Books on Shelves Annie West

Transcript:

Sarah Williams:             Today I’m chatting to Annie West. Thanks for joining me Annie.

Annie West:                  Thanks very much for inviting me, Sarah, it’s a pleasure.

Sarah Williams:             Awesome. So, you’ve got a very long and esteemed career behind you, and I’m really interested to talk to you today.

Annie West:                  Thank you.

Sarah Williams:             Can you tell us how you got into writing, and your journey so far?

Annie West:                  Yeah, sure. I’m a writer because I’m a reader. One of my earliest memories is my dad reading to me while I was lying in bed as a kid. Books have been an absolute joy all my life. I wasn’t one of those kids who … I did actually write a book at the age of 12, now I think about it, but I wasn’t one of those kids who thought she was going to be an author. I thought I was going to do something else, like being an archaeologist or whatever. It was only when I had kids of my own that I really thought perhaps that dream might come true.

Annie West:                  It was always a thought, it would be really nice to be able to write, and I could have this big desk with a lovely view and I could type out my books, or write with my hand, with a quill pen or something, and lots and lots of people would read them and love them. I never thought that it would come true, so I had another career. Then when I had young children I thought, oh I could give it a go.

Annie West:                  I took some time off my day job and joined Romance Writers of Australia, and that fortunately gave me the knowhow to complete a manuscript and to send it off. And I’d got to the stage where I’d been reading lots of romances and loved them, but occasionally I’d read them and the ending wasn’t so satisfying, and thinking, oh I’d really like to do my own. Then I started trying for several years to do that. With the help of my friends, who are other aspiring authors, got my first book contract.

Annie West:                  My first book came out in 2000, with a small press, after a few rejections and a few short stories with New Idea, and Woman’s Day, and things like that, which was really exciting, because there were people who actually wanted to read my stories. Sadly, the small press I was with then went out of business, not [inaudible 00:02:31] because of my story. This was the days before the ebook revolution, and they had major difficulties getting distribution rights. The books just … I couldn’t get paperbacks into the stores. So it went down the gurgler so I was left for the next five years or so, writing and trying again with Mills and Boon Publication, which is where I had sent my first terrible manuscript. When I’d sent it, it was about … Instead of being 50,000 words they wanted, it was about 95,000. It was a very self-indulgent manuscript.

Annie West:                  They sent a lovely letter to me saying, no you’re not suited for this, not this manuscript. But the result of that particular rejection, because it was the publisher I really wanted to publish with, was for me to think, “Oh I could never make it with Mills and Boon Modern Presents,” so I tried everywhere else, well not everywhere, but I tried a lot of other places, and I was sending manuscripts off to New York. I got a lot of good feedback. I had editors saying they loved the characters, they loved the plot, but it wasn’t really what they were after. I had a very Australian tonality, which wasn’t what they were after in the United States and had I thought about trying for London, for Mills and Boon. I said, “Ah, I can’t write a good alpha hero. I’ll give up now.” And I actually wrote something completely different for a while, but it was really hard to stop because I really, really wanted to tell these stories. So I thought, I’ll give it one last shot.

Annie West:                  I went to a workshop, a day workshop that was held in Newcastle in New South Wales, and Miranda Lee and several other authors were there talking about writing a manuscript for Mills and Boon and while I was listening to all this wonderful stuff with Emma Darcy, Miranda Lee, talking about the stories they write, I got an idea for a story. In fact, I came up with a title, which didn’t survive, but anyway. So exciting, and I sat there making notes while I was listening to these wonderful authors, and they just gave me the inspiration to keep going.

Annie West:                  I sent that off to a RW Australia conference. It did win a contest, and the prize was to be judged by an editor in the London office. The London editor didn’t ask to see it and I was really annoyed, because I thought, “Oh this is my one chance!” The book that was going to do it. So I kept revising and kept polishing and then I sent it to the slush pile and several months later I got an email saying, “Would you consider revising, and here are the revisions?” I said, “Of course I would consider it.” I did that and then a couple of months later, I got another email. It wasn’t the phone call. People used to say, “Oh you get the phone call.” Didn’t get a phone call. I got an email saying, “We’d like to offer you a contract.” I’m thinking, really? Really? Really?

Annie West:                  And so I’ve been writing for Mills and Boon since then.

Sarah Williams:             Fantastic. So tell us about your stories and the sorts of topics. It is contemporary or?

Annie West:                  They’re all contemporary. I write short contemporary. So I write category. If you think of Mills and Boon or Harlequin, you know the smaller paperback, that sort of size?

