June issue

AMAZON thegiantawakes?

CROWD FUNDING

FRED STRYDOM

Fame, Fiction & Impending Fatherhood AUTHORS MAGAZINE | 1

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A message from the

Dad’s, we salute you!

The 19th of June marks the day that we celebrate fatherhood, honour paternal bonds and generally give thanks to the most important men in our lives – our dads! Although I don’t get the pleasure of my dad’s company on Father’s Day, him being 11000 kilometres away, in sunny Brisbane, I am thankful to him every single day. I do, however, get to celebrate the third Sunday of June with another very important father: my husband! Being a smart lass, I chose very well, and I am fortunate that in addition to being a fabulous husband, he is also an amazing father to our three children.

From changing dirty diapers to rocking bawling babies to sleep to peeling me gently off the ceiling when the crying was done, he handles everything from growing pains to emergency room visits with the steadfast confidence of a man who knows his wife is simply not equipped to cope, while offering quiet encouragement that boosts all of our spirits.

And yet, in amongst these medal-worthy displays of perfect parenting, there is one thing that he does that stands out above the rest. My husband reads to my children. Every. Single. Night.

Not that he is an avid reader himself, or that he enjoys the tales of a dog named Spot, or a tutu-wearing cartoon-mouse called Angelina. But he understands the importance of instilling in our children a love of books. Having an author for a mother, they might be predisposed to think of books as a job – or hard work at the very least – but these precious moments of bonding before bedtime are something they cherish; something I am hoping will stay with them for a lifetime. They will have memories of books, bedtime and the deep baritone voice of their father who, despite the game on the telly, chooses to read to them instead.

While on the subject of fathers, we interviewed daddy-to-be, Fred Strydom, whose debut novel, The Raft has just launched in

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the U.S. Fred and his wife are expecting their first child in July, and while the little angel will just miss this Father’s Day, we are sure there will be plenty to celebrate in the Strydom household in the months to come.

Also in this issue, Dave de Burgh delves into the topic of raising money through Crowd-Funding and Ian Tennent investigates Amazon’s reinvention of the brick and mortar store. The global giant opened their first physical store in November last year and is set to roll out a number of stores across the U.S in the upcoming months. The irony of this next chapter for the online retailer is not lost on those who were put out of business by the decline in physical book sales when Kindle first appeared on the market.

Our International Focus article this month profiles New Zealand writer, Tammy Robinson, who also has a new baby on the way!

Tammy’s contemporary romance novels have delighted readers across the globe and are must-reads for fans of this genre. I can personally recommend Charlie and Pearl, and I have already downloaded When Stars Collide onto my Kindle.

From all of us here at Authors Magazine to all the dads out there, we would like to wish you a Happy Father’s Day! What makes your dad your hero? Tweet us @authorsmag and let us know!

As always, happy reading!

Much Love

Melissa Delport

Contents COVER FEATURE

04

FRED STRYDOM on Fame, Fiction and Impending Fatherhood

ARTICLES

PUBLISHER Lesiba Morallane EDITOR Melissa Delport COPY EDITOR Ian Tennent ADVERTISING COMMUNICATION Dineo Mahloele LAYOUT AND DESIGN Apple Pie Graphics Tel: 079 885 4494

12 18 22 30 33

CROWD FUNDING SELF PUBLISHING IN SOUTH AFRICA Which platform to publish your books on GET CONNECTED AMAZON The Giant Awakes SAIR CHARITY EVENT

REGULARS A Message from the Editor.........................................................02 On The Couch with Thapelo Mokoena.....................................16 Sallys Sanity A Diary of Delirium...........................................................................26 International Focus Budding Authors.............................................................................29 International Focus Tammy Robinson...............................................................................34 Authors Flash....................................................................................36 Justin Fox Mountain Laureate...........................................................................38 Recommended Reads...................................................................40

CONTRIBUTORS Melissa Delport Rachel Morgan Sally Cook Dineo Mahloele Justin Fox Dave de Burgh Tallulah Habib Ian Tennent

AUTHORS MAGAZINE: PO Box 92644, Mooikloof, Pretoria East Email: team@authorsmag.com To advertise online please email team@authorsmag.com or contact Ms Dineo Mahloele on 084 299 6812 DISCLAIMER The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are intended for informational purposes only. Authors Magazine takes no responsibility for the contents for the contents of the advertising material contained herein.

All efforts have been taken to verify the information contained herein, and views expressed are ont necessarily those of Authors Magazine. E&OE

AUTHORS MAGAZINE | 3

FRED STRYDOM on Fame, Fiction and

Impending

fatherhood

4 | AUTHORS MAGAZINE

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Fred Strydom studied Film and Media at the University of Cape Town. He spent three years travelling the Far East and teaching English in South Korea. He has published a number of short stories, including “The Raft�, an acclaimed speculative fiction novel released with Umuzi, Penguin Random House in SA and Talos Press, Skyhorse Publishing in the US. He currently works as a television writer and producer in Johannesburg, and has just about wrapped up his second novel, a twisty Lynch/Hitchcock homage entitled The Inside Out Man. He lives with his wife, three dogs, a cat, and two horses, and is ecstatically impatient to meet his first-born baby boy in July.

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Hot on the heels of the U.S release of his debut novel, The Raft, Melissa Delport caught up with Fred to find out more about the man behind this exceptional story.

Fred, I read and adored The Raft. Not only was it an incredible fictional story, but the writing was, quite simply, a stroke of genius. You managed to write a portion of the book in the second person point of view – a feat not easily accomplished. Did you specifically challenge yourself to do so, or was it a natural progression as the book evolved?

Firstly, thanks so much for having me, and for saying such insanely flattering things. I guess, in answer to your question, I don’t think I ever deliberately go out of my way to challenge myself in that way, just for the sake of it. That would tire me out. I did sort-of think it would be tricky to write in the second person, but more importantly, I knew it was essential to the narrative, so I didn’t really leave myself much of a choice. If you recall, that entire second section of the book is a kind of Russian nesting doll, essentially told by one person, even though he’s recounting it via the direct memories of other narrators within his story. So, basically, it’s a story in a story in a story (and if I’m not mistaken, in one more story at the very pip of it), before we climb back out and the narrative pops back into shape. Therefore, to separate the narrators, I thought it best to jump from first person present, to second person past, to first person past, to second person present, and finally back to first person present – the guy in whose head this is all happening. Yeah?

Shoh. I think that’s right. I’m just glad it seems to have worked.

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Landing a publishing contract with one of the biggest names in publishing is no easy feat for a South African, let alone being signed for an international deal.

Tell me more about your submission process and how The Raft was signed.

Well, I heard a lot of horror stories about the publishing process, and really thought I’d have to hunker down for a few years – y’know, be that guy waving a tatty old script in the air, muttering about a book he once wrote and begging for someone to give him the time of day. Luckily (and I think this is as much to do with the current, rising interest in SA speculative fiction as anything else), I didn’t have to wait too long. Funny thing is, I first submitted it to Penguin, who rejected it. Then I submitted it to Random House, who loved it and took it on. And then, in a delicious little twist, Penguin and Random House joined forces sometime during the whole process, which means I can now slyly boast that I got published on my first attempt. As for the US pick-up, that was done without my knowing by my agent Aoife Lennon-Ritchie. I just responded to an email with a big fat HECK YES and here we are.

Let’s talk about the actual publishing process. How much input did you have in the production of The Raft after it was signed by Umuzi? I’ve heard that often the author’s opinion counts for very little when it comes to things like cover design, editing and overall branding.

Was there anything you weren’t happy with?

You always go in with a handful of fears, don’t you? You have no idea who’s on the other end, and you haven’t quite worked out in your own head how much of it you’d be willing to let go

for the sake of getting it published … but nope, I never had any reason to worry. Umuzi were fantastic from the get-go. They kept me involved all the way through and definitely made me believe (good enough for me) that I had the final say on everything, from cover to layout. The Umuzi cover is actually based on my concept, and I was thrilled they went with it. Edit-wise, once again, I was fully in the loop. Of course, there were discussions about where I could possibly trim, but my editor, the fabulous Maire Fisher, insisted the book remain mostly as I sent it, a move I am forever indebted to her for suggesting and supporting.

Skyhorse released the U.S edition of The Raft last month. Tell us a bit more about what that entails for you? Will you have to travel, or be a part of the marketing drive?

Again, a fantastic experience with full openness and awesomeness all-round.

No plans to fly over just yet, as these days so much publicity and marketing can be done online, but I do have a slew of written interviews to get through from various blogs and on-line publications, and it’s mostly just a timemanagement issue on my side. Thus far, however, the buzz has been exceptional, with the book turning up on a few cool big-name lists and Publishers Weekly nudging things along with that brilliant Starred Review. But I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, huh?

I guess you can’t just pick up and go, given that you still have a day job! You work as a television producer. What exactly does your job entail?

Yeah, my insane alter-ego by day (and

occasionally, very late nights). Without boring anyone to tears, I go in to pitch with various clients, from corporate to government to non-profit, and I script, direct and deliver whatever it is they require, from TV commercials to tourism videos to short stand-alone episodes of whatever. It’s really varied.

We’re currently working on a pretty cool reality show that I’ve come up with, so most of the time I’m just dragging people into boardrooms and using big wavey hands to sell my vision (read: ask for more funding). Bottom line, it’s great being around creative, energetic people with diverse talents. It works in perfect contrast to my other job as a beady-eyed little man in the corner of

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the living room punching buttons in the dark.

It sounds like you keep yourself pretty busy! With that in mind, how long did it take you to write The Raft?

I think I had my first little seed of an idea as far back at 2006, in the last year of my stay in London, but I only got cracking

on it in 2012. It took two-and-a-half years to finish the first, respectable draft, and another six months to have the brilliant author and editor Maire Fisher help me to redefine my definition of “respectable”.

Let’s talk about your writing process. I love the terms ‘plotter’ and ‘pantser’,

for those who plan and map everything out in advance, and those who write on the fly, respectively. Which are you?

You’ve gotta be a bit of both, right? I mean, if you go in as a full plotter, well, you’re probably not going to surprise yourself very much, which makes it just that much harder to surprise anyone else. And if you go in full ‘pantser’, it might be one wild ride, but might also have more plot-holes than a moleinfested garden. If anything, I think my plotting consists mostly of how I’d like the book to feel, rather than aligning the A to B to C of plot. I believe in books as full experiential devices, and if I’ve left you with a set of intended (and maybe even inexplicable) emotions and sensations about what you’ve just read, I’ve done my job. Most of the fiction books I read these days put plot second to experience, and I’m all for that.

