Today I’m delighted to welcome fantasy and romantic comedy author, Amy Vansant. Amy is an experienced web designer and a boom to our writers’ group, eNovel Authors at Work; she’s the person behind eNovel’s professional, super cool website. Join me as I ask her a few questions to hear more about her and her work.

Playing pirate with her Captain lover in 1720, Anne Bonny never dreamed she’d end up a Sentinel, a soldier for mankind’s mysterious guardians, the Angeli. Now Anne will live 1000 years, but in return, she must hunt & neutralize Perfidia, corrupted Angeli who drain human energy to survive.

Monsters are only half Anne’s troubles; her stormy love life would make Blackbeard pack up ship and move to Kansas. After losing his corporeal body in battle, Anne’s former lover, Con Carey, visits her by possessing the bodies of humans, often with embarrassing results. In the meantime, Anne’s complicated romance with the aloof Arch Angeli Michael has intensified; even as they square off against a new breed of Perfidia, possessing untold power.

Can this unusual love triangle work together to protect the world from the cosmic horrors sworn to destroy it?

FIND IT NOW ON AMAZON

 

 

Emmy winners, magazine editors, comedians, TV personalities, bestselling authors and social media superstars team up to bring you a laugh-out-loud book not about being a mom, but about having a mom, grandmom or mom-figure. And while it’s not OK for someone else to make yo-momma jokes about your momma, it is perfectly healthy — even downright hilarious — to find the humor in your own upbringing. In fact, these writers highly recommend it. So if you think your mom is nuts, pull up a chair. You’re in good company.

FIND IT NOW ON AMAZON

 

 

 

Emily never expected to find love in a dart bar, but the moment she spots tall, sexy Sebastian, she’s determined to catch his eye. Ex-girlfriends, perpetually shirtless rich boys, frantic best-friends and a mysterious orange handbag converge to stop her. No one said stalking was easy, but if romance was left to the boys, the human race would die out while they logged fantasy football points and punched each other in the balls.

Everyone knows that. Emily’s not stalking Sebastian…she’s saving the world.

FIND IT NOW ON AMAZON

 

 

Hi Amy, and welcome to my blog!

Hello Fros! Great to be here!

What has inspired you to write Slightly Stalky?

Slightly Stalky is the story of how I hunted… er… I mean met my husband, with names and details changed to protect the innocent-ish. Some of it is made up, some of it really happened, but I’m not saying which is which! I’m more of a humor writer than anything, so when looking for a plot for my second book, my own life seemed like the obvious choice. I have two more books in this series in my head, one unnamed which is largely Emily and Sebastian’s first year living together and one where they enter an “Amazing Race” type reality show which I really want to write just so I can call it “Slightly Sweaty.”

What was the first thing you ever wrote and how old were you then?

When I was little, I wrote “Winnie the Pooh,” complete with crayon drawings. Oh, those idyllic days before copyright infringement. I think I thought I’d written it as an original story, but I remember thinking afterwards it was suspiciously like one of my bedtime books. I was about six years old, so the sentencing for plagiarism was relatively lax. With time out for good behavior, I was free before naptime.

What other writing have you done? Anything else published?

In addition to Slightly Stalky I have an urban fantasy, Angeli, and I served as editor gathering stories from various comedians and funny people for a compilation called Moms are Nuts. I also freelanced for years and was East Coast Editor of Surfer Magazine back in the early nineties, which is particularly funny because I was freelancing for Modern Maturity at the same time. Mentally shifting from one magazine to the other was like driving a car 60 mph and then slamming it into reverse.

I can imagine (chuckles). Do you see yourself in any of your characters, or do any of them have traits you wish you had?

All my lead characters are me to varying degrees. Others are more my husband or friends or people I know, all with a smattering of information from shows I’ve watched recently, or things I saw walking down the street. You can’t really create characters completely out the blue – they’re always drawn from what you know. Emily from Slightly Stalky is pretty much 100% me, at my best, without any of the parts I didn’t think people would like. Anne from Angeli started out as me… but you know… she became her own person over time. Sometimes she says or does things I don’t fully expect. I just realized that. Hm. I wonder if I should be worried about that.

Hey, you’re a writer, so just join the club! What are you working on at the moment? Tell us a little about your current project(s).

I have romantic comedy/mystery called (probably) “Pineapple Lies” that will be out in March. It’s about a girl who grew up in a Florida retirement community finding a skeleton buried in her backyard and solving the murder. Hijinks with the 55+ residents and a bit of romance with the hottie who owns the local pawn shop, the “Hock o’ Bell,” ensue. The community is called “Pineapple Port” – hence the name. I wasn’t just trying to get tropical fruit into the title. This will be my comedic mystery series.

Sounds delightful! Do you have any advice for other indie authors?

Write a lot. No one (hardly) makes a living off one book. Ideally, write series. Get them all professionally covered and edited. It matters. Then learn everything you possibly can about marketing your books and never stop learning.

Are there any sites or writing tools that you find useful and wish to recommend?

I’ve learned more about being an Indie author and the best ways to promote my books from eNovel Authors at Work than anywhere else. Some I learned because I’m a member there, but much of the information is posted right on the site for anyone to use. Jackie Weger, the founder of the group, works tirelessly to find new ways to market books – without her I’d still be floundering trying to figure things out.

True words, Amy; and I know only too well what you mean, knowing Jackie and how great she is at sharing information. Choose a male and a female character from your book and tell us which actor/actress you’d wish to play them in a film adaptation.

Jessica Chastain would make a good Anne Bonny from Angeli. Chris Hemsworth could be Michael and I always pictured a young Colin Farrell for Con, but since I don’t have a time machine, Kevin Ryan from “Copper” might work. Since Emily and Sebastian really are my husband Mike and me, it seems weird to idealize ourselves. Just pick the two hottest, most talented 20-something actors in the world and throw them in there. J

Robert Pattinson then; oops, sorry, did I say that aloud? (giggles). Tell us about your website/blog. What will readers find there?

I’ve had a humor blog since 2010 (http://www.AmyVansant.com). I try to write one humor piece a week there and sometimes post travel reviews or things by other people I think are funny. It also serves as my author web site and as a sort of diary of the funny things that happen to me. I pull from it for scenes in my books.

If you could choose another profession, what would that be?

I already did, and I regret it. I spent 13 years not writing when I should have been. All I ever wanted to do was write and instead I made money (very little, but more than I was making writing). I wish I could take that back. I’d have 40 books written by now!

Well Amy, it’s been lovely having you here today; thank you so much!

Thank you too, Fros. It was great chatting with you.

Amy has been writing and finding other creative ways to make no money since high school. She is the author of the urban fantasy series “Angeli” romantic comedy “Slightly Stalky” and the editor and one of the 26 authors of the humor anthology “Moms are Nuts,” which has been on Amazon’s best-sellers lists since its publication in April 2014.

 

Visit Amy’s Website & Blog

Visit Amy’s Amazon Page

Connect with Amy:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/amyvansant

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheAmyVansant

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/677817.Amy_Vansant

Google+ : https://plus.google.com/+AmyVansant/

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