THOMPSON
I have a confession to make. My last few newsletters have been upbeat and smiley, giving the impression that all was fine and dandy on planet Kate.
I lied.
The last couple of months of 2006 were among the most horrible of my life, for the following reasons:
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I had to come to terms with the fact that my publishing house had opted not to renew my contract because – while sales of my books were buoyant - I hadn’t ‘broken through’ into top bestselling ranks.
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I had to come to terms with the fact that I would soon be facing empty nest syndrome (my only daughter moved out in January).
and
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I had to come to terms with the fact that the New York agent I had approached back in August was not going to represent me.
After four months of waiting, I received the following e-mail:
Dear Kate Thompson,
Thanks very much for sending us LOVE LIES BLEEDING. I apologize for the delayed response, but I wanted to ensure that your manuscript got multiple reads.
As interesting as your story is, I'm sorry to say that I don’t think we're the right agency for it. Having the right agent is an important match – as important as author and publisher – and it is also a very subjective decision. So I encourage you to try other agents and wish you every success in finding the best representative for your work.
Oh, my dears! You can imagine the depths of my misery. I am normally a resilient, bounce-back-like-an-India-rubber-ball type person. When I have had bad news in the past I collapse into bed, pull the duvet over my head and sob for about four hours before climbing the step ladder up to the attic and manfully (or shouldn’t that be womanfully?) resuming work. But this time I couldn’t do it. Every day, it was a supreme effort to get out of bed. It was a supreme effort to take a shower. It was a supreme effort to leave the house. I feared I might be clinically depressed, and Malcolm feared for me, too. I was not the woman he married: I was turning into the Woman in a Dressing Gown. I was tempted to visit the Lost Property Office to locate my raison d’être.
The only thing that kept me going was the feedback from you – my readers. Every single day I got e-mails from you telling me how much you adored the novels - and virtually every single e-mail ended the same way: ‘When is the next book going to be out?’
I knew I had reached a nadir. I couldn’t bear to think that Love Lies Bleeding would never see the light of day, and that you – who were clamouring for it – would never get an opportunity to read it. I couldn’t bear to think that it would end up on my hard disk forever. I couldn’t bear to think that I had wasted an entire year of my life working flat out on a novel that Marian Keyes says is easily my best yet (and at 135,000 words, it’s also my biggest). So one evening over dinner, I announced to Malcolm that I was going to make the novel available for anyone who wanted it as a download from the internet - gratis. I saw the trepidation on his face – that look that said: ‘What is this mad bitch capable of?!’ But he just very calmly said: ‘Give me 24 hours to think about this.’ And the next evening over dinner he told me to scour the book for the chapter with the most cliff-hanging ending, which happened to be Chapter 25. Then he suggested that we do this. I should offer to send the first 25 chapters of the novel as an e-mail attachment to anyone who expresses an interest in reading it. Should the reader wish to continue reading, the final 7 chapters – known as The Clandestine Chapters - would be available to buy, online, via PayPal.
It was such a diabolically simple idea that I knew there had to be a catch somewhere. So I rang a dozen trusted writer friends and ran the idea by them. I told them that my self-esteem and my self confidence were at an all-time low, but that I had every faith in the book: and not one of those friends said: ‘Don’t do it! You’re insane!’ Those who had read Love Lies Bleeding – including Marian Keyes, Cathy Kelly and my great friend Hilary – were even more vociferous in their support. Another writer friend – Fiona - was my test case: I sent her the first 25 chapters in an attachment one Sunday evening, and asked her to phone me when she’d finished them (she later told me that that the book had kept her up into the small hours, and that at one stage, on reading a description of a meal served up in the South of France, she got so hungry that she ran down to the kitchen and cooked up frozen roast potatoes to take back to bed!) On Monday morning, the first thing Fiona did was reach for her laptop to finish reading the first 25, and the second thing she did was pick up the phone to me. ‘Can you tell me how keen you are to finish the novel?’ I asked her. ‘Oh, Kate! I’m absolutely desperate to finish it,’ was the response.
So,
in the first weeks of January, I sourced exquisite, handmade paper with
which to bind The Clandestine Chapters and make them the classiest,
most covetable darn publication you ever laid eyes on. I sourced ribbon,
too, and silk cord (I love the idea that I’m harnessing 21st century
technology – i.e. the internet - with something so quintessentially
old-fashioned!) I had a copyright seal of authenticity made, and I found a
delightful printing firm to print out the final seven chapters and the
epilogue (thank-you, Seren!) We had lunch with our solicitor and our
accountant, and set up a limited company (Malcolm and I are now company
directors of Mischief Publishing!) And then I spent an entire weekend in my
attic, binding my book and listening to the radio, and feeling happy for the
first time in months.
