Stuart Neville: A Year in the Life of a Published Author

Almost exactly a year after the first edition of my debut novel The Twelve was published in the UK by Harvill Secker, this week sees the arrival of the paperback edition from Vintage Books. That seems a good enough reason to look back on my first twelve months as a proper honest-to-God published author, the landmark events of that time, and the changes my life has undergone.

For any of us who have ever sat down at their computer and typed the words "Chapter One", getting a publishing contract is the achievement to which we all aspire. And reaching that goal, crossing the border between the land of hope and the kingdom of printed words, is indeed a wonderful thing. There were many great events leading up to publication, such as landing one of the best literary agents in the business, or finally signing the contract, but the epiphany moment came at the end of June 2009.

I was driving to Belfast for the official book launch at the famous No Alibis bookstore and stopped off at a shopping centre in Craigavon. As I approached Eason's, Ireland's equivalent of WH Smith, I saw a row of my books through the window. Prime location, front of store, face out, dozens of them. I took a photograph and everything.

The weekend after that, my first proper press review appeared in The Observer. It was a rave, calling The Twelve "a future classic of its time."

Which was nice.

A few weeks later, I travelled to London and met the good people at Random House for the first time, including my editors Geoff Mulligan and Briony Everroad, as well as all the folks who work so hard on publicity and marketing. This was the first time I fully realised how much was being done on my behalf. If you don't live in or near one of the world's publishing centres, like London or New York, you can feel more than a little removed from the process, the nuts and bolts of how your book winds up in shops or gets reviewed in newspapers. It's easy to think all that stuff just naturally happens by itself, but it doesn't. There's a small army of people, all of them passionate professionals, striving to get your novel in front of readers.

Just as I'd gotten over the initial rush of publication in the UK, I was off to the US to do it all over again. The Twelve was published under a different title by Soho Press in America, The Ghosts of Belfast, and it was launched as part of a country-wide tour starting in New York before going to Indianapolis for Bouchercon, the world's biggest crime fiction convention. I'd been to America before, but never ventured further west than New Jersey, so the tour was an extraordinary, if exhausting, experience.

After almost a month of travelling, I was both sad and relieved to come home. I didn't expect to get on a plane and head straight back to the States just a few weeks later. But that's exactly what happened when Scottish ex-pat and US talk show host Craig Ferguson read the book and invited me to appear on the Late Late Show on CBS. I'd done TV and radio before, so I thought I'd cope with this just fine, but that experience in no way prepared me for an American chat show. After the makeup artist sprayed stuff on my head to make me look less bald under the lights (I'm not joking), the producer told me what to expect: it would feel like it lasted thirty seconds, and I'd remember none of it afterwards. That was exactly right, and when I saw the interview later on I had no memory of any of the conversation.

I didn't expect to like Los Angeles, but I did. A lot. In fact, I think I could very happily live in Santa Monica if I could afford the house prices. Which I can't, just to dispel a particular myth about published writers.

Throughout this period I found I was being asked more frequently to appear on panels at various book festivals around the British Isles. These events are always a pleasure, not least of all because of the opportunity to meet fellow authors. The absolute highlight of this was being asked to interview my favourite crime writer James Ellroy on stage at Belfast's Waterfront Hall.

Not long into the New Year, I got word from my US publicist that I would soon been be heading back to the States again. I was shocked and delighted to discover that the American edition of The Twelve was a finalist in the Thriller/Mystery category of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. So come April I found myself in LA once more. The winners were announced at a rather glitzy ceremony in the Los Angeles Times building, and I was astounded when my name was called out. I was so overcome with elation that later that night, I proposed to my girlfriend. Thankfully, she kept my lucky streak going by saying yes!

So now it's June 2010, almost twelve months on. It's been a busy old year, and the next 365 days look like carrying on the trend with the imminent arrival of not only the paperback edition of The Twelve, but the publication of its sequel Collusion a little over a month later.

It can be a hard and lonely slog being a writer, but is it worth it to see that book on a shelf?

Of course it is.

The Twelve by Stuart Neville is now available in Vintage paperback.

Collusion is available for pre-order now.