Here are answers to some things people have asked me about it.
What’s your book about?
The very short answer is: ‘Punk rock, Liverpool and trying to be normal’. That’s the book’s subtitle.
The slightly longer answer is that it’s a memoir starting in 1976 and going up to the 21st century. It’s about coming of age during punk and how that influenced the rest of my life – including my career as a music journalist. A lot of it is about the Liverpool punk scene around Eric’s club and the post-punk scene that followed. There’s also a subplot about growing up with undiagnosed autism, hence the title (which is, of course, a play on Typical Girls by the Slits).
The blurb that my publisher is using goes like this:
“It’s 1977, and punk rock has just hit Liverpool. The legendary Eric's club is home to the city's rebels, posers and misfits. It’s a place of attitude, adventure and new possibilities, and it changes lives. Some become pop stars; Penny Kiley becomes a music journalist.
“The story traces Penny's relationship with the music scene from the turbulent political 1980s into the changing culture of the 21st century. Throughout these years, she never stops being a misfit, and the question remains: how do you navigate normal life when punk is dead and you don't know you're autistic?
“Atypical Girl begins as a coming-of-age story and ends as a midlife reinvention. What unites them is a search for identity and the role that music plays in all our lives.”
How long did it take you to write?
That’s hard to say, because a lot of writing is thinking about it. And when you have a day job, work gets in the way. And life gets in the way too.
But I remember going to a one-day training event years ago called “Write your first book”. This kicked off some ideas.
I wrote a very quick first draft in 2014 because I wanted to enter the Mslexia life writing competition. I didn’t get anywhere because, like most first drafts, it was pretty crap. But it was a start. (I entered the competition again in 2021 and this time got longlisted.)
I realised that writing something as long as a book is very different from journalism or blogging, which are what I’d done before. And a lot more difficult. I had to teach myself how to do it.
I wrote a lot more drafts and then in 2017 I went on a residential writing course at the Arvon Foundation on “Creative Non Fiction”. The tutors were Alexander Masters and music journalist Laura Barton. They were both great and I learnt a lot, including what my book was really about. When I got home I started again.
Then my mum got ill and died, so it all stopped. Then there was a pandemic, and a lockdown and I had no work, so I finally finished the manuscript.
How did you get a publisher?
If you’re asking for yourself, I can recommend these books.
- Tips from a Publisher: A Guide to Writing, Editing, Submitting and Publishing Your Book by Scott Pack (affiliate link)
- The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook
As for me, I did a lot of research on how to submit to agents and did all the right things. I’m autistic: I always do things by the book.
The next bit was harder than actually writing the book.
Tip: Do not contact literary agents straight after a lockdown. They are inundated with submissions because everyone has been writing books because there has been nothing else to do.
Despite this, I had some encouraging rejections. In fact, it was encouraging to get replies at all because most literary agents don’t bother if they are not interested. (“If you haven’t heard from us within eight weeks” must be one of the most dispiriting phrases in the English language.) None of them, though, offered me representation.
I wasn’t going to give up – I believed in my book, and I wanted it to be out in the world – but I had a rethink about how to approach things. So I took some time out to think and then I started sending the manuscript to people who I thought might like it. And they did. Some of them gave me nice quotes that I could use the next time I pitched the book.
I also took advice from a writer friend who recommended starting a new project as a way of bouncing back. So I started a Substack. This also had the benefit of creating what some agents told me I should have: a “platform”. And it was fun.
And when I felt ready to start pitching the book again, I gave up on agents and went straight to indie publishers – or at least those who accept “unagented” writers. And when I met my editor, Alison Rae, at Polygon I knew I’d found the right person. A woman of a certain age and a music fan, she was basically the reader I’d been writing for. (Men also like the book, though.)
It’s been great being with an indie, because it feels more punk than going with a corporate. Because it’s a smallish company, the commissioning editor is also the copy editor and production editor so I’ve had one point of contact throughout. We’ve built a good working relationship – long distance, because Polygon is in Edinburgh and I’m in the south of England – and the production process has been very collaborative. I even helped to brief the designer who did the cover, and I love what he’s done.
Will there be a book launch?
Yes! Actually, more than one. I have a mini book tour in March and it looks like this.
- 5th March: Liverpool (British Music Experience)
- 6th March: Chester (Book on the Walls)
- 10th March: London (Walthamstow Rock’n’Roll Book Club)
- 19th March: Oxford (Gulp Fiction)
I’ll keep you posted via my Facebook page and other social media.
How can I buy your book?
I’m not making this up. Some people have actually asked me this.
You can pre-order it direct from the publisher. This will make them happy. Or you can order it from your bookseller of choice.
I always encourage people to buy from bricks and mortar bookshops if they can, because this helps keep real bookselling alive. Support your local indie if you have one. It’s more punk!
If you don’t have a bookshop near you, here are my favourite ethical online options:
World of Books: big on sustainability and is a B Corp.
Hive: supports local independent bookshops. Also sells records and, for those of my generation, does an over-60s discount.
Bookshop.org: supports local independent bookshops. Operates in the UK and US; also sells e-books. I have an affiliate page on Bookshop.org which includes my own book as well as others that I recommend.
If you’re skint, order it from your local library. Authors still get money this way – it’s called PLR (public lending right). And libraries are brilliant and they need supporting too. (Also, I read once that authors get more money from a library loan than from a sale on Amazon.)
Buying my book outside the UK
The book will be available via the following distributors:
Australia: New South Books
United States: Casemate
Canada: Login Canada
These will be supplying the major bookstores, e.g. Bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble.
Elsewhere outside the UK: UK bookseller Blackwell’s does free shipping for international customers.
I hope you like the book
I hope you like it. I think you will. If you’re planning to read it, thank you.
And if you have any more questions, the comments are open.
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