An Interview With Erotic Romance Author Nadia Aidan, Author of ENTHRALLED

Nadia Aidan lives, works and writes on the East Coast in the United States. Under her real name, she holds a PhD in Political Science and Public Policy and by day she works as an Assistant Professor. In addition to writing erotic romances, Nadia enjoys reading other authors, playing flag football, studying muay thai, working out, listening to music, and scuba diving.

Her other interests include collecting Top Cow comics, especially Witchblade and Tomb Raider. She loves professional football and soccer. Her favorite teams are the Washington Redskins and Manchester United, respectively. Nadia loves watching, reading about, and writing about strong, assertive heroines which is why she is an enduring fan of Fight Girls, Xena, Buffy, and La Femme Nikita!

Thank you for giving us this interview, Nadia. Can we start out by having you tell us whether you are published for the first time or are you multi-published?

Enthralled is my debut novel and my first published work of fiction.

What was the name of your very first book regardless of whether it was published or not and, if not published, why?

Sweet Revenge is the name of the very first book. It has gone through extensive revisions and is currently under review so it looks like it will get published after all!

For your first published book, how many rejections did you go through before you either found a mainstream publisher, self-published it, or paid a vanity press to publish it?

Enthralled was never submitted to a publishing house. I wanted to self-publish the first novel that I released to the public. However, the first novel I wrote, Sweet Revenge, was rejected by one publishing house and then received a revise and resubmit. As I said before it is currently under review again, having been revised; however, this ALL came after Enthralled was already in the publication pipeline.

How did the rejections make you feel and what did you do to overcome the blows?

Well my day job involves A LOT of rejection so I am used to it! As an Assistant Professor it can sometimes take as long as TWO years to get just one article published-of course after dozens of rejection letters! I see the process of trying to get fiction works published as no different. A rejection sucks no matter what but you have to push it aside and trudge ahead. If you don't believe in your book then nobody else will so when you get a rejection, I recommend that first you burn the letter, go out and have a drink with your friends that night, and then get back to trying to get that book published!

When your first book was published, who published it and why did you choose them?

iUniverse published Enthralled. iUniverse was chosen over other self publishing/vanity houses because it is professional and efficient and I found that their goals were in line with mine regarding how I wanted to publish and market my book.

How did it make you feel to become published for the first time and how did you celebrate?

It was an amazing feeling-still is! You have this tremendous sense of accomplishment when you see something that you have been working on for a long time FINALLY in print. Seeing the book published was celebration enough!

What was the first thing you did as for as promotion when you were published for the first time?

First I sent several copies to reviewers then I listed myself on popular romance writing sites such as, Author Island, Night Owl Romance, Love Bites Romance and Coffee Times Romance where I made sure that I was listed as a featured or debut author.

If you had to do it over again, would you have chosen another route to be published?

Not at all! In the future I would like to do all those important things that fiction novelists can do like secure an agent, publish with a royalty paying publisher and negotiate an advance! BUT this time I wanted to do this on my own. I wanted to see how successful I could be with no big publishing house backing me.

Have you been published since then and how have you grown as an author?

Enthralled was JUST released so no. Although, I do have three novellas currently under review and I entered one of my excerpts from another novella into the Brava Novella Contest. I am convinced that being productive has made me grow leaps and bounds as an author. The more I write the better I get. Mainly because I am forced to be more creative in how I structure my stories and the ideas that I base them upon.

Looking back since the early days when you were trying to get published, what do you think you could have done differently to speed things up? What kind of mistakes could you have avoided?

The biggest mistake I made was not hiring an editor at the very beginning-long before the fifth or sixth draft which is when I did it! I believe that if I hired an editor after maybe my second draft that I would have saved myself a lot of time and money in the end, not to mention the added frustration that came with it!

What has been the biggest accomplishment you have achieved since becoming published?

Seeing the novel receive good reviews has turned out to represent a tremendous accomplishment to me. And while I don't believe good reviews validate my work, it does make me feel like at least there is SOMEONE out there who enjoyed reading my book and if there is one then maybe there are others!

If you could have chosen another profession, what would that profession be?

Well, BESIDES taking Halle Berry's job and ENTIRE life, there isn't anything else that I would rather be doing.

Would you give up being an author for that profession or have you combined the best of both worlds?

Fortunately I don't have to make that choice. Academia is very flexible and allows me the summers, winter break and many, many hours where I can write AND still get my other work done. To be honest, I don't see myself having to give up being an author BUT if I was forced to make a choice then I would walk away from academia in a heartbeat because writing is what I truly love.

How do you see yourself in ten years?

First of all I intend to be a TENURED professor by then. Once I get tenure I will have even more time to devote to my writing career! And as far as that is concerned I hope to have an agent and a multi book contract with a publishing house. In ten years I would like to see myself as a household name in the erotic romance genre.

Any final words for writers who dream of being published one day?

The first thing those who are interested in publishing should do is simply WRITE the book. I meet many people who say they want to be an author but when I ask them how their book is going I am disappointed to hear that they aren't even writing! I know it is hard to find the time and energy to sit down and do it but you have to if you want to see your work published. Also, if you are interested in becoming an author but you're not quite ready to sit down and write or submit your work then you should try to become familiar with your market and your genre. Even before I committed to publishing my book I was learning about my market by attending conferences and joining listservs and romance writing organizations. I also made sure that I kept up with market trends and became an avid consumer of new releases so that I would know what was out there. However, in the end the first step is to simply believe in your passion and the other stuff will eventually fall into place.

Visit Nadia's website at www.nadiaaidan.com for more information about her and her upcoming releases.

Dorothy Thompson is CEO/Founder of Pump Up Your Book Promotion PR, a full service virtual book tour agency who represents authors of all genres and publishing formats. You can visit her website at http://pumpupyourbookpromotion.com to find out how she can set up a virtual book tour for you!