What remarkable event took place in London two hundred years ago on the 28th of June, 1826?
Karen Bayly shares the real-life inspirations behind her steampunk adventuress Artemis Devereaux with us over on her website and Black Beacon Books gives you, Dear Reader, the chance to win a print copy of her novels, Fortitude and Courage, simply by answering the question at the end of this post.
Adventure time! All aboard! We're thoroughly delighted to unveil Malgorzata Mika's cover art for our first releases in 2024, two action-packed steampunk romps by Karen Bayly. These books are for all the readers who love airships, steampunk science, fantastic adventure, and an unforgettable and intrepid heroine - Artemis Devereaux! That means ALL readers, right? Out February the 13th.
Find Karen on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
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Hello there, avid reader. You've read part one of the Fortitude and Courage announcement and you're back for the next round of steampunk tennis between Karen Bayly and Cameron Trost. Glad you could make it. Just give us a minute to warm up a little first... Okay, are you ready, Karen? Great! Let's play!
C: What is your writing process like? Are you more of a plotter or a pantser?
K: I do a basic plot, so I know what plot points to hit to reach the end. After that, I’m a pantser. If I were to plot every little thing, I would never write a novel. I can get too tied up in the details and end up strangling the story. I also find that within the plot, the interaction of the characters drives some aspects of the story. Artemis and Nathaniel are the perfect examples. How they end up is not what I planned.
K: What’s your editing process?
C: I get the book formatted the way I want it first so that it’s print-ready, then I do a quick edit on the laptop, fixing up typos, punctuation mistakes, and aiming for consistency. The idea is to remove simple errors that will distract me from diving into the book. Once it looks fairly clean, I order a print copy, grab a red pen, and make myself comfortable so I can scribble away, adding notes and scratching out words or entire sentences that need to be removed or rewritten. The final step in editing an anthology is usually adding the page numbers, because this is what inevitably changes until everything is in the right place, and no editor wants a reader to point out that the story supposed to start on page twenty-seven actually starts on page twenty-eight!
C: What do you need in your writing space to help you stay focused?
K: Quiet.
K: What keeps you focused on editing?
C: Quiet or music of my choosing. I love editing, so as long as I have no external distractions or disturbances, I’m in the zone.
C: How do you celebrate when you finish your book?
K: I don’t! I probably should. I’m partial to good peaty whisky. And champagne. Or a fine red wine.
K: How do you celebrate when you publish a book?
C: By plastering posts all over social media! Then the peaty whisky. ;)
C: What is your kryptonite as a writer?
K: Self-doubt. It can be crippling.
K: What frustrates Black Beacon Books as a publisher?
C: What annoys me is when I receive a submission from an author and it’s immediately clear the guidelines haven’t been followed. It’s rude and it dramatically reduces your chances of getting an acceptance. But more than that, what really frustrates me is not selling hundreds of books each week—or even each month! We publish books for people to read, and we want as many readers as we can get!
C: Are you active on social media? How do you use it?
K: I’m relatively active. I share upcoming publications and posts from valued authors and publishers. When I have a long enough lead time, I share my writing process for a story and snippets of what inspired me.
K: What’s your social media strategy?
C: I try to repeat what I notice works and I try to post regularly with the aim of making our loyal fans feel appreciated while at the same time reaching new potential fans. I lean more heavily towards Facebook and Instagram, because they seem to work, and I promote Goodreads page as it’s a book-specific platform. We’re still on Twitter for the moment but it looks like Bluesky might be slowly gaining ground. There’s no big strategy. The idea is to have fun and include others in our adventure. We publish a lot of dark fiction but I try to keep our social media interactions positive and engaging. That’s what readers seem to want.
C: Do you play music while you write—and, if so, what’s your favourite?
K: No, I find music distracting as I tend to listen to it rather than write. The exception is Philip Glass’s Tirol Concerto for Piano and Orchestra 2nd Movement, which always evoked a strong sense of the Fortitudo and Nathaniel and Artemis’s troubled relationship.
K: What does Black Beacon Books need to get down to the business of publishing?
