Things have been a little quiet around here the last few weeks. This may happen from time to time as there are only so many hours in the day and I'm still trying to be a crime fiction writer as well as a reader/blogger, family guy, full time public servant and amateur mountain biker. This week and last I donned the crazy writer cap and I have mostly been reworking the novella that inspired my screenplay, The Point. I set out to expand it into a short novel in a bid to sell it as a standalone. Previously, I'd been attempting to flog it as the main attraction in my short story collection, but as I've yet to sell a novel, nobody wanted to touch that with a ten foot sewer rod. And the effort has paid off. Sort of. The Point will be, once I've finished work on two new scenes, a 40K word novel. Great! My third book! Except, 40K is only just crossing the technical wordcount for a novel.
In reality, books this short are pretty unattractive to publishers. The real sweetspot is about 70-80K and up, depending on the house. Two places have agreed to take a look, but after they have, rejected it (not pessimism -- simple probability), what the hell am I going to do with it? Anyone? Seriously, this is not a rhetorical question. I'd like a sensible answer to this. As a marketable commodity, it's got a unique selling point, in that there's a very good chance that The Point will become a film in some shape or form in the future, but again, t'is only a tiny wee 40K. The simple answer, I suppose, would be to add more words, but for the life of me I can't think of anything that would constitute as obvious padding. I don't know.
Anyway, why am I bothering you lot with this ramble? You're here to read about the ones who have sold their books, right? Well, stay tuned. You won't be disappointed. This week I hope to have a review of Lucy Caldwell's heart-wrenching Where They Were Missed, further reviews contributed by those fine CSNIers, Mike Stone and Tammy Moore, and I have made contact with one Eugene McEldowney who's agreed to answer a few questions for us. So keep clicking here, NI crime fans. We're getting back on track.
