C.L. Taylor: From Heartfelt to Heart-Racing, the Resilient Writer's Voyage

 Our latest episode with Sunday Times bestselling author, C.L. Taylor, uncovers the raw emotions and steadfast determination behind her shift from romantic comedy to gripping crime fiction. C.L. Taylor opens up about the tumultuous voyage from being dropped by an editor to reviving her career with a surge in ebook sales, providing an authentic roadmap for writers navigating the unpredictable tides of the publishing world.

Her latest novel, "Every Move You Make," draws from her own daunting experiences with stalking, teaching us about the weight of turning personal history into public narrative. The episode doesn't just recount an author's tale—it offers a mirror for self-reflection and underlines the resilience necessary to forge a triumphant path in the ever-evolving narrative of the publishing landscape. Join us for this intimate exploration into the heart of a writer's craft and the courage to share one's truest stories with the world.

Every Move You Make
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer…

Alexandra, Lucy, Bridget, River and Natalie. Five friends who wish they’d never met. Because the one thing they have in common is the worst thing in their lives: they are all being stalked.

When one of their group is murdered, days after their stalker is released from prison, time stands still for them all. They know their lives could end just as brutally at any moment – all it takes is for the people they fear the most to catch up with them.

When the group receive a threat that one of them will die in ten days’ time, the terror that stalks their daily lives becomes all-consuming. But they know they don’t want to be victims anymore – it’s time to turn the tables and finally get their revenge.

Because the only way to stop a stalker is to become one yourself…

Follow C.L.Taylor

Transcript

C.L. TAYLOR: 0:00

And I'd started to think that maybe I just got lucky with that first book and that I wasn't very good and maybe I didn't deserve to be published.

NADINE MATHESON: 0:12

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Conversation Podcast with your host, lesley Norther Nadine Matheson. As always, I hope that you're well, I hope that you've had a good week and I hope that you had a good Easter, and I'm really sorry that we're back here now that your 4 day weekend is over and we're now back to work, but it is what it is, but we'll get through it. We'll get through it together. This week I'm in conversation with Sunday Times bestselling author CL Taylor, who has sold over 2 million copies of her books and her new novel, every Move you Make is available now, and in this week's episode, we talk about rejection after you've been published, the assumptions you make after you've finished your first book, and what it means to become a brand. Now, as always, sit back. We'll go for a walk and enjoy the conversation.

NADINE MATHESON: 1:05

Cl Taylor, welcome to the conversation. Can I keep it having me on? You're welcome, right? I was looking back at your backlist I'm always fascinated with people's backlists and also the date of your debut, which was 10 years ago. Now it's 2014.

C.L. TAYLOR: 1:24

Well, that's my debut crime. Yeah, that was my debut crime, but my debut debut I wrote romantic comedies that were. The first one was, yeah, probably because it's hidden under my full name, Callie Taylor. But yeah, as Callie Taylor, I had two rom-coms out One was Supernatural and they were published by Orion in 2009 and 2011.

NADINE MATHESON: 1:50

Well, so it's much, obviously much longer than the 10 years I had in my head. So what were you, you know, when you your first? Okay, just going back, and then go back to 2009. What were you thinking of like in terms of this is what I want for my career when you delivered your first book? Are we just happy? Yeah?

C.L. TAYLOR: 2:13

I think I was just desperate to get a book published.

C.L. TAYLOR: 2:17

You know it was, I think, like a lot of us, it was a childhood dream, and then you kind of let it slip away in your teenage years and your 20s and then in my 30s I was, I was, I got into like short stories and that sort of thing, entering short story competitions, getting them in anthologies and women's magazines, that sort of thing, and but I'd always wanted to write a book and but I put it off because I was scared.

C.L. TAYLOR: 2:44

And then, when I was 33, one of my best friends from school died, really suddenly. She had a brain aneurysm and it just completely changed things for me. It just made me realize I haven't got all the time in the world, which is which is how I felt up until that point. So you know, within within a year of her death, I was writing like a woman possessed. I was writing after work, I was writing at weekends, I was like canceling all of my like social engagements and I wrote that first romantic comedy in just under just under four months three, three months and three weeks. I've never worked that hard since I just it was like a fire was lit under me.

NADINE MATHESON: 3:24

Yeah, cause I was thinking. You know, whenever you hear writers talking about that sprint, or you know I'm I'm working all the hours at God's sense it's normally because we got a deadline. That's your pose on it, kind of published. Yes, we've been posted. That line on ourselves is because someone else said we need to have this book by the first of June and it's now, I don't know, 10th of May and we're like I need to give you a book. Exactly, exactly. That's so early on.

C.L. TAYLOR: 3:55

Yeah, yeah, I've literally only ever done that once since, and that was when I wrote my first young adult thriller. I think it's that, it's that thing of something being fresh and new. You know, where there's no expectations, there's no sales history, there's no, there's no reviews for those genres for you. So there's no pressure. And you know, in my crime books now, like you said, I'm currently writing book 11 and there is a pressure. There's pressure from the you know, my editor and the sales team, and there's pressure from the readers. There's pressure from myself, because apparently I'm a brand now, you know, and there's all of that and that really slows me down.

C.L. TAYLOR: 4:37

But in those early days I was just writing, you know, I was just, I had a story to tell and I wanted to get it out there. So I was just writing, I had no, I wasn't self-conscious, I wasn't overanalyzing what words I was using, I just wrote it. And, yeah, I kind of wish I don't know if there's like hypnotherapy you can get or something to like get that back that just that energy and that sort of lack of self-consciousness. But yeah, yeah. So that was the very first one and it got published as well, which is going to make aspiring authors hate me.

NADINE MATHESON: 5:15

The biggest one of these things, they won't hate you. There might be a bit like, oh my God, it's not fair, but also I think for a lot of aspiring writers, new writers, they can probably relate to just having that just wanting to get your book out there. Because I was just thinking, you know, when you said that I was overanalyzing every word and I was thinking, well, I started this interview with you, I'd spent about 10 minutes trying to come up with a different way of saying the air is heavy. I'm like I don't use the word heavy. I need material. I want to make the analyzer over thought it. I need something new. No, I need something new. You know, back in 2009,. What were you doing before that, before 2009,? Before you wrote this first book?

