THE NOVEL IN SOCIETY

IN SEARCH OF THE SECRET KNOCK

A few years ago I attended a talk by the novelist Nick Hornby. Everything he said about writing made sense, but one thing in particular stuck in my mind. 'If your writing is good,' he said, 'and you keep knocking on doors, eventually someone will let you in'.

In this blog, I hope to do justice to his statement, which has been my mantra for so long. In the first part I shall focus on my attempts at being published before taking my MA. The second part will deal with things I have learned since beginning it. Throughout, I shall combine quotes from those in the industry with my lecture notes, as well as my own research and experiences - and those of a novelist who was last year discovered in Jonny Geller's 'slush pile'. The result I hope, will be a worthwhile guide for aspiring writers - factual and fair, inspirational but realistic. It will show, among other things, that the opening of the door is really just the beginning.

First of all, what is good writing?

Michael Legat writes in An Author's Guide To Publishing : 'The thing that gets you a contract is not who you know, but the quality of your work and its ability to bring out the love factor in an editor.' Jill Black, a former director of The Bodley Head maintains, 'we don't know what we're looking for, but when we see it, it shines from the page'. Amanda Ross, producer of Richard and Judy's book club, talks of 'something that enriches your experience in some way'. And the publisher Alan Samson is looking for 'a really authentic voice that makes you turn every page'.

Hhhhmm. We'll come back to this later.

For now let's accept that there is quite simply a certain 'authority' in the writing, something which sets it apart, something every editor can recognise within a few sentences. They want to stick with the tried, tested and successful, yet they want something new too. They want the Next Big Thing. They are after all in business.

So, when we as aspiring writers send out our first three chapters - which we hope have the above qualities, even if we don't know what they are exactly - is there anything more we can do? Is there some other lure, some other strategy we can incorporate? The novel, after all, is finished, 'spun out of the author's own guts over many months, sometimes with much pain and anxiety'.1

Cynics (or are they realists?) will advise us to go out and marry a football star or become a 'sleb' in our own right. Like Jordan. Just look how John Blake of John Blake Publishing reinvented this page three glamour model as a housewives' favourite!

What we have to remember is that the greater part of the profits of a publishing house is made on just a few titles - and sometimes just one. Often a 'sleb' is involved - they do after all, have a ready-made audience. Gabriel Zaid says in So Many Books: 'The trick is to ensure that money isn't lost on most titles - and that some are successful enough to make the whole operation profitable'. Interestingly, Joanna Trollope has recently left Bloomsbury and gone to Transworld for a six figure sum because she said JK Rowling was getting all the attention!

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Over 20 years ago I sent out a manuscript to an editor called Joe O'Reilly. He wrote back saying that although the novel was not for him, he liked the 'detached irony' of my letter and that if I could write another novel in this 'voice', he would like to see it. By the time I had done this, he had moved on and no-one else wanted to know. But I had been bitten by the bug - and had become so accustomed to observing and jotting things down that soon I had materiel for another novel. But let's first consider this 'letter'.

Chriss McCallum in Writing For Publication refers to the letter that accompanies a manuscript as the 'introductory handshake'. You must get this right, all the experts advise. Your personality must come across, yet it must be business-like and professional too - and it must be no more than a page long. Max Kinnings, novelist and screenwriter agrees with Danuta Kean, journalist and publishing commentator that the letter must contain the 'essence' of your novel, 'boiled down' to a paragraph. It must also say a 'little bit about you'....why you are equipped to write this particular novel and why you wrote it. Mention your target audience, comparable books and where you fit in. As Max Kinnings says, 'make yourself look like someone who is going places. Don't try and be whacky, don't grovel, be professional......Spend a LONG time getting it right!'

Same with the synopsis - although with this, different people expect different things. Agent Carole Blake will not read chapters from a potential new client unless she also has the synopsis. She says 'it makes it a lot easier to analyse the use of characters in the plot, the pacing and the tension, because these things are clearer in a ten page synopsis'. Stella Whitelaw2 goes on to say that 'a good synopsis can sell a book.... It shows the contents and flavour of your novel', and acts as a 'sales pitch, your TV commercial'. She advises writers to make it bright and intriguing. She suggests a page of synopsis for every 20,000 words of a planned novel (so 5 pages would cover a 100,000 word novel) and she thinks short is better than long. Irving Wallace's synopsis for his book The Prize was 40 pages long. Mills and Boon like one or two pages.

