“I knew that if I wanted an agent (and to be published) I had to try something new. I had to make sure my novel was the absolute BEST it could be, and I knew I had got it as far as I could on my own.”
“I worked hard on my MS for years making sure it was as strong as I could possibly make it before I wasted any agent’s time asking them to read it.”- Tess Woods
“I did have a clear idea of what the book was about and how it fitted into the market. In the case of The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village, it meant identifying a social trend in positive ageing and a gap in the market for novels featuring older women.”- Joanna Nell
“I found that, after so many years of butting my head up against publishing shut-doors, that I’d started to change my voice to suit some ephemeral, unknowable audience. I was trying to write how I thought people wanted me to, in contrast to my actual voice.”- Ben Hobson