Slyce: Brothers and Sistah’s, please welcome our brother, Author Steven Arnett to “The Interrogation Room”!! Welcome my brother:-). Are you ready?
Slyce: What inspired you to become an author?
SA: Because I loved reading and I loved stories when I was growing up, and when I got to be about 19 years old, I decided I didn’t want to just read stories, I wanted to write them, too. I also started getting ideas for poems and stories about that age.
Slyce: What is the name of your publishing company?
SA: I’m an indie author, but I publish my books through Smashwords.
Slyce: In what genre do you write?
SA: None in particular. I’ve written a mystery, a comedy novel, a love story novel, and a novel I would describe as literary. My latest novel, The Strange Curse of Breda, is a thriller.
Slyce: Have you penned under another name?
SA: No.
Slyce: You wrote a book titled, “The Strange Curse Of Breda”. What was this book about?
SA: It was a dark and stormy night… No, just kidding! Here’s the scoop on The Strange Curse of Breda:
It’s 1971 and a horrible murder has occurred near the town of Breda in west Michigan. A young woman, Jane Lucas, has been dragged into the woods and stabbed. The letters ZOSO from the Led Zeppelin album have been written in blood on her waist, which leads the police to think it might be a cult murder. Suspicion falls on the commune located on a farm near the town. The shock and horror townspeople feel after that murder, though, are nothing compared to the shock and horror people feel when another murder and then another murder of the same type occur.
The Strange Curse of Breda is about those murders and how they are finally solved. As each murder occurs, the level of fear in Breda intensifies, to the point that the townsfolk either flee the town, arm themselves to the teeth, or fall into an almost catatonic state of fear. The county sheriff, the state police, and even the FBI are baffled. However, Jim Leiden, a young man who runs a small grocery in Breda, finds a clue that may link all the murders together: The hanging of a man named Obadiah Kurtz that occurred in 1889. Jim researches the story and finds that the victims are descendants of the people who were responsible for hanging Obadiah. After Jim’s discovery, he’s in a race against time to try to get the police to believe him and find the murderer before he can kill the only person in the whole world who really matters to him: His beautiful fiancée Julie Veere, who happens to be one of those direct descendants!
Slyce: Is this book a stand alone or a series?
SA: Stand alone.
Slyce: Is your book an eBook and/or paperback?
SA: It’s available on Amazon as an eBook or in paperback. It is also available on many other eBook platforms, including Barnes & Noble, the iTunes store, and Kobo.
Slyce: How important is research?
SA: Very important, as far as I’m concerned. If you write things that are factually inaccurate or are not true to the time and place you are writing about, your credibility with readers and reviewers will sink like a rock. Research can also give you great ideas about new scenes and characters.
Slyce: How important are interviews?
SA: I haven’t done any interviews as part of the research for my books, but I think they can be a big help when an author is promoting their books.
Slyce: How important are reviews?
SA: Very important. They give an author and their books credibility with potential readers, and also they help readers find your books when they search on Amazon and elsewhere. It’s well known that when there are more than 100 reviews for an Amazon book, that potential buyers are more likely to see the book when they do searches in Amazon.
Slyce: What does the term, “Building a Brand” mean?
SA: It means establishing an identity with readers and making it become well known with them.
Slyce: What steps are you taking to build your brand?
SA: To be honest, I haven’t marketed my books as much as I should. However, I’m working on that now, by doing interviews like this, getting reviews, doing advertising, and trying to get articles written about me and my books in various media.
Slyce: What goals would you like to achieve as an author?
SA: To sell more books so that more people read them. I’m a story teller, and I want people to hear my stories.
Slyce: What advice can you offer those aspiring to become authors?
SA: To take courses on writing to really learn the craft of it, to read extensively, and to connect with the world of authors and publishers through social media, writers’ groups, and so forth.
Slyce: Is there anything else cooking in the lab for Author Steven Arnett?
SA: I don’t have anything brewing at the moment. I realize that I haven’t done enough to market my books in the past, so I’m going to concentrate on that for a while before I start anything new.
Slyce: Do you write for the passion or the profit?
SA: Passion, absolutely.
Slyce: Name three authors you’d love to work with.
SA: I’m not really very tuned in to current, active writers, so I’ll give you the names of three authors from the past: William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and Raymond Chandler.
Slyce: Have you ever done blog talk radio?
SA: I’ve done some guest posts on book blogs. I have my first radio interview scheduled for January.
Slyce: Where can our viewers purchase your book?
SA: Well, since you asked… Here are a few places:
Slyce: How can our viewers contact you?
SA: They can send me an email message at steven.arnett7@hotmail.com or pm me on Facebook. My Facebook Author Page is at https://www.facebook.com/arnettse.
Slyce: I’d like to thank guest, Author Steven Arnett for joining us in “The Interrogation Room”!! Thank you my brother. You were wonderful!!
Everyone, please go purchase, “The Strange Curse Of Breda” by Author Steven Arnett Also, remember to check out his page on Facebook at: 
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