Annie Seaton – Eco-Adventure Romance

The inspiration for Annie Seaton’s first fiction was a love letter she received from a teenage boyfriend – written on mauve toilet paper and so long that it took up pretty well the whole roll . . . Fast forward to today and Annie’s a recognised brand in Australian fiction, with nearly 40 romances, time travel and rural fiction titles to her credit. Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:  Living the ‘perfect life’ in the Whitsundays Why Aussie rural fiction is so popular How being a Type A personality drives her work How she’s now both indie and trad published The writers she admires most What’s coming next for this super productive writer Where to find Annie Seaton:  Website:http://www.annieseaton.net/ Facebook: @AnnieSeatonAuthor  Twitter: @annieseaton26 What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it. Jenny: And now, here’s Annie.  Hello there Annie and welcome to the show.  It’s great to have you with us… Annie: Hi there Jenny It’s great to be talking to you from “across the ditch” – and I know I say that word differently from how your New Zealand listeners say it. . . It’s lovely to be talking to you. Jenny: Yes and I think you are talking to us from Nambucca Heads? Annie: Yes that’s right. Nambucca Heads is halfway between Sydney and Brisbane and I’m lucky enough to be right on the coast – well when I say that I am actually five houses back from the beach but I can see the ocean from my kitchen window. It’s very lovely. Jenny: When you started out – was there a “Once Upon a Time” moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction, and what was the catalyst for it. Annie:The catalyst for me being an author happened when I was four years old, would you believe! I was born in Brisbane, and I lived there until I was about 12 years old. From about the age of four my mum took me to the library every Thursday. (I can still remember that little detail all these years later!) I fell in love with books, and I always wanted to write stories. When I was 11, I wrote a book and it was all stapled together. I can still remember the first line of the first chapter. It was “Julia stopped hopping abruptly.” – Breaks every grammatical rule. That little book actually went missing when we moved to Newcastle in the late 60’s – and then education, career, marriage and children all intervened. The desire was there, but they all took precedence as life does. When I was 33 we had our sea change and moved to Nambucca Heads, and I had given up an academic career at Newcastle University and I thought “I can going to join the local writer’s group. And my first story was published in their inaugural anthology called Estuary – because we have a beautiful estuary here on our river. Annie Seaton author I remember it was a short story romance, based on something that had happened to me in my teens, when one of my early boyfriends wrote me a really long letter onto mauve toilet paper. It took almost the whole roll! So that was the first writing I did at 33. Then moving back here of course, I wanted to get into the academic world so I did a Master’ degree. I retrained as a teacher, and I became a head teacher, a high school principal and a grandmother. Of course, writing again was placed on the back burner. In 2010, I had an awful experience when I was teaching. I looked at the stress my position was causing me, and I thought- I’m not enjoying this anymore. I don’t want to do this anymore. So I decided to retire. A lovely friend said to me, “what are you going to do with your day? You’ve been a principal 24/7”. I replied to her that I was going to write that book I wanted to write for over 50 years! In March 2011, I started writing. Fast forward seven and a half years, and I now have four books in book stores, another three contracted with Harper Collins and thirty or so books self published. Annie Seaton – Kakadu Sunset Jenny: Oh that’s fantastic! Annie: That’s my story. And that’s when I decided I wanted to write fiction. When I was in Brisbane in October, I was doing a library tour and I was driving through where we used to live along the main road. I passed that library where I had had my first experience with books. I drove past, did another few miles and thought no. I turned around, parked in the carpark and took in a copy of my book Whitsunday Dawn. The librarian was delightful. I said I wanted to donate this book to the library and sign it. Not only that, she had all these historical photos displaying those early years in the 60’s when I’d been a child. Jenny: That sounds lovely. 