Leslie Weddell - Fiction Author!

My name is Leslie J.Weddell and I live in the U.K. I was born in Dundee, in Scotland, and now live in Lancashire in North West England with my wife, and we have three grown up offspring to enrich our lives.

Having spent a great deal of my life abroad in the Far East (Singapore) whilst I was a serving member of the British Royal Marines, and afterwards working as a civilian in that wonderful country for ten years, I used to make notes in diaries of anything that interested me. This all came in handy when I began to get the germ of an idea for my first action novel Sleeping With Dragons.

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Leslie Weddell on REJECTION...

I intended initially to have it published by a 'traditional publisher' and sent out over forty copies of my manuscript. It cost me a fortune in postage, and took over three months before I got the last rejection letter back. As Jason says in his April article, it hurts like hell to be rejected.

Then I began to think of the time and effort I had put into this work. I had no idea how to write a book, let alone a Novel, but I did have the most important element all writers need. A burning DESIRE to write.

So I decided to forget about 'traditional stuffy publishers' and try the Internet; and to cut a long story short I found what I was looking for and self-published with Authorhouse. They are very good at the layout and ensure quality printing is done, but I had no idea I had to do the editing myself and consequently learned a lesson, a very expensive lesson at that, the hard way. Because I was green (new to writing and publishing) I did not really care about distribution of the book. Mistake again' YOU, the author, must market it.

I will not go into long detail, but because I was not aware of many little things that totted up to make big things, my book is only available on the Internet at bookstores such a Amazon, etc.

But I began to find really helpful websites such as this one (write-and-publish-fiction.com) and many more that offered valuable help and put me wise to the fact that a writer must search the field and chose most carefully before committing his/her signature to a publisher's contract.

Best tip I have found: If your work is really up to scratch and you have submitted your letter of inquiry, etc. and they ask to see a sample of your work - a good publisher or literary agent will NOT ask you for money. Instead, they will pay YOU.

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Leslie Weddell's Sleeping With Dragons is a contemporary action story and was published and released in March of 2005. I am currently working on a sequel book, using some of the same characters. This should be ready by February of 2007 and I will be using the self-publishing method suggested on Write-and-publish-fiction.com