Wherein Liz Educates Another Rebel About Beer

Welcome to my Tap Room Anne!
What can I pour you to start?
We'd better stick to coffee, thanks. I'm a mom with a job, and a writer, so with the amount of sleep I get, anything alcoholic would likely put me out if I tried it.Well, you are gonna have to head out for a Starbucks or something and come back...I'll wait.*taps bar and sips beer and grumbles but smiles brightly when Anne returns, coffee in hand*
True confessions time, I have "Like Magic" on my TBR list...I can't wait to read it. The blurb is very, very compelling.  And that kid on "Good For the Goose" cover? rawr. Seriously, rawr.
Oh yes, I know. I actually changed the character description in the book a little so I could keep that cover guy. Very rawr, indeed. And Like Magic is one of my favourites – is it conceited to admit that?Nope. Conceit is something that goes hand in hand with "ego" which is what one must maintain as an author. It's required.
All right, on with it. What is the first book you got published? Was it a smooth journey?
Sort of smooth. The first book I had accepted by a publisher was my novel Strings Attached. I originally wrote it back in 2000 or 2001, and sent a single query out to one of the Bog Romance Companies, who sent me a form rejection a year later. By that point, I was off to grad school, so I shrugged and put it in a shoebox, and I forgot about it. In 2010, I finished my PhD, and came across the manuscript. What the hell, right? I re-read it, and I still liked it, so I figured what did I have to lose? I re-wrote some of it, fixed up a main character a bit, polished it, and had a friend read it for me. She liked it, and I had read about these ebook companies, where you didn't need an agent – so off it went. And, within about a month, it was accepted! So, in a way, it was almost too smooth, despite the decade since writing it. At first, I worried it was just a mistake, or a crappy company, but a few months later, I had other stories accepted, so I started to feel okay. The novel came out in May 2011, and I'm really pleased with it. I've been publishing now for well over a year, so I guess it wasn't just a fluke.
Tell us about the Valentine's Day book you have out.  What inspired you to write it?
The Valentine's book is called V-Day. It's a story about a 19 year old violin prodigy who finally gets the chance to romance the woman next door, who he's loved from afar for years. I'm almost embarrassed by how it started out, though. I was messing around on Facebook, and an author – sadly, I no longer recall who – wrote a status about virgin heroes. See, I always thought it was unfair that the chicks were always virginal in old romances, so the topic was of interest to me. There's nothing unsexy about male virgins – quite the opposite, really, when you think about all that pent up energy, right? Anyway, someone dared me to write a virgin hero story, so… Long story made somewhat short, a few months later, V-Day was finished. So, yes, it was inspired by a dare.Love it! I'm creating a little "virgin hero" myself in a new book. He's not technically a virgin. He has had a girlfriend since high school. But he's a virgin when it comes to what he truly wants: man love!  
What sort of self promotions strategy to you follow?
Spurts of rabid promo berserking followed by periods of exhaustion. Does that count as a strategy? Seriously, though, most of my books out right now are holiday books, so I've had to blanket bomb any blog that will have me at Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and now for Valentine's Day. I also tend to concentrate on getting reviews, because I'm fairly confident in my books. So, the strategy is: Do as much as humanly possible to let people know the book exists. That's the key, I think. If a book doesn't sell, it isn't just that people don't think it looks good. It may be that they don't even know it's out there. So, being relatively new, that's my focus right now. Letting people know I exist.
Oh look, an empty glass!  What would you like next?
Oh, what the hell – go ahead and throw some Irish cream in a cup of coffee for me. We'll pretend it's New Years. Good God people I do not have liquor in this bar. How many interviews must I bang my poor head against the wall to make you get that.Here: *shoves a glass of deep amber brew towards Anne*  It's a bourbon barrel aged Oktoberfest. Sip it. You'll love it. Trust me. I'm the Beer Wench.Tell us about your current work in progress?
I have a handful of personal projects I work on constantly, and I have no idea when they'll be done. But, I always have a main project on the go. I was working on a Mountie love story. Being Canadian, I figured it was time for me to hit that – literary-wise, that is. However, I got sidetracked by a project that wouldn't leave me alone. It nagged and nagged me. So, I have put the Mountie romance aside for now, and am writing a literary romance – I don't know if that's a genre, but none of the others seem to fit. It's an interracial romance set in post-WWII America, involving the aftermath of the Holocaust, at a college. Sometimes depressing, but it's totally absorbing me right now. And I don't even know if I'll ever publish it. If I can't get it good enough to suit me, it will go to the shoeboxes, like many, many projects have in the past when I wasn't happy with the finished product.
Have you ever considered self publishing?
I know a number of savy self-pubbed writers, so I have, actually. Not seriously, though. I mean, I haven't really gotten close to it. I don't have the resources to do all the editing, formatting and cover work that publishers take care of. Besides, romance as a genre has a number of good publishers, so I don't feel the need. But, I have a fictionalized "inspired by real events" story that I think I will self-publish. It's about schizophrenia, and a personal story, so I don't think it's commercial enough to entice a publisher. So, if/when that one is ready, I'll do that one myself. I think I have something to say there, but that one isn't about selling. It's personal.
What do you have coming out next?
Around Father's Day, I have a full length contemporary romance novel coming out from Pink Petal Books, about a wonderful ex-cop single father, and a very rigid single mother university professor. It's got some comedy, and a lot of focus on the character development. I like it a lot, and am thrilled it's also slated for paperback release in the fall.
Time for a nightcap! What's your poison?
Well, where I'm from, warm Guinness is considered nourishing and fortifying before bed on a cold night, so why not? You can't argue with medical wisdom, can you?
 Um, no. But you may ask well me for a "Bud Lite" as to ask me for a "Guinness."  Try again...oh never mind, here--drink my Faustian Stout Baltic Porter instead.  It has actual flavor. 


Bio: Anne Holly is a Canadian writer of romance and erotic-romance. You may visit Anne at her blog or website, or find her on GoodReads, Facebook and Twitter  (@anneholly2010). Email: anneholly2010@gmail.com.