C: I guess this question can be understood a number of ways. Keeping in mind that Black Beacon Books is essentially me—Cameron Trost—running the show from my cottage in Brittany in my free time. At the nuts-and-bolts level, I need time alone to run things—that includes keeping the website and social media platforms updated, reading submissions, editing and formatting books, choosing cover artists or designing covers in-house, and much more. Beyond my laptop, however, Black Beacon Books becomes a team effort. Our aim is to sell copies so we can keep publishing more books, and we need our contributing authors to help us. We expect them to play an active role in promoting our titles so that we can succeed together.
C: What books did you grow up reading?
K: The classics – Dickens, Austen, the Brontes, Lewis Carrol, Kenneth Grahame, lots of horse stories (!), fairy tales (I have an excellent book of fairy tales which is over 80 years old and passed down from my mother), and Greek and Norse mythology. I moved into science fiction and horror in my teens – starting with “The Chrysalids”, which we read in the first year of high school and progressing to the Pan Books of Horror. There are still stories from that series that haunt me - The Copper Bowl, The Emissary, Man Skin {shiver}.
K: What books have influenced Black Beacon Books in the development of its catalogue?
C: A tough question. None specifically and countless books more generally. Our anthologies are designed to intrigue, entertain, and thrill. If you take the Pan Books of Horror and mash them up with the Alfred Hitchcock anthologies, you’ll get an idea of the foundations we’re built on.
C: Have you ever tried to write a novel for a genre you rarely or never read?
K: I haven’t written whole novels, but I’ve written short stories in genres I rarely read. Apparently, I can write decent romance and erotica, which is weird because I have zero interest in either. However, people like that stuff, so I work elements of both into my novels when appropriate.
K: What genres would you never publish?
C: It’s important to think about brand—I know, uncool business concept as opposed to cool artist term, but it’s not going to help us if we spread ourselves too thin. Our bread and butter—well, we’re stilling working on the butter—is suspenseful fiction and all the genres it encompasses. While a hint of romance and a dash of eroticism can spice up a gripping tale, we’re not interested in giving Mills & Boon (they still around?) a run for their money, and “50 Grades of Shay”...well, no comment. We’re not planning on branching out into high fantasy or hard sci-fi either.
C: What book (or books) are you currently reading?
K: This changes every five days or so, so it will be outdated by the time anyone reads this. I’ve just finished Dervla McTiernan’s “The Murder Rule” and am now reading Sylvain Neuvel’s “A History of What Comes Next”.
K: What are the top five books in your To Be Read list?
C: I have two lists of books to read; one mostly made up of print books I’ve ordered (living in rural Brittany means my books in English are ordered online) and the other made up of ebooks I’ve been asked to review by fellow authors. Of the latter, my priorities are reviewing “A Vindication of Monsters”, edited by Claire Fitzpatrick, and “Cretaceous Canyon” by Deborah Sheldon. Of the former, well, I’m currently reading “Charlotte Sometimes” by Penelope Farmer, which is the book one of my favourite songs is based on, then there’s “Consider Her Ways and Others” by John Wyndham, “L’Affaire Saint-Fiacre” by Georges Simenon, “The Last Man” by Mary Shelley, and short stories by M.R. James, Ian Rankin, and Val McDermid. Of course, most of my time is spent reading submissions and editing our future publications.
C: What’s the trickiest thing about writing characters of the opposite gender?
K: Making my male characters appealing to men! I don’t think I write the type of men that men are impressed by. However, one of my more geeky characters has proved popular with male readers.
K: Do your publications appeal to all genders, or do you find your sales are skewed?
C: We have no way of knowing the gender of people buying our books, but our typical social media follower is a female in her forties. Since women are known to be far more discerning than men, I take this as a huge thumbs-up. The question remains, is it the quality of our books they love, or the sexiness of the man publishing then...one likes to think a little from column A and a little from column B! ;) A terrible sense of humour is sexy, right? (K: Umm…) In any case, we aim to please readers regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation. All you need to love our books is fantastic taste!
C: What do the words “literary success” mean to you? How do you picture it?
