How to join the interview program

[Alexandra]

To participate in Author AMA interviews, you have to do just two things:
1) follow the interview format (keep it original, follow the posting rules, the rest is totally up to you and the author you’re swapping with)
2) contribute to the questions list

Now, I don’t have time to keep track of every author who joins this group, and whether they’ve contributed to the project or not; but I know you’ll be helpful, as indie authors usually are, because they’re all creative and reliable people ;)

So, once you've created your interview and freebies topics, please take a look at the questions list (let’s call it QL) and think about 10 more questions that you’d like to add.
- They can be similar to the ones we already have there, or totally original.
- They can be for any genre, age, gender, interests, hobbies, fantasies, experiences, and so on.
- They can be about writing or anything else, but please, avoid generic questions that you personally wouldn’t be thrilled about, and don’t focus on work too much. We’re here to have fun!
- Avoid questions that can be answered with a Yes or No.
- Dirty questions can be fun, but keep them abstract (like the ones on the list)
- Avoid questions that are TOO personal (family members, possibly negative experiences, anything you’d be uncomfortable answering). Example: What’s the best thing your mother taught you? Have you ever been bullied? What’s your worst dating experience? Questions like this can bring the interviewee negative emotions.
- See the line between random questions that ANYONE can answer and TOTALLY random questions that will be either boring or may not be answered at all. Example: If you met a talking dog, what would you ask it? – okay
Did you ever have a dog? – not okay, not imaginative, not interesting

Authors who are going to interview someone they don’t know: do read the other author’s profile, check their blog, website, Facebook, Twitter. It’s actually easy to make an interview more personal even if you don’t know the person. Example:
You want to interview Mary Jane. She’s 60 years old, writes Contemporary Romance, lives at a big farm house, and is happily married to her high school sweetheart. She started writing only 2 years ago, and before that, she spent her whole life working as a teacher.
You can check out her titles, and if you see something interesting in the blurb, ask something about it. You can ask her an abstract fantasy question, like If you could go to the past and meet your 10-year-old self, what would you tell her? You can ask about Mary’s favorite thing about living at a farm. You can ask her why she started writing, what inspired her?
What you obviously won’t ask Mary: dirty questions, teenage-pop-culture questions, where she sees herself in 30 years, how she would fight a zombie apocalypse, and so on.

This is all very abstract, but you get the point. The questions list is there to make this process easier, but not to pick questions at random. ALWAYS put yourself in the interviewee’s place and think about what questions might be interesting to them and their audience.

Please, don’t agree to do an interview if you’re not going to keep your word and actually do it. Your time is just as important as everybody else’s. It’ll take only one complaint to get banned from this group. If someone sends me a message saying you didn’t post the promised interview after they did it, there’ll be no questions, you’ll simply be banned and your topics deleted. If you have a problem, please notify the other author why you can’t post it within the chosen timeframe.

The questions list will be updated once a week. The link will be the same, and you’ll be able to find it in this topic together with a short note on how to use it for better results.

Send your questions in the body of the email (no attached files, as they often end up in Spam) with the subject QL Author Name to this email: alex.engellmann@gmail.com