Q & A with Joanna Berry and Penny Avis

Joanna Berry and Penny Avis are the co-authors of the series Never Mind the Botox and they took the time out of their busy schedules to answer a few questions. 

1. When you were younger did you dream you would be authors? If not, what was your dream job?

No, we both had careers in the city first. Penny is an accountant who was a corporate finance partner at Deloitte and, although she had toyed with the idea of journalism at university, Joanna became a lawyer and an intellectual property and media partner at Eversheds. It was only when we both took career breaks that the idea of writing emerged.

2. How well do you work together to write the books?

We have been friends for many years, so work well together as we know each other so well. Many people find it hard to believe, but we've not even had one argument about the books since the project began! Just many, many laughs. 

3. Which published book would you've liked to have written?

We'd love to have written Bridget Jones Diary. Such a clever, funny and iconic book in our genre. Brilliant films too.

4. How did you come up with the main characters in the book? Are they based on people you know?

We used our past career experience and developed them together using both of our ideas. We drew heavily on people that know or have come across during our careers but tended to blend little parts of them into different characters, so our characters developed into individuals in their own right and none of them are like any one person. 

5. Have you got any other projects in the pipeline?

We have the other two books in the series coming out later this year, plus we have our TV series project for the books with Future Films. So this is going to keep us pretty busy for a while!

6. How hard was it to get your novels published?

 As you know, it's not east. Unfortunately there is no substitute for hard work and, whether you like it or not, being very focused on the commercial aspects of your book. We spent a lot of time understanding our target audience and researching what other books were already out there. That way we were pretty sure that writing a series from four different perspectives was something quite new and innovative in our genre.

Thank you to Penny and Joanna for answering the questions I asked them.