Within hours of launching the website – www.loveliesbleedingthebook.com - the orders started coming in from all round the world. Some of you even ordered the first 25 chapters as an attachment, and bought The Clandestine Chapters simultaneously without waiting to see whether the book was any good or not! It was a huge endorsement of your faith in me – so thank-you, thank-you, from the bottom of my heart!
And then the Hughes & Hughes chain of booksellers here in Ireland came on board. Love Lies Bleeding – The Clandestine Chapters will be launched in Hughes & Hughes in Dundalk on Friday 9th February, with Deirdre Purcell kindly doing the honours. The Clandestine Chapters will be available to buy exclusively only from Hughes & Hughes High Street branches, and you’ll have to ask for it – it will be handed to you from beneath the counter in a plain manila envelope! (For those of you who don’t live near a Hughes & Hughes store, the chapters remain available by applying to Kate Thompson Enterprises on www.loveliesbleedingthebook.com )
In the last week of January, RTE’s beautiful, unflappable Mary Kennedy came to our house with a camera crew to interview me for the Nationwide programme. Malcolm and I were interviewed by the RTE Guide and The Examiner and the Sunday Independent, and I have a heap of radio interviews lined up.
None of this could have happened without the help, advice and feedback of some very dear friends. The aforementioned Cathy, Fiona, Hilary and Marian. My legal eagle, J.H. My darling M. M. (God speed with your new travel agency!) The pragmatic H. M. (who told me to think of everything that could go wrong, because more than likely a lot of things would go wrong – and he was right! I spent days last month working from 6.00 am until 12.00 midnight, crying and proof-reading and re-formatting all at the same time, and cursing Malcolm for his ‘bright’ idea which was quite clearly going to be the ruination of us). To continue: the sagacious P. P. My mentor and inspiration, D. P. The sanguine P. S. G. S., human abacus. P. T. - most generous, visionary gal in scooter gear ever! (You know who you are, but I don’t want to come clean just yet, in case it’s not a runner!) And many thanks also to S. W., for spreading the news.
EMPTY NEST SYNDROME
Yikes! I’m a bit breathless now, after that sprint of a discourse. To fill you in on other news: the girl Clara has landed on her feet. The house she’s moved to belongs to parents of one of her best friends, and because they’re waiting for builders to come and renovate next May, our girl can live there rent-free as a house-minder. She had us over for dinner one evening, and it was an eye-opener to see how beautifully kept her room was compared to her bedroom here (a tip), how house proud she’s suddenly become, and how well she cooks! Since she moved out we see her once a week only - on Sundays - when she comes back with two loads of laundry, uses our Broadband connection to update her MySpace and MSN her mates, joins us in a roast dinner, raids the fridge, palms some euros, then flits off again. I feel swindled and loved all at the same time – but I swear that Empty Nest Syndrome would have kicked in bigtime if it weren’t for the Love Lies Bleeding project. It’s been a life-saver.
Post Script:
When Malcolm and I left Connemara shortly after New Year’s Day, we stopped off at Ballynahinch Castle Hotel to pick up sandwiches we’d pre-ordered for the journey back to Dublin. I dived into reception, leaving the door of the car open. When I returned, there was a robin perched on the passenger seat I’d just vacated. Way back, cottage dwellers in Ireland used to invite robins into their homes during the winter months, because the dinky birds were considered to be harbingers of good luck. Let’s hope that’s the case. Fingers crossed, and please say a prayer to your God for me. This has been the scariest, riskiest, most fraught month of my life. But it’s also been one of the most exhilarating.
THE 25 CHAPTERS
To have the first 25 chapters of Love Lies Bleeding sent to you via e-mail attachment, please go to www.loveliesbleedingthebook.com The Clandestine Chapters are available to buy from the same site.
MAILING LIST
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THANK YOU
Sincere thanks to all of you who have written such wonderful, encouraging letters. I still can’t believe how many of you are clamouring for Love Lies Bleeding! For those of you needing a quick fix, may I direct you to the backlist, and to www.pixiepirelli.com. Thank-you so much also for taking the time to read this. I hope the rest of 2007 works out beautifully for us all.
♥♥♥
from
Kate
PS: ORDERING BOOKS
to buy
By the way, while Sex, Lies and Fairytales is available to buy or to order in all good bookshops in Ireland, the UK and the Commonwealth, Hard to Choos is available to buy direct from booksellers only in Ireland at present. Should you wish to buy the book from Amazon, clicking here will take you straight to the sales point. You can also order Hard to Choos from Pixie's site. Lots of you are wondering where my backlist can be purchased. Amazon is good, of course, but my Transworld titles are also available - with free P&P in the UK - at Bookpost. (Just key in the title name in inverted commas - ie: "More Mischief")
to buy
© Kate Thompson, 2006
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