A: I’ve been extremely happy with the way that Dorchester has marketed my books so far. They really gave me a big push for the first one, being as it was launching the new series, and, from what I can tell, it’s paid off. They’ve been very supportive of any marketing that I’ve wanted to do and done tons of great promotion that I couldn’t have accomplished on my own, such as sending me on the Kmart Sizzling Summer Reads tour last year and sponsoring a weekend getaway contest for readers.
Q: What tips/tricks do you use for marketing or promoting your own titles?
A: I have a website and a MySpace site that have both been great tools as far as making my books more visible. I also run monthly contests and belong to a variety of writer’s and reader’s groups, where I post regularly. A lot of the promo that I do is online as I think it’s a great way to really connect with readers.
Q: What is one thing you’d want to tell a newer author, just coming into the game?
A: You have to do promo yourself – you can’t rely on your publisher to do it all for you. My publisher has been fantastic about marketing, but it’s really been a joint effort between us and I don’t think they’d have been as willing to put as much into marketing had I not been willing to put forth a big effort as well.
Q: Could you tell us a bit about your latest release?
A: UNDERCOVER IN HIGH HEELS released August 28th. It’s the third book in the High Heels series, and in this installment fashion designer turned amateur sleuth Maddie Springer finds herself investigating a murder on the set a very “Desperate Housewives”-esque TV show while trying to repair her crumbling relationship with the sexy lead detective on the case, Jack Ramirez. This was a lot of fun for me to write as I actually used to work in television and got to draw a lot on my own experiences in Hollyweird.
Q: What’s your favorite genre to write in and why?
A: I love writing mystery suspense. There’s something very therapeutic about writing a grisly death scene while picturing that guy that dumped you for a cheerleader in high school. When I first started writing, I tried my hand at contemporary romance. And, while I really enjoyed exploring the relationships between the characters, it wasn’t until some of them started dying off that things really got interesting for me. So, while I still enjoy the romance and a happy ending, most of my books will have some sort of mystery element to them. What can I say? I just like killing people.
Q: What types of research do you do for your books?
A: A lot of what I write about comes from my own life – the characters, the settings, the shoes. :) But, there are times when I’m a little outside my comfort zone and I tend to rely heavily on google for that. I’m a firm believer that anything you ever wanted to know can be found online. There are days when I’ve gone off on the strangest research related tangents clicking around the internet on sites that I’m sure are on some government watch lists. Consequently, I tend to accumulate odd viruses on my computer, but it’s generally worth it. For a scene in my latest book, UNDERCOVER IN HIGH HEELS, I was researching foot fetishes. Wow. There are some strange people online.
Q: What would you do if you weren’t a writer?
A: I had a variety of odd jobs before becoming a writer, so who knows what I’d be doing now. I worked as a temporary tattoo painter, a 900 number psychic, a teddy bear importer, a pre-school teacher, an actress… and I’m sure there are a few I’ve completely blacked out of my memory. Whenever I’m stressed with deadlines or revisions, I just remind myself that it could be worse – I could be reading someone’s horoscope for $3.99 a minute.
LINKS:
http://www.gemmahalliday.com/
http://www.myspace.com/highheelsmysteries
http://www.dorchesterpub.com
