Author Interview: Chantal Bellehumeur

About the author:
Chantal Bellehumeur is a Canadian author born in 1981. She has 18 published books of various genres as well as numerous short stories, memoirs, poems and articles featured in compilation books, eMagazines, plus a local newspaper.

What inspires you to write romantic fiction?
I am actually a multi-genre writer. The type of story I decide to write in the moment depends a lot on my mood and what is going on in my life.

Tell us about how you write.
To be honest, I don't usually plot out everything ahead of time, nor create characters sheets. I have a basic idea of what I want to write about and form a general story in my head, then come up with all the details as I go. My characters talk to me, and I just go with the flow. They often surprise me.
I get the best ideas in my sleep, so I often have to get up to jot things down.

Do you listen to or talk to to your characters?
I definitely listen to my characters. I don't believe I've talked to them yet, but it could happen day and I am sure my family wouldn't even blink if they heard.

What advice would you give other romance writers?
Write for yourself, first and foremost.

How did you decide how to publish your books?
I always loved writing. As a child, I created little books and continued writing in my teen years. I didn't think about publishing anything until a friend of mine told me should.
At first I used a publisher, but not in the traditional sense. After my manuscripts got approved, I would sign a contract and the publisher in question would put my books together and design the covers etc, but I had to pay for their services and they were not cheap. I found that they didn't really help me in terms of marketing and felt they overpriced my books.
I was so happy about the publications of my first novella, a fictional diary called "Veronica's Soap Opera Life." that I published a sequel, "Veronica's Attempt at Romance". I turned it into a series with "Veronica's Happily Ever After." I published a few other books until I realized I could do it all myself; except the proofreading and editing of course.
I find the writing process very therapeutic, so once I published my first books and saw that people were interested in reading my work it gave me extra motivation. Since I write as a hobby and my main goal is to obtain readers as opposed to money (even though that's nice too), I decided to try self publishing. It has its challenges, but I have more freedom and it doesn't cost me anything.
I have no budget for marketing, but like to offer most of my work for FREE when I can. I have stories that were published in anthologies and e-magazines. I submitted them to the various publishers because I wanted to expand my readership and also have the pride of knowing my work was published by traditional publishers.

What do you think about the future of book publishing?
I think a lot of aspiring writers are going to end up self publishing.

Which romance sub-genere(s) fit your stories best?
historical romance, chick lit, fictional diaries, light romance

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