I Will Literarily Kill You

I’m well into the sequel for Before and After now and after a few bumps in the road it’s going great. However, I’ve noticed that one thing in particular tends to slow me down and that’s naming incidental characters.

It’s such a dumb thing that sometimes people don’t believe that I struggle with this. However, there’s such a lot of information and sentiment coded in names that if you choose the wrong one it can ruin a whole section, or it does for me anyway.

Consequently, I tend to go back and forth on what people should be called. The other day I spent ages deciding that a character would be called Guy Garvey, only to subsequently realise that the reason this had a fuzzy, warm feeling to it is because he’s the lead singer of Elbow.

See! It’s tough!

Anyway, my solution is to see if you will let me literarily kill you. You submit your name, I use the big long list of willing victims and just pick one that seems right. Plus you get a cameo (almost certainly as a dead body) to show your mates.

www.iwillliterarilykillyou.com is where you need to go if you fancy being a victim.

Guy bloody Garvey FFS.

Before And After Is Coming To The Silver Screen

Typing that post title out it’s just struck me how surreal this is. Let me restate it and maybe it will seem less odd: my book, Before and After is off to Hollywood. People: our friends Ben and Brown are going to LA.

Nope, it’s still very odd.

Let me rewind. How did this happen? About five months ago I got an email from a man called David. It was a polite email introducing himself and his impeccable writing credentials (he’s worked with Rob Reiner! Yes, Rob Reiner!). Ok, hi – how can I help? It seems he read Before and After, loved it and wanted to option it so that he could make a film from it. Ok, sure?

So we talked. He seems like a great guy. He’s adapted books into films before. He’s worked on series for NBC. He’s written series for Amazon. He’s got lots of experience. We talked through the book and what he thought about it and how he saw it being adapted. It was really apparent from the get-go that he had the right heart to tell Ben’s story on screen. So, cor blimey, he’s going to do it.

The paperwork was all signed last week and the announcement will be going out tomorrow. That means that from tonight the arguments can begin: who should play Ben? More to the point, who has the range to play Brown?

Bonus news: I’ve started writing the sequel, first draft will be done by April 1st.

Two more interviews

I’ve been chatting with more fine folk and if you want to have a listen then you can find the interviews here.

First up was an interview that I did with Mysterious Goings On podcast supremo Alex Greenwood. This was a fun one as we had an interesting chat which ran across a whole gamut of topics, including advice for new writers.

Next up, I chatted with Andy from Spoken Label, who do a whole heap of great things supporting creativity and writing in Manchester, Gawd bless ’em.

You can also get the Spoken Label pod on Apple, Pocketcast, Youtube, Radiopublic, Castbox, Listennotes, Bullhorn, Podcastaddict, Podbean, Himalaya, Podbay, Amazon, Tunein, Anchor and Spotify!

You are officially up-to-date with all Shanahan related news. I’m hoping to have two more posts up before Christmas with 1) BIG NEWS and 2) SOME WRITING FOR YOU.

Best get back to it then. As you were.

Podcasts, Ramblechats and Interviews

I’ve not been neglecting Before and After while I’ve been writing my next book. I’ve been doing quite a lot of podcasts and interviews, where I ramble at length about the book, my brilliance and what Shanafans can expect next. I’m going to round up some of the posts in this post so you can listen (or not) as you see fit.

Reading in Bed is a podcast where Amanda Steel records extracts of her reading from various books she’s enjoyed. She kindly read from Before and After and did a great job. You can find her reading below and her website here.

Next up I spoke to Eric Eskenazi who runs the excellent Erratic Dispatches podcast. It was fun speaking to someone from America about the book and getting a different perspective on it from that point of view. This one is 58 minutes of me chatting, so if you’re really finding it hard to sleep then this is the one for you.

I also spoke to BBC Lancashire about being a writer in the North and what it was like releasing a book about being trapped at home during a pandemic (spoiler: it’s a fun challenge!)

I’ve done another couple of interviews recently and I’ll add them to the blog when they go live. In other news, I’m experimenting with taking a break from social media as it seems to be sucking my time into a vortex of self-recrimination and Trump Derangement Syndrome and I need some fresh air. Consequently, I might just make some more time for blogging and further ramblechats. You lucky things…

Listen to Before and After For Free!

Earlier this week I was contacted by a Manchester radio station who wondered if I might be interested in reading Before and After for them to broadcast. I ummed and ahhed because recording good quality audio is opening a Pandora’s box of niggles, hissing, pops and flubs.

