Random Lessons From a Debut Novelist

Okay, in my quest to actually have something of interest to post on Thursdays, (I took over this day from Elizabeth Ludwig who has recently left us to start her own site: www.theborrowedbook.blogspot.com), I've been posting about my personal novel journey leading up the the release of my debut, Crossing Oceans.

While I was at my publisher Tyndale House, they made a promotional video with me talking about my novel. I thought they asked great questions and that I gave fairly decent answers and didn't look too stiff or say "um" too many times, which I have a bad habit of doing. I did learn a few things though through trial and error.

I learned to be prepared. When you watch this video, it may look like I'm speaking unrehearsed, but I did know the questions ahead of time and I gave some pre-thought to how I would answer them. After we did this video, my wonderful marketing person had a good thought of making a video addressing Novel Journey readers. This was completely unplanned. I gave no pre-thought to what I would say and therefore, really said nothing worth repeating. I should have asked for a few minutes to think. Maybe given Ane and Jess a call to get some ideas since I was at a loss. I would have done that differently. You live and learn.

I also learned that the camera doesn't put ten pounds on you, it puts fifty. I'm on the narrow side, but you sure can't tell it by watching this. And most importantly, I learned never, ever let myself be filmed or photgraphed from below.