Piper Nuelle

When an Author has just released a new book, or their book baby might be making waves in the realm of readers, you may find yourself lucky enough to be able to interview one, especially if you have a platform that is book / author focused and you wish to share their good news and help them celebrate.

Many people now have a blog, social media platforms or vlog with ‘Youtube’ channels, Instagram or TikTok, where they need to find people to interview, books to review or just simply giving a study tour or bookshelf tour. And if you find you are one of those people with a platform, you may need to interview an author or two to gain some much needed readership for your platform and for the author and the book in question.

So, I have compiled here a list of ’20 good questions to ask an Author when interviewing them’… So let’s take a nice comfy seat and get to business shall we…

1. What is your main genre that you write in? And do you crossover from other genre’s or just stick to the one?
2. How do you find the time to write your books?
3. Do you Self-Publish or have you gone Traditional? And why?
4. What is the most difficult part of writing a book for you?
5. How long does it take for you to write a book? From first draft to fully finished book in hand?
6. How important are book reviews to you?
7. What is your most favourite book ‘Ever’?
8. When did you first realise you wanted to be a writer / Author?
9. What is one surprising thing you have learned on your writing journey?
10. Do you listen to music, have a playlist or write in total silence?
11. What makes a great story?
12. Do you plan out your book, or do you wing it as you write it?
13. What does a typical day look like to you?
14. If your book was adapted into a Television series or a film, what actors and actresses would you see playing your characters?
15. How did you choose your books title?
16. How do you go about building characters for your books? Are they based on anyone you have met?
17. How do you approach your editing process? Do you edit yourself or do you pay or hire editors?
18. Did you suffer from the wall of writers block when writing your book? If so, how did you overcome it?
19. What do you hope your readers will gain by reading your book and getting to know your characters?
20. Are there any more books in the pipeline?

There you have 20 good questions that you can ask an author when interviewing them. Of course there could be many, many more questions to ask… When interviewing an author you will need to tailor the interview and the questions to the author, the genre, the season, etc, but also, you can think of new questions on the spot which may be a continuation of a previous question asked and completely inspired in the moment.

Best thing to do is plan before hand, make sure you have done your research on the author if you can, and at the very least read their book or skim through so you know what it is you will be talking about, but also to show your support to that author.

Good luck if any of you decide to interview an author.

xo Piper xo