Pride Publishing talks to NR Walker about the release of her Special Editions.
You have revisited and expanded your Thomas Elkin series! Why did you want to return to this series in particular?
I simply adore Tom and Cooper. And even though the Thomas Elkin Series was released two years ago, I still have readers who tell me Tom and Cooper are one of their favourite couples, ever.
Revisiting Tom and Cooper was so much fun! Kind of like putting on an old favourite pair of jeans: comfortable, familiar and warm. I also think, with the original being novellas, there was room for a little more of them, and it was a pleasure to write.
You also revisited your short story, Taxes and Tardis and your novel Three’s Company. How did you find revisiting standalones?
It was probably easier to revisit standalones than a series, for me at least. With a series, additional scenes have to be slotted into the timeline, and not overlap, or contradict, the next, or previous, book. With a standalone, there are absolutely no constraints. As long as it ties in with the story and they stay true to the characters, extra scenes to a standalone book can be a great way to show how the characters are getting on a few years down the track, or what happened after they rode off into the sunset… It was great fun to say hello to these characters after so long! I forgot how much I loved them.
Give us an insight into what additions we can expect to see this time round.
These new additions are generally added to the end of the book, not integrated throughout. So, in my Thomas Elkin Series, we have approximately 2000 words at the end of each book added, and finally Cooper gets to have his say! That's right, each book has a small chapter of Cooper point of view.
Three's Company has both a prologue and an epilogue. The short prologue (1500 words) is told from Simon's point of view, and the epilogue (3300 words) is back to Wil's point of view, which flows better having his point of view throughout the whole book.
Taxes and TARDIS now has a gorgeous little epilogue (2000 words), which was probably my favourite additional content to write. It is so sweet, and a little Whovian treat that I think everyone will melt when they read it.
The Turning Point Series doesn't include any additional content. In my heart, these stories are complete. The three books have a combined word count of 220,000, and trying to add more to Matt and Kira's story felt forced and wrong. I struggled with what to do for four weeks before I finally decided not to do those boys an injustice by adding content that would detract from their story.
These are some of your earliest titles with Totally Bound, do they have special significance to you?
Absolutely. As I mentioned above, I’d forgotten just how much I loved these characters.
Although The Turning Point Series isn’t getting any additional content, they are getting gorgeous new covers! And those boys were my first EVER attempt at writing original fiction, so they are very significant to me. When I first started their story I had no idea it would turn into a series. I had written Point of No Return and when the book was done, their story simply wasn’t.
Taxes and TARDIS is also special to me, for the fact it was the first thing I EVER published. Yes, I wrote Point of No Return first, but Taxes and TARDIS jumped the queue and got released first, so it is special to me also.
And Three’s Company was my first (and only) attempt at m/m/m, so it is special to me as well. And then of course we have Tom and Cooper from the Thomas Elkin series… well, enough said. ;)
What do you prefer writing, series or standalones?
I write each and every book, whether it’s part of a series or not, as a standalone book. Sure, the characters and their world might be the same, and they need to be read in order, but each installment is its very own book. That means each book has a beginning, middle and end, each plot line is expanded and resolved within that book, each book ends with a HEA or HFN, and there are no cliffhangers. Really, if anyone stopped reading at book two of any of my series’ they would be content. It’s a pet peeve of mine to start reading a series and “have” to buy the next book to find out what happens next.
So, that being said, I don’t prefer series or standalones one over the other, because I treat each book the same.
What would be your best piece of advice for aspiring Pride authors?
Write, write, write, and when you think you’re done writing, write some more. Get yourself some trusted beta readers, and listen to what they say. You might not agree with everything they tell you, but as a reader, they’ve found something in your work that might need fixing. And believe me, you’d prefer to hear it from two or three beta readers than the general public in the form of reviews.
No one — I repeat no one — submits a masterpiece, so expect edits that could very possibly rip your work to shreds. It’s a hard thing to learn, but don’t take editing to heart. The end goal of everyone involved is to get your manuscript the best it can possibly be. Don’t treat your manuscript like it’s your baby – treat it like a recipe that needs perfecting before you can produce the best cookies to sell to the public.
And the biggest thing I learned about publishing, is that patience really is a virtue. ;) Things take months in the book publishing world to get from A to B (submissions, acquisitions, editing, proofing etc) so as soon as you’ve submitted your manuscript, open a new document and start the whole process over again.
What can we expect from you next with Pride Publishing?
I have a few things happening at the moment, but I’m very excited to see where Pride Publishing’s new venture with Bonnier Group is going! It’s an exciting time to be on their author’s list!
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