The History Quill
Boost
Supercharge your author career
Introducing Boost
Getting published is the dream. Building a career from it is the hard part.
You’ve proven you can write a novel that’s worthy of publication. But how do you turn that first success into a growing, sustainable author career, rather than a high point you struggle to repeat?
This is where many promising authors lose momentum. Not because their writing isn’t strong enough, but because nobody has shown them how to build strategically on what they’ve already achieved – so early success stays a one-off, instead of becoming the foundation for something bigger.
Boost is designed to change that. It pairs you with a carefully matched, bestselling historical fiction author mentor who has built the kind of career you’re aiming for, and complements this with targeted insight from publishing and marketing professionals who know exactly what moves the needle at this stage.
By the end of the programme, you’ll know precisely what’s working in your author career, what’s holding you back, and how to build lasting momentum instead of hoping for lightning to strike twice. You’ll leave with a personalised strategic action plan – a clear, confident roadmap for turning early success into a career that’s built to last.
How does Boost work?
Boost is a one-to-one mentoring programme that takes place over eight weeks. It’s for published historical fiction authors who are ready to accelerate their career.
Through a structured series of one-to-one sessions with a bestselling historical fiction author and carefully selected publishing industry professionals, the programme provides tailored guidance aligned with your goals and your publishing pathway.
The programme is selective – we work with a small number of writers per round, allowing us to offer focused, personalised support to each participant. It takes place entirely online.
Over eight weeks, you will work closely with:
Your core mentor: A bestselling historical fiction author carefully matched to you and your goals, who will guide you through the key strategic priorities relevant to your career and your chosen pathway. You will have six one-hour sessions with your core mentor.
Industry experts: Two of the eight sessions are delivered by industry professionals with specialist expertise relevant to your pathway – including publishers, publishing specialists, independent publishing specialists, and marketing experts.
By the end of the programme, you will have gained:
A clear assessment of your current publishing position, identifying what's working, what could be improved, and where the greatest opportunities lie.
An understanding of how to strengthen your marketing and author brand to reach more readers.
A deeper understanding of the business of publishing, with guidance on the commercial decisions and opportunities most relevant to your publishing route.
A personalised strategic action plan focused on the steps you can take to accelerate your writing career.
A programme tailored to you
Published authors build their careers in different ways. Boost is designed to support different publishing paths – we tailor the combination of sessions around which pathway you’re on, which you’ll select when you apply.
Traditional pathway
For traditionally published authors who want to build on that foundation.
Authors on the traditional pathway will work with a traditionally published author mentor and receive specialist sessions with a publisher or publishing expert and a marketing expert. These sessions focus on strengthening your approach to publishing, your brand, and the business side of your career.
Independent pathway
For authors publishing independently who want to grow their business and their readership.
Authors on the independent pathway will work with a successful self-published author mentor and receive specialist sessions with an independent publishing expert and a marketing expert. These sessions focus on strengthening your publishing strategy, your brand, and the business side of independent publishing.
Programme schedule
The programme runs for eight weeks and consists of eight one-to-one mentoring sessions delivered via Google Meet or a similar platform. Each session lasts 60 minutes and focuses on a specific stage of your career development. You will receive written summaries and action points from your mentor or industry expert after each session, helping you maintain clarity and momentum. Below is a week-by-week schedule.
Week 1: Strategic review
We begin by clarifying your goals, challenges, and career ambitions. Together with your mentor, you’ll define what success looks like for you at this stage of your career.
Week 2: Publishing career assessment
Traditionally published authors will explore their relationships with their agent and publisher, including managing expectations and navigating setbacks. Independently published authors will review what’s working in their publishing strategy and what needs to change.
Week 3: Marketing and brand evaluation
Your mentor will help you evaluate your marketing activity and author brand, identifying opportunities to reach more readers and strengthen your presence in the market.
Week 4: Business breakdown
This session turns to the business side of your author career. If you’re traditionally published, your mentor will share their own experience of contracts, advances, and rights, helping you spot opportunities and approach commercial decisions with confidence. If you’re independently published, your mentor will offer strategic advice on managing costs, pricing, paid advertising, and revenue targets. (Please note that this session focuses on business strategy – mentors do not provide personal financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.)
Week 5: Industry expert session 1
You’ll meet with a publishing industry expert whose perspective aligns with your pathway – a publisher or publishing specialist for traditionally published authors, or an independent publishing expert for indie authors.
