Quick Six PRO with Elizabeth Coldwell

I am so pleased to have Elizabeth Coldwell here at Donuts & Desires for this week's Quick Six!

Quick Six PRO

Interview with Elizabeth Coldwell

Q: What should a writer's priority be?
Elizabeth Coldwell: Writing. Obviously, marketing is important, but you can’t market something you haven’t written.

Q: How do you handle a bad review?
Elizabeth Coldwell: Don’t let it get to you, and don’t try and point out to the reviewer why they “just didn’t get it”. Usually, for everyone who hates your book, there’ll be someone who really loves it. I’ve been lucky in that the good reviews have very much outweighed the bad ones.

Q: What advice do you give aspiring authors?
Elizabeth Coldwell: Don’t ignore publishers’ guidelines – they’re there for a reason. Publishers know a lot more about what works for their imprint than you do. And don’t give up at the first rejection. Everyone gets their stories turned down at some point, and it could be that what wasn’t right for one publisher will be perfect for another.

Q: What do you look for in a publisher?
Elizabeth Coldwell: Someone who knows their market, and gives the air of being professional. In my case, a lot of them are companies or people I dealt with in my life as a full-time magazine editor, so I already knew the standard of the books they were producing. The design of their website and book jackets are important, too, particularly with publishers who primarily produce e-books – some just give the impression they’re putting out books for the sake of it.

Q: How have the people in your life reacted to your career as a writer?
Elizabeth Coldwell: They’ve generally been very positive, although I did manage to disconcert one friend by telling him I’d had a story in an anthology called 'I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus'! He did later provide the inspiration for a story about a man getting his garage remodelled, though, so he was quite proud about that…

Q: Any promo tips for fellow authors?
Elizabeth Coldwell: Avoid drive-by promos. If you’re on a Yahoo group or similar, go in, chat and respond to what other people have to say on non-promo days. And don’t repeat the same blurb day after day, or blanket a site with promos of every book you have out at the moment. There are some authors whose promos I just skip over because I’m so bored of seeing them.

Elizabeth Coldwell is author of:

Stranded In Paradise: M/M novella with subthemes of bdsm, older man/younger man and multicultural (American/English)
by Elizabeth Coldwell.

Alfie Crane accepts a lift from Boston to San Francisco from fellow college student Brad as he's too broke to take the bus. When they argue, he finds himself being thrown out of the car with only his wallet and the clothes he stands up in. After walking for miles, he reaches the tiny town of Paradise, Nebraska. He is desperate for help, and is taken in by diner owner Ray Rendell, who's looking for a new bus boy. Ray has always hidden his true sexuality, afraid of the reaction of family and townsfolk alike, but he's strongly attracted to the cute young Englishman.
Romance begins to blossom between the two as Alfie settles in to the slow, easy pace of small-town life. When Ray is threatened in a hold-up, Alfie realises just how much the older man means to him. But can they really find paradise together?

Buy link: http://www.erotica-romance-ebooks.com/stranded-in-paradise.html