Three Questions and a Cover — a short interview with one of my favorite authors, along with one of the author’s covers.
Trust me–if you aren’t a fan of Anne R Allen’s writing, it’s only because you haven’t read her yet.
Question 1
What one piece of advice can you offer to a writer who has yet to tackle the publishing world?
Network! Every step forward in my career has come from networking. I got my first publisher because I networked with people who worked on a literary magazine where I had a story accepted. The magazine suddenly folded, but the friendly editor was moving to a publishing company in the UK and asked me to send a book manuscript if I had one. A month later, I got a call from the head of the publishing company with the offer of a contract.
After the company went under about 5 years after that, I revived my career by collaborating with the author of Pay it Forward, Catherine Ryan Hyde, to write our bestselling writing guide. I’d met her at a writers’ conference several years before and we’d always kept in touch.
I had my first Amazon #1 bestseller because I networked with a bunch of “indie” (small press and self-published) women on an anthology and we got ourselves a lot of publicity. Then my blog went into the stratosphere when I asked the legendary Ruth Harris to join me and write how-to posts for new writers once a month. We’ve been going strong for over 10 years now. I had my most recent Amazon #1 bestseller because I networked with three other writing guide authors on a big promotion sale for my award-winning blogging book. The awards didn’t sell the book—networking did.
I currently have a story in A Sampling of Sleuths, an anthology of stories introducing the characters in 10 mystery series by 10 established authors. More networking!
Other writers are not our rivals. They’re our colleagues. Making friends with them is the best thing you can do for your career. See a writer who’s writing stuff for the same audience you’re targeting? That’s not the competition — that’s your ticket to new readers. Offer to do a joint promo or even a boxed set!
Question 2
Do you have a funny/scary/quirky story about interaction with readers or other writers? We all want to know.
I do have a scary one. Several years ago, there was a gang of girl-thugs on Goodreads dubbed “The Goodreads Bullies.” I witnessed them bullying a teenaged girl with rape threats and other cruel verbal abuse. The Bullies had given her not-ready-for-prime-time book description dozens of one-star “reviews.” She protested the Goodreads policy of allowing “reviews” of pre-published books the “reviewers” could not have read. So they punished this kid with endless bullying, and finally those nasty threats. Later, afraid of consequences, the Bullies deleted the obscenities and terrified the girl into pretending the whole thing never happened.
I mentioned the incident on a high-profile publishing industry blog without knowing the threats had been deleted and denied. So the Bullies called me a liar. (Of course they did. Bullies never take responsibility for their actions.) Then they aimed their threats at me. They emailed death threats with photos of my house. They said they had guns. They swarmed my books with one-star reviews on Amazon.
(Silver lining time: my book sales soared. Lots of people saw what was going on and decided to read the one-starred books for themselves.)
But the moral of the tale is something an agent told me soon after the incident: “I tell my clients to go to Goodreads once. Put up your bio. Link to your website. Leave. Never go back.”
Goodreads is for readers, not writers. There be dragons.
In Goodreads’ defense, they did finally kick out the Bullies, or at least their ringleaders. But the place is still full of author-hating trolls.
But hey, they gave me a fantastic plotline for a novel. My mystery So Much for Buckingham is about Amazon review wars that lead to a real-life murder.
Question 3
What one piece of advice can you offer to a writer who has yet to tackle the publishing world?
Educate yourself about the business before you try to jump in!
Otherwise, you could end up with a broken heart and empty bank account. Read Writer Beware, agent blogs, and blogs like Jane Friedman’s and Nathan Bransford’s (and Ruth’s and mine ?.)
Publishing scammers are everywhere, lying in wait for naïve newbies.
You need to know that agents don’t sell books or publish them. They represent them to publishers. And they only get paid when you get paid. A real agent never asks for a “reading fee.” And never, ever give a publisher money up front if you want to be traditionally published. In traditional publishing, the publisher pays the writer, not the other way around.
If you want to self-publish, read lots of books on self-publishing before you go that route. Don’t give any “self-publishing assistant” your money until you’ve done lots of research. Many of them are just overpriced vanity presses.
Catfishing in America is the 8th installment of the Camilla Randall Mysteries — a laugh-out-loud mash-up of mystery, rom-com, and satire. This one tackles the subject of online romance scams.
At her beach-read bookstore in Morro Bay California, everybody tells Camilla their troubles. When the body of talkative widow Ginny Gilhooly shows up on Camilla’s doorstep, Camilla is sure the online scammer who has been “catfishing” Ginny has murdered her. But Ginny’s body disappears, and Camilla’s unhoused friend “Hobo Joe” is accused of the murder. Camilla, with the help of two precocious Nancy Drew wannabes, and her cat Buckingham, has to solve the mystery of the travelling corpse and prove Joe had nothing to do with Ginny’s demise.
About the Author
Anne R. Allen is the author of twelve comic mysteries and two how-to books for writers. She also has a collection of short stories and verses called Why Grandma Bought That Car, which has been translated into French, Italian, and Spanish.
She’s the co-author of How to be a Writer in the E-Age…a Self-Help Guide, written with NYT #1 seller, Catherine Ryan Hyde. Her latest nonfiction book, The Author Blog: Easy Blogging for Busy Authors was named one of the Best 101 Books on Blogging and one of the Best Books on SEO by Book Authority. She’s a contributor to Writer’s Digest and Writer’s Market.
Anne shares her award-winning writing blog with NYT million-copy seller, Ruth Harris, at annerallen.com
Anne is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and spent twenty-five years in the theater–acting and directing–before taking up fiction writing. She is the former artistic director of the Patio Playhouse in Escondido, CA and now lives on the foggy Central Coast of California with an imaginary cat and a lot of fictional people.
You can find Anne at Anne R. Allen’s Blog…with Ruth Harris, and on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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