A Chat With Author Will Edwinson

Will Edwinson is the author of three novels, and one novella, two of which have been published. He is an award winning novelist winning a first place award in state competition for his book, Buddy…His Trials and Treasures, and a second place in national competition.

Greetings, and welcome to the Blue Sage blog. On your website you're billed as Will Edwinson—Storyteller. Tell us how you came to be a storyteller.

Although I harbored the desire for many years to be a writer, I came to writing rather late in life because I lacked the confidence that I had the necessary skills. It wasn’t until I reached my mid-fifties that I decided to take the plunge. I figured if I was ever going to do it, I’d better get started. I knew I needed help, and after a little searching, I found a Writer’s Digest correspondence short story writing course and signed up for it. I completed the course and received my certificate. I was now a bona fide writer—or so I thought.

Up until that time, I had not been very interested in reading novels. Most of my reading consisted of trade publications related to my profession. One of the recommendations from the Writers Digest course was to read as many short stories and novels as possible. The theory was, I think, that the more one reads of a certain venue, the more skill one will pick up through osmosis. So I began to read.

Then what happened?

I proceeded to write my first novel, which is still gathering dust on the shelf, by the way. It’s a story about an errant preacher who was more of a con artist than a man of the cloth. That one took me about three years to finish, because as I began to read more novels, I realized I was still a pretty bad writer. I realized that writing a short story and writing a novel were not the same. That first novel draft was pretty discombobulated and had little continuity. As a result, I found myself moving whole chapters around in the story from one place to another.

But I persisted, and after several rewrites, I finally decided the book was ready. Then began my search for an agent. This all took place way back in the early 1990s, and my experience with agents has not been all that favorable, either. After a lengthy search and a basket full of rejection slips, I finally found one willing to take me on as a client. He died three weeks after we signed the contract. After another lengthy search I found another one willing accept this new unknown writer. Shortly after we came to an agreement, I learned that agent had just been indicted for some kind of fraud. So much for that agent/client relationship. After that, I decided to try the self-publishing route. I was tired of that novel, so I put it on the shelf and started my second.

Wow, that’s quite a tale in and of itself. Tell us about the second novel. Is that the one you self-published?

Yes, and that was quite an experience also. Had I known what I was in for at the beginning, I question whether I would have gone that route. It was in the days when self-publishing was likened to the red-headed step kid. Self-published authors, and their books, were given little respect. But I decided I was going to do it right, if I could. I purchased and read several “how-to” books on the art of self-publishing.

This was in the days of the old DOS computers; the days before Windows 95 and other menu driven programs came on the scene. I was using a Leading Edge computer which contained its own word processor program, and unlike Microsoft Word, and Word-Perfect, it was not totally compatible with the standard type-setting programs of that era. I had to find a type-setter that could convert my Leading Edge manuscript to one that was compatible with the printers’ systems.

Having jumped that hurdle, the next step was the ISBN numbers and the bar codes. Bookstores would not carry books that didn’t have those. I had to locate the sources, and purchase those before I could proceed with the actual printing of the book. And there was also the matter of finding someone to design a respectable looking cover. I got lucky. The type-setter I used was also able to do the cover for me. There was also registering the book with the copyright office, the Library of Congress, and a string of other tasks that don’t come readily to mind at this point. So after all that, and the expenditure of a few thousand dollars, the book was ready for the printer.

But the story doesn’t end there. Next came the task of setting up a publishing company. After all, we couldn’t risk having this project look like an amateur self-published project, could we? This meant coming up with a professional looking name, an imprint, and registering them as a dba with the state.

It sounds daunting.

Yes, but there’s more to the story. The book finally came off the presses, and 2,000 copies were neatly stacked in my garage. Now it was time to line up a distributor or wholesaler who would handle the book. You see, if you wanted to get your book into chain operated bookstores like Waldenbooks, Borders, Barnes & Noble, B-Dalton, etc., it had to be available through the wholesalers that they normally did business with. They would not order directly from the publishers. I finally succeeded in securing the Western division of Baker & Taylor in Washington State to handle my book.

But having said all that, I did manage to overcome all the hurdles and it sold a respectable enough number of copies to recoup my initial expenditures. It never made my name a household word, nor did it fatten my bank account, but it was a good learning experience. Self-publishing has advanced to the point that it’s much easier for an author today to self-publish. Especially since e-books have arrived on the scene.

Considering the experience you just described, would you self-publish again?

