Before we get to this awesome interview I want to give you the head's up that SEDUCED — the first in my historical western series — is on sale for 99 cents! It's part of a HUGE group of historical romances on sale this week. Check it out!
Every time I pick up one of Zoe or Ainsley's new books I go — "gah! Why didn't I think of that?" See PRIME MINISTER — there's something very compelling and fresh about her package, hook and writing.
Let's get right to it:
Q:When I announced that I was going to interview you I had several people say that you were one of the most generous authors they knew — consistently giving advice and helping new authors. I don't really have a question for that — but I thought you might like to hear it!
I do like to hear that! LOL I got a lot of help from the romance writing community when I started out, and I'm thrilled that I can pay that forward in some small part.
Q:I love how you have a hook and you write the heck out of it and then you market the heck out of it. And when I read HATE F@*K — all I could do was cheer because you delivered (really delivered) on a promise in a smart way — all the way through. Title, cover, characters, plot etc.... So, all this to get to some questions about hooks:
Do you come up with the hook first, or do you create characters first and then dig through until you find a hook?
Depends on the book. But definitely either the characters or the hook (usually in the form of the title or a tagline), not a plot line. There are a few books I've tried to find characters and/or a hook to fit into a plot I can see in my head...and they all remain in pieces in my Google Drive.
For my Pine Harbour series, it's character driven 100%. I have this three-dimensional cast in my head, and when I bump them together, I see the conflict and write from there. This is true for most of my Zoe books. Starting a new series is really hard for me, and requires months and months of percolating.
My Ainsley Booth books are more hook-based, although Booty Call came out of two characters who refused to stop touching each other. But both HATE F*@K and PRIME MINISTER started with a title/tagline/cover, and then I discovered who the characters were when I started to talk out loud about what the book might be about.
Q:How methodical is your process for brainstorming series/books? And how does form play into that? You've written short books, you've written series, full-length. Do you have a plan going in?
As I mentioned in answering the previous question, my Zoe books are mostly cast-oriented, so once I have a cast, I'm good to go. The series can morph in any direction and I'm pretty flexible. But starting a new series is agonizing. The new ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights series that I'm writing with Kat Cantrell and Anne Marsh (we each have a series within a series, writing in our own corner of the Caribbean)...that series we started planning a year ago. And I didn't finish my first book until February of this year. The next one I'll write in four weeks.
My first series was all over the place, length-wise, and since then, I've tried to keep it more consistent. This is less about writing craft and more about marketing — I like to meet reader expectations in a fair and honest way, so for my books now, I try to stick to a similar length, similar format for each book in a series. And when I get the itch to write something similar but different, that's a good cue to start a new (but connected!) series. Other than my Vikings in Space series, all my series connect in one way or another.
Q:VIKINGS IN SPACE?? How have I missed this? You write as Zoe York and Ainsley Booth — can you tell us a little about the differences between them? And what is coming out next for both of them? And how do you juggle the schedules for the 2 authors?
The main difference is that Ainsley has no limits. She might cross lines that Zoe considers verboten, like cheating; she might end a book with a cliffhanger; she might...who knows! Randomly decide to write a BDSM romance about a fictional prime minister! I've been open about the two pen names from the start, and I'm really glad I did that because my Zoe readers have been Ainsley's biggest fans. BUT, they also appreciate the heads-up that THIS isn't going to be like THAT. Again, it's about setting reader expectations, which is a big thing for me. They both write romance. Ainsley is dirtier, Zoe is more tight-knit community. And to date, Ainsley has written in 1st person present and Zoe writes in 3rd person past. Honestly, I think that's a distinction that matters more to writers than to readers, but since there's some overlap between those two communities, I include it as a difference.
Poor Ainsley gets the short end of the scheduling stick. Part of that is about previous commitments—like the Caribbean series, for example. I agreed to write that when Ainsley's first book was still being published as a serial and there wasn't a ton of demand for more books. But actually my Zoe readers have taken to Ainsley really well, so when I announced PRIME MINISTER, and bumped a couple of due dates to make it happen, they were totally understanding. But I'm only able to shoehorn in that project because I have an awesome co-writer. Without Sadie, PM wouldn't be possible!
