The Conversation with Nadine Matheson
Welcome to The Conversation with Nadine Matheson, where best-selling author of the 'Inspector Anjelica Henley' series Nadine Matheson sits down with fellow authors for insightful, honest, and entertaining conversations. Each episode dives deep into the world of writing, from the publishing journey to overcoming challenges, the experiences that shape their work, and anything else that comes up when great minds come together. Whether you're a fan of gripping stories or curious about the life behind the books, 'The Conversation' promises thought-provoking chats and moments of inspiration.
If you'd like to be a guest or have a message or question, reach out to us at theconversation@nadinematheson.com.
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The Conversation with Nadine Matheson
John Marrs: From 80 Rejections to Netflix - A Writer's Journey
What does it really take to succeed as an author in today's publishing landscape? Bestselling writer John Marrs doesn't hold back in this refreshingly candid conversation about the realities behind his thirteen-book career journey.
From writing his first five books on trains and during lunch breaks to receiving 80 rejections (some with just "NO" written in red marker), John Marrs demolishes the myth of overnight success and the perfect writing environment. His path from self-publishing to having "The One" adapted for Netflix reveals both the highs and unexpected challenges of reaching a wider audience.
With remarkable honesty, John Marrs discusses the business decisions that shaped his career, including his transition from speculative fiction to psychological thrillers because "you've got to go where the money is." He explains why he still doesn't have a literary agent despite his success, how he approaches marketing and social media promotion, why he prefers Instagram over public appearances and his new novel, You Killed Me First.
Three women. Three smouldering secrets. Who will make it out alive?
It’s 5 November, and a woman awakens to a nightmare. Bound and gagged, she lies trapped in the heart of a towering bonfire. As the smoke thickens, panic sets in – she’s moments away from being engulfed in flames. How did it come to this?
Rewind eleven months: Margot, a faded TV star, and her long-suffering friend Anna watch as glamorous Liv and her flawless family move into their street. The three women soon fabricate the perfect pretence of friendship, but each harbours her own deadly secret – and newcomer Liv senses something is terribly wrong beneath the polished exteriors.
As cracks widen in the veneer of perfection and lies escalate out of control, tension ignites. Bonfire Night is approaching and someone is set to burn…But who will it be?
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It's the first book I've ever written where the title came to me before anything else. I can't even think of where the title came. It just came into my head one day. You Killed Me. First I thought, okay, now I've got to think of a plot to go behind this and I've got to work my way backwards.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to your bonus episode of the Conversation with Nadine Matheson. As always, I hope that you're well and I hope that you're enjoying your week. If you remember, last month I said to you that for the rest of season three, every month I will be giving you an extra episode of the Conversation, and that's because I've recorded so many conversations with so many amazing guests and I want to make sure you hear them all before season three comes to a close in the summer. So this week well, not this week today for the second time this week, I'm in conversation with bestselling author John Mars, whose books include the One which was adapted for Netflix, the Stranger in Her House, what Lies Between Us, the Family Experiment and his latest book, you Killed Me First. And in today's conversation, john Mars and I talk about a writer's constant battle with imposter syndrome, the reality of being a writer in a competitive market and the myth of the perfect writing space. Now, as always, sit back. We'll go for a walk and enjoy the conversation. John Mars, welcome to the Conversation.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Nadine. Thanks for inviting me.
Speaker 2:You're very welcome. I always have to say. Now it's like if we sound very joyful, it's because we've been chatting away for the last five minutes before we officially started recording this conversation.
Speaker 1:Either that or I'm on a on a coca-cola buzz from the caffeine say it again, maybe I'll get sponsored this episode, my coca-cola I just I'm a little office at home. I love this office and we moved in here a few months ago and it was the first thing I had done and we spent an absolute fortune on it.
Speaker 1:And I spent so little time in here in the winter because we didn't realize it's the coldest room in the house, oh is it yeah, so it looks lovely, but then you can't see the portable heater under the desk or that most of the time in a dressing gown writing during the day, writing quicker, just to get the hell out here this wasn't even going to be my first question, but now it is.
Speaker 2:So. When you moved and when you're looking for somewhere new to live was like one of your priorities to be. I need to have a room, an office to call my own, somewhere I can work, that I'm looking for that space no, to be honest.
Speaker 1:No, because, um, my first five before my first five books were pretty much written on trains or in offices where I was freelancing at lunch times, anywhere that I could. So I'm just used to writing anywhere. And as much as I love this office, sometimes a day, I sometimes I don't want to be in here, so I'll just go to the gym for an hour, then just spend the rest of the day in their restaurant with my laptop or move into a different room, or when it particularly when it got particularly cold in the winter I would literally be under the duvet with the electric blanket on with my laptop right in there. So it doesn't matter, as long as I've got something to write on or in that's so interesting, because I always say I don't know.
Speaker 2:I keep saying it a lot because I I think, because, you know, when you're on social media especially on, seems to be like threads there's always a lot of posts about I say new, I say new writers, aspiring writers, feeling that they need to have. Then the setup needs to be right and needs to be precise, which it could go down to the right notebook, the right computer, everything, everything needs to be perfect before they can start writing and for the majority of writers, as you said, you started out writing on trains or in cafes and I'm always saying you know, I was stealing time in order to write.
Speaker 2:It wasn't about finding the most perfect space yeah, I'd literally.
Speaker 1:The only time I've ever really looked for the perfect space is when I was on the train and I'd have to sit next to disabled toilets because there was more and it would stop. And then you constantly got your arm around where people forget to um to close the door of the toilets. Yeah, so you're pushing the button like I'm swearing these people who are stumbling out were you ever conscious of?
Speaker 2:you know like, when you are working public places of people, I've also equivalent of eavesdropping, like reading over your shoulder.
Speaker 1:Eyes looking just to see what you're at, and then sometimes I do a bit longer when you realise you're not working on some boring spreadsheet and I just throw in something like real loads of swear words or something a little bit sexual, just so that they would look away, even though I've never really written a sex scene in my life, I'm just a fan. I'm terrible, I'm like I'm always. Whenever I used to be on trains, I was always nosing to see what other people were kind of doing on their phone and then pretending not to. Or I was great in the dark on the train, you know, at night time you could see the reflections of their phones when they're trying to hide it away from you.
Speaker 2:Tinder or Grindr or whatever, and swiping away probably pretend they're not before they go home to their wife and kids. That was so not where this was supposed to go. When I was asking you about your right, john, when did you realize I like to ask this now when did you realize, not that you could write, because I think a lot of people can have a talent for writing, but that you could tell a story, because I think that's a completely different thing?
Speaker 1:I don't think I did until I actually just got on with it. So I had this idea working as a journalist years and years celebrity journalism, blah, blah, blah which was fun. But I thought just one day I saw this piece in the Guardian and it was basically a section called A Letter To, where people anonymously would write to someone in their life like 250, 300 words, and this woman's story really touched me. I thought, wow, that'd be really interesting as a film or a book. And I thought, well, we haven't got a huge amount on right now. You know you're freelancing, but why don't you have a guy writing it as a book yourself? And I did.
