Author Interview – Bill Hiatt

How do you promote this book? Any way I can (lol). Seriously, I started out knowing nothing about promotion. I just thought I’d put the book up on Amazon, and over time people who liked young adult fantasy would find it. Pretty naïve, huh? When it dawned on me that, after the initial flurry, the book was just going to sit there unless I pushed it, I started researching different advertising techniques and gave those a try that seemed to have had some success for other authors. The methods that work the best seem to be campaigns, like those offered through Book Gorilla, that target potential readers already interested in your genre. Advertising to a general audience is not as effective for fantasy or YA writers like me, though it might be somewhat more effective in the most popular genres.
Do you know your neighbors? Sadly, not very much. Of course, when I’m not in the house working on something related to my teaching (like grading student essays J), I’m likely to be in the house writing. Either teaching English or writing individual poses some social challenges; together they have practically made me a hermit, at least for the time being. With summer finally here, though, at least I only have to worry about one of the two for awhile.
What color represents your personality the most? Green is certainly my favorite color. It represents at least some aspects of my personality, including my desire to be one with the forest (in the real world or the Otherworld).
What do you hope people will take away from your writing? How will your words make them feel? I don’t want to talk too much about messages with people who haven’t read the book yet, because I want them to find the messages for themselves. As far as feelings are concerned, I want them to feel hope. I am a pretty much incurable optimist, and I want my readers to feel that optimism. Just like real lives, the lives of my characters can be disappointing…and sometimes even abysmal—but the only chance to have to overcome their problems is to keep trying, which means they have to keep believing that they can prevail.