Last year we featured Marjory McGinn in our non-fiction author interview series, and it’s a delight to welcome her back to hear how she successfully made the transition from non-fiction author to fiction writer. As somebody who has always thought I had a novel inside me, it is interesting and inspiring to hear how Marjory has crossed the bridge to fiction.

When you have a passion for a destination, it makes sense to use that as the catalyst to create any content that inspires you to create. I did something similar when I wrote my collection of expat poems about cultural integration into my new life in Turkey. My Turkey Tales poetry collection was a complete divergence from my Travel Guides about Turkey, but compliments them completely.

If you’ve branched out into a different writing style within the same niche, leave a comment below and let us know about your writing adventures. Now, let’s find out how Marjory approached her fiction author journey.

Guest Article: Marjory McGinn

You’ve just published a novel, A Saint For The Summer, set in Greece. After previously writing Greek travel memoirs, what made you consider a novel?

First of all, thanks Jay for inviting me on to your fabulous site again. I had written my three travel memoirs during and after a four-year stay in Greece with my partner and our crazy Jack Russell terrier, Wallace, during the Greek economic crisis. The books were a joy to write and have done very well and have a steady following. I could easily have penned another one from my experiences in Greece. But this time, I was keen to let my imagination fly a bit and not be constrained by non-fiction and reality, if you like. Yet, the novel still has a strong sense of place as the memoirs have.

While we were in Greece in 2012, the idea for the story had already begun to take root anyway, based partly on the Battle of Kalamata, a little known, disastrous episode of the Second World War that had a great impact on southern Greece. However, this is not a war story or an historical novel. It’s a contemporary novel but the war does play a crucial part in the narrative. I was able to research the story while there and the plot really just took residence in my head and flew about like an aeroplane in a holding pattern until I had time to commit to it.

Did you find it more enjoyable writing a novel?

I did but it was also harder than I imagined too because the story has a few different strands and a slightly complex, and often antagonistic, relationship between the main character journalist Bronte McKnight and her estranged Scottish father, living in the southern Peloponnese. I thoroughly enjoyed the process especially as the story is set in the Mani region which I know well and where we stayed when we first arrived. It was also fun to take a few of the interesting characters I had met in Greece and then rework them and give them a whole new imagined life.

This is your first novel?

Published one, yes, though I did write a novel in 2004, while living in Scotland which I didn’t manage to get published though one or two agents showed some interest and gave me good advice. In the end, I just put the manuscript away and forgot about it. I’m not tempted to revive it either. At this point it would take too much rewriting.

Any tips then for writers with manuscripts hidden in bottom drawers?

Well, we’ve all got one! I would say, even if you never publish it, the experience has been useful to you and will have helped you develop your own unique voice. It’s no co-incidence that the protagonist of that older novel I wrote was also a Scottish journalist and not unlike the current protagonist of A Saint For The Summer in her personality and outlook. In writing, nothing is ever wasted.

Why did you choose the indy route again for your novel?

I did consider an agent or publisher this time round and even made a limp attempt to contact some but I dreaded the whole submission process starting up which I’d gone through in 2004, and then the rejection slips. This time, I felt that with some kind of track record behind me with the other three books, it made sense to publish this one myself and choose how and when the book would come out. I’d also had a bad experience anyway with the London publisher of my first Greek memoir Things Can Only Get Feta when he broke the terms of our contract a year after publication, meaning that I got my rights back and then published it myself which was the start of my indy life. Having total control is not for everyone but I find it liberating. You don’t take a year out of your life to write a book just to have someone else trample over your dreams which is what happens with you pick the publisher from hell!

Are you still happy with this indy choice?

Yes I am! Naturally, there are advantages in having a publisher: better distribution and seeing books in bookstores. I was thrilled in 2013 when my publisher managed to get Feta into a Heathrow Airport bookshop, so I can thank him for that at least, if not for everything else he got wrong. The other factor with a mainstream deal is you can participate in book festivals or apply for serious awards. But in many other ways there is no difference between having a mainstream or indy deal. You still need to do a lot of hard work yourself in promoting your books and extending readership, which you do anyway nowadays with a publisher. Being able to control everything from the look of the book to the timing of publication is fabulous, and so is the joy of receiving regular royalty payments.

Have your methods for promotion and marketing changed for a novel?

No, not really, and to be honest the promo and marketing side was never my strength apart from being able to produce author stories for some mainstream publications using my journalism skills. At least a novel is going to appeal to a wider range of readers than say a memoir set in one particular location, like Greece, so there’s the possibility to connect with different people on Twitter and Facebook etc which to me is still one of the best ways to spread the word. And especially connecting with book and writing groups as well. With a novel you can put your book into a broader range of genres on Amazon and experiment with that.

Also, it’s easier to entice your local reading groups for example with a novel rather than a non-fiction book. But mostly, I will stick to the same methods that have worked for me in the past, especially connecting with others on informative, popular sites such as Birds Of A Feather Press. I have still found this route to be one of the most valuable.

