We recently connected with Philip Cox and have shared our conversation below.

Philip, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I’d always wanted to write a book. I had several attempts over the years, but never got past the first chapter as the day job (banking and insurance) got in the way.

Then, after our eldest daughter was born, I took a career break to be the main carer. When my wife went on maternity leave for our second child, I had some time on my hands, and so decided to try writing a book again.

65000 words and six months later I finished the manuscript and sought an agent. I spent the next few months trudging around London delivering summaries, first 3 chapters, etc etc to no avail. It was then I discovered the eBook industry. I got my first book published on Amazon’s Kindle platform.

I then read that everybody has a novel inside them, assuming they put in the time an effort; however, what sets a person apart from others is to have a second book. So I wrote number 2, and followed this up with my third, as I seemed to be on a roll.

Now I’ve just published number 15.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

The types of books I write are mystery thrillers. I have two series of books: one featuring a Los Angeles Police detective, and the other a London investigative newspaper reporter. I also have four standalone novels.

They are mainly published on the Amazon Kindle platform, but are also available in paperback. One of the proudest and exciting moments for me is when the first paperback of a new novel arrives in that brown cardboard envelope. The other is when readers post a review, hopefully favourable, as that gives me a sense of validation.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

One I can think of is early in my writing career. Reviews started to come in, not always good. The story was fine, but the complaints were around typos, continuity, and grammar errors, although I write in British English and a lot of readers are from the USA.

This experience was very salutary and I could quite easily have been overwhelmed and given up, but I persevered, practised my proof reading skills and even enlisted a couple of reviewers to act as proof readers.

Some errors still slip through though, but that happens to the best of us – I found an typo on an Agatha Christie novel a while back.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For me, that’s mainly seeing my name on the book thumbnail on the Amazon page or Goodreads, especially when the first paperback arrived. Another example would be this: I was at a Book Fair a while back, with my paperbacks on display, and a lady told me she had already read some of them, and had brought one for me to autograph!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.booksbyphilipcox.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/philipcoxbooks
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/philipcoxbooks
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/philipcoxbooks
• Twitter: twitter@philipcoxbooks