Sarah Alderson's Blog: Writing and all the bits in between - Posts Tagged "books"
The perks of the job
The best thing about being an author, aside from the stupendousness of knowing that my ‘job’ requires me to plug myself into my imagination on a daily basis, stare vacantly into space, check out hot models on the internet and watch Buffy and Gossip Girl for um, research purposes, is obviously, the free books.
A year ago I met my editor and the team at Simon & Schuster for the very first time. I went with my agent to their office in London and the second I walked through the door my legs almost went from under me. Shaking hands, trembling stomach as butterflies started flurrying, it was like love at first sight.
I suddenly knew how Charlie felt when he stepped inside Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. The place was literally held up by books, stacked on every surface, piled high, reaching to the ceiling, making the room as glossy and shiny as a L’Oreal hair advert. My mouth went dry.
Then I was ushered into a corner office. More books. And oh, look bottles of pink champagne! What an amazing job, I thought, why had I gone into the charity sector? What on earth had I been thinking? Why hadn’t I gone into publishing? Free books, champagne for breakfast….I almost dropped to my knees and begged them for a job right there and then, doing anything, scrubbing the floors, photocopying, dusting the shelves.
Then I realised that the champagne was for me. It was a mind-blowing moment. I didn’t need a job sweeping their floors. I had somehow managed to write my way into the best job ever. Pink champagne, free books and no scrubbing required.
And then some nice person saw me hungrily eying the bookshelves and invited me to help myself to whatever I wanted. Seriously. For one second I thought it was a trick, and that if I did, I'd swell to the size of a small planet and short men in dungarees would come and roll me out of there.
Then, once I'd realised they weren't kidding I almost told them to forgo the advance and just pay me in books.
Every few weeks a shoebox sized parcel arrives in my far flung outpost in Indonesia. I rip into it with glee. So far, my highlights of the year (all courtesy of Simon & Schuster)...
Amy & Roger's Epic Detour
Perfect chemistry
Milo & the restart button
She's so dead to us
Unwind
Rot & Ruin
Amy & Roger's Epic DetourPerfect ChemistryMilo and the Restart ButtonShe's So Dead to Us
A year ago I met my editor and the team at Simon & Schuster for the very first time. I went with my agent to their office in London and the second I walked through the door my legs almost went from under me. Shaking hands, trembling stomach as butterflies started flurrying, it was like love at first sight.
I suddenly knew how Charlie felt when he stepped inside Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. The place was literally held up by books, stacked on every surface, piled high, reaching to the ceiling, making the room as glossy and shiny as a L’Oreal hair advert. My mouth went dry.
Then I was ushered into a corner office. More books. And oh, look bottles of pink champagne! What an amazing job, I thought, why had I gone into the charity sector? What on earth had I been thinking? Why hadn’t I gone into publishing? Free books, champagne for breakfast….I almost dropped to my knees and begged them for a job right there and then, doing anything, scrubbing the floors, photocopying, dusting the shelves.
Then I realised that the champagne was for me. It was a mind-blowing moment. I didn’t need a job sweeping their floors. I had somehow managed to write my way into the best job ever. Pink champagne, free books and no scrubbing required.
And then some nice person saw me hungrily eying the bookshelves and invited me to help myself to whatever I wanted. Seriously. For one second I thought it was a trick, and that if I did, I'd swell to the size of a small planet and short men in dungarees would come and roll me out of there.
Then, once I'd realised they weren't kidding I almost told them to forgo the advance and just pay me in books.
Every few weeks a shoebox sized parcel arrives in my far flung outpost in Indonesia. I rip into it with glee. So far, my highlights of the year (all courtesy of Simon & Schuster)...
Amy & Roger's Epic Detour
Perfect chemistry
Milo & the restart button
She's so dead to us
Unwind
Rot & Ruin
Amy & Roger's Epic DetourPerfect ChemistryMilo and the Restart ButtonShe's So Dead to Us
Book Birthday!
The Sound is out today in the US.
link: Here's a little video of me talking about my inspiration for the book (I nannied in Nantucket when I was 17) and reading from a section.
I'm also running a giveaway. over on my Facebook page
Do help me spread the word by telling all your friends and if you did love the book then please also add your review to GR or Amazon. We authors really do need those reviews! :)
link: Here's a little video of me talking about my inspiration for the book (I nannied in Nantucket when I was 17) and reading from a section.
