How many people does it take to make and launch a novel?

Kerry Hudson explains that, all the way from concept to reader, no book is an island.

My second novel Thirst tells of the fragile love story of Dave and Alena, who both have secrets and pasts they’ll need to overcome to be together, and is set between the heat of a Hackney summer and rural Siberia. I worked for years on it and I’m proud of the bitter-sweet love story I’ve conjured but I didn’t do it alone. It might be my name on the cover but the truth is most books aren’t made, or indeed read, without a small army standing strong behind the author. So, let me introduce you to Thirst’s Army.
The first person unknowingly conscripted into the creation of this book was the burly track-suited “Dave” who lived opposite my little flat in London, as I watched him water a single rose bush each day, the lonesome figure he cut sewed the seed of Dave in my imagination. The next, slightly more voluntary enlister, was my dear friend who listened while I unspooled the love story in my head as we walked around Clissold Park and answered my question of “This could work, couldn’t it, as a novel?” with the magic word “Yes.”
While all this was going on there was another, allied, Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before I Stole My Ma Army was out there battling hard for the cause of my debut novel. People parting with their hard-earned cash and reading my first book. Committee judges choosing to shortlist it for literary prizes. Friends recommending it to friends. A manager in Livingstone Waterstones, David, who was on the judging committee that award Tony Hogan… the Scottish First Book Prize. You see, I wasn’t on contract for my second novel but each sale, each prize win or shortlisting, each recommendation was a sign that if I could write my second novel, it might even be published.
About two thirds of the way into my first draft of Thirst I realised I needed to set part of the book in rural Siberia though I’d never even been to Russia.

About two thirds of the way into my first draft of Thirst I realised I needed to set part of the book in rural Siberia though I’d never even been to Russia. I was temping for a cancer charity at the time and with no holiday pay and charity sector wages doing that trip seemed an impossibility. Then my “on a punt” Arts Council England application for a grant was approved, the coffers were full enough, and off I went on a journey across Russia by train for a month. During that trip people, usually without realising, captured my imagination, showed kindnesses and occasionally a coldness that all found their way into the book and swelled the ranks of folks who were slowly, slowly making my book a reality.
When I came back to London with a full first draft I gave it to my two most trusted advisors, my best friends who love me enough to be brutally honest with me, to read. They approved, they gave me permission to proceed and so it was time to bring in The Big Guns – that’s my agent, my editor, the Vintage publicity team, hot-shot copy-editors and proof-readers and of course the sales reps who go out and about talking about your book to get it in bookshops.
On July 15^th I held the book in my hands with all those people, all of whom had made this book just like I had, standing behind me. Around three years after I had written the first word, finally, Thirst was a proper, beautiful hardcover book. On publication day I went straight to the front-line – that’s, for these purposes, the shop floor. I went to Waterstones Piccadilly with a can of Pina Colada (I know, classy). I wanted to toast seeing my book on a shelf but I didn’t expect to see it on the Best of Summer shelf, right at the front of that iconic store. I didn’t expect for a Bookseller to have read it already and to have said lovely things about it (thank you so much mystery Bookseller!). It meant so much to me because support from Booksellers, who read a tremendous amount and know their stuff, means readers are more likely to read your book. And readers really are the final but essential collaborators in any book being made. It is only when they give their time, hearts and minds to your characters and their stories that it all truly becomes real and you feel you’ve triumphed. I suppose what I’m saying is a huge thank you to everyone who stood shoulder to shoulder with me and made Thirst the book it is. Oh, and readers of Britain – Thirst needs you!
Kerry Hudson, for Waterstones.com/blog