Welcome to the five hundred and ninety-fourth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with paranormal / historical romance author Catherine Greenfeder. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further. See below for a giveaway…
Morgen: Hello, Catherine. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Catherine: I am married, the mother of a young adult son, and a teacher. I live and work in New Jersey. I’ve published three novels in the last six years, and I am working on three more and a novella. I belong to the New York City chapter of Romance Writers of America and the Liberty State Fiction Writers organization in New Jersey.
I began to write early in life, and my first love was poetry. I had a few poems published. I also worked as a retail copywriter, a publicity writer, a technical editor, and am currently a language arts teacher in a middle school.
I began writing romance stories about twenty years ago after reading a lot of them. I took writing workshops and attended many writing conferences which enriched my writing. I also belong to a writing critique group.
Morgen: Being a ‘language arts teacher’ sounds interesting. I love languages (German is my second best followed by French / Spanish). I run or belong to four writing groups and find them invaluable. What genre do you generally write and have you considered other genres?
Catherine: I write paranormal romance and historical romance. I am currently finishing a young adult paranormal romance and a time travel romance. I wrote a mainstream women’s fiction novel some time ago, and I hope to return to edit and submit it.
Morgen: That’s a good idea because you’ll have had the practice since then to see where you need to edit. What have you had published to-date?
Catherine: I published Sacred Fires, a paranormal romance, with Secret Cravings Publishing in February 2012. My western historical romance, Wildflowers, a story set on the Oregon Trail in the 1840s, is an e-book published with Amazon and Barnes & Noble. My paranormal romance Angels Among Us had been published in February 2006 by Wings ePress.
Morgen: You mentioned self-publishing with Amazon and Barnes & Noble, what lead to you going your own way?
Catherine: My historical western romance novel Wildflowers had been published in 2007, and I decided to self-publish it in 2011. The book received excellent reviews, but it did not do as well as I had hoped with the original publisher and I decided to self publish.
Morgen: It’s the marketing that’s key and the hardest part of writing. Are all your books available as eBooks? How involved were you in that process? Do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?
Catherine: Yes, my books Sacred Fires and Wildflowers are available as eBooks. I chose to submit to Secret Cravings, a new e book publisher, for Sacred Fires, and I plan to submit other work to them in the future. I found them very author-friendly and open to a variety of stories. I read both eBooks and print books. I like the convenience of having many books on the eBook reader as well as the availability of books. I also like holding a book in my hands.
Morgen: Me too, and most of the authors I’ve spoken to have said the same thing. Do you have a favourite of your books or characters? If any of your books were made into films, who would you have as the leading actor/s?