Somewhere Over the Sun

Hello my dear and wonderful readers. Today, I welcome fellow author L.M. Stull for a quick interview. Her debut novel, Memoirs of a Monkey, will be released in the spring of 2011, so be on the look out for that. 

Let’s start with a difficult one. What’s your favorite sentence from your upcoming book, Memoirs of a Monkey? No cop outs, you must choose. 

“Glowing in the dark was not something you wanted when trying to surprise your opponents in the middle of the night.”

For us writers, inspiration can come from anywhere, at any time, any place. For some reason, showers always prove to fuel my writing fire. Any place or activity that does the same for you?

I get inspiration when I’m around people; I love observing.  Sitting in a park or coffee shop usually gets the words flowing for me.

Who is Memoirs of a Monkey dedicated to? 

It is dedicated to everyone who ever wanted to go after their dreams.  Writing this novel is me doing just that.

What do you think will play the biggest factor in determining your book’s success?

Marketing, especially as an indie author.  You don’t have a big publishing company out there doing it for you.

This is one of my favorite questions to ask anyone at all and it usually yields incredibly interesting results. So, as the first fellow writer that I’m asking, I’m eager to hear how you answer. If you had to choose between being a banana and orange, which would you be? Elaborate as much or as little as you’d like.

A banana…you’ve seen my book cover, right? :)  I think bananas are sexy.  Oranges are just a mess and too difficult to deal with.

The people we know in real life always work their way into our fiction. Talk about one person who’s made their way into your writing in one way or another.

Actually most of the characters in this book, as well as the whole idea of the book, came from my co-workers.  I work for lawyers….need I say more?

What’s your song of the day and why?

Daft Punk’s Adagio for Tron ~ soul moving music.

Favorite English teacher throughout your education? 

Virginia Manczuk.

Last question, to make this a quick interview, what question do you really wish I would have asked you?

If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?

 You can find L.M. Stull on Twitter, Goodreads and on her personal site, where I will be appearing soon as the tables are turned and she interviews me.

So, I woke up this morning after dreaming about confronting a Dog Ear rep and that after my rant (I had a whole speech planned, was even looking for a film scorer to bring in an orchestra and play during my phone call/monologue), ten-peso coins started raining down from the sky.

Neither of those things happened, since I checked my mail and saw an explanation as to why my book has been pulled from B&N.com and is out of stock at Amazon.com. It turns out it is a mistake on Dog Ear’s behalf, one that I already complained about and which has been corrected. When Dog Ear sent all the information needed for distributors to list my novel, they also sent the wrong cover image. While the distributors change their sites to reflect the updated information with the correct cover image, they each put a hold on orders in their own way.

The book should be normally available through both sites soon.

Still no word on what happened to the second half of my top ten albums of the year list, so you’ll have to remain on the very edge of your seats as I put off on rewriting that. Today’s schedule includes finishing touches on two guest posts, possibly getting my tattoo touched up, touching the lives of millions (er, 904) with my very insightful tweets and all sorts of other touching that doesn’t actually include touching.

When I received three options for my book cover, I chose option B. They confirmed option B. They used option A.

On behalf of Dog Ear Publishing’s stupid mistake, I apologize for the further delay in getting Somewhere Over the Sun into your hands. I’ll elaborate soon, but I have a plane to catch. 

Excuse the Twitter-speak.

Here’s a message I received in response to my question: “Is it worth trying to get a self-pubbed book picked up, or is it better to aim for representation for 2nd novel?’

“@thebookdoctors if u can sell 5000 copies or more in the 1st year, then def approach publishers. If not, go 4 2nd bk #novelpitch”

My plan for Somewhere Over the Sun isn’t just to have a successful debut novel which can lead to getting an agent, but rather to have Somewhere Over the Sun be successful enough to garner attention from the big publishers. So there’s the magic number: 5,000 copies in one year.

I feel strongly about my book’s quality and am confident that I can reach and exceed that number. Of course, I’ll need some help from all you lovely people. Books are sold by word-of-mouth, by lovers-of-words excitedly sharing recommendations with others. At Barnes & Noble, many a text message has read, what should I get?

Some of you have already expressed (in humbling levels of excitement) your enthusiasm to read the book once it is available, which leads me to believe that once you do read it and enjoy it like I think you will, you’ll have no problem telling everyone else on the planet to read it. If just five of you tell 1,000 of your closest friends, I’ll be good! I truly appreciate your support, dear readers, and I’ll be needing more of it in the coming months.

Until then, please continue sending in your questions and comments. I enjoy answering them, even when they’re not questions. To whoever wrote the following message, thank you for making my day:

“I dreamt I read your book last night, and it was fantastic.”