Category Archives: Northen Ireland

Out of the rapids…

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Hopefully on a more even keel from here on in…

Video – Avril Lyons – NO AUDIO

The video is of the Sheffield Launch of Belfast Song on 7th November at Nether Edge Bowling Club. The air was buzzing as over 65 people packed into the venue. It was both nerve wracking and wonderful in equal measure.

Nerve-wracking in advance: This culminated in waking up in the early hours of Thursday morning feeling as if I was coming down with something. I took a paracetamol – but I was in a panic. ‘Have I got Covid? What if I’ve got Covid? How could I have Covid? I’ve had the vaccination …’ Eventually common sense kicked in: ‘I’ve got a bad case of nerves. And I need, if at all possible, to get back to sleep.’ Which I did.

And on the night, once everyone had settled into their seats, I was able to settle into mine: I could simply relax and go with the flow. I had a wonderful time and enjoyed every bit of it. It was a great event with which to mark the end of this first intense phase of publishing and promoting Belfast Song.

photo Kevin Hickey

This first phase, which started in October 2023 with beginning the work on the website, has been characterised by a steep learning curve on all fronts … In any new enterprise, it takes the courage to be an amateur … even more so, the older you get. It has also been marked by using email and WhatsApp to build on existing contacts and beginning to use Facebook to extend existing networks. All in all, I’ve wanted a strong one-to-one relationship with anyone interested in the book. That has been very rewarding, with exchanges by email or in person about relatives working in mills or growing up in Belfast. I’m delighted to say that those promoting the book most strongly are those who have read and loved it. However, I need more people to post reviews – as that way the positive message about the book spreads further. So, if you would be willing to do that, you could leave a review on:

I’m pleased to have had two good launches, but I won’t be doing any more. In this next phase, I will be looking for opportunities to fit in with what others may be organising – whether it be events in libraries, bookshops or festivals.

Interest still continues in Belfast. I did a telephone interview with belfastmedia.com which resulted in another article in the Andersonstown News.

There’s also been interest from abroad. I did a telephone interview with Talk Radio Europe for their Book Show on 15th October. This was broadcast at 6 pm on the evening of my Sheffield launch. There’s a 7-day catch up period. So, fingers crossed, I’ll be able to tune in by Thursday 14th November.

However for now, I’m looking forward to having the rest of November to take stock and think about next steps. By the end of of November, the first quarter figures from Troubador will be available and I will be able to consider how it has been going at their end. I still have 35 of the 200 books that Troubador delivered in August which should tide me over Christmas. I have invitations to speak to local groups from January. And I can talk with Troubador about a reprint.

That’s me for now. Your comments are always welcome.
Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.

Belfast Song successfully launched in Belfast…

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I’ll start with the headlines in The Irish News on 30th September, ten days after the launch.  If you wish, you can read it online by free subscription to the Irish News. 

(The article states it is available through Troubador Publishing, available in bookshops and from Amazon. However if you buy a hard copy from Amazon I will end up paying Amazon £1.24. But if you buy an ebook, I will get £3.56. See my blog of 29/7: A book in the hand)

Back to Sunday, 15th September, a few days before I head to Belfast. I get a voice message from my good friend and short story writer, P Kearney Byrne. She is due to travel from Co.Clare to Belfast to interview me as the main part of the launch. She thinks she’s coming down with something and wants to alert me in case I want to line up somebody else as Plan B. I don’t even have to think about it. I simply can’t imagine setting up a similar arrangement with anyone else and certainly not at a few days’ notice. Plan B is a solo gig. I text back ‘I’ll pray for a miraculous recovery but will start preparing for Plan B.’ In the event, she goes from bad to worse.

On Wednesday night I am in bed in Belfast, trying to decide on the final reading. I’d easily chosen the first two. As a big theme in the book is the Home Rule Crisis of 1912, I had wanted to find a suitable excerpt on this as the third. Phil had disagreed. She had signposted me instead to other passages. So, in the early hours of the morning, having tried out and rejected my possibilities for a final reading, I realise that Phil is right. There is too much detail to expect any audience to absorb in a six minute reading. I choose one of the scenarios she’d mentioned, switch off the light and hope for some sleep.

Conway Mill

On Thursday, I go to meet Pauline Kersten at Conway Mill. She runs the Community Education Centre on the second floor. I know that the building is cavernous simply from my acquaintance with the ground floor where the cafe is located. Directions are not my strong point. However, on second attempt, I find the bright and busy Community Education Centre where I locate Pauline and between us we quickly decide how to organise the available space for the morning’s launch. All I need is to ask for a sign or two to be put either side of the lift door in the morning.

