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The Debut Year in review with YA crime author Troy Hunter · The Book Deal

• 0:46
  Tina: Welcome to the book deal podcast and a year in review with the 2024 debut crew series.
• 0:52
  Tina: So my 2024 debut date today is young adult author, Troy Hunter.
• 0:57
  Tina: Hi, Troy
• 0:58
  Troy: How you doing?
• 0:59
  Tina: Welcome to the Book Deal podcast.
• 1:02
  Troy: Thank you for having me.
• 1:03
  Tina: Anytime.
• 1:04
  Tina: So your young adult book Gus and the Missing Boy was released in February 2024 with Wakefield Press.
• 1:10
  Tina: Congratulations.
• 1:13
  Tina: Can you give us your one liner for the book?
• 1:15
  Troy: Yeah, sure.
• 1:16
  Troy: Um, Gus Green is a teenage boy whose life is flipped on its head when he stumbles across a missing kids website and finds a digitally aged photo of a missing boy who eerily looks like him.
• 1:29
  Troy: So imagine going onto a website about kidnapped kids and finding a photo of yourself.
• 1:34
  Tina: Yeah, that's, that's pretty creepy and such a, a great idea for, for a book.
• 1:39
  Tina: That's amazing.
• 1:40
  Tina: So, um, So here on the Book Deal podcast, we're all about helping aspiring authors through hearing about the experiences of published authors.
• 1:50
  Tina: So we want to get straight down to it and ask the questions everyone wants the answers to.
• 1:55
  Tina: Are you ready, Troy?
• 1:58
  Troy: Go for it.
• 1:59
  Tina: How long did it take you to write Gus and The Missing Boy?
• 2:03
  Troy: There's two answers to this.
• 2:04
  Troy: I had that idea about 20 years ago because I literally.
• 2:09
  Troy: randomly stumbled across a missing kids website and just kind of looked at all of these digitally aged photos.
• 2:17
  Troy: And I just thought that is so sad.
• 2:19
  Troy: There was just pages and pages and pages of them.
• 2:22
  Troy: And it just sort of broke my heart, but I was also, but, and obviously AI didn't exist then, but yeah, people were clearly paying, um, someone to photoshop.
• 2:35
  Troy: estimate what kids would look like.
• 2:37
  Troy: So, you know, if the kid got kidnapped at three, for instance, they'd be using Photoshop to age a kid up every year.
• 2:43
  Troy: And so, yeah, it broke my heart.
• 2:45
  Troy: But I was also sitting there going, imagine if you saw a photo of yourself on this, like, what would that be like?
• 2:51
  Troy: So it's basically been in my head for years, but I only really started, um, getting into it, maybe, you sort of seven years ago, so eight years ago.
• 3:02
  Troy: And it, um, it went through a few variations.
• 3:06
  Troy: So
• 3:06
  Tina: the month.
• 3:07
  Tina: And
• 3:07
  Troy: is a, you know, this is a YA book with the usual tropes of YA.
• 3:12
  Troy: So it's first person, present tense, You know, teenage voice, all of those sorts of things.
• 3:18
  Troy: But it actually started out as an adult crime novel or psychological thriller.
• 3:23
  Troy: One character in the past, one, one character in the 80s, one character now, two different points of view, very tangly and twisty.
• 3:33
  Troy: And so it started out very, very differently.
• 3:36
  Troy: And, um, and then I was tinkering with it for a couple of years and I went to, um, the Wheeler Centre here in Melbourne.
• 3:46
  Troy: Has like, um, speed dating with publishers and, you know, they run a whole bunch of fantastic events.
• 3:54
  Troy: And yeah, I dunno, maybe six years ago or something, I went to one of them and it was like packed, like absolutely packed.
• 4:01
  Troy: I couldn't see the signs properly that said, What the different cues before.
• 4:06
  Troy: And so basically me and my adult crime psychological thriller, I stood in the YA queue by mistake, and it was so packed.
• 4:14
  Troy: I didn't even know until I was two people away and I could hear what the people in front of me were pitching and I could see the sign.
• 4:23
  Troy: Way down on the desk where no one could see it that said YA.
• 4:26
  Troy: So I had to quickly re jig the pitch in my head.
• 4:31
  Troy: And then, um, so I pitched it, the publisher that was there quite liked.
• 4:36
  Troy: So I pitched it as a YA, sorry, the publisher that was there quite liked it.
• 4:40
  Troy: She gave me her card.
• 4:41
  Troy: Apparently she wasn't doing that with everyone.
• 4:44
  Troy: And so I had to, and she said, send me the full thing.
