One of the best part of our magazine is the Spotlight Interview, in this interview we try to find authors who have published at least one book independently and are interactive with their followers. In doing so we’ve been able to highlight some truly remarkable people as well as get a feel for the publishing process by learning from their experiences. Anyway, sometime after the Jan release we started discussions about spotlight interview potentials. As we already had the candidate chosen and on board for February we needed to work out our March pick, as we were discussing it we also started looking ahead to April.
Note: We don’t hold any illusions about where we stand in the publication world, obviously mainstream authors (Big Four Published) aren’t clamoring to get on our pages and when I say our primary demographic is the indie author market, I mean it. But we have big ideas!
Since April 4th marked my 35th birthday, the suggestion was made that I pick the candidate; specifically, the person I have an author crush on for his steampunk Jackelian series, Stephen Hunt. (Any time someone on the magazine staff would ask for reading recommendations I’ve always thrown his books out as options)
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t skeptical at the idea. Why or how would an author who’s been published by one of the “Big Four” (Harper Collins, Random House, MacMillan etc…) ever find the time to pen an email to a fan that requested “an interview for a magazine” I mean even reading back on my request now it now (that’s just paraphrase of how I asked) it sounds like a shady grab for attention from a fan.
With some unvoiced reluctance I agreed.
We started looking for information we could use to form the basis of our typical 10 question interview and started digging through his website trying to find some contact form or information to send the request, going into it; I fully expected to be redirected to a publicist or agent that would charge a fee to be connected to him in some manner.
I found a general contact email and penned short request; “would he be interested in an interview with our magazine?” I got an auto response shortly after submitting it and resigned myself to the overwhelming thought that I wouldn’t hear anything back. Even his website alerts readers that his office fields up to 700 emails a day, suffice it to say I wasn’t confident.
To my utter surprise, a few days later I received an email from a Ms. Stafford in his office saying she’d pass the request along. <insert fanboy exclamation> I had to keep the elation in check obviously… why would he find time to respond?
A few days later my jaw dropped as my phone dinged at me, an email sat in my inbox from the man I’d taken so much writing inspiration from, my inner fanboy was squealing. He’d agreed to an interview!
I’ll spare you any other descriptions of my complete and utter delight at receiving his email and leave a link to the interview below if you’re interested in reading it.
Read the interview HERE
Morale of the story? Nothing wrong with asking a question.
When asked for an author picture to present with the interview, this is what Stephen returned, well played Mr. Hunt. *laughs*