Inspirational Authors: Kylie Welsh

Continuing in our series of inspirational authors, today we have excerpts from an interview with Kylie Welsh. Kylie is the author of “Impertinent Women: Women in pursuit of the extraordinary” and is currently writing a fiction novel. She also has a blog about issues affecting modern Australian women, and is a freelance writer.

Here is an extract of the transcript from the interview, which is available for download in full at the end of the post. The full interview goes into writing, getting published, marketing and sales as well as Kylie's personal story.

So Kylie, tell us a bit about your first book “Impertinent Women”

It was published in 2005 by Zeus and that was a very exciting project for me to be involved with. Prior to this, I hadn’t really done a lot of writing. I had certainly been involved in writing training courses around self-development and personal effectiveness. That’s part of writing but I had not written for publication before.

I started to have a look at women and their relationships and how women were making great advancements in wonderful careers and experiencing financial independence, but many of them weren’t experiencing fulfillment in their personal lives. That was my situation as well at the time.

I came up with the idea to start exploring what was going on for modern women in their relationships—what they were looking for now, how their expectations have changed, and that’s really how “Impertinent Women” evolved.

It gained momentum straightaway because a lot of people said “I’d love to participate. Interview me. Interview me,” so everyone was very game to talk about what was going with their relationships.

So I had the idea and thought, Oh, can I really do this? And part of what made it come to fruition for me was really the opportunity to get other people involved as well. That allowed the momentum to really develop.

So how long did it take you to write “Impertinent Women”?

It took me a while, about three years part-time – which was a really long time. Because I hadn’t had any writing experience, it took me a little while to develop my confidence. So I did little bits and pieces, and then I’d change it. So yes, it took about three years part-time to do it.

I think that is quite common with a first book – how did you keep yourself motivated through the process?

For me, the area that I was writing about, there was always new information becoming available, so I was always able to keep adding to what I was doing. Also, as I mentioned before, just having other people involved and their passion and commitment was important. That kept it going for me as well.

Because I loved what I was doing so much, even though it was a long time, I was really enjoying the process. I wasn’t putting massive pressure on myself to have it done by a certain time. It was more just exploring the process.

But, obviously, yes, next time around I wouldn’t do it that way, but for me that worked at the time.

So what will you do differently next time?

Well, on reflection, to establish yourself as a writer is a good step initially. When I was going through the publication process, I hadn’t really had any writing experience and that was somewhat limiting when approaching publishers.

I think doing some freelance work, posting your articles on the internet, anything like that is really important. It gets your name out there and I think that side of it is important.

Also, it would have been good for me to do a course or training in writing a non-fiction book, or maybe even read something like this that other people have done. I would do more research initially about that process, rather than just going with the flow, which is what I did.

Many people think, Oh, you know, you have to receive some kind of inspiration before you write. Would you be of that school or do you think you just have to sit down and do the work?

No, writing is very much about being disciplined. I think if you wait for inspiration you could be waiting a long time, because sometimes writing is an effort—not all parts of writing are fun. Some of it is hard work and you need to just set aside the time and do it.

If it is so much hard work, why are you a writer?

For me, once I unleashed my writing side, there wasn’t any turning back. It felt like this was really what I was meant to do. It’s what I get the most enjoyment out of and what I really love doing.

The work that I do is very interesting and I get to meet and talk with a lot of interesting people. But most important to me now is that I really love what I do.

How does it make you feel to say, “I'm an author.”

It’s an amazing feeling and something that I’m very proud of. I think that writing a book is one of the most amazing and wonderful things you can do in your life, so I would always recommend anybody to find their passion and write about it.

For me, it opened up a whole other career path and also it enables people to really do what they love and work in an area that’s really interesting and motivating.

From a professional perspective, it sets you up as a specialist in a certain area because when you’ve written a book about a topic you’ve got credibility. If you’ve been published or you’re published and if it’s selling successfully, it gives you a lot of opportunities to explore other areas. If you hadn’t written a book, those doors just wouldn’t be open to you.

So you were published by Zeus after approaching other Australian publishers. You said you have twelve month’s worth of rejection slips so you have faced every author's fear. How did that make you feel and how did you get over that?

Look, it makes you feel not very good at the time, but it is part of the process, so you do need to toughen up. If you’re going to work in a creative field, especially in writing, this is going to be a part of the process so I knew that it was likely to happen.

Because I believed in the book, I tried to maintain my enthusiasm by knowing that, with each rejection I was getting one step closer and that I was learning in this process. So I tried to take the good out of the situation, as well.

And really, it’s just about being persistent. Because for some people it can happen straightaway but that’s a very unusual situation. For most it takes a lot longer, and you have to have conviction in what you’re doing and also just really be persistent. A lot of that is your own mind work. It is up to you to become too negative or upset by rejection.

The thing that I’ve seen dealing with the publishers is that they are busy but reasonable people. A lot were very complimentary about the work that I was doing. They said that they really liked the book. I didn’t actually get anyone say anything awful to me. So that was a good thing as well.

Unfortunately, I kept being told, “We love it, but it’s not our type of thing,” or, “We published something similar not lot long ago,” or those sorts of excuses. Because they were actually saying to me, “We think it’s good,” that is what I focused on, rather than the rejection. So it’s about looking at the positives.

Here's the big question—how did your book sales go? Did you make a million dollars?

No I didn’t. For me at the time it wasn’t necessarily the biggest thing. I really just wanted to get my book published and to establish some credibility that way, which I did.

Look, it sold very well in the time. Realistically in the shops it sells for maybe about three to six months, which isn’t a long time. And when a book gets published through a publisher— that initial period—there’s a lot of marketing activity and your book sales are good, but that only lasts for a short time.

So then, ultimately, that’s when you need to keep the momentum up, and to think about some good ways to keep your book sales coming through.

How are you currently marketing your writing?

Well, I market it basically through contacting people. It’s getting on the phone and selling myself that way. People do get to know your work.

Recently, because I’ve worked for a newspaper for the last twelve months, I had another publication contact me. They noticed that I wasn’t writing articles for the newspaper anymore, so your reputation gets into the marketplace which is great.

Also obviously marketing yourself on the internet is very important. I get contact from people reading my articles on-line.

What are your top three tips for new authors?

I think the most important thing to do is— to enjoy the process more than anything. Writing a book is one of the most exciting things you can do. You should try not to get bogged down in all the kind of concerns or anything like that— just enjoy it, because it is a wonderful process.

Secondly if you do want to get your book published through a publisher, then I would be doing courses and workshops now and start making contacts. Think about who you’re going to target. Don’t leave it until you have finished your book and then start thinking about what publishers you should target. I think it’s good if you think about it up front and start building those relationships.

And if you are going to be self-published, then that’s a great idea as well. Just do make sure you do some training in publishing and promotion, because learning how to market yourself is not a skill that comes naturally to many people.

Sometimes just by doing a little bit of training and working with other people, you get many different ideas. That is the most important thing—knowing how to promote yourself and market yourself.

How can people get in touch with you or find your work?

Well, they can go to www.kyliewelsh.com and see the type of articles that I’ve been writing.

I’ve got a website www.impertinentwomen.com where people can have a look at my book and order it that way as well.

Thanks Kylie – you're an inspirational author!

You can download the full PDF transcript of the interview here. Right click and Save As =>Interview_with_Kylie_Welsh_Oct_2008

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There are also more interviews including mp3 audio downloads and transcripts on the Resources page.

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You can leave questions for Kylie, or suggestions for new topics here as a comment.