Nick Vulich's Blog, page 8

Interview with Author Rob Parnell

Today I’m talking with Rob Parnell. Rob writes thrillers with a supernatural edge. When he isn’t doing that, he’s writing books in his Easy Way to Writeseries. His latest book is The Writer and the Hero’s Journey. ______
Both you and your wife are writers, does that create a bit of tension or competition between the two of you? Do you hide your work away from each other, or do you share it as you are writing?
Rob: It’s nice to know my books – and my darling Robyn’s - make a good impression. We’re both very passionate about writing: trying to see clues and connections that might help clarify the writing process for all writers. Storytelling is a curiously human activity that has so many facets that you can never stop learning to master.
I guess Robyn and I are just soul mates. We were meant to be. We’ve never felt any rivalry. We edit and proof each other’s work. We brainstorm story ideas and encourage each other. Fiction wise we have different directions. Robyn’s primarily a children’s writer and I tend to go for more adult thrillers and horror. We’ve collaborated on writing screenplays though, that contain elements of each other’s genre. Sometimes we even sit next to each other and type out manuscripts together. I’ve never met anyone else I could do that with!________
You’ve been training new authors for ten years now, what’s the hardest part of writing for a new author to get a handle on?
Rob: Probably the confidence to let go and allow the writing habit grab a hold of you. Too many new writers let their personality and issues get in the way of creativity. Writing should feel natural and easy, an extension of whom you are. My view is that if you’re finding writing difficult, you’re probably not doing it right! New authors often need to relax and stop being so hard on themselves.__
The Writer and the Hero’s Journey  is a little deeper and harder to follow than most of your books. The first time I heard about Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, I was sitting in an American literature class taught by David Morrell (of Rambo fame) at the University of Iowa back in the late seventies. It’s a powerful concept to wrap your head around at first, that we all have this innate ability to understand the hero’s journey. Can you give a really short run down about the hero’s journey, and how it can help writers structure their stories?
Rob: Thanks for reading  The Hero’s Journey  book. Currently it’s the one I’m most proud of. I tried to incorporate lots of influences from writers, stories old and new and my own story as a way of ‘proving’ that the hero’s journey concept is alive and well – and very pertinent to the writing of commercial stories. Indeed, as you imply, Rambo is another ideal example of the hero’s journey, as is Rocky, of course.
Basically, the idea is that you take a normal person and thrust them into a series of increasingly difficult tests in order for him or her to gain wisdom and in the process, become a hero. Clearly this loose structure lends itself to the old idea of placing obstacles in the way of protagonists in order to provide an entertaining story. The hero’s journey structure just formalizes this process – and explains why a story needs to be told this way to be truly satisfying and meaningful.
When it comes to movies especially, a hero’s path and decision-making must be entirely believable. The hero’s journey taps into the human condition, thereby allowing the audience to follow the hero, identify with him or her and completely relate to the character. This must happen for the story to be successful, IMHO!_____
In The Art of Story you say “we don’t communicate through words…We actually communicate with our senses – in pictures, sounds, smells, and other physical reactions to stimuli – and, most importantly, with emotions.” Why is that such a hard concept for new writers to understand? Can you suggest a way to naturally connect with those emotions in everyday writing?
Rob: If this is a tough concept to understand it’s because we do it to ourselves. We learn to write believing that the words themselves have power and we expend a lot of energy trying to make the words work for us. But the more you write you realize the words are just the tools we use to express ideas and emotions. We need to get past the words – and really get to grips with what we’re trying to describe effectively. It’s a process of undoing what we’re taught. I guess that’s why it seems like a difficult process. The best advice is just to write more – and try not to think too hard about the words. Concentrate on feelings, images and ideas first, and then write quickly. Then edit to clarify the images and meanings rather than obscure them through literary verbosity._______
Another concept you write about in The Art of Story is that, “To become an effective author, you’ll need to be take ideas and develop them. The trick is to not write ideas down in concrete form too soon.” I find most of my better ideas develop naturally when I let them fester in my brain for a while. A lot of times I’ll wake up at three or four in the more, and the developed idea is there waiting for me to pound it out on the computer. Is that what you’re getting a here?
Rob: Yes, it’s good to wait until you feel a sense of ‘completeness’ and ‘symmetry’ to your inspiration before you commit to finalizing the idea in writing. Mainly because we tend to love what we write and don’t want to mess with the words – even if the concept isn’t fully developed yet.
This can lead to blocks because you don’t want to screw things up and start again – even when that might be the best route to take. Developing ideas in your mind first is just about saving writing time in the long run.______
One of the things you talk about is to illustrate story-beats with action. Could you elaborate a little more about story beats? A lot of authors talk about developing story-beats. What exactly are they, and how can authors use them to make their stories more compelling?
Rob: Ah, the big question! What each of us regards as a story beat is inherently personal. It’s usually based on a feeling of what will make good plot point. If you write a series of dot points that might sum up your proposed story, for instance, each of those dot points will be a story beat. In novels especially a story beat may just be the way a protagonist feels at one particular time. In screenplays the story beat is a more formalized idea. Usually a slight emotional turning point in the text, or an event that sparks a reaction in a character, right up to the bad guy setting off a bomb or shooting someone. Story beats can be any of these things. The point of story beats is to increase empathy by manipulating emotions in the reader or viewer. 

