#45 - Balancing Traditional and Indie Publishing with Julianne MacLean

Episode 45 features an interview with USA Today Bestselling author Julianne MacLean, author of THE COLOR OF HEAVEN series, THE HIGHLANDER series and THE PEMBROKE PALACE series. Julianne is interviewed by Mark Lefebvre, Director of Kobo Writing Life and they discuss:

• Julianne's first visit to Kobo HQ in Toronto, Ontario
• How Mark fell into Julianne's first contemporary novel, THE COLOR OF HEAVEN during a flight, and could not put the book down
• The manner by which Julianne adapted what she learned from James Patterson in structuring THE COLOR OF HEAVEN and her desire to create a book that was suspenseful on an emotional level, producing what she likes to think of as: "Women's Fiction for Thriller fans"
• The fact that THE COLOR OF HEAVEN was released in 2011 and how Book 9 in the series (THE COLOR OF TIME) was coming out in September 2015
• How, immediately after the success of THE COLOR OF HEAVEN Julianne couldn't immediately return to writing in that universe in order to fulfill a traditional publishing contract
• How Julianne is breaking things up in 2015 and writing both historical romance and contemporary fiction
• The fact that THE COLOR OF HEAVEN was originally written with the intention of being sold to a traditional publisher, that it was meant to be a stand-alone, and how readers often assumed that the novel was based on a true story
• The very "meta" manner by which the rest of the novels in THE COLOR OF HEAVEN series are about fictional characters reading the book THE COLOR OF HEAVEN
• How a traditionally published series Julianne had written was cut-off by the publisher before the end of the series (The Pembroke Palace Series), and how, to please fans, she continued the series. That's how the first three books were released by the publisher and books four and five are controlled by Julianne.
• How, on release day of Book Five for The Pembroke Palace Series, Julianne made Book 4 FREE, which not only boosted sales of the new release: Book Five, but how the publisher also sold a signifiant amount of Books 1 through 3, backlist titles that hadn't been expected to see such a dramatic increase in sales.
• Julianne's perspective on how her "New York Published" titles can help lend credibility to an author's platform
• The adoration Julianne has for her agent, who she has been with since 1999 (Paige Wheeler)
• Interesting facts about Julianne including the fact she was a dance club DJ in the 1980's (and the only female dance club DJ in Halifax at the time), how she has to dance when she hears the song called "Cheerleader" and what she is listening to when she wears headphones while writing
• Julianne's thoughts about the cadence and rhythm of the sentences while she is writing
• The fact that Julianne still enjoys writing the first draft of novels in long hand, how, when starting a novel she always has to write the first sentence long hand in pencil and the way she uses different forms/methods of writing to help "unstick her wheels" when in the process of writing
• How she will sometimes set a book up for pre-order before a book is even started in order to keep her on track
• What she might do differently if she were starting again but without any regrets
  
  

Mark then talks a bit about some of the new features on the KWL Dashboard, specifically, Author Services and the two new types of Notifications added.