This week we’re joined by Jane Dunning who used a house sitting assignment as her inspiration for a travel fiction series set in France.
She’s already two-books into her three-book series, and shares her writing and self-publishing experience in this author interview. Writing a series is an excellent way to build your reader base. Book marketing takes a lot of ongoing (…continued, never-ending effort…), and if you’ve only written one book where can that lead your readers?
There’s no point writing a great book and then pouring all of your energies into promoting and marketing you book, only to lead your readers to a content dead end. When you write a book series, you’re creating an opportunity for that voyage of discovering to lead somewhere – ideally to the purchase of the other books in the series.
So take a leaf out of Jane’s book and focus your energies on writing a book series, before pouring your heart and soul into book marketing. ~~ Jay
Author Interview: Jane Dunning
How would you describe the type of books/genre you write?
Travel writing, family saga, women’s fiction.
What motivated you to start writing?
I’d always wanted to write a book. Our four month house-sit in Provence gave me the idea and set me on the way to write Thirty-five Minutes from St Tropez.
Tell us the journey you went on to get your books published (e.g. direct on your website, self-published, assisted-publishing, traditional publisher)
I sent the required chapters to a few literary agents to no avail. Self-publishing was just taking off so I decided to try that.
What publishing elements do you most enjoy and most like to avoid, and why? (e.g. design, marketing, formatting etc.)
Although frustrating, I enjoy the formatting. My years working at Bournemouth University helped enormously. I don’t enjoy marketing but I know it’s essential. I take a very softly, softly approach on social media which I find works just as well particularly now that my books have been available for quite a while.
With the hindsight of being a published author, anything you would have done differently?
I probably wouldn’t have bothered contacting literary agents. I am happy to have a low-key approach.
What tips or advice would you give an aspiring indie author who is looking to self-publish?
Edit carefully and check, check, check. Use proof-readers, read aloud and then check again. After pressing ‘publish’ on Amazon Kindle, buy your book and check it on a Kindle, a tablet and a smartphone as I found formatting differences. I remember having strange lines on one format but not on the others.
What marketing or promotional tools or techniques do you use to reach your readers?
My Facebook Page is my main source followed by Instagram. I occasionally like to do author interviews such as this one and I have written numerous articles for various blogs.
What impact do you want your books to have on your readers?
I hope that they will like my characters and want to visit the places that they live or visit. I hope that they will care about them, particularly during the more difficult times I write about in Stolen Summer, the second book in the trilogy.
What’s your book’s elevator pitch or key selling points?
‘You love France? You might like my books set in Provence and Monaco. All about an English couple and their family, set mostly on a vineyard near St Tropez. Yes, that’s why it’s called Thirty-five Minutes from St Tropez. Stolen Summer. Yes, they have a dreadful few months. Happy ending? You’ll have to read it!’
Yes, I get quite excited when talking about my stories!
What’s next on your writing journey?
I’m currently writing Book Three in the trilogy. About twenty per cent of the novel is set in 1942, during World War 2. I have moved this part of the action slightly north to the Vaucluse, in and around Avignon. It focuses on a doctor’s family, in particular, his daughter, but the whole family is involved with the French Resistance. This idea came from reading a blog post which featured a true event. My story is the imaginary events leading up to what happened on the Mediterranean coast.
The rest of the novel features all my characters from the first two books and includes romantic happiness and disappointments, family occasions, probably a wedding or two and the odd bonus trip to Italy.
#AuthorInterview with Jane Dunning who is writing a series of travel related books set in #France. Find out about your writing and #selfpublishing journey. #IndieAuthor Click To Tweet
About the Author
Jane Dunning was born in Guernsey (Channel Islands, UK) in the nineteen-fifties and moved to Bournemouth (on the south coast of England) with her family six months later. After school and secretarial college, her working career, predominantly in finance and latterly with Bournemouth University, spanned over thirty-five years.
She has been married since 1974, lives in Poole, Dorset and enjoys travel, photography, writing, walking and gardening. She has visited France every year since 1990 and has spent long periods in both Provence and Languedoc-Roussillon since retiring in 2007.
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I have known about jane dunning. Next time I will read her book. I have little interest in this niche. But I like this interview and soIi should read her book.