Book signings are only partly about getting a book inscribed by the author. These signings also give readers insight to the author and show just what went into that novel.

That's what Kate White gave to an enthusiastic audience during a recent book signing for The Sixes at Murder on the Beach bookstore in Delray Beach.

Kate's latest novel is The Sixes, a thriller in which a student's death pulls a woman into a secret society in a small college town.

Best known for her Bailey Weggins novels, Kate also has two stand-alone novels. Her 2010 novel Hush landed on the New York Times Best Sellers List.

But Kate also has another job -- she's the editor in chief of Cosmopolitan Magazine.

The two careers work well for Kate's lifelong dream of being a writer. And she wanted to do all sorts of writing -- magazines, newspapers, plays, novels.

"I finally realized that there was no way I could do all the kinds of writing I was interested in," said Kate.

Since she had won Glamour Magazine's Top Ten College Women contest and appeared on the cover, she naturally steered to magazines. She began to work at Glamour as an editorial assistant, rising in the ranks to eventually be an editor in chief, running four magazines.

But still she wanted to write so, even with a demanding career and a growing family, Kate would take a few hours on Saturday morning to write. She was about four chapters into her novel when, on a Saturday she was writing, she got a call to come to the office. She wondered if she was going to be fired. Instead, Kate was named editor in chielf of Cosmopolitan.

That was in 1998.

She put the manuscript aside to concentrate on her new job. But about five months later, she "took out those pages and went back to work."

The result was If Looks Could Kill, which was published in 2002 and was selected as Live With Regis and Kelly’s first Reading With Ripa book-club pick.

Since then, she has published five novels in the Bailey Weggins series, two standalone novels and three nonfiction books.

Bailey Weggins will return with So Pretty It Hurts, scheduled for March 2012.

Kate was in her mid-40s when her first novel was published and she admits she had to wait until her children were a bit older so she could better manage her time.

The trick, she said, is not to think that a project is huge but to slice the time into small increments. "Write for 15 minutes. Soon, 15 minutes become 20 minutes and then 20 minutes become 30 minutes," she said.

"The decision was made that I could not let my dreams go," said Kate. "We live serial achievements."