THE MAGNIFICENT 7 INTERVIEW EVENT
FEATURING AUTHORS: Jeremy Robinson, Ryne Douglas Pearson, Larry Enright, Russell Blake, John Betcher, Rick Chesler, and Douglas Dorow
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PART THREE
2/15/12 - 2/22/12

Read all of the below and then take the quiz for a chance to win free eBooks from the authors.
 EVERYONE WHO SUBMITS WILL GET AN EBOOK COPY OF EITHER THE SOLOMON KEY OR PROGENY!
Click here for all the details and to see which books the winner gets to choose from. 
You have until PART FOUR goes up to get me the answers to PART THREE.
In case you missed... Part One, Part Two

And now, picking up where we left of last week... PART THREE
NOTE: Authors are listed in order of their fans' participation via the poll at the bottom of the page. You can move your author up by getting involved!

Rick Chesler

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I saw a really dumb movie the other night where the bad guys were (somehow) capturing different species of sharks and (somehow) attaching webcams to them and (somehow) releasing them in the bay. It was their version of a snuff Shark Week, streaming the sharks eating people over the Internet. Anyway, just wanted to let you know that your idea is getting out there... though I would much rather have watched WIRED KINGDOM! What are your thoughts on that? Do you think it would make a good movie? Which actors/actresses do you envision playing the roles?  

Sounds like fun! What was the name of the movie and where did you see it? Anyway, I do think Wired Kingdom would make a great movie, but I really don't have any actors in mind. I'll just leave that up to the casting professionals!

The name of the movie was Shark Night. I know, dead giveaway, but I was in the mood to zone out! So where have you been on this planet? What oceans have you explored?

I may have even seen that one on SyFy, not sure. They have a lot of cheesy shark movies, like Spring Break Shark Attack, etc., but nothing that will ever top Sharktopus!

Anyway, I've been fortunate enough to have been scuba diving in many fantastic places around the world. Some of my favorites include the indescribably awesome coral reefs of Fiji in the South Pacific, the depths of the Blue Hole in Belize, the lava tubes of Hawaii, shipwrecks and sea-lions in Mexico's Sea of Cortez, and of course the mind-blowing kelp forests of California's Channel Islands. For those who'd like to see some of these places, I have a few videos I shot myself while diving, here on youtube. So I've been to various parts of the Pacific, the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean. So much more to explore! As far as taking those experiences directly into my novels, Wired Kingdom is set in the California Channel Islands, while kiDNApped takes place throughout the Hawaiian Islands chain.

Wow, that's awesome! I've snorkeled in Bermuda, Jamaica, Cancun, and the Bahamas... but I've always been hesitant to try scuba diving (I'm terrified of sharks)! But I would love to some day. Do you think you would ever write a story that focuses on diving? Like Peter Benchley's The Deep or Clive Cussler's Night Probe or Vixen 03?

I wouldn't worry too much about sharks while scuba diving. It's people floundering around on the surface who present a tempting target! Down below you're at their level and they can see you for what you are--not food! Love Peter Benchely's The Deep as well as those Clive Cussler titles you mentioned--I grew up reading those and they are they kind of books that ultimately inspired me to become a writer. kiDNApped and Wired Kingdom both have prominent diving scenes--especially Wired Kingdom --so it really just depends on the plot if there would be even more diving than I already have. Then again, if I hear from fans that that's what they want more of, I'd be happy to oblige! In general, I like plots centered around the natural environment, especially the ocean, and so at least some of the time that will require scuba diving. 

I don't know, I've seen Deep Blue Sea... Haha. What about cave diving, you ever done anything like Sanctum?

