Mark of success as putting novel online gets it published

SHE’S an author who has just found out that her debut novel is going to be published so perhaps she can be forgiven for a few typos on her blog.

Leigh Fallon took an unusual route to becoming a published author. She wrote The Carrier of the Mark, a paranormal romance, and contacted some literary agents but was unsuccessful in getting it published. So she uploaded her manuscript to inkpop.com in December 2009, a website set up by publishing house, HarperCollins, for aspiring writers and book lovers. It was quickly voted one of the top five manuscripts on the site. HarperCollins, followed up a few months later with an offer of a book contract — its first for a work published on the site.

Leigh is a South African who was raised in Dublin and moved to Kinsale, Co Cork, in her 20s.