After I have drafted out a new book, and about three or four months before it is published, I have got a fair idea of how the cover should be. Although I'm also an artist, I'm not a graphic artist, so I use a specialist in the US to come up with the final design. So far it has been a good relationship. I can then publicise the book launch, and already have the cover displayed!
In the design, I'm always aware that it must be simple, and contrasty so that shows up well as a thumbnail.

Adventure and thrillers are my favourites. I've just been reading some of Peter Temple's books. In my opinion he is one of the world's best authors. He lives in Australia and his stories take place there. And there are dozens of first class American authors that I read.

I am ashamed to say that I read ebooks on my laptop. Perhaps someone will buy me a kindle or similar for Xmas.

Use of social media is an absolute necessity, and I always launch a book with a free download period. The theory is that every reader tells two others.

Empty except for a laptop, and facing the wall! I also have a notebook for jotting notes after research on the web.

Originally in the late eighties, but I was unable to find a publisher. On reflection I don't think my books were good enough. I then shelved the idea, and began writing again in 2012, this time self-publishing. But I do use a professional editor.

The love of writing, and the difficulty of interesting a publisher as a new author.

One of the easiest platforms to use, and terrific coverage especially in the USA.

Trying to make the every book better than the one before. Honing the direct speech, describing the characters in as few words as possible, but drip feeding extra information as the story goes forward. That is how it happens in real life, too. To start a novel with a whole fresh story to plot and to get the reader carried along, and then, when the first draft is finished to decide where to bring in extra dramatic moments to push the plot along.It's not work, it is sheer pleasure. I don't force myself to write a set number of words every day, as I know some authors do, but to limit how many words I write, so that I can have a life!

Fans are the most important thing about writing books. If you don't have fans, you've got a job to spread the word!

The next book I'm already working on, is due to be published in spring 2015, will be the 3rd book in the John McBride series.
John is searching for a missing man, in a Russian prison camp.The name of the book is FIND MY BROTHER.

Mark Twain, whose Tom Sawyer books I read in junior school. As an adult thriller authors, Chandler, Robert Parker, Michael Connelly, and one of the best living authors, Peter Temple, who lives in Australia, although he is a South African

The joy of being alive. And of course to carry on writing.

Through the web, although I am bombarded with emails from supermarkets that are marketing ebooks.

Sure do! About a guy who is on the run from the police for a murder he didn't do. It was never published

I think about a plot, often a plot that just crops up in the course of reading the newspapers. I might mull it over for a few weeks. I find that thinking is helped by walking, and I walk every day, even when it rains. And whilst I'm walking I think about the plot, for instance can I get enough words out of it? All my books now are around 80,000 words. As I develop it in my head, and it seems as if it might work, then I jot a few notes, then a broad outline. Once I'm at that stage, I might start writing, chapter at a time, each chapter as a different word document at first. My books have about forty chapters which come in at about 1,500 to 3,000 words each.

Tom Sawyer. Wow, I can remember the thrill of that book. And after that, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, which I read in just about one day when it was raining in school holidays. I was eight years old at the time. I think it was these two books that made me realise there was a world of books that beat comics to hell.