MAGIC AT DRYSDALE'S SCHOOL

The 7^th Sprite Sister story is on its way!

It was an iron fist of a winter. For months, a biting easterly wind swept across Norfolk, chilling our bones and making us huddle indoors. When will it end, we kept asking? For months I was unwell and struggled to write. It seemed the cold would never pass and my book would never get finished.

Now, outside my window, the apple tree is covered with buds, clasped tight like tiny little pink fists. We have had the first rain in weeks – a gentle April shower. The air is bright and warming gradually. The birds are busy building their nests, the daffodils are in bloom and Spring feels as if it is finally here.

And I have finished my 7^th Sprite Sisters book, Magic at Drysdale’s School. It feels a good time to be launching what may be my final Sprite story – though I have left enough strands to carry on the series if I change my mind.

Here is the blurb for the back jacket:-

When Zak Ashworth joins Drysdale’s School, the Sprite Sisters and their cousin Verena know that trouble will follow. Zak carries within him the dark power of the screegling – one of the vile subterranean insects that he summoned to Sprite Towers and which brought terrifying danger to the Sprite family.

As Flame anguishes about having a secret magic power and Marina comes face to face with Zak, Ash is led to a mysterious stone. Soon the Sprite Sisters, Verena and Zak are drawn by an Earth power that none can escape. But where Zak goes, the screegling goes too –– and its dark magic will out.

I don’t have a jacket design to show you yet, but it won’t be long. Once that is finished, I shall publish my story as a print-on-demand paperback and as an e-book, the same as the other six titles. The magic of self-publishing is that once you have the component parts assembled, sending out your story to the world takes only a matter of hours.

The first five Sprite stories are set in one year when the sisters are aged 13, 12, 10 and 9 years. The Boy With Hawk-like Eyes – the sixth title – moves the story on two years so that Flame is now 15, Marina is 14, Ash is 12 and Ariel is 11 years old. The easiness chumminess of the sisters in the early stories has given way to teenage doubts and tensions.

In Magic at Drysdale’s School, Flame is wracked with worry about her magic power. Unable to tell her boyfriend Quinn, she feels torn between being honest – as she is, naturally, and wants to be – and having to keep secret one vital part of her being. The result is conflict.

The story follows hard on the heels of The Boy With Hawk-like Eyes and similarly the adults play a less important role. In these stories the magic must be kept absolutely secret and the sisters must make decisions for themselves.

As you might expect, much of the action takes place at Drysdale’s School. Flame and Marina are now weekly boarders at the big independent school, along with their Sprite cousin, Verena. Zak Ashworth has also joined Drysdale’s and his dark magic has followed him. Wary of Zak, the Sprite Sisters refuse to speak to him.

In the earlier Sprite stories, the sisters discovered that Sprite Towers was full of magic. They battled against the evil Glenda Glass and found the way to use their magic power to protect themselves. They discovered a plan that enabled them to travel back to the past, wrestled with an evil ghost and met a relative who had died ninety years ago. Using their magic power to travel through portals, the Sprite Sisters found a way to change the future.

In Magic at Drysdale’s School, Ash is drawn to a large stone outside the school chapel. With her power of Earth she is able to feel the power emanating from the stone. In this story, we enter the world of ley lines – known as dragon lines in China and Geisterwege in Germany. This is a story about Earth energy and magic pathways.

Will the Sprite Sisters continue? That, I don’t know at the moment. I have been approached by a production company and am confident that the Sprite Sisters will make their way to film or television in the next few years. A top Japanese agent is working hard to sell the series in Japan. Things are afoot in the world of the Sprite Sisters.

Meanwhile my creative thinking is moving to The Earth Stories. This trilogy will be set in Breckland, a wild area of West Norfolk inhabited by the Iceni tribe two thousand years ago. With a post-apocalyptic scenario, The Earth Stories will be about a small group of survivors who go back to the Old Ways and use Earth Wisdom. Their shamanic magic is challenged by another group of survivors intent on recreating technology as we know it today.

THE SPRITE SISTERS

Four sisters

Four elements

Four powers

THE WRITER'S BUBBLE

Two hours, fifty-five minutes and counting. By my reckoning I should be able to file this blog at midnight. I wrote 1200 words in 90 minutes the other evening between 9pm and 11pm. But I won’t write even 500 words now unless I can go into the bubble.