Speaker 1:I just didn't bother plotting out or anything, just to see whether I could. I could get away with it, and the more I did it then I thought, okay, maybe this isn't too bad, and just kept going until I finished it. And then you did that. You did that thing of getting other people to read it and a lot of people are reluctant. At first I think, oh, another person who's written a book, that's not gonna be great. I started to get some really good feedback from it. So, uh, yeah. So I didn't really know that I could write a book until I actually just got on with it yeah, did you not feel?
Speaker 2:I suppose? I don't know if self-conscious is the right word or just weary of getting the feedback from anyone, or are you used to it? Used to being critiqued because of being a journalist?
Speaker 1:I think when you've been critiqued as a journalist, it's because you do what you were writing is for a publication, um, it's. It's not from your imagination, it's like fact-based. Um, you're doing it as your job. You're getting paid to do it. When you're writing for yourself, initially, um, and you're showing people what you've done, it's like okay, I've just opened myself up a little bit here and I've put some of my own experiences into this. Now criticise me for it. So it is a bit weird. But then also, as a journalist, you've got a bit of a thick skin. So yeah, if you're not prepared for criticism, then it's probably not the career for you.
Speaker 2:It's so personal and I don't. It doesn't matter how many books you write. They're like how seasoned you are, yeah right, they're like how seasoned you are, yeah, that you know having that react, having that reaction, or it's been, I don't know, preparing yourself other people's reaction. It doesn't go away because it is so personal to me yeah, do you read your reviews?
Speaker 2:no, I only read. No, no, the only time I will ever read it is if I'm being tagged in. But normally I cycle on social media and someone's just tagged you in and you're like why have I been tagged in this? And you read it. You're like really, you didn't have to tag me on this if you didn't like it. You could have just kept it between you and your five mates on social media, but do you read them?
Speaker 1:yeah, in the run, in the run-up, you know, when it's on netgalley, I'll have a look at the reviews just to get an idea of how it's going, and then I'll maybe venture onto Goodreads and then, once the book's out once the book's out about two or three weeks, I'll have a look at reviews and just get an idea of the average and whether people are liking it or not, and then I won't read reviews anymore.
Speaker 2:Why do you do that?
Speaker 1:Because I hate myself.
Speaker 2:Because I'm thinking it's like John, do you not like yourself? Would you like a hug?
Speaker 1:I'm just curious to see whether it's resonating or not with people. I kind of like to have an idea of like your average rating, what people like and what people are not liking. It's not going to change anything that I do in the future, because you have 10 people saying I love this about a book and 10 people say, well, I didn't like exactly the same thing about your book.
Speaker 2:So you're never going to please anybody, and I know that but for some stupid reason I'll sit and read them have you done that from the very first book, which was your first book? Because I've, because I have no idea.
Speaker 1:I've just gotten down, I'm putting 13 books and put a question, but not because I'm like I'm not sure it was a book called the wrong sons and then when 80 after 80, agents and pr, I'm sorry and publishers rejected it 80 80 of all the letters and postcards and just some of them are just literally they sent it back, or just a couple. You know they sent back whatever you sent to them, just no written in red letter across it no, I mean so I self-published it and then I didn't bother sending.
Speaker 1:I wrote two more. After the success of that first one in the self-publishing world, I wrote two more, um, and self-published those. I didn't even bother sending them out to any agents or anybody. I thought I'm just going to be rejected. Um, and then, literally in the same period of 10 days, two of the books got picked up by mainstream publishers and then a production company optioned one of them.
Speaker 2:So it was a bit of a weird time my brain's kind of gone blank because I'm just, I'm trying to get over like the 80 rejections and not even just no thank you but no thanks, but just writing in my head.
Speaker 1:It's like they've just taken a big red sharpie and just yeah, no on it, literally, literally, hadn't they they'd actually done that just written no or no, thank you, not for us and just sent stuff back or just an email saying no, thank you how do you get through that I'm trying to find a nice way of saying it but that level of rejection, because it's not just, it's not a polite rejection, it just seems like a very, very harsh, like someone you're over in the street rejection.
Speaker 1:I kind of I kind of get like that. Um, I kind of get it, though, because they must receive so many submissions every week that you can't. You can't sit and read everything or you have to make a snap decision on something.
Speaker 1:But you know, I just had this is weird I had this gut instinct that there was something about this book that people might like yeah and so I uploaded it to you know, uh, kindle, and I thought if I get 100 people that I don't know to download it, that would be great. And it's it was. It ended up it sold about half a million, so it's done all right for itself in the end did you know what you was doing?
Speaker 2:and I don't mean that in an offensive way, but because when I always say when it comes to self-publishing because I self-published my first, like my very first book, and I always say that the writing is actually like the most straightforward part of it you need to understand how to market books and then publicize. Forget not even you know the cover art. You can find a cover artist, but it's that marketing side of it that you need to understand and that takes work that takes a hell of a lot of work.
Speaker 1:So when I first started self-publishing, it was all about Facebook groups and blogs and bloggers and getting bloggers on the side and sending books out and giving the book away for free for like a few days on kindle uh, publishing just to get some reviews and things like that and um, and then it was book clubs on facebook that kind of started reading, it enjoyed it, started spreading the word amongst themselves and it really took off that way. So I've got to clarify it hasn't sold half a million in when it was self-published.
Speaker 2:It's since it's been taken on, so I didn't want to make it sound like because that's no, because I was thinking I don't know why you bothered, because I would have just stayed self-published. No, but that's the thing though, isn't it? When you do, I say, transition over, become a traditionally published author, yeah, then that I can't think my brain's not working today, but you know it has a has an effect on your original book, because I see it, because I see, like, the sales it's not loads, but I see, like every month I'll get the email from Amazon saying you know, here's your royalties for um for the sisters.
Speaker 1:So it doesn't have an effect yeah, but I find now that, um, I'm having to do more publicity and more promotional stuff than ever, than even when I was self-published really yeah, because trying to build up your profile online, I don't really go out and do panels and events and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:I like the audience but not on the stage. Um, so I do a lot of promotional stuff online in book clubs and things like that and making yourself available, and that takes up a lot of time. Like I'm on my phone about three hours a day and a lot of that is just spent answering people's questions, making silly videos, making decent videos, just kind of building up readership for when the next book comes out, and it's a full-time job yeah, it's just like a lot of people I I think when they say, oh, they're going to self-publish, I always say to them you know, it's not an easy thing to do, this is not the easy way out, because how many millions of books are published, self-published, every year?
Speaker 1:And you've got to do something.
Speaker 2:You've got to find the right category that suits you.
Speaker 1:You've got to be a decent book. They're not going to do it for you. The only person who's going to do it for you is you yeah, I wouldn't.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I'd self-pub. I think I probably would, depending on what it was. I probably would self-publish again. But I I'm glad I've had the experience of, you know, doing it myself the first time and I was going to self-publish the next book, like that was always my plan. Before I got my deal I was like, well, you know, if I don't get an agent, I know I've done it before I'll just do it again and I'll just carry on with my life. So what?
Speaker 1:I would never say never to it, but I'm just very much aware that I you need to have a plan in place you just can't press, yeah, enter yeah, I think it's also if, even if you do get a publishing deal, as we, as we both know, it doesn't necessarily mean that your publisher is going to go balls out and publish it.
Speaker 1:Sorry, publicise it everywhere does it Again a lot of that is you In my first mainstream when I was with Penguin with the book the One, I thought that was normal. There were billboards on train stations and down in Clapham Junction there were two massive billboards. I went down to see for the day and then picture taken with them and stuff like that. It was like pictures one of the Simon Mayo's Radio 2 book clubs for the month. I thought that was normal because no one explained to me it wasn't so. When the next one came out and even though it sold pretty decently it didn't sell as much as the one did I thought, well, what's happened here?
Speaker 2:Why are they not spending all this money doing this, that and the other, but nobody tells me no, and I think that's a shock for, like so many authors, um, especially new and debuts, because you know, I always say you know, your only perspective of publishing is probably what you get from a tv, a tv movie, when your editor sends you off to an exclusive hotel to finish your book and I've never been sent anywhere to finish it- to cost a coffee yeah, if you're lucky.
Speaker 2:But I think, but you know that that's, that's most people's perspective and their view of publishing is through that viewpoint that rose, tinted glasses, and then the reality is so different. So a lot of them they know they are expecting to get the billboards and the tube posters and the tv, the tv adverts, and then the reality is like you don't necessarily get that no, no, you don't, so you've got to do it yourself.
Speaker 1:You've got to put yourself out there yeah, I mean, I get it I've.
Speaker 1:I've heard from authors before who are like I'm too shy to do this and too shy to talk about myself. Well, maybe your book's not going to do as well. Then, if you're not willing to put yourself out there, you've got to treat yourself, it sounds. I try and treat myself as a I hate this phrase, but it's the only one I could think of as a bit of a brand and publicize that brand. I don't have to publicize myself, but I can publicize myself.
Speaker 2:John Miles, the writer yeah, no, but I don't think. I don't think that's like incorrect at all, because before we started recording, I was editing a podcast that I had an interview I had with um Maz Evans and the first thing she said is that you know you're a writer, but you're being a writer is your business and it doesn't sound. It doesn't sound sexy at all. You know you've been a writer, that is your business, but I was like no, but that is 100 true. You have to treat yourself as a business, you have to treat yourself as a brand yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I gave up my career as a journalist to do this, so I went from one career to another career so and I had to make money as a journalist and I have to make money as a writer, and I think it probably doesn't fit into that.
Speaker 2:It's that romantic view of being an author, isn't it? You're supposed to be tortured first of all the tortured artist, and doing it for the love of it. It's not about the money, but it's like we all need I want to go on holiday. I need food in the fridge, exactly. I want to go to Waitrose today.
Speaker 1:I want a meal deal from there, not from Tesco. I want it there.
Speaker 2:I'll make a bit of money this month, please but, um, do you think having the experience of self-publishing then do you think that prepared you for that next stage of being an author? So, when you did have the up and down of you know the one being everywhere and being turned into a Netflix show, which is crazy, which is why, when I found you, I was like the one I know this, I'm sure this is on Netflix. I'm like, oh, it's him you know what that's?
Speaker 1:the other, that it was a great experience, that I mean I had nothing to do with it whatsoever. They just gave me the money and do what you want. It's the only thing that people have ever actually written to me to tell me how much they hate me for allowing that to happen, because they love the book so much.
Speaker 2:They've done so differently for Netflix.
Speaker 1:Originally it was written for Channel 4. Then Channel 4 pulled out. Then they went to Netflix. Netflix said, yeah, but we want a different version. They did. Then they went to Netflix. Netflix said, yeah, but we want a different version. So they did another version and then their commissioning editor left and the person that they were replaced by decided yeah, we still want it, we want a different version. So it was so far removed from mine that it was barely recognisable, but it was an interesting experience.
Speaker 2:Were you involved in that at all? No, nothing, you just handed it over.
Speaker 1:I didn't even know filming had started until I got a Google alert to say that it would be.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, I kind of got in touch with the production crew and said, hello, hello, has it started. Oh God, yeah, sorry I forgot to tell you. I got to go down and watch it being filmed on one of those days, which was a really surreal experience. Just kind of sitting on this balcony in this really large flat with all these like 60 odd people and actors and stuff being filmed and near the hair and makeup and stuff like that, and just thinking all of you are here because of this one dumb idea on the way down, um, an escalator but then you're like, treated just like, and not even like a little cog in the machinery, like they've just forgot about you yeah, I'm, I'm just like I'm the spare cog, in case one of the other cogs didn't pop me in, if they remember.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's. It's the way it is, isn't it sorry?
Speaker 2:no, it's good. Did you watch it?
Speaker 1:yeah, I watched it. Yeah, we got it. Um, it's about two weeks we got access to the whole series before it started. And, um, yeah, where our little boy went to his grandparents for the weekend and we just sat with a big bottle of wine and chocolates and just lounged around and just binged all eight episodes in about a day and a half did you have?
Speaker 2:you know, when you started to watch it, yeah, was it like a feeling of like apprehension, because you're like, this is I know, this is my book, or were you able to remove yourself from it because you know it's been changed like three times over I.
Speaker 1:I removed myself pretty quickly when I started watching it, when I realized that just how different it was. So I'm confused, that's all right it was yeah, um and yeah, I just watched it as a viewer and I you know, I'm not gonna lie I enjoyed it. Um, I think maybe it would have been better if they'd have stuck to some of the characters that people have loved, but you know I can't.
Speaker 1:I got my. My line is I took it as far as I could in my book and now it's someone else's turn to take it in whatever direction they wanted to and pay my mortgage and sod it yeah, I remember.
Speaker 2:Um, my agent didn't say it to me, my agent said it to another author, my friend, and he said so you gotta remember. You know the book is the book, yeah, and whatever happens after that, you know the tv series or the film, that's its own separate thing and you have to, you have to think of it in those terms and don't be too attached to the outcome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not yours anymore.
Speaker 2:No, how many books have you written, John? Because I had 13. And then I put a question mark next to it and I'm like is that right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, 13. I've just delivered my 14th to my editor for structural edits a few weeks ago and those have just come back. I've got a couple of secret things going on this year I can't talk about, which is really irritating because I'm dying to um and yeah, so that next book's out not until next march, and then you know what it's like. You're never just working on one book. Are you talking about the book written? You're thinking about the book you're currently writing and you're thinking about the book after that.
Speaker 1:Um, so at the moment about the book you're currently writing and you're thinking about the book after that. Um, so at the moment yeah, it's crazy you've got your brain in three different places, uh. So, yeah, I need I've got some book plots together for the next one that I need to start writing soon, because it takes me about nine months to a year, I think, to write one I've kind of slowed down.
Speaker 1:I did one every nine months for a while. It's one of speculative fiction, one of psychological fiction. It just wasn't doable anymore. I didn't want to spend weekends doing it, I wanted to spend time with my son. As I say, we moved house. I wanted to be repainting and gardening and being like an old pensioner and having I can't do that on sitting in front of the keyboard thinking about how to murder somebody it's a lot though, isn't it?
Speaker 2:because, um, I always think of Michael Connelly, because he has like two. It seems to me. He has like two books coming out, yeah. And then I'm just thinking, you know, I'm I'm managing to get one book out a year. I'm writing the one book a year, just, you know, just publishing falls. It may not necessarily come out like for money, yeah, but I'm writing one book. Yeah, I'm thinking, and I keep thinking, could I do two? But it just feels like a lot, because having that merry-go-round or working across saying to you before you know, you're working on one book, and then my edits come back, you've got to put that back, and then you send it off, you go back to other thing, then I'm doing a plan for something else, it's a lot you want a life as well, don't you?
