I was recently interviewed over at Paid by the Weird!
Check it out:
- - -
Showing posts with label interview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interview. Show all posts
Madeleine Swann
Madeleine Swann is the author of the novella entitled "The Filing Cabinet of Doom". Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing her! Check it out and pick up a copy of her novel today!
E.S.: Hey Madeleine! First of all, tell us a little about yourself.
M.S.: I live in deepest, darkest Essex in England. Parts of it are quite rural and I imagine Americans would make a whole bunch of horror films here. In fact the next county over is home to a family of polygamists which is nice.
I'm drawn to weirder fiction, films and television, stuff that makes my imagination crackle. Aside from my books my film collection is a point of pride.
E.S.: Tell us about your novella, "The Filing Cabinet of Doom".
M.S.: The Filing Cabinet of Doom novella is a surreal comedy set in a black and white, soundless world. A psychic from a travelling carnival informs a village the world will end. Panic ensues and three people make their way to the Head Office at the Council, a far off and dangerous place. The book also contains short stories of mine - some serious, some funny and all a little odd. It's out with Burning Bulb Publishing who, oddly enough, published my first ever story The Gathering.
E.S.: Tell us a little about the work you've done for Strange Saturdays, Polluto Magazine and others you're particularly proud of being associated with.
M.S.: I've done a few flash fiction pieces lately for Weirdyear, Strange Saturdays, the new Strange Edge magazine as well as their website and Bizarro Central. They spurt from my brain in between other projects and I enjoy them. I'm really pleased with my longer stories in anthologies though, such as Lucy's Lips in American Nightmare, a fifties set horror anthology. I watched everything fifties I had including Rebel Without A Cause and a good few infomercials to get the speech right. I love those infomercials, there's something comforting about a time period that never existed. Nobody was ever that perfect.
Author/graphic artist Matthew Revert designed the cover for a story of mine that appeared on his site LegumeMan Books, Sweet Sweets Emporium. His work is great so I was very excited. Lastly A Piece Worth Millions (Polluto magazine issue 10) is testament to the power of dreams - I woke up with it almost fully formed in my head.
E.S.: Where do you think the future of the written word is going?
M.S.: I still love reading paper books although I can definitely see the benefits of kindle, but I think people have always enjoyed stories in a number of ways. For example the Welcome to Night Vale podcast is often beautiful writing which is streamed through computers (or whatever devices you people use). The fact that it's performed aloud is reminiscent not only of the oral tradition of storytelling but also old radio broadcasts which make the listener feel like part of the past and future at the same time. Audiobooks too, if I'm ill there's nothing I enjoy more than listening to ghost stories. I think the future will bring more and unexpected ways to do this. Paper books will always be there, though, because to collectors like me it's a satisfying feeling to own them.
E.S.: What advice do you have for other writers, especially those who are just getting started?
M.S.: I'm not too far into the writing profession myself, I have a long way to go and a lot to learn. However Roald Dahl once said he always imagined the reader losing interest with each word so made sure every sentence was important. That's probably a good thing to aim for.
E.S.: Where can our readers find more of your work?
M.S.: My website is shiny and very organised, if you wish to search out my work it will be there and labelled neatly. How I love those labels...
Madeleine's Website: http://madeleineswann.com/
Madelein's profile on Weekly Artist: [click here]
Amazon link for "The Filing Cabinet of Doom" [click here]
[click the cover for more information]
- - -
New Interview!
Recently, I was interviewed by author Nerine Dorman about my story in the anthology "Para Kindred." Check it out! I'm proud to have been a part of this book. Lots of great stories in here!
Link: http://nerinedorman.blogspot.com/2014/04/para-kindred-anthology-author-es-wynn.html
- - -
Walter Rhein
Walter Rhein is the author of Rhemalda Publishing's new Fantasy novel "The Bone Sword." Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing him! Check it out and pick up a copy of his novel today!
E.S.: So Walter, tell us a little about yourself.
W.R.: I graduated from college in 2001 with a degree in English literature and a minor in Physics. I started studying Physics because I got fed up with the subjective nature of English and I wanted to take some classes where I could just believe everything the professor said (and not get into any arguments). Also, I was getting a little fed up with people laughing at me for being an English major. In my opinion, English can be either the hardest major or the easiest, but it's kind of up to you to put the work in. However, it's been my experience that having some hard-core science on your resume isn't going to close any doors for you.
Actually, when you really think about it, Physics is the most philosophical science class you could take. Once you get into relativity and quantum mechanics you're basically just dealing with abstract models that require a lot of creativity to be able to discuss. I remember that I always wanted my teachers to explain how the universe looked from the point of view of a photon. They tended to get a little frustrated with me (apparently nobody had ever asked them that before).
After I graduated, I moved to Lima, Peru where I lived and worked for 10 years as a teacher, writer, and editor. I really didn't have a game plan down there, but I figured that if I was learning Spanish that pretty much justified the time I was spending. I'm fluent now.
In 2009, I got married to my lovely wife Zulma and we moved back to Chippewa Falls, WI. My wife wasn't all that happy with me during her first Wisconsin winter. On July 25, 2010, we had our first child, a beautiful baby that we named Sofia Aurora. Sofia is the goddess of wisdom and Aurora is the goddess of the dawn, so I like to think that her name means "dawn of wisdom." I told that to my uncle and he thought that was a lot to live up to. I suppose he's right, but no less than the names of goddesses were good enough for MY little girl!
