Friday, March 28, 2014

Book Publishing Secrets: Interview with Michael Goffinet, author of 'They Call Me Superman'

Our guest today is Michael Goffinet, author of They Call Me Superman.  He is here to give his experiences as a traditionally published author.

Thank you for your time in answering our questions about getting published.  Let’s begin by having you explain to us why you decided to become an author and pen this book?


Michael: I became consumed with action thrillers fifteen years ago. I found myself constantly thinking about different book plots and characters. I developed Marcus Evans on a sleepless night two years ago and he grew from there. I finally found the courage to put pen to paper.
Is this your first book?
Michael: I’ve written a couple of short stories, but “They Call Me Superman” is my first full-length novel.
With this particular book, how did you publish – traditional, small press, Indie, etc. – and why did you choose this method?
Michael: I went with a small press. They had a good reputation on the internet.
Can you tell us a little about your publishing journey?  The pros and cons?
Michael: I wrote the first draft in six months, but it took me another year to edit and revise. It’s a very time consuming process, but well worth it. You really need a quality product when you go to market. When you go with a publisher, however, you lose a lot of control and have to do most of the marketing yourself. So, if you are a control freak like me, you may want to publish yourself.
What lessons do you feel you learned about your particular publishing journey and about the publishing industry as a whole?
Michael: Be prepared for the process to take much longer than expected. Don’t be afraid to ask your publisher for references and demand quality work.
Would you recommend this method of publishing to other authors?
Michael: If you can afford a good editor, I would self publish.
What’s the best advice you can give to aspiring authors?
Michael: If you love writing, never give up. Never stop learning, it’s a very important part of improving.


 

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Book Publishing Secrets: Interview with Andra Watkins, author of 'To Live Forever'

Our guest today is Andra Watkins, author of To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis, and is published by Word Hermit Press.  She is here to give her experiences as an small press author.

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Thank you for your time in answering our questions about getting published. Let’s begin by having you explain to us why you decided to become an author and pen this book?

Andra: Someone once said if there’s a book we want to read, but it isn’t
written, then we need to write it. I’ve always been fascinated with history. I’d
close every biography with the thought, “What would this person do if he/she
had more time?” I wrote my book to give explorer Meriwether Lewis more time,
to answer that question for myself.

Is this your first book?

Andra: I would never let anyone read my first book. Ha. This is the first one I’ve been willing to share with the world.

With this particular book, how did you publish – traditional, small press, Indie, etc. – and why did you choose this method?

Andra: Word Hermit Press published my novel. When the last agent in the traditional publishing world told me I needed to gut my book and take
Meriwether Lewis out because readers wouldn’t buy him in the role I created, I threw up my hands and said, “Enough!” I turned to hybrid publication, and I’m happy with Word Hermit Press.

Can you tell us a little about your publishing journey? The pros and cons?

Andra: My story isn’t unique or different from the journey of any other author.
Almost 100 rejections. Countless pieces of advice to change the book so
someone could sell it. Numerous examples of the most unprofessional behavior
I’ve ever encountered in a twenty-plus year career in the business world.

Here’s what I say to any author: Believe in yourself. Believe in your story.
Believe in your characters. If you don’t believe in yourself, don’t expect
anyone else to believe in you. Take that belief, and make your story live. Other
people will believe, because you believed in yourself first.

What lessons do you feel you learned about your particular publishing journey and about the publishing industry as a whole?

Andra: I think this story sums up the publishing industry today.

I was at a conference. A couple of traditional publishing types were talking
over in the corner. One of them said, “I just got this book in, and it’s dreadful.
I mean, really, REALLY bad.”

“Why are you considering it?”

“Well, because the author won a big literary award for a short story, and ten other agents are going after it, and I feel like I need to try for it to stay relevant. But, let me say again, the book is just DREADFUL.”

I always hoped I would be a fit for traditional publishing. Now I realize that I
never could’ve made the book I did within that framework. Because of the way
I approached publication, my book is exactly what I dreamed it would be. I
want to write many, many more of them.

Would you recommend this method of publishing to other authors?

Andra: Absolutely. Believe in yourself and make it happen.