After thirty seconds it appeared that my legs were walking me to the office and my hands were opening the Easy Voice Recorder app on my phone. 45 minutes later I’d recorded the first chapter. Given that this is one take I’m inordinately pleased with it. That is until I start listening to all the niggles, hissing, pops and flubs.

Anyway, I present it hear for you in case you fancy some listening material. I’m still available for readings and I’ve now done a few chats with book clubs who selected Before and After and I’m always pleased by how open those discussions are. It would be a bit embarrassing if everyone was just saying they liked the book because I was there. As it stands it’s clear that everyone is very happy to say what they do and don’t like – much as it should be.

Enough – pin back your lugholes and cop this:

Quick work update: hard at work still promoting Before and After and The Bossy Book. I have also finished the first draft of 232 Miles Of… the novel that’s set on the M6. There’s lots of good things in there but it’s still a bit raw and could probably do with five years in an oak barrel. I’ve now started work on a very dark tale of ghosts, fatherhood and medical-grade psychedelic drugs. Hoping to have draft #1 done by year’s end.

Anyway, let me know what you think of the first chapter.

Before and After is Officially a Best-Seller – But What Does That Mean?

After approximately 10 days of Before and After hovering around the Top Ten list in two different categories (more on that later), some mysterious salesforce bumped the book not just into the top ten, but actually to the hallowed top slot. I genuinely felt a bit dizzy when I saw what it had pushed back.

Oh, it’s just Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Who?

Before this post starts to sound like a vomit-inducing, overly-premature victory lap I thought it might be interesting to go into what hitting the best-seller means and how you go about getting that much-coveted orange ribbon.

The short and predictable answer is sales. There’s no getting around it, people need to buy your book. A slightly longer answer would be that it’s sales in a condensed period of time. If you take a look just underneath where it says Amazon Best Sellers then you’ll see that it says “Updated Hourly”. So the simple answer is that during that hour, as Amazon measured it, Before and After sold more copies than Good Omens.

Now, I’m not attempting to downplay this, I’m thrilled that anyone buys my books, but it’s fair to say that Good Omens has been on the shelves for some time – it was released in 1990. So, even despite the fact that it’s had renewed attention because of the (nice and accurate) TV series, that’s pretty amazing that a thirty year old book can still hold the number one and two slot on a best-selling chart. Come back to me in 30 years and let’s see how Before and After is doing. More amazing still is that it’s pretty expensive as Kindle books go.

The other thing that’s worth noting when it comes to the best-seller charts is that authors get to choose a number of categories for Amazon to list their book in. My main categories you can see here:

Notice too that it’s dropped to #94 in “post-apocalyptic” now – I’m sure Gaiman and Pratchett are working on their boastful blog posts right now. When you first upload your book Amazon allows you to have two main categories, you can actually email the very helpful customer support team at Kindle Direct Publishing and ask them to list you in as many as eight other categories.

Clearly, this helps a lot because some of those categories are fairly niche and will require far fewer sales to hit the best-seller chart than others. Perhaps unsurprisingly the most competitive category is Contemporary Romance. My chosen battleground of science fiction> post apocalyptic is slap bang in the middle at #54 (of around 100). So it seems that if you’re looking to harvest as many of those orange tags as possible then according to this chart you should write a book about something that fits the following categories.

Romance -> Historical Romance -> Scottish
Literature & Fiction -> Literary Fiction -> Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Nonfiction -> Religion & Spirituality -> Christianity -> Christian Living -> Spiritual Growth

Which rather neatly brings me onto my new book series: The Detective Morag Mysteries. The year is 1915 and Curtly Morag is one of the first to ever make the rank of detective in the fiercely misogynistic Scottish police force, she’s certainly the first atheist…

How about I read you my book over the phone?

I love reading to people. Love it. When my wife and I first got together I’d read to her all the time (mostly Pratchett, cos you can’t go wrong with Pratchett) and I’ve read to all of my children until the point where they don’t really want me to. There’s something so warm and human about telling a story straight into someone’s ear that hits me right where I live.

So let me read my book to you.

https://beforeandafter.youcanbook.me

Huh? What? Well, just that really. I’m doing a little experiment for the next two weeks where you can book a slot in my working week for me to read to you. It’s totally free and I’ll call at a time you designate and read about 10 minutes of Before and After to you. You could think of it as an audio sampler. We can chat and if you’ve got any questions then I’ll do my best to answer them, unless it’s maths related in which case I’ll get one of my children to help.

It’s kind of a weird idea, but I know that as my readers you’re looking for weird kind of ideas and I dig you for that. So why not give it a try?