Effectively ‘showing’ story beats intensifies that empathy. For instance, say you have a girl who is in love with some guy. In a novel she might internalize that emotion, letting the reader know but without ‘proving’ it. That’s passive storytelling. But when the girl touches the guy unexpectedly and says ‘I love you’ you’re showing that beat with action and the reader feels a jolt of emotion – and empathy – because the story beat ‘tugs’ at the reader’s own experience of being in the girl’s shoes. I hope this makes sense of the issue a little. It’s a complex one. If you want total overkill on the subject of story beats, I recommend you read  Story  by Robert McKee._____
When you talk about plotting, you say “Best-selling novels tend to have very simple ideas at their heart.” One example you gave was The Da Vinci Code. The premise of the story was, “What if the Catholic church was based on a lie?” Or with Harry Potter, “What if a normal school boy was secretly a wizard?” Should your plot really be that simple?
Rob: To be fair, I’m not sure many authors work this way round. Sometimes it’s very hard to encapsulate our ideas into natty little sound-bites, even though it’s become increasingly necessary for us to do so. I think the notion I was trying to get across is that when you have an idea that can be neatly expressed in one sentence, it’s more likely the book might become a bestseller.
It’s not that the premise need be simple, only that the encapsulation of it should be intriguing in as few words as possible!_____
In The Easy Way to Write Thrillers you make the point that genre dictates the way authors need to write the story. You say, “The problem with many of Sherlock Holmes’ stories is that the reader is sometimes presented with solutions they could never have guessed. Nowadays that’s not playing entirely fair.” One thing a lot of new and experienced writers do is blur the lines between genres, or break the implied rules of their genre. How big of a problem is that?
Rob: I’m impressed that not only have you read my books but that you can quote from them so thoroughly! Sometimes it’s hard to appreciate what impression your words are going to make on readers, so it’s nice to know someone’s taking notice. Thanks for that.
Anyway, I think blurring the lines between genres is healthy. For too long the traditional publishing industry has told us we can’t do that. I don’t agree. I think readers are much more savvy and flexible than they’re often given credit for being. At the end of the day it’s about context and what is believable. As long as the author goes out of his or her way to deal effectively with the story world in a way that doesn’t threaten to undermine the reader’s ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ then almost anything is acceptable.
Much of the time it’s about not messing with the reader’s expectations too much. So if you’re writing a gritty urban crime thriller, then you don’t want to suddenly introduce a magic time portal that enables the detective to solve the case at the end. However, if the reader knows right up front, that a detective uses his magic time portal to solve crimes then that’s acceptable.  _____
Another concept you talk about is character development. “Characters are the backbone of any thriller. Get them right and you’re half way there.” Then you suggest “archetypes are instantly recognizable character ‘types’ ingrained deep in our subconscious through experience, dreams, and instincts.” Can you talk about this for a minute? How important are archetypes to character development? And, how can an author use archetypes to draw readers into their characters and make them more believable?
Rob: The best characters are a combination of archetype and credible personalities. Too much focus on one facet and you’ll end up with something either wooden or too confusing. It’s a bit like the way we deal with people in the real world. Our first instinct is to ‘type’ people, something we do as a survival instinct. We need to classify people quickly as either friend or foe, good or evil. Then we look deeper. We look for humanity to confirm or deny our initial impressions. Then we learn to love or hate the people we study. If you use the same process when creating fictional constructs, you should end up with believable characters.  _____
Finally, is there anything else you’d like us to know about Rob Parnell?
Rob: Hmmm. Not sure. I think I put a lot of myself in the books I write, some people might say too much! I’m just trying to help writers see that there might be solutions to all the big and small writing questions, especially in the area of achieving monetary success. I’m also very keen on music composition and filmmaking. Creativity generally. If I had to pin down a legacy, I’d like to be known as the guy who tried to inspire people to become more confident in their abilities, and not be afraid to feel empowered through creativity. I think our future lies in learning how to be independent artists that literally use our minds to create a better world.
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About
Rob Parnell has been writing fiction since he was five years old.Born in Winchester in the UK, he lived for a long time in London, pursuing a music career until, suitably chastised for his impertinence, moved to Adelaide, Australia, where he now teaches writing and success strategies to his many thousands of subscribers.His preferred genre is the thriller - sometimes with a supernatural edge - in which he writes short stories, graphic novels, YA novels and adult thrillers.Rob has also written over 40 non-fiction self-help titles and been published all over the world for the last ten years. Also a composer, singer, music producer and budding movie maker, Rob is ecstatically happy to be married to Robyn Opie Parnell, his savior and the popular bestselling children's author.Visit Rob Parnell's author blog to receive weekly installments of his next super-charged thriller, The Essene Heresy. You can checkout Rob’s books by visiting his Amazon Author page.
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Interview with Author Rob Cubbon

