Q: Tell me a little bit about yourself (the non-blogger version of you).
AMY: I’m a mom of 3 and wife to one. My kids are late teens with my oldest being 20 years old. So as you can probably imagine how at times I feel like I’m living in my own Young Adult book. There’s never a dull moment in our household.
I do spend a lot of time reading in the midst of herding my teens around. My reading fluctuates depending on what I am in the mood for but for the most part I enjoy romance or that my reading has some element of romance in it.
Q: When did you start reading? What pulled you in the book world?
AMY: I’ve been an avid reader since my childhood because I grew up in a household without a television. I read mostly non-fiction until 5 years ago when a friend convinced me to read Twilight. And then a year or so later she convinced me to read Fifty Shades of Grey. After meeting Christian Grey I went on a search for more books that dealt with romance and that lead me to Goodreads. I became a member of Goodreads in 2012. Shortly, after joining that same friend told me to read Slammed by Colleen Hoover. I realized I like the romance genre and I’ve been in this world ever since.
Q: When did you think of becoming a blogger and why? Tell me the story of Foxy Blogs.
AMY: The story starts before the blog started. I’ve been on Goodreads since 2012 and I was in a buddy read group with another Amy. The group decided to cut down on confusing us they would call me Foxy because of my last name. Now, jump to 2014, I had been arc reading over the last couple years for authors and one thing I frequently heard was they wished I had a blog to promote their books on. I mentioned it a time or two to my husband but never pursued it beyond saying, I might like a blog. Early Spring of 2014 my husband presented me with Foxy Blogs. He named it and designed it and all I had to do was just add the content. To say I was overwhelmed and surprised is an understatement. Thanks, Mr. Foxy (our tech guy).
Q: Another thing I’ve been so curious about: How much work/hours go into blogging? How do you guys find the time to blog? Do you follow a strict schedule?
AMY: I blog in the evenings while my husband and I have the tv on. Some blogging items are more time consuming than others because of the all the formatting they require. Such as ‘Fan Art Fridays’ can take 3 or so hours to put together weekly. Other things like moving my reviews from Goodreads to the blog take about 15 minutes.
Q: There have always been a bit of tension between new authors and bloggers. New authors think bloggers don’t want to give them a chance and bloggers say that it isn’t the case. What are your thoughts about that?
AMY: Blogging is a time consuming hobby. None of my blogging friends, including myself, are making a living at running a blog. So, I think, a blogger should promote what they want to promote. Since bloggers aren’t being paid and in addition to not being paid they’re paying their webpage space they should have the right to aid or not aid in helping out whichever authors they feel lead to. Promoting can be time consuming – creating post, graphics, etc, – which can pull away from the blogger spending time reading or doing something outside of blogging world. All that to say bloggers should promote what they want and authors should keep reaching out to bloggers for help on promoting their books.
Q: How do you pick a book? What attracts you to a book in the first place?
AMY: The first thing that catches my attention of a book is the aesthetics. Then I look on Goodreads to see if my friends have read it and how they rated it. Those are my two main things that make me consider a book.
Q: How do you like to be approached for a review? Are there any guidelines on your website? Facebook messages?
AMY: I prefer to be approached via my blog page or my goodreads account.
Q: What advice would you give to an aspiring blogger? What is the secret of success, do you think?
AMY: I love spreadsheets. If I could schedule my whole life on a spreadsheet I’d do it. So, with that confession you can probably guess my answer will be use spreadsheets. Use them to keep track of upcoming arcs, cover reveals, blog tours, etc. Also I keep a calendar schedule with the same info. That might be an overkill but I like having a backup of the upcoming info. It all boils down to keeping a schedule to make blogging easier..
Now, that the serious questions have been answered, let’s do some fun things:
- One author and ONE author only that you’d read no matter what they publish or how busy your schedule is: Hands down Susan Fanetti
- Pick one: Billionaire hero or the nerd guy: Billionaire (who doesn’t like to be pampered)
- If you ever wrote a story, what would it be about: A reality tv show (like Big Brother: romance version)
- Trope you LOVE. No questions asked, you’ll read the book if that trope is there: It’s always easier for me to name the ones I WON’T read: insta- love, cheating and love triangles. I have read some books with those elements and I’ve even liked a few of them but overall I try to avoid those tropes.
- Are you a romance novel heroine? What type would you be: A. independent/take no shit type? B. Damsel in distress C. Quirky/clumsy: Damsel in distress (my husband is always rescuing me in the technology department).
- Before you go, tell us a little about your real life love story:
AMY: I’m lucky because I’ve been living my HEA for the last 23 years. One of the great things about our relationship is our skill set compliments each other nicely. I’m the organized one and he’s the techy one. At my husband’s work I keep his paperwork organized so things run smoothly. He, on the other hand, is constantly coming to my rescue with anything that deals with electronics because I seem to break everything that is 21 century. Besides those things we generally like hanging out together. All throughout our marriage we’ve had separate hobbies and joint hobbies. We knew that someday our kids would grow up and leave us and we’d be left with how we started out – just us. We wanted to make when it was just us that we would still want to spend time with each other. Besides having shared hobbies we also have married friends that we do stuff with. At the end of the day it’s just us. When I first got married I thought it was going to be like having a sleepover with my best friend every night. Which it is but wasn’t how I’d pictured it from my teen years of staying up late eating junk food and calling boys. Now, I snuggle into my best friend each night and wake up to his smiling face. After 23 years my husband can still make me laugh every day and I can’t wait for many more years of laughing with him.