About Kim Lambert:
Kim Lambert is a Speaker, Photographer, a Travel Writer and a 7 times Amazon bestselling author, with more than 10 books published to date. She is also the owner of a publishing company which publishes books for a variety of authors, and also works with other large publishing companies to enhance and update their current catalogues for digital book delivery. She is also a writing and publishing coach and Managing Editor of Life Change the Revolution – the Magazine.
Kim has a rich and varied business experience, over 40 years, from retail to small business, to government and large corporate, with many years of experience in IT, Publishing, management, business architecture and staff development.
After the death of her parents, she choose to further develop her business to help others bring their inspirational and life-changing stories, skills and ideas to the world, through books, and other mediums which let their words reach out to others.
She personally writes on a wide range of topics, from How to Write, to Photography, to recipe books and is currently also writing kids books and fiction under pen names.
What inspires you to write?
I’ve always written, just how much has varied. What got me started was writing about things I enjoyed doing. My first published work was in a national print magazine, when I was 14. It was even accompanied by a photo that I took. It was an article about a horse event.
I’ve worked in many roles and areas, from small business to big corporate, but every job has had a requirement for writing of one kind or another. Over time, I got more interested in writing my own works to publish, as well as helping others publish. What made me really get going was realising that I did not want to live in the corporate world any more – I wanted to share my interests with others through writing.
I also realised, as a result of working with such a diverse range of people, that every person and every business has a story that deserves telling, that what seems ordinary to you, seems amazing to someone else, who does not know the things that you do, who has not lived the things that you have.
Tell us about your writing process.
I am an outliner, but only in the broadest sense – its fluid, and changes as I go – the outline is so that I don’t leave anything out, not to force me into a particular structure. When I teach others, I find that this is what stops people most – the belief that they have to have a rigid outline, and write it in that order – I help them get past that, without losing coherence in the book.
When writing fiction, my ‘backstory / background notes’ can be as many words or more than the story itself. I edit, so I hate wrong words and continuity errors in others stories, and put a lot of effort into not having that sort of mistake in my own. I like to know exactly why my characters act the way they do, what things that happened in their past, which may never appear in this story, influence how they act now. Maybe, once I have enough books and short stories in each series, I will do an ‘encyclopaedia of’ book of al the background stuff…..
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
Sometimes I shut my eyes and ‘be them’ for a bit, seeing what’s going on in the story like a movie in my mind, so that I can truly write what they see and feel, in a way that readers can relate to.
What advice would you give other writers?
Just write ! Write what is clearest in your mind today, make a note of roughly where it belongs in the whole, but write what’s clear now – getting it all in the right order, and flowing together at the end is what you work with a good developmental editor for! If you try to get it exactly perfect, in order, as you write, you will never get it written.
Oh, and you don’t have to write as much as you think you do ! especially for non-fiction! people these days have short attention spans, and a short, focussed book of good quality info wins every time.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
I am a publisher, so I publish my own as well. My business first published a hardcover book back in 1990 – wow, was it a harder process then !!!!!
If you are new, unless the publishing bit really fascinates you, then find a great ‘custom’ or ‘collaborative’ publisher to work with (that’s people like me, who use all of the sorts of tools that you could use to ‘do it all yourself’ but do it for you, so that you can focus on being a subject matter expert in your topic area, not on having to keep up with publishing changes and technical file requirements.
The up front cost varies, but do your homework and find someone that you can work with, a business that cares about the quality of the result for you, not just collecting your money. if you are not struggling with the tools, you can be writing your next book.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
Things will continue to evolve – what is today a multi billion dollar industry of digital publishing in specialised formats did not exist 8 years ago. Who knows where we will be in another 8 years. Paper books will still exist for some time to come, but they will, more and more, be for collectors, and specific purposes – the bulk of ‘ordinary daily reading’ will be digital – on one or more of those ubiquitous electronic devices that we all carry.
What do you use?: Dictated and got transcribed, Beta Readers
What genres do you write?: As me – Non-fiction – photography, how to write, cook books as other names – various fiction, romance, erotica, fantasy, as another name – kids books
What formats are your books in?: eBook, Print, Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Kim Lambert Home Page Link
Link To Kim Lambert Page On Amazon
Your Social Media Links
Goodreads
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
LinkedIn
All information in this post is presented “as is” supplied by the author. We don’t edit, to allow you, the reader, to hear the author in their own voice.
