Author: Debbie Young

Author of feelgood contemporary popular fiction, including three series of cozy mystery novels and four collections of short stories. Published in English, German, and Italian. Represented by Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agents. Founder and director of the Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival. Course tutor for Jericho Writers. Member of the Society of Authors and the Alliance of Independent Authors. Lives and writes in a Victorian cottage in the beautiful Cotswold countryside.
Posted in Reading, Writing

Here’s Cheers to a Local Pub’s Reading Initiative

Posted on by Debbie Young

For the last two years, I’ve been a regular monthly contributor to the Authors Electric blog. As I streamline my workload to allow more time for writing novels, here’s my final post before I stood down from the AE collective at the end of August.

photo of Debbie in rainhat at Glencoe
Refreshed by Scottish mountain air

After a fortnight’s holiday near Glencoe in a minimalist cottage and abundant fresh mountain air, I returned to my own cluttered cottage ten days ago determined to ditch surplus possessions. Even (whisper it) a few of my large collection of books…

Fate sent me a helping hand in the form of a request from the landlady of Dinneywick’s pub in Kingswood, the next-but-one village from where I live in the Cotswolds. She asked me whether I could donate any secondhand books for the pub’s new free library scheme.

I’ve had a Little Free Library on my front garden wall for a couple of years, and there are more like this popping up all over the country.

photo of bookshelves on my garden wall

A Bookish Pedigree for a Pub

Aggie’s interest in doing something similar came as no surprise. When she and her partner Guiseppe ran The Fox in Hawkesbury Upton, they gained a reputation as an innovative, energetic couple full of ideas for keeping a country pub afloat. One of these ideas was to support the first ever Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival when I founded it four years ago. They generously provided the venue, and for the next two Festivals were a key player in its success. As a tribute to their support, the cover of the first Festival’s anthology sported a drawing of The Fox by Festival author and illustrator Sophie E Tallis.

The Fox graced the cover of the 2015 Hawkesbury Upton Lit Fest anthology
photo of Debbie outside pub
“I’ll have a pint of paperbacks please!”

Earlier this year they moved to the delightfully quaint Dinneywicks pub in Kingswood, near Wotton-under-Edge. Dinneywicks customers will be able to borrow books for free from the Dinney’s Little Library whenever they drop into the pub.

This is a valuable social service to a small rural community without its own public library. Customers are welcome to access it at any time during opening hours. Aggie is hoping that it will encourage people to come in for a coffee and chat during the day, as well as during the busier evening hours.

All of the books are donated, and I was glad to be able to deliver two large bags yesterday to help fill their shelves. Most of the books are in as-new condition.

Sophie Sayers Sneaks In

The eagle-eyed reader familiar with my Sophie Sayers Village Mystery novels may spot a brand new set of them on the second shelf down at the right hand side. I was happy to throw those in for free for three reasons:

  • I was delighted to have the opportunity to return the favour that Aggie and Guiseppe did me when they were so supportive of the Hawkesbury Upton Lit Fest.
  • I know that Dinneys will be actively luring eager readers to the pub to enjoy their new facility, so this is a useful opportunity for me to reach a new audience.
  • When you’re writing a series of novels, free sampling is a handy marketing technique, assuming that if a person receives a free book in the series and enjoys it, it’s quite likely they’ll go on to buy the rest of them.

When Free Books Act As Ambassadors for Authors

photo of Debbie with Hereward in his Tetbury shop
Debbie Young with Hereward Corbett (photo by Chris Cuppage)

It’s a similar situation to finding a book in a charity shop or jumble sale. When a reader picks up a book for £1 or even pence there, the author may not profit from that sale, but he does gain valuable exposure and a connection with a potential new fan. That fan may go on to snap up full-price copies from conventional bookshops after that.

I confess I only made this connection a few years back when I was interviewing Hereward Corbett, the proprietor of The Yellow-Lighted Bookshops in Nailsworth and Tetbury. I asked him whether he minded so many charity shops selling books in those towns, assuming he’d view them as competition undercutting his prices.

photo of Dinneywicks
Dinneywicks – a country pub with books on the menu

Not at all, he told me, because readers would often take a punt on an unknown author, and once hooked came to his shops to order brand new copies of their other books at full price.

I wish Aggie and Guiseppe every success with their new venture, and I hope their example will encourage other pubs to follow suit.

Of course, Dinneywick’s isn’t just about books: it’s a delightful pub, which they’ve just refurbished to a very high standard, with a cosy, attractive interior, pleasant walled garden and terrific food. So if you’re passing that way, do call in to see them – with or without a book to donate!

 

Image of first four books in the Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries series
The story so far….
Posted in Writing

On Becoming an Amazon Bestseller

Posted on by Debbie Young

screenshot showing orange bestseller flag on Best Murder in ShowThere are worse ways for a writer to start the week than discovering that overnight one of your books has been awarded the coveted orange “bestseller” flag on the Amazon store serving your home turf (UK in my case).

I admit I’m chuffed, even though I know the flag will disappear as soon as another book knocks it off the top spot. And that’s just as it should be. If every Amazon bestseller flag remained in place for ever, the system would lose its value – and authors would become complacent and vain.

What This Means

To be clear, the bestseller flag doesn’t mean it’s top of the whole Amazon UK ebook chart, but top of a particular category. In this case, Best Murder in Show is currently #1 in the “cozy culinary mystery” list. Over the weekend, it also hit #2 in the “cozy crafts and hobbies mystery” class.

Both of these are sub-genres of the larger “cozy mystery” chart. All four Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries usually float about somewhere in the top 100 of that list in the UK Amazon store.

If the Category Fits…

With the Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries series featuring plenty of food and drink (a large part of the book is set in a tea room or the pub, with Hector’s hooch a popular feature) and hobbies (amateur dramatics, writing, dressmaking, gardening, etc), it’s a good fit for these two sub-genres.

illustration of bookshop and tea room
Hector’s House, the village bookshop and tea room where Sophie Sayers works (Illustration by Thomas Shepherd of http://www.shepline.com)

That’s a relief, as Amazon’s classifications can be a bit hit and miss, confusing readers and frustrating writers. A recent bestseller in “non-fiction dog-care” was a detective novel in which the heroine’s sidekick is canine. I hope she is an exemplary dog-owner.

What’s Next for Sophie Sayers?

But for now I must set aside such distractions and press on with this week’s writing priority: preparing for my proofreader the manuscript of Sophie’s fifth adventure, Springtime for Murder.

More news of Springtime for Murder will follow shortly, when I unveil its new cover and set it up for pre-order in the run up to its October launch.

You can buy Best Murder in Show in paperback or ebook online here

or order the paperback from your local bookshop quoting ISBN 978-1911223139.

Posted in Writing

Putting the Log Back into Blogging

Posted on by Debbie Young

This post was originally written for the Authors Electric collective blog in July.

photo of Debbie in hat on bookstall
If you want to get ahead, get a hat – I mean, a blog

We’re all so used to reading and writing blogs now that it’s easy to forget that they are a relatively recent phenomenon. Jane Perrone, writing on The Guardian’s blog just 14 years ago, felt the need to explain what they were for the sake of the uninitiated:

A weblog is, literally, a “log” of the web – a diary-style site, in which the author (a “blogger”) links to other web pages he or she finds interesting using entries posted in reverse chronological order.

We Sing, We Dance, We Blog…

I’d almost forgotten that blogs used to be called weblogs. When I see that word now, my instinct is to read it as “we blog” rather than “web log”, as if it’s part of the declension of the verb “to blog”. (Iblog, youblog, heblogs, weblog …) Interesting, too, that Perrone defines the main purpose of a weblog as being to link to other web pages rather than to post original content, which I’ve always perceived as the bigger priority.

