Q. How would you describe yourself?
I feel I’m a down to earth person
who is looking to explore a hidden talent.
I’m also keen on showing the world that software engineers can be
creative as they have a perception of being geeky/nerdy.
Q. Tell us something about the books that you have written
and the story behind them.
I have had certain troubles and
experiences in finding love and had to overcome various hurdles to achieve my
ambitions in life. I wanted to share my
thoughts on how to handle disappointments in life, what to do when you achieve
your ambitions, staying hungry and what it means to love someone. I’m hoping that my first book Love, War and
Glory: Spoken Words for All Seasons will inspire people to not give in and
offer encouragement regardless of what stage they are at in life.
Q. What place does writing hold in your life, how has been
your writing journey so far?
I have always enjoyed writing but
because of my career and where my life took me I never had the chance to
explore it further. Then the opportunity
arose to write my first book.
Q. What is your writing process, a typical writing day
routine?
I don’t have a typical process. I have always written when the ideas and
imagination have flowed. I always tend
to write from my heart.
Q. What book marketing techniques have been most effective
for you?
Blogger sites such as yours, book
reviews and reaching to people. There
have been numerous occasions when I have been on the train or out and about
handing out flyers, speaking to people about my book and people have bought the
book off me or on Amazon straight away.
Q. What do you think makes a book sell, or makes a reader buy
it?
Being able to have a connection to
the author and/or the subject matter of the book.
Q. What's the most moving or affecting thing a reader has
said to you?
A lot of the people who have read
my book have said they felt like I was having a conversation with them. In addition they felt they could relate to
the topics I bought up. Which I really appreciated as that is exactly what I
was trying to do.
Q. What are your favourite three books, and why?
Merchant of Venice by William
Shakespeare as I felt the book was ahead of it’s time. Fantastic Mr Fox by
Roald Dalh as I respected the ingenuity of Mr Fox. I’m also enjoying Into the Vault: Fighting
the battle for your heart as it was written by a friend of mines called Tolu
Adesina. It’s a very brave book and she
really let her heart out with it.
Q. Who are your favourite three authors and what do you like
the most about them?
Roald Dalh because he gave me a lot
of childhood memories. William Shakespeare as I felt his work was ahead of it’s
time. I will also include Isaac Asimov as I did enjoy his I Robot series.
Q. Tell us about the books that you are currently writing and
their progress.
My next book is a fiction book that
visits the story of slavery and explores what it would take to eliminate it
from history. It will also be the first
book under my own publishing imprint/name called Akinster Books.
Q. What challenges do you think are faced by writers, what's
the worst thing about the book industry according to you?
How to market themselves and build
a reader list is I think an authors biggest challenge. If you are self published you probably won’t
have the resources to use platforms such as T.V so that is another
challenge. In addition I feel there are
quite a few companies that take advantage of an author’s dream and extort money
from them for very little return. Also
authors tend to focus on writing the book and not how to market/promote it
something that I learned the hard way.
If you look at industries such as movies they don’t just release a film
they have at least a 3 to 4 month building block to promote it. Authors need to do exactly the same with
their books and leverage pre sale to get exposure and interest.
Q. Apart from writing, what goals do you want to achieve in
life?
In my day job I am a software
engineer. I have ambitions to further
myself in that craft. Mainly I just want
to be able to happy and be able to look after my family when the time comes.
Q. What message do you want to share with budding
writers?
Pick up your pen/laptop and start
writing. However writing is the easy
part. Marketing and promotion is the
challenge. Start that early.
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