Speaking of books you read these days, what is your preferred genre?

The truth is, I grew up reading every piece of fiction I could get my hands on, but I struggle with fiction these days. It’s got to be out there and unpredictable for me to really be drawn in, and it’s probably because I’ve become too surgical about the whole thing. Dissecting and putting everything under the microscope. I know. It blows.

That said, I’m really getting into my nonfiction. ‘Sapiens’ by Yuval Harari blew my mind, and now ‘Evolving Ourselves’

by Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans is just the perfect brain-fuel for writing.

Let’s talk about your other half. I had the pleasure of meeting your wife, Bee, at SABF2015, which you attended as a guest speaker on multiple panels. Bee’s

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entire family turned out to support you.

How proud are your family of what you’ve accomplished?

Ha, yeah, they’re a proud bunch. It’s great to be able to say I’ve never been short of support on the family front, but I do think most of them just kinda look at me funny and wonder where the hell I find the time for any of it. No, but really, they’re all so involved in the experience with me, and now, with Bee and Bee’s whole familial brigade on board for the ride, it’s been better than ever. I also know that many of them don’t read in the genre, so I’m seriously impressed and appreciative of how many of them have ploughed through The Raft (with mostly good things to say!).

So, given that you have a whole plethora of willing readers, who was the first person to read the full draft of The Raft upon its completion?

Bee! It couldn’t have been anyone else.

She’d guided me from the beginning, and became such a guiding force in terms of keeping the story in check and

overall mission on track, that it simply had to be her. Not only that, but she’s read it from start to finish a whopping total of five times.

Bee is a successful entrepreneur in her own right and is a fierce supporter of women in business. How is the dynamic at home – are you equal partners, or does she boss you around?

Bee eats books like cookies. Or Bee eats cookies like books. Whichever it is, Bee is a voracious reader, capable of getting through a book in record time and not missing a single hidden theme or subtext. It’s pretty impressive. It’s also cool then that I get to produce her drug of choice. As for our domestic dynamic, well, let’s just say there’s a Bee who takes on the world, fem-guns blazing with full-on pyrotechnic displays of progressiveness, and there’s a blankyhuggin’ Home Bee. What can I say?

When we’re alone we’re just a dorky guy and a goofy girl, splitting everything down the middle, supplying each other whatever it is we need for the day, and

behaving like bang-average individuals.

It’s chilled, and it really works.

I’m not sure how chilled it’s going to be in a few weeks when you welcome baby Strydom into the household!

How are you feeling about impending fatherhood?

Man, I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s going to be like to see my boy for the first time (oh, yes, we know it’s a boy!). To say I’m thrilled is a silly understatement; the expectation of our little man has rocked us to the core in the most exhilarating and profoundly possible way. I’d say it’s more fear than anxiety though, that’s for sure. There’s a big difference. The fear has begun, a fear that I’ll carry for the rest of my life, but it’s a beautiful fear, I reckon. It’s a fear that carries the weight of intense love and enormous responsibility. Anxiety, however, is a fidgety, useless brand of fear that cripples rather than elevates, so none of that (just yet!). Bottom line, it’s all been amazing.

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I have three kids and everything you’ve just said is so accurate! How do you think having a newborn baby in the house will affect your writing?

We’ll just have to see. That’s the thing; I can’t profess to know how I’m going to feel about anything post-July, so I’m leaving myself open to all-new thoughts and ideas. Of course, books are a big part of our home, so I have no doubt our boy will be raised in an environment conducive to literary appreciation (which will keep me writing, for sure).

I’ve always flirted with the idea of writing a kids’ book of poetry (which I began a couple of years ago), and our son might just give me that muchneeded push to get that done. I also don’t believe in neutering literature for kids – I believe in introducing the full spectrum of emotions in whatever I write – so I look forward to writing stuff that’ll broaden all fronts of his imagination and emotions, from joy to sadness to fear to hope, pretty much in the way Roald Dahl once did for me.

Other than family, fiction and film, you are also passionate about horses and, from what I gather, an accomplished equestrian! How did you get into riding?

Ha, nope. Not me at all. Bee’s the accomplished equestrian and I’m mostly just part of the ground crew Horse Husbands, who are tasked with moving poles and blowing whistles.

Every once in a while I’ll go along for an out-ride (we have two horse, so that works), but I ain’t the one you’re lookin’ for.

Hitchcock homage.” Can you share any more with us about the plot?

I think this one’s going to surprise a couple of people, actually. It’s an entirely different book to The Raft and we’ll just have to see how that plays out in public. I do like to float between genres, so hopefully readers will see the links between the works in terms of the many strange ways I think and write, rather than the genre they believe I should be sitting in. While The Raft was a globe-hopping, interplanetary, futuristic Odyssey, with a host of characters and multiple backstories, The Inside Out Man is a deliberately claustrophobic story, involving no more than four characters in a mansion in the countryside. It’s a little darker too, definitely for a more mature crowd, but I had a helluva time writing it. Basically, the themes are consumption, paranoia, madness and loneliness – y’know, that

sort of light Friday night stuff – with a devilish Faustian bargain to kick things off and a solid helping of Hitchcockian suspense thrown in to boot.

Will this also be published by Umuzi, and when can we expect to read it?

I can’t say anything official on the publishing front yet, as the manuscript is sitting here and there (including with Umuzi), but so far, the response has been great. My agent has also set the wheels in motion on her side, so it’s all thumb-holding and nail-shredding right now.

Well I, for one, hope it comes out sooner rather than later! From all of us here at Authors Magazine, I’d like to say thank you for giving us your time, and to wish you all the best as you welcome baby Strydom into the world in July!

FUN FACTS

about Fred

Hats or Boots? Hats.

Cowboy or Crook? Ooh, both. Has to be both.

Movies or Music? Movies.

Favourite book/author: Haruki Murakami.

Ideal vacation: Beachside. Anything beachside.

Your life anthem (song): “Where is my mind?” by The Pixies.

Personal motto: Frighten, enlighten and entertain.

You have just finished writing your second novel, The Inside Out Man, which you describe as a “twisty Lynch/

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Greatest personal achievement: Having my own little family.

Greatest professional achievement: All this book stuff.

Read an excerpt...

Here’s a teensy-weensy exclusive, never-before-seen excerpt from “The Inside Out Man”.

There is a night club on the corner of Bree and Orphan that sits between a pretentious restaurant and a musty old bookstore.

On the left, the restaurant does its best to make you forget where you are. It’ll have you believe you’re in some twohundred-year-old fine-dining landmark in France that may or may not actually exist. It’s always full of people more than happy to bolster the lie, all there to pretend for a night they don’t have to go home to lazy sex and laundry baskets in their charmless homes.

On the right, the bookstore is stacked from floor to ceiling with a shabby assortment of abandoned scripts, an orphanage of bastards from the love affairs of dead authors. Nobody goes in and nobody comes out, and I’m am probably not the first to wonder how such a place manages to cover its own rent.

Between these two places, there is a red door.

On the front of the door there is a gold-plated plaque etched with TEN TO TWELVE, the name of the club. Enter the red door and you’ll climb a steep flight of rough-hewn wooden stairs. On the second-floor landing there is an enormous woman on a stool who asks for the entrance fee and pulls your change from a vintage cookie tin. On the lid of the cookie tin there’s an American fifties housewife grinning on a dinky blue motorcycle above the words THE NICEST PEOPLE RIDE A HONDA! The woman’s fat fingers rummage in the tin and then touch your own as she gives your change. You can smell onions on her; she’s been eating boerewors sausage rolls prepared by the greasy vendor up the street.

But that’s all if you go.

She knows me and I don’t pay. I used to pay but not anymore.

Now I just get a nod from the Onion Woman and I walk straight into the club. Inside, the club is dark and warm. Not the good kind of warmth, mind you, the kind that holds you in your bed in winter, but the sickly warmth of sweaty bodies and generators in backrooms and the decay of things stewing in drains. It’s full of people but you can’t see their faces. I walk between these seated sets of floating teeth and make my way to the bar. The barman, he knows me, but he isn’t friendly.

He’d almost certainly ignore me if he saw me on the street, but he knows what I like to drink – a single whiskey and ginger ale over ice – and he makes me one as soon as I pull up.

I turn and sus out the crowd of silhouettes. The tips of their cigarettes flare orange at their lips and the smoke curls up to the cloud on the ceiling. This crowd looks no different from a crowd on any other night. The lighting (or lack thereof) is arranged to accomplish precisely this: to keep the vibe of the venue consistent, night after night after night. I’ve seen clubs come up and close down more than most, and I’ll tell you, that’s the key to the longevity of a club: predictability.

People will tell you they want spontaneity and innovation, but they’re only kidding themselves. As shitty and grotty as a place can be, what matters most is that it’s consistently shitty and grotty, and believe me, it will be thanked, frequented and live to rot another day.

In about five minutes the manager of Ten to Twelve will sit beside me and shake my hand and ask about my day. He’s a short man in his early thirties. His hair’s gelled up into the spikes of a terrible urchin, and he’s all smiles. He’s the manager because he knows how to smile at people he dislikes, and he’s a particular good manager when smiling at me. He’ll ask if I’m ready, if my vinnige vingers are feeling up for another good show, and I’ll nod and sip my drink and joke that I got a manicure just for tonight, and he’ll grab my shoulder and laugh.

Then he’ll head to the small stage at the back of club and introduce me to the crowd. He’ll refer to me as the real deal, the man of the hour, the Jehovah of Jazz, and that’ll be my cue to down my drink and go up. Everyone will clap lamely and the spotlight will fall on the piano that’s been sitting in the darkness like a coffin at the altar. I’ll take my seat, lift the lid, and lean into the drooping mike to thank everyone for coming through.

And at that point, I’ll do what I do best, the only thing I know how to do: I’ll play jazz. I’ll stretch my fingers across the keys and move them faster than I’ll even know I’m moving them.

I’ll sweat and I’ll forget. I’ll forget about the Onion Woman, the grinning urchin and the crowd of teeth.

I’ll forget about the whole world.

And for a while, all conversations will be put on hold. There won’t be a word. ‘Cos they’ll all be listening, you see – that shapeless, smouldering mass of flesh and smoke out there – listening as I rant and scream and cry through the strings of the piano, as if furiously imploring them all to set me free.

