It Is Alive
A 2-part interview on ItIsAlive.com
May 2010
Part 1 of 2
Thanks Shane and Welcome.
I see you recently did an interview, not with yourself, but you interviewed the main protagonist in your new novel, After the Flood, I love this idea! Tell us about that and how you went about it.
When Author Kathy-Diane Leveille made this suggestion for her blog feature, "Behind The Books," I jumped at it. Even though I had mapped out the physical and mental make- up as my character Samson Arthurs, I had not spoken like him. Authors usually implant their voices into their characters but not vice versa. As I put myself into Samson’s shoes (and voice), I learned valuable insights about him, and about myself when viewed from another perspective. I think I will resurrect Samson for a sequel at some later date.
From your bio, you have done a lot of traveling. Has this helped or hindered your story telling and why?
It certainly has helped me. I think travel is the best post-secondary education anyone can receive, particularly a writer. And I feel that even with over 50 countries notched on my travel belt, I have merely scratched the surface. Travelling has helped me to observe. I have lots of note-books on my travels; some were even lost during my peregrinations or while moving homes, but I still have a lot of material to mine. Ironically, I have not written a lot of travel related stories yet. My first novel Redemption in Paradise was set in Sri Lanka, but that does not count, as Sri Lanka was my home for the first 24 years of my life. In the same vein, an unpublished novel The Ulysses Man and a gathering collection of short stories titled, Paradise Revisited, deal with the immigrant experience between Canada and Sri Lanka – two countries in which I have collectively spent over 45 years. I have another novel in the works partially set in Peru, and some short pieces written about travel in Finland, Chile and Cuba, but for the most part my writing has focused on places I have lived in long enough to earn the right to write about.
I see you live in Canada now but because of your travels, you have articles in literary magazines in India and Sri Lanka, are your books available there as well? Is the marketing and selling of those stories different from "Western" marketing and have you even done things different between Canadian and US marketing?
As my work is available for sale and distribution over the Internet, I’d like to think that my work is available globally, in all markets where major credit cards are issued. My books have certainly been read on all continents (except for Antarctica, perhaps) The reality is that hard copy books published in North America are too expensive for Eastern and Asian markets, especially when you tack on shipping costs. I’d be very happy to sell the Asian publishing rights to a publisher who is based in and specializes in those markets, and who can print and distribute within those markets. However, if e-books catch on over the next little while, I wonder how meaningful foreign rights sales will become?
Nirvana for me would be to have my books and other writings available in electronic form on my website for the whole world to read at the click of a button, and a vast following of readers who tune in daily to the latest "word of Shane." Whether I make money at it or not, is incidental. Perhaps it might be preferable to go back to the old Renaissance model where the artist enlisted a wealthy benefactor, who covered bread and board and allowed the artist to ply his craft without care for these mortal concerns. I think they call it Sponsorship today.
To that end, I seem to be achieving some success with my Blog (aka the "Word of Shane") which readers are increasingly reading and commenting on. My blog is the closest to instant validation I receive on my writing, as the other forms (i.e. my short stories and novels) take a long time to go from creation, to consumption, to feedback.
But to return to your question, I use online forums a lot to promote myself in North America. I find though, that one-to-one contact is the best way to sell books. That’s why I try to get out to readings and book signings as much as possible. Readers need to see and size up an author before they buy.
My one problem right now is that the trade publisher of my last two books does not have "bricks and mortar" distribution outside Canada (which they are trying to rectify) – hence why I rely on readers to purchase the books online – either via my website or the publisher’s website. My first book, Redemption in Paradise, which was self-published, seems to have easier distribution, by being available through Amazon (in Kindle format too) and via other online retailers globally. Of course, again, if e-books become de rigueur, this problem goes away.
It looks like you have been successful in landing several online "talk radio" interviews. Can you tell us how you landed them, and what the process was?
I usually call and ask. I have been fortunate so far, because I come across as a bit of an odd bod with an interesting personal story to tell. People also say that I have a funny Colonial accent which is unfamiliar but pleasing on the ear. And I am not shy, being an immigrant, a fringe dweller, who had to speak up in order to survive or be forever consigned to the shadows.
The process has been either to be interviewed "live" or to answer a written set of questions. While the latter is easier, I like the live format because sometimes you get asked the most interesting off-the-cuff questions. And I end up providing off-the-cuff answers too. On one live show recently, the interviewer and I got into a debate on whether climate change (a key catalyst in my novel After the Flood) was real or hype. When I told him that I thought this was a real phenomenon, he then proceeded to lecture me for believing all the hype. I had to remind him that we had not had a drop of snow in Toronto this last November and that the last time this had happened was back in 1938. I had a lot of fun during that interview.
After the Flood sounds like an interesting book with many levels to it. What kind of research did you do for it?
I have always been intrigued by classic tales such "Noah’s Ark" and "Samson & Delilah" from the Old Testament, "Camelot" (The Lerner and Loewe movie version is my favourite) and Huxley’s "Brave New World" which I studied in school. One day, I was at a psychic fair and saw this post-2012 world map from the well-known futurist Gordon Scallion. It showed a dramatically altered world with all the coastal areas submerged, the continents severed into pieces, and new land masses, like Atlantis, re-emerged from the ocean. I subsequently read Scallion’s book Notes from the Cosmos and was deeply moved by it. I then had this idea of fusing all my favourite classic stories together into this post-apocalyptic world and see where it took me.
