HISTORICAL KNOWHOW Part 4: Finding an audience
Think about what you are comfortable doing – but also if you can push yourself to do something outside your comfort box! I have especially enjoyed arranging school and library visits and sharing my love of Blackpool and Madagascar – the settings for my books – with young people.
I agree with Barbara, an author visit can have added value for teachers if it ties in with the curriculum. My Kintana book links in with evolution, extinction, pirates while my Gracie series is popular for schools in the North West looking at local history.
And use your skills!
Having worked as a museum educator in the past, I would recommend using props and costumes to bring the past to life. I ask for volunteers to dress up as my characters Gracie Fairshaw, Audrey Mosson – the real-life 10th Railway Queen of Great Britain – and the villain conjurer Reg Dixon!
I use talking tins to play snippets of Wurlitzer and 1930s dance band music from the Blackpool Tower Ballroom as well as lemurs calling in the rainforest. I have smell cubes from AromaPrime that allow children to smell peppermint rock, steam trains, pirate ships and rum barrels!
I have original postcards from Blackpool, old Blackpool Gazette newspapers and maps that I use for writing workshops and a replica aye-aye hand and elephant bird egg which have a real wow factor!
And if you are allowed to take pictures don’t forget to write a press release about your visit and to share it on your social media/website.
CATHERINE: If you are writing about a particular place then people from that place are very likely to be interested in your novel. I am proud and delighted that many copies of The White Phoenix have been sold at St Paul’s Cathedral bookshop, the very place where much of my story takes place. Making contacts like this does require you, the author, putting in the leg work in terms of contacting people and telling them about your novel because – however good your publisher is – there is no substitute for advocating your book to the right people yourself. No one else is going to feel so passionate about it.
One last tip on this. The White Phoenix is set in a bookshop. When I was talking to booksellers about stocking it I discovered that, of course, booksellers love books about bookshops, so they were immediately ready to be interested. That was an unexpected bonus!
ALLY: Think laterally. Who else enjoys actually living a version of the time-period you’ve set your story in?
There are scores of historical re-enactment groups and living history societies up and down the country. The ultimate historical cosplayers! Besides being helpful at the research stage for checking specific details about the clothes people wore, the weapons they used, the crafts they practised, the food they ate, if you do the best possible job in respecting the historical truth of the life and times of the characters in your book, the chances are their members will be interested in hearing more about it when it comes out.
I’m already busy building up a list of the Roman re-enactment societies and Roman villas and museums that host them in time for the publication of my new Roman-Britain set story Vita and the Gladiator when it’s published in February next year.
The Time Tunnellers |
Check out Ally's website: https://allysherrick.com. Her new book Vita and the Gladiator came out in February 2023.
Check out Barbara's website: http://www.barbarahenderson.co.uk. Her new book Rivet Boy was out in February 2023.
Got an idea for KnowHow, or a subject you’d like to hear more on? Let us know at knowhow@britishscbwi.org
Find their work at www.fourfooteleven.com/
Tita Berredo is the Illustrator Coordinator of SCBWI British Isles and the Art Director of Words & Pictures.
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