In the last two years there has been a steady rise in brands wanting to get involved in social media. We know it’s the new, inexpensive way to increase brand awareness and boost sales, but I’ve been wondering about the moral implications of companies cashing in on people’s chat.

We all know people have emotional connections to their favourite brands. I prefer Starbucks to Caffé Nero, Apple to PC, and Virgin Atlantic to British Airways. I’m happy to wave their flags and say I have an affinity with those companies and their products. It’s this sort of intense customer loyalty that all companies strive for, and many marketing departments think using social media is a quick way to get it. Well, it is, but not without risks.

The argument goes that a brand which connects with people on social networks will then get fully engaged, spend-happy customers in return. In some cases interacting with consumers via social media can have that effect. But the assumption is the relationships you build will be positive and healthy. To ensure that, however, you need to connect with the right sort of customer and behave in a way befitting your brand values.

The thing is, like all relationships, it could go wrong very quickly. What if the reality of your brand online is different to what people expected? What if you end up having a relationship with someone who becomes a wildcard? And what are the moral implications when a relationship with a customer starts to fail? Do you work at it or end it?

The first thing most social media consultants would suggest is to have a document that has policies and procedures for damage limitation. But unlike the usual documents that look at media law issues such as libel and copyright violation, I’d suggest you go one further. You need to understand how your brand would handle various emotional issues on social media, and how you’d deal with them internally too.

Imagine you have a relationship with a man called Bob. You’ve got to know him well. He buys your products, bigs them up and you think of him as a brand ambassador who provides great feedback. What would you do if Bob threatened suicide? What are your moral responsibilities?

Social media is great fun, but like all relationships there’s a serious side that can’t be ignored. Companies have a moral obligation to their customers if they say they’re on social media to develop a better understanding of them, and brands need to be there for the bad times as well as the good. If you’re interacting with a customer on social media and you panic at the first sign of trouble, you’re not really having a relationship or investing in what social media is all about. You’re having a one-night stand and you’ll get the reputation you deserve. Using social media is about investing in something long-term with your customers. Get it right, and they’ll be in love with you for keeps.

This piece was my third column for New Media Age magazine. You can read the original article here.

It’s been a while since I’ve picked up a piece of fiction that I loved as much as this book. It’s the kind of book that draws you in page by page until you realise it’s four in the morning and you’ve been reading for hours. Without giving too much away (for people who want to read this book and I recommend you do), it follows ‘Madison and Jess’ and their encounters with the formidable Beau Silverman. The book begins with the two girls and their separate paths before bringing them together in an effortless way. This has fast become one of my favourite books and is perfect if you want a great holiday read too. It had me smiling, laughing and even gasping aloud. Great escapism which, with everything going on at the moment is exactly what I needed. Strong female characters that I wanted to relate to and I cared about and a great plot that had me on the edge of my seat until the end, hoping that everyone would get what they deserve.

Read the original review here – thanks Laura! x

I get loads of emails from people telling me they have a great idea for a novel … but they don’t actually know where to start. Or how long a chapter should be. Or how much they should plan in advance.

I could write loads on this subject, but to save your brain cells (which you can apply to your manuscript), I’ve broken it down into easy-to-read bullet points. These follow on from my post called ‘Five tips to start your novel‘, which is about characterisation, tone of voice, and story.

1. Plan your plot
Write one page on your basic plot. My first novel, THE MAKING OF MIA, went something like this. ‘Girl is overweight, wants to work on magazines, is bullied at school, gets job in shitty cafe, leaves to work in pub, meets love interest, loses weight, finds out about magazine temping, gets a job at publishing house…’ Okay, so it’s a little dry, but you need the bones of your story before you begin. Don’t worry about detail, but make sure the key points are in there.

2. Expand your plot
This is where the fun really starts. Take each key point, and flesh it out into a paragraph or two. So, using MIA as an example again, the ‘Girl is overweight, wants to work on magazines, is bullied at school’ bit could be expanded to key scenes where we see the protagonist at school and how she’s bullied, an example of her overeating and why she overeats, and a scene where we really get to understand why she loves magazines so much.

