Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Heather Nicole Gifford. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Heather Nicole, thanks for joining us today. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?

As a writer you hear about different situations other writers or authors have encountered. You think, ‘oh I can make sure that doesn’t happen to me’. The biggest one for me was formatting the pages for the paperback and e-book.

Here’s the thing, pages for a paperback are definitely not the same size/dimensions as an e-book. In fact, depending on the tool you use to distribute your book, the file types are even different.

Me being the new writer I was, I did not think about any of this. I thought I could write the book, format the pages for the paperback and the e-book would simply ‘fit’. After all, it is only displayed on a screen and you swipe to read the words, right? Wrong.

This was not the case at all. I did not take into consideration for page breaks, border sizes, or headers and footers. Like the newbie I was, I did not review the e-book file before I asked a few friends to read and review the book. The very first comment I got back from everyone: “Why is the file over 400 pages? I thought it was only around 200 pages.” I immediately I opened the file on my computer and started to scroll, I thought I was going to crawl into a hole. Some pages only had one sentence, one! Others only had the header or footer, and one had so many words squished on the page you could barley read it.

I apologized profusely to everyone and told them not to hold this against me, and promised it was a really good book. I spent the next few weeks searching the internet trying to find a ‘how to’ for formatting the e-book, but failed. I talked to my husband and set out to find someone to help me. Luckily I found Leo at the Book’s Savant and she helped me with everything, not only the formatting.

Heather Nicole, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I first found my love for writing in a middle school homework assignment. We were asked to write a descriptive poem about a place we loved to go. I wrote about the ocean, it was in that poem I learned not all poems needed to rhyme. The teacher loved my poem and said I had real talent. As a middle school kid I was on cloud 9, but I never had the notion to follow through on any of it.

A couple of years later, for birthdays and other holidays a few friends would as me to write a poem about a topic they suggested. Some would be about living far away from loved ones, or describing how love was without actually using the word love. I thought about writing a book of all my poems, but today I wouldn’t know where to go to find them. We didn’t have all this new fangled technology to store it everywhere.

In 2007 an even changed my life (you can read Crystal’s Hole Heart to discover what that was); I don’t want to give too much of the book away. My good friend Lora – who is also like my sister – and I spent a few years writing this book about friendship, faith, sisterhood, tears, laughter, and much more. There was a point in my life I felt as though what I was writing couldn’t be portrayed and I wanted to give up. This is where Leo from the Book’s Savant came into play again. She helped me find the emotion of the story and put it into words for the reader.

Crystal’s Hole Heart was published in February of 2022, and as soon as it was published I made the decision to have all my stories with a fiery faith at their core.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I love when someone stops me in passing, sends me a message, or leaves a review saying how they connected with my writing and how it made them feel. It is such a good feeling when a reader can truly understand how much time you’ve put into creating the work of art for them.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Any writer or author will tell you the hardest aspect about writing the book is actually the promotion and marketing. I’ve learned it’s important to not only tell folks about my writing, but to also let them get to know me personally. It is important to engage with comments on posts as well as private messages received, since we are living in the digital world now. Letting the reader get to know the author helps them understand the writing even more, in my opinion.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.heathernicolegifford.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/writerheathernicolegifford
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/writerheathernicolegifford
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heathernicolegifford
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/hngifford

Image Credits
The Book’s Savant created the logos. I took all the other pictures.