Soraya M Lane – Women At War

Soraya Lane has an impressive backlist in contemporary romance, but she’s hitting  the Kindle best seller lists with her most recently published work, World War II fiction centered on women’s stories. Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and today Soraya talks about the road to being a successful international author and why she’s not going to apologise for treating writing as a business. Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: How many novels Soraya finished before she sold oneWriting Montana romance from New ZealandHow her passion for horses helped write romanceOn being a workaholic and (usually) loving itWhat its like to be international best seller unknown at home ENTER DRAW to win a signed paperback copy of The Spitfire Girls Where to find Soraya M Lane: Website: www.sorayalane.com Facebook:  facebook.com/SorayaLaneAuthor  Twitter: @soraya_lane Instagram: @sorayalaneauthor  What follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Jenny: [00:00:00] And now here Soraya. Hi there Soraya. And welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us. Soraya: [00:00:07] It's wonderful to be here. Thank you for asking me. How Soraya got started Soraya M Lane Amazon best selling author Jenny: [00:00:10] Beginning at the beginning was there a Once Upon a Time moment that got you started in writing and was there any sort of catalyst for it. Soraya: [00:00:22] Look I don't know if there was a specific catalyst for it. I've always been a huge reader and I've probably been a writer all my life really, from when I was first at school. I came up with these wonderful stories that I used to share with my teachers. So I think I've just always enjoyed writing and always loved reading. I think sometimes if you're a very keen reader the next step often is to try and write something yourself. And so I started. I found my way into writing again when I was at university and just thought 'I actually want to do this.' I want to see my books on the shelf with my name on there. And I just started and went from there. Jenny: [00:01:00] Fantastic. Well you've now got an extremely impressive list of contemporary romance to your name, as well as the historical fiction we'll be talking about. You've been writing pretty solidly since university? Soraya: [00:01:14] I started writing quite seriously actually, writing my first full length novel when I was at university. I was probably around 19 or 20 and it took me two years to write that first book. So I had been writing for a long time. I sold my first book when I was pregnant with my first child. And I was 27 then. So I have been I had been writing for a little while now. I guess I've been published for about nine years. Jenny: [00:01:38] Fantastic. So you've now got a really impressive list of contemporary romance nearly 30 books that counted on your website. And we'll talk about that contemporary romance a little later. But the most recent books are branching out into historical fiction and they've been doing particularly well. Both Wives of War and The Spitfire Girls have been Amazon  charters and Kindle  best sellers. Now they are World War Two historical fiction. Tell us why you made that change?