Promotional Interview with Nicola Beaumont

You have been invited to share you experience with our readers.

Name: Nicola Beaumont

Tell us about yourself – where you are from, how you got started writing, what you do when you are not writing (or anything you want our readers to know)

Originally, I’m from England, but I left there when I was a child. Now I make my home in the Southwest U.S. I can’t really remember a time I wasn’t writing something. I suppose the bug bit me when my grade school had a poetry writing project, and then I just never stopped writing—whether it was poetry, short stories, journalistic pieces, and later full-length fiction and non-fiction.

When I’m not writing, I’m reading and editing or doing some type of graphic design or ad layout work. I sleep sometimes, too!

What inspired you to write your first book?

The very first book I wrote was a romance. I had picked up a harlequin, read it, and thought, “This is simple; I can do this.” Hah! 50,000 words later, and a wake-up call as to how awful that book really was, I realized that to pen a novel is easy; to pen a novel that is actually good, is not so easy. That book was terrible…and so was the next…and the next. I don’t think I actually got the hang of how to effectively tell a tale until the third book.

How many books have you written?

I’ve finished five novels or novellas, and have others in various stages of outline or partial. Three of those five will probably never see publication. They were stepping stones to good writing.

How do you decide on their topic?

With fiction, my plots are usually a fancy that just comes to mind. I swirl them around until the basic premises are there, and then I begin writing. My characters do the rest.

With non-fiction, if the work isn’t commissioned, the idea usually comes from a life observation or experience.

Do you write to make money or for the love of writing?

Both! I want my love of writing to make me some money. Seriously, I write first for the love of writing. It is a gift to be able to tell a tale that will whisk someone away to an alternate reality for a time. Of course, I’m not opposed to making money, and so I do what I can to promote, and hope lots of people buy and enjoy my books.

My Christian works, on the other hand, I write solely for the glory of God (Well, everything I write is for His glory, but these in a more direct way). If I make money, that’s great, but if I don’t make money, yet some reader comes to know Christ more fully because of reading something I wrote, then that’s a greater reward than money.

What are some traditional methods of marketing you have used to gain visibility for you and your book(s)?

Gathering book reviews and placing magazine ads have to be the top of the traditional marketing methods I’ve used. Also, website advertising on high-traffic sites.

What are some unique methods?

I don’t know if one would call this unique, but I’ve recently started utilizing book trailers. There’s a terrific site which is currently housing trailers for one year at no charge to the author. http://www.previewthebook.com The trailers there are top-notch quality.

I’m also looking into pod-casting, but instead of the pod casts coming from me, they will come from my characters.

Do you sell through a website?

Much of my work can be bought through my own website, http://www.inicola.net, and what’s not available from me directly is available online through the publisher’s site http://www.thewildrosepress.com or from Amazon, Fictionwise, and other online outlets.

Do you plan on writing additional books?

Always! I don’t think I will ever stop writing. I enjoy it too much.