E.S.: Very nice! Alright, how long have you been writing?
W.R.: I've been writing pretty much since I could first form letters. I had my first story published when I was a Freshman in high school. There was a little magazine we were all submitting to (at the urging of our teacher), called "The High School Writer." I was the first in my grade to get something published in there.
I majored in English Literature, so that required a lot of paper writing. Any writing is good practice, but writing college papers isn't the same as creative writing. Actually, by the time you're done putting together all the necessary mechanical components of your typical college paper, there's no space left over to say anything original. Initially it was my idea to write a novel as my college thesis, but then they told me I couldn't since I was a Literature major and not a Creative Writing major. To this day I don't understand the logic of how somebody who has studied novels is not qualified to write one...but whatever. I decided to write a novel anyway. That first one wasn't very good, but it's got its moments. If you write me and ask for it, I'll send you a copy (walterrhein@gmail.com).
After that, I wrote a TON down in Peru. I've worked for several magazines and ezines as an editor/contributor. There are short stories of mine floating around all over the internet under various names. I prefer novels though, there's more room to stretch out and make yourself comfortable.
E.S.: That's definitely one of the nicer things about novels. Speaking of novels, what can you tell us about your book?
W.R.: I'm starting to think of "The Bone Sword" as a kind of counter-culture fantasy. Rhemalda Publishing is a small publisher and they're not quite so concerned about churning out cookie cutter fantasies. That being said, "The Bone Sword" isn't avant-garde. There is plenty within the book that fans of fantasy will enjoy and appreciate. However, when the time comes for my characters to make the hard decisions, don't be surprised if they go at right angles to what you were expecting.
That's really the fun of small-press books, sort of like how Indie films are more fun than the studio blockbusters. You KNOW what's going to happen in a blockbuster...an Indie film, however, is pretty much guaranteed to surprise you.
Essentially though, I was just looking to write an action packed fantasy that will keep readers on the edge of their seats! I hope I succeeded, and the initial reviews seem to suggest I have.
E.S.: Excellent! Okay, so tell me: what do you think the future has in store for the written word?
W.R.: That's an interesting question and it's certainly open for debate. Movies are so darn advanced now that you've got to write a pretty compelling book in order to compete (it's not like they're hanging paper plates off fishing poles and calling them "flying saucers" anymore). In addition to that, video games are becoming amazing, and interactive online games like World of Warcraft are taking fantasy entertainment into whole knew planes of existence.
Still, I think the written word isn't going to go away. To make a movie, you still need a script, and although they might not call it a script in an interactive online fantasy adventure, there must be some kind of written template used at some point in the game's construction. So, at least in that sense, the written word will always be necessary.
All that being said, I don't think the novel as an art form is going to disappear anytime soon. In fact, with devices like the Kindle and the iPad, novels might be on the verge of experiencing a surge of popularity. I'll start being worried when they have an all video upload version of Facebook (shoot...maybe I should invent that...call it YouBook.com).
E.S.: Even then, the world will need writers, I suppose. We always find a way to survive. Which reminds me, as a published author, what kind of advice would you give to other writers, especially those who are just getting started?
W.R.: I think the most important thing to understand is that it's all about cultivating a following. There are a lot of people sitting around "theorizing" as to what makes great writing, and those people are always going to be critical of everything you produce. We've all heard the stories about how many times various books get passed on by publishers before they finally find success. To be honest, I probably would have passed on "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (and I would have been an idiot...but what can you do?). If you can get 20,000 people to buy your book, then you're a successful writer no matter what anyone says. That may seem like a big number but when you consider that there are something like 7 billion people in the world, a mere 20K is hardly a drop in the bucket (.000003% of the global population).
So take advantage of all the various social media sites out there (Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc.), start a blog, and (above all) be NICE to the people who track you down and contact you. In fact, see if you can get THEM to start raving about you on THEIR blog and Facebook page (these things tend to snowball).
Rejection is simply going to happen in the writing business, so recruit an army and make it IMPOSSIBLE for publishers to reject you (threaten them with virtual force if you have to...but never stop writing)!
E.S.: Great advice, definitely! Anything else that you’d like to add?
W.R.: First of all I'd just like to thank you for taking the time to interview me! I appreciate it! I encourage anyone who reads this to look me up and send me an email (walterrhein@gmail.com) or to friend me on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/wrhein ) or on digg (http://digg.com/walterrhein ).
I also have a couple blogs you might be interested in. My fantasy blog is called Swordreaver (http://walterrhein.blogspot.com/ ) and I have a travel blog called Streets of Lima (http://streetsofperu.blogspot.com/ ). These tend to get updated pretty regularly as I'm a writing junkie (if I don't get my 2000 words a day I start shaking and drooling).
Also, don't forget to check out "The Bone Sword!" Here is the Amazon link for Paperback:
http://www.amazon.com/Bone-Sword-Walter-Rhein/dp/0982743726/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1286574459&sr=8-1
And Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Bone-Sword-ebook/dp/B004AE34RI/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&qid=1286574459&sr=8-1
Thanks again for the interview!