Additionally, a few people have also asked if I’d read at their book club meeting and the answer is hell yes. If you’re doing Before and After at your book club just drop me an email and I’ll gladly come and read to you. I’ll also send you a list of the book club discussion points which I’m putting together for a later blog post. Depending on where you are I might need you to cover petrol, or bike wheel rubber, but it won’t be much. I’m also happy to talk about the career path of becoming an indie author and share what I’ve learned thus far. Primarily, never use the word thus.

Also as an aside Before and After is now a best-seller…no biggie.

Before and After The Book Trailer

Simply everyone is doing book trailers darlink! So I’ve done one too.

Actually, that’s a bald-faced lie – Iven Gilmore made it and I just chipped in with ideas and suggestions, then corrections to the suggestions, then alterations to the corrections, then…Iven punched me in the face and we finished it. Thank you Iven, I love you.

You’ll have to read the book to get an idea of quite wtf is going on here, but I love the little crescendo of chaos as the film builds. Given the size of my hero in the book, it felt appropriate to go with Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s version of What A Wonderful World, rather than Louis Armstrong’s. Plus, who doesn’t love a uke?

Let me know what you think! If you like it, would you be a poppet and stick it on your socials?

Before and After: The Cover Story

Hello, I’m Yo, one half of design consultancy VS+YO. I created the cover for Before and After and Shan asked me to tell you the story of how we made it.

Before we get started, a warning, this blog post contains spoilers! If you don’t want to know what happens in the book, go get it from the kindle store before you read this, go!

Shan and I have worked together for over 18 years and I think we have only met in real life four times. I love working with him for multiple reasons [Chief among these being that we only meet in person once every 4.5 years – Shan].

Firstly, he gives me compliments like this:

But more importantly we share the same values when it comes to design and creating.

We also understand that we are both focused on making things better, which is why when we share ideas we are completely honest with each other. And why, when Shan told me that the cover was the most important thing to the success of any book and if his failed to sell it would be all my fault, I laughed. No pressure then!

The process I followed for creating the book cover was the same as I would follow for any design project. At each stage Shan had the opportunity to input and feedback which meant that the project is collaborative and that he thinks that all of the design was his idea.

Step 1 – The brief

We kicked off project with a call where I asked lots of questions to get a clear understanding of what Shan was looking for. Here are my notes of what he told me:

I then asked for a draft of the blurb that would feature with the book so that I could get an idea of what Shan was going to reveal up front and what he wanted to be a surprise. You can read the blurb here.

I had an idea I wanted to put something on the cover that represented one thing when you first saw it and then had another meaning after you have read the book.

Shan had lots of ideas for the cover, including making a hybrid illustration, creating an optical illusion where some people might see a fat man other would see a dog and a design with a fat superhero wearing a cape.

Emma, Shan’s wife, also had an idea which Shan send in a video. This made my day:

I had lots to go on, but before started any design I wanted to experience the book and understand the key themes. I also wanted to see the competition to learn who we were competing with and how they approached standing out in a crowded market place.


Step 2 – Research

I read the book, every word.

Shan asked if I would send feedback, I sent him notes after I had read each chapter. Reading the book really helped me to understand the key themes and get ideas for visuals that would work on the cover. It also gave me an understanding of the experience of the book. I loved it! It made me laugh out loud on multiple occasions and cry once too.

Next, I researched the marketplace and the competition. Looking at the sci fi and post apocalyptic section of the amazon kindle store was overwhelming. There are so many titles! Our cover would definitely need to stand out and the design would have to work at multiple sizes and in greyscale as well as in full colour.

I had a call with Shan to discuss what I had learned. We looked at examples and discussed typography, colours and tone, what he liked and what he didn’t. This helped us to realise that a traditional cover design was not what we were going to create. A lone figure in front of burning buildings was out. Simple illustration was a possibility. We agreed the goal of the design would be to make it stand out and to get a reader curious enough to read the blurb.


Step 3 – Concept

Now I had all of the information I needed to get started, it was time to focus on ideas.

My ideas always start as words. They allow me to get ideas out quickly and not get caught up in how it will look.

To get started, I do a brain dump of everything I can think of in five minutes. From this quick, simple exercise I get a feeling for what excites me and what sparks visual ideas. I pay attention to words that can be connected and try combinations of words for ideas, with the aim of creating something unique and unexpected.

Then I move on to moodboards with photography and type. As a book cover is quite a straightforward design, I also mocked up some covers so that Shan could see the cover name in action and get a feel for how it could work. I showed the covers both large and as small versions in both colour greyscale to replicate how they could be viewed in the kindle store. Check out of the concepts we explored in this gif:

This stage is quick and the moodboards are designed to explore ideas, not necessarily a finished style. That comes after a direction has been agreed.

