Episode 7:

Publishing

Interview with our publisher: Lyle Perez from Rainstorm Press (www.rainstormpress.com)

Notes for our readers/listeners

Publishers have always sold to bookstores not readers.
The new model is to sell to readers, which is what an author is now able to do using all the social media available.

Of course there are two ways to create a book:

Hard copy
Electronic.

Hardcopy:
The Traditional way:
Get an agent (time, about a year)
Agent shops manuscript (time, about a year)
Publishers buys the book (no you will not get a million dollar advance) And it will take about two more years to release the book.
No more guarantees of support, marketing or help
If your first books fails to earn back the advance, you may not get a second chance.
Average royalty is about $1.00 per hard copy book.

Hardcopy
The new way:
POD – Press on Demand
Advantage is there is lower print cost, books are created as they are ordered – save trees!
POD is not necessarily Vanity press, rather a newer model that many different kinds of publishers are employing.
Simple but not necessarily easy
For fiction POD yourself or use Create Space.com
Before printing:
Hire an editor (see last weeks’ pod cast)
Hire a book cover designer.
Create a web site through wordpress If you’d like
Join up on Twitter and appropriate social media.
Maybe hire a book manager, but you probably can do this yourself.

For non fiction especially if you are doing your book as an extension of your work, become your own publisher and print with Lightening source.
You will need to go to Browker.com and buy ISBNs and then purchase the actual JPEG of the bar code for that number. Cost is about $175 or so.
And yes, bookstores will take your books, usually on consignment. But that’s pretty much what the deal is with “big” publishers anyway. If the books do not sell, the bookstore sends the books back – to everyone.

Either way: big publishers or small publishers (AKA you) the author still must market the book, promote the book and manage the books sales.

The key for authors now, is to market to your readers, speak directly to them. So it’s no longer just a book, it’s a blog, twitter, Facebook, appearances, workshops, conferences, library readings.
Yes those books make it into traditional stores.
And Amazon has been instrumental in giving self-published authors equal space.

Hard copy of family stories or history for family members. Print (great gift idea) through Lulu.com beause you can make the project private, it will not show up for sale to the general public.

E books
Do it in conjunction with print books. E-books are pulling ahead in gross sales. It does change how we write:
Writers must grab a reader in the first page, no background, no explanation, no history. For fiction, start with the action, for non fiction, start solving problems immediately.

Use Smashwords.com to create your ebook format (free) and make sure you have a fabulous book cover – in ebooks, the cover (not the back) sells the book.
Pricing free to 12.99 for download. Depending on your strategy. Make more money per sale on e-books.

Who should publish before they perish? Everyone!

Careful of the information you discover on line discussing publishing for much is dated, as this pod cast will be soon, check the date! It’s October 2011, if you are listening to this in May, things may very well have changed again.

Prompting- Episode prompt. Feedback if any about the prompt from listeners.
 
Prompt

POV
Change point of view. Write a paragraph from your point of view. Now write up the same incident from another point of view (Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, The Hours by Michael Cunningham, The Sound and Fury by William Faulkner). This is a powerful method for story telling.

Word of the week

Bring Out Your Dead- Listener submission/our own personal early piece of writing dredged up from the dust pile. My film Clip/ dream.

Word of the Week

JIGGERY-POKERY

It’s not so much found these days, though it is a delightful word for describing underhand practices. People also mean by it some form of trickery, especially the arcane manipulation required to make an item of technical equipment work the way you want it to (“most handsets need some jiggery-pokery to be Apple compatible”; “it may lead to copied games running straight from the DVD without the need for any further jiggery pokery”).

The charm of jiggery-pokery lies partly in its bouncing rhythm, a classic example of what’s called a double dactyl, a dactyl being a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables; it’s named after the Greek word for finger, whose joints represent the three syllables. Other examples of double dactyls are higgledy-piggledy and idiosyncrasy.

The word appears at the end of the nineteenth century and is first recorded in Wiltshire and Oxfordshire dialect. The English Dialect Dictionary quotes an Oxford example, “I was fair took in with that fellow’s jiggery-pokery over that pony.” The experts are sure that it actually comes from a Scots phrase of the seventeenth century, joukery-pawkery.

