Product Description

Practical, personal and honest advice on how to get published with contributions from over a hundred authors, agents, publishers and journalists. Hear from the professionals on how to sell your articles, write a synopsis, find an agent, get your novel accepted and much, much more. With insights, anecdotes and hot tips from Frederick Forsyth, Jilly Cooper, Ian Rankin, Katie Fforde, Jill Mansell, Adele Parks, Lesley Pearse, Michael Buerk, Carole Matthews, Erica James, Mil Millington, Miles Kington, Michael Bywater, Rosie Millard, Robert Crampton, Richard Morrison, Simon Trewin, Jonathan Lloyd, Teresa Chris and Jane Judd as well as publishers Harper Collins, Hodder Headline, Transworld, Orion and Simon & Schuster. A must-have handbook for anyone who's ever wanted to write or just wants to hear how others to do it... Where do you start? How do you finish? And will anyone ever publish it when you have? Drawing on her own experiences as a novelist and journalist, Writing Magazine's agony aunt Jane Wenham-Jones takes you through the minefield of the writing process, giving advice on everything from how to avoid Writers' Bottom to what to wear to your launch party. Wannabe a Writer? tells you everything you ever wanted to know about the book world - and a few things you didn't...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9539 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
Excellent. A must-have book for every budding writer --New Writing Magazine

Practical and funny... packed with information and advice for new writers. --Woman's Weekly

I wish it had been on the shelves when I started out. --Katie Fforde - bestselling author

Woman's Weekly
Practical and funny...packed with information and advice

Katie Fforde
Tremendously informative. I wish it had been on the shelves when I started out.

Customer Reviews

Hysterical, practical and inspiring
I've just finished reading this book - literally couldn't put it down. As well as being a really good book about writing, this is also very funny. I woke my husband by snorting out loud at her descriptions of genres. I loved the fact that the book is broken in to short sections so you can dip in and out if you want to. There is also really good practical advice about how to start, how to keep going, how other writers do it. But it's not just about writing, it's also about the writing business. Much as I've dabbled for years, I've decided now to apply my posterior to the chair and get on with it but I'd never even thought about what happens once the deal is made (dear God the thought of a promotional tour - must take the advice to get fit now!). The most important thing is that it has inspired me to actually do it and keep going. I'm going to read this again along with Stephen King's 'On Writing' whenever I'm lacking inspiration or direction. Plus if Jane's fiction writing is as funny as this book, I'm off to buy her other stuff.

You need this book!
Like many authors, the path to publication has been a long one for me. I only wish Jane's book had been around when I first started out - it would have made the whole process quicker, easier and less angst-ridden!

Wannabe a Writer is packed with information - and unlike many books in this field it's honest and up-to-date rather than vague and waffley. From getting started to getting an agent, this book will be like having an experienced, funny, helpful friend at your side. Buy it!

Praise from a 'wannabe' a better writer
Every now and again there comes along a book that I wish I'd written. Wannabe a Writer by Jane Wenham-Jones is one of those books. Now I may be slightly biased because two members of my writing group, several fellow Sexy Shorts contributors (I write as Sally Quilford) and my favourite thriller writer of all time, Freddie Forsyth (how jealous am I that Jane got to speak to him?) grace its pages with words of wisdom. But I think I can be objective about a book that will do new writers a load of good.

First of all I like it because Jane Wenham-Jones is obviously one of us. By 'one of us' I mean an unpretentious writer who knows that you have to work bloody hard and not be too snobby about putting your work around or where you send it. What's more she sounds as though she's a good night out! I laughed out loud more than once, yet still learned a lot.

Jane has a great witty style, but amongst the jokes is solid advice about how to become a writer, how to behave when you are one, and how to survive the trials and tribulations. She mixes her own, often hilarious, experiences with those of other writers, including how to get an agent (and how not to, though I fear people without Jane's natural charm and vivacity might now try her way), how to submit a manuscript and how to behave with editors and agents when they have your tome. There are also chapters on writers' bum, and the other stresses that go with writing. Yes, there are stresses. It isn't all just sitting in front of a computer and putting your dreams down. You have to be prepared for those dreams to be trampled on. Jane does not gild the lily and neither do the dozens of writers who have contributed to this book. By the way, I don't know if it's just me, but the male writers seemed to worry a lot less about all the other stuff writers have to do in their lives. Presumably because they've got a woman in their life to do it for them!

This book is good for wannabe writers, and those like me who are writing with small success but 'wannabe' doing better. For me it was good to read that I'm not the only writer who procrastinates, eats too much, drinks too much, cries over rejections and generally feels that everyone else in the writing world is doing much better than me. There's also a good chapter on literary snobbery which I'd quite like to tattoo on some peoples' foreheads.

Wannabe A Writer has joined Stephen King's On Writing as my favourite unpretentious book about writing. One message that rang out loud and clear is that a sense of humour is compulsory.