I'll bite, though I'm not sure how helpful it will be. Hope so, though.
1) If someone wished to have your level of success in the shortest time possible, what would you say is most crucial in making that happen?
I don't know, because honestly, I think I just got lucky. I made more than at the day job from the first month. (I had quit the day job, crazily, a few weeks into writing the first book. That's not like me at all, but I knew I had found what I wanted to do forever, so I did. It was nuts.) But I put out my first three books at once. I didn't have a plan going in, it's just that I wrote the first book and started shopping it around, wrote the second one and shopped that, then wrote the third, over about eight months with nil results--nobody wanted them. So finally I decided to publish them myself, given that there was no other avenue open, and I decided to put them all out together, on the theory that anyone who liked the first one might want to read the others, and it was better to have them all there. I did that, and it worked really well. So maybe that, for me.
I guess I'd say, write the book, make it the very, very best you can, present it as best you can (cover, editing, formatting, and, of course, story and writing), put it out there and then follow marketing advice and try things. But mostly: write the book YOU want to write. Because no matter what, you'll have pleased yourself. The very best thing about what's happened to me is that I found out I can write books, because this isn't the hardest job ever. It's the easiest, most fun job ever, at least for me. I work a lot, but it doesn't feel like that, because I love it.
And I'll just say, I think writing about New Zealand was a huge factor in my books' success. I sure am not the best writer out there. Not by a long shot. Ironically, it's one reason I think everybody turned me down (New Zealand, not the writer thing, although come to think of it, they're both probably true!) That's why I say, write the book that speaks to you. I wrote out of my love for the country, and that's what I think sold the books.
Edited to add--Branding my covers. Huge, huge, huge. As a series, and as an author, so people can look at my books and say, "That is a Rosalind James book." And having distinctive covers in the first place. As popular as the male torso is in romance right now, if I'd had another set of dark male-torso covers, I doubt it would have worked. I write fun, feel-good books. To me, that's what my covers say. (And OK, they don't say that there's sex inside clearly enough. But they say "fun"! And if sex isn't fun, what's the point? But I digress.) Anyway--covers.
2) What books or resources would you most recommend?
I'm going to admit here that, although I have somewhat of a writing background (I was a marketing professional and wrote a lot of copy over the 10 years before I began fiction writing), I've never read a book or taken a writing class (of any kind, marketing writing or fiction writing), so I don't know. For me, since this is all pretty new and fragile, I think reading others' rules would have interfered with finding my own voice and style. But I was an editor, too, before, and I had a pretty good grasp of grammar and usage, and I've read a LOT of fiction in my life, and that definitely helped.
3) What are some of the biggest mistakes and myths about being a full time writer? What are the biggest wastes of time?
I don't know, because I don't know any other full-time writers in person, and I don't really know what expectations people have. For me, the writing itself is pretty much, like I said, fun. But I'm also really used to working hard, have been working hard all my life. Also, I used to be a marketer, so making marketing decisions is pretty instinctive. And I'm in Select, so I have a lot less work to do that way.
Biggest waste of time: Worrying, obsessing over sales, reviews, and what people are saying on KBoards. I've realized that, because I can't account for my books selling, I fear that they'll suddenly stop selling--and, underneath that, I fear that I will lose whatever magic has made me able to write books. I never knew I could, until I was over 50, so it still feels pretty wonderful.
I cope with that by using blocking software while I'm working on a book, so I can't look at social media, KBoards, Amazon, etc., for hours every day. I've realized that writing makes me happy. And the only reason I worry about the sales/reviews thing is that I fear not being able to write anymore. But the two are really separate.
I'd love to be able to totally stop reading reviews. They aren't helpful--they're the most detrimental thing to my writing the book. Worse than looking at sales fluctuations. Haven't got there yet, though.
4) What were your 1-3 biggest breakthroughs (sales or otherwise) that led to your success?
1. Being in Select: offering the first book free for 3 days in Week 1. That started things off for me. (That was Sept. 2012, though, when it was easier to get traction.)
2. BookBub picking up my book unbeknownst to me during another free promo, when they and I were pretty new, about 4 months in. That was huge. That was the breakthrough.
3. Writing my second series, which was nuts, because the NZ series was just exploding. But that brought me a new level of success and a different group of readers, and I think--I hope--as I start my third series, that I'm entering into a new, more mature phase of my career now.
Best of luck to everybody. If I could do it, it's definitely possible, because in case you haven't gathered from the above, I didn't know what I was dong.