3. Focus on characters
You should already have an idea of your main characters, but now you have a fleshed out plot, it’s time to look at them again. Think about how each would react in each key point. Does it seem realistic? Is it interesting? Make a note of each characters’: full names, hair colour, eye colour, where they live, their relationships to others, their jobs, their favourite outfit. Refer back to this all the time. When my copy editor was looking through my second novel, SPOTLIGHT, she noticed all my characters had blond hair and blue eyes. Oops.

4. Plan your chapters
Every writer is different, but I plan to write a novel of 110,000 words, with approximately 25 chapters. Each chapter is roughly 4000 words. For those of you who are better at maths than I am (most of you), you’ll see I have an extra 10,000 words floating around. With every novel, I tend to delete about 30,000 words after I’ve written the first draft, so over-writing a little bit gives me a bit more leeway when I’m hacking up my beloved manuscript.

To plan your chapters look at your extended plot, and divide it up as naturally as possible. Think about how many words you’d like for each chapter, and then try and visualise how each bit of your plot may look. This sounds easier than it is, but if you have, say, a bit where someone finds out something dramatic vs something a bit boring, you know the dramatic bit will be longer. Make sense?

Once you’ve divided up your plot and you’ve put them into chapters look at them again. Each chapter should have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

5. Flesh out your chapters
Some authors write a single line to describe what’s going to happen in their chapters, and if that works for you, great. I, however, like to know what’s going to happen in each chapter in more detail. Chapters are made up of scenes, so I try to work out three to four scenes for each chapter … meaning each scene is 1000 words. Just like chapters, each scene should have a beginning, a middle, and an end – and should end on something interesting so the reader wants to keep reading. Think about EastEnders. It’s half an hour of storylines made up of different scenes with different characters. You can have one long scene with a couple of characters, several scenes each with different scenarios, or lots of scenes that follow one character. It’s entirely up to you.

6. Start writing
You’ve plotted and planned, and now there’s nothing else to do but … write! Lots of people ask me if I write the book in order. And I do. I start with chapter one, finish on chapter twenty-five (or whatever), and then I tend to go back through the book and rewrite bits and pieces to make sure it all fits together.

If you don’t know where to start – just jump in.
If you’re having trouble coming up with a brilliant first line – just jump in.

Remember, you could write the worst first line in history, but until someone else reads your manuscript they won’t know about it. Even if it’s rubbish you can keep it for now just so you can get going.

7. Trust your instinct
I’m in the middle of writing my third novel, NO PRINCE CHARMING, and I’ve come to realise my perfectly planned chapter outlines are useless. Well, they’re not that bad, but I merged chapters three and four together, spent two chapters writing what I thought would be chapter five, and during chapter six one of my characters did something unexpected so I’m going to work with that for a bit.

My point is that you can plan things in meticulous detail, but it’s not until you’re writing the damn thing that you know if it’s going to work or not.

And how do you know if it’s working? It’s instinct.

8. Remember to edit
When I’m devoting a serious amount of time to writing my manuscript, I always plan half the time it took to write it to edit it. For example, today I wrote a whole chapter. It took all day, and is 4300 words. Tomorrow I will spend half a day reading through it again and again and editing it. When you’re writing it’s important not to stop the flow to question every adjective, or every piece of dialogue. But it’s also important to leave what you’ve just written alone for a bit, and then go back to it. Then you can fix spellings, correct grammar, change dialogue and tone, and make the whole thing a bit sexier.

9. Read through what you’ve done
You may have a chapter plan, but you need to take time to read the whole of your manuscript from start to wherever you’ve got to. I do this twice a month. The problem with doing this though, is that it takes a lot of time … because you’re reading a book. If you’re halfway through your novel, you’ll have half a book to read through when you’re writing it – and that can take up to a day, depending on how fast you want to do it. It can also get really boring, because you know exactly what’s going to happen, and you’re reading the same thing over and over again.

10. Keep it to yourself
When you’re writing your manuscript you may get desperate for another person’s opinion. If they don’t have experience in writing books (or reading a lot of the genre you’re writing), I wouldn’t bother asking them. Why? Because an unfinished manuscript doesn’t really make sense. There are lots of loose ends at the start of the story, and you’ll spend a lot of time answering questions about what you’re doing, and explaining it so it makes sense. You could be using that time to write it.

