Sheila Roberts on Virtual Book Tour at Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion

We have a very special guest today at Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion!

Welcome Sheila Roberts, author of ON STRIKE FOR CHRISTMAS (St. Martin's Press, Nov. '07). Sheila is here with us today to tell us how she pumps up her own online book promotion!

Thank you for coming to Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion, Sheila! Can you tell us what your book is about?

"On Strike for Christmas" is about a group of girlfriends who decide to (surprise, surprise!) go on strike for the holidays and put their men in charge. At the time it seems like the perfect tool to teach the men to appreciate everything women do to make the holidays merry and bright. It's a big order, and with shopping, baking, decorating, orchestrating holiday events and trips to see Santa, the guys find themselves stuck on a steep learning curve. Will they learn their lesson? And what about the women? Is there a lesson in all this for them, too? Maybe.

Who are you published with and how have your experiences with them been so far?

I'm published with St. Martin's Press, a wonderful publisher. Everyone at this publishing house is helpful and supportive, and I am happy and grateful to be with them.

Can you tell us ways you have been promoting online?

I'm promoting on my website (you'll find an excerpt of the book at http://www.sheilasplace.com, and enjoying stopping by great blogs like this one to chat about what I hope will be a fun holiday read for everyone.

Can you tell us ways you have been promoting offline?

Offline, it's book signing parties, radio interviews, book club visits, and anything else fun that comes along.

In your own opinion, what has been the hardest part about being a published author?

I think for any author, exposing your brain baby to the world can be a little scary. What if someone doesn't like it, says it's ugly, dumb, bad? We writers love so much to tell stories and we hope readers enjoy them, but we never really know how they'll be received. All we can do is birth them, and then give them a kiss and wish them well as we send them out into the world. The good news is that usually somebody out there does love those stories as much as we do.

In your own respective, how do you define success?

Setting a goal and achieving it.

What’s next for you? Do you have more books in the works?

Yes, I'm readying my second book for St. Martin's right now and I'm very excited about it.

Thank you for stopping by, Sheila, and much success to you!

Thank you, and thanks to those important people who make it all worth while: the readers!

Tags: Pump Up Your Book Promotion, virtual book tour, Sheila Roberts, On Strike for Christmas, women's fiction novel