Oh my goodness, I actually feel quite emotional writing this post. I can’t believe I’ve come to the end of this blogging series!

The most shocking thing I think I have learnt from my five years of being published is that the industry often knows which books are going to be the next ‘big books’ far, far in advance of publication. And sometimes even before they are even bought by publishers. 😮

Sometimes I think it doesn’t matter if your characters are PERFECT. If they behave impeccably. If they are flawless models of perfection. I have learnt over the past five years that no matter what they are like - good, bad or downright ugly - someone out there will absolutely hate them.

No one knows anything… including me. So please take all my posts with a pinch of salt. I’m just sharing my experiences in the hope that they will be, if not useful, then interesting at least!

An interesting thing happened to me after I had written two books. I decided to try to be a bit more strategic.

Oh Goodreads! Oh Netgalley! What can I say about you that won’t get me blacklisted among the reviewing community? 

I think when we’re starting out, most writers feel - understandably - that we don’t really know much about anything. We’re winging it, writing from the heart and enjoying the ride.

One of the benefits of being a published author is that other avenues of work open up for you. For example, many of my published friends teach creative writing, or do manuscript reports for aspiring authors. 

Gah I am so scared of turning this into a rant. But oh-my-goodness, I was not prepared for the genre snobbery when I first got a book deal.

I’ve said before that I hate the massively overused rollercoaster analogy when it comes to having a career as an author, but I’m afraid that it’s so unbelievably perfect that I must bring it up here once again.

Let me start this post by saying that, contrary to popular belief, I don’t hate social media. I know I tend to give it a hard time but you might think I’m a bit of a hypocrite in doing so, because, as you might have noticed, I’m all over it myself.

Not sure what ‘bad track’ means? Let me enlighten you. There’s a clue in the adjective: ‘bad’. And ‘track’ is just short for ‘track record’. 

Perhaps today’s post is obvious, but I thought it was worth talking about anyway. A lot of the writers I speak to feel very nervous about ‘branching out’ or leaving behind the ‘brand’ or genre that they’ve started writing in. 

I believe that the thing that makes authors able to author is the thing that also means we are never satisfied. In order to finish a book, you need so much willpower, focus and determination and you basically have to be really, really hard on yourself.

There are some writers out there who like exercise. If you are one of these rare, mythical creatures then this post is not for you and you can just (literally) jog on by feeling smug and blessed.

If you’re a writer then you’re definitely a reader. If you’re not a reader, then I’d go so far as to say that you can’t be a writer. Sorry. The two are mutually inclusive.

Can I start this post with a little disclaimer, in case my publishers are reading?! I just want to state here that I have only ever hated one of my covers, and that was the original cover for my second book.

I appreciate this is a bit of a UK-centric post, when so many of my blog readers are based in the US or elsewhere, but I’m sure you’ll have your equivalent festival so hopefully it will still resonate.

I know it might sound as though I’m contradicting myself with today’s post, as I know a few days ago I said that the best marketing you can do for your book is to write another book, but bear with me…

Full disclaimer here: I am a website designer. You might already have realised that from the rest of the content on this website but if not, I am! And I love it. I build websites specifically for my fellow authors, and it’s the perfect complement to my writing career.

I believe it was novelist Tracy Buchanan who first told me that the best marketing you can do for your book is to write another one. It really opened my eyes and made me reconsider the hours I spent on social media, desperately trying to break through the noise and drum up some kind of interest in my book.

It’s been five years since my debut novel came out, and I honestly couldn’t remember what I did on the actual day. It’s a whirlwind, a total blur. And so I just went and looked on my phone memories and realised that on my publication day my then three-year-old daughter, my partner and I planted a tree that he had bought me as a celebration present.

I thought it might be a good idea to get a bit more technical in today’s post and talk about something to do with the actual writing for a change.

So here’s a revelation I didn’t expect when I started on my one-book-per-year journey: THE FIRST DRAFT GETS HARDER.

You may have been on submission to publishers yourself, in which case I’d suggest skipping this post unless you want to be reminded of the absolute pain and agony of that hideous process.

If not, then stay tuned…

Following on from my previous post about how writing ruins reading, I thought it might be time for a more positive realisation, before I put any readers here off writing for good.

I am having a lot of fun writing this series of things I have learnt since being published. It’s like all the Thoughts and Feelings I’ve been harbouring over the past five years are finally able to spill out of me. 

OK so hands up who thought that editors sat around reading books all day and occasionally marking up manuscripts with a red pen?

With each day that I blog, I’m getting increasingly nervous that I’m going to get cancelled but hey, these are my truths and my lived experiences and this is my blog and so I’m GOING TO BLOW THIS SHIT UP! Ahem, share.

The one thing we all dream of as an aspiring author is the day our agent calls us to tell us that we’ve received an offer from a publisher. 

Welcome to my new blogging series! I’ve been thinking for a while about a way I could celebrate my FIVE YEAR anniversary of being a published author, and I figured what might be useful/interesting would be to share 30 things I’ve learnt throughout September - one per day.