Author Anna Jacobs publishes 100th novel, 'A Valley Wedding'

The Perth author's latest novel, A Valley Wedding (Hodder & Stoughton) is the final book in the Backshaw Moss series and is about finding love at an older age.

"I'm a bit bemused as well as thrilled to have my 100th novel published," Anna said.

"It took me 10 years to get my first one accepted and I thought maybe I'd manage to get 10 more published before I was through.

"Now I have enough ideas to keep me going until I'm 120 at least."

According to her publisher, Anna's books are the fifth most borrowed adult fiction in British libraries and those published with Hodder have sold more than 4.35 million copies across all formats.

Anna said she had been a storyteller since the age of two.

"I had imaginary friends walk out of the wall to play with me and I thought they were real," she said.

Married with two daughters and a grandson, Anna was 51 when she won a $10,000 prize for a regency romance written in the style of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer.

"I didn't stick with that style of writing but gosh it taught me a lot," she said.

"It was the sixth book I had written. The first five had been rejected, increasingly nicely. I rewrote all but one of those early books and they got published, too."

One of her most popular series, The Traders, is set between WA and England.

Anna also writes modern family stories with another publisher.

"I like to write family relationship stories with a bit of tension in them," she said.

"I like to write about decent people facing the odds, I don't have anything gruesome in them and I always have a happy ending.

"The best thing is when I get a lovely reader email. I got one from a regular in America who said she had read my new book three times, she enjoyed it so much."

Another reader said her aunt had found comfort in her books while she was in a hospice dying of cancer.

"Well, I cried when I read that, I felt so honoured."

Anna writes up to 10 hours a day. To get in the writing zone she plays cards online.

"If I get stuck in the middle of a book, I play cards for a quarter of an hour. It's very relaxing and apparently it relaxes the right part of your brain to be creative.

"I tell people who are wanting to write to get a habit that leads you into writing and then you get used to being creative at that time.

"Storytelling is a 'doing it' activity. An athlete couldn't get someone else to train for them and it's the same with writing. You have to learn to do it well, and to keep doing it. And you have to learn to do it your own special way, because your individual 'voice' is what is important to the reader."