Publishing Revolution: Historical Fiction Evolves in the Digital Age
By Robin Maxwell, bestselling author of The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn, The Wild Irish and her new novel O, Juliet.

The following piece is reprinted the with the permission of the author, it was initially printed by the Huffington Post in Feb., 2010.

Bestselling author Robin Maxwell.

It recently occurred to me that, as an author who's been writing since 1997 (The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn), I'm living through the most mind-boggling upheaval in the publishing industry since Gutenberg's printing press. I've gone from the ponderous national "on the ground" book tour to a virtual book tour; from newspaper features to a Facebook fan page; from an author photo in a press kit to an author video on YouTube; from print advertising to an iPhone app. My titles are not just in print in 14 languages, but are audio books and e-books. Most gratifyingly, I've seen the end of isolation from and competition with other authors, to the new, delightful "one hand washes the other" school of cooperation.

Starting in 2003 (The Wild Irish) things began to change. I was plodding along doing things the old-fashioned way, quietly aggravated that I was not getting publicity, advertising or support of any kind from my publishing house. My lovingly researched and passionately written book was dying on the vine because the reading public was simply unaware that it had been published. Newspaper and magazine reviews were becoming more and more scarce. Beloved independent bookstores were starting to go the way of the dinosaur, and if readers didn't happen to be in a Borders or Barnes & Noble during the two weeks my novel was on a New Releases table, that was it! The poor creature was quietly moved to languish in the shelves, spine facing out, where no one could possibly find the thing unless they were specifically looking for it.

But sunk as I was into the writing process of my next book, I was only vaguely aware of the violent tremors rocking the publishing world. Of course I used the Internet more frequently for research, but I didn't know that any writer worth her salt had her own Web site. A musician friend began nagging me incessantly about having one built, insisting that anyone who was running a business or selling themselves in any way had to have a Web site. That if I didn't jump on this I'd become completely irrelevant.

One day I finally caved in to the idea. And in one of those wonderfully serendipitous moments, the very next day an artist friend recommended a Web designer who'd created a beautiful Web site for her. Linda LaZar was running a very affordable special, and by the end of the week, my webmistress (doesn't that sound a bit kinky?) had secured me a domain name and built me a fabulous interactive site, http://robinmaxwell.com, that had a page for each of my six books and looked like a Renaissance jewel box. And suddenly -- seemingly out of thin air -- the Robin Maxwell "brand" was born.

Immediately I started getting fan mail through my Web site's email, from all over the world. It seemed lots of readers knew who I was and wanted to communicate. I wrote back to every single person, and in that way began collecting an email address book of people interested in what I was doing and hearing news about future books.

Meanwhile I had made friends with two much younger historical fiction authors - the talented and vivacious Michelle Moran, whom I'd been mentoring since 2001 and whose debut novel, Nefertiti had hit two bestseller lists; and C.W. Gortner, whose superb first historical novel, The Last Queen, had taken the literary world by storm. These two were both firmly entrenched in cutting edge promotional campaigns with not only their own Web sites, but their own blogs, membership on historical fiction forums, and well-organized virtual book tours. They coordinated their tours with blog advertising on unlikely sounding sites called ICanHasCheeseburger.com and PerezHilton.com. Michelle and Christopher had recently become friends with each other. They could see their pal was floundering around in the murky waters of the old paradigm and decided to fish me out.


With publication of Signora da Vinci looming, they encouraged me to spice up my Web site (I added eight colorful, chock-a-block bonus pages I called "Passport to the 15th Century," one of them a mouthwatering grape and olive compote recipe. They got me to send out a newsletter to everybody on my recently expanded email list, begging them to take notice of my book and "daisy chain" it along to all their friends.

They also convinced me to forgo the exhausting, antiquated "on the ground" book tour (an expense my publishers were no longer willing to pick up) and organize my first virtual book tour. I was skeptical at first, but not for long! No more schlepping around from city to city worrying about whether the bookstores would have enough copies of my books to sell, or being humiliated in "The Bookstore of the Living Dead" when two people showed up for the reading.

The entire promotion for Signora da Vinci was accomplished -- glowing reviews, in-depth blog and magazine interviews, guest posts, giveaways of signed copies of the book, and remote reading group appearances -- sitting at home in my pajamas.

What a revelation!

Even in the midst of the 2008/2009 economic meltdown and the resulting bloodbath in the publishing industry, Signora da Vinci sold more than respectably, and the number of bloggers who had nice things to say about my books not only expanded exponentially, but suddenly went viral. Bloggers were starting to find me, rather than me hunting them down.