C.L. TAYLOR: 6:05

So I was working for a university in London, working for London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and I was working in distance learning. I had a team of coders, basically programmers. We were creating master's degrees in infectious diseases, malaria, AIDS, statistics, stuff to do with experiments yeah, it was really scientific kind of stuff and I was leading the team.

NADINE MATHESON: 6:40

Did it felt, you know, when you went full on, more than 100%, into your writing? Did it feel like your job was no longer important?

C.L. TAYLOR: 6:50

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, you know, because it's the dream, isn't it? So you concentrate on your dream. When you get that publishing deal, nothing, well, obviously family, but other than that, nothing's more important than it. And but I wrote. I wrote four books. So I wrote the two romcoms and then I wrote my first two crime thrillers whilst doing that job, and then for the, for the two crime thrillers, I actually had my son as well. So that was a lot. And when I was able to give up the job, I did it happily.

NADINE MATHESON: 7:28

But I've been thinking twice about it. It's like finally.

C.L. TAYLOR: 7:32

I do this. I missed the pension, but that's about it.

NADINE MATHESON: 7:37

I think it's always the case, though, when you look back in like the little things, you're like, oh, actually I do miss this and maybe I miss being around people.

NADINE MATHESON: 7:45

Yeah, and you have your team and yeah, and you don't realise how much of a big part of your life it becomes, like the team that you work with and obviously, like you miss the benefits, like I miss the pension, but I really like that. I hate sickly, yeah, all those little things. But then you know, in the scheme of the wider scheme of things, you think actually, no, I'm happy to give up all of this because you're them doing the thing that you really want to do. Yeah, exactly, but you know. So when you submitted to, did you know what you was doing? I tried for that question not to be insulting, but that is how I'm doing insulting. But you know when you're, when you've, when you'd finish your job, when you'd finish your first book and it's time to go out there, find an agent, find a publisher, did you know what you was doing at that stage or were you still? No, you were winging it.

C.L. TAYLOR: 8:40

I literally knew no published authors Like I knew like there was. There was like a blog community online where, like we caught ourselves a novel racers and we would all post like weekly word counts and you know, we were kind of sort of supportive for us, for for each other and we did meet up. We met up once in Manchester and once in and once in Birmingham I think. So we had this nice community but none of us really knew what we were doing and there wasn't that much information on the internet Like now there's so many podcasts. You know, if you want to know the truth about publishing, you know, just sort of throw a stone and you'll find a podcast that's going to help you. But back then there was literally a book written by Carol Blake called I think it was called Pitch to Publication. I got it, yeah.

NADINE MATHESON: 9:29

I'm looking at it right now. Pitch to Publication, that's it.

C.L. TAYLOR: 9:34

And and Jane Wendham Jones had written a book about something about publishing, what to expect, and that was literally all I had. Those were the only two resources I had. Authors on the internet back then didn't get into like the nitty gritty of a career in in publishing. You didn't. You didn't know about things like supermarket subs or super leads, leads you know all of these, all of these terms that we use. Now I didn't know any of those and and I went into it very, very naive, like when my book was picked up by Orion. I believe that my book had as much chance as every other book of becoming a Sunday Times Vesella and, like you know, looking back now I'm like, oh God, that was so naive, you know, and I feel sorry for like 35 year old me who was, you know, a bit disappointed when she bought the Sunday Times and there was no mention of my, of my little book that I think got into WH Smith's and one supermarket. But but yeah, I've learned a lot since then. I can tell you that.

NADINE MATHESON: 10:43

Well, you know, you're not the only one who would sit there and say you know, in the, in the very beginning, they just I, even I did you just assume. Okay, you've written this book, your publishers love it, your agent loves it, you've got a deal, you know it's going to be on the shelves. Then it's obviously goes about saying one plus one equals two. Your Taylor's book, this book is going to be in the Sunday. I don't quite understand why I am not here. Yeah, and then with new lies, as you progress through the game, you're like oh yeah exactly, yeah, exactly.

C.L. TAYLOR: 11:24

I didn't know any. I didn't, you know, I didn't even know how many copies were printed. I didn't, I wasn't told my supermarket sub, I didn't know how many, how many copies went out into supermarkets and shops. I didn't know anything. I was so, so green and it was literally only.

C.L. TAYLOR: 11:40

I went to be a Ryan, like they had an Orion party, and beforehand my editor had said why don't you meet up with a couple of these existing women's fiction authors with Orion and I won't name them, but I remember sitting around with the table with them and they, they were kind of talking about something and I just noticed this little hint of this little hint of unhappiness about the publishing process, or this little, this little undercurrent, and I was like, oh, hang on, Like is it? Is it not all roses? And you know that that what's going on here? And that was my first little hint that, okay, things aren't all shiny and bright, Because because when you get that first deal, you think you're going to enter some kind of nirvana. You know, this is like the promise, this land that you've been trying so hard to get into, and your life is going to be perfect, your career is going to be perfect. Once you've got that, once you've got through the door, that's it, You've made it. But yeah, couldn't be further from the truth.

NADINE MATHESON: 12:43

I think it's because you know, when you're before I was going to say before you're famous, before you're famous, I was thinking that it's like everything you know, it's just from. If you're reading about all four stories, it's going to be, I say, like the glamourised version that you're getting in a you know spreading the magazine. So it's always, it's always going to be the end of you know. Look at where I am now. Here's my I don't know. Here's my lovely office that faces out into my amazing garden. Here's my. Here's my awards. That's what you're seeing. You're not seeing the reality of it. I call it like the the leggings and hoodie side of it.

NADINE MATHESON: 13:26

Exactly You're not seeing that and you're not seeing the realities of the work and how not everyone's journey is the same. Yeah, yeah.

C.L. TAYLOR: 13:36

Exactly. There's so many ups and downs and you know when people are shouting on social media about the ups, they're not going to do that for the downs. It's only by, you know, getting to know other authors and building up relationships with them where you can trust each other to say, oh my God, you know I haven't had a foreign deal for three years. Or you know my supermarket sub has been cut by, you know however many thousands. Or you know my publicity person has left and nobody's doing any publicity for me, or whatever. It's only by getting to know those other authors that you realize that you're not alone and I think that's really reassuring for particularly a lot of new authors.

