29-Writing Historical Fiction in a Changing Publishing Industry, interviewing Alison Stuart
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1 hour and 6 minutes)
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You can listen above or on your favourite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.
Subscribe: Spotify | Apple | RSS | More
You can listen above or on your favourite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.
Show notes
The conversation delves into the challenges of sustaining a long-term writing career, the transition to indie writing, the financial realities of publishing, the persistence and joy of writing, balancing writing with work, and the allure of historical fiction and costumes. The conversation delves into the challenges of writing historical fiction, the impact of historical accuracy, and readers' preference for escapism. Alison Stuart shares insights on the decline of historical romance, the influence of education on historical interest, and the changing reading patterns. The discussion also explores the impact of feminism on historical romance, the challenges of historical representation, and the perception of historical fiction by readers. Additionally, the conversation touches on the balance between historical realism and fantasy, the writing of uncomfortable truths, and the transition to a new series. Finally, Alison provides advice for writers, emphasizing the importance of learning the craft and seeking professional editing.
Takeaways
Chapters
Takeaways
- Long-term writing career challenges
- Balancing writing with a full-time job Historical fiction challenges
- Impact of historical accuracy
- Readers' preference for escapism
Chapters
- 00:00 The Reality of a Writing Career
- 05:54 Traditional vs. Indie Publishing
- 11:08 Advances and Royalties
- 20:00 Balancing Writing and Work
- 28:47 Historical Fiction and Costumes
- 34:11 Impact of Education on Historical Interest
- 40:00 Impact of Feminism on Historical Romance
- 45:46 Historical Realism vs. Fantasy
- 53:31 Transition to New Series
Connect with Alison Stuart
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Alison Stuart is an Australian author of historical fiction whose work spans centuries—from medieval England to colonial Australia. Her novels dig into power, politics, and the personal cost of history, but what stands out is her persistence. This is someone who built a writing career alongside a full professional life, adapted to a changing publishing landscape, and kept going when plenty of people would have quietly stopped.
Website: https://www.alisonstuart.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alison_stuart14/ |
Transcript of episode
Amra (00:34)
Today's guest is someone who proves that writing doesn't follow a neat linear
I'm joined by Alison Stewart, an Australian author and historical fiction writer whose work spans centuries from medieval England to colonial Australia. Her novels dig into power, politics and the personal cost of history, but what stands out is her persistence. This is someone who built a writing career alongside a full professional life, adapted to a changing publishing landscape and kept going when plenty of people would have quietly stopped.
We're going to talk about what it actually takes to sustain a long-term writing career beyond the fantasy of overnight success and what writers can learn from someone who's done the work over and over again. Welcome, Alison.
Alison Stuart (01:23)
Thank
you for having me, I'm looking forward to it. And the definition of madness is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result, isn't that correct? ⁓
Amra (01:32)
I know,
but you know, there is just such truth in that, like to embrace and live in a creative life is just that constant pivoting, constantly trying, constantly putting yourself out there. Even I was talking to someone recently, I said rejection doesn't even like register for me anymore.
Alison Stuart (01:43)
Great.
No, no.
Amra (01:52)
because
you just constantly, we're always putting ourselves out there, we're always putting ourselves up for rejection. That is the definition of a writing life. Yeah, so I just wanted to sort of delve into the reality of a writing career. So you've had, you know, long writing career across multiple books and genres. What does the day to day reality actually look like versus what aspiring writers imagine?
Alison Stuart (02:01)
It certainly is, that's right.
Well, I think the big lesson in all of this is that a writing career is in fact a game of snakes and ladders. You just think you're up going up the ladder, you've got your traditional three book publishing contract with a traditional publisher, you're set.
and along comes a snake and down you slide again all the way to the bottom. You cannot expect any sort of consistency or promise or anything like that and as you said in the introduction I mean I've been hovering around this world now for over 30 years and it has changed out of sight and you when I started it was only the traditional publishers and you sent off your manuscript all printed out and bound with an elastic band
and in the mail and then you wait you might actually get the whole thing back or at the best you just pick it at the letterbox waiting for a rejection letter and I mean how different is it today when it just it's an online submission emails fly backwards and forwards and that's it sounds easy but it's I think it in some ways it's a lot harder because there it's just such a broad field now as to which way you go and and traditional publishing is not not always the way people
should go these days. It's a very different world.
Amra (03:36)
No, so you've kind of done both. You've done the traditional publishing and now you're also doing indie writing.
Alison Stuart (03:45)
I've done everything. I might just, if you don't mind, just take a moment just to recap my brilliant career. Yeah, write a book.
Amra (03:49)
Please. Yes.
Alison Stuart (03:53)
dislocated my shoulder, wrote a book and thought this is it. I then came runner up in the Emma Darcy Award which is a romance writers award and thought this is it I'm on the road. It took another 10 years before a publisher took any interest in the book and by which stage e-publishing was just coming on and this was a baby e-publisher in the US and at that point there wasn't such a thing as an e-reader so if you wanted to read the book you either read it on your computer
or on your Palm Pilot, another piece of obsolete technology. was a brilliant bit but it's long gone now. So it was kind of like a solution to a problem that hadn't actually occurred yet and so understandably things didn't go very well with that and got the rights back and thought, god, what am I going to do with this? Because people were saying, you know, where's that book that I really wanted to read? So I thought, I've got a website, how about I just do a PDF, stick it up there and hope people find it.
and then I discovered there was a new software or a new software company had come on board called Smashwords and Smashwords actually gave you the opportunity to self-publish your own book and they would then distribute it for you to Amazon and Barnes and Noble and Apple and all the rest of it. So I was among the early adopters of Smashwords, I think I was probably among the first 10,000 people who adopted Smashwords. There are millions now, millions and millions of people.
Amra (04:57)
Yes!
Alison Stuart (05:17)
are on Smashwords and so that was but that was in the days you had there was no sort of formatting software there were no cover designers you had to do it all yourself so it was a pretty rough product I'm afraid and but and then of course the
the organizations weren't adapting to the fact that people were self-published. my god that's vanity publishing we can't do that, you know you're just vanity publishers. There was a lot of politics around the whole thing and yes so that was difficult.
Yes, anyway, so then of course, the traditional publishers picked up that ebooks were actually doing quite well. And I don't know if you remember, but all the all the big publishers here in Australia, Penguin Random House and Harper Collins and Harlequin, they all started. Yeah, they all started having, you know, digital first imprints. The only survivor of that these days is
Amra (06:02)
Yeah, they did their own digital first. Yes.
Yes.
Alison Stuart (06:12)
Harlequin 1 Escape but Escape picked me up and from there flowed a whole new a whole new lot of doors opened. They actually put some of my books into print and yeah and then I became a traditionally published author from that and I was still indie publishing there were now other options that actually invented cover designers and formatters so indie publishing was getting much more respectable.
To cut a very long story short, I ended up with a two book contract from Harper Collins to write what is now my Maidens Creek series set in my backyard, Victoria, based on a little town called Walhalla. So basically they commissioned me to write that, which was really exciting. But at the same time, I'd also been dabbling in murder. My husband retired. Went from romance to murder.
Amra (06:57)
Yes.
Alison Stuart (06:58)
I've been dabbling in the historical mystery series set in Singapore in 1910 because I'd lived in Singapore for a while and it was getting interest but not you know nothing quite but then it got picked up by an agent in the US and she sold it to Penguin USA. I mean hello I've made it I am finally there I've got two two book contracts god they all want the same timelines she was what am going to do anyway we're okay corporate background did Gantt charts
Amra (07:14)
Yes.
Alison Stuart (07:25)
got all of that done and the Harriet Gordon mysteries were going really well. thought they were going really well. However, unfortunately the pandemic hit and the publishing industry went into a spiral and I think because of that...
for a lot of other reasons, Penguin. So I mean, I've sold, you know, I've got a five book series in my head. I've sold three books. They didn't want the fourth one. And so I was dropped like a hot potato by Berkeley and.
That's kind of where I'm sitting now. I indie published the last two books in the series and I think that brings us up to date with where I am. But as you can see, it's been a very rocky career with a little bit of dabbling in everything. So I've been there, done that, got the scars to prove it.
Amra (08:00)
Yeah.
Yeah, I can really relate because a lot of that what you were talking about very similar trajectory in terms of what happened with me. I too had my romance novels published by those digital first and what a lot of people don't realize is you know there's this stigma between indie publishing and traditional publishing but then traditional publishing were copying indie authors they were like they are the ones who've got it figured out they've got to figure it out in
Alison Stuart (08:22)
Yeah.
Amra (08:38)
of creating communities, in terms of having an email list, offering a reader magnet, doing the ebooks sales, that's where the big sales are. And so sometimes I feel like you know people get so caught up in the stigma and it's like actually indie authors are the trailblazers and traditional publishing they're like ⁓ these little ones making money even now they're picking up a lot of indie authors and putting them on the books because they've done the hard work.
They've done all of that.
Alison Stuart (09:06)
Well they have and I think traditional
publishing is struggling a little bit to find where it actually now sits because it is a very slow process. you write, they give you no time to actually write the book, then they take 18 months to publish it. So we're looking at a minimum of two years from where to go. In the meantime as an indie author you could have two, I write big books so I'm going to say I could possibly have two books out in that time. Other people are putting out
way more than that and as you rightly say you know what traditional publishers are doing now is they are looking to the indies to look at what's the next big thing. I've had a traditional ⁓ editor one of the editors with one of the traditional publishers has admitted that she said we we don't we can't we can no longer see where this is going and so we are we are picking these up you know what's the big deal at the moment sexy fairies courts of what is it's quarter
and roses and things. That started as Indie, you know, that's, yeah.
Amra (10:02)
Yeah, Romanticie. Yeah, and they're
the ones that started the trend. And I think, I mean, if you would have mined just from my perspective, I am like, I'm, you know, in terms of money and income, traditional publishing is not, did not offer me anything more than what I've been able to do as an indie author. Like people sometimes have that perception that traditional publishing is...
Alison Stuart (10:27)
you
Amra (10:27)
⁓ where the money is and my argument is no. Not necessarily. Would you mind commenting on how have you found that?
Alison Stuart (10:35)
Well the US contracts were to my mind, know as a little Australian sitting here in Melbourne, were quite generous but you know to be honest I've only just paid out, not that you're actually obligated to pay out your contract but the third book has only literally just paid out and I mean that was released two or three years ago.
And of course the other thing you've got to understand about advances is you don't get a lump sum. It's dribbled out to you. So you get a proportion on signing the contract, then on submitting the manuscript, and then there's a third tranche on publication. And as I just said, that could be up to two years. And what a certain publisher did to me, I shall not name names, they then split that into four.
Amra (10:59)
No. Yes.
you
Alison Stuart (11:20)
they added an extra six months. So there was a fourth payment after six months after publication. You know, that was nearly that was two and half years after I had submitted the book. So you cannot sort of rely on any form of advance to ever make a living. And I mean, that, as I said, that was for me quite a generous advance. advances are tiny. You know, do days of a million dollar advances.