My interview today is with Rob Cubbon, author of How to Sell Video Courses Online, How I earn $1000+ a month while I sleep. Rob is the creator of several online courses, many of which are currently available on Udemy. For authors looking to create an additional income stream from their works, Rob’s advice could be dead on.
Udemy fascinates me. The concept that anyone can record a few videos, prepare an online curriculum, and teach on line. It seems so easy, and yet so hard to get started. What’s your take on Udemy? Is it where anyone who wants to teach online should be?
Rob: On the face of it, yes, you can record a few videos, prepare an online curriculum and teach online, however, you will almost certainly hit a block along the way. But, it's fun, and that's essentially what you do.
Udemy is the market leader in asynchronous career skill learning (recording videos that students view at their leisure, students can ask questions on the site but this doesn't happen as much as you'd imagine). There are lots of similar sites and it's a fluid niche. But you can put your courses on other sites if you wish, Udemy doesn't insist on exclusivity.
For now, Udemy has the traffic, but you still have to work to get sales initially. By this I mean create a free course on Udemy which you can market to or use your own following and email list to get you off the ground on Udemy. _____

Rob: I think that depends on the instructor's style. I like to take the student on a journey where they can create something (like a WordPress site or a design in Photoshop). My videos show the process from beginning to end and there's the ability to ask questions so it can be different to an online e-book and should be, in my opinion. ____
I’m not good at video. Don’t really know how to shoot it, or anything about editing it. What’s the least I need to know to be successful at this game?
Rob: I would advise anyone interested in Udemy to first start a YouTube channel. Video and audio quality is central to the success of the courses and you'll get better the more you do. 
Here's an article I wrote about video: http://robcubbon.com/tools-creating-video-courses/ there are some essentials – always buy a nice microphone and don't use a in-built one. ScreenFlow and Camtasia and great screencasting and video editing tools. If you're doing video of yourself talking you really need to spend some time perfecting lighting and your videography skills. 
YouTube is a great testing ground. You can find out what works and what doesn't and what's popular and what isn't there and use this invaluable information for your Udemy courses. 
In addition YouTube is a great platform for building your brand. People can hear your voice and get your personality more than they would do from reading one of your blog posts. _____
One of the things you talk about is screencasting (video recording the output on your computer screen and narrating what is going on). Can you be successful at online teaching if you don’t get this down?
Rob: Yes, definitely, but it's easier to do than the alternative. The alternative is talking to a camera which requires a lot of practice to do well. (This depends on the individual, of course, but I'm certainly not a natural).
The third way is to narrate over slides using screencasting software. This is the easiest way to do an online course but I wouldn't overdo this as it is a bit boring for the students.
You do have to create passable videos that are engaging to create a successful course. But this isn't necessarily difficult. Take eBay, you can show how to set up a good product listing page (or whatever you call it) that would be interesting to eBayers (if that's what you call them) and it could be visually appealing as well. _____
