Since my novels are a murder mystery series, I try to portray something that relates to the overall premise of the book, as well as keeps a trendy, modern look that matches the series and the main character, Natalie North. I want an eye catching, contemporary cover that stands out.

Although I find nonfiction books helpful and interesting, if I'm reading for pleasure I prefer a good fiction book. I enjoy crime and murder mysteries, but I also like a book that has good humor woven throughout the story. Pure entertaining, fun stories.

The book marketing techniques that have worked best for me are social media (my author website, my global online fashion/style/beauty magazine, my Facebook Public Figure/Author page and my Twitter account). I use them all to plug my books and myself as an author. I have also appeared on LifeTime television (The Balancing Act) that has a wide viewer audience and helped to sell my first novel and establish my name as an author.

The greatest joy of writing for me is how it allows me to use my creativity and my imagination. When you write a novel, you drive the entire story, come up with the entire story, build each character and bring them to life, come up with every line of dialogue, etc. Basically, you create your own world and all of the people in it, along with their jobs, their interactions, their preferences, etc. This starts on the first page and carries through all the way to the last page. Knowing that every single word on that page (which tells a complete story) came out of your own head and imagination is amazing.

I will say though, that as a writer, once I establish the first page or so of the novel, the characters begin to take over and write their own story. Nancy as the author disappears, and I let the characters build their own story by taking their own journey and reciting their own dialogue! It truly does work this way!

My fans mean everything to me as a writer. Writing novels wouldn't be nearly as rewarding if I just left them in my computer, or only read them myself. My fans allow me to make a living as a writer, and knowing that I am entertaining them and bringing them pleasure, suspense, humor, etc. when they read my books makes it all worthwhile. I give a sincere thank you to all the readers of my Natalie North books! Natalie rocks! My fans rock! It's a win-win!

I am currently working on the next Natalie North novel, since my books are a murder mystery series. I am having so much fun seeing where the characters take me each day!

My desk would probably surprise you. The only thing that sits on my desk is my computer. I am not an author who makes notes or writes an outline or a draft. The research that I do to make sure the facts are correct are in a notepad I keep near my desk for when I need them. When I write each page of my novel, each word comes out of my head and is built from the characters. Each page of a novel needs to move the story along, so when I start a new chapter all I know in my head is the pivotal points needed in that chapter to move the story along. I then let the characters take over and do their job. Often times a chapter will veer in a different direction than I had envisioned, or new characters enter that I didn't yet know existed, etc. So I don't write with any notes whatsoever. I think this makes for a more interesting story for both the readers and for me as the author when I work on the book.

Good writing, good weather and good food! I'm also a fashion plate, so fun clothes help!

I've always enjoyed writing and knew that it was something that I was good at and came easy to me. I started writing short stories and creative stories when I was around 11 or 12 years old. I even preferred essay tests over multiple choice tests in school because they were easy for me since I enjoyed writing.

The first story I ever wrote was titled "Joe's Book of Love." I was a young girl and I wrote it for my sister!