NADINE MATHESON: 14:18

They need to really find a way to buddy up with other authors who've just been published in that year and talk about their experiences and find out, you know, what's normal and what's not, it's like being I just walked back it's like being in primary school or your first day in secondary school, and then they buddy you up with somebody yeah, and then you start this journey together, you know, doing secondary school for five years, that's. You're together throughout that whole journey and you don't really have that. I think I've described it as going into publishing, like you. Just, you're the new kid who arrives halfway through the school term and then you're in the playground looking for friends. Yes, exactly.

C.L. TAYLOR: 15:02

Yeah, yeah, it is, and I do think publishers maybe should do little get-togethers of everybody published for the first time in 2024 and let them all chat and get to know each other. I know some people have done it on Twitter or X, because I remember a bunch of authors who were all published in 2020, which was a really tough time, obviously and they all buddied up to help promote each other's books and I thought that was brilliant and I think they, you know, they put a call out who's published for the first time this year and then they kind of brought them into the fold and all worked together, which I thought was lovely.

NADINE MATHESON: 15:36

Well, so, once you was in it, once your first book was published, what surprised you most about the publishing industry?

C.L. TAYLOR: 15:45

The lack of transparency. The lack of transparency.

NADINE MATHESON: 15:49

The lack of transparency. Yeah.

C.L. TAYLOR: 15:54

There's so many things that you're just not told about and there's a lot of. I feel like there's quite a lot of sort of whitewashing and sort of oh, don't worry about that, don't worry about that, that's happening to everybody, that you know. That's it's quite hard to get really solid answers on things and I think you really have to push to get solid answers. I was also surprised by the sort of lack of input the author gets, certainly at the beginning of my career, into your title, your cover, your blurb. You know, and you just have to trust that this, this machine, when they say that they use metadata or market research or whatever it is that you know this cover, this title, this blurb is going to actually sell your book.

C.L. TAYLOR: 16:43

And I think there's there's a there's a weird, there could be weird moments where your image of your book does not match the way your book is packaged. Sometimes and I think a lot of authors really struggle with that they're like, yeah, but you know, this is the theme of my book and they're you know they're totally focusing on this plot element or whatever, and that's that's. That's a surprise. You know, when I, when my first crime novel was was published, I mean I was a bit more experienced then because I'd had two romcoms published. But even then I, you know, I had this image in my head because a lot of the crime novels, the psych thrillers at the time had like eyes on them and stuff. So I was like, oh, I'm going to get, going to get this great eye and I'm, and it's going to be called an end to silence and all of this. And then they called it the accident and stuck this little what looked like a illustration of a girl crossing a road on the front and all this black.

C.L. TAYLOR: 17:37

And I was like no, that's you know that doesn't match what I had in my head, but you know they knew what they were doing because it did sell well. But I think learning to trust that, that your publishers do know that is, is quite tricky. But then sometimes, with experience, I feel like my. You know, my view is equally as valid. Now and, having having been in the game longer than a lot of the stuff that I'm working with, you know, not my editor, but but some of the younger ones who are probably, you know, could be my children God, I'm just making myself feel old. No, I don't.

NADINE MATHESON: 18:20

I feel that way when I'm, when I'm training the baby lawyers and I, when I'm sitting down and actually work out actually they're 21, 22, for God's sake, I had them really early. I'm like you've got to be my children and you realize there is a. There is a quite a big gap between you and them.

NADINE MATHESON: 18:42

It's great, but deep face. I was thinking it's not easy, though, to let go when you've been working on this book, so you know who knows how long you've been working on it, for you worked on it for so long, it's so much a part of you. And then you hand it over and then, okay, this is the image that we have for the cover. You're like I don't know what I I don't know where that's coming from. It's not what I thought it would come from. It's got nothing to do with the story. Yeah, you, just then. You, you have to learn to just like, go with it. Yeah, it'll be hard to do, yeah.

C.L. TAYLOR: 19:13

It is. It is hard to do and when I, when I look back at like my back catalog now and you know some of some of the battles that I may have had over titles and covers, some of them, I'm like okay, you know that that's fine, like the lie. For example, I was like there's a woman standing by the sea and on the front cover and the book set in the Annapurna mountain range of Nepal, and I had a big like battle like why have you put somebody in front of the sea? You know this, it gives the totally wrong, you know, impression. But actually that that ended up being my biggest selling book and I think I called it last girl standing.

C.L. TAYLOR: 19:55

I think that was my working title and they called it the lie and they gave it that cover and and and it worked. But equally there's a book called the escape that's got a boat on it and at the time I said it looks like the book is set in a jungle and not in the UK and Ireland, and I stand by that. I still think the jungle boat was a mistake which was kind of backed up by the, by the ebook sales actually. So but you know, largely my publisher's got it right, because you know I'm still selling.

NADINE MATHESON: 20:33

So so something's right. It reminds me of when I got one of the. I got the concept covers for the jigsaw man and one of them I remember one of them was a fish hook. I don't understand why there's a fish hook on the cover, Like fishing's got nothing to do with this. Okay, they find an arm in the Thames at some point, but I'm not because they want fish in. I think they got one of it. I respond oh my God.

C.L. TAYLOR: 21:07

What's the jigsaw man? Your title? Was that your title? Yeah, that was yeah that was my title.

NADINE MATHESON: 21:13

And then I remember saying to them you can change it. Oh, because I knew there was. Because you know, you come up with a title and you think, oh good, I've been original and this is a great title and I love this title I've never come up this title before and you go on Amazon and you put the jigsaw man in and I was like, oh, oh, it's a film with Michael Caine.

NADINE MATHESON: 21:32

And then, oh, there's a nonfiction book called the jigsaw man. So I remember emailing my editor and said we can change the title. She's like no, no, no, we're going to stick with it, like we like it. And I'm like but it's other things, all the jigsaw man. That doesn't matter though, does it?

C.L. TAYLOR: 21:43

I mean, like when the accident came out there were two books, including one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten. And then I was like what's the point of this? I'm like this is a book. I'm like I'm just going to get it. I'm going to get it.