Let’s say I don’t want to create a full-fledged class. I write a lot of books about selling online. What if I wanted to create a short email class as a giveaway for email signups? How would I get started?
Rob: A class for email signups should be completely different from a Udemy class. A classic Udemy class shouldn't be much longer than an hour and a half and have 5 minute long videos. A "bootcamp" video class for email should be 4 or 5 videos each of 2 minutes or less. It's really important to keep the length of videos down as much as possible. Attention spans are short these days. 
For this reason I would leverage YouTube experience on an email class as it needs to be punchy and valuable. Try to think of the most valuable things you've learned on eBay that have produced the most sales and show how to do them. It's amazing that what you think is really easy could totally transform a newbie's eBay experience. These are the little nuggets of gold. ______
Same scenario, only this time I want to create a course to teach people How to Sell on eBay. How do I get started? Do I take my book, and break it down into a short series of lessons, or…  I wrote the book on eBay (7 of them), but writing a course still seems a little alien to me. Can you baby-step me through the basics?
Rob: Turning an e-book into a course is one of the easiest things because you already have the content and the structure. Here's what you do. Condense every chapter of your Kindle into a few slides in PowerPoint or whatever application you'd like to use. Use ScreenFlow or Camtasia to film the slides while you use your book to narrate over them. It's easy to "ad lib" whilst your reading your own text. 
This is how I did Running A Web Design Business.
Try to break the process down into 8 or 10 stages and record a 5 minute video for each. Videos can be a mixture between slide narration and screencasting on the eBay site. _____
Later in your book when you talk about course creation, you say that you “need to put yourself in your student’s shoes…Early on in the course and in the course description you must specify: Who the course is for, what they will achieve from completing the course, what sort of level the course is, and what they will need to complete the course.” Could you give one or two specific examples of how you do this?
Rob: It's good practice whether you're writing a blog post, a Kindle book or creating a course to specify what you're going to be saying and who it's for. 
It doesn't always work, though. In the Udemy platform you have to specify the level of specialization and who the course is for. One of the few bad reviews I've got is on a Photoshop course for intermediates where someone complained "I'm a beginner and this is too easy for me!" So sometimes you can't win. However, I think it's a good idea to say things like, "this course will benefit web and graphic designers who want to start working for quality clients from home" or "this course will benefit eBay sellers who want to bring their business up to the next level"._____
With all of that said, I’m an author. I’ve written a great book, but I want to add an additional income stream. What’s the better choice, creating a class for Udemy, or a short online course that I host myself?
Rob: The good news is you can do both – and it's probably a good idea if you do. Personally, I always wanted to sell video courses from my own site and I've been lazy about it since I've been doing OK on Udemy. It's probably a good idea to have your courses on as many platforms as possible.
__________Rob Cubbon, author of How to Sell Video Courses Online, How I earn $1000+ a month while I sleep. Rob is the creator of several online courses, many of which are currently available on Udemy. Follow this link to visit Rob’s Amazon Author page.  Or you can check out Rob’s blog at RobCubbon.com.__________