With a new title, O, Juliet, set to publish in February 2010, I was ready to go for broke. I girded my loins and prepared for a wild extravaganza of shameless self-promotion.

I made a decision that for my O, Juliet promotion I would do absolutely everything in my power to make the book a success. It was the first of my titles to cross so many genres. This was not simply an historical fiction novel (though it had plenty of historical fiction elements). It was a retelling of the greatest love story every told, so I reckoned romance readers would like it. And its protagonists were young people being thwarted in love by parents and society, so I guessed it would appeal to the YA crowd as well.

At the same time, I was facing up to an industry that had changed radically since 1997 when Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn came out. My publishers and agents had urged all their authors to use every online method possible for publicizing and promoting their titles, and I decided to take it 100% to heart. The publishers (Penguin/New American Library) got the ball rolling with a stupendous double-cover for O, Juliet. The front is gorgeous flowers clinging to a period marble balcony, and the "step-back" is Frank Dicksee's famous and achingly romantic pre-Raphaelite painting of Romeo and Juliet in an embrace.

My trusty Web dominatrix, Linda LaZar, redesigned my home page at http://robinmaxwell.com  and built me links to a "chapter sneak peek" of Romeo and Juliet's famous balcony scene. I bought the rights for one year to the Dicksee painting so I could legally use it however I needed it. Then I planned an enormous blog tour (interviews, guest posts and reviews), to commence in January, the month before the book's publication. O, Juliet will also be hosted on the cool new blog, Historical Fiction Round Table for a week-long blast of publicity by lovers of that genre.

I hired young, Web-savvy friend and neighbor, Tasya, as my West Coast publicist. She opened a Facebook personal page for me, as well as a Facebook fan page, and started inviting people to them. Within 24 hours she'd found me 200 fans. With help from one of my new blogging buddies, Allie Greenwald, I created a blog of my own (http://robinmaxwell.blogspot.com).

The blog's purpose was (what else?) promotion of my book, and to that end I birthed my wild brainchild, the "O, JULIET Love Games." With it, I hoped to open a forum for my fans and new readers to discuss and play with every angle of everyone's favorite emotion -- love. With the Dicksee image of Romeo and Juliet as my blog header (and guardian angels) I conceived of chats, challenges and giveaways, culminating in a love poetry competition, the winners to be announced on Valentine's Day. Then I asked Tasya to create a beautiful newsletter, and appropriated every address on my email lists. She did our first mailing Dec. 2, announcing the sneak peek and the upcoming "Love Games."

By this time my publishers were quite impressed with my efforts and decided to support them in several ways. On my urging (and with suggestions by the author and gifted advertising maven, M.J. Rose) they designed a cool blog ad, (a two-frame animated .gif), that the bloggers participating in my virtual blog tour could run on their blogs. Then the publishers agreed to my requests for a two-week blog ad campaign the weeks before and after publication.

Finally, they surprised me with the announcement that O, Juliet had been chosen for their exclusive "Penguin iPhone App Program." My book was going to be only one of four Penguin titles to have its very own app in February! I'm red-faced to admit that when I got the good news, I had no idea what an app was. The very next week, every other TV commercial I saw was for (what else?) iPhone apps. I was beginning to feel very hip. The other day I actually found myself giving a friend tech support on how to create her own blog. Will wonders never cease?

As of today, two of my O, JULIET Love Games giveaways are up and running, and lots of people are playing (and appearing to enjoy themselves). It doesn't hurt that the prizes are some pretty cool bling (three heart necklaces) and signed copies of the book.

My backside is permanently glued to my computer chair, my husband only ever sees the back of my head, and there's no chance that I can do any other work until the promotion is over. But I'm happy. I may write about the 15th and 16th centuries, but when it comes to promoting my book, I am most definitely an author of the 21st.

 Robin Maxwell

Related Link: Our interview with Robin Maxwell for the release of Signora Da Vinci - Oct., 2008

Keywords: historical fiction, The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn, To the Tower Born, Virgin: Prelude to the Throne, The Queen's Bastard, O, Juliet, Tudor England, book tour, iPhone App, reading group, C.W. Gortner, Michelle Moran,

Loaded Questions with "The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn" author, Robin Maxwell

• An exclusive interview with the author of the upcoming novel, Signora da Vinci

This is a very big week for fans of historical fiction at Loaded Questions. We began the week with an interview with the first lady of Plantagenet historical fiction, discussing her new book and giving us a glimpse of her next novel.

