ABOUT TASMINA
Tasmina Perry is the internationally bestselling author of over twenty novels including Kiss Heaven Goodbye, Private Lives and Guilty Pleasures. Her books have been translated into twenty-five languages and sold over two million copies worldwide. She is a former lawyer turned award-winning journalist and was editing the UK edition of InStyle magazine when her debut novel Daddy's Girls went into the top ten and became one of the biggest selling debuts of the years.
She also writes thrillers under the pseudonym JL Butler. Mine - her first novel in that pen name has been optioned by Sony Pictures. She lives in London with her husband, son and too many shoes.
MY LIFE IN WORDS
After studying law at university and going to the College of Law for her professional exams, Tasmina becomes a trainee solicitor at a large commercial law firm. It is nothing like Ally McBeal and she wishes she'd trusted her instincts and trained as a journalist.
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Hooray! Tasmina wins a competition in popular women's magazine More to go on a date with two male models. (She is not greedy - she takes a friend.) The models are lovely but she discovers something even better - she wants to be a magazine journalist.
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Tasmina qualifies as a solicitor. Not long afterwards, More magazine get in touch to tell her there is a job opening as a junior writer. It is a competitive process but the opportunity includes being sent to journalism school for five months.
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She lands the job and goes to learn shorthand and news-reporting. Eighteen months after starting at More she wins the prestigious New Magazine Journalist of the Year award.
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Six months later she becomes editor in chief of More magazine. She is the first non-white editor of a major women's magazine.
At various points over the next decade she works in senior positions over a raft of titles. She also launches her own travel and style magazine Jaunt which attracts high-end advertisers and is described as 'the most exciting launch since Glamour,' by leading fashion and beauty executives.
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Tasmina goes on honeymoon and as she had read most of the beach reads on offer at the airport bookshop, she decides to write her own.
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Tasmina gets an agent and a six-figure pre-empt for Daddy's Girls.
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Tasmina is acting editor of InStyle magazine when her debut novel Daddy's Girls blasts into the Sunday Times top ten bestsellers chart. Tasmina leaves journalism to become a full-time writer and Daddy's Girls becomes one of the biggest selling books of the year.
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Tasmina is asked by a pre-politics Donald Trump to ghost-write a series of novels. She turns him down and instead starts thinking about writing psychological thrillers alongside her Tasmina Perry books.
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Mine, her first thriller, written under the pen name JL Butler is bought in a six-figure pre-empt by Sony Pictures.
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In lockdown, Tasmina decides to independently publish a romance novel called The Singles Table. Excited by this new nimble form of publishing, she creates new own imprint Sunflower & Co to release digital-first books.
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Sunflower & Co expands and starts publishing other writers.
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Tasmina is passionate about creative life and nurturing new talent. She has been a Marie Claire/Prince’s Trust mentor and British Society of Magazine Editors New Talent judge and has launched newsletters We Are All Creatives and Write With Me to help people be more creative and make money from their creative ability.
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Q & A
Tell us a little bit about how you came to be a novelist.
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I didn't start off an an author. Or a journalist. I actually trained as a lawyer and had a legal career all mapped out until I met Take That in a cafe in Manchester. I went up to Robbie and asked if I could interview them because my secret dream was to be a writer. Take That were just starting out so it must have been one of their first ever interviews. A couple of years later, when they were big stars, I used it to secure a junior writer's job at More magazine.
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Was it easy to make the switch to magazine journalism?
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Life as a lawyer was not for me - I realised that pretty quickly. So I felt liberated when I became a journalist. I lived and breathed working in magazines and that passion helped me move up the ladder pretty quickly. I was an editor within two years so my parents weren't cross anymore that I had abandoned my respectable legal career!
Do you miss working in a busy office? A writer's life can be quite solitary.
Looking back, I worked through one of the golden ages of magazines and I will always be grateful for that opportunity. I interviewed celebrities on private jets, got invited to premieres and fashion shows - I even raced to the South of France in a fleet of Capris.
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Having all these adventures and being able to share them with the readers was a dream come true and I sat down and wrote a novel (Daddy's Girls) for the very same reason. Books, like magazines, are an armchair trip with the power to whisk you away to wherever your words and imagination will take you. So I do see the two professions as being very similar.
That said - I do miss the banter of an office, although my husband works from home too. Often we'll just down tools and go for brunch or for a walk to talk through our plot-points although really we're just glad of the company!
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What writing tips can you share?
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To be a writer you have to start writing. Courses and workshops can be helpful but there is no substitute for opening a notebook or laptop and just getting words on the page. Over time you'll find your voice. Read as much as you can and think about how the writer is telling the story and establishing the characters. Let your story idea percolate. Think about the lives of your characters. Establish their backstory. Get to know them.
I find it helpful to do a detailed outline and chapter plan before I start, which I think of as a road-map. If you want to give yourself the best chance of commercial success, think about nailing down a compelling blurb about your book sooner rather than later. You need to be able to clearly and concisely sell your story idea to agents and editors. My newsletters We Are All Creatives and Write With Me are packed with author interviews and tips if you want to know more.