Get the inside story from published authors

Last week I invited readers to send in the questions they would ask successful, published authors if they had the chance.

Today I am publishing those answers from three author interviews. The authors' responses are very informative and cover a number of issues including how to get a literary agent; assessing if your work is good enough that someone will want to buy it; how to handle rejection; and how to have 'a life' within such a lonely vocation.

Our three authors are:




Gabrielle Williams, whose latest book, Beatle Meets Destiny, was released on August 3 with Penguin.


William Kostakis, who earned himself a publishing deal with Pan Macmillan at age 17 with his debut novel, Loathing Lola.



Peter Yeldham, whose novel A Distant Shore, published with Penguin on August 3, is the ninth on his resume.





Thank you to everyone who wrote in with their questions. I apologise for not having the space to include all of your questions, but I have selected five that cover themes that popped up in many of the queries.

1. How many rewrites did you have to do before your work was finished?
GABRIELLE - By the end, I had done about 17 drafts of this book. Complete re-writes? At least 12 or 13. Then with the editing process at Penguin, that was probably another four; one major rewrite and then another smaller rewrite and then two bits and pieces.
WILLIAM - I have been writing the same story since Grade 5. So, go with one major complete rewrite a year and we’d end up with about 12 major rewrites. It really wasn’t good until I was in about Grade 11.
PETER - I always write two or three rewrites before I give anything to the publisher and then, particularly with my publisher at Penguin, she raises lots of points. These are not major things, but they are always important, so I would say another five or six weeks worth of work with her.

2. How many rejections did you receive from publishers/editors prior to achieving success?
GABRIELLE - I have certainly had rejection. My feeling is that they are not doing it as a personal attack. They are doing it because their professional view is that it isn’t right. If you are going to ask for someone’s advice... you almost have to say, ‘Thank you for rejecting me because now I can make it better’.
WILLIAM - I’ve tallied it at about ten rejections. I wanted to die. (But) if they are not accepting it for publication, there is usually a reason. Surround yourself with people who are honest with you. Find a friend who will take pleasure in being honest and seeing you cry because while it might hurt and you hate them completely, it is actually the best thing for you. It lets you taper down the delusions a little bit.
PETER - I have had very few (rejections), but it is a blow. I had a mini-series that I was really enjoying. I never heard anything again, but then heard that another writer had been asked to write it. It was rejection by stealth, by not letting me know. I thought it was probably a nasty way of doing it.

3. What intrigues me is how writers actually manage to have a 'life'. How do they deal with privacy and contemplation and skylarking that is part and parcel - for me - of the writing life. I like to surf a bit, click a bit, read a bit and mooch about in the course of writing stuff. Do others feel the same?
GABRIELLE - I am a very lazy writer so I sit around a lot, drink coffee a lot. I have got three kids and a husband so I really can’t not have a life. I think it’s pretty important that if you are writing about people, you have got to get out there. My friends are great; they know I work from home so they often ring and say, ‘Do you want to go and get a coffee?’, so that has made me very undisciplined. Whenever I am not at home writing, I like to consider it research.
WILLIAM - It depends. I have times where I am literally writing every waking moment and I am a hermit and I have a tan from the light in my room. But I like to balance it a bit. A lot of writing is personal experience and what will make your writing really interesting is if you have those life experiences to write about. Enough people have pissed me off in my life for me to make a book making fun of them; that is where Loathing Lola came from. If I hadn’t experienced certain things in my life, then that book wouldn’t have turned out the way it did.
PETER - I started disciplining myself in radio because we were paid so badly. If you wanted to earn a living - and I had to because by then I had two little kids and a wife - you really had to work very hard.

4. I have read that it is harder to get a literary agent than it is to get a publisher. But without an agent most publishers won’t even consider your manuscript. Do you have any tips on how I can find the appropriate agent for me and what I can do to get them to take me on?
GABRIELLE - They say that the agent is the gatekeeper to the publisher. With my first book (called – I kid you not - Two Canadian Clubs and Dry at the Martini Den), I entered the first chapter into a few short story competitions. Publishers are always keeping an eye out on those. With the competition I entered, Harper Collins were actually involved, so when I was shortlisted they came up and asked me if I had anything else. It gives you a little bit of credibility.
WILLIAM - I don’t have an agent. But, (my advice is to) research the agent. Make sure your book is appropriate to them. If they are not passionate about your work, there is no point signing with them. Because I don’t have an agent I have an extremely close relationship with my publisher. You can get a publisher without an agent. I am proof of that.
PETER - I no longer have an agent. I think you can only get an agent by showing them a sample of your work and hoping they like it. You also have to be very careful with the agent who takes you on; a lot of agents will take you on and then do very little for you.

5. I have written 3 books, but am not confident that they would sell. How did you know that your story ideas were good enough to sell and to interest people?
GABRIELLE - I didn’t. It’s very hard to judge your own writing. Some people think their writing is absolutely sensational. They are too confident and they cannot understand how a publisher rejects it. Other people think that what they have done is hopeless. You have to try to get that balance. I have the philosophy that I will send it out and the worst that can happen is that I get a rejection letter. That’s not going to kill me; from the rejection letter I might even get some tips on how to improve it.
WILLIAM - There are two kinds of stories that publishers publish; the goldmine ones, like Twilight, that end up paying for the whole backlist of every other author, and the other ones that publishers purchase for artistic merit. You have to find the happy medium between being a commercial sell-out and writing something that is really creative.
PETER - I didn’t. With my first book, it was quite a battle to get it accepted. Once I went to Pan Macmillan, it seemed whatever I wrote they were okay with, even more so with Penguin. The first book, though, I reckon had about five or six knockbacks. So, I think you just have to keep going. It’s no good putting it in a drawer, because no-one is going to read it there. But you have to put it away for a month or more, that’s what I do, so when you read it again you can be a bit more objective.

• Next week, I will publish a full article about Peter Yeldham and his latest novel, A Distant Shore. Peter has published nine novels, spent more than 20 years as a screenwriter and has won numerous awards including the Order of Australia Medal for achievement in film and television, and a Centenary Medal for services to Australian writing.
• Meanwhile, stay tuned for indepth articles on both Gabrielle Williams and William Kostakis in the coming weeks.

For more information about Pamela Wilson or Writesmart, log on to www.writesmart.com.au