WESTBURY Town Councillor and author, Jane Russ, has spoken to the White Horse News about how she became a writer and about her future publications.
“I’m the chairman of the Hare Preservation Trust (HPT) and I’d been thinking that we should produce a booklet for our members about hares,” said Jane. In 2014 a member of HPT died and left us £2.5K in her will and so the committee thought we could probably go to a proper hard-backed self-published book. This thought coincided with my seeing the work of the publishers Graffeg and thinking how wonderfully reproduced the illustrations were in their work. I looked on their site and saw they did short run printing so called them to ask for a quote.
“A week later they called me back, firstly with a quote but secondly with an offer of a book deal as they thought the book would really sell well. They were correct, it sold very well indeed and is currently on its fifth print run since May 2015. I have personally made nothing on this book, all profits have gone to HPT.
“Nine months after The Hare Book was launched, Graffeg asked me if I would care to write a book about foxes following the same format. The Fox Book launched in April this year and is just into its second print run. I have delivered the manuscript for my next oeuvre, The Owl Book and it was due to be out in October but has been bumped back to March 2018. I shall start work on my next contracted title, The Bee Book shortly and The Native Pony Book will follow this time next year. It would appear that 2018 will see the publication of three new books!
“My main aim is to make everything as clear and interesting as possible. I have a conversational writing style, that presupposes that readers have an interest in the animal to start with and will be delighted by new and unusual things they may discover. During research, I never take anything as read, I’m always chasing down every single fact, whilst being aware that things change as new studies are brought out. The owl was particularly trying in that area as every time I thought I had tied down an issue, up would pop another, often contradictory piece of research. My most used phrase in that manuscript was, ‘research continues!’
“If anyone thinks they would like to write, my advice would be just do it. Start with things you know and see where it takes you.”