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CROWDFU In this month’s article I’ll be taking a look at a resource being used by plenty of people and groups from a wide variety of backgrounds to get funding for a new idea or product – and it’s a resource which is making a massive and lasting impact, in terms of how business is being conducted.

I’m talking about crowdfunding, and I’m sure that most of you have seen many examples of crowd-funding, especially online. But for those who haven’t, I’ll go into some detail about crowdfunding and show you some examples. Why? Because crowdfunding can be a something that a writer can also use, and it can work if approached in the correct manner.

Let’s get into the nitty gritty of crowdfunding.

The first thing to understand is that crowdfunding isn’t as new as social media would have you believe –

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social media just became the vehicle which brought it into the wider public consciousness. The early forms of crowdfunding took the form of subscription services, in which authors and writers would advertise a book in the hopes of attracting enough subscribers to ensure that the book would sell once it had been written and produced. Makes sense, right? In the 19th and 20th centuries crowdfunding had expanded somewhat to specific sectors and interest groups – for example, when government funding for the base of the Statue of Liberty failed, a newspaper-led campaign secured

funding from about 160,000 donors.

The first modern (modern in terms of internet-based funding) example of crowdfunding took place in 1997 when the British rock group, Marillion, managed to raise just over $60,000 from on online-based, fan-driven campaign to underwrite their US tour.

Now, it’s important to understand that there are two different types of crowdfunding: One is reward-based, which means that donors receive rewards suited to the specific product or service being funded; this is allows the entrepreneur

UNDING

by Dave de Burgh

or person / group seeking crowdfunding to not only bypass the possibility of incurring debt but also sacrificing shares or equity, which amounts to a loss of control over their product or service.

The other is equity-based, which means that the donors who have contributed funds to the product or service have a stake in it – also ensuring their continued support of it to make sure that they get a return on their ‘investment’.

Rewards-based funding is further split into two categories: Keep-It-All, where every cent raised is kept by the person / group seeking

crowdfunding (whether or not the product or service was fully funded), and All-or-Nothing, in which the product or service is only greenlit when the funding goal has been achieved. You don’t have to be a business genius to understand which aspect of rewards-based funding works better – Keep-It-All smacks of desperation and greed, and studies have also concluded that All-or-Nothing campaigns are not only more detailed and have better rewards, but are also more likely to be funded.

There

are,

unsurprisingly,

even

crowdfunding initiatives which serve as sources for loans – that’s right; you can apply for a loan! I’m not getting into that, though – it has no bearing on what crowdfunding can do for authors.

All of these types of campaigns are also time-restricted, whether it be one month, two, three, and so on.

Meaning, if you decided to give yourself two months to generate funding, two months is what you have.

So, how can crowdfunding benefit an author or publisher?

The first thing you need to realise, right from the get-go, is that no-one is going to give you money to sit at home and write. I just want to make sure that you understand this, because there have been examples of people seeking funding for just that. No matter how much we would like to be able to sit at home and be paid to write, crowdfunding is not going to get you there. In fact, most people will openly ridicule you and share their opinions online; pretty soon your social media account will be bursting at the seams from notifications, and very little of

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them will be supportive – that’s the kind of damage an author will find it extremely difficult to recover from.

project, at which the project-originator gives donors extra rewards for extra funding.

Where crowdfunding does work for authors and publishers is when the publisher has a specific product in mind, has content providers ready to write (and in most cases, content providers which have already begun writing), and has drafted up a great selection of rewards for donors.

There are also different tiers of funding, so that anyone with the spare money can donate whatever sum they wish – let’s make $1 the first tier, $10 the next, $30 the next, $50 the next, and so on.

At each tier you can set up rewards, so perhaps the $1 tier could ensure that the person contributing gets their name in the book’s acknowledgements, $10 contributors get a specially crafted bookmark and their name in the acknowledgements, $30 contributors get an hour-long sample of the audiobook being produced plus the rewards from the $5 and $10 tiers, and so on, and so on.

Let’s look at some really successful campaigns from the past year: Ragnarok Publications launched the Blackguards Anthology Kickstarter on the 25th of August, 2014, and were fully funded by the 24th of September of the same year. The Blackguards Anthology brought together many prominent and new Fantasy writers, writing to a specific theme, and proved to be one of the most successful and well-loved campaigns in the wider SFF community.

1237 backers donated $38,631, not only ensuring that the project was fully funded but also pushing the project through the stretch goals it had listed.

What are stretch goals? Stretch goals are levels beyond the full-funding of a

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What Ragnarok did was: 1) give prospective donators a cool, exciting product to donate to, 2) give donors the choice of the amount of money they could donate and see the accompanying rewards, 3) kept the process transparent and 4) kept all their donators / backers up to date with each and every step of the anthology’s production. In short, they told people what they wanted

to do, detailed the product and the rewards for contributing funds, kept the whole process transparent and kept in touch with everyone even after the project was funded.

Just as there are plenty of success stories regarding crowdfunding, there are also some spectacular failures. Julie Kagawa’s ‘Iron Fey’ failed on many fronts, and for many reasons – the project did not receive enough funding (which is the most important measurement of failure for a crowdfunded project, to be sure), but one of the other reasons was that her publisher had lied (they had stated that all of her books were New York Times Best-Sellers, when only one was). Never, ever lie about anything when your crowdfunding a project. You will be found-out and taken to task.

So, before you embark on getting your project crowdfunded, there are some very important things to consider and to remember: The most important, to my mind, is to make the decision on whether your product is suited to crowdfunding, i.e. is it something that will excite prospective donors / contributors? Is it a ‘new’ or

‘unique’ project? What kind of attention are you likely to get? Remember, this is crowdfunding – if your project is similar to many other projects out there then it needs something to set it apart, something that will make it stand out among the rest.

as rewards. Saying, “This is what I want to do – will you please help me?” is not going to get you anywhere. Saying, “This is what I want to do and these are the things I will reward you with if you choose to help me,” will probably make things a bit, a bit, easier for you.

And here’s where your social media savvy comes into play. Because if you’ve only got, say, a Facebook account, or just a Twitter account, then you need to broaden your footprint. That doesn’t just mean sharing information about your project on different social media platforms – that means constantly sharing information regarding your project on many different social media platforms at different times to reach as many people as possible. Remember, all your friends might see your tweet or Facebook update, but not all of them will click the link. And what about the people who aren’t your friends? The people you don’t know and have never met?

Another thing to consider regarding crowdfunding is that when you launch your campaign you need to be front and centre for the duration. Be ready to constantly update the donors / backers; keep your social media footprint active but also engaging; be ready to answer questions (which means that you should have thought of all those questions and their answers before launching your campaign), and be humble.

Once you’ve put a lot, and I mean a lot, of thought into these first two points, think about what you can offer to your prospective donors / backers

Be humble.

You’re asking people you’ve never met to give you their hard-earned money to get your project out of your head and into the world – your project hasn’t yet hit the shelves, hasn’t even begun getting pre-orders. Your project will only exist (probably) if your campaign is successful.

ensure that you campaign will fail, but even if you do everything right and to the best or your ability, your campaign might still fail. Some crowdfunded projects are fully funded in minutes; others are fully funded on the very last day of the campaign. In most cases this is because some projects resonate more than others, and some projects are focused on a societal group with more money than a different societal group.

Sometimes the best, most exciting projects don’t get funded.

Crowdfunding is a multi-platform, multi-sector way of getting funding for your project and not signing away your soul or your rights – well, hopefully.

Do it right, and only two outcomes are possible – success, or failure.

So, good luck!

And one last thing – there are plenty of things you can do wrong which will

AUTHORS MAGAZINE | 15

The corner couch focuses on celebrities - their reading habits and the books that have shaped their lives.

on the couch with

THAPELO MOKOENA I caught up with Thapelo Mokoena in-between promoting his latest movie ‘Mrs Right Guy’ that premiers on 10 May 2016 and running his production company – Thapelo Mokoena Productions. He has come a long way from being Karabo’s bodyguard on Generations and presenting the first Fear Factor back in 2005. Thapelo can now be seen working on big budget movies alongside actors like Idris Alba, he features in popular local soapies and has become the go-to-guy for commercials and presenting.

Please share with us the one book that has made an I’ve realised that as a nation, we don’t read enough.

What, in your opinion, should be done to encourage impact in your life. people, especially children and learners, to read more.

Confessions of a Pilgrim - Paulo Coelho

Our parents, God bless them, tried their best to get us to With your busy schedule, what were your reading habits read. A memory of Reader’s Digest & Encyclopaedia in the like before and after you became a father? wall unit comes to mind. But consistency & the correct I was barely keeping up with my reading quota and now material was always the challenge. We can change that it’s incredibly worse. I’ve been reading scripts most of this as modern day parents. We should read to our little ones year, LOL. from the age of 5 months old. It should be made priority Your latest movie ‘Mrs Right Guy’ premiered on 19 May in our homes from an early age and it won’t be hard sell 2016, what was it about the storyline that made you take to our kids. this role?

Please list five of your all-time favourite books.

My character Dumile is not a linear, 1 dimensional character. He is far from being a nice guy and that immediately pulls me in these days. I like keeping it flexible and challenging myself. Safe was never my thing when it comes to choosing roles. No more “Mr. Nice Guy” / ‘The Sweet Guy” roles for me.

I enjoy autobiographies quite a bit.

Killing Kebble - Mandy Wiener Confession of a Pilgrim – Paulo Coelho The Measure of a Man – Sidney Poitier Here is a Tree – Elias Ntloedibe The MONK who Sold his Ferrari – Robin Sharma

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Happy Father’s Day

AUTHORS MAGAZINE | 17

SELF PUBLISHING in South Africa

Which Platforms to Publish your Books on EBOOK PLATFORMS AMAZON This is a no-brainer. If you want exposure to the widest audience possible, Amazon is where you publish your ebooks. Whether you go with other platforms or not, Amazon should be your first stop.

Amazon is the only retailer that has an exclusivity option. It’s called KDP Select, and you can only enroll your ebook in this program if that ebook is not available for sale anywhere else.

The enrollment period is for 90 days at a time (which will automatically renew unless you pull your books out at the end of a period). In exchange for going exclusive, Amazon gives you some promotional tools (5 free days or 5 countdown deal days within each 90 day period) and makes your ebook available on Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. This means you not only get paid for sales of your ebook, but also for “borrows” and “pages read.”