30 books self published – that’s remarkable in such a short time. Annie: Yes. It wasn’t intentional – I think it was just a natural progression. When I started writing back in 2011, I had no idea about craft, point of view, showing not telling. I didn’t know what head hopping was. I just new that I loved to read, and I knew what I liked to read as a reader. My first book contracted by Lyrical Press in New York was a Steam Punk Romance that I had actually entered a competition for Carina Press in New York. They wanted a Steam Punk Romance. I had no idea what it was, so I researched it. I had this little fantasy story, and I threw in a bit of romance. That’s how it all began. Jenny: Your most recent books also have a strong environmental thread. You mentioned Whitsunday Dawn – I have actually been going through the whole series of the environmental ones, and I find them interesting. You also gain an insight into parts of Australia you may never have a chance to visit. Do you think that’s part of the attraction of them for people? Annie: It really is. When I started writing, my very first contemporary romance was called Holiday Affair, and it’s actually set here in Nambucca, in Armadale up on the plateau and in the Whitsunday Islands. And as early on as my very first true 50,000 romance, I was looking at environment. Years later as I analysed it, I think it’s because I have such a love for landscape myself. As a joke with my family, the sun is setting and they say “mum, quick get out there with your camera!” Every time we walk the dog along the beach, I’ll take my camera and take photos of waves and sky. So landscape is very important to me. In 2013, prior to any of my romances or environmental books, we started to travel. We had a little camper trailer and we took off. As we traveled through Mount Isa, which for New Zealand readers is very North West of Queensland, really in the true red outback – I saw the landscapes scarred by all these mines and chimneys. Even though the outback is a very desolate landscape, it’s beautiful. But to see it scarred by this industry was a real wake-up call for me. A year later, we were travelling Kakadu. We were looking at these beautiful lands, looking at the birds, crocodiles and the sunset. We were actually on a little tourist boat. I saw this Kakadu sunset, and the story came to me in that moment- what would happen if someone wanted to do coal and gas mining beneath this pristine environment, and what would happen if we had corruption in the government? The thing in many of my books is the lack of true justice and integrity in today’s society. So that’s where the environmental thing started. People say to me, oh you’re an environmentalist! I tell them, no. I’m an Australian who loves my country, and who doesn’t want to see these pristine areas destroyed to make money for whoever it’s making money for. I realise we need industry for our economy and there’s a way to do it, but we really need protection for these areas. The Porter sisters series: influenced by Annie’s love of landscape Jenny:  Whitsunday Dawn won the 2018 Bookof the Year in the AUSROM TODAY Reader’s Choice Awards.  That must have been a pleasing validation of your work? Annie: That was amazing. My three sister books, Kakadu Sunset, Daintree and Diamond Sky that is set in three different landscapes have done well, but Whitsunday Dawn has just lifted the bar and bought me in a whole lot of new readers. I get emails every day or Facebook messages every day. I’ve just had one this morning from a local reader in my town on my Facebook page. She just said, “I’ve just finished Whitsunday Dawn and I cried at the end. Is there going to be a sequel?” So many people have asked me for a sequel in the Porter Sisters series, or a fourth book in the series, or a sequel to Whitsunday Dawn. It really is a validation. To know that romance readers voted Whitsunday Dawn as the romance of the year- that was just an amazing moment. Jenny: You mention how you take off on these books research trips several times a year. That sounds like everybody’s idea of heaven actually, to be able to justify doing that for work. Tell us a little about how you organise that. Annie: Well it’s really interesting. My husband stilll works – he’s a school teacher, so he gets school holidays. He has a bit of long service leave up his sleeve. When I retired from education, it was much easier for him to say ‘I’m taking leave,’ because I was so committed to my job. I would think the school would fall to pieces if I wasn’t there! So having me home and my husband on long service leave, we started to think it was time to travel. Back in 2013 prior to the Kakadu research trip, which didn’t start out as a research trip – it started as a holiday. We bought a little camper trailer and headed off in our four wheel drive. We went to the top of the Northern Territory, and we did some fish and chips and walked into waterfalls and things like that. Daintree Rain Forest – Picture Credit Queensland Blog The second trip to the Daintree the following year was “yes, OK – now I’ve got a contract for a three book series with Pam Macmillan”. I had pitched Kakadu Sunset, and it was accepted. They asked if I could make it a series. So the trip to the Daintree we did on the way back from Longreach. We had gone out to Longreach and and then of course the trip to the Kimberleys we did in 2015, which is in the top of Western Australia in the true outback again. That was a specific trip to research the Diamond Mine and the locations in Diamond Sky. That was originally going to be called Kimberley Moonlight, but the publisher wanted to change it. The last two trips were very much organised