Yes, I think so, but I would do it a bit different this time. As I mentioned, e-books have come on the scene since I did my first book, so I would definitely do an e-book version. For the print version, I would go the way I did with my second book, Buddy…His Trials and Treasures. For that book, I found a POD publisher (Wheatmark) who did all the leg work for me, offered editorial service, cover design, secured the wholesalers, provided the bar codes, ISBN numbers and got the book on amazon.com for me; and for less cash outlay than going the full self-publishing route, because since, it’s POD, I didn’t have money tied up in a pallet full of books sitting in my garage. The book from this publisher looks like it came from one of the big boys in New York as it sits on the shelf. It’s the closest thing to traditional publishing you can get. Another advantage to going this route is a print copy can be on the shelf in as little as 90 days, whereas going through a traditional publisher, if you’re able to find one who will publish your book, takes 18 to 24 months.

Tell us about this book.

It’s a compilation of short story adventures in the life of a young boy growing up in rural America during the 1940s. It’s similar I suppose to Jean Shepherd’s book, In God We Trust, from which the movie A Christmas Story was adapted.

Buddy might be described by some as reminiscent of a twentieth century Tom Sawyer, in that he quite often finds himself in hot water for which he must pay the consequences. Unlike Tom, however, Buddy’s misdeeds are without much forethought. They happen because Buddy is…well…he’s just Buddy.

What’s on the horizon; any new books planned?

I have a couple of things in the hopper currently. First, I’m stepping up my efforts for marketing my second published book Buddy…His Trials and Treasures. I’m contemplating bringing it out in an e-book. I also have two other books I’m thinking of self-publishing. One of those is a revised and updated version with a new title OPERATION ACHILLES—A Shadow Revolution, of the first book I self-published. The other one is a fictional biography of Louisa Houston Earp. Louisa (pronounced with a long i) was the granddaughter of Sam Houston and was married in real life for a short time to Morgan Earp before he was assassinated in Tombstone, Arizona in 1882.

She turned out to be one of the most favorite of all the characters I have created. She was a trained concert pianist who played classical music in Western honky-tonk saloons and won the crusty cowboys over to actually liking it. She was also a crack shot with her modified .38 pistol, and showed no hesitancy toward using it when needed.

Where can we keep up with you and learn more about you, and what you are doing? And where can we find your book?

You can find my website at www.willedwinson.com. All of my current blog posts are located there, as well as a free download of my book. The print version of my book is available at www.amazon.com

Thanks for taking the time to chat with us. We will be looking forward to seeing more of your work in the future.

You’re welcome, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear on the Blue Sage Blog. I hope all you Blue Sage members have a good and successful year with your writing.

Publishing and Marketing Strategies: An Interview with Atilla Vekony of Wheatmark Publishing

by Bill Corbett, aka Will Edwinson

You grew up in an Eastern Bloc country. Would you like to share a little bit of that with our readers?

Certainly! I grew up in Hungary, behind the Iron Curtain. I know that may sound somewhat intriguing and even dangerous, particularly to an American audience, but growing up at that time as a child was quite uneventful. Looking back though, it is hard to believe today that such a political system and ideology actually existed, and that it did not that long ago.

You are the Vice President of Wheatmark, Inc., a publishing and marketing firm. Tell us about Wheatmark.

Wheatmark was one of the pioneers of the publishing revolution that started at the turn of the century. This revolution has enabled a lot more authors to have their books published by using digital printing technology. The combination of on-demand printing and the emergence of Internet booksellers like Amazon created the perfect condition for writers not only to get published, but also to get their books sold to a wider audience. And all this without the need for the all-powerful middleman, the traditional "New York" publisher.

While there are now hundreds of publishing outfits that can help you get your book published to varying degrees of quality, Wheatmark has always placed an emphasis on working with excellent writers with great manuscripts. Over the last several years we have shifted focus to educating our authors about how to build their author platforms, how they can be better marketers. Because, the truth is, no matter how great your book is and how well it has been edited and produced, if you don't have a platform and a megaphone, it will be a lot harder to reach your audience and sell your book.

You are also a senior faculty member at the Authors Academy, a service of Wheatmark. What are the goals of the Authors Academy?

As I mentioned before, after publishing the books of a thousand or so authors we realized the importance of educating authors about marketing. The truth is, just because a book can be brought to market relatively inexpensively, it does not mean that there is a hungry market waiting for its release.