Week 6: Industry expert session 2
A second industry session, this time with a marketing expert, will help you sharpen your strategy for reaching readers and growing your career, whichever pathway you’re on.
Week 7: Integration session
Together with your core mentor, you’ll review and interpret the advice from your expert sessions, turning it into a coherent strategy tailored to your career.
Week 8: Strategic clarity
In the final session, you’ll consolidate everything you’ve learned across the programme and develop a clear action plan for the next stage of your author career. You’ll leave the programme with clarity, confidence, and a practical roadmap for building on your success.
The application process
We carefully review each application to ensure Boost is the right fit for both the writer and the programme.
We work with a small number of authors in each round, allowing us to offer focused, personalised support to those selected. Applications are assessed based on publishing track record, career trajectory, and where the programme is likely to add the most value.
When applications are open, you will be invited to submit:
An overview of your publishing history
Your published novels, publication route, sales, and reviews.
A sample of your writing
Up to 5,000 words.
A short application form
Your goals, ambitions, and where you are in your author career.
Applications are currently closed. To register your interest and be notified when the next round opens, join the waiting list via the button below.
Meet the mentors
Vaseem Khan
Vaseem is the author of two award-winning crime series set in India, including the Malabar House novels set in 1950s Bombay, introducing India’s first female police detective. Midnight at Malabar House, the first in the series, won the Crime Writers' Association Historical Dagger. Vaseem's debut, The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, was selected by the Sunday Times as one of the 40 best crime novels published 2015–2020, and is translated into 17 languages.
Vaseem has won numerous awards for his work, including, most recently, the Fingerprint Award for Historical Crime Novel of the Year for City of Destruction, the fifth in the Malabar House series.
Vaseem was born in England, but spent a decade working in India. In 2023, he became the first non-white Chair of the UK Crime Writers’ Association. Vaseem also writes the Q Mysteries, beginning with Quantum of Menace, the first in a murder mystery series featuring Q from the James Bond franchise.
Vaseem is primarily looking for mentees writing in the historical mystery/thriller subgenre. He is traditionally published.
Anna Mazzola
Anna is an award-winning writer of historical, gothic, crime and thriller fiction. Her novels are set across different times and places, ranging from 17th-century Rome and 18th-century Paris to modern London and Japan. She is currently writing a dual-timeline novel.
Anna studied English at Pembroke College, Oxford, before becoming a human rights and criminal justice solicitor. She regularly teaches workshops on creative writing and has previously tutored for The Novelry and The Arvon Foundation.
Her novels have won a number of awards, including the CWA Gold Dagger (The Book of Secrets), an Edgar Allan Poe Award (The Unseeing) and a Fingerprint Award for Best Historical Crime (The House of Whispers). Her third novel, The Clockwork Girl, was a Times bestseller.
Anna is primarily looking for mentees writing in the historical mystery/thriller and gothic subgenres. She is traditionally published.
Julia Kelly
Julia Kelly is an international bestselling author whose works have been translated into 16 languages. Her bestselling emotional historical fiction novels include The Last Garden in England, The Light Over London, and The Queen of Roses. She is also the author of the beloved Evelyne Redfern historical mysteries, including A Traitor in Whitehall.
Julia brings a character-first, research-intensive approach to her novels that explore the extraordinary stories of women across history. She draws on her experience working for nearly a decade in the fast-paced breaking news world of New York City journalism as an Emmy-nominated television producer and award-winning digital editor before pivoting into content and marketing in the tech world.
Julia has called Los Angeles, Iowa, and New York City home. She now lives in London.
Julia is primarily looking for mentees writing in the historical women's fiction or historical mystery subgenres. She is traditionally published.
Matthew Harffy
Matthew Harffy is a full-time author and co-host of Rock, Paper, Swords! The Historical Action and Adventure Podcast.
Matthew writes action-packed, historically accurate stories and has published fifteen novels to date. All of them, with the exception of Dark Frontier, which takes place in 1890s Oregon, are set during the early medieval period.
His longest-running series, The Bernicia Chronicles, follows the warrior Beobrand in seventh-century Britain. His A Time for Swords series, set at the dawn of the Viking Age, charts the journeys of monk-turned-warrior, Hunlaf.
His standalone novel, Wolf of Wessex, unfolds in the ninth century and was described by The Times as “a treat of a book.”
Matthew is primarily looking for mentees writing in the historical action/adventure subgenre. He is traditionally published.