E.S.: My pleasure Walter. I'm looking forward to reading your book! Let us know when your next one hits the shelves!
- - -
Interview at Hubpages
Recently I was interviewed at HubPages about my article 101 Reasons to Stay Single, which was recently optioned to be adapted for television. Check out the interview here!
Thank you everyone who has read and/or commented on the list over the last two years. I really appreciate your support and I look forward to creating more lists in the future that can be enjoyed by so many people (and for so long a period of time!)
Richard Cody
Next on the interview schedule is Richard Cody, a poet and master of short, dark and generally cross-genre fiction who is also the author of The Jewel In The Moment, Darker Corners and This Is Not My Heart.E.S.: First of all, tell us a little about yourself.
R.C.: The basic facts about me are simple. All are true, and yet none describe me:
I’m white, of French descent on my father’s side. A very typical Pisces, for the astrologically minded. 40 something already! Politically, leaning so far to the left that I’ve fallen over and rolled off the chart. Music and books, more than I can ever read or hear, are important to me. I am happily married, for many years now. Though sometimes nearly consumed by cynicism, I do believe in Love. I write poetry and fiction, and have been writing, or drawing, something for most of my life. I take pictures, too, these days! Horror movies and comic books remain a couple of my favorite things. Poetry, too, of course. On certain occasions, I might say that few things are better than a good ghost story. I know there is only one person here. Chocolate chip cookies, fudge Pop-Tarts, and M&Ms are, perhaps, weaknesses. I want to tell you a story.
E.S.: And we're all about stories! Very nice. So tell us about your books, Darker Corners, The Jewel in the Moment and This Is Not My Heart.
R.C.: I’ve been published, off and on, in the small press field for some 20 years now. I’d long considered compiling my work into a book. Staying away from professional publishing houses and eschewing even the suggestion of a vanity press kept any book I’d considered solely in the realm of thought. I realized, with the advent of Print on Demand sites like Lulu.com, that I could publish my books without the interference of editors and without the stigma of the vanity press. So, I like to say that my three current books are the results of the “Print on Demand Revolution”! The books themselves are composed of older and newer material.
The Jewel in the Moment is a modest collection of 80 or so of my best experiments with the Haiku and Tanka forms. I refer to my efforts with this Japanese form as Haikuish, since it is my belief that any Haiku not written in Japanese is, strictly speaking, not Haiku.
Darker Corners, my second book, is a collection of stories I consider dark fiction as opposed to horror; funnily enough, though, I think the stories tend to alter, transcend and transmute such genre definitions! I believe on the back cover of the book, I refer to the stories as “strange”, and that’s as good a description as any.
This is Not My Heart, my third book, is a collection of poetry. I can only say about this book that those who enjoy modern poetry in its many forms, and those who think they don’t like poetry, will enjoy this collection of poems, which span a number of years in my life and a number of styles!
E.S.: I see. Where do you think the future of the written word is going?
R.C.: That could be a tricky question. And one with many answers. Certainly the written word will evolve, or devolve as some might say, along with e-mail and texting technologies. I mentioned the “Print on Demand Revolution” above, and that is a term I use seriously. The Print on Demand model of publishing is changing the publishing landscape right now. Of course, certain crafty, literate people will always enjoy making books. And that’s good because the technologies of the present, and the social structures which support them, may well not make it into the future. In any case, wherever there are people there will be stories. I can tell you that.
E.S.: What advice do you have for other writers, especially those who are just getting started?
R.C.: I don’t think I have any advice that hasn’t already been given to aspiring writers to the point of cliché. Nonetheless, the advice I have to offer is true. First, write it down. Everything. Anything. Write it down. Also, read - this may be a given as I believe that all writers are readers, but it should be said that writing and reading go very much hand in hand. And, for the sake of your deity of choice, don’t try to imitate other writers. Find your voice and say what you mean.
E.S.: Where can our readers find more of your work?
R.C.: My work is scattered across the web in various virtual journals, ‘zines, and literary sites. Also throughout various print publications in the 80’s, 90s and now! My books, mentioned above, are easily available at Lulu and Amazon, urls below:
http://stores.lulu.com/rcodywrites
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B003BHJ95G
You may also join me at my Facebook page, Richard Cody – Poetry and Fiction. Here’s the url:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Richard-Cody-Poetry-and-Fiction/124477884238938
Amanda Firefox
Today, it is my pleasure to interview Amanda Firefox, author of Shadows of Light on Tomorrow’s Mirror. If you haven’t read her book, I highly recommend it!E.S.: So Amanda, tell us a little about yourself.
A.F.: Ooh, that is always a fun one. A little about myself? Well, I’m five-seven, dark hair, brown eyes. I have a dog, I am a hopeless romantic and I enjoy long walks on the beach.
E.S.: Excellent! And how long have you been writing?
A.F.: Not long. About a year or so now. I have been doodling little bits and pieces of poetry for as long as I can remember, but only writing seriously for about a year.
E.S.: What can you tell us about your book?
A.F.: Well, it is a collection of flash fiction and poetry pieces, first of all. Second of all, it is about love, desire, and the beauty of the human experience. Oh, and sex. Everything I write has some steamy sex element to it. That is just how I am.
E.S.: Excellent! What do you think the future has in store for the written word?