Amra (11:24)
Yep.
In Australia, yeah.
Alison Stuart (11:45)
really have to be you really have to be a big author to get those.
Amra (11:47)
No. I got a, for my first novel, a $5,000 advance, which was the larger advance at that point for a debut author. Yeah.
Alison Stuart (11:52)
Yeah.
Yeah, look, and that would that would be probably about,
you know, that would have been a good a good advance. Yeah, yeah.
Amra (12:00)
Yeah, and that was 18 years ago and that's still a good advance. So, know, 18 years
later, it hasn't changed or improved. It's actually gone down because now what's happening is a lot of traditional publishers, you don't even get an advance. You get paid on sales, royalties on sales.
Alison Stuart (12:09)
home.
And you know, I think I'd actually rather I'd rather have that because at least it's honest. At least it's money in your hand rather than this sort of, well, we paid you this money. Now you just have to sit and wait till the royalties come in. as I said, they've just started to come in on the third one. I was just about to to make an observation on on on that. darn, it's gone. Never mind. Move along. Advanced advances shrinking.
Amra (12:19)
Mm. Yeah.
advances shrinking, moving down.
Alison Stuart (12:42)
It was just on the tip of my tongue, Move on, move on. I'll come back to it. Yeah, that's okay.
Amra (12:43)
When it comes back, interrupt. It's okay. All this will be edited. Don't fuss. ⁓
Yeah, I know that's what it is. We were just talking before I started recording where there was a question, was there ever a moment where you thought this isn't working and what makes you keep going anyway? And I just wanted to hear your answer again.
Alison Stuart (13:03)
I don't think there's ever moment when you don't think that, you know, it is an absolute, this is a crazy, why do we do this to ourselves? You know, why do we sort of sit here at a desk hours and hours on end? You know, for what is actually if you took it as a rate of return, very small, minuscule percentages of cents per word that you turn out. You know, this, cannot be in this business thinking you're going to make money. I know what I was going to say.
Amra (13:25)
Yes.
Alison Stuart (13:31)
gone again. sorry. Yeah,
Amra (13:33)
I can relate. My husband and
I are having the best time of our lives. He tells me a joke that I know I've heard before but I forgot the punchline too. And I laugh as if I heard it for the first time and then we just keep going around in circles and my poor daughter is going batty.
Alison Stuart (13:43)
I'm getting out of here. ⁓
you
I
remembered it, that's how I remembered it. What I was going to say was, the first three Harriet books were published by Penguin and then they dropped me and so I indie published the last two books. What Penguin had done for me and for which I am profoundly grateful is it had given me a very good readership and a very loyal readership and in fact it was the readers who insisted that I kept going with this because all the advice from my peers was, oh well you know that always happens you know you just move on to the next thing.
my readers all went well no it was a bit naughty I kind of left the third book on a bit of a cliffhanger which was a bit naughty of me I should you know it should never do that young people do not do that
Amra (14:34)
Yeah
Alison Stuart (14:34)
But the advantage of that was when I came to put up the pre-orders for the next two books, I had the ready-made audience. And in point of fact, in terms of sort of royalties coming into me, and just from Amazon, it was wide, so it went everywhere, but just from Amazon, I made more in that first month than the advance I'd got from Berkeley. So, you know, there we go. was, yeah.
Amra (14:57)
And that's a story I'm hearing from other authors
who have had series that were cancelled. I know of an author, Elimani, and she started a series that was published. They published the first two books and then they didn't want to publish the third. And she published the third herself and the readership, you know, snapped it up and it was exactly the same story. And it just, it makes me really like...
Alison Stuart (15:12)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Amra (15:23)
I don't know, bit in despair about the publishing industry where they're like, that they think that that's not worth it. That's not worth publishing. They know that there are going to be sales and that there will be money there. But they're just not, I don't know, I just don't understand it to be honest. ⁓
Alison Stuart (15:42)
No, it's
the as I understand the way they work is the algorithm as to what's a successful book and what isn't is based on and I mean this is where they need to rethink because it's based on print sales and of course my books came out during Covid.
and so the book shops weren't open so you know how were they selling print books and even even today looking looking at my because they give you a very good dashboard as to what the sales are the print books are only 25 percent of my total sales for all three books the digital and the audio are 75 percent of sales but they when when they do when the number crunches and let's face it they're the ones who make these decisions it's not your editor your editor can love you to pieces but it's the marketing department and the
Amra (16:02)
No. Yes.
Alison Stuart (16:29)
department that make the decisions and they're looking and go well we it's not selling so yeah let her go you know it's not worth it but that's why you'll find particularly with traditionally published books that the ebooks are priced at ridiculous amounts like
Amra (16:34)
Yeah.
Yes.
Alison Stuart (16:45)
1799 for an ebook because they're
Amra (16:46)
Yes, the same as a paperback.
Alison Stuart (16:48)
to drive you towards buying the print book as being a more economical outlook. No, I might be wrong. That is just my perception and my understanding of how it works. Yeah, yeah.
Amra (16:56)
No, I agree with you completely. That's what I have seen too. And that's why they
did those digital first...
Publishing companies and they were trying to sell for the same prices that You know indie authors were selling and as an author we got no advance, but we were getting like 50 % Or like a high actually not 50 % but a higher percentage of royalty I think it was I think it was 25 % versus 15 or 10 % on print But yeah, it's it's a very like they're trying to manufacture and what I got from all of that
Alison Stuart (17:19)
It was a hard decision.
Yeah.
Amra (17:33)
like seeing a lot of authors in action is when I started my murder mystery series, and by the way, I have a theory about that, how we moved from romance up to our 30s and then in our 40s, we go through perimenopause and murder is on our mind. And that is the happy place then. And so when I started my murder,
Alison Stuart (17:49)
That's right.
Amra (17:54)
mystery which I'm publishing now, I did not submit it to a publisher at all. I was not going to take the chance that they would pick up one book or maybe one or two books and then not continue the series and sort of leave me. Where yes I could you know continue it myself but the problem is as an indie author when you don't have those first few books you are very limited in promotional opportunities and what you can do. And then because
Alison Stuart (17:59)
Mm-hmm.
Yep. Yep. Yep.
Amra (18:24)
you are promoting your books and achieving sales, you don't get the rights back to the books that are published by them because they're getting the benefit of all the work that you're doing. Yeah.
Alison Stuart (18:30)
No.
Yeah, absolutely. It's so
frustrating. But I had to finish that, so I wound that series up. But the readers are still asking me for more from those characters. So I'm going to start. So I'm not sure if I'm preempting what your next question is. But so my thought is at the moment, I'm actually going to move to a new series with the same character spin. Let's call it a spin off series with the same characters. Yeah, in their world.
Amra (18:50)
Go for it, please.
Yes, in the world. That's what we want to do now. We
want to exploit the whole world that's there.
Alison Stuart (19:03)
Yeah,
that I can control from book one. If you don't have book one, you know, as you said, there's absolutely nothing you can do really in terms of other publishers don't want to pick up books four and five, you know, why would they do that? And of course, they the big
publishers their contracts are so ironclad you know and they won't they won't relinquish any rights that it's an absolute rights grab and so they they have the foreign rights they've got the audio rights they've got the every right and that's even with an agent negotiating the contract yeah so sorry I'm sorry to say yeah it sounds a bit depressing if you are really keen on getting a traditional publishing contract but
Amra (19:25)
No. No.
Yes, and that's what I experienced. My agent tried to...
I
think that the advantage when you've been in both worlds...
Alison Stuart (19:47)
Mm.
Amra (19:48)
you really understand the pros and cons of both worlds and you can make an informed decision. And I think what happens is a lot of indie authors who haven't been traditionally published, you know, there's that sense of being chosen and being anointed and you know, it does give you a certain confidence. does give you, and the fact that you have that apprenticeship into the publishing industry, you know, you do have someone holding your hand and sort of leading you to it.
Alison Stuart (19:52)
Yeah.
Amra (20:16)
But then you've got all those limitations and the restrictions and the exploitation.
Alison Stuart (20:20)
really, I think that I think there are a couple of couple of things there that you just mentioned.
What traditional publishing does still give you A is your books in bookshops, which you don't get with an indie publisher. And secondly, it gives you cache. Unfortunately, it gives you street cred. The bookshops will pick you up, you know, because you're published by whoever. The literary festivals want you because you're published by whoever. you're an indie, there is still that sniff factor of going, you know, she's self-published, you know, so.
It's sort of, from that point of view, you know, it was very nice. What a thrill to see your books in bookshops. I don't think I'll ever get over that sort of that moment when you see your book in Dimex. I don't know if I ever got into an air, my ambition was to get into an airport and I'm not sure I actually ever did that.
Amra (21:12)
Yeah.
Alison Stuart (21:12)
But yes, that moment of seeing your book on the bookshelf, which you don't really get as an Indian, you've just got to learn to live with that. But I do find it annoying that the literary community still views indie publishing as being being vanity publishing or less lesser, you know, not as superior. Oh, well.
Amra (21:19)
Yeah.
Yes.
But then as soon as you sort of start, because there are people we both know in this world who are earning a very good income from their writing, who have built up those back lists and built up their communities, their reading communities. And so, know, people might poo poo, but when they drop the income that they are making and what they are earning and the living that they are able to do and the fact that they are their own
publishing houses where, you know, they are doing the audiobooks and producing ⁓ all of that they have got the income and now with translations, you know, so I feel like people are like, but as soon as there's a money tag attached, it changes.
Alison Stuart (22:07)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah,
yeah. was just interesting.
Amra (22:20)
you know, it's because it's all about
the money. It's just fascinating to me. So I wanted to go back to sort of talking about writing and having a life and because you balanced sort of a demanding legal career. And so how did you balance writing and, you know, having having a job?
Alison Stuart (22:40)
I sat in a closet. It was my secret little thing that I did in my few spare minutes. Might have been over lunchtime or...
And when I finally admitted that I wrote, I mean, not only wrote, I wrote romance, you know, was like it was literally like coming out. I might as well have said I turned into a born again Christian or something. And I actually had a huge job. was my sort of my was my penultimate job, I suppose. The peak of my career, I was I was a director in a in a in a large fire service. I won't go any further than that.
at that time Arts Nation on ABC was doing these little five-minute sessions called Our Secret Arts Life and they were after a romance writer who had a professional career and so the president of RWA at the time said ⁓ we know just the person. They sent the ABC down to me.
Amra (23:31)
Oof. You got outed publicly.
Alison Stuart (23:34)
It was yeah I was completely out it because I not only had not only my my my colleagues knew about it every firefighter knew about it because I had to go and sit in a fire truck. It was a lovely little segment but it was so funny.
Amra (23:46)
Good photo though, good.
