Carol Moncado

Name: Carol Moncado

Location: Southwest Missouri

What you write/tagline/trademark: Romantic Dramedy in the Ozarks…and the Alps!

Place in the book world: Indie published with my own company, CANDID Publications. Still pursuing traditional publication with at least one manuscript and represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steve Laube Agency.

On a scale of hugger to 10-foot-pole, please rate your personal space: Hugs! Hugs! More hugs!

The unique talking point that will get you going for hours: Books, Dr. Who, NCIS, Big Bang Theory, my kids, indie publishing, American Government (I teach it, but let’s just not go there, m’kay? ;))

Loved ones at home you’ll be missing: Husband of 18 years, 4 kids (girls: 13, 11, 10; boy: 8), 5.3lb Shorkie who is my snuggle buddy, 48 students who will probably prefer watching the movie ;).

Conference goals we can pray for? My goal is to chill this year. (This is where I get really real.) I’m not pitching, but I’m also a bit worried about not being considered/accepted as a “real author” since I “went indie” instead of waiting for a traditional publisher. Now, my bank account, while begging me not to quit the day job, tends to say “you’re making money now – that makes you a real author!” ACFW, like most writing organizations, has a procedure to qualify authors who are strictly indie so they can enter things like contests, etc. I am THIS CLOSE to reaching that mark by the end of this month. If I do, I may be able to get qualified to be a “real author” at conference (more a question of timing than whether or not I’m qualified – it takes time to get approved). Most of the time, I’m pretty secure in my indie-ness. I’m trying hard not to be worried that others (mostly people I barely know, I’m sure) will think I went indie because I couldn’t hack it and wasn’t good enough for traditional publication. That’s not it (though I won’t get into the whys here), but it still bothers me…

Anything we can celebrate with you? I have had a GREAT first indie year. I’m THIS CLOSE to qualifying as an indie publisher with ACFW. I have six novels out, one releasing this weekend, a novella out, two more novellas coming by Thanksgiving, one more novel by Thanksgiving, and possibly one more by the end of the year. I’m not making the kind of cash where I can quit my day job, but it’s very likely I’ll double my non-writing income (which, given how part time I work, isn’t insanely hard), and I can dream about the day where I can write full time.

One or two ways we can help you build your platform? You can “follow” my Facebook profile (it’s my friend page, too, but following it means you won’t get all the local stuff like weather updates and snow days ;).) Plus you can sign up for my newsletter. I promise not to spam or give away emails, but will only send them out when there’s news – like sales, preorder special pricing, or a FREE novella coming this fall for newsletter subscribers! (And it’s a LONG novella too – nearly Heartsong length! Book 2.5 in the the Brides of Belles Montagnes series!)

So now what? Copy and paste the questions (or some subset thereof) into your own blog, paste the direct link in the comments here, then go to Laurie’s page and click the “An InLinkz Link-up” link to share it there – it’ll pop up with everyone else who’s participating!