A.F.: Honestly, I don’t know. I really believe that people will still be writing and reading in the future, but I like to think that maybe the internet will lead to a world where people read more and enjoy longer pieces, like novels.
E.S.: As a published author, what kind of advice would you give to other writers, especially those who are just getting started?
A.F.: Don’t give up! That is it, really. Write from the heart. Write what you like, and talk to people about it everyday!
E.S.: Excellent. Thank you, Amanda! Anything else that you’d like to add?
A.F.: No, but thanks. ^_^’
Amanda Firefox on Daily Love
Amanda Firefox on Hubpages
Pagan Writers!
Angelique Mroczka of the Pagan Writers' Community recently interviewed me about my books, my magazines, and my upcoming releases! Check it out by visiting the site here: (click)
Political Packrat
Featuring lucid and interesting commentary and reporting on current events in the political sphere, Political Packrat is, without a doubt, one of the internet's best kept secrets. In fact, I've been so consistently impressed by her work that I approached her the other day to do an interview that should shed some light into the workings behind the scene at her site, and provided for some downright interesting reading as well. Enjoy!
E.S. Wynn: First of all, tell us a little about yourself.
PP: I am old enough to have a long history and lots of memories, but I 'll keep it short. I grew up a military brat and had the good fortune as a kid to live in many parts of the United States and to spend some time abroad. After college I headed to New York and had various writing jobs-- mostly in advertising and editorial promotion.
This was back in the days of typewriters and carbon paper when the New York Times employment section was where you looked for jobs. It had help wanted "male" and help wanted " female" sections. The good jobs were always in the help wanted "male" section, but getting a foot in the door if you were a girl was a problem. Jobs for even educated women were all about typing. Nobody had even thiought of the internet back then, except maybe for Isaac Asimov :-)
Eventually, I married, had two kids, raised them in a Brownstone in Brooklyn where I got involved with all sorts of local community and political organizations. I think that is when I began to see the importance of participation in the political dialogue and what a difference just a few people could make. I left Brooklyn in the late '90's. My husband and I called it quits after 33 years of marriage and I have settled in a small, central New Jersey town on the banks of the Delaware River, near friends, family, and grown children. I live and blog in a beautiful place where I have access to clean air, good food and wireless internet. What more could a girl want?
E.S. Wynn: What prompted you to start Political Packrat?
PP: Political Packrat kind of grew out of my other internet activities. Let me start by saying that I first went online in 1993 and knew right away that this was something as big and as defining for humankind as the Gutenberg Bible. I was hooked right away. I had my first website in 1996. It would today have been considered a blog, I think. I ran it till 2002 and it taught me a lot-- most importantly, I learned a new way of thinking and processing information that I still find fascinating. I call it thinking in hyperlinks and my kids, who grew up with technology, know how to do it organically. I have the advantage though, because I can think in hyperlinks, but I can also think linearly and more deeply in the old fashioned manner of my generation. It gives me a kind of double whamee when it comes to political blogging. that I find useful.
I started Political Packrat because I am something of a political junkie and follow world events with keen interest. I was already writing on hubpages and doing two other blogs, but I wanted one solely devoted to my personal take on world affairs and American politics. I just wanted to share my thoughts and opinions, backed up by facts, history, and critical thinking rather than raw emotion. I was tired of reading whacked out angry political rants from both left and right and just wanted to restore some balance and maybe a sense of humor to my little corner of the political blogasphere.
E.S. Wynn: If you had to label your political stance, what would it be?
PP: Good Grief-- I don't know that I can label my political stance. I am a registered democrat and definitely tend towards liberal and populist points of view-- but not always and not in all things. In some ways I am surprisingly conventional. I guess if I had to label myself I would say I am an open minded free thinker. At least that is what I hope I am:-)
E.S. Wynn: What is your opinion on the state of the world as it is now? Do you have any advice?
PP: Oddly enough, I think the world is better off now than it was during the Cold War when I was a kid. I spent my whole childhood thinking the world might get blown up in a nuclear holocaust any day. The super power face-off was a very hairy time when two systems battled it out and nobody was talking to anybody. In America we thought the Russians were going to attack and I now discover that little Russian kids were afraid of the Americans. Governments had power in those days-- a power that the internet has broken forever.
The internet and the jet plane have brought us all so close together that we are going to have to work out our problems and that's a good thing. It's as if all the people of the earth have suddenly been put in one room. They are jostling and pushing each other and cursing at one another, but eventually they will calm down and get along because they have no other choice. We have serious political, religious and cultural issues, disease, pollution, climate change and over population but we are talking to each other which is more than we were doing during the Cold War.
The internet is the highway of truth and the path to learning. In some ways, the future has never been brighter. It's a great time to be alive.
E.S. Wynn: Anything else that you would like to add?
PP: Just thanks for reading Political Packrat. It's the ultimate compliment one writer can give another.
Click here to visit political packrat and see what the latest scoop is!
An Interview by Alice James
An Interview of E.S.Wynn by Alice James on the subject of Self Publishing
Can you walk me through the general process of self publishing?