What’s the best advice you can give to aspiring authors?

Andra: Write the best book you can. Spend money on an excellent editor.
Listen to him or her. Rewrite the best book you can. Assemble excellent people
who know more than you do about whatever role they’re playing on your team.

Listen to those people. Work your ass off to be accessible to your readers.
Never, ever stop believing in yourself and the story you were put here to tell.
 
 
Andra Wakins is a native of Tennessee but calls Charleston, South Carolina, her home for the last 23 years.  She is the author of To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis from Word Hermit Press which is a mishmash of historical fiction, paranormal fiction and suspense that follows Meriwether Lewis (of Lewis & Clark fame) after his mysterious death on the Natchez Trace in 1809. 

You can visit her website at www.andrawatkins.com or follow her on Google+,Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and Goodreads.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Book Publishing Secrets: Interview with Monique Roy, author of 'Across Great Divides'

Our guest today is Monique Roy, author of Across Great Divides and is self-published.  She is here to give her experiences as an Indie author.


Thank you for your time in answering our questions about getting published.  Let’s begin by having you explain to us why you decided to become an author and pen this book?
I became an author because I love writing. I enjoy creating interesting and compelling stories that let the reader escape to another time and place. As a historical fiction writer, I like to explore the past so that we can potentially better understand the future.

I was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and my grandparents were European Jews who fled their home as Hitler rose to power. It’s their story that inspired me to write Across Great Divides.

Is this your first book?
No, I published a book called Once Upon a Time in Venice for middle-grade readers in 2007. Across Great Divides is my second book. You can find out more by visiting my website at http://www.monique-roy.com/portfolio.html.
With this particular book, how did you publish – traditional, small press, Indie, etc. – and why did you choose this method?
A long time ago, my grandfather gave me a printed copy of about 10-pages of typed notes on how my grandparents fled Europe and their situation. I thought it was a fascinating story, and I decided years ago that I would write a book based on the experiences of my family. I was born in Cape Town and I also wanted to include a story about an immigrant family moving to this beautiful city and what they had to endure to build a new life in a foreign country.
I am a self-published author. I spent many, many hours and months searching for an agent and publisher. I got some response, but in the end, I chose to do it on my own. Self-publishing gives the author 100 percent control and it can be lucrative. Everything is a risk, but I wanted to build a platform and introduce my books to the world on my own. I am not closed to traditional publishing. Self-publishing helped me launch my books and begin my journey as a published author. We will see where the road leads in the future.
Can you tell us a little about your publishing journey?  The pros and cons?
Across Great Divides took approximately two and a half years to write and publish, from draft to completion. I really like the writing process, and I spent countless hours doing research, which I also enjoyed. I learned a lot about the World War Two era, apartheid, etc. The best moment is when you hold your published book in your hands for the first time.
I don’t love formatting the content, but it is par for the course. It can be very manual and time-intensive, but it has to be done to create a quality book.
I must admit that I spent several months reaching out to agents and many never even responded. I know that is something I should not take personally as agents probably receive hundreds, if not thousands, of queries, but sometimes I felt very discouraged. In the end, you must have pride and confidence in your work and never give up hope.
What lessons do you feel you learned about your particular publishing journey and about the publishing industry as a whole?
It is a great time to be an author, self-published or traditionally published. The publishing industry is in transformation. With the Internet, social media and Amazon (and e-books), all authors, whether traditionally published or self-published, must self-promote and become entrepreneurs. As booksellers and publishers are financially constrained because of the changing industry, it’s more likely that authors will need to focus more and more on marketing. Most writers today are extremely familiar with social media because book sales are driven by word-of-mouth and personal recommendation. If you have not harnessed social media yet, you must do so right away. Print-on-demand provides self-published authors with advantages like no returns and leaves mainstream publishers competing with digital prices.
Would you recommend this method of publishing to other authors?
Yes! Build your writer platform. Write a well-written and intriguing story, get it edited, and launch it to the world. Self-publishing pays a higher royalty rate. A traditional publisher pays 15-20 percent of net revenues and Kindle ebooks, by contrast, pays 35 percent or 70 percent. In this digital world, you can be published, and get your book out to eager readers and build a fan base, just like traditionally-published authors. You have 100 percent control of the cover design, the content, the marketing, etc. The shelf-life of an online book is forever.
What’s the best advice you can give to aspiring authors?
Read a lot. Write a lot. Do research on the publishing industry. Join a writing group. Write what you are passionate about and never give up!
Monique Roy loves writing that twitches her smiling muscles or transports her to another time or place. Her passion for writing began as a young girl while penning stories in a journal. Now she looks forward to deepening her passion by creating many unique stories that do nothing less than intrigue her readers.

