Author Interview: Annelies George

About the author:
Annelies George was born on 4 August, 1964 in Bussum, the Netherlands, the second daughter of Levie George and Greet van Weerdenburg. At the age of ten she was given a postcard collection of landscapes and city settings from countries all over the globe, tickling her imagination. Soon she found herself writing fiction stories together with her two year older sister, Marianne, during the school holidays, using the postcards and other pictures she found in magazines as the source of inspiration.
After the gymnasium, she followed a one-year course as an international secretary in Amsterdam. Immediately afterward she started to work for a law firm, studying finance, management and law during the evening hours with the goal of becoming a lawyer herself.
A move to a different town brought her into the fast IT world, where she was employed by GE Capital, marking the start of a successful career in the international IT Finance world. Due to the intensity of the job and long working hours, she abandoned her plans for a law degree.
At the age of 30 she was appointed to Benelux managing director of a US based lease company, a rare phenomenon at the time, since few females were holding similar positions in the specific branch in the Netherlands. Thereafter she accepted a variety of EMEA and regional management and sales roles with Cisco, Microsoft and Hewlett Packard.
Encouraged by two friends she resumed writing again at a later age, with the purpose of releasing a book detailing her personal adventures as a woman in a male-dominated business environment. Due to circumstances surrounding the events she described, she had to re-write the entire story. Frustrated, she stopped working on the book.
Soon thereafter she spoke to a psychic with an extraordinary life story, which inspired her to start writing again. Combined with the far from easy youth of her own parents she realized that this specific generation had to endure a lot in their lives and should she ever write a book again, the tale needed to contain an underlying message, in line with the books of some of her own favorite authors.
Annelies still lives in Bussum . She loves, among other activities, to paint and design necklaces when she is not writing. On occasion she likes to travel to discover new places and understand the different ways of living around the globe.

What inspires you to write romantic fiction?
Love is the most important thing in life. Therefore, it is not difficult to write about the many aspects liaised with love. To me love is different for each and every person. There is no real definition of the true meaning of love. And exactly the latter is key in my books when I write about romance and love.

Tell us about how you write.
The story first unfolds in my head. When I think the basics are there, I start to write a script. That script is the base for the book. Every time I re-read and re-write a particular chapter. All together I do this eight time before I start editing the story, which takes me another two time. Then it is ready to go to my editor. When it comes back I read it countless times to finetune and sometimes make some alterations. Even when the internal lay-out in in process I read it again, just to be sure all is fine before it is printed.

Do you listen to or talk to to your characters?
Not really, although they become real persons when the story evolves on paper. I don't interact with them, but I think I sort of "get into their heads". Furthermore, most characters I use do harbor some characteristics of people I know in real life. It’s interesting to see how these “real alive people” transfer into a fictive person in the story.

What advice would you give other romance writers?
Just write that book, get it edited and published! Today there are many ways to get your book in front of a large audience. And don’t give a damm about what other people say, but rely on what your mind is telling you to do. Especially when it comes to writing you have to keep a level head particularly when the first reviews appear. Always believe in yourself and your work.

How did you decide how to publish your books?
I had a US-coach who guided me through the jungle of agents and publishers. In the end, I had an offer from a mid-range publisher. However, I was required to tour through the States for a couple of weeks to promote the book. At the time I was still taking care of my Mother with Alzheimer’s. That left me no other choice than to reject that offer and go with a hybrid publisher. I learned a lot and when visiting the London Book Fair I met companies like Ingram Spark and some book designers. It appeared that my hybrid publisher was using them as well. For the moment, I decided for self-publishing through Ingram for the Jessie Golden Earth Series, but for new work I will follow the agent publisher route once more.

What do you think about the future of book publishing?
Although for the moment I still believe that a big publisher is crucial in marketing and advertisement of your books, I think that self-publishing will become the trend if I see how easy it is now to do it. The earnings are much higher and you can see very instantly what you earn, instead of waiting for a quarterly/semi-annual or even annual statement from your publisher.

Which romance sub-genere(s) fit your stories best?
mystery, adventure, suspense,

My books are available in the following formats:
eBook, Print