Colette Dartford, author of 'The Mortification of Grace Wheeler' - Kindle bestseller talks about quiet spaces, character summaries, and self-publishing

Writer's Routine

Dan Simpson

Arts, Books, Hobbies, Leisure

4.9 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2022

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Colette Dartford's debut, 'Learning to Speak American', was shortlisted for an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. She followed up this success with her second, 'An Unsuitable Marriage', was a Kindle bestseller for 18 months.

For her new novel she's made an interesting decision. In August, she'll self-publish, 'The Mortification of Grace Wheeler'. She's done this to have more creative control over publishing, marketing and pricing, and is almost doing it as a one-book experiment. She gets deep into the reasons why she has done this, and there's some fantastic advice to help you make a similar choice.

The novel is about Grace, in a marriage with a much older man, whose son leaves for University. She becomes an empty-nester, and in a bid for excitement, is drawn into an affair with terrible consequences.

We talk about why she has stopped doing detailed summaries of characters, why all she needs to write is a quiet space and a laptop, and how much expert help she gets before sending the work off.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, ahoi, welcome along to a brand new episode of writers' routine. This week we're chatting to Colette Dartford. Her debut was shortlisted for an Amazon breakthrough novel award. Her second was a Kindle bestseller for 18 months,
0:23.2	and she's got a new one out. It's called The Mortification of Grace Wheeler. And for this,
0:28.3	she's made an interesting decision. She's gone her own way. She's broken from the traditional
0:33.9	method of publishing and signed up to an industry disruptor who is helping her
0:39.0	self-publish. We talk about why all she needs to write is a quiet space in a laptop.
0:44.3	Also, how much expert help that she gets along the way, and she gets really into the big
0:49.0	reasons behind looking at self-publishing. There's also the issue of creative control because very naively,
0:57.0	I didn't realize that authors have little or no say over their book covers, how their book
1:01.8	will look. And so I'm not wishing to be in any way critical, but I wouldn't have chosen my first two book covers.
1:11.9	They wouldn't have been my choice.
1:14.0	This book that's coming out in August, I'm delighted with my book cover.
1:20.9	I think it's more sophisticated and also it is a better reflection of the book, the story, the characters itself.
1:30.7	That is all on the way with Collette Dartford in this week's writer's routine.
1:43.7	Yes, welcome along to the show. Thank you for finding us. My name's Dan Simpson. This is
1:47.9	writer's routine, where we take a look inside an author's working day, finding out how they get
1:53.8	an idea from their head onto the page and how they plan their day and their life and their
1:59.9	workspace to get it done.
2:01.5	There's a little bit more in that today.
2:03.9	It's how she properly got it onto the shelves.
2:07.5	We'll talk about that in a sec.
2:08.8	Now, Colette's debut Learning to Speak America was shortlisted for an Amazon breakthrough novel award.
2:14.5	Her second, an unsuitable marriage, was a Kindle bestseller for 18 months.
	...

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