Interview with Voice Actor Chuck McKibben

Hey everybody, I’ve got another great interview for you. This one is with Chuck McKibben, a voice actor, producer, and coach. I really want to thank Chuck for taking the time out to do this today. He shares information on a lot of great stars – Mel Blanc, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, Casey Kasem, Vincent Price, and Rod Serling. If everybody is ready, let’s get started. (PS: Full disclosure here. Chuck is currently voicing six audio books for me)._____
What really stands out for me is the time you spent producing Mel Blanc. Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, Yosemite Sam were all such a big part of growing up in the sixties and seventies. What was it like working for Mel Blanc?
Chuck: I knew that I wanted to be some sort of announcer or voice actor at the age of 6.  That's when I asked my Dad, who was the manager of a truck terminal, if being one of those men I saw talking on TV was a job, in the same way that he went to a job every day.  "Yes, that's a great job, son" he answered.  And throughout his life, he did everything in his power to help make my dream come true.  He was tremendously supportive, doing things like getting us "VIP" tours of local radio and TV stations back in Dayton, Ohio.

Like every kid of the 50's, I was captivated by the magic of cartoons.  Imagine, working in Hollywood for someone like Walt Disney, or for Warner Bros.  Well, I had some 78 rpm phonograph records by a man named Mel Blanc.  I was amazed that he could sing a duet as both Sylvester the cat and Tweety bird on "I Taut I Taw a Puddy Tat."  So there I was age 6, knowing that this man Blanc, whose name I also saw in the movie theater, was some kind of magician.  What I didn't know, or even dream of, was that just 19 years later, I would work for him!

During about 10 years as a radio DJ, I had become a very skilled audio producer.  Dayton provided a good place to start, on WING radio, a station that also gave birth to the careers of Jonathan Winters and Nancy Cartwright. However, I yearned for the "big time," as those two great talents did.  So I pulled up roots and drove, four days straight, to Los Angeles.  No job waiting, no contacts...I had never even visited the town.

It scares me to death today to think about what could have happened out there, but I met a real-life "guardian angel" named Rod Thibault (tee-bo), a studio owner, who took an interest in my well-being.  It was Rod who invited me to meet Mel at the opening of his voiceover school.  At this point, some of your readers may be thinking, "You mean, I could have studied cartoon voices with the one and only Mel Blanc?" Yes, you could have, during a period of only about two years.  Anyway, I met him and his son Noel at the door.  After exchanging a few nice-to-meet-you's, Noel asked me, "Can you run a tape recorder for us in dad's classroom tonight?  One of our tech guys apparently couldn't find the place and didn't show."  So, three minutes after meeting Mel Blanc, and about 20 years after first being mesmerized by his talent, I was employed by Mel Blanc.

 I climbed the ladder of his audio production company in Beverly Hills very quickly, and when a great guy who held the job of Studio Operations Manager left to work with Casey Kasem, I took over the position.  The title meant that I was now Mel's personal audio engineer, and the audio engineer/producer for all of the studio's output.  We created radio commercials that cost the clients a minimum of $10,000 each, and syndicated radio shows, all starring Hollywood's greatest talents. 


This all-work, no-play attitude apparently soured him to the folks at the Jay Ward studio, who produced Rocky and Bullwinkle. They were all zany, without a serious bone in any of their bodies.  Mel did one session there and kind of brought the room down, even though he was working with "the female Mel Blanc," his old pal June Foray.

