Tamarillas Press: Keeping it in the Family

I’m CJ Morrow and I’m the co-founder of Tamarillas Press.

Who/what are we? A small family of authors who write under the imprint Tamarillas Press. We’re two sets of sisters, that’s me, my sister who writes as Marina Johnson/Joanne Ryan and my daughters Belle Henderson and Amelia Watchman.

In 2013 I released my first book, a fantasy supernatural novel that failed to find its audience. Undeterred I followed this up seven months later with a sequel, which also failed to find its audience. But this didn’t put me off writing. I’ve been writing all my adult life, getting the odd story published in magazines so stopping was never an option for me. Just to write a book, never mind finish and publish, is such an achievement that it spurred me on to write more. Then I changed genre and wrote a romantic comedy.

Within eight weeks of release Blame it on the Onesie hit the Amazon UK top 100, stayed there for over two months and peaked at number 28 (out of millions of books). I don’t know how. I knew nothing about marketing and other than posting in a few reader Facebook groups, I did very little. Although I did manage to get a double page spread in our local newspaper and a feature on our local radio, but that was after the book had already started to take off. Who knows?

Fortuitously I was made redundant from my day job. I couldn’t believe my luck; it was the final push I needed to become a full-time author. I wrote and released my second romcom, Mermaid Hair and I Don’t Care, which while not hitting the heights of my first, did very well.

My success spurred my sister on to write a book and she released her first book, a cosy mystery, in 2017. She released her second novel, the dark comedy, Fat Girl Slim, eight months later and hasn’t looked back since. Fat Girl Slim also hit the Amazon UK top 100. 

Around this time I took a break from writing to focus on marketing, specifically learning Facebook ads. Once I’d mastered them (or thought I had because FB ads are a constantly changing and fickle beast) we started using them for our books. We both wanted to advertise our books under one banner because we thought this might boost visibility. The name Tamarillas Press was Marina’s idea and comes from the place she holidays at in Spain. 

In 2019 my daughter Belle Henderson and I co-wrote a romcom, We Can Work it Out. This did very well too and launched Belle’s writing career. In 2020 Amelia Watchman, my daughter and Belle’s sister joined us with her first romcom, Love, Hate and Indifference. 

We have a Facebook page, an Instagram account and a website. We post intermittently, probably not as much as we should but I do keep our book releases up to date on our website. We also run several mailing lists; we each have our own and we have one for Tamarillas Press.

A mailing list is a must for a successful writing career. One of the hardest jobs for all of us is sitting down after completing a book and writing the accompanying bonus story that we give away free to encourage readers to sign up for our respective mailing lists. It’s usually me who updates the mailing lists when a new bonus story needs adding because through my various jobs in the past I have acquired the skill set to do it relatively easily. Generally, we all send newsletters and announcements to our own lists.

We do everything ourselves. We’re all big readers so we like to think we know how to tell a good story. We don’t delude ourselves that we write great literary masterpieces, our aim is to write entertaining stories with well-drawn characters. We all do our own covers but do share them with the group and take onboard ideas/critiques. We also edit and proofread one another’s books – we’ve had external editors/proof readers in the past but found they wanted to change our stories in ways we didn’t agree with. Also, we’re all control freaks. 

We’ve each brought complementary skills to our venture. I worked in communications and ran the intranets of two different companies (not at the same time) so was used to web work, although the most creative thing I ever wrote was usually about someone leaving a ring in the toilets. I also used a lot of communication systems which gave me the ability to understand mailing lists, although I did have to knuckle down and learn the intricacies of our own – we use Mailchimp – and I’ve passed on my knowledge to everyone else (except for the tricky bits which no one wants to do).

Originally Amelia designed all our covers as she has the photoshop and design skills, but once she had her second baby she was pushed for time, though she did show us the way and even now will suggest a minor tweak that makes a BIG difference. 

There is no daily schedule or to do list with Tamarillas Press. It’s very much an ‘as and when’ job. It’s one of the beauties of running our own imprint, we please ourselves (mostly). For all of us our primary aim is to write books.

Because we’re family we rarely sit around the ‘boardroom table’ to have meetings but we do have a very active WhatsApp group and see each other frequently. We support, congratulate and encourage each other through the good times, and the bad. 

What’s it like running our own imprint?

• We have to be prepared to get stuck in and keep going no matter what
• We use everyone’s individual skills to the max
• We share, test and try out our ideas on each other which means other ideas are often sparked
• We have a lot of creative freedom but it can be scary

To date we have released 43 books between us with at least two more scheduled for this year. 

We’re family and we write books, the kind of books we like to read; romcoms, chicklit, dark comedy, cosy mystery, supernatural and psychological thrillers.

We’re sisters from two generations, and we’re doing it for ourselves!

Website: https://tamarillaspress.wordpress.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Tamarillaspress

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tamarillaspress/

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CJ Morrow writes the kind of fiction she likes to read and since her taste is varied so are her books. She loves a romcom with a guaranteed happy ending, equally she loves a psychological thriller especially where the ending is a plausible shocker. 

When she doesn’t like what’s going on in the world, she writes another one. Join her.

Word weaver, lover of things curious, unseen and unexplainable, general wordy person. Always watching. And laughing – mostly at herself.

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing