I am very grateful to Debra Brown, an Amazon bestselling author, active member of the Historical Novel Society and editor of a collaborative anthology Castles, Customs, and Kings: True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors. This compilation of essays is a perfect gift for hardcore English history buffs as well as novices who are only getting their feet wet.
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MJN: Can you describe the curating process for compiling Castles,Customs, and Kings? If two or more authors submitted an essay on the same
subject, was it difficult to choose one? Or were the topics pre-assigned?
DB: Castles,Customs, and Kings is an anthology of selected history blog posts from the English Historical
Fiction Authors blog. Volume 2 is taken mostly from our second year as a
blogging group. (You may find us asking to put your post on Florence Hobson in
a future volume!) The posts are almost always on a different topic as 2000+
years of British history studied by many authors yields much variety. The
problem is actually keeping the book down to a reasonable length with so many
good posts to choose from!
MJN: I hear complaints from publishers and editors that they
are tired of manuscripts dealing with the Tudors. Tudors are the new vampires.
Is there a particular dynasty you would like to see more explored in historical
fiction? I would love to read more about the Stuarts. They seem to fall through
the cracks somehow.
DB: The Stuarts are fascinating. My main interest
is in the Victorian/Edwardian era. It is getting close to "home", but
life was so different. There were still the class differences that can make for
huge conflict in a story, and I guess I am swept up by the beautiful hats and
clothes, balls and banquets, and charming etiquette--contrasted with the poor
Dickens characters scraping by. The Great War had not yet brought an end to the
regal lifestyle in the country houses--though it is only the upper middle
classes and nobility that had it good there; one has to put themselves into the
right shoes to enjoy those stories. Please don't write much about the scullery
maids....
MJN: It's no secret that commercial success does not necessarily
correlate with quality of work. Sometimes you do everything right, blog tours,
live events, and you still cannot traffic copies. What have your author friends
have found to be an effective marketing strategy?
DB: That is the part of being an author that is not
what we signed up for. But it is necessary, even for most authors who have
mainstream publishers. Most authors now are blogging and active on social media
to make their work known. Even that can seem ineffective. My blog has had some
success because readers know there will be a new history post every day by one
of many authors. And I've been putting the author's latest release on the
sidebar for the day, which I hope is of some help. We also have a mutual
promotions group that has been a big help--I attribute the many sales of my
first book to the marketing aid of the members when I did two Kindle freebie
days which put the book into the algorithm to be easily found on Amazon for a
time. When Volume 1 of CC&K came out, I was involved with ASMSG (Authors
Social Media Support Group) which enabled me to sell many copies by mutual
retweeting as well as 84 copies of my novel's new audiobook in just the 12 days
before Christmas. I was really amazed! And I am now involved in another
retweeting group as well based on Facebook, using Twitter, of course, which
gets my book tweets out there before 1.5 million potential followers of the
group members. It's very effective!
MJN: Have you met any of the contributors in person? I have
the pleasure of knowing Stephanie Cowell personally. I've been to several of
her book signings in New York vicinity. Unfortunately, I have not been able to
attend any of the Historical Novel Society conferences due to work and family
obligations.
DB: I have only personally met Patricia Bracewell,
which was a treat, and a huge supporter of the HistFic community, Darlene
Elizabeth Williams. Maybe with the HNS Conference 2017 being in Portland, OR, I
will be able to meet more. I can hope!
MJN: One of the co-editors is the late M.M. Bennetts. I haven't
had the privilege of knowing her personally, but I heard many wonderful things
about her. I understand there's a literary award in her name?
DB: Yes. M.M. co-edited Volume 1 and was working
on Volume 2, but we had to put it aside while she worked on getting well.
Unfortunately, that did not happen, and we lost her in August of 2014. The
histfic community was devastated as she was knowledgeable, witty, and helpful.
She had worked as a book critic for the Christian Science Monitor for 20 years,
and her literary talent was clear in her two novels, May 1812 and Of
Honest Fame. When she became ill, her publishers turned her books back to
her, and she didn't have much time to promote them herself. So we wanted to
step up and make her name better known with the award. Authors are invited to
submit their 2015-published historical fiction at http://mmbaward.org.
And please do check out M.M.'s work!
Castles,
Customs, and Kings: True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors is
available here: http://Author.to/DBrown. Volume 2 is on Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/castles-customs-and-kings-english-historical-fiction-authors/1116967513?ean=9780983671961
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