This page has two author bios detailed below:

1) The inside-info version for readers, students, M/C's and website visitors

2) The official press release version for use in flyers and promotion of events

Please feel welcome to quote either one for interviews, articles, school projects etc. However, an updated and properly formatted A4 version (with colour images) for flyers can also be emailed to you upon request.

1) The inside-info version for readers, M/C's and website visitors:
Most people know that my first published book was a financial non-fiction title called "Your Mortgage." But what very few people realise is that the genre of non-fiction finance was NOT the genre that I set out to be published in. You see, my first thriller had been rejected (as most first novels are), but I didn't realise at the time that rejection was a fairly standard first stage in becoming a published writer. During the process of writing my first attempt, I discovered how much I really *adored* writing thrillers and I became desperate to ensure that I didn't give up after my first rejection. So I set off going to every writers' workshop I could manage, trying to figure out what I could do to write books that would sell to publishers - and I kept hearing the same story: That I was trying too hard and that I should start with something easier, like writing what I know about.

I laughed, saying: "That'll be a short book!" But I gave in after a while and thought, okay, I'll give it a go. As it turned out, Your Mortgage only took me 2 weeks to write, but 147 query letters later and after a fair amount of negotiation to ensure my book would be one of the cheapest and yet best value books in its category, it got published, shot to No #1 and stayed there for a long time, where it became runner up with Bryce Courtney for Best Australian Title of the Year in it's first year, despite only 4.5 months on the bookshelves.

That's why I always answer finance questions for free, by the way. I never set out to become a finance author. I have no formal qualifications and no intentions of getting into the finance industry, depsite a number of "blank cheque offers" by reputable companies within the industry. But I was getting truckloads of readers' mail wanting to know more about my quirky ways, at a time when I was deep into writing my next thriller (which became Crystal Coffin), so I scribbled off the next two finance books to help cut down on the number of people needing help (and again negotiating to ensure the info remained available for readers as cheaply as possible).

Sadly, a lot of people wrongly assume that having a mega-bestseller in non-fiction - and two more under contract - made it heaps easier for me to get my thriller published.

But this was definitely not the case!  

In many ways, it made it harder. I'd become too well known as a finance author, so nobody wanted to see my first action thriller - no financial author on the planet has ever been a successful creative writer as well, so what hope could I possibly have? (At least that's what I kept hearing.) But my short stories had no trouble winning awards or finding publishers under pen-names, while my novels had a tough time of it under my "finance author's" name. So after a long time trying and re-trying, I decided to submit my novel again under a pen-name... then five out of six major publishers all wrote to me immediately wanting to see more!

I did end up publishing my first thriller under my own name after it was accepted, and now the rest is history...

 2) The Press Release version from my publisher for media events:

Anita Bell is best known as Australia's favourite debt busting mum. Her bestselling finance trilogy consisting of Your Mortgage and How to Pay it off in Five Years, Your Money: Starting Out & Starting Over, and Your Investment Property and how to choose it pay for it and triple your returns in three years all appear in the 2002 Sydney Morning Herald’s list of Top 10 Bestselling Australian Business Titles. Five titles (so far) have been adapted as special editions and two are being produced onto audio CD.

Website content Copyright (c), 2003, 2004 Bleetie & Co Pty Ltd ABN 97 098 664 389

Special thanks to Ben Cooper for designing the anitabell.com logo used on this website, as well as
taking the time to teach me how to make those really cool book covers spin! Thanks Ben!