel 'Craven Scar' for free download on Kindle this weekend. Enjoy and please review!