Trust me, I did not set out to establish three pen names and, for the record, I do not recommend it as a career strategy. The idea back at the start was that I would stick with the name that proved most successful.
As my blog editor knows all too well, I wasn't all that keen to enter the blogosphere world.
Am I the next Bill Simmons? I don't think so. I haven't built a media property. He's the best at finding voices he likes and paying people money to work for him.
What the podcast novelists do isn't all that different from what self-publishers do. We put the books out in different formats, but the goal is the same: build an audience and attract a publisher.
I think new writers everywhere need opportunities to get published.
When you write, you put your thoughts in the public space. You get both positive and negative feedback.
When I was coming out of college, storytelling was very much something you did with pencil and paper, so the technological platform versatility, I think, is really valuable.
When you have an idea for a story, you want those characters to reach as many people as you can. I think you normally think of prose as a way of doing that. It fits our time, the culture.
I do actively look out for any kind of work, whether it's long form, short or web. I just look out for interesting characters. It doesn't matter where it is.
There are tons of really good writers out there, but for one reason or another, they just have not had the support that allowed them to build audiences.
I'm an everyday guy - I'm a try-to-write-at-least-15-minutes-every-day-if-not-an-hour-or-two kind of guy. I write in Google docs so that wherever you go, you have access to it.
Well, to aspiring writers, I would tell them that we live in a wonderful time where you're able to make your work visible, easily.
Every single path is so different, but I would definitely say that the idea of what a writer is or should be is not a thing anymore. Everyone is redefining publishing, writing, and storytelling in general.
If you are a young writer today, it's very hard.
For most of us, fanfiction is a non-issue. Even for midlist writers. We will never be popular enough for people to play in our worlds with any frequency. The problem for us is getting people to read and care about our books that much in the first place.
The many magazines, ranging from pulp to slick, that used to serve as both farm teams for writers and lures to readers, with hundreds of short stories every month, don't exist. Most of the doors for new people have been sealed.
As writers, we have to make our own work - as bloggers, writing for video games, whatever we can do. Everyone breaks into the business in a different way.
There are so many people that want to tell stories. I think that the issue is how hard it is to get your foot in the door to tell your stories.
It's always hard to write and get your words out there, to find an editor, a publisher - readers! - who are going to appreciate them.
