An Interview with Erin Lale: Author, Entrepreneur, Artist & Publisher

 

Sylvia: Welcome Erin. Please give our readers an introduction of yourself and a little about your book.

Erin Lale

Photo Credit: Erin Lale

Erin: My name is Erin Lale and I am originally from California. I was a farmer as a teen. I was Oakes Valedictorian of UC-Santa Cruz. I moved to Nevada in 1995 to open The Science Fiction Store, an independent book and gift store in Las Vegas. In 2002, my mother Meta retired from being a public school teacher in Sonoma, California and moved to the Green Valley area of Henderson.

I am an author, artist, and publisher. I am the Acquisitions Editor at a book publishing company, and write political commentary for the Las Vegas Guardian Express.  I served on the Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Advisory Board, where I initiated an action by the Board which successfully blocked a move by the DMV to deny driver’s licenses to people who had received “any counseling services”, including marriage counseling. I stood up for common sense and your civil liberties.

I was the founding Chairman of City Lights Artists’ Co-op, and a member of the Desert Quilters of Nevada, the St. Rose Women’s Healing with Rhythm Drum Circle, and the Ethnic Express Folk Dancers. I’ve published a quarterly print magazine, invented technical processes in wireless communications technology, directed the art film Rain Dance, taught Russian at a university, competed in martial arts tournaments, and won the Double Ruby Award from the National Forensic League. I am a Renaissance woman and universal genius.

 

Sylvia: Wow, you are an interesting woman. What inspired you to write your first book?

Erin: The first one I wrote? Don’t remember, I was a teenager. The first one I published? Um, that was a poetry chapbook in college, wrote the poems because I was going to school in a country where there was nothing to do at night (The Soviet Union. Yeah, I’m an old fart.) The first one that was a success! That was my nonfiction book, “Asatru for Beginners,” which grew out of the FAQ file on a website I managed, the old MSN Asatru group.

 

Sylvia: OK! Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

Erin: The last novel series I wrote, Punch, which is 7 books, deals with a lot of different issues, but the unifying message is that if you keep striving eventually you’ll be successful. Just maybe not in what you thought it was going to be.

 

Sylvia: Very interesting Erin! Do you have any advice for other writers?

Cassandra's Time Yarn by Erin Lale

Image Credit: Erin Lale

Erin: I recently became the Acquisitions Editor at Eternal Press and Damnation Books. The number one mistake writers make when submitting their books for publication is not following directions. If the submission guidelines say doc or rtf formats, then send the book in those formats. If the guidelines say closed to short story submissions, then don’t send a collection of short stories.

 

Sylvia: You are right, it is so important to understand the requirements. Good practical advice! What marketing techniques have you used to sell your books and which ones have been most successful?

Erin: The two things that most contributed to the success of “Asatru For Beginners” was having a print edition and going on a book tour, which both happened in 2010 after 8 years as an eBook. Due to the books’ success, I’ve published 15 more books. This year, I published 2 collections of other authors’ short stories in the Time Yarns universe. I just released a universe trailer that was shot as a live action movie. It’s too soon to tell if it’s going to be wildly successful or not.

 

Sylvia: Why should we buy your book?

Erin: The two Time Yarns anthologies which I published in 2012, Anarchy Zone Time Yarns and Cassandra’s Time Yarns, are hard science fiction written by scientists. If you, like me, want to read more new science fiction like the kind that was published in the golden age, then these books are for you.

 

Sylvia: Is there a special place that you prefer when you write?

Erin: Well, I write on the computer, so I’m pretty much tied to where it is. I can’t use a laptop because I need to use a special screen for the visually impaired, and it’s non-portable.

 

Sylvia: What projects are you currently working on?

Erin: I actually haven’t had time to write since taking this editing job, but I was in the middle of a couple of science fiction projects and a nonfiction project that I’ll get back to eventually. I’m finished with the first draft of The Will, the story that began the Time Yarns universe, but it isn’t yet in publishable form. 

 

Sylvia: What is your POWER WORD?  Why this word?

Erin: I never really thought of that before. I guess I don’t have one.

 

Sylvia: Hmmm, no power word… OK!   Well, I want to thank you for sharing your life with us. Please leave your social media and book contact information.

Erin: This was fun, thank you Sylvia. My contact:

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