NADINE MATHESON: 22:00

I mean, like, when the accident came out, there were two books, including one, I think the same year or maybe the year before that were called the accident and my publisher was like it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, Like you're in a different genre, different readers. So I was like, okay, I don't know, they get the wrong kettle. And they're like, oh, I don't like this kettle, I'll give it one star. Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah. Or they'll say I ordered the jigsaw man and I thought I was going to get a puzzle of a jigsaw man and it's not the jigsaw. I'm just going to give it one star. It's one of the different things we've done before. Yeah, yeah.

C.L. TAYLOR: 22:39

We're worried about it.

NADINE MATHESON: 22:41

Yeah, your publisher's like I don't know what you're worried about. Just let it go.

C.L. TAYLOR: 22:47

The thing is is that they are working on so many different books that I think you know, once they've made these decisions and they're happy with them, they just they kind of just leave it there sort of thing, where for us, it's one book, like you said, that we've been working on for months and months and months. So we're, you know, we're going on to like the Amazon pre-order page or whatever, and forensically examining it and saying, oh, you know, you've missed off this author's quote, or you need to, you know, or an image of this is missing, or whatever. But for them they're just like right, we've done that one, we've put it up onto the next one, yeah, whereas we're still, you know, trying to scrabble back that little bit of control.

NADINE MATHESON: 23:29

Do you have anything from your previous job that's been helpful to you as a writer?

C.L. TAYLOR: 23:41

Not really. I don't think. I mean, I moved from coding myself to instructional design because instructional design is kind of like writing the courses but there's like a narrative to them, like maybe not in the master's degrees, but I used to write courses for like banks and the NHS and whatever, like training courses, and you'd have characters and you kind of take them on a journey through the training. I don't think that helped me be a writer, but I think it was me being a frustrated writer trying to find a job where I could be creative.

NADINE MATHESON: 24:20

And what made you switch from Romcom to crime? You're not the first author.

C.L. TAYLOR: 24:29

No, there's loads of us, there's absolutely loads of us. And I think even now there's a whole bunch of women's fiction authors who are writing crime. So basically, the honest truth is I was dropped by my editor, my Romcom editor. I'd written, I'd written the two and my son was born six weeks before the second book came out. And about a month later my agent said can you put together a synopsis, three chapters for the next book, and I'll talk to your editor about getting you another two book deal.

C.L. TAYLOR: 25:05

And I did that over Christmas and then in the January my agent came back to me and she said I'm really sorry to tell you this, but your editor doesn't want any more Romcoms. She's come back and said if you could write a Richard and Judy pick or something like a Jojo Moyes, then she'd take a look at that. And I was just like what? And I thought that was it. I thought that was game over, like I'd had my two books published and it was, you know, and my career was done and I was really panicky and I knew I couldn't write a Jojo Moyes book because only Jojo Moyes can write a Jojo Moyes. And you know the breadth of Richard and Judy picks, how you know. I think what she was saying was write a book club, a book club, book Equally. I didn't. I didn't know how to do that. You know what that mean. I didn't even know what book meant.

C.L. TAYLOR: 25:58

Yeah, no, it's such a vague term. I think it's one of those I'll know it when I read it sort of thing. You know it's like oh, how do I have a bit of discussion, maybe I don't know. But so so what I did was I'd written this opening chapter for the romantic novelist association for a competition of theirs on the theme of keeping a secret, and it won. It won the prize and started with a woman by her daughter's bedside in hospital, her daughter's in a coma, having stepped in front of a bus, and the mother has found the daughter's diary that says keeping this secret is killing me. And that's literally all I knew in that first chapter, like, I was like, oh, bit of tension, bit of suspense, whatever. And and when I got dropped by my rom-com publisher, I thought I'm going to write the rest of this, this book that I've started in this one chapter, and see what happens. And at the time I've been listening to a lot of audiobooks while I was pushing my son around and I'd listened to Before I Go to Sleep by SJ Watson and Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes, and I was like, oh my God, the book that I've started, this first chapter, is a psychological thriller like these and I love these. So so I wrote it over my maternity leave, gave it to my editor and my agent and she said this is the best thing you've written. And, yeah, she sent it out.

C.L. TAYLOR: 27:22

I didn't immediately get a publishing deal. I was rejected quite a lot. It did quite well abroad. I got quite a few foreign deals but but yeah, I was starting to give up hope that I wasn't going to get a UK deal until Avon and Imprint of Harbour Collins offered for it.

C.L. TAYLOR: 27:39

And it was quite a small deal. I mean, it was a very small deal and and I thought to myself oh, you know this, this book is going to sink because it's such a small deal. They're not going to put any marketing money behind it. And in fact, when they sent proofs out, they were like ring bound, you know, like the cheapest possible truth that you can get. They kind of fall apart.

C.L. TAYLOR: 28:00

Yeah, when you, when you turn the pages and I didn't know any crime authors to ask for a quote or to send it to I didn't get any quotes. It was only because a woman's fictional author I know said I know Alex Marwood. Why don't you contact Alex Marwood and see if she'll give you a quote. So Alex Marwood gave me a quote and that that was literally the only quote I got for the whole book it came out. I thought it's going to die a death but because of the whole ebook revolution and the, there were very few publishers who were cutting ebook prices at the time but mine was and mine put it out for 69p and I think the price point yeah, I know, I know, I know I don't want to go back there, but at the time, at the time, it caused a massive rush of sales, also because there weren't that many psych thrillers out.

C.L. TAYLOR: 28:54

So people were like, oh, what's this? And it sold like 250,000 ebooks and like 50,000 paperbacks. So I was, you know, compare this to my romcoms my first romcom sold 5,000 paperbacks and ebooks didn't even exist. So so this was like wow, and I think, I think even my publisher was shocked. You know, literally no one expected it to be a success.

C.L. TAYLOR: 29:22

And then, and then the lie went on to my second crime, but went on to be even bigger, like that sold like half a million copies in total, mostly ebooks but a decent amount of paperbacks. And I just feel like I got lucky, I feel like it was a timing thing and I happened to find the right publisher. If I'd have gone, if I'd have got an offer from one of these big publishers, you know, with a big advance, I don't think they would have cut their ebook price as low Well, hardly anybody was cutting their ebook prices back then, but Avon were and and, yeah, it could have gone completely differently if somebody else had offered. So, yeah, a lot, a lot of luck and timing in that success.

