The Art and Craft of Author Interviews
By Sophie Masson | January 11, 2016 |
Scenario 1: You’re a writer whose first book is about to be published, and you’ve been inundated with requests for interviews. In the dim and distant days before blogs and online magazines, that meant someone calling you, or goodness, even coming to visit you in person and recording the interview on a little machine. These days, though, the approach is usually made through email, and unless it’s a piece for your local paper (and even then perhaps!) the interview will most likely be conducted in the same medium, and published online. It’s likely you will never meet the interviewer and so you have to impress and interest them purely through the written word. Well, that’s easy, isn’t it? You are a writer after all! And then you get that first interview-and you freeze. Talking too much—or not enough—revealing too much—or revealing too little—striking the right tone—treading a fine line between spontaneity and reflection—showing confidence but not being too pushy: so many things to think about, so much to get right (or wrong).
Scenario 2: You’re a writer, published or unpublished, and you have a blog. You’d love to find out more about the work of fellow writers, and what makes them tick. You come up with a great idea: interviews for your blog. You’ve got quite a few writing contacts already, so you can start with them. Compiling author interviews will be easy. You’re a writer, and a reader. You know just how it should go. Then you start compiling your first set of interview questions, and you panic. What if the author thinks the questions are too bland? Too pushy? Too gushing? Or too impersonal? Should you ask about their life outside of their work or leave that strictly alone? So many things to get right (or wrong)
Author interviews are a fact of the writing life. Whether as interviewee or as interviewer, every author will inevitably have to gain some experience of the art and craft of author interviews. So how do you go about getting that experience?
My top tip is this: even before you are professionally published, it is very good practice, as well as very useful for building up networks and profiles, to conduct interviews with other authors. In the very early days of my own professional writing career, before my first book was published but after I’d had a few stories published in anthologies and magazines, I conducted a lot of interviews with both new and established authors, which were published back then in print magazines and newspapers. It helped enormously in building up my CV as a writer and my recognition factor amongst both literary publications and other authors. It made me think carefully about books, and not just respond emotionally (though I still did that of course)! And it was great fun talking to other writers! Several of the people I interviewed back then became my friends. And I found I enjoyed interviewing so much that I continued doing it, if a little less, once I was published and even after I eventually became ‘established’ myself. On the writing blog I run now, Feathers of the Firebird, I conduct a lot of interviews, not only with writers, but also illustrators, photographers, publishers—all kinds of book industry people, in fact. And the interviews seem very popular!
Then it’s important also to read interviews yourself. See the kinds of things other people ask; think about whether a particular style of interview works for you. And ask yourself questions: are there questions you’d have added—or even subtracted? Is the interview more focussed on the author’s work or their personality, and what do you think of that? Does it feel as though the interview worked as much for the writer as the reader? If it’s an interview with an author whose work you know, does it give you extra insights into that work? If it’s with an author whose work you don’t know, does it make you feel like you want to read one of their books? When you’re compiling your own interview questions, the answers to those things will help you to determine how you want to frame the interview.
How many questions to ask? Somewhere between 6 and 10 questions works to make a good meaty interview, without becoming indigestible for both the interviewee and the reader. Photos—book covers and author pics—are as much a must-have for an online interview as they are in print, and with author pics especially, it’s best to ask the interviewee to send their preferred shot.
Themed series of interviews can work well: for instance I conducted a series recently called Double Act, which is about authors who are also publishers. Themed interviews work because you can make the questions very specific to that theme, and at the same time make them basically the same for each interviewee (though not necessarily identical—it depends on the relevance to each person’s experience).
It goes without saying, of course, that you should always respect your interviewee’s right to privacy and discretion—if they don’t want to answer a particular question, don’t push it. And always thank them for participating, let them know when an interview is scheduled, and send them a direct link to the published piece online.
Now for the other side of things: you as author interviewee, rather than author interviewer. If you’ve already built up a bit of track record as an interviewer, you will be well on the way to giving a good interview yourself. You’ll know what readers want, and what writers want. From studying other authors’ responses in interviews you conducted, you’ll get the feel for how you can work within a question to give a rich and intriguing answer. From the comments and reactions of readers, you’ll also understand the kinds of things that they respond to. You’ll gain the confidence also to decide how much you want to reveal about your work processes, your personal life, or your thoughts on writing generally. You’ll know that you can decline to answer a question, if it doesn’t feel comfortable, but also that sometimes answering a more challenging question can be very rewarding. You’ll know that you can add things, even if the interviewer hasn’t asked; and you’ll know that a good interview is as much an art as a craft, and one that once you’ve mastered it, can go a long way towards raising your profile as a writer.
