The author Aurélie Valognes is present in the program "It makes good" her seventh novel "Le tourbillon de la vie", released Wednesday and already printed in 200,000 copies.
She explains how she quit her job as a marketing executive at an American multinational to get into writing.
INTERVIEW
How do you go from an executive in a large American company to a successful author?
Aurélie Valognes, who publishes her seventh novel
Le tourbillon de la vie,
returns to the microphone of Anne Roumanoff in
It
feels
good
about her beginnings in the writing profession, and on the unexpected success of
Mémé in the nettles
, her first novel.
Her new career begins when her husband is transferred to Milan and the marketing executive resigns to follow him, as her company is not located in the Italian city.
>>
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"I never dreamed of writing before"
This period is difficult to live for Aurélie Valognes.
“I wrote because I needed it,” she explains.
"I was in a phase where I was not very, very well in my life: I was coming out of a baby blues and I had a cousin the same age as me who was seriously ill."
She then wonders if, in the event that her life ends tomorrow, she would have achieved all her dreams.
And it's a recurring nightmare that pushes her to write.
"I saw my grave, with it marked 'Aurélie Valognes, writer'. At that time, I dreamed of it every night, for two months," recalls Aurélie Valognes.
"I had never dreamed of writing before, and I didn't even know it was my dream. I had forgotten it."
"I publish my novel on Amazon and I take back my life"
The future successful novelist then embarks on the writing of
Mémé in the nettles
, without imagining to be published.
"I'm trying, I'm writing my first novel. And then, once it's done, I can be proud of myself and move on," she said to herself then.
It's her aging computer that makes her take the next step.
"I realized that this novel was really going to die with my computer, which was a real dinosaur," she smiles.
"When I finally wanted to. But I was sure the editors would say no to me. And I didn't want to put my dream in someone else's hands."
Aurélie Valognes therefore chooses digital self-publishing.
"In July 2014, I publish my novel on Amazon and I resume a job, and I resume my life," she adds.
"I'm not careful."
Over the weeks, the first-time novelist sells 25,000 copies online and enters the platform's top 20 sales.
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How self-publishing launched the career of novelist Agnès Martin-Lugand
"There, I tell myself that I am perhaps not alone in finding that this story is not so bad" surprised Aurélie Valognes.
She decides to print her novel and send it from Milan to four publishing houses.
“And at the same time, I was contacted on Facebook by an editor who spotted me on the platform,” she adds.
It is with the latter that Aurélie Valognes signs her first publishing contract.
Granny in the nettles
is selling quite well.
Its sales explode when it comes out in pocket format.
Aurélie Valognes has now sold over a million copies.