Today we present to you another very high profile historical fiction author in the form of Robin Maxwell, an author who has continually supplied her fans with vivid characters, fascinating storylines and a unprecedented glimpse into the secret lives of the Tudor monarchs. Since Robin's debut novel was released in 1997 she has faithfully written a new novel every two years creating a current catalog of seven novels, her eighth to be released in January, 2009.

My interview with Robin Maxwell, which you will find below, should almost be called a conversation. While securing a time to conduct the interview Robin and I emailed back and forth, chatting about our love of Tudor history (which I am currently working on my Masters in), projects that we have worked on, other movies and novels that have attempted to tackle Tudor historical fiction and generally just having a great time chatting back and forth. Many of the questions I ended up asking I already knew the answer to after our series of emails but I still wanted to ask them so that the Robin Maxwell fans out there can see the answers.

Robin Maxwell is a boisterous, engaging woman who knows her history and tells one hell of a story.

Kelly Hewitt: You write a lot of novels about the Tudors and one can't help but notice that they've become very popular these days with fiction novels, movies, and television. As a master's student studying the Tudors I get this question all the time and so I feel somewhat guilty asking you but, have you watched "The Tudors" on Showtime and what do you think?

Robin Maxwell: I was totally addicted to "The Tudors". Once I got over the fact that 10 years ago I pitched the same idea to television (I'm also a screenwriter) for a mini-series and got laughed out of the room, and also got over the fact that The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn, which was optioned three times (once for a feature film, once by NBC and Hallmark Entertainment, and once by Fox TV and A&E Network) and never produced, I just started watching the Showtime series and enjoying the sexy Henry VIII and the well-cast Anne Boleyn and other characters. I really enjoyed Sam Neill as Wolsey and thought he was very sympathetically portrayed (even though he was a villain in Secret Diary). I'm never satisfied with how any feature film (like "The Other Boleyn Girl") or TV movie portrays Anne, because they never give her enough credit for being a prime mover in the politics of the time, especially the Protestant Reformation. She is always the pawn, or the victim (of her father, for example in "The Tudors", or the evil bitch in "The Other Boleyn Girl."). What I did like about the Showtime series was that with such a long format (20 episodes over two seasons to tell the whole Anne/Henry story) they managed to get so much in. I thought the costumes and sets were fabulous, and all in all, about 10 times better than "The Other Boleyn Girl".

Kelly: Have any of your books been optioned for television or the silver screen?

Robin: The Wild Irish was optioned last year by Australian producer Monica O'Brien, for a feature film. I had already adapted my own novel into a script, so she optioned them both. Since then she's been doing a bang-up job, and now has all the financing she needs lined up, and two "A-list" directors who are very interested in the project. She tells me it will begin shooting in early 2010 (this coincides with the availability of the directors' schedules). I'm VERY excited about this being produced, as there hasn't ever been a heroine like Grace O'Malley, nor so dramatic a backdrop of the conflict between Elizabeth I (in her waning years, when she took on more of her father's murderous characteristics than her mother's) and the Irish people who wanted independence from England. What some call "Elizabeth's Irish War" was one of genocide, in which nearly half of Ireland was wiped out. We jokingly call the movie "Bravetart," and believe that when it gets produced it will sweep the Oscars.

Kelly: Since publishing your first book The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn you have written a new book every two years! Is that by coincidence or do you have a system down?

Robin: It's not really a system. It's just the way my publishing deals were structured. For the first four books I was given about 15 months to deliver a manuscript. Then it takes about 9 months from that point to get published. However, for the last two -- Mademoiselle Boleyn and Signora da Vinci -- I was given much shorter delivery periods. The new "conventional wisdom" is that an author should have a new book out every year (so her readers won't forget her!). It was really too short a time for writing the Da Vinci book, as it was all a new world for me and new characters, after six Tudor and Elizabethan novels, so I was actually late delivering. But I have a wonderful editor, and she was understanding. The downside with delivering it late was that the publishing date was pushed back to January `09. That seems to me a weird time to publish a book, as everybody's kind of "shot their wad" on Christmas presents. And now with this economy looking so dismal, I'm hoping that the new book gets a fair shot once it's on the shelves.

Kelly: I was fascinated to read an article you wrote for the Huffington Post in which you compared Hillary Clinton with Anne Boleyn in the article "Hillary Boleyn: Has Anything Changed in Half a Millennium". Do you have any modern day comparisons for the other Tudor women you have written about?