• 4:47
  Troy: So I had to go and finish the book cause it wasn't finished and but rewrite it as a YA novel.
• 4:54
  Troy: So, um, so yeah, it's had this kind of long gestation, but it's also morphed back and forth into all of these different things.
• 5:04
  Troy: So yeah.
• 5:05
  Troy: Um, so yeah, about seven, eight years, really.
• 5:10
  Tina: Yeah, it's had its journey though, but it probably needed to go through that to get where it is.
• 5:15
  Tina: Right.
• 5:15
  Tina: Like
• 5:15
  Troy: Yeah, I
• 5:17
  Tina: experience.
• 5:18
  Troy: yeah, once I stripped away, once I only had one character's point of view, once I only had the present, rather than also trapped in the 80s, because I said it in the 80s because it was easier to kidnap people back then.
• 5:33
  Tina: It was much easier.
• 5:34
  Tina: No mobile phones just to track people down.
• 5:36
  Tina: Yeah.
• 5:37
  Troy: But even things like, um, banks weren't networked, police records weren't networked, files, anything like that.
• 5:45
  Troy: So, um, yeah, so it's just a lot easier to kind of kidnap someone and just disappear and change your identity.
• 5:53
  Troy: So anyway, blah, blah, blah, I turn it into a YA book.
• 5:56
  Troy: And once I did that, Um, I think I found the right voice for the story, and it all came together quite well.
• 6:03
  Tina: Yeah.
• 6:05
  Tina: And so once you did that and you changed it and it came together, what point did you decide though, now this is ready.
• 6:12
  Tina: Cause that's what a lot of people struggle with is the either sending it too soon or spending too much time just tinkering.
• 6:20
  Troy: Mm.
• 6:21
  Troy: I think that, um, once that publisher had been interested, um, And I turned it into a YA thing.
• 6:32
  Troy: When I sent it back to her, she had moved on and had moved out of publishing entirely.
• 6:37
  Troy: And so what that situation had given me was I had a finished draft YA novel.
• 6:46
  Troy: And I felt like the earlier parts were stronger than the latter parts because they were the parts I'd written quite quickly to finish it for her.
• 6:54
  Troy: And so I started looking at writing competitions because they often only want the first.
• 7:01
  Troy: Three chapters or the first 000 words or whatever.
• 7:05
  Troy: And so, um, yeah, so I don't know that I thought it was ready.
• 7:10
  Troy: Um, I don't think it was, it was far from, you know, fully cooked or anything, but I felt like the premise and, um, the characters voices, and at least the beginning of the book were relatively strong.
• 7:25
  Troy: So I just thought I'll try and give these competitions a crack and I mean, as you know, but you know, there's various ways.
• 7:34
  Troy: You know, some people send stuff straight off to publishers and some people focus on competitions or some people try to get an, an agent.
• 7:42
  Troy: And I think I just, I went through the.
• 7:46
  Troy: Um, I went through the competition thing first.
• 7:48
  Troy: I felt like it's such a Australia's publishing market is quite small, but it's also, you know, full of people competing all the time.
• 7:57
  Troy: And I felt like maybe winning a competition or getting shortlisted in a competition or a prize would be a good way to get noticed.
• 8:05
  Troy: And so that's what I did.
• 8:07
  Troy: And the process from there was essentially I entered a bunch of competitions and I got a place, um, in the, I don't think it exists anymore, but it used to be called the Hachette Manuscript Development Program.
• 8:22
  Troy: So it was run by Hachette and the Queensland Writer Centre.
• 8:26
  Troy: It was this brilliant program where they choose about, I don't know, maybe eight people, but yeah, and they take you away for a weekend and you meet the publisher and editors and agents and distributors and you learn about publishing.
• 8:41
  Troy: And so it was really valuable.
• 8:43
  Troy: And the agent who was represent, who was, at that, um, that weekend, that program, um, her and I got on well.
• 8:52
  Troy: And so she was the one who ultimately started to represent me.
• 8:56
  Troy: And so to answer the original question 10 years ago about when did I think it was ready?
• 9:02
  Troy: Once she'd had a look at it, she had thoughts.
• 9:06
  Troy: And so I did a bunch of additional work.
• 9:10
  Troy: And then it was with her advice.
• 9:12
  Troy: that I decided that it was, that we decided that it was ready to send out to, to publishers.
• 9:19
  Troy: So that's how
• 9:20
  Tina: Okay.
• 9:20
  Troy: happened.
• 9:21
  Tina: So there's a lot there and so much that's helpful though, I think, for emerging writers.
