Anna Hackett talks romance, action and aliens

This is Episode 10 of Write with Love.

Are you a fan of Lara Croft? How about Indiana Jones or Alien? Anna Hackett is putting the ‘act’ into action romance!

If you like what you see you can become a patron for just a couple of dollars a month. Go to http://www.patreon.com/Sarahwilliamsauthor

Transcript:

Sarah Williams:            Good day! I’m Sarah Williams, romance author and independent publisher at Serenade Publishing. Today I’m talking to action/romance author, Anna Hackett. Thanks for joining me, Anna.

Anna Hackett:              Thanks, Sarah. It’s super fun to be here.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey to publication?

Anna Hackett:              Sure thing. I was never one of those kids that wanted to be a writer, you know? I’ve met so many writers since I’ve started who grew up wanting to be writers and writing stories since they could hold a pen, but that wasn’t me. I was a reader and a big romance reader, so I’ve always been reading. I’ve always got a book and now a Kindle with me. Yeah, so that’s where my passion for writing came from. Yeah, just one day I decided maybe I’d have a try at writing a story of my own. At the time I was working full time as a mining engineer. That was my first career. Yeah, so, I sort of did that on weekends and did my writing on weekends outside of work, and I ended up getting some stories published with Harlequin. I was writing paranormal romance and short stories at the time, so with their Nocturne line. That was a really experience working with an editor, cover artist, all that kind of stuff.

Anna Hackett:              I then switched to writing for Carina Press, which is another imprint of Harlequin, and that’s where I started writing my science fiction romance through there. Yeah, and then finally that’s when self publishing was really starting to explode, and I thought, “Oh, I might dip my toes in these waters and see what this was all about,” so I did self publish some novellas just to … and it was novellas writing what I really love to write and that was action romance, so for me, I finally got the chance to sit down and just write what I really wanted to write, rather than trying to fit in with guidelines for a particular imprint or particular line with a publisher. That was super fun and I loved it.

Anna Hackett:              By then, I was starting to get some readers reading my books, and I really wanted to get the books out to them faster. I think the last book with my publisher had taken over a year from when I sold it to it actually releasing and I thought, “I think I can do this a bit quicker and get some more of these stories that I wanted to write out.” Yeah, and that’s where it started and I’ve never looked back. Now I left my full time job as an engineer two years ago or just over two years ago. Yeah, like I said, not looking back, so full time author now and loving it.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. Congratulations on being a full time author. I know that’s a big step a lot of people aspire to do, so yeah! You write science fiction and action.

Anna Hackett:              Yay! Yeah.

Sarah Williams:            Tell us what writing is, you know, science fiction and action, how is that?

Anna Hackett:              I guess I’ve always loved action movies, you know? I always joke that my husband is the luckiest husband in the world, because we never fight over what movie we’re going to go and see at the movies. We always want to see the same thing. I’ve always loved action movies, but I’ve always read romance. I used to read a lot of action adventure thrillers as well, but they never had enough romance in them. That was probably one of those things that really spurred me to write my own. Often a lot of the romances I read, while they were great stories, didn’t quite have that action and adventure feel that I wanted in them. You know, for me it was writing the stories that I couldn’t always find or couldn’t find easily. Yeah, I was reading a lot of paranormal romance, because they tend to have a lot more action and stuff going on.

Anna Hackett:              Yeah, and then I fell into, you know, I’d always been a sci-fy fan, but I fell into reading some science fiction romance, which tends to be a small genre. You know it hasn’t had its hay-day yet like paranormal romance or contemporary romance. But yeah, you just get to let your imagination run wild. Yeah, and coming from an engineering background, you know, doing a little science research isn’t too difficult, not that science fiction romance are packed pull of science. I think a lot of people are afraid to pick them up and try them, because they think they’re going to get a science lecture or something, but it’s not like that at all. Yeah, so, now two of my main series are science fiction romance. Then I also have a contemporary action adventure. I like to call them my Indiana Jones romances, so treasure hunting and that kind of thing in modern day. The first book’s set in Egypt and there’s some set in South America. They’re all over the place.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. What’s that book called?

Anna Hackett:              Yeah, so I’m having lots of fun with that and writing, I guess what I was … Treasure Hunter Security is the series and Undiscovered, the first book, which is currently free at the moment, so, yeah, but not forever, but it is free at the moment, Undiscovered, yeah. We have a group of security specialists, former Navy Seals of course, who are providing security for archeological digs and exhibitions at museums and expeditions into jungles and mountains, and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I have lots of fun. I get to put a little ancient history in there as well, so that’s always fun too, so yeah.

Sarah Williams:            Fantastic. Tell me. Do you like having heroic males? Is it the male who’s doing all the running, and chasing, and bombing, and, you know, the fun stuff? Or do the girls get to do a bit too?

Anna Hackett:              No, the girls get to do their fair share as well. Yeah, look, I like to say I have strong heroes. They’re not always the alfa male soldier, but I’ve got a fair few of those, but I do like to mix it up a bit. But, yeah, and then I like to always say I have smart heroine, so they get to do their fair share of saving the day, saving the hero sometimes, and defeating the bad guys, so yeah. I think there’s a good mix in there. I have a few kick-but heroines as well, not all of them, but yeah, a few of them can hold their own with the guys as well.

Sarah Williams:            Fantastic. You’re a prolific writer. You try and get one out every couple of months. Now, how do you do that when I know you’re a mom and a wife as well. How do you manage to write so prolifically?

Anna Hackett:              Yeah, so, I average about one a month or so. Yeah, so it keeps me pretty busy. I’ve worked up to that. I tell new authors that I talk to, I didn’t just wake up one day and decide I was going to write a book a month and bam, I could do that. You know, like anything in life, you need to do that bit of training and start making it a regular habit, and then you can start increasing that word count every day. For me, now it’s a full time job, so I write when my boys are at school and daycare. I do work around their schedule. That’s not to say that there aren’t some nights when everyone’s gone to bed and I’m staying up to catch up on a deadline that I’m behind on, or get up early to get an hour of writing in before I get the boys up to get them to school. But yeah, it’s just building that habit. It’s writing every day or editing every day.

Anna Hackett:              I do, do some dictation now. That doesn’t necessarily mean I write faster, but it means I’m not always on the keyboard. It helps save my hands. You know if you’re writing. My books are also shorter, so I call them short novels. They’re around 50,000 words. Yeah, I do 50,000 words every month. I do a NaNoWriMo every month essentially, so yeah, I don’t sign up for NaNoWriMo. Yeah, so look, like anything, if you do a little bit every day, and then you get to the end of the month, the book’s done. Yeah, I love what I do and I think that’s the key thing. If I was writing something I didn’t love, I don’t think I would be able to keep it up and love what I’m doing. You know people talk about burning out and I think that happens if you’re doing things that aren’t, I guess, feeding your passion, or feeding your soul, or all those things that make you really happy. I write what I love to write.

Anna Hackett:              I have rabid readers that are always waiting for the next one, so they keep me very motivated as well. Knowing that they’re counting down to the next book helps. I also, I’m juggling multiple series, so that means that I can move from one, you know, do one or two books in one series, and switch and write one or two books in another series, so that keeps it fresh for me. I can go from a contemporary action adventure romance, sort of romantic suspense, and then the next month I’m writing, you know, about post-apocalyptic alien invasion is one of my other series that’s set in Australia actually. Then the next month I’m writing something completely different as well, so I think that helps too. If I was writing books in the same series every month, I think that would get boring after a while, so I’m lucky that I can move between the series, so yeah.

Sarah Williams:            Do you find your readers read just the series they like or they like all your series? How does that work for them, do you know?

Anna Hackett:              I have found that in general the core group of my readers go between all my series. I think part of that is, you know part of what I offer when you pick up an Anna Hackett book is that there’s action, there’s adventure, there’s romance, there’s the strong heroes, there’s the smart heroines, and that’s the same whether the series is, you know, got space ships in it or not. Some of them, I hear a lot of comments where they’ve come in from one series and they loved it, and they were afraid to try one of my other series, because they didn’t think they’d like it. Then they have, and they’ve loved it, and they’ve gone on to read everything else. Yeah, I’m sure there’s some people that just stick to a certain series, and there’s some people that say, you know, they love this, but they’re not really science fiction readers, so yeah. But I’m lucky that the vast majority of them do go across all the series.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent.

Anna Hackett:              Which is great.

Sarah Williams:            Your readers seem to be really important to you. Are they from around the world, or are they just Australian based, or how do you connect with them?

Anna Hackett:              Majority of my readership is in the US and I guess for me, you know, I started with, my editor was in New York. I started with Harlequin and then moved to Carina Press, so I was, you know, I’ve always written with American spelling. I was actually living in the US when I started writing so, I’ve always switched between the spellings. That’s never bothered me. When I started self publishing, I just made the decision to stick with that. Most of my readers, a lot of them are surprised when they hear I’m Australian, so they don’t realize initially that, you know? You know, it hasn’t been part of my brand, because I haven’t necessarily been writing stories set in Australia, or rural romance, or things like that, that have a very Aussie flavor.

Anna Hackett:              I do have one series, which is, like I said, set in an alien invasion and it is set in a destroyed Australia just outside of Sydney, so I get to put a few little Aussie-isms in that. But, you know it’s a little futuristic, so the world sort of, people are traveling a lot more, so it’s got a real mix of nationalities in the series. Yeah, so most of my readers are in the US. My next biggest reader group is the UK, and then Australia. That’s just the way it’s panned out. Like, I’ve never targeted particular readers in any particular location. That’s just who’s found my books and picked them up. I obviously have a mailing list and they hear from me a couple of times a month, so when I have a new book out, and then usually mid-month when I’m doing a cover reveal for that book. I like to run lots of fun give-aways related to the books, usually signed paperbacks. Readers seem to love signed paperbacks.

Anna Hackett:              You know I try and find fun things related to my books. I have a series centered around gladiators in space, so I found an awesome gladiator calendar. That was our last giveaway. They loved that. I also have a Facebook reader group, which I started beginning of this year. We’re not even a year old yet, but the one year anniversary will be coming up in January, and they are brilliant, so a really great group. We have lots of fun in there. I do share like little exclusive, behind the scenes stuff. They get a few early exclusive teasers, that kind of thing, so they’re awesome. They keep me super motivated, and yeah, they’re always asking when the next book’s out, can they get a peek of it, can they read the first chapter. Also, sharing things like, you know, images they think match certain heroes or heroines in my stories, fan art, all that kind of stuff, fan fiction. Sometimes they write. There are a few in there that write some fan fiction scenes, so lots of fun.

Anna Hackett:              Readers are important. For me, that’s the reason I am here. You know, I write the stories I love to write, but it is so much fun when you’ve got people who actually want to read those stories, so yeah. Yeah, so for me, every decision I make is what makes it easier for my reader. You know, I have some series that are available at all retailers, Amazon, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Google Play Books. I also have some that are exclusive to Amazon. I have a good readership in Kindle Unlimited as well, so I try to do a balance. I try to run some series through Kindle Unlimited before they go wide, that kind of thing, because I want to make sure I’ve got things available for all the readers, and make it easier for all of the readers.

Anna Hackett:              Yeah, I tend to make decisions based on what’s best for my reader, not necessarily what’s best for me. That’s really worked out for me as well. I hear so many authors sometimes, arguing points about what’s better for them as an author, and you do need to consider that, but, yeah, at the end of the day for me, doing what’s best for my readers has been what’s best for me too, so yeah.

Sarah Williams:            That’s some really brilliant advice, and yeah, you’ve got to keep those readers in mind, don’t you? They’re your bread and butter. That’s who you’re trying to get it to. I know you’ve gone a step further and you’ve done some merchandise that’s available through your website. I was having a look and that’s just brilliant. Tell me about that.

Anna Hackett:              Yeah, well that’s been quite recent, again just this year. I had readers asking, you know, they were really keen to have t-shirts, and mugs, and all that kind of stuff. I did finally get organized and I actually commissioned an artist to do some custom artwork for some of my characters in one of my main series, Hell Squad, so some brilliant artwork. I’ve got all the original actual paintings. She paints the originals and then we make prints. I’ve got the artwork available, and then some of those, I obviously have the commercial rights for, so that I can put them on mugs or put them, so my phone case. I have a Hell Squad phone case with some of my characters. My mousepad that goes with me everywhere, to the coffee shops, and wherever when I’m writing. T-shirts, you know, a whole bunch of different things, and a lot of it the readers requested. You know, “Can we have a t-shirt? Can we have a phone cover for this? Can we do this?”

Anna Hackett:              I tried to get a good little mix of products available. I use Zazzle. There’s a few different stores that offer the blank products, and then you can add the images too. You know, you only make a few percent royalties, but again, for me it wasn’t about that. It was more for having something cool and fun for the readers to purchase, and I can also get those to do giveaways and cool stuff for the readers too. Yeah, so that’s been lots of fun. I’m just waiting on some more custom artwork now to do for one of my other series, so we’ll put a few things in there for some of the other series as well, so yeah, lots of fun.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. That’s brilliant, because we hear so often, especially as indies, how we need multiple streams of income, and you know, that’s another one that is just a great initiative on your behalf that you’ve done that. That’s really clever. What’s on your artwork? Your covers are just beautiful? Do you design those yourself, or, I mean do you have time?

Anna Hackett:              No. Artwork and graphics is not my area of expertise, so I leave that to the experts. I do, do some of my own teasers leading up to a release. The week before, I’ll do a few teasers on Facebook, so I know enough to be dangerous, and I know enough to really plague my cover artist, but she’s pretty patient with me. Yeah, I had worked with a couple of artists, and then Melody Simmons does the majority of my covers now. We’ve got a pretty good … She knows what I like and I know the kind of thing she can do, so yeah. But I do give her … You know, I like to have come up with a good concept, and idea, and branding for a particular series. Then I get her input as well. I do have a fair bit of input into what I want them to look like and how I want the series to be branded. Then I throw all that at her and she works her magic.

Anna Hackett:              Yeah, so I love it. I love having that input into the covers and I spend a lot of time looking at covers in my genre, and covers that I like, covers that are selling well, covers that readers are obviously responding to, and putting together a cover that I think gives the right feel for my story. I think a lot of times covers can get quite busy, because we’re trying to recreate a scene from the book or match it to the book too much. I think, you know, it’s got to be something simple that grabs peoples’ attention up front and communicates what’s inside that book very quickly.

Anna Hackett:              If you can get that simple message across quickly and get the right feel for your story, I think that resonates with readers more, because I mean, nowadays readers are looking at a tiny little picture of your cover on Amazon or whatever website they’re on. They’re not looking at it beautiful and big like we do and we’re looking at drafts from our cover designer. You’ve got to make sure that you’re … I shrink mine down. I color them black and white. I make sure I look at them in lots of different ways to make sure that they’re popping the way that I want them to, so yeah. Then I have some fun as well.

Sarah Williams:            They are. They’re gorgeous, and you must keep her very, very busy, your designer.

Anna Hackett:              Luckily she is so fast, so she turns a cover around in a day or two for me. But like I said, we’ve been working together a couple of years now, and she knows what I like and what I don’t like, and she can quickly put something together, and it’s generally spot on. Although, I am prone to, then right before a cover reveal, “Can we just tweak one more thing or add one more thing,” so that’s where I think I drive her a bit crazy, but she always comes out with a great design at the end, which is awesome.

Sarah Williams:            That’s it. You’ve got a professional cover designer. Do you have a professional editor as well? Do you get everything professionally edited before you put it out?

Anna Hackett:              I do, and I’ve been working with her for several years now, so she’s in Canada. My cover designer’s in South Africa. My editor is in Canada. She’s a former Harlequin editor who went freelance. Yeah, so, you know, I’ve been working with her a long time as well. I mean, I think that’s part of the self publishing, you know? You’re essentially creating your own business and over time you develop relationships with people. For me, I make sure that I pay everyone up front, and I give them good instructions, and I’m very professional about that, because I want them to keep wanting to work with me.

Anna Hackett:              Yeah, my editor’s been very understanding when I am getting close to a deadline and I’m a few days behind. She’s gotten used to that, but this year especially, I’ve made more of an effort to make sure I’m on time. I haven’t always. Usually I get thrown off, you know, if I’ve got a sick child, or there’s some other disaster I hadn’t planned for on the personal side of things. Writing a book a month, you know, if I miss a few days, I do get behind, so I’ve got to, yeah, sometimes do some acrobatics to get back onto my schedule. But I have a great editor and she is, like I said, we’ve been working together a long time, and she knows how I work and I know how she works. We’ve got it sort of running pretty smoothly now.

Sarah Williams:            That’s fantastic, and yeah, very few independent authors do everything themselves. We’ve got to use the professionals for things like that, so it’s brilliant. Excellent. Alright, well, thank you so much for that today.

Anna Hackett:              I think too …

Sarah Williams:            Yep?

Anna Hackett:              I was just going to say to your point of not doing everything yourself, and I think that’s an important point, because we need to be writing the books, and there are some business things that we obviously need to take care of as well. But you know you need to use the professionals. Sometimes you need to clear things off your plate as well, so you can focus on getting the next book finished, because that is the thing that’s going to have the biggest impact for your readers and the biggest impact for your writing and your business as well, is to get that next book out. That’s what I’ve tried to do is prioritize. You know, the vast majority of my time is spent on writing the next book, and not doing things that don’t always add any value or, you know, are time consuming, or I can get somebody else to do for me. Yeah, my team of people that I have around me are vitally important.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, that is fantastic. Well, thank you so much for that and where can we find you online?

Anna Hackett:              My website’s my main point of contact, I guess, so that’s Annahackettbooks.com. I’ve got all my other contact stuff on there, but I’m on Facebook, and mainly my author page. I do post stuff on there. I also have my reader squad, which is my reader group and fantastic group. I love it in there. They’re super enthusiastic and they’re always in there posting stuff every day and we have a lot of giggles and a lot of fun. They’re great. I’m on Twitter as well. I like Twitter, so I get on there, and that’s more conversational or just sharing a few fun things that I see around on Twitter. Yeah, so I do pop into Twitter when I can. But they’re my main ones, and I’m not branching out into any other ones, because I don’t have any time. Everyone’s like, “Are you on Instagram?” I’m like, “I can’t add another one.” Facebook, and Twitter, and then my website.

Sarah Williams:            You’ve got a book a month to get out. You don’t have time.

Anna Hackett:              I do answer all my emails myself, so I do … That’s right. That’s right. But if anyone does email me, I do get back to them when I can, not always instantaneously, but you know, I do get a lot of reader emails too, so I make sure I get back to people via email as soon as I can.

Sarah Williams:            Fantastic, and I really …

Anna Hackett:              As soon as the words are done.

Sarah Williams:            I really recommend everyone goes and checks out her website, because it is just an absolutely brilliant website. I was just enraptured by all the beautiful pictures and lots of information, Q&As, and everything, so, you know, go and have a look. I think you give away a free box set as well, if people sign up to your mailing list?

Anna Hackett:              I do. It’s just a way for people to taste test my writing, I guess. I’ve got a book, it’s a box set of three books from three of my different series, so that way they can sort of dip their toe in and see if my writing suits them. Like I said, I email about twice a month, so usually with a cover reveal and a give-away, and then, you know, when I have a new book out. Yeah, so if anyone wants to sign up for my mailing list, then pop over there and I’ll send you your free box set.

Sarah Williams:            The covers …

Anna Hackett:              Yeah.

Sarah Williams:            Have muscly, gorgeous men on the covers, so they sell it right there.

Anna Hackett:              Because, why not? We all need a few muscly, gorgeous guys in there. Yeah, look, you know, as with my writer hat on, muscly chests help sell. They seem to capture readers’ attention. I put my reader hat on, I kind of like looking at them, so I’m not going to lie about that. It also suits my stories, you know? Some have girls on there too, so, but yeah, you know, I write a sexy heat level in my romance, so I think that’s reflected in the covers as well. Yeah, so, I like them.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. That’s it. Excellent. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time today, Anna.

Anna Hackett:              No problem. Thanks so much for having me, Sarah. Yeah, like I said, if anyone wants to get in touch, ask any questions, or sign up and grab my box set, then just pop over to Annahackettbooks.com, is where you can find me.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent, and I’ll put the links under the blog as well. Thank you so much. We’ll talk to you again soon.