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Publishing your work is important. Even if you are giving a piece to some smaller publication for free, you will learn something about your writing. The editor will say something, friends will mention it. You will learn.

I think writers have to be proactive: they've got to use new technology and social media. Yes, it's hard to get noticed by traditional publishers, but there's a great deal of opportunity out there if you've got the right story.

Thanks to social media like Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads, I can easily reach out to so many people. Being a writer gives me the added bonus of a targeted audience: readers, who enjoy targeted 'prizes' for participation in fundraisers - books and other neat promo items.

Self-publishing worked for me. Being able to put your work in print, even if it's a tiny print-on-demand print run of a dozen or so copies, shows publishers and editors a completed piece of work and that you can follow through on a project.

I want people to notice my writing abilities are real and that I'm not just stuck in one situation.

I want my writing to reach people. I don't write for a market. I write from my heart, something that appeals to me. The marketing, segmenting etc., can be done by your publisher, not you.

I'm working with published authors and some very young undergraduates and lots of people in between. They are lovely people, and they can write.

I tend to write things and don't go the next step and try to get it published. I don't want to do book signings and stuff.

You have to keep your audience in your mind; if you're writing stuff that you know nobody's going to care about then you should rethink what you're doing!

When you're writing a novel, you spend four years sitting in your basement and a year waiting for the book to come out and then you get the feedback. When you do work online, the moment you're finished making it, people start responding to it which is really fun and allows for a kind of community development you just can't have in novels.