• 9:26
  Tina: I love the competitions.
• 9:27
  Tina: I mean, I've, my competitions are how I got my publishing deal as well.
• 9:32
  Tina: Um, but it's the experience, just the experience of it.
• 9:35
  Tina: Some of them give you feedback as well, which is incredible.
• 9:37
  Tina: So it's all learning.
• 9:39
  Tina: Um, you
• 9:40
  Troy: might also add that when you're submitting to competitions, they usually want, this is the hard thing, I think, you know, they want the first 10 words, whatever.
• 9:50
  Troy: And so it's easy to refine those and make them good.
• 9:55
  Troy: But I reckon the hard bit is they always ask for synopsis and you have to write out the whole book and, and it tends to be.
• 10:03
  Troy: You know, it's very much sort of so and so did so and so and like, it sets out the plot, but there's no nuance.
• 10:11
  Troy: There's no, it's, it's a very tricky thing to write.
• 10:14
  Troy: I find anyway, it's
• 10:16
  Tina: if you haven't written it
• 10:18
  Troy: Yeah.
• 10:19
  Tina: well, I really upset Madeline the other day when I told her that sometimes I will have a crack at writing the synopsis first when I've, um, when I haven't finished it.
• 10:27
  Tina: Because I actually do find for me, it can help me plot, so I can get to the ends.
• 10:33
  Tina: a bit quicker, but also help me make sure I'm hitting those, you know, peaks and troughs that you're supposed to.
• 10:38
  Tina: And what is actually the big, you know, uh, reveal or whatever at the end, because if what I've got in my head, sometimes what I have in my head or my little notes that I jot down, um, when I come to writing in a synopsis, I go, well, that actually isn't that good.
• 10:52
  Tina: Like that there was no major climax there.
• 10:55
  Tina: Like that was pretty boring.
• 10:55
  Tina: So instead of, you know, wasting 20, 000 words, I just sort of like to take it back a bit and go, okay, Where are you going?
• 11:02
  Tina: So I think that having to write a synopsis, like you said, for a competition, um, can be helpful.
• 11:07
  Tina: And look, it, it can change, you know, if someone decides to pick up your book and it's only got 10, 000 words in the synopsis and you haven't written the rest yet, and it does take a change, you know, Um, you know, they're supporting you already, so I'm sure there'll be on board with that.
• 11:22
  Tina: And you actually also made another really good comment about, um, you know, someone like the agent and the publishers making suggestions for how it should change, I guess, or, and, um, you know, cause we asked the same question of Ruby Ashby Orr, who's the publisher at a firm.
• 11:41
  Tina: And, uh, you know, she said the same thing.
• 11:44
  Tina: Sometimes there can be some major changes.
• 11:46
  Tina: If that premise.
• 11:47
  Tina: is really good.
• 11:48
  Tina: That hook is amazing.
• 11:50
  Tina: And even if the first, you know, third is incredibly written and the rest needs some work, if it's got, if the premise is great and the voice is great and they know that you can write, they will be happy to take you on still.
• 12:02
  Tina: So, you know, definitely try not to have all silly typos that makes it look like you haven't polished it, but you know, and know where you're going with it, but yeah,
• 12:10
  Troy: You want it to be the best it can be before it goes anywhere.
• 12:14
  Troy: But yeah, I, I'd agree with that.
• 12:16
  Troy: I think if they say that they, yeah, there's a great printer premise and there's I don't know, that you can string a few sentences together and you do know how to tell a story.
• 12:28
  Troy: They possibly do forgive if the story goes off or loses, loses pace or tension or something like that.
• 12:35
  Troy: I think they can recognize things that are relatively easy to fix with a bit of,
• 12:41
  Tina: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:43
  Tina: So then, did you ever, I was gonna, one of my questions I was going to ask you was how many rejections did you get, but did you ever, ever send, and I mean entering a competition and having assessments where you don't get picked up, it feels like, it feels like kind of getting a rejection sometimes if the publishers are the ones judging it.
• 13:04
  Troy: Yeah, I, I probably, you should know my agent started sending the book out just as COVID hit, so it's all a little bit of a blur.
• 13:13
  Tina: Yeah.
• 13:14
  Troy: I'll have to put a trigger warning at the start of this because I'm mentioning COVID.
• 13:17
  Troy: But I think it, I think the book got probably maybe six rejections, so I think they were from the big five, six publishers in Australia.
• 13:29
  Troy: Um, some are just like, no.
• 13:32
  Troy: Some gave.
