An Interview with Rebecca Goings
As a newbie in the publishing world I’m honored to have seasoned author Rebecca Goings over to play at my site and answer a few questions. Rebecca, you are one busy woman. It looks like you have at least four novels coming out in the next four months: Mark of the B*E*A*S*T, Black Angel, The Scarab Prince and Falcon Prince. How do you juggle all the promotion, writing and kids? And do you also have another job besides writing?
It is hard, juggling it all, I won’t lie. Most of the time, I have to promote when I’m not writing, and that’s at night, or sometime in between my writing spurts.
My day goes like this - get up, feed the baby and the critters. For a couple of hours, I check my email and I might write a blog. If I’m so inclined, I’ll write a bit on my book. Then it’s chores, then it’s schooltime (oh yes, I homeschool four out of my five kids; the fifth is just a toddler), and we usually wrap from the daytime activities around 3pm. From 3pm to 5pm is my prime write/promote time, unless after dinner DH is on his computer or doing something else. I can promote a bit then, too. Also weekends are big promoting days for me, since I get interrupted for “family time” a lot (who knew on weekends??). When I can’t devote a chunk of time to writing, I’ll send a tweet, update a few lines on Facebook or again, write a blog for my site.
My laptop is on my dining room table, so I can check my email frequently throughout the day and do quick little promotions here and there (responding to a tweet or posting a reply to a forum/blog/group post). Remember, “promo” doesn’t always have to be GO BUY MY BOOK!! It’s getting out there, being personable, and getting noticed by shooting the breeze sometimes. Most promotion is name recognition and word of mouth.
This is your fourth installment of your B*E*A*S*T series. Was this always meant to be a series, or was it a story that demanded you revisit it again and again? How have the characters changed in ways that surprised you throughout the different volumes? Is there a fifth in the works?
Yes, BEAST was always meant to be a series. Three books. BUT, a fourth book crept up on me in Book III. I took some time off to give myself time to think of a great plot but I ended up taking a three year hiatus. When I first had the idea, it was one book, but then it snowballed – if there was some malevolent agency experimenting with DNA, logically, there’s more than one guy trapped in there. So from the drawing board, it was a series.
The characters haven’t changed much but what surprised me is their great banter. I love the banter between Noah and Rogan especially. I wanted to give their speech a realism, and hopefully I’ve accomplished that. And the banter only gets better as the books go on.
Currently, there is no fifth book. I did not end Book IV on a cliff hanger, BUT, I did leave it open to give myself some wiggle room should another plot arise. For now, though, I’m going to leave it up to my muse. And currently, she’s taking an extended vacation on my desert planet of Jikkar.
Black Angel with its stunning cover appears to be a stand-alone fantasy which is releasing with Champagne Books in October. Want to tell us about it?
Yes, this one is a stand-alone book. I’ve always wanted to write a book about an unconventional hero. Romances between species has always intrigued me. I guess it’s the exoticness, the taboo of it. Alric, my hero, has jet-black skin. He has huge, leathery, bat-like wings. He’s been banished from his world for a crime he didn’t commit, but the world he’s been banished to has only seen him as a demon over the years because of his strange appearance.
But one woman, Brielle, is lost in a snowstorm. She prays for her goddess to help her and that’s when Alric finds her. He saves her, and she believes him to be an angel, despite how different he looks. But underneath that black skin is a seriously lonely, yet handsome man, who clings to the first person to give him the time of day in who knows how long.
But their love is not to go unchallenged – those who wrongly accused Alric are back and they attempt to use magic to keep Brielle from him, perhaps even kill her. He must save her any way he can.
I had great fun writing this story.
You have a couple of releases scheduled for fall and winter this year with Carnal Passions. When you write an erotic novel, do you start out knowing it’s going to be erotic? Or does it sort of happen on its own after you’ve begun? Do you have a different promotional approach to erotic vs. non-erotic novels?
I go into it knowing it will be an erotic from page one. I actually haven’t written too many erotic romances, but I’m definitely going to be writing more. There are books that are very hot, that with a few choice words here and there, it could be erotic. MARK OF THE B*E*A*S*T*, for example, is very very hot. But “erotic romance” is much more than a romance with the jargon thrown in. It’s exploring the baser instincts of sex and lust and being much more frank about your prose and your character’s thoughts. You have more creative freedom to explore kinkier stuff, like playing with food and/or handcuffs. You don’t always have to be kinky in erotics, but you do have to push the boundaries of the situation and really dig in and get into it.
