by Allison Tait | May 15, 2019 | Advice for Writers, Blog, Books, Freelance writing, My books, News, Social Media for Writers, The Business of Writing, Writing
It’s been a big year for the So You Want To Be A Writer podcast team!
Not only have we screamed past the ONE MILLION download mark (you’ll find my 15 favourite interviews here), with a LIVE event at VIVID Sydney (book now!) in the works, but we’re happy to announce that we’ve written a book!

So You Want To Be A Writer: How To Get Started (While You Still Have A Day Job) by Allison Tait and Valerie Khoo will be on sale from 8 June (be at our event to be the first to own it!)
Here’s the blurb
The ultimate guide to making your writing dreams come true!
Want to write a novel or earn an income as a freelance writer, but not sure how to go about it? Authors Allison Tait and Valerie Khoo – co-hosts of the popular So You Want To Be A Writer podcast – will give you the steps you need to make your dream a reality.
In this book, you’ll discover everything you need to be a successful writer, including how to connect with people who will help your career grow and productivity tips for fitting everything into your already busy life. You’ll also explore how to keep your creative juices flowing and where to find other writers just like you.
This book lays out a blueprint to help you get started and thrive in the world of words. With advice from over 120 writers, you’ll tap into proven wisdom and find the path that will lead YOU to success!
Here’s what five of Australia’s favourite authors have said about the book
‘Practical, grounded and inspiring. When a thousand voices tell you that you can’t, you need a voice to make you believe you can. This book is that voice.’
Candice Fox, #1 New York Times bestselling author
‘So many pro tips in here from working writers. This is like Tim Ferriss’s Tools of Titans but exclusively for writers. I loved it.’
Tristan Bancks, award-winning children’s author
‘Perfect for the person who wants to write but doesn’t have the confidence or the know-how to start.’
Pamela Hart, award-winning historical fiction author
‘Essential reading for any aspiring writer.’
Graeme Simsion, international bestselling author
‘Val and Al were a godsend to me before I was published, offering a guided tour to the world of publishing that was otherwise closed to me. Their advice is highly, highly recommended.’
Dervla McTiernan, international bestselling author
And here’s a picture of the co-authors on the day (nearly a year ago) we decided to write a book

We are thrilled to bring this book to our podcast audience, our writing community and to new and aspiring writers everywhere. It will be available through a range of online booksellers, here and overseas, so stay tuned for more details.
If you’d like to read more about So You Want To Be A Writer the book, or register your details to receive notice as soon as the book is on sale, you’ll find all the details here.
Are you new here? Welcome to my blog! I’m Allison Tait and you can find out more about me here and more about my online writing courses here.
by Allison Tait | Jul 5, 2017 | Advice for Writers, Writing
As Valerie Khoo and I head rapidly towards 200 episodes of our So You Want To Be A Writer podcast, our backlist of fabulous – and by that I mean fabulously useful – interviews grows. Thanks to the attention that our recent interview with publisher Marisa Pintado received, I realised that we’ve had some cracking conversations with publishers and editors over the years. So I dug up eight of them for your listening pleasure.
What do publishers want? Click on the episode number to read the show notes or listen to the episode to find out!