By now you will already have gathered there are no hard and fast rules with publishing. In fact Gabriel Zaid says, 'A book's destination is always incomplete and unpredictable. To write publish or distribute a book is like putting a message in a bottle and tossing it out to sea: its destination is uncertain. Yet time and again the miracle occurs; a book finds it reader, a reader finds his book'. And he admits 'guesswork and luck play decisive roles in the encounter'.

I had no idea of this when I finished my second novel, though Elizabeth Wright at Darley Anderson rang me at home to say she liked my first three chapters. She could tell I had no experience of synopsis writing, but would like to see the rest of the novel anyway. We spoke further and exchanged letters about improvements to the novel, but once again, nothing came of it.

The thing is, as Diana Athill points out in her book Stet: 'The person with whom the writer wants to be in touch is the reader. If he could speak to him directly without a middle man, that is what he would do.' She even goes on to say that publishers, distributors and the like are 'a mortifying necessity'. Interestingly, both she and Gabriel Zaid scarcely mention literary agents in their books about the industry. Odd, when Alan Samson, publisher at Weidenfeld and Nicholson was at a 'do' recently where there were 200 authors and 185 agents - and he says that in the future there may well be more agents than publishers, as authors move about.

Max Kinnings says 'an agent lends you credibility' and that a writer is paying for the agent's network of contacts as much as anything. And although Diana Athill thinks it's a shame that an author needs this 'middle man' to give his book 'existence', Chriss McCullum thinks it allows for a certain amount of 'quality control'. Yes, the people behind the doors are looking for a reason to 'reject' but they are also looking for a reason to 'accept', or they wouldn't be there. You may pay an agent about 15%, but this will be 15% of sales that 'you wouldn't have got without the agent's know-how'.

Nigel Spriggs now has an agent - a very good agent. I met Nigel at The Winchester Conference a few years ago. He wrote an account of his journey to publication for this essay and it is included as Appendix A. I cite him because we have kept contact and buoyed each other up over the years - he is such an inspiration. Living proof of Nick Hornby's words being true.

The Winchester Conference is a bit like Marmite - you either love it or hate it. I loved it because the first year I was short-listed for a writing prize with another novel I had started - and I met two agents3 who asked to see more - and, so importantly, gave me feedback, of which I took note.

Slowly, slowly things began to change. People were beginning to be 'in' when I called. Some of them even returned my calls. 'Not this time, love,' seemed to be the general message, 'but we'd be interested in anything else you write'. Knocking at doors was getting easier.

So I began another novel - a fourth. This would be 'the one'. As Alison Baverstock points out in Marketing Your Book: An Author's Guide, 'lots of people finish books, but the number of those who keep going until they find a publisher is far fewer'. Nigel Spriggs kept going and he got there. I stopped, temporarily, as I'll explain later.

For now I would like to consider the most important person in all this - the reader. According to Nigel Spriggs, the most important thing his agent Jonny Geller told him was 'to consider the reader and what's in it for them'. Don't forget that time is by far the most important aspect of reading. There are so many other things a reader could be doing.

When the book first appeared, Socrates rejected it as inferior to conversation4 but it has gone through many permutations and moved from strength to strength. The progenitor of the paperback revolution was Allen Lane 5 who took books into far more homes than ever before. Nowadays, observes Danuta Kean - the average person buys eight books a year. However, Diana Athill thinks that 'reading is going the same way as eating, the greatest demand being for the quick and easy and for the simple, easily recognisable flavours such as sugar or vinegar and their mental equivalents.........not that this common desire has just come into being but that it is scattered far more lavishly than it used to be.'

It seems as though non-fiction is taking over from fiction. The 'clogs and shawls' fiction stories are now real life misery memoirs. Only the other day Radio Four was airing the idea of a whole new genre of 'recovered alcoholic memoirs'.

However, whereas 'non fiction is now qualitatively worse', says Alan Samson at Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 'on the bestselling list, the fiction is qualitatively better'. This, he says, is because 20 odd years ago the industry was 'category driven', that is to say, that those at the top end of the industry would be saying things such as, 'we need another crime writer.....' - and another crime writer would then be 'got'.

