Monday, December 22, 2008

A Chat with Written Word’s Jilly Kidd

I've had the pleasure of knowing both Jilly Kidd and Hastings Bournemouth at the Written Word project for just slightly over a year now. Their activities within SL have been amazing, both working tirelessly to promote SL as a venue for all of us in the literary world. Besides being the hostess at the many events held on Cookie Island, she also does a weekly show from the SIM called "Meet the Author" which can be viewed on SLCN TV. I caught up with Jilly recently and chatted about what's been going on with her at the project.

"Hey Jilly ... I hope all is well with you." I said.

"Yes really good, I'm a guest writer on that Reed Media blog now so that's fantastic. Here's a link to my first article (What the Papers Don't Say) and I'll be writing regularly." She said in reply and then added, "The publishers are a new part of the project, and they'll all be offering something to writers - ways to submit without an agent from some awards with book contracts, a litzine from Canongate where you can post your own work. Picador will also be joining us soon and they aren't mentioned in that article. It's something very new on SL this combined venture - writers and publishers, RL/SL merge with them mutually benefitting each other. The publishers are really looking into how to do something different to fit into our project. Macmillan will be concentrating on their Macmillan New Writers scheme which lets first time novelists send their manuscript by email and without an agent."

"I'll pop out shortly to take a read of your posting. It does sound like there's a lot going on with Written Word. I know we chatted briefly about this a few weeks ago, I'm still planning to interview you when your book comes out." I said

"Yes that should be next month, not too long now anyway." She said and then continued, "It takes ages for the publisher to get books out. But there are a lot of processes to be done properly to bring a book out and have it distributed and promoted well. It takes just three weeks to actually produce the book but months of planning to have distribution and promotion organized."

'It all sounds great Jilly, I can't wait to read it and then of course meet for our interview." I replied.

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