to research specific stories. Whitsunday Dawn – and people roll their eyes when they say this- it necessitated spending three months, last year and the year before touring the Whitsunday Islands, researching the islands and the water. Getting my imagination fired and explaining the setting where the family lived on Whitsunday Island. It also involved a lot of historical research, because this is my first dual timeline book, where half the book is set in the 1940’s in WWll. So I interviewed a lot of elderly folk who lived there as teenagers in WWll. A lot of the events that occurred in the War came out of those oral interviews. There were wonderful things about the Boxing Day picnic and how they worked and got the jellyfish out of the water. You won’t find that in any primary or secondary source – it was directly from people who had been there, and that was the best part of the research for me. Apart from maybe the sailing around the island! Uluru – Credit Pixabay. But yes, we plan our trips now. The next book is set – it’s called Osprey Reef. It’s set on a 110 ten foot fishing boat that goes out on scientific expeditions. When we were in the Whitsundays for the launch of Whitsunday Dawn, I actually had a trip from Airlie Beach down to Mackay on that boat with the skip up, and the wheel house grilling in on how this worked, what was this for, where does this go, why does this wave come that way. So that research has started. Then the next book contracted for publication in 2021 is called East of Alice, and we’re currently planning our trip out to Alice Springs in the Winter of 2019. It’s a very tough life! Jenny: It sounds like you started out with Indie publishing yourself, and then you almost did your apprenticeship as an indie published author? Annie: Not quite – my first book Winter of the Passion flower was with Lyrical Press. My second and my subsequent books after that were in Entangled Publishing in Colorado in the U.S. I’ve since got the rights back to several of them, but I still have nine books with Entangled Publishing – my contemporary romances the Affairs series, the Half Moon Bay series and the Prickle Creek Farm series are still with them. It was after those ten books, or probably towards the end of those ten books with Entangled Publishing was when I started self publishing simultaneously. That went from about 2011 to about 2014, until I picked up the print contract from Pam Macmillan. So a lot of the time I’ve been a true hybrid – I’ve been with digital publishers in the US, a lot of self publishing and then with traditional Australian publishers. Romance series form part of Annie’s back list of more than 30 books Jenny: Have you got any preference for which one you like best? Annie: I love the freedom of Indie oublishing- I do my own covers and my own formatting. I also have my own formatting, cover creation and editing business. I think I’ve worked with about 400 other authors over the last five or six years. I love being traditionally published because I suppose I’m old school- I love reading digital books and e-books, but that moment of seeing a book that you wrote, published by a publisher on the shelf of a book store- to me, that’s the ultimate. That was my goal to be print published, and my fourth book will be out in July next year with another two to come. That will give me seven print books by my mid 60’s, so I think I’ve achieved my goal! Jenny: That’s fabulous. Now you mentioned working with other authors, and you’ve done a practical advice book which I must say I bought online last week – Promotional Tips and Tricks for Authors. It’s got a lot of very down to earth advice in it, and makes it very clear that you put your shoulder to the wheel in terms of getting that marketing and promotional side of your work looked after as well. Promotional Tips for Authors – helping others Annie: I work with so many authors who have written their first book, and self publish. I do advise a lot of aspiring authors as well and say you cannot just put a book out there and expect it to sell hundreds of copies. It’s hard work. As anyone as an author who indie publishes, you’ve got to be on social media. Unfortunately these days, people are spending so much money on Facebook, Instagram, Amazon and Twitter advertising. Doing these courses like The Creative Penn with Joanna Penn and others with Nick Stephenson and Mark Dawson – people are spending a lot of money to get their books out there. The ordinary author who doesn’t have a big advertising budget is up against all these books that are flooding the market, and people are competing to get them up there. The landscape for indie publishing has changed over the last four or five years I’ve noticed. That’s why if you’re not willing to, or in a position to spend big- I don’t spend a lot of money on my indie published books. I just get on social media and post. I have a lovely readers group, but you really need to establish your brand and establish it early these days. Even if you’ve got a desire to be traditional, indie or digital published, they will say- what’s your website, how many books have you sold, what’s your