The Multiple Lives of a Book: What’s possible when you add non-fiction to a published novel

The Multiple Lives of a Book: What’s possible when you add non-fiction to a published novel

September 24, 2026

Print it, launch it, market it, move on. That’s the usual shape of publishing a novel. But for one creative author, internationally-renowned glass artist Mark Eliott, his Essence of Cloud project isn’t following that shape at all.

For me, walking off the street into Mark’s studio in Marrickville, Sydney, was like entering a magical, creative realm. First, you wind past the reclaimed timber being artisan-ed into new pieces, then past paintings being brushed to life, and then into his studio, the walls and stainless-steel benches teeming with tools, colour pops and soon-to-be glass art pieces.

This is where his novel, Essence of Cloud, first began to take shape as an extension of his artistry: the blowing of intricate, whimsical glass clouds.

The novel developed alongside his art exhibition and became a central piece, both informing the exhibition and being informed by it. For example, he or an artist he was collaborating with might create a piece, or an element on a piece, that then needed to be written into the novel. And vice versa: something he imagined and wrote into the novel would then inspire a whole fresh element in the real-world exhibition.

Back in 2023, the novel was ‘finished’, printed and included with the exhibition….

But…is art really ever finished?

Not when it comes to Mark and his exhibition! So, a few years later, Mark and I came across each other in my work as an author mentor and had a conversation. There was obvious potential to create a special edition ebook, bringing his novel, in a different form, to new audiences in Australia and around the world.

And as Mark doesn’t do static (as his ever-evolving exhibition shows), he decided to evolve what he would provide readers.

What’s the novel about?

The novel, Essence of Cloud, spans five centuries and eight countries, following characters in pursuit of a rare substance called Cloud Essence. It’s been described as magical realism, fantasy, and environmental hope punk, with threads of family history running through it.

Turning the novel into an illustrated ebook with non-fiction elements

The original paperback novel included only a couple of images. The new special edition ebook is a different proposition entirely! It carries full-colour images of nearly every artwork from the exhibition, placed next to the relevant text in the novel.

Importantly, there is plenty of new non-fiction material too: a brief history of glassblowing, and Mark’s top tips for sculpting and working with borosilicate glass. These images and non-fiction elements add not just to the enjoyment of the novel, but open the book up to be discovered and enjoyed by a whole new audience of art lovers, art collectors, as well as those specifically interested in the art and craft of glassblowing.

The ebook also includes extensive accessibility text, describing each artwork in detail to meet global accessibility standards. Some of these descriptions are works of art in themselves, capturing not just what the image looks like, but the materials each piece was made from and the collaborators behind it.

Changing the cover of the ebook

The ebook cover differs from the original paperback too. The paperback featured an illustration of a character called Mr Cloudy Head. The special edition ebook cover features a photograph of an actual glass artwork from the exhibition, The Mothership: a cast glass boat filled with a chaotic cross-section of life, including a tree with a barely visible cloud goddess face, narwhals, tigers, marsupials, weedy sea dragons, and a figure in a gas mask, among much more. And yes…as we speak, Mark is still adding to the read life artwork (you can see him describe it in this Instagram clip here).

The ebook cover, designed by Dion Cozic, will draw in art collectors and glassblowing enthusiasts as much as readers of the story – it’s an incredible piece.

Giving your book a new life

We authors often treat our published books as a finished thing…but you might change your mind about the potential lives of your book when you listen to this episode with Mark on the Self Publishing with ALLi podcast.

Advice for authors

Asked what advice he’d offer other authors, Mark pointed to a broader pattern he sees in online creative culture: a tendency to work inside templates, ticking boxes rather than inventing from scratch. His own approach resists that. He doesn’t sit down to write within a genre or for a particular demographic. The story grows out of what he calls a kind of ‘mental compost heap’, seeds from everywhere that sprout in unpredictable ways.

Mark thinks being too concerned with originality, or with what an audience will think, can get in the way of the sense of discovery that makes creative work worth doing in the first place. As Mark put it, it doesn’t matter whether an idea has been discovered a million times before or never at all. What matters is the discovery itself, and whether that feeling carries through into the finished work.

Where to find Mark Eliott and Essence of Cloud

Hope you enjoy learning how just one creative has gone about his publishing adventures! Mark’s also a huge collaborator with other artists which is such a great way to be a part of the creative community.