A "novel" idea?

As the author of 15 published novels, several which have won numerous awards and one historical that was a No. 1 bestselling Scottish book (out of over 8000 competing titles) for almost 3 months, the thing that has worked the best for me is to make my characters people the readers can relate to. I often have people ask me which of my characters are real and which ones are fictional. I never tell them until AFTER they have read the book.

Some of my characters even have their own websites. Monday Knight, from the first book in my Women of the Week series, can be found hanging out at http://meetmondayknight.tripod.com and she has accumulated more AOL and Earthlink CDs that she has gotten in snail mail than I have. The other day she got a sample of pantyhose. I knew it was for her, even without looking at the name on the package. They would never go over this body! My Patrick and Grace Mysteries are at http://crumbycapers.tripod.com . They think they are real, and I don't have the heart to tell them anything different! Readers often ask me why I patterned Grace after them, and these are people I have never met! I just tell them, "Grace is a little bit of everybody and not really anybody."
Making my novels succeed is the hardest job I've ever done, but it's sure the most fun one too!