Speaker 1:what's? The point in doing this, you're not gonna have a life yeah, do you think that you're quite um strategic about publishing?
Speaker 2:how so and and your career? You know, going from so, going from journalism and going to becoming a writer and then doing it's a speculative fiction and then doing psychological fiction. I think was there. Was there like a clear plan for that, or is that just no?
Speaker 1:totally bluff my way through it the whole way through. Yeah, there's been no plan, it's just happened. I don't even have an agent. Still, I've got tv and film rights agent, but I don't have a book agent seriously yep, yep, don't have one.
Speaker 1:I thought about it a few times but thought you know what I've got. My other half and I, we kind of have a an idea of how much the books in how much were worth. Um, I don't try. You know, I'm sure I could probably have had an agent to be able to get a bit more money out of stuff, but quite happy with what I'm earning, um, quite enjoying what I'm doing. I don't also. I don't, I don't really feel like I need an extra layer of complication and that's how I would find it at the moment an extra layer of complication and that's always been the case not having a victory agent never had one
Speaker 1:worked already with a picture was it?
Speaker 2:the 80 rejections put you off?
Speaker 1:yeah, I want to go back and say, hey, will you take me on? And when they make an offer, ha no, this is what you did last time in a red sharpie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think it's just the case of got this far without one. I've been doing this for about 10 years now, got this far without one. I don't know how much it would add to my life if I did have. Yeah, I'm lucky I've got a TV and film rights agent, boat Stouffer, in America, so he does. You know, I can't do anything with TV and film rights, I wouldn't really know where to begin. But with my books I've kind of got more of an idea.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to think if you're the first author I've spoken to on the podcast who hasn't got a literary agent, I'm sure I must have spoken to someone about one. But it got a literary agent, I'm sure they must. I must have spoken to someone about one. But it's unusual because I've spoken to people who have. You know whether they've self-published or they've got. They've gone with a small indie publisher with the first couple of books so they've submitted direct to publish, but then after that they then picked up an agent after yeah I don't think I I don't think I've spoken to someone who's and for career as successful as yours, not to have an agent at all.
Speaker 1:I just have a really good relationship with the editors that I've worked with, so I've been with Thomas and Melissa for my psychological thrillers from the start.
Speaker 1:So I'm as this is the book I'm working on is about, I think, the eighth one for them and I did. I did write for Pam Macmillan. So first of all it was Penguin for my speculative fiction, did three books for them, and then moved with their editor to Pam Macmillan, did three books for them. So again it's been mainly two, three editors that I've worked with all the time for those different labels.
Speaker 2:So we yeah, we know how we work with each other and what about having that transition from speculative fiction to psychological fiction?
Speaker 1:I used to find that quite easy. I used to do one of one kind, then one of the other, and I did five speculative fictions and I enjoyed writing those. And I'm not saying I'm not going to write any more, but at the moment I've got to go. I'm going to put it quite frankly you've got to go where the money is, and the money is with psychological thrillers.
Speaker 2:So that's what I decided to invest my time in, Because I think it's like there's always like a I'm not saying an argument, but that discussion about whether or not you should be writing to trends or whether you just be writing the book that you want to write. But you know, saying all that, it's like it just goes back to what we're talking about in the beginning in terms of thinking yourself as a brand and thinking of yourself as a business. You want to. You want sustainability, don't you?
Speaker 1:yeah, you've got to decide as well when you first start whether you want to write for pleasure, whether you want to write for the critics or whether you want to write to earn a living. And I want to write to earn a living, I mean, because Submersive is an Amazon-owned label, so they promote all the way across their brand, all the way across Kindles and online and targeted advertising and stuff like that, and they don't sell their books very expensively, so they sell them. I think my new one's about £3.29 to download on the Kindle and I'd rather go for that. Sell them. What is it? What's that saying about?
Speaker 2:Is it sell them high? Yeah, sell them cheap.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd rather have a big audience than I would have, rather than selling the new book at £9.99 on a Kindle and having a much smaller audience, I'd rather go for a big audience.
Speaker 2:I think £ 9.99 on a kindle and having a much smaller audience. I'd rather go for a bigger audience, I think 9.99 on a kindle's mad.
Speaker 1:It's like why they do it, because when I was, when you, when I was with penguin and palma, they used to do that like 7.99, 9.99 for those first few weeks. But people kind of audiences, my, my readers get used to buying things at a smaller price. They will wait until 99p daily deals or until they're reduced or go into prime.
Speaker 2:Is there a different experience working with Thomas Mercer, which is Amazon in comparison? You know if I'm saying like the big five, or is?
Speaker 1:it relatively the same, only when it comes to the promotional side of things. And they really do have a long game, thomas and mercer, do they? They are not thinking about your book for that first couple of months, like a lot of online people do. They're thinking about it for a year and a half two years, and they, you know, they know what they're doing. They know what different categories and price differences and things that they'll do with it. When it comes to the editing side of things no different whatsoever.
Speaker 1:They are so they've got so many different layers, probably even more so than the big five that I've worked, the two of the big five that I've worked for and you know, going back to you know, when you had your billboard experience, I always say I want to be on the side of a bus and someone goes.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, being on the side of a bus doesn't shift books. I'm like I don't care, I just want to be on the side of a bus.
Speaker 1:This day I was on this, I was on there the most random one I've ever been on is um, you know, the amazon lockers that you get in places yeah were you on there. Yeah, they had um in three different locations. They had, like a book, the good samaritan that I've written plastered all over that. So I had to make a special trip down to is it into in watford to just go to go down pay homage to a friggin locker that's the most random no that is so random, an amazon locker yeah
Speaker 2:proud of myself. Yeah, so you should be. So you should be listeners. It's time for a very short break. If you're enjoying this conversation with Nadine Matheson, I want to help keep the podcast going. Why not buy me a cup of coffee? Your support goes such a long way in keeping these conversations flowing. Just check out the link in the show notes. What would you, what would your advice be to someone who you know they've had, if they have had, the full billboard two poster experience of their first books. They've had the bell and whistles publicity campaign and then the second book they get nothing. And the third book they get nothing. What would you say to someone to keep in order to get for them to keep going, because that's a lot yeah, I think you have to treat every book like it's your very first one.
Speaker 1:I don't think you can expect anything unless you're a really big, a really big name, unless you're like the taylor jenkins reads or the dan browns and you know that they're going to throw everything at it, um, straight away. I think you just have to. Yeah, you have to pre-prepare to do a lot of it yourself and work out what you're willing to do whether you want to travel the country doing book signings and doing panels at the various book events, or whether you want to throw your time into doing it online and whatever works for you.
Speaker 2:You just need to put that work in what was it that made you decide that, you know, doing the panels, doing the festivals, wasn't for you and that you, you know, your time was better spent being online?
Speaker 1:I suppose I think going into them and sitting in the audience and then imagining myself being on that stage and coming up with the answers myself and I realized I really wouldn't be able to really, even after being like a journalist and interviewing celebrities and doing all of that yeah, people, when some of the authors talk about, like all the details, the process that they go into and their inspiration and you know who they're looking to, who they'd like to emulate and just of their inspirations, I'm thinking, you know what?