The bubble is a quiet place. It’s a soothing, yet dynamic space where the ideas and words appear exactly as you need them. You don’t fight the words in the bubble. They plip into your consciousness as if by magic. Ah yes, you think, as you type the words. Of course . . .

For me, the bubble appears in the evening. When the day’s busy-ness recedes, when the business of eating is complete and when I can find no other excuses – that’s when I sit down and write the words that have eluded me all day, maybe all week. It is time to write this chapter, I tell myself as I settle at my desk – and write it I will before I go to sleep tonight.

And, somehow, I do. I may have faffed about all day, but around 9pm my brain settles and the words begin to flow: because that’s what happens in the bubble. The words come, one by one, the sentences build and little by little the story emerges right in front of your eyes. You find yourself writing a twist in the plot that you did not know was there until the moment you press the keys. That’s a good idea, you think. I like that. I wonder where it’s leading me? And, providing you don’t rush, providing you feel the stillness around and inside you, providing that you trust the process – then the story will unfold. And, as it unfolds, right before your eyes, you know it’s the story you were seeking all along. It feels – like magic.

My bubble came as the snow fell; four inches in the first night and the world transformed. For the next two weeks, I watched as the snow deepened and the ice grew more deadly. Inside I was warm, protected and quiet. Day by day I stayed inside my bubble and each day wrote a new chapter. How my story would finally resolve I did not know, but, like a crossword being pieced together and alert to the clues in front of my eyes, its resolution suddenly became apparent.

Suddenly I was typing the words THE END. Is that the best bit? I always laugh. It seems a surprise to finish a story!

For a few hours, maybe days, you smile. The feeling of elation remains even as you print out your story, do the read-through, correct the typos and tighten pieces of writing here and there, then print it out again.

Then, carefully, you place your manuscript in a box file – and, as you do this, the elation recedes. Suddenly it feels as if it has another life. This story is not just in your head or stored on a file on your computer anymore, you realise, staring down at it. As you close the lid on the box file you know that your story is already out there.

You get into the car and place the box file on the seat beside you. Nobody has seen this story, you think, glancing down at it as you find your way through the traffic. Nobody but me knows what happens – but it has already gone, flown away. In a matter of minutes you will hand the manuscript to your editor. This story that you have owned, which did not exist until a few weeks ago has to find its own way in the world.

You drive home feeling happy, but a little empty. The bubble has faded. The house needs cleaning and you need a walk, a good long walk. Over the course of the next week you find your mind begins to empty of words. The mental clutter of life returns. But the bubble is there, waiting.

Sheridan Winn is author of the Sprite Sister stories.

She has just finished writing the 7^th title in the series,

Magic at Drysdale’s School.

http://www.sheridanwinn.com

LITERARY AGENTS AND THE DEVIL IN THE DETAIL

It might not be the most optimistic note on which to start the New Year, but I offer this cautionary tale on the subject of agents and rights. If I have one piece of advice to give – and this applies to all creative people, not just writers – never give away your rights unless you absolutely have to, and when you do give them carefully and in small pieces.

I have always tried to live my life being fair. In contract negotiation, I aim for a win-win outcome. I like to build long-term relationships and would never shaft anybody, because I believe that what you give out you get back.

In January 2007, I had the idea for the Sprite Sister books and approached Brenda Gardner at Piccadilly Press. I had worked with her before when she published my ex-husband’s first picture book in the 1980s. She liked the idea of ‘four sisters, four elements, four powers’, and a few weeks later offered me a contract for the first Sprite Sister story.

The Society of Authors helped me negotiate this, along with the second contract. I kept back the subsidiary rights such as e-book, film and television rights, which Brenda Gardner was happy about.

Then, in January 2008, as I was about to begin the third book for Piccadilly, I had an offer for a film option. This was from a producer I knew – had written a number of business features about her. However, having gone through the process of negotiating film contracts with my ex-husband for our newspaper cartoon character, I knew I would need an agent to help me. I approached three agents, all recommended by friends, and they were all interested.

As my first book hit the shops, I met with one of the agents and I liked her. She said she loved the books and would be ‘honoured’ to represent me. I was very pleased and believed we had a long, sound business relationship ahead of us. She set to work on the third book contract, but was not happy that Piccadilly had world rights to the Sprite series. Having worked for 25 years on picture books, I was accustomed to publishers having world rights: it used to be the only way they could fund the cost of colour printing. I understood that, as a small independent publisher, Piccadilly needed to make money from its rights sales. It was a break point: Brenda Gardner would not have offered the contract without world rights. That said, I had no idea of the overall ramifications of the world rights scenario.