Monique holds a degree in journalism from Southern Methodist University in Dallas and is the author of a middle-grade book Once Upon a Time in Venice. Monique loves to travel, play tennis, pursue her passion for writing, and read historical fiction. In 2008, she was chosen by the American Jewish Committee’s ACCESS program to travel to Berlin, Germany, on the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, to explore German and Israeli relations along with 20 other Jewish professionals from across the U.S.

Monique was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and her grandparents were European Jews who fled their home as Hitler rose to power. It’s their story that inspired her to write Across Great Divides, her newest novel.

What attracts Monique to historical fiction is taking the factual record as a structure and letting imagination run wild to fill it all in. Historical fiction lets you escape to another time and place; and Monique likes to explore the past so that we can potentially better understand the future.
Her latest book is the historical fiction, Across Great Divides.

Visit her website at www.monique-roy.com.


Monday, March 3, 2014

Book Publishing Secrets Interviews Fletcher Best, author of 'The Eight Fingered Fiend of Lake Porker'

Our guest today is Fletcher Best, author of The Eight Fingered Fiend of Lake Porker and is self-published. He is here to give his experiences as an Indie author. 



Fletcher Best is an American author of humorous fiction and science fiction.  He is the author of the Stranded In Time series of science fiction novels, including Pirates of the Storm, The Corpornation, and the upcoming third installment, Timeless.  His humorous works include Sniffing Out Stink Ape, The Great Chupacabra Kerfuffle, and The Eight Fingered Fiend of Lake Porker

In addition to his novels, Fletcher Best also writes short stories that are published exclusively for the enjoyment of visitors to his website, FletcherBest.com.  These include the popular, Manatee Vengeance - Blood at the Boat Launch, Alien Invasion of the Zombie Apocalypse, Operation Black Friday, and A Fabulous Business Opportunity.

Born in Miami, Florida, Fletcher has lived in Texas since 1988.  He (or more correctly, his real-life alter-ego George Best) attended Parker College of Chiropractic in Dallas before beginning a chiropractic practice in San Antonio in 1992.  He has resided in San Antonio ever since and now lives in sin with his girlfriend and their 4 cats (the sin being strictly with the girlfriend, not the cats). 

Readers are invited to connect with Fletcher through his website at http://www.FletcherBest.com.