Yeah, but that's
what people don't realise. Like I've worked full time as a teacher only in the past few years. Have I stepped down to work part time? I had to wake up at 5.30 in the morning.
and rice and then go in and teach, ⁓ you know, eight hours and then come home and spend some time with my small daughter because you she was five years old when I started teaching. ⁓ And it really is sacrifice. Like it's not like a magical thinking thing. It really is finding the, you know, dedicated time and just scratching at it and building it.
Alison Stuart (24:05)
Yeah.
Mmm.
But you know,
I kind of miss that to a certain extent. There was sort of something magical about it that I can't find anymore. It was that thrill of creation and the fact that I did have this secret arts life. And I wasn't writing for, I was only writing for me.
And it was it was was just such a delight. can't I can't read. Now I do it professionally. I can't find that spark that I had in those those early days.
And I mean, actually sort of managed to balance my work, particularly latterly, where I was not working full time either. So I could sort of, had a little bit more time, but you know, the days the kids went to crèche or kinder or something like, you know, it was just finding, oh, I've got an hour. I can just go into this world of my own and create. I didn't ever see it as a sacrifice. I just found it a joy and it's very easy to lose that
joy
when when it all becomes very serious and and professional and you've got to do it full time but yeah yeah so you know I think I think if I had to give advice to beginner writers is is just to stop worrying about the publishing thing just find the joy of the writing in yourself you know it's that that's what gives you the pleasure yeah yeah
Amra (25:46)
Well, yeah, because I still feel because I have to work, you know, my
writing income does not sustain itself. I've just been able to purchase one day off from all my writing endeavors. And so it is it is absolute pure joy because it's like, you know, if I have a day to come here to my studio and to just be an author, that is a very special day. You know, spending a morning on the weekend, a quiet, hushed morning, just
Alison Stuart (25:51)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Amra (26:13)
writing in secret, especially now because my daughter is older. I think that is just pure joy because so much of life is, you know, controlled and you have to do all these unpleasant things.
Alison Stuart (26:27)
I can always remember
sitting.
was 1997 and I back in those days you knew where you sat with the RWA contest and so I knew I was only runner-up in the Emma Darcy award but I can still remember sitting on that plane to Sydney for my first RWA conference not knowing anything about it that was my who who who is who is this famous person who's anyway but sitting on that plane and she came around with the drinks and would you like a drink and I went yes I want champagne and it was that
whole kind of, I'm kind of shedding this, I'm becoming a new person like a caterpillar sort of emerging from the subsurface. And I just never looked back after that. was it. I'd found my tribe. I'd found my happy place.
Amra (27:12)
Well, yeah, that's the thing. When we met at the book fair, you were in this beautiful historical costume and, because your work spans different historical periods. So what draws you to a particular era? So describe first what you were wearing at the book fair and why.
Alison Stuart (27:32)
⁓ Well, I
had a number of costumes. So on the first day I was wearing the Edwardian Harriet Gordon suffragette.
Amra (27:36)
Yeah, you did a few changes.
Alison Stuart (27:43)
costume which was heinously uncomfortable by the end of the day. The second day I met you when I was in the Regency, flowing Regency, much more comfortable costume. was made for me by my lovely friend Beverly Oakley, fabulous author and seamstress. I just reprised that at the Wild Out West book fair in Perth last weekend which was hilarious, it was just so much fun.
Amra (27:48)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
you.
Alison Stuart (28:09)
it's kind of fun to dress up because as a historical author you you can find that little point of difference and yes it was kind of nice to just be a little bit silly and dress up and do that but in terms of my own historical interest in history I look I've just been a history I've been a history nerd since I was knee-high to a grasshopper and I have an absolute passion for the period of the English Civil War
Amra (28:15)
Yeah.
Alison Stuart (28:34)
And so I have actually written six books with that setting. And that is the definition of madness when you write six books in the particular setting and realize that it's never going to be the next Regency. Yeah, so that was a that was a bit of a light bulb moment for me. So, yes, I have tried so that that was I tried writing a Regency and that was that's been moderately successful. I mean, so many people write Regency so much.
Amra (28:46)
you
Alison Stuart (28:58)
I think so much better than I do. And of course, it didn't turn into a romance. There was a murder mystery in it. I just can't do I cannot do that sort of whole romance regency thing. I've set book in I've done a dual timeline ghost, know, Downton Abbey with ghosts set in the 1920s with World War One setting as well. And and a Napoleonic war. That's a dual timeline.
Amra (29:04)
Yeah
Alison Stuart (29:20)
And then of course my Australian books set in the 1870s and my Harriet Gordons are set in the Edwardian period, 1910. So I've tried different periods. I love them all, I love them all equally. But yes, my passion period was and always will be the English Civil War. Roundheads, cavaliers, know, what was not to love, men with big swords.
Amra (29:41)
Well, that's the
thing, kind of, I don't know, you get caught up in things because, and you have to have that passion. Like you do have to have that passion and that's what comes across. And like, you know, and then being able to, know, with the costumes and stuff, like when you're doing that direct selling, being able to actually communicate through that passion and joy and find people who connect with it. ⁓ What's some advice that you have for writers in terms of writing historical fiction?
Alison Stuart (30:09)
Well, I think certainly write the period of your passion. Unfortunately, I'm going to be Debbie Downer here. I mean, the 30 years I've been writing, historicals have been dying. But you know, a bit like the Monty Python sketch, I'm getting better. I'll come back again.
Amra (30:25)
Yes, that's like short story. At one point,
I remember Melbourne literary festivals, the short story is dying. Something's always dying. Yes, yes.
Alison Stuart (30:31)
The short stories, ⁓ novellas, novellas, now everyone's writing novellas. Unfortunately,
my observation is that historicals really are dying now. They are a really, really hard sell. None of the traditional publishers are picking up historicals. They're dropping their stable. They've got their stables of well-known historical writers who...
served them loyally for many years they're being they're being let go. You know the fact last weekend in Perth I was the only historical author there I don't know whether that was a coincidence or what I mean it was good for me but you where were the where were the others you know where are the other historical writers? I don't I think I think I
Amra (31:07)
⁓
Alison Stuart (31:14)
What is the reason for this? I don't know. think education has a lot to do with it. I don't know if you're a teacher. You can probably tell me better, but I don't think schools are teaching history in the same way that they did when I was growing up.
Amra (31:27)
The is very set, yeah, and we start with ancient in, you know, year seven and I can only speak to high school and we've introduced now 20th century in World War II because we had so much rise of...
Alison Stuart (31:32)
and
Yeah.
Amra (31:42)
extremism and you know and then that history being lost has been leading to a lot of issues and so it's like bringing it back. So yeah I think ⁓ a lot of a lot of history and like that's why I loved historical romance like I my god Joanna Lindsay do you remember her and Jude Devereaux ⁓ but Joanna Lindsay my god that woman she did like every period and then she even did like sci-fi fantasy stuff. ⁓ One of my biggest regrets still is that I got rid of
Alison Stuart (31:44)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Amra (32:11)
my whole collection. had every single book she ever published. And then I did that terrible thing that we do where it's like, I'm mature now, I no longer read romance. And during one of the moves, I got rid of it. And then I was like, oh, that I tried to buy some of them again. But like, you know, even though it is fiction, and you know, we do play with facts, in order to tell the story, we still offer a qualifier.
Alison Stuart (32:28)
Yep. Yep.
Amra (32:39)
We
still always have an author's notion about what we have done in terms of changes we've made and so you are still able to sort of get information and get some historical, you know, like understanding. So I don't know. Yeah, maybe just, I mean, yeah, the change in reading patterns now.
Alison Stuart (32:43)
Absolutely.
My observation from talking to the readers last weekend was
They're after escape. know, the reality of what we're living through at the moment is tough. It's really tough, particularly if you're a young single woman. I think they're just after this world where they can just escape and forget and if it involves sexy fairies and dragons and all the rest of it, that's where they want to be. They don't want the reality of the sort of books that I write, you know, where people were living through wars because basically that's what they're doing at the moment.
which is kind of sad and I just pick up a point you made there and that's about history and I mean I feel as a historical writer I have an obligation to make sure my history is correct and if it's not you know if I do occasionally fudge the odd day I mean nothing significant like a battle or somebody's death or something like that but you know if I have to play around a little bit with the facts I always do an author's note to sort of say that's exactly what I've done you know I've used the Gregorian calendar here not the Julian calendar
or whatever.
and I feel that weight very heavily on my shoulders and I get so depressed when I see some of the work historical authors do. I I always cite the example of a book set in Melbourne by an American author set in Melbourne in the 1830s. You and I both know Melbourne really wasn't settled until 1837. Oh no no the heroine and her sister are tripping through the busy streets of Melbourne on their way to the
modest to buy a ball gown for the sister to go with her satin shoes for the big ball that's going to happen and they have to go down to the bustling docks to pick up the convict that her father's just ordered you know it was just so
excruciatingly wrong. It's actually a very funny, it's actually hilarious, but what depressed me was the reviews going, no thank you for telling me about this fabulous period of history I know nothing about. You still know nothing about it, this is a fantasy.
Amra (34:54)
yes.
Alison Stuart (34:55)
Yes,
imagine if I'd written a book set in New York and you know I had done this to New York for example, there'd be outcry so you know and there was another one I read where it's the Great Fire of London and the characters are sitting there watching the lead on the dome of St Paul's melting.
So I, you know, I feel, I certainly feel as an author that I owe it to my readers to make sure that I'm not giving them false information like that. But unfortunately there's a lot of it around and the worst is, and it's getting worse because people are writing, they're writing so quickly and they're not bothering with the research and yes, kind of offends the historical nerd in me I've got to say.
Amra (35:26)
Mmm. Actually...
Yes.
Yeah, and also there's an element as indie authors, like a lot of people launch into writing and publishing and they figure it out as they go and learn on the job, so to speak, and then have the opportunity to go back and rework and revise. you know, research and historical periods still, you know,
Alison Stuart (35:48)
Yeah.
Amra (36:01)
Yeah, I agree. I just wanted to go back to about why historical romance is not working anymore. And what I was also getting out of it is that whole women being subjugated and the fact that they didn't have rights and the restrictions and all of that, because of joint sub stack and I'm really enjoying the space. But a lot of things are popping about about feminism and young women being embarrassed about feminism and, you know, what is
feminism. So there's this this sort of difficult space about femininity and you know, and I'm wondering how much of that is also impacting on that.
you know, of historical romance because the whole thing about it is that tension where they can't do things that you can do in the contemporary world where you have the sex before marriage, you have all of those liberties. It's all of that unresolved tension and that slow build and you know, and also maybe it's that now that instant gratification that
you know, we're used to in society where everything is like right now.
Alison Stuart (37:10)
Yeah, I think you're
absolutely spot on that there is now a lack of understanding of where we've come from and I mean I...
I'm old enough now to remember back in the days where, you know, as a woman, I couldn't enter into a contract or, you know, if I was a married woman, I would have had to have left work, you know, and that's that's only that's only changed since the 1970s. That's not that, you know, as history goes, it's not that long ago, you know, an equal equal.
Amra (37:35)
Yes, not that long ago.
