Author Interview

Has it been a bumpy ride to becoming a published author or has it been pretty well smooth sailing?

The journey to publication was long and let me tell you, the road was B-U-M-P-Y!! It was a tedious voyage, but I never gave up on it!! After completing When I’m With You, I submitted the manuscript to sixty-eight agents. Eleven requested a partial, but afterwards, declined further interest. Finally in November 2005, I gathered the courage to submit the manuscript directly to six publishing houses. By the spring 2006, three of them had requested the complete and the rest is history.


Do you plan your stories first with an outline or does it come to you as write it?

I’m definitely a writer who needs an outline!! However, I must confess, once I get into a story, my characters have a tendency to lead me down a different road than I’d plan to take them on. This doesn’t mean that I toss my outline in the trash. Far to the contrary!! What I will do is pause to listen to what my characters are saying and adjust the outline accordingly.


Do you know the end of the story at the beginning?

Generally, I do. My job as a writer is to ensure that I connect all the dots from start to finish and keep readers turning from page to page.


How important do you think self-promotion is and in what ways have you been promoting your book offline and online?

In my opinion, self-promotion is one of the most effective promotion campaigns at an author’s fingertips. If you don’t toot your own work, no one else will. Also, with the increased popularity of the Internet, I’ve found on-line promoting to be an extremely effective marketing tool.


What are some words of wisdom for those who would like to be published?

The first tip I’d give is to prepare. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways: reading books from authors published in the genre you’re writing in, taking courses or workshops, entering contests, and if possible, speaking with published authors in your targeted genre. Once you have a workable draft of your manuscript, join a critique group and above all, accept constructive feedback. All of these things will help in the end so that you’re providing a quality product for agents and editors to review.

A couple of books I’d highly encourage writers to purchase are: Building Better Plots by Robert Kernen and Writing Novels that Sell by Jack Bickham.