Interview with Phil Rowlands from Kindle Authors
Phil Rowlands, authors of A Christmas Carol: Revisited and Google+ eXplosion kindly interviewed me for Kindle Authors, so I thought I'd return the favour.
What sort or advice do you offer aspiring authors?
Just do it! It's so easy to give up or make excuses to not even bother in the first place. Some aspiring authors seem to think their genre is overcrowded with writers already. The fact is there is a vast insatiable readership for every genre imaginable. View other writers within your genre as a sales force creating a demand for your work. At the moment we seem to be knee deep in vampires. Readers are simply devouring new novels that feature the undead and are continually on the lookout for new authors and fresh material. Remember there are people out there waiting to read you book once it is written. Use this as motivation to get it done.
What question(s) do you get asked most often?
People always seem a bit surprised and awed when they discover I am an author. The questions they ask mostly are, "What do you write about?" I think it's just the first thing that pops into their head.
Author to author I suppose one of the most common questions we ask each other is, "How do you overcome writers block?"
I am not sure my answer is too helpful because I tend to work on a several very different projects at the same time. If I find myself hitting a brick wall in one project I simply switch to the other. This ensures I stay fresh but more importantly keep writing.
Tell me a bit about your book 'Google+ eXplosion'?
I must confess to not being an internet or social media marketing guru but I realised very early on that self publishing authors must take responsibility for promoting their own work. Google+ is relatively new so I decided to take a look at it and see how it could help me promote my books. I realised it was far more suited for marketing than even Facebook given the way it uses Circles to categorise and organise groups. The more I researched the more I realised Google+ was going to become massive and I needed to establish a presence early on. Google+ eXplosion is written specifically from a writer's perspective and was really a natural extension of my blog which I set up to offer practical advice and encouragement toaspiring authors and new writers.
To what extent do you think Google+ is an effective marketing tool, compared with other social networks such as Twitter and Goodreads?
I think Google+ will eventually dominate the social media universe. Google have simply invested too much to allow it to fail. Like Facebook it is ideally suited to creating relationships with others. Unlike Facebook it also allows you to categorise your relationships within circles. There is no fear of upsetting you vegetarian friends by asking them to buy a copy of your latest beefburger recipes. There are other features that set Google+ apart but I don't want to give too much away, a man's got to eat!
I see you're a writer yourself. What piece of advice did you find most helpful when you published 'A Christmas Carol: Revisited'?
A Christmas Carol Revisited was really a labour of love, a tribute to my favourite writer Charles Dickens. I wasn't conceited enough to think I could emulate his writing I simply considered what social issues he might have written about today.
Perhaps if I had asked for advice I might never have written it! Thankfully it has been very well received by everyone who has read it and what more can a writer ask for? Stupid question, lots of sales of course!
On the subject of self promotion I actually secured an hour long interview and review on BBC Radio Wales by simply asking if they would be interested. If you don't ask you don't get. You can hear the interview and learn more about the book at http://www.achristmascarolrevisited.info.
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