K: When I first started writing, it meant being well-known by readers, well-regarded by peers, and making a living from my work. Nowadays, I consider myself a literary success if I get paid for something I’ve written. That’s not meant to sound like I’m devaluing my writing. But it is tough to get noticed, so adjusting your expectations helps you stay hopeful as you inch your way up the literary ladder.
K: What are Black Beacon Books’ ambitions for the future?
C: Our modest ambition is to keep putting out a handful of books per year, gain new readers every month, and keep breaking even. Let’s be more ambitious now so you have an exciting answer to your question—I’d say, somewhere between breaking even and eating a Penguin burger. I’d love to do this full-time and be able to pay our contributing authors and cover artists a better rate. That would be great. We’re a talented bunch who deserves to live from our passion and receive shiploads of letters and underwear from fans and stalkers. Not there just yet. NB. Clean underwear only, please!
K: No underwear from fans or stalkers for me. Just putting that out there.
C: Who has been the biggest supporter of your writing?
K: Me. And a handful of friends (they know who they are).
K: What is the biggest difficulty you face as an indie publisher?
C: Getting people to put their money where their mouths are and buy our books. As simple as that. Do it! ;)
C: Would you share something about yourself that your readers don’t know yet?
K: I used to be an actor and a musician.
K: And would you share something about yourself that your readers don’t know yet?
C: No. Oops, I mean—yes, of course! Well, I’m not sure we have any dark secrets beyond the ones in our books, but readers may not be aware that Halloween 2023 marks our tenth anniversary as a publisher, and this means that there will be plenty of celebrations taking place as we head into the month of October. In fact, they’ve already kicked off! Follow us all over the interwebs: linktr.ee/blackbeaconbooks
More news coming soon, including the cover reveals! In the meantime, you can find Karen online here: https://karenbayly.com
Breaking news of the steampunk kind! Or should that be—Extra, extra! Read all about it? Either way, Black Beacon Books is jolly well thrilled to announce that Karen Bayly (you'll remember her from Murder and Machinery and Tales from the Ruins) has signed with us for a double-release. In February 2024, we’ll be publishing both Fortitude, her fantastic steampunk adventure which was originally published by Mary Celeste Press, and Courage, the splendiferous sequel, going to print for the first time. To celebrate, we’re playing not one, but two, games of tennis. Yes, you heard us! Our editor-in-chief, Cameron Trost, will ask Karen a question, and after answering it, she’ll hit one right back at us. Ready for the first match? Let’s play!
K: *I’m fascinated by the ‘what if ?’ premise the genre proposes. What if steam and analogue could deliver everything petrol and digital could as well or better? What if we never went down the petrol / digital path? What alternate steampunk worlds can I create? Although it is usually thought of as belonging to the Victorian era, steampunk set in Edwardian and other eras has allowed a move from restrictive Victorian ideals to more exciting interpretations.
K: Why do you publish steampunk?
C: For those unfamiliar with the Black Beacon Books range, we have published or are in the process of publishing books in the genres of mystery, suspense, adventure, horror, ghost stories, post-apocalyptic, and steampunk. To that, you could even add a touch of sci-fi and historical fiction. Quite a broad range perhaps, but in a way, the three overriding genres of mystery, suspense, and horror cover the others. Steampunk isn’t so much a genre as a setting. It provides a canvas for tales of all different kinds, with eccentric characters, spectacular styles, and mindboggling technology. Having grown up reading Victorian classics like the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells, the prospect of contemporary fiction taking the rich cultural and technological features of this period and applying them to an endless world of possibility based on the idea that the twentieth century took a different route is so compelling. This is what makes steampunk so fascinating... so tantalising.
C: What Victorian characteristics do you find in yourself?
K: I’m interested in science and technology and fascinated by death (although memento mori photography is a step too far). The era also spawned several ground-breaking women, for example, the female private detectives Kate Warne (a Pinkerton!) and Kate West. Emmeline Pankhurst started her suffragette crusade in the late Victorian era. In Australia, Viva Goldstein pioneered the women’s suffrage movement. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Constance Stone became the first women to practice medicine in the UK and Australia, respectively. These women were rebellious in positive ways. I’ve been called rebellious, and I’d like to think I’ve done so in a positive way.
