Indie Interview with @JackieWeger, author of Eye of the Beholder #romance
Conversations with authors and writers from the self-publishing world.
Meet Jackie Weger
Genre: Romance
Best Known for: Eye of the Beholder
Jackie was born in Alabama and attended convent schools until she was eleven. She lived a dozen years in St. Augustine, Florida renovating a hundred year old house in Lincolnville, a community settled by freed slaves in the 1800's. After years of traveling and living in Central America and some favorite locations in Europe, she has again put down roots in small rural area near Houston, Texas.
I’d like to
introduce Jackie Weger, author of Eye of the Beholder and long-time
writer. Jackie has some excellent thoughts to share for both readers
and authors alike.
How long have you
been writing and how did you get started?
I’ve been writing
fiction on and off for about 35 years. Early on I wrote non-fiction
for trade magazines, and joined a small writer’s group in a tiny
hamlet in Texas. A member mentioned the University of Houston was
holding its annual writer’s conference. There was a call for short
fiction, prizes to be awarded. I wrote a small piece and won
honourable mention. There was some discussion about romance novels
at the conference—and a whole lot of sneering from academics. I was
challenged to write a romance novel. I did and sold it. Surprised the
heck out of me, I’ll tell you. I was mute for a week.
Your book Eye of
the Beholder is doing well, was this your first book? If not, what
was your first published book and did it do well?
My first book, A
Strong and Tender Thread was a black character romance—the
first Harlequin ever bought, perhaps the only one. It was a fluke of
fate that I submitted the manuscript to the newly hired American
editor for Harlequin who was a woman of color—she loved it. It was
a surprise to white romance readers and did not do well in the genre,
but it became a cult book among college students on black campuses
and opened the doors for romance characters of color. I think it sold
about forty or fifty thousand copies—but it did not move into the
international market. The book has lain dormant for thirty years.
Liquid Silver Books just published it in their new digital retro
line, Liquid Gold Classics. It’s a nice traditional romance, but
not at all racy or erotic as recent books having black characters.
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Tell us a little
bit about Eye of the Beholder…
Oh, gosh. I was
rebelling against the cookie cutter heroines and heroes when I wrote
Eye of the Beholder. At the time cloned heroines sprang to
life on page utterly gorgeous and shapely and usually orphaned or
estranged from family. Heroes were wealthy, wore Armani and Aramis.
If the hero was rugged and wore jeans, he owned a truck and a
thousand acre cattle ranch. I’ve brushed up against extraordinary
people, but they are not in my daily life. I wanted to write a story
about ordinary people falling in love. The kind of people you stand
behind in line at the cash register of a grocery store, Walmart or
your local library. There are two components to love—the magical
and the practical. I tried to weave those elements into Eye of the
Beholder.
How does this book
differ from other Romance novels?
Phoebe Hawley isn’t
gorgeous or shapely nor does she pretend to be something she isn’t.
She’s straightforward, knows what she needs and what she wants. She
speaks and thinks in dialect which is a rhythmical derivative of Old
English with a Southern slant. The plot is Phoebe’s quest to find a
home for her family. That girl never let me down and she is so honest
she never stepped out of character. Phoebe Hawley is an unlikely
heroine in the same way little Cockney Charlie Allnut is an unlikely
and reluctant hero in the African Queen. The book by C.S. Forester
is labelled an epic adventure. Had it been written by a Cynthia
Forester, it would be tagged as a romance and perhaps never have
found the audience it has to this day.
I’m from the South.
The theme for Eye of the Beholder came about because it was a
time when cotton mills were closing across Alabama and Georgia
putting good people out of work and church and home. I conceived
Phoebe Hawley as a mill girl on a mission to find her family a home.
She wouldn’t do for the Armani and Aramis man, but by golly—she
recognizes a hard-working man when she sees him. G.G. Morgan is just
that. He owns a junk yard and rebuilds trawler propellers in a tiny
Alabama Gulf Coast community. Most readers don’t catch it, but
that kind of machine work pays nicely. And junk yards are a cash
business. Lots of cash. I have an acquaintance whose
husband owns a forty-acre junk yard. She wears Vera Wang to Bingo on
Friday nights and drives a Porsche. He drives an old, rusted out
truck and owns two suits-- one for church on Sunday and one for
weddings and funerals. Both of their sons graduated from good Texas
universities. G.G. Morgan is closed mouth about his resources, but
Phoebe will figure it out eventually. She’s country smart and
Alabama tough.
