Monday 31 December 2012

Author Interview – Richard Stephenson

 

Did writing this book teach you anything and what was it? It taught me that having a successful book involves much, much more than simply writing it.

Do you intend to make writing a career? As long as I’ve got ideas in my head that I can put on paper I’ll keep writing.

Have you ever had writer’s block? If so, what do you do about it? Nope.  I take a lot of notes and flesh out the chapters before I even start writing.  Once I do, I have the opposite of writer’s block – I can’t get the words on the page fast enough.

Can you share a little of your current work with us? “Resistance” is book two in the New America series.  It picks up eighteen months after “Collapse.

Who designed the cover? Laura LaRoche at www.llpix.com

How do you promote this book? Every way I could think of.  I created a blog that gets 800 to 1,000 views a day.  Two twitter accounts with a combined following of over 18K.  Facebook ads, ads with Kindle Nation Daily, cross promotion with other indies, and paid ads on a lot of sites.  The most effective advertising I did was releasing a sneak peek of the first seven chapters of “Collapse” months before the release.  The sneak peek raised a lot of interest and on my first day on Amazon, my book managed to sneak on to the top 100 list for one of its categories.

Will you write others in this same genre? Writing a four book series, working on book two right now.

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp? Civilization is fragile.

Have you included a lot of your life experiences, even friends, in the plot? All three of the main characters are facets of my own personality.  My law enforcement career gave me a lot of material to use as well.

How important do you think villains are in a story? Extremely.  The good guys can’t shine without villians.

Can we expect any more books from you in the future? Absolutely.  Three more left in the “New America” series.

Have you started another book yet? I’m eleven chapters into book two.

What are some of the best tools available today for writers, especially those just starting out? Google, without a doubt.  I can’t imagine what authors did before the Internet.  The amount of research I did would have taken me a couple of years without the internet.  It is also very handy to have the cloud and to be able to immediately pick up writing on a different device.

Do you have any advice for writers? Don’t quit your day job.  If writing isn’t your passion and truly something you love, you will be disappointed when it doesn’t pay the bills.  Write because you love telling a good story.

What do you do to unwind and relax? Video games and movies.

Buy now @ Amazon

Genre – Dystopian

Rating – R

More details about the book

Connect with Richard Stephenson on Facebook & Twitter

Blog http://rastephensonauthor.blogspot.com/

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