Author Fred van Lente has taken time out to answer questions on writing and marketing on Goodreads.com.

In July, Quirk Books will publish his debut novel Ten Dead Comedians – early Goodreads reviews describe it as “an entertaining homage to Agatha Christie…but with a cutting edge and a lot of hilarious happenings”.

He has written professionally for 11 years – his comics and graphic novels have earned him the number one spot on the New York Times bestseller lists, he has won several awards, and his work has been the basis for feature films.

I put two questions to Fred, which he very kindly took time to answer, with some honest advice for writers:

Angela wrote: Chicken/egg question re genre/subject matter: Was your initial inspiration the attraction of writing an entertaining homage to Agatha Christie – or the subject matter of the book ie writing about the world of stand ups (presumably dying on their feet)? 

Fred van Lente replies: Hey Angela, I think Quirk was initially looking for a genre mashup of the type they’ve had success with in the past like Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. I know the publisher, Jason Rekulak, is a huge comedy fan and we had one scene in the book conceived exactly the same way without consulting each other — it involves a prop comic, trust me, you’ll know it when you see it. So like chicken/egg, it is nearly impossible to separate the two.