Featured Author: G.S. du Plessis

G.S. du Plessis is the author of two heart-wrenching Afrikaans historical romances - Senorita Carmena, and Genevieve. Although these two titles are set in two very different worlds, du Plessis' passion for her work and her characters shines through. 

Here she muses on being a novelist.

Lawrence Durrel once wrote: “It doesn’t matter whether you’re first rate, second rate, or third rate, but it’s of vital importance that the water find its own level and that you do the very best you can with the powers that are given you… It’s utterly immoral to be slothful about the qualities you have.”  

This is good advice. Not only for writing a novel, but in everyday life.

That being said, I want to motivate myself and every other writer (and yes even authors!) out there to write.  Somebody once told me that if writing is the first thing you think of when you get up in the morning and the last thing on your mind when you fall asleep at night, then you are a writer.  In the words of James Scott Bell – the itch to write will not go away.

James Scott Bell (best-selling author of Breach of Promise, Deadlock, A Greater Glory, and several other thrillers) speaks of the BIG LIE that robbed him of his best writing years – the myth that writers are born. He comes to the conclusion that writing can be taught (quite correctly in my opinion).  He was sure that he could not write and went to law school – and still – the itch to write would not go away. 

And he did what I did, and I am sure many other novelists out there do. He bought books on writing skill.  Because being a good writer can be taught.  Red Smith wrote that writing is very much like bricklaying. You learn to put one brick on top of another and spread the mortar thick.

Not every writer will be a best selling author. But as Laurence Durrel said – be the best you can be with the qualities you have.  Never insult your reader by providing them with less than best quality writing.  Never frustrate your publisher by submitting manuscripts that are crawling with typing-, spelling- or grammar mistakes.  That is unacceptable and just plain immoral!

The world of books and publishing is changing.  We live in an era where self-publishing is possible.  At the press of a button you have information galore at your fingertips.  But being a writer is about loving books.  Writing is about reading good books and bad books – if you must.  That is how you become a skillful writer.  And be observant of life around you.  Charlotte Brontë wrote, “Novelists should never allow themselves to weary of the study of real life.”  Wilbur Smith’s Publisher, Charles Pick once told him to “…read widely and look at the world around you, travel and live your life to the full, so that you will always have something fresh to write about.” 

By publishing a book you are promising the reader something and you should never disappoint them.  Mickey Spillane said: “Your first chapter sells your book. Your last chapter sells your next book.”

Do not try to copy other writers, or their style.  Develop your own.  There is only one type of story in the world – your own (Ray Bradbury).  No one can tell your story the way you would.  And write what you know – feel what you write.  More advice from Charles Pick to Wilbur Smith was to “Write only those things you know well.”  That way you are able (with your specific qualities) to transport your reader to a world away from his or hers.  And that is why we (or at least I) read.

While you should keep your readers in mind when writing, you should really be writing only for yourself (Charles Pick). If a singer gets on stage, and is in no mood to sing, there will be no feeling in the performance.  It will be flat and without joy.  It will leave the audience wanting, robbed of enjoyment.  If you write without feeling, or enjoyment, the reader will pick up on it and never read another one of your books.  If you are lazy – usually this manifests itself in long paragraphs of describing instead of showing – you will frustrate your reader.  No writer can afford to do that.

What is important in the end is to be read.  (Joseph) Hilaire (Pierre) Belloc wrote: “When I am dead, I hope it may be said, ‘His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.’”

So go out and write.  Aspire to become authors, and if that is not meant to be, remember if you write you are still a writer.  But be the best you can be.  “For those who have tasted the profound activity of writing, reading is no more than a secondary pleasure.” (Henri Beyle – French novelist, 1822).

Self Publishing vs Traditional Publishing

The debate is raging. With the coming of the internet and Amazon's pioneering efforts to make it so much easier to publish yourself, why do traditional publishers still exist? What is their purpose? Why, oh why, do we let them run off with all that lovely money we as writers so greatly deserve?

Well, dear reader, it's because they have skills, resources and knowledge that we as writers don't necessarily have.

There is a certain amount of ego involved in wanting to be published by a traditional publisher, and quite a bit more credibility. A reader knows that a book published by a traditional publisher is held to a high standard - from content, to editing to formatting.

With a self-published work, the reader just doesn't know what they're going to get. The cover is a pretty good indicator. If you're looking at something that's clearly been slapped together in Word, you can generally assume that not much more care has been taken with the content. In some ways, a professionally designed jaw-dropping cover is more important with a self-published title, because it lends your book credibility.

Self-publishing can be lucrative - it's a rapidly growing sector. But if you choose to self-publish you have to do all those things a publisher would normally do for you. You have to get your book professionally edited, you have to have it laid out, illustrated and designed by professionals. You have to put ten times as much effort into marketing your book as you did in writing it. You can't skimp. These things are what dictate the success of your book.

It doesn't matter if you've written the most heart-achingly wonderful story since the dawn of time, if your presentation is bad, it will not sell.

So while self-publishing is certainly an option, if you don't have the skills or the bank roll to make sure every element is covered, then find a publisher to do it for you.

How not to start your novel

If you're trying to get published, the odds are you are going to have to make your way through a few gatekeepers before someone, somewhere decides to give you a shot.

Literary agents, commissioning editors and publishers - and even their assistants - go through hundreds upon hundreds of manuscripts before choosing the one that they'll take a chance on. Getting them to even read past the first paragraph can be terribly tricky. Yes, it can be a matter of taste, or mood, or any amount of environmental factors, but there are a few recurring no-nos that have been collected from agents and publishers across the world.

Here we list the top 5.