'In publishing,' says Alan, 'it is the editor who is the sales person....who has to begin the 'buzz''. And it starts 'in house'. Sometimes it is like being on an 'internal selling mission', trying to 'overcome a certain inertia'. Publishing seems to be a lot about the transference of this energy to the rest of the supply chain.

Which is all very well for the author who may be through the open door and wiping his feet on the mat. But he cannot get too comfortable....Nigel Spriggs again: 'At every step of the journey, each high opens up the door to a possible low. An agent is interested; you get your hopes up, but know it might come to nothing, and then you'll be back at square one. The agent's going to represent you and start submitting your novel; that's fantastic but you might not get an offer, and then you'll be back at square one again, but crushed with that 'so near yet so far ' feeling. The first offer comes in, a definite high, you've made it, your novel's going to be published - but straight away, you have the edit to worry about, and the worry that you'll somehow mess it up and disappoint people who've paid money for your writing and put their reputations on the line in order to support you. Then you get over that, and you have sales figures to worry about, reviews to get used to, publicity to cope with, and all the time, you've got to write your second novel, and you desperately want that to be better than the first.'

As far back as the 1960s Anthony Burgess wrote in The Novel Now: 'Very occasionally the best book and the best seller coincide, but generally the books that make the most money are those which lack both style and subtlety and present a grossly over-simplified version of life'. He said back then, that the novel had become a Protean form as a result of the huge range of people writing.

Which brings us back to Nick Hornby's words - and my little mantra.

With my fourth novel complete, I sent it to The Literary Consultancy for appraisal, made changes where appropriate and sent it off to Peter Straus who was having some success with The Bad Mother's Handbook (mainly distributed through Tesco6).He liked my work and wanted to see more. He liked the whole book and suggested changes. I made them. He advised me to get email. I did. He didn't like the title and we went over and over that issue. But things were finally building momentum! I was proof that you could get on without having any contacts in the industry whatsoever!

I started another novel. Peter 'liked it' but he didn't 'love it'. I set off to Winchester again and entered the beginning of both novels into a competition. As it happened, the one Peter preferred was short listed for a prize and also caught the attention of Carolyn Caughey of Hodder. And agent, Simon Trewin expressed an interest in the other. I was full of joy, optimism and naivety.

Nothing panned out.

But I did get plenty of encouraging correspondence! Fortunately, I had met Charlotte Mendelson, editor at Hodder Headline, on an Arvon Course and she had given lots of feedback on the novel which Peter had sent her. Her partner, author Joanna Briscoe, suggested I try Luigi Bonomi who had then set up his own literary agency and so would be looking to build up his list.

I look back at my emails to Nigel Spriggs during this time and am amazed at my stoicism - and his support. Luigi sent the novel out to nine editors. One emailed back to say she was enjoying it, then another, then came a couple of rejections. Days passed and finally all the responses were back. Offers for publication: Nil

I had let down Luigi for taking a chance on me. I had let down Nigel and other writers who were rooting for me and I had run out of money and goodwill from my family.

'Why don't you just get on with your life?' my mother said. And so I did. I stopped knocking on doors. Ashamed, I suppose, I also temporarily lost contact with Nigel.

My journalism course (NCTJ7) was most enlightening. I was, after all, finally being published! And my portfolio gained a merit and came in second place out of the class. The strangest and most ironic thing of all, though, came during my work experience at Woman and Home magazine: I was asked to take care of the short story entries ... if I hadn't been doing the journalism, I may well have entered the competition myself. As I sorted and stapled and read the various entries, I could 'feel' myself being called back to fiction. I did try to fight it. But then..... Surely. I .Could. Try. My. Luck. With. Just. One. More. Novel.......

And so here I am.... trying to SHOW you, as well to TELL you, about the state of the writing industry.


And what have I learned?

That despite supposedly huge progress in all aspects of publishing, Alison Baverstock is right when says8 the publishing industry is 'gloriously amateurish'. Agent Judith Murray, goes so far as to say 'publishing is not a business, but a gambling process'. 'Be strategic' she told us. Do the MA at Brunel, I say!