Amazon is the only retailer where FREE is not a regular price option. However, you can “force” Amazon to price-match an ebook by making that ebook free on all other platforms. You can then wait for the Amazon bots to (hopefully) notice, or you can click the “tell us about a lower price” on the Amazon product page for your ebook, or you can email Amazon directly through the KDP contact us section and ask them to match the price. (You obviously cannot do this if the ebook is enrolled in Amazon’s exclusive KDP Select program. In that case, you have the option to price the ebook as free on any 5 days out of every 90 day enrollment period.)

To get started, create an account at Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Then follow the KDP instructions on how to set up and publish a title.

Set-up cost: zero

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Royalty rate: 35% on ebooks priced from $0.99 up to $2.98 / 70% on ebooks priced from $2.99 up to $9.99* ITIN** required: no ISBN required: no (although you can use one if desired) How they pay you: via cheque mailed to South Africa or directly into American and some other international bank accounts Other costs/fees: a delivery fee based on the size of your ebook file (applicable to the 70% royalty option but not the 35% royalty option). The larger the size of the file, the higher the fee.

(For example, my book The Faerie Prince is 0.71 MB in size and is sold for $3.99. 70% of $3.99 is $2.79, but I only receive $2.70 per ebook sold because of the delivery fee. For more info, see section C of this KDP royalties table. If you plan to publish an ebook with lots of images, this could seriously affect the royalty you receive. Take a close look at this.) *The 70% royalty rate does not apply to ebooks sold in Japan, India, Brazil and Mexico, unless your ebooks are enrolled in KDP Select. **An ITIN is an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number issued by the IRS to non-US authors for tax withholding purposes.

More on that in an upcoming post.

KOBO I’ve found Kobo to be the quickest and easiest platform, both to set up titles and to make changes to already published titles. In addition, Kobo displays prices in rands when you’re browsing from a computer in South Africa, which is nice for

local customers.

To get started, create an account at Kobo Writing Life (KWL).

The rest is pretty straightforward.

ISBN required: recommended, but apparently no longer necessary How they pay you: directly into your South Africa bank account

Set-up cost: zero

Other costs/fees: no

Royalty rate: 45% on ebooks priced from $0.99 up to $1.98 / 70% on ebooks priced from $1.99 up to $12.99

EXTRA: 250 codes available per title to send to reviewers so they can download your ebook for free

ITIN required: no ISBN required: yes

BARNES & NOBLE

How they pay you: directly into your South African bank account

South Africans are not currently able to publish directly to Nook Press.

Other costs/fees: no iBOOKS NOTE 1: You need to have a Mac in order to publish directly to iBooks (or be computer-savvy enough to run an iOS system on your Windows computer. I haven’t a clue how to do that, but fortunately I have a MacBook ) NOTE 2: Publishers and authors cannot sell ebooks on the South African iBookstore. We can, however, sell on the American iBookstore (which is where most of the readers are anyway) and a whole bunch of other iBookstores. 51 in total.

I love iBooks. I love the pretty iBooks app, I love the flexibility of the royalty reports and the amount of information they display, and I love how open the iBooks marketing team is to working with indie authors. Twice I’ve been fortunate enough to have a banner for one of my books scrolling across the top of the YA section of iBooks, and I regularly see banners for other authors whom I know are indies. Yay! Thank you, iBooks! In addition, iBooks is my second largest source of income — so obviously I love them for that too To get started, create an account at iTunes Connect. It’s a bit more of a process than Amazon or Kobo, but it’s gotta be done.

Once your new account has been verified, you’ll be directed to download iTunes Producer. This is the app in which you’ll set up your titles. It’s not too hard to figure out, but here’s a step-bystep guide on how to do it.

Note that the whole process is a bit different with iBooks. With the other platforms, everything takes place online. With iBooks, you set up all your title information in the iTunes Producer app, and after that you monitor sales and view reports etc. online by logging into iTunes Connect.

GOOGLE PLAY South Africans can sell ebooks on Google Play, but we can’t set up a payment profile and receive royalties. So … yeah. That one’s out. (To be honest, though, I’m not that upset about this.

Whenever I see authors in the author groups I’m part of talking about Google Play, it’s usually a complaint/question about pricing. It seems almost impossible to control the exact price of any title on Google Play, and this then leads to price-matching issues with Amazon, and it’s an absolute nightmare if you’re trying to run a price promotion.)

SMASHWORDS Smashwords sells ebooks on their platform, but, most importantly, they are an ebook distributer. Upload your ebook to Smashwords, and it will find its way to Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Scribd, and plenty of other retailers, as well as several library platforms via OverDrive, Library Direct, Gardners and others. Smashwords does also distribute to Amazon, but I’d strongly recommend opting out of that channel. There’s no point if you’re already publishing directly on Amazon.

To get started, create an account at Smashwords. All the publishing steps after that are explained on their FAQ page.

Set-up cost: zero Royalty rate: 80% for titles sold directly from Smashwords, 60% for most retailers, 45% for most libraries ITIN required: yes ISBN required: yes How they pay you: quarterly via PayPal

Set-up cost: zero

Other costs/fees: no

Royalty rate: 70% no matter the ebook price

EXTRA: coupon code generator for different discount amounts

ITIN required: no

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DRAFT2DIGITAL

Set-up cost: zero

Draft2Digital is also an ebook distributer. I don’t use them (mainly because Smashwords was the distributer everyone was using when I started out, and I don’t think D2D existed yet). As far as I can tell, the D2D platform is easier to use than Smashwords, and it’s easier to get paid, but Smashwords has more channels to distribute to. D2D currently distributes to iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Inktera, Scribd, Tolino, 24Symbols, and CreateSpace (which is a print book platform).

These are most of the main platforms, though, so perhaps it doesn’t matter that they don’t have all the smaller ones and the library platforms (yet. They’re looking to add those in the future).

Royalty rate: can’t find an exact number. D2D keeps 15% of whatever amount they receive from the various distribution channels, but that amount is different for each one. I assume the final amount you receive is around 60% of the list price (but anyone who uses D2D please correct me if I’m wrong).

ITIN required: no ISBN required: yes How they pay you: directly into your South African bank account, or PayPal, or cheque mailed to South Africa Other costs/fees: no

To get started, create an account at Draft2Digital. Then check out their step-by-step guide.

PRINT BOOK PLATFORMS CREATESPACE CreateSpace is linked to Amazon, so this is the easiest and quickest way to get your paperback in front of Amazon customers. You can choose to sell only on Amazon, or you can choose the expanded distribution option, which will get your paperbacks onto Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository, and even Loot and Takealot here in South Africa! (For ridiculously high prices, unfortunately. Exchange rate and shipping … *sigh* I never recommend to local readers that they get my books from Loot or Takealot.)

To get started, create an account at CreateSpace. Then choose either the more lengthy, guided set-up process, or the shorter “expert” process. It’s probably best to use the guided process the first time you do this.

Set-up cost: zero Royalty rate: for books sold on Amazon, CS keeps 40% of the list price. You receive the remainder MINUS the cost of printing the book***. For books sold through any expanded distribution channel, CS keeps 60%. You receive the remainder MINUS the cost of printing the book. (For a more detailed look at how to work this out, plus a comparison of CreateSpace and Ingram Spark, check out this post on the ALLi site. Also see this post on using CS and Spark together, which seems like the best way to go.)

ITIN required: no ISBN required: yes How they pay you: via cheque mailed to South Africa or directly into American and some other international bank accounts

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Other costs/fees: if you’d like to see a proof copy of your book, you’ll have to pay for it, along with international shipping fees.

(Fortunately, CreateSpace has a digital proofer which is actually very accurate. For my first book, I ordered a proof so I could check it out properly. Since then, I’ve either had proofs sent to friends in America and asked them to take photos for me, or I’ve trusted the digital proofer. So far I’ve had no reader complaints.) ***This cost is obviously different for each of your books, as they will most likely be of different lengths. Visit CreateSpace’s royalty calculator page for more info and examples of how they calculate your royalty.

INGRAM SPARK I haven’t used Ingram Spark yet, mainly because CreateSpace seemed easier when I was starting out, and because my main focus for (non-South African) paperback sales was Amazon.

Since then, I haven’t yet had the time to set up all my titles at Ingram Spark as well, but I’ve heard that their international distribution is better than CreateSpace’s, and I know that they offer a hardcover option as well as paperback, which CreateSpace does not.

To get started, create an account at Ingram Spark. After verifying your account and agreeing to their various publishing agreements, go to Add New Titles and follow the steps.

Set-up cost: $49 Royalty rate: Ingram Spark keeps either 40% or 55% of the list price (your choice as to what discount you want to provide) and you receive the remainder MINUS the cost of printing the book

ITIN required: unclear. They ask for “tax exempt documentation”.

ISBN required: yes How they pay you: via PayPal, or directly into American and some other (non-South African) bank accounts Other costs/fees: $12 annual distribution fee; $25 fee to upload a revised file for any title MEGABOOKS MegaBooks is currently our only local print-on-demand option. Their process isn’t as streamlined as CreateSpace, and changing details (like price) at a later date requires you to email MegaBooks and ask them to do it. But if you want a local option for your local readers (so they don’t have to pay huge shipping fees and order your book from Amazon), and you don’t want to print, house and directly sell copies of your book to readers, then MegaBooks is great. If anyone asks where to get your book, you can tell them to visit the MegaBooks website.

To get started, create an account at MegaBooks. Then supply all the required information under the Add a Book to the Store section.

Set-up cost: no

2. Amazon + a distributer (Smashwords or D2D) – you only have to set up titles on two platforms, but your books still find their way onto all the major online retailers (and the minor ones, and the ebook library market) Still not sure whether you should opt in for Amazon exclusivity or not? The Creative Penn and Lindsay Buroker (and many others out there, if you just do a Google search) go into more detail on the pros and cons.

My opinion (if it counts for anything!): I’m not a fan of exclusivity, and it’s taken me long enough to build my readership on nonAmazon platforms that I don’t want to risk losing any of those readers by experimenting, even for a brief period, with KDP Select. iBooks now comprises approximately 20% of my income, and that number is slowly increasing. B&N, Kobo and the other platforms bring in less, but those readers are no less important to me. So for my Creepy Hollow books, at least, I’ll be staying wide. But I can definitely see the advantages to KDP Select at certain times and for certain genres.