The first bit of it means underhand dealing, from a verb of obscure origin, jouk, that means to dodge or skulk; this might be linked to jink and to the American football term juke, to make a move that’s intended to deceive an opponent (the other juke, as in jukebox, has a different origin). The second bit is from pawky, a Scottish and Northern English word that can mean artful, sly, or shrewd, though it often turns up in the sense of a sardonic sense of humour.

What’s happening next episode: Part two of publishing with Lyle as the co-host!

Where to contact us: podcast@newbiewriters.com
www.yourbookstartshere.com
www.rainstormpress.com

Outro

How do you deal with rejection?

Rejections are a real part of every writer’s life, a legacy of the subjective world of creativity that we choose.

There are numerous reasons why publishers reject novel submissions: their lists are full; the genre is wrong; they don’t gel with your characters; you haven’t adhered to their submission requirements; story isn’t fresh or original or they simply don’t like it; writing style, etc. etc. The list is endless…. And for the most part, we receive no explanation, just a standard response.

Honestly, if my rejection pile was compared to my acceptance pile it would crush it outright. So, how do we turn them around? Here’s my way:

1. Don’t take rejections to heart – we are in a subjective business, what one editor hates another loves.
2. Revisit your manuscript – is it the very best you can produce? Sometimes we can get too close to our work. Is it worth getting an outside opinion, a professional edit or perhaps having your writers group critique it?
3. Keep trying – if you believe in your book, then try again elsewhere. Remember, Jeffrey Archer was rejected from 13 publishing houses with his first novel ‘Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less’ which went on to become an international bestseller.
4. Don’t be wounded by your rejections – we may lose minor battles but eventually, with courage and persistence, we’ll win the war.

I recently shared with you my stats. – out of a dozen submissions to independent publishing houses I received three standard rejections, five didn’t respond, four expressed an interest, two contract offers. Why am I telling you this again? Because, if you keep that self belief, persistence really does pay!

Also, a plethora of rejections make the successes, when they arrive, feel much more special!

Jane Isaac is very much a Newbie, she doesn’t even have a website yet (one day…) and with a day job, a family and a very demanding black Labrador, she squeezes her writing into every spare moment she gets. Join her on the rocky road from pen to publication – hopefully!

Episode 6: October 21

Social Media for non-social writers

What is social Media?
Twitter
Facebook
Flicker
Linked in
Meet up

What can writers do about it and how can we leverage social media?

Writers need to be themselves; that is the ironic position of social media. At a time when you could be anyone you wanted, the transparency of authors and writers is key to gain followers and develop fans.

Your Own Name
Marketing your writing will, over the course of the years, be necessarily fluid. Tweet under your own name so your product selection can change under that name.

Blog, Have a blog and web site. Blog as often as you can stand. Why? Because this is your start.

Blog tour for your new book:
Make friends – like with newbie Writers – with blogs and bloggers you like and who you have something in common with. Do this now, so in six months, you have a feel for their posts and can contribute in a meaningful way as a host blogger or an author on Book tour.

Tweet on your book and tangential subjects for and around your book. Link the tweets back to your web site or blog.

Facebook. This is more casual, but can be powerful in that people know you and feel connected to you. Those are the same fans who will buy your books.

Social media is not a small country fair where you know many people you pass by, Social Media, Twitter in particular is more like the narrow passageways in the souk in Cario or the crowded booths in the night market of Hong Kong. Here you must search through the agora to find stalls selling the things you love and need and more important, catering to people you want to meet.

These people share your interests and needs and as a result, will be interested in your recommendations, comments, and eventually, your own products.

Building a platform to see over the heads of the general crowd will make it easier and faster to pick out the like-minded people from this market crowd and if the platform is built well, they in turn can easily see you. Twitter is part of that platform.

Some of the conversation we can have:

Like a conversation in the alleys of a market or the aisles of Safeway, twitter must serve as a legitimate conversation in the first place. You wouldn’t stop someone in the middle of their shopping to demand that since they have tomatoes in their cart, they will love your book on Croatia. However you would help someone reach the can of peaches on the top shelf. You also could discuss peaches in general while you’re there. You may segue into Croatian peaches, you may not, because blogging and tweeting must serve the reader. Conversation is more effective than the constant sale and promotion.

