Social media & Toni Jordan on planes, publishers & getting out of the house.

In this episode, Kate and Katherine discuss social media. Katherine is a lurker. Kate used to be but is much better at it now. That said, Kate does describe an ill-fated photo shoot featuring gum boots, a chicken shed and some small children, so the original bar may have been set quite low*. The hosts discuss the 80/20 rule and speculate as to the etiquette on Twitter in regard to hats.

And then, Kate speaks to the fabulous Toni Jordan.

Toni Jordan is the Melbourne author of five novels. Her first, Addition, won Best Debut Fiction in the 2008 Indie Awards and was long listed for the Miles Franklin Award. All of Jordan’s novels have been published internationally to great acclaim. Her latest is the eagerly anticipated The Fragments. 

In this interview we chat about Toni’s road to publication and she speaks about her background in science, her love of reading and her fated move to the Professional Writing and Editing Course at RMIT.

Toni took a forensic approach to choosing the publisher she would like to pitch to. She bought Books and Publishing news, went to her local bookshop and collected old catalogues for each publisher and then created a mud map of what each publisher was about. Then, with all the data and without any expectations, she chose Text Publishing. She eventually used the Australian Society of Authors (ASA) contract service to check her contract when she got her publishing offer.

Check out the hilarious article Toni wrote about getting dolled up for a photo sheet.

Toni passes on a piece of advice she was given by writer Cate Kennedy and tells Katherine to remember that it is about the work – that she can’t make people love the book, she can only control how she feels when she sits down to do the writing.

Toni’s recommendation is a classic, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth – ‘mind-blowing debut fiction’.

There’s SO much great advice in this interview, we urge you to take further notes!

Find out more about Toni Jordan’s novels or follow her on Twitter.

*Why has no one seen these photos?!