First submission made!

Yes, I’ve got my synopsis, three chapters with a (fabulous!) letter out to an agent. It’s quite emotional, letting the A4 envelope disappear into into the postbox slot and hearing the ‘thunk’ as it hits the bottom of the cage inside. At that stage, my first thought was ‘Oh, God, the postbox is empty – […]

Sweating over my cover letter to agents…

It’s a cliché, but it’s damn right! The business of getting an agent, getting your book published and sold is definitely as hard, if not harder, as writing the novel in the first place. Similar to when you’re pregnant. You think being pregnant is bad (sickness, lassitude, ruined feet, stretch marks, galloping appetite, pan-galactic weight […]

Synopsis done!

No novel writer likes doing the synopsis, a tool for planning and marketing their work. When you’ve written 100,000 words of carefully crafted prose, it’s a bit of a sweat to distil it down to a couple of pages. But it does concentrate the mind…

From the advice I’ve been given or read, the essentials […]

Apple turnover – electronic book publishing evolves

If you want to read about e-publishing and the effect of Apple’s iPad, I recommend you read Danuta Kean’s article here on the London Book Fair website

The importance of feedback

In January, I was accepted on the New Writers’ Scheme of the Romantic Novelists’ Association. I feel honoured to be in the company of proper published authors whose members have sold aeons of books. I’ve found it a friendly, inclusive group whose members do not differentiate between published and newbies. On the contrary, they are […]