NADINE MATHESON: 30:04

I think but how do you, like I say, mentally and emotionally, get through that period when you're, when you've been told we're not, we don't want any more books from you, because it takes, it's not? I say it's not easy to go from, you know doing what?

NADINE MATHESON: 30:20

you've done before doing your job, writing your book all hours, any hour you can take, and then you know you had your two books out there and now you're doing what you want to do. And then there's more rejection, yeah, during the course of that, how do you, how do you keep yourself motivated? Because, no, I don't think there's anything in any of the, any of the books you read or podcast. You'd listen to all the one podcast back then, but there's no one, no one's telling you that this is a possibility. There's a bit more rejection even after you think you've reached the mountain top.

C.L. TAYLOR: 30:54

Yeah, I was really surprised. I hadn't seen it coming at all, because I, because my, because I had, like I had two editors, I think, basically the one who acquired me and the one who sort of published the books. And the one who published the books had said to me I'd said to her, when my first book was published, how many will you be happy with, like sales wise? And she said, if you sell 10,000 paperbacks I'll be pleased. So I was like great. So then the first book only sold 5,000 and I was a bit like oh dear. And then the second book did sell 10,000 paperbacks. So I was like, oh good, they're going to be pleased with me.

C.L. TAYLOR: 31:32

So when I got that, that call from my agent to say I'd been dropped, I was really shocked and and I honestly I just I just thought my career was over. I was like, well, you know, I've had two books, I hadn't given up my job, which made me feel a bit safer. I think if I'd have given up my job right at the beginning of I mean, I couldn't have afforded to, because that was a small the rom-com deal was wasn't enough to live off. But if I had, I think I would have felt much, much more panicky. But I was desperate not to not to leave and and I did write the the psych thriller, like a woman possessed. But when the rejection started to come in for the psych thriller from from the editors in me, I started to feel I started to lose my confidence really badly. I mean, even with the second rom-com I'd had to do a massive, massive edit and rewrite and I'd started to think that maybe I just got lucky with that first book and and that I wasn't very good and maybe I didn't deserve to be published.

C.L. TAYLOR: 32:38

And the more rejections that that came in for the psych thriller, I got so close to saying to my agent just pull it, I can't cope with any more bad news. You know it was, I was just, it was probably the lowest I've ever felt in my whole career. I just, I couldn't take any more rejection. And so, when you know, when the Avon deal came through, I was almost just, I wasn't even. I wasn't even excited, I was just like, oh, like this one's going to die too.

C.L. TAYLOR: 33:08

You know like what's the point? I was, I was low, I was, I was low in self confidence, low in expectations, and so, yeah, no one could have been more, more surprised that it did well, and I wonder what I would have done. I wonder if, if the accident had had no offers, would I have gone away, licked my wounds and tried to write something else, probably because I am quite a determined person. Yeah, I probably would have done whatever it took to try and get back in. And now, of course, I know loads of authors who one side of their career has sort of dropped off and they've gone away and they've reinvented themselves and they've come back with a pseudonym and a new genre. And I think that happens more than people realise.

NADINE MATHESON: 33:55

It's just I just keep going back to the fact that there's nothing that could prepare you for that. Everything, in terms of everything, prepares you in terms of how to get published. There's nothing there unless you've got you know, you've got a really good agent, Someone is very open with you and you have got a good group of people, but you've found your tribe really early on. There's going to be nothing that's going to prepare you for this is what could happen and this is what you should do if that happens. If you're now being told no and the thing is, when you've worked for something so hard, for so long and it's what you want, and you've already said, you've already had a taste of it, you've already seen the book out there, you felt it in your hand it's going to be hard to walk away from that or just say bye.

C.L. TAYLOR: 34:42

Exactly, and at the time I felt like I was the only person it had happened to, because I hadn't really made you know many experienced author friends at that point. So nobody I was talking to it had happened to. I was just like it's just me. And so you know, if there happens to be anybody out there listening to this going, oh my God, it's not just me, it happened to her as well, you know. I think people need to be honest about this because it's nothing to be ashamed of. It's a market thing.

C.L. TAYLOR: 35:13

Like that same year that editor got rid of two or three other romcom authors. So she'd obviously looked at the market, thought they're not selling as well as they did. They'd just clear the decks and get some book club books in or whatever. So but at the time I thought it was just me. And it was only later on, maybe six to 12 months later, that I met up with one of the other authors who were at Ryan and they went oh my God, you were dumped too. And they were like and so was. They were like so was so and so and so and so and so, and I was like, oh my God, she got rid of loads of us, and then I didn't feel quite so bad.

NADINE MATHESON: 35:47

Yeah, you don't. Well, nobody wants to feel like it's like being picked last for games. No one wants to feel like that. No one wants to feel rejected at all. So if you know it's not, if you know it's part of a bigger plan, and you there's a small little cog in that plan, you're like, okay, you can deal with that. Yeah, I think then it doesn't feel quite so personal, exactly, whereas before you're like it's just me, they don't like the book, they don't like me. Yeah, I need to do something.

C.L. TAYLOR: 36:16

Exactly.

NADINE MATHESON: 36:17

That's probably a good thing now about maybe being in this day and age with social media. One of the benefits are that you can. People are more people like to talk a lot. They're more likely to talk on social media about what's going, in addition to what's going well, but also what's going wrong. So you probably there's probably writers more exposed to not the negative sides of it, but maybe the realities of it that's probably a better word the realities.

C.L. TAYLOR: 36:45

Yeah, yeah. I think you can find more negative or disappointing stories these days. I think, particularly once people have left the industry for good, then they're like now I don't have to worry. What I say I can just put it out there. Although obviously people are more, authors are more careful, because people move around the industry, editors move, publishing houses and all of the stuff do they switch? So you don't want to get yourself a reputation as somebody who is bad mouthing the industry and that's not what I'm doing. I'm just saying author points of view.

NADINE MATHESON: 37:29

We're not bad mouthing it, we're just being very pragmatic, exactly.

C.L. TAYLOR: 37:36

We're just putting it out there the reality, yeah.

NADINE MATHESON: 37:40

So this is a question I'd like to ask now. What piece of advice do you wish you'd been told early in your career?

