24Aug

Interview with UK Author Sensation Rachel Abbott

• Saved in: Interview, Writers
• by Chris Orcutt
• with Comments Off on Interview with UK Author Sensation Rachel Abbott

Ear­li­er this sum­mer, fel­low author and friend Rachel Abbott gra­cious­ly inter­viewed me for her blog (you can read that inter­view here, by the way), and I am pleased to return the favor. Rachel’s detective/suspense/thriller nov­el ONLY THE INNOCENT has been an Ama­zon UK sen­sa­tion, reach­ing #1 in the Kin­dle Store (Paid), as well as #1 in sev­er­al oth­er cat­e­gories.

In this inter­view she talks about writ­ing, liv­ing in Italy, the nature of inter­net celebri­ty, and much more. If you’re in the mood for a suspense/thriller, you should def­i­nite­ly pick up ONLY THE INNOCENT. Rachel is work­ing on her sec­ond nov­el now.

* * *

ONLY THE INNOCENT has been ranked #1 in sev­er­al cat­e­gories on Ama­zon UK: #1 Kin­dle Store (Paid), #1 British Detec­tive, #1 Sus­pense, and #1 Thriller. The nov­el obvi­ous­ly has great crossover appeal between gen­res. What about the nov­el is mak­ing read­ers respond so pos­i­tive­ly?

I think there is a lev­el of intrigue that has com­pelled read­ers to find out the answers to all the ques­tions. ONLY THE INNOCENT is not so much a book about WHO com­mit­ted the mur­der, it’s far more about WHY and to some extent, HOW. It also seems to appeal to peo­ple on dif­fer­ent lev­els: some are inter­est­ed in the whole con­cept of the detec­tive solv­ing the crime, oth­ers are more inter­est­ed in what would dri­ve a woman to com­mit cold-blood­ed mur­der. So I believe it keeps peo­ple intrigued to the end.

 

Although ONLY THE INNOCENT has been pro­found­ly suc­cess­ful on Ama­zon UK and has been ris­ing up the Ama­zon US charts, you and the nov­el are some­what less well known in the States. What would you like to say to Amer­i­can read­ers of mys­ter­ies, sus­pense and thrillers to encour­age them to buy and read your nov­el?

I ini­tial­ly focused most of my mar­ket­ing on the UK audi­ence pri­mar­i­ly because I am from the UK, and had quite a fol­low­ing there. But although ONLY THE INNOCENT is set in the Eng­land, there are parts of the book set in Venice and Posi­tano and the pro­tag­o­nist does live in a very glam­orous world. So I believe that the set­ting should appeal to peo­ple every­where. In terms of the sto­ry, the issues faced by the main char­ac­ters are uni­ver­sal. There is noth­ing that defines them as British, and although the police­man is – of neces­si­ty – Eng­lish, the sto­ry is dri­ven by mys­tery and sus­pense, rather than by a police inves­ti­ga­tion. There have been a num­ber of reviews already in the US, and to date all of them have hap­pi­ly been favor­able.

 

You’ve had over 100 5‑star reviews of the nov­el from Ama­zon read­ers, but sure­ly 1–2 must stand out as favorites. What are some of your favorite cus­tomer com­ments about the book?

I par­tic­u­lar­ly like this review, because it cov­ers quite a few aspects of the book :

Rachel Abbot­t’s roller­coast­er debut is astound­ing and has best­seller writ­ten all over it. She explores some dark, dark places in the human psy­che that will make you think twice about out­er kind­ness and char­i­ty. The Dev­il’s in the detail but who is The Dev­il? Grip­ping from start to fin­ish, the pages almost turned them­selves as I enjoyed the fast-paced jour­ney to the final denoue­ment.

I also liked this review, which came ear­ly on, from the Kin­dle Book Review. This is just a brief extract :

A Stun­ning­ly Com­plex Debut Nov­el

Rachel Abbott has proved with this debut that she is a crack­ing writer. The book is a com­plex lay­ered web, every chap­ter adding more and more lay­ers of intrigue that pull you in fur­ther.

But per­haps the one that made me smile most was :

I near­ly burned the din­ner twice because I couldn’t put this book down.

 

Are you an avid read­er of books in these gen­res (mys­ter­ies, sus­pense and thrillers), and is that why you were inspired to write one of your own, or did you write ONLY THE INNOCENT for oth­er rea­sons?

I am an avid read­er of var­i­ous gen­res, but I sus­pect I read more thrillers than any­thing else, part­ly because my hus­band likes them too, so I have always tend­ed to buy books that we can share. But in this case, I’d had an idea in my head for a very long time and nev­er had the time to sit down and write it. I want­ed to think up a sce­nario in which a woman – a per­fect­ly nor­mal, sane woman – would have no oth­er option than to com­mit a cold-blood­ed mur­der. I didn’t want a psy­cho­path­ic killer – I want­ed a nor­mal per­son, and that was my inspi­ra­tion.

