THE HISTORY OF THE FOUR HUNDRED CLUB

Keli H author of The Four Hundred Club poses next to the book cover 

It's 7.pm. I usually spend an hour before bed reading. But I've hit a reading slump recently. I picked up The Haar by David Sodergren a few days ago and although the book comes highly recommended by horror fans, I can't seem to make progress. It's superbly written, the kind of brilliant, talented writing you don't get these days, but I've hit a mental wall. And in my newfound resolution to create more than I consume, I'm going to write a blog instead of mindlessly reading the pages or scrolling through social media.

I haven't yet deleted social media, in case you're picking up from my previous post. It still exists, currently in limbo while I make some decisions. 

So while I'm passing the minutes before bed, I'll give you a short history on my book The Four Hundred Club and how it came to be. 

The story of seven beautiful, successful, rich, wildly glamorous friends came to me while I was in university. I never got around to writing it until 2019 and I had been working as an intern doctor for over a year. The story got written quickly once I put my mind to resolutely finishing it. The Four Hundred Club, as it is now known, is a modern contemporary fiction about seven successful millennial adults put into a mansion together to create footage for reality TV. They all think they've made it in life... until they meet each other. Set against the backdrop of a reality TV set, it is ultimately a character-driven fiction about human insecurities.

But back then, when the book was written and published in 2019, it was titled something different. It was titled The Durban Four Hundred. In fact, the image of me above was taken at the 2019 launch of The Durban Four Hundred. I had just quit my job towards the end of 2019 so The KREST House wasn't in existence then. The Durban Four Hundred was was self-published through a small self-publishing company in Durban, called Umsinsi Press. After the passing of their founder a few years later, they no longer exist to my knowledge. The last remaining copies of the original The Durban Four Hundred disappeared with them. I think I might have just one that I keep as a memory.

A year later I founded The KREST House. It was only natural that I took over the publishing of my book under my company. I re-titled it The Four Hundred Club, rewrote some parts, gave it a new cover and a new ISBN. The Four Hundred Club, re-published by The KREST House, went on to win me the title of Best Upcoming Female Author of 2022 at that year's national book awards. It's the book that turned me into an award-winning author!

I have a sequel coming out later this year. Hopefully in time for my birthday. In fact, the editor sent me the first round of edits today. I've got a little rewriting to do to get the sequel to perfection. The sequel is called Splitting an Empire. Curious about Splitting an Empire by Keli H? You can learn more about it in the article about the 400 series by Keli H. 

I'm faced with a decision here. We'll be applying for the book's ISBN soon. I need to pick a title for the series as a whole. I had kept referring to it as The Four Hundred Club series, since that was the book that started it all. But it's causing some marketing confusion because it's both the name of the series and the title of a book in the series. The editor of Splitting an Empire teamed up with my company's social media manager to think about how to work around this. They've come up with the idea of labeling the series simply '400'. I think I'm quite happy with that. It's got flair. What do you think?

P. S If you're looking for a publisher in South Africa with a good reputation, please consider my publishing company The KREST House. 

For more articles written by Keli H, the author, visit this blog's home page on keli-h.com

 

Keli H is the award winning author of the 400 series, which includes The Four Hundred Club and Splitting an Empire. The 400 series is high brow contemporary fiction revolving around the lives of wealthy circles. Keli's other works include Creating Literary Art. She is also the founder of The KREST House, a storytelling empire.