Interview & Publishing Tips With Author Nicole Zoltack

It's the day before Halloween--time for a spooktacular story! What could be better than chatting with Nicole Zoltack, author of Black Hellebore? After all, her book has a witch, and magic, and murder, and romance.

Before we get to my interview with Nicole, here's a quick summary of Black Hellebore:

Once a year for the past decade, Nicholas Adams returns to Falledge and leaves a black hellebore on his girlfriend's grave. While fleeing Falledge, he spies a shady man sneaking into the laboratory. Nicholas chases after him and dies for his trouble. A witch brings him back to life, only Nicholas is not the same man. Turns out, magic combined with a black hellebore in his pocket changed him into a kind of a super man.

Julianna Paige, his girlfriend's twin and deputy of Falledge, struggles to solve several murders. Nicholas, and his alter ego the Black Hellebore, helps her, even as she helps him move on and start to truly live again.

Unfortunately, Nicholas wasn't the only one changed in the laboratory explosion, and now a super villain is bent on destroying Falledge, and killing the Black Hellebore. But falling in love might prove more dangerous than any super villain.

Dark and intriguing, right?

And now a few questions with author Nicole Zoltack:

1. From idea to final product, how did Black Hellebore come to be?

Gail Delaney, the EIC of Desert Breeze Publishing, mentioned to her authors about how she thought superhero romances should be a thing. With how popular they are in comics and movies, why not books? And so I immediately started to think up a hero and mentioned to her it would be right up my alley, and here we are!

2. Can you give us a brief summary of your writing process? Plotter? Pantser? Somewhere in between?

I am a pantser, although I am starting to kinda outline if having one sentence or a phrase for a few chapters ahead counts. :) I doubt I'll ever be a heavy duty plotter, but I must say, even that brief outline is helping me tremendously with writing White Hellebore.

3. Black Hellebore is published by Desert Breeze Publishing. Can you tell us a bit about your experience with a small publisher?

I'm very happy with Desert Breeze. They published my Kingdom of Arnhem trilogy and now they are publishing my Heroes of Falledge trilogy. I love their covers. Amazing! And there's editing and they supply the ISBNs and the file conversion and the uploading. I love that I have to fill out a long form for the cover art. That I have input. Covers are huge with selling books. 

4. Can you offer us any advice about book promotion? What's working for you and what isn't?

Ah, book promotion! So important and yet not easy at all to know what works and what doesn't. The best means of promoting is to first learn who your target audience is and to then find them without being all "buy my book." For instance, if you write about pets, go onto pet message boards and be an active participant and reach out to people that way. If you become friends with the other people on the forum, they'll check out your profile and learn about your books. Word of mouth is key, but finding those people who will spread the word about you in the first place can sometimes take some time, but it's so worth it. 

5. Is there any writing or publishing advice you'd like to share with us?

Never stop writing. Never stop reading. Never give up.

Excellent advice, Nicole!

Friends, do you love superhero stories? Creepy cool mysteries? Have you worked with a small publisher? If so, did you have a similar experience? Please share!

Connect with Nicole at the usual haunts: Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads. 

Want to win Black Hellebore goodies? Enter here for a Rafflecopter giveaway.

Nicole Zoltack loves to write fantasy/paranormal, romances, horror, historical, for adults and young adults, novels, short stories, and flash pieces. She doesn't want to get boxed in by genre -- she might be claustrophobic! She's also an editor for MuseItUp Publishing and works as a freelance editor.

When she isn't writing about girls wanting to be knights, talking unicorns, and zombies, she spends time with her loving family. She loves to ride horses (pretending they're unicorns, of course!) and going to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire, dressed in period garb. Her favorite current TV show is The Walking Dead.