K: Which Victorian author would you publish?
C: I like to think my role as editor at Black Beacon Books is to bring talent that may otherwise have been overlooked to as broad a readership as possible. So, if I’d been alive in the Victorian era and not condemned to working in a factory or coal mine, I would have loved to publish the work of unknown writers. I sometimes wonder if there are wonderful manuscripts out there from the period that the world never got to discover. But to answer your question with a name everybody knows—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Imagine that—Black Beacon Books presents The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes!
C: What is it about airships that fascinates you?
K: Their elegance and grace. Except when they exploded. But that is where steampunk comes to the rescue. No exploding airships, thank you very much.
K: If you owned an airship, what would you name it?
C: Living in Brittany, and in a steampunk world in which Breton had remained the dominant language over French, I’d have to choose a dark but graceful name evoking both the air and the sea. Give me a minute... okay, I’d go with Morvran Du... Black Cormorant.
K: I love that name SO much!
C: Tell the readers out there who have never read steampunk why they should.
K: It’s a fun genre ranging from humorous to dystopian and everything in between. Nothing is sacred. Anything goes as long as you have the basic elements of steam, contraptions, a retro feel in fashion and style, and a sense of nostalgia (even if that nostalgia is for something that never existed).
K: What about steampunk attracts Black Beacon Books?
C: As mentioned above, steampunk goes hand in glove with our main genres of mystery, suspense, horror, and post-apocalyptic. There are different ways to consider fiction genres and how they overlap. In a way, mystery is really a genre in the strongest sense of the word, with clear plot elements, character stereotypes, and a handful of hard and fast rules. There has to be a puzzle to be solved, a leading character—typically a detective—we can rely on to eventually provide (confirm) the solution, and there needs to be at least one culprit. The other genres we published are more atmospheres or settings. Both suspense and horror are really about the atmosphere, with a great deal of plot diversity and an almost endless array of settings available to the author, from a mediaeval village to a space station in another galaxy, even if they’re both (particularly suspense) more commonly associated with familiar settings—urban, suburban, or rural. Where then does steampunk fit in? Well, almost anywhere, really. Like post-apocalyptic, steampunk requires neither specific plot elements nor a specific feel. Both are based almost entirely on setting and they are both particularly speculative in nature. While both steampunk and post-apocalyptic fiction are generally considered subgenres of science-fiction, they can in fact overlap with just about any genre. Can you imagine a steampunk story without a heavy dose of suspense? Not really. Are there elements of horror in steampunk? Almost invariably. What about mystery? Not, perhaps, in the strictest sense, but there’s usually a puzzle or two in a steampunk story. In your novels, Karen, we definitely have bucketloads of mystery, suspense, and horror. This is what attracts us to steampunk. There’s so much freedom in terms of worldbuilding and the author can explore storylines that wouldn’t be plausible in the world we know today.
C: What is the most difficult part of your writing process?
K: Time. I juggle a couple of jobs requiring a lot of problem-solving and technical details and find that my brain is fried by the end of the day. But in the morning, my time is limited. I’ve learned to write in short bursts.
K: What is your process for picking stories for an anthology?
C: This is top-secret stuff, Karen—how dare you ask! ;) Okay, I’ll bite. It’s pretty simple at first; I put out a call, read the stories as they come in, and put each story into a folder named “under consideration”. Stories that don’t follow the guidelines (far too many) or simply won’t make the cut are either immediately rejected or end up going into a folder named “to be rejected”. Once submissions have closed, I’ll do a double-check—in theory, a story sent to the rejected folder can do a Lazarus, but it’s highly unusual. I’ll typically have thirty or so stories that make the initial short list. I’ll then go through all the stories under consideration and send the ones I intend to accept into a file named “to be accepted”. This is where what is generally the toughest part of the process begins (as you know, Karen) because there are some great stories that don’t quite fit the way the anthology is starting to shape up. These stories will have to be rejected. In the rejection email to these authors, I say the story made the final short list and that the decision not to accept the story was a tough one. While submissions are open to all writers, we want these ones especially to submit again in the future. These are serious writers who have talent, have followed the guidelines, and have thoroughly edited their work as best they can. These are writers who have a strong chance of making it next time around. These writers often work at developing and maintaining a strong social media presence as well, and while I aim to choose a story solely on its merit, when it comes down to choosing between two equally strong submissions, I’ll often look at the author’s social media presence. Publishing is a partnership and we need authors we can work with before and long after an anthology is published. We want people to read our books, and we want authors who want that too, and will work with us to that end.