THE PLATFORMS I CURRENTLY USE (in case you’re interested) Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, Smashwords (opted out of Amazon, iBooks and Kobo distribution channels), CreateSpace *Originally posted on www.Rachel-Morgan.com

Royalty rate: varies (you can use the online book cost calculator to work it out) ITIN required: no (we’re in local territory here! Yay!) ISBN required: yes How they pay you: directly into your South Africa bank account Other costs/fees: no “HELP! I am now overwhelmed!”

If the idea of having to get your ebooks up on four or more platforms just seems like too much to you at the beginning of your self-publishing career, then choose one of the following options to make your life easier: 1. Amazon only – this way you can be part of KDP Select and take advantage of the benefits

www.rachel-morgan.com AUTHORS MAGAZINE | 21

get CONN

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NECTED

by Tallulah Habib

When I was a young girl, I had this impression that an author was a lonely figure sitting behind a mahogany desk, tapping away at a typewriter while a dark and stormy night brewed outside the window (thanks Snoopy). Imagine my surprise when I realised that that archetype is as dead as the typewriter. It’s true that writing is still a solitary profession, but the advent of the internet has ensured that it need no longer be a lonesome one.

Online writing communities have been around since the days of dialup modems, and as the internet has become more social, they have grown into the safe spaces, classrooms and social escapes of the modern author.

No matter what kind of writer you are, or your level of technical ability, there’s a place for you. And the best part is, you don’t even have to leave your manuscript to go there.

Social Media Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know about social media. But in case you’ve been locked away in an office behind a mahogany desk for the last decade, social media is the latest fare on the fast food menu that is the Internet. It allows you to get what you want right at the point when you need it most.

Twitter, with its 160-character telegrams of information, is perfect for quick and dirty research and is preferred by authors as famous and well-established as JK Rowling. It’s also become an essential means of keeping in touch with your readers. Joining Twitter can be overwhelming, and a

feature that can certainly help with this is Twitter Lists. Create lists of fellow authors to check in with every day, or follow hashtags such as #amwriting and #amediting to find others slaving away behind their keyboards. You might even find that engaging in some real time sprints or word wars (where you compete to achieve the highest word count in a short space of time) with these “tweeps” gets you through the tough in-between parts of your latest novel.

Facebook is the other big player in social media, and no doubt you’re already logged in, sharing memes and pictures of the kiddies with your family and friends. Using Facebook as an author doesn’t necessarily mean merging these two aspects of your life.

Closed Facebook Groups offer a safe space to share the trials of the writing life with like-minded people, and to learn from those with more experience.

Find a group by typing “writing” into Facebook’s search bar and navigating to the Group tab. Note that a Closed Group means you’ll need to apply to join, but also that only members of the group can see what you post there.

There are tons of other social media platforms to explore. Instagram, Tumblr,

Google+ and Snapchat to name but a few. My advice would be to choose your platforms wisely and only use those that you feel you get something out of. The fast pace of social media is rewarding, but it can also be draining if you take on too much.

Journaling Of course, you may decide that social media isn’t for you at all. Teddy Raye, a well-known fan fiction author who is currently working on her first novel, feels that these networks have limited usefulness.

“The thing about Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, etc, is that is seems like one is constantly on transmit.”

She feels social media is great for promoting your book once it’s out there, but in terms of helping with the actual journey? She happens to agree with another author you may have heard of, George R R Martin, who maintains a LiveJournal.

LiveJournal was established in 1999 as one of the earliest social networks – a blogging platform with a comments section. What sets it apart from

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something like Wordpress is the ability to add other users as friends and join interest-based communities.

According to Raye, LiveJournal is ideal when it comes to feedback on larger works and building close relationships with other writers.

“The acceptance, support and encouragement I found there from almost the moment I became part of the community was overwhelming. I had at my disposal a wealth of writers and readers from all over the world, from all walks of life and all kinds of experiences and lifestyles, who opened up my eyes to the myriad possibilities of becoming a serious writer,” she says.

“If I ever have any success as a writer, it will be because of the people who nurtured me on LiveJournal. “ There are a few sites like LiveJournal.

Dreamwidth, for instance, is a popular choice for writers because it’s aimed especially at “people who create”.

Forums Travelling back to the time when connecting to the web meant shouting at miscellaneous family members to get off the line, forums were the in thing – a magical way of connecting with other purveyors of the world wide web.

South African author, Cat Hellisen, credits the Absolute Write forums (still active) with being the classroom that gave her the building blocks to get where she is today.

“As with all kinds of writing groups, you can get bad advice and misinformation, and it’s best to do your research,” she says. “But writers work in isolation, and sometimes this can feel very depressing and lonely, so I do think having the

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support (online or real life) of a constructive writing group is invaluable.

Not only that, but I’ve forged friendships with writers and readers of all kinds and levels through online forums. For those friendships alone, using AbsoluteWrite changed my writing world.”

While the concept may be dated, forums have in fact grown from strength-to-strength, offering a level of specialisation and an aspect of anonymity that social media does not.

Romance writer, Amity Lassiter, is an active member of a website called Romance Divas that has a thriving community forum. There’s something to be said for a community built around a single genre. It can address challenges specific to that particular category of fiction, and more established writers can pass on knowledge that might only be relevant to others working in the same area.

“It’s how I connected with my idol,” says Lassiter, “She made seven figures last year with her self-published books. If I could just have a fraction of her career!”

Workshops Finally, there is a category of online community particular to writers. These are dedicated writing websites that exist for the sole purpose of letting you show off your work and build up a fan base before being published.

Initially some of these were run by publishing houses to provide a mechanism of manuscript selection.

While they have come under fire, being labelled “do-it-yourself slush piles”, many writers have enjoyed their benefits. Authonomy, owned by

HarperCollins, unearthed a few best sellers before it was shut down last year. Penguin’s similar initiative, Book Country, is still running – with the slightly iffy addition of letting you pay to self-publish your book through the platform.

is people. Like many authors, she is not a naturally social person. It was only encouragement from fans and colleagues that gave her the guts to start exploring the web. “I’m glad I did,” she says. “It opened up the world for me.”

But there are also a few independent sites that give authors a way of sharing works, or works-in-progress, with prospective readers.

Through her exploration of the internet communities available, she made friends with a variety of people across the globe.“Most communities are uplifting and interesting. If a community is negative, I leave immediately!” she says.

“I have witnessed the birth of quite a few books on Wattpad,” says Han Gibson, author of the Chronicles of Han Storm. “It gives new writers a chance to find out what readers think and what their opinions are while you are writing.”

Brittany Geragotelis made international headlines when her debut novel, Life’s a Witch, received 15 million reads on Wattpad before it was even published.

She was then picked up by Simon and Schuste.

Similar to Wattpad, FictionPress is the original fiction version of Fanfiction. net (where Fifty Shades of Grey was famously birthed, and Cassandra Clare found her writing voice). A brief search engine foray indicates there are dozens of these sites, with new ones springing up almost weekly.

Or perhaps, like author JT Lawrence, you may choose to focus your attention in one place. “I’m too busy to engage in multiple platforms. I had to choose one social media to focus on and in my opinion, Facebook offers the most.My Facebook community as a whole is so important to me as a writer. They are so damn supportive. It makes me feel like I am writing for actual people, not just into the void.”

Writing is a difficult business. There will be crises of faith, crushing deadlines, endless rejection slips and financial woes. But there is no need to suffer alone.

Finding your fit As with all aspects of the writing business, finding the right community for you might take a bit of trial and error.

Perhaps you will find you enjoy dipping your toes in everywhere.

Gibson who, in addition to Wattpad, has also tried out every platform from Google+ to Pinterest, says that what it comes down to in the end

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a diary o When every member of my family had coughed up bits of their lungs, vomited and thrashed around in a feverish fugue with no pallor or appetite and endured a prolonged state of feeling awful, I thought we’d seen the back of a particularly nasty bug. I sent the beast packing with strict instructions not to bloody return – ever – and we proceeded to have a lovely Easter weekend.

Monday Easter Monday dawned and I woke up feeling like I’d been hit by a truck. This is not an unfamiliar feeling I must confess. When I’ve klapped the wine too hard the day before, I can wake feeling slightly tender in the cranial region with a throbbing behind my eyes. And droogies like no tomorrow. But this wasn’t that. This was something else entirely. A beast that not even two paracetamol, a litre of water chased by a strong cuppa, fresh air and a pair of sunglasses

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Over the past few weeks we’ve had an unwelcome guest in our new home. Not mould, or rats, but pretty close in my opinion. We’ve been plagued with the lurgies*. Full-blownflu, I think, in some cases. It wasn’t pretty. I played the dutiful Florence Nightingale role for a good ten days before I started losing the plot. My patience (sparse on the top at the best of times) started wearing thin and I began getting properly annoyed with my collective lumps of useless human who needed hydration, medication and basic nourishment, delivered with a care and kindness that I just can’t muster on demand, and certainly not with any credible consistency. could vanquish. Not even close. I skirted around the edge of the day mindful that there was a tarantula wrestling with my immune system.

I’ve had three kids for goodness’ sake, I can handle this. Or so I thought.

Tuesday I slept fitfully on Monday night.

My throat on fire, hot and then cold. Tossing and turning. Needing water every five minutes… then needing the loo. Tuesday dawned, as it does, just after Monday.

Every week, like clockwork. You could set your watch by it. This particular Tuesday happened to be my husband’s first day back at the office after his near-death by manflu. There was no question, he had

to go in, so I crawled out of bed like an abused dog. Limp, cringing and wretched, just waiting for the next kick. Fortunately I had a friend and her little girl coming over so I had no choice but to go through the rituals of getting up, getting dressed and at least dipping my toe in near-normal.

We had a great day at the park – the sunshine and brisk wind was a salve to the sickness lurking within. I pushed through Tuesday and when my husband arrived home that evening, I escaped to the serene sanctuary of my bed, feverish hallucinations dancing around my room where I didn’t even manage to draw the curtains before I succumbed to my coma, slack-mouthed and fully-clothed.

of DELIRIUM

By Sally Cook

Wednesday

My body surfaced to consciousness before my head. My shoulders literally had to peel my head from a crevice in my pillow. I had to wake up. I had work to do. Not just my children, although that’s work too.