Sure thing. It’s pretty simple, when it comes right down to it. Basically, there are four major steps– (1.)write the book, (2.)find a printer you can trust who does good work, (3.) purchase an ISBN (International Serial Barcode Number – provided by Bowker’s Books in Print) and (4.) market your book by letting the world know it’s out there, it’s available, and getting it listed on all the major sites (like Barnes and Nobel and Amazon). You’ll have to call physical book stores on an individual basis to get them to consider carrying your book, and be prepared to meet with resistance, but realize that if you get your book in even one physical book store (not just online) you’re miles ahead of the majority of authors published by publishing houses, many of whom sell their books for nothing more than an expected percentage of royalties only to have the publishing house sit on the novel for a decade or more. Of course, when you go into a physical bookstore, it seems as if there are literally thousands of books, but consider the percentage of them that are organized into a particular genre (such as Fantasy or Science Fiction), the percentage of that percentage that are written by authors still living, and the even smaller percentage of living authors who aren’t already extremely well known with a best seller or two under their belt. As a first time author, even going with a publishing house, it’s unlikely any physical bookstore is going to carry your book unless you call them directly and ask them to.
Of course, as with anything in life, there’s a lot to watch out for out there when it comes to self-publishing. Getting into the corrupted, corporate controlled market is exceedingly difficult for even the most avid and well trained of writers, and a lot of people out there eager to make a buck are well aware of that. If you type “Self Publishing” into a google search, you’ll get thousands of results for agencies that will publish your work for upwards of $1000, which is downright ridiculous if you know how easy it is to get your book self published literally for free.
While I’m sure there are other services out there that are just as awesome, the best self publishing agency I’ve run across in my entire history as an author is, without a doubt, a friendly little company called Lulu (www.lulu.com). Lulu will publish your work literally for free and give you an awesome deal on printing costs (with bulk discounts) meaning your only real cost (beyond your own stock of books) is an ISBN and marketing package, which they offer for the much more reasonable price of $150. (Though I’ve seen it drop as low as $100.) This package gives you an ISBN and tells all the major websites that carry books out there (even internationally) that your book is now available and ready to be sold, so some of the footwork of self publishing is already handled. As for the nitty gritty of the process– check out Lulu’s website, which is fun and easy to use, and even features a publishing wizard that makes the process that much easier.
Why did you chose to self publish?
The biggest motivator for me came in the form of my ideals. The market as it stands (at least here in America) is totally corrupted with corporate politics. Trash is peddled by agencies that should know better, and is hailed as treasure as it is rubbed in the faces of the masses who buy without blinking. The little guy, the independent, is so looked down upon, so stigmatized, that anyone who dares to say “I’m going to publish my own book!” is looked at as a fraud or worse– someone who just can’t write. After all, the idea that has been so ingrained in our minds is that, if you actually knew a thing about writing, you’d be snapped up in a heartbeat and given a million dollar contract, right?
If only it were that easy. The truth is that the only people who get picked up by publishing agencies are people who are already somebody. Most agents won’t even represent you if you’ve published less than six books. There is no ground floor for the beginner, and if you try to wade into the midst of a writing group that claims to be the starting point for any career in the industry, you’ll find that it’s little more than a cluster of failed writers who have been clawing and scratching for corporate scraps so long that they set upon each other like wolves at even the slightest showing of talent. That’s not to say that all writer’s groups are that bad, but beware, because most are. The best writing groups are those that are close knit and formed by friends who are honest, but as caring about your success as you are about theirs.
But supporting this farce that the big publishing houses propagate like so much sludge goes against my ethical standards and I simply refuse to support it. Sure, the utter freedom I enjoy by refusing to sell out on the rights to my creations alone is worth any of the cons that might come with self publishing, but the primary reason for me to self publish was an ethical one. As an American citizen, and as a citizen of the greater world upon which we all live, I have made it one of my goals to fight to change the way people think about independence and the pioneering spirit of the self published writer, but I’ll get into that more later.
What were the pros and cons of self publishing?
The pros of self publishing are vast and well worth the extra work required. Perhaps the most meaningful and most important is the freedom you have over your own material. When you self publish, you retain all the rights to your work. It’s yours, you can do whatever you want with it, market it however you like, and not worry about a big ball-and-chain publishing company’s concerns about its image as the publisher of your book. You can be at the forefront of each new format of print media as it comes out and make your book available within days or hours instead of waiting around for months while lawyers debate whether or not it’s worth investing your particular novel in some new and untested means of getting books to the reader. As the sole driving force behind Thunderune Publishing, I love having the ability to market Pink Carbide as a PDF both online and on disks that I take with me to signings– there’s no hassle of lawyers and nervous old men who are afraid of the future, and I can pass on the savings to my customers, selling them CDs for five dollars if they can’t afford the price of a printed book at $14.95. Another great example is that, when Amazon’s Kindle format came out, I was able to act quickly and make Pink Carbide available within hours of the release, instead of days or weeks later.
The cons of self publishing are pretty basic and not anywhere near as insurmountable as mainstream society might have you believe. The first, and perhaps easiest to overcome con is marketing. When you self publish, you become your own publishing house, and you effectively wear every hat that would normally be parted out to hundreds (or at least dozens) of employees, which means you have to do all the footwork, all the editing, all the formatting, all the promotion, all the scheduling, and create all the hype that will make people buy your book. With limited resources, this can seem utterly impossible, but it just takes a little effort. Remember: Networking is your friend. Talk to family members and friends, find people and get them talking about your book. Make friends with other independent writers and trade edits, books and reviews on blogs or Amazon or even on sites like Hubpages. Remember, the more people talk about your book, the more other people will notice, and it just spreads from there.
