Hola my lovlies! Welcome to Interview FoxSeat with author Joy Mutter

Joy Mutter was born in Jersey in the Channel Islands and lived there for eighteen years. After gaining a Graphic Design Degree at Coventry University, she lived and worked in Kent as a professional graphic designer for twenty years. She moved to Oldham in 2012 and has been writing and publishing her books full-time since then.

Although Joy has been writing books since 2007, she waited until 2015 to publish six of them on Amazon. Two more books followed in 2016. All eight are now available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions, two are also available as audiobooks on Audible, Amazon and iTunes.

Her first three books are mainly autobiographical and form The Mug Trilogy. Books in this series are A Slice of the Seventies, The Lying Scotsman and Straws. Her fourth book, Potholes and Magic Carpets, is contemporary fiction. Living with Postcards is the author’s first non-fiction book. Random Bullets, is a crime thriller with a paranormal twist and the author’s favourite.

Her demonic Angel was published in early 2016. It is a collection of the author’s short stories, written in various genres. As well as the paperback and Kindle editions, there are also audiobook versions of Her demonic Angel and The Hostile. She is currently working on producing audiobooks of several of her other works. In April 2016, Joy published The Hostile, a paranormal thriller and is currently working on final drafts of its sequel calledthe-hostile-new-front-cover Holiday for The Hostile. Random Bullets and Potholes and Magic Carpets audiobooks are in production and she intends to make an audiobook edition of Holiday for The Hostile. She is planning to write a third book in series.

Please feel free to read a sample of my 2016 paranormal thriller The Hostile, book one in The Hostile series. http://amzn.to/2blBo12. Book two, Holiday for The Hostile, will be published on Amazon in late 2016 or early 2017.

You may prefer to read a sample of Random Bullets, my paranormal crime thriller, published late 2015. Here is the link http://amzn.to/2btTrAC

Do you have a special time to write or how is your day structured?  I write, edit and design whatever my current WIP happens to be every day of the week including weekends, usually from 11 to 6. The rest of the day I’m marketing the eight books I’ve already published. I live and breathe my books and try to find time to also support other authors in their book launches.

Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer just seeing where an idea takes you?  I find it more exciting and enjoyable not to plot out my books. If I’m enjoying exploring what will happen, so will the reader. Even if I did plot rigidly, ideas would start to fire off and the plan would probably change or be scrapped. I usually have a general idea and start writing. Before I know it, my book is written. I love editing my work, so I make 4 drafts at least of each one before I’m satisfied. I’m as interested to see what develops as the reader. My books often feel like they write themselves thanks to the characters.

Do you design your own book covers or have someone else? If you use someone else would you tell us who/website?  As I was a graphic designer for over 20 years, I design my own book covers.

Any advice for aspiring authors?  Never give up improving your work and don’t aspire to write, just write every day. Grow a thick skin so you don’t take criticism personally. Not everyone will love what you write, but carry on writing for those that do. Expect disappointment, then the successes arerandom-bullets-final-front-cover-jpg all the sweeter. Build up a social media network. Don’t bank on making money from writing as only a lucky few survive on writing alone. Your reward should come from the writing process itself.

Where do your ideas come from?  My ideas come from anywhere and everywhere. I’ve never yet experienced writer’s block. My current series, The Hostile, was solely inspired by me spotting a strange object in my house. Random Bullets came about following a chance remark made by my sister regarding our father’s will.

What is the hardest thing about writing?  Marketing and trying not to become despondent when nobody buys a single book for weeks but only download my free Kindles. I give away more Goodreads Giveaways of my paperbacks and more free kindles than I’ve sold in my first year, but it has generated reviews, so I’m fine with that.

What is the current book you are promoting?  My WIP is Holiday for The Hostile, book two in my paranormal thriller series, The Hostile. I am working on the second draft and have started a Launch Team group on Facebook, the first time I’ve ever done that.

You mentioned you’re writing a new story. How about a teaser?  Let me simply say that Holiday fornew-books-floor-5 The Hostile is even stranger than The Hostile, which a few reviewers said was the strangest book they’ve ever read. Fortunately, they went on to say they loved it.

Who is your favorite character in your book and why?  Edward in Random Bullets is by far my favourite character. I can empathise with him as we were both born in Jersey and disinherited by a parent, but I would never do what he did in the book. Promise.

If your book were made into a movie, whom would you cast?  I would cast James Nesbitt as Keith in The Hostile because not only is James a brilliant actor, Keith has Irish roots although lives in Manchester. He is father to teenage Serena, the main character in The Hostile and plays an important role throughout the series, both alive and dead.

What is your next project? I will probably write the third book in The Hostile series. I had originally only intended to write one book, The Hostile, but it has unexpectedly grown into a series.

Do you or have you sat down and read your book fresh off the presses as if it wasn’t yours? And if you did, what was it like? I narrate my own audiobooks and have thoroughly enjoyed reading my own books aloud. I often can’t wait to see what happens as I have a terrible memory, ha!

What is one great lesson you have learned as a writer?  Write what I’d want to read.

Do you ever feel self-conscious when writing love/sex scenes?  My problem is that I’m not self-conscious in the slightest about writing sex scenes, but I have ensured that they do not detract from the story my republished, less sexually explicit second editions of my fiction books as they did in the first editions of those books.

Would you say there is a stigma to being self-published?  The stigma is thankfully dwindling, but not fast enough.

What do your fans mean to you?  It’s wonderful to have readers like John, who I don’t know personally. I don’t even know what he looks joymutter-com-website-image-largelike. He has bought every book as he loves them and is champing at the bit for me to publish book nine, Holiday for The Hostile.

Tell us something unique about you.  I was interviewed in my house in Oldham in February 2016 by two BBC Radio 4 producers from London as part of their Analysis programme on Inheritance. They’d heard that Random Bullets deals with the divisive subject of disinheritance and its aftermath, something I’ve experienced personally.

Many thanks! For more about Joy and her work, follow the links below:

Website / Blog / Facebook / Twitter / Linkedin / Goodreads / Pinterest / Amazon / BookTrailer / Instagram / YouTube / Google