John Marrs: On Self-Publishing Leading to Traditional Publishing
John Marrs is an author and former journalist based in London and Northamptonshire. After spending his career interviewing celebrities from the worlds of television, film and music for numerous national newspapers and magazines, he is now a full-time author. His books include Number 1 bestseller and Netflix series The One, The Passengers, award-winning What Lies Between Us and The Good Samaritan. Follow him at his website, or on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
John Marrs
In this post, John discusses the process of his self-published book being rediscover and re-edited as his new thriller novel, The Vacation, his hopes for readers, and more!
Name: John Marrs
Book title: The Vacation
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Release date: December 19, 2023
Genre/category: Thriller
Previous titles: When You Disappeared, The One, The Good Samaritan, What Lies Between Us, Keep It In The Family, Her Last Move, The Passengers, The Minders, The Marriage Act
Elevator pitch: Eight travelers from around the world meet in a backpacking hostel in Los Angeles. They’re all trying to escape from something, but some have secrets they’d kill to keep.
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What prompted you to write this book?
I’m British, and I was inspired by my days backpacking around the U.S. I was 21 when I gave up my job to travel and spent the best part of a year going from town to town, city to city, and staying in cheap hostels. I ended up staying at one place in Venice Beach for most of the summer, checking people in and out at reception and selling hog dogs and lemonade on the beach for a vendor. The people I met were all so very very different, some real characters from around the world.
So, years later when I became a writer, I wanted to base a book there. The characters I have included are fictional, but some have elements of people that I met on my travels. The hostel still remains, and I visited it some 25-years later while on a road trip around California. It brought back a lot of memories.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
Years! I first attempted to write something back in the 1990s, but it was pretty bad. In 2009 I decided to try and turn it into a six-part screenplay, and it wasn’t bad but it still wasn’t good enough to send out to anyone. So, in 2014, I rewrote it as a novel called Welcome To Wherever You Are and self-published it. It did well sales wise. Then in 2021 it was picked up by a British publisher, re-edited, retitled The Vacation, and ended up on a shortlist for best travel novel of the year. Now it makes its U.S. and Canadian debut under that title.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
Yes, the fact that publishers were still interested in this book so many years after I first self-published it! And that it found a wider audience when I assumed its time had been and gone.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
No surprises as such, but in the rewrite from the 2014 to 2021 editions, I was a bit embarrassed by some of my turns of phrase. I think I must have written “he swallowed hard” or “held a breath she didn’t realize she was holding” about half a dozen times! I cringed. I hope that I’ve become a better writer in those intervening years.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
Like I want for all my books, I hope The Vacation will entertain. I love writing twists and turns and throwing in curveballs and hoping the reader will get on board with one character, only to find out they have trusted the wrong person.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
You don’t have to write consecutive chapters. So many writers get stuck on a chapter or a character and it derails their project and confidence in their idea. If you know which direction your project is going, then skip ahead and write something else, then piece everything together at the end. It takes the pressure off looking at that blank page. I have 10 published books behind me and none of the chapters have been written in order!
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