1. Too much description
Whether you're expounding on the weather, setting an idyllic village scene (and still doing it three pages later) or having your protagonist muse long-windedly about whatever it is he/she likes to muse about, you're probably going to bore your reader. And fast. Get to the action. You're not Tolkein.

2. False beginnings
"Write left, dodge right. Muahaha! You weren't expecting that, Reader. I've got you now." Right? Wrong!
Leading your reader off in one direction, only to change it straight away is incredibly annoying. That means starting the story in a dream, killing off who the reader thought was the protagonist early, getting too into a minor character, anything that makes the reader feel like they just wasted a couple hours of their life, really.

3. Avoid the prologue
"What?!" you gasp. But seriously. A prologue is a fairly lazy way to add exposition or back story when you're not sure how to include it in the main text, and half the time it takes the reader ages to figure out what the point of it was. It's a fairly common device in fantasy, but avoid it all the same.

4. Obvious beginnings
An alarm clock, the first day of school, a birth. Even getting fired, although it is the end of something, is an obvious start of something new. Anything that is obviously the beginning of a new path should be avoided at all costs. Start in the middle of the action.

5. Starting with dialogue
The reader has no context for the speakers, so there's no reason for him or her to care about what is being said. This goes for anything that requires context - a battle, a bar fight, a game of soccer. Who do we root for?

Featured Author: Rudi Venter

Rudi Venter was a perfectly normal guy. He loved his wife, he loved his children. They lived happily together in their home in Johannesburg. Until one day it all came crashing down.
Rudi's wife was brutally murdered, his world was ripped away from him. He was left to care for his children when he could barely take care of himself in his grief.
But the biggest shock was still to come... Rudi was wrongfully accused of murdering his own wife.

From the heart-wrenching discovery of his murdered wife to his shock arrest, A Grey Day Part 1: From Sun City to Sun City pulls no punches in the telling of Rudi's story in his own words.

This is a tale of vindication, as much as it is an insight into the South African justice system - a wake up call for many.

KBSA Publishing is incredibly proud to have Rudi as the first of (hopefully many) South African authors published by us. Rudi's bravery once again came to the fore when he took a chance on an unknown publisher.

His goal with A Grey Day was not to attain fame, or even to rake in money, it is simply to set the record straight. Convicted by the press from day one, Rudi wanted the chance to have his story heard as it really happened, and we are thrilled to be able to give him the chance.

I'm an aspiring writer - what now?

So you're an 'aspiring writer'?

No, you're not. You're either a writer, or you aren't. And do you know how you can tell? If you write, you're a writer. What you are, is an aspiring author. (Or possibly journalist. How would I know? I'm just a keyboard monkey).

To make the leap from 'writer' to 'author' you need one thing - to be published. Of course there's plenty of steps between the two, and plenty of ways to get lost and distracted on the way.

But where do you start?

By writing, silly.

There are no set rules for how to hammer your book together. I personally prefer to just power through the first draft, figuring out plot lines and characters as I go, without worrying too much about the gaping plot holes I leave in my wake. Others prefer to work out their plots meticulously, point by point, then cobble them together in a first draft later. Still others work on their characters long before the story even starts to evolve, and let their characters tell them where to go.

How you work is up to you, and your first step is probably figuring out what works best for you. Do you draft? Do you plot? Do you dream up characters? Do you mess around on the internet hoping fairies finish the book for you?

That last one doesn't work. Trust me.

I take it back, there is one set rule for writing. WRITE! Every day. Whether it's 100 words or 3 000, write. Because before you can get your book published, you have to finish it. And we really want to see that finished manuscript. Go write. We're waiting.

Featured Author: Maruwan Gasant

Maruwan Gasant is a South African author and actor. His first novel, Night of the Dogs, faces some stark truths that we as South Africans often try to keep buried, whether for the sake of relations, or out of shame.

With this tale of truth and consequence, Maruwan poses the question, "Can there be healing if the scabs remain?" and rips those scabs off to reveal the wounds that lie beneath. The author believes that all history is important, but "emotional history should be left in the 'unclaimed' sections of the lost and found departments of airports in the journey of life".

Available on eReads and Amazon, Night of the Dogs is exactly the type of book that we at eReads love to include on our list. It's an offering from an unknown author (at least, for now) that really makes the reader sit up and think, as you can see from these excerpts:

 

Why do we exist?

It's simple. South African writers just don't have the resources and support that they deserve. There is a wealth of talent in this country, but no one knows what to do with it. The publishing industry is small, and the good men and women within the industry can only do so much.

Self publishing is becoming more and more relevant across the world. The mistrust that many have for a self published work is starting to fade - because there have been so many successes in self publishing. Stick around, and we'll be profiling a few of these in the future.

ePublishing is not just becoming more relevant, it's the preferred form of publishing internationally. SA is so far behind on this trend, it's embarrassing. The publishing houses still fear it, to a large extent, or just don't have the time and resources to get in there. There is some great work being done by a few imprints. For example, the RHS imprint eKhaya is a purely electronic publisher and has given a few SA authors their big break; authors such as Christine Porter, Celia Bayliss and award winning S.O. Kenani.

But the real power comes in self publishing electronically. Electronic publishing has made it so much easier for writers to just get out there and do it themselves. But just because you're a writer, doesn't mean you have your head wrapped around every aspect of the industry. And it's a complex one, from finding the right editor, designing the perfect cover, to marketing. Oh, marketing, thou dark and twisted mistress.

That's where eReads comes in. Our team has the industry savvy to help you through the rocky paths of publishing. Whether you're an author seeking a publisher, or seeking to self publish. Whether you're a publisher trying to break into the world of electronic marketing, eReads can help. It starts with this blog, so keep an eye.

If you have any questions, drop us a comment. We'll get back to you personally, or in your very own blog post.