We all know what to do as non-fiction writers, but what about your fabulous novel? How do you tweet or blog about that?
First, the current advice (from many sources) is to not post chapters of the book on your blog. Instead blog and tweet about the book. Can you tap into genre fans? Can you tap into fans of the area (were you clever enough to set your book in the Hawaiian Islands? Or Paris?)

Tweet about the setting, ask question about the topic, link to other authors who write about the same place you do. Or write about a similar topic. Hang out with people who are talking about subjects close to your book.
Why strike up a conversation at all? Because you never know who you’ll meet at the big Night Market, you never know what treasures you will find. Grab your name, link up with some new friends and open the window to let the new music in!

If you don’t have it already, use Tweet Deck Free, and an enormous help in follwoing tweets as well as tracking your own. This is a great way to follow those hash tags: Twitter to announce blog posts, Twitter to follow the scene like #amwriting #NaNoWriMo, this does two things, it gives you at least a shot at following what interests you and it helps focus your own efforts. the more interested you are, the more easily you will join in the conversation.

Follow other authors
Follow publishing houses
follow agents
Blog twice a week
Join groups

 
Prompt

What would be offensive or stupid remarks  during a wine tasting event?
At a recent wine tasting, we lost control and failed to live up to our snobby potential and instead made comments about the cheese.
What is the dumbest things to say while wine tasting? 

Bring Out Your Dead- Listener submission/our own personal early piece of writing dredged up from the dust pile.

Word of the week

COCKSHUT

Fear not, this isn’t a risqué word. Cockshut time is the twilight of evening. The word has a longish history, with this being the first use on record:

Thomas the Earl of Surrey and himself,
Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troop
Went through the army, cheering up the soldiers.

Richard III, by William Shakespeare, 1597.

There are two ideas about where it comes from. One suggests that it refers to the time of day when fowls are shut up in their coops for the night, though why it should be cock rather than chicken or some other word isn’t explained. A link with cockcrow for dawn has been suggested, though the two terms aren’t parallel and the connection feels stretched.

What’s happening next episode
Where to contact us: podcast@newbiewriters.com
www.yourbookstartshere.com
Outro

When it comes to traditional publishers, which way should we jump as Newbie’s? Major, minor, new or old?

To submit to a major publishing house these days, generally you need to secure an Agent. In my limited experience, it’s difficult to find an Agent these days, especially one who’ll read unsolicited manuscripts from new writers. However, if this is your choice, here are a couple to try:-

http://dhhliteraryagency.com/submissions.html

http://www.janklowandnesbit.co.uk/submissions

So, if we can’t attract the attention of an Agent, what next? We try the independent publishing houses. Again, experience has taught me that many of these, certainly the larger ones, only accept submissions through Agents. However, there are still some that will entertain direct submissions and from new writers.

Before I submitted my script I researched the independents heavily and picked out a dozen. (You can find a comprehensive list of my findings in the Forum under ‘Writing Goals’ – ‘Goals to Being Published’.) Out of those twelve, I received three standard rejections, five didn’t respond, four expressed an interest, two offered me a contract. I’m not being self indulgent here, it’s important to look at those who did respond because it shows they took the time to read a newbie’s script. And this is the interesting part: all bar one were relatively new, small, Indie publishing houses.

Maybe there is something in this? The majors and big independents are receiving hundreds of submissions per week. But the new Indies are just starting off, looking for fresh talent to fill their books. I wanted to share this with you all because, when submitting, this is definitely worth considering. If you can root out those new, small publishing houses – they are more likely to read your script and, if they sign you, if my experience is anything to go by, work with you through to the publishing stage.

Try these for starters:-

http://www.rainstormpress.com/p/submissions.html

http://nemesispublishing.com/Submissions.aspx

They may just be the path to your success…

Jane Isaac is very much a Newbie, she doesn’t even have a website yet (one day…) and with a day job, a family and a very demanding black Labrador, she squeezes her writing into every spare moment she gets. Join her on the rocky road from pen to publication – hopefully!

So I found this new theme. Not bad, not sure on the flowers though, will look at changing that. Also need a new banner too! But hey work in progress right

Damien

I’ve decided to change the way things are done. Instead of having a main page which branches off to the blog and forum, our main page will be the blog. Currently the blog is the most popular aspect of our site and so it only seems fitting to have it as our main page.

