After reading The Killing Ground, and then looking up Finn Bell out of curiosity, my curiosity got worse! It seemed a bit incomprehensible to me that after four books, Finn was still self-publishing. Sure, other people like Hugh Howie had started self-publishing but then were offered contracts by traditional publishers. On the other hand, writers who'd started with trads had turned back to self-publishing for various reasons.
I was really pleased when Finn agreed to an email interview, and this is it!
Why novel
writing? Why crime? Has it been a longtime aim or something fairly recent?
I couldn’t,
with any measure of certainty, really tell you why my mind does any of the
things it does when left unattended and writing is no different. It started as
a way of coping (mostly with myself and my previous career) and has slowly
grown into something bigger.
I probably write
crime fiction because crime is what I’ve known and when I sit down in front of
a blank page that’s what comes out of its own accord. But I don’t think it’s a
distinguishing feature of what I do – any story – in any genre – will have
something of wrongness, sickness, or brokenness that changes through the pages,
I think that’s why reading has utility, has use for the reader, doesn’t matter
which genre you’re in. (That’s the point of stories, though right? If a book
doesn’t change anything, or make itself (or you) better for reading it, why
bother?)
What do you
enjoy most about the writing?
There’s
almost nothing about it that I don’t like. What do I enjoy most? Probably the
sense of completion, a sense that things could have been better, ended better,
and the story is how. Or maybe that there is a way of understanding something
you don’t want to be real but is. All my books are based on my past career (so
old case files, court reports, prison interviews and so on) and all of them
involve actual unsolved crimes (at the time of writing a given book).
That’s
where my writing started - from diaries, journals and notes of unsolved crimes
that lead to writing plausible (but fictional) endings to real unfinished
stories. I guess it’s a way of trying to reach across from how things are to
how they ought to be (it’s part make believe but it’s still hope even if only a
worn, dirty kind).
You’ve set The Killing Ground in Riverton – is it a
problem using a real small town in NZ? Have your neighbours read the books?
All my
books are set in the South Island of New Zealand in real locations, like the
crimes and events the stories are based on, almost everything is real or as
near to true as I can legally make it. It hasn’t been a problem yet.
Did you
decide to self-publish right from the beginning? Or did that come after some
rejections? What led to you doing it yourself?
I didn’t
intend to do anything as a writer of any kind. I started writing to cope, to
help me sleep (there was no plan behind it). All of the publishing questions came
later, my partner talked me into publishing the first few books as ebooks only,
and I looked at the content and decided on self-publishing because I honestly
didn’t think what I was doing was mainstream enough for traditional publishers
to be interested in, I never even approached any before releasing the first 2
books.
This was
back in 2016. Since then I’ve been lucky enough to win some awards, gain some
fans and sell a few books and have gone from self-publishing ebooks to
self-publishing audiobooks, but still nothing on paper. After about a year we
did approach agents in traditional publishing but there was no interest (which hasn’t
surprised me). (My note - it surprised me!)
How did you
go about getting the books ready to publish? Did you have an editor? What help
did you get (if any)?
For the
text I employ a professional copy editor (for correcting grammar, spelling and
punctuation only) and a professional voice artist for the audio books but
everything else is me. Plain and simple.
How did you
tackle the marketing? What worked for you? What didn’t work?
That’s a
big question and one that so many people can answer much better than I can.
There’s nothing original or special about what I’ve done. And at first, I did
very little, I wouldn’t look to me as a good example, I think almost all my
success has come from a strong response from readers and isn’t down to anything
I’ve done.
What did
you do about reviews and entering awards?
Nothing
much really (again I’m not a good example to point at). I got asked online
whether I would like to enter the Ngaio Marsh Award a few months after
published my first 2 books (the thought hadn’t occurred to me before then) and then
I was lucky enough to win the Best First Novel Category. That led to other competitions
either contacting me or being referred to me. The same has been true of reviews,
it has mostly grown because of word of mouth from reader to reader and has had
very little to do with my own efforts as far as I can tell.
After
reading The Killing Ground, I was
astounded that you haven’t found a traditional publisher or agent. What's
happened with this?
As I
mentioned earlier, it hasn’t changed. I’m releasing my fifth book soon
and there’s been no interest from traditional publishers or agents. I’m ok if
it does happen one day and I’m ok if it doesn’t.
Do you feel
it’s worth it? Are you selling enough to feel it’s working? (I think you should
put the price up but that’s just me!)
Do I think
it’s worth it? Yes. Am I selling enough? No. Should I put the prices up? All my
books are (at the time of writing this) the lowest price I can make them on
Amazon.com (which is 0.99 US $). I did this to support (in a small way) all the
people stuck in the pandemic lockdown around the world. (If you read as much as
me, cheap ebooks make a difference and I wanted to help, not profit). I’ll raise
the prices (probably back to 2.99 US $) once we’re out of the woods and the
world gets back to normal.
What next?
We’ll see.
My fifth book is done and heading to my editor. After that, probably book 6.
My note - so far I've only read The Killing Ground (have bought the next one and looking forward to reading it), but I suspect Finn's growing readership, despite his lack of super-duper marketing skills, is because the novels are damn good. That's why I wanted to do this interview and let you know about them.