social media following? And I think not to have that these days will impact on your ability to be published. It’s a constant shoulder to the wheel. I do at least 2-3 hours of marketing each day, which makes it a long day. After 30 books Annie has ‘found her voice’ I’m a very structured author, I treat this as a very structured career. I’m at my desk at 7:30am after my husband goes out the door. I make the bed, load the dishwasher, put the washing on and I’m usually at my desk by 7:30am at the latest. I stay there till 4pm at least four days a week. Then I’ll break in the evenings for dinner, have a wine, watch something on TV with my husband and I move into the living room with my laptop where I do editing, covers and marketing. It’s a very long day, but it is starting to pay off this year. For people who are starting off as authors- my biggest downfall is patience. I’m inpatient. I want to do something, and instantly expect to see a result. That’s just my A type personality. It’s taken me a good seven years to see a result as a published author in the publishing landscape. Turning to your wider career  . . .  Jenny:   Is there one thing in your writing career, that you’ve done perhaps more than any other, that is the secret of your success? Annie: The first thing is to be able to write well. In terms of writing well, what works for me is just what works for us as readers- getting them engaged in the story, getting them emotionally bound into caring about the characters. When they leave the book to get those messages to say “I really hated leaving those characters…I cry when I finish a book”. I think, are they going to be alright without me writing about them! So I get myself invested. “Write good books” – or a 2018 winner And I think in terms of writing, that is the key – to get that emotion into your book, and secondly the key is establishing your brand and market, market, market! That being said, marketing strategies that you are comfortable with and work for you. I’ve tried them all, and Facebook is my place at the moment. I have recently established a readers group which is going really well, and people are engaging. Again, that depends on how many people are in that group- I think there’s 260 members at the moment. Sometimes I’ll write a post and Facebook will decide to only show it to ten of those readers, so you’re hand strung by social media giants. Twitter – I’ve tried. I’ve got 4000 followers, but I honestly don’t see the point of it. It just doesn’t work for me. Instagram they say is for the younger readers. I’ve tried it and done some, but it’s not my advertising. When I look at the emails and messages from my reader’s group, I find that a lot of my readers are over 50. So it’s a different audience to cater for in terms of the marketing you do. Jenny: So obviously you say you are a very Type A person; how do you manage to discipline yourself to switch off sometimes, and what is your favourite way to relax and unwind? Annie: I’m so naughty. When I was a teacher and principal, I used to go to seminars that talked about the eggs in your life basket and making sure you were balancing the family eggs and the work eggs and everything. When I do something, I’m very driven- and I’m sorry to say, my daughter is the same. She’s 36 years old and a deputy principal, having been one for a couple of years already. I see myself mirroring very much in her! I try very hard to read, and I do read every night. I walk on the beach with my husband and my dog. At the moment, my husband only works four days a week. I try not to work on Fridays unless he goes for a little nana nap in the evenings- then I’m straight back into my work, I can’t resist! I set myself very foolish goals. At the moment, next year I have a single titled book to write that’s due in June that I haven’t started. I have started the research, and I’m also planning on self publishing another seven books next year. That’s already crazy, I don’t know why I do it. Small town romance is part of the mix for Annie’s multiple output Jenny: Seven books – that’s amazing! Tell me, when you were away on your research trips, how does that working day work when you’re away on your trips? And I’m really curious as to whether you can get WiFi access right throughout the outback- do you do your marketing when you’re away? Annie: Absolutely. To answer your WiFi question first- we generally stay in towns. We started off with the canvas camper trailer. About three years ago we upgraded to a 20 foot caravan that was not a good choice. We just wanted to see if we liked caravanning. As we travelled along the roads, the windows inside fell out, the drawers fell out! We took that away on a couple of trips. Last year, we decided to upgrade to a very nice caravan because we love caravanning and travelling these beautiful places. It even has a washing machine and an oven! When we travel, we generally stay in small towns and no matter how small the town, they always have WiFi. Sometimes we’re travelling a long day- 800 or 900 kilometres, which is probably the length of your island! We go from town to town, and I won’t have access during the day. But that’s very good, because I write as I travel. My husband tells a very funny story – all he hears is the riveting sound of the clicking of the keyboard going, and the only landscape I see is when he goes “look, there’s an emu!”