Over to you: what’s your take on author interviews?
Born in Indonesia of French parents, and brought up in France and Australia, Sophie Masson is the award-winning author of over 70 books for children, young adults and adults. Her latest books include Sydney under Attack (children’s historical novel, Scholastic Australia, 2022) A Hundred Words for Butterfly (adult novella, ES-Press, 2022) and Cock-a-doodle-doo (children’s picture book, (illustrated by Kathy Creamer, little Pink Dog Books, 2022). In 2019, Sophie received an AM (Member, General Division) award in the Order of Australia honours list.
This isn’t going to go well. I hope I never have to give an author interview, not because of the process, but because I’ve never read one I could stand reading past the first question or two.
I find the authors incredibly uninteresting. Either I love their work, or I don’t, but I don’t care about the person.
If I meet the person, or get to know them online, it’s entirely within the realm of standard relationships: acquaintance, friend, close friend if we have anything in common.
When I have something personal/public to say, I stick it in a blog post – there are a number of those, and you could learn a lot about what has happened to me, and my general disposition – if you had any interest. Even about how I write, or why. But once someone else comes into the picture, I’m out of there.
Possibly it’s from seeing how badly the interviewers get things completely wrong, over and over and over. I USE that fact to advantage in my novels; I don’t want to be on the receiving end.
Sometimes there are advantages to being a hermit.
I really enjoy reading author interviews, esp. the story behind the story, so I tend to focus on that too when I interview people. As a NF writer, I’ve done many interviews and it’s always a wonder (and privilege) when people open up and share things that aren’t found on the interwebs. I enjoy promoting my friends’ books and it’s been a pleasure for me too, to be interviewed. So thank you for this post on developing in this area more.
Hi, Sophie. Thanks for writing about this interesting topic!
You mentioned that many interviews are conducted by email, so I’m assuming yours are as well? Do you send the authors a list of questions, or is there more of a back and forth exchange of emails? In reading some of your author interviews, it seems there is more of a logical flow to the Q&A than I would expect possible, unless the interview were in person.
hi Dana, and thanks for your comment. I usually email the person I’m interviewing a list of questions, which I’ve designed pretty carefully for relevance to them and their work. We don’t usually have email exchanges, unless something needs to be clarified. People seem to like the questions I send them and are happy to expand in their answers–I’ve been blessed with wonderfully articulate and interesting interviewees who give a very natural and engaging interview!
This post fits right up my alley, since I was approached to do my first author interview after the release of my first book. The interviewer, Christina Hamlett, contacted me via LinkedIn and asked if I’d be interested in being interviewed for her writer-focused blog, You Read It Here First. Interested? I was thrilled, but also nervous. I needn’t have worried. The process, done by email, was easy and fun, and it gave me something new to post to social media and re-post to my own blog (having new content is always important).
Over the course of a couple of emails, Christina and I chatted, and when she approached me a few months later to ask if I’d be interested in being one of her “Literary Associates” and conduct author interviews for her blog, I was honoured. That was two years ago and Christina and I still conduct regular author interviews with writers from around the globe – from new writers to NYT best-selling authors. What fun! Coming up with my presentation style was initially daunting, but I soon realized that people respond well to thoughtful, conversational types of interview. They want to read about the person behind the “pen” and perhaps learn something new about the craft and/or business of writing. Writers usually love sharing information about their journey, who they are (within limits of course), their work, and where they’re headed.
Like you, Sophie, I have “met” some incredible writers from all over the globe and established long-term connections with many of them. We share each other’s social media posts, champion each other’s work, and support each other through the myriad challenges of being a writer in today’s publishing landscape. Readers comment frequently about how much they enjoy learning more about new or favoured authors, and in many cases, they discover new favourites as a direct result of the interview. It simply doesn’t get better than that!
By shining a light on someone else, we also shed a small light on ourselves, and learn a lot in the process. Thanks for this post. I’ll be sharing it with my circles. :-)
Hi Debbie, thanks for your comments, glad you liked the post. What a lovely experience that sounds! The perfect give and take..the perfect example of how interviewee can become interviewer, and the pleasures (and occasional challenges) of that.
I’m having fun finding that balance between spontaneity and reflection, and I love it. So far…at least until others read the interviews. lol. :) thank you, for this helpful post.