The only other con to self publishing that I’ve run across is the stigma that society has placed on it. As a self published writer, you’re going to get a lot of flak from people who assume that refusing to play the game the publishing houses have set up for would-be writers to get lost in is synonymous with failure as a human being. It’s not. Remember: At the very least, you’ve had the guts to write a book, to put it out there for people to read, and most of all, to go it alone. How many other people do you know who can say the same? You’ll find that most of the people who give you flak have been sitting around wasting their time watching hours of TV while you’ve been dedicating yourself to art, to the betterment of your soul and through that the betterment of humanity as a whole. As a self published writer, you automatically join the ranks of the elite among pioneers and entrepreneurs, people who have the spirit and strength to cast off the framework and the odds and the corruption and proceed alone into uncharted territory, authors like William Blake, Walt Whitman, James Joyce, Rudyard Kipling, Ezra Pound, and many many others who got their starts by self publishing. Even Paolini’s Eragon was originally a self published book before it got picked up by Knopf and later found its way to the silver screen.
Did you find marketing your book difficult or simplistic?
Marketing is an ongoing process– sometimes it’s difficult, and sometimes it’s simple. The key, I’ve found, is getting people to talk about your product. The more people talk about your book (as with any other product you’re trying to market,) the more people will notice it and consider buying it. As the sole “employee” of Thunderune Publishing, I’m always on the look out for a new edge, a new place and a new way to get people talking about my books, and though that may sound like a huge and scary process, it really isn’t anything you can’t do on the side and in your spare time. As a full time student, writer, editor, big brother, ranch hand, sword salesman and activist, I still manage to get the word out and manage to sell enough copies to make the whole thing more than just worthwhile– it could almost be called profitable!
If, at the time, you had been given the option of publishing with a publishing house or self publishing, what choice would you have made?
If I had received an offer on the rights for Pink Carbide on the day I was about to found Thunderune Publishing, I have to admit, it would have given me pause, but then I didn’t know that much about self publishing when I first started out. Knowing what I know today, unless the terms had been unusually good (it’s not like in movies where you write your first book and someone shoots you a six million dollar contract - a more realistic example can be seen in what happened with Joseph Campbell’s Hero of a Thousand Faces, the book which inspired George Lucas to write the entire Star Wars saga. An excited publisher approached Campbell and offered him $250 for the rights, $250 when the book was half completed and $250 on publication, and he accepted immediately, knowing those were more than generous terms.) perhaps if I had been offered somewhere in the neighborhood of at least $10,000 at signing, I might have considered the terms and talked to legal counsel to see what rights, exactly, I would be signing away, but anything less and I probably would have said “thanks, but no thanks.” The industry may seem glamourous, and writing a book may seem like the kind of thing that would set you up for life, but ask any writer who’s been picked up by a publishing house but not hit best seller status yet, and they’ll tell you that they’re not in the writing for the money. Whether you self publish or not, you do it for the art, a labor of love. The money you gain is just an added benefit of good promotion and good product accessability.
If faced with the same situation now which would you chose?
If I were to be offered the same choice as a first time author with no books under my belt, I would most definitely self publish my first book (indeed my first three) again, and barring someone offering me a million dollars up front, I plan to continue to self publish any other novels in the Pink Carbide series as well. That’s not to say I won’t approach a publisher for some other book or series unrelated to Pink Carbide in the future, some piece of fiction I care much less about, but you can bet that if I do decide to wade into the mire of politics and business that is the collective corporate publishing industry, I’m going to be approaching small time, independent (and preferably local) presses first, even if only for my ethics’ sake.
Did you like or dislike the control you had over your books in the self publishing process?
To say I love having complete control over my books would be an understatement. It’s one of the primary benefits of self publishing!
Overall approximately how much did it cost to self publish and did you feel that it was worth the price?
Most definitely! The overall cost for self publishing Pink Carbide was worth every penny. Even when I tabulate up the costs of the ISBN, gas to get to signings, and having a supply of printed stock on hand, I’ve still spent less than a thousand dollars, and I’ve made that entire sum back, with a little margin of profit on the side to boot. Sure, I haven’t sold millions of copies of Pink Carbide yet, but I’ve sold over 230 books in the past three years, and I’ve made back every cent I’ve spent and then some. Perhaps most satisfying is the fact that even though I might have sold more books overall if I had taken my novel to a major publishing house (and they had decided it was “worth publishing” or even worth releasing,) I would never have made anywhere near as much money as I have. All too often, writers who go with Publishing Houses are paid a fraction of a cent for every copy of their novel that sells, and it’s only the rare author that becomes a J.K. Rowling or a Steven King. As a self published author, you still have that same shot at the greatness, of being recognized as a best selling author, only you have the added ability of being able to set the price of your product and make anywhere from one cent to ten dollars in royalties alone on each sale of your novel.
Many people prefer to self publish by finding good eBook publishers, since they help make the process a lot less complicated and more beneficial for you.
- - -
Can you walk me through the general process of self publishing?