Kristen Hammond
[At the time of interview] Kristen Hammond is the senior commissioning editor in the area of professional development, business finance and accounting business for John Wiley & Sons Australia. Today, Kristen is still with Wiley, but she’s now the Publisher specialising in Digital Content Creation, Curation and Solutions for Corporate and Academic Partners. She gives a lot of great advice for aspiring non-fiction authors in this interview. Episode 13
Bernadette Foley
Bernadette Foley has worked as an editor and publisher in the Australian publishing industry for over 25 years. For the past ten years she was a publisher of fiction and non-fiction for Hachette Australia, one of the largest publishers in the country, working with such authors as William McInnes, Gabrielle Lord, Graeme Blundell, Bronwyn Parry and Pamela Freeman. She is teaching a new course at the Australian Writers’ Centre called What Publishers Want, which of course is what we all want to know. Episode 37
Suzanne O’Sullivan
Suzanne O’Sullivan is the Lothian Children’s Books publisher at Hachette Australia. She has worked in the book industry for over a decade and has spent most of that time in children’s books, editing everything from board books to YA/crossover fiction. Episode 62
Brandon VanOver
Brandan VanOver is the Managing Editor of Random House – allocating projects to the editors and guiding books through a busy publishing program every year, managing plant costs, negotiating terms with suppliers, representing editorial concerns at various meetings, steering the company into digital formats (often capsizing on exposed reef in the process) – but he still spends the majority of his time editing. Episode 66
Meredith Curnow
Meredith Curnow is the publisher of the Knopf and Vintage Imprints at Penguin Random House, looking after both fiction and non-fiction, and has been with the company for 12 years. She was the founding director of the Sydney Writers’ Festival from 1998 to 2002. Episode 74
Sue Whiting
Sue Whiting started her working life as a primary school teacher with a special interest in literacy education and children’s literature. In 2005 Sue left teaching to pursue a career in children’s book publishing and until recently was the publishing manager for Walker Books Australia. She’s also a successful children’s author who has written picture books and chapter books and novels for teens, and last year she left her publishing day job to write fulltime. Sue recently joined the Australian Writers’ Centre as a presenter. Episode 109
Louise Thurtell
[At the time of interview], Louise Thurtell [was] the publisher for the Arena imprint at Allen & Unwin. Louise has worked in publishing for more than 20 years. She is a former recipient of the Beatrice Davis Fellowship, allowing her to spend time in various US publishing houses, and established the popular and successful Friday Pitch at Allen & Unwin in 2006. Louise publishes commercial fiction and non-fiction, and her list of authors includes Fleur McDonald, Karly Lane, Therese Creed, and Nicole Hurley-Moore. Episode 161
Marisa Pintado
Marisa Pintado is the publisher of children’s and YA fiction at Hardie Grant Egmont in Melbourne. In 2011, she launched the Ampersand Prize, which is Hardie Grant Egmont’s annual search for YA and middle grade manuscripts from unpublished writers. And throughout her editorial career she has worked closely with a variety of emerging commercially successful and award-winning authors. Episode 182
Are you new here? Welcome to my blog! I’m Allison Tait and you can find out more about me here and more about my online writing courses here.
Join my online writing group for Industry Insider interviews every month. Details here.
Or check out So You Want To Be A Writer (the book). Find out more and buy it here.
by Allison Tait | Feb 13, 2017 | Advice for Writers, Industry Insider, Writing
Robin Elizabeth popped up in my Twitter feed several years ago and adds a bright spot of conversation to it nearly every day. So when I was looking for someone to talk to about self-publishing, I thought of her immediately. Her memoir, Confessions of a Mad Mooer, explores what happens when a mum keeps saying she isn’t coping but nobody will listen.
As Robin tells it: “Despite the fact that I had the seemingly perfect life with a good looking husband, a cute two year old girl and identical twin new-born boys, I fell into a deep depression. I kept telling people that I was exhausted and that I needed help but they didn’t believe me because I could still smile and laugh. I was basically told to suck it up, that exhaustion was just part of motherhood.
By the time people actually decided to help me I was ready to commit suicide and well past needing 50mg of Zoloft to bolster me up. My twins and I were immediately sent to a psychiatric hospital with a Mother and Baby unit for treating postnatal depression (PND). This treatment saved my life.”
In her brutally honest memoir, Robin shares her story, rants a little bit, and basically tries to shatter the stereotype that postnatal depression means you don’t smile or play with your baby.
“Women are often dismissed and not listened to, especially mothers,” she says. “They’re made to feel like they’re hysterical and unreasonable and I want them to know that they’re not alone, and that they matter. A lot of people think that going into a psychiatric hospital is a shameful secret that should be hidden. But for me, it helped me gain confidence, not just as a mother, but as a person in my own right. In many ways my stay in the psychiatric hospital is actually a highpoint rather than a low point.”
