WHILE writers get creative at the Fremantle Arts Centre next weekend, they’ll be getting down to business at the Fremantle Town Hall on Thursday February 23.

Fremantle Press, the City of Fremantle and the Four Centres Emerging Writers Program have put together The Business of Being a Writer, an evening devoted to helping budding writers get their stories out of that creative corner of their mind and onto a bookshop shelf.

Fremantle Press publisher and author Georgia Richter is hosting the event and says it helps remind people that there’s two sides to being an author.

“There’s the writing work you do when you’re at your desk, and then there’s all the other work that you do towards author brand and promotion, and where your book sits in the market,” Ms Richter said.

“In fact, it seems such useful information for writers that we put together a book called How to be an Author: The Business of Being a Writer in Australia, where we answered lots of those questions.

“But it’s for this reason, also, that we hold these events like Thursday’s, because it’s really great for writers to hear from other writers who’ve been there before than about tips and tricks.”

Ms Richter says she hopes participants come away with “firm information and insights” into the publishing industry.

“The two panels that we’re doing on genre fiction and non-fiction, we think that they will gain some really useful on-the-ground stuff from writers who have been there before them.”

Ms Richter says her top tips for wannabe authors is to find a writing community, read widely in their area of interest and be persistent.

“Always being open to the process of feedback, and that having a generous community of other writers and people who can assist you is a really nice counterbalance to the very solitary pursuit of writing.

“Writing is a long game, and it’s actually persistence and just keeping at it which will lead to success,” she said.

Ms Richter said she grew up wanting to be a writer before working out she was better at nurturing others. She has a Masters in creative writing from UWA and went into teaching and running an editing business with a friend before starting with Fremantle Press, where she’s the fiction poetry and nonfiction publisher.

She still feels the thrill of picking up a new manuscript.

“I can tell the minute I start reading, that they’re a good writer and something really great’s about to happen.

“I’m about to discover, to be taken on a journey.”