Looking back, I feel as if I never really came in contact with the "real" Mel Blanc, but some "bizzaro" opposite clone.  I can remember Mel laughing out loud just once, when he brought in a poster he'd bought on Hollywood Boulevard, and had the whole office staff come up front to look at it.  It showed Road Runner being held tightly around the neck by Wyle E. Coyote. "Beep-beep your ass!" as the legend below.  It made him roar with laughter.  
Honestly, Mel's genius was in bringing other people's words to life.  Under the guidance of Warner's brilliant animators like Chuck Jones, he was the funniest man on film.  Think of it: How many other movie actors from the 30's though the 60's are still known to kids today?  I never meet anyone, of any age, who doesn't know of him, and love his work.  If I mention Bogart, or Cary Grant, or Jimmy Stewart to a 20-year-old, I'll get a blank stare.  But Mel Blanc?  Of course they know him!  He'd be so pleased to know that his reputation outlived nearly all of the giant stars of his day.  ___
After working with Mel Blanc you went on to do a lot of studio recording with some pretty famous people – Rod Serling, Vincent Price, Jack Benny, and Casey Kasem? What was it like working with all of these guys? Who were your favorite stars to work with?
Chuck: Let me take them in that order.  Rod Serling was such a sad personality.  A great, 5-time Emmy-winning writer, reduced to doing a parody of himself in commercials, because he was typecast as a writer of "spooky" shows.  He wanted to make pictures on important topics like race relationships, but Hollywood wasn't buying what he wanted to write.  After saying "hello" to me, he asked, "Is there anything you can do to make my voice sound better?"  I was stunned.  How could this great host of The Twilight Zone hate that amazing, unique voice?  Well, he was a writer, not an actor.  He wanted an actor named Robert Lansing to host Zone, but CBS told him a host wasn't in the budget, so Rod ended up on camera.  Speaking of Mel's smoking habit, Serling went through 5 packs a day, and it showed in his deeply lined face.  A great sense of sorrow hung over the man.  I don't like looking at the photo that was taken of the two of us, because he looked so miserable.  I suspect that when I worked with him, he probably had early stages of the cancer that killed him.  RIP, Mr. Serling.  I hope you finally found peace on the other side.

Vincent Price...now, there was a man who loved life and lived it fully.  Suave, sophisticated...an art lover, gourmet, world traveler, and all-around grand human being.  I wouldn't mind coming back as him in another life.  "Making movies has given me the chance to see the world at someone else's expense," he told me.  I did the audio production of his pilot for "Tales of the Unexplained," a 5-day-week series of strange but true tales.  Price may be the most cultured man I ever met.  I treasure a snapshot I have of the two of us in session.

Jack Benny.  There's a name 20-year-olds don't know today, but it should be remembered that he was a huge comedy star for 20 years on network radio, then 20 more on network TV.  Mel told me this before his dear friend Jack came in to record a group of radio commercials for a bank.  "Chuck, you're going to meet the finest human being in Hollywood.  I love this man, and here's why.  He has kept me on his weekly payroll for decades, at a much higher rate than what any other stars pay their fellow performers.  He's incredibly generous, not a tightwad like he plays.  If an actor is down on his luck, Jack will take him aside and ask, 'How much do you need to get through this rough patch?  $10,000?  How about $20,000?  Oh, here, let's make it $25,000.  Pay it back when you can.'  He'd sign the check Benny Kubelsky, his real name, and say "Don't tell anybody Jack Benny gave you this.  It will ruin my act!"   

Jack was, in fact, the dearest, sweetest man I ever met in Hollywood.  A quiet, gentle man, he had no trace of the stingy, vain character "Jack Benny," which to him was as much a fictional character as Bugs Bunny was to Mel.  It was someone he knew well, but it wasn't him.  Again, I have a treasured photo of us together, with Jack telling me a joke as he put his hand on my shoulder.  "Well, you know, Chuck..."  When he delivered a joke, it was The Jack Benny Show, right there in front of you.  I felt as if I was playing Don Wilson, his show's announcer.  Otherwise, you might not have recognized this kindly, 80-something man with the kind of sweet manners that have faded from American life.  He is my favorite celebrity to have worked with, and I got to do it many times.  Thank you, Jack.  You brought great joy to me and untold millions of others.

