Hi Andreina,

Thank you! I’m pushing to have them translated to Italian. I’m able to track my website hits and see what countries visit my site the most. Outside of the English speaking countries, Italy is the one who has the most visitors for me. The large increase from Italy happened around the time I released the short story Solo Tu (it is in English as well). I also posted on my reader groups about the music I listened to while writing it. Laura Pausini and Nek were the two artists I had on continued play. I honestly think this resulted in search engines finding my site. I think people came expecting one thing, found something else but stayed.

I have a great deal of creative input into my covers. I fill out a long form for the cover artists telling them what I have in mind and details about the character, the setting, the colors I’d like to see on it. Most of the time they try very hard to do something that is both sexy and what I was hoping for. Every now and again, they do something completely different from what I envisioned and it works perfectly for the book.

I do think readers are surprised at how normal my life is. Many will email to tell me that they have similar lives or that my day sounds so much like theirs that they felt as if they related to me instantly. Here is an example of just how normal I try to keep things for my children—we go to the bookstore and they’ll see my books on the shelves. They aren’t allowed to read my books but they do know what many of the covers look like. They’ll glance at the books, appearing very unenthused by the fact their mother’s books are on the bookshelf and they’ll run towards the section of the bookstore they like.

Also, my middle son had a children’s book author come to his school and sign books for the children. He was so excited to tell me she was coming that he rushed home, burst through the door yelling “Mom, Mom, I’m going to get to meet a real live author!” My oldest son proceeded to laugh, hysterically and ask him what he thought his mother was. The middle one replied “I don’t know like a hundred years old or something?”

There are many times my entire morning is spent under the dining room table, with sheets laid out over it and a flashlight because my youngest son decided he wanted to pretend we were in a cave and that he was a baby bear and I was the mommy bear. I’m not sure why he thinks bears use flashlights but with his imagination, I just nod my head and hold the flashlight.

Yes, we live very normally lives.

My husband is hoping he will be able to talk me into getting on a plane for the flight over to Italy. I only just worked up the nerve to start flying in the last year now. I have yet to fly over any body of water or to be on a plane longer than three and half hours. I’m taking baby steps.

Mandy M. Roth