“It’s never too late to follow your dreams”
Novelist Lizzie Chantree shares how creating a community has been key to her success
Hello everyone. I’m Lizzie Chantree and my novels are either romantic comedies or contemporary romance. I love writing romance novels!
I have always been fascinated by books and stories. I went to creative writing classes and joined writing groups when I was younger, but my dream of becoming an author came later. I wanted to do a creative job that involved art and design in some way. My first job was as a graphic designer and I worked for clients like Converse and designed their street basketball wear. I set up my own business at the age of nineteen and then had to change my career years later, when my child became unwell. She now proudly tells everyone that she was the catalyst for my new career and she’s right. I didn’t publish my first book until I was forty, as I’d hidden my manuscript in a cupboard for five years. I’m now writing my tenth book. It shows it’s never too late to follow your dreams.
The time I felt like giving up was after publishing my third book. I had self-published through choice after turning down a publishing contract and I was unsure if I’d made the right decision. I chose this route as my family life meant I couldn’t dedicate the time I thought a publisher deserved. I had read an article about a successful self-published author and thought I’d try it. What I did find out, was that my new career could be quite isolating and doing all of the marketing alone could eat into writing time until there was none left.
Finding a healthy balance between writing and promoting my work wasn’t easy, especially as the word marketing used to make me feel quite sick! I was doing the marketing and selling books, but I felt out of my comfort zone and I wondered if I could push through my boundaries of feeling shy and reach out to people to ask for advice.
In the end, this is what I did. I joined online book groups in America and in the U.K. and met amazing readers and authors, who were so generous with their advice. I felt part of a big family and it opened up lots of exciting opportunities for me, as I now have both French and American publishers. I asked mentors for advice and began building my own Twitter community of writers, creatives, and other wonderful people. I now run a networking hour #CreativeBizHour each week, which has been trending most weeks for almost four years. The strangest thing is that I actually can’t wait to discover or create new ways to market my work now and I often mentor other writers by giving seminars or hosting workshops.
International bestselling author and award-winning inventor, Lizzie Chantree, started her own business at the age of 18 and became one of Fair Play London and The Patent Office’s British Female Inventors of the Year in 2000. She discovered her love of writing fiction when her children were little and now works as a business mentor and runs a popular networking hour on social media, where creatives can support to each other. She writes books full of friendship and laughter, that are about women with unusual and adventurous businesses, who are far stronger than they realise. Her latest novel is If You Want Me, I’m Yours.
She lives with her family on the coast in Essex. Visit her website www.lizziechantree.com or follow her on Twitter @Lizzie_Chantree
How to become Unstoppable: Author Lizzie Chantree