You have been Champagne’s best-selling novelist several times. For us newbies out there, can you share some of your promotion secrets?
Two words: Social networking. If you’re an eBook author or an aspiring eBook author, your promo playground is the INTERNET. I want you to forget print. You are an eBook author. So, how do you go about promo-ing an ELECTRONIC book? Facebook. Twitter. Myspace. Yahoo groups. Blogs. Yes, even YouTube if you or someone you know is handy at making trailers for your books.
Jump at any chance for a guest blog, BUT, make it new content every time. Readers tend to skim if you’re posting the same blog hither and yon. And if they see your name and roll their eyes because here comes the same dang blog post, that is a very bad thing. Become a member of romance forums and yahoo groups. And just talk. Don’t do 24 hour promo of your book. You will become annoying and again, readers will skim you. Let your signature line do your promo work for you. Like this:
~~Becka
Sexy. Sensual. Seductive.
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com
Have your own blog. And don’t just yak about your books. I have found so many readers through my blogs about my wrist problems, the music I listen to, situations with my kids, holiday plans, random reviews of books I’ve read, funny pictures I post. People searching the Internet for these subjects might stumble upon your site. Swap links with other authors. Put their link on your site, and they will reciprocate with your link on theirs.
Ask for interviews on review sites. Pay $10 fee or $20 sometimes for the privilege of having your book cover up on these review sites. They can push traffic, but make sure the link you give is your BUY page, NOT your webpage. If readers have to click through too many pages to buy your book, THEY WON’T.
I could keep going on and on, but I’ll stop there. Give you a breather. lol
When do you do most of your mental “writing” – while you’re trying to sleep, listening to music, etc?
In bed, in the dark, when it’s quiet and I can zone. I’ve had a lot of revelations when I’m on the verge of sleep, and sometimes in my dreams themselves.
And I know this question is unfair – it’s like if I asked you to pick your favorite child and tell me why. But I’m asking anyway: which one of your books is your favorite, and why?
THE WOLVERINE AND THE ROSE, because it’s a story I thought of when I was 13 years old. I used to dream of being published with that very book as a starry-eyed kid. After I married, I decided to see if I could write a book, since my “life’s goal” was to be an author. After EIGHT long years from starting it, I finished it and submitted it. Lo and behold, it got published!
So I’m one of those people who can say they’ve accomplished their dream as a kid. The rest is just butter!
Which author has been the most inspirational for your own writing?
I could tell you Johanna Lindsey, for first hooking me on the genre. I could tell you Kate Bridges, because I love her historicals. But the author who inspires me the most is my crit partner, Donica Covey. She is brutally honest and tells me if something is crap or if it’s gold. She finds my errors, my plot holes, and thinks of suggestions I never thought of before. Even a few of my books are dedicated to her. If anyone has shaped my career, it’s her. So thank Donica that what you’re reading isn’t crap. :P
And finally, whatcha got cooking right now?
Book V of my Desert Princes of Jikkar series, THE JACKAL PRINCE. It’s the fifth and final book on Jikkar. It will be bittersweet for me, because I love this series so very much. But I have NEVER written a series so fast before. I have written three books and finished another in four months’ time. VIPER is available now, SCARAB is coming in October, and FALCON is coming in December. I just finished THE SPIDER PRINCE, but that will probably come out in February of ’10. And now I’m writing JACKAL.
Be warned, though. These princes are like crack. Once you start, you’ll get addicted and you won’t be able to stop. Heheh >:D
To find out more about the princes, you can visit my blog at: http://desertprinces.blogspot.com
To find out more about me, visit: http://www.rebeccagoings.com, http://www.facebook.com/rebecca.goings, or http://www.twitter.com/rebeccagoings
Thanks so much for allowing me to take over your blog. Take care!
~~Becka
As a newbie in the publishing world I’m honored to have seasoned author Rebecca Goings over to play at my site and answer a few questions. Rebecca, you are one busy woman. It looks like you have at least four novels coming out in the next four months: Mark of the B*E*A*S*T, Black Angel, The Scarab Prince and Falcon Prince. How do you juggle all the promotion, writing and kids? And do you also have another job besides writing?
It is hard, juggling it all, I won’t lie. Most of the time, I have to promote when I’m not writing, and that’s at night, or sometime in between my writing spurts.
My day goes like this - get up, feed the baby and the critters. For a couple of hours, I check my email and I might write a blog. If I’m so inclined, I’ll write a bit on my book. Then it’s chores, then it’s schooltime (oh yes, I homeschool four out of my five kids; the fifth is just a toddler), and we usually wrap from the daytime activities around 3pm. From 3pm to 5pm is my prime write/promote time, unless after dinner DH is on his computer or doing something else. I can promote a bit then, too. Also weekends are big promoting days for me, since I get interrupted for “family time” a lot (who knew on weekends??). When I can’t devote a chunk of time to writing, I’ll send a tweet, update a few lines on Facebook or again, write a blog for my site.
My laptop is on my dining room table, so I can check my email frequently throughout the day and do quick little promotions here and there (responding to a tweet or posting a reply to a forum/blog/group post). Remember, “promo” doesn’t always have to be GO BUY MY BOOK!! It’s getting out there, being personable, and getting noticed by shooting the breeze sometimes. Most promotion is name recognition and word of mouth.
This is your fourth installment of your B*E*A*S*T series. Was this always meant to be a series, or was it a story that demanded you revisit it again and again? How have the characters changed in ways that surprised you throughout the different volumes? Is there a fifth in the works?
Yes, BEAST was always meant to be a series. Three books. BUT, a fourth book crept up on me in Book III. I took some time off to give myself time to think of a great plot but I ended up taking a three year hiatus. When I first had the idea, it was one book, but then it snowballed – if there was some malevolent agency experimenting with DNA, logically, there’s more than one guy trapped in there. So from the drawing board, it was a series.
The characters haven’t changed much but what surprised me is their great banter. I love the banter between Noah and Rogan especially. I wanted to give their speech a realism, and hopefully I’ve accomplished that. And the banter only gets better as the books go on.
Currently, there is no fifth book. I did not end Book IV on a cliff hanger, BUT, I did leave it open to give myself some wiggle room should another plot arise. For now, though, I’m going to leave it up to my muse. And currently, she’s taking an extended vacation on my desert planet of Jikkar.
Black Angel with its stunning cover appears to be a stand-alone fantasy which is releasing with Champagne Books in October. Want to tell us about it?
Yes, this one is a stand-alone book. I’ve always wanted to write a book about an unconventional hero. Romances between species has always intrigued me. I guess it’s the exoticness, the taboo of it. Alric, my hero, has jet-black skin. He has huge, leathery, bat-like wings. He’s been banished from his world for a crime he didn’t commit, but the world he’s been banished to has only seen him as a demon over the years because of his strange appearance.
But one woman, Brielle, is lost in a snowstorm. She prays for her goddess to help her and that’s when Alric finds her. He saves her, and she believes him to be an angel, despite how different he looks. But underneath that black skin is a seriously lonely, yet handsome man, who clings to the first person to give him the time of day in who knows how long.
But their love is not to go unchallenged – those who wrongly accused Alric are back and they attempt to use magic to keep Brielle from him, perhaps even kill her. He must save her any way he can.
I had great fun writing this story.
You have a couple of releases scheduled for fall and winter this year with Carnal Passions. When you write an erotic novel, do you start out knowing it’s going to be erotic? Or does it sort of happen on its own after you’ve begun? Do you have a different promotional approach to erotic vs. non-erotic novels?
I go into it knowing it will be an erotic from page one. I actually haven’t written too many erotic romances, but I’m definitely going to be writing more. There are books that are very hot, that with a few choice words here and there, it could be erotic. MARK OF THE B*E*A*S*T*, for example, is very very hot. But “erotic romance” is much more than a romance with the jargon thrown in. It’s exploring the baser instincts of sex and lust and being much more frank about your prose and your character’s thoughts. You have more creative freedom to explore kinkier stuff, like playing with food and/or handcuffs. You don’t always have to be kinky in erotics, but you do have to push the boundaries of the situation and really dig in and get into it.
