It has been exciting to catch up with Sue Moorcroft to see all that has happened in her career since I interviewed her back in September 2014.
Hi Sue and welcome back! I know that 2016 has proved to be an exciting year for you, so tell us how much has changed.
This is an interesting idea – to be asked to update an old interview! I’m genuinely surprised by how much has happened in a little over two years and really thrilled that so much of what I was just beginning to work towards in 2014 has come to pass.
I had to look at my life and make some decisions. I wasn’t getting where I wanted to be writing-wise and I felt under tremendous time-pressures. I examined everything I did under three headings:
– What makes me happy/unhappy
– What’s good for me/bad for me
– What earns me money
My first move was to drop a column I was writing for free. It was about one of my passions, Formula 1, but it was spoiling the races for me as instead of just enjoying them I was making notes and thinking about angles.
A far less easy decision was to step away from the chair of the Romantic Novelists’ Association. The RNA is another passion of mine but being vice-chair was not only gobbling up hundreds of hours a year but putting me under stress at a time when I had other stresses. The RNA is a big part of my life and I felt that I’d let everyone down but I can’t regret that decision.
Encouraged by the success of the above I realised that instead of waiting for a contract with a big publisher, which would enable me to drop a lot of teaching work and the less lucrative writing, I had to drop it first. With more time and free of rigid and frequent deadlines I could concentrate on that elusive contract.
Did it work?
I think so. The Christmas Promise was sold to Avon Books UK (HarperCollins) as their lead title and has climbed the Kindle UK charts. The paperback goes on sale in the UK on 1 December. Fischer in Germany made it their lead title, too, it will come out with Bazar in Denmark and there’s an Italian offer in the wind.
What teaching I do undertake is pretty much to my own schedule and in 2017 will involve Dubai and Italy.
Getting to this stage involved a big leap of faith along with good fortune and a good agent but, looking back, I wouldn’t change those decisions. As well as achieving more commercial success I’m happier and more relaxed and can enjoy my writing more.
Award-winning author Sue Moorcroft writes contemporary women’s fiction with occasionally unexpected themes. A past vice chair of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and editor of its two anthologies, Sue also writes short stories, serials, articles, writing ‘how to’ and is a creative writing tutor. She’s won a Readers’ Best Romantic Read Award and the Katie Fforde Bursary.
Sue’s latest book is The Christmas Promise. It’s about Christmas, hats, revenge porn, being skint, a WAG called Booby Ruby and a marketing plan that goes viral. Also Ava and Sam.
Website: www.suemoorcroft.com
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valerie holmes, author 