Sarah Williams:             Yeah.

Annie West:                  So they’re 50,000 to 55,000 words. I tend to write long and then have to cut. The bane of my life. Don’t tell my editor. So I tend to write up towards 60,000 and then cut. I keep getting asked by people if I would like to write longer. I’m thinking, “Oh maybe one day but I don’t have the burning desire to do that.” It’s taken me so long to learn to write an intense short story that’s really focused. So my books are very emotional, very passionate, so you’ve got an alpha hero and an alpha heroine. They’re contemporary, think billionaires, think women usually in trouble or some sort of strife and usually the hero is the trouble in her life. And they’re always at odds.

Annie West:                  There’s a lot of emotion. There’s that rollercoaster ride that people talk about. You could say they’re a bit melodramatic. Sometimes I sit in a coffee shop with one of my girlfriends, she’s also a writer, and we talk about plots and she tells me what she’s working on, and we discuss that and I tell her what I’m working on and I always end up laughing saying, “It sounds really melodramatic but it works.” And once you’re into that world and it’s a chic romance or it’s a billionaire who’s got a problem and the problem is the heroine. It’s so intense.

Sarah Williams:             That’s fantastic. So you’ve been writing for Harlequin since around about 2006?

Annie West:                  Yeah the first one came out December 2006, yeah.

Sarah Williams:             Oh wow, excellent.

Annie West:                  [inaudible 00:08:07] with them.

Sarah Williams:             Yeah. So you’ve done, so Mills and Boon and then you’ve got some with Presents as well?

Annie West:                  Yeah well Presents … Mills and Boon and Harlequin are the same company, so in Australia the books are published as Mills and Boon. Harlequin bought out Mills and Boon and so my books, in America they come out as Presents. I don’t know whether I’ve got a Presents book I could show you, handy. Of course I don’t. Oh yes I do. So they look … American reader would know what that … That’s a Presents look. I don’t have a UK cover but they’re called Modern in the UK and until about two months ago, in Australia, they used to be called Mills and Boon Sexy. So to my family’s utter delight, I could call myself a sexy author! I loved it. Sadly that has now changed, and I wasn’t sad, but in Australia they’re now called Mills and Boon Modern. It’s just the name of the line.

Sarah Williams:             Excellent. So how hot are your books? Are they really steamy or?

Annie West:                  Yes, if you read reviews on Good Reads or Amazon, yes, they say steamy and sizzling and so forth. It’s not as hot as erotica. It’s a romance rather than erotica, but yes, they’re not on the … There are sweet moments in the book, but it’s not a sweet innocent romance. There’s definitely sizzle.

Sarah Williams:             And have you ever walked into, say Coles or Woolworths, and seen your book in the bookshelves? You have!

Annie West:                  Of course. Every month that I know I’ve got a book out, I go in to Big W usually, or Coles or Woolies, and to my delight, about a week ago I went into my local post office and they know I’m an author. I’m always posting off books as prizes and getting big boxes and books and so forth. And I was waiting for my husband and as usual I was at the book section while waiting, just seeing what there was, and there was a bundle of books and it was, forgot what it was called but it had a cowboy on the front. And then when I tilted it sideways, it was like a plastic back collection of six books and one of them was one of mine! I think [inaudible 00:10:34]. They’re selling at my local post office. Any why it was packaged up with a cowboy story, but you know [inaudible 00:10:43].

Annie West:                  I’ve been in Europe and I was so sad, I missed my next release. I was a little bit too early. I went to the bookstore looking for my next release but a couple of years ago, I was in Munich on my way to a reader conference and I was at Munich airport. If ever you’re at Munich airport, go down the stairs, there’s a really good bookstore. Anyway, this big bookstore, and they had a big section on romance. You know in Australia often you go to a bookstore and there’s not really a romance section? Big romance section. And I thought, “Oh I wonder what the covers look like?” I wasn’t specifically looking for mine, just looking at romances and all of a sudden I saw one of mine! Looking around to find someone frankly who could take a photo with me! I had an old camera, I didn’t have one I could take a decent photo with. I had a little old camera and I’m trying to take a photo. Eventually I grabbed a romance reader who was very understanding. She took a photo of me and the book.

Sarah Williams:             Oh that’s so exciting.

Annie West:                  I met an Australian reader who had been in Indonesia on holiday and she saw my book on sale in Indonesia, so she bought it and sent it to me! Thought that was really sweet. I didn’t need it but it looks beautiful.

