Michael: “Hi there, Michael Palmer here again with the fifth go-around with Q&A and I’m very pleased with the response and the number of people who are watching and sending in questions. I’ll do my best to get through the ones that I have here. If I don’t make it then I’ll carry some of them over. So let’s look at the list.”

Shirley: “How long does it usually take to finish a book?”

Michael: “That’s actually an answerable question. I’m under a contract, the same as many many successful commercial writers to write a book a year. I don’t expect to never honor that contract. So I work as hard as I need to, to get a book done each year. That means about maybe about two months of getting ready to write, four to five months of writing and then the rest of the time fixing the book. After it’s sent in, while I’m waiting for the edits, I’m already working on the next book. So I do a book a year, and there’s a carryover– I’m just about done with another one.”

Nancy: “Michael, I read about the McGuffin for the first time on your website. Could you explain it and how writers can use it effectively in creative nonfiction as well?”

Michael: “The McGuffin is not an easy concept. When I teach, sometimes it takes hours to explain it. It’s a word that Alfred Hitchcock coined and I’ll give you a quick example and then you’re going to have to go on Google and check it out. And also there’s a large section on my website. Basically, the McGuffin is the answer to the ‘what-if’ question, like in the case of ‘North by Northwest’ by Alfred Hitchcock. He started with ‘what if a man had a mistaken identity while he is on a train and people try to kill him for reasons which are not clear.’ That’s the question he asks when he wrote “North by Northwest’ and when you ask Alfred Hitchcock ‘why are they chasing him?’ he would’ve shrugged his shoulders and said ‘I don’t know, I’ll figure it out.’ What he’s figuring out is the McGuffin. It could be almost anything, but in this case it had something to do with spies. So I encourage you to read about it. It’s fun and you can use it fiction– I’m not sure about nonfiction, I’d have to give that some thought.”

Nancy: “Michael, you seem so comfortable in your videos. Do you have any tips to help writers get over their fear of public speaking?”

Michael: “Toast-masters is a great way– I didn’t do that– I’ve always been comfortable. I’ve done a lot of community theater and I embarrass very little now as I get older. So the truth is, I just do my best. I don’t care, I love talking to people and right now I love talking to all of you.”

Dorothy: “Do you think Twitter is a useful networking tool for connecting with new readers and generating interest? Do you have any creative ideas for new writers to use in jumpstarting their careers (using social media)?”

Michael: “I’m not an expert at social media by any stretch and I certainly feel like I’m connecting with a large number of new readers, but time will tell because I haven’t really had a book up for sale since I’ve started more and more to get tips from my publicists and to connect with people over Twitter and Facebook. So I can’t answer the question except that it makes perfect sense to me that the more I can connect with people, the more books I’m ultimately going to sell. I don’t completely know how Twitter even really works, but I’m trying my best to interact with people and until it becomes more work than it’s worth I’m going to try to keep doing it. As it’s sort of fun and it’s a great break for me.

Kimberly: “How did you decide which new media (Twitter, Facebook, etc) to pursue and do you plan to follow the crowd, adopting new social media sources as they become available? Have you noticed an effect on your sales or is it too early to tell?”

Michael: “I have publicists who advise me on what I should be doing and I keep in close touch with them and they’re terrific. They’re sort of ‘new media publicists’ who really understand this stuff and what they tell me to do I do, and I’m gradually catching on and soon I’ll be able to do more and more of this stuff by myself, because it seems like a natural way to connect with people.”

Nicoleta: “What’s your favorite book and by whom? What country do you want to visit that you have not had the opportunity?”

Michael: “I have a lot of favorite books, I really do. I loved, most recently, I really loved ‘The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Nighttime.’ I couldn’t put it down– I read it twice and I loved the book. It’s about a kid with Asperger Syndrome investigating the murder of dog. It was a wonderful, impressive book. I recently read a couple of books by my friend Lee Child who created Jack Reacher and he’s just good—he’s a really good writer. And I put him in a class with John D. McDonald– another one of my favorite writers. As far as where I want to visit, I’ve never been to Africa and I really expect that I’m going to go there someday.”