Speaker 1:I just get a stupid idea in my head and I've got to write it and that's it and that's not an answer. That won't do on a panel. When you're sitting next to dora the brilliant, dorothy Coombson or Lisa Foley and they're going into such great detail about their work and I'm like I don't know, got an idea.
Speaker 2:I always feel that way whenever I think god, I hope they don't ask me about themes in the books. I'm like I wasn't thinking about themes when I wrote the book. I literally just thought this is a good story. I'm just going to write the story.
Speaker 1:I've seen you on stage and you are brilliant. You're just natural. Thank you, I've seen you very much natural.
Speaker 2:It's still a bit like daunting, though when you get up then you're like god, I gotta say give an. You know you gotta give an answer that you hope people won't will laugh at in a good way if they are gonna laugh and I don't think I'm funny anyway, but I'm like you still want people to resonate with you. You don't want those like embarrassing silences when you say something.
Speaker 1:I ramble as well and I go off on tangents and I forget what the questions are. I did a little, um, I did a little book event for a library not far away from us. Um, I, just I hated the name of it an evening with John Mars, you could have just put the word, just that's how I felt it's very partridge-esque, but it was a. It was really nice and like about 80 people came along and, um, I, I kind of enjoyed it. But and that's because that library they were raising a few funds to um to pump into the kids area and the kids area after lockdown.
Speaker 1:When our boy was born we used to go there quite a lot. They had all these activities, activity afternoons, or we just go along, choose some books and just play there for an hour, um, so I kind of wanted to support it, but that. And then I did an event with, uh, mark Edwards as well, my first ever one at like an independent bookshop and that was okay but none and neither of these things has ever made me want to go and do more.
Speaker 2:And also they're exhausting and I always feel like I probably sound a bit ungrateful. Oh my God, it's so exhausting, you know, having to travel here, there and everywhere Like I was in Aberdeen last month and I've got to go to Ireland later on in the year but it does. It takes a lot out of you. You know, traveling to and from and talking and I can't be asked.
Speaker 1:It's too much on telly to watch. I've got four rhododendrons that need planting in that garden and a couple of stairs left to sand. It just makes me. It makes me sound so ungrateful because it's amazing to be asked, to be thought of, to touch, participate in these things. But it's just. I know what suits me and I know that I would spend the week before it just feeling nervous and anxious about it and I don't want to do that. I'm too old to be feeling anxious and nervous about doing stuff but I do you know what?
Speaker 2:I don't think it makes you sound ungrateful at all, I just think it's it's just a dose of reality, because a lot of times I mean I've gotten invitations, I'm like I can't be asked, I just don't want to like I don't mind doing, which is why I kind of scaled back from doing festivals, I mean in the first year because, when you know, when the first book came out, when the jigsaw man came out, it was my.
Speaker 2:It was literally it was smack in the middle of lockdown, so there was nothing. Everything was online and I think, in the process of that, I'd said yes to everything for like the following year. So when I think so, 2022, 2023, I did so many events. I remember I was end of 2023. I think I came out from Iceland yeah, from Iceland and I was like I can't do this in 2024. I was exhausted.
Speaker 1:Just burnt out by it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you still have to write your book.
Speaker 1:Yes, you need to fund these trips. Yeah, because your publisher doesn't necessarily pay for it. On the hotels and stays do they Do.
Speaker 2:You have to do it yourself.
Speaker 1:Have you ever done one of the author dinners at Harrogate?
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, that was a fun one, I've done it twice.
Speaker 1:I think I've done it twice. Yeah, I love that. They don't know. Most of them don't know. They don't know who you're going to be on the table with and even when they're on the table with you, they have no freaking clue who you are, because there's one person at the end. Some of them were asking, uh, to sign your book, because they will get a free book. Yeah, I said to one do you want me to sign that? No, I'm going to give it to my grandson. And there was somebody there's somebody else who actually swapped the book with another book on someone else's table it's the disappointment when they realize you're not lisa, jewel or someone else you're like oh, oh.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:I do write books.
Speaker 2:That is a reality check for everyone, both the people on your table and the author. Like smacked down to earth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a fun experience. And then, getting through that food, I still can't tell you what the main was.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I think I blocked it out. I shouldn't say this on podcast, but maybe they won't listen. Yeah, I think I blocked it out. I do remember going to get a kebab afterwards.
Speaker 1:That says it all, doesn't it? It does, john, in all this whole, you know your amazing career has imposter syndrome ever been a thing for you or you just all the time still is still is even now yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:For years I didn't call myself an author, I just called myself a writer, so I didn't feel like I deserved the title of an author I mean yeah that's so interesting because you know, because normally the thing is like um, you know that people don't feel comfortable calling themselves a writer, and then, but that's normally it. But never the distinction between saying I'm a writer and saying I'm an author because how it was explained to me and how it's, you know, I've kept in my head is that you know the writer is you at home, so you're in your office putting your book and the author is effectively the brand that's you being out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, when you fill in forms and ask for occupation, I would just put writer on there, I wouldn't put author.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I felt like I need to be more dramatic.
Speaker 1:I need to have like the clutching pearls ago. I'm an author. I see, yeah, it's only maybe in the last couple of years I also got used to be really competitive, feel really competitive with people as well, when I used to see other authors doing the same categories as me, doing doing so much better than me and it would make me think I'm just not good enough. You know I'm doing okay, but I'm not. I'm not good enough. Um, but I've finally got out of that. I think it's actually since having a little boy, I think since having him he's five now. I'm like it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if so-and-so is selling god knows how many more than you. Who cares? You've got an audience you earn in living. You pay to keep a roof over your head.
Speaker 2:Stop your moaning yeah, it's a lot, it's it's a lot, it's a lot to take on board, like this whole writer business I said because you expose so much of yourself and everyone else. You know I say I'm saying your competitors in in quotation marks. They're in your face. It's not like you can, it's not like any other job. You know you don't know if there's another accountant who's like the best accountant in the office. You know they're just an accountant, yeah, but you know you don't, you don't have such a oh, I suppose like a visual of the competitiveness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, with this, I think with this job, because every you know I've had a lot of conversations with Frida McFadden, who is currently the world's biggest seller, and she just the amount of books that she sells is just phenomenal, but the amount of online abuse that some of her books get is just so high and it's just. I think it's really as much as I would love her book sales, I wouldn't love the amount of stick that she has to go through.
Speaker 2:What's she getting stick for? You mean from readers.
Speaker 1:Yes, people complaining that they don't like her books. Well, why are you reading them then?
Speaker 2:Why read it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't like the plots, blah, blah blah. They're so critical. The more books you sell, the more negative feedback you're going to get. I also think a lot of it's because she's a woman and I don't think they would have so much a go at her if she was a man, which I don't get, but I really don't. And she's lovely, she's a really, really nice person.
Speaker 2:It really does highlight the negative side of social media and the keyboard warriors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they would never say it to your, you know they wouldn't.
Speaker 2:They would never say it to your face, they wouldn't get it. But put them behind a keyboard yeah, I don't do twitter anymore.
Speaker 1:I've still got a twitter profile, but it's only there because if I don't, then someone else's will use my name. The another thing I've learned the more books you sell over the years, the more fake accounts you get set up under your name. I was deep faked recently, so I saw that. I called him deep fake Johnny. I'm going to send him out to do events but what are they gaining from that?