Alison Stuart (37:43)
here in Australia we're very lucky, know, they then brought in the no fault divorce for example and all of these things that we fought for as young women are, they're being forgotten, you know, they going out the door but and I think with the...
Amra (37:54)
Yes.
Alison Stuart (37:58)
That probably accounts for the rise in the appeal of sexy fairies. Let's just escape from all of that. But I mean, for example, I'm watching, I'm absolutely absorbed at the moment in a sea drama, Pursuit of Jade, which is a historical romance. not going to call it anything else. Set in China in some, I'm not sure when, beautifully filmed, beautiful costumes, all the rest of it.
Amra (38:03)
Yes, and my daughter, yeah. Yeah.
Alison Stuart (38:25)
god the romance is killing me we're halfway through he's only just kissed her that slow burn romance and and I mean there's no way he's going to it's a it's a marriage a convenience story not to not to give too many spoilers and he's not going to spoil he's not going to he can't he can't sort of
Amra (38:31)
Yeah.
Alison Stuart (38:47)
allow himself to really fall in love with her because he knows he's got to leave her and my god if you want to know what a good old-fashioned historical romances should be I highly recommend The Pursuit of Jade it is good but yes you know there's so much of historical romance that's written particularly coming out of America is what I would call modern dramas in fancy dress
Amra (38:58)
Mm.
Yes.
Alison Stuart (39:10)
where
the girls just act completely like modern girls with no thought or care of contraception or sexually transmitting diseases or you know all of that sort of stuff.
And that's where my books I have to be so careful to make sure that I have very strong women. All my heroines are very strong women, but within the context of the historical period, they have to navigate their way through their own times and restrictions before they get their happy ever after. But yes, historical, I don't know, the readers are still there. The readers still want historical bromance.
Amra (39:43)
So maybe.
Alison Stuart (39:49)
don't understand quite why the traditional publishers are dropping it like literally like hot potatoes. They're wanting and my agent would say they're wanting extra elements, they're wanting the magic realism, know, so they're wanting the witches and the fae and the things that are just going to step it outside of reality. I think maybe you're absolutely right, maybe it is just reality is so hard at the moment that people don't want to be reminded of where they have come from.
and what it used to be like. Don't know. Wish I had a
Amra (40:20)
I think there's also
an element of what we were talking about in terms of, you know, women really not understanding. Like I talked to my daughter, we watched...
She's like a little grandmother, this child. She's 17, but she's like, you know, very wise and because she loves history and she loves reading. And so she has a lot of cultural capital and a lot of general knowledge. And so we talk about, you know, she's the Hawaii bastards. Why was there so much stigma about it? And I'm like, because at that time there was no contraception. You have sex outside of marriage. You are left with a consequence. And it was all about policing women and all.
Alison Stuart (40:38)
Yeah.
Amra (40:57)
about women having to pay for the desire and men you know getting unscathed off it and so maybe it's also that
not understanding of what it meant to be a woman at that time. that, know, as you said, when things are written that are supposed to be historical, it is very much not the way that heroines are. Because we're obsessed with Pride and Prejudice and we watch every adaptation and read, my daughter's read the original and really understands the world and the reality of that world and what
Alison Stuart (41:21)
Yeah.
Yep.
Amra (41:33)
meant. But you know, then we look at something like Bridgerton, which I adore and is so much fun. Not a Regency.
Alison Stuart (41:41)
No,
you have to take, well we're talking about Bridget and the TV series as opposed to the books which are completely different. Bridget and the TV series is so not a regency and it is absolutely 100 % fantasy.
Amra (41:45)
Yes, as opposed to the books, yes.
Mmm.
Alison Stuart (41:54)
on
so many levels and if you view it like that it is as you say, I mean I love it, I think it's great fun. Whereas I struggle with other adaptations of say I think there was a recent one of Sense and Sensibility where...
Amra (42:00)
Yes, it's a great soap opera.
Alison Stuart (42:11)
There was colourblind casting and it just didn't work. was, yeah, or making, you know, and believe. Anyway, that's my own little personal personal grub. Nothing, nothing against it. It's just if you're playing with actual historical characters at actual historical times, you've got to divorce that reality from fantasy. Anyway, there we go. But yes, love Bridgerton, love Bridgerton. And then, of course, the traditional publishers all went, oh, my God, Bridgerton, we're to we're going to publish every Regency book
Amra (42:31)
Yeah.
Alison Stuart (42:38)
we've ever got and my Lord's Sommerton's air came out it was actually stamped you know for lovers of Bridgerton and it's it is so not Bridgerton it's a murder mystery apart from anything else and
Amra (42:46)
Yeah.
Also, just to go back
to the blind colour casting, the reason that Bridgerton works is it is an alternate reality where there was a black queen. And so you can't then play with history and have black real life characters depicted as black when they did not have the rights. At those times, there was still slavery. And it really is a disservice to the history.
Alison Stuart (42:55)
Thank you, Yes.
There was,
Amra (43:17)
of the reality of what happened and the prejudice and the racism and the fact that there was so much fighting for civil rights and even in Australia we didn't have the referendum until 1976, if I've got my year right, to acknowledge Indigenous people as citizens of the country that they have been in longer than anyone else. And so yeah, that's the thing.
Alison Stuart (43:41)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Amra (43:45)
there's that fantasy and then there's the history and because we're both very much on that historical side we very much yeah like it's like ⁓ I can't quite get there I really just can't do it yeah
Alison Stuart (43:52)
You just have to let it go.
No, go and
read a book about William Wilberforce, you if you want to know what it was really like. mean, not that there were certainly coloured people within society, but never at that level, at that level of society, unless they were the adopted daughter, and there were cases of the adopted daughter, and I'm not saying that they weren't there, but certainly there weren't dukes.
Amra (44:03)
Yeah.
Yeah, and yeah, I mean like...
No, I mean like just at a time when there is not enough understanding of history and then you create something that is historical and people don't understand that there has been playing with and they take it as the truth and yeah just the danger of that I think that's what I think that's what we both struggle with and worry about.
Alison Stuart (44:32)
Hmm.
Yeah, I have a real problem with that, but anyway.
It's muddy, it's muddying and already muddied water, I think, in the fight to, well, in the fight, yeah, in getting historical fiction of any kind now sort of recognised and adored again. know, people are picking up Julia's books and going, well, where's the Black Duke? You know, he's no Black Duke.
Amra (44:49)
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes, yeah, no, because
it's an alternate reality that has been crafted for the TV show, which works within that alternate reality. But as long as you understand that is not history, there was never a black queen. So I guess in terms of that, that writing historical fiction and dealing with difficult truths, how does that affect you? And how do you find the writing of?
Alison Stuart (45:10)
It is. It's little alternate. Yeah. so it does. As long as you knew it was set.
Well, yeah, I write books set in colonial Singapore and you talk about uncomfortable truths. of course, colonialism is a very uncomfortable truth to be writing about. It is my own family background, but I'm no apologist for it. I understand completely how it's affected.
Amra (45:35)
Mmm.
Alison Stuart (45:51)
countries and peoples, know, it was a terrible thing, there's no doubt about it. And the way I deal with it is I don't shy away from it. have horrible characters in the books.
My own protagonists, of course, have a much broader understanding of these things and tend to be less stereotyped Colonials than some of them. But, you know, I was born in colonial Africa in Kenya. you know, you read back some of the accounts of white plantation owners in Malaya and...
Amra (46:13)
Yes.
Alison Stuart (46:26)
in Kenya and the treatment of their workers and I just tear my hair out and go I'm sorry that that was how it was. It is an uncomfortable truth and at one point my publisher actually wanted me to write an apology at the start of the book about
about it. This is writing for an American audience, you know, and I have to kind of sort of tread that very fine political line of, have you got two seconds? see if I...
Amra (46:55)
Mm-hmm.
Alison Stuart (46:55)
book it was
Now I can't let you remember which book it was but I mean I do I have to make a point in saying in the author notes you know this is the views expressed by some of the characters in this book are not those of the author. The book set in 1910 and intolerance shown to non-Europeans was real and abhorrent as we with our 21st century glasses might find it this is how it was and it would be unbalanced for me to imply otherwise.
Amra (47:05)
Yeah.
Yes,
that's the difficult thing, isn't it? Where people are like, you're writing this, therefore you approve it. And it's like, no, in order to tell the truth of what was happening at that time, I have to create characters and have the characters say things and do things that they did at that time to really show that reality. Yeah, it's a...
Alison Stuart (47:37)
Yeah.
I
expected a lot more pushback than I've actually had so I think maybe I got the balance right. I mean I get the odd reviews that are a bit bit eww but really on the whole I think my readers have accepted that's where I come from and they read the books and it does very it's very popular in Singapore.
it's actually it is actually on the all five books are on the shelves of Kinnakannu you're in Singapore if you're passing through yeah yeah yes so ⁓ so that sort of that kind of says well maybe I I kind of kind of got it right to get the right balance but I'm enormously and it's probably one of the reasons where with the new series I am actually changing location move moving them
Amra (48:08)
That's brilliant. That's a huge achievement.
So tell me about
the new series, what are you doing?
Alison Stuart (48:26)
⁓ I can't really, it's still very, very, very much. I've had a bit of a break ⁓ after writing, effectively writing eight books in five years. I was very tired. Eight big books in five years. So I've had a bit of a bit of a what they call a creative break, mental health break. ⁓ So I'm looking at.
Amra (48:42)
Yes.
Yes, we need those.
Alison Stuart (48:49)
as I said, taking the two main protagonists and maybe moving them because it's now the World War One. So moving to another one of my favourite periods of history and actually moving them to England, which was way more exciting in 1915 than Singapore was. So, so yes, but I've got to get them there. That's going to take me three books, I think, to get them there.
Amra (48:55)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Yes.
So you're doing like an
outlander where she did the move from Scotland to America.
Alison Stuart (49:15)
I, I,
Outlander lost me in book two. just,
I love book one absolutely I mean I read it and I reread it and I adored it and then I picked up book two and I just could not get and I've tried it several times still can't get into it and then I kind of lost the whole timeline and I just couldn't see how it was all still how are we in the American War of Independence when we were just at Culloden you know that whole sort of do not get how the characters are not aging or at least the characters that are in the period anyway yes ⁓
Amra (49:23)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well that's the thing, like I sometimes,
my husband talks about how he was watching Scooby Doo, like my daughter and I were watching Scooby Doo and he was watching it on our shoulder and the villain was unmasked and he's like, that doesn't make sense that that was the villain. And I said, there's a talking dog.
Alison Stuart (49:58)
Ha ha!
Well, yeah, exactly,
I am, I'm a dyed in the wool Capricorn, you know, I just, things have to actually make sense to me. I'm not a fantasy reader. I'm not a sci fi reader. I, you know, up to a point I can kind of go with a little bit of fantasy and I enjoy a bit of, I enjoy time travel. I have written time travel, but yet somehow that that outlander knot was just too much for me.
Amra (50:05)
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love time travel. Yeah.