Today, Robin shares her self-publishing experience with us.
AT: Why did you decide to self-publish your book?
Robin Riedstra: “To be honest, I had a very specific purpose and audience for the book and I didn’t want to compromise on that. I wanted it to be appealing and accessible for mums with new-born babies. Which meant I wanted it to have a seriously beautiful cover, that tired women would see and just go “yes, that me.” So I hired Sally Walsh of Sillier than Sally Designs to give me the exact cover I wanted. Traditionally published authors warned me that the cover wouldn’t pass in a traditional publishing house because it was too “busy,” but everyone compliments the cover, so I know I definitely nailed it.
“I also didn’t want to compromise on the message. I’ve been to hell in my own brain. I know exactly what the exhaustion feels like, I know the thoughts, I know the things to look out for intimately. It’s part of who I am now. I wanted to make sure that this didn’t get sanitised to keep in with the way with some people like to portray mental illness. I didn’t want key things washed away and I didn’t want the content to become overly poetic and unintentionally glorify depression. Depression is messy, and ugly, I don’t want people romanticising it.
“Above all else I wanted it to be able to be digested by fellow exhausted mothers. So my language is conversational and pretty direct. I wanted to compete really speak to people who are suffering. I, of course, hired editors, but I still got to call the shots in the end to ensure that my core message wasn’t lost. I went for independent publishing so that I didn’t have to force my square peg into a round traditional publishing mould.”
The book is based on a series of blog posts you wrote while actually in hospital – what was the process of turning those into a book-length narrative?
RE: “I am absolutely sure that there is a more streamlined way of doing this than the way I did it, but I’ll share what I did. First off, I must admit I didn’t come up with the idea. I had slumped into another deep depression in 2015. My medication ended up needing to be changed to a higher level of anti-depressant, and I didn’t just have writers’ block, I had life block. My friends Lisa Fleetwood, author of Destination Dachshund, and Helen Petrovic, of the popular High Fantasy Addict blog, could see how badly I was struggling and that my inability to write was further exacerbating my condition. They suggested that I already had a lot of stuff written on PND in my blog so why didn’t I try turning that into a book. I was really excited by the idea because that seemed quite manageable and like something I could do in my depressive state.
“After that I just typed “postnatal depression” into the search on my blog and copied and pasted all the entries into a word document. I read them and though, “hey, I’ve said some important stuff there.” And then I thought, “Actually, I’ve got a lot more stuff I want to rant about.” And I just began writing about my experience with PND. I pretty much switched my brain off and let the words flow. After I had all the words out, I tried to order them in chronological order starting with my admittance to the hospital, cut out repetitive rants, and then added a few more.”
Given that it’s an intensely personal, irreverent memoir, did you install any checks/balances in the process?
RE: “I asked my husband to read the memoir many times, he declined, so I asked my friends Helen and Lisa, the same ones mentioned above, if they would read it and they were willing victims. I also had my psychologist take a look at an early draft to get her opinion on it.
“A lot of the women I had been in hospital with are regular followers of my blog and knew all of the old stuff already and I was careful to detail that the experience was my own and not drag them into it. That was one of the things I had in mind from the start. I wasn’t there to “out” anyone or speak for them so I deliberately hadn’t described them and I never name them.
“I also got a solicitor who specialises in creative works to take a look at it after I was finished. They said everything was fine and said I could actually name places and locations if I felt like it and put in more details from a legal standpoint, but I wanted to protect others. Right or wrong, there is still a stigma. I am happy to come out and try to smash it, and I am happy for other people to come along and smash it with me, but I am not going to drag along anyone against their will.”
You’ve produced the book both in digital and print form, whereas many indie-published books are digital only. Why did you choose to create a print version and was it difficult to organise?
RE: “I have actually been that indie author who has done digital copies only. I have a serialised commercial women’s fiction work that is in just digital format. They’re novella length and I think the subject matter and length lends itself well to digital.
