Interviews

[I. J. Parker]

I find that I like doing interviews. The only one that was uncomfortable was the very first one, where the interviewer was working for the local newspaper and inisted on coming to my house. My first thought was: what will he think of my house? Maybe I'd better clean, rearrange the furniture, cover the coffee table with impressive books, give the dog a bath, make coffee . . . What do interviewers eat? Do I need to buy a new outfit and get my hair done? By the time the man showed up, I was a wreck. He stayed for nearly an hour, and I did my best to answer all of his questions. After it was over and he had gone, it struck me that he hadn't asked anything about my book. The article, when it appeared, dealt with my reinventuing myself after a long teaching career. There was much about the teaching career (some of the questions and my answers had worried me after the fact) and some about why I was writing mysteries set in Japan, but nothing about the book.

I no longer do interviews without seeing the questions first.

And so I have come like doing interviews. I have done a number of them, among them one for ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE. This time, with the publication of the seventh Akitada novel, there will be a long one in PUBLISHERS WEEKLY soon. And most recently, the nice reviewer for the Historical Novels website, also did a short interview.

You can read it here:

http://www.historicalnovels.info/IJ-Parker.html

[I. J. Parker]

Oh, dear. You've had some bad experiences, too. :)

[Stacy]

I.J.,

You brought up another good point. I had to say something to an interviewer one time because he was getting way too personal. He wasn't asking me anything about the book but whether I was married and dating, etc. I found it disrespectful and unprofessional so I alerted him to it. He said that he was sorry and I didn't have to answer the personal questions.

Another thing I hate about interviewers is when they haven't done their research BEFORE agreeing to do an interview. This one man asked me for an interview and in the interview had my book titles all wrong and my basic info wrong. I mean this is stuff you could see on my site and I guess he was too lazy to even look at my site. That was the worst interview I'd ever done. I find it ridiculous when someone wants to interview a person but doesn't take the time to make sure they know the right stuff about them.

Anyway. LOL.

[I. J. Parker]

Yes, I'm with you, Stacy. In any case, I think people should insist in getting written questions ahead of time.

[Stacy]

All the live interviews I've done were at the place of business. I've done interviews for local newspapers and publications. I wouldn't want them coming to my house. No. I'd insist we do it at the place and I can't see why they'd have a problem with it. It should be where the subject is comfortable, etc. Also I'm not the kind to have strangers all in my house, LOL!

I mainly do email interviews now and I really enjoy those. The live ones were okay too but i like the written ones better. Much easier to do within my schedule. The only interviews I don't like doing is on blogtalk radio. I did a few but I don't do them anymore. Not comfortable and don't enjoy it. I'd rather do an interview at my local radio station than on the telephone. For some reason I find telephone interviews very uncomfortable. Maybe it's because I'm not a phone person.

I would do one for certain people though. If it's someone really important but I skip them if it's just some random person asking for one. I also find those blogtalk radio shows don't do much for authors most times.

Best Wishes!

http://www.stacy-deanne.net

[I. J. Parker]

That's exactly what happened, though he never promised to review the book. But he was the local book reviewer, so it was a natural assumption that he would do so. I'd sent him a copy. I couldn't boot him out, because I wasn't sure why he had so many questions about my job. I vaguely and naively assumed that part was background and part was idle chitchat (he was a professor at nother college). He didn't really need me to discuss the book. He had decided to write a "human interest story" and didn't tell me. That's how you learn to turn down oral or phone interviews.