ITIAPTWC Episode 17 – Paul Burke On Books
In this episode Paul and I cover the one subject we avoided in our previous chat: writing books.
Maybe you want to write a book. Maybe you’ve written half of one and you’re not sure whether to finish it. Maybe you’ve finished one and don’t know what to do next.
Maybe you just want to hear me and Paul having a chat.
All of the above are great reasons to have a listen.
We discuss…
Why we wrote our books in the first place (holidays and frustration were involved).
The fact that you can write WHATEVER YOU WANT! Including the word ‘FUCK’!
How lonely it can be.
Agent-finding fun.
The importance of persistence.
Other people’s opinions.
Literary vs commercial fiction.
Getting research right.
The money side of things.
If the money side of things is so shit, why do it?
The publishing industry vs the advertising industry.
Reverse sexism?
How to sell your book.
Contractual bollocks/not giving up your day job.
If, for some inexplicable reason, our chat is not enough for you, try this interview with Cheryl Strayed (author of Wild, amongst others), where she covers similar things from a much more successful point of view.
Paul’s books are available here (along with all the other great things he does). Mine is available here.
Here’s the chat, the Soundcloud link and the iTunes link. And I didn’t have to split the episode in half! Hooray!
Hi Ben.
Really enjoying your podcasts – as I know a number of other people are! So thank you.
Also really liked this particular one on books. Are you planning on doing any others like this one? Also are there any good book podcasts you would personally recommend? There’s a lot of noise!
Thanks again!
Do you mean you want more books podcasts? Or more that are on one particular subject?
Thanks for the kind words.
Yes sorry! More book podcasts would be great.