. I look up, look out the window, nod and go back to writing. He’s telling lies! The idyll of Outback nomad life – Cable Beach near Broome Credit YouTube video Turning to Annie as reader Jenny:    The series is called “The Joys of Binge Reading” because I see it as providing inspiration for people who like to read series.  So – turning to your taste in fiction – who do you “binge read?” Any recommendations for listeners?: Annie: To my New Zealand listeners, the first author that I fell in love with is a romance author back in my teens. I have every one of her books. I have her biography, and when I was in New Zealand in 2006 on a month study tour, I made sure I went to many of the places that Essie Summers made me fall in love with from the 1970’s onwards: Akaroa, Paradise Glenorchy, all the places in the South Island that she used to write about. I visited and felt as if I knew them. So in terms of contemporary romance – Essie Summers. I have every one of her books and I reread them- probably a dozen of them every year. I like a nice little escape romance. I read Kristan Higgins who is a U.S. author who writes series – I love her Blue Heron series that started with The Best Man. That is one of my favourite books of all time. You’d class that as Women’s fiction. (Link is to Kristan Higgins podcast chat on The Joys of Binge Reading) The Best Man I also read a lot of our Australian rural romance authors – like Fiona McArthur… there’s so many of them to mention. My colleagues at Harper Collins and Pam Macmillan. The RWNZ members and readers would probably know their stories. I also love historical fiction- I love the Sharon Penman Llewelyn series. I’m currently reading Robert Galbraith – J K Rowling’s very gritty, private detective series. I love Peter Robinson and Ian Rankin. I could stand in front of my bookshelf and read you many different authors! Jenny: Speaking of New Zealand Romance Writers, I’ve seen that you’ve also been a part of a Christmas collaboration- the Twelve Days of Down Under Christmas. There were several of the well known NZ romance writers including Leeanna Morgan, Tracy Alvarez and Chris Pearson. Have you done Christmas collaborations before? Annie: Sorry, my blog is out of date! That was 12 months ago. I’ve done two collaborations with New Zealand authors, organised by Rosalind James who is a U.S. author and lived in New Zealand for quite a while. She’s done a rugby union series there, her books are fabulous. We’ve done a Christmas Down Under about two or three years ago. That was with Tracy, Chris and Joanna. I think I was the only Aussie in that one! Then we also did Love Down Under either before or after that one. I got to meet all the girls. I’ve been to the RWNZ Conference twice now, and I would love to get to Christchurch next year. I think it’s not too long after we get back from the outback, so time will tell on that one! Jenny: Yes, I met Rosalind James actually and that All Blacks series was pretty amazing. That was one that she told us that when she tried to pitch it to an agent, they basically laughed her out of the office. Of course, she turned it into a great success. Annie: Yes, look how great it’s been. I met Rosalind for coffee in Sydney when I was down there seeing my print publisher once. She was down there with her husband, and it was lovely. You get to know new authors online, on email and on Facebook. It’s so nice when you meet them in person- it feels like you’ve been best buddies for years! Circling back to the beginning at the end  Jenny:  At this stage in your career, if you were doing it all again, what would you change – if anything? Annie: I’ve been very fortunate with the way that it’s gone. I think my regret is that I didn’t start a little earlier, but then I wouldn’t have had the life experience if I’d continued. When I wrote that short story I was 33, and I don’t think I had the drive or the energy to put into my writing back in those days. There was so much happening. I was studying, and my children were teens. It was just something always in the back of mind… what if I started 10 years earlier. But then I look at that and think if I could have, I wouldn’t have been as driven to get a good backlist out. It’s great discipline for me to think, “ok, I’m going to do four or five books this year”. I’ve gone past 40 or 41 now with the combination of my hybrid publishing and the different methods that I used. I’d love to get to 50 by the end of 2019. The problem is that my husband is retiring at the end of next year, and I think how am I going to justify sitting at my desk all day when he wants to go out for lunch, or go on a trip, or go fishing or something! J Jenny:   What is next for Annie the writer?  