I’m delighted and excited to welcome self-published Jaimie Admans to the blog for an insight into her world.
Welcome Jaimie, I’ve not long read, enjoyed and reviewed Kismetology so am really pleased you’ve become my first author in the spotlight.
Bookboodle: Where did the idea for Kismetology come from?
Jaimie: I love reading books where the character is trying to find the perfect man, and I love dating stories whether the dates are good or bad. It’s particularly fun to hear about the bad dates! I wanted to write something like that, but I thought that the ‘single girl trying to find the perfect man’ angle was a bit overdone. I’ve often thought my own mum could do with a man, but she would consider herself too old for dating. I realised I could combine the two ideas, and Kismetology was born!
Bookboodle: I really like the Kismetology cover. Who designed it for you? Did you have any input?
Jaimie: Aw, thank you! I designed it. The photos are stock images that I purchased and put together myself. I’m not very good at them, but I love doing book covers. I make lots of different mock-ups to see what works best and I really enjoy doing them!
Bookboodle: And how long did it take you to write?
Jaimie: I do quick and messy first drafts. The first draft took a month to write, but before that I had spent a couple of months planning it, so when I actually sit down to write, the words can come thick and fast! Getting that first draft down is the easy part – editing it into a readable shape is the hard part! It took another six months or so after that, and many, many more drafts to get it ready to be read by anyone besides me!
Bookboodle: I thought it was a really nice thing Mackenzie did for Eleanor – do you have any experience of matchmaking yourself?
Jaimie: No, but since my mum has read Kismetology, she suddenly wants me to! She keeps asking why I can’t find a man for her like Mackenzie tries to find one for her mother in the story! I may have to play Cupid pretty soon after all!
Bookboodle: Mackenzie had some bad experiences in search of the perfect date. Have you included any of your own dating disasters?
Jaimie: Ha ha, only some! And with a lot of exaggeration and all names have been changed to protect the guilty! I did a lot of research, talked to a lot of friends, and got a lot of people to tell me their dating disaster stories. Most of the dates Mackenzie goes on are a big mash-up of real experiences and imagination – none of them actually happened exactly as written – but it’s safe to say (and quite scary!) that some of those men do exist out there!
Bookboodle: What books / authors do you like to read?
Jaimie: I read a wide range of genres. If a book sounds interesting, I’ll read it. Obviously chick-lit and young adult are my favourite, but I also love psychological thrillers and horror books – I like anything that scares me! My favourite authors are Sophie Kinsella and Meg Cabot, their books are auto-buys for me, first thing on release day!
Bookboodle: Who inspired you to write?
Jaimie: Growing up, it was books by Judy Blume, Enid Blyton and Virginia Andrews that made me want to pick up a pen and write like them. Their books were a huge part of my childhood, and I wanted people to one day enjoy my stories the way I enjoyed theirs. I started reading chick-lit when I was about eighteen, and after a few years of working my way through as much as I could get my hands on, I found a book called See Jane Date by Melissa Senate. It was chick-lit, but for the first time I really connected with the book. Although I loved Bridget Jones and Becky Bloomwood, Jane – the main character in See Jane Date – was just like me. At the back of that book was a page from the publisher asking, “Could you write a book like this?” Yes, I thought. Yes, I could. I had never really thought about writing chick-lit before, but that book and that page at the end of it made me start thinking about it. I haven’t looked back since! A couple of years after that, I started reading and loving young adult books, and when I had a plot idea that worked for a YA audience, I started writing it and found that the genre really fitted with me, so now I write happily in both genres!
Bookboodle: So what’s next for Jaimie Admans?
Jaimie: I’m in the middle of editing my fourth book – it’s a young adult romantic comedy, hopefully to be released sometime this summer. That is if I ever stop procrastinating and just get on with the editing! I also have another young adult book due for release at Christmas, and I’m hoping to get a festive chick-lit novella out before the end of the year too!
Many thanks Jaimie for taking the time to answer a few questions and the best of luck with book 4!
Thanks for having me, Lindsay! Your questions were great!
You can connect with Jaimie via her website Jaimie Admans or Twitter and her books are available to download on Amazon:
bookboodle 