11. And keep the faith
Writing a novel is time-consuming, brain-consuming, soul-consuming, and can be quite lonely. Everybody thinks they have a novel in them, but few people try to write it, and even fewer manage to finish a manuscript. Don’t be fooled by thinking it’s easy. It’s not. It takes up a huge amount of time and dedication, and it’s hard graft. But if you really want to do it, and you think you can do it … do it! Have faith in yourself, your story, and your characters. You’re creating something magical, and you never know, one day a stranger may read it and it may make their day.

Even if you’ve read it, you should spend a few minutes watching this awesome trailer for THE DATING DETOX by Gemma Burgess.

And if you think this is good … you MUST read the book. It’s hilarious. Here’s the blurb:

If you can’t date anyone nice, don’t date anyone at all…Dating is a dangerous sport. So after her sixth successive failed relationship, romantically-challenged 20-something Sass decides she’s had enough. The Dating Detox is born. No men, no break-ups, no problem. The result? Her life — usually joyfully/traumatically occupied with dates, clothes and vodka — is finally easy. Chastity rocks. No wonder nuns are always singing. Everything falls at her feet. Especially men. Will Sass break the rules? Why does fate keep throwing her in the path of the irritatingly amusing — and gorgeous — Jake? Will she ever roll the dice and play again? Or is a love-free life too good to risk losing? For the post-Carrie Bradshaw, post-Bridget Jones, post-credit crunch generation of singles, life isn’t beautiful, a bitch, or a beach. It’s a party.

Buy THE DATING DETOX buy Gemma Burgess here. x

It has traditionally been said that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Recently I’ve been wondering if it’s the same online with customer service and opinion.

There are loads of stats on this subject, but one I particularly like is from the JC Williams Group: 91% of people say consumer content is the number-one aid in purchasing decisions. But is the sentiment of that content negative or positive? And does it matter either way?

Last month, a woman I follow on Twitter named Sharon Smith (who’s married to Kieron Smith of The Book Depository) had a run-in with comedian Frankie Boyle during one of his shows. Boyle made a joke about people with Down’s Syndrome and the Smiths – who have a daughter with Down’s – were obviously offended.

Before Sharon started going on about it on Twitter, I’d never heard of Frankie Boyle, but the incident caused me to do some research, watch a couple of his YouTube clips, read some articles and summarise that, as long as he wasn’t offending you personally, he was funny. The situation also changed my mindset about negative sentiment.

So bad reviews or experiences of other people aren’t necessarily a bad thing, especially if the type of internet user who researches online is savvy enough to take the opinions of others with a pinch of salt. However, there are still many companies scared of critical reviews and social media agencies are making a killing by making those big, scary reviews ‘go away’. But are brands doing themselves a disservice by trying to turn all negative sentiment into a positive? Are they wasting money fighting something that doesn’t actually cause any damage?

We live in a performing-on-the-internet world, where every photo of a night out ends up on Facebook and every vaguely amusing thought finds pride of place on Twitter. If a person has a beef with a company, then it’s natural they’ll gripe about it online, and it’s becoming standard that as soon as there’s a public complaint about a company, a representative tries to tidy it up. You can almost set your watch by it. Yet unless the person spewing negativity about your company on the web can be considered a) sane, and b) influential with peers, it’s probably not worth following it up or trying to better it. That’s not to say that a company should ever take pride in failing to provide decent customer service, but why spend unlimited resources on appeasing every single person on the web with an issue?

There aren’t any concrete facts to prove that a couple of pessimistic tweets or blog posts can damage a business, and there’s an argument that the more brand awareness it creates the better. Listening to your customers – the good, the bad and the ugly – and making change from the inside can have a lasting positive effect. Can wasting time and resources creating more positive sentiment do the same?

This piece was my second column for New Media Age magazine. You can read the original article here.

… Clinton Mogridge!

Last week I asked you to vote on the shortlist of suggested names for my tennis player. And the winner was Karen Brown, who received 37% of the votes with her name: Clinton Mogridge.

Well done, Karen – Clinton will be featuring in NO PRINCE CHARMING, and I’ll thank you at the front of the book, too. x

When they’re not killing baby birds / screeching for cuddles and food / using my body as a trampoline at 3am / dropping kitten toys on my nose.