My new agent got a slightly higher royalty percentage, but the work of placing the book had already been done. I turned down the film option offer, as I didn’t feel it was good enough and it would have tied up the books at an early stage

Fast-forward to June 2009: I was about to write the fifth Sprite Sister title, which Piccadilly said would be the last in the series. Though the books had gone down a storm in Germany (Piccadilly sold the rights to Fischer Verlag), they had not done so well here.

At this time, I was not at all well. I was having a breakdown and suffering from what would be diagnosed in 2012 as a serious and rare gastric disorder. My mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and my daughter was also very unwell. A few years before, I had gone through a bankruptcy and divorce, lost everything, and was still struggling to pay the rent. Every hour of the day was spent trying to write to survive. It was fraught – but it would pass.

On 22nd June 2009, I received an email from the agent saying she no longer wished to represent me. It came out of nowhere. There was no discussion. I mailed back, asking for compassion – but the door was shut.

It was a staggering blow, but I would cope. The long-term problem would come from the financial clauses in the contract.

You would think, would you not – from a moral point of view – that if an agent dumps you within less than 18 months that they would relinquish the right to their percentage of your royalties. Not so.

I called the head honcho at the agency and argued my corner as hard as I could. We keep the financial interest in your book rights, he told me. That is the way it is. What, even if Piccadilly sells the Sprite Sisters to the US in five years time, I asked, dumbfounded. Yes, he said, even then. But that’s not right, I said. If I dumped her, then fair enough – but she dumped me! It will preclude me getting another agent!

I could hear his shrug down the telephone.

The Society of Authors agreed with the head honcho. It was tough, but that was the way it was. The agent retains a financial interest in any rights they sell, even when the contract is terminated, they said. In my case, because Piccadilly owned world rights, it meant that any further foreign rights sales would also pass through the hands of the ex-agent. The agency financial department would check the royalty statements each year, but the ex-agent would not have to lift a finger.

In 2010, I set out to find a new agent. I approached six at literary agencies big and small and was turned down by them all. The rights situation with the Sprite Sister books was too complicated, they said. It felt as if my ex-agent had screwed me right and proper.

I knew I needed to break free of the ex-agent’s financial claim to future sales and to do that I would have to get back all the book rights. The German rights would stand: she would get her share of those sales and I would have to bite the bullet.

In Spring 2012, the first Sprite Sister book, The Circle of Power, went out of print. I asked Piccadilly if they would reprint. They said no and in the early summer agreed that the rights of all five titles would revert to me. In lieu, I bought up the remainder stock of 2000 books. At the same time, Piccadilly asked the agent to relinquish her rights in any future sales of the books and she agreed. I was free at last.

I set about re-packaging the titles, publishing print-on-demand paperbacks and e-book editions – and selling abroad.

I will have to give the agent a substantial amount of money every year for as long as the Sprite Sisters sell in Germany – and the signs are good with sales of 270,000. The experience stills galls. In October 2012, when my royalties came through, the financial chap at my ex-agency mailed me cheerily, saying, ‘We love your German sales!’ Yes, I thought, I’ll bet you do. Not bad for a year’s representation with no titles to place . . .

But I must look to the future. Recently, through the Society of Authors, I approached an agent in Japan, who is keen to sell the Sprites there. Last week I mailed an American agent recommended to me by a friend. One way or another, I will find a US agent and get them to sell the US rights.

This is an upside-down approach. Don’t have one agent – get several. Get a different agent to represent you in each territory. It means none of them will have a claim to all of your book rights.

If you have a UK agent, they will probably use subsidiary agents to sell foreign rights and you will lose another slice. If you go direct to the foreign agent, you have one slice taken off.

Brenda Gardner and I get on well and she has wished me luck in my venture. I am eternally grateful to her for giving me the opportunity to write five books for Piccadilly Press.

Occasionally I have to mail the agent and am polite. But if I ever see her, I hope she hangs her head in shame.

A few tips on rights as I see it:-

·      Read the small print: when offered a contract, get as much professional advice as you can.

·      Keep your subsidiary rights: don’t bundle them in with the book rights.

·      Negotiate a fair termination clause (if I had known, I would have tried to get a clause in which the agent relinquished their rights if they dropped me).