Speaker 2:I mean.
Speaker 1:I think they get out. I think they get followers because people think it's me um and somehow they would try and scam them out of email addresses or passwords. Oh yeah, there is that, and then Amazon sorry, Amazon and Facebook won't take them down because apparently it's not breaching Facebook rules.
Speaker 2:I had three fake me's on Twitter, but it was just so ridiculous. I remember I'd sent email, you know, back when Twitter was Twitter, and I was like, well, you know, these are fake, they didn't do anything at all. But then they didn't really have any free followers and I don't know if that was like an insult to me personally. Like you, don't think I'm good enough, not even the fake me.
Speaker 1:It is weird. When you're just sitting there watching the tv and you're flicking through the internet, all of a sudden you've got a video of you which is actually you, but the mouth's slightly different and the voice is slightly changed oh, they did all of that yeah, yeah, but the funny thing is what they chose to do, that, what the clip that they chose, was me kind of rolling my eyes and looking really bored while talking about how much I love my readers.
Speaker 1:You could have picked something a bit different, but yeah, I have the voice and my voice that they put the whatever words they wanted to. It was quite surreal. So, yeah, it's called deep fake Johnny and he'll be coming to a festival near you.
Speaker 2:I look forward to meeting him. Do you have a preference in terms of social media? What you're happy to do.
Speaker 1:Instagram. I like that. It's a nice little happy kind of quite content world. I like that. It's quite a positive place. I've got quite a few followers there, but I've got a lot more followers on Facebook as well, which you know. Facebook is still a thing even in this day and age, particularly for thing even in this day and age for particularly, and then slowly been getting into tiktok more. Um, it's a fight. It's different when you get to a certain age, like I'm 54 now and I can't be seen to mime along to celine d on lyrics or the latest sounds or doing ridiculous videos, because I just look like a dick.
Speaker 2:Um, so it's a fine line, deciding what you will do and what you won't do yeah, I think I worked out very early on doing like videos and miming and dancing. Doing that. That it's not me. It's just not me, I like. It's why I like twitter. Back in the day, you know, I liked firing off 100 and how many characters it was and just leaving it there. I think. I think my happy medium is probably Instagram and Blue Sky.
Speaker 1:I've not explored Substack, I've not replaced Twitter with anything yet, so I think that's enough stuff that I'm doing. That's enough to tide me over. Yeah, my other half does quite a lot of this stuff for me, like putting the videos and stuff together. I'll be sitting in here working. All of a sudden He'll come in and say right, there's a trending sound and that could apply to so-and-so books. Let's film that in five minutes.
Speaker 2:It's on there, yeah, oh, that's so good that you have that though yeah, it's handy but then again, even if I had that, I'll be like no, why are you saying me this?
Speaker 1:I think we, I think with um, with tiktok, a lot of it is about readers, rather you as writers, I think it's more about them, whereas instagram, I think it's pretty much on a par of readers and writers, if that makes sense no, it does.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm gonna ask you about you killed me first. But before I ask you, how much has the industry changed in your view from when you've published your very first book to now? And you know that's going through all the different, going through self-publishing Amazon traditionally published all of that to this point now.
Speaker 1:I don't. To be honest, I don't really know, because I'm in this little bubble in which I don't talk to an agent. I don't have an agent, so they can't talk to me about things like. All I learned is through, like, writing groups that, um, I may be a member of on facebook or um, just stuff that I've read in magazines. I know the bookseller and stuff, so I kind of keep myself away from it really. So I don't really know. What I can do is from my experience is that it used to be all about blogs and trying to publicize yourself on there and doing blog tours. I don't think it's so much that anymore. I think it's more about doing your own stuff and trying to find your own voice online and, as we talked about earlier on, you've got to get out there and do it yourself if you kind of want to succeed. You're gonna have a decent product in the first place yeah we put those hours in.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, these days yeah, no, I always say you know it can look like on. You know when you are scrolling through social media it looks like you're on your overnight success. But very rarely is it an overnight success. There's there's a lot of work that's gone into getting you to that point. You know you had to go through 80 rejections before you got to Netflix.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of work that goes into it. As you say, it's definitely not overnight, so you Killed Me First came out two weeks ago and it's been my fastest selling book that I've ever had and that is my 13th book that's taken that long, wow that's great, it's it's mad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's mad. Were you surprised when you got the numbers that first week?
Speaker 1:uh, yeah, because with um, with thomas and mercy, you get to see them on an hourly basis oh my god no, yeah, you get to see how many physical copies and how many ebooks.
Speaker 1:You don't get the audible numbers, but you get everything. So you get to see how how much your book is doing each day. And then you look at the rankings and stuff on amazon and get an idea of where you're doing as well. So it becomes a bit obsessive for the first couple of weeks. After a while it'll begin to slow down a bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting see, I will just get um because I know I'm lucky, because there are some writers I know they never get told their numbers, like in the first few, that first month of sales that I was, I'm I'm always told my numbers like you sold this week one, this week two, until it naturally trails off. But there are some writers who they just never get told and I'm like, well, don't you ask because you want to know if you sell 10 copies or 10,000, or you know if you sell 10,000.
Speaker 2:But you know, you know you want to.
Speaker 1:Exactly I need to know and now I can find out literally on an hourly basis how much? The person works, you just become really obsessive yeah. And there comes a point where you've got to put your phone down and just say you know what it's doing. All right, you're okay, you can get your M&S meal deal this week.
Speaker 2:You can even go bougie and go Waitrose Get yourself some, or go fortnum and mason get yourself some biscuits.
Speaker 1:I like that.
Speaker 2:That's why you're queen nads that is why I'm queen nads. I like, I like their ginger biscuits anyway, I've gone. I've gone off on a tangent right. Would you like to tell the audience of the conversation about you? Killed me first. What would you like to know? So I don't know what your book's about.
Speaker 1:It's the first book I've ever written where the title came to me before anything else. I can't even think of where the title came, it just came into my head one day. You killed me. First I thought, okay, now I've got to think of a plot to go behind this and I kind of work my way backwards. Um, and it's about a couple of women who live in a village. I like like to set my books in villages because I think just villages are really interesting.
Speaker 2:A new neighbour moves in.
Speaker 1:One of them really likes this new neighbour, the other one's not so sure about her and they've all got their little backgrounds, little past stories and little secrets. And the whole book opens on bonfire night, where one of them wakes up and being unconscious to find themselves under a burning bonfire and a phone little thingy in their ear, little um headphone in their ear, and someone basically said what are you doing this to me? Get me out, get me out. And the person said no, because you killed me first. And then we go backwards like a year and find out what happened were there any challenges?
Speaker 2:I've got two questions that I'd like to ask now, stemming off from your books were there any challenges?
Speaker 1:in writing you killed me first um, a lot of my, a lot of my books are written from a female point of view. Um, and with one of the characters, I just wanted them to be really catty and really bitchy, but I also didn't want it to come across as a male author thinking this is how all women talk to each other. So, yeah, so that was one of my challenges. Um, yeah, I think the other. I always I never write a book. I would say, but sorry, I'm gonna go off on a tangent now about timelines. So timelines, it makes it hard because I never write a book from chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, etc. I'll do a chapter here, do a chapter there, a character there, and I'm all on separate Word documents. Look at your mouth's opening as if to say what the hell are you doing?
