When is it time to leave an unsuccessful series behind and pivot into something new? What is the process of writing to market? Anna Sayburn Lane explores these topics and more.

In the intro, help with Amazon KDP Account suspension [Kindlepreneur]; Selling direct to the EU? Thresholds coming in 2025; Some honest thoughts about the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival [Charlotte Duckworth]; OpenAI's SearchGPT; and Signing Spearof Destiny pics.

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Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

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Anna Sayburn Lane writes 1920s murder mysteries and contemporary thrillers, and is an award-winning short story writer.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• Lessons learned from self-publishing your first book





• The mindset shift when deciding to pivot





• When the cost of production outweighs the profits — is it time to pivot?





• Assessing the financial potential of a genre





• How writing to market makes marketing easier





• Researching and changing your branding when pivoting genre





• Balancing research time with writing time





• Historical accuracy vs. believability

You can find Anna at AnnaSayburnLane.com.

Transcript of Interview with Anna Sayburn Lane

Joanna: Anna Sayburn Lane writes 1920s murder mysteries and contemporary thrillers and is an award-winning short story writer. So welcome to the show, Anna.

Anna: Hello, thank you very much for having me.

Joanna: Oh, it's great to have you on the show. So first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you originally got into writing and self-publishing.

Anna: I was the typical bookworm kid, which led me into an English and History degree. I didn't really think at the time that writing stories for a living was an option. So I kind of went into journalism thinking, oh, that's close. Turns out, it's a completely different thing, but anyway, it kind of worked.

So I worked for local newspapers for five years. Then I moved into the health and medical field. I enjoyed work, I was quite happy doing what I was doing.

I'd always written a bit of fiction on the side, but I only really started taking it seriously about 15 years ago. I just got bitten with the idea for a novel, and it wouldn't let me go.

So I spent about eight years writing my first novel, and then another two years trying to get it published. I went through all of the ups and downs, and near misses, and getting more and more frustrated with the process.

So eventually, I decided I'm going to find out about self-publishing. I went to London Book Fair, I joined ALLi (Alliance of Independent Authors), I did various online courses, and I found out as much about it as I possibly could. Then I eventually went on to publish Unlawful Things, which is the first novel, and that was back in 2018.

Joanna: That's interesting. That's quite a long journey then. Didn't that book win some awards or something? I mean, it's a very well-respected kind of book.

How did that experience go with traditional publishing?

Anna: Well, that was the thing. It kept getting shortlisted for stuff, it kept nearly winning things. Then I'd sort of get agents who were saying, “Oh, yes, we really love it,” and then they'd have a closer look and say, “The trouble is, we're not sure that it's commercial enough. Blah, blah, blah.”

So that was really the reason that I eventually went into self-publishing. I forget the exact ones now, but there were a couple of awards that it got onto the final roster for.

When I published it, it did pretty well. It got really well reviewed, people seemed to really like it. So I thought, oh, great, you know, better write the next one. Unfortunately, the next one to two years to write, and that was when I suppose things started slowing down a bit, really.

Well, let's just stay a few years back because you and I first met as I arrived in Canterbury at the end of my pilgrimage in 2020. So we were literally just days before lockdown, I think, that time.

Joanna: Then you came on my Books and Travel Podcast in 2021, and we geeked out over Canterbury history. That was while you were still writing the Helen Oddfellow Mysteries. So first, tell us more about those books.

Why did you start out writing that series, in particular, Was it based on your history degree?

Anna: Well, actually, the Helen Oddfellow series really started when I walked from London to Canterbury back in 2010, which I just sort of did for fun. It gave me an idea for a story, which I like the idea of a story that started in London and led you all the way to Canterbury.

Taking in literary figures like Chaucer and Christopher Marlowe, who's the playwright to was born in Canterbury, but actually died in Deptford, was murdered in Deptford. I liked the idea that it would touch on historical mysteries, like the murder in the cathedral and Archbishop Becket's murder.

Then again, the mystery of what happened to Becket's body after Henry the Eighth had the shrine destroyed. So I had all of these kinds of mad ideas going around in my head.

Then I came up with the idea of a literary detective looking into mysteries from the past. So my heroine, Helen Oddfellow, was a PhD literary researcher, but she was also a London tour guide.

That was because I actually have a friend who works as a London tour guide. It's just fantastic going anywhere with her in London because she's always pointing out things that you'd never notice normally. She just knows everything about London history.

So I thought that would make a really good sleuth, someone who notices things like that and who has such a good background in history.

So this series then, the first book was very much about Marlowe. I then went on to write about William Blake and then about Charles Dickens. So all writers who had really strong London and Kent links, because I live in London and Kent and that's kind of the area that I know best.

So I really enjoyed the writing and the research, and I did absolutely stacks of research for each book. They were incredibly research heavy. I mean, for example, with the Charles Dickens book, it sort of started with, hmm, I should probably read all of Dickens.

Joanna: Wow, okay. That is interesting.

Anna: So perhaps not surprisingly, they took quite a long time to write. The first book did okay, the second did okay too, the third and the fourth didn't really take off.

So I was very proud of the books. The people who read them did like them. I thought they were good books, but they kind of weren't working commercially.

Joanna: Yes, and this is really interesting because you mentioned the agent who said it w