On Friday morning, Mal is dropping me (and the 24 books I’ve sent over in advance) back to the Mill bright and early. As we head to the front door, I recognise the woman looking somewhat lost outside as a friend who also has arrived in plenty of time. We haven’t seen each other in years. A mutual hug helps us both feel we are in the right place. She is waiting for another friend. I realise I may not have as much time as I think before my audience is here.
On my way to the room two members of CEC staff ask if they could buy a copy of Belfast Song. One woman tells me that she wants the book for her mother who worked in this very mill.

Up in the room, I meet the sound technician who tells me he will stay throughout the launch. I breathe a sigh of relief. I do not have to worry about anything going wrong with the sound! He and I have barely finished sound checks when another two women appear. They turn out to be friends of my sister Nano. I direct them to the ground floor cafe. I begin to feel nervous. I decide to set up a table in the lounge area where tea, coffee and biscuits will be served after the formalities of the launch. This is where I will sign books. In the meantime, I have the books, my belongings, notes and a copy of Belfast Song behind me on the long cupboard in the room.

The space quickly begins to fill… I am swept along in greeting family, friends and strangers. I discover how those I don’t know have heard about the launch – through a mailing sent out by Anne Reid, from St. Dominic’s PPU, from a message in the diocesan mailing organised by my sister-in-law Siobhan, and from a mailing from CEC earlier in the week. I greet friends I haven’t seen in years, and family members I haven’t seen since at least a year back.

And then it’s time to start…

What can I say? I am in the flow and enjoying myself. The warmth and enthusiasm of the audience exceeds expectations. Questions and comments flow.

A queue forms immediately the applause ends. I never manage to get to the table in the cafe area. I only now appreciate how long it takes to sign and chat to people. Someone brings me a cup of tea. The 24 books are gone. People pay cash as they order books that I will send to them. I don’t even have a box for money. I’m stuffing notes in a compartment of my bag… And then Pauline appears at the door. It’s gone three o’clock already. Where did the time go? She smiles and disappears again. Eventually the remnants of the audience and I wend our way out of the building. I am stunned and totally exhausted. But what a launch!

A book in the hand…

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makes light of all the effort involved to bring it here. Between signing off the cover and manuscript as print-ready and arriving home on Wednesday last week to find the kitchen worktop laden with brown paper parcels was shockingly quick. Troubadour had repeatedly said not to plan a launch as there could be a delay in the books being ready by publication date at the end of August.
To then be informed that the books would be printed and delivered a full five weeks early – well! I felt I’d scarcely bid Belfast Song off on its first steps into the world and here it was back on the doorstep. That it was delivered on Wednesday when it was due on Thursday added to my consternation. I couldn’t open a box. Instead I went about my business of clearing the last of my packing cases which was still only partially unpacked since our move here three years ago – all the better to make space for this new creature. Denis and I had a peaceful evening meal in the kitchen as if it was any other day.
And then on Thursday morning, when Denis was out with the dog, I opened a box and took out a single copy of Belfast Song.
I walked about the house with it, stroking its face, feeling its weight and marvelling at how transformed it was since I last saw it. I then took a deep breath in and looked closer… no misspellings glared back, the format of a particular section I’d been concerned about was right and proper. Denis came back and we had a look together.
And then…I didn’t know what to be at… here were the 200 copies that I’d asked to be delivered to home (the other 200 are stored at Troubador). They had to stay hidden until the official publication date. I’d already told my writing buddies in Shipyard that the printing was way ahead of schedule so they were in the know. Did I now pretend they weren’t here?
By Thursday afternoon, I’d recovered. I contacted Dave McClelland to check if he would have time to post another blog on the website and a further email to subscribers if I sent him material over the weekend. This will be the last until September when the book is out there – so if you’re reading this, you’re in the loop of those now in the know.
I’d arranged to meet a friend in Cafe #9 on Friday to talk about possibilities of when and how I might launch the book in Sheffield. I just took the book with me. It was the right decision. Sitting with the book between us, discussion about next steps seemed more real, possibilities more tangible.
Now as I won’t be blogging again until the book is out, a note about the economics of book selling.   
I didn’t know this until I started on this publishing business. My hope in sharing this is that if you decide to buy one or more copies, you can make informed choices as to where you buy from.
Just a reminder, I hope to offset the money I have invested in publishing this book. And, if at all possible, I want to avoid further costs in the process of selling.
The first thing you need to know is that the book trade takes discounts of between 45-60% of the cover price and the writer will receive between 25-85% depending on which retailer the book takes to market. This means that depending on print costs and how many copies are printed, a writer can actually make a loss per sale.
N.B What I am saying next only applies to smaller print runs – and as such hits small publishing houses and independent authors.
In my case, with a print run of 400 and the retail price for Belfast Song set at £10.99:
I will receive back:
£10.99 if the book is bought direct from me – at a launch or similar event. (And I can sign it as well.)
£5.36 if the book is bought via Troubador’s Online Bookshop
I will have to pay out:
£1.24 to Amazon for every copy of a book they sell (I’m talking about physical books here- see digital books below)
£0.69 to bookshops for every book they sell. (I support my local bookshop myself when I buy. I just would prefer not to support all of your respective bookshops when you buy.)
e-books are different. To cut a long story short: a digital copy of my book on Amazon will retail at £5.99. I will receive back £3.56 per ebook.
That’s me for now. Thanks you for reading this. If you feel like leaving a comment or two on the website, I’d enjoy hearing from you. I’ll be blogging again in September. Until then, hope you enjoy the rest of your summer.