Have you any other useful tips for writing and publishing?

The most important one is making sure your book is as good as it can be before you part with it. I did quite a few drafts of the novel before I gave it to a professional editor to work on and even then I went back and made a lot of changes and improvements. I probably drove the poor guy mad, really! Some indy friends swear by a more laid-back approach and will put a book on Amazon, for example, and then keep uploading corrections and rewrites along the way, like a book in progress. I don’t want to criticise other writers, but for me, this sounds nightmarish. I couldn’t put a book up on a store knowing it wasn’t quite right yet. It gives me goose bumps just thinking about it.

One tip that was important to me when I worked as a newspaper feature writer is to give a story some time to breathe – unless you’re on a tight deadline. Leave it a while and go and do something else for a day or a week and then go back to it. A bit of distance makes you see the story as if for the first time.

There’s a tendency now for some indies to churn out a book every few months or so, believing it’s more lucrative, playing books off against each other with promos etc. I’m slightly in awe of writers who can do this, but where is the time to let a story develop and for the flaws to appear? Even the hugely prolific Stephen King has publicly railed against this ‘sausage factory’ method of writing.

What elements of writing/publishing do you enjoy the most?

I do enjoy the physical process of writing and getting it all down on the ‘page’ – but not with the typewriter you see in the picture above. I wouldn’t dream of using one of those now. I also love it when readers contact me via my website or Facebook and say they’ve like the books. I especially feel humbled when readers say a book has helped them through a difficult time of their lives. I guess you can’t ask for more than that as a writer.

There are so many books out there now that the market seems saturated. So, should everyone write?

I just read that there are five million ebooks alone on Amazon.com. That’s a staggering amount and with books regularly discounted it means there is more choice for readers certainly, which is great, but a diminishing slice of the financial pie for authors, because of the massive competition. It’s never been easier to publish a book, but should everyone do it? I can’t really answer that however I once interviewed a best-selling British author for a Sydney paper who, surprisingly, started writing novels quite late in life. What made her do it in the end? “The time to sit down and write a book is when it’s (creatively) too painful not to,” she said. It’s something I’ve never forgotten and I know exactly what she meant.

What’s your current novel about?

The book is a contemporary story set during the Greek crisis, or as it says on the cover: “A compelling tale of heroism, faith and love.” It’s a family drama with some romance and of course the narrative thread going back to the war. Edinburgh journalist, Bronte McKnight, has been summoned to Greece by her expat father Angus to help with a health problem. But she quickly discovers he has lured her there to solve a mystery from the War when his father went missing in action near Kalamata in a mass evacuation of Allied forces which has been called the “Greek Dunkirk”.

Their difficult quest to find out what happened to him takes them to a remote village in the Taygetos mountains, steeped in tradition and a few secrets. They are helped in their search by a cast of Greek characters and the charming doctor Leonidas Papachristou who along the way, challenges Bronte’s assumption that she doesn’t have the time or inclination to fall in love in Greece.

The book is available on all Amazon sites in paperback and ebook and through Barnes and Noble and the Book Depository (with free international delivery).

The cover was created again by my favourite artist, London based, Anthony Hannaford who really captures the vibrancy of Greece www.anthonyhannaford.com and I’d like to add the editing and formatting was done again by Jim Bruce, an experienced journalist and rewrite man at www.ebooklover.co.uk

What are you writing next?

I’m taking a break over the summer and then I will start writing again. I have a vague notion to write a sequel to this story. I’m not quite done with it yet, or the characters, whom I’ve become rather fond of. I also have an idea for another non-fiction book and a short story collection. We’ll see how it goes.

Thanks Jay for having me on your fabulous site which is so helpful to both novice and experienced writers.

Marjory’s Books:

The Greek memoirs, Things Can Only Get Feta, Homer’s Where The Heart Is, A Scorpion In The Lemon Tree are all available on Amazon, all sites.

Author Bio

Marjory McGinn is a Scottish-born author and journalist brought up in Australia and now based in southern England. Her journalism has appeared in leading newspapers in Australia and Britain including: The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sun-Herald, The Daily Mail, The Times, The Telegraph, and Scotland’s The Herald. With a life-long passion for Greece, she set off in 2010, with her partner and their Jack Russell dog, Wallace, for an adventure in the wild Mani region of the Peloponnese. The adventure lasted four years during the economic crisis and became the basis for her three memoirs, Things Can Only Get Feta, Homer’s Where the Heart Is and A Scorpion In The Lemon Tree, all of which have been number 1 best-sellers in Greek travel and best-sellers in Travel Writing, and Essays and Travelogues on Amazon. She recently published her first novel, A Saint For The Summer, set in Greece.

• Links: Author page www.amazon.co.uk/Marjory-McGinn/e/B00FIQ0FBK
• UK: http://amzn.eu/aj5bkc8
• US: http://a.co/36iumko
• Facebook: @ThingsCanOnlyGetFeta
• Twitter: @fatgreekodyssey
• Website: www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com

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