How do you keep your characters fresh and the plot exciting?
I am an OCD plotter. I am forever trying to come up with new and different things to throw at my heroine (tied to a tree with feral hogs all around her in LLD, a potty mouthed ghost, an absolute ridiculous scheme to save a dying child (Mortal Deception,) etc.
Can you tell us one thing about yourself that most of your fans don’t already know?
I run a fantasy football league. I LOVE all sports, especially football. I played soccer in an over-thirty league and coached my daughter's teams. Don’t call me on Sundays during the NFL season, as I am watching every game and won’t answer the phone.
What do you feel are the benefits of electronic readers to the environment?
You gotta love anything that saves a tree. I have to be honest. I fought hard not to get one. I love holding a book in my hands and saving it to read again. But I gave in and got a kindle and now have an iPad. I love the convenience of both of them. I am never without a book when I find myself delayed for whatever reason.
What impact do electronic readers create on the bottom line for authors in the end? Do you feel they have a negative impact or positive, or no impact at all that you can see?
Although authors do get a little more per book for the e-versions, I think the biggest impact will be on books that authors choose to self publish. Most of us have books that New York might have loved but had no idea how to market. (My ghost story is a good example. My Berkley editor absolutely loves that one, but she doesn't know how to fit it into her line.) If the editor who has it now passes on it, it will go up on Amazon where I can set the price. More and more authors are getting their rights back on earlier books and putting them up on Amazon at reduced prices, much to the delight of their fans. Truthfully, I see mass market paperbacks going away, to be replaced by trade paperback (the slightly bigger ones that sell for more,) and hardbacks being used only for a "big" author with a huge following. In order to keep up with the digital revolution, publishers are beginning to lean toward creating their own inhouse publishing departments to compete with Amazon. I think readers will see a significant drop in prices in a few years which is a plus. As for writers, there will be more piracy with ebooks, but like the music industry did a few years back, they will eventually figure out a way to combat that. Most writers will agree that they write because they love it since only 1 % of all writers ever make enough to quit their day jobs. Moral of this story — take your Christmas money and go out and buy a good book. Somewhere out there a writer will thank you.
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