Straight From the Mouth of Gulten Dye, author of 'Semi-Coma: Evolution of My Intermittent Consciousness'

Gulten Dye was born and raised in a small town in Turkey and moved with her family to Istanbul as a small child.  It was there that she earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing, and worked as a nurse at a local hospital before moving to the Philippines with her boyfriend.

After being there a little over a year, they got married and a short while after that moved to Shreveport, Louisiana where she immediately began her studies to be able to work as a Registered Nurse. While studying for her boards, she was allowed to work as a scrub technician in an operating room at a nearby surgery center. She passed her boards and worked in an operating room for many years before moving to Las Vegas, Nevada there she worked at a busy University Medical Trauma Center as a staff nurse for several years until she earned the position of Charge Nurse.

By 2001, she was divorced and living with her two young sons.  Her desire to make more money became her impetus to start her own business, which soon became her sole source of income as her success grew.  She has never looked back.

Gulten found her talent and passion in creating one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces and sold them to well-known people, such as Celine Dion, Rachel Ray and Mary Higgins Clark.  She became an international success when her work showed on Entertainment Tonight and Insider and was for sale in the high-end casinos in Las Vegas and on high-end cruise liners. She then created a jewelry line called Metamorphosis, a line of interchangeable jewelry that brought her even greater success.

Gulten is also an author and self- published her first book Semi Coma - Evolution of my Intermittent Consciousness in 2011, currently selling on all digital media as well as in hard copy.  Her second book “The Missing Link” is awaiting publication in 2013.

In 2013, she opened her new concept store where she not only sells her own designs, but includes many local artists of different medium, including a local authors section.  In turn for being able to sell their artwork in her store, all artists have agreed to teach others their medium for the future generation free thinkers.

Gulten lives and creates in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Visit her website at www.gultendye.com.

Thanks for letting us interrogate interview you!  Can you give us a go-for-the-gut answer as to why you wanted to be an author?

I really don't have a juicy answer for that question for as long as I can remember I always liked telling stories, and because I could not always remember what I said, I also wrote them down so that I could remember them if I wanted to re-tell them.  In later years, it kind of took its own shape for I now write to express myself, especially what’s in my heart, and share that with others.

Tell us (we won’t tell promise!) is it all it’s cracked up to be?  I mean what are the perks and what are the demands?

The perks of writing a book has been a paradox for me. On one hand, it is a self-fulfilling feeling to accomplish something that you set your heart out to do.  On the other hand, once it is completed, it loses its importance.  I find myself moving onto the next, and what I have completed becomes nothing more than one more thing I have finished. As for the demands, I suppose it's like the demands of anything else; it completely depends on how much of it you take on.

Which route did you take – traditional or self-published – and can you give us the nitty gritty low down on what’s that like?

I chose to self-publish.  Although there are many companies to help an author self- publish, it’s like any industry - you have shop around to find what fits your needs.

What’s the snarkiest thing you can say about the publishing industry (e.g. rejections, the long wait, etc.)?

I believe that there are many great publishing companies, but I also understand that underneath it all, they are a business and to be able to stay in business they have to be smart as whom to publish.  In other words, they may choose the ones that can benefit their bottom line the most. I think many great authors get overlooked because they don't have 30,000 or more people following them on social media.

Tell us for real what your family feels about you spending so much time getting your book written, polished, edited, formatted, published, what have you?

Honestly they think it’s wonderful.  They are not only proud of me, but they do anything in their power to stay out of my way so I can write.

What was the craziest or insane thing that happened to you in the book publishing process?

I had to print the proof four times before they got it right. In the process, I was so frustrated especially since as soon as I sent it to the printer I thought I was done.  However, it took me another 3 months before I would finally get a copy that was good without any major errors showing up even after I had approved my last proof.  Yet, when it showed up in my hand a few months later, 1000 copies had been printed on a completely different paper than I had ordered. During that time I remember writing an e-mail to Mary Higgins Clark to tell her how disappointed I was that I wouldn’t be able to send her a copy of my book yet because they had got it wrong for the third time.  She replied, "Don't worry; even a publisher like mine often has to do more than two proofs for any book." That e-mail not only made me feel better, but it also gave me courage to submit my book once again to get yet another proof.

How about the social networks?  Which ones do you believe help and which ones do you wish you could avoid?

I believe all social media helps, but for any of them to really work takes total dedication, and it really needs to be consistent.

Book sales.  Don’t you just love them (or lack of?)?  How are you making the sales happen for you?

That has to be my biggest challenge.  During a seminar I once took called, Writing from Your Soul, Wayne Dyer said, "Now that you published a perfect book, 10 percent of your work is done. Now you need to really get started."  He meant selling of course. No truer words were ever spoken.  Most of the work is about marketing, and because I self-published, I am the only one who's really marketing it.

What is one thing you’d like to jump on the rooftop and scream about?

Buy my book now!

Okay, too much sugar for you today!  Here’s a nice cup of Chamomile tea and come on over and sit under the cabana and watch the waves roll in.  Now…can you tell us what you love about being a published author and how all those things above doesn’t matter because it’s all part of the whole scheme of things and you wouldn’t have it any other way?

Writing is an amazing feeling just like designing and creating my jewelry is for me.  The creation process itself of writing is very fulfilling as is seeing my jewelry being worn by people.  It feels great to get passages from my book sent back to me with a commentary from my readers saying I really loved what you wrote because it makes me feel this way or that way.