I like Deep Blue Sea! I've never done any extreme cave diving like in Sanctum, but I have done lots of fun cave and cavern scuba dives over the years. One of the best ones was a large underwater cave system about 50 feet down in Fiji, and I think I already mentioned the lava tubes of Hawaii--especially the ones on the Big Island. Really cool! Most recently, this past December my wife and I dove a freshwater cave in the Crystal River, near Tampa, Florida. Also, the cathedral-like caverns of the Blue Hole, Belize, with their giant hanging stalactites! In most of these caves there is still a little bit of visible light for most of the way through, and we're going through with a divemaster who knows the way. Exploring caves with branching tunnels where you can get lost, and with no direct access to the surface is extremely dangerous and should not be attempted without the proper technical training

Yeah, I like Deep Blue Sea, too. Own it, actually. My Uncle's nephew (haha, that would be me, wouldn't it?) - my Uncle's other nephew had something to do with creating one of the things they used for sound... I forget what. I love that movie because it breaks every movie stereotype when it comes to who lives and dies!

Until next week... 

Ryne Douglas Pearson

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Which of all your books was the most fun/exciting to write?

I think the book that enjoyed the most was All For One. Which, in a way, is odd, because the book deals with such dark themes. But something about writing kids is just enjoyable. It's like stepping back in time and bringing stuff from your childhood to life again.

Which of your books would you like to see made into a movie, and if given the option, would you prefer to do the screenplay too?

I would have to say Confessions. And, yes, I'd like to do the screenplay on that one. I couldn't say that about all of my books, to be honest. But Confessions I can already 'see' in that format.

When I was reading Confessions, I had the perfect actor in my mind, but I could never place it! It still drives me crazy, because I can sort of see him right on the edge of my mental periphery, but still haven't figured it out yet. Do you have a perfect actor in mind for the role?

Hmmm. I actually don't do great at trying to place actors in novels as a mental exercise. I guess if I had to give it a shot for the main character in Confessions, I'd say someone like Eric Bana or Jake Gyllenhaal.

Hmmm... Not a big Bana fan, but the person I'm thinking of is like a cross between Jake and Edward Norton, but I can't think of it! I know he exists, darn it! Anyway, obviously Bruce Willis wasn't what you had in mind for Art Jefferson, how close was Nic Cage to your vision of that character?  

With Knowing, I never thought of an actor. To me, he was pretty generic. That's probably terrible to say about a character you write, but I think way more about story than character.
 
So I was actually watching Knowing last night and keeping an eye out for your name during the opening credits. Saw it three times! What was it like being co-producer?

LOL. Pardon that laugh. That was actually a way for additional money to be paid to me that wasn't tied to actual writing. It was something that is done during negotiations, and is pretty common. What did I do for that? Not a whole lot of anything. What I really wanted was a credit for Craft Services, because I make a mean pasta salad.

                            To Be Continued Next Week

Larry Enright

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When you wrote King in a Court of Fools, you were publishing the chapters on your site as you completed them, right? So people got to tune in like a TV show? How did that go? Do you think that helped or hurt sales?

A King in a Court of Fools was published as a free weekly serial from April through August last year. In addition to posting the weekly "episodes" I also recorded them and played original intro and outro (is that a word?) music. The videos were posted to YouTube. Once it caught on, (about three weeks into it) there were about 1,800 people a week reading/listening to it. All of the audios are still on YouTube and this link https://sites.google.com/site/akinginacourtoffools/audio-book will take you to the book's webpage that links to all of them for those who would prefer to listen to the book for free.

Did this hurt sales? Probably, but even if those 1,800 people chose not to buy, 11,000 others have chosen to. That's almost 13,000 who have read it. I'm happy with that. I just want people to read and enjoy my stories. I keep telling people I'm not in this for the money. If I were, I'd be a very unhappy camper as just as poor as I am now.

Wow... That's a lot of books! What advice can you give people like me who sell more like 1 copy of their book a day? How did you get the bestseller status? What's your secret (outside great storytelling, which is obviously the most important)?

