Featherstone 
Author insights from Benjamin Stevenson
‘Everybody in the library has an alibi’ quipped event librarian Leanne Wright as she welcomed Benjamin Stevenson, author of the Ernest Cunningham series Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, Everybody on the Train is a Suspect, and the latest addition, Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret to Port Macquarie Library for an author talk.
Benjamin’s comedy career has put him in good stead for crime writing as he puts the tenets of joke writing into how how he crafts his novels. ‘Instead of a laugh I’m looking for a gasp,’ he said to the packed crowd.
Benjamin wrote his first novel as a 17 year old, receiving encouraging responses from publishers but no deal, he worked as a comedian and at Curtis Brown Literary Agency before turning full-time novelist, with one of his books currently in production with HBO. Published by Penguin in Australia and Mariner Books/Harper He shared plenty of insights for readers and writers.
Tips for authors from Benjamin Stevenson
- You need to write a novel that doesn’t get published – it’s called the ‘desk drawer novel’, because that way the next time you do it, you know it can be done. (Note from Anna: totally agree with this, I often say to non-fiction writers ‘you need to get this one written, so you put yourself in the position to be able to write the next one. I know if I hadn’t written my first book, there’s no way the other four would have followed. Writing that first book is all about the learning and improving, but also, proving you can do it and finish it (even if it’s not great!) – and that leads to improvement and self belief.)
- If you read enough books and love them, you’ll end up crafting a very specific type of book that you want to read. I couldn’t find the book I wanted to read on the shelf, so the only way to do it was to write it and put if on the shelf myself.
- I wrote two books hoping ‘everyone would like them’ but for my third I decided I wanted just ‘one person to love it.’ (Note from Anna: he discussed this thinking as bringing a voice only he could bring to the book, a more genuine version of writing combining his love of humour and the ‘Golden Age of Mystery’ writing – when authors including Agatha Christie were at their peak. I love this approach to writing, bringing more of yourself to the page rather than a cookie cutter ‘write to market’ scenario…create the market!
- Don’t string out the reader, readers really want to get to the answer.
Benjamin is also great in his approach to book marketing – and it’s what I suggest authors do to build and bake marketing into your book, e.g.:
- Writing in series.
- Setting his books in specific, real places including on The Ghan (his books are sold at the Ghan railway station) and his latest novel is set in the Blue Mountains with the parlour scene occurring on the Skyway gondola…am sure the gift shop at Scenic World will be a likely stockist too!
- Concentrating on craft so readers just can’t resist. ‘Ends of my chapters really have to sing, I put so much care into the final sentences of each chapter, they need to zing.’
- He pays attention to delighting readers, not just with humour and well planted clues and payoffs, but attention to the font and format of his book/how readers are reading it such as paperback, ebook or audiobook and makes changes to each version. For example: along the lines of ‘someone is going to die in 10 pages’ (paperback), someone is going to die in 10 minutes (audiobook version), someone is going to die at about 45% (ebook version).
- Importantly, he creates a vibe with his books that is easy for others to get on board with, it was so fun to see the fun the librarians had at the author talk, everything decked out – including themselves – in the Christmas theme.
Benjamin Stevenson’s next book is already in the works and titled: Everyone in This Bank is a Thief. Thanks Benjamin and thanks to librarians and booksellers everywhere for organising author talks and for all you do for books, writers and readers – and the community in general.
If you’re an author who’d like to know how to work with librarians to get your book onto shelves at libraries or to do author talks, check out my short course at Bold Authors for more info.
Image: Event Librarian Leanne, author Benjamin Stevenson and bookseller Claire from BookFace…fyi: very long signing queue at the end of the night! Great to see!