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| If nobody comes to my party, I'll eat these all by myself. |
Today our Q &
A is less breathless. There’s only one question: What kind of expectations do
you have for Hockey Is My Boyfriend?
A: Augh. Such a
tough question.
Each time you write
a book, it’s like throwing a party. You do all the preparation: cleaning your
place, buying drinks and food, cooking, decorating, etc. Then there’s this one
moment before the party starts that you think, “Is anybody going to come?” Right
now is that moment.
I feel pretty
blessed with the sales of my first long novel, How The Cookie Crumbles. I knew very little about book marketing or
promotion, so basically I put the book out there and crossed my fingers. Lots
of great people found the book and let me know how much they enjoyed it. I took
it for granted that many indie authors had good sales, but since then I’ve
learnt that many sell less than a dozen books to non-family member.
As I’ve written
before, I think my success is partly due to the fact that romance readers are
avid readers who are able to size up books from the sample and
don’t need a ton of hype. In addition, lots of readers—me included—just like
hockey books.
Having said that,
I don’t think that my books are typical. They are usually longer than most
novels, and mix up humour, drama, and sex in a way that makes them a little
harder to classify.
Hockey Is My Boyfriend is
different in a few ways. In the first chapter, the heroine is only fifteen
years old! I’m pretty sure that will turn off some readers right there. But
it’s about first love, so I wanted to start at the beginning. Don’t worry,
nothing statutory happens, and I fast-forward two years soon afterwards.
The other way
that HIMB is different is that it’s divided into three parts. Part One takes
place in high school. Part Two takes place during Kelly’s third year at
university. Part Three is when she graduates and starts working. So it’s a long story—surprise,
surprise, I know.
So, while I’m
extremely excited about the book (after all the rewriting and editing I’ve
done, I should be!) I’m still getting the pre-party jitters. I worry that
people sampling the beginning will write it off as some lame young adult novel.
And I’m worried that people who think it’s a YA novels are going to freak out
when they get to the sex scenes.
But why worry?
This book is for smart readers who are interested in relationships. And hockey.
And I’m sure those people will find it.