If you’re an author interested in contributing a Behind the Scene post, or a publisher/publicist keen to get your authors involved, I’d love to hear from you! I’ve put together an overview below of what I’m aiming for with these posts, so hopefully this will give you all the information you need. If not though, please just get in touch and let me know what you need.
What is a Behind the Scene post?
I always love getting a glimpse behind the curtain of any creative process, and I’m a big fan of anything that gives a little bit of insight into an author’s approach or mindset. The idea of Behind the Scene is to invite you as an author to give readers that glimpse of how you work, and how you think about your writing.
Think of a Behind the Scene post as an ‘excerpt + author commentary’ post – just choose a scene from your book, and talk about it in whatever way appeals to you. That could be exploring what went into the events of that scene, what you wanted to achieve, why you made certain choices or focused on particular characters…or basically whatever you’re interested in discussing. Have a read of some of the existing BTS posts to get a sense of how other authors have approached them!
For readers
What should a Behind the Scene post offer readers? Well the commentary should give a reader some kind of insight into the scene in question, something that’s interesting and encourages them to want to read on. Exactly what that should be is up to you, as long as it explores some element of your writing process or mindset. The excerpt then allows the reader to check out the scene with that in mind (although it doesn’t have to be in that order – it could go excerpt first and then commentary), whetting their appetite for the book as a whole. Hopefully they should come away from the article knowing a bit more about you as an author, and keen to get hold of your book.
For authors
The idea from an author’s perspective is that by providing some kind of insight and interest, you’re giving readers a glimpse of who you are and what you do that will encourage them to want to know more…and to go out and buy your books!
I think an obvious use of this sort of post is as a way of promoting new or upcoming books, giving readers a little more detail than they might get with just an excerpt, and hopefully encouraging pre-orders. It doesn’t have to just be about new books though, as this is an interesting way of coming back to books a little later on in their publication lifecycle. By focusing on your craft, it’s as much about you as it is a specific book.
Guidelines
Hopefully this sounds like something you would be interested in putting together. If so, here are some FAQs based on conversations I’ve had with authors and publicists while working on previous articles.
Commentary
Essentially, I’m happy to be flexible in terms of what exactly you want to talk about, so I’d encourage you to think of what you would find interesting to talk about. Something about your writing process? About particular characters, or locations, or themes, or ideas that you’re exploring? If you’re interested in writing about it, readers will probably be interested in reading about it.
Excerpt
The excerpt could be the opening chapter(s) of your book, but it doesn’t have to be. In part it’s going to be down to what you want to talk about in the commentary, although I appreciate that in some instances you might be constrained by what your publisher is happy to use, or what you have available to share.
Length
Again, I’m happy to be flexible here. In general I’d suggest aiming for around 500 to 1,000 words for the commentary, to make sure you can dig into whatever idea(s) you’re exploring. As for the excerpt, somewhere in the region of 1,000 to 2,000 words feels about right. Don’t be put off if you’ve got loads to talk about though – always better to write more, and we can trim things down if need be.
Process
If you’re interested, get in touch through one of the usual channels, whether that’s email, through the website or on social media. If you can come prepared with a scene and an idea of what you’d like to discuss, that would be great, but if you want to chat about it first and bounce ideas around then that’s fine too.
Timeframe
If it’s for a forthcoming book, let me know the release date and when you would ideally like the post to go out. If not, I’m still happy to work around your schedule if you have other publicity arranged, or I can get the post out just whenever it’s ready and there’s a suitable slot.
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If you would like to get in touch about a Behind the Scene post, you can reach me by email, using my website’s contact form, or on Twitter or Instagram.