Tuesday Chit-Chat with Mandy Baggot

This post comes with a Public Health Warning – it’s fast and dynamic, just like Mandy herself and at the end of it, you’ll need to sit down and catch your breath!  I really don’t know where she gets all her energy and enthusiasm from. 🙂

Over to you, Mandy …

First off, I have to say that I am a HUGE Romaniac fan! You ladies are brilliant and I am left completely entertained after every post! It is an honour to be invited into your posse for the day!

 

So, what has been happening in my world lately? Well, I am still touring! Taking Charge, my first novel with Sapphire Star Publishing came out on 3 May and it’s been doing really well in the UK, in Germany and in particular, the US. Off the back of this success I’ve been asked to do another blog tour! YAY! So for the whole of September I will be bouncing around the US (unfortunately not physically but virtually) giving you fun interviews, writing tips and telling you a few things about Lady B you might not know! You can find out all the details of the tour stops on my websitewww.mandybaggot.webs.com

 [Sue : just butting in here – I’ve read Taking Charge and really enjoyed it – a real page turner and would thoroughly recommend it.]

As for bookstore signings, well, as most of you know Waterstones have reviewed their criteria for author signings and this is really going to change things for me. Unfortunately, I am not going to be able to travel the country signing at stores now. The main bullet points of the new criteria are:-

 

A bookseller must be in attendance at each signing (i.e. authors must not leave the table and approach customers)

The signing should not be longer than 2 hours – if there are people waiting to see an author then it can continue until the last person in the queue has been seen.

 

Even if I was able to secure a signing at a store, with travelling time and costs it wouldn’t be viable to be at a store for only two hours. I have met some fantastic people on my travels in 2012 and I’m really gutted that I won’t be able to get out and meet the readers as much as I want. However, I do still have two signings – Waterstones Fareham andWaterstones Portsmouth – and a big thank you to them for honouring the events. All the details are on my website and if you can make it I would love to see you!

 

Lady B hit the number one spot! Yes, my novel Knowing Me Knowing You hit the number one spot on the Amazon Top 100 Free chart in July. And not only did it reach #1 in the UK, I was also #1 in France and Germany too! There is nothing like being #1 I can tell you! These type of promotions are an essential for authors like myself because it encourages readers to try a new writer they might not have heard of, or considered before and hopefully when they read it and love it, they will buy my other books. That seems to be what happens – can’t believe there are people they haven’t heard of me though – perhaps I need to be a bit more interactive LOL! Oooo and I was also in Woman magazine back in June! How exciting to be the Hot Read of the Week – that made me feel like a proper author!

 

I will be taking part in the Festival of Romance again this year! Yes, last year I wowed everyone dressed as a chicken – who knows what outfit I might don this year! The Festival of Romance is taking place in Bedford this year from Friday 16th November -Sunday 18th November. I will be signing books at the Romance Fair at the Corn Exchange on the Saturday and Saturday evening you can catch me at the Rock Star party reading an extract from Strings Attached! I’ve also entered two of my books in the awards. Taking Charge is up for Best Romantic Read and Strings Attached is up for Best Self-Published novel. Fingers crossed!

 

If you love reading, are a writer or have writing aspirations do try and come along – the Romance Fair and theReadathon are FREE events and you can check out the whole agenda here http://festivalofromance.co.uk/#/festival-2012/4558272777

 

As we speak I am in the process of finishing my sixth novel, Security! I am really excited about this novel as it’s a little bit different from anything I’ve written before. The main characters are pop princess Autumn Raine and her newly-appointed bodyguard, Nathan Regan. Autumn is quite a character – she’s confident and assured on stage but away from the limelight she is weak and vulnerable and very much in need of TLC. Nathan is a career soldier who wears his heart firmly wrapped up in Kevlar. He is hired to protect Autumn when a terrorist group threatens to kidnap her. There are guns and kidnap attempts, music, a small island retreat and a Jamaican woman who can cook a mean chicken and handle an automatic weapon! Has that intrigued you enough? Well you’ll probably going to have to wait until 2013 I’m afraid!