You have achieved
what many indie authors dream of- how did your success come about?
Actually, I had a
head’s up. When I stopped writing for Harlequin I recovered the
rights to all of my books. Some are timeless love stories. Phoebe’s
is one of them. Others have good bones, but need tweaking for
todays’ digital market and readers. Category romance books have a
shelf life between yogurt and ice cream. Books sell within the first
ten days of hitting book shelves or not at all and those unsold are
stripped to make room for next month’s titles. While I was taking
care of elderly family and trekking thither and yon, my books
languished in a nether world of dusty shelves.
Christmas of 2011, I
was gifted with a Kindle . I’d never heard of an ereader. It was
utter magic and opened an entire alien world for me. I did not have
a clue how to be an indie author, but I wanted my books on that
machine the instant I discovered the shelf life of an ebook is
forever! I contracted seven of my backlist to a digital publisher.
They get the books for 730 days which gives me time to learn about
the universe of ePublishing.
Eye of the Beholder
is my first indie effort. In early August I published The House on
Persimmon Road, another of my favourites with a cast of
characters I adore. Once the seven books under contract come back to
me, I’ll know enough to tweak and edit for smoother eReading and
dress them with fresh covers or perhaps tighten to novella length or
even serialize one on my blog. Choices only an indie author can make.
I love it.
Success? Not quite
yet. Here is a funny thing. Back in the day romance novels were not
deemed worthy of a review. Authors got attention, but not so much our
books, which moved by word of mouth. Until blogging came into being
not a single one of my books had been reviewed. I am everlastingly
thankful and a lot stunned that today my books are receiving such
nice comments. Still, I’m playing catch-up with the electronic
world. While the Internet was exploding with Amazon, Nook, Kobo,
iTunes, You Tube, Twitter and Facebook, I was living in a tiny jungle
village in a Dry Pacific Rainforest in Panama, cooking with wood,
bathing in the Camito River, dispatching snakes with a machete and
reading books by candle light in my minuscule recama. I have had a
Webpage and blog for a year and a month; a Facebook author page for
about six weeks, a Twitter account for less. I have yet to learn how
to use those effectively to enjoy a relationship with fans and
readers.
Do you have any
special tips that you’d like to share with other authors, regarding
writing, marketing or publishing?
Actually, the only
things I know how to do well are write and cook. I am so thankful
there are indie authors who are willing to share their expertise with
late comers to the digital market like me, otherwise I’d be dead in
the water. I have noticed that many indie authors in their enthusiasm
to be published forgo professional editing and formatting. I hire
both. Even so, before hitting that PUBLISH button on Amazon, Nook or
Kobo, I preview my book. Both times I’ve found editing errors. I
stopped the process and sent the book back to the editor/formatter
for corrections. It’s hard to curb one’s excitement, but it’s
unfair to ask a reader to pay in time or money for a flawed product.
One or two errors may be forgiven. We often have errors in print
books, too. However, badly formatted eBooks distract and annoy the
reader. That doesn’t bode well for establishing a fan base. One
unedited and ill-formatted book and those readers move on to support
other authors. Even worse—those readers are vocal! I lurked in a
reader’s forum a couple of weeks ago and here’s almost an exact
quote by a reader: “I’m sick to death of being used as a beta
reader for indie authors. When I buy a book I want to be
entertained!” (I cleaned up the language a little bit.)
Is there anything
you’d like to say to your readers?
Oh, my gosh. I love my
readers! I began getting hellos and greetings from fans and readers
within twenty-four hours of building my Facebook author page, and not
just stateside but fans in Finland and Lebanon and the U.K., too. I
need my readers. It is so wonderful to have the means to connect with
them instantly—and visit their FB pages to see their pictures and
what is going on in their lives, meet their families, sharing stories
and recipes. It’s better than going to book signings where fans are
rushed through a line. Meeting fans is the best part of my day—and
my writing career.
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I was in the right
place at the right time, specifically, the SW Writer’s Conference
in Houston when publishers such as Harlequin, Love Swept and
Silhouette began sending out feelers for writers. Harlequin
especially had only one American author—writing for Mills and Boon
with Silhouette as the distributor. I never had the urge to write
that grand American novel because I had neither the skill nor the
craft. What I did have was an old, IBM Selectric typewriter, and
until I began college at age sixty-two, a tenth grade education.
Moreover, I enjoyed reading women’s fiction and love stories with
adventure. Then there were those sneering academics and the
challenge. That got my dander up. Talk about an about face! I notice
some academics and lawyers and retired teachers are writing erotica.