I'm also running a giveaway. over on my Facebook page
Do help me spread the word by telling all your friends and if you did love the book then please also add your review to GR or Amazon. We authors really do need those reviews! :)
Drive, Terminator, New York & human trafficking
I’m at a kids birthday party when a woman I barely know grabs me by the arm and declares: ‘I have an idea that you should write about.’
I glance over her shoulder for the exits, my smile fixing into place, wondering if I should tell her it’s not ideas I’m lacking just hours in the day. ’Human trafficking,’ she announces, ‘you need to write about it.’
I tell her with an apologetic shrug that I write young adult fiction; ‘lots of car chases, hot boys and kissing. That sort of thing.’ Even as I say it, I can feel myself shrinking in her estimation, and, it must be admitted, my own. She’s talking about human trafficking and how it affects over thirty million people worldwide and I’m talking about girls with mind powers and shape-shifting demons.
I left the party with a niggling feeling, which was compounded when I got home by the sight of a post-it stuck over my desk with ‘make your words count’ scrawled on it.
With my first four books, all published by Simon & Schuster, I had established a name as a writer of fast-paced thrillers. When asked about my inspiration I frequently cited Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sarah Conor from Terminator (Yes, I am that highbrow).
While I’d always prided myself on the fact my female protagonists were kickass and intelligent, now I was confronted by the fact I could be writing something with real power, something that could have impact, something that could potentially help change lives.
‘No,’ my agent sagely advised. ‘A book about human trafficking is very hard to sell.’
She was right of course and there was also the fact that I had no real authority or knowledge of the subject. True, I had no knowledge about telekinesis or secret military units either and this had never stopped me writing about them (Wikipedia, Google and my imagination are my best friends) but human trafficking was something else entirely.
So I sat down to write my next novel - inspired by a combination of Ryan Gosling in Drive, the police station scene in Terminator and a trip to New York - and had an epiphany. I could write about human trafficking after all. I would slide it sneakily into the book. It would still be a young adult thriller, with all the chases, action and kissing required, but at the heart of it would be a human trafficking conspiracy. Immediately I started researching and chatting with friends who worked for the UN, discovering that more people today are enslaved that at any other point in history and that human trafficking has fast become the third largest criminal industry in the world.
Instead of writing about a victim, something I didn’t feel confident enough to do, my protagonist became the teenage daughter of a man who runs a government task force tackling gang-related trafficking and I set her in the midst of a conspiracy involving her father and the New York gangs he’s up against.
The book was eagerly received by my publisher in the UK and snapped up by Simon & Schuster in New York too, making me realise that just because I write young adult fiction doesn’t mean I have to write about sparkly vampires and love triangles. But neither do I have to sacrifice thrills and action in order to make a serious point.
As an author I’ve learned that empowering teenagers isn’t just about giving them strong role models, it’s also about using the medium of storytelling to open their eyes to issues that we all need to take a stand on.
Out of Control by Sarah Alderson (published by Simon & Schuster) is OUT NOW.
http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/
http://www.antislavery.org/english/
http://www.stopthetraffik.org/
This feature originally appeared in The Big Issue (may '14)
I glance over her shoulder for the exits, my smile fixing into place, wondering if I should tell her it’s not ideas I’m lacking just hours in the day. ’Human trafficking,’ she announces, ‘you need to write about it.’
I tell her with an apologetic shrug that I write young adult fiction; ‘lots of car chases, hot boys and kissing. That sort of thing.’ Even as I say it, I can feel myself shrinking in her estimation, and, it must be admitted, my own. She’s talking about human trafficking and how it affects over thirty million people worldwide and I’m talking about girls with mind powers and shape-shifting demons.
I left the party with a niggling feeling, which was compounded when I got home by the sight of a post-it stuck over my desk with ‘make your words count’ scrawled on it.
With my first four books, all published by Simon & Schuster, I had established a name as a writer of fast-paced thrillers. When asked about my inspiration I frequently cited Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sarah Conor from Terminator (Yes, I am that highbrow).
While I’d always prided myself on the fact my female protagonists were kickass and intelligent, now I was confronted by the fact I could be writing something with real power, something that could have impact, something that could potentially help change lives.
‘No,’ my agent sagely advised. ‘A book about human trafficking is very hard to sell.’
She was right of course and there was also the fact that I had no real authority or knowledge of the subject. True, I had no knowledge about telekinesis or secret military units either and this had never stopped me writing about them (Wikipedia, Google and my imagination are my best friends) but human trafficking was something else entirely.