Sarah Williams:             I think that’s one of the best things about Harlequin is because it’s bought out Mills and Boon and everything else, it just does have such a wide reach with being able to sell into all these regions.

Annie West:                  Oh yeah, yeah. I’ve forgotten how many countries the books are sold in but a lot. And you get reader mail from all around the world. It’s terrific. As I said, I mentioned Munich. I was recently in reader events in both France and in Germany and I had an absolute thrill of people coming up, and they’d read my books, and they looked at them. Nothing. Perhaps some of that, “It’s Anne West!” And I’m thinking, “Yeah it’s just Annie West.” I was super thrilled.

Sarah Williams:             I think the great thing as a reader anyway for me, is with the Mills and Boon, you get what the title is. They’re very obvious titles. You know what you’re getting. But all you have to do is read one of yours to get absolutely hooked and then you’ll be like, yeah, I’m going to keep reading that author because that’s what I get.

Annie West:                  It’s an interesting process actually, because they market on the series, so Presents or Modern/Sexy, whatever you want to call it, as opposed to a sweeter book or whatever and so the idea is that readers will come in and … The ones who want the [inaudible 00:13:34], the ones who want the Presents will go for those, and they will just read those. Then you get the readers who have tried one of those, and they just happen upon one of your books, and they say, “Now I look for your name.” And that’s so wonderful. I go and I look for your name. I think, “Yes!” Well you know, it’s like you find an author whose style you like. You like the stories, [inaudible 00:13:57] you like the voice and so you want to find more of them. Yeah, it’s terrific. [inaudible 00:14:03]

Sarah Williams:             So as well as still writing for them, you also decided to do some self-publishing as well. Tell us about your “Hot Italian Nights” series.

Annie West:                  Yeah, well I had a gap in a schedule. I was interested in writing more books, and not many people know unless they’re actually publishing themselves that there’s a gap between the time you get the book in and the time it’s published, if you’re with a traditional print publisher. And I had a particularly long gap, and it was made worse by the fact that they asked me to do a special project, which I did. But they had a different schedule for that, so my normal schedule got completely out of whack. And I ended up with a potential gap between books, and I thought… I’d been writing steadily and the books were gonna come out, but there was gonna be a gap, and then lots of books together. I really don’t like not having a chart there. And I wasn’t sure what I could do, and a lot of people I knew had been still publishing, and a lot had also been saying, why don’t you try writing something yourself?

Annie West:                  So I wrote a book called “Back in the Italian’s Bed,” which was a novella. Basically, these novellas are like my Harlequin books but shorter, so they’re about half the length, and they’re intense, very emotional, very high-stakes. And that one was about a couple who had been lovers, and she’d got sick of him for various reasons, which, if you wanna know, read the book. She got sick of him, she walked out on him, and he was furious, because as far as he was concerned, this wasn’t over. And he was insisting that they need to continue this affair. And so it’s all passion, drama. I loved it. But I got to write an even shorter story, which was a different planning instance. And it was such that I commented at one stage, because normally as I said, I write longer and have to cut my books. I remember writing a description and thinking, oh I’ll have to cut that description out. Actually, this story can be as long or as short as I want. I can keep that description in if I want. And it’s something my editors normally say, “Cut descriptions.” It’s just that I’m writing long. I’ll often cut that sort of thing.

Annie West:                  I wrote one and it was really well received, and I liked it, so I wrote another one, and I wrote another one. So I’ve ended up… first of all, I’ve got my [inaudible 00:16:44] “Hot Italian Nights” … and I’ve got an idea for another series I’d like to write. The trouble is these Italians keep popping into my head too. I’m saying, “When is your next ‘Hot Italian Night’ and what is it?” I keep doing the two. And I love it. It’s nice to have the variety and to me, they’re not so different. It’s the same sort of world as I write, sort of longer Harlequin books. But there’s a little bit more freedom about what I write and when I put it out. If I’ve got time, I can maybe do a draft, if I’ve got a bit of a gap. I’m not working to someone else’s deadline.

Sarah Williams:             Yeah, that’s excellent, cool. And you’ve set some really amazing destinations, obviously Italy and everything. So you’ve just come back from some traveling around. Tell us where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing.

Annie West:                  Okay, well travel is one of the things that I love. And I think it’s one of the reasons I really warmed onto romance when I was a teenager, because I got to travel the world. As a teenager I could say “I love you” in about ten different languages. I wanted to go particularly to Europe. I’ve been there a few times, and it’s been a really fertile source of inspiration for stories. I’ve even written my own fictitious royal kingdom in the Alps, which might or might not be based on places like Salzburg and proper towns.

