Interview with Lori Brighton

Lori Brighton, author of The Mind Readers has most kindly agreed to do an interview about her books and how she finally got there.

My review of the book can be found here. Also, check out the give-away!

1. Tell us a little about yourself. Who are you and what do you do?
I went to school for Anthropology and did a little Archaeology. After college I worked in a museum as a Natural Science Curator. But I’d always had a huge imagination and loved to make up stories as a child. I started reading romance when I was a teenager and became addicted. When I was in my twenties I decided to try and write my own. As of right now I have two historical romances published with Kensington. But I wasn’t content to write in only one genre. So just a few months ago I published my first young adult novel, The Mind Readers.

2. What inspired you to write about the ability of mind reading?
I remember seeing a Buffy The Vampire episode in which Buffy (the main character) could read minds. She almost went insane because of the constant thoughts bombarding her. That stuck with me. But it wasn’t just that show that inspired me. How many times have you wished you knew what someone was thinking? It was one of those times, while wishing I knew what someone was thinking, that I said to myself, really? Would I really want to know? You’d hear every horrible thought a person had about you and society in general.

3. The Mind Readers ends with quite the cliffhanger - will there be a sequel?
Yes, there will be 3 books in all. I’m working on book 2 right now. Book two starts off with a lot of action. Fight scenes and suspense always slip into my books. My favorite movies growing up were Indiana Jones; it’s not surprising that there tends to be a lot of adventure and suspense in my books. So if you don’t care for fighting and action, you might want to skip book 2.

4. You've published a fair few books now, but you also dealt with some rejection from the publishers at first - what kept you going?
Sadly, I still deal with rejection! Even after you get a deal with a N.Y. publisher, you still deal with rejection. It took me seven years of rejection before I got a contract with Kensington and only with a contract in hand was I able to get an agent. The agent didn’t work out and the Kensington contract was over and I, silly enough, thought I would easily get another agent and publisher. Nope! I got neither. Fortunately Self-publishing Ebooks started becoming popular, which allows the writer to publish his/her own books in Ebook format.
But even after you’re published, you then have to deal with rejection from readers; people who don’t like your book. And it hurts; I’m not going to lie. I know of N.Y. Time’s Bestselling Authors who don’t even read reviews of their books because it hurts too much. Writing is not for the weak!

5. Do you have any suggestions for aspiring authors in how to approach getting there and back again? Publishing is a jungle after all.
Of course it sounds simple and silly, but don’t give up. If you truly want to be an author, keep trying. It took me seven years to get published, but I know writers who wrote for twenty years before they got a deal! Who knows, you might be the lucky one who gets a contract immediately, but in reality for the majority of authors it takes years. So if you really love to write, then you have to settle in and be prepared.
Also, find good critique partners who help and don’t make you feel worse. And send out those query letters! I’m always amazed when I hear of writers who work forever on that book then are too afraid to send it out. What’s the point? If you’re content to just write for yourself, then great. But if you want to be an author, you have to send that book out.
And finally, keep an open mind and don’t judge how other writers become authors! I never, ever thought I would publish an Ebook. I sure as heck didn’t think I’d self-publish because it had such a negative reputation. Yet here I am doing both and so far it’s working out great. So you never know what will happen or how your writing career will take off.

Thank you so much for your time and your advice! - I can't wait to read the next in the series

Review by Iben Jakobsen, BoB, 2011