The poet and book blogger, Peter Okonkwo, interviewed me for his YouTube channel. In the interview we talked about each of my books, the challenges I faced, and how to deal with criticism. We also covered the processes of publishing and marketing.
When you’re finished with my interview, check out some of the others. He’s had some really interesting authors on there. I was much more at ease doing this interview, that the one for NBC. That’s probably just practice and experience I guess. It’s almost certainly the case that the more you do, the easier it becomes. Where will the next interview come from? Who knows? I really must get around to trying to interest Waterstones in Bath, and / or Bristol, in an author event. I’ll have another trawl for competitions too, and see if there’s one I’m eligible to enter.
I’m now 31% of my way through the biography of Marie de Medici. It’s such a long book that if it weren’t so well written I’d have given up, despite needing to read it as research for Book 5. Talking of which, I asked ChatGPT to write a synopsis of a historical murder mystery set in Paris in 1614, involving the estates general and Cardinal Richelieu. This time what it came up with wasn’t bad. I’ll bear it in mind. I still don’t see AI as being a threat to authors, but I’m coming around to the idea that if you ask it for enough suggestions, it might give you the kernel of a good idea or plot twist.
I doubt that I will publish Book 5 before Christmas. The reading and research required prohibits that possibility. I think that publishing the first four books from scratch in just over two years was quite a feat.