• 13:34
  Troy: You know, sort of some constructive feedback and said no, but, Um, what happened there is I think my agent and I had a discussion based on what she was hearing from them and the, um, and the small bits of feedback that we had.
• 13:51
  Troy: And I think.
• 13:53
  Troy: The sense was that it perhaps it needed to be a little bit more traditional.
• 13:57
  Troy: So I went back and rewrote certainly the second half, but bits of the first half as well, and turned it into much more of a kind of.
• 14:08
  Troy: um, teen Agatha Christie kind of thing.
• 14:11
  Troy: So very much following the sort of detective mystery tropes and structure and just, you know, um, and I think she felt that worked.
• 14:24
  Troy: My agent felt that that worked because YA appeals to adults as well, but that sort of, you know, the lovely whodunit element, that can, like, crime books have a certain sort of structure by and large, and so that's relatively easy to follow, and you just.
• 14:43
  Troy: Yeah.
• 14:44
  Troy: So it's quite easy to do that and you build tension and you know, there are more bodies or new clues or whatever, but you you've got a way to get you through the middle of a book, which can often sort of sag, cause not a lot's happening.
• 14:57
  Troy: And you also need to be able to sort of pull off of a reveal, I suppose, if you've done it.
• 15:04
  Troy: So, um, I did all of that.
• 15:07
  Troy: And, um, once I did that, that's when the book got picked up.
• 15:11
  Troy: So I think, um, maybe, um,
• 15:15
  Tina: hmm.
• 15:19
  Troy: style of writing, but I think once my book became a bit more traditional in terms of like a rhyme book, then I think it was easier for the publisher to go, Oh, okay.
• 15:31
  Troy: Yeah.
• 15:31
  Troy: I know what this is now.
• 15:32
  Troy: I know which shelf this will sit on the bookshelf, or I know the audience for this book because it's, it's YA.
• 15:39
  Troy: But it's crime and a lot of adults by crime.
• 15:43
  Troy: And so, um, sorry, a lot of adults by YA.
• 15:46
  Troy: And so, yeah, I think once they saw it as a more traditional crime story, it suddenly became easier.
• 15:53
  Troy: And so, I'm not saying my advice is to, um, do anything like that per se.
• 16:00
  Troy: But I think when you are trying to sell something to a publisher, you need to be able to explain what sort of book it is, what genre it is, what audience, you know, what books it is.
• 16:11
  Troy: you know, what books are similar that sell well.
• 16:14
  Troy: And I think that makes it easier for the publisher to go, yeah, I know exactly where that, I know what that book is.
• 16:20
  Troy: I know who will buy it.
• 16:22
  Troy: I know where it'll sit in a bookshop.
• 16:24
  Tina: Yeah, no, that's a, that's good advice it make it as easy as possible for them.
• 16:27
  Tina: Just paint the picture in their mind.
• 16:30
  Tina: So, so even though they didn't, the book didn't get picked up initially by, you know, five or six other publishers, you feel that that information and the feedback that they gave was what turned it into what it is, which got it picked up in the end.
• 16:43
  Troy: Um, I think that was more about a discussion with, um, my agent.
• 16:50
  Troy: And I, and part of that, I think, is because it was trigger warning COVID, um, I was, for whatever reason, reading lots of Agatha Christie books.
• 17:01
  Troy: And so I just sort of, it seemed like a relatively natural thing to do.
• 17:07
  Troy: But like, yeah, like I said, the feedback wasn't very positive.
• 17:11
  Troy: direct from publishers, but there was a sense, I think, that they weren't quite sure what this was.
• 17:17
  Troy: So a comment, so yeah, it was kind of a, it was kind of a combination.
• 17:22
  Tina: Yeah.
• 17:22
  Tina: So it helped you with your pitch towards the end maybe.
• 17:25
  Tina: Yeah.
• 17:26
  Tina: So in saying all that, so rejection, we all know is just par for the course.
• 17:31
  Tina: As a writer, you have to go through it.
• 17:33
  Tina: Do you have any advice for emerging authors or people who are currently in the querying process and getting rejections?
• 17:39
  Tina: How, how do we deal with it?
• 17:42
  Troy: Um, uh, none of us like rejections that much, do we?
• 17:46
  Troy: It sort of stabs at your heart, doesn't it?
• 17:49
  Troy: No talent.
• 17:50
  Troy: But
• 17:51
  Tina: doing?
• 17:51
  Tina: I'm gonna give up writing.
• 17:52
  Tina: I can't write.
• 17:54
  Troy: I think that, um, yeah, it's like, I don't know.
• 18:00
  Troy: I think the only thing I could say is that it's just so much luck.