But other work. For a company who pay me. Not in bear hugs, slobbery kisses and gappy-toothed grins. In actual money you can take to the bank. As such, they expect work to be delivered. I showered with legs like jelly, hitched a lift to the train station, bought a ticket and boarded the train. The next 60 minutes were like when Bridget Jones eats those mushrooms on that beach in Thailand, except not as funny. Just the blurry, cringeworthy, off-her-face bits. I felt completely out of it. The scenery whizzed by, people got on and off the train, it chugged along. The entire trip merged into a weird psychedelic haze. I stepped off at Richmond and had to sit down on a bench like an old person before I consulted the attendants three times on how to catch my connection to Hammersmith. I have made this journey many times, but on that day it was like my first trip. I lurched into the meeting, glass-eyed and wildhaired. I know I spoke, but I’m

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not sure what I said. I have vague notes that I can mostly decipher.

But pretty much those hours are lost in an ether of “I have no idea”. I was swept home in a sea of urgent commuters. I stepped off the train in Windsor and walked home along the river watching the swans veer in and out of my field of vision like white-cloaked vampires.

I sought sleep with a pillow over my throbbing head. I I dreamt of an army of swans riding the train, their ugly black feet clawing the seats with their long necks craning out of the window, eyes slanted and beaks opening and closing as if conversing with the wind.

stripped naked to go outside and play with the hosepipe and I was seriously considering letting them go, I mean 10 degrees isn’t that cold is it, that I called for back-up. I phoned my husband and informed him that he had two options. The first involved an ambulance and the emergency room. Neither would be for me. The second was to come home. The man is wise. He came home early. My fever broke early that evening and through a fog of sickly semi-consciousness, I could finally feel that things were in fact going to be ok. I was going to make it. We were all going to make it.

Thursday

Friday

I rolled out of bed like a lump of dough. Collected my bleating boy-child from his cot. Stumbled downstairs into a kitchen too bright and sunny for my senses.

Proffered Easter eggs to my children for breakfast. Made my way to the couch. Covered my head with a cushion and waited for the effects of the sugar high to kick in. It doesn’t take long. Running around, screaming like they’re being murdered, clubbing each other like they want to murder until the humour becomes hurtful – as it usually does. I actually look forward to when the crying happens. It means the game is over and I’m the comforter, not the baddie who broke up all the fun.

At lunchtime, I hauled out more Easter eggs before collapsing on the couch in my customary foetal position. It was only when they’d

Still a little tender with a pall of hangover sitting on my head, but feeling a lot stronger, I ventured into the great outdoors with my friend and our large brood of children for a picnic and stroll.

Fresh air and sunshine do wonders for the woozy-brained and wonky.

And that’s me on a good day. Even better when recovering from an ebola-esque virus that nuked our entire family.

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Mums don’t get sick. Well that’s according to my daughter. We’re always there. To do the washing – the most remarkable of my maternal skills if you read my son’s Mother’s Day card - to make the food, to clean. At the peak of my fever I asked my little girl to lay her lovely little cold hands on my raging forehead because the sensation

of cool was heavenly. She rested her hands on my sizzling skin for a while and then she said, “but Mummy’s just don’t get poorly, so I don’t understand what is going on here.” I said to her “Mummy’s do get sick sweetheart. We’re only human after all.”

To which she replied, “But you’re not just a human, are you? You’re a Mummy. ” I blacked out for a bit then, but apparently I told her that yes I wasn’t just a Mummy. I was a swan.

During this past week of feverish flights of fancy in my head, I’ve thought of a lot of things.

Cool blue swimming pools, ice packs, lying in soft rolling green meadows, vampire swans, swans on trains. I’ve also thought that no matter how much money you have, how much domestic help when you’re in a death-grip with the lurgies and feel like the dog’s bollocks, there is nothing you can do except ride it out and hope to come out the other side. Stronger and more swan-like. Because let’s face it and I’ve said it before many times, those swans are not the gentle, graceful little creatures we like to think. They’re robust creatures, made of some seriously tough stuff. They can take over the world. Forget the triffids. Or the vampires. Wait for the swans.

They’re coming for us. Just wait. * an unspecified or indeterminate illness. *Originally posted on So Many Miles From Normal

budding AUTHORS

Here at Authors Magazine we celebrate Authors young and old! Our Budding Writers section is a showcase of young talent across the globe. We accept poems and stories from children aged 5-12. To submit, please contact us through our website.

Compendium Mountain Bike Race!

The Compendium is a MTB race at the Durban Shongweni club, this year it was held on the 17 April. I did the Compendium 20km. The choices are 5km, 10km and 20 km and 45km.It’s an amazing race, the 5km is a loop around the club, the 10km goes around the same loop as the 5km but goes around twice. The 25km startes at Durban Shongweni Club and goes up some switch backs, to Summerveld and back to the Durban Shongweni Club. The 45km starts at Durban Shongweni Club and goes out, does the 20km route and then there is a split and it goes threw Giba Gorge.

Jodi Mackinnon, Age 9

The Wind is Free I see the wind I see it rushing past me The wind is rough It is smart to so behave when you see the big scary wind or something will go wrong Emma Fountain, Age 8

The Sunday Joy As the scorching sun melted my Popsicle, the sticky juice ran down my hand.

It tastes so good. I can’t resist just licking my fingers.

As the sunbeams shine on the earth, a pigeon takes my Popsicle.

I cry and cry as a tear drops on my shoe, I hear a voice.

“Dry your eyes I’ll call the pigeon to drop it off”.

Cianna Gagiano, Age 11

A Trip to the Sea Once I went to the sea.

A crab pinched me!

I saw a dolphin jumping the seals were all bumping A fish was blowing bubbles getting rid of all his troubles I closed my eyes and realised…..

It was just a dream!

Mackenzie Delport, Age 9

AUTHORS MAGAZINE | 29

thegiantawak On the second of February this year, Sandeep Mathrani, CEO of the relatively unknown General Growth Properties (GGP), indadvertently let slip during a Q&A session that Amazon, the online retailing behemoth, had plans to open a chain of physical bookstores. And not just a dozen or so – three to four hundred was the quoted number. By all accounts the global bookselling community choked on their cappucinos at the news. Although, to be fair, speculation had been mounting ever since November last year, when Amazon tested the waters with its lone brick and mortar store in Seattle. But most commentators put this move down to an experimental novelty store rather than any genuine attempt to break into the world of peddling paper-based prose.

And so the literary world greeted this news with a combination of disbelief, scorn and even anger. After all, how many brick and mortar stores had Amazon caused to shut down, though it’s competitive online pricing and uber-efficient delivery model?

There were even jeers of glee in

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some quarters. Had the online retailer finally seen the light?

Had it finally seen the error of its evil online ways? With e-book sales supposedly on the decline and print book sales stabilising, combined with Amazon’s reported net loss of $241 million in 2014, this argument appeared, on the surface, to have some merit.

However, once emotions had cooled and rational thinking returned, a careful analysis of the situation uncovered some blinding insights into Amazon’s strategy – a strategy that many are now calling genius.

The first thing to note, with any cursory examination of Amazon, is that Amazon is not merely an online bookstore offering electronic as well as hardcopy books. Amazon is a seller of just about everything, from electronics to cloud storage, to household goods, to downloadable music and movies, automobile parts and a whole smorgasbord of other consumer goods. So what does this mean? It means that launching physical bookstores may have very little to do with books per se. But before we get to that

let’s deal with a few of the salient bits that do have something to do with books.

Firstly, Amazon reckons that they have a good understanding of customer behaviour with regard to book browsing and book buying. Hence, in their physical bookstore, books are displayed as per their online store – front cover facing the customer, not the spine.

By default they can accommodate fewer titles this way but it makes for easier and more effective browsing which in turn converts to more sales. Customers can also get all Amazon’s online star ratings and reviews regarding a book simply by taking a snap of the barcode with their smartphones.

Also, Amazon’s delivery model is already super-slick so keeping the stores well stocked would be a cinch, and they would probably hold a competitive advantage in this area.

Secondly, many traditional bookseller won’t stock Amazon books. Amazon is, after all, the competition. However, front of store displays are still highly coveted by authors. By opening

kes?

by Ian Tennent

it’s own physical stores Amazon can nullify this chink in it’s armour, to a degree, and attract further big name “traditional authors” to it’s platform.

Thirdly, Amazon has embraced the customer trend of “showrooming”.

This is where customers visit physical stores to check out goods before leaving the store and buying the item online elsewhere, for a cheaper price. Amazon has accepted this aspect of customer behaviour and their physical store is priced as per their online store, removing fears of a “better deal” elsewhere.

Customers are welcome to buy in-store or online, and Amazon facilitates this with high-speed, in-store internet connectivity.

Now for the salient bits that don’t centre specifically around books, but rather around all retail items.

While Amazon is being vague on its motivations

AUTHORS MAGAZINE | 31

for opening physical bookstores, some commentators feel that the books are merely window dressing for a host of other commercial purposes: Firstly, “showcasing”: retail stores will allow Amazon to showcase so called “gateway drug” products, i.e. products that are geared specifically at getting customers to buy more Amazon products.

Amazon’s Kindle e-reader range is one such product, which facilitates the reading of Amazon ebooks. It’s “Echo” product is another such product. The Echo allows customers to purchase products from Amazon simply by talking into the device. Having customers physically interact with these products in-store, prior to purchase, will go a long way to attracting new business.

Secondly, “Front of mind” presence. Having a physical store housed within a crowded shopping mall, for instance, reminds people that they can ditch the frenzy of the mall and do their browsing and

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buying online from the comfort of their own home, and have the item wrapped and delivered to their door.

its data mining capability, which allows it to hone in on customer preferences, is making eyes at the other 85%.

Thirdly, Amazon could use its retail stores as collection depots for all manner of goods. Customers could purchase online and simply collect in-store to in order to avoid delivery charges. Amazon, in turn, would cut down on its delivery costs this way by delivering bulk shipments to one address rather than a plethora of individual customers. Retail outlets could also serve as collection points for returned items rather than making use of the postal service.

In the not too distant future retail outlets would in all probability also serve as drone airports. Amazon is already investing heavility in the possibility of using drones for delivery of its smaller items.

