Mandy Robotham – International Best Sellers

Mandy Robotham’s first World War II story The German Midwife was an international best seller, and she hasn’t looked back since. Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today on The Joys of Binge Reading Mandy talks about where the idea to write a book about Hitler’s baby came from, why WWII stories are hot, and how she transitioned from being a midwife herself to a fulltime author. Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: Where the idea of Hitler's baby came fromThe importance of finishing the book'Instant success' takes timeHer passion for midwiferyThe writers she's learned most fromWhy WW II stories are so popular Where to find Mandy Robotham:  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mandy-Robotham-Author-and-Midwife-324181038399367/ Twitter: @mandyrobothamuk Instagram: robothammandy Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/mandy-robotham What follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Mandy Robotham - author Jenny: But now, here’s Mandy.  Hello there Mandy and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us. Jenny Wheeler: You appear to have enjoyed instant success because you've written two books so far and they've both had very good sales. You are a Globe and Mail, USA Today and USA and Australia Kindle top seller. That is a pretty remarkable achievement but I doubt very much that it did happen overnight. Tell us about that. Introducing Mandy Robotham Mandy Robotham: No. Like many writers, I went through a fair few rejections with the first book, lots of people saying, we don't know where this fits in the market, don't know what this is about. Then I would question, is this a really silly idea, the idea of a midwife helping Hitler's baby. And then I would question it again. I don't know, something in me told me that I had to have faith in the book. I was on the point of giving up for about six months. I thought, I'll take a break from writing. I couldn't deal with rejections again and again and again. Then a friend of mine called Lorraine Ferguson who's a writer said Avon are taking open submissions without an agent. I thought I’ll give it a go and I popped it off to them and then I completely forgot about it. About three months later they came back and said, we love this book. It was a jumping around the room moment, I can tell you that, getting that email. Jenny Wheeler: Yes. As you've mentioned that book was called The German Midwife and it looks like it had a very fascinating plotline. It is the story of a prison camp midwife who was charged with the care of Eva Braun, who's pregnant, and all of the philosophical and moral questions that raises – does she serve the Third Reich which she loathes and keep the baby alive, or what does she do? How on earth did you get to start out on that sort of twisted story? Write what you know... Mandy Robotham: There's always a thing in writing to write what you know. I felt that my first book should be about midwifery since I was in the middle of it and embroiled in it at the time. And then midwives always chat a lot about births afterwards – that was a beautiful birth, that was fantastic, what happened here? We chat a lot and we talk about the minor morals. Should you tell someone this? Is it worth mentioning that? It got me thinking, where would our morals go to if we were really, really tested?