“With Confessions I wanted mothers to be able to access it any way they wanted. I wanted to make it easy for them. If they want to read it in digital, great it’s ready, if they want it in paperback, it’s there for them. It’s also why I went wide with my ebook distribution. I knew it meant that I couldn’t go into Kindle Select and use all the tricks to get it onto the best seller list, but I felt that the message was more important than a tag and I wanted people to be able to get it as quickly as possible. That’s why it is available from most digital providers and on-line bookstores.
“This month I am going to start approaching bookstores. I should have done it earlier but I have social anxiety so it has taken me awhile to work up the courage. I gave myself until February to sort myself out, and February is here so it’s time I got to it. I’ll update you on how it goes.”
What was the steepest learning curve in the self-publishing process for you?
RE: “I have no idea about media releases. You’re apparently supposed to do those. I didn’t. My next book, which is coming out at the end of the year will have one… I hope it will.
“For me, thinking outside of that narrow focus of purpose and who I want to communicate with is definitely the part I am finding difficult. I am not business minded by nature so it has been quite challenging for me.Also, thinking about awards, I didn’t do that at all. I submitted it for nothing because it just didn’t even occur to me to do so.
“Great editors I know, because I have been to a million writing courses and am on twitter all the time. Cover designers I also know, so that was fine. Marketing? Forget about it, I knew nothing about it and now only know enough to know that I seriously know nothing about it.”
You’re very active on social media, you blog and you’re incredibly supportive of the Australian publishing industry as a whole – has that been a conscious step to help build an author platform?
RE: “I wish that it was and that I could give people really good business tips on how to build your author brand but, unfortunately, I’m just an impulsive sort of person. I remember the first time I heard Walter Mason, author of Destination Saigon, talk and he said, “Bring the spirit of fandom to Australian literature.” Prior to that I had always wanted to do something to support my passion, which is books, but didn’t know how to beyond buying books, which I do, but have budget constraints. As soon as he said that it was like a cartoon light-bulb went on above my head.
“You see, I’m a geek at heart, I’ve admined on some massive Doctor Who pages in the past and still admin a fairly successful “geek” group with around 10,000 members, so I know fandom. I know how to put a meme together. I know how to tweet about how much I love stuff. The notion of fandom suited me perfectly.
“I have boards on Pinterest with memes I have made of quotes by Australian authors, I even have a board dedicated to Toni Jordan’s sock collection and one of Whiskey I think Emma Viskic should drink. I started a thing on my blog called Robinpedia, which humorously catalogues Australia authors who are yet to be snapped up by Wikipedia, and I even recap The Book Club ABC. Yep, while all the cool kids are recapping The Bachelor and MKR I am sitting in my jammies, wearing toe-socks, and recapping Book Club. And the most embarrassing confession ever is, that the release date of Confessions was based around the screening of Book Club.”
Do you have three tips for anyone considering self-publishing their book?
RE: YES!
- Hire fantastic editors and cover artists. Doing courses and attending festivals helps you learn who the good ones are. The good ones are expensive but they are so worth it. I’m dyslexic, that’s okay for my approach to blogging, but I can’t even sneeze on a published page without clearing it with three editors.
- Think about marketing! I really should have. And now I have to play catch up. And I hate running.
- Know what awards you should apply for. I am big into the Spec Fic scene so know most of the relevant award cut offs for those but for the other, I know almost nothing. I have an English degree so I know of the awards, but not when or how to apply. Know this stuff. Back yourself, if you’ve had the tenacity to get it into print then value it enough to put it forward for awards. I really wish I had. Don’t live with my regrets. Be a lot smarter about it than me. And honestly, you and your work deserve the care and consideration. Back yourself.