Many drafts later (I began writing this novel in 2002), I found that although I had a novel with an interesting premise, I had a nay-saying public who had other things to concern them with on the dawn of this new millennium. It was only last year, when the end of the Mayan Calendar came into prime time news, and global leaders acknowledged that they "had a small problem" with climate change, that the interest for this kind of novel kindled (pardon the pun) and Hidden Brook Press offered to publish it.
As for research, I did not do much other than to project out current trends. The action of the book takes place between 2012 and 2047 – not far off from today – and still within the reach of many of our lives. That is why I also do not like to categorize this book as science fiction but prefer to call it speculative fiction.
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Part 2 of 2
Today we'll be having a two-part of our interview with author Shane Joseph.
We're talking about Shane's latest book, After the Flood, as well as market strategies that have worked for him. Shane has written two other books, Fringe Dwellers and Redemption in Paradise. All available through his site at http://www.shanejoseph.com.
I understand that your first novel, Redemption in Paradise, was self-published. Can you tell us a little about the self-publishing process?
It was a relatively painless process. I had to edit, proof and typeset the novel (to a prescribed format – not difficult to do – operators were standing by to help). I chose my cover photograph. I mailed the entire package off to the publisher and in six weeks I had a book ready to go, with great distribution to boot. The only problem was (and still is) that self-publishing is somewhat maligned by the "gatekeepers" of the traditional publishing industry and is locked out of mainstream media reviews, unless the book magically catches the zeitgeist. I’m not sure if this maligning is underlined by the fear of going extinct.
I hope that self-publishing eventually finds its place in the sun, (and it will, I imagine, as the publishing model falls more in line with where the music industry has gone) because a well edited and proofed self-published book, with an interesting premise and strong characters, can hold its own against anything coming out of the mainstream. In fact, I know of several books by self-published authors that have been subsequently picked up by trade publishers who were scared of taking the risk initially. And I question whether the "impartial editorial process" of the trade publishing industry is strictly followed by that hallowed group. I question whether, "It’s whom you know," and "Can I make a buck on this book with some spin?" does not intrude on their process quite a bit.
Your second and third books were picked up by Hidden Brooks Press, what if anything, were (are) the differences in marketing between your self-published and publishing house books?
What I quickly learned is that whether you go with a small trade publisher or self-publish, you are the chief marketing officer of your product. Even the large publishing houses have retrenched their marketing dollars to focus only on their "top ten" performers, and that is not wrong. Good marketing strategy is about segmentation, focus and making tough choices. And I will try to explain how I address these three areas. But let’s look at the industry (or the market) first.
Publishing is one of those industries where supply is outstripping demand daily, a sad but true tale. On the supply side, we are all living longer, are more educated than the previous generation, and many of us are pursuing self-actualization, and at the end of that rainbow, lies the ambition to write one’s own book. Most often the recognition I get from people I meet is not, "I read and enjoyed your book," but "You wrote a book? Gee!" In fact, on a well- known business social networking site recently, I saw business executives including the books they had written as part of their resume – almost like recording another notch in their career progression. On the demand side however, we see attention spans shrinking to the 5 second commercial and the explosion of texting and twittering. Something has gotta give here, Paul!
So, I have taken on the burden of chief marketing officer for my books, an onerous task, but one that for today’s writer is par for the course. There is comfort in that too – for I will place my emphasis where my motivation takes me each day. I ask myself daily – do I write today or do I market today – and both tasks have equal weight. As you can see from this interview, I have decided to market today. Even the great religious leaders were great marketers – so isn’t that a lofty goal to follow?
My strategy – build from the core. My material will never be mass market faire. I do not write genre fiction. This is my choice. The freedom that comes with that choice is that I can write what I want, not what a publisher tells me will sell. The downside is that I will never become as wealthy as John Grisham. I have a loyal base of fans in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), population approximately 5 million. I also would like to believe that I have loyal fans in social networking sites like Goodreads and Facebook, people whom I have got to know through these forums. These are my market segments and these groups are whom I build upon and communicate with. Many read my blogs. I mail them whenever I have something new and interesting to share. I do readings in the GTA whenever I can arrange them. These groups are also my focus. As Internet based media proliferates, I hope this small network will morph into a wider one. At some point, I’d like to voice-record some of my short stories and post them for free on my website, and thereby broaden my segments and focus.
A little fun here, what is the funniest or strangest thing that has happened to you during a book signing?
I was recently invited to read at a literary gathering of Canadian and Cuban writers in Santiago de Cuba, while I was on vacation. I was surprised and intrigued when I arrived at the public library to find a full audience, especially of the locals. I was handed a booklet containing English and Spanish versions of a humorous prose piece that I had written some time ago chronicling my misadventures in trying to find a literary agent. I read the piece in English, and a translator read in Spanish, while cars roared outside, and the hustle and bustle of that port city reminded me that the people in this room had put their busy lives on hold to walk into this room to listen to me. It re-affirmed my belief and mission of being a writer.
Interesting stuff, Shane. Thanks for sharing and taking the time to chat with us and as always, thank YOU for stopping by. You can find all of Shane’s books at his website at www.shanejoseph.com.
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