Let's Welcome Shiree McCarver! Award-Winning Author of J-Pop Love!

Hello Shiree and welcome! going to grill you on the epublishing industry. So let's get started!

1. When did you first start writing?

I was sixteen almost seventeen when I attempted to start writing my own stories. But because my dream was to be a vocalist I didn't take it serious and it was more for myself than anything.

2. What was your first published ebook?

A Satyr's Tale:Selby and Darius

3. Who was it published with?

My first experience that all publishers don't have your best interest at heart. It was Ocean's Mist.

4. what was your experience like with epublishing? Example, submitting your story, dealing with editors.

My experience in submitting stories was easy because everything goes at a faster pace when you can submit the cover letter and the entire manuscript. So far the only editor that I have with a publisher that didn't try to change the voice of my story into their own in someway by telling me what a character would say after I wrote it a certain way has been the only publisher I currently have a ebook with and that is Mocha Memoirs Press. I am an independent author because I don't always work well with editors. Not that I couldn't. I would love to find a publisher that had editors that actually like to edit. Most are editors who are writers at heart.

5. What advice would you give newbie authors that want to get into the epub world?

Don't sell your soul to the first ebook publisher that make you an offer. Do your home work and contact some of the authors you see published with them. Make your expectations clear and read even the boring fine print of the contracts before signing. A contract for a few years with a good publisher is a blessing, but it's hell with a bad one that continously claim you're you making any sales therefore no revenue and you can't publish it anywhere else. Also be aware that some publishers can contract the book and not publish it until they want to within that contracted time.

6. What should one look for in a good epublsiher?

Well if you enjoy the books they publish. The quality and the covers, and the fact they have a stable of well known authors then it's a good chance they will be a good epublisher or at least one that is good enough to want to work with you.

7. What are the red flags for a bad epub?

When you know you have submitted a book that isn't up to being your best yet and you know it but they love it without saying up front it needs work or if they are happy with a 5 page manuscript. Come on, even if they are happy with it are you really happy about cheating your readers? To me a 5 page story is a free read not a 2.50 book.

8. Are you eith any epub now/ If so which one and what are your books?

Only one. Mocha Memoirs Press. They ask for a short story for a Geeks in Love series that they were doing and they gave me the premise and location. It's called Zola's Magic Touch. It was my first short story because I'm not a short story writer, so alot of my readers felt cheated even though it wasn't my intention to do so. It's just the story between the characters took place in the span of a day. So it's not that they didn't like the story, they just want to know what happens ater that night. I said yes to Mocha's because I was very familiar with the ladies operating it and their work and I beleive in giving new publishers a chance because we all need someone to believe in us in the beginning. So far they are the only ones that have lived up to their promises to me as an epublisher. They also know I was very skittish in trusting them with my work because I've been burnt three times before.

9. I remember your doll Soap Opera. LOVED IT! are you putting that back or will you make that into a story for epub or self pub?

My Doll Soap opera is still available for anyone that isnterested as a free read on my website. I probably will not make it into a book because it's not the same without the great pictures to go with it so I made it into a online graphic novel on my website.

Here is a link for those that are interested. http://www.shireemccarver.com/VISUALROMANCE.html

10. Let's talk about the genre you write. I notice you write Black women/Asian men books. Not many writers do that in the IR field. What made you write it?

Honestly, I personaly adore Asian men so it was an easy thing for me to do. I mean in the end don't we write about the things and they men we love. My first Black woman/Asian man book was J-Pop Love song and that became a book based on my own fantasies over a paticular Japanese Pop Artist who I won't mention. So I start asking what if's and turned it into a free read for the members of my yahoo group and the before it was done I had one of my best books completed. Of course the publisher didn't do it justice and it will be a forever regret of mine that I didn't just go with my intincts and publisher it myself, but I thought going through a publisher it would get the wider audience I thought it deserved instead it stunted it and me from as big as it could have been because I had two more books planned to follow it when I originally wrote it and now it breaks my heart every time I try to go back and revisit the characters because it was so personal to my heart when I wrote it. I exposed alot of my personal longings in that book.

11. Do you think there should be an epub just for that genre? That would be cool.

I think they wouldn't be able to get enough good works submitted to keep it going and it would turn into a big joke. I mean even now how many very good Black female/Asian male books can you find out here that was written out of a sincere love and belief in these men as potential mates, husbands and father's to our children? Most of what I read is out there to fullfill a need and some of the authors are very sterotypical in their ideas about the culture they are writing about and I think it shows. You know they say "the devil is in the details".

12. Could you give a list of all your books?

A Satyr's Tale: Selby and Dairus; A Satyr's Tale: Zola and Sylus; Forever Moonlight; The Lord and the Scorpion; The Prince and the Panther; All I Want for Christmas; All I Want is You; A Holiday to Remember; Eternally I Do; The Flavor of Love; J-Pop Love Song; Visual-Kei Rock Star; Nola's Magic Touch; The Contract: Sunshine

13. What are you working on now? Anything current out now?

I'm currently doing research and backstory so I can begin the third installment of my African

female assassins series. Historicals are so time consuming and exhausting to put and keep your mind in the century you're writing about. It will be called The Pirate and the Cobra. My latest is the contemporary romantic comedy The Contract: Sunshine. It features my first Korean male with an African american female.

Best wishes,
Shiree McCarver
http://www.shireemccarver.com/