 

You were invit­ed by Ama­zon KDP to the Lon­don Book fair to dis­cuss your suc­cess with ONLY THE INNOCENT. What did you learn about pub­lish­ing and your­self from the expe­ri­ence?

I was real­ly excit­ed when KDP asked me to come to the book fair, and the one thing that I learned was that I real­ly want to be in this indus­try – not just as a one-off author of a book, but because I want to be a writer. I am very clear in my own mind that self-pub­lish­ing has been real­ly good to me, but in no way does that mean for a minute that I believe tra­di­tion­al pub­lish­ing is dead. I loved see­ing a pile of my books, actu­al­ly print­ed (by KDP) for me to sign, and I do love the idea of walk­ing into a book­store and see­ing them all there. But self-pub­lish­ing has some real pos­i­tives too, and I real­ized at the end of the book fair that I won’t rule out either option. One thing that is very clear, though, is that mar­ket­ing your book to suc­cess has to be par­tial­ly down to luck. If I had launched ONLY THE INNOCENT at the same time as the 50 Shades series, it would have been impos­si­ble to get to the #1 spot!

 

Your #1 suc­cess with ONLY THE INNOCENT on Ama­zon UK has made you some­thing of a celebri­ty in the Indie Author com­mu­ni­ty. How has your writ­ing life changed as a result of this celebri­ty?

When ONLY THE INNOCENT was suc­cess­ful, I want­ed to share the things I had learned with oth­er indie authors. I orig­i­nal­ly launched the book with low expec­ta­tions of sales. I would have been hap­py, to be hon­est, with a thou­sand copies sold. That was my goal. But clear­ly I was very lucky, and I must have done a few things right – so for quite some time I spent most of my days blog­ging about what I did, and shar­ing things with oth­er authors.

But the biggest change by far came when I found myself an agent. I have Ker­ry Wilkin­son – anoth­er suc­cess­ful indie author (although he now has a pub­lish­er) – to thank for this. He intro­duced me to my agent, and she has changed the way that I work com­plete­ly. She edit­ed ONLY THE INNOCENT – some­thing that I hadn’t thought of doing, but should have – and has guid­ed my writ­ing, giv­ing tire­less­ly of her time. So the so-called celebri­ty sta­tus had a tremen­dous impact, and has made me even keen­er to improve my writ­ing and help oth­er indies.

 

You live and write in Le Marche, Italy (Cen­tral Italy). How has being a writer in Italy influ­enced your writ­ing and how you work?

Liv­ing in Italy is a joy, and I can write here prac­ti­cal­ly with­out dis­trac­tion. I am able to write full time – which I know makes me one of the few very lucky ones – and in an atmos­phere of total peace and qui­et.

But liv­ing in Italy also means that dur­ing the sum­mer months it is extreme­ly hot – this sum­mer in par­tic­u­lar has been relent­less and we have had no rain for over three months. It is quite dif­fi­cult to work when your arms are stick­ing to the desk! We don’t have air con­di­tion­ing, because in a nor­mal sum­mer it’s hard­ly nec­es­sary – but I might think about that for next year! We also have a lot of vis­i­tors from May to Sep­tem­ber – friends and fam­i­ly look­ing to escape the very wet sum­mer in the UK. We love hav­ing guests, but they have all had to accept that I hide myself away for a large part of each day. The temp­ta­tion of a few hours by the pool in the after­noon, though, some­times gets the bet­ter of me.

So for most of the year I can be 100% focused, but for the sum­mer months it becomes quite dif­fi­cult – par­tic­u­lar­ly if every­body else is drink­ing a nice chilled glass of white wine with lunch and have feel I have to stick to water!

 

Who are your writ­ing idols—those writ­ers whose work inspires you to be the best writer you can be?

I’m not sure that I have any writ­ing idols. If I have to choose one, it would be Daphne du Mau­ri­er. REBECCA is my favourite book of all time. What I love about it is that it is a mys­tery, but it’s all about rela­tion­ships. It’s not a sto­ry that is led by a detec­tive – it is led by the pro­tag­o­nists. ONLY THE INNOCENT had to have a detec­tive in the sto­ry because a mur­der is com­mit­ted in the first chap­ter. But I def­i­nite­ly want­ed to feel that the sto­ry was all about the vic­tim and the per­pe­tra­tor, and was not a nov­el about a police­man.

There are writ­ers whose books I always enjoy – and Har­lan Coben would be right up there. What I love about his books is the com­plex­i­ty of the plot – and I am refer­ring to the one-off titles rather than the Myron Boli­tar series, which I enjoy for entire­ly dif­fer­ent rea­sons. It’s this lev­el of intri­ca­cy that I strive for.

