Interviews are an easy way for authors to share their stories, their voice and the reasons that they write. This type of authentic sharing is much more powerful than an advertisement or a generic “buy my book” tweet or post. Interviews helps readers connect with authors in a very crowded online book marketplace. The author becomes a real person in the eyes of the reader. If you’re an author and have shied away from giving author interviews, it’s time to overcome your fear. Here are a few easy interview tips:
- interview yourself — We’re not kidding! Use your blog or make a video. Ask yourself questions that will lead to interesting answers about all things you. Or, ask your readers to send in questions and answer those.
- swap interviews with another author — Have a fellow author conduct the interview either on his or her blog or on Twitter, Facebook or Google+. Then, return the favor.
- answer each question as if you’re being interviewed on national television — By this we mean, bring your true color and personality to the interview, no matter how simple the question. Look your best. Appearance counts. Shine!
- share photos/videos/links — visuals are highly engaging and lead to higher click-through rates. Links allow interested readers to explore your work more fully.
- tell your best stories — Great interviews usually contain great stories that make you cry or laugh or think. Before an interview, identify your best life stories and practice telling them.
- have fun and be quirky — Don’t be afraid to show your imperfections and quirks. Be authentically you. People are drawn to honesty.
- publicize your interview — If you’re planning to do a live event on social media. Make sure to invite friends and fans starting about a week in advance.
- capture your live interview — If your interview is live on social media, make sure to capture all the tweets or posts and organize them in a single piece of content. We use Storify. It’s simple to use and free. Creating a single piece of content for your interview will allow you to share it well after the event takes place as well as post a link on your website.
At Bublish, we think interviews are so powerful that we conduct them once a week. You’ll find us every Thursday at 3:00 pm ET interviewing either an author, publicist or publisher. Mostly we use Twitter (hashtag is #bublish), but recently we’ve started using Facebook events as well. Here’s a sampling of our author chats. Hope they provide some inspiration. Also, if you’re a “bublisher” (an author who creates book bubbles on http://bublish.com/), these chats are free to you, so don’t hesitate to email us and we’ll get you on the schedule: info [at] bublish [dot] com.
http://storify.com/bublishme/bublish-chats-with-suspense-author-ro-cuzon
http://storify.com/bublishme/a-valentine-s-day-chat-with-belle-books
http://storify.com/bublishme/bublish-chats-with-publishing-thought-leader-jason
http://storify.com/bublishme/bublish-chats-with-author-bob-mayer
https://www.facebook.com/events/164711283690491/
http://storify.com/bublishme/bublish-chats-with-ya-author-l-m-davis
http://storify.com/bublishme/bublish-chats-with-romance-author-jen-talty
http://storify.com/bublishme/bublish-chats-with-author-linda-leander
http://storify.com/bublishme/bublish-chats-with-author-harrison-solow
http://storify.com/bublishme/bublish-chats-with-author-cynthia-michaels
http://storify.com/bublishme/bublish-chats-with-author-lisa-j-yarde
http://storify.com/bublishme/bublish-s-first-book-chat-with-author-lorna-suzuki
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