I love
it. I'm watching the series. I've got to go back and watch. I think the last one it's going to be. So I still love it. But yeah, it's but also I have my things because I'm more than willing to let things go. And, you know, both my husband and daughter do that when they're asking questions. I'm like, shh, no questions. We do not question the reality of the pretty people on the screen. Thank you.
Alison Stuart (50:32)
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm married to an engineer don't talk to me about it. Willing suspension of disbelief in just key does not get it at all.
Amra (50:53)
Hahahaha
Yeah.
Well, I just wanted to ask what sort of advice do you have that you think that writers don't want to hear, but that they need to?
Alison Stuart (51:07)
I think this day and age the advice they don't want to hear is don't rush to get that book on out just because you can. You have to learn your craft and if that means you have to write, rewrite, get edited, go through all the hoops and rails and maybe you know be told that your book is not going to, it needs a lot of work. You've got to do that. I think
if you are indie publishing particularly you have to have a good independent editor who is going to go through your book and tell you the cold hard truths about it
Amra (51:42)
thank you so much, Alison, for coming on.
Today's guest is someone who proves that writing doesn't follow a neat linear
I'm joined by Alison Stewart, an Australian author and historical fiction writer whose work spans centuries from medieval England to colonial Australia. Her novels dig into power, politics and the personal cost of history, but what stands out is her persistence. This is someone who built a writing career alongside a full professional life, adapted to a changing publishing landscape and kept going when plenty of people would have quietly stopped.
We're going to talk about what it actually takes to sustain a long-term writing career beyond the fantasy of overnight success and what writers can learn from someone who's done the work over and over again. Welcome, Alison.
Alison Stuart (01:23)
Thank
you for having me, I'm looking forward to it. And the definition of madness is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result, isn't that correct? ⁓
Amra (01:32)
I know,
but you know, there is just such truth in that, like to embrace and live in a creative life is just that constant pivoting, constantly trying, constantly putting yourself out there. Even I was talking to someone recently, I said rejection doesn't even like register for me anymore.
Alison Stuart (01:43)
Great.
No, no.
Amra (01:52)
because
you just constantly, we're always putting ourselves out there, we're always putting ourselves up for rejection. That is the definition of a writing life. Yeah, so I just wanted to sort of delve into the reality of a writing career. So you've had, you know, long writing career across multiple books and genres. What does the day to day reality actually look like versus what aspiring writers imagine?
Alison Stuart (02:01)
It certainly is, that's right.
Well, I think the big lesson in all of this is that a writing career is in fact a game of snakes and ladders. You just think you're up going up the ladder, you've got your traditional three book publishing contract with a traditional publisher, you're set.
and along comes a snake and down you slide again all the way to the bottom. You cannot expect any sort of consistency or promise or anything like that and as you said in the introduction I mean I've been hovering around this world now for over 30 years and it has changed out of sight and you when I started it was only the traditional publishers and you sent off your manuscript all printed out and bound with an elastic band
and in the mail and then you wait you might actually get the whole thing back or at the best you just pick it at the letterbox waiting for a rejection letter and I mean how different is it today when it just it's an online submission emails fly backwards and forwards and that's it sounds easy but it's I think it in some ways it's a lot harder because there it's just such a broad field now as to which way you go and and traditional publishing is not not always the way people
should go these days. It's a very different world.
Amra (03:36)
No, so you've kind of done both. You've done the traditional publishing and now you're also doing indie writing.
Alison Stuart (03:45)
I've done everything. I might just, if you don't mind, just take a moment just to recap my brilliant career. Yeah, write a book.
Amra (03:49)
Please. Yes.
Alison Stuart (03:53)
dislocated my shoulder, wrote a book and thought this is it. I then came runner up in the Emma Darcy Award which is a romance writers award and thought this is it I'm on the road. It took another 10 years before a publisher took any interest in the book and by which stage e-publishing was just coming on and this was a baby e-publisher in the US and at that point there wasn't such a thing as an e-reader so if you wanted to read the book you either read it on your computer
or on your Palm Pilot, another piece of obsolete technology. was a brilliant bit but it's long gone now. So it was kind of like a solution to a problem that hadn't actually occurred yet and so understandably things didn't go very well with that and got the rights back and thought, god, what am I going to do with this? Because people were saying, you know, where's that book that I really wanted to read? So I thought, I've got a website, how about I just do a PDF, stick it up there and hope people find it.
and then I discovered there was a new software or a new software company had come on board called Smashwords and Smashwords actually gave you the opportunity to self-publish your own book and they would then distribute it for you to Amazon and Barnes and Noble and Apple and all the rest of it. So I was among the early adopters of Smashwords, I think I was probably among the first 10,000 people who adopted Smashwords. There are millions now, millions and millions of people.
Amra (04:57)
Yes!
Alison Stuart (05:17)
are on Smashwords and so that was but that was in the days you had there was no sort of formatting software there were no cover designers you had to do it all yourself so it was a pretty rough product I'm afraid and but and then of course the
the organizations weren't adapting to the fact that people were self-published. my god that's vanity publishing we can't do that, you know you're just vanity publishers. There was a lot of politics around the whole thing and yes so that was difficult.
Yes, anyway, so then of course, the traditional publishers picked up that ebooks were actually doing quite well. And I don't know if you remember, but all the all the big publishers here in Australia, Penguin Random House and Harper Collins and Harlequin, they all started. Yeah, they all started having, you know, digital first imprints. The only survivor of that these days is
Amra (06:02)
Yeah, they did their own digital first. Yes.
Yes.
Alison Stuart (06:12)
Harlequin 1 Escape but Escape picked me up and from there flowed a whole new a whole new lot of doors opened. They actually put some of my books into print and yeah and then I became a traditionally published author from that and I was still indie publishing there were now other options that actually invented cover designers and formatters so indie publishing was getting much more respectable.
To cut a very long story short, I ended up with a two book contract from Harper Collins to write what is now my Maidens Creek series set in my backyard, Victoria, based on a little town called Walhalla. So basically they commissioned me to write that, which was really exciting. But at the same time, I'd also been dabbling in murder. My husband retired. Went from romance to murder.
Amra (06:57)
Yes.
Alison Stuart (06:58)
I've been dabbling in the historical mystery series set in Singapore in 1910 because I'd lived in Singapore for a while and it was getting interest but not you know nothing quite but then it got picked up by an agent in the US and she sold it to Penguin USA. I mean hello I've made it I am finally there I've got two two book contracts god they all want the same timelines she was what am going to do anyway we're okay corporate background did Gantt charts
Amra (07:14)
Yes.
Alison Stuart (07:25)
got all of that done and the Harriet Gordon mysteries were going really well. thought they were going really well. However, unfortunately the pandemic hit and the publishing industry went into a spiral and I think because of that...
for a lot of other reasons, Penguin. So I mean, I've sold, you know, I've got a five book series in my head. I've sold three books. They didn't want the fourth one. And so I was dropped like a hot potato by Berkeley and.
That's kind of where I'm sitting now. I indie published the last two books in the series and I think that brings us up to date with where I am. But as you can see, it's been a very rocky career with a little bit of dabbling in everything. So I've been there, done that, got the scars to prove it.
Amra (08:00)
Yeah.
Yeah, I can really relate because a lot of that what you were talking about very similar trajectory in terms of what happened with me. I too had my romance novels published by those digital first and what a lot of people don't realize is you know there's this stigma between indie publishing and traditional publishing but then traditional publishing were copying indie authors they were like they are the ones who've got it figured out they've got to figure it out in
Alison Stuart (08:22)
Yeah.
Amra (08:38)
of creating communities, in terms of having an email list, offering a reader magnet, doing the ebooks sales, that's where the big sales are. And so sometimes I feel like you know people get so caught up in the stigma and it's like actually indie authors are the trailblazers and traditional publishing they're like ⁓ these little ones making money even now they're picking up a lot of indie authors and putting them on the books because they've done the hard work.
They've done all of that.
Alison Stuart (09:06)
Well they have and I think traditional
publishing is struggling a little bit to find where it actually now sits because it is a very slow process. you write, they give you no time to actually write the book, then they take 18 months to publish it. So we're looking at a minimum of two years from where to go. In the meantime as an indie author you could have two, I write big books so I'm going to say I could possibly have two books out in that time. Other people are putting out
way more than that and as you rightly say you know what traditional publishers are doing now is they are looking to the indies to look at what's the next big thing. I've had a traditional ⁓ editor one of the editors with one of the traditional publishers has admitted that she said we we don't we can't we can no longer see where this is going and so we are we are picking these up you know what's the big deal at the moment sexy fairies courts of what is it's quarter
and roses and things. That started as Indie, you know, that's, yeah.
Amra (10:02)
Yeah, Romanticie. Yeah, and they're
the ones that started the trend. And I think, I mean, if you would have mined just from my perspective, I am like, I'm, you know, in terms of money and income, traditional publishing is not, did not offer me anything more than what I've been able to do as an indie author. Like people sometimes have that perception that traditional publishing is...
Alison Stuart (10:27)
you
Amra (10:27)
⁓ where the money is and my argument is no. Not necessarily. Would you mind commenting on how have you found that?
Alison Stuart (10:35)
Well the US contracts were to my mind, know as a little Australian sitting here in Melbourne, were quite generous but you know to be honest I've only just paid out, not that you're actually obligated to pay out your contract but the third book has only literally just paid out and I mean that was released two or three years ago.
And of course the other thing you've got to understand about advances is you don't get a lump sum. It's dribbled out to you. So you get a proportion on signing the contract, then on submitting the manuscript, and then there's a third tranche on publication. And as I just said, that could be up to two years. And what a certain publisher did to me, I shall not name names, they then split that into four.
Amra (10:59)
No. Yes.
you
Alison Stuart (11:20)
they added an extra six months. So there was a fourth payment after six months after publication. You know, that was nearly that was two and half years after I had submitted the book. So you cannot sort of rely on any form of advance to ever make a living. And I mean, that, as I said, that was for me quite a generous advance. advances are tiny. You know, do days of a million dollar advances.
Amra (11:24)
Yep.
In Australia, yeah.
Alison Stuart (11:45)
really have to be you really have to be a big author to get those.
Amra (11:47)
No. I got a, for my first novel, a $5,000 advance, which was the larger advance at that point for a debut author. Yeah.
Alison Stuart (11:52)
Yeah.
Yeah, look, and that would that would be probably about,
you know, that would have been a good a good advance. Yeah, yeah.
Amra (12:00)
Yeah, and that was 18 years ago and that's still a good advance. So, know, 18 years
later, it hasn't changed or improved. It's actually gone down because now what's happening is a lot of traditional publishers, you don't even get an advance. You get paid on sales, royalties on sales.
Alison Stuart (12:09)
home.
And you know, I think I'd actually rather I'd rather have that because at least it's honest. At least it's money in your hand rather than this sort of, well, we paid you this money. Now you just have to sit and wait till the royalties come in. as I said, they've just started to come in on the third one. I was just about to to make an observation on on on that. darn, it's gone. Never mind. Move along. Advanced advances shrinking.