Sure thing. It’s pretty simple, when it comes right down to it. Basically, there are four major steps– (1.)write the book, (2.)find a printer you can trust who does good work, (3.) purchase an ISBN (International Serial Barcode Number – provided by Bowker’s Books in Print) and (4.) market your book by letting the world know it’s out there, it’s available, and getting it listed on all the major sites (like Barnes and Nobel and Amazon). You’ll have to call physical book stores on an individual basis to get them to consider carrying your book, and be prepared to meet with resistance, but realize that if you get your book in even one physical book store (not just online) you’re miles ahead of the majority of authors published by publishing houses, many of whom sell their books for nothing more than an expected percentage of royalties only to have the publishing house sit on the novel for a decade or more. Of course, when you go into a physical bookstore, it seems as if there are literally thousands of books, but consider the percentage of them that are organized into a particular genre (such as Fantasy or Science Fiction), the percentage of that percentage that are written by authors still living, and the even smaller percentage of living authors who aren’t already extremely well known with a best seller or two under their belt. As a first time author, even going with a publishing house, it’s unlikely any physical bookstore is going to carry your book unless you call them directly and ask them to.
Of course, as with anything in life, there’s a lot to watch out for out there when it comes to self-publishing. Getting into the corrupted, corporate controlled market is exceedingly difficult for even the most avid and well trained of writers, and a lot of people out there eager to make a buck are well aware of that. If you type “Self Publishing” into a google search, you’ll get thousands of results for agencies that will publish your work for upwards of $1000, which is downright ridiculous if you know how easy it is to get your book self published literally for free.
While I’m sure there are other services out there that are just as awesome, the best self publishing agency I’ve run across in my entire history as an author is, without a doubt, a friendly little company called Lulu (www.lulu.com). Lulu will publish your work literally for free and give you an awesome deal on printing costs (with bulk discounts) meaning your only real cost (beyond your own stock of books) is an ISBN and marketing package, which they offer for the much more reasonable price of $150. (Though I’ve seen it drop as low as $100.) This package gives you an ISBN and tells all the major websites that carry books out there (even internationally) that your book is now available and ready to be sold, so some of the footwork of self publishing is already handled. As for the nitty gritty of the process– check out Lulu’s website, which is fun and easy to use, and even features a publishing wizard that makes the process that much easier.
Why did you chose to self publish?
The biggest motivator for me came in the form of my ideals. The market as it stands (at least here in America) is totally corrupted with corporate politics. Trash is peddled by agencies that should know better, and is hailed as treasure as it is rubbed in the faces of the masses who buy without blinking. The little guy, the independent, is so looked down upon, so stigmatized, that anyone who dares to say “I’m going to publish my own book!” is looked at as a fraud or worse– someone who just can’t write. After all, the idea that has been so ingrained in our minds is that, if you actually knew a thing about writing, you’d be snapped up in a heartbeat and given a million dollar contract, right?
If only it were that easy. The truth is that the only people who get picked up by publishing agencies are people who are already somebody. Most agents won’t even represent you if you’ve published less than six books. There is no ground floor for the beginner, and if you try to wade into the midst of a writing group that claims to be the starting point for any career in the industry, you’ll find that it’s little more than a cluster of failed writers who have been clawing and scratching for corporate scraps so long that they set upon each other like wolves at even the slightest showing of talent. That’s not to say that all writer’s groups are that bad, but beware, because most are. The best writing groups are those that are close knit and formed by friends who are honest, but as caring about your success as you are about theirs.
But supporting this farce that the big publishing houses propagate like so much sludge goes against my ethical standards and I simply refuse to support it. Sure, the utter freedom I enjoy by refusing to sell out on the rights to my creations alone is worth any of the cons that might come with self publishing, but the primary reason for me to self publish was an ethical one. As an American citizen, and as a citizen of the greater world upon which we all live, I have made it one of my goals to fight to change the way people think about independence and the pioneering spirit of the self published writer, but I’ll get into that more later.
What were the pros and cons of self publishing?
The pros of self publishing are vast and well worth the extra work required. Perhaps the most meaningful and most important is the freedom you have over your own material. When you self publish, you retain all the rights to your work. It’s yours, you can do whatever you want with it, market it however you like, and not worry about a big ball-and-chain publishing company’s concerns about its image as the publisher of your book. You can be at the forefront of each new format of print media as it comes out and make your book available within days or hours instead of waiting around for months while lawyers debate whether or not it’s worth investing your particular novel in some new and untested means of getting books to the reader. As the sole driving force behind Thunderune Publishing, I love having the ability to market Pink Carbide as a PDF both online and on disks that I take with me to signings– there’s no hassle of lawyers and nervous old men who are afraid of the future, and I can pass on the savings to my customers, selling them CDs for five dollars if they can’t afford the price of a printed book at $14.95. Another great example is that, when Amazon’s Kindle format came out, I was able to act quickly and make Pink Carbide available within hours of the release, instead of days or weeks later.
The cons of self publishing are pretty basic and not anywhere near as insurmountable as mainstream society might have you believe. The first, and perhaps easiest to overcome con is marketing. When you self publish, you become your own publishing house, and you effectively wear every hat that would normally be parted out to hundreds (or at least dozens) of employees, which means you have to do all the footwork, all the editing, all the formatting, all the promotion, all the scheduling, and create all the hype that will make people buy your book. With limited resources, this can seem utterly impossible, but it just takes a little effort. Remember: Networking is your friend. Talk to family members and friends, find people and get them talking about your book. Make friends with other independent writers and trade edits, books and reviews on blogs or Amazon or even on sites like Hubpages. Remember, the more people talk about your book, the more other people will notice, and it just spreads from there.