Secondly, the content of the main page was becoming old. Old articles, old job listings. I’ve found the blog setup to be a bit more diverse and current. I am tempted to change the blog theme and would like your thoughts.

Please update your bookmarks as the old newbiewriters.com/wordpress will no longer work.

Damien

Episode 5 – Obtituaries ‘You really are wonderfool’.

Episode 5
Short writing

Email:

Hey Guys,

You mentioned that you were going to do a podcast about obituaries and real estate ads. I would love to hear about how to write a product description in one or two sentences.

I have to write these all the time for our website and would love some hints/pointers.

–
Regards,

Ben

Let’s talk about real estate advertising first:

From A 380 degree View, which by the way, is a title I took from an real estate ad: assuring the buyer of  380 degree views.

She stood in the center of the faded harvest gold carpet and surveyed the tiny living and dining room.  Well maintained original carpet, I wrote. The kitchen was so small I had to back into the door to get a good photo. Efficient kitchen.  I scribbled in my notebook.
I angled away from the pellet stove and took a shot of the living slash dining area. Intimate living area, I wrote down.
The full apartment down stairs was accessible by an outside stairs.    Possible rental/in-law unit, I wrote down.  It was unremarkable, a sofa that will have to be thrown out and a tiny kitchen featuring an old electric stove. I scribbled, move-in ready
It was not a good time of year to take pictures of the yard, but that creek access would be an excellent selling point. Your own private creek. I wrote.

Here are some things to be wary of:

Motivated Seller – we looked at a lovely house that was perfect in every way, except for the homeless encampment spilling onto the drive way.

Charming means small

Do not  make your house breath, gush or otherwise exude charm.  This is not a blind date; it is a house.

If the copy has defaulted to naming the appliances, it means the house has nothing else to recommend it.

Close to anything is dangerous, the house could back into the wall mart parking lot or be located under a freeway overpass.
check it out on Google maps

How to write a product description. Or in other words, what does your product do in one line or less?

Find the features benefits.  Oh how boring.  How about considering what your product would do if it was as magic as you hoped everyone would believe?  Make a person younger, thinner, more hair, richer?  Think of the extreme, dial it back just a bit, now you have a clever ad campaign
Reduce that cleverness to key words, some companies work this thing with consultants, experts and linguist. Some of us just have to make it up because we are the whole damn department.

Ads are wonderful and they translate so poorly into other countries.
Some examples of bad translations.
General Motors had a very famous fiasco in trying to market the Nova car in Central and South America. “No va” in Spanish means, “It Doesn’t Go”.

The Dairy Association’s huge success with the campaign “Got Milk?” prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish translation read “Are You Lactating?”

Frank Perdue’s chicken slogan, “It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken,” was translated into Spanish as “it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate.”

Pepsi’s “Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation” translated into “Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the Grave” in Chinese.

Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: “Nothing Sucks like an Electrolux.”

Great ads in general
Be ready before the moment  – think tank photo (camera bags)

Just do it (Nike)
The ultimate driving Machine (BMW
The Antidote for civilization (club med)
Let your fingers do the walking (2002)
Drivers wanted (VW)
It’s everywhere you want to be. (Visa)
Think Different (Apple)

Obits:
Write yours ahead of time, otherwise your children will be writing it, and do you really want them to have the last word?  I didn’t think so. Have you noticed that obits written by the children are not about you, they are about them?  Survived by, and a long list of everyone who is still here and is interested in seeing their own name in print.
Do not let this happen.
Write your own obit.
Make stuff up, who is going to argue with you?
Myself, I think I’ll be a pirate.  Think of everything you didn’t get to do, try or be, write that into your obit.  While you’re at it, do some of these things you cheerfully lied about.  Really, before it’s too late.

Prompt
Haiku
Not just what  you wrote in grammar school

Bring Out Your Dead- Listener submission/our own personal early piece of writing dredged up from the dust pile.

Word of the week

Bafflegab

This word hit the newspapers and public notice on 19 January 1952, the day after a plaque was presented to its inventor to mark his creation of this invaluable word. He was Milton A Smith, assistant general counsel for the US Chamber of Commerce. It was presented by Michael V DiSalle, the head of the Office of Price Stabilization, who rejoiced in the title of Price Stabilizer. (Where are people like this when you need them?)

