Coffee Chat with Author DL Richardson

Oh, hi, everyone! Glad you could join us!

I'm sharing coffee today with DL Richardson and was getting ready to pour. How do you take your coffee, Debbie?

DL: Single shot, black, and with one sugar (real sugar not sweetener). And if I ever have it with cream it’s with real cream.

Ally: Perfect. Now we each have our mugs, let's take a look at your bio.
Bio:  Music first captured the creative interest of D L Richardson. She got her first acoustic guitar at age ten, and in high school she sang with the school band. When she left school she helped form her own rock band where she sang lead vocals, played bass guitar, and wrote all the lyrics. At age 26 she realized she wanted to write novels for the rest of her life, or die trying, so she sold her equipment, quit pursuing a music career and began writing instead. She’s had two young adult novels published and is currently pitching a third and writing a fourth. She lives in Australia on the NSW South Coast with her husband and dog. When she’s not writing or reading she can be found practicing her piano, playing the guitar or walking the dog. 

Ally: Now that we've read the official version, tell us something we'd never find in your author bio.

DL: I am a klutz. In my lifetime I’ve broken 3 toes, broken my left wrist, torn ligaments in both ankles at least twice, slid ten feet across gravel chasing a ball and tore flesh from ankle to knee, slid ten feet down cement on roller skates and tore flesh from knee to hip, sprained both wrists at least 3 times, fractured two fingers playing netball (thus reaffirming my vow that I never play sports due to being a klutz), torn a knee cartilage without even knowing I did it and the mystery is still unsolved as the specialist reckoned the injury looked like I’d been hit by a car and I could assure him that I had not, and torn muscles in my biceps from falling down skiing (I know, I know, you think I’d be the last person on the planet to go to the top of a slippery hill and come down on shiny metal sticks).

Ally: Okay, just sit still and don't move around. I'd hate for anything to happen here! We'll just have a quiet conversation about books and writing.  Let's start with what influenced your decision to write YA stories? What appeals to you the most about this type of fiction? 

DL: When I look back at my list of favorite books, most of them are for kids and teens. The Hunger Games, The Outsiders,  The Secret Garden, The Hobbit, To Kill A Mockingbird. I like to weave a sense of strength and second chances through my stories, and teens are the perfect audience for hidden messages. If one of my characters overcoming an obstacle can help a teen overcome one of theirs, then I’ve done my job as a YA writer. I guess for me, not only is writing about entertaining an audience, it’s also about inspiring one.

Ally: With authors taking over more of the responsibility to get their books before the public, marketing has become a huge topic. What tips have you learned about marketing YA fiction that might be helpful to newer authors?

DL: The YA market is governed by gate keepers – teachers, librarians, parents, aunts and uncles, family friends. Adults typically buy books for kids, and with many books available online an author needs to recognize that most kids don’t have credit cards. So you need to pitch to the adults and be very, very respectful towards them. The first thing an adult asks me when they buy my book is “Is this book okay for my 13 year old to read?”

What I suggest is that a YA author have ready their “elevator pitch.” An elevator pitch is a quick statement about the book, in less than 10 seconds or less than 25 words. This is what I recently taught a bunch of English students and it applies to the elevator pitch. You need to strip away the genre and get to the core of the story.

Here’s an example: When you take away all the magic, at its core, Harry Potter is a story about a young boy who discovers the identity of the man who killed his parents. This discovery is the driving force behind the series, not the magic. This story could work in absolutely any genre or setting.

So, when you talk to adults, don’t start with the icing, start with the cake. Adults really do not want to subject their children to smut, gore, and you have to accept that sometimes they don’t want to submit their children to zombies, vampires and fantasy.  If you lead your pitch with “it’s a zombie apocalypse and this teenager girl and her kid sister get trapped in a building with a bunch of zombies…” you might lose an adult who hates zombie stories and thinks it’s all about killing and blood. And more importantly, do you know the first thing that this parent does? They image it’s their daughters trapped in a building with a bunch of zombies and their stomach clenches and their blood pressure drops. So strip away the icing of your story and find the cake beneath, because the goodness of flour, eggs and milk is what adult wants for their children, not the pure sugar. Using the Harry Potter example, you could say, “this is a story about a young boy who discovers the identity behind the man who killed his parents, set in a world of magic and wizardry.” Or using the zombie example you could say “this is a story about a girl who discovers she has to rely on her inner strength to save herself and her kid sister, set in a zombie apocalypse”.

Ally: That was a great tip! We'll make the next question easy--in fact, a set of quick answer questions. 
     a. best writing time: morning or evening:    morning
     b: favorite animal:   horse
     c. favorite YA book (not your own):   The Outsiders
     d: one item on your bucket list:   to write a book in Santorini, or a villa in Tuscany/Spain/France
     e. chocolate or vanilla ice cream:   chocolate

Ally: It's time to take a look at your book.  It sounds terrific!
Book blurb:

Listening to your inner voice can get you  killed.

Ethan James, Florida Bowman, and Jake Inala are three teenagers who receive much-needed organ transplants. Two weeks later they are inadvertently recruited by the CIA when a spy dies halfway through his mission. Three bacteria bombs are set to detonate, spreading illness and death across the planet, and it’s up to Ethan, Florida, and Jake to deactivate them.

Except that they have no idea where the bombs are located.

Kidnapped for information they can’t possibly know, and fuelled by the spirit of a dead CIA agent, Ethan, Florida, and Jake must look deep inside themselves if they are to finish the mission and save millions of lives. But they’re being held captive in a strange place by a man who believes in Feedback, the theory that information is retained in the memory of organs–in this case those of a certain dead CIA agent donor. And their captor will stop at nothing to get the information retained in their newly transplanted organs.

Buy links:

AMAZON: http://www.amazon.com/Feedback-D-L-Richardson/dp/1939194830/ref=la_B00717D7KU_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1366412630&sr=1-2

BARNES & NOBLE: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/feedback-d-l-richardson/1113136469?ean=2940015553918                

BOOK DEPOSITORY http://www.bookdepository.com/Feedback-Richardson/9781939194831

Book trailer link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEluhYM8WNw&feature=share

If you'd like to contact today's guest, she can be reached at any of the following links:

website:  www.dlrichardson.com
email:  dlrichardsonbooks@bigpond.com  
blog: dlrichardsonwrites.blogspot.com  
facebook:  facebook.com/dlrichardsonbooks
twitter:   twitter.com/DLRichardson1

    Thanks for visiting, Debbie. I hope you and all of our readers will come back soon!