How to interview and be interviewed

by Anna del C. Dye @AnnaDelC
Indie Author Hub Member

It is simple: be a guest on someone else’s blog or have a guest on your blog. Especially when your book is coming out. You can always find an author or someone extraordinary to swap interviews with. You want to choose those with many followers, but a little is exposure too.

Follow others' blogs before you ask them for an interview. It is good form. Follow people relevant to what you want to promote,: i.e., if you promote books, befriend some authors and a lot of readers.

Where to follow them? Facebook, twitter, Linkedin, Goodreads, Shelfari, but mostly on their blogs. Why follow them? Do unto others what you would like done to you. Help them and they will help you.

Now that you are friends, read their interviews, comment, and copy some of their questions and then make them relevant to the topic that fits your guest. In anther words, be inspired and write your own.

Keep a list of questions and answer them according to your expertise or what you want to promote. Then when someone tells you they have never done an interview, you can tell them that you have one handy and can send it to them. This also works for you. Answer the question yourself and you have an interview ready when someone wants to do yours and doesn’t know how.

Many bloggers struggle to find things to put on their blogs and they would love to have material ready to post. It helps you and them.

Here are some interview-making tips:

1. Be professional and double edit your interview
2. No negative talk or bad language
3. Be timely
4. Invite everyone you know and their dogs to go see it, when the post goes live
5. Remember to go to the site where the interview is being hosted and make sure you leave a comment that says how thankful you are for being a guest
6. Also go back often to answer any questions the visitors have for you.
7. Do not forget to add live links to all the places your book is sold.
8. Make sure you tweet the interview and put it on Facebook with a live link, all that week and every so often after that week.
9. Be polite, but funny. We all love a good laugh.

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Shared with us from Anna's blog.

Anna was born in the extreme South. She loves reading, but had few opportunities to do so while growing up. As a young woman, she moved North to marry Rodney Dye and has resided in Utah since then. They are the parents of three princes and a princess. With her husband and his family she has had the opportunity of traveling to many of the United States, (most of them camping!) and to four other countries. She would like to visit castles in European countries. She is fluent in both English and Spanish and understands Portuguese.

After she married, Anna was introduced to the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books that she admits to having collected. A number of years ago she was introduced to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and to J. K.Rowling's writings, which she loves. She also loves romantic music (she listens to it every day), theatrical plays that she attends at least six times a year, and cats (when they are not shedding).

Anna wears her dresses down to her ankles and likes them to be very feminine, with lace being one of her favorite trimmings. "I am afraid that I do not follow fashions," she has said. "I wear what I like."

You can find Anna on her website, her profile on FaceBook, and on Twitter at @AnnaDelC.