Down in the Dumps and Over the Moon…

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…over and over again. I progress towards publication at the end of August and an autumn launch oscillating between these two moods. Thanks again to all of you who have supported me in small and big ways. I could not do this without your support.

So, since my last blog, I’ve signed off the manuscript and the cover with Troubador and these are in production as I write. There was a final twist with the cover. 

At the very last moment, I had the notion to run it past my brother Mal at Imagine Media Productions. He has the equipment and the experienced eye to better assess what was being approved. He immediately got the ingenuity in Bill Allerton‘s design and could also see how it could be enhanced using the Photo Shop files Bill had sent to me. He started with an enlargement and a cut and crop of the base photograph. This photo of millworkers is on my website. And here is an image of the final cover.

BELFAST SONG COVER

BELFAST SONG COVER

I was also delighted to finally message Margaret Ward on Facebook. (You have to remember I’m very new to the possibilities on FB). In 1981, she gave a talk, The Irish Women’s Workers Union, to the Irish Labour History Society Annual Conference. Thirty or so years later, I took myself to Belfast for a week as part of the early stages of research into what was to become Belfast Song. Sitting in the central library in Royal Avenue, I read a paper by Margaret in which she mentioned that when James Connolly worked in Belfast as a trade union organiser, he was involved in helping women millworkers in a dispute with their employer. That reference inspired my imagination to create the opening chapters of my novel.  

If you would like to read more about the women who helped shape Ireland, you might want to check out Margaret Ward’s book Unmanageable Revolutionaries: women and Irish Nationalism 1880-1890, an expanded and updated version of which has been published by Arlen House.

My final piece of big news is that I heard yesterday from Pauline Kersten, the Education Centre Manager at Conway Education Centre, that I could launch Belfast Song at the education centre from 1-3pm on 20/9/24. 

I am dazed with delight to have as a venue such a supportive education centre located in the historic building of Conway Mill, which was a flax spinning mill like the one in which the women at the centre of Belfast Song worked. 

And that would not have happened except that my sister-in-law, Siobhan Marken, volunteered to visit possible venues in and around the Falls Rd on my behalf, discovered that Conway Mill had appointed an Education Centre Manager, that they held book launches at the centre and provided all contact details. As I said at the beginning, I couldn’t do this without all the support I’ve been given.

Watch this space for the continuing story of publishing Belfast Song.

Blue-sky thinking vs real-time action

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At 4pm on Thursday 28th March, I picked up an email from Jessica, Production Controller at Troubador, with the complete typeset proofs of Belfast Song attached for proofreading.
I was expecting this. Shortly after I had signed on the dotted line on 19th February, she had sent me an outline of Approximate Production Timescales that would result in publication at the end of August.
However, back then, as I imagined the proofs arriving either side of Easter Sunday, you could say I was in blue-sky thinking. That is, thinking that is not grounded in immediate reality. In my mind’s eye the proofs arrive on a spacious day where there is nothing to distract me from the task in hand. I settle to co-ordinate how my two buddies and I can send off a corrected manuscript to Troubador within the two-week deadline.
Switch now to the reality of 4pm on the day before the Easter Bank Holiday weekend.  I have just about recovered from arriving back a few days earlier from a five day trip to Ireland via Shannon airport. Believe me, there is no easy or quick way to get from Sheffield to the West of Ireland. The immediate choice is to take the train to Edinburgh or Gatwick airport to then fly to Shannon. My husband Denis and I are in the throes of ascertaining which days family members are visiting during Easter week. We are sorting who is doing what: shopping, cooking, bed-making … you get the idea. Denis has agreed to be a proof-reader and meantime the other proof-reader, my writing buddy Jan, has her own plans to manage. I’ve an unexpected deadline to do with last minute arrangements for a mid-April conference that I’m helping to organise. That’s before I even think of day to day domestics such as walking the dog.
This is the state of mind in which I open the email. I am in touch with the necessity of real-time actions. Let’s call it overwhelmed to the point of panic by what I need to do asap.
 
On reading the email, I am aghast to discover that the task involves using a set of conventional proofreading marks that I have never seen before. I realise I have to choose: I either print out the proofs (all 344 pages) returning only those pages that need amending by post, or I mark the amendments on the PDF proof and send the complete PDF file to Troubador online.
Somehow, I find the presence of mind to actually open the PDF … oh my goodness … it is so exciting to see Belfast Song laid out in book format. I can imagine it on a shelf in a book shop or being launched to real audiences in Belfast and Sheffield. Another instance of blue-sky thinking?
By this time my ‘manager head’ is screwed on firmly: this manuscript has been redrafted five times with feedback from various writing buddies throughout. This included a proof read of the 5th draft. And then, over three years later, I did a 6th proofread before sending the manuscript to Troubador. So, although there will still be corrections, I trust they will be few by now. Troubador allows a total of nine weeks to include up to three proof reads before the author signs off the manuscript. So I reckon that any slippage on this first round timescale will be offset by speed of dealing with subsequent rounds.
I trust that this estimate is grounded in experience of real-time action.
Mary

History in the making

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Northern Ireland made national and international headlines this month. On 3rd February, it reopened after a two year suspension and duly appointed Michelle O’Neill as the First Minister. She became the first nationalist and the first republican to be the First Minister  since the creation of Northern Ireland in 1920. You may wonder what this has to do with my novel Belfast Song?

Well, the novel is set in 1911-1919. In 1912, Herbert Asquith’s Liberal government depended on the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party to stay in power and promised home rule for Ireland. The conflict that ensued between unionists and nationalists  in the north of Ireland over that proposal and the consequences of that is central to the novel. It was the defeat of the nationalists in that struggle which led to the creation of Northern Ireland by the Government of Ireland Act of 1920. The first election in May 1921 returned 40 Unionists, 6 Nationalists and 6 Sinn Fein (republicans). The photo below shows the first sitting of the parliament in Belfast City Hall on 7 June. Only the Unionists were present as both nationalist and republican opposition refused to take their seats. Construction of Stormont did not commence until 1928.

The first sitting of the parliament in Belfast City Hall on 7 June 1921

Back to the business of publishing the novel: My website went live on 18th January. Thanks to Dave McClelland for working with me to create it. I supplied the text and he did all else with ease and efficiency. I also want to thank my friend, Avril Lyons who is a painter and photographer. She generously offered to take my photos for the website. This also seems a good point to welcome those of you who have visited the website and signed up to receive occasional emails. Thank you for your interest.

AND I sent my final draft of Belfast Song to Troubador – on 19th February so that it can be published by the end of August 24. That was a big day in this girl’s life!

I could have sent it in earlier. It had already benefited from ongoing feedback from my writing group and others throughout the writing process. I’d redrafted it five times. However I still wanted to comb through the manuscript one more time by way of a copy edit and proofread. At least that was my rationale. However I think the other motive was  trepidation at the thought of sending it out to make its way in the world, after years of nursing it in relative privacy. My feelings were akin to all those times I waved my son off – primary school, secondary school, university and finally to his own home.

Whatever my motivation, it was just as well I did that sixth run through. It took an hour or more to work through each of the twenty-one chapters with the result that the version I sent is free of yet another layer of errors in grammar and clumsiness in text. Nevertheless, I anticipate that the proofreaders at Troubador will still find another layer that I’ve missed.

That’s it for today. I will write again soon and will let you know what has happened with Troubador since 19th February. I just need a little time to take it all in. Thanks for your continuing interest. Remember you can post questions or comments on the website. I’d love to hear from you.

Mary.