Robin Elizabeth is an Australian writer, ranter, reviewer, dyslexic, twitter addict, and definitely a mad mumma. She blogs at Write Or Wrong about her love of Australian literature, depression, and whatever tickles her fancy bone. You’re most likely find her procrastinating away on Twitter, so feel free to say hello (and tell her that she should be writing – because she should be, she really should). You’ll find more information on her memoir here.
by Allison Tait | Feb 1, 2017 | Advice for Writers, Writing
On Monday, I shared my five top tips for editing your own writing, from a writer’s perspective.
Today, as promised, I’m following up with five top tips from an editor, thanks to the willingness of professional (and respected) freelance editor Nicola O’Shea.
“Nothing beats feedback from an objective reader (that is, not a family member or friend),” says Nicola. “But I hope these tips help you get your manuscript in the best shape possible before you hand it over to other readers.”
An editor’s 5 top tips for editing your first draft
Get some distance.
Put your manuscript completely away for a month, then read it through in one go – preferably on hard copy and resisting the temptation to tweak. You’re looking for places where the story feels flat, where the pace drags, where your characters are passive rather than active, where plot lines fall away without being resolved, for long blocks of narrative text without any dialogue. Mark these spots and come back to fix them only once you’ve completed your full read.
Examine your point-of-view (POV) choices.
Are you telling this story through a first-person narrator (‘I’ voice); or one or more third-person (‘he’, ‘she’, ‘they’) narrators? Does your choice of POV limit the story in any way? (E.g. a first-person narrator must be present for all plot events, unless you can find another way to present that information.)
If you have a lot of POV characters, ask yourself what each POV is adding to the story. Usually you can remove secondary POVs and limit yourself to main characters’ POVs.
Are you in control of the POV within each scene, or does it jump around between characters (‘head-hopping’)? Ideally you’d stay with one POV per scene or chapter.
Create a scene breakdown.
This is a summary of the plot events in each scene, the characters involved in them, and choice of POV. Use this skeleton structure to track your main characters’ story arcs and motivations, and to look for missing scenes or unresolved plot lines. Examine each scene individually to make sure it has a clear purpose and structure, and contains some kind of conflict.
Read your dialogue aloud, or ask someone to read it to you.
If you can hear your dialogue as it would be spoken, you’ll be more likely to notice whether you’ve let a character speak for too long, or whether their vocabulary and sentence structure are too elaborate. Most people use contractions in dialogue (we’ll, I’ve, wouldn’t, let’s) and often speak in fragments rather than complete sentences.Look out for characters over-using each other’s names in conversation; filler text (e.g. hellos and goodbyes); or characters telling each other information they already know for the benefit of readers.
Tighten your language.
Once you’ve completed your structural revisions, turn your attention to your language. Run a spell-check and decide on each change individually; then search for misused homophones that the spell-check won’t pick up (they’re, their, there). Remove adverbs that repeat the sense of the verb they’re attached to (the TV blared loudly; she shrieked piercingly); cut filler words like totally, very, actually, completely, probably, and started to or began to before a main verb (e.g. she started to walk downstairs becomes she walked downstairs). Look for passive constructions (he was asked to leave) and consider making them active (they asked him to leave).
Nicola O’Shea has been a book editor since the mid-1990s, and a freelance editor since 2004. She helps authors prepare their manuscripts for submission to publishers or for self-publishing; and regularly freelances for Australian publishers.
Nicola offers Skype feedback sessions, in which she’ll read the first 5000 words of your novel or memoir and then offer feedback in a 45-minute session on Skype. $195. For details and to book, click here.
Are you new here? Welcome to my blog! I’m Allison Tait and you can find out more about me here and more about my online writing courses here.
Subscribe to So You Want To Be A Writer podcast for more amazing writing advice.
Or check out So You Want To Be A Writer (the book), where my co-author Valerie Khoo and I have distilled the best tips from hundreds of author and industry expert interviews. Find out more and buy it here.
by Allison Tait | Oct 18, 2016 | Advice for Writers, Industry Insider, Writing
This week, So You Want To Be A Writer, my podcast with Valerie Khoo, celebrates 130 episodes, so I decided it was time to do a few ‘best of’ posts to help you find the episodes and interviews that really interest you!