Look:
At the beginning of this blog I asked what good writing is - and since studying for my MA I knew I was getting closer to understanding. But in the same way that someone telling you what riding a bike is like, will never be the same as experiencing it for yourself, so also with good writing. I was ploughing through manuscripts - both solicited and unsolicited - during my internship at Weidenfeld and Nicholson and was quite enjoying a novel sent in by the agent Julian Friedman, by an already published African writer. Another manuscript was handed to me to read later. I put down the one I had been quite enjoying to have a quick glance at the new one.....And I did not put this new manuscript down. Neither did I return to the one I had been reading. I had been 'seduced'. I hadn't known what I was looking for, but there it was, shining from the page just like people say it does. No one had told me or warned me or prompted me - it was just so obvious! I had to tell someone! The book is called River Of Words by James A Levine - a debut novelist. Masterpieces, so they say, spring out of conviction. I feel privileged to have been its second reader. I hope it will go to the top.

Which brings us back down to earth - and the reality of the workings of the industry. I'm beginning to see that there are three sides to writing. Art, Craft and Business.
What I've learned on this course (apart from a lot more about the Craft and the Art) - and what I didn't realise before - is that it isn't all about the writing. Well - it is of course! But there is so much else to consider.

Danuta Kean echoes this sentiment: 'Now more than ever, authors need to be savvy about the industry in which they operate. The death of the mid-list and the ascent of novels packaged around celebrity and misery memoir 'names' is more than depressing.' She says the main question publishers now ask themselves is: will the likes of Waterstone's have any reason to reject this novel?

But let's get back even more to basics; to getting the pitch and submission package right. We've already looked at the accompanying letter and the synopsis. But as Max Kinnings points out, 'the blurb is all about packaging. Things that are easily labelled are easily sold'. It really is no good my crashing out a novel to all and sundry. I need to be specific. I need to do my research. When I'm asked 'What is the novel about?' I should be prepared with the answer, 'It's a story about....................' in three forms: 1) in a sentence 2) in a paragraph and 3) in a longer synopsis. This way I'll be prepared for any opportunity to 'pitch' that might come my way. I will of course, have done a little market research and checked on the topicality of what I've written about - especially given that a book can take over a year to come out.

Gabriel Zaid says: 'For an author to send writing to a publisher without first informing himself about the character of the house and its list is like talking without listening', and Celia Brayfield says in Bestseller that approaching a publisher 'without an agent's endorsement is the best way to collect rejection slips'. If you are heeding this and still getting rejections, take heart from Max's words: 'You must learn to embrace your rejections. It shows you that you're putting stuff out there.' And remember you have zero chance of being published if no-one at all gets to see your work. A play about the relationship between author and deal breaker has been written by Martin Wagner. It's called The Agent.


'Getting published is all about branding,' says Danuta Kean over and over and over again. Become a package. Become a brand. Know your market. Know your target. 'Place' yourself within the industry. Remember you're selling yourself as well as your book - and not just this first book, but others to follow. Consider the author Joanna Harris whose second novel was turned down by her publisher because it was too different from the first.

So important is this branding, this image, that Nigel Spriggs changed his name to Daniel Clay! Unique Selling Points (USPs) are exploited, author profiles are tweaked, relevant information is 'bigged up' while irrelevancies vis-a-vis audience interest/promotion are played down.

From the very first pitch letter to the putting of the book on shop shelves, this branding must be there, like the letters through a stick of rock. Zaid says: 'Just like writers who make things out of words that are not theirs, inventive publishers, booksellers, librarians, teachers, anthologizers and critics gather texts that are not theirs into meaningful and appealing assemblages....Booksellers give their store a certain identity and the probability of finding a particular book increases in relation to the clarity of the store's focus - as well as the diligence and shrewdness of the bookseller and the size of the business'. This 'constellation factor' according to Zaid, carries more weight than the factor of scale. 'Indeed, a book outside the constellation in which it makes sense is an orphaned book.'

So - think carefully! What's your tag? What's your Unique Selling Point? Whose writing is similar to yours? Who do you admire? Is he or she on the books of the person you're contacting? And remember it's not only the quality of the writing, but the quality of the idea that counts. With the world becoming 'smaller', it pays to make your story global. Mention competitions won, other work published or aired on radio or acted. Get the book banned and it might go to Number 1. A little scandal and spin won't do any harm. Have your second novel ready to go. In fact, prove that you have a career ready to go. At least you don't have a bad sales track record which so frequently deters publishers.