A con­sid­er­able num­ber of books that fit into the thriller genre focus almost entire­ly on the inves­ti­ga­tion and the char­ac­ter of the police­man rather than the per­son­al­i­ty of the vic­tims, but with the Har­lan Coben books, the focus is on the peo­ple to whom the events are hap­pen­ing, rather than on the peo­ple solv­ing the crime. So between Daphne du Mau­ri­er and Har­lan Coben – a strange mix, you might say – they have shaped the way I think of a sto­ry.

 

You are some­thing of a social media maven as well, tire­less­ly pro­mot­ing ONLY THE INNOCENT on Face­book and Twit­ter. How has social media helped you as a writer, and how has it been a hin­drance?

When I launched ONLY THE INNOCENT I had just nine fol­low­ers on Twit­ter. I had a Face­book account, but I rarely used it. I worked hard to build a fol­low­ing – par­tic­u­lar­ly on Twit­ter, although I am work­ing hard­er on Face­book now by engag­ing peo­ple in con­ver­sa­tion a lit­tle more.

I don’t think that social media has been a hin­drance at all. I have used some of the tools avail­able to make my life a lit­tle eas­i­er, because for months I was doing all the updat­ing and search­ing for new fol­low­ers man­u­al­ly. I now have two Twit­ter accounts, pri­mar­i­ly because most of my fol­low­ers on the first account were oth­er indie authors. That is no prob­lem at all, and I’m delight­ed to chat to them. But the things that inter­est them are dif­fer­ent to the arti­cles and reviews that inter­est read­ers – so I now main­tain two accounts. The one for read­ers is where I post reviews – not just of ONLY THE INNOCENT – hard­ly ever, in fact – but reviews of oth­er books they may find inter­est­ing, retweets from oth­er authors, etc.

I’ve made some real­ly good friends via Twit­ter – par­tic­u­lar­ly in the indie author area. In gen­er­al, they are a real­ly sup­port­ive bunch of peo­ple, although of course you get the odd troll who sees that a book has received a load of good reviews so takes delight in going to the Ama­zon page and writ­ing a par­tic­u­lar­ly nasty one that shows no evi­dence of them hav­ing read the book. The aim is clear­ly to dam­age one book in the hope that it will make theirs more promi­nent. That, to me, is the only down­side of social media. You are lay­ing every­thing out there for the world to see, and not every­body shows the nec­es­sary respect for oth­ers.

 

You’re cur­rent­ly work­ing on your sec­ond nov­el. Can you give read­ers a gen­er­al idea of what it’s about and what inspired you to write it?

I want­ed to explore what goes on under the appar­ent­ly per­fect sur­face of people’s lives, and how indi­vid­u­als – inten­tion­al­ly or oth­er­wise – can cause harm through obses­sion, jeal­ousy and delu­sion.

In my next book, an appar­ent­ly per­fect com­mu­ni­ty is ripped apart by a ter­ri­ble acci­dent. But it is this acci­dent and the inves­ti­ga­tion into it that grad­u­al­ly begin to expose cir­cles of deceit that are lying just beneath the sur­face.

 

Is there any advice that you could give bur­geon­ing Indie Authors, advice that you wish you had received when you were start­ing out?

Yes! As you know, Chris, I have now had ONLY THE INNOCENT pro­fes­sion­al­ly edit­ed. The first ver­sion did incred­i­bly well, and I think that’s because many peo­ple read like I do – they are dri­ven entire­ly by the sto­ry. But some crit­i­cized the first ver­sion, and hav­ing had an edi­tor pore over it and send me reams and reams of notes for improve­ment, I under­stand why.

The edit­ing process was quite hard. I didn’t get back changes which was what I half expect­ed. I got back notes with com­ments such as – ‘what’s going on in the room?’ or ‘what’s she see­ing here?’ or ‘cut this sec­tion in half’ – and it real­ly made me think. The sto­ry hasn’t changed, but the char­ac­ters have been fleshed out, and there is more to visu­al­ize in a scene. I spent a cou­ple of months rewrit­ing chunks, and then it was edit­ed again by a sec­ond per­son, who made even more sug­ges­tions.

It sounds hard, but I real­ly think that if I had done that at the out­set, ONLY THE INNOCENT would have been an even big­ger suc­cess. As it is, it has been re-released in the new ver­sion on all plat­forms, and the reviews on iTunes (UK) and Water­stones – prob­a­bly the biggest inde­pen­dent book­store in the UK – are all incred­i­bly pos­i­tive.

So if I was start­ing again, I would try what­ev­er I could to find the bud­get for a pro­fes­sion­al edit. It has changed the way that I will write going for­ward, but hope­ful­ly not changed the ten­sion and sus­pense of the sto­ry.

 

How can read­ers buy ONLY THE INNOCENT?

ONLY THE INNOCENT is avail­able in all eread­er for­mats, and can be found by fol­low­ing the links below. For some of the read­ers, such as Kobo and Sony, it might be nec­es­sary to per­form a search as the sites default to the coun­try you are search­ing from.

Ama­zon US

Ama­zon UK

Barnes and Noble

iTunes (US)

Rachel Abbott Web­site.

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