As a novelist in our current writing culture, you have to be involved in the advertising of your own book. This includes giving interviews; the most common type of interview is the web radio interview, where you are interviewed over the internet by a host.
Many novelists who have improved their skills in writing haven’t developed interview skills and can be taken aback by the experience, so here is a brief introduction.
Web interviews are much like the radio interview of old except that you don’t come into the radio studio. You do it from your home. Typically, there is no video component, so it’s just you listening to a voice over your computer and you responding. Because technology is involved it will take some time to set up the equipment on your end. (making sure the web connection is acceptable, reducing any background noise, ensuring your computer speakers are on and that your microphone works.)
Also have an interview time that makes sense for you. Many of these interviews are done internationally and the interviewer may want to interview you at a time that is convenient for him or her, but maybe 3:00 AM in the morning for you. So insist on having a time that is convenient for you. It is a poor excuse to explain after a bad interview that you weren’t awake. You get to set the stage on which the interview will play out. So set it well, where you can give your best, clearest and sharpest answers.
Engage in a little background discussion with the interviewer before you start. Are you an expert in the field? Why? What is your education, your knowledge, your training and experience? Get comfortable with the readers voice. Can you hear them clearly? Don’t step on their questions (i.e., allow a pause between the end of their question and beginning of your answer). This helps the listener to fully listen to and digest the question before they hear your answer.
It pays to know why the interviewer has chosen you. While sometimes the goal is cerebral, it can be more practical. Your goal is to talk about and therefore to promote your book. The interviewer wishes to increase the size of the audience, a change that would increase the number of ad buys and therefore their revenue stream. Thus, they would like the interview to be as interesting as possible to the point where it is provocative, if not controversial.
Whatever the goal, the interview requires formal preparation on your part. Do not come to an interview like you might to a party, during which someone asks innocent questions about your book. In such a discussion, you can make mistakes. You can take things back. You can modify what you say as you go forward. In the end, it’s remembered pretty much as just a conversation and just as easily forgotten.
Interviews over the radio are fixed. Interviews can be more than an hour. What you say on the web, you can’t take back. You have to presume that anything you say on the radio can be turned into text, then converted into an email and distributed to everyone, everywhere, generating more unwanted controversy and discussion about your book. In an interview, you want to put your best face and that of your book forward.
So in order to prepare, you must train in two domains. The first is your knowledge base, the second is in presentation.
Know the exact title of your book and be prepared to give a two or three sentence brief summary about it. While you understand and can be self-forgiving that you as an author can have a lapse of memory, from the audience’s point of view, you are the expert in the field and you are anticipated to be able to speak quickly, clearly about the book.
I never assume that I am prepared for an interview on one of my books simply because I have written the book. I have to refresh my memory. I don’t want to struggle for the words describing what the book means, or fight with myself to remember character names or a scene’s locale during the discussion. If you meander and don’t really answer the interview’s question then the audience loses interest.
So I immerse myself in the book to refresh my memory. In fact I do this for all my novels and nonfiction books, My very first interview was ostensibly about my first novel, Saving Grace. However it became clear that the interviewer didn’t want to talk about Saving Grace. She wanted to talk about my book Caring for Katrina Survivors, a topic on which I had not prepared. So I did my best, querying my memory on the spot, but I would have been much better off if I had taken the time to review that book. Interviews, once they start, are out of your control. You have to expect any kind of question, at any time. If it helps, you can have notes to refresh your memory.
In preparing for the interview, practice speaking slowly. Many of us speak faster than we should. However, keep in mind that in an interview, not everybody who is listening to the interview may have English as a first language. In addition, the technology may fail at some point, inexplicably adding a burst of static, warbles or other interruptions of the data stream, that is unanticipated. The only way to manage this is to speak slowly. And sometimes repeat a sentence to make sure that the sentence actually gets through to the interviewer.
Take some designated pauses while you speak. You can take two or three seconds between a sentence and repeat it to make sure that that sentence gets through. The interviewer wants readers to understand what it is that you’re saying, so respect everybody on the show by speaking slowly and clearly. My rule of thumb is that, if I think I’m speaking normally, then, I am speaking way too fast. And if I think I’m speaking too slowly, then my cadence is just about right. Take two or three seconds to think about the question the interviewer has asked. Perhaps you’d want to repeat the question to make sure that you understand it. And then give an answer directly to the question. If the question is complex, I tend to just say that question is complicated. Then answer the question directly, yes, no, or it depends. And then give a brief explanation as to why it depends.
You can’t expect all questions. The interviewer may have heard something about you that may not even be true and will want to ask you about it. So relax and tell the truth. If it’s a topic that is personal, for example, about your family, then feel comfortable with saying, “I appreciate the question. I understand the interest, but this is a very personal matter, and I’d like not to talk about it today.” Respect the boundaries of your own lifestyle as well as the desires of the interviewer.
Finally, have fun. Interviews can be chaotic and unpredictable. It is a “no-expectations” environment. Be ready by expecting everything, The key to giving a successful interview is to not be surprised by anything. You want to be ready for it all. And be determined that, through it all, you will deliver a clear, calm, honest representation of your novel.