So I sat down to write my next novel - inspired by a combination of Ryan Gosling in Drive, the police station scene in Terminator and a trip to New York - and had an epiphany. I could write about human trafficking after all. I would slide it sneakily into the book. It would still be a young adult thriller, with all the chases, action and kissing required, but at the heart of it would be a human trafficking conspiracy. Immediately I started researching and chatting with friends who worked for the UN, discovering that more people today are enslaved that at any other point in history and that human trafficking has fast become the third largest criminal industry in the world.
Instead of writing about a victim, something I didn’t feel confident enough to do, my protagonist became the teenage daughter of a man who runs a government task force tackling gang-related trafficking and I set her in the midst of a conspiracy involving her father and the New York gangs he’s up against.
The book was eagerly received by my publisher in the UK and snapped up by Simon & Schuster in New York too, making me realise that just because I write young adult fiction doesn’t mean I have to write about sparkly vampires and love triangles. But neither do I have to sacrifice thrills and action in order to make a serious point.
As an author I’ve learned that empowering teenagers isn’t just about giving them strong role models, it’s also about using the medium of storytelling to open their eyes to issues that we all need to take a stand on.
Out of Control by Sarah Alderson (published by Simon & Schuster) is OUT NOW.
http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/
http://www.antislavery.org/english/
http://www.stopthetraffik.org/
This feature originally appeared in The Big Issue (may '14)
AMAZON SUPER SALE - COME BACK TO ME IS just $1.69 / £0.99
Come Back To Me is just $1.69 / 99p on Amazon right now. And if you share this picture on Instagram / Twitter or FB you could win a signed limited edition early copy of the paperback!
Just don't forget to tag me in the post. @sarahalderson on Twitter
@sarahaldersonauthor on Instagram
Check out my website here for more details
Come Back to Me
How to write full time / make money as an author
Five years into my career as an author and I’m finally at the stage where I write full time and I need only submit an opening chapter and synopsis to my publishers in order to get a book deal. I make money as an author. I don’t take that for granted. I’m aware that next year I could be in the position of not being able to sell a book to any publisher (this doesn’t scare me that much as I’ve already self-published and would do so again).
It’s become harder than ever to get a book deal. I’ve seen my advances shrink over the last four years. And they were never exactly big to begin with. Publishing is a difficult business to be in. It offers very little in the way of security or certainty. Between worrying about reviews, sales, whether your next book is going to be any good and whether you’re going to be dropped by your publisher there are days I find it hard to summon enthusiasm for writing.
And let’s not glamorise being a writer. It’s a job. It’s how I pay the bills. It’s my only source of income. I work 12-15 hour days a lot of the time, mainly on PR and marketing. My writing takes up less and less time as I struggle to make a name for myself in an increasingly saturated market place.
Someone asked me yesterday how it’s possible to quit the day job and become a full-time writer. My advice would be not to. Don’t quit your day job. Not unless you –
- Have a private source of income to sustain you during the lean months.
- Are the one in a million author who signs a seven figure deal for your first book, alongside a major film deal.
- Have a partner who can pick up the slack in the months you are waiting for your advance to get paid.
- Can move somewhere like South East Asia where you can live on a lot less (this is what I did!).
How do I manage to write full time on an author’s ‘salary’?
- I live in Bali. There is simply no way that I could live on what I earn in the ‘west’.
- I have a husband who earns more than me and who can pick up the slack when I’m broke.
- I earn extra money by running workshops on writing and retreats.
- I sold the option for Hunting Lila to a film production company (highly recommend this!).
- I learned screenwriting and was paid to co-write the screenplay for Hunting Lila.
- I got myself a film agent off the back of spec writing several scripts and my rep as an author and am now moving more fully into screenwriting (that’s where the real money is and I enjoy telling a story through this medium).
- I stopped providing free content or giving my time away unless there was a valuable return (fundamental lesson: value your time).
- I write books that are as ‘filmic’ as possible in the hope that they get optioned (you’re looking at between $5000-10,000 a year just for option rights, so if you can get it this is a brilliant passive income stream).
- I write fast. I am prolific. I write 3-4 books a year. And I now have two publishers, meaning that I can publish around 3 books a year (remember a publisher will normally only publish one book a year). If you are going to spend ten years writing a book then forget being able to live on the advance.
People are always remarking on how successful I am. Yes, from the outside I am successful. Eight books in four years with major publishers, worldwide translation deals, a film deal, a life in Bali. I’m incredibly blessed. I love my life. I travel, I have no ‘boss’, no 20 days holiday a year, no working for ‘the man’. But I also have no security and no savings. Would I change that? No. Never. I love my life and my job.
To anyone who wants to become an author though and visualises a life of glamour and riches I hope this post has given a more truthful look at the reality. I do live an amazing life. What people aren’t seeing however are the evenings when I lie on my bed crying and demanding to know from my husband that everything is going to be OK. They also don’t see the 15 hour days spent slogging.
To be a writer requires not just the skin of a rhinoceros, it also requires nerves of steel and the ability to accept uncertainty and thrive on that (oh, and a talent for social media). ☺
Sarah writes young adult fiction for Simon & Schuster UK & US. Her novels include: Hunting Lila, Losing Lila, Fated, The Sound, Out of Control and Conspiracy Girl.
She also writes adult fiction for Pan Macmillan under the name Mila Gray.
It’s become harder than ever to get a book deal. I’ve seen my advances shrink over the last four years. And they were never exactly big to begin with. Publishing is a difficult business to be in. It offers very little in the way of security or certainty. Between worrying about reviews, sales, whether your next book is going to be any good and whether you’re going to be dropped by your publisher there are days I find it hard to summon enthusiasm for writing.
And let’s not glamorise being a writer. It’s a job. It’s how I pay the bills. It’s my only source of income. I work 12-15 hour days a lot of the time, mainly on PR and marketing. My writing takes up less and less time as I struggle to make a name for myself in an increasingly saturated market place.
Someone asked me yesterday how it’s possible to quit the day job and become a full-time writer. My advice would be not to. Don’t quit your day job. Not unless you –
- Have a private source of income to sustain you during the lean months.
- Are the one in a million author who signs a seven figure deal for your first book, alongside a major film deal.
- Have a partner who can pick up the slack in the months you are waiting for your advance to get paid.
- Can move somewhere like South East Asia where you can live on a lot less (this is what I did!).
How do I manage to write full time on an author’s ‘salary’?
- I live in Bali. There is simply no way that I could live on what I earn in the ‘west’.
- I have a husband who earns more than me and who can pick up the slack when I’m broke.
- I earn extra money by running workshops on writing and retreats.
- I sold the option for Hunting Lila to a film production company (highly recommend this!).
- I learned screenwriting and was paid to co-write the screenplay for Hunting Lila.
- I got myself a film agent off the back of spec writing several scripts and my rep as an author and am now moving more fully into screenwriting (that’s where the real money is and I enjoy telling a story through this medium).
- I stopped providing free content or giving my time away unless there was a valuable return (fundamental lesson: value your time).
- I write books that are as ‘filmic’ as possible in the hope that they get optioned (you’re looking at between $5000-10,000 a year just for option rights, so if you can get it this is a brilliant passive income stream).
- I write fast. I am prolific. I write 3-4 books a year. And I now have two publishers, meaning that I can publish around 3 books a year (remember a publisher will normally only publish one book a year). If you are going to spend ten years writing a book then forget being able to live on the advance.
People are always remarking on how successful I am. Yes, from the outside I am successful. Eight books in four years with major publishers, worldwide translation deals, a film deal, a life in Bali. I’m incredibly blessed. I love my life. I travel, I have no ‘boss’, no 20 days holiday a year, no working for ‘the man’. But I also have no security and no savings. Would I change that? No. Never. I love my life and my job.
To anyone who wants to become an author though and visualises a life of glamour and riches I hope this post has given a more truthful look at the reality. I do live an amazing life. What people aren’t seeing however are the evenings when I lie on my bed crying and demanding to know from my husband that everything is going to be OK. They also don’t see the 15 hour days spent slogging.
To be a writer requires not just the skin of a rhinoceros, it also requires nerves of steel and the ability to accept uncertainty and thrive on that (oh, and a talent for social media). ☺
Sarah writes young adult fiction for Simon & Schuster UK & US. Her novels include: Hunting Lila, Losing Lila, Fated, The Sound, Out of Control and Conspiracy Girl.
She also writes adult fiction for Pan Macmillan under the name Mila Gray.
Writing and all the bits in between
I have a blog at www.canwelivehere.com which documents my life living in Bali, writing, drinking coconuts, dancing ecstatically and meeting crazy people.
I have a website at www.sarahalderson.com where ...more
I have a website at www.sarahalderson.com where ...more
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