C.L. TAYLOR: 37:50

Expect downs as well as ups. It's forever. Yeah, basically I wish I had been better informed and I think, yeah, I mean like, for example, now say I was going to write a book in a different genre what I have learned now, that is that unless you get a big deal for good money, you're not going to get the marketing push and the sales push that will allow your book to do well. So you know, I wouldn't necessarily now accept a small deal, because I know that means low marketing budget and it's not a lead or a super lead, so that maybe self publishing might be a better idea, because then you've got more control over it. Yeah, I think basically, just I wish I had known about these kind of levels in publishing.

C.L. TAYLOR: 38:50

And the super lead has everything thrown at it. The sales teams go out and forced, get the book shops with front of sale, what's it called? Point of sale, merchandise, posters and you know, and the advertising campaign and the posters and whatever. And you see that as an aspiring author or a new author and you think, why am I not getting that? And the reason you're not getting that is because they paid a lot of money for that book and they want to recoup their money. I didn't know that before and I didn't know that below super lead there are lead titles, and then there's kind of the rest and I was the rest and and if you are in that situation, you need to keep your expectations at a certain level, like which has really disheartening.

NADINE MATHESON: 39:45

And I think it's best that people know and not just like aspiring writers, like their family knows, because they think if you've got a book deal, you're going to be rich and you have to say that that's not how it works. I just think, like everyone should know, because I didn't know the difference between a super lead and a lead and everyone else. You just assume and I don't think anyone should feel bad for assuming this you just assume that you get your book, so you're going to get your big. Oh, everyone who listens to this podcast knows I go on about being on the side of a bus. You just assume you're going to be on the side of the bus.

C.L. TAYLOR: 40:24

No, no, it doesn't. It doesn't. I'm still waiting for the side of a bus.

NADINE MATHESON: 40:30

I'm going to get what you watch. I'm going to get a side of a bus one day.

C.L. TAYLOR: 40:38

Put it out there.

NADINE MATHESON: 40:40

I am. I am going to be on the side of a bus so I can ask you about every movie you make. Yeah, it's like your new book. So what book is it? Is this number 10 or 11?

C.L. TAYLOR: 40:51

Yeah, this is number 10. This is number 10. It's a standalone. All my books are standalone, so they can be read in any order, doesn't matter. Different characters, different storylines, different locations.

C.L. TAYLOR: 41:03

Every movie you make is about five victims of stalking who join an online forum for support and they discover that they're all from London. So I mean, this is like an international online forum, but the people kind of gather together because they're from London and they set up a little WhatsApp group and, very sadly, right at the beginning of the book so not a spoiler one of them, a stalker, gets out of prison, tracks her down and murders her, and the rest of them the other four that are left decide that you know, enough is enough, they're not going to take it anymore, they're going to fight back. And then when they go to Natalie's funeral, they receive a wreath and they don't know who it's for. It's kind of generally given to the group of them and it says you know RIP and a date in 10 days time. And they realize that one of them another of them is going to die. So they decide to place trackers on each other's stalkers so that way they know where their stalkers are. But it doesn't quite go to plan.

NADINE MATHESON: 42:11

It never does go according to plan.

C.L. TAYLOR: 42:13

It never goes to plan.

NADINE MATHESON: 42:17

Well, I wanted to ask you about every movie you make. You know we're always talking about and we always ask about what inspires our books and I know, that it was your stalking experience, that inspired it. Did you ever think about or ever be, were you ever worried about putting yourself or your own you know, your own personal experiences into your book?

C.L. TAYLOR: 42:37

Yeah, and this, this has been really hard, not only, not only because you know, I had to draw on those feelings of 15 years ago when I was stalked, and that fear and that tension and that never quite feeling safe feeling and put it into a book that took me, you know, whatever five or six months to write. So and there are four characters who are all experiencing this. So it wasn't like I had any respite when I was writing the book, because I was just going from, like you know, scared heads to scared heads to scared heads. It was. I tried to find little moments of of humor where I could because I think that was important for for me and for the readers.

C.L. TAYLOR: 43:21

But also, I mean, in a way, it's like it's a publicist's dream that I've, that I've written something based on personal experience because I'm getting a lot more interviews and press than I would have done if I just made something up. But again, the downside to that is having to having to talk about it so much, which is really weird because literally no one knew about this apart from my immediate family and my partner, my now partner. So putting out in the world is is very weird and it's very unsettling, and those interviews that I've done haven't actually come out yet, but when they come out, you know they're in big papers and and the world is going to know, and for me it's a very private person that feels really vulnerable and exposing. But I have to keep reminding myself that I've got nothing to be ashamed of, that I didn't do anything wrong, that you know that there are other people I mean even since I've just put out like a few social media messages and posts about it, people have contacted me and said, oh yeah, I was stalked too and I was, you know, and I'm quite shocked really by the number of responses that I've had. So, yeah, it's, it's uncomfortable, but I'm kind of hoping that when it's all done and dusted I can shut that box and you know I won't need to open it again. It's kind of dealt with, done out there and, yeah, I don't think I've got anything quite as traumatic that I want to write about.

C.L. TAYLOR: 44:58

I think, in fact, deliberately, after I wrote that book I was like I'm going to have to write something a bit lighter, and so the book that I'm writing now is deliberately. I mean, it's still got a mystery and a you know, a missing, potentially dead woman and all of this. But the way I'm writing it is much, much less intense. There's nobody fearing for their lives in this one. They're just trying to solve a mystery. So I hope readers like it. If they like every move you make and it's dark intensity, they might be expecting the same again. But for my own self I had to write something a bit lighter for next.

NADINE MATHESON: 45:37

Did you know you was always going to be writing about that experience, though? No, you know, like you've had. No, it's just no.

C.L. TAYLOR: 45:45

No, I think, because I mean my first. When it happened, my rom-com hadn't even come out. So you know, you know sometimes. You know, sometimes, when you know you're in your house and you hear a noise like like now, and you know, and your heart does, or you make a little squeak in your throat, there's a part of your bright writer's brain goes remember this, this will come in useful. Or you know, and it's just really weird stuff, when you're walking down the street and something happens and you and you think, oh, remember how that felt to start. All at the time of the stalking, that was not in my head at all. I was just totally focused on like when is he going to stop? When is how can I get him to stop? When is he going to stop? And I didn't think like, right, a little note of how it feels. You know which, yeah, no, you just, you just kind of survive it really.

