Author Spotlight: Jillian Green DiGiacomo

Here at the Underground, our goal is to promote as many quality indie authors as we can. Toward this end, we're continuing Author Spotlight Thursdays. 

Please welcome Jillian Green DiGiacomo!

Sometimes I write books. Sometimes I don't.

I’m not a particularly disciplined writer. I don’t write every day or sometimes every month. But when I have an idea and it grows larger than something that I can hold together in my mind all at once, that’s when I start writing. My children’s book, OFF THE WALL, started with the thought “Do we see ourselves how the world sees us or does the world see us as we see ourselves?” That transformed into a poem about a little girl who changes every time she looks in her bedroom mirror. CODENAME CUPCAKE started with the image that is still included as the opening scene of the book: I had a vision of a woman sitting between two pregnant women at the back of a bus. That image “gave birth” to a stay-at-home-mom-superhero-spy novel.

I am one of the top 7 or 8 dancers in my Zumba class at the YMCA.

I am learning to trust myself. I am learning to put myself and my work out into the world and feel proud. Indie publishing means getting up every day and looking for new places to share my novel. This means that, every day, I must affirm to myself that my work is worthy and my audience is out there waiting to read what I have written.

Next time, I won't wait so long to trust myself.

What has been your most successful marketing strategy?

I now have 27 Twitter followers so I expect that to translate into thousands of sales (now that my mom is on Twitter).

The best kept secret of indie publishing is that indie publishing is (contrary to what I'd expected) extremely empowering. Of course it is frightening to be completely in charge of everything: I found my own editor. My daughter designed my book cover. And now I am doing all that I can to publicize my book. But, as it turns out, participating in every aspect has given me a greater understanding of the process and the business of publishing. The more I do, the more I learn and the more I learn, the more empowered I feel in what has often felt like an elusive and exclusive industry.