‘The usual one-word pieces of advice on this topic – “Why?”, “Don’t”, or “Write” – are not sufficient to fill a book, so this sensible manual covers topics such as “time management” (I wish), choosing a degree course (if you think you need one), dealing with publishers and contracts, “networking”, having a day job, writing online, and so on. O’Reilly provides illuminating capsule interviews with authors, publishers and agents, and has a nice line in preemptively deflating the starry-eyed reader’s expectations: “One of the unspoken truths about getting published is that nothing happens at all […] The indifference of humanity will be inexplicable, but crushing.”
‘Being a writer, it says here, is not really a “career”; it almost certainly won’t make you rich; and it doesn’t give you license to act like a primadonna (“Authors who are not already famous must behave themselves”). There will be downs as well as ups (O’Reilly is frank about the complications involved in her own two-novel deal), and you probably won’t be able to afford monthly gym fees or “your profligate approach to caffeine”. At this, my fingers seized up into haunted claws above the keyboard, until a double espresso sorted things out.’ – Steven Poole, The Guardian