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Friday, July 8, 2016

#SpotLight - One Sunday At A Time by E. N. Joy



BLURB:


What does crazy look like? Let Deborah tell it, it's the reflection that looks back at her in the mirror. She has a career she loves, two beautiful children and a handsome and successful husband. Her life seems to be the blueprint almost every woman she knows would kill to live. But working full-time, being a full-time mother, full-time wife and a full-time Sunday only Christian seems to be taking its toll on her. With all the scheming and shenanigans Deborah orchestrated to get this lifestyle, she might have to come up with a whole set of new ones to maintain it.
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Lynox is Deborah's husband who she thanks God for putting back into her life after a game of cat and mouse that defies the laws of romance. He feels that all Deborah needs is to let her hair down, maybe make some new friends and live a little. When Deborah agrees and then suspects Lynox of having an affair with the woman that he suggested she form a friendship with, will he live to regret his own advice? 

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Interview with E. N. Joy 

Tell Readers a little bit about yourself.
I am BLESSEDselling Author E. N. Joy, the author behind the “New Day Divas,” “Still Divas,” “Always Divas” and “Forever Divas" series, all which have been coined “Soap Operas in Print.” I’m an Essence Magazine Bestselling Author who wrote secular books under the names Joylynn M. Jossel and JOY. I also wrote a children’s book titled The Secret Olivia Told Me, written under the name N. Joy. It received a Coretta Scott King Honor from the American Library Association. The book was also acquired by Scholastic Books and has sold almost 100,000 copies. I was the acquisitions editor for Carl Weber’s Urban Christian imprint for ten years. I currently do literary consulting, ghostwriting, and freelance editing.

Who does your body of literary work speak to? 
I hear authors say it all the time: “I write my book for everybody, not just one particular audience.”  That’s all fine and well, but the book business is just that; a business. In dealing with business you have to have a target audience that you start off promoting and marketing to.  Once you have saturated your target audience, then you have the bull’s eye affect, where you begin to expand outward into other areas. There is absolutely no shame in my game; I write my books for my sisters. If anyone outside of my target audience wants to pick up my book that is an awesome blessing. But I want to make sure that my sisters—my target audience—can walk right into the book store and know exactly where to find me. Richard Ridley once said, "Many writers make the mistake of thinking that bigger is better when it comes to defining a book's target audience. They believe that if a potential reader is simply made aware of their book, then surely they'll take a chance and buy it. But by choosing this "big pond" approach, those authors are being overlooked, and they're missing the opportunity to stand out in a smaller pond. You'll have much better success being a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond." Yeah…what he said.

What made you go from writing secular works under the names Joylynn M. Jossel and JOY, to writing Christian fiction and children’s work under the names E. N. Joy and N. Joy? 

That’s an easy one word answer; God.  God has always been there keeping, watching over, and protecting me, but it wasn’t until I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior did I acknowledge just how much God loves me.  Now I live to glorify Him in everything I do, including my writing.  So I’m now not only proud to be a Christian, but proud to be a Christian fiction author.

The Sinners anthology series edited by E.N. Joy includes stories by some of today's top urban lit writers. How did you become involved in this project? When will the third book in the series be released? 

As a former urban lit writer, we used to take a lot of flak as far as the art of literature. Because of the type of genre that we chose to pen, we were stigmatized and rumored unable to create literature without glorifying a trigger happy, drug dealing thug, or a burgundy micro braid wearing, gum poppin’, promiscuous gold digger, or a television stealing crack head (in addition to at least two cuss words per paragraph).  I know that writing (great writing) is a God given talent. I wanted to prove the nay-sayers wrong by providing these authors a platform to do just that. These authors brought out their A game and penned stories that didn’t include explicit language or graphic sex scenes, while at the same time giving honor to the one who gave them their gift in the first place.

Were you always motivated to own your own business? If so, what inspired that motivation?

When I initially sat down to write my first book, the second one too for that matter, I knew I wanted to start a company with the main purpose of publishing my own books. I did not want to— and I still don’t to this day—want to publish other authors’ works. I just needed it to appear as though I had a well-oiled machine behind my books; a legitimate company putting out a legitimate product. What motivated me most was that publishing my work would allow me to share my many, many thoughts, concepts and ideas with the world.        
Unlike so many other writers, I was not on a mission for that big book deal to validate my profession. Heck, even when I did get that big book deal, people still thought my writing was just a hobby instead of a job. I wouldn’t say that I had been motivated to own my own business as much as I was motivated to be the author of and in control of my own words. It didn’t take long being in the business, though, to realize that the key to product placement is distribution. Traditional publishing with a publishing house provided for that placement. So with the third book, I wrote it with every intent and purpose of selling it to a major publishing house.

What is the title of your latest novel and what is it about? 

 My latest release is titled One Sunday at a Time. In this soap opera in print, the main character, Deborah, asks herself, “What does crazy look like?” Let Deborah tell it, it's the reflection that looks back at her in the mirror. She has a career she loves, two beautiful children and a handsome and successful husband. Her life seems to be the blueprint almost every woman she knows would kill to live. But working full-time, being a full-time mother, full-time wife and a full-time Sunday only Christian seems to be taking its toll on her. With all the scheming and shenanigans Deborah orchestrated to get this lifestyle, she might have to come up with a whole set of new ones to maintain it.
Lynox is Deborah's husband who she thanks God for putting back into her life after a game of cat and mouse that defies the laws of romance. He feels that all Deborah needs is to let her hair down, maybe make some new friends and live a little. When Deborah agrees and then suspects Lynox of having an affair with the woman that he suggested she form a friendship with, will he live to regret his own advice? 

How can readers reach out to you?

My email address is enjoywrites@aol.com. My author website is www.enjoywrites.com. I can be reached on the following social media accounts:

Facebook: AuthorENJoy
Twitter: @enjoywrites
Pinterest: @authorENjoy
Instagram: @bestselling_author_enjoy
Periscope:  @Author_E_N_Joy 
YoutTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/enjoywrites


 E. N. Joy is the author behind the “New Day Divas,” “Still Divas,” “Always Divas” and “Forever Divas" series, all which have been coined “Soap Operas in Print.” She is an Essence Magazine Bestselling Author who wrote secular books under the names Joylynn M. Jossel and JOY. Her children’s book titled The Secret Olivia Told Me, written under the name N. Joy, received a Coretta Scott King Honor from the American Library Association. The book was also acquired by Scholastic Books and has sold almost 100,000 copies. 

You can visit BLESSEDselling Author E. N. Joy at www.enjoywrites.com or email her at enjoywrites@aol.com. If you want to experience a blast from her past, you can visit www.joylynnjossel.com.






2 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for sharing information about myself and my literary journey. I'm truly honored!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Readers, I welcome you to leave comments. Not only will I answer any questions you might have, but you'll also be entered into a raffle to win a literary gift set.

    ReplyDelete