You have been Champagne’s best-selling novelist several times. For us newbies out there, can you share some of your promotion secrets?
Two words: Social networking. If you’re an eBook author or an aspiring eBook author, your promo playground is the INTERNET. I want you to forget print. You are an eBook author. So, how do you go about promo-ing an ELECTRONIC book? Facebook. Twitter. Myspace. Yahoo groups. Blogs. Yes, even YouTube if you or someone you know is handy at making trailers for your books.
Jump at any chance for a guest blog, BUT, make it new content every time. Readers tend to skim if you’re posting the same blog hither and yon. And if they see your name and roll their eyes because here comes the same dang blog post, that is a very bad thing. Become a member of romance forums and yahoo groups. And just talk. Don’t do 24 hour promo of your book. You will become annoying and again, readers will skim you. Let your signature line do your promo work for you. Like this:
~~Becka
Sexy. Sensual. Seductive.
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com
Have your own blog. And don’t just yak about your books. I have found so many readers through my blogs about my wrist problems, the music I listen to, situations with my kids, holiday plans, random reviews of books I’ve read, funny pictures I post. People searching the Internet for these subjects might stumble upon your site. Swap links with other authors. Put their link on your site, and they will reciprocate with your link on theirs.
Ask for interviews on review sites. Pay $10 fee or $20 sometimes for the privilege of having your book cover up on these review sites. They can push traffic, but make sure the link you give is your BUY page, NOT your webpage. If readers have to click through too many pages to buy your book, THEY WON’T.
I could keep going on and on, but I’ll stop there. Give you a breather. lol
When do you do most of your mental “writing” – while you’re trying to sleep, listening to music, etc?
In bed, in the dark, when it’s quiet and I can zone. I’ve had a lot of revelations when I’m on the verge of sleep, and sometimes in my dreams themselves.
And I know this question is unfair – it’s like if I asked you to pick your favorite child and tell me why. But I’m asking anyway: which one of your books is your favorite, and why?
THE WOLVERINE AND THE ROSE, because it’s a story I thought of when I was 13 years old. I used to dream of being published with that very book as a starry-eyed kid. After I married, I decided to see if I could write a book, since my “life’s goal” was to be an author. After EIGHT long years from starting it, I finished it and submitted it. Lo and behold, it got published!
So I’m one of those people who can say they’ve accomplished their dream as a kid. The rest is just butter!
Which author has been the most inspirational for your own writing?
I could tell you Johanna Lindsey, for first hooking me on the genre. I could tell you Kate Bridges, because I love her historicals. But the author who inspires me the most is my crit partner, Donica Covey. She is brutally honest and tells me if something is crap or if it’s gold. She finds my errors, my plot holes, and thinks of suggestions I never thought of before. Even a few of my books are dedicated to her. If anyone has shaped my career, it’s her. So thank Donica that what you’re reading isn’t crap. :P
And finally, whatcha got cooking right now?
Book V of my Desert Princes of Jikkar series, THE JACKAL PRINCE. It’s the fifth and final book on Jikkar. It will be bittersweet for me, because I love this series so very much. But I have NEVER written a series so fast before. I have written three books and finished another in four months’ time. VIPER is available now, SCARAB is coming in October, and FALCON is coming in December. I just finished THE SPIDER PRINCE, but that will probably come out in February of ’10. And now I’m writing JACKAL.
Be warned, though. These princes are like crack. Once you start, you’ll get addicted and you won’t be able to stop. Heheh >:D
To find out more about the princes, you can visit my blog at: http://desertprinces.blogspot.com
To find out more about me, visit: http://www.rebeccagoings.com, http://www.facebook.com/rebecca.goings, or http://www.twitter.com/rebeccagoings
Thanks so much for allowing me to take over your blog. Take care!
~~Becka
Great interview Ashley. Thank you Becka for the sweet words about me, I appreciate it. It's easy to be your CP, you don't write crap! hehehe
ReplyDeleteHuggles
Donica
Thanks for coming over Donica -- I'm glad you saw that; it was so sweet! This was a fun interview but now I can't complain anymore about not having enough time to write...
ReplyDeleteThat's right!! **cracks whip** What are you doing on this blog, ladies? o.O Should be writing...
ReplyDelete~~Becka