Back to the Bloginning (groan)

Stumbling across Perrone’s definition set me thinking about how my own blog came into being, eight years ago. I started it at a critical time in my life: I had just handed in  my notice for my last full-time day job in order to focus on building an author career.The purpose of my blog was then three-fold:

  • to declare my intent to be an author, on the basis that publicly committing yourself to something makes it more likely to happen
  • to make myself write something new on a regular basis
  • to start building an audience for my books when I got round to writing them
Having fun with M C Beaton

Eight years and over 500 published posts later, I’ve revamped the look and the layout of my blog countless times. Many a time I’ve counselled those new to blogging that a writer’s blog is never done. No matter how much work I do on my blog, the day will never come when I can tick it off my to-do list as a fait accompli.

Whereas my blog started out as the front page and focal point of my website, it’s now a subset of my now substantial author website, which has separate pages on each of my books, news about my events, reviews, videos, podcasts and other jollities.

Reasons to be Posting

I’ve also changed what I post about.

At the outset, it was anything and everything – I’d pick a fun idea and treat it as a writing prompt, whether or not it had anything to do with my writing career. This list demonstrates the crazy diversity of my early posts:

More recently with most of my writing energies being directed into my growing series of novels (the fifth is due at my editor’s tomorrow), I’ve mostly kept my blog topped up by repurposing other content, such as the monthly columns I write for two local magazines, or guest posts published elsewhere. And before you ask, yes, I repost my Authors Electric posts there too.
Four novels and counting… the fifth Sophie Sayers Village Mystery will be out in September

I’ve been trying to keep the plate spinning and keep my blog fresh by posting weekly, ideally on a Wednesday. I chose that day for no other reason than the existence of a #writerswednesday or #ww hashtag on Twitter that made it easy to remember when to post. For the same reason, I try to make any appointments I have at 11am, so that I don’t forget when they are!

Elevenses – such a great time of day!
(With Oakwood Lit Fest director Dawn Brookes)
(Photo: Angela Fitch)

The Ever-Changing Blogosphere

While my blog was evolving, the blogosphere also changed. In short, it’s become saturated. Every man and his dog has a blog. (Quite a few cats have their own blogs too..

So many blogs to read, so little time to read them – which means it’s harder to get people to read yours, no matter how good your posts, how winning your images, and how optimised your SEO.

Going Full Circle

Eight years since that first post, my declaration of intent has been fulfilled:

I’m now an established author with a growing back-catalogue of novels and other books, and a busy diary of writing-related engagements.

Opening Oakwood Lit Fest (Photo: Angela Fitch)

So I’m about to redefine my blog’s purpose yet again. I’m going to take it back to basics and make it more of a writer’s journal, with short posts about the various events in my writing life – talks, festivals, outings that inspire me, as well as announcements about my books and as a record of pieces I publish elsewhere.

Although I’m just winding down to taking some time off during the school summer holidays, my diary is usually madly busy. If I write about every writing-related event in my life, I’ll be posting far more often than weekly.
Which I’m trying to view as a benefit: if I find I can’t keep up with recording what I’ve been doing, then I’m trying to do too much (a constant weakness of mine) – and I’ll take that as a sign that I should ease up for the sake of my sanity.

So in summary, my new-look blog will actually be an old-fashioned writer’s diary, only in digital form – a log of my writing life.

My new objectives for my Writing Life blog will be:

  • to provide those who enjoy reading my books with interesting insights and fun facts about the person who wrote them
  • to help other writers achieve their own career goals by sharing what I learn along the way
  • to keep a record of events and developments in my writing life for my own interest
After all, if I don’t find my blog interesting, why should anyone else? As Oscar Wilde would say, one always needs something sensational to read on the train…

Please always feel free to join the conversation via the comments box!

Taking a bow at Hawkesbury Upton Lit Fest
Posted in Personal life

Where the Grass is Greener

Posted on by Debbie Young

Every month I write a column for our village newspaper, the Hawkesbury Parish News. This is my column for the August issue, written for its mid-July deadline. The weather has changed a little since then, but our garden has felt the benefit!

sample of our lawn grass

Ours must be one of the few lawns in the parish that has become progressively greener during this hot, dry weather, rather than turning to hay. However, the lawn had to get worse before it got better. It turned chocolate brown, in fact, as my husband, who never does anything by halves, dug for victory over the weeds and took large parts of the lawn back to bare soil.