The hardest thing to do for me is to market my work. I'm just not very good at it and I don't enjoy it. Most of the Indie writer world is fantastic at connecting with other writers, and that is an amazing and wonderful thing, but ultimately you need to connect to readers, not writers. (Yes, I understand that writers are also readers, but that is a different thing from the person who only reads.) To that end, you need to get noticed on sites that cater to readers. I am not a huge fan of the Kindle Select program for personal reasons, but one thing it will definitely do is give you the chance to connect with readers, and lots of them, but you have to be willing to give your book away. You are able to make your work free for up to 5 days (you pick the days) during a 90 day period. If you pick a nice mix of days and get your friends to help, and post on all the Facebook pages that do deals on eBooks, you can expect thousands of downloads of the freebie. Naturally, only a portion of those will actually read your book. Anyone who has a Kindle knows that you load that sucker down with a thousand books, many of which are free, and end up with a lifetime supply of reading hit-or-miss. But, the rankings jolt from the free downloads might just create enough of a wave to keep your work visible on Amazon longer and maybe, just maybe you'll get lucky. That's not how I did it with my books. I just got lucky. But the number of people in the mix now is growing exponentially and I'd say if you want that incredible rush from seeing thousands download your work, go Kindle Select.

Thanks for sharing that. It seems like a lot of indies are having success with the Select program. I know that it has helped my sales... still waiting for the first review to come in though:) So is the new Ryan book another spinoff from FYFH, or could it actually be a... sequel?

 I am writing a sequel to Four Years from Home. It's going well, but with misgivings. The misgivings I have revolve around the twist in FYFH. If someone reads the sequel first, they will know the plot of FYFH and will never get the full impact of that story should they choose to read it after the sequel. On the other hand, it seems a bit unfair to ask someone to read one book before they read another. I guess I'll go with que sera sera on this one.

YES!!!!! I was hoping for that!!!!

                                              To be continued...

QUIZ TIME!!!

Write out the answers to the questions in the contact form and send them to me. All answers can be found in either the interview or my website (either on front page or in the menu tab... they're easy). Remember, this is for a guaranteed copy of one of my eBooks and a chance to win 9 other ebooks, mostly of your choosing. I'm also looking for suggestions for part four questions, so if you have a specific question you'd like asked, include it!

Jeremy Robinson

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With how many stories you're working on at one time, do you ever get frustrated with having your attention divided, or do you enjoy the diversity? I don't think I would be able to keep the stories straight. It's hard enough for me to know exactly where one story is going, let alone multiple stories simultaneously. How do you do it and manage to maintain such a professional level of writing with each story?

It Probably appears that I’m working on them all at once, but that’s actually not true. When I start a novel, I work until it’s done and then start the next. I may work on side projects like edits on a novella, or a comic book series, or something else that’s not a novel. But I only write one story at a time. When I’m writing a book, my brain is in that world day and night. Dividing my thought process would screw things up.  

Wow, then you write faster than I thought! But it's kind of a relief for me. I thought maybe I was the only one that couldn't work on multiple things at one time. So if any of your books could be made into a movie, which would you prefer to see on the big screen?

Man, that’s a HARD question. I’m going to have to say The Last Hunter. It’s just my favorite and would delight me to no end if it made it to theaters. That said, its far less likely to be made into a movie than some of the others. THE SENTINEL probably has the best chance of being made, simply because its 1. Big blockbuster fun and 2. Can be made on a tight budget.

Which actors/actresses would you chose to play the lead rolls?

For THE LAST HUNTER, I have no idea. By the time it was made, anyone young enough to play Solomon will be far too old. Would likely be unknown actors for most of the characters. For THE SENTINEL, I’ve always imagined someone like Mila Kunis for Jane Harper.
 
That's interesting! I'm interviewing Heidi Ruby Miller for one of her blog tour stops, and she picked the same actress to play her lead character! Have you ever thought about directing your own movie?

In fact, I have. It’s kind of a pipe dream and I’ve started and stopped on a indie horror movie several times. But I’ve done several shorts with friends over the years and have no doubt I’ll eventually get around to it. Probably not as a career move, though. Directors work crazy long hours for months at a time, often nowhere near home and I adore my family too much to do that.

