Mandurah author Louisa West on love, money and writing

It's a question that Mandurah author Louisa West has heard time and time again since leaving her office job and becoming a full-time writer.

Ms West is now a critically acclaimed author, with her works being nominated for the Australian Romance Writers Association's reader's choice awards among New York Times Bestsellers - but her success didn't come overnight.

Ms West sat down with the Mail to talk about how she made 'author' her sole job title and made her books pay the bills.

"Until now I just found 'how much money do you make?' to be a really awkward question," Ms West said.

"My family didn't really talk about money and I never thought it was polite to ask other people what kind of money they made.

"It's a little uncomfortable - I had this roundabout way of answering without answering, but as I've gotten older and started running this as my own business I asked myself 'why do you feel awkward? You should be proud that you do this as a fulltime job now.

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"With creative jobs, there is always a perception that they don't pay well, or that you have to be really famous to do well or you make nothing at all - just black or white."

Ms West said independent authors can make money without being wildly famous, by running it like a business and putting in the work.

"The first question to ask is 'do you want to write for love or money?'" she said.

"Both are completely valid answers.

"The thing is you can write for money and love what you do - I love writing my books and pour a lot of myself into them, but I wanted to give them the best possible start."

Ms West explained that while she had a lot of story ideas spinning around in her head, her Midlife in Mosswood series fell into the popular 'paranormal women's fiction' category, and she knew it was perfect timing.

"Sometimes it's a matter of 'the time's not right for that story' - you want for it to be the time where it's popular enough to shine the way it's meant to shine.

"If you want to write for money and you want it to be your full-time job, invest time into what's selling and where it's selling."

The top 100 bestseller list and online data analytics companies are an incredibly useful tool, according to Ms West, when it comes to seeing which of your stories it is the right time for.

"I generally have a look through top 100 once or twice a week to see what's popular," Ms West said.

"And I use K-lytics, a data conversion company which compiles and runs reports to sell to authors - which is super useful.

"If you want to make this your full time career and you want to do it the way I do it, independently, you have to run it like a business.

"Invest time and money into an editor - if you want people to buy your product you have to make sure it's polished."

The biggest piece of advice Ms West offered was to just sit down and write.

"It sounds so simple but it's so complicated - you can sit down at the computer and not write a damn thing, the hardest part is sitting down and writing.

"Details can be added in editing - your first draft is never going to be perfect."

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When Ms West was writing her first book, she said a rough plan helped her to beat a writer's block.

"Basically I sat down with a whole stack of post-its and I brainstormed and wrote every single idea I had down on its own post-it.

"I collected the post-its and tried to arrange them in a sequence that would work, and from there I developed it into a plot outline.

"Then it was a matter sitting with my butt in the chair trying to smash it out."

Ms West has now written five books in her Midlife in Mosswood series with a sixth to be released in October.

To follow Ms West's author journey, follow her Facebook page.