Can you believe it’s already March? Wow! This year has flown by so fast. Anyway, because it’s another new month, that means it’s time for another new guest! Please welcome S. M. Pace!
S. M. Pace lives in the wilds of Central Virginia, with her husband (bear), son (bunny) and a pond full of fish (sometimes). When she’s not writing, she loves crafts, sewing and hiking. She is the author of two books in the Threads of Magic series, Shadow of the Wolf and Wings of the Butterfly.
A- I currently do it myself, with limited success, but I’m trying to get better. I don’t plan to hire someone, simply because it’s extremely expensive, and even in edited novels, I still find mistakes. I use critique websites, and my own judgement and hope for the best.
Q- What inspires you to get out of bed each day?
A- My son. I know I’m not stay-at-home-mom material, but I was miserable leaving my little Bunny every day for a job I hated. Every morning, I would lay in bed dreading him waking up, knowing we only had a precious few minutes together before I had to get ready and ship him off so I could go to work. Now that I make my own hours, I get to relax, and make him breakfast and I’m happy when I drop him off. I know I won’t spend the day crying, thinking about how I’d rather be with him. And I can stop by and visit him any time I want.
A- The main advantage is complete control. Nothing happens to my book that I don’t get a say in, from the content, to the cover.
By the same token, I have no help. I have to take on all the marketing for my book, something I still don’t know a lot about. I have to front the cost for self-publishing, money I know I may not get back. It’s all on me, which does make me nervous sometimes.
A- Absolutely. I give away a lot of free writing on my website, everything from flash fic to novella length serials. My goal being to show people what they would be paying for if they decided to purchase one of my published novels. You might be asking, why would someone pay for what you give away for free? They would pay if they want my longer work. All my for sale novels are at least 25K. My free stuff is rarely more than 20K.
For that reason I think it works. I think people are more willing to pay when they know what they’re getting. If my writing doesn’t captivate them enough to want to purchase my longer works, the problem is my writing, not my giving some of it away.
A- Currently, not much. My major focus these days is getting as much written as possible. My serialized short story Wilde Born is almost finished. I’m working on getting my next free serial novella, Chalice cleaned up and ready to publish. Releasing free fiction is sort of my marketing at the moment.
My big future project is my Patreon. Once I can generate more interest in my free work, I plan to use a Patreon page to release chapters early to supporters, along with other goodies.
Thanks for having me!