Thanks so much for all your suggestions – here’s the tennis player shortlist!

I’d really appreciate it if you could vote for the name you think is best … and I’ll use that name in NO PRINCE CHARMING (Orion Books, 2011).

Ilana x

In NO PRINCE CHARMING, Ella – the main character – appears on a cookery TV show based on a dinner party format. Her companions for the evening include a tennis player who won Wimbledon the previous year.

Want to help me name him?

Suggest your names below, and the best one will feature in the book (out Spring 2011, published by Orion Books), and I’ll give you an acknowledgment at the front.

Crowdsourcing. Doesn’t. Get. Better. Than. This.

What inspired you to write Spotlight?
The UK seems to have hundreds of ‘celebs’ without any special talent, and I think the point is that these people fill slots in brands. For example, you know a couple of people from The X-Factor will end up being relatively famous – but it doesn’t particularly matter who that person is or how well they sing. It’s about how commercial they are, and how media-friendly they can be. Think about the Sugababes too. They’re still the Sugababes, but none of the original members are in the band. I wanted Spotlight to concentrate on what ‘fame’ means today, and I wanted to do a really juicy, fun story about what it would be like to step into someone else’s shoes. I loved Freaky Friday when I was younger, and I’ve always wanted to write a story with a life swap in it.

What was it that made you choose the chick lit genre?
I originally wrote my first book, The Making of Mia, because there was nothing in the bookshops that I wanted to read. Nothing really spoke to me, so I thought I’d see if I could write a book I’d like to read. I did a degree in Literature, so I often turned to trashy novels as a way to escape the Chaucer and the poetry. It’s fun, and sometimes you’ll come across a book that really speaks to you and inspires you. I wanted to do create something like that, and hopefully my novels touch people who read them. Underneath the froth and the fun I try to raise issues that will make you think.

Is there anything of you in your characters?
Not really. When I first approached my agent about The Making of Mia, he questioned the size of Jo, the protagonist, as he felt she was too big. After I met him he said that he was worried about offending me in case I was as large as she is! All my lead characters are sweet, slightly naive girls who come up against problems and they really have to look inside themselves to find strength to get through the other side. They do this with spark and innovation, and I’d like to think I’m as gutsy as they are. Several people have asked me if Jess, who works at a national newspaper in Spotlight, is based on me, or if any of the characters in the newsroom are based on real people. Jess hates working on the paper, whereas I love working for newspapers, and I’m sure that one day I will go and work for one again. And as for the other characters? There are some similarities with real people, but it’s definitely all fiction!

Has any of your plots been inspired by friends/family?
A little bit – some of the characters in my books have been inspired by situations friends have got themselves in, or things they have said. But mainly I’m influenced by people in the public eye, by people in showbiz and Hollywood. They live such crazy lives, and when you work for a newspaper you really get to know things about celebrities that could never be published. Some of that ridiculousness has been put in Spotlight.

Did you base Teen Idol on real TV talent shows?
In Spotlight, Teen Star USA is the biggest show in America, and I based it on a mixture of The X-Factor and Britain’s Got Talent. The program showcases the talents of teenagers and makes them stars – and when Madison’s approached to enter it she knows it’s going to be life-changing. I was really aware when I was writing the book that people would draw comparisons with other talent shows, and because Teen Star USA is fixed, I wanted to make sure readers didn’t think I was implying that real shows are – I know people who work on them, and they’re definitely not. I was inspired to write about talent shows because of Leona Lewis – she truly is talented, and although she’s a by-product of a reality-type program, she absolutely deserves to be famous. She’s amazing. Madison Miller is kept very ‘American Sweetheart’ in the book and isn’t allowed to dress provocatively or be anything but vanilla. I drew inspiration from Leona Lewis for that – she conducts herself with dignity, and she doesn’t need to make a fool of herself by being ’sexy’. A friend of mine is friends with Leona, and I’m hoping she’ll read the book and will love it – fingers crossed!

