Interview With A Crime Drama Author

Interview With Novelist Michelle Weidenbenner

1.      What type of books do you write? I love writing suspense. My first novels were for young adults and children, but Cache a Predator is the first novel to be published. My other ones are sitting on potential publishing houses desks. Since this title is a bit edgier than my typical children’s stories, I decided to self-publish it. I’m enjoying the process of marketing the book as I tend to be an entrepreneur type.

2.      What is your newest book about? When a five-year-old girl is found wandering the streets in Hursey Lake, Indiana, she’s placed in a temporary foster home until her father can convince his addict ex-wife, a man-hating judge, and a deranged psychopath that he’s a loving father. This novel is a little like DEXTER and BONES.

3. What inspired you to write it? A friend told me to write a book about geocaching, and at the time I didn’t know what that was, so I researched the sport and my imagination grew from there. Geocaching is a game where hikers use coordinates from GPS navigation systems to find hidden cache boxes. In our small town, there are over 450 cache sites. I couldn’t believe how many there were. And then I thought, what if hikers found a body part in one of those boxes?

4. What is the writing process like for you? I wrote this novel in 30 days during NaNoWriMo. That stands for National Novel Writing Month. In the month of November writers try to write 50,000 words. We encourage and support each other. The novel was raw and unedited after those 30 days, but it was the skeleton of what it is today. I worked with an editor for months to get it to where I wanted it.

5. What did you do before you became an author? I’ve been writing for more than five years, but I did a lot of different things before then. My friends laughed at me because I was always trying something new. There weren’t too many jobs I didn’t try. I worked in the medical industry, urgent care facilities and ER, worked for Ford Motor Company in finance, and owned my own window-blind and drapery business for seven years. My degree is in business, but no job has been as fun as the one I have now—writing novels.  My mother always said, “You can do anything you set your mind to if you want it badly enough.” Obviously, you have to work for it too.

6. How does it feel to be a published author?  Scary. But fun. If I can get readers to care about my characters and see a different side to a story, I’ve won. It’s a challenge. I’m living my dream, waking each day to do what I enjoy.

7. Any advice for struggling writers? Are you one of those? Sure, hang out at Random Writing Rants, my blog. Lol. Or some of the others I have listed there. I love teaching adults and teens how to get published. I don’t know it all, but I like to help other writers gain success. The key is to writing a great story, but also to listen to an editor’s advice when the story isn’t right, when it needs work. Once the book is written there’s a whole other part of the process. The part that makes this fun is connecting with other writers, meeting other people, hearing their stories, and helping them achieve their dreams.

Once your book is complete, let beta readers give you an opinion. Before you’re ready to launch your book, find your marketing team—those people who will tweet, blog, and share your book. And whatever you do, don’t stop writing. The only writers who never get published are those who quit writing.

8. Where do you see book-publishing heading?  That’s the million-dollar question. I think it’ll be crazy for a while. I love the opportunities it provides Indie authors, but it bothers me when an author hurries to self-publish before getting the book professionally edited from a developmental and a line-editor. An unedited book gives other Indie authors a bad name. But I understand why writers are self-publishing. I dislike how “rude” the publishing houses are about getting back to authors. It takes them forever. I wish it didn’t have to be that way, but I understand why it is. It takes time to make expensive business decisions.

For more info, please see:   http://www.randomwritingrants.com

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, Media Connect, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2013