Who we are and the name of our book:
Hi I’m Alison – one half of the writing team, Lambert Nagle, whic is the pen name of co-authors Alison Ripley Cubitt and Sean Cubitt. We are mainstreamed published in our own names but have chosen to indie publish our first co-written international thriller, Revolution Earth.
About Revolution Earth
Stephen Connor, trainee Metropolitan Police detective is first on the scene when a cyclist is killed in a seemingly ordinary hit-and-run.
Just another tragedy on a London street?
The dead girl’s soulmate, Cara, howls at the injustice of a system that allows the killer to walk free. Much to Cara’s fury, nothing seems to trouble Big Oil PR guru Greg Palmer. When she flees halfway across the world to confront him, Stephen is one step behind.
Can Stephen protect Cara from a group of charismatic eco-terrorists, who try to lure her in?
As a publicity stunt at a major oil refinery goes wrong, who will be there when Cara finds out that the target she cared so passionately about had simply moved?
Against a backdrop of London, New Zealand, Antarctica and Australia, the race begins….
The inspiration for this story:
I used to drive to work every day past a vast oil refinery. Lit up at night it looked wonderfully atmospheric – like a cross between the set of the movie, Bladerunner and a Christmas tree. I began to think what a great location it would be for a thriller. In 2000 we moved from the UK to live and work in New Zealand and Australia. During our research I was astonished to find out that in a World Heritage Area in Australia’s far north, Kakadu National Park, a beautiful wilderness and what I thought was a pristine environment, was one of the world’s largest working uranium mines. We flew five hours from where we lived to check it out for ourselves.
How we are marketing this book:
We are using a combination of word of mouth, author interviews and reviews, Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads to get the word out there. It is a challenge for books set in far away countries to be noticed and Australia is a 14 hour plane ride away from the US and 20 hours from the UK. But, as the themes in the book are universal, we hope you’ll let our book take you to these far away places.
In November 2011 we discovered the writing critique website, Authonomy and the support and critique from our fellow Authonomites gave us the confidence and push to indie publish. We don’t see the traditional versus indie publishing debate as an “either or” situation.
We had sent our book out to over 20 agents in the UK and Australia and six times we we were asked for full manuscripts. We got agonisingly close with one big, global agency and a second agent wants to see our second novel. We continue to submit to agents and publishers but believe there is everything to gain and nothing to lose by indie publishing.
When we first published I flitted from one social network to the other, without taking the time to get to know how any of them really worked. I was guilty, I think, of imagining marketing as a sprint when a much better approach is to treat it as a marathon.
What is the best way to market your work?
I think you have to find something that you enjoy and I have found I really like taking part in author interviews to grow our audience. I am keen to write guest blog posts too as I would enjoy that. But the other major factor in marketing our work is to write our second book, an international thriller focusing on the European art world.
Revolution Earth is available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008AK7AV4
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/lambertnagle http://www.facebook.com/lambert.nagle www.goodreads.com/author/show/6428234.Lambert_Nagle
