Sam Blake has had a great career helping many best selling writers get published.  Now she’s joined their ranks, with her Cat Connolly series about a Dublin detective that’s been described as “PD James meets Karin Slaughter.” The first book in the series - Little Bones - went to No 1 in the Irish Best Seller lists and stayed in the Top Ten for eight weeks. The second, In Deep Water, is recently published.

Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:

How Sam became one of Ireland's top literary scouts

Why she has three unpublished MS still sitting in a drawer

How she became the answer to her own problem

The No 1 reason for Sam’s writing success

The dark romance she self published - and why she won't write another

Binge reading Jack Reacher and  other crime writer heroes

Where to find Sam Blake:

Websites:

As an author: samblakebooks.com

Publishing and Writing: writing.ie

http://www.inkwellwriters.ie/

Twitter: @samblakebooks

@writing_ie

and @inkwellhq

Jenny: Hi there: I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and today Sam Blake is talking about how she morphed from being one of Ireland's most successful literary scouts into a best selling novelist. (It took longer than you think.)

But before we hear from Sam, just a reminder that the show notes for this BingeReading episode are available at the website,

thejoysofbingereading.com.

That’s where you’ll find links to Sam’s website and books, as well as a free E book, and information on how to subscribe to our podcast so you don’t miss future episodes.

And now here’s Sam.  Hello there Sam, and Welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us.

Sam: Thanks Jenny it's nice to be invited.

Jenny: Sam - as Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin you’ve had a very successful No 1 career as a literary scout and publishing consultant. You've seen at first hand how hard it is for writers to make a living. So what was the "Once Upon a Time” moment that made you decide to “join them.”

Author Sam Blake

Sam: Yeah absolutely.  I really only got involved in the publishing industry as a result of wanting to write. I started writing in 1999.  My husband went sailing across the Atlantic in a race for eight weeks and it was November here, so long dark evenings, and I was working in event management at the time.

I was at home alone and I didn't have any children then, so I just started writing. By the time he came back, the bug had really bitten - I didn't even have a computer then, I was writing in long hand and then going into the office in the evenings or at weekends and typing it up.

When he came back it was Christmastime, and he bought me a computer and I never looked back. I wrote every spare moment, every minute from then on.  I was on about Book Three. . .   I'd  finished Book One and sent it out everywhere, and it was rejected everywhere, but first books often aren't the most amazing books ever and by the time I got to Book Three I realised I wanted to learn more.

I realised I needed to do more about actual fiction writing, and so I enrolled in a weekend workshop down in Dingle in Kerry.  A beautiful part of the country, but in order to go to the workshop I had to fly my parents in from the UK - I had two small children by that stage - and I had to leave frozen dinners in the fridge and notes on this and that - it was a massive operation involved to get away for the weekend so when I came back I realised "Yes I could write" but I wanted to learn more and more and I couldn't do the whole weekend thing again, it just wasn't practical, and there wasn't anyone who was doing one day workshops in Ireland at the time, which is what I felt I needed.