Amra (12:19)
Mm. Yeah.
advances shrinking, moving down.
Alison Stuart (12:42)
It was just on the tip of my tongue, Move on, move on. I'll come back to it. Yeah, that's okay.
Amra (12:43)
When it comes back, interrupt. It's okay. All this will be edited. Don't fuss. ⁓
Yeah, I know that's what it is. We were just talking before I started recording where there was a question, was there ever a moment where you thought this isn't working and what makes you keep going anyway? And I just wanted to hear your answer again.
Alison Stuart (13:03)
I don't think there's ever moment when you don't think that, you know, it is an absolute, this is a crazy, why do we do this to ourselves? You know, why do we sort of sit here at a desk hours and hours on end? You know, for what is actually if you took it as a rate of return, very small, minuscule percentages of cents per word that you turn out. You know, this, cannot be in this business thinking you're going to make money. I know what I was going to say.
Amra (13:25)
Yes.
Alison Stuart (13:31)
gone again. sorry. Yeah,
Amra (13:33)
I can relate. My husband and
I are having the best time of our lives. He tells me a joke that I know I've heard before but I forgot the punchline too. And I laugh as if I heard it for the first time and then we just keep going around in circles and my poor daughter is going batty.
Alison Stuart (13:43)
I'm getting out of here. ⁓
you
I
remembered it, that's how I remembered it. What I was going to say was, the first three Harriet books were published by Penguin and then they dropped me and so I indie published the last two books. What Penguin had done for me and for which I am profoundly grateful is it had given me a very good readership and a very loyal readership and in fact it was the readers who insisted that I kept going with this because all the advice from my peers was, oh well you know that always happens you know you just move on to the next thing.
my readers all went well no it was a bit naughty I kind of left the third book on a bit of a cliffhanger which was a bit naughty of me I should you know it should never do that young people do not do that
Amra (14:34)
Yeah
Alison Stuart (14:34)
But the advantage of that was when I came to put up the pre-orders for the next two books, I had the ready-made audience. And in point of fact, in terms of sort of royalties coming into me, and just from Amazon, it was wide, so it went everywhere, but just from Amazon, I made more in that first month than the advance I'd got from Berkeley. So, you know, there we go. was, yeah.
Amra (14:57)
And that's a story I'm hearing from other authors
who have had series that were cancelled. I know of an author, Elimani, and she started a series that was published. They published the first two books and then they didn't want to publish the third. And she published the third herself and the readership, you know, snapped it up and it was exactly the same story. And it just, it makes me really like...
Alison Stuart (15:12)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Amra (15:23)
I don't know, bit in despair about the publishing industry where they're like, that they think that that's not worth it. That's not worth publishing. They know that there are going to be sales and that there will be money there. But they're just not, I don't know, I just don't understand it to be honest. ⁓
Alison Stuart (15:42)
No, it's
the as I understand the way they work is the algorithm as to what's a successful book and what isn't is based on and I mean this is where they need to rethink because it's based on print sales and of course my books came out during Covid.
and so the book shops weren't open so you know how were they selling print books and even even today looking looking at my because they give you a very good dashboard as to what the sales are the print books are only 25 percent of my total sales for all three books the digital and the audio are 75 percent of sales but they when when they do when the number crunches and let's face it they're the ones who make these decisions it's not your editor your editor can love you to pieces but it's the marketing department and the
Amra (16:02)
No. Yes.
Alison Stuart (16:29)
department that make the decisions and they're looking and go well we it's not selling so yeah let her go you know it's not worth it but that's why you'll find particularly with traditionally published books that the ebooks are priced at ridiculous amounts like
Amra (16:34)
Yeah.
Yes.
Alison Stuart (16:45)
1799 for an ebook because they're
Amra (16:46)
Yes, the same as a paperback.
Alison Stuart (16:48)
to drive you towards buying the print book as being a more economical outlook. No, I might be wrong. That is just my perception and my understanding of how it works. Yeah, yeah.
Amra (16:56)
No, I agree with you completely. That's what I have seen too. And that's why they
did those digital first...
Publishing companies and they were trying to sell for the same prices that You know indie authors were selling and as an author we got no advance, but we were getting like 50 % Or like a high actually not 50 % but a higher percentage of royalty I think it was I think it was 25 % versus 15 or 10 % on print But yeah, it's it's a very like they're trying to manufacture and what I got from all of that
Alison Stuart (17:19)
It was a hard decision.
Yeah.
Amra (17:33)
like seeing a lot of authors in action is when I started my murder mystery series, and by the way, I have a theory about that, how we moved from romance up to our 30s and then in our 40s, we go through perimenopause and murder is on our mind. And that is the happy place then. And so when I started my murder,
Alison Stuart (17:49)
That's right.
Amra (17:54)
mystery which I'm publishing now, I did not submit it to a publisher at all. I was not going to take the chance that they would pick up one book or maybe one or two books and then not continue the series and sort of leave me. Where yes I could you know continue it myself but the problem is as an indie author when you don't have those first few books you are very limited in promotional opportunities and what you can do. And then because
Alison Stuart (17:59)
Mm-hmm.
Yep. Yep. Yep.
Amra (18:24)
you are promoting your books and achieving sales, you don't get the rights back to the books that are published by them because they're getting the benefit of all the work that you're doing. Yeah.
Alison Stuart (18:30)
No.
Yeah, absolutely. It's so
frustrating. But I had to finish that, so I wound that series up. But the readers are still asking me for more from those characters. So I'm going to start. So I'm not sure if I'm preempting what your next question is. But so my thought is at the moment, I'm actually going to move to a new series with the same character spin. Let's call it a spin off series with the same characters. Yeah, in their world.
Amra (18:50)
Go for it, please.
Yes, in the world. That's what we want to do now. We
want to exploit the whole world that's there.
Alison Stuart (19:03)
Yeah,
that I can control from book one. If you don't have book one, you know, as you said, there's absolutely nothing you can do really in terms of other publishers don't want to pick up books four and five, you know, why would they do that? And of course, they the big
publishers their contracts are so ironclad you know and they won't they won't relinquish any rights that it's an absolute rights grab and so they they have the foreign rights they've got the audio rights they've got the every right and that's even with an agent negotiating the contract yeah so sorry I'm sorry to say yeah it sounds a bit depressing if you are really keen on getting a traditional publishing contract but
Amra (19:25)
No. No.
Yes, and that's what I experienced. My agent tried to...
I
think that the advantage when you've been in both worlds...
Alison Stuart (19:47)
Mm.
Amra (19:48)
you really understand the pros and cons of both worlds and you can make an informed decision. And I think what happens is a lot of indie authors who haven't been traditionally published, you know, there's that sense of being chosen and being anointed and you know, it does give you a certain confidence. does give you, and the fact that you have that apprenticeship into the publishing industry, you know, you do have someone holding your hand and sort of leading you to it.
Alison Stuart (19:52)
Yeah.
Amra (20:16)
But then you've got all those limitations and the restrictions and the exploitation.
Alison Stuart (20:20)
really, I think that I think there are a couple of couple of things there that you just mentioned.
What traditional publishing does still give you A is your books in bookshops, which you don't get with an indie publisher. And secondly, it gives you cache. Unfortunately, it gives you street cred. The bookshops will pick you up, you know, because you're published by whoever. The literary festivals want you because you're published by whoever. you're an indie, there is still that sniff factor of going, you know, she's self-published, you know, so.
It's sort of, from that point of view, you know, it was very nice. What a thrill to see your books in bookshops. I don't think I'll ever get over that sort of that moment when you see your book in Dimex. I don't know if I ever got into an air, my ambition was to get into an airport and I'm not sure I actually ever did that.
Amra (21:12)
Yeah.
Alison Stuart (21:12)
But yes, that moment of seeing your book on the bookshelf, which you don't really get as an Indian, you've just got to learn to live with that. But I do find it annoying that the literary community still views indie publishing as being being vanity publishing or less lesser, you know, not as superior. Oh, well.
Amra (21:19)
Yeah.
Yes.
But then as soon as you sort of start, because there are people we both know in this world who are earning a very good income from their writing, who have built up those back lists and built up their communities, their reading communities. And so, know, people might poo poo, but when they drop the income that they are making and what they are earning and the living that they are able to do and the fact that they are their own
publishing houses where, you know, they are doing the audiobooks and producing ⁓ all of that they have got the income and now with translations, you know, so I feel like people are like, but as soon as there's a money tag attached, it changes.
Alison Stuart (22:07)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah,
yeah. was just interesting.
Amra (22:20)
you know, it's because it's all about
the money. It's just fascinating to me. So I wanted to go back to sort of talking about writing and having a life and because you balanced sort of a demanding legal career. And so how did you balance writing and, you know, having having a job?
Alison Stuart (22:40)
I sat in a closet. It was my secret little thing that I did in my few spare minutes. Might have been over lunchtime or...
And when I finally admitted that I wrote, I mean, not only wrote, I wrote romance, you know, was like it was literally like coming out. I might as well have said I turned into a born again Christian or something. And I actually had a huge job. was my sort of my was my penultimate job, I suppose. The peak of my career, I was I was a director in a in a in a large fire service. I won't go any further than that.
at that time Arts Nation on ABC was doing these little five-minute sessions called Our Secret Arts Life and they were after a romance writer who had a professional career and so the president of RWA at the time said ⁓ we know just the person. They sent the ABC down to me.
Amra (23:31)
Oof. You got outed publicly.
Alison Stuart (23:34)
It was yeah I was completely out it because I not only had not only my my my colleagues knew about it every firefighter knew about it because I had to go and sit in a fire truck. It was a lovely little segment but it was so funny.
Amra (23:46)
Good photo though, good.
Yeah, but that's
what people don't realise. Like I've worked full time as a teacher only in the past few years. Have I stepped down to work part time? I had to wake up at 5.30 in the morning.
and rice and then go in and teach, ⁓ you know, eight hours and then come home and spend some time with my small daughter because you she was five years old when I started teaching. ⁓ And it really is sacrifice. Like it's not like a magical thinking thing. It really is finding the, you know, dedicated time and just scratching at it and building it.
Alison Stuart (24:05)
Yeah.
Mmm.
But you know,
I kind of miss that to a certain extent. There was sort of something magical about it that I can't find anymore. It was that thrill of creation and the fact that I did have this secret arts life. And I wasn't writing for, I was only writing for me.
And it was it was was just such a delight. can't I can't read. Now I do it professionally. I can't find that spark that I had in those those early days.
