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I never sell a book. I sell myself. And the way to sell yourself is to be an instrument of love.

When I give away a book for free, it gets my name out there. That has lifelong value for me that goes way beyond the few dollars I could maybe charge.

Selling a book or story has never become absolutely automatic for me.

I am not a total, complete nitwit when it comes to selling books. I promise you there will be unexpected things. Some of them I don't know yet. She's writing it all herself.

And I don't like books which are full of name dropping.

My own life has been doubly disconnected, as I've written books under two different names. As an author, your name almost becomes a brand; readers know what to expect.

My first novel was turned down by about twenty publishers over a period of two and a half years. Because my name is Irish and would not be familiar to English editors, one of them said: 'If she writes anything else, do let us know.' Slowly, very slowly, the books began to sell and be noticed.

The fact people think that when you sell a lot of books you are not a serious writer is a great insult to the readership. I get a little angry when people try to say such a thing.

I was unwise enough to actually mention this in public a few times, and in fact to point out that there were two versions of the book now. One of them had somebody else's name on the cover, one had my name on the cover.

So, in effect, my first sale was actually two books.