Dive into the intriguing journey of Yvonne Vincent, a self-published author who transformed her lockdown experiences into riveting cozy mysteries. With titles soaring up the Kindle charts and recognition from the likes of Diana Gabaldon, Yvonne’s rise in the indie author world is both unexpected and inspirational. Discover her experiences, inspirations, and the power of community in this candid interview.
Can you tell us about your personal journey to becoming a self-published author?
Back in 2018, I started blogging on Facebook. By the time we went into lockdown in 2020, and I was told to shield for months on end, I already had a decent following. Shielding in one room, my world shrunk, and I entertained people with all the minutiae of my day; men in kilts and chocolate raisins played a large part. I had often been urged to compile my posts into a book, and now here I was with time on my hands, so I came up with The Big Blue Jobbie, which was half posts and half narration about the weird lockdown world around me. I thought I’d sell a few hundred and fade away, but Amazon came knocking with deals and Diana Gabaldon mentioned that she was reading my book in an interview in the New York Times. My lockdown hobby book reached something like number fifty in the UK Kindle charts. It will sound odd that I wasn’t shocked by any of this. I had nothing to compare it with and didn’t know any authors, so I thought it was normal.
I was soon brought down to earth by my first “proper book.” Frock in Hell did okay, but it was never going to smash the charts. Then in 2021 I wrote Losers Club, a tale of a diet group who solve the murder of the island postman. Just before I published it, The Thursday Murder Club came out. Initially, I was quite annoyed that Mr Osman had stolen my thunder, but I soon came to see that riding his coat tails isn’t a bad place to be. Mumsnet picked Losers Club as a best summer read of 2022, and I found myself at number two, sandwiched between Marian Keyes at number one and Richard Osman at number three!
I think Mumsnet probably noticed my book because I’d actively engaged with their audience, commenting on posts where my book was mentioned. Social media gave me my start in writing and I’m reasonably comfortable with it, perhaps too comfortable because until recently I made almost zero effort to build a mailing list. However, I’m now three years into this writing malarkey and have taken a sabbatical from the day job. My husband has also taken early retirement, so we at last have the chance to direct our energies towards mailing lists, Bookbubs and all the other things that come with being an indie author.
It feels scary that we have to make this work or live on soup. But good scary.
What are some lessons you’ve learned about the writing industry that you wish you knew when you started?”
When I wrote my first book in 2020, I knew nothing. My husband said, “I’ve Googled it, and it looks like we can upload your book to Amazon,” so that’s what we did. We accidentally got a lot of things right, but it wasn’t until my third or fourth book that we really began to learn about the industry and understand the importance of covers and marketing.
The industry can feel competitive at times and a little harsh, particularly for those going down the trad route who are on their fifty-zillionth rejection. In reality, there’s room for us all. We are feeding a very large, voracious beast with our words. I wish I’d discovered some of the brilliant resources and communities, such as Reedsy and SPF sooner. Knowing that there are supportive people out there (who don’t mind daft questions) makes such a difference when you spend so much time working in isolation.
Finally, it took me a while to get my head around treating my writing as a business. My artistic soul just wanted to be read. I didn’t care about the money. However, the industry is about the money, not the art, and I realised that if I was ever to see a time when I packed in the day job and swanned off to a villa in the South of France armed only with my laptop and some factor 50, then I better start focusing on the bottom line. My husband, who is far more practical than me, was delighted by this shift in view. He got to say “I told you so” a lot.
With that in mind, there are four things I would pass on to new authors:
[1] Get your cover right – make sure it’s legible as a thumbnail and is within genre;
[2] Invest what you can in learning how to market your book professionally – nobody is going to read your book unless you tell them about it;
[3] Create a warm audience using social media and newsletters, and engage with them – these are your lovely word of mouth people and the ones who will come back for your next book;
[4] Be generous with your time and effort – help those coming behind you because one day you might be the one asking for their help.
How have you evolved as a writer since your first book publication?
I don’t have to Google “how to write dialogue” anymore, which is grand. And I know that anymore is one word, not two. I can also mostly do commas. In short, the grammar police have released me on my own recognizance provided I can master the semi-colon and resist the temptation to start sentences with ‘so’ and ‘and’. To be fair, though, I just had to Google where to put that last full stop.
Actual, proper writing-wise, I have become much better at show, not tell. Rather than describing a character as wearing a red dress, as I would three years ago, I might have the character pull at the hem and wonder whether she’s feeling bold enough to carry off red today. I particularly like The Crow Trap, where Ann Cleeves introduces Vera with “Then she held out a hand like a shovel. Rachael stood up to take it and realized she’d seen the woman before. It was the bag lady who’d crashed into the chapel late during Bella’s funeral.” Three short sentences which show everything you need to know about Vera.
