Leanne, thank you so much for inviting me
to be interviewed for your blog. (It's my pleasure, Janet) I’m delighted to have this opportunity to
connect with your readers.
How/why did you start to write?
Sometimes I
think my desire to write is congenital. I was about 9 years old when I took on
writing a monthly newsletter for a youth group of which I was a member. In
elementary school, I worked on a class newspaper. I think we only did one or
two issues, but it was a start and I not only got to write, I also got to edit
the work of other students. Talk about a power trip for a kid! Although I was a
senior citizen before I focused on writing as a profession, it has been part of
my life in some way or another since I was a child.
How did you become an author?
I self-published
my first book, NORMAL, for eReaders
at the end of August 2012. The book was picked up by Monograph Publishing for
the paperback edition, which was released in January 2013. NORMAL is a narrative nonfiction work that relates my experiences
surviving and recovering from a ruptured cerebral aneurysm. I wrote it
primarily for other survivors and their caregivers as a means of providing
support and encouragement. There is a discussion guide at the back of the book
that is designed to prompt open communications among survivors in support group
settings.
Something
surprising happened when I started receiving feedback from early readers. It
seems folks don’t think it’s just for people whose lives have been touched by
brain trauma. The first person to review it on Goodreads said the book belongs
on Oprah’s reading list. What an overwhelming compliment! Java Davis of The Kindle Book Review said she felt like a better person for
having read it. That’s pretty high praise. More recently, I heard from a young
woman who is battling breast cancer who said the book gave her courage and
strength and that she refers to it often for support. Wow. Just. Wow. How could
an author ask for more validation than that?
What was your first published piece?
Well, if you
don’t count stuff from my school years, the first piece I had published with my
own byline was a magazine article titled, “The BackStoppers.” The BackStoppers
is an organization that provides support to the families left behind by police
officers, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel who are killed in the
line of duty.
Where was it published?
Odd as it may
seem, “The BackStoppers” appeared in Woods
& Irons Magazine, which was at the time the official voice of The
Gateway PGA Foundation. The article was prompted by coverage of a benefit golf
tournament and delved into the history of The BackStoppers and gave insight
into the way the organization touches people’s lives beyond providing financial
assistance. The piece was quite well received and I continued as a contributing
writer with the magazine until it went out of publication. My standing
assignment was to write stories that were only tangentially related to golf.
From profiling the executive chef at an exclusive golf club to describing the
operations of a studio that produces hand crafted knives and golf accessories –
and stops between – I enjoyed writing general interest pieces that helped make
the publication a well-rounded magazine.
How long ago?
“The
BackStoppers” was published in September 2010.
Unfortunately the magazine went out of production about six months
later.
What did you do before embarking on your writing career? Was it an
asset to your writing? How?
I’ve spent most
of my professional life in various administrative and marketing support
positions, doing everything from customer service and sales support to
marketing research and media relations. I’ve worked for a manufacturer, a CPA
firm, a distributor of office supplies and furniture, an architect, a marketing
firm, and for the last 17 years of that life I served as the administrative
assistant to Chief Michael T. Force of the Lake Saint Louis (MO) Police
Department.
All of those
experiences were assets to my writing in one form or another. It’s a wonderful
thing to be born with a creative mind, but it is life experiences – including
those obtained in other jobs – that provide the grist for the mill, to coin a
cliché. Since my work exposed me to such a wide variety of people,
circumstances, and environments I feel comfortable exploring a lot of topics.
The time I spent
in marketing support positions has proven invaluable since an author’s work
doesn’t end with writing, editing, and revising. Once you have a book, you have
to do something with it. When you’re self-published it’s all on you. Even with
the support of a publisher, authors these days have to do a lot of the
marketing themselves. What good is a book if it isn’t in the hands of readers?
What inspires you?
It depends on
what I’m working on at the time. NORMAL was inspired primarily by my desire to
let other brain aneurysm survivors know that they are not alone in their fight
to recover. I also wanted to vividly describe what my experience felt like from
the inside so that caregivers, medical professionals, and other readers would
have a better understanding of what a person with a traumatized brain deals
with physically, psychologically, and emotionally.
When it comes to
the fiction I write, the inspiration comes from many different sources.
Sometimes I observe a person whose outward appearance makes me wonder what his
or her daily life is like. My imagination goes to work and before long I’ve
created in my mind some scene wherein this stranger becomes a character. If an
old, abandoned house catches my eye I can’t help but wonder what became of the
people who used to live there and why the place was left to decay. As macabre
as it may seem, I often find inspiration walking around in cemeteries, reading
the names and dates on the tombstones. Every person who ever lived has a story.
I suppose my curiosity inspires me to tell them, even if they are products of
my fancy.
Please share one of your successful author platform building
techniques.
Probably the
most important thing is to remember that it is really about developing
relationships. Social media networking seems to be critical to the process
these days. At first I was a tad intimidated by the concept. Then I realized
that it isn’t so different from more traditional marketing activities. I
started treating my social media endeavors like I would Chamber of Commerce
events. I reach out to as many people as I can, but I put more effort into
developing relationships with folks who share my interests, those who offer
services I might need now or in the future, and the ones who seem to genuinely
appreciate what I do. I don’t hesitate to introduce one of my contacts to
another if I think the association would be mutually beneficial. While I
realize that agents and publishers like to see big network numbers, I feel that
the quality of the relationships I build is equally or more important.
Parting words
Believe in
serendipity and synchronicity and don’t be afraid to let them guide your
actions. Everything happens for a reason, but what we do with the events in our
lives is up to us. When faced with
adversity, we have a choice: remain a victim or become a warrior.
Website: JanetBettag.com
Blog: I
Had This Thought...
Goodreads: Follow Janet
Bettag on Goodreads
NORMAL is available from Amazon,
Amazon
UK, Barnes
& Noble, iBookstore,
eBookPie, Copia,
and Monograph Publishing.
To learn more
about cerebral aneurysms, visit The Brain
Aneurysm Foundation. Support their efforts by joining Team Normal
Readers.
"In that
nanosecond of enlightenment I knew that the human spirit survives the death of
the physical body and I understood that my wandering soul needed to get back
into its earthly habitat." - Janet Bettag, Normal