And I mean, actually sort of managed to balance my work, particularly latterly, where I was not working full time either. So I could sort of, had a little bit more time, but you know, the days the kids went to crèche or kinder or something like, you know, it was just finding, oh, I've got an hour. I can just go into this world of my own and create. I didn't ever see it as a sacrifice. I just found it a joy and it's very easy to lose that
joy
when when it all becomes very serious and and professional and you've got to do it full time but yeah yeah so you know I think I think if I had to give advice to beginner writers is is just to stop worrying about the publishing thing just find the joy of the writing in yourself you know it's that that's what gives you the pleasure yeah yeah
Amra (25:46)
Well, yeah, because I still feel because I have to work, you know, my
writing income does not sustain itself. I've just been able to purchase one day off from all my writing endeavors. And so it is it is absolute pure joy because it's like, you know, if I have a day to come here to my studio and to just be an author, that is a very special day. You know, spending a morning on the weekend, a quiet, hushed morning, just
Alison Stuart (25:51)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Amra (26:13)
writing in secret, especially now because my daughter is older. I think that is just pure joy because so much of life is, you know, controlled and you have to do all these unpleasant things.
Alison Stuart (26:27)
I can always remember
sitting.
was 1997 and I back in those days you knew where you sat with the RWA contest and so I knew I was only runner-up in the Emma Darcy award but I can still remember sitting on that plane to Sydney for my first RWA conference not knowing anything about it that was my who who who is who is this famous person who's anyway but sitting on that plane and she came around with the drinks and would you like a drink and I went yes I want champagne and it was that
whole kind of, I'm kind of shedding this, I'm becoming a new person like a caterpillar sort of emerging from the subsurface. And I just never looked back after that. was it. I'd found my tribe. I'd found my happy place.
Amra (27:12)
Well, yeah, that's the thing. When we met at the book fair, you were in this beautiful historical costume and, because your work spans different historical periods. So what draws you to a particular era? So describe first what you were wearing at the book fair and why.
Alison Stuart (27:32)
⁓ Well, I
had a number of costumes. So on the first day I was wearing the Edwardian Harriet Gordon suffragette.
Amra (27:36)
Yeah, you did a few changes.
Alison Stuart (27:43)
costume which was heinously uncomfortable by the end of the day. The second day I met you when I was in the Regency, flowing Regency, much more comfortable costume. was made for me by my lovely friend Beverly Oakley, fabulous author and seamstress. I just reprised that at the Wild Out West book fair in Perth last weekend which was hilarious, it was just so much fun.
Amra (27:48)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
you.
Alison Stuart (28:09)
it's kind of fun to dress up because as a historical author you you can find that little point of difference and yes it was kind of nice to just be a little bit silly and dress up and do that but in terms of my own historical interest in history I look I've just been a history I've been a history nerd since I was knee-high to a grasshopper and I have an absolute passion for the period of the English Civil War
Amra (28:15)
Yeah.
Alison Stuart (28:34)
And so I have actually written six books with that setting. And that is the definition of madness when you write six books in the particular setting and realize that it's never going to be the next Regency. Yeah, so that was a that was a bit of a light bulb moment for me. So, yes, I have tried so that that was I tried writing a Regency and that was that's been moderately successful. I mean, so many people write Regency so much.
Amra (28:46)
you
Alison Stuart (28:58)
I think so much better than I do. And of course, it didn't turn into a romance. There was a murder mystery in it. I just can't do I cannot do that sort of whole romance regency thing. I've set book in I've done a dual timeline ghost, know, Downton Abbey with ghosts set in the 1920s with World War One setting as well. And and a Napoleonic war. That's a dual timeline.
Amra (29:04)
Yeah
Alison Stuart (29:20)
And then of course my Australian books set in the 1870s and my Harriet Gordons are set in the Edwardian period, 1910. So I've tried different periods. I love them all, I love them all equally. But yes, my passion period was and always will be the English Civil War. Roundheads, cavaliers, know, what was not to love, men with big swords.
Amra (29:41)
Well, that's the
thing, kind of, I don't know, you get caught up in things because, and you have to have that passion. Like you do have to have that passion and that's what comes across. And like, you know, and then being able to, know, with the costumes and stuff, like when you're doing that direct selling, being able to actually communicate through that passion and joy and find people who connect with it. ⁓ What's some advice that you have for writers in terms of writing historical fiction?
Alison Stuart (30:09)
Well, I think certainly write the period of your passion. Unfortunately, I'm going to be Debbie Downer here. I mean, the 30 years I've been writing, historicals have been dying. But you know, a bit like the Monty Python sketch, I'm getting better. I'll come back again.
Amra (30:25)
Yes, that's like short story. At one point,
I remember Melbourne literary festivals, the short story is dying. Something's always dying. Yes, yes.
Alison Stuart (30:31)
The short stories, ⁓ novellas, novellas, now everyone's writing novellas. Unfortunately,
my observation is that historicals really are dying now. They are a really, really hard sell. None of the traditional publishers are picking up historicals. They're dropping their stable. They've got their stables of well-known historical writers who...
served them loyally for many years they're being they're being let go. You know the fact last weekend in Perth I was the only historical author there I don't know whether that was a coincidence or what I mean it was good for me but you where were the where were the others you know where are the other historical writers? I don't I think I think I
Amra (31:07)
⁓
Alison Stuart (31:14)
What is the reason for this? I don't know. think education has a lot to do with it. I don't know if you're a teacher. You can probably tell me better, but I don't think schools are teaching history in the same way that they did when I was growing up.
Amra (31:27)
The is very set, yeah, and we start with ancient in, you know, year seven and I can only speak to high school and we've introduced now 20th century in World War II because we had so much rise of...
Alison Stuart (31:32)
and
Yeah.
Amra (31:42)
extremism and you know and then that history being lost has been leading to a lot of issues and so it's like bringing it back. So yeah I think ⁓ a lot of a lot of history and like that's why I loved historical romance like I my god Joanna Lindsay do you remember her and Jude Devereaux ⁓ but Joanna Lindsay my god that woman she did like every period and then she even did like sci-fi fantasy stuff. ⁓ One of my biggest regrets still is that I got rid of
Alison Stuart (31:44)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Amra (32:11)
my whole collection. had every single book she ever published. And then I did that terrible thing that we do where it's like, I'm mature now, I no longer read romance. And during one of the moves, I got rid of it. And then I was like, oh, that I tried to buy some of them again. But like, you know, even though it is fiction, and you know, we do play with facts, in order to tell the story, we still offer a qualifier.
Alison Stuart (32:28)
Yep. Yep.
Amra (32:39)
We
still always have an author's notion about what we have done in terms of changes we've made and so you are still able to sort of get information and get some historical, you know, like understanding. So I don't know. Yeah, maybe just, I mean, yeah, the change in reading patterns now.
Alison Stuart (32:43)
Absolutely.
My observation from talking to the readers last weekend was
They're after escape. know, the reality of what we're living through at the moment is tough. It's really tough, particularly if you're a young single woman. I think they're just after this world where they can just escape and forget and if it involves sexy fairies and dragons and all the rest of it, that's where they want to be. They don't want the reality of the sort of books that I write, you know, where people were living through wars because basically that's what they're doing at the moment.
which is kind of sad and I just pick up a point you made there and that's about history and I mean I feel as a historical writer I have an obligation to make sure my history is correct and if it's not you know if I do occasionally fudge the odd day I mean nothing significant like a battle or somebody's death or something like that but you know if I have to play around a little bit with the facts I always do an author's note to sort of say that's exactly what I've done you know I've used the Gregorian calendar here not the Julian calendar
or whatever.
and I feel that weight very heavily on my shoulders and I get so depressed when I see some of the work historical authors do. I I always cite the example of a book set in Melbourne by an American author set in Melbourne in the 1830s. You and I both know Melbourne really wasn't settled until 1837. Oh no no the heroine and her sister are tripping through the busy streets of Melbourne on their way to the
modest to buy a ball gown for the sister to go with her satin shoes for the big ball that's going to happen and they have to go down to the bustling docks to pick up the convict that her father's just ordered you know it was just so
excruciatingly wrong. It's actually a very funny, it's actually hilarious, but what depressed me was the reviews going, no thank you for telling me about this fabulous period of history I know nothing about. You still know nothing about it, this is a fantasy.
Amra (34:54)
yes.
Alison Stuart (34:55)
Yes,
imagine if I'd written a book set in New York and you know I had done this to New York for example, there'd be outcry so you know and there was another one I read where it's the Great Fire of London and the characters are sitting there watching the lead on the dome of St Paul's melting.
So I, you know, I feel, I certainly feel as an author that I owe it to my readers to make sure that I'm not giving them false information like that. But unfortunately there's a lot of it around and the worst is, and it's getting worse because people are writing, they're writing so quickly and they're not bothering with the research and yes, kind of offends the historical nerd in me I've got to say.
Amra (35:26)
Mmm. Actually...
Yes.
Yeah, and also there's an element as indie authors, like a lot of people launch into writing and publishing and they figure it out as they go and learn on the job, so to speak, and then have the opportunity to go back and rework and revise. you know, research and historical periods still, you know,
Alison Stuart (35:48)
Yeah.
Amra (36:01)
Yeah, I agree. I just wanted to go back to about why historical romance is not working anymore. And what I was also getting out of it is that whole women being subjugated and the fact that they didn't have rights and the restrictions and all of that, because of joint sub stack and I'm really enjoying the space. But a lot of things are popping about about feminism and young women being embarrassed about feminism and, you know, what is
feminism. So there's this this sort of difficult space about femininity and you know, and I'm wondering how much of that is also impacting on that.
you know, of historical romance because the whole thing about it is that tension where they can't do things that you can do in the contemporary world where you have the sex before marriage, you have all of those liberties. It's all of that unresolved tension and that slow build and you know, and also maybe it's that now that instant gratification that
you know, we're used to in society where everything is like right now.
Alison Stuart (37:10)
Yeah, I think you're
absolutely spot on that there is now a lack of understanding of where we've come from and I mean I...
I'm old enough now to remember back in the days where, you know, as a woman, I couldn't enter into a contract or, you know, if I was a married woman, I would have had to have left work, you know, and that's that's only that's only changed since the 1970s. That's not that, you know, as history goes, it's not that long ago, you know, an equal equal.
Amra (37:35)
Yes, not that long ago.
Alison Stuart (37:43)
here in Australia we're very lucky, know, they then brought in the no fault divorce for example and all of these things that we fought for as young women are, they're being forgotten, you know, they going out the door but and I think with the...
Amra (37:54)
Yes.
Alison Stuart (37:58)
That probably accounts for the rise in the appeal of sexy fairies. Let's just escape from all of that. But I mean, for example, I'm watching, I'm absolutely absorbed at the moment in a sea drama, Pursuit of Jade, which is a historical romance. not going to call it anything else. Set in China in some, I'm not sure when, beautifully filmed, beautiful costumes, all the rest of it.
Amra (38:03)
Yes, and my daughter, yeah. Yeah.
Alison Stuart (38:25)
god the romance is killing me we're halfway through he's only just kissed her that slow burn romance and and I mean there's no way he's going to it's a it's a marriage a convenience story not to not to give too many spoilers and he's not going to spoil he's not going to he can't he can't sort of
Amra (38:31)
Yeah.
