What motivated you to become an indie author?
Publishing is a difficult market to break, especially for a new author. In a tricky financial climate, I guess publishers aren't willing to take the risk by investing in an unknown quantity.
With something like Doctor Who, there are many books on the market, and the unofficial guides have grown in number - which makes it even trickier for someone like me who wanted to put all my reviews together into both a series of books and one big book. The great thing about indie publishing is that it makes this possible, and even better, you get to call the shots in terms of content, editing and cover.
Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
I was born in London and then moved to Sussex when I was seven years old. I always enjoyed writing, and I guess that's why I enjoyed English at school because it allows you a more creative rein in what you write and how you write it.
I also did English at A Level and degree level, but that's a different ballgame. I found that a lot of that is more to do with over-analysing books and texts - maybe that's subconsciously influenced my reviews in that I can over-analyse at times. But on the other hand (especially at degree level), I found that there was very little room for humour studying English. It was all very po-faced and serious to a fault, so I've always tried to go against that in my writing and try and make my work informative but accessible and sometimes humorous (or at least what passes for humour in my tiny mind).
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