Having taught public speaking for over 20 years, I feel pretty confident expressing myself in front of a live audience. But I felt a tremor of nervousness when Brooklyn-based author and blogger Lancelot Schaubert offered to interview me in front of an online audience. For one thing, I wouldn’t see this audience, wouldn’t know how big it was or how the individual members were reacting to what I said. For another, I wouldn’t have complete control over the flow of words even if I had a general idea of the questions that were coming. I might stumble, might struggle to be coherent, might leave viewers impatient and/or confused.

But Lancelot assured me the interview setting would be relaxed and informal. Moreover, he promised to base his questions on the list of literary-related topics I sent him earlier. That gave me some confidence that this interview would be a worthwhile investment of my time and effort. I also couldn’t pass up the opportunity to promote my new YA novel, The Secrets We Carry: Journal of a Girl in Trouble, and to a lesser extent my earlier novels, to a wider audience.

Before discussing the interview, let me focus on my interviewer for a moment. I became acquainted with Lancelot a few years ago, when I submitted some articles for his online cultural enrichment newsletter The Showbear Family Circus. Thereafter, I helped distribute and promote his novel, Bell Hammers, the story of a small business owner who wages a Robin Hood-type battle against a big oil company in southern Illinois. More recently, I did a cover-to-cover edit on his just-released fantasy novel, Overmorrow. Besides being a writer, Lancelot is also a musician, a film producer, and an arts aficionado. His social media platforms are followed by several thousand people, so an interview with him promised to give my books a much higher visibility than they currently had.

True to his word, Lancelot kept the interview relaxed and casual. He gave me the chance to talk about the genesis for my first novel, Fast-Pitch Love, as well as clarify how my work with the Ohio State Board of Education gave me the “raw materials” for The Secrets We Carry. With respect to The Bullybuster, I described how I drew on the expertise of a college engineer professor, so I could make the robot in the story mechanically and electronically authentic. Authenticity, I stressed, is always a high priority in my fiction writing.

We didn’t just talk about my books; we also dealt with the plot and characters of Overmorrow and Bell Hammers. The business end of publishing came into the discussion several times. For example, I noted that I’ll be using some of the sales revenue from The Secrets We Carry to purchase table space at future book fairs. That prompted Lancelot to comment on the high fee ($200), he’ll have to pay for just part of a table at the Brooklyn Book Fair.

I felt that I was reasonably articulate throughout the interview, although I could have talked about Fast-Pitch Love more coherently. My biggest mistake was referring to the characters’ names before explaining who they were. But, when discussing The Secrets We Carry, I made sure to emphasize that two-thirds of my sales revenue would be going to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network and the Ohio Domestic Violence Network.

I’m not sure whether my interview with Lancelot will lead to more book sales. In any case, it was a worthwhile investment of my time and energy. And who knows? It may lead to other interviews in the future — and more sales.

The full interview, which runs a few minutes over an hour, can be seen at bit.ly/44Awx6j.