The latest book by Ernie Lindsey Skynoise was published in December last year. The fans of SciFi genre like it and gave it very nice feedback with av. 4.4 Amazon stars from 87 reviews. Our next feature guest is interesting interlocutor for the following chat.

– Ernie, what is your book Skynoise about?
– There is a lot going on with this story, so it’s hard to sum up without giving too much away. Skynoise is a fun time-travel adventure featuring a respected non-fiction author named Helen Weils who is forced into an unlikely partnership with Chip Sledd, a conspiracy theorist who may be completely insane. The story focuses on the mysterious disappearance of the Roanoke Island colonists, a group of settlers who vanished in 1587. This also ties in with strange noises being heard in the sky, all around the world, with no apparent earthly origin.
(These noises actually exist! Visit YouTube and search for “strange noises in the sky.”)

– How did you decide to write the story?
– Originally, this novel was intended to be a part of a themed collection of books, organized by authors Michael Bunker and Nick Cole. The theme itself was ‘weird apocalypse’. One of the more obscure theories of the Roanoke Island disappearance is that the Croatan tribe believed in a god that would turn people into stone, trees, and dirt if angered, which led to what would have been my initial concept for the weird apocalypse story.
– What was the biggest challenge during the write up process?
– Taking my time. Crafting the plot slowly. I tend to write quickly, and have been lucky enough throughout my career to write clean first drafts. I don’t have to do a lot of work to my manuscripts during the editing process. However, with Skynoise, it was complicated keeping all the moving parts in order, and I had to make sure I didn’t mess anything up. That meant a lot of slow, methodical writing and plotting to keep everything straight.
– Tell us something more about your main characters, Helen and Chip. Are they close to someone from your real life?
– Amusingly enough, if I were to compare them to anyone in my life, I would be Chip, and my wife would be Helen. I love the crazy, wild, theories about strange things that happen all around the world, and I feel like I’m constantly trying to convince my wife that some of this stuff is real. (I don’t think I’ll ever convince her that Bigfoot actually exists.)
– How much time did you need to finish the story and to publish it?
– I believe this novel, which is around 70,000 words, took me around three months to write. It sounds ridiculous, but that’s slow for me. When I’m really pushing, I can write a 60,000 novel in about a month, then allow a couple of weeks for my editors and proofreaders to go over the manuscript. I’ve been slowing down lately and giving my creative mind time to rest.
– Did you expect the success of your most popular book Sara’s Game?
– I had a feeling that book would be a hit, but I never expected it to do as well as it does, and I never expected it to actually give me a career as an author. Two and a half years later, it’s still going strong and I do very little to market it.
– Would you tell us something more about your novel Super?
– I had a dream about the plot of Super. Someone had assassinated Superman off the coast of the Maldives and a lot of the early imagery in the novel are from that dream. I woke up before I was able to learn what happened, and I was so intrigued by the possibilities that I had to write the novel to find out!
– Who are you (Would you describe yourself with few sentences)?
– Father. Husband. Author. Ocean of ideas. In that order. I’m fortunate enough to write full time, but it wouldn’t be possible without the support of my amazing wife, and the fact that our toddler is a good kid. He makes our job as parents easier.
– What are your writing habits?
– I read somewhere recently that there are no nights and weekends for authors. As an independent author, not only do I write the words, but I’m the publisher, marketer, editor, designer, formatter, blogger, and accountant. That said, 80% of my time is spent writing. I come here to my home office every day and treat it like a job. I write for approximately four hours in the morning, and then do the other tasks in the afternoon before I go pick up my son from daycare.
– Are you satisfied by the sales of your books?
– They could always be better, of course, but I do well enough that I’m able to continue this career full time. I’ll keep doing that until I’m unable!
– What are you doing to promote your book by the best possible way?
– My primary method of promotion is to draw people into my library of work by giving Sara’s Game away for free. That was a huge, risky decision, to make my bestselling title permanently free, and I’m glad I did it. Readers will typically work their way through the Sara series, and then move on to my other books. I also use book promotion services like BookBub and EreaderNewsToday.com to help move discounted copies of individual titles.
– When we will see your next novel and would you unveil something more about it?
– My next novel is finished and was recently accepted by the Kindle Scout program, which is Amazon’s way of having readers vote on specific titles in order to choose the best ones for publication. I’m not sure of the publication date, though I expect it’ll be in the next couple of months. The plot is about a former reality television star, a paranormal investigator, who his trying to redeem himself after allowing a demon to harm a five-year-old girl. Essentially, it combines my two favorite genres; paranormal and thriller.
– When did you feel the need to participate in Creative writing workshops to polish your skills and what kind of improvement you made thanks to them?
– The fiction workshops feel like a lifetime ago. I had to take a lot of them while I was in school at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia to obtain my English degree, but they were always my favorite classes. I loved being able to compare notes with other emerging authors who were just learning to tell stories as well. I think the biggest improvement I made during that time was learning to look at the world I was creating through a microscope, rather than observing at a distance from a telescope. Meaning: details, not generalization.
– You are giving some of your books for free. How the readers may find them?
– Most of my free downloads come from readers stumbling across the books on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and the other ebook retailers. I also give them away for free on my site, ernielindsey.com. The biggest download numbers occur when I run an ad with a promotional site like BookBub, which can generate tens of thousands of downloads.
– If you may ask yourself one question in the interview what it will be?
– Ernie, where do you see yourself as an author in twenty years? We all have big plans in life. I want to be doing “this” by then, I would like to have done “that” by the time I’m forty, etc. Honestly, in twenty years, the best outcome I can think of is still being able to tell stories for a living. Even if I had a massive breakout book, along the lines of Gone Girl, and earned enough in royalties to never have to work again, I believe I would still come back to the keyboard. There is always another story to tell.

To learn more about Ernie Lindsey check out his Web page
Facebook page
Twitter

Take a look at his books:
Skynoise
Sara’s Game
Super: A Mystery Novel
Warchild: Pawn: The Warchild Series, Book 1