No doubt these are only a few of the reasons why physical retail stores make sense for Amazon, even in today’s times. And no doubt, Amazon with all it’s wizardry, has a few more surprises up its sleeve that it plans to unleash on us unsuspecting consumers in the months and years ahead. Will any of the above, allow traditional booksellers to sleep easier at night? Probably not, but it’s worth noting that any expansion into physical bookstores is unlikely to happen overnight. As one commentator put it, fifteen years on from its own foray into physical stores, Apple retail outlets still number fewer than 500. Amazon may take a leaf out of Apple’s book.

Fourthly, as big a player as Amazon currently is, online retail sales still account for less than 15% of total retail sales so it makes sense that the online retail giant, with all

Sources: NY Times - A Trip Through Amazon’s First Physical Store – by Alexandra Alter and Nick Wingfield. ComputerWorld – Brick-and-mortar stores are a great idea for Amazon – by Mike Elgin. Wharton University - How Amazon Could Reinvent the Brick-and-mortar Store Experience

2016

CHARITY EVENT

This year the SAIR Festival was held at Skoobs Theatre of Books and was more than just an event for local writers to get together to learn more about their craft, share resources and spread the word of their books. This year SAIR’s primary intention was to source 1000 books for the Pavement Bookworm Foundation, to be distributed among the underprivileged children of Johannesburg city.

In this month’s issue SAIR Founder, Carlyle Labuschagne, speaks of her experience: Initially, I believed I was aiming high at 1000 books, and I extended the deadline to November 2016 because it was a goal I wanted desperately to achieve, but by the 30th of April we had exceeded even my highest expectations.

This year SAIR saw the coming together of some amazing talent and a network of book lovers for a collective cause: to change the lives of as many kids as possible, one book at a time.

With the help of local author Sonia Killik who raised books at her book launch a week before, our debut author guest Jean archery that launched her book at SAIR this year, and of course Skoobs Theater of books, we collected a huge chunk in our book pledge as entry to the festival. For our VIP guests the ticket prices went not only into the event itself, but helped

accumulate more books into for the cause.

Skoobs was the perfect venue, and what Deborah Du Plooy helped pull off this year is beyond words. For me, personally, this year’s SAIR was a collective of all walks of life coming together to change lives and inspire others to do the same.

Event night itself saw a star line-up of guest speakers, from International best-selling authors, Adrienne Woods and Joanne MacGregor, to acclaimed author Fred Strydom and debut author Sonia Killik, who spoke about the dream of writing and being published, and why it’s a dream worth pursuing.

The media’s involvement garnered good coverage and local TV personality, Samm Marshall, shared his story of how books changed his life and led him to interview over 600 South African authors. His message was that the media needs to change the perception that South Africans do not read. The phenomenal attendance at SAIR this year is proof that SA is hungry for good stories. David Henderson from Myebook. co.za also shared his advice on digital publishing and the ins and outs of Amazon.

For more information about SAIR, please visit sairbookfestival. weebly.com

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INTERNATIONAL FOCUS

TAMMYROBINSON

by Melissa Delport

Tammy Robinson is a contemporary author from the beautiful Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. She has always dabbled in writing.

When she was twenty, Tammy wrote a fictional book based loosely on her experiences with depression and having an eating disorder while at high school. It was handwritten in a notebook during her lunch hours while working at a shoe shop, and she has no idea where it ended up!

After years spent working her way round the world through a variety of means including on cruise ships and for Club Med resorts, Tammy settled back in the beautiful Bay of Plenty with her husband, their two girls, a mad black Labrador and a grumpy cat who every summer requires a two week course of anti-anxiety medication to stop him from pulling his own fur out.

Seriously.

In 2011 after a devastating loss, Tammy decided there really is no time like the present, and sat down to fulfil her lifelong dream of writing a book. The resulting novel, Charlie and Pearl, has gone on to both win and break hearts all over the world.

Charlie and Pearl was followed by When Stars Collide, A Roast on Sunday, Lessons from Ducks, Pohutukawa Highway and her latest offering, The Insignificance of You. When not being drooled, vomited or pooped on by her kids or staring out of the window daydreaming of adventures to be had in far-flung places, Tammy manages to squeeze in some writing.

Having recently moved house, she currently writes at her diningroom table, which she admits is less than ideal! Her gorgeous cane writing desk, which was a gift from her mother, has taken up residency in the shed, waiting for it’s perfect new position to be found.

Tammy tends not to read a lot of fiction in case it influences her own writing, but every year she rewards herself with a few months off and then binge-reads anything that looks or sounds good. When browsing the shops or Amazon’s online store, it is always a book’s cover that entices her. She enjoys a variety of women’s fiction, literary fiction, Young Adult and commercial fiction, as well as travel memoirs. Her latest favourites include Wild by Cheryl Strayed, Tales of a female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman and, most recently, Love with a Chance of Drowning

by Torre DeRoche. She dreams of showing off this beautiful, incredible world and its fantastic mix of people to her children, and is intent on squeezing every last drop out of life.

Tammy Robinson currently lives in New Zealand. She is married with two daughters and a third baby due in August. Her titles are available at leading online retailers and she is hard at work on her seventh novel.

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[THE INSIGNIFICANCE OF YOU[ Excerpt from...

The forest floor is carpeted with tiny snowy lanterns, the kind of thing that would have enchanted my childhood imagination. I would have closed my eyes and imagined fairies and pixies and other woodland creatures living here. Little villages made up of houses inside the big red toadstools that grow in clusters around the base of the trees, nestled between their sturdy roots. I used to search desperately for evidence of occupation, a window or door perhaps. A chimney. My father convinced me they were there, just invisible to our big people eyes.

As soon as we’re gone, he said, they’ll be out to play.

I had no reason to doubt him.

Although I’m no longer a child they are still enchanting, and I find myself tip toeing amongst them gently so as not to crush their delicate bowed heads. Snowdrops.

The name comes easily to mind. A rather promiscuous flower, if I remember my father’s strange words correctly. It amazes me the things he taught me that I still remember.

My father. A bulk of a man, with his woolly caps clamped firmly over ears and the sea in his veins. His love for all things green that spring from the earth was at odds with his size and strength, and a great source of amusement for my mother.

Our gardens are overgrown and neglected now, a haven for wildlife that snuffles in the night outside my bedroom window. Gnarled and twisted, with dark cavernous recesses, the garden is the stuff of my childhood nightmares.

It is cold. Winter is upon us and has stripped the land bare, save these hardy flowers at my feet. They look out of place in a landscape of brown; trees and dirt and decaying leaves. The first snowfall of the season will see the snowdrops off.

There is that peculiar tang in the air that says it won’t be long.

Even though the hour is getting late and the shadows long, I am not afraid. These woods were once my stamping ground. I cut my teeth on the bark of a rimu and potty trained behind the silver fern, using the big white leaves of the Rangiora to wipe my behind. My father knew every inch of these woods and he shared with me every nook and cranny. He made his living off the sea, and fed his family off the land. A raised finger would signal me into silence at his side, freezing to a standstill while my eyes adjusted to the overgrowth and I could pick out what it was he’d seen. His nicotine stained fingers on the trigger. If I close my eyes now I can still smell the smoke from his mouth in the cool air as we gave thanks for the kill.

It is here I feel the closest to him. Where I can hear his voice wrapped around the trees, his footfall on the moss. The sea may have claimed him, but this forest holds his spirit.

AUTHORS MAGAZINE | 35

The Hunt

Shoes on a Wire

By Charmaine Theron

By Ian Tennent

The master gives the hounds a whiff of the scent, sending them into a frenzy. They snuffle amongst the musty leaves, scavenging for the smell. They howl. The bugles blare and the hunt is on.

Drugs? Shoes on a wire don’t mean drugs. Not in this neighborhood.

They don’t mean high school’s finally done and dusted either.

“Towards the ridge,” the master yells, his red cloak billowing out behind him, making him conspicuous in the ghostly woods.

Or that some snot nosed, pimply faced teenybopper just popped their cherry and wants the world to know about it.

The hounds close in on their quarry, snapping and snarling at each other in their hunger for the tantalising taste of blood.

They attack ruthlessly, seizing their prey and ripping at its delicate flesh. It squeals in agony.

Nope. In my neck of the woods shoes on a telephone line mean one thing, and one thing only.

The master watches, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

“Hand me my bow,” he demands.

And trust me, I should know.

A servant steps out from the shadows and passes him his weapon.

“Let me put it out of its misery.” His smile ripples into wicked laughter.

The hounds dart in, ravage and then retreat. Blood pools on the ground, scarring the woods crimson.

The figure cowers on the ground, hands thrown over her blood-splattered face, protecting it from the savage bites. Her tattered legs lie limp beneath her body.

The master strides closer, bow in hand. “Repent woman!”

Somebody saw, or heard, something they weren’t supposed to.

Last week it was high heels swinging up there, the kind you find walking Point Road at night.

The week before that, it was fake black Armanis, so polished you could see your soul in them. Before that, grubby green and white zip-up trainers. Not even as long as my hand, Ben 10 written on the side. The kid in the ditch even looked like the cartoon on the shoe.

In my neck of the woods shoes up there mean someone just got a free entry to the Great Comrades Marathon in the sky.

No cut-off time or finish line in this race. Just an ‘up-run’ or a ‘down-run’, depending.

“Never!” she wails. Tears streak down her cheeks creating bloody rivulets. Her eyes as defiant as the master himself.

It’s a twenty-first century gibbet. A head on a stake.

“I would spare you your life if you did.”

The problem I have, standing in my socks with my arms yanked up between my shoulder blades and a knife at my throat, is that the shoes up there now, are mine.

He hesitates, and then aims. Their eyes lock for a split second.

The arrow slices through the air and finds its target.

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And normally I don’t have a problem with that.

Every month we feature 250 word flash fiction pieces as submitted by our readers. If you would like to submit a flash fiction, please email us with “Flash Fiction Submission” in the subject line.

The Wise Fairy

The Pool

By Kathy Strapp

By Yolande House

The man in the wheelchair frowned.

I told my crush last week that I liked him. He blushed and smiled. I said I’d like to get to know him better. He said to let him know if I want to go out again. I said I’d like that.

If only he could get up to find a rope. He looked up at the rafter above, the ideal spot for a hanging. No more frustration, burden and pain.

“Have you lost your mind, as well as your legs?” She queried, sweetly.

“Who the hell are you? Where are you?” He craned his neck to spot the source of the voice.

“Down here, on your useless knee” She replied.

The fat little fairy was indeed perched upon his knee. As big as a thimble, wings fluttering.