NADINE MATHESON: 46:38

Yeah, so you know you're talking about being vulnerable because even though you've written a fictional story, but you still had to tell your story because it's a market is very emissive, isn't it? It's like oh, can you always ask you when you're you don't realise as well, before your book comes out, several months before, they're like oh, you got any article ideas and you look at everyone else. You think you know everyone else has got a really interesting story. I haven't done anything that exciting, always, always, um, newsworthy. So you don't necessarily think about having to expose yourself in that way. But then you said your experience and your subject matter of your book is for the publishers, for the marketing team. They're thinking well, why wouldn't you talk about it? Why wouldn't we monopolise this at all?

C.L. TAYLOR: 47:28

Exactly, and I do think. I think there are certain things that possibly I mean, we'll see what, what you know, whether these, when these interviews come out, whether they actually do cause sales to increase. But there are certain things that don't like. If you, if you do an interview about something that is kind of personal to you but it's not directly, directly related to your book, that's not going to sell your book. And I think the the kind of articles that do really work best are the ones where there's a nonfiction book. So it's almost like people want to continue to read about your experience because they've had like a little taster from from the interview or the article with with fiction. I don't know. I'm trying to think of someone who's written a fictional book that is based on I guess it Eat Pray, love, was that that was fiction? And she's had a memoir, isn't it? Is it a memoir?

NADINE MATHESON: 48:26

Yes, okay, I can't, I don't.

C.L. TAYLOR: 48:28

I'm struggling to think of a fictional book.

NADINE MATHESON: 48:32

I don't think there is no, it does no, but I always get up, even though I don't write legal thrillers, you know, but I've been writing a police procedural. But because of my profession, I'd always ask oh, it's just inspired by many of your cases and I still have this, it's. You know. I still have a, I still have a duty of confidentiality to my clients and the things I worked on. The last thing I would do, the last thing I would do, was write a book based on any of my cases. I haven't represented a serial killer ever in my life. I'm, I would say, you know, like my fantasy cases I would have liked to have worked on, but no, I wouldn't feel comfortable talking about a case that I worked on and using that to promote the story.

C.L. TAYLOR: 49:18

Yeah, I do think there is a thing as well about I wish I'd had a sexier job before I became an author. Because, because you, I remember like talking to the publicist and she was like what was your job? And I was like, oh, I worked for a university as a distance learning manager and her face just went oh, you know, a police officer or a barrister or you know something that we can, we can hook. You know, hook an article and yeah so. So aspiring authors, get sexy jobs before you become an author because if you start a boring job, you've got a boring job like mine, they'll just like sigh in disappointment.

NADINE MATHESON: 50:04

I need to do work experience two weeks anywhere, somewhere.

C.L. TAYLOR: 50:11

Make something interesting happen that you can write an article about.

NADINE MATHESON: 50:17

Right. So, kelly, we'll ask you some questions. Alrighty, the time, the way, the time always whizzes by and I'm like oh, my God run out of time. So are you an introvert or extrovert, or a hybrid of the two?

C.L. TAYLOR: 50:29

I'm definitely an introvert. I'm a huge introvert. I get my energy from being on my own, recharging I find. I find I love being with people. I love going to you know harrigan festivals and you know hanging out with crime authors having a laugh. They're the best, best people. But literally, if I do that for two, three days, I come home and I'm dead Like one harrigan. I was there for like four days and I came home and I cried for no reason other than like my introvert batteries had just run so low, so low I could no longer function and I just cried. So it's weird.

NADINE MATHESON: 51:08

It's not out of you though.

C.L. TAYLOR: 51:10

Yeah, it does. Yeah, a lot of adrenaline to keep talking to people?

NADINE MATHESON: 51:16

Yeah, no, it does, and it requires a different sort of energy that I don't think. Your previous jobs on that, what you did, it doesn't prepare you for that. No, no, no, because I'm used to being around people. You know, different sorts of people and talking to them, that's not a problem. But doing the festival circuit and then being on panels and coming off panels and then engaging with people afterwards, it requires a different energy for that.

C.L. TAYLOR: 51:45

Yeah, it's constant and I think you know, in harrigan for example, if you're standing in the tent, lots of people will approach you. So you're constantly react, think who are they, what do I know about them, Talk to them? No, react, think and you're just like. It's like a onslaught of sociableness. So what I've tended to do now to kind of keep myself a bit more grounded, is I will go for a meal with a small group of people and I find that much less stressful and less intense, and then I can kind of ground myself in that, and then I can gird my loins and go back in the tent ready for another onslaught. And then you know, but it's a lot for an introvert, it is it is.

NADINE MATHESON: 52:31

I remember last year it took I think I was saying to someone it took me 40 minutes to get from the tent entrance to the bar. Yeah, I remember I got to the bar entrance I thought I'm going to the bar, I'm going to get a vodka and tonic and that was in my head 40 minutes Callie because someone would grab you and you'd be talking to them. And then you turn. Then someone else is grabbing you, talking to them.

C.L. TAYLOR: 52:54

Yeah.

NADINE MATHESON: 52:56

And then I just, I just want to drink.

C.L. TAYLOR: 52:58

We need to come in like little backpacks. You know that have runners have for water. We have little backpacks with a little straw thing in our mouths and we could just drink that way and just mingle.

NADINE MATHESON: 53:10

Exactly what you need. So what challenge or experience in your life shaped you the most?

C.L. TAYLOR: 53:19

I was thinking about this and I think it's probably a bit too dark to talk about on a podcast. What I'll say is probably probably my dad being in the army and moving schools a lot and having to have and having kind of having no roots. So like when, pete, you know, when you meet somebody and they say where are you from, I say I don't know, like, or I can't really answer that I mean I could tell you where I was born, but that's not necessarily where I'm from. I mean I could tell you where my parents live now, where my granny used to live, but it I don't have roots. I I I find it like when I went to university in the, in the holidays, my mates from Leeds or my mates from London or mates from Manchester, they'll go back home and they'd hang out with their mates from sixth form or school or whatever. And like I went to Chester because that's where my dad had been posted and and I knew no one and and that was a really weird feeling and I was just like you know, if I ever have a kid, I mean I'm not blaming my parents. Like you know, they did the best that they could and I'm sure any army, navy, air force kid feels the same.