Thank you for your time in answering our questions about getting published.  Let’s begin by having you explain to us why you decided to become an author and pen this book?
Fletcher:  I’ve been writing since I was a teenager, but I never thought of publishing anything in those days.  I only started publishing a few years ago, and my first endeavor was in non-fiction.  In addition to being an author, I’m a chiropractor and going along with that area of expertise, I self-published a book about home treatment for sciatica.  After that initial experience with self-publishing being fairly positive, it re-ignited my interest in writing fiction.  Call me crazy, but it seemed like indulging my imagination might be more fun than advising people about their crippling pain – not that dealing with crippling pain isn’t fun!
With regards to The Eight Fingered Fiend of Lake Porker, I got the initial idea from a combination of seeing an episode about Tokyo of Anthony Bourdain:  Parts Unknown that discussed tentacle porn, and shortly thereafter reading about reports of freshwater octopuses being seen in some lakes in Oklahoma.  I decided that an oversexed lake octopus in Texas would be good fodder for my warped sense of humor. 
Is this your first book?
Fletcher:  No, in addition to the book about sciatica that I just mentioned, I have also published a couple of books in a science fiction series called Stranded In Time.  I have a third book in that series in the works and I expect to publish that later this year.
With this particular book, how did you publish – traditional, small press, Indie, etc. – and why did you choose this method?
Fletcher: I have been an indie publisher for my other books and so I just went that way by default with this book.  I started out self-publishing for a couple of reasons.  From what I’ve read, in today’s publishing world it is difficult at best for a new author to get a publishing contract unless they have some sort of following to begin with.  Publishing a book the traditional way is an expensive undertaking and publishers hedge their bets by sticking with authors who have some type of established sales potential.  Since I was a complete unknown, I figured that self-publishing would give me the best chance to get my work out there and begin to build an audience.  In addition to that, self-publishing  allowed me to test the waters and see how my work was received by “real people” and not just friends and family who might not be completely honest about my writing.  I wanted to find out from neutral sources if it was worth pursuing my writing career.  Based on the reviews I’ve had so far, it would appear that it is.  
Can you tell us a little about your publishing journey?  The pros and cons?
Fletcher:  The thing I like the most about indie publishing is that I can put the work out and let the reading public decide if it’s any good.  With any book, there will be people who like it and people who don’t, and so the test is what the majority of people think. Self-publishing allows me to put it out there and find out for sure whether most people like it, rather than relying on a guess by one person or a few people at a publishing house. 
The biggest downside of self-publishing is that you have to do everything yourself. Not only do you have to do, or arrange for, all of the book formatting, proofreading, editing, cover design, and everything else that goes into producing the book, you also have to do all the marketing and promotion.  Before I started publishing, I already knew a lot about creating websites and marketing online, and that knowledge has come in handy.  But even when you know what to do, there’s the issue of finding time to do it all.  I’m still trying to sort out how to best allocate my time between writing and book production, maintaining my blog, doing marketing and promotion, and having a life outside of writing and publishing. 
What lessons do you feel you learned about your particular publishing journey and about the publishing industry as a whole?
Fletcher:  The biggest lesson has been that having a career as an author is a marathon and not a sprint.  There may be a few who are successful right out of the gate, but it is a long, work-intensive process in most cases.  It comes down to persistence and continually producing good work that people enjoy reading. 
The other thing I’ve found is that things are constantly changing in publishing, especially in the area of marketing and promotion.  Things that worked well less than a year ago may not work anymore, and some might actually hurt your book sales now.  For long-term success, you have to focus on the few things that remain constant.  From what I’ve seen, the only constants are that there’s always a market for good content and the better engagement you have with your readers, the more they will want to tell others about you and buy your books. 
Would you recommend this method of publishing to other authors?
Fletcher:  It depends on the personality and skill set of the person.  Like I said, self-publishing requires you to do everything, or at least manage everything yourself.  If a given author only wants to write, self-publishing is probably not going to work for them.  On the other hand, for authors who are willing to learn what to do outside of just writing their books and willing to work hard getting everything done, self-publishing presents opportunities that are probably as good if not better than what is available with traditional publishing or small publishing houses. 
What’s the best advice you can give to aspiring authors?
Fletcher:  The advice I have is quite simple: produce the best work you can and be willing to interact with your readers on an ongoing basis.  That advice is so simple, I will now elaborate on it unnecessarily:
I think producing the best work you can is pretty self-explanatory, but as a participant on some author’s forums, I’ve been a bit surprised at how cavalier some aspiring authors are about even basic things like spelling and grammar.  “It’s good enough,” is a sentiment I’ve seen expressed more than once by authors who acknowledge that they have numerous writing and typographical errors in their books.  While I agree that at some point you have to be willing to let go of trying to achieve absolute perfection and go forward with publishing, I think you have to have some dedication to quality. 
With regards to ongoing interaction with your readers, what I mean is to maintain a line of communiction and to give back to them.  There are a lot of ways to do this and you have to pick and choose the things that are aligned with your personality.  In my case, I maintain a blog on which I post short stories and other things I think my readers will enjoy.  I also personally respond to comments on my blog, on my Facebook page, on my Twitter feed, and that I receive via email.  I don’t think being the storied “reclusive author” is going to work very well these days. You need to be a person (or at least the character you have established under your pen name), not just the name on your book cover and the information on your “About the Author” page.