Author Interview: Andrew Crofts

Self Published Authors welcomes novelist, Andrew Crofts.  It's been a pleasure to meet you Andrew.  We look forward to hearing how you fare with your new book. 

Author:  Andrew Crofts

Book Title:  The Fabulous Dreams of Maggie de Beer

Book Price:  Still to be decided, but probably $0.99

Where will you book be available for purchase?  It is going to go up on the Smashwords site to start with and work outwards from there.

Book Description:  The novel is written in the form of a memoir by Maggie de Beer.

Fifteen year-old Maggie arrives in London on the run from her humdrum suburban life, determined to make it big in show business.

For more than thirty years she is exploited by both men and the media. She struggles against endless set-backs and disappointments, always remaining optimistic, always believing that this time her big break has come.  Then, when most of us would have given up all hope, the celebrity circus rockets her to bizarre and unexpected pinnacles of fame. 

Starting in 1970 Maggie de Beer’s journey mirrors the rise of celebrity culture and the growth of the media which ruthlessly created it, exploiting and destroying the lives of girls like Maggie who willingly offered themselves up, happy to make any amount of personal sacrifices in exchange for a chance to live the dream. She is determined to make herself “interesting” and only when she finally achieves her goal, at enormous personal cost, does she discover, under the full glare of the media spotlight, that the family she was running away from was never as humdrum as she had believed.

The Fabulous Dreams of Maggie de Beer sounds fascinating.  What drove you to write this novel?

I first wrote one called "The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride", which was published in the conventional way by Blake Publishing. Maggie was a major character in that one and I felt she deserved to have her story told too.

What one thing would you like your readers to know about your new novel?

It is the story of a woman who just wanted to be recognised and loved by the public.

Why do you think The Fabulous Dreams of Maggie de Beers stands out among other novels of the same genre?  It is written in the same style that I might have used if I had ghostwritten for Maggie, were she a real person. I hope that gives it an added reality and an authenticity.

How did you become a writer?

I have been writing ever since I left school about forty years ago. I would do any sort of writing that would pay the bills.

What's one fun fact that your readers might not know about you?

 I took tea with Mrs. Mubarak in Cairo a little while before the Egyptian people toppled her husband, President Mubarak, and the "Arab Spring" started to break through.

Have you had a good experience so far with self-publishing?

I have self published a couple of books for ghostwriting clients, but in the traditional paper form. Both have been very satisfactory because the clients knew exactly what they wanted to do with the finished products. This is my first venture into e-books.

Do you have any advice that you'd like to pass on to new authors?

Never, never give up and do as many interesting things as possible in order to have plenty to write about.

Author Bio:  After leaving Lancing College at 17 (a school where other writers included Evelyn Waugh, Sir Tim Rice, David Hare, Christopher Hampton and Tom Sharpe), I went to London to try to make my living from writing. I ran a modeling agency for a while. I worked as a travel writer, visiting places like the Caribbean, the South Pacific and the Far East. I was also a business writer, a novelist and a ghostwriter. I am married with four adult children and live in the countryside outside London. 

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