『Writing Your Own Story with J.D. Barker』のカバーアート

Writing Your Own Story with J.D. Barker

Writing Your Own Story with J.D. Barker

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Sometimes strange, auspicious coincidences happen, and you wonder if it’s fate nudging you in the right direction.Like, for example, when I was sitting down reading Confessions of the Dead, co-written by James Patterson and J.D. Barker, getting really into the dark and twisted tale… and an email popped up in my inbox the next day asking if I’d like to interview J.D. Barker.I was like, hell yes. But of course, it also felt a little suspicious.Hadn’t I just been telling my husband how much I loved this book? Was my phone spying on me, feeding information to some scammer? They’re so advanced these days, who knows?I didn’t fully believe it. But I double-checked with my friend Mark Leslie Lefebvre , who confirmed J.D.’s publicist was real and that he was doing podcasts to help promote a prequel in his 4MK series.And that, folks, is why we all get to enjoy this amazing interview with horror writer J.D. Barker. His career is enviable, I enjoyed every second of our chat, and I hope you will too.You can watch the interview on YouTube here.Or listen to the podcast up above.Here is a recapped version of the interview below:Enjoy!AF: I have to say, when your publicist reached out to me, I thought it was a scam. And what was so surreal — I was reading Confessions of the Dead when the email came in.JDB: She is fantastic. I’ve worked with a ton of publicists over the years, and my model has completely changed. Early on I hired a firm in New York — Dean Koontz recommended them — and I paid a $20,000 retainer. That first month, they got me two blog reviews, one website mention, and a blurb in a magazine. Nothing for $20,000, and there was no accountability.Now I’ve got everyone on an à la carte basis. I give them a list of what they can go get and a price point for each — a podcast gets this much, a magazine gets this much. They can work as hard or as little as they want. I pay for actual results. My current publicist is out of the Philippines and she is phenomenal. Every time I’ve got a new release, everybody seems to know about it.AF: I’m a huge fan. Your connection with Stephen King, your collaborations with James Patterson — you’ve somehow found the zeitgeist.JDB: I tend to get in front of a lot of people and bug the hell out of them until they either agree to work with me or they issue a restraining order. I heard a long time ago: if you don’t ask the question, you’re never going to know the answer. I’d rather hear someone say no than not ask at all.I used to teach at ThrillerFest quite a bit. If you go, you’re eventually going to end up in an elevator with a famous author. You’ve got 15 seconds to either make an introduction or stand there staring at the numbers and watch that person walk away. I am not the kind of guy who ever watched somebody just walk away. AF: I loved hearing about what you do at cons. You don’t sit behind the table selling books — you give them away for free.JDB: I’m in a unique situation. I’ve got my own imprint at Simon & Schuster, so my production costs are very low. I can produce a hardcover for a fraction of what I was paying through IngramSpark. And I’ve got books sitting in a warehouse because we tend to overprint — 50, 60, 70,000 copies. Eventually the dust settles, and I’ve got to find something to do with them.I looked at what indie authors do — they’ve always been ahead of the curve — and for years they’ve given away the first book in a series as an ebook. You’re basically a glorified drug dealer. You’re hooking them with a taste, hoping they come back for more. I just took it to the next level and started giving away hardcovers.Think about it from the reader’s perspective. They come to these events and it’s awkward. They’re walking past tables with authors staring at them with that please buy my book look. They’re afraid to approach because they don’t want to commit. So instead I put a book in everybody’s bag for free. They all come to the table, it keeps me busy, they walk away with that taste, and most of them end up buying another book after that.At Author Nation, I gave away 2,000 or 2,200 books. A good chunk of those people went home and started buying my other titles. That’s how you move the needle. You’ve got to approach everything as a business — how are you going to get people to come back and buy your next widget?AF: At what point do the cons stop being useful?JDB: My first big one was the Writer’s Digest conference — the last one I went to before I got a publishing deal. I learned a lot. But everything tends to be geared toward the early author trying to get that first book out there. When I was on the board with ITW, I noticed everything was built for two groups: debut authors and the big names. Everybody else is stuck in the middle. You can only hear how to write a compelling first sentence so many times.What actually attracted me to Author Nation is that it fills that void. ...
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