C: What, to you, are the most important elements of good writing?
K: A solid grasp of grammar and spelling, an understanding of story structure and character arcs, thoughtful world-building, and a desire to weave a spell that draws a reader into the story.
K: And what, to Black Beacon Books, are the most important elements of good writing?
C: What you said, Karen. Good writing entertains and engages the reader, and it respects the reader. We want to publish great stories, and great stories require great writing. You can’t have one without the other. A ripping tale that’s poorly written is of no interest to the reader, just as perfect grammar and spelling without a story that holds the reader’s interest is of no interest. We want the whole package. I would add to that, a touch of originality. We want a surprise or two for our readers, whether it be a clever twist at the end or a new take on an old trope. Rearranging words isn’t enough. We need to know that a particular story belongs to a particular author. We want to know, for example, that this is Karen Bayly’s story even without seeing her name printed on the cover—although we’ll do that too, of course!
C: How do you develop your plot and characters?
K: I usually follow a standard three-act, nine-point structure, which I put into Scrivener. I’ve tried other formats like the Hero’s Journey and various plotting software, but these tend to tie me in knots. I create character sheets for my characters but keep these basic as I find they change as I write. I also plot an arc for characters. Who are they when they start? Who will they be when this is finished?
K: What types of plots and characters intrigue Black Beacon Books?
C: Like I said, we love originality. Admittedly, that’s easier said than done. In terms of the standard plot types, we love a combination of the ‘overcoming the monster’, ‘quest’, and ‘voyage and return’. These are extremely general plot types that can be shaken up and even turned on their heads. Take the first one, for example. Plenty of great horror novels—the scariest ones—have the monster win at the end, and a really engaging mystery can have the reader sympathising with the culprit when the motive is revealed. As for characters, we want them to be believable, which means that they can be stereotypes, but they still need a quirk or two. The hero needs to have a flaw or two—or at least an annoying habit—and we need a glimpse at the antagonist’s backstory—we need to understand what motivates the character.
C: How did you come up with the title for your books?
K: Both titles tell the theme that links the characters. In “Fortitude”, every character demonstrates their brand of fortitude. In “Courage”, every character faces challenges which lead to change and, you guessed it, reveals their brand of courage.
K: What’s your all-time favourite book title?
C: That’s a really good question. For the sake of fairness, I’ll limit myself to the title of a book I’ve actually read. I recently read and absolutely loved “Shutter Island” by Dennis Lehane, and while it’s a simple title, I think it evokes the suspenseful setting perfectly. That, however, is not my answer. Let’s see... Here’s the short list: Le Fanu’s “In a Glass Darkly”, James Henry’s “The Turn of the Screw”, Richard Matheson’s “A Stir of Echoes”—though I thought the film was far better than the book, “The Wasp Factory” by Iain Banks, “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess, “The Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, “Piranha to Scurfy and Other Stories” by Ruth Rendell (her titles are as amazing as her books—“The Crocodile Bird”, “Master of the Moor”, “To Fear a Painted Devil”), “Switch Bitch” by Roald Dahl—so snappy, “When the World Screamed” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “They Do It With Mirrors” by Agatha Christie, “The House on the Borderland” by William Hope Hodgson, “Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village” by Maureen Johnson, “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Ernest Hemingway. It’s so hard to choose just one—do I really have to?—I think “A Clockwork Orange” might take the cake. It’s so ambiguous and incongruous at first, but once you read the book, you come to understand how the clockwork orange is in fact so symbolic of the book’s central theme.
Who won, Karen? Looks like 6-6! Let's take a break and then come back for the tiebreak...