For real? You might have wondered as soon as you read the title.
Believe me, I was intrigued as well. I wondered: How on earth did she manage to
do that? And how much did she make from her debut novel for her to decide to
make an absolute U-turn from her legal career to being a full-time writer.
I did some digging and what I found was both interesting and inspiring.
Her name is Louise
Ross but she writes under the pseudonym L.J Ross, and here is what I gathered
so far.
While she was on
Maternity leave in expectation of her son Ethan, Louise and her husband were on
a train headed for Edinburgh from Newcastle in England. And as they were
passing an area known as The Holy
Island of Lindisfarne which is a tidal island off the northeast coast of England commonly known
as Holy Island, she had
an epiphany. This is what she says, “I was looking out of the train window towards
Lindisfarne and happened to remark to my husband that I was surprised no one
had written a book set on Holy Island. I had a notebook with me and started to
scribble down ideas for a plot."
Not much is revealed about how the conversation
went, but guessing from what did happen thereafter, we can assume her husband -
a Barrister, egged her on to pen down her story. And after three months or so …voila! she was done - she had completed
her first romantic crime novel aptly titled - HOLY ISLAND.
She gives a lot of credit to her
husband for the marketing and promotion he did that led to Holy Island's debut
success. According to her, he did a lot of blogging, posting on reader forums as
well as social media to gunner enough buzz for Holy Island. And the
efforts paid off as she reported selling over 100,000 copies towards the
end of 2015, propelling her debut novel to the number 1 spot on UK’s Amazon
bestseller list and earning a whooping £70,000 and well as!
How about that?
Nikos Kazantzakis, the famous Greek writer (died
in 1957) once said, "In order to succeed we must first believe we
can."
How true. Without
that self-belief it’s pointless to try and most definitely Louise Ross beliefed
she could and she is on her third book.
Personally as a
writer I am inspired and I hope her story inspires you in your endeavors as
well.
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Until next time adios!!!
