Party Girl

If nobody comes to my party, I'll eat these all by myself.

Today our Q & A is less breathless. There’s only one question: What kind of expectations do you have for Hockey Is My Boyfriend?

A: Augh. Such a tough question.

Each time you write a book, it’s like throwing a party. You do all the preparation: cleaning your place, buying drinks and food, cooking, decorating, etc. Then there’s this one moment before the party starts that you think, “Is anybody going to come?” Right now is that moment.

I feel pretty blessed with the sales of my first long novel, How The Cookie Crumbles. I knew very little about book marketing or promotion, so basically I put the book out there and crossed my fingers. Lots of great people found the book and let me know how much they enjoyed it. I took it for granted that many indie authors had good sales, but since then I’ve learnt that many sell less than a dozen books to non-family member.

As I’ve written before, I think my success is partly due to the fact that romance readers are avid readers who are able to size up books from the sample and don’t need a ton of hype. In addition, lots of readers—me included—just like hockey books.

Having said that, I don’t think that my books are typical. They are usually longer than most novels, and mix up humour, drama, and sex in a way that makes them a little harder to classify.

Hockey Is My Boyfriend is different in a few ways. In the first chapter, the heroine is only fifteen years old! I’m pretty sure that will turn off some readers right there. But it’s about first love, so I wanted to start at the beginning. Don’t worry, nothing statutory happens, and I fast-forward two years soon afterwards. 

The other way that HIMB is different is that it’s divided into three parts. Part One takes place in high school. Part Two takes place during Kelly’s third year at university. Part Three is when she graduates and starts working. So it’s a long story—surprise, surprise, I know.

So, while I’m extremely excited about the book (after all the rewriting and editing I’ve done, I should be!) I’m still getting the pre-party jitters. I worry that people sampling the beginning will write it off as some lame young adult novel. And I’m worried that people who think it’s a YA novels are going to freak out when they get to the sex scenes. 

But why worry? This book is for smart readers who are interested in relationships. And hockey. And I’m sure those people will find it.