I feel a strong pull. I want to explore that attraction and what it can teach me, if he’s up for it. I will try not to be closed off from the future, although I’m not sure things would work long-term. I think I might like that, though. It helps me to feel more in the moment.

“Please help me, what can I do? I sit here day in and out, longing for the life I had before the accident. I cannot exist in this vacuum, I must die.”

I’d like to give myself to this moment and see where it takes me. If I launch myself into a blissful pool and end up in the Friends with Benefits shallow end, that’s okay. If I find myself pleasantly treading water in the middle for a while, gaining muscle and strength, that would be nice.

If I do find myself in the deep end and startled by how pleasant it is, I will try to stay open, to stay with my fear and let it go, to enjoy the waves cascading around me and the sun fanning my face.

The frail fairy smiled.

Who knows?

“Why, the answer is simple. Reach over for that pad and pen. Write it all down, how it was, how it is. Then decide how it will be in the future, and write that down too.’

I try to cling to ideas and logical coulds and shoulds, but they won’t get me what I want. Only my heart knows what’s best. It’s beating strongly, and I will follow it until the pitter patter slows and I’m ready to dry off on the deck of unconditional self-love.

“You don’t exist, am I losing it finally?”.

“Not yet, but continue to wallow in self pity, you certainly will. Have you forgotten your children, and their sorrow if you die?”

He flushed, considered his two lovely boys.

Two years later he wheeled himself into the bookstore for the launch of his first published work.

“Thank you, I can never thank you enough,” he whispered to the fairy on his shoulder.

There was no reply, he glanced down, but his companion was gone.

AUTHORS MAGAZINE | 37

Christian Frederik Louis Leipoldt (1880–1947) was an important South African poet and a leading figure in the Second Afrikaans Language Movement.

Although trained as a doctor, Leipoldt was more attracted to literature and managed to balance both careers. He was remarkably versatile and it’s no exaggeration to call him a playwright, novelist, poet, paediatrician, botanist and journalist, as well as a food and wine connoisseur. He was also a liberal, free-thinking Afrikaner way ahead of his time.

Leipoldt was a man of the world and although he travelled widely, his heart never strayed far from the Cederberg, a place he considered his spiritual home.

He grew up in Clanwilliam and in his writings he returned again and again to those early, happy years exploring the

Cederberg foothills and kloofs. Some of his most memorable poems, such as ‘’n Handvol gruis’ and ‘Die storie van Koenraad Fiet’, evoke the beauty of the berg and Hantam Karoo.

In order to get closer to the poet, I booked a few days at Kliphuis, a CapeNature camp situated high on the Pakhuis Pass less than a kilometre from the poet’s grave. It’s the ideal place from which to explore ‘his’ Cederberg.

Kliphuis comprises a few houses and a campsite bisected by a stream and shaded by tall pine trees. From my chalet, I could walk the hills Leipoldt roamed and enjoy the flora and astonishing rock formations contorted into every shape and form imaginable.

At the foot of the pass lies Clanwilliam.

I drove into town for provisions and to pay my respects at his childhood home

on Park Street. His father was the dominee of the local church and it was from the pastorie that an adventurous young Leipoldt explored the banks of the Jan Dissels River and Cederberg foothills. The Dutch Reformed Church where his father preached is still there – an elegant, neo-Gothic building on Main Street.

From an early age, Leipoldt was fascinated by the natural world. His botanical acumen became evident when, as a youth, he accompanied the German botanist Rudolph Schlechter on an expedition into the veld. As a teenager, he began making his own botanical discoveries and today there are plants that bear his name.

In later life, his largest body of work comprised a trilogy of historical novels, The Valley, set in a loosely disguised

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Clanwilliam. It’s a monumental work spanning the period 1820 to 1930, and tries to capture semi-rural life at the Cape in all its complexity. The three novels are as much about the landscape as the characters, and Leipoldt’s descriptions are full of the flora, fauna and topography. He writes evocatively of the berg’s ‘boldly buttressed peaks, weathered into strange shapes and coloured, by oxidation, with rich carmines and gaudy russets, wooded on the lower slopes by shrubs and aromatic bush, and higher up, where the cliffs are stark and sheer, by splendid, gnarled cedar giants.’

Leipoldt was the grandson of Rhenish missionary Johann Gottlieb Leipoldt, who founded the village of Wupperthal in the heart of the Cederberg in 1829.

The writer loved this mission station

and describes it in lyrical terms in his novel Gallows Gecko.

I duly took the long road over Pakhuis Pass, through a Biedouw Valley decked in spring flowers, to Wupperthal. The village is seemingly lost in another time with white-washed and thatched cottages, donkey traffic and small plots of tilled land. The gabled church of oupa Leipoldt still dominates the town; beside it is a graveyard where the missionary lies buried.

I visited the Leipoldt house, now a tearoom, and wandered the hills painted with orange and purple blossoms. It was an incandescent day, the air alive with insects and birdsong.

Water bubbled over stones and daisies nodded their heads in the breeze.

visit to the poet’s grave, which lay within easy walking distance of my chalet. It’s a haunting spot beneath a cave-like dome of orange sandstone. I stood below the overhang, lines from his poetry running though my head ‘’n Handvol gruis uit the Hantam … Arm was ek gister, en nou is ek ryk’ (A handful of soil from the Hantam … Yesterday I was poor, but now I am rich).

I glanced up and noticed faint San paintings above his grave – figures dancing across the face of the rock.

What fitting company, I thought, to this generous, timeless artist … this immortal son of the Cederberg.

Before leaving the mountains, I paid a

n laureate Justin Fox pulls on his trusty veldskoens and sets off to explore the Cederberg Mountains in the footsteps of Louis Leipoldt.

AUTHORS MAGAZINE | 39

Reads recommended

Title: What She Knew Author: Gilly MacMillan Mystery and Suspense In her enthralling debut, Gilly Macmillan explores a mother’s search for her missing son, weaving a taut psychological thriller as gripping and skillful as The Girl on the Train and The Guilty One. In a heartbeat, everything changes…

Rachel Jenner is walking in a Bristol park with her eightyear-old son, Ben, when he asks if he can run ahead. It’s an ordinary request on an ordinary Sunday afternoon, and Rachel has no reason to worry—until Ben vanishes.

Police are called, search parties go out, and Rachel, already insecure after her recent divorce, feels herself coming undone. As hours and then days pass without a sign of Ben, everyone who knew him is called into question, from Rachel’s newly married ex-husband to her mother-of-theyear sister. Inevitably, media attention focuses on Rachel too, and the public’s attitude toward her begins to shift from sympathy to suspicion.

Title: Eligible Author: Curtis Sittenfeld Family Saga NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Wonderfully tender and hilariously funny, Eligible both honors and updates Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

This version of the Bennet family—and Mr. Darcy—is one that you have and haven’t met before: Liz is a magazine writer in her late thirties who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. When their father has a health scare, they return to their childhood home in Cincinnati to help—and discover that the sprawling Tudor they grew up in is crumbling and the family is in disarray.

Youngest sisters Kitty and Lydia are too busy with their CrossFit workouts and Paleo diets to get jobs. Mary, the middle sister, is earning her third online master’s degree and barely leaves her room, except for those mysterious Tuesday-night outings she won’t discuss. And Mrs. Bennet has one thing on her mind: how to marry off her daughters, especially as Jane’s fortieth birthday fast approaches.

As she desperately pieces together the threadbare clues, Rachel realizes that nothing is quite as she imagined it to be, not even her own judgment. And the greatest dangers may lie not in the anonymous strangers of every parent’s nightmares, but behind the familiar smiles of those she trusts the most.

Enter Chip Bingley, a handsome new-in-town doctor who recently appeared on the juggernaut reality TV dating show Eligible. At a Fourth of July barbecue, Chip takes an immediate interest in Jane, but Chip’s friend neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy reveals himself to Liz to be much less charming. . .

Where is Ben? The clock is ticking...

And yet, first impressions can be deceiving.

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Title: The Obsession Author: Nora Roberts Women’s Fiction The riveting new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Liar.

Title: The Last Mile Author: David Baldacci Thriller and Suspense

“She stood in the deep, dark woods, breath shallow and cold prickling over her skin despite the hot, heavy air. She took a step back, then two, as the urge to run fell over her.”

In his #1 New York Times bestseller Memory Man, David Baldacci introduced the extraordinary detective Amos Decker-the man who can forget nothing. Now, Decker returns in a spectacular new thriller . . .

Naomi Bowes lost her innocence the night she followed her father into the woods. In freeing the girl trapped in the root cellar, Naomi revealed the horrible extent of her father’s crimes and made him infamous. No matter how close she gets to happiness, she can’t outrun the sins of Thomas David Bowes.

Now a successful photographer living under the name Naomi Carson, she has found a place that calls to her, a rambling old house in need of repair, thousands of miles away from everything she’s ever known. Naomi wants to embrace the solitude, but the kindly residents of Sunrise Cove keep forcing her to open up—especially the determined Xander Keaton.

Convicted murderer Melvin Mars is counting down the last hours before his execution--for the violent killing of his parents twenty years earlier--when he’s granted an unexpected reprieve. Another man has confessed to the crime.

Amos Decker, newly hired on an FBI special task force, takes an interest in Mars’s case after discovering the striking similarities to his own life: Both men were talented football players with promising careers cut short by tragedy. Both men’s families were brutally murdered.

And in both cases, another suspect came forward, years after the killing, to confess to the crime. A suspect who may or may not have been telling the truth.

The confession has the potential to make Melvin Mars-guilty or not--a free man. Who wants Mars out of prison?

And why now?

But when a member of Decker’s team disappears, it becomes clear that something much larger--and more sinister--than just one convicted criminal’s life hangs in the balance. Decker will need all of his extraordinary brainpower to stop an innocent man from being executed.

Naomi can feel her defenses failing, and knows that the connection her new life offers is something she’s always secretly craved. But the sins of her father can become an obsession, and, as she’s learned time and again, her past is never more than a nightmare away.in their own lives.

This is a story about the power of family, the possibilities of friendship, the ways we depend upon one another and the ways we let one another down. In this tender, entertaining, and deftly written debut, Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney brings a remarkable cast of characters to life to illuminate what money does to relationships, what happens to our ambitions over the course of time, and the fraught yet unbreakable ties we share with those we love.

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AUTHORS

MAGAZINE

JULY 2016

Award winning author, screenwriter and film director

SHAMIMSARIF