I see hints of more books set in the Outback coming in 2020? What are you working on, and new projects? Annie: For all aspiring or published authors out there- if you write 1000 words everyday, you can usually do that in a hour or two. A thousand words a day is 365,000 words a year. That’s a heck of a lot of books! That’s my mantra. That’s what my plan always is, and then I get to the last minute and I haven’t done my 1000 words a day- I’ve been editing, or social marketing or doing library tours. Outback Protector – latest book (late 2018) My recent book that just came out last Monday – Her Outback Protector. I left myself very tight for that. It was up for order on Amazon and I wrote 46,000 words for that in eight days because I had to get it out. Then it went to my editor with three days to spare- she’s wonderful, and similar to me. We edit each other’s work! I have a book coming out in February called Follow Me; that’s the sequel to my time travel novel Come Back To Me. I have written a couple thousand words of that. My print book in 2019 is called Shadows of Undara. It’s 111,000 words. I’m pleased to say it has been written, and it’s just finished structural edits with Harper Collins. That one I can put aside and not worry till it comes out July, and focus on the marketing. The next two books I’ve got to do in the Second Chance Bay series- I’ve got Her Outback Boss, Playboy, and Protector out there, and they’re doing beautifully. I’ve also got His Outback Bride To Be and His Outback Nurse to come out next year, so that’s another two to write. Then I’m starting a new series, just like my Bondi Beach Love series but I’m going to set them up on islands in the Whitsundays called Island Love – about 4, 5 or 6 friends (depending on how many books I write) who move to the island to start a business together. Each book will be their story. Those books will only be 25-30,000 words, so they’re very quick to write. It will be more like a novella. I also have to write Osprey Reef by June, which is about 110,000 contracted for Harper Collins. So I’ll be sitting at my desk everyday from 7:30am to 4pm, trying to avoid the temptation of social media. Jenny: Wow- I’m almost reeling in my seat to imagine it all! Part of a literary movement – Aussie rural fiction Annie: But how fortunate – I could be in a classroom or be at school dealing with difficult parents, staff, students and phone calls. But I get to sit at my desk and write stories; how wonderful is that! Jenny:  Do you enjoy interacting with readers and where can they find you  online? Annie: Readers can find me at www.annieseaton.net – that’s my website. On Facebook, my profile is Annie Seaton Author. Then on my Annie Seaton Author Facebook page, there is a group called Annie Seaton Authors Readers Group. You’re welcome to join that. We have lots of chats, lots of giveaways, lots of suggestions for characters’ names. The other place I’d love people to take a look at is a site called Australian Rural Fiction I’ve created. It’s a website, australianruralfiction.com There are 75 Australian rural authors on that site. It links to their websites and puts up a page of their new releases. We also have a Facebook Page – Australian Rural Fiction. We have almost 1000 members since we started that about six weeks ago. So supporting and promoting Australian rural fiction is a big part of my day, and a very enjoyable part of interacting with readers. Jenny: You certainly are a dynamo, that’s for sure! Annie: I sleep well at night! Jenny: I’ve noticed over the course of the last decade, the way that regional stories have grown- I mean when you think back to 20 or 25 years ago, Di Morrissey was one of the early ones but they’ve just absolutely blossomed in the last decade, hasn’t it? Annie: It’s been fabulous. And the comments I get from our one stop Australian Rural Fiction site say “this is so fabulous, I love reading Australian rural fiction”. It’s like armchair travelling; as you said earlier, you’ve been to that place. That’s why its important for me to research my books very well, because unless you smell the landscape, feel the air on your skin and hear the sounds of that particular landscape, you can’t write authentically about it. Jenny: Well Annie it’s been wonderful talking. We have come to the end of our time now, so I’d just like to thank you for such an entertaining and informative interview. It’s been wonderful hearing about your work. Annie: It’s been lovely talking Jenny, and thanks so much for the opportunity of broadcasting me over in New Zealand, one of my favourite places in the world! Thanks To Our Technical Support: The Joys of Binge Reading podcast is put together with wonderful technical help from Dan Cotton at DC Audio Services. Dan is an experienced sound and video engineer who’s ready and available to help you with your next project… Seek him out at [email protected] or Phone + 64 – 21979539. He’s fast, takes pride in getting it right, and lovely to work with. Our voice overs are done by Abe Raffills, and Abe’s another gem. He got 20 years of experience on both sides of the camera/microphone as a cameraman/director and also voice artist and television presenter. Abe’s vocal delivery is both light hearted and warm and he is super easy to work with no matter the job. You’ll find him at [email protected]