What are you working on now?
My new novel! It’s called No Prince Charming and it’s about a girl named Ella who’s looking for her happy ever after. She thinks she has it but when she realises her life – as perfect as it is – is never going to make her truly happy, she gives it up. However, things start to go badly wrong for her, and she has to start all over again. It’s kind of a modern-day fairytale, and if you look closely you’ll see lots of fairytale references in the names of the characters, and the situations they find themselves in. I’ve worked really hard on this novel so far, and I have big plans for it – and I hope people love it as much as I do!

Both of your books are about woman making it big. Is there a reason behind that?
I want to write about women who inspire me, and the people who do that in real life are those who’ve come from relatively nothing and have made honest successes of themselves in their chosen fields. I couldn’t write a standard book about a girl who loves a boy, but marries someone else, and then realises she’s always been in love with the first boy, blah blah blah. Stories like that don’t interest me. Romantic relationships are awfully important – of course they are – but I think girls should believe in themselves more, and realise there’s more to life than men and looking good. My books are about relationships – ones girls have with their careers, their friends, their enemies and men.

How did you get into writing? Did you always want to become a writer?
Like Jo Hill in The Making of Mia I always wanted to work on magazines – and I still haven’t! I always wanted to be a writer but I quickly learned journalism wasn’t for me, although I’ve been an editor and I love it. Writing a novel never seemed like something people like me did. I grew up on a council estate and didn’t know anybody in the industry, but I realised that shouldn’t stop me from following my dreams. I started writing The Making of Mia as a new year’s resolution to see if I could do it, and I did! It was the best feeling in the world to know I could do it, and I try to champion other people into following their dreams. I mentor several people as and when they need it, and it’s so lovely to see them become successes.

Did being a journalist help you with writing a novel?
As a journalist I’ve written features but I gave that job up quite quickly when I realised I preferred making up quotes than doing straight, honest reporting! I’ve worked in social media for nearly 10 years, and I think that working in that field helped me with dialogue – social media’s all about talking with people, and getting the tone right. I never realised it at the time, but it’s a valuable skill to have, especially as the internet is taking over our lives!

If you had to choose a favourite book between your two novels which would it be?
The Making of Mia was the first story I wrote but I definitely couldn’t choose between the two. Mia was amazing because it was my first novel, and I was just so pleased to get it published, and I love Spotlight because I worked so hard on it, and wanted to make it the best it could be.

How long does it take you to write each book?
I was working at the Daily Mail when I wrote MIA, and it took me nine months – I had a ridiculously expensive mortgage, no money, and a laptop from the 1990s (honestly) that couldn’t connect to the internet. So because of my lack of funds to go out with, and because I didn’t have the internet, I got it done relatively quickly. Spotlight took me longer. I wrote it while I was at The Sun, and while I was working there I came across all sorts of distractions; good friends, alcohol, and I met my boyfriend there, too! Spotlight took about 18 months. It wasn’t the ‘difficult second novel’ I was expecting it to be, but I had lots of things going on in my personal life, and it meant I couldn’t concentrate on it as much as I liked. I’m writing full time now, and I’m hoping No Prince Charming will take about five months to write. We’ll see how that goes!

Which comes first for you – characters or plot?
Plot, definitely. You can have amazing characters but unless there’s a brilliant story for them to learn about themselves in, there’s no point to them. I come up with a kernel of an idea and develop it into a story with twists and turns and subplots, and then I develop the characters after that.

If you had to have dinner with any three famous people dead/alive, who would you choose?
Freddie Mercury, Jim Morrison, and Henry VIII. I’ll leave it to you to try to work out why!

What’s your favourite holiday spot?
Wow, that’s a hard one. It would be a toss-up between Longboat Key in Florida (as featured in The Making of Mia), New York (as featured in Spotlight) or Thailand. I love Hong Kong and Italy too. In fact, maybe Italy? God, I don’t know!

What are your goals for 2010?
Make No Prince Charming as special as it could be is my main goal, and then I have others, such as trying a few different things with regards to my career. I also really want to learn to fly. I’ve been saying it for years, and maybe 2010 is the year I’ll do it!

What advice would you give aspiring authors?
Never give up. If you have talent and determination and you want to put the work in, you can achieve anything.

Thank you Paula! If you’d like to read the original interview, please visit the awesome Chicklit Club website.