Interview with Julie Poole.

Today we have a virtual 'sit down' with Julie Poole, Author of Angel On My Shoulder.
And in an interesting turn of events, I actually learned of a 'different' kind of publishing house I was previously unaware of!

Julie was born in Cardiff in 1963 and was brought up between Cardiff and Aberystwyth until her late-teens. She went to school in both areas as well as having a brief spell in boarding school in Shrewsbury. Julie spent her twenties in South Wales, her 30’s in Gloucester, Bristol and Hereford and her 40’s in Devon, Cornwall and Hertfordshire. She has three children; Tom, Christopher and Charlotte and currently lives in Cornwall with her daughter Charlotte. Julie began a degree in Psychology in 2013 and is currently studying at the University of Plymouth. She includes among her hobbies and interests reading, movies, walks by the sea, meditation, astrology, numerology and of course, writing. Her favourite fiction authors are Marian Keyes and Cecelia Ahern.

1. I see that you're with Titan Publishing House, a 'Vanity Press'. What made you decide to go this route in publishing?

I don’t consider Titan to be a Vanity publisher at all. I researched publishing when I first completed Angel On My Shoulder in 2011 and found that it’s an extremely difficult place to access. I tried for 3 years and applied to many publishing houses, following the submission guidelines for each one. I came close to a contract on two occasions but it didn’t happen. I also looked into Vanity publishing and decided it was not the way for me. Vanity publishers will take any book and you pay for everything. In return they take a small handling fee, usually 2-5% and publish it for you, at your own cost, but they do little else. In contrast, the big publishers pay you for your book and do everything for you. Titan are in the middle. They don’t pay you, but neither do they charge you. They do turn down books, charge for nothing except editing, and take 30%. They distribute, promote it and support you. They are an indie publishers and I consider them to be half way between the big publishers and the Vanity publishers.

After 3 years of trying to get published I decided to give it up and self-publish. In July this year, I looked for a professional editor as I was determined it would go out free of errors and found Titan, who offer an editing service. They offered to consider my book for publication with them and after reviewing it, offered me a contract. I paid for the editing but nothing else.

2. After signing with them, how much have they helped with promotions, distribution, etc.?

Titan have 39,000 distribution channels, which I find incredible. They have promoted it on every network site I have ever heard of. It’s on app stores, google mail, amazon, available in 133 countries, and in both e-book and paperback. It takes a while to filter down through all the distributors but a few days ago after just 2 weeks my book was available in Waterstones, the largest book store in the UK and shortly will be in WH Smith, another very large national chain.

3. Are you seeing a return on your 'investment'?

Not yet. It’s been out for just under 3 weeks and it will take some time for me to recover the editing cost. I also paid someone to set up my website so have invested some into this but I do expect to break even this year.

4. Do you still maintain the rights to your 'baby', and how much creative control have you retained?

Yes. I have signed contracts with Titan. The text is copyright to me, the published book to them. But, they have confirmed that should I be offered a contract by a large publication house they would release me without charge to enable me to accept it. (Penguin? Harper Collins? You listening? ) As for creative control, I have had a free hand. I was not asked to change any content of the book, just the layout and grammar within editing. I was also able to have the typesetting changed after it was done as I was not happy with the page count. At my request the format was re-done, and was tightened to have the page count reduced and thereby make it more affordable to the reader. As for the book cover, I had a very clear image in my mind of it and the style, which was Vector. Titan do not offer the style I wanted for the cover but put me in touch with a vector artist and I worked with her directly until I had what I wanted. I am delighted with the result.

5. Your debut novel, Angel On My Shoulder, features, of course, Angels. Out of the plethora of Angels currently out in 'Book Land', what makes yours different from the rest?

As a therapist and teacher of spiritual consciousness for some 12 years, my understanding of angels and our relationship with them is both broad and deep. I have used both aspects in this book - my spiritual knowledge and my therapist’s knowledge. Clarabelle, Sarah’s Guardian Angel is both angelic and a therapist to her, helping her to sort her life out – a little like I do with my clients. I have also brought humour into the story, with the angels getting things wrong, getting stressed and frustrated, having their own issues with each other – for example Clarabelle falls out with her own angelic brother over her crush on Arch Angel Michael. This is a different take on angels. For a start they don’t do stress and they certainly don’t do crush’s!

In regards to Sarah, there are many books that tackle relationship break ups, even more on self-growth and self-help. I have combined it all into a book which comes from a different angle; shows you how to sort your life out as well as the impact and work of angels, but does it in a humorous way. I use magic, miracles, angelic inter-angelcy-meetings, co-incidences, serendipity and more. As you read about the character’s life and how it improves my hope is that the reader will relate to it. It is not aimed at the spiritually conscious, or those on a mission for self-help; any kind of ‘eureka moment’ is more of a bi-product. I realised that through the characters in the book I could help people to perhaps know a little more on how to deal with life’s ups and downs and I wanted to inspire at the same time. I felt that just about anyone who has ever been through a bad breakup, ever had their confidence shattered, could relate to the characters in the book and I wanted to give them hope.
As for belief in angels, even those who would not consider themselves to be spiritual in any way like the thought of having a guardian angel, so I made the ‘teacher/therapist’ an angel, helping show Sarah, the main character, how to sort her life out. Some will say that our ‘angel’ is our inner selves, others will say it is our subconscious, or our instincts, others will say it is God or angels – it doesn’t matter who or what you think that voice is, there is a voice outside of our noisy head that will guide us, if we will listen, and if we will let it!

6. Since Angel On My Shoulder is considered 'Chick Lit' or Romance, is there any other Genre you'd like to take a swing at? Something your readers would never expect?

Yes. Angel will be part of a series, probably 3 or 4 and then I will move on. I am a hypnotherapist and will be writing books around this, how it works, with case studies and evidence to prove its use and benefits. I am currently in the middle of a degree in psychology and will be doing something like this for my dissertation and my masters. The outcome of that, I will develop into a book. I also am a qualified past life regression specialist. I see books on this too in the future, with stories of past life experiences. A third area I want to write about is sexual abuse. As a therapist, I specialise with trauma, sexual abuse, PTSD and I want to develop a book to help victims and families of victims, to understand it better and therefore be able to move past it. So in the future there will be non-fiction books as well as fiction. The final area will be spiritual books. Possibly on the cosmos, the way the universe works, manifestation, positive thinking, I’m not sure yet. It will just unfold when the time is right.

7. Is there a Genre you'd like to see gone forever?

No. Everyone has their own tastes and interests and no one should be denied what inspires them.

8. Being from 'across the pond', have you noticed a difference in how authors are from North America?

Not yet. I have noticed a huge difference in language and word use. My book has been reviewed by a couple of Americans and some of the British words I use are not the same meaning in the states, so it can be a barrier. For example I refer to a frying pan and make a joke out of it, which the Brits got straight away. My American reader did not understand the joke as you don’t have ‘frying pans’ and she asked me what it was.

9. Other than the 'Angel' series, do you have any other stories in the works?
Not at the moment.

10. Have you received any unkind 'critiques', and if so, how did, or would you handle them?

Not yet. I am sure I will as you can’t please all of the people all of the time. Constructive criticism is a very good thing. It helps us grow and develop, so any negative critique I would look at and examine how I can use it to benefit me as a writer, how I can improve and be able to see a different angle.

 

You can visit Julie's Website and purchase books here:

http://juliepooleauthor.com/