·      Self-publishing gives us the freedom to choose how and where we sell our work: use it to your advantage.

·      Never, ever, sign everything with one agent unless you have a very good termination clause that works in your favour, as well as theirs.

·      Be a buccaneer in your approach to self-publishing: fast, light and responsive.

·      If you agree world rights with your publisher and they sell foreign rights, it is unlikely you will see the advances from those foreign deals until the whole publisher’s advance has been earned out. Nobody tells you that beforehand.

·      If you value your sanity, remember it’s all a learning curve and there is no one ‘right’ way.

·      If you are working on a book and need financial help, ask The Royal Literary Fund. They helped me and I thank them.

SPARKS FROM AUTHORS ELECTRIC

SPARKS – A year’s journey through e-publishing

The first anthology from Authors Electric

The Authors Electric blogspot receives over 12,000 hits a month and its worldwide readership is growing. The group of 29 independent and independently publishing writers present a kaleidoscope of books, opinions and ideas aiming to entertain and inform, each posting one blog a month. Now the group is publishing a selection.

SPARKS is an anthology of blogs by a group of bloggers. It includes contributions from 41 professional authors posted between June 2011 and November 2012. Released on Kindle, SPARKS will cost less than £1. A free app will be available for download to allow the anthology to be read on a wide range of devices. A paperback version is planned for the New Year.

The idea came from Julia Jones, a former bookseller as well as a publisher, reader and writer. Fascinated by developments in the book trade, she got into the habit of reading her fellow Authors Electric members’ blogposts on a regular basis. The more she read, the more impressed she became ‘by other people’s knowledge, humour and their willingness to share their experience’. A casual remark on Facebook that she could ‘feel a collection coming on’ was met by an enthusiastic response – and SPARKS was born.

‘Anthologies have always had their place in the newspaper and magazine world – and I'm not aware of another UK blogging group that has produced anything like this,’ says Julia Jones.

With 430 blogposts to choose from, Jones selected one post from each current member, one from every former member who’d posted on five or more occasions, two guest posts and two ‘specials’.

‘SPARKS aims to present “the journey so far”,’ says Jones. ‘We are a group of authors e-publishing our own work for a number of reasons: some are disillusioned with conventional publishing; some have new work that does not fit traditional genres; we all want to keep our backlist titles in print – and for the sheer pleasure in managing our writing lives. SPARKS reflects this, as well as the new excitements and difficulties of self-publishing.’

One of the ‘specials’ selected marks the 100th review on the IEBR (Indie eBook Review), sister website of Authors Electric. An outside perspective on how media attitudes to writer-publishers have changed is provided in an interview with Scott Pack, publisher of Harper Collins imprint, The Friday Project; book trade analyst and a former bookseller.

‘SPARKS offers a perspective on a year that has seen real change in the independent e-publishing market,’ says Julia Jones. ‘The experience of the individual members of Authors Electric is probably representative of many other writer-publishers. Contributing as a group has helped all of us feel clearer about what we’re trying to do, even when we don’t agree with each other. We all feel more confident that choosing to publish our own work isn’t some form of vanity, but is a new way to connect with readers and manage our own books and our own careers without depending on the traditional “gatekeepers”.’

The paper version of SPARKS is a not-for-profit exercise and will be sold at cost, or as near cost as retailers’ (such as Amazon) pricing structures allow. Authors Electric member, Stephanie Zia (an author who also runs her own e-publishing company, Blackbird Digital), is managing this side of things. Any royalties paid to Blackbird will be put towards providing free books to journalists, reviewers, analysts and broadcasters who might be interested in discussing the group’s work.

As with all Authors Electric projects, such as its Great E-Book Giveaway in April 2012, SPARKS is a group effort.

‘Authors Electric started just over a year ago with zero readers,’ says Susan Price, group co-ordinator. ‘It's now getting 12,000 hits a month from a growing worldwide audience – all due to its writing team of highly articulate, sparky bloggers! I'm privileged to be part of it, and can't wait to see how it develops, along with e-publishing, in the future.’

The SPARKS e-anthology is published on 28^th December 2012. The paperback version will be published early in 2013. The e-anthology will be free for the first five days, after which it will retail at US$0.99 (£0.77).

