Danuta Kean, Author at Publishing Talk

Val McDermid, photographed by Charlie Hopkinson © 2009

Danuta Kean 24th July 201724th March 2021 crime, crime fiction, crime writing, Val McDermid

INTERVIEW: Why weddings can be murder for Val McDermid

Where does Wire in the Blood creator Val McDermid get her ideas? Danuta Kean investigates.

Danuta Kean 9th February 2015 Fifty Shades of Grey

Talking Point: Fifty Shades of Grey

Danuta Kean looks at the fastest-selling paperback of all time – the publishing phenomenon that is Fifty Shades of Grey – and asks: “Why?”

Careers conferences

Danuta Kean 19th April 2011 Interns, LBF11, London Book Fair

Are internships the way to get into publishing?

Temps. Remember them? They used to be the people who came in to cover the donkey work jobs no one wanted or no one had time to do. They also used to be the route into publishing for the vast majority – especially women. Not any more. Now budding publishers are expected to work free in long unpaid internships.

Case Studies Writing

Danuta Kean 19th January 201115th August 2021 Julia Crouch, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, writer's block, Writing

How #NaNoWriMo helped Julia Crouch win a three-book deal with Headline

Writers’ block: two words that strike fear into every writer. But for the past 11 years every November a website has come to the rescue. National Novel Writing Month was founded in 1999 by US-based freelance Chris Baty and 20 other writers. Aimed simply at getting words on the page, it sets participants a target of 50,000 words written by the end of the month, and provides forums and exercises aimed at overcoming writer’s block. It has an impressive success rate: of the 165,000 participants in 2009, over 30,000 crossed the 50,000 word line at the end of November.
One of those who participated in 2008 was creative writing graduate Julia Crouch, who had hit a wall. It helped more than she expected: before Christmas the books that came out of NaNoWriMo won her a three book deal with Headline. Her début, the psychological thriller Cuckoo, is published in March. Here she explains how NaNoWriMo helped.

Interviews Writing

Danuta Kean 5th January 201117th May 2020 #writerwednesday, A Woman of Substance, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Writing

INTERVIEW: What does it take to be a bestselling novelist? Barbara Taylor Bradford explains

Want to be a bestselling novelist? In the first of our features on writing, Barbara Taylor Bradford tells Danuta Kean what it takes.
Barbara Taylor Bradford is a tonic: a tonic for writers jaded by capricious publishers whose loyalty to authors’ careers is barely longer than a supermarket promotion. She is also a lesson to all that hard work is as essential to a long career as a passion about writing. At 77 there is no slacking off for BTB. Thirty-one years after her blockbuster début A Woman of Substance appeared, she has just published her 26th novel, Playing the Game, backed by a publicity schedule that would daunt far younger writers.