And finally, dear Casey Kasem.  He's very ill as this is being written, and not likely to live for very much longer.  Casey came to do 42 voice tracks for all the Dairy Queen Radio and TV commercials in North America for a year.  Already a big star thanks to his syndicated radio show, American Top 40, he was now getting the big bucks as a commercial spokesperson.  How big? This 8-hour marathon would pay him a session fee of about $25,000, and by the time the national residual payments came rolling in, about $500,000.  Being a former DJ myself, I found I had something in common with Casey, a genuinely warm, delightful guy.  At some break in the action, I got up the nerve to ask him, "How did you get to be you?"  He was very friendly in answering that his program director at a Detroit station told him to stop imitating the other DJ's.  So he developed his very unique sound, found some partners to back his idea for a syndicated "countdown" show, went to Hollywood, and turned his dream into reality.  A true "go west, young man" success story, echoed in my much more humble career.  It should be remembered that Casey has given greatly of his time and fortune to charitable cause, and refused to sell an awful assortment of junk foods and crappy products to young people.  I think he's a rather spiritual man, and like everyone who worked with him, it pains me to see the tragic turn his life has taken.  By the way, there are some out-take rants on YouTube in which Casey blows his top and says a lot of bad words.  Well, he may have had a hot temper, but he was always a good man.  No one should judge him from a few unfortunate audio clips.
One other great man I want to mention is Kirk Douglas, a magnificent special lifetime Oscar-winner for his body of work.  He was much smaller in real life than "Spartacus," so when he walked into the studio, I was surprised that he wasn't 10 feet tall. But what a towering talent!  I was honored to create, as his audio producer, three pilot episodes of his syndicated radio show, Champions of Courage.  For an iconic superstar, Kirk Douglas is the most easy-going, down-to-earth fellow you'd ever want to meet.  His family and Mel's family have been very close friends for a long time.  In fact, I met Michael Douglas when his only claim to fame was being Kirk's son.

Hey, for a kid from Dayton, Ohio, am I the luckiest guy on earth, or what?  I was granted the chance of a lifetime to work directly with these great stars.  Needless to say, it changed the rest of my life.  I've never had to whip out a resume to get a job since working for Mel, and at age 67, I've never had to work in any other field.  I still wake up and go to my dream job, in my own dream studio, every day.  I believe in a higher power, just as the great Don Lafontaine did.  I was in touch with him by email on a few occasions.  I wish I had been able to work with him, but at least he did know of me as a voiceover coach, and approved of my teaching methods.  I will say, as Don said of himself, that I don't know of anything I've done to deserve so much good fortune.
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You were a radio announcer, a producer, spent nearly a decade as the voice of Time Warner Cable in New York City. You appear to have had a really successful career. What made you go into voice acting?
Chuck: Can you think of a better way to make a living?  I get to stay indoors when the weather is awful, work reasonable hours, keep my own schedule, choose who I work for, and get paid for acting!  And the money is not bad, that's for sure.  Then there's the ego thing that all actors feel...that ham inside of us that is thrilled when we can say, "They picked ME!  Of all the other actors in the world, I'm the one they chose!"  Honestly, I've never lost that thrill.  Plus, it's great fun to step into characters and bring them to life.  Mel loved it with a passion, and so do I.  It's an awesome creative outlet.______
Most recently you’re voiced audio books for AudioRealms, Inc., and then on your own. Was the transition to audio books easy for you to make?
Chuck: Audiobooks are the most demanding form of voice work.  It's not easy at all, because it's a lot more than "just talking."  We call it "voice acting" and consider ourselves to be "voice artists," because to do all of the characters in a story is very far beyond being "the announcer."  Disc jockeys are announcers.  So are the people who announce the arrival of airplanes and subway trains.  Your high school principal was an announcer every morning on the school PA...but he was no voice artist.  It took me a long time to go from "announcer" to voice artist, and without formal acting lessons, although I learned a great deal from working with the grand master of them all, Mel Blanc.  His secret is easy: just BE the character.  Some call that method acting.  Don't just make funny voices, but inhabit the character's being. Think like the character; hold your body in a position like the character.  I was present for over 100 lessons that Mel gave to his students.  I learned by observing the greatest voice actor of the 20th century.  Again, how lucky can a guy get?

