Monday 20 August 2012

Author Interview: Rebecca Gober & Courtney Nuckels

Rebecca Gober and Courtney Nuckels have written Night Marchers, Redemption and Project ELE.

1. What is your name and where do you call home?
Rebecca Gober and Courtney Nuckels and we both live in Dallas, Texas. (No, we don't have big hair, but we do obsessively use the word y'all. LOL!)

2. Do you have a pen name?
We considered this, however we chose to use our real names.

3. What is the name of your most recent book and if you had to sum it up in 20 or less words, what would you say?
Project ELE is an apocalyptic novel with a paranormal twist. It's unique, not your average dystopian, romantic, funny and emotional.

4. Do you have plans for a new book? Is this book part of a series?
Most definitely! We are in the process of writing our second book in the ELE Series, which we hope to release in November 2012.

5. What or who inspired you to start writing? And how long have you been writing? 
Our enthusiastic love for reading is what inspired us to write. Amanda Hocking and Addison Moore are who inspired us to go the independent publishing route. We've been writing since June of 2011.

6. Do you gift books to readers for book reviews?
Yes! Being Indie authors, our trade thrives on reviews from our readers. Since we don't have a big publishing house backing us up, those reviews are what tell new readers that they can trust that our story is a good read and not a waste of their time. We will continue gifting books for review on Project ELE until we reach 50 reviews on Amazon. If you are interested in reading to review please message us on our Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/eleseries.

7. How did you come up with the cover? Who designed the cover of your book? 
Marya Heiman with Strong Image Editing (https://www.facebook.com/StrongImageEditing) is our cover designing genius. She's made all of our book covers. This one specifically was made from scratch with only a model photo in a plain white background to start with. We told her what we wanted to see and what Willow looked like and she made it happen. We actually have a pretty cool blog post on our page if anyone is interested in seeing the process we went through when we designed our book covers. It starts with the original photo and goes through all of our cover takes that we didn't choose. http://nightmarchersseries.blogspot.com/2012/06/creating-our-book-cover-for-project-ele.html

8. Which is your favourite cover of all the books you have written?
Project ELE for sure! Mostly because it was made from scratch and wasn't a stock photo that already had the perfect background, etc.

9. Is there anything you would change about your book covers?
Well, our first book cover Night Marchers was a stock photo that we fell in love with. We still love it actually, the artist is very talented. We did make a few changes to it but in the end it stayed pretty true to the original photo. Unfortunately we've found two other books that released after us that used the same stock photo. None of them had the same tweaks ours did but still, it is kind of frustrating to see our cover on those blog posts that put two similar book covers next to each other and have you vote for your favorite version. (Not that we don't like the blog post, we just wish ours was more original and didn't have to show up there.) We are happy to see though, that our book cover wins the vote most of the time. We learned our lesson though since releasing our first book. In the future our book covers will always be unique like Project ELE.

10. Would you have different book covers for different countries?
That would be awesome. I am so intrigued by what type of covers sell better in other countries. I love reading those blog posts where you see your favorite books with all of their different covers.

11. How did you come up with the title for your book?
Actually Rebecca's husband mentioned ELE upon hearing about our premise for the book. After that, we played with it and came up with the ELE Series and then Project ELE for the first book title. We originally were thinking about naming our book Chameleon but there are a few other books with the same name.

12. Is there anything you would change about your book? And why?
We thought about this, but we don't think there is anything we would change. We changed enough of it throughout the writing process that we are really happy with where it went. We did find a few small errors in it, but other than that we are very happy. We were excited about having this book professionally edited. Editing is priceless.

13. Do you have a book trailer? And what are your thoughts on book trailers?
Yes! We love to watch book trailers and we find that a book trailer can sometimes make the difference when you are making a decision to purchase a book or not. We actually have made our own book trailers for each book. Courtney is amazing at making them and has even been asked by other authors to help make their book trailers.

14. What is your opinion on ARCs?
We love ARC's. It's a great way to get feedback before releasing a book and a great way to accumulate reviews that help encourage others to purchase your book.

15. Do you prefer e-books, paperbacks, hardcovers or audiobooks?
We like any kind of book! (Although, I haven't really gotten too much into audio books.) We usually read e-books from Indie authors and then get paperbacks or hardcovers from mainstream published authors. (Since a lot of mainstream published e-books are close to the print cost, we might as well get a regular copy.)

16. Are you a self-published / Indie author?
Yes, and loving it! :)

17. Have you ever read a book more than once? And if so what was it?
Don't make fun of us. We have both read the Twilight series a few times. We are Twi-fans and have even done a Forks pilgrimage and stocked the Vancouver sets of Breaking Dawn last year.

18. Have you ever bought a specific edition of a book because of it’s cover? (For example a UK, US or Canadian version)
We have only purchased US editions but this is a unique idea. We never thought about looking at all of the different versions to find our favorite.

19. Have you ever read a book just based on it’s cover?
All the time! If we don't like the cover, we rarely will invest our time in reading the book.

20. Has the quality of the cover of a book ever put you off of reading it?
Definitely. We can think of a few that we really wish we could hook up with Marya with Strong Image Editing so they can have a better chance with selling their books. Book covers can make or break you as an author.

21. What is your favourite film based on a book?
The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Not our usual genre of reading, but amazingly done!

22. What is your favourite book genre at the moment?
YA of course, anything Paranormal.

23. What books have made it onto your wishlist recently? And why?
Die For Me by Amy Plum, Glimmerglass by Jenna Black, Paranormalcy by Kiersten White, Downpour by Madison Daniel and Wake by Amanda Hocking.

24. What book are you reading at the moment? And in what format?
Courtney: Purgatory Reign by LM Preston (ARC) 
Rebecca: Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout

25. If you could invite any four celebrities (alive or dead) to your dinner party, who would you invite and why?
The cast of Friends because they are hilarious and would be the life of the party! Crud, if we only had to choose four of them then: Joey, Rachel, Monica and Chandler. (Yes, we know we just put their stage names, but hey, that's how we refer to them). We've watched all of the episodes a zillion times. *Excuse our exaggeration. ;)

26. Do you have any advice for other writers? And what’s the best advice that you have been given when it comes to writing?
Follow your dreams, write well and edit well. Seek advice, take constructive feedback to heart and don't give up.

27. Do you have any hobbies that aren’t related to reading & writing?
Rebecca- traveling and painting.
Courtney- Sewing and crafting.

28. Where can your readers follow you?


Facebook page:

Goodreads author page:

Twitter:
Rebecca: @MidnightBECKIE
Courtney: @nuckelsc






Thankyou so much for taking the time to do this interview and allowing us a glimpse into your writing world!

1 comment: