Joleene Naylor is the author of the glitter-less Amaranthine vampire universe, a world where vampires aren't for children. Comprised of a main series, a standalone prequel, and several short story collections, she has plans to continue expanding with a trilogy and several standalone novels. 

In her spare time, Joleene is a freelance book cover designer and for-fun photographer. She maintains several blogs, full of odd ramblings, and occasionally updates her website at JoleeneNaylor.com. In what little time is left, she watches anime, plays PokemonGo, and works on her crooked Victorian house in Villisca, Iowa. Between her husband, family, and pets, she is never lonely, in fact, quite the opposite. Should she disappear, one might look for her on a beach in Tahiti, sipping a tropical drink and wearing a disguise.  

Interview:

1.Will you tell us about your most recent published work?

Tales of the Executioners, Volume 2 is a collection of fourteen short stories staring the vampires’ elite “police” force. It continues to weave the underlying narrative of The Guild’s evolution, and the fate of the key players, including the dark master Malick. Stories can be read as stand alones, or in conjunction with the Amaranthine series.

2. What personal challenges do you face as a writer?

Time. There is never enough time to do all the writing I want, all the promotion I need, and still be able to read, network, take care of all the “adult” stuff and work on renovating my house. I need a time turner.

3. What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

It varies per book. With the one I’m working on now, it’s getting the rough draft out, because I don’t have a lot of plans for it, which means I spend a lot of time staring at the computer screen. There’s also a lot of research involved because my vampires are on a Route 66 road trip that I’ve never been on, so I have to look a lot of stuff up. That gives me a chance to procrastinate and read 500 web pages instead of actually writing.

4. What one thing would you give up to become a better writer?

Marketing! That would mean I could quit all social media, stop networking, and save so much time and money. No more website, no more blogging, no more trying to find money to buy advertising. All that effort could be devoted to the books and they’d come out so much faster, and probably better. But then there would be zero sales, so…

5. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?

I’ve gotten better at self-editing because when I run through it now I think “What would Carolyn say? What would Sharon say? What would Chris, Steve, or Donna say?” So I try to catch those mistakes that they usually point out to me. They’ve been finding fewer issues, so I think it’s working.

6. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? Will you tell us about them?

I have the one I’m working on now, and then there are some old ones that will never be published or finished. Wednesday’s Child is my favorite of all of those – I wrote it as a teenager, so a lot of it is stupid because I didn’t know how things worked, but the characters were based on people I knew, so I have a real attachment to it. The most tragic is Devil’s Niece, which was about – you guessed it – the Devil’s Niece trying to help bring around the apocalypse. I call it tragic because I wrote it when I was in junior high, but it had a sex scene in it so I got embarrassed and threw it away. I’m sure the whole thing was horrible, but it would have been fun to reread later in life.

7. Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with bad or good ones?

Sometimes. When I think of it, or run into one. Good ones, of course, make me happy, and bad ones always deflate me a little, but it’s life. I got used to them when I published the 101 Tips for Traveling with a Vampire. A friend and I put it together back in 2009 for fun when the market and ebook expectations were different – it really is just a list of 101 tips for traveling with vampires. Despite the description saying it was just a little one-off funny thing, 60% of people have since thought it was a full novel and so really chewed it up in the reviews.

8. Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?

Oh yeah, there are always inside jokes, but they tend to die in editing. For instance in Ashes of Deceit:

[they] stopped in front of a battered door that was labeled “Supplies.”

She frowned. “What’s in there?”

Originally they just stopped in front of an unmarked door, she asked, and Jorick replied, “Supplies.” – a nod to the movie UHF (because, of course, there’s a surprise hidden inside the closet) but it got fixed in editing when some of the betas didn’t think it fit.

9. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer?

Sadly most of the authors I’m friends with have thrown in the towel or are on hiatus because of the shifting market and general fatigue. We’d been doing this since 2009, so it’s been a minute. C.G.Coppola is still writing though, as are Gabriella Messina, Amber Naralim, and Roger Lawrence.

10. If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

That success is not measured in dollar bills, no matter how much society tries to brainwash us. I still struggle with that concept.

11. What are common traps for aspiring writers?

The “you must do this/be this” list. Every writing blog has a different one, but they all mean the same thing: “If you don’t follow this list of advice and make x number of sales you are not a REAL writer!” I’ve talked to so many writers that feel bad about themselves - some so bad that they never take the leap to publish – because of these circulating lists of must do’s. The point of indy publishing was to be independent, to do whatever we wanted, however we wanted to do it, not to have to follow some guidelines and beg people to legitimize us. Despite what a lot of people want to say, I think the whole industry has suffered because of this, leading to legions of cookie cutter books, cookie cutter plots, and same-old characters that lack imagination but are “safe money earners”, thereby making the authors “legitimate” and marking them as “serious”.  I’m not saying that writing to market is bad, exactly, but I’ve seen too many writers pushed to do it because they feel trapped – if they don’t, then they’re failures and looked down on by their peers because sales data and following those rules are all that matter. I’ve also watched a lot of authors who start out optimistic, fold up and quit because of it, and it’s sad. Who knows what great stories we’re missing because of it?

12. What’s the best way to market your books?

The best marketing tool is one that doesn’t feel like it’s too much work. If every time you blog or tweet, or post, you think, “Gee, I hate this,” then you’re going to fall off of doing it, and your lack of enthusiasm is going to show through. At the moment I think the most effective are flat out paid advertising in book newsletters because people are reading that newsletter looking for a book, but I hear that the effectiveness of it is starting to wane, so…

13. What is your favorite childhood book?

It’s a toss up between Panda Cake and Jillian Jiggs.  I still have both mostly memorized.

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