Talking Romance

This week I sat down with Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn to talk about being a male romance writer, the mechanics of love stories (and sex scenes!!) and marketing in the online market place.

It's a great half hour of audio that I hope you'll enjoy.

Download Podcast

DFA.

Talking the "Dream"

Well the first interview seemed to go very well.

Ths morning (here in Australia) I spent 45 minutes on-air with Marie Ryan of Melbourne's Inner FM 96.5 and we discussed the novel, my journey from the germination of the idea to publication and we even touched on some of the musical influences which have inspired the novel. In short - I couldn't have asked for a better opportunity. Marie was very easy to talk to, she had obviously done considerable research in preparation for the interview and she made me feel at ease. I was more nervous than I gave myself credit for going in but it wasn't too long before I relaxed into the flow of the interview.

I remember saying umm and ahh a lot though (*slaps forehead with a flattened palm for effect*).
But most of all todays spot with Marie gave me that all important experience I so dearly wanted and I made notes about the interview as I went - what I need to cut back on, what I need to add to and at what point do I run the risk of waffling.

I am hoping (really hoping) that Marie will be able to put the interview onto a CD for me so that I can make it available here at the site and for any future promotional "stuff" I put together. She attempted to email me the file but of course it's sounds as though it was way too big for an attachment.

Over the weekend I completed two more interviews via email - one for a magazine called Writing Edge Magazine and another for a really great blog called Random Acts of Writing. Those two have been really fun to do - the questions have been well put together and entertaining. I have also been given the truly great opportunity of contributing an article as a guest blogger for The Creative Penn which is run by a very dynamic and enthusiastic lady named Joanna Penn. Joanna is very active in the world of self publishing and digital publishing and her site attracts a lot of traffic so I consider this to be a pretty significant feather in my cap.

And I have received word just this evening from a friend of mine in the U.S. that a popular Star Wars podcast The ForceCast gave my novel a great little promotional on their live show which was recorded earlier today. The ForceCast is one of the most popular Star Wars related shows on the web, it attracts a huge global audience and counts "Fanboys" director Kyle Newman, Star Wars Clone Wars (the cartoon series) director Dave Filoni and Robot Chicken creator Seth Green among their fan number. The podcast for this episode won't be available til the weekend but you can bet I'll be lining up to get a hold of it eagerly come Saturday morning.

It seems like the momentum is definitely building now and I am feeling good about it. I hope that momentum translates into more sales of the book but what am I more interested in right now is getting more reviews for the book. That probably means more to me than sales.

My publisher iReadiWrite Publishing got a significant nod today too for which I was very pleased. The Preditors and Editors Poll sought votes across a number of categories including for best eBook Publisher. iReadiWrite placed 5th overall in a field of over 60 publishing houses. For Michelle Halket - the Creative Director of iReadiWrite Publishing - this has got to be a pretty proud moment and I of course offer up my congratulations to her.

So yeah, it's been a big week so far...fingers crossed that it becomes bigger...

DFA.