I'm excited to announce another chance to dive into the Limerence universe with a visit from Lexy Delorme a.k.a. L.S. Delorme. Lexy shares a bit about the evolution of her series, promoting her writing at Comic-Con and why writers should think like business people. Don't miss a giveaway of Fanning Fireflies, her paranormal novel with a historical fiction twist.
More about the Book, Fanning Fireflies:
There is something rotting in Harrisville.
It's 1944 and Veronica works so she can afford to eat. Maybe one day she will save enough to own the home her family is living in, but for now, she doesn't have time for fanciful thoughts, or much else. She doesn't have time for the fire whispering to her, the ghosts trying to talk to her and the son of her boss, who can't stop staring at her. She definitely doesn't have time to think about Lazlo, the handsome black soldier that she processed at the draft office, but she can't seem to stop herself. As her ability to ignore Lazlo evaporates, so does her self-imposed ignorance about her hometown. There is, and always has been, something rotten in Harrisville. It shouldn't have been a surprise. After all, Veronica works in the cigarette factory, where corpses hide in the tobacco with the roaches.
Limerent Publishing
Print length: 238 pages
ISBN-13: 979-8987488041
Purchase your copy on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Bookshop. You'll also want to add it to your GoodReads reading list.
About the Author, L.S. Delorme:
Author Lexy Shaw Delorme (writing as L.S. Delorme) is the award-winning author of The Limerent Series, a genre-defying collection of emotionally resonant novels that blend supernatural mystery, psychological thriller, historical fiction, and romantic suspense. With a background as a lawyer, pop musician, and science writer, Lexy brings intellectual depth and lyrical prose to every story she tells. Now based in Paris, she lives with her French husband and two very cool sons. Her work explores themes of limerence, memory, identity, and the echoes of past lives—and she’s not afraid to push boundaries along the way.
Connect with the author:
Website: www.lsdelorme.com
Instagram: @ls_delorme
TikTok: @LexyShawDelorme
Learn more about Lexy on Upcoming Podcasts:
--Interview by Jodi M. Webb
WOW: You lived in France when the first Limerent book was released, recently moved to England, have heavily promoted (and won some awards) for your series in several countries and are also promoting in the US. Most authors are intimidated by the idea of promoting their book in one country. How have you balanced multiple countries?
Lexy: It has probably helped that my life has been nomadic since I was a girl because my father was in the U.S. Navy. In my life, the longest I have lived in one place was 8 years, and that just happened with my move to Paris. However, the city I have lived in longest collectively is London. Until I was in high school, I never lived anywhere for more than 2 years. Later, I did new-country entry for a financial services company. I oversaw coordinating team members across three continents. What I learned from that, and what has stayed with me, is the importance of culture in doing anything.
I think one of the mistakes people outside of the U.S. make when marketing to the U.S. is the assumption that there is one U.S. culture. There isn’t. People wouldn’t make that mistake when thinking about the EU countries. Everyone knows that Germany and France are very different cultures. But the U.S. has something like 11 different cultures. Oregon is as different from Alabama as France is from Germany. So when you market, you need to market more regionally. In Europe, there is a huge challenge with language. I have yet to find someone to do a good translation of my books into French, and my husband is French ☺.
WOW: I think many authors in the US may fail to appreciate the different cultures within the US. How do you prepare for dealing with different likes and expectations in different regions?
Lexy: I think it’s all about knowing where you are on a cultural bell curve. And it’s about setting
expectations. When I was doing international work, one of the tools that we used to assess whether people would succeed or not was measuring them against a list of identical questions that were asked of people living in that culture. There were two factors that played in favour of sending someone on an international assignment.
One of them was that they fit very squarely in the centre of the bell curve for beliefs and attitudes of the country in question. And that seems very intuitive. The other one was less intuitive. People who did not fit in the centre of the bell curve in their own culture also tended to do well in other countries. I described it as the “I’m weird in my own country, so I’ll be equally weird in another country” strategy. There are certain adaptation skills that people learn in those circumstances.
So, when you apply that to where you want to sell your books or how you want to do your marketing, it makes sense to market to groups where your story and its themes resonate. However, you may find more passionate readers in areas where your story and themes are rarer, and you then aim for the smaller groups of readers who might exist in less likely areas or groups. I try to have an 80/20 approach to this.
WOW: Is it difficult balancing both writing and promoting at the same time?
Lexy: Yes, it is incredibly difficult. How I have started approaching it is keeping a lot of my marketing and PR in certain seasons. I am usually asked to have a table at the big Comic Cons in London and New York. These occur in May and October, so I try to have new book releases in either May or October, and I arrange other in-person appearances to match that.