• 18:04
  Troy: You can be the most amazing writer in the world, but what you need, and yeah, what you need is just one person to like it.
• 18:16
  Troy: And to want to run with it.
• 18:17
  Troy: And that's this weird combination of sending it out at the right time and it landing on the, the right desk at the right time at the right publisher.
• 18:27
  Troy: And it depends what else is going on in the market or what is perhaps happening in overseas markets that they feel will influence the domestic market.
• 18:35
  Troy: So there's so many things going on.
• 18:37
  Troy: You, you can't, it's so easy to say this, but you can't take it personally.
• 18:41
  Tina: Mm.
• 18:42
  Tina: Yeah.
• 18:43
  Troy: Like you really, you can't.
• 18:45
  Troy: It's like.
• 18:46
  Troy: It's not you, it's them.
• 18:48
  Tina: Mm-hmm Yeah, of course.
• 18:49
  Tina: Always always
• 18:51
  Troy: yeah, I don't know.
• 18:53
  Tina: Yes.
• 18:53
  Troy: Grab a drink, feel, sorry, feel the feelings of feeling sorry for yourself for an hour and then just work out the next person to send it to,
• 19:01
  Tina: that's right.
• 19:02
  Tina: Suck it up and keep on going.
• 19:03
  Tina: That's That's all my advice to, um, okay.
• 19:08
  Tina: So, uh, practically was there any courses or, um, any of.
• 19:14
  Tina: Could you name some of the competitions?
• 19:16
  Tina: I know you said the Hachette one's not around anymore, but any other competitions that you entered that you found particularly helpful or even any reading material or podcasts or anything that you listened to that helped you along the way?
• 19:28
  Troy: Yeah, um I did, at the Wheeler's, I think the other state based writer centres or the Australian writer centres do this too, I did a course called like a year of the novel in Melbourne and that was, I can't remember if you met four or five times, but you know, you learnt a bunch, you went away for seven weeks and you came back together with a group of people, but it, it just kind of, you know, I don't know, it legitimized it in a way you couldn't, you had to, um, I mean, you didn't have to show your work necessarily, but it did make you a bit accountable and I think committing to a year was a good way of doing it.
• 20:14
  Troy: So I found that really useful.
• 20:16
  Troy: The other thing that was useful that came from that was that I, there were several of us in that group that got on well and we formed a writing group.
• 20:26
  Troy: And.
• 20:27
  Troy: If anyone listening wants to be published and isn't in a writing group, my advice would be get one as soon as you can.
• 20:35
  Troy: Find one somewhere because they're of enormous value and support.
• 20:40
  Troy: You go through everything together.
• 20:43
  Troy: You can share work and yeah, give advice.
• 20:46
  Troy: So, um, yeah, but so there was a year of the novel course.
• 20:50
  Troy: I think there was a couple more courses.
• 20:52
  Troy: I don't know.
• 20:53
  Troy: Because this is all seven, eight years ago.
• 20:54
  Troy: I don't know that they exist anymore, but there was one about pitching to publishers, which was
• 20:59
  Tina: Silence.
• 21:02
  Tina: Silence.
• 21:04
  Tina: Silence.
• 21:07
  Troy: your book into, you know, pithy sentences and, and practicing, and then eventually pitching it to a real publisher, which was terrifying.
• 21:16
  Troy: Um, I,
• 21:18
  Tina: hmm.
• 21:21
  Troy: with the Australia Writer's Centre, which I think still exists, called something along the lines of, um, how to survive the saggy middle, which is literally about The middle section of your writing a novel, the middle section can be really tricky because you know, you've done all the setup, you know how it's going to end, but how do you, organically through character, move the plot forward towards its conclusion without getting there too soon.
• 21:50
  Troy: So that was really useful.
• 21:52
  Troy: Um, with the competitions, I got a list of the, all of the competitions for whatever year from, um, I guess the Victorian Writers Centre.
• 22:04
  Troy: And I bunged them in a spreadsheet, and I entered everyone for a year that I was eligible to enter.
• 22:12
  Troy: And so, you know, so the big ones, you know, so most states have sort of like a Premier's Literary Award, and they often have an unpublished section, um, and specific YA ones and different things like that.
• 22:25
  Troy: So Yeah.
• 22:26
  Troy: I, I did get that Hachette.
• 22:29
  Troy: Gig, but I probably entered talking about rejection.
• 22:33
  Troy: I probably entered about 20 competitions and the Hachette thing was the first thing that came up.
• 22:39
  Troy: So I, I didn't, you know, that was a part in a program with other people.
• 22:42
  Troy: It wasn't like a prize or anything.
• 22:44
  Troy: I mean, it was fantastic, but it wasn't, do you know what I mean?
• 22:47
  Troy: You're not suddenly a prize winner that you, that makes it easy to go out to publishers and say, I won the FNAF and our prize.
• 22:54
  Tina: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:56
  Tina: No, but that's super important.
• 22:58
  Tina: It's also building your community because you're probably working with, you know, all amazing, great writers in there, in that group as well, plus exposure to, you know, publishing industry professionals and just everything that you learned from it.
• 23:11
  Tina: It's also important.
• 23:12
  Tina: Um, so definitely that message of, And I think that's a really good way to put your work out there is hugely important.
• 23:18
  Tina: Isn't it?
• 23:18
  Tina: Okay.
• 23:18
  Tina: Well, So what we'll do is we'll put all the show, um, all the links to those competitions in the show notes too.
• 23:26
  Tina: If anybody wants to just quickly go to the show notes and have a look to see if any of those, uh, competitions are still around and to enter it as well and make yourself a spreadsheet like Troy did and just start working your way down from the top.
• 23:38
  Tina: I have,
• 23:39
  Troy: become this person?
• 23:39
  Troy: I don't know.
• 23:40
  Tina: have one too.
• 23:41
  Tina: Troy, don't worry.
• 23:42
  Tina: I have one as well.
• 23:44
  Tina: Um, Yeah.
• 23:46
  Tina: Okay.
• 23:46
  Tina: So now tell me, how did you feel, uh, seeing your book on the shelf for the very first time?
• 23:51
  Tina: Yep.
• 24:13
  Troy: bookshops, but there's still something about it that doesn't seem quite real until you're in a shop.
• 24:20
  Troy: And it's like there.
• 24:23
  Troy: So yeah, that's amazing.
• 24:25
  Troy: And I suspect for a lot of writers, it's a sort of strange little moment they've probably thought about in their heads since they were like seven or eight or something.
• 24:35
  Troy: When you, at that point, when you stop, when you realize people actually write books, you know how like when you're really young, you just read books.
• 24:43
  Troy: Cause.
• 24:43
  Troy: They are books and you read them, but at some point you get old enough to go, Oh, someone wrote this.
• 24:50
  Troy: And you start thinking about what it would be, yeah, what, what it would be like to write a book.
• 24:55
  Troy: And so I guess, yeah, that first time taps into all of that stuff.
• 24:59
  Tina: Yeah, that's exciting.
• 25:01
  Tina: I get shivers thinking about
• 25:02
  Troy: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:03
  Tina: It sounds a bit surreal and like a dream.
• 25:06
  Troy: Oh, it is very, very surreal.
• 25:10
  Troy: And if you've got a marketing brain, dear God, take someone with you to film it.
• 25:15
  Troy: Because
• 25:16
  Tina: Yeah, right.
• 25:16
  Tina: Okay.
• 25:17
  Tina: Oh,
• 25:18
  Troy: I didn't.
• 25:19
  Tina: yeah.
• 25:20
  Troy: But I wish I had.
• 25:21
  Troy: So yeah, it's a thing.
• 25:25
  Tina: how long did it take you before someone thought they should point out a typo that they found in your book?
• 25:30
  Troy: Ah, really quick.
• 25:31
  Troy: Yeah.
• 25:33
  Tina: Because they're always there, aren't they?
• 25:35
  Tina: Yep.
• 25:38
  Tina: Mm
• 25:41
  Troy: written so many drafts of it yourself and made all of these changes that you would never, you'd never notice typos, but you've got an editor that I know my book had two different proofreaders.
• 25:54
  Troy: So not one definitely had two and yeah.
• 25:57
  Troy: And still, um, someone took What I felt like was an unnecessary amount of glee in
• 26:04
  Tina: Yep.
• 26:05
  Troy: in the meld.
• 26:06
  Tina: Yep.
• 26:07
  Troy: Yeah, I think there were like three and one of them was like, yeah, I think that's more, I think that's more of a, uh, grammatical gray area than an error.
• 26:19
  Troy: But yeah, nah, look, it happens.
• 26:21
  Troy: It hurts, but it happens.
• 26:22
  Troy: I did have a friend who found, um, a glaring error on page one.
• 26:29
  Troy: And they were just horrified.
• 26:34
  Troy: Like went and hid underground for a week.
• 26:37
  Troy: Like they would just.
• 26:38
  Troy: yeah.
• 26:41
  Tina: quite a while.