I love learning about the author if I’ve enjoyed the book. I was fascinated to learn that the author of The Snow Queen not only spent her life in Alaska (lending such credibility to the book) but worked in an independent bookstore where she stumbled across a Russian fairy tale that was the inspiration for her book.
I have been interviewed online for blogs, with questions submitted beforehand on email, and on podcasts where every question was a surprise. I love public speaking, but being comfortable with a medium and being good at it can often be too different things! I am far better with considered preparation than I am with winging it, where I tend to ramble. It has been a very good lesson to me to listen to myself afterwards and realize I don’t sound quite as erudite as I imagined!
Great post, Sophie!
Hi Deborah, and thanks for your comments. Yes, a spoken word interview is rather different–you often don’t really get the chance to reflect on an answer, as you do via email! It’s very easy to get ‘stage fright’ too in those circumstances. I try to think of it as just a chat and adopt a philosophical attitude towards it as far as possible..and actually I think we tend to be a lot more critical of how we sound ourselves than other people listening do. It’s funny how often I’ve thought, oh dear, I’ve really stumbled through that radio interview only to have people who have heard me say, wow, you sounded so cool and calm and coherent, how do you do it? :-)
I’ve started doing interviews of poets (and some artists) on my blog, with a mixture of tailored and standard questions. I find that having read the source material and/or looking deeper into the poet’s career history helps me to formulate questions that are best suited to that poet. Otherwise, the questions veer toward the more generic, which is fine but not as interesting to me.
I’ve only been interviewed myself once by Laura Madeline Wiseman for her chapbook interview series. I liked how, although she did the interview by email, she only sent a couple of questions at a time, which made it feel less overwhelming and more conversational.
I agree with you. A few well pointed questions are far better than many! I aim for 4 or 5 questions, not more, but reserving for myself the possibility to send out more questions on the basis of the answers. That leads to an exchange of emails (usually) which is much better!
I agree, Andrea–knowing the author’s work makes a big difference to how an interview is conducted. I know myself how much more satisfying it is, as an author, to get relevant questions, and it makes for much more interesting answers!
Generally, if I’m interviewing someone whose work I’m not familiar with, it’s because of something else in their career–for example, in the last few days, I’ve started a series of interviews with Australian writers who have been resident in an arts council studio in Paris–the uniting theme there is the experience of writing in Paris, and as I know that experience myself, having done just that, I can tailor the questions according to that theme, rather than specifically on each writer’s work.
Excellent post and I hope you can find the time to come and give some answers – danamcneely wrote (see above):
“You mentioned that many interviews are conducted by email, so I’m assuming yours are as well? Do you send the authors a list of questions, or is there more of a back and forth exchange of emails? In reading some of your author interviews, it seems there is more of a logical flow to the Q&A than I would expect possible, unless the interview were in person.”
In connection with that assumption, I was wondering whether indeed you edit the interview afterwards, adjusting the logic and flow of questions, even adding more questions if the answers are too long? I do that because I’m aiming for an easy-to-read interview that reads more like a dialogue (if possible) but sometimes I worry that I could be editing too much! Your views?
Hi Claude, and thank you for your comments. I do edit the interviews but only generally for typos or other such errors–and if the answers are a little long, either I break them into more digestible paras, or, if they seem to contain two answers, as it were, I might slip in another header question, but it is very rare that I’ve had to do that. The authors I’ve interviewed have been really coherent and focussed so I haven’t had to do much editing at all. my whole aim with the interviews is to have the author’s voice out there, as natural as possible.
Interesting topic, Sophie. I’ve only conducted one interview and had trouble deciding on the questions. Luckily the interviewee was a friend and during our conversation (we met in a coffeeshop) gently suggested topics to discuss.
I thought I’d hate being interviewed, but I love it! My first interview was for radio and the interviewer told me he would be able to edit bloopers out, and then immediately made a big mistake himself. Great way to make me relax! And after all, it’s fun to talk about your book with people who are interested.
I’ve done live interviews for podcasts as well as the email interviews, but the most challenging for me is twitterviews. The questions come fast and furious, not just from the interviewer but also from everyone else who is “listening in”. Scary but exhilarating.
Interesting interplay here between advocates and critics of the interview process and it success or failure as a reader attraction. I have not considered searching for an interview of an author whose work I have just read. Isn’t the interview similar to the appendixes and author comments found at the conclusions of the book?
Learn from doing. That’s great. It opens the door to so many levels of learning. Thanks for the insights.