Milton Smith coined the word in a piece he wrote for the Chamber’s weekly publication, Washington Report, which criticised the OPS for the bureaucratic language it used in one of its price orders. This was picked up by the Bellingham Herald in Washington State, which wrote an editorial about it, saying “Gobbledegook is mouth-filling, but it lacks the punch of bafflegab. The inventor of that one deserves an award.” The newspaper made sure he got one by paying for the plaque to be made and organising its presentation.

The inventor said he had spent a maddening day trying to explain the OPS order to a colleague and decided a special word was needed to describe its special blend of “incomprehensibility, ambiguity, verbosity and complexity”. He tried legalfusion, legalprate, gabalia, and burobabble before settling on bafflegab. There’s nothing mysterious about the make-up of the word, and that’s part of its appeal. But it’s the stress on those plosive consonants that really makes it fly. It might well have succeeded even without the publicity associated with the award.

What’s happening next episode
Where to contact us: podcast@newbiewriters.com
www.yourbookstartshere.com
Outro

For next one:
Publishing: POD or Traditional
Social media for the non-social writer
Promotion for the panicked

Late June 2011

At a talk last year, Stephen Booth shared with his audience – it took eighteen months to find a publisher with his first novel. He is now a successful author in the crime genre with over seven novels published. So, I was in it for the long haul.

My novel submissions took a couple of early passes from the independents. The normal standard replies: we are no longer accepting submissions; our lists are full; not right for us at the moment. Then within two weeks of my submission I got an early hit.

The Editor read the first two chapters of An Unfamiliar Murder ‘like lightning’ and eagerly requested the rest. She emailed me several times over that week to discuss my plans for my book, my thoughts on publication. Things were looking very positive.

Within seven days of having my complete manuscript, she was back in touch. She really liked the novel, complimented my writing, would like to offer me a contract… (Another dance around the lounge to celebrate.) But…. she wanted some major changes to my lead character.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve tried to do something different with ‘An Unfamiliar Murder’, avoiding the tired divorced, alcohol obsessed Detective lead. It’s a subjective business, I realise this won’t sit well with everyone. She wanted another Kay Scarpetta – a job already done wonderfully by Patricia Cornwell in my opinion.

Was I prepared to comprise my main character just to be published? The answer is no. Eventually, we parted.

Then I struck gold…

Jane Isaac is very much a Newbie, she doesn’t even have a website yet (one day…) and with a day job, a family and a very demanding black Labrador, she squeezes her writing into every spare moment she gets. Join her on the rocky road from pen to publication – hopefully!

Emma from our forums to come on as a guest host. She goes by the name Editor/Proofer on the forums, has her own editing business: Exceptional Editing. www.exceptionalediting.com.au

What drew you to editing as a profession?

Can you talk about what an editor does?  And can you help define terms an author is likely to come across?
proofreading
line editing
substantive/content editing
manuscript critique
book doctoring
research
ghostwriting
writing and publishing consulting
Where can authors find good editors?
What can we expect to pay a good editor?

What are some common mistakes you come across?

And what are some funny mistakes?

Three categories of editors,
The gate keepers of blogs and newscasts and periodicals. These are the big blustery white males who won’t hire Peter Parker until he gets just the right shot of Spider Man.  Since you probably don’t want to become your own best subject, there are other ways to get attention.

Study the periodical, and /or develop  a relationship with the blog editor, if you want to write for Newbie Writers, be nice to Damien and listen to the pod casts so you have an idea of what we’re about.  The more you know, the better you can tailor your work to what the editor wants and needs, the better your chances.

Always query an editor with your idea and don’t attach anything, attachments make editors break out into hives and that’s not a good start.  Queries should give the editor a complete picture of what your article is about and also include a  brief professional biography.

This from Paula Guran.  www.writers.com
There are Editors in a publishing house:
An ACQUIRING EDITOR buys the book from an agent or author. If that is his/her sole job the manuscript will then go to the DEVELOPMENT or DEVELOPMENTAL EDITOR. (Seldom the case, usually one person does both jobs.) This editor helps the author, if needed, with plot, structure, pacing, and writing style. The author then makes revisions.
Editors also do LINE EDITING, which is very close to what COPY EDITORS do (or sometimes it is one and the same.) Line editing checks the manuscript for consistent STYLE (the “rules” for language use–at least in the context of a single book–including spelling, punctuation, and use of italics or other typographical devices). They also check general punctuation, proper spelling and grammar. They make sure the story logic holds up, the sequence is correct and the con! tent is clear and consistent. Even if the editor does a line edit, s/he will be followed by a copy editor checking for about the same things as well as formatting. The author also revises or makes decisions on questions that may arise after this process.