Speaker 2:No, literally it just makes it fries my brain. I always say I have a very linear brain. I need to do chapter one to 50. I won't.
Speaker 1:Then I'll piece it all together at the very end and like cut and paste everything together, so my timelines get a bit wonky sometimes, which is why I have to um, which is why um, yeah, that's a bit of a challenge, though, saying that the book that I'm writing for next year, I did it that way, as I have done for years. I did my word count and my word counts normally between about 90 and 100,000 words. Yeah, and the word count, the word count for that was 59,000. I'm like what the hell? How have I written such a short book? So next year's book will be just like lots of long descriptions about sunsets and countryside and things like that, just to pan it out.
Speaker 2:Is this the new one? I know when you emailed me you was like dead in the water, isn't it? Yeah, is that that one? Yeah?
Speaker 1:it's that one. Yeah, Dead in the Water. Yeah, because I've been spending so much time thinking about it that that's the only thing I can think about at the moment. But obviously I'm on the promotional trail for you. Kill Me First.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would love to write a book this night. My problem is word count. I always feel sorry for my editor. I always feel like when I deliver a book, he's always like yeah, here's the more than 110,000 wow, that's good going.
Speaker 1:So I had to reread one of my older ones, I think my fourth book. Recently I had to reread that thing I'm working on. It was 115,000. I'm like wow, and I reckon I could have cut at least 20,000 out of that maybe, but back then I think the more words, more words, more words let's pad it. Let's pad it always say they want more value for money, more words.
Speaker 2:I think that's one of my things, like for 2025. I'm like no, I'm going to deliver a book that is 95 000 words.
Speaker 1:Like that is my intention because I I haven't done it yet. I set myself a challenge for this year to write a novella. I've never done one before and it came in from start to finish. It's about 17,500 words.
Speaker 2:That's all right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've never done that before. It's really hard not to just make it bigger and bigger and bigger though.
Speaker 2:I think that's why I find short stories hard, because'm like you want me to do what in this? What? Yeah, four thousand five thousand, um word count limit. It's like I can't tell a story in that and yeah, so I find it difficult. But then someone told me you know a short story.
Speaker 2:It's just a snapshot yeah that's what it is and I'm like, oh, it long as I got that, I'm like okay, I think I can make it work. So my other question from um, you killed me first is which one of your characters would you spend the afternoon with?
Speaker 1:oh so my favorite, one of my favorite characters I've ever written is in this book and it's called Margot and she's like a former. She used to be in a pop group back in the 2000s and it all went wrong for her and every time she tries to regain popularity, it just never goes right. Um, and she's such a bitchy character. She was so much fun to write the book I had out before that was called the stranger in her house and it was a lot about alzheimer's and dementia and someone being might be being conned, might not be being conned. It was quite a dark book and so I just wanted to do something that was totally different and a lot lighter, and Margot was great fun to write and it's great fun also seeing people's that some of her one-liners and like being put on TikTok and Instagram and stuff like people compiling lists of the things that they find the funniest from her.
Speaker 2:Do you think you have? You know people are doing that because you have a presence online and you do engage, that people feel that they can be like reciprocate yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think they get people I don't want to say want your attention, because that that sounds quite negative, but they would quite like to be seen sometimes. Yeah, and I think it as a writer, it's me personally. Not everybody thinks that. I think it's my job to try and respond whenever I can. It's not always possible, but if it wasn't for readers, I wouldn't be doing this. I'd be interviewing more. The only way s6 starts about their sex lives, which is the journalism. Honestly, that's one of the reasons why I wanted to give it up as well, because when you get to this age and you're asking people half your age about sex lives, it just gets a bit embarrassing.
Speaker 2:I. It's not the same thing. I remember I was in court cross-examining this guy and he was up for um, basically he was. He was up for like flashing people. He'd been, he'd been living in like it was an abandoned shop but he would stand up in the window in the morning because where the shop, you know it's like it's a high road and it's busy people going to, you know, people going to work, it's going to school, and he just flashed people like in the morning. It was so weird.
Speaker 2:But then I had to. I'm very I've put a trigger warning on this, but I'm cross-examining him. That wasn't cross-examining him. No, I wasn't cross-examining him, I was the examination in chief. I was the examination in chief because he's my client and I'm there having to ask him questions about his masturbation habits. And halfway through I stopped and I said to myself this is not why my parents sent me to university, like it's just not what they were expecting when they're, like my daughter's, a lawyer and come there basically asking this man how many times he wanks off in the window.
Speaker 1:And I was just that's how you and I first met that's how we first met John's, my client.
Speaker 2:But it's just. But you know, you have those moments you're like, no, no, this, this can't be it, this can't be it. Yeah, you get those moments I once had to no, no, this can't be it, this can't be it, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you get those moments I once had to. I've told this story before. I once had to interview a Spice girl who'd released a solo album and it was absolutely awful. But I can only remember one song title. It was just me and her in this restaurant that the PRs had hired out for the day, so she was just sitting opposite me. She asked. So she was just sitting opposite me. She asked me what my favorite song on the album was. I could think of one time she just sang it to me about three and a half, so hard to know what to do, and I was thinking, yeah, this is this is not why I went to journalism college, my school it's such a come down to earth.
Speaker 2:You're just like, ah, reality check. Right, john, I got your final set of questions. Are you an introvert or extrovert, or a hybrid of the two?
Speaker 1:I think most of the time I'm an introvert, but when I am um, when I'm promoting books, I'm more of an extrovert.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, what challenge or experience and I always say good or bad doesn't need to be a bad, terrible one, but what challenge or experience in your life shaped you the most?
Speaker 1:I think, putting aside births and deaths and stuff like that, I think I went backpacking around america when I was 21 um, I lived with my parents up until then and I worked for local newspapers and I just jacked everything in with my best friend and we just went over there like greyhound coaches, trains, hitchhiking, lifts, whatever and that's the first time my life I've had to really stand on my own two feet and that changed me completely and if you could go back to when you were 25 years old and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
Speaker 1:um, I would say stop trying to be different people to fit in. Just be yourself. I think a lot of that because I don't have brothers and sisters. So I think maybe a lot of that had to do with being an only child and just kind of trying to find your way in the world, like that. So yeah, that would be mine Just be yourself, because yourself ain't too bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think when you've got siblings you find out very quickly what sort of person you are, how you react to things and also where you fit yeah like in, like the family dynamics and also, I suppose, like that, who's the comedian, who's a serious one, you know who's the one who's going to get you out of trouble, who's like, yeah, you kind of work, you work out who you are yeah, we've just got the one boy, and so I'm trying not to, I'm trying to.
Speaker 1:I see him at school and how he behaves with different pockets of people fitting in different ways with different pockets, and I think, just you know, just be yourself, he's got to find this all out by himself yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's basically what they call code code switching, isn't it? But it's amazing how you know you. You code switch from such a early age and you know especially when you're in secondary school, when it's really thrown in your face. You see a lot of different things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's not going to secondary school, he's staying in a bubble. Active bubble in here until he's 18, and then he was driven from university every day. Active bubble in here until he's 18, and then he was driven from university every day.
Speaker 2:John is like you will not be touched by the real world. All right, I have a new question what is your non-writing tip for writers?
