Author Interview – Renee Pawlish, a promising new voice to the comic murder/mystery genre

Renée Pawlish is the award-winning author of the bestselling Nephilim Genesis of Evil, the first in the Nephilim trilogy, the Reed Ferguson mystery series (This Doesn’t Happen In The Movies, Reel Estate Rip-off, The Maltese Felon, and the short story Elvis And The Sports Card Cheat), The Noah Winters YA Adventure series (The Emerald Quest), Take Five, a short story collection, and The Sallie House: Exposing the Beast Within, a nonfiction account of a haunted house investigation.

Renée has been called “a promising new voice to the comic murder/mystery genre” and “a powerful storyteller”. 

Her latest book, Emerald Quest,  was made available in February 2012.  It has been well-received so far, kids and adults enjoy it.

What part of your writing time do you devote to marketing your book?
That’s a little tough to answer.  I tend to write a book and then spend some time away from writing.  If I’m between books, I spend all of my time marketing.  When writing, I spend about half the time marketing.  Most authors, whether mainstream-published or self-published, that are successful spend a lot of time marketing.  I find this to be true as well.  No one will discover you if you don’t spend some time marketing.

What do you do to get books reviewed?
I search for blogs, either on Twitter or on the Internet, that specialize in book reviews and query them.  I find that a lot of them don’t answer back, but I’ve received some very nice reviews from the ones who do respond.  I’ve also found that many of them don’t mind that the books are “self-published” because I have great query letters with intriguing bits about the book and many just want to read the book (I also don’t identify as an indie author).  I’ve found that Goodreads giveaways don’t garner many reviews, but some of the groups there that specialize in authors giving away books in exchange for reviews work.  But one bit of advice – research who is asking for your book.  I found that with my short story collection, Take Five, a gentleman asked to review it, then criticized the stories after stating that he doesn’t really enjoy short stories.  Had I read his profile, I might have found this out and wouldn’t have given him a book to review.

#7
The successful indie authors I know, and myself included, are ones that view the entire process professionally.  You HAVE to get your books professionally edited, and get a great cover.  You have to seek out advice.  You have to seek out reviews, and if you get a bad one, you don’t flip out over it.  If your writing is good, readers won’t criticize the writing.  They may not like the story and that’s okay – you can’t please everyone.  But you also have to recognize that you can improve, so you need to keep honing your craft and get feedback that can help you improve.  You need to understand marketing as well and how to get your books in front of readers.

What marketing mistakes would you avoid?
I’ve spend advertizing dollars on small websites and that wasn’t helpful.  I also paid for a blog tour and I wasn’t impressed with it. If you’re going to spend money on these kinds of things, make sure that the sites have a huge following (thousands of visitors), otherwise I don’t think it’s money well spent.

What do you think of trailers?
Trailers seemed to be all the rage last summer but I don’t think they’re very effective unless you have one that is really original and you can get it to take off.  Otherwise, trailers are just like your book, no one sees it unless you get it out there in cyberspace for them to view it.  And that takes time, too.  If you do decide to use trailers, make sure you put them on your Facebook page and other video sites for people to see them.

Thank you, Renee Pawlish, for taking the time to answer our questions

Take a look at her books below and choose the one you like best

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