All concepts were presented to Shan on a video call where I explained the thinking behind each. We discussed each one taking into account how we could create a design that he could completely own without having to pay royalties on images. The presentation was then emailed so that he could think over the options.

The design that we were both really excited about and agreed represented the key themes was the biscuit concept. It nailed it on many levels. It was simple. It stood out. It would appeal to a mass audience. It made you curious, what was this biscuit book about? We both felt this was the right direction, it just needed more development.

We also agreed the book needed a shorter name, something more memorable, and that the biscuit should have a message on it.

Boom! The design became instantly more memorable. And it satisfied my need to create a design that was timeless and that would stand out in the kindle store.
Shan and I were very excited, this was the one to develop to design.


Step 4 – Design

We wanted an original photo to work with so that we owned the rights and wouldn’t have to pay for a licence or royalties to use it. I’m not a photographer but as the book was digital and we were working to a budget I took the photos myself with my smartphone. I went on a search for the perfect bourbon (Waitrose essentials turned out to look the most like a bourbon and work the best. Fox’s bourbons in comparison looked like dog biscuits which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for this book).

My hubby, Tom, helped with the photography (and eating the bisuits). He noticed that one was broken and said it could be cool even though he had no idea why we were taking photos of biscuits.

I loved it! The idea of the biscuit being imperfect was like the main character Ben with his flaws, as if he had nibbled a little bit off hoping no-one would notice. The piece missing could also represent the part of his leg he has to remove. This was the one!
[I never mentioned this before but one of the things I got from that is that there’s an old joke about the fact that broken biscuits have no calories, so it’s even smarter than you thought! – Shan]

As the cover image was going to appear as if it was out of context in the kindle store I felt it needed a line to explain what the book was about. I wrote one and added to the top. Then I experimented with the layout, see some of the versions in this gif:

Shan loved the big biscuit with the book title on it and the additional line. He is feeling confident and decided to ask a small trusted group to feedback on the cover.

Usually when working on a project, I ask that all decision makers are present for the first stages. It helps to get everyone on the same page.

When new people are brought into the process cold and haven’t seen the work behind a design there can be a tendency for things to get off track and this can add time and cost to the project.

We shared the design process to date and we had a winner! The feedback was to tweak to the type and I needed to have the title properly photoshopped on to the biscuit and we would be good to go.

Until Shan posted the cover in a facebook group and asked over 9.1k people for their feedback. [Sorry. – Shan]

There was a lot feedback!
A lot of positives and some negatives too.

  • It didn’t look like fiction.
  • American’s didn’t recognise the biscuit.
  • It didn’t look like it fitted in the post-apocalyptic genre.

When dealing with feedback from with multiple individuals I aim to focus on the problem we are solving and keep bringing it back to what is important. Shan is very good at filtering out the noise and focusing on what is important.

Shan and I discussed the feedback in detail. Did these things matter? What was most important to us and to the viewer? What emotional reaction were we looking for?

We decided to give the cover design one final push to see if adding a post apocalyptic element to our biscuit cover would work.

I created some quick mock-ups, I tried adding biscuit crumbs coloured red so that at a glance it looked like blood splatter.
I added a target to communicate weight loss but that would also look like a scope, which also features in the book. At the request of Shan, I experimented with adding a mad sci-fi colour even though we knew the cover would often appear in greyscale.
I even tried adding a background of burning buildings, the cliche we originally agreed to avoid.

Sometimes, you have to try things to see them to confirm they don’t work.

These quick mock-ups proved that combining an extra element with the biscuit concept would require a lot more time and budget to get it right. And we would likely need to pay for photography or involve an illustrator.

We had two options, either to stick to our gut and go for the biscuit or continue to develop.

We realised something important.
We didn’t care that it didn’t look like traditional fiction.
We didn’t want it to look like it fitted in the post-apocalyptic genre.

We both loved the cover as it was.

We went back to the original with some final typographic tweaks to make the cover line and author name bigger as per the facebook feedback.

The cover now ticked all of the boxes we set out to:

  • It stands out
  • It is memorable
  • It makes you feel something
    • curious, what’s a book like that doing here?
    • hungry, mmm… biscuits
    • nostalgic, I haven’t had a bourbon in ages
  • And it motivates you to click to find out more.

Whether you love or hate the cover, the book is awesome. It’s not just for those who love end of the world, sci-fi. It’s for people who love an adventure, root for the underdog and like biscuits.


Go to the kindle store and download the book to discover why the bourbon biscuit is on the cover.