If you manage to get a title quote or two, that's good too. Although they may not shift shelves of books, they will surely help place it within the market - as do jacket covers.
Consider how Zadie Smith's jacket design impacts on a reader's self-image - bold, young and hip. A book needs 'tube' factor - it is after all making a statement. We live in a neophile culture and the new book you are reading says as much about you to other passengers on the underground as any other accessory. However, as Danuta Kean points out, 'If Asda say they would order 100,000 copies with a different jacket, you change the jacket. Simple as that.' Note the repackaging of other books that went on after the success of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. And consider the words of Sam Leith, literary editor of The Telegraph and regular contributor to The Spectator... When asked how he decides which books he will send out for review, he replies, 'By the cover'.

An aspiring writer must thrust modesty out the window - but in a humble way. As Danuta says: 'There is no room for shame in a crowded market. Get out there and use every contact you have.' But remember, she says: 'Publishing is a small world. A little grace goes a long way.' She points out that Nigella Lawson takes treats to eat to Random House and that Maeve Binchy wrote to bookshops to thank them after an extensive tour.

Ah yes the public awaits! Just remember that marketing means 'focusing on the customer'8 - and the author has to play his part. He must put on his sociable hat and meet the public, always thinking up new ways of doing this, as if it were a sub-profession. It doesn't always have to be a physical appearance - blogs, radio interviews and paper articles count too. It's simply good for sales if writers have what publishers call a high-profile. No one wants to invest in a one-off, half-hearted author. Just remember what you are selling and to whom.

It is worth mentioning here about the rise of Book Clubs. Do get out and meet as many as time will permit. Word-of-mouth is still the best form of advertising and if you can get each person in that Book Club to mention your book to five people, who mention it to five people, who mention.......and so it goes on. Consider Richard and Judy: According to Alan Samson, who has his own guidelines for writing a novel (see Appendix B), Richard and Judy choices are very shrewd, although, he says, it is a sad fact that readers who are told what is good to read by Richard and Judy usually won't go on to read the backlist of an author. It is also a sad fact that whereas 20 years ago he would have chosen a book for being beautifully written, nowadays that would not be top of his list of things to mention. 'Issue driven' books are what Richard and Judy and Book Clubs across the country are now going for.

Francis Bickmore, editor at Canongate Books said at a talk I attended at the University of Brunel that he approves of the power of Reading Groups - and there seems to be nationwide agreement. According to The Author magazine (Spring 2008), Asda is launching a mass market Book Club with Hachette, promoting an exclusive Asda edition of a paperback per month at a discount along with the author's backlist (which, of course, may or may not be read!). Last year, Tesco launched a Book Club with Random House along similar lines. And the Evening Standard has launched a Book Club with Foyles, including an interactive website offering selected titles at half price.....See how BIG you have to think - and that's just in England! There's a whole world out there waiting to do deals! And yet don't lose that personal touch either.

Amanda Craig said in a lecture10, 'most books are never reviewed.' The reviewing business is, she says, 'mired with politics and corruption' and 'the judgement that dictates whether or not a book is reviewed is often dictated by matters of name and fame, rather than individual quality'. She goes on: 'No other profession suffers from this nightmare of proximity, which causes a thousand compromises, as well as limitless opportunities for revenge.'

'Log rolling' (whereby someone praises someone's book who sees the favour is returned) seems fairly standard practice, though according to Danuta Kean, 'reviews don't sell books though they can get word of mouth going.' Peer group recommendations seem to count more now, not literary critics. According to Amanda Craig, 'readers feel distrust for critics'. Although, as always, there are two sides to this argument. Sam Leith writes in The Author (Summer 2008), 'we never commission hatchet jobs' and points out that a huge number of writers are acquainted at what he calls 'cocktail party level'. He says: 'I am sincerely trying to give everyone a fair crack at the whip. If I fail, all I can plead is that I fail in good faith.'

Note also, that most books are never translated and that, as Danuta points out 'every best selling author seems to acquire a plagiarism accusation in much the same way as film stars acquire stalkers'. Remember - you cannot copyright ideas. And watch out for libel!

Another thing worth bearing in mind is pointed out by Deborah Moggach, Chairman of the Society of Authors: 'Unfortunately publishing is not only age-ist but look-ist too'. Not very encouraging for the slightly more mature among us. But, hey! We have more lively biographies. I have proved I am resilient and tolerant, for example, because I used to be an air stewardess. I'm good at 'working a room' because I used to be an event manager. I'm a fluent French speaker as the result of the French father of one of my children. And my love of writing has led me to acquire a list of rejections which reads like a roll call of the publishing world.....Perhaps this could be my Unique Selling Point?