And so we decided to launch the Authors Academy in 2010. Through monthly webinars, teleseminars, and other resources we teach our members the importance of building a list and engaging with their audience in order to sell more books.

We help our members build their online platform by building them a custom author website, a blog, and connect it with their social media accounts and an email marketing system to maximize their reach. We now regularly explain this method in a free webinar called "The One Way to Market Your Book," which you can sign up for at http://authorsacademy.com.

In your Authors Academy presentations you stress the importance of blogging. Can you expand a little bit about that here and tell us why you think blogging is important?

Blogging equals publishing, to put it simply. It's writing and publishing on a digital platform over a period of time. What you have to say today as a writer, you write it and post it on your blog today. Then tomorrow you write a new post, and so on. Your writing then is available on your blog for anyone to search or browse.

The reason why blogging is important for writers is because your audience is on the internet every day, looking either for the information or the entertainment value that only you can provide to your audience. If you don't put your writing out there, by publishing it online on your blog, the chances of people finding and getting to know you and your writing is significantly less than if you do.

Whereas in the past writers had to publish books and be placed on bookshelves in order to be discovered and to connect with their audience, today all you have to do is blog. Yes, publish books too if you must!

I recently read a blog that said blogs should be short. The author of the blog said that if you have to scroll down, you’ve said too much. What do you think about that?

I disagree with the part that you’re saying too much if your readers have to scroll down. A fascinating writer, a master wordsmith, much like an eminent composer, can go on for long stretches before the audience grows tired.

Yet I can certainly identify with the sentiment that a blog post should not be too long. You regularly see articles from top news organizations spanning several pages, each linked from the other, rather than one long endless scroll.

However, blog posts should be as long as it takes to communicate your message to your audience, so there is no hard and fast rule as to how long a post should be. There are many blogs that feature long, content-rich posts, as well as blogs that are very short. One such example is of a short blog is Seth Godin’s.

If what you have to say is complex, such as articles involving research, don't make it short just because you've heard blogs should be short. It is true that people reading on the internet have much shorter attention spans than people reading magazines or books. However, if your audience is interested in what you have to say, who is to say that they will stop reading before you've made your point?

Additionally, Google loves blogs with rich content that answer questions people might be searching for. That is how you can gain new readers to your blog: write about what your audience is interested in. They will find your blog through a simple Google search. Then, your readers come back to your blog if they liked what they read and if they believe you regularly publish meaningful content. Your blog should also have a mechanism to entice visitors to come back.

How do you think the publishing world and marketing have changed in the last decade, and where do you think it’s headed in the future?

The Internet is the best thing that ever happened to writers, authors, artists, musicians, entertainers, and generally anybody who is in the content creation business. But particularly writers.

It is a great time today to be a writer. For the first time in history, you as the writer have direct access to your audience via your own website, blog, and your own social media connections. Call it your own media company with several broadcast channels. You have the power to create something and with the click of a button publish it for the world to see, for your audience to consume it instantly. You don’t have to knock on doors and convince publishers--those controlling both media production and distribution--that your content is ready for your audience. You can build an audience online and interact with them whenever you want to. Your blog writing does not have to go through months and years of production before it is brought to market. Your writing can be published and brought to market minutes after you’ve completed your last sentence.

You should absolutely make sure that your books and e-books, anything you charge for, are professionally edited, produced, and are without blemish. Your blog posts, on the other hand, while they should not contain misspellings or grammatical mistakes, do not need to be as polished as your printed book.

I said that the Internet has been kind particularly to writers, because even though media such as voice recordings, pictures, and videos are much easier to consume than writing, when someone searches for information on the Internet, they complete that search by writing, by typing in their search query into a search engine. And search engines will always primarily index and serve up written content to these consumers. Therefore writers are the best match for this age of Google and content creation.

How can people get in touch with you if they have more questions?

I highly recommend that you download the "Author’s Guide to Choosing a Publishing Service" from our website at http://www.wheatmark.com if you’re pondering about the myriad of choices when it comes to publishing your book. I'd be also happy to answer any questions about publishing or marketing. To be true to what we teach regarding the importance of building your digital author platform, I'd like to challenge you to ask me any questions you may have either via Twitter (my account is @vekony or http://twitter.com/vekony) or on Google Plus (my account is +AtillaVekony or http://google.com/+AtillaVekony. That way other people will be able to participate in the discussion. But if you're not yet comfortable with these platforms, you can also email me at avekony@wheatmark.com.

You can also check out Bill's blog at the following address:
www.willedwinson.com.