But I have to be honest, I’m still not great at the online, social media stuff. I do it, but I always feel vaguely like I’m failing at it because I just can’t force myself to post regularly. I also don’t really separate my work and personal social media presence. People always say to do that, but it feels like so much additional work to me that it doesn’t really seem needed or worth it. Maybe I will change my mind about this going forward, but for now, I’m trying to keep social media simpler. I do have chat groups with some of my more active readers and reviewers ☺.
WOW: Can you tell us a little more about appearing at Comic Con events? Having never been, I always thought of it as more comics and graphic novels. But it seems it’s so much more. What are the advantages of being an author at a Comic-Con event?
Lexy: Comic Cons are now a significant part of my marketing strategies. A lot of people who attend
Comic Cons are the sort of people who would like books. Most of the Comic Cons have a section for books and writers. At the MCM Comic Cons, these are called “Writers Block.”
These events are incredibly popular. And it’s important to note that they are not just about comics anymore. It’s more of a popular culture celebration. There are people presenting who are from all manner of the arts: movies, TV, gaming, books, publishing, fashion, painting, drawing and a whole host of other creative endeavours. This attracts not just a lot of people but a lot of diverse types of people.
And I do mean lots. The London Comic Con usually has around 135,000 people over three days. The New York Comic Con can be up to 250,000 people over four days. So, they are very serious events from the perspective of visibility and marketing, but also sales. It is also a culture that celebrates diversity and independence. I feel very at home at them.
WOW: Those are amazing numbers! So many authors have problems with the marketing portion of being a writer, but you’ve taken to it like a duck to water. Do you have any advice for introverted writers about promoting their writing?
Lexy: Maybe I’ve taken to it because I don’t really think of it as “marketing.” In my head, I just
think of it as meeting people. Like a lot of introverts, I struggle with doing posts on social media or pushing my books to an anonymous audience. But with reviewers and with readers who show up at events, it becomes more of a personal interaction…and I find people fascinating.
It also takes making the effort to bring out the part of your personality that is more extroverted. I grew up as a Navy brat, which means we travelled a lot. I had to learn how to present in an extroverted way, even though I get my energy by being alone. So, I look at marketing as talking to people, telling them about my stories, hearing about their stories, and connecting.
WOW: That is such a helpful mindset, it makes promotion feel more personal and something to look forward to as an author. In the past, you’ve said that writers should treat their books as if they are a small business owner. How does that help authors?
Lexy: I’ve seen a lot of writers beat themselves up over sales, or lack thereof. They will put a book
out there and then be gutted when no one reads it after a year on Amazon. The problem is that nobody knows about it. That’s where marketing and visibility come in. Business people know this.
If you do a startup, which is what you are essentially doing when you publish a book, there is a life cycle to that. It is actually a pretty well-known life cycle, and it has predictable steps. At the end of the day, it takes roughly 5 years to start making profits. In the beginning, you come up with an idea, create a minimum viable product, and invest your own money to get it out there. You may get “love money” from family and friends to help. You create a marketing strategy, you find where your people are, you look for different channels for visibility, etc., etc.
You do that whether you are making a widget or selling a book. That’s why I think it’s valuable for people to read a book about creating a startup as opposed to just reading about how to publish your book. In business, I did quite a few startups. And not all of them worked. But 100% of the ones that worked were ones that managed their expectations of success and timing.
WOW: Today you're giving away a copy of Fanning Fireflies. I enjoyed the melding of historical fiction and paranormal in Fanning Fireflies. You’ve delved into your characters visiting other time periods and worlds in other books. As a writer, do you find the ability to travel between worlds/times stretches your writing abilities? Do your characters act/speak differently in different worlds, or are they similar no matter where/when they end up?
Lexy: In my series, that’s actually a remarkably interesting question because some of my books deal with the concept of whether a soul has a recognisable personality that stays the same across lifetimes. I have spreadsheets dedicated not just to a character’s behaviours and speaking patterns, but also to the patterns that appear and change over lifetimes. As the series continues, the reader sees more of the ways in which the past has impacted the present reality of existence. It also touches on the future.
WOW: I can't imagine the challenge of keeping a character authentic, not just for one book but through multiple books and future lifetimes. Speaking of the future, congratulations on the upcoming release of Mirrored Lands, book six in the Limerent series, on October 8.
***** BOOK GIVEAWAY *****
Enter to win Fanning Fireflies, a stand alone title from The Limerent Series. Fill out the form below for a chance to win. The giveaway ends October 8th at 11:59 pm CT. We will randomly draw a winner the next day and follow up via email. Good luck!
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