The only other con to self publishing that I’ve run across is the stigma that society has placed on it. As a self published writer, you’re going to get a lot of flak from people who assume that refusing to play the game the publishing houses have set up for would-be writers to get lost in is synonymous with failure as a human being. It’s not. Remember: At the very least, you’ve had the guts to write a book, to put it out there for people to read, and most of all, to go it alone. How many other people do you know who can say the same? You’ll find that most of the people who give you flak have been sitting around wasting their time watching hours of TV while you’ve been dedicating yourself to art, to the betterment of your soul and through that the betterment of humanity as a whole. As a self published writer, you automatically join the ranks of the elite among pioneers and entrepreneurs, people who have the spirit and strength to cast off the framework and the odds and the corruption and proceed alone into uncharted territory, authors like William Blake, Walt Whitman, James Joyce, Rudyard Kipling, Ezra Pound, and many many others who got their starts by self publishing. Even Paolini’s Eragon was originally a self published book before it got picked up by Knopf and later found its way to the silver screen.
Did you find marketing your book difficult or simplistic?
Marketing is an ongoing process– sometimes it’s difficult, and sometimes it’s simple. The key, I’ve found, is getting people to talk about your product. The more people talk about your book (as with any other product you’re trying to market,) the more people will notice it and consider buying it. As the sole “employee” of Thunderune Publishing, I’m always on the look out for a new edge, a new place and a new way to get people talking about my books, and though that may sound like a huge and scary process, it really isn’t anything you can’t do on the side and in your spare time. As a full time student, writer, editor, big brother, ranch hand, sword salesman and activist, I still manage to get the word out and manage to sell enough copies to make the whole thing more than just worthwhile– it could almost be called profitable!
If, at the time, you had been given the option of publishing with a publishing house or self publishing, what choice would you have made?
If I had received an offer on the rights for Pink Carbide on the day I was about to found Thunderune Publishing, I have to admit, it would have given me pause, but then I didn’t know that much about self publishing when I first started out. Knowing what I know today, unless the terms had been unusually good (it’s not like in movies where you write your first book and someone shoots you a six million dollar contract - a more realistic example can be seen in what happened with Joseph Campbell’s Hero of a Thousand Faces, the book which inspired George Lucas to write the entire Star Wars saga. An excited publisher approached Campbell and offered him $250 for the rights, $250 when the book was half completed and $250 on publication, and he accepted immediately, knowing those were more than generous terms.) perhaps if I had been offered somewhere in the neighborhood of at least $10,000 at signing, I might have considered the terms and talked to legal counsel to see what rights, exactly, I would be signing away, but anything less and I probably would have said “thanks, but no thanks.” The industry may seem glamourous, and writing a book may seem like the kind of thing that would set you up for life, but ask any writer who’s been picked up by a publishing house but not hit best seller status yet, and they’ll tell you that they’re not in the writing for the money. Whether you self publish or not, you do it for the art, a labor of love. The money you gain is just an added benefit of good promotion and good product accessability.
If faced with the same situation now which would you chose?
If I were to be offered the same choice as a first time author with no books under my belt, I would most definitely self publish my first book (indeed my first three) again, and barring someone offering me a million dollars up front, I plan to continue to self publish any other novels in the Pink Carbide series as well. That’s not to say I won’t approach a publisher for some other book or series unrelated to Pink Carbide in the future, some piece of fiction I care much less about, but you can bet that if I do decide to wade into the mire of politics and business that is the collective corporate publishing industry, I’m going to be approaching small time, independent (and preferably local) presses first, even if only for my ethics’ sake.
Did you like or dislike the control you had over your books in the self publishing process?
To say I love having complete control over my books would be an understatement. It’s one of the primary benefits of self publishing!
Overall approximately how much did it cost to self publish and did you feel that it was worth the price?
Most definitely! The overall cost for self publishing Pink Carbide was worth every penny. Even when I tabulate up the costs of the ISBN, gas to get to signings, and having a supply of printed stock on hand, I’ve still spent less than a thousand dollars, and I’ve made that entire sum back, with a little margin of profit on the side to boot. Sure, I haven’t sold millions of copies of Pink Carbide yet, but I’ve sold over 230 books in the past three years, and I’ve made back every cent I’ve spent and then some. Perhaps most satisfying is the fact that even though I might have sold more books overall if I had taken my novel to a major publishing house (and they had decided it was “worth publishing” or even worth releasing,) I would never have made anywhere near as much money as I have. All too often, writers who go with Publishing Houses are paid a fraction of a cent for every copy of their novel that sells, and it’s only the rare author that becomes a J.K. Rowling or a Steven King. As a self published author, you still have that same shot at the greatness, of being recognized as a best selling author, only you have the added ability of being able to set the price of your product and make anywhere from one cent to ten dollars in royalties alone on each sale of your novel.
Many people prefer to self publish by finding good eBook publishers, since they help make the process a lot less complicated and more beneficial for you.
- - -
