Monica Leonelle is a well-known digital media strategist and the author of three novels. She blogs at Prose on Fire (http://proseonfire.com) and shares her writing and social media knowledge with other bloggers and authors through her Free Writer Toolkit (http://proseonfire.com/free-writer-toolkit).
Here is the interview I promised on Friday:
Kim: How did you come up with the idea for this book?
Author, Monica Leonelle
Monica: I was inspired by the city of Chicago, by social media issues in our current world, and by the cyberpunk genre. The book is a bit like the Terminator series and I reference that a couple times just for fun. James Cameron is basically my favorite director ever, and he really inspires me with his world-building and storytelling skills.
Kim: For those trying to break into the writing world, and not having much success at finding a publisher, would you recommend self-publishing their book digitally? Why or why not?
Monica: You know, I would honestly probably recommend an editor, not a publishing decision. Here’s why: There are two types of authors—writers and entrepreneurs. The former flock to traditional publishing and the latter flock to indie publishing. It’s silly to think that traditional publishing will ever be eliminated; that’s like asking if car washes will ever be eliminated. Yeah, you can wash your car in your garage. That doesn’t mean you want to.
So I feel like self-publishing is *not* necessarily the answer for people who are having trouble selling their book to traditional publishers. Most people just need to write a better book. As an editor, I can see this with 99% of the books I edit. They are books that, without an editor, would not make it in traditional publishing. But I do believe that, with an editor, many of them have a much better chance of getting picked up by a traditional publisher.
Also, writers should inject their marketing directly into their manuscripts. Writers often think of marketing as this separate thing from writing, but it’s not at all. 80-90% of books are sold through word-of-mouth and most of the marketability of a book is right there in the manuscript. So even if you are going the traditional route, if you are serious about getting published you should hire an editor to go through your book and see how marketable it is. Traditional publishers are looking for marketable books. It’s a business and they need to make money.
Kim: How did you come up with the names of Ima, Dash, Nahum, and Vaughn?
Monica: I don’t remember, to be honest! They’ve been the names of the characters for so long. I guess Dash made sense to me because of what I wrote in the beginning of the book, Dash for “dashing,” handsome in a Prince Charming way. And Nahum is this guy I had a crush on in 4th grade. So I just borrowed his name, haha. I have always loved that name, and I am happy it make its way into one of my books.
Kim: What one food could you not live without?
Monica: I eat way too many chips and french fries. I have a salt tooth!
Kim: What is your favorite color?
Monica: Pink!
Kim: Do you already have another series in mind after Socialpunk and Seven Halos?
Monica: I’m probably moving into serialized fiction next, just because of my work schedule. I’m working on developing two different ideas at the moment—one, kind of like Game of Thrones meets Waterworld. The other is about superheros in the 1920′s. These are super generic descriptions at the time, but that’s all I have so far! Either way, I’m going to keep experimenting with new ideas. I’ll probably never really leave YA.
Kim: If you could only have three luxury items with you while stranded on an island, what would they be?
Monica: Screw toilet paper. I need my Kindle, my phone, my laptop.
LOL! Couldn’t have said that one better myself, only for me it would have been my tablet, phone, and laptop!
Happy early May, folks!
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