To be continued...

Douglas Dorow

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Do you have your book enrolled in KDP Select? Why or why not?

Yes, I do. I didn't jump right into it since I had my book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and their distribution partners.

After looking at my sales history and seeing that 95% of my sales were on Amazon and the other 5% were split, I decided to go ahead and enroll since it gave me the option to put my book up for free and increasing my sales where 95% of my sales were already coming from. That meant I had to take my book down from the other sites.

But this is only a 90 day commitment at a time, so I think it's manageable.

I used 2 of my free days mid-January and had great results. Better impact on my sales then anything I had tried before on my own by simply putting my book up for free for two days.

I think we'll start to see the impact on 2012 sales by the glut of Free books that are now on readers' kindles. Many readers downloaded the Free books with no plan to read them. But others will have lots of free books to read so they won't think they need to buy a book. The old triggers for book buying (cover, story, price and word of mouth) will continue to persevere but Free pricing available to Indie authors will allow us to compete with the books available via publishers that can be offered for free.

Now I have to decide when I'm going to use my remaining 3 days and see what impact that will have on sales.

Do you secretly or subconsciously wish you were your character? Why or why not and in what ways?

I secretly wish I were my character during the exciting times. I put him in situations that I would never go in myself or find myself in doing what I do versus living the life he leads.

In the story you don't ever see the boring parts of his life, I'm sure there are some, because that wouldn't be good for the story. The reader doesn't want to read about an FBI agent filling out paperwork, sitting in meetings or staking out a location and the perpetrator never shows. 

Yeah, I often see a movie or read a book that makes me wish I was a cop or some agent or something and then realize it's probably better to just be able to act as one or write a story about one (for me at least). How much time do you spend reading other novels? I know it's hard to read when you're spending so much time writing, but do you still make it a point to read?

Yes, I've always been a reader and always will be. I usually read before I go to bed and often when I'm waiting for my son during or after a soccer or hockey practice.  Or if we're traveling in the car and I happen to be a passenger, another perfect time to read. I now prefer to read on my kindle over "real" books and sometimes will read on my iPhone for short periods of time if I forgot to grab my kindle.

My reading generally falls into three categories;
1) for fun; I usually read thriller / suspense / action adventure.
2) for research for a story I'm writing
3) books on writing, trying to find another idea or nugget that will help me improve as a writer.

... To Be Continued

John Betcher

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What are you working on now?

My next novel remains as yet untitled, but it will be Book Four in the Becker suspense/thriller series. Beth will feature prominently in the action. A fair amount of the plot will take place in and around Cairo. There will be stolen American military designs . . . the plans for the allegedly nonexistent "Aurora" hypersonic spy jet . . . which an initially undetermined Middle Eastern "presence" will attempt to bring to reality to further de-stabilize the region.

Readers will learn how U.S high technology and ancient Egyptian construction secrets can combine to form an action-packed, culture-rich storyline. There'll be spy stuff, too. And of course, the Minnesota connection and Beck's ex-special ops background, will play significant roles. But don't forget Bull. He'll be there, bringing his imposing stature to the role of the eminently able co-hero.

That's all I'm sharing for the moment. I'm excited to get it written. I expect to publish this book in the first half of 2012.

That sounds like a pretty wild plot and a fun read! How has the writing been going? It sounds like a lot of research. Do you enjoy that aspect of storytelling?
 
Research is my absolute favorite part of the fiction journey. I love encouraging people with interesting life experiences and unusual technological expertise to share those things with me. Usually, they are more than willing to offer viewpoints. They'd like the rest of the world to understand what their life is like, or what challenges they face. 

Then my job is to share the knowledge I've accumulated with my readers in an entertaining way that reveals something important about their world that they had never thought about (or hadn't thought seriously about) before.                                           

More next week!