Anthony Riches
Anthony is an author of ancient world historical fiction – the 16-book Empire series, the Centurions trilogy and most recently the Swords of Troy trilogy – and the occasional thriller (Nemesis and Target Zero). His books have featured in the Sunday Times bestseller lists from the publication of his debut, Wounds of Honour, and have been translated into several languages.
Anthony was born in England into a three-generation military family, which is where his fascination with men at war originated, and he strives to bring the gritty reality of service and battle to his writing. His interests currently include target shooting and the presentation of YouTube series on ancient world history and the ancient world battlefield experience. He is a committee member of the Historical Writers’ Association and current chair of the Alderney Literary Festival.
Anthony is primarily looking for mentees writing in the historical action/adventure or thriller subgenres. He is traditionally published.
Emily Murdoch
Emily is a USA Today bestselling author who has published over sixty historical novels under two pen names, with publishers including Harlequin HarperCollins and Dragonblade. She launched a contemporary pen name in 2026 with Penguin RandomHouse.
Emily has a Masters in Medieval Studies from the Centre of Medieval Studies at the University of York, and was a York Award Scholar. By the time she graduated her MA, her first historical novel had been published under a pen name.
Her first non-fiction book, Regina: The Queens Who Could Have Been, was published by the History Press in October 2024, with her second non-fiction coming out in March 2027.
Emily is primarily looking for mentees writing in the historical romance subgenre. She is both independently and traditionally published.
Clare Flynn
Clare Flynn is the author of twenty historical novels and a collection of short stories. A former International Marketing Director and strategic management consultant, she’s been a full-time writer for ten years. Her work has been translated into four languages. An avid traveller, many of her books are set in exotic locations, often in the dying days of the British Empire.
Clare is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a member of The Society of Authors, The Alliance of Independent Authors, The Historical Writers Association, the Historical Novel Society, and served as a director of the Romantic Novelists' Association for two years. She is the winner of the Romantic Novelists' Association Indie Champion of the Year 2022, and the Bookbrunch Adult Fiction Prize 2020 for The Pearl of Penang.
Clare is primarily looking for mentees writing in the historical women's fiction and romantic historical fiction subgenres. She is both traditionally and independently published.
Steven A. McKay
Steven A. McKay is an author of historical fiction and, more recently, heroic fantasy. The idea for his first, self-published, novel, Wolf’s Head, starring Robin Hood, came after he visited a house called “Sherwood” while out working his old day-job. Wolf’s Head went on to sell over 60,000 copies, allowing him to become a full-time writer.
As well as his Forest Lord series he has written nine novels in the bestselling Warrior Druid of Britain Chronicles, completed a trilogy about Alfred the Great, and a standalone novel about a Roman slave, Lucia. In 2026 he published two novels in the Sword Song Chronicles, his first foray into fantasy.
Steven also provided all the writing for the Xbox/Playstation game HOOD: Outlaws and Legends in 2021.
Steven is primarily looking for mentees writing in the action/adventure or historical fantasy subgenres. He has been traditionally published, but now publishes all his books independently.
Meet the industry experts
Kerry-Ann Bentley
Literary agent
Kerry-Ann is a literary agent and founder of KAB Literary, representing award-winning authors across commercial and upmarket fiction. She began her career as an intern at Janklow & Nesbit Associates, joining full-time in 2020 and working across New York and London. She holds a first-class degree in English & United States Literature from the University of Essex and a Master’s with distinction in Caribbean Literature and its Diasporas from Goldsmiths, University of London.
Craig Lye
Publisher
Craig Lye is a commissioning editor at Canelo, a division of Dorling Kindersley, specialising in historical, action/adventure and thriller fiction, with ten years' experience. He has worked with authors including Ben Kane, Christian Cameron, Douglas Jackson, Angus Donald, SJA Turney and Michael Arnold, among others. Prior to working at Canelo, he worked at Weidenfeld & Nicolson, an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group. Craig lives in Birmingham, UK.
Jenny Hutton
Publishing expert
Jenny Hutton has over twenty years’ experience in the publishing industry. She has edited numerous Amazon and Sunday Times bestsellers. She works with nearly all the major publishing houses, digital start-ups, bestselling self-published authors and writers looking to break into the industry. She is commissioned for IP projects, book doctoring and book packaging. Her broad editorial experience encompasses women’s fiction, bookclub, historical, crime & thriller, romance & erotica, fantasy & romantasy, and new & young adult.