First up, I’m focussing on YA authors, specifically Australian YA authors. (As a tip, if you’re looking for terrific YA reads, news and information about the Australian YA genre, search #LoveOzYA on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.) We’ve had the good fortune to interview some fantastic authors in this area, including award-winners, bestsellers and, the most exciting category of all, award-winning best-sellers!
Here they are, in order of the most recent interviews.
JAY KRISTOFF
•Jay Kristoff is a New York Times and international bestselling author of science fiction and fantasy, including the award-winning Illuminae (book two Gemina coming soon).Illuminae recently won the Centre for Youth Literature’s Gold Inky Award and has been shortlisted in the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards (Young Adult Fiction).
We spoke to him about Illuminae, his new fantasy series, The Nevernight Chronicle, making time to write with a day job, and a whole lot more. Listen to the episode here.
FLEUR FERRIS
•Fleur Ferris is the author of YA psychological thrillers Risk and Black. Risk won the 2016 Sisters in Crime Davitt Award in both the Best Young Adult and the Best Debut Book categories. In our interview, she talks about writing four manuscripts ‘for practice’, why she writes for Young Adults (and what that means), and juggling writing and … rice farming. Listen to the episode, or read a transcript, here.
NOVA WEETMAN
•Nova Weetman has been writing for 18 years as a screenwriter on everything from short films to Neighbours, as a writer of short fiction and non-fiction, published in Overland, Kill your Darlings and Fairfax Media, to name a few, and as the author of two middle grade books and two YA novels.
When we spoke, her fifth book, a middle-grade novel called The Secrets We Keep had just been released. In September, her new YA novel Everything is Changed, which we discuss in the podcast, hit the shelves. We also talked about how she became a screenwriter, where she finds the inspiration for her stories, and how getting used to editing makes you a much better writer. Listen to the episode, or read a transcript, here.
ELLIE MARNEY
•Ellie Marney‘s short stories for adults have won awards and been published in various anthologies. Her debut YA novel, Every Breath was one of only two Australian novels on the 2015 list of most borrowed YA library books. The second novel in the series, Every Word, won the 2015 Sisters in Crime Davitt Award for Best Young Adult Novel.
Ellie is the founder of the #LoveOzYA online bookclub, and we spoke about that, how to write crime for a YA audience, writing a crime novel without plotting in advance, and how to write yourself out of corners. Listen to the episode, or read a transcript, here.
NICOLE HAYES
•Nicole Hayes is an author, speaker and writing teacher based in Melbourne. She has an MA in Creative Writing and runs writing workshops at different locations in and around Melbourne. Nicole’s first novel, The Whole of My World, was shortlisted in the 2014 Young Australian Best Book Awards (YABBA) and longlisted for the 2014 Golden Inky Award. We spoke to her soon after the release of her second novel, One True Thing, which won the 2015 Children’s Peace Literature Award, was a Notable book in the 2016 CBCA Awards, and was shortlisted for the 2016 WA Premier’s Book Awards.
We spoke to Nicole about why she writes for teens, why it took her 15 years to write a novel, and how she writes in ‘stolen moments’. Listen to the episode, or read a transcript, here.
GABRIELLE TOZER
•Gabrielle Tozer is an internationally published author with a background in journalism, editing and copywriting. Her first novel, The Intern, won the State Library of Victoria’s 2015 Gold Inky Award, and its sequel Faking It is out now. Gabrielle’s third YA novel Remind Me How This Ends and first picture book Pip and Pop (illustrated by Sue deGennaro) hit shelves in 2017.
We spoke to Gabrielle just after the release of The Intern, and learnt the unusual story of how the novel came to be published, her long process of self-editing, and the importance of doing the one thing that most authors hate doing… Listen to the episode, or read a transcript, here.
This is just a small taste of some of the incredible interviews in our podcast archives. Why not subscribe here so that you never miss an episode?