Thanks for having me here, Anysia! I appreciate the opportunity to visit with your readers.

The number one reason readers buy a new book is because they are familiar with the author’s work, have enjoyed them before and can reasonably expect that their hard earned money will not be wasted.

This is fine if you are an established NY Times Bestselling author with a huge following. If you’re a relative newcomer like me (Vexing the Viscount is my 3rd title in the crowded field of historical romance) this is not a comforting thought.

The second reason readers buy a book is because a friend recommended it. Ok. This is something I can work on, but the trick is that word of mouth can be slow and today’s publishing reality is that an author needs to build a readership as quickly as possible.

Word of “mouse” moves at the speed of cyberspace. And the recommendation of a trusted book blogger is very like a recommendation from a friend. So I decided to embark on a 50day/50blog VEXING THE VISCOUNT tour leading up to the date of its release (February 24th!).

The first thing I had to do was identify the blogs I hoped to guest at. This involved some surfing and asking for recommendations from my writer friends. Then I contacted blog owners and arranged a schedule.

This was a mostly positive experience. Juggling the calendar was the trickiest part, especially when I’d confirm a date with one blog owner and another would email me with an acceptance, but only for a date I’d previously arranged. That’s why I occasionally have more than one blog scheduled for each day, and a few trickling in after the release date. My itinerary is posted at http://www.emilybryan.com/Events.htm.

Then there were some mix-ups as the tour progressed. A few blog owners had some life issues which meant they couldn’t host me and one had a computer on life-support over at the Geek Squad. So I improvised and hosted the tour myself at http://www.emilybryan.blogspot.com a few times.

This was fine. I’d developed a fun core of blog “touristas” (you know who you are!) who were happy to visit my house on the spur of the moment.

As the tour continued, I worried that my posts would become repetitive for those readers who were joining me daily for my trip through cyber-space. I tried to hit a number of different facets about Vexing the Viscount. I blogged about Georgian financial debacles, the life and times of courtesans, Roman Britain, the Jacobite rebellions, and Daisy and Lucian (my hero and heroine) in detail. I shared about my path to publication, writing tips, and an insider’s look into my publisher’s offices in New York. I’ve posted several excerpts from the book. I began to bless the names of blog owners who sent me questions to answer or a topic to write about–anything to prick my creativity.

And now I’m on the last leg of this marathon—10 days to go. I have to admit it’s been mentally draining (partly because I’m also under a deadline for a holiday novella as well), but this is the best type of promotion I could have arranged for Vexing the Viscount.

You see, I was diagnosed with colon cancer and had surgery in December. (I’m doing well, thanks. The cancer was caught early and had not spread—Thank you, God! And I’m rather like a reformed smoker, encouraging everyone to have a screening colonoscopy because I had NO symptoms at all.) But I am recovering from major surgery and what other type of promo could a writer do in her jammies?

But the best strawberry in this situation has been meeting and visiting with so many readers on all the blogs. I love answering their questions and finding out what they consider a good read.

Reading a book is a conversation between the reader and the writer. A little one-sided, though. This has been my opportunity to be on the listening end.

And I’d love to hear from YOU. Please leave a comment or question. Anysia has already set up the rules for my giveaway and posted a review (Thank you!). If you’d like to read an excerpt from Vexing the Viscount, please visit http://www.emilybryan.com/Vexing%20the%20Viscount.htm. My goal is always to give my reader a giggle with the first line!

Thanks again, Anysia for having me here at Booklorn.

Glad to have you, Emily! For those of you who haven’t yet entered, check out the giveaway and don’t forget to visit the remaining stops on Emily’s blog tour for more chances to win. (Or feel free to buy this or one of Emily’s other books, heh.)

This particular topic is one that I follow closely both as a consumer and as a former molecular biology technician (*ducking to avoid the virtual rotten tomatoes lobbed in my direction at that admission*). It may or may not surprise you to know that the great majority of people I know who genuinely understand the technology behind crop engineering (those people being my fellow science geeks) are not fans of genetically modified food. So much for a common assertion by the industry that only people who are ignorant of the technology are against it. Anyway, my interest in this topic is why I am posting part of the interview.

I could climb up on my virtual soapbox (or, stay on it, depending on your view) and go on about this topic, but this is a book blog so I’m posting a snippet from the author interview. If you learn something or have a question that isn’t answered, please leave a comment. If there is enough interest, I will try to get your questions answered in a uncanned interview.

There may be some mild spoilers in this interview, but I don’t think it gives much away or I wouldn’t post it:

Interviewer: How much of this story is based in fact?

Javitt: As the afterword of the book says, it’s entirely a work of fiction. The names of some of the good guys are appropriated from friends of mine. The scientists who uncover the conspiracy and the methods they use are definitely based on people I have known and worked with much of my career. In fact, the inspiration for Gwen is, in part, based on the FDA scientist who single-handedly stopped Thalidomide from entering the US, at grave peril to her career. The bad guys, however, are not based on any living person. That said, I believe that with sufficient greed and lack of morality, someone could perpetrate a conspiracy along the lines of the Capitol Reflections.

Interviewer: What do you think about bio-engineered foods? Is bio-engineering dangerous for our health and for agriculture as a whole?

Javitt: In general, bio-engineered foods have led the way to better crop yields, tastier and more nutritious fruits and vegetables, produce with longer shelf life, and other benefits to producers and consumers of America’s harvest. At the same time, Congress never imagined the potential for genetic modification when our food safety laws were originally enacted. Therefore, submitting genetically modified foods to FDA for safety review is driven more by voluntary agreement between producers and FDA than it is by regulatory law.

Interviewer: Is it really possible for food to be engineered in such a way as to make it more addictive and to make us unwittingly more hungry for that specific food?

Javitt: There’s no question than an addictive substance could be engineered into a food. I have long suspected the world’s chocolate manufacturers of doing just that (only kidding). The question is not whether it could be done. The question, as in all thrillers, is whether someone will be sufficiently motivated by greed and avarice to do it. Probably the most addicting food additive today is sugar. Over the last 40 years, it has found its way into numerous foods – from bread to French fries – that never contained sugar before the advent of fast food chains.

Interviewer: Capitol Reflections implies that food corporations have perhaps an undue amount of influence in our government, or even use underhanded or illegal methods to consolidate their positions. Is that element of the story line based on your experience in Washington?

Javitt: Absolutely not. The element inherent in many good thrillers is the notion that a perfectly ordinary, upstanding enterprise (John Grisham made his fame with a law firm and Robin Cook with a hospital) that people use and trust every day is actually a front for a nefarious conspiracy. The people whom I have met in America’s food industry are as honest and ethical as those in any other major industry. That said, any industry that forgets to put its long term interests and reputation ahead of its short term desire for profits is ripe for malfeasance of one sort or another.

If you learned something from the interview or have a question that wasn’t answered, please leave a comment (and if you entered the giveaway I’ll even give you an extra entry). As I said above, if there is enough interest I will look into having your questions answered by the author.