Alison Stuart (38:47)
allow himself to really fall in love with her because he knows he's got to leave her and my god if you want to know what a good old-fashioned historical romances should be I highly recommend The Pursuit of Jade it is good but yes you know there's so much of historical romance that's written particularly coming out of America is what I would call modern dramas in fancy dress
Amra (38:58)
Mm.
Yes.
Alison Stuart (39:10)
where
the girls just act completely like modern girls with no thought or care of contraception or sexually transmitting diseases or you know all of that sort of stuff.
And that's where my books I have to be so careful to make sure that I have very strong women. All my heroines are very strong women, but within the context of the historical period, they have to navigate their way through their own times and restrictions before they get their happy ever after. But yes, historical, I don't know, the readers are still there. The readers still want historical bromance.
Amra (39:43)
So maybe.
Alison Stuart (39:49)
don't understand quite why the traditional publishers are dropping it like literally like hot potatoes. They're wanting and my agent would say they're wanting extra elements, they're wanting the magic realism, know, so they're wanting the witches and the fae and the things that are just going to step it outside of reality. I think maybe you're absolutely right, maybe it is just reality is so hard at the moment that people don't want to be reminded of where they have come from.
and what it used to be like. Don't know. Wish I had a
Amra (40:20)
I think there's also
an element of what we were talking about in terms of, you know, women really not understanding. Like I talked to my daughter, we watched...
She's like a little grandmother, this child. She's 17, but she's like, you know, very wise and because she loves history and she loves reading. And so she has a lot of cultural capital and a lot of general knowledge. And so we talk about, you know, she's the Hawaii bastards. Why was there so much stigma about it? And I'm like, because at that time there was no contraception. You have sex outside of marriage. You are left with a consequence. And it was all about policing women and all.
Alison Stuart (40:38)
Yeah.
Amra (40:57)
about women having to pay for the desire and men you know getting unscathed off it and so maybe it's also that
not understanding of what it meant to be a woman at that time. that, know, as you said, when things are written that are supposed to be historical, it is very much not the way that heroines are. Because we're obsessed with Pride and Prejudice and we watch every adaptation and read, my daughter's read the original and really understands the world and the reality of that world and what
Alison Stuart (41:21)
Yeah.
Yep.
Amra (41:33)
meant. But you know, then we look at something like Bridgerton, which I adore and is so much fun. Not a Regency.
Alison Stuart (41:41)
No,
you have to take, well we're talking about Bridget and the TV series as opposed to the books which are completely different. Bridget and the TV series is so not a regency and it is absolutely 100 % fantasy.
Amra (41:45)
Yes, as opposed to the books, yes.
Mmm.
Alison Stuart (41:54)
on
so many levels and if you view it like that it is as you say, I mean I love it, I think it's great fun. Whereas I struggle with other adaptations of say I think there was a recent one of Sense and Sensibility where...
Amra (42:00)
Yes, it's a great soap opera.
Alison Stuart (42:11)
There was colourblind casting and it just didn't work. was, yeah, or making, you know, and believe. Anyway, that's my own little personal personal grub. Nothing, nothing against it. It's just if you're playing with actual historical characters at actual historical times, you've got to divorce that reality from fantasy. Anyway, there we go. But yes, love Bridgerton, love Bridgerton. And then, of course, the traditional publishers all went, oh, my God, Bridgerton, we're to we're going to publish every Regency book
Amra (42:31)
Yeah.
Alison Stuart (42:38)
we've ever got and my Lord's Sommerton's air came out it was actually stamped you know for lovers of Bridgerton and it's it is so not Bridgerton it's a murder mystery apart from anything else and
Amra (42:46)
Yeah.
Also, just to go back
to the blind colour casting, the reason that Bridgerton works is it is an alternate reality where there was a black queen. And so you can't then play with history and have black real life characters depicted as black when they did not have the rights. At those times, there was still slavery. And it really is a disservice to the history.
Alison Stuart (42:55)
Thank you, Yes.
There was,
Amra (43:17)
of the reality of what happened and the prejudice and the racism and the fact that there was so much fighting for civil rights and even in Australia we didn't have the referendum until 1976, if I've got my year right, to acknowledge Indigenous people as citizens of the country that they have been in longer than anyone else. And so yeah, that's the thing.
Alison Stuart (43:41)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Amra (43:45)
there's that fantasy and then there's the history and because we're both very much on that historical side we very much yeah like it's like ⁓ I can't quite get there I really just can't do it yeah
Alison Stuart (43:52)
You just have to let it go.
No, go and
read a book about William Wilberforce, you if you want to know what it was really like. mean, not that there were certainly coloured people within society, but never at that level, at that level of society, unless they were the adopted daughter, and there were cases of the adopted daughter, and I'm not saying that they weren't there, but certainly there weren't dukes.
Amra (44:03)
Yeah.
Yeah, and yeah, I mean like...
No, I mean like just at a time when there is not enough understanding of history and then you create something that is historical and people don't understand that there has been playing with and they take it as the truth and yeah just the danger of that I think that's what I think that's what we both struggle with and worry about.
Alison Stuart (44:32)
Hmm.
Yeah, I have a real problem with that, but anyway.
It's muddy, it's muddying and already muddied water, I think, in the fight to, well, in the fight, yeah, in getting historical fiction of any kind now sort of recognised and adored again. know, people are picking up Julia's books and going, well, where's the Black Duke? You know, he's no Black Duke.
Amra (44:49)
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes, yeah, no, because
it's an alternate reality that has been crafted for the TV show, which works within that alternate reality. But as long as you understand that is not history, there was never a black queen. So I guess in terms of that, that writing historical fiction and dealing with difficult truths, how does that affect you? And how do you find the writing of?
Alison Stuart (45:10)
It is. It's little alternate. Yeah. so it does. As long as you knew it was set.
Well, yeah, I write books set in colonial Singapore and you talk about uncomfortable truths. of course, colonialism is a very uncomfortable truth to be writing about. It is my own family background, but I'm no apologist for it. I understand completely how it's affected.
Amra (45:35)
Mmm.
Alison Stuart (45:51)
countries and peoples, know, it was a terrible thing, there's no doubt about it. And the way I deal with it is I don't shy away from it. have horrible characters in the books.
My own protagonists, of course, have a much broader understanding of these things and tend to be less stereotyped Colonials than some of them. But, you know, I was born in colonial Africa in Kenya. you know, you read back some of the accounts of white plantation owners in Malaya and...
Amra (46:13)
Yes.
Alison Stuart (46:26)
in Kenya and the treatment of their workers and I just tear my hair out and go I'm sorry that that was how it was. It is an uncomfortable truth and at one point my publisher actually wanted me to write an apology at the start of the book about
about it. This is writing for an American audience, you know, and I have to kind of sort of tread that very fine political line of, have you got two seconds? see if I...
Amra (46:55)
Mm-hmm.
Alison Stuart (46:55)
book it was
Now I can't let you remember which book it was but I mean I do I have to make a point in saying in the author notes you know this is the views expressed by some of the characters in this book are not those of the author. The book set in 1910 and intolerance shown to non-Europeans was real and abhorrent as we with our 21st century glasses might find it this is how it was and it would be unbalanced for me to imply otherwise.
Amra (47:05)
Yeah.
Yes,
that's the difficult thing, isn't it? Where people are like, you're writing this, therefore you approve it. And it's like, no, in order to tell the truth of what was happening at that time, I have to create characters and have the characters say things and do things that they did at that time to really show that reality. Yeah, it's a...
Alison Stuart (47:37)
Yeah.
I
expected a lot more pushback than I've actually had so I think maybe I got the balance right. I mean I get the odd reviews that are a bit bit eww but really on the whole I think my readers have accepted that's where I come from and they read the books and it does very it's very popular in Singapore.
it's actually it is actually on the all five books are on the shelves of Kinnakannu you're in Singapore if you're passing through yeah yeah yes so ⁓ so that sort of that kind of says well maybe I I kind of kind of got it right to get the right balance but I'm enormously and it's probably one of the reasons where with the new series I am actually changing location move moving them
Amra (48:08)
That's brilliant. That's a huge achievement.
So tell me about
the new series, what are you doing?
Alison Stuart (48:26)
⁓ I can't really, it's still very, very, very much. I've had a bit of a break ⁓ after writing, effectively writing eight books in five years. I was very tired. Eight big books in five years. So I've had a bit of a bit of a what they call a creative break, mental health break. ⁓ So I'm looking at.
Amra (48:42)
Yes.
Yes, we need those.
Alison Stuart (48:49)
as I said, taking the two main protagonists and maybe moving them because it's now the World War One. So moving to another one of my favourite periods of history and actually moving them to England, which was way more exciting in 1915 than Singapore was. So, so yes, but I've got to get them there. That's going to take me three books, I think, to get them there.
Amra (48:55)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Yes.
So you're doing like an
outlander where she did the move from Scotland to America.
Alison Stuart (49:15)
I, I,
Outlander lost me in book two. just,
I love book one absolutely I mean I read it and I reread it and I adored it and then I picked up book two and I just could not get and I've tried it several times still can't get into it and then I kind of lost the whole timeline and I just couldn't see how it was all still how are we in the American War of Independence when we were just at Culloden you know that whole sort of do not get how the characters are not aging or at least the characters that are in the period anyway yes ⁓
Amra (49:23)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well that's the thing, like I sometimes,
my husband talks about how he was watching Scooby Doo, like my daughter and I were watching Scooby Doo and he was watching it on our shoulder and the villain was unmasked and he's like, that doesn't make sense that that was the villain. And I said, there's a talking dog.
Alison Stuart (49:58)
Ha ha!
Well, yeah, exactly,
I am, I'm a dyed in the wool Capricorn, you know, I just, things have to actually make sense to me. I'm not a fantasy reader. I'm not a sci fi reader. I, you know, up to a point I can kind of go with a little bit of fantasy and I enjoy a bit of, I enjoy time travel. I have written time travel, but yet somehow that that outlander knot was just too much for me.
Amra (50:05)
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love time travel. Yeah.
I love
it. I'm watching the series. I've got to go back and watch. I think the last one it's going to be. So I still love it. But yeah, it's but also I have my things because I'm more than willing to let things go. And, you know, both my husband and daughter do that when they're asking questions. I'm like, shh, no questions. We do not question the reality of the pretty people on the screen. Thank you.
Alison Stuart (50:32)
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm married to an engineer don't talk to me about it. Willing suspension of disbelief in just key does not get it at all.
Amra (50:53)
Hahahaha
Yeah.
Well, I just wanted to ask what sort of advice do you have that you think that writers don't want to hear, but that they need to?
Alison Stuart (51:07)
I think this day and age the advice they don't want to hear is don't rush to get that book on out just because you can. You have to learn your craft and if that means you have to write, rewrite, get edited, go through all the hoops and rails and maybe you know be told that your book is not going to, it needs a lot of work. You've got to do that. I think
if you are indie publishing particularly you have to have a good independent editor who is going to go through your book and tell you the cold hard truths about it
Amra (51:42)
thank you so much, Alison, for coming on.