• 26:42
  Tina: I don't want to know.
• 26:43
  Tina: I don't want to know.
• 26:45
  Tina: Oh no.
• 26:46
  Tina: Okay.
• 26:47
  Tina: Well I'm prepared.
• 26:47
  Tina: I'm preparing myself because it's amazing how many people can read these, you know, um, this manuscript and, you know, there's only so much your human eye picks up, hey.
• 27:00
  Troy: Absolutely.
• 27:01
  Tina: So on that and getting feedback, do you read your Goodreads reviews?
• 27:05
  Troy: Um, I do, but not, um, not religiously.
• 27:10
  Troy: And again, I know people who have, um, yeah, just like being overwhelmed by how wonderful and Goodreads reviews have been.
• 27:22
  Troy: But I also, you know, know a couple of writers who have.
• 27:26
  Troy: read some devastating reviews on Goodreads and had to put their head in a bucket of wine afterwards to cope.
• 27:33
  Troy: And so, yeah, I take it all with a grain of salt.
• 27:38
  Troy: I think that, um, yeah, I don't know.
• 27:42
  Troy: I think, um, some of the friends I know that have had more negative reviews have written more sort of, I don't know, polemic, um, complex books than I have.
• 27:57
  Troy: So, yeah, The response to mine has been really positive.
• 28:01
  Troy: And so I'm, um, yeah, but genuinely I wouldn't have looked for like a couple of months, but I did say, I mean, I also, for anyone who does get a bad Goodreads review, I would say a friend of mine got a, a one, cause I don't think he can get a no star.
• 28:22
  Troy: I think they got a one star review for their book.
• 28:25
  Troy: And the reviewer put, I was so disgusted by the subject matter and the blurb that I put the book back on the shelf.
• 28:32
  Troy: And I thought, wow, but you felt the need to jump on Goodreads and slag the book off without having read it.
• 28:38
  Troy: I just thought, so Yeah, I just, you have to remember that.
• 28:43
  Troy: A variety of people are writing reviews for a variety of reasons.
• 28:47
  Tina: Yeah, that's right.
• 28:49
  Troy: Grain of salt.
• 28:50
  Tina: Good to keep that in mind.
• 28:52
  Tina: Now, very excitingly, there is actually going to be a second book in Gus's journey, isn't there?
• 28:57
  Tina: And so this is really exciting news.
• 28:59
  Tina: Um, how did that come about?
• 29:01
  Tina: Was that the plan?
• 29:03
  Troy: Um, I'd love to say it was, I mean, it was the hope.
• 29:09
  Tina: Yeah.
• 29:10
  Troy: When I wrote the first one, I left a few things kind of dangling so that they could be picked up.
• 29:18
  Troy: if there was going to be a sort of sequel, a second book and with YA books, um, um, yeah, particularly a lot of teenage readers really enjoy reading a series.
• 29:31
  Troy: And so, um, it was in the back of my mind and there was no reason why there couldn't be, but you also unassume, I had a book deal for one book and really the thing that was going to get me a second book deal was the fact that the first one.
• 29:50
  Troy: did well enough to warrant that, I suppose.
• 29:52
  Troy: So, I didn't know, um, I didn't know whether it was going to happen or not.
• 29:57
  Troy: And also, I didn't want to write a sequel if no one wanted it.
• 30:02
  Troy: So I actually started writing something completely different, like an adult crime novel.
• 30:06
  Troy: Um, but anyway, so the
• 30:09
  Tina: show
• 30:11
  Troy: Boys sold well enough.
• 30:13
  Troy: Um, I don't really know the figures, but it, it, um, it sold well enough.
• 30:18
  Troy: Um, there's been, you know, pretty positive reviews about it.
• 30:23
  Troy: And I've been able to go to a, a few sort of writers festivals and different things, but I also think, um, like timing is everything.
• 30:31
  Troy: So it got shortlisted for the Ned Kelly's cri, the Ned Kelly awards.
• 30:35
  Troy: So they, their awards for crime writing and for a ya book to be included amongst those.
• 30:43
  Troy: Um, so these were for first books, the debuts, but um, for a YA book to be included with all the adult crime, um, was quite a big deal.
• 30:52
  Troy: And so I think that helped.
• 30:55
  Troy: But, um, uh, yeah, I think the whole process was good, like, Wakefield were lovely to work with, and so I think because we probably collectively enjoyed that process, that helped.
• 31:10
  Troy: The book, Like I said, seemed to sell well and was positively reviewed, et cetera, et cetera.
• 31:16
  Troy: So it all sort of came together.