Top tip here: if you want to cultivate a forest of dandelions, leave a trampoline in place for a few years, and they’ll colonise what was once grass. Until we moved the trampoline to clear that patch, it became our cat Dorothy’s favourite shady retreat, the thick bed of sap-filled leaves cooling her furry tummy.

view of lawn with ladders, husband doing woodwork, tools, etc
Our back garden is a hive of activity these summer days
photo of grass bordering flower bed
Lush new turf provides a neat edge to a parched flower bed

But then out came the grass seed, scattered across the fine tilth he’d created, and lovingly watered in, until that part of the garden began to resemble the early stages of a hair transplant (for someone with lime-green hair, that is).

A few days later, a kind neighbour gave us some leftover rolls of turf. Now parts of our lawn look like a thick, emerald-green wig.

But if you really want your grass to keep its colour, come rain or shine, my dad’s solution is hard to beat: astroturf in his Bristol townhouse back yard. It’s the perfect answer for those who are allergic to grass pollens (I wrote about hay fever in last month’s column) – or indeed for those who are allergic to lawnmowers.

set of four Sophie Sayers books
Best Murder in Show is first in a growing series of village mystery stories

Fancy a summer read while it’s still just about summer? (in the northern hemisphere, anyway!) Best Murder in Show kicks off at the time of a classic English village show – just like the one we’re currently preparing for where I live (though preferably without any murders).

Posted in Personal life, Writing

The Early Bird Catches the Focaccia

Posted on by Debbie Young

This post first appeared in the July/August issue of the Tetbury Advertiser

Cover of July/August issue of the Tetbury Advertiser“Only in the Cotswolds!” commented a friend when one Monday morning I posted on Facebook a photo of what I’d just put out in my garden to feed the birds: green olive focaccia and grissini. (And yes, before there are letters to the editor, I did soak it in water first, so as not to dehydrate the birds.) I thought the birds might appreciate dinner-party leftovers as a change from my daughter’s school lunchbox leavings.

Even more Cotswold would be a selection of Hobbs House bread and some trimmings from Tetbury’s House of Cheese, all drenched in elderflower pressé and served up on a wooden trencher hand-carved from a piece of Westonbirt Arboretum wood.

I should probably also have served it in an elegant little Boden dress, covered with a Cath Kidston pinny. I failed on both counts, despite my predilection for the latter’s handbags. And sadly none of it had been nowhere near a middle-aged man wearing oxblood corduroy trousers.

Back to Basics

In fact what my friend took to be a gourmet treat for my little feathered friends was more slummy than yummy. The olive focaccia being reduced for quick sale before loitering in my freezer for a few weeks. The grissini was not the rustic hand-rolled type, but straight white mass-produced batons, bought for a young visitor who eats only bread that looks as if it’s gone a few rounds with a bottle of bleach.

But I’ve come to realise that gourmet cooking is in the eye of the beholder. In a supermarket recently, I overheard a lady saying proudly to her friend “I cooked porridge from scratch the other day”. Er, water, oats, oats, water – there’s only so much that you can do with that. Her claim struck me as not far removed from saying “I prepared a banana from scratch” when all she’d done was peel it. But in a world in which you can buy frozen baked potatoes and frozen scrambled eggs, perhaps I should not be surprised.

Fly-by-Nights?

Fortunately my garden birds are not foodies, and they’re not much bothered by sell-by dates. (Don’t worry, letter writers, I never leave mouldy food out either.) But I was a little puzzled that most of the food put down after my daughter got home from school, still there when I went to bed, would entirely disappear by the time I opened the curtains at breakfast time, without me ever seeing a single bird tucking in.

Another social media friend came up with the answer: “If the birds don’t get it, the rats will.”

To be on the safe side, I’ve now changed feeding time in my garden, so that I’m up in time to see who’s coming to Garden Café Young. If the dawn chorus want a snack before I’m up and about, they can jolly well catch the proverbial worm. Even so, I have to say this morning when I put out their daily rations, I have never been so glad to see a blackbird.

image of covers of first three books in the Sophie Sayers series
My series of village mystery novels is inspired by my daily life in the Cotswolds – just click on the image to find out more about them