Holy Smokes.
Do you also read?
What sort of books?
I’m an eclectic
reader of fiction and non-fiction. I have about two-hundred novels
and short stories on my Kindle which include works by Fannie Flagg,
John Sandford, Emelle Gamble, Donna Fasano, Stephanie Bond, Sara
Guren (Water for Elephants), Kathryn Stockett’s The Help
and at least a dozen works by Billie Sue Mosiman (horror). On the
corner of my desk right this minute: Stephen Hawking, Cry Wolf
by Wilber Smith along with a Harlan Coben, Larry McMurtry, Louisa
May Alcott, Bill Fitzhugh, MacDonald’s All Souls, The African
Queen, She Went to the Field, Women Soldiers of the Civil War
and George Carlin’s When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops.
Oh, and a book I’m going to bury myself in tonight: The crème
de la crème of the WPA American Guide Series: New Orleans City
Guide 1938. There’s another stack of books against the wall,
but I can’t see the titles. Listen, I’m old. I’ve been
reading everything I could buy, rent or borrow for sixty-five years.
I haven’t missed much.
How did you learn
to write?
Ooooo, I hate to tell
on myself, but I did not have a clue how to fashion a fiction book. I
took a book off my shelf, tore out pages, rolled some newsprint in
that old typewriter and started typing. I typed the first two and
last two pages of every chapter. That taught me how to indent, how to
punctuate, how to switch viewpoints, the use of declarative
sentences, quotation marks, ellipses, dashes, and dialogue tags. I
actually counted how many times the author used a character’s name
on a page. I learned how to insert flashbacks, and when to use
italics for emphasis. I learned to use a viewpoint character to
introduce others, as opposed to omniscience.
But, hey! Teaching
myself craft did not make me a great story teller. Frankly—telling
a story can be hit or miss. I learned one technique I wish I’d
never learned because it is not acceptable today; That was a writer
could sandwich a character’s thoughts between two bit of dialogue
then shift to the next character and do the same thing. Now—editors
prefer a writer stay in one view point and do a space break or
chapter break before switching viewpoints. I’m fighting that tooth
and nail.
Back in the day were
told: Write what you know. That is still good advice today—even
with the ability to research on the Web—though many writers
discount it. I read a thriller by one of my favourite authors. In
the dénouement the hero threw the villain over a hotel balustrade
onto the deck a ship passing out of the Panama Canal below the
balustrade. Impossible. There is no hotel that overhangs the Canal
or a lock. Not one—ever. The locks are protected by security
fences. Writers are allowed literary license—but not grievous
license.
I recently downloaded a book and settled in to read a
romantic adventure and in the first paragraph the author writes the
characters had stolen the Mona Lisa the month before. Surely that
author had never stood in front of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre as
millions of others have (including me) and noticed all of the
security, the glass, lasers, the ropes, the guards with guns! Forgive
me for being a cynic—but how did they get in and out of the museum
with the loot? And where did the thieves sell the darn thing? Why are
the characters planning another theft? They ought to have sold the
painting for enough $$$ to retire to Cabo San Lucas. Goodness. We do
ask our readers to suspend belief—but we must anchor that
suspension with a character or event or action readers can relate to.
Otherwise the plot or story won’t work.
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What are your
thoughts on self-publishing vs. traditional publishing?
I think they are
both great, but I adore being an indie author. The lovely part about
traditional—if one’s book is accepted, is the advance against
royalties upon signing a contract. That advance is an investment in
the manuscript, thus one can usually expect a trained, professional
editor. This is not necessarily so with ebook publishers even when
they offer a token advance. Every single person I work with at my
publisher is also a writer. Which means my books must compete with
theirs in time, effort, editorial process and marketing. Count me
contrary, but I don’t like that. I have been an indie author only
since June of 2013. Both Eye
of the Beholder and The
House on Persimmon Road
are selling at a faster clip than the titles distributed by my eBook
publisher. This bears some study, but I hope it means I’m doing
something right.
Do you have any
more books being released soon?
Yes, I do. Liquid Gold
Classic is publishing Count the Roses September second. And
I’ve finished edits on A Wing and a Prayer, my third indie
work. I haven’t yet approved a cover, but I hope to publish
in October.
Is there anything
else you’d like to tell us about yourself or your books?
Other than thanking
Masquerade Crew for choosing to spotlight me, Heck no! I talk too
much. I’m done.
Thank you, Jackie!
