Author: Year One

As this February ends, I mark 1 year since THE SAMARITAN was released. So while I’ve been a “writer” for as long as I can remember, this is pretty much my first year as an “author.” With that in mind, to celebrate one year as an author, here’s 12 things I learned in the last 12 months.

Publishing a novel is hard . . . Writing a book? Easy. Rewriting a book? Slightly tougher. Getting on board with a publisher who—gasp—wants to publish the book? Rewriting repeatedly, absorbing editorial comments, the cover, the dedication, trying to remember who to put in acknowledgments, the bio, the author photo? The “is anybody going to read this, is this any good” feeling? Staring at your promotional plan and wondering if you can bring yourself to read in public? Going to a reading with 8 people, and then 80 people, wanting to soil yourself no matter what the audience size for entirely different reasons? Coming to terms with the fact that the most visceral, violent stuff you can come up with will now be out there for public consumption? All that stuff is pretty hard. Fun, but hard.

. . . but not impossible. The writing world is rife with stories of perseverance. It doesn’t happen overnight, but I truly believe if you want it to happen, it’s going to happen. I can’t even get a count on how many hundreds of thousands of words I’ve written to get to the 73k that is bound between the two covers of SAMARITAN, how much I needed to learn and discover and work out. I can barely remember when I started putting words to paper, but it’s been over fifteen years. The key is don’t get stuck or married to one idea. Write it and move on. The best is always yet to come, but you’ve got to do the right now to discover it.

Independent publishers like Blank Slate Press can be incredibly viable and effective. They’re not bound to tradition, they’re nimble, flexible, daring, they work hard, they return calls and emails same-day, they write checks that clear. They’re the guerilla fighters that win while the lockstep redcoats get popped off one by one.

The feeling that your first book will be the noose that hangs your second book? Totally real. Just to reiterate—totally. Real. I approach my second novel clenched up as if the manuscript is going to punch me in the face.

Social media and platform creation is paralyzing and difficult for me. I’m just not consistent enough with it. I never feel like anything’s worth posting, I barely know how to operate a hashtag, it’s just a complete extension of social anxiety disorder that branches into a virtual world. Must. Do. Better.

The author’s personality and delivery is just as important as the quality of the book when it comes to selling the book. I gave a “lecture” to a bunch of college kids who didn’t seem like they particularly cared to hear from some “author.” After my talk, which was more of me just being myself than anything else, a lot of them bought books. Why? “Because I thought this lecture was going to suck but it all sounds pretty cool.” Or something like that. Either way, I moved a lot of books that day and learned a lesson. You’re not just marketing the book, you’re marking you.

I’d rather be from a town of 600 people than a city of 6 million. The small town I’m from? Yeah, they do a hell of a job of supporting the locals. I think that everyone read it, bought it, recommended it, or talked about it at some point. It’s easy to get lost in a big pond. The small pond Patoka ripple effect was pretty amazing. 

You better keep writing your ass off. Eventually what you’re writing today is going to be yesterday and everyone wants to know what you’ll have tomorrow.

Balance is important—so is having a wife that keeps you both balanced and grounded. It’s quite a luxury to have a gentle voice tell you to put that damn laptop away. She helps me remember that life comes first.

Physical fitness is a secret weapon for a fiction writer. My longest writing sessions and some of my best ideas came after a really traumatic, weight-filled workout. If you’re a writer that thinks better during or after a walk, kick it up to a run, a few sprints, a few Olympic lifts. Your body and mind will thank you.

You get to ask cool questions and do cool stuff in the name of “research.”  No one says no to anything if they think it’ll make it into a book.

You can connect with readers, but you can’t make your non-reading friends into readers. This one is self-evident. I don’t need to name names here, but I can think of one dude that had an ARC of my book and now, over a year later, I think his family has read it and he still hasn’t. I haven’t found that magical power that makes non-readers into readers quite yet.