About Kim Boykin:
Kim Boykin was raised in her South Carolina home with two girly sisters and great parents. She had a happy, boring childhood, which sucks if you’re a writer because you have to create your own crazy. PLUS after you’re published and you’re being interviewed, it’s very appealing when the author actually lived in Crazy Town or somewhere in the general vicinity.
As a stay-at-home mom, Kim started writing, grabbing snip-its of time in the car rider line or on the bleachers at swim practice. After her kids left the nest, she started submitting her work, sold her first novel at 53, and has been writing like crazy ever since.
Her books are well reviewed and, according to RT Book Reviews, feel like they’re being told across a kitchen table. She is the author of The Wisdom of Hair from Berkley, Steal Me, Cowboy and Sweet Home Carolina from Tule, and Palmetto Moon, also from Berkley 8/5/14. While her heart is always in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, she lives in Charlotte and has a heart for hairstylist, librarians, and book junkies like herself.
What inspires you to write?
I’m hooked on readers. I love telling stories, something I’d do anyway even if I didn’t have readers. But I LOVE people who live though and love story, and when they like my work, I turn into Sally Field. Then everything, the deadlines, the marketing (yeah, most of us have to do our own marketing,) the bare cupboards, the dog hair piling up on the floor, the laundry that refuses to do itself, all of that is SO WORTH IT!
Tell us about your writing process.
I’m a pantser, which means I hear a voice, usually the protagonist’s, and I just take off with no idea of where the story is going or how it will end. It is a very ethereal process I have learned to trust. That voice that comes from wherever Story lives, knows everything and when I try to step in and make things happens, things usually go to hell. So I trust the voice. If you hear the voices, you should trust them too. Not everyone (thank God) was mean to write a 75 page outline to produce a novel.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
I talk out dialogue and scenes, usually in the car. For some reason, some of my best scenes or lines have come when I was running errands or on the beach. Only I don’t talk out the dialogue on the beach because unless you have a Bluetooth people think your nuts, and I am. In a good way.
What advice would you give other writers?
Writing is something you do for the world but you do for yourself. If you want your stories to be heard, NEVER give up. Took me 15 years to get a publishing contract. With self-pub book on the NYT bestseller list all the time and small publishers who really understand the business better than the big guys, and with the big guys still buying a ton of first time authors, there has NEVER been a better time to publish than NOW! HOWEVER write your best book. Don’t rush to get it out there.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
I’d always gone the traditional route, and by the time I got there, things had changed a lot. Unless you get a six figure deal, large publishers expect you to market your book and sell yourself. By the time I did land a contract, with all the time and resources I put behind that first book, I probably would have grown faster self-publishing. But being published by the Big 6 does bring street cred for things like book festivals and some forms of news media.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
Like I said, there has NEVER been a better time to publish than NOW! I think the little guys have a better handle on the business and will continue to chip away at the market place for their share. Self-publishing isn’t going away, not with so many traditionally published authors getting their rights back and reissuing their books themselves and the ease for anyone to get a book out there. I think a better question is how do we foster reading. Try selling a book and you’ll find out how many people just don’t read period. It’s shocking to me and sad.
What genres do you write?: contemporary romance, women’s fiction
What formats are your books in?: eBook
Website(s)
Kim Boykin Home Page Link
Link To Kim Boykin Page On Amazon
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