Ainsley gets 1-2 releases a year. Zoe gets the rest. Which is a lot of total titles, because I love novellas. Total word count %, Ainsley gets about 25% of my words a year, Zoe gets 75%. I don't see that changing in the future—it's a good balance for me.
Author Emma Barry had about a million questions for you:
Q:How do you find readers in today's market?
Cross-promotion. That was true for me in 2013, and it's been the consistent game-changer ever since as I've moved from 5 readers to 50, and then 500 to 5000 (if I'm super, super lucky and all the stars align for a book!). I imagine it'll be the biggest factor in finding future readers as well.
But that's a huge and vague term. So specifically, things that I've done that have found me new readers:
* new material boxed sets that are high-concept, like SEALs of Summer and Romancing the Alpha — those are the most successful that I've been in, and both franchises are returning this summer — and there are a few new authors in each of them this year, which I love.
* first in series free books, promoted to other author's readers — for me, this is a really big deal, getting to be introduced to a new author's readership, and I try to do the same with other authors as well. It's not a competition at all. It takes me three months to write a full-length novel, if I'm lucky, and my readers finish it in a day and a half. They've got a lot of room in their reading hearts for more authors.
* the right reader events — I've done a couple of these now, and they're not all created equal, but a reader event hosted by an author who has your target demographic is a good thing; and then you have to plan to make the most of it (again, a freebie works wonders — remove all barriers for that first taste!)
* keep trying new projects. My first series, Wardham, is definitely the series of my heart, but it's low-concept and quiet. When readers give it a go, they really like it, but it's not setting anyone on fire and causing them to tell ALL THEIR FRIENDS, ya know? I learned a lot writing that series, and love revisiting those characters, but I've learned a lot about what hooks people since I first created that town.
Q:How do you balance long-term thinking vs. being nimble in today's market?
Multiple series. No one book can be everything to everyone, so different projects serve different goals. This is scary for people who write slowly, I know, and if that's someone reading this right now, my tip for you would be to get creative. It's interesting that Emma asked this question, because I think her and Genevieve Turner are doing something really interesting with their amazing Fly Me to the Moon series. That's very much a long-term strategy series — it's a near historical series (set in the 1960s), so it's not going to fade like a trend-chasing book, and each book can be read on its own, so they can promo up and down the series line over time. But they're co-writing, which means they can write it faster than if it was a solo project. Which means that they can respond faster to reader demands for more books in the series. (And by readers, I mean me. I want more astronauts and I want them now!)
Q:From Author Alexis Anne: why do you make me love your characters so dang hard?? *rocks in corner with book hangovers*
Which leads me to ask: How do you create your characters?
Pinterest...Tumblr...usually there's something that sparks their creation, and then I just see them. They're alive and in my head, and I just need to write it down so they don't slide away on me.
But practice again — I love my first cast of characters, but they were very real. It was what I wanted to read at the time. Since then I've learned to take these awesome, realistic guys and give them a little bit of that romance hero magic that makes them special. Twenty...something books in, I finally feel confident in saying that I know how to build a book boyfriend. But that craft is always a work in progress. I did an awesome workshop with Elizabeth Hoyt at the Emerald City Writers Conference last fall where I learned a couple of neat tips (and immediately put them into effect in my WIP).
FINALLY, THE AUTHOR IS ...
...EXCITED.
Zoe, you have been incredibly generous with your time and information. Thank you!
And as a thank you from Zoe — she's offering a free copy of PRIME MINISTER! Heck! I'll give a free copy, too. All you need to do is comment on either one of our facebook pages.
https://www.facebook.com/MollyOKeefeBooks/
https://www.facebook.com/ZoeYorkWrites/
My Next The Author Is... will feature the authors of GAMBLED AWAY.
Find out more about them at www.gambledaway.com.
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