I have learned how to build tension and set the mood. A couple of years ago, I’d describe a fight scene in terms of the action. Now, I’m far more verbose about the environment, the weather, the scenery or whatever else it takes to build that sense of something brewing. In the book I’m writing at the moment, I purposely created a scene of warmth and contentment so that the attack was as much of a shock to the reader as it was to the character. I might have instinctively done that back in 2020, but it’s far more fun to deliberately write about thick carpets and fluffy slippers in the full knowledge that you’re about to drive a wrecking ball through them.
Can you tell us about a book that significantly impacted your life and your decision to become an author?”
It’s not just one book. It’s the whole Harry Potter series. Now, stop rolling your eyes and let me explain. Whenever I’m down, I listen to the audiobooks from start to finish. By week two I’m usually cured, but for the cure to stick, I have to keep going. It takes months, and by the end of Deathly Hallows I’m transfigured into a happy little teacup (as opposed to a miserable troll).
The Harry Potter books didn’t influence my decision to become an author, although they did make me want to write stories that helped people escape and gave me ideas for the structure of the first book in my Losers Club series; the misleading villain, for instance. Pottermore we ain’t, but there’s a lovely wee fandom in the Losers Club Facebook group who enjoy coming back to my world time and time again.
Are there any movies or TV shows that have inspired your storytelling?
This is probably going to sound bonkers, but sometimes when I need to push myself back into my storytelling voice, I binge watch Vicar of Dibley.
Geraldine the vicar, played by Dawn French, was the inspiration for Penny in Losers Club. I wanted Penny to have that same mildly exasperated tolerance for those around her. Like Geraldine, Penny would be the vaguely sensible one to whom odd things happened, although she’s feistier and a little sharper of tongue than the vicar. There’s an overall warmth to the Vicar of Dibley that I love, and even though my books and characters are very different from the series, that sense of community and the shared bonds it brings are very much at the heart of my little Scottish island.
Someone once said that if my books were ever made into a TV series, it would be like a sweary Doc Martin. I think that’s a fair assessment.
What are some hobbies or interests you have outside of writing?”
I’m an absolute magpie. I seize on anything shiny and give it a go. I love maths, coding, languages, history, day drinking, lunch with the ladies, cryptic crosswords and shoes. In fact, going on long walks with the dogs and moaning about my feet is a firm favourite.
Despite my husband calling me a big weirdo, I’m utterly unashamed that the only programme I have on series record is Countdown. All I need now is for Idris Elba to take over as host and smoulder across the desk, “Now, Margaret, are you sure you want a consonant,” and my life will be complete. Also, I’ve just joined the gym, because you can’t do bottomless brunches without consequences, and I fear that Idris will never accept my thighs in their current state of porridge (shh, don’t tell the husband).
Which of your books are you the most proud of, and why?
Without a doubt, the Losers Club books. I set out to bring big city crime to a small island and to spread love and laughter because it’s good for the soul. There is nothing that pleases me more than reading a review or social media comment that says, “I woke my husband up laughing” or “I laughed out loud on the train and got funny looks.” When someone tells me they snorted wine down their nose, for me that’s mission accomplished. Plus they’re very good stories, of course.
What is your most recent book and/or what are you working on currently?
I published Beacon Brodie (Losers Club 6) in July. The island lighthouse keeper is murdered and there’s a vigilante on the loose. Could they be linked? As the Losers investigate, they uncover Beacon Brodie’s murky past as well as some murky goings-on in the present. A secret smuggler’s tunnel leads them to a shocking conclusion.
The Christmas Losers Club, Mistletoes, will be finished by the time you publish this interview. The island shopkeepers, Mr and Mrs Hubbard, have reached the pinnacle of their ballroom dancing ambitions – the Edinburgh ballroom dancing competition, the Foxtrot Oscars. Their Losers Club friends come to cheer them on in the finals, but things take a sinister turn when Mrs Hubbard goes missing, leaving only blood on the dance floor.
Is there a book project you have in mind that you plan to write one day? If so, can you tell us a little bit about it?
I’m writing a regional crime story set in Aberdeenshire. It’s a departure for me and far more serious than anything I’ve previously written, but I introduced DI Hunter Deed in The Juniper Key (Losers Club book 5), and really, it’s too good a detective name to waste.
The first book involves the discovery of a woman’s body in a recumbent stone circle near Inverurie and the use of the fishing boats on the Northeast Coast of Scotland for smuggling. I only have the bare bones of it at the moment, but I have a second book in mind, set in the ruins of a castle.
I deliberately left a thread hanging in The Juniper Key around a corrupt senior police officer, so DI Hunter Deed will have a sub-plot to pursue, which I hope will eventually become a main plot further down the line.
You can find Yvonne Vincent at her web site, on Facebook, in the BookSounder app, or on her BookSounder profile page
Stay tuned for our next indie author interview next week.
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