From the very beginning, I envisioned success as selling enough books so I could keep getting published and continue to write what I wanted to without compromising.

We need to write books that publicists and marketers and booksellers and book club leaders and librarians and readers can get excited about. That have something about them that makes them stand out. That makes them shine.

The real story is that I am very free, that I've managed to be who I wanted to be without compromising.

Right from the very beginning, I knew I wanted to write palpably Scottish fiction.

It's been more than a decade since I put that self-published novel, 'Lip Service', up on a website. Since then, many hundreds of authors have gone from self-published to traditionally published.

No one inspired me to write, but writer Harlan Ellison terrified me into getting published.