C.L. TAYLOR: 54:35

But when I had my kid I said to my partner I really want to give him like a stable upbringing. I want him to have roots, I want I want Bristol to be where he's from, where his mates are, and if he goes to uni he comes back to Bristol and he sees his mates from nursery or or primary school or secondary school or whatever, and he has that, that sense of belonging. And because my partner also, for different reasons, moved around a lot as a kid, he's, he's really up for that as well. So he's like, yeah, yeah, we want him to have that. The only trouble is I'm now stuck in in Bristol for the next 10 years because my son's only 12 and he's not going to finish uni till he's 22. So my dream of living by the sea is going is going to have to wait for another 10 years and then I can. Then I can leave.

NADINE MATHESON: 55:23

So only when you listen to someone else's experience that you realize how lucky you were. Like you know, I have roots. So I, if you say I'm going home, I know exactly where I was going when, you know, finishing uni forever. Yeah, I'm going home, I'm going back to London, I'm going back to South East London. I'm going back to you say, talking about your friends, friends who I've known since I was three years old.

NADINE MATHESON: 55:49

Yeah, and you don't, you kind of I think you can kind of pray that for granted. Yeah, you've already posted your ways too, if you've, when you've always had something you don't think about not having, and then you also just think it's the norm.

C.L. TAYLOR: 56:02

I mean, I thought my life was the norm until I got to uni and I met these, these new friends and, and, and realized how different their, their upbringings was. But you know, it's fine. It's made me pretty, pretty independent, I think, and, and yeah, it is what it is, isn't it?

NADINE MATHESON: 56:23

Why did you choose?

C.L. TAYLOR: 56:24

Bristol. Do you want to be honest with me? I chose Bristol because I was having a long distance relationship with my partner and I was in Brighton and he was in Bristol and I got pregnant, and because he was a teacher and my job involved a little bit of working from home and going into London, I moved to Bristol to be with him. So it's all my son's fault. Really Blame the kids. He is the cause. He is the cause. Yeah.

NADINE MATHESON: 56:56

Okay. So if you could go back to when you were 25 years old and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

C.L. TAYLOR: 57:03

25. Oh, okay, I think to be a lot more secure in myself and what I'm into. I think it took a long time for me to go. This is me, this is what I'm into, this is normal and not try and be what other people wanted me to be. I think for the longest time I was a people pleaser and when I was with boyfriends or whatever, I'd kind of be into, whatever they were into sort of thing. And if I was with friends and they wanted to go dance to disco, I wouldn't say I really want to go dance to rock. I was always I'd mould myself to what other people were into and I would go back to 25 year old me and say it's fine to be who you are and be into the things that you're into. People will still like you even if you show that. Do you know what I mean? It's taken me to get to 50, which is what I am now to feel more rooted in myself and my sense of self is more defined and less kind of amorphous to whoever is around me.

NADINE MATHESON: 58:23

I've got an additional question for you. I'm just being cheeky. But what would the Callie who was walking around with her baby and was being told by the publisher you don't want you anymore. What would that Callie say If this Callie, 50 year old Callie, was supposed to turn around and say to her you know, you're going to sell over 2 million books?

C.L. TAYLOR: 58:46

Oh my God, she would not believe it. She would not believe it. Yeah, I had such low expectations then that you know all of the things that I've achieved since then. Really, quite it blow her mind. It would blow her mind. I think I might make her smile a little bit.

NADINE MATHESON: 59:08

Are you glad it happened the way it happened?

C.L. TAYLOR: 59:13

Yeah, most definitely, I think, if I'd have had that massive deal and all of that noise at the beginning. I've seen it happen to so many authors they get all of that noise and they believe the hype and they believe it's because they're special, because they've written an amazing book and whatever, not being aware that that kind of special treatment doesn't happen to everyone. And so when their second book is published and they're not a debut anymore and there isn't that noise and that accolade or whatever, it must come as a massive shock. And then to then, you know, I imagine, see your sales dribble down as you go through your career instead of go up or go up and down in the case of mine, must be a shock. So I'm glad that I had a bit of a baptism by fire, because it makes me much more appreciative of the things that I have achieved. You know, it wasn't handed to me on a plate, yeah.

NADINE MATHESON: 1:00:10

And finally, CL Taylor Kelly. Thank you. We're collision is of the conversation podcast. Find you online, Okay.

C.L. TAYLOR: 1:00:19

On to stupidly. I've got different, different names for everything, depending when I started them in my career. On Twitter, I am at Cali Taylor. On Instagram, I am CL Taylor author. Facebook Cali Taylor author. And that's what you really need, isn't it? Those three things.

NADINE MATHESON: 1:00:41

At least you've got a name, because my Instagram, because of my Instagram, what they, what they call the handle it was before we know, when I was just the map of some money, my own business, one of my friends, he died, julian. He always used to call me Queen Nads. So I called yes, I just called it Queen Nads, and then you know, I would say the book, stuff happened. You know your Instagram, queen Nads, because I'm the best.

C.L. TAYLOR: 1:01:18

I'm the best at crime.

NADINE MATHESON: 1:01:22

Think about page it and I put me Bobberton. I'm always going to leave it. I'm like it's not really all for easy.

C.L. TAYLOR: 1:01:28

Well, I, before I started up at Cali Taylor on Twitter, my my handle was exploding author, so I'm glad I changed that quite early on.

NADINE MATHESON: 1:01:42

It's a funny old game Funny old game. So all that leads is for me to say CL Taylor, thank you very much for being part of the conversation.

C.L. TAYLOR: 1:01:51

My pleasure. I've really enjoyed it.

NADINE MATHESON: 1:01:54

Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of the conversation with Nadine Matheson podcast. I really hope that you enjoyed it. I'll be back next week with a new guest, so make sure that you subscribe and you'll never miss the next episode. And also don't forget to like, share and leave a review. It really means a lot and it also helps the podcast. And you can also support the podcast on Patreon, where every new member will receive exclusive merchandise. Just head down to the show notes and click on the link, and if you'd like to be a guest on a future episode of the conversation, all you have to do is email theconversationatnadinemathesoncom. Thank you, and I'll see you next week.