Annie West:                  But this time, I went across to a couple of reader events in France and Germany, which were just wonderful. Any reader event is, but when you get to combine it with travel, it’s good. And I had written a book that will be out later this year, which is set in Italy and after I sent it in, my editor said, “I really loved the way you did this location, setting. Could you do another Mediterranean story?” And I thought wow… because my editor’s lovely, but I don’t normally that sort of comment. I can access somewhere in the Mediterranean, and I was planning this trip to the reader conferences. I was thinking, oh I don’t wanna turn up to a reader conference all jet-lagged. I would really really hate to have five days beforehand.

Annie West:                  So I went to Corfu, in Greece. I’ve been to Greece a couple of times, but years and years and years ago. It’s been so long. And I’ve always wanted to go to Corfu, so I went to Corfu. And guess where my next book, the book that I’m writing now, is going to be set?

Sarah Williams:             Corfu?

Annie West:                  If I manage to finish it, if my editor likes it, yes. It will be in Corfu.

Annie West:                  The Italian books, they’ve been funny too. I actually set the second one up in the Alps in the very north of Italy, and that was inspired from a trip several years ago. I had began one of these reader conferences in Germany, and I’d been talking to an Austrian reader about the trip that I was gonna make after the conference. I was gonna drive down with my husband through Austria into northern Italy to the Dolomites, these amazing mountains. And she said, “Oh, watch out for this,” and got talking about marmots. They’re like groundhogs, these little marmots. And she said, “Watch out for the marmots and don’t feed them.” So I said, “Oh, I wanna see this.”

Annie West:                  Anyway, this trip was amazing, amazing scenery, tall mountains, and hairpin bends, like 12 or 14 hairpin bends in a row. And we did see marmots, and we took photos. I thought they were very cute and cuddly. I got back home, and I was thinking, “Okay, so this next Italian story, I need a setting. Why haven’t I set it?” And I have a mental vision of my heroine who needs to disguise her looks at work, and she dressed down. And she had this glorious long wavy hair that she always pulled back in a bun. And I had this mental picture of her in motorcycle leathers, taking her helmet off and all this hair, so gorgeous. Because it was her day off, and she could just be herself rather than this button-down PA.

Annie West:                  And I ended up using that as the opening of the book. I had her on motorbike going round these hairpin bends, and she’s skids almost off the side of the hill because a marmot runs across. The things that end up in books, it’s amazing. And of course, the hero just happens to be behind her in his Lamborghini or whatever he’s driving. He has this moment of thinking, who are you? Oh, you’re my PA. There’s nothing like a cliché. You can have such fun with it, you can twist them around and do all sorts of things.

Sarah Williams:             That’s fantastic! So what’s the next one out for you? What are we looking out for?

Annie West:                  Well, at the moment, I’ve got one… I just happen to have here, “Inherited for the Royal Bed.” That’s the Australian cover.

Sarah Williams:             Brilliant.

Annie West:                  …Which is a sheikh story. I do love writing sheikh stories. It’s a very honorable sheikh. And it’s an outrageous proposition. When I thought of this story, I just got on to myself. I thought, well you can’t write, of course you can’t. It’s about a girl, and she is a girl at that stage, who is actually gifted the royal sheikh in his country as his concubine, as his slave, by her poor family after her father has died. The new sheikh has just inherited the throne, and he comes in late at night after he’s been busy in the palace negotiating peace treaties, absolutely exhausted. He comes through the palace, he’s stripping off his clothes ready to go to bed. And there’s this person beside the bed. And it’s the heroine, the 17-year old who’s sort of looking up at him. “I’m yours,” and she’s petrified. But she’s got no option but to stay there.

Annie West:                  And of course, being my hero, he does the decent thing and he does not seduce her. But she comes back later, and things get really interesting when she’s back at the palace. It’s one of those… there is definite sizzle, and when she comes back, she is much more confident, sexy woman who knows what she wants as well. And it happens to be him.

Sarah Williams:             Yeah, I’m excited for that one!

Annie West:                  Lots of fun to write. I’ve just been getting reader feedback the last couple of days, actually, and it’s… yeah, it’s been good reading and feedback I must say.

Sarah Williams:             Yeah, oh that is fantastic. So where can we find you online and see all your books?

Annie West:                  I’ve got my own website, Annie-west.com, and I’m also on Facebook, Annie West, easy to find.

Sarah Williams:             That’s it. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Annie. That was really fun.