Robin: Not so much Tudor women, but I'm thinking seriously about writing another Huffington Post, comparing George W. Bush to Philip II of Spain. Philip ruled when Spain was the richest country in Europe, with "treasure ships" sailing into Spain groaning with gold from the New World. Yet, in his obsession with a religious war against the Protestants in the Netherlands, and sending his Armada against heathen English, he believed God was speaking into his ear and telling him what to do, he ended up bankrupting his country totally. Twice. Sound familiar?

Kelly: I have heard that you are working on a new novel set in the Italian Renaissance. What can you tell us about the new book?

Robin: Signora da Vinci is about the Itallian Renaissance seen through the eyes of Leonardo da Vinci's mother. C.W. Gortner (previous Loaded Questions interviewee and author of The Last Queen) recently reviewed the book, and rather than trying to explain it myself, I thought I'd let you read what he said about it. I agree with my agent who said that Christopher "nailed it."

"In this exquisite gem of a novel, Robin Maxwell conjures a fascinating account of Leonardo Da Vinci's mother, a bold woman whose adventurous spirit and quest for her own truth captures the exuberance of the Italian Renaissance. Though little is known of the historical Caterina da Vinci, Maxwell's impressive research and keen storytelling skills sweep us into a very plausible account of a young alchemist's daughter whose unfortunate love affair brings her the greatest love of her life - her genius son - as well as the opportunity to escape the restrictions of her gender and enter a seductive garden of philosophy, art, learning, and danger. From the dusty streets of Vinci to the glories of Lorenzo Il Magnifico's Florence and the conspiratorial halls of Rome and Milan, Signora da Vinci is a tour de force celebration of one woman's unquenchable ardor for knowledge and of a secret world that historical fiction readers rarely see.

- C.W. Gortner, author of The Last Queen

Kelly Hewitt: I was interested to read in your biography that you initially moved to Hollywood in order to be a parrot tamer. How did you come to that profession?

Robin Maxwell: I'd been keeping exotic birds (started with parakeets) from the age of eight. I graduated to parrots after college, and they became a passion with me. When I moved from New York City to Los Angeles in 1976 parrot keeping had become "the thing," and when I was trying to find work, I stumbled into a gig taming birds who had just come out of quarantine (that was when birds were still allowed to be imported) and before they were shipped off to pet stores to be bought. In truth, it was a horrible job, because the birds had been so traumatized (and even injured) during their capture in the wild and in quarantine, and because there were even cruel, abusive "tamers." I quit the job after I reported one of these monsters and my boss refused to fire him. Now my husband and I share our lives with an umbrella cockatoo and an African grey parrot, who have been lovers for 25 years. I consider the birds my dear friends and my muses.



Titles featured in this interview:


The upcoming new release, Signora da Vinci
Published by NAL Trade, Jan. 2009

The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn
Published by Arcade, 1997

The Queen's Bastard
Published by Arcade, 1999

The Wild Irish
Published by William Morrow, 2003

Mademoiselle Boleyn
Published by NAL Trade, 2007


More titles from bestselling author, Robin Maxwell:

Virgin: Prelude to the Throne

Published by Simon and Schuster, 2002

"...a riveting portrait of Elizabeth I as a romantic and vulnerable teenager, dangerously awakening to a perilous liaison with the wrong man."

England, 1547: King Henry is dead. Elizabeth's half-brother, nine-year-old Edward, is king in name only. Thomas Seymour, brother to the ambitious duke who has seized power in this time of crisis, calculatingly works his way into Elizabeth's home in genteel Chelsea House. He marries Henry's widow, Catherine Parr, and uses his venerable charms and sexual magnetism to indulge his infatuation for young Elizabeth. Caught hopelessly under Thomas Seymour's spell, surrounded by kind friends and hidden enemies, Elizabeth can only follow her heart to ensure survival.

To the Tower Born: A Novel of the Lost Princes

Published by Harper, 2003

In 1483, Edward and Richard of York—Edward, by law, already King of England—were placed, for their protection before Edward's coronation, in the Tower of London by their uncle Richard. Within months the boys disappeared without a trace, and for the next five hundred years the despised Richard III was suspected of their heartless murders.

In To the Tower Born, Robin Maxwell ingeniously imagines what might have happened to the missing princes. The great and terrible events that shaped a kingdom are viewed through the eyes of quick-witted Nell Caxton, only daughter of the first English printer, and her dearest friend, "Bessie," sister to the lost boys and ultimate founder of the Tudor dynasty. It is a thrilling story brimming with mystery, color, and historical lore. With great bravery and heart, two friends navigate a dark and treacherous medieval landscape rendered more perilous by the era's scheming, ambitious, even murderous men and women who will stop at nothing to possess the throne.