“Somehow I managed to pick myself up and start the submitting journey again.”
The author of thriller Perfect Lie tells how she bounced back from disappointment to see her debut published by Ruby Fiction.
2019 was a rollercoaster year. It began with me getting some interest in my debut novel which at the time was called “New Beginnings.” The rollercoaster became extreme as I worked towards getting it published, but then things fell through and I was back to square one.
I really struggled for a while, my original publication date passed and I was still an unsigned author. I watched others get their moments of glory as their debuts came out and mine didn’t. But I had something I could start submitting, again, didn’t I?
Somehow I managed to pick myself up and start the submitting journey again. I decided that I was only going to submit to agents after my previous experience, and I knew I needed to find the belief I’d had in my novel the first time around because no one was going to sign someone who didn’t believe in what they had written.
So I kept plugging away. I wanted to be a published author and I needed to make it happen. A fellow author whose work I enjoyed suggested submitting to Ruby Fiction, so I took a deep breath filled in the form and sent my submission in to be read by their tasting panel. They work differently to other publishers because your work gets read by a panel of people who like and read your genre – in my case Crime fiction – so my work needed to get past them first before it was passed on to management.
Somehow it did, but I found the situation really strange. Because I had been at this point before I was really cautious about EVERYTHING! I didn’t shout it from the rooftops or tell my work colleagues. I had a meeting with the Ruby Fiction team and from there was sent a contract to read over and sign. I did this on Christmas day, so I would never forget that date.
My first novel Perfect Lie was released as an ebook on the 16th June 2020 and has received positive reviews. I am so glad we are all working from home at the moment because I couldn’t look my work colleagues in the eye knowing that they’ve read my work. On the 21st July, my book was released as an audiobook and this is a dream come true, as this is the closest I am going to get to hear my work read by someone else.
If I had given up in 2019, I would have never got an ebook published and most importantly an audiobook! My experience with Ruby Fiction has been totally different from where I had been originally. Maybe it’s true what they say – the first option isn’t always the best!
Claire lives in Nottingham with her family, a cat called Whiskers and a dog called Podrick. She suffers from Multiple Sclerosis and as a result of the disease had to reduce her hours working in insurance for an Insolvency Insurer. This spare time enabled her to study a creative writing course which inspired her to write her debut, Perfect Lie. When Claire isn’t working she enjoys reading crime novels and listening to music – the band Jimmy Eat World is her biggest muse! Claire is also an avid reader and book blogger. The inspiration for her novels comes from the hours spent watching The Bill with her grandparents and auntie; then later, Spooks and other detective programmes like Morse, A Touch of Frost and Midsummer Murders.
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