• 31:18
  Troy: So I was very lucky that all of those things came together to get me that second book deal.
• 31:23
  Tina: Yeah, that's really exciting.
• 31:24
  Tina: And did you have a, so you sort of had a plan for it anyway, or was it hard to then go, Oh, okay.
• 31:29
  Tina: I have to, I
• 31:30
  Troy: No, I, I, um, well, a bit like a competition I had, I wrote the first book.
• 31:36
  Troy: 30, I think 30, 000 words and a detailed synopsis of what the second book would be, gave that to them and they offered me a book contract based on that.
• 31:48
  Troy: So it wasn't just, Oh, give us another one of them.
• 31:51
  Troy: Like I did have to demonstrate.
• 31:54
  Tina: yes, yeah, that you, you had an idea and could produce it.
• 31:57
  Tina: Oh, that's
• 31:57
  Troy: Yeah.
• 31:58
  Tina: Congratulations.
• 31:59
  Tina: Are we allowed to know what it's called or is it still under wraps?
• 32:01
  Troy: Um, no, it's called Gus and the burning stones.
• 32:04
  Troy: And so whilst the first one is all sort of about.
• 32:09
  Troy: unpacking a cold case kidnap.
• 32:11
  Troy: This one is about Gus and his mates end up with this off the grid community where there's a circle of stones, a bunch of strange people and the dead body.
• 32:22
  Tina: Oh,
• 32:23
  Troy: So yeah, so that's two out.
• 32:27
  Troy: Hopefully July next year, so that'll be exciting.
• 32:30
  Tina: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 32:31
  Tina: Ah, can't wait to see it.
• 32:33
  Tina: Okay.
• 32:34
  Tina: And finally, Troy, what is your top tip for aspiring or emerging authors?
• 32:40
  Troy: Probably a few, isn't there?
• 32:41
  Troy: I think my main one, it's the one that always sticks with me and resonates with me, is I just think, finish something.
• 32:49
  Troy: Just finish it because it doesn't matter how bad you think it is.
• 32:54
  Troy: Everyone's first draft is terrible, and sloppy, and yeah, but By finishing something, you learn how to write a book from beginning to end, including the structural difficulties, um, that thing where, you know, there are times when the story doesn't seem to be moving at all, or you see all of that, you can't see that until you've written a whole book.
• 33:24
  Troy: And so, Yeah, I think genuinely, if you can finish, finish something, that's like, you're ahead of like 80, 90 percent of aspiring writers because many, many people never finish the books that they want to write.
• 33:42
  Troy: Um, and so if you do that, you're streets ahead of most people already.
• 33:47
  Troy: And then you've got something tangible to sort of work with.
• 33:49
  Troy: I don't know.
• 33:50
  Troy: Someone really famous who escapes me said writing is rewriting.
• 33:54
  Troy: And it really is.
• 33:55
  Troy: It's like, You know, bash out the story, but finish.
• 33:59
  Troy: Bash it out from beginning to finish and then rewrite it.
• 34:02
  Troy: So that's probably.
• 34:05
  Tina: yeah,
• 34:05
  Troy: And get a writing group.
• 34:08
  Tina: they are awesome tips.
• 34:09
  Troy: Writers groups are amazing.
• 34:10
  Tina: Writer's groups, entering some competitions, getting your name out there, yeah, and finishing something isn't it?
• 34:17
  Tina: Like don't, don't be spending too much time entering competitions or just going to writer's groups without writing the words down, right Troy?
• 34:23
  Tina: Okay, so
• 34:24
  Troy: that's right.
• 34:24
  Troy: We talked about that, didn't we?
• 34:25
  Troy: Don't be your life with writing adjacent things and not write.
• 34:30
  Tina: hmm,
• 34:31
  Troy: Write first, but have a writers group where you share your work or enter competitions where you're refining your work to enter into those competitions.
• 34:41
  Troy: So.
• 34:42
  Troy: Writing first, but yeah.
• 34:44
  Tina: Yeah, that's awesome advice.
• 34:46
  Tina: Thank you so much, Troy.
• 34:47
  Tina: That's, your episode's going to help so many aspiring authors, I can tell.
• 34:51
  Troy: Oh, well, I hope there was something useful in there.
• 34:54
  Tina: It definitely is.
• 34:55
  Tina: Oh, so much.
• 34:56
  Tina: Thank you, Troy.
• 34:56
  Tina: Really appreciate you coming on the show.
• 34:58
  Tina: Yeah,
• 34:59
  Troy: thank you for having me.
• 35:00
  Troy: It was a lot of fun.