 Victoria Lamb
Photo by Anna Rybacka Victoria Lamb is a very well-known, if not downright famous, writer of historical fiction. Fellow Romantic Novelist Association member and Latin-lover (no, not that sort!), she’s been one of my staunchest supporters on my writing journey. She even offered me a fantastic endorsement to go in the front of INCEPTIO which I grabbed before she even had time to leave the room!
“Tense, fast-paced and deliciously inventive, Alison Morton’s INCEPTIO soon had me turning the pages. Very Dashiell Hammett.”
Mmmm!
Today, I’m visiting Victoria’s blog with my thoughts about writing history “alternately”.
Enjoy!
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 The INCEPTIO launches in the UK and France were terrific, the French one small, intimate, the UK one a grand affair at Waterstones Tunbridge Wells – I loved both. I basked in the enthusiasm, well-wishing and sheer fun for days. People bought the book at the events and afterwards in shedloads and then the reviews started being posted on Amazon, Good reads and Waterstones .com.
And the questions flowed in. Here are four of the most asked:
Q1: What does Roma Nova look like?
A: I’ve posted some photos on INCEPTIO’s Facebook page
Q2: What’s the EUS/Roma Nova background?
A: Here’s a potted history…
Q3: When’s the next book coming out?
A: Haha! It’s drafted and just gone out to the beta readers.
(A beta reader is somebody who reads your book at an early stage with a critical eye, checking storyline, continuity, characterisation or believability and finally, whether it makes a cracking good read.)
Q4: What do Karen and Conrad look like?
A: Subscribe to the newsletter where we’ll be discussing this in the May edition and there’ll be a competition. 😉
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 It’s the old five-Ps adage: Perfect Planning Prevents Poor Performance. Whether you do it yourself, contract a PR company or your publisher organises it, the same things apply.
Stage 1 – Planning
Plan your tour length and frequency – five days, ten days, a month; everyday, every other day or three a week for a month. The length is up to you, but decide timings before you even fix your first tour stop. I took INCEPTIO on tour for ten days and stopped off every day. This was long enough to make an impact, but short enough not to bore people into the ground.
Stage 2 – Preparation
Select your stops. If you’re a social media animal and visit and comment regularly on blogs in your genre and/or book bloggers, you’ll have a fair idea of which ones you want to visit. If not, start visiting now and don’t forget to comment on the existing posts. Check which blogs are alive and vibrant with lots of good comments. Alternatively, you could hire a blog tour organiser to research appropriate blogs and set up the stops, but you will still need to write posts and provide answers – it’s your tour!
Approach the hosts and be prepared to wait. The most popular blogs have many requests for spots and spaces are taken quickly. You may have to re-jig your whole tour if you want a special/important/popular blog. Being polite and professional goes without saying!
Ask what the blogger would like – you’re the guest, they are doing you a favour. On the other hand, you are providing original content. 😉 Be ready to answer questions in an interview, write a guest post on a theme or about your background, your writing day, publishing journey or your view on a writing topic. They may also ask for a first chapter as a preview or sneak peek. Have your book blurb and bio ready, plus a good author photo and cover image in .jpg format.
Most importantly, answer the damned questions! If your host asks questions, give them the information they want, not the prepared stuff you want to throw at them. However, it’s acceptable to weave in a little bit of info angled towards your own book as long as it’s relevant and not too spammy.
Send off your post/answers, bio, blurb, etc. in good time, ahead of the deadline the blogger has given you. It shows you have a serious and professional attitude. And (speaking from experience) do make sure you *have* attached everything to your email.
Step 3 – Performance
Post on your own blog/Facebook/via your newsletter that you will be going on tour. Include/embed the hyperlinks of the hosts’ websites in your own post. If you have a tour logo, make sure you include that. Here’s my advance post for my April 2013 tour that was organised by my publisher, SilverWood Books after INCEPTIO was published.
On the day your post is on the host’s page, check back regularly to answer any comments from readers.Tweet about the post 3-4 times spread throughout the day and less frequently for a day or two afterwards. More than that and it looks spammy.
If the host has posted a review of your book, then you’ve hit gold. You can use it on your own website, blog, tweet about it, include it on your marketing promotion, but you should always quote the host and their site.
Step 4 – After the tour
Well, after each day, actually… Thank each host publicly on their blog and also tweet and Facebook your thanks about being there. Being nice is a simple investment that can reap great rewards. And it’s free.
Apart from having some fun, think about what you got out of the tour. You may have discovered some new book blogs, you could have found new fans, but you will certainly have brought your book to more readers’ notice. Whether that converts to more sales is another question…
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Three years ago, I spent a day at London Book Fair as a wide-eyed newbie writer. I loved it! This year, with INCEPTIO published, I went as part of the SilverWood Books author team to answer potential new clients’ questions from the author point of view. Very courageous and transparent of SilverWood Books (SWB) to let us loose on the possible new clients!
I met fellow authors Sandy Osborne, Lucienne Boyce and Harvey Black (and Michael Wills very briefly) in real life having chatted digitally to them for several months.
 SilverWood Books stand
We were quickly sharing our own experiences with writers new on the publishing trail who were interested in SWB’s services. And self-publishing was the buzz running through the whole fair. I was hoarse after two days talking about it.
I met RNA colleagues Christina Courtenay, Henriette Gyland and Sue Moorcroft who were clustered around the Choclit stand. Of course, I pinched some of their chocolate!
And back at the New Cavendish Club where many RNA members congregate, I met up with authors Trisha Ashley and Freda Lightfoot and learned an awful lot about the publishing industry over the past twenty years!
More than anything, I made some good connections with publishing people – self, indie, mainstream – and watched publishing in evolution…
Update 2022: Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series.Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. Double Pursuit, the sequel, is now out!
Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines and taste world the latest contemporary thriller Double Identity… Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
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There’s a little bit of book love going on ….as the cat crept in, and curled at my side, read with me, read with me, softly he sighed …
What a lovely review for this the last day of my blog tour! Thank you Jaffa (and Jo).
“In present day New York, Karen Brown’s daily life is starting to unravel. When inexplicable events shake the very foundations of her world, she at first disbelieves what is happening around her. However, after a failed kidnap attempt, Karen is advised to flee to her dead mother’s homeland, but even as the mysterious Roma Nova offers a sanctuary, it also opens more questions than answers. The action is fast and furious, and soon Karen finds that she is drawn into a dangerous set of circumstances, which will test her endurance to limit and which will force her to question the structure of her belief.
What then follows is a well written and decidedly competent alternate history novel which draws you in from the very beginning and which offers an intriguing look at Roma Nova, a world which has been ruled by women for the past sixteen centuries, and whose secret anonymity comes alive on the page. Alternate history is a fascinating concept, and yet can so easily become a minefield of improbability, where the world within a world being created can become a mere parody of what is real. However, I had no such issues with Inceptio, which thanks to the author’s skill, Roma Nova and its role in the world, soon became a real and very authentic place.
I think that this is one of those books you could so easily miss, particularly if alternate history is not your genre, but you would be missing out on a real treat. It is ideal escapism, with the ingredients of history, mystery and romance expertly combined to form a well balanced and perfectly presented start to a promising series.”
5*****
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