Interview Chat with Author Dee Julian - PART THREE - THE PUBLISHING PROCESS! And check out the Trailer!

Here I am once more chatting with Dee Julian author of The Macgregor's Daughter for Part Three of our “series” interview.
Dee and I discussed her writing process in Part One of the interview and the book in Part Two.

PART THREE - QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PUBLISHING/PROMOTING PROCESS:

M:  How difficult was it for you to get to a point of getting your book published?

Dee:  Extremely. It took about nine years. In my experience, most traditional publishers do not wish to invest in unpublished authors who haven’t proven themselves. My question is…how do you prove yourself if you cannot get published? RWA contests? Been there, done that. Even won or finaled in several, but nothing came of it. Now, most of these same publishers no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts. In other words…get an agent. But getting an agent is no easy task. Ninety percent of the ones I queried from the Predators and Editors website several years ago did not respond. It was very frustrating, to say the least.

M:  Wow. I am sorry to hear how difficult it was/is in the publishing field. I am sure glad that you persevered because I think The Macgregor’s daughter was a wonderful book and deserves to be available to the public.

Do you enjoy promoting your book and do you do anything special to promote?

Dee:  I have to confess, Martha. I don’t like promoting at all. It takes away from my writing time, plus I’m very ignorant in regards to the promotions business. If I had a ton of money, I’d hire an expert. Instead, I roam the romance groups, adding an excerpt here and there. I also ask for reviews from reputable reviewers like you, Martha. Thank you for your hard work and dedication in this area. I also enter contests such as The New Covey Cover Awards or the YouGottaRead book trailer awards. (I didn’t win, but you can find my book trailer below) I’ve just recently done a book signing at the local library, and I donated several ebooks to a local book club. They loved the story and invited me to their monthly meeting. I had a great time with those ladies!

M:  It seems that promoting is a whole other task that authors have to master. I think that library and book store signings can be fun but that is more work too.

The Cover for The Macgregor's Daughter is beautiful - did you have any input in getting the cover?

Dee: Thank you, Martha. I've gotten so many nice comments about this book cover, and I'm proud to say that I did have some input. After I signed the contract with Wild Child Publishing, they sent me a form asking me to describe in detail what I wanted on the cover. That part was easy because I'd had a particular cover stored in my head for several years. I completed the form then emailed it to their cover artist, Valerie Tibbs of Graphics by Design. I have to give her most of the credit. She was wonderful. We must have had a psychic connection at some point because she created exactly what my mind saw...with one exception. She hadn't included Pegasus. I explained to her how important it was (for me) to have that horse on the cover, and I'm very happy she found him. 


M:  I'm glad he is there as he is beautiful.  Speaking of beautiful, here is the very lovely trailer:

Please check in next Wednesday for the final installment with some personal questions.
And don't forget to check out the review and enter the Giveaway for a copy of the book!