Author Interview with: Monique Morgan writer of: Rise of the Infected

Today we welcome author Monique Morgan, who is currently touring the blogosphere with her sneak peak cover reveal of: Rise of the Infected.

I know you have been quite busy these days Monique, but thank you for stopping by to chat with us for a moment.

Sure thing. I’m happy to get a chance to talk with your readers.

Where do you currently reside, and why did you choose this place?

I currently live in Utah. I lived a large majority of my life here and I have a big family that lives here. My dad was in the Air Force and we spent many years stationed elsewhere, so I appreciate being around them.

O.K. Let’s get people excited… Can you tell us about your novel Rise of the Infected in 20 words or less:

A Dystopian world, ravaged by the planet and the survivors, and finally the Rise of the Infected.

Besides the pure joy of having completed a piece of work, what would you say has been the most exciting part of being a published author?

The most exciting thing is having these stories that I have created become reality. It’s one thing to dream them up, but then to put them on paper and allow others to read them, there’s something everlasting in that.

I most certainly agree with you.

Is there an Author (alive or dead) that you would really like to meet were you given the chance?

My favorite author of all time would have to be Anne Rice, there was always something very beautiful about her work that I found timeless. It would be wonderful to meet her and walk the areas that influenced her books.

Are you currently working on any other projects?

I am. I just finished up Dreamer, the second book in the Alwahi series, which will be due out around the same time as Rise of the Infected.

I also just started (I have a habit of starting my next project in the middle of my current project) a work in progress (WIP) that I have fallen in love with!

This book has yet to be named, but already has a cover, and is based in a technological world where cybernetics and human cloning are only just the beginning.

Sounds like you will be pretty busy for quite some time.

Yes, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

What was the last movie you watched? Did you like it, hate it?

The last movie that I saw I absolutely LOVED and it also influenced my current WIP. I adored the city atmosphere of Total Recall, the way the buildings just stacked on top of each other, a hodgepodge stacking of blocks.

Where can readers find your works and follow you?

Readers can visit my website http://www.moniquemorgan.com to find out all about my current books and my WIP. They can also like my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/MoniqueMorganAuthor.

Well, we’d like to thank you for stopping by for a quick little chat.

Please come back soon and update us on the success of Rise as well as Dreamer, and any new projects you have on the horizon.

Phreaky Friday: Amazon Charging for Digital Publication?

Phreaky Friday: Amazon Charging for Digital Publication?

Rob S. Guthrie's  ideas on Amazon charging fees to self-pub novels.

Here are my comments regarding Mr. Guthrie's  recommendation that Amazon begin charging fees for publishing:
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Mr. Guthrie;
While you make some very enlightened points, and while I partially agree with your premise, I agree to disagree about the true benefit to either authors or consumers by charging a fee to self-publish (frankly I don’t care about Amazon’s profit margins, and I doubt any author out there is worried much about what kind of profit they are taking in).

In regards to the author, breaking into the traditional publishing arena is an extremely difficult, and strenuous process, one which leaves most out in the cold.

Now while you, and maybe even I in some respects, may feel that the many hoops that an author must jump through just to get a query through to an agent or to one of the few houses that allow for direct author submissions, creates a quality barrier that not any joe schmoe with a laptop can breech, the truth is that there are many decent, and very talented writers out there who will NEVER have the opportunity to have their life’s work read by anyone due to large “slush piles” and other means agents and houses use to whittle down the masses of manuscripts they receive yearly.

I can say that as a writer and someone who has sought out other authors to gain knowledge from their experiences, the entire process that has existed since the first printing press went live, is very disheartening to many and whether it has been your dream since birth or not, many truly talented writers can and will lose their gumption and constitution after a few hundred “No’s” or more realistically, just the traditional no-answer that they receive.

The tradition “Big-6″ and other houses that have emerged throughout the years to create a stranglehold on the market have had their way for far too long and authors have gotten fed up with trying to play a game they don’t even know the rules to, and frankly one in which the rules often change on a whim. This is why vanity presses came about, to give an author with the desire, and maybe the talent, and some cash an avenue in which to get their voice heard.

Now in my own attempts to get published I went the traditional course, which was the route of the 150 or so “no-answers”, followed by a handful of “not for us at this time”. Now you can judge me on my conviction or not, but the whole process left me both physically and emotionally fatigued and caused me to put down my manuscript for several months due to sheer frustration.

Now it was never my intention to quit the process of querying forever, but I did need a month or two to collect my thoughts, pick my ego up from the gutter and get the strength to go through another round of “maybe this time”. Long story short, one month turned into 7-months and were it not for the self-pub “indie” option, I may have still been sitting on my manuscript, trembling from the fear the “6″ and others caused me to feel.

In reality I am not necessarily a fan of vanity presses. I think they prey upon the weak or arrogant or both, but in one regard they do serve a worthwhile purpose. The vanity presses of the world allow the literary market to be controlled by those who should have had the control all along: the consumer. Consumers are the ones who should determine who and what should be published, and what the overall price of something should be.

In theory, our society is free to dictate what is “worthy” of being published, purchased and read. What Amazon to this point, has done is finally put the decision into the hands of the consumer to judge for themselves what author has talent, what book has “teeth”, and what price a book is truly worth.

If a truly talented author wants to sell his masterpiece for $.99 on the open-market that is Amazon, and allow any person with an internet connection to read his or her novel, that should be their right, and the only ones who should decide whether that is a fair price are the consumers who decide to purchase that book.

If the work is crap and the price is too high, sales will show that, and the author will not have many. If the work is literary gold and the price too low, the author will have the option of raising the price while still maintaining good sales numbers.

As you stated in your article, price does not always determine true value, and if the consumer wants to overpay (your point being that $.99 is too much for many books on the market) for a terrible book, it is and should be their prerogative. I may read my fair share of books that I felt should have been destroyed in the author’s mind before I had to be subjected to it. Some of these books have gone on to find a niche somewhere, in some cult culture or some grouping of fans that I don’t understand, and sold plenty of copies. This is the way the market should be (I’m hearing “Free to Decide” by The Cranberries in my head right now).

You suggesting that Amazon go the way of the vanity press will cause many talented (but financially debilitated) writers to make tough choices that in the end may cause them not to publish, thus depriving the consumer of some worthy creations.

While I agree with you that a portion of the “talentless” will sit on the sidelines if a publishing fee is instituted, I think that the risk of losing the good and even great writers far outweighs the risk of letting the bad and terrible compete in an open market as they do now.