Journalists who would like a copy of SPARKS to review or comment on digital books, please contact:- Stephanie Zia at Blackbird Digital Books  +44 (0)7816 491189  blackbird.digibooks@gmail.com

For further information and comment on the Authors Electric group, please contact:-

Susan Price – susanlprice@hotmail.co.uk   +44 (0) 1384 256190

AUTHORS ELECTRIC – http://authorselectric.blogspot.co.uk

INDIE ‘L’ PLATES: MY YEAR OF TECHNOLOGY & SYSTEMS

This month marks my first year as an Indie (independent) author and publisher. Since technology and business systems have played a greater part of my working life in 2012 than in any other year of my career, I thought I would review the challenges.

THE KOBO ISSUE

KOBO, bless ‘em. Is this digital e-book platform really geared up for self-publishing authors? Their website is pretty, in a twee kind of way, but their customer care people don’t seem to have a clue what’s happening when you have a problem. In November, I uploaded the first of my Sprite Sister books. On the basis that Vol 1 went through okay, I started on the other five titles. I filled in the information and ticked the boxes: I’ve uploaded and re-loaded my e-title files numerous times on Amazon, so the process is not unfamiliar. Except the other five titles didn’t upload. Somewhere in the great KOBO computer system they got stuck.

You are 75% of the way through, the system told me. But I filled in all the information, I ticked all the boxes, I’ve uploaded the files, I kept telling them. Round and round I went, but my titles remained 75% complete.

The customer care department were of little help. Please would you explain what has happened, they kept saying. I have, I repeated, pulling out more hair. Why can’t you see that? Are you not connected to the system?

I spent three weeks waiting for KOBO’s website department to unravel the mystery, then gave up and deleted my files. There won’t be any Sprite Sister books on KOBO for the time being, until I have mustered sufficient energy to grapple with their systems again.

THE BLOG NIGHTMARE

I want to find a way to write about my big, complicated family, but it would have to be anonymously. My mother has Alzheimer’s and there’s a lot to say, some of it hilariously funny – though probably not to my sisters – and some poignantly sad. ‘I need a voice!’ I kept telling myself. And if I wrote a humorous family blog, maybe it would get picked up for a magazine column, I reasoned.

On a sweltering August afternoon, my daughter tried to set up a new blog account for me, under a new name. She galloped along and I tried hard to keep up, but somewhere, somehow, a button was pressed and suddenly all my blogs and my entire Google identity vanished into cyberspace. I was too shocked to speak. My daughter left the house very quietly.

I tried to tell Google, ‘I am who I say I am!’. But the door would not open: I was locked out of my own account. I no longer existed on Google. After hours of confusion and panic, I managed to create a new blog. I was able to re-load the text and photographs on my Sheridan Winn blogs. However, I lost the photographs on all my Authors Electric blogs.

In terms of sheer panic, this experience felt as if it took years off my life.

PRINT ON DEMAND AND SUPPLYING THE LIBRARIES

Well you can’t. It’s as simple as that. Here’s a business conundrum if ever there was one for a self-published author with print-on-demand titles.

Libraries buy their books from Peters’ Bookselling Services. Lightning Source, my print-on-demand publisher, supply to Bertram’s and Gardner’s distributors, but they do not supply to Peters – nor will they, they tell me.

If you write series fiction for children, as I do, you’re pretty much dependent on library borrowers. I can probably persuade Norfolk libraries to order my books, as it’s home turf – but what about Taunton or Aberdeen? You don’t think of this as you set out to self publish: but you should.

We might be able to order them from Amazon on this occasion, Norfolk & Norwich Millennium Library told me. My local library, this is the one with the highest footfall and borrowing levels in the UK. The librarians wanted the ‘new-look’ Sprite books: it was just a question of how to acquire them. I offered to supply the books, but this method was declined. As a special request, and for this one occasion, they would order them from Amazon.

I think libraries are amazing and Andrew Carnegie a far-sighted human being, but I wish, as a self-published author, that library purchasing systems would be more flexible. No doubt this will change in time as readers ask for the books of self-published authors, but in the meantime this was possibly the biggest single blow, financially, of 2012. The prospect of my ‘new-look’ series not being in libraries is depressing.

SUPPLYING THE BOOKSHOPS AND HOBSON’S CHOICE

Lightning Source, which supplies my print-on-demand paperbacks, allow me to set the bookseller discount, so I thought I would give 25%. But, as print-on-demand books, my titles would also be non-returnable. Would the bookshops stock them? No, I reckoned, but they would order them in for a customer.