Speaker 1:and I would say could be anything, could be drink water, but like your non-writing tip we kind of touched earlier on, didn't we, about writing in different places and not just being stuck in the same place yeah, um, I think that would be one of mine.
Speaker 1:And um, and you hear a lot of people who want to write a book talking about I don't know where to start, or I don't know what to do, I don't know how to approach you or I don't have time. I'd say just get on with it. Just if you've got an idea, just get on with it. Just if you've got an idea, just get on with it. And it doesn't matter where you do it or how you do it whether you're writing a notebook or writing on a laptop, just get on with it yeah, someone, um, they asked me this question.
Speaker 2:I need to because I normally do a like, a quick, like a writer's clinic on my sub stack. Well, I'll answer a question every week. And they asked me this question this week and they said they said, um, I've got the plot and I've got the characters, how do I start? And my response was you're not halfway there, you've got the most important bits. You have the plot and you know what your characters are. You just need to just sit down and write yeah, just get on with it with it.
Speaker 1:I don't necessarily accept I don't know about you when people say to you I don't have the time to write a book. Yeah, I did it on trainings. I did it in lunch breaks at work. I'd sit by the tent, sometimes with my laptop, hoping it wasn't going to be nicked while I was writing on it because I had a thing in its hair. Or I'd dictate bits into my phone to then type up at another point. I know I know it's difficult when you've like, if you, you know you've got kids and a family and stuff like that, but even 10 minutes a day it will add up it all say.
Speaker 2:It all goes back to what I always say you need to steal time. And, similar to you, like I said, I'd be sitting in, sitting in court, I said waiting for my case to be called on. Okay, so I might. If I'm lucky, I might. It might be two hours before my case is called on, so I've got two hours to write. If I'm unlucky it could be five, ten minutes, but in those ten minutes, even if I just write one sentence, it's a sentence more than I had like an hour ago. And even, yeah, who was? I can't remember, I was talking to yesterday. I was talking to someone yesterday and he was saying the same thing. It's like, you know, if you have to get up half an hour early just to write 50 words, you know that's what you can find the time in the day. You know it sounds a bit like letting them eat cake, but you can find the time in the day to write yeah, I absolutely agree yeah, there is yeah, if you sit there looking for that perfect.
Speaker 2:I said it goes back to looking for the perfect space, the perfect desk, the perfect environment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't believe that perfect is ever going to exist, because you're always going to find an excuse for something else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, most definitely so, John. So you Killed Me First is out now. I sound like TV. You Killed Me First is out now.
Speaker 1:Nor could Bookshop, Nor could Bookshop Dead in the water is next year, do you?
Speaker 2:know what you're writing beyond that.
Speaker 1:No, that's what I'm trying to plot at the moment. So I've got three different books that I've got plots for, but I don't have endings for any of them. So I need to try and think of an ending. So not a lot of writers, they'll just start, won't they? Even if they don't have an ending, I need to know in my head where to finish yeah, it's, you know, everyone's so different.
Speaker 2:Um, because I was watching, what was I watching? I was watching, um, that, no, I've got David Baldaschi's uh masterclass and he there are. He was doing a section on um outlining and he was basically he doesn't outline all the way through. So you won't necessarily know the ending and it might, I'm thinking, but if you plan you need to know the ending yeah, even if you, even if you change it because I said I will plan.
Speaker 2:Everyone knows like I plan my books. I know how it ends, but I'm very much open to it, to the ending changing once I start writing I'm with you on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm quite happy for the ending to go a completely different direction if it needs, but I've got to have an ending in my head, otherwise I'm going to be constantly in fear that I'm not going to be able to end this book.
Speaker 2:No, I've that. Yeah, I wouldn't. If I didn't have a plan, I wouldn't finish and I just wouldn't be able to start. I need to know, like I wouldn't, and also, I think, with my plans, I very much know that my first three chapters aren't going to change, no matter how many drafts it goes through. Yeah, okay, my first three chapters are always, looking back at my books, they've never, they've never changed. Stuff may change in the process, but those first three chapters and they are very rigid. Something's rigid, but not because I've written them over and over and over again. I've just written them. I'm like I know how my story starts, no matter how, no matter where it goes, I know how it starts yeah, that's impressive yeah, I never thought of myself as being impressive in that way.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna take it today. I'm gonna take it and wear it. My first three chapters are impressive. After that, who the hell knows?
Speaker 1:I'm never going to get any further than Blue Day yeah.
Speaker 2:John, before I let you go only because someone asked me this yesterday and I was like I don't think I do Do you have a favourite book? And I don't mean favourite, maybe one that you, I don't know, gives you joy?
Speaker 1:I have different ones for different reasons.
Speaker 1:So like the one that's been my biggest seller worldwide and most translated book and blah, blah blah. So that'll always have a special place in my heart. Um, there was one that, um, yeah, that I was released in covid and I didn't think it was going to do very well and it did. It kind of caught fire and that's become like my biggest seller in the UK. Um, and there's one that I really don't like. There's one that, um, so our little boy was born prematurely so he spent the first two first month in hospital and I spent a lot of time.
Speaker 1:You know, if we weren't with him in the uh, in the neonatal unit then, we'd be in the family room and just like it's just killing time really, so we could be back with them and I had to do like lots of edits and writing of that when I was in there. So every time I think of that book, I just think about that time, um, and it's just yeah, I just don't really, I'll never, don't, ever. Yeah. So there's some I have and that's you know what. I know that a book is going to do, all right, if I can think of the title myself. Isn't that weird?
Speaker 2:no, it's not weird.
Speaker 2:I think, I know it's not weird at all because, um, I was planning because you know. You know it's like when you're you finish one book and then you've probably got edits out on another one. But you need to be planning what you're going to be doing next. And well, for me, I've got to send it to my agent. This is what I want to be doing next. Send it to the editor. What do you think?
Speaker 2:And I was planning this standalone because they're like do you write a standalone? I'm like, yeah, I write a standalone. And it was similar. I had the title first in my head and then I'm like I can, I need to think of the. In my head I'm like this title's so good and I need to come up with a story. And I've got the story and I'm doing the outline, even though the outline kicked my ass, because I'm like I need to get this right because it's harder for me as a standalone, not a series, I'm just dipping back into. But in my head I'm thinking, no, I think this is gonna be good, this is gonna be good that's also.
Speaker 1:That's like a nice feeling to have, though yeah, yeah, I've had two books that haven't performed, as well as others. Um, they've misfired a bit and that's because I know. That's why, down to it, I didn't think of the titles for those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but when you think of the titles, like you own it from day one, from the very beginning, and you're like I'm fully invested. All right, john, that just leaves me to say, because it's been wonderful chatting to you.
Speaker 1:It's been a lot of fun. It's been lovely.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, john Mars, for being part of the conversation.
Speaker 2:Thank you for including me in the conversation thank you so much for listening to today's conversation with Nadine Matheson. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Be sure to tune in every Tuesday for a brand new episode featuring more amazing guests. Don't forget to like, subscribe and leave a review. It really helps the podcast grow and if you'd like to support the show, you can buy me a cup of coffee or sign up on patreon. The links are in the show notes and if you'd love to join the conversation as a guest, feel free to send an email to the conversation at nadine mathesoncom. Thanks again for your support and I'll catch you next time.