Russell Blake

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So I'm almost finished with KING OF SWORDS. Love it! What is its connection to NIGHT OF THE ASSASSIN?

Night is the prequel, that chronicles the making of the monster - how El Rey came to be. It's free, so strongly reco you read it after - only about a 50K or so read, so fast, but you'll appreciate it a great deal after coming off KOS.

Am 40% through the sequel to KOS as we speak. Hope to be done within 10 days or so.

Glad you like it. Leave a review if so inclined. Every bit helps!

Sheesh, you write fast! What is the one book you've written that is the most special to you? Meaning that if you could only sell one book, which would you put out there?

That's a tough one. I'd probably say either King, or The Geronimo Breach. Then again, my editor is telling me that my latest, The Voynich Cypher, could knock the cover off the ball, so who the heck knows? But I like the pacing of King, and the grittiness. That's why I was compelled to write a prequel, and now a sequel (or two or three). Geronimo is one of a kind, because of the protag - a lazy, shiftless, drunk, fat misanthrope. Near to me for that reason. But if only one, I'd have to say, read King.

I just finished KoS (in the last ten seconds:), can't wait to jump into the prequel, though I'm tempted to hit Geronimo Breach first... Anyway, I'm going through How to Sell A Gazillion eBooks now. How much of that is actually your philosophy behind the strategy you use?

None. I just thought it would be funny as hell to create an absurdist dig at all the self-help tomes out there. I got bored over the fourth of july and just wrote it to be funny. Was originally planning it to be a blog, but it swelled. So I kept on writing. As you might have gathered, I have a very dark sense of humor. Very british, probably from watching too much Monte Python as a child. Whichever you read, you'll like it. Although I think reading Night right after King works best, but who knows?

How much time do you spend reading? Do you have any time to kick back and enjoy someone else's fiction?

I try to put in an hour a day, when I'm at the gym. Lately, due to the volume of writing I've been doing, the gym hasn't seen a lot of me, so my reading has been lagging as well. Ideally I would get through two to three books a month, but Dec and Jan I got through none. Feb, I'm making a commitment to do some reading once I finish my WIP. I like to do so, and think it's important to as a writer. It fuels ideas, and gives one new perspectives. I wouldn't be a writer if I hadn't been a reader, so I see no reason to quit now...

                                           To be continued

The Quiz

1. Which book is the prequel to Russell Blake's King of Swords?  

2. Two authors mentioned Kindle Select, who were they?

3. What book was published as a free weekly serial?

4. Research is whose favorite aspect of the fiction journey?

5. Which book did Ryne Douglas Pearson say was the most fun to write?

6. Who has scuba dived all over the place and says I don't need to worry about sharks?

7. Which actress did Jeremy Robinson suggest should play the lead in The Sentinel?

8. Which author are you learning the most about? 

9. Which author would you like to know more about?

10. What question would you like asked in the next part?

    Your Answers...
          WHAT"S AT STAKE?
1. A Kindle* gift copy of either PROGENY or THE SOLOMON KEY - your choice (you get for submitting)
AND
2. A Kindle gift copy of a Ryne Douglas Pearson novel - winner's choice
AND
3. A Kindle gift copy of Doug Dorow's, THE NINTH DISTRICT
AND
4. A Kindle copy of one of John Betcher's books - winner's choice
AND
5. A Smashwords coupon from Russell Blake for his DELPHI CHRONICLE Trilogy (all three novels)
AND
6. A kindle copy of Rick Chesler's WIRED KINGDOM
AND
7. And an epub or mobi copy of one of Jeremy Robinson's novels - the winner's choice**

* If the winner does not have a Kindle, he/she will be encouraged to download the free Kindle app to their computer or phone or other reading device. If this cannot be accomplished, alternative prizes will be given, though at this time, there have yet to be any decisions made as to what those prizes will be.
** Excludes INSTINCT, PULSE, and THRESHOLD