Henry Layte, owner of The Book Hive and a long-time Sprite Sister supporter, said he’d happily stock the new-look Sprite Sisters, but the standard discount was 35%.

Ah. Right. So that means I sell the book at £7.99; the bookseller takes £2.80; Lightning Source takes £3.42. And I’m left with . . . £1.77. Hm. Bit less than I’d expected as author and publisher.

THE PROOF ISSUE

Beware the print specs! Should you colour correct the jacket or not? Should you leave I the trim marks on the pages? You need to know these things if you are supplying files to a print on demand printer. Lightning Source's media department has very specific requirements and if you don’t meet them, you may flounder. It took weeks of going back and forth with the artist who’d drawn my new jackets and Lightning Source, to get the files for my six titles absolutely spot on.

Also, I urge anyone publishing as print-on-demand to get a physical proof before signing off the print run. Yes, it costs, but you will see things there that you won’t see on the electronic proof. For instance, I didn’t spot that the text for Sprites Vol 1 was grey, not black, on the electronic proof. I’d loaded the wrong file by mistake. However, not realising, I approved the proof and ordered a box of copies at £160. Bad move. Thankfully I was able to reload the text with the correct file for a fee. More cost.

THE DISAPPEARING EMAIL NIGHTMARE

Where did they go? Where are the hundreds of mails that were in my Inbox a minute ago? Argh . . .

In October, with an unerring ability to press the wrong button, it transpired I had somehow switched to another mail identity within Entourage on my iMac. With the help of my trusty Mac man all was restored, but it was, to say the least, a little worrying.

ALL MY E-BOOKS FREE ON AMAZON PRIME!

What? Not just one, but all six? I didn’t say you could do that! Or did I? Was was it I agreed with Amazon . . .

Then I remembered I’d signed up for Kindle Select – and one of the conditions was that Amazon could offer your books thus. Quickly, I unselected that option but it won’t come into effect until January. Until then, you can get all six of my e-books free if you are a member of Amazon Prime.

WITTERING

Twitter has the effect on me similar to flashing lights. I want to turn away.

I know I should do it – all Indie authors do to rpomote their books – but I just cannot summon up the enthusiasm. I realise I am Grumpy Old Woman at last.

FACEBOOK

Non starter (see Twitter).

EIN OR ITIN? UNRAVELLING THE US TAX SYSTEM

In the early summer, I decided to apply for a US tax number. A fellow Indie author advised me to call the US Embassy in London. Apparently that department gives you another number to ring, and, when you get through to that department, they will give you an EIN over the phone. I waited an hour to get through, then hung up.

Leave it, I thought – and did until I tried to register with NOOK last week. This e-book platform, owned by Barnes & Noble, requires you to have a US Tax ID Number to register. But now that I have a company, do I need an EIN or an ITIN? Perhaps my accountant can sort this – for a fee . . .

WRITING

Way behind. I keep receiving mails from my readers asking when the 7^th Sprite title will be finished. Earlier this year I was confident I’d have Magic at Drysdale’s School written, edited and published by Christmas. And when are The Earth Stories coming, other readers asked?

The truth is I’ve so busy with the business and technology side of things that the writing has got pushed back. If I want to get the book out by February, I have 40,000 words to write by the end of the year. Ha.

HOWEVER . . .

Early this year I set out to:-

·      buy back the Sprite Sisters book rights from Piccadilly Press

·      sell my sixth title direct to Fischer Verlag for publication in Germany

·      commission new jackets for the original five Piccadilly titles

·      re-publish the six stories as print-on-demand paperbacks and as e-books

·      start writing a blog for my website

·      write a humorous blog anonymously

·      write and publish the seventh Sprite Sisters book

·      find an agent to sell my books in Japan

It took months to re-edit and re-format the six books, and it cost a bomb. But it’s all done and I now have a terrific set of paperbacks and e-books to send to the US and out to film production companies, as well as sell.

I managed six out of my eight aims, which is not bad going considering the multiple challenges faced this year.

Next year I’ll aim to be more techno-savvy – but that may be a bit of a long-shot.

My best wishes for a happy and prosperous 2013 to one and all!

My thanks to Chris Winn for his wonderful jacket illustrations and to 

Simon Cheshire for all help with the formatting. We got there in the end!

Sheridan Winn is the author of the bestselling Sprite Sisters books.

You can find out more about her at: www.sheridanwinn.com