Though Nigel's experience was not so different from mine - and many others too. The list goes on. But as he says, 'no matter what stage of this journey you're at, it's important to remember it's all about the writing, sitting down to write, and the fact you were driven to sit down and write in the first place. Everything else that might come from that, rejection, success etc, is a sideshow, sometimes pleasant and sometimes not'.

Meanwhile the industry moves on. At The London Book Fair this year there was plenty of evidence that the Indian and Chinese markets are growing. And in the Middle East, e-books are proving a huge success. 'They don't have the same relationship with paper as us,' says Danuta.
But paper or no paper it's still the words that count. And as long as they do, new authors will be sought. The more an author knows about the writing industry, the more his knowledge can help him. Perhaps, as he starts knocking at doors, he should consider the publishing world as a large neighbourhood, a warren of twisty-turning, maze-like streets. He knows he has a long, hard journey ahead of him. He needs as detailed a map as possible (more than simply the Writers and Artists Yearbook!) to get where he's going. Finding the 'Fiction' neighbourhood just isn't enough. His map has to show him the exact houses which may be receptive to his work - and he has to make sure that his work is not only good, but that both he and it are so clearly branded that they can be easily 'placed' within the great, chaotic scheme of things. He must ask for directions and be courteous to people in the neighbourhood. He must be 'savvy' as we have just seen, and study the particular houses for peculiarities: One may insist he rings the doorbell. Another won't respond unless he knocks twice. Yet another only receives through a slot in the side door. Keep knocking, keep trying and keep writing. And even then, as Alison Baverstock says: 'Never forget that you are selling yourself to your publisher, long after they have agreed to publish your book.' Nigel Spriggs and many others have proven that it really can be done.


FOOTNOTES
1 Diana Athill - Stet: An Editor's Life (Granta Books 2002)
2 Stella Whitelaw - How to Write and Sell a Book Proposal (Writers' Bookshop 2000)
3 Teresa Chris and Lorella Belli
4 Gabriel Zaid - So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance (Paul Dry Books 2003)
5 John Feather - A History of British Publishing (Routledge 1988)
6 Note - Danuta Kean says 'Booksellers are caught in a vortex of Amazon and supermarkets'
7 NCTJ - certificate from the National Council of Training for Journalists
8 Alison Baverstock - Marketing Your Book: An Author's Guide (A&C Black 2001)
9 Alison Baverstock - Marketing Your Book: An Author's Guide (A&C Black 2001)
10 - A printed copy of which was given to us by Danuta


BIBLIOGRAHY
Gabriel Zaid - So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance (Paul Dry Books 2003)
Diana Athill - Stet: An Editor's Life (Granta Books 2002)

Julian Feather - History of British Publishing (Routledge 1988)

Carole Blake - From Pitch to Publication (Pan 1999)

Michael Legat - An Author's Guide to Publishing (Robert Hale 1986)

Amanda Craig - A Vicious Circle (Fourth Estate 1997)

Alison Baverstock - Marketing Your Book: An Author's Guide (A&C Black 2005)

The Paris Interviews - Vol 1 (Canongate 2007)

Anthony Burgess - The Novel Now: A Student's Guide To Contemporary Fiction (Faber & Faber 1967)

Celia Brayfield - Bestseller (Fourth Estate 1996)

Chriss McCallum - Writing for Publication (How To Books 1999)

Betsy Lerner - An Editor's Advice to Writers: The Forest for the Trees (Macmillan 2002)

Stella Whitelaw - How to Write and Sell a Book Proposal (Writers' Bookshop 2000)
Articles

Cupboard Love: Sam Leith on the Truth About Book Reviews (The Author Spring 2008)

There's a First Time For Everyone: Talking with six authors (The Observer 27th February 2005)

Martin Wagner: Agent Provocateur (Daily Telegraph ?)

Danuta Kean: Chain Reaction (The Author Summer 2007)

Danuta Kean: The Sincerest Form Of Flattery? (Mslexia Oct Nov Dec 2006)

Danuta Kean: Don't Give Up The Day Job (Mslexia ?)

Danuta Kean: Seven Seasons to Zero (The Bookseller ?)