The third kind of Editor is one who will help you polish you book manuscript either before you submit to be self published or after a traditional publisher has purchased your book.

Freelance editors have prices and various forms they work in, companies will also do this for your book. They are not cheap,  I’m not cheap.  We bring   years of experience to the table and that’s exactly what you pay for.  However, consider what you want and if it’s worth it.

Where to Find Editors
On line but make sure they are reputable

Friends and personal recommendations

Conferences, you meet them in person and develop a relationship first
Linked in
Facebook, where I conversed with one of my editors and it was quite lovely, he is lovely as a matter of fact.

How much do they charge?

Some charge by the word, some by the project.  So if it’s 1 cent/ word and you have an average MS length of 70,000 words, that’s a minimum of $700 US right off the bat.  Expensive.
But necessary.

Prompting- Episode prompt. Feedback if any about the prompt from listeners.

Prompt
What is a Great Gift?
What is a great reward for you?  What promised item or event propels you forward?
What would inspire you to work harder or even do the work at all?
Spend the week considering the best reward for a job well done, or even just a job completed.
Write about your best reward.

Word of the week
A backronym (sometimes bacronym) is a reverse acronym. To create one, you take a word that isn’t an acronym and create a fictitious expansion for it.

Some backronyms are designed as mnemonics. A classic example is the Apgar score to test the health of newborns. It was named after the American physician Virginia Apgar but to help student doctors and nurses remember the system, it has been changed to the acronym “Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration”. Similarly, the US Amber Alert programme is said to mean “America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response”, though it was actually named after a missing child, Amber Hagerman.

Backronyms are frequently humorous — Microsoft’s Bing, some quip, is actually an acronym for “Because It’s Not Google”; world-weary sailors say navy really means “Never Again Volunteer Yourself”, some car owners hold that Ford stands for “Fix Or Repair Daily”. Many of this type are actually reinterpreted acronyms, included by courtesy in the backronym collection because nobody has yet come up with a different -nym for them. For example, the name of the one-time Belgian national airline Sabena (which derives from “Société Anonyme Belge d’Exploitation de la Navigation Aérienne”, bless the guy who shortened it) was said to be an acronym for “Such A Bad Experience, Never Again”

What’s happening next episode
Where to contact us:
@newbiewriters.com
@cbramkamp
podcast@newbiewriters.com
www.yourbookstartshere.com
www.exceptionalediting.com.au
Outro

Early June 2011

What are your writing habits?

I recently read that Ruth Dugdale, winner of the CWA Debut Dagger in 2005 and author of three novels, writes a thousand words a day. Others have their own goals; some write five hundred, some a minimum of two thousand. A friend of mine attended a Jeffery Deaver event where he said that he spends eight months researching his books, then writes solidly for two months.

As new writers, many of us don’t enjoy the luxury of being able to write full time, often fitting it around day jobs and family commitments, squeezing it into every spare moment we have. An old writing tutor of mine gave me a great tip. Associated ‘thinking time’ can be done anywhere: in a supermarket queue, waiting for your child to finish swim class, driving home from work. Notes can be made on trains, during lunch hours. Penning even a few lines during a spare moment, something that can later be added and edited, all adds up.

I was initially intimidated by other writers’ habits, lambasting myself for not having set goals. But if my experience has taught me anything it is that we all have our own methods. And what works for one, certainly doesn’t work for another.

I found that committing myself back to writing my second novel, blog, short stories, meant that I wasn’t constantly checking my inbox for the result of my recent submissions. So, I decided to write for an hour every day. In practise – well it doesn’t work all the time, sometimes I go several days with no spare time, but generally, most days, I get on the PC and write or edit something.

Jane Isaac is very much a Newbie, she doesn’t even have a website yet (one day…) and with a day job, a family and a very demanding black Labrador, she squeezes her writing into every spare moment she gets. Join her on the rocky road from pen to publication – hopefully!