Ben Galley
Independent publishing expert
Ben Galley is a British author, self-publishing expert, and the creator of Shelf Help, where he advises authors on bringing books to market and building sustainable independent publishing careers. Based in Vancouver, Canada, Ben now has more than 20 titles to his name, including the award-winning Emaneska Saga and Scarlet Star Trilogy. A prolific author with over 15 years of independent publishing experience, he knows first-hand what it takes to build a sustainable career from the ground up.
Anna Caig
Marketing expert
Anna Caig is a marketing expert and communications consultant with over 20 years of experience in strategic marketing and media relations. She works with writers across traditional and independent publishing to build their brand and reach more readers, running courses and workshops with the Society of Authors, the Royal College of Arts, and the Literary Consultancy, alongside individual mentoring. Anna's historical thriller, The Wise Witch of Orkney, was published by Bonnier in February 2026.
Pricing
$3,495.00 USD
Frequently asked questions
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Who is the programme for? Do I need to have already published?
Boost is designed for historical fiction authors who have already published at least one novel, whether traditionally or independently, and who are looking to build on that foundation.
The programme is focused on strategic career development for published authors, so it’s not suitable for unpublished writers preparing for their first submission or launch. If that’s you, our Launchpad programme is likely a better starting point.
What will I get from the programme?
By the end of the programme, you’ll have:
- A clear, confident assessment of what’s working in your publishing strategy – and what needs to change.
- Actionable feedback on your marketing and author brand from industry professionals.
- A realistic strategy for the next stage of your author career.
You will receive written summaries after each session and a personalised strategic action plan to carry you through the next stage of your author career.
Are the sessions tailored to my goals?
Yes. While Boost follows a structured framework, the programme is highly personalised. The mix of expert sessions and the focus of each discussion are tailored to your publishing history and career goals.
Can I choose which mentors I work with?
Yes. As part of the application process, you will be invited to indicate your preferred mentors. If for any reason we are unable to match you with your preferred mentor, you are under no obligation to proceed with enrolment.
Alternatively, we can pick for you, choosing the most suitable mentors for your career and publishing pathway.
What if I’ve published through both traditional and independent routes?
That’s not a problem. When you submit your application, just let us know which publishing pathway best fits what you want from the next stage of your author career.
How much of my published work will my mentor review?
Boost is focused on your publishing strategy and career rather than writing craft, so your mentor won’t provide a manuscript assessment or developmental edit as part of the programme. They will review specific materials ahead of each session, such as your publishing history and marketing overview.
If you’re looking for feedback on a work in progress, our Prospect programme may be a better fit. If you’re preparing a completed manuscript for submission or publication, take a look at Launchpad and/or our content editing service.
What is the time commitment?
The programme runs for eight weeks and includes eight one-hour mentoring sessions. You will also need to allow time for preparation between sessions, such as submitting materials in advance and reviewing feedback.
Does the programme guarantee greater sales or career success?
No programme can guarantee this. Boost is designed to help you strengthen your publishing strategy, marketing, and business decisions, giving you the best possible foundation to grow your author career. Ultimate results will depend on many factors outside the programme’s control, including your genre and the wider market.
Can I contact my mentor between sessions?
Yes. Your core mentor will be available for email support between sessions for follow-up questions and clarification. This is typically up to 2–3 emails per week, allowing you to stay on track while keeping the focus on the mentoring sessions themselves.
What happens at the end of the programme?
At the end of the eight weeks, your core mentor will provide a strategic action plan summarising what you’ve discussed and outlining your next steps.
What happens if I change my mind?
If you change your mind within 14 days of booking, you can cancel your place and receive a full refund, unless part of the service has already been provided, in which case a reasonable amount will be deducted to reflect any sessions delivered.
After the 14-day period has passed, your place on Boost is confirmed and your payment becomes non-refundable. Because Boost is a small, mentor-led programme with limited places, we are unable to offer refunds or defer your place after this point.
When and how do I pay?
Payment is made in full before the programme begins, via credit or debit card. We accept four payment currencies: USD, GBP, CAD and EUR. The currency you pay in will depend on your country of residence. People resident in the UK will pay in GBP, people resident in the EU will pay in EUR, people resident in Canada will pay in CAD, and people resident in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa will pay in USD.
Which countries do you accept participants from?
You can enrol if you are resident in the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Canada (excluding Saskatchewan), New Zealand, South Africa, or any EU country. If you are not resident in one of these countries, unfortunately we won’t be able to serve you at this time.
What are the full terms and conditions?
You can view our full terms and conditions here.
More questions?
If you have any additional questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch by emailing us at enquiries@thehistoryquill.com.