Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that women are used to having to break a glass ceiling to get ahead.  Or maybe it’s because the category of self-pubbed books are just too good to be ignored (despite the fact that many traditional outlets had claimed that they would).  Whatever the reason, Heather Killough-Walden, author of the Big Bad Wolf series and The October Trilogy, is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author.

We thought we’d ask her how she did that.

Did you market and/or promote the book in a particular way?

Honestly, the only thing I did that was perhaps different from what other self published authors in my genre do was to price my books at $1.00 across the board. I also place teaser chapters at the end of some of them to give a glimpse of what is to come in the next book or another series. I have a newsletter list that I send updates out on for upcoming releases and I also have a facebook page where I let people know what is going on.

What do you think you did that made it such a success?

I have no idea. LOL I got lucky. This [romantic suspense] happens to be a smoking hot genre and I write smoking hot characters, particularly the hard and dominant but genuinely and deeply good male characters that so many women truly crave. I write from different points of view so that the reader can get to know each of the characters in a three-dimensional sense. I also tend toward the more on-going and intricate plot lines that require characters from prequels return in the subsequent novels. Readers apparently enjoy that a lot.

Is this your first book?

No, I have written more than a dozen novels. This one tends toward the later end of the spectrum and is also the third book in a series (The Big Bad Wolf series, of which the first two books are The Heat and The Strip, in that order).

Did you try and go the traditional publisher route?

With this series, yes I did attempt that at first. However, I was unsuccessful, so I posted to Amazon and the series took off. Now that it is so successful, I am skipping the print publisher route and simply heading straight to self online publishing with all of The Big Bad Wolf books.

Would you make a deal with a professional publisher (like Amanda Hocking did) if you were offered one?

I have a deal for another series through a print publisher, but this series will most likely remain an online self publication series.

If so, what do you think you could get from a trade publisher that you haven’t been able to already get on your own?

I think that a trade publisher is known for being able to deliver distribution that as of yet, the online market can not provide. However, this is changing very rapidly. Who knows when the tables will turn on this particular scenario.