But I also love the role of narrator.  That brings me back to my days of imitating the great radio and TV voice men, who had such magnificent intonations.  I'd practice saying thing like, "This is the NBC Television Network" or "Direct from our newsroom in New York, this is the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite."  I dreamed of being a network TV staff announcer first, but was opened up to the true meaning of being a "voice artist" at the Blanc studio.

The Audio Realms books are of a dark, Gothic horror nature like Things That Are Not There, or campy sci-fi tone like VooDoo Planet.  What they have in common is that they were very demanding to produce.  I am the sole voice actor, recording engineer and audio editor for all my works on that label.  I'm immensely proud to say that I was never asked once to change a single word of any production.  I'd have to say, without any false modestly, that as an audiobook reader...which is the correct term for dramatic productions, rather than narrator...I'm pretty darn good._____
One of the frequent complaints I see in reviews of audio books is the narrators voice didn’t fit the story, or the recording was just plain dull. How do you approach a story to make sure you have the right voice for it?
Chuck: First, I have to believe that it is within my range to do justice to the work.  Can I do the accents required; express the emotions that must be come out in a natural way that goes beyond just reading the words?  I'm a fan of old movies on TCM, where the great actors can be studied.  What did THEY do with the characters?  That's what I will do, if I think it worked.  We see miscasting in lots of movies.  How about Kevin Costner as Robin Hood?  What an absolute joke.  Or for sheer dullness how about Keanu Reeves in The Matrix?  It doesn't matter if these films were box office hits I'm concerned only with the execution of the characters.  I hate these CGI films that are filled with things blowing up.  Where's the great dialogue?  The fabulous character development?  Does that make me old school?  Yep, and I'm proud of it.  Having worked in Hollywood, I know that the studios are just factories, grinding out product.  If a film can sell tickets, they don't really care at all about whether it has great acting in it.  Audiobooks, on the other hand, MUST have a complete focus on acting, and nothing else.  There are no computer-generated effects.  I owe my audience nothing less than the greatest, most interesting performance I can deliver. The gift of language is a treasure; it is the stuff of which civilizations are built and destroyed.  A college professor pointed out to me that Sir Winston Churchill likely saved Western civilization through the words he spoke on radio that caused the entire world to rise up against Hitler.  Words have enormous power.  They should be used with care.______
I recently spoke with another voice artist, Matt Stone, and he emphasized the importance of pausing for effect, varying voice and tone at important points, and knowing how to keep the story moving. What’s your take on all of this? It seems like there’s a lot more involved than just reading?
Chuck: Yes, Matt is completely right.  As I've said, it's a great deal more than reading.  It is knowing how to breathe life into your characters through all of the tools we have.  Think about this:  Of all the creatures in the known universe, ONLY human beings can read a script.  No chimp, dolphin, elephant or other large-brained animal can see the squiggles on a page, recognize and process them as thoughts, embellish them with all the right human emotions, speak them as if they were the person who wrote those words, and paint vivid pictures of the characters in the minds of the listener.  "Theater of the mind" is what they called it in old-time radio, and that's what it is.  Backgrounds, props, make-up play no part in voice acting.  Just the human voice and the human mind.  Easy?  No, not at all. _______
Audio books are still in their infancy compared to other aspects of publishing. I think Audible has about a hundred thousand registered users now, compared to millions of users on Kindle and in the iStore. That’s an amazing opportunity for authors and voice actors. What advice would you give to authors looking for someone to voice their books? What’s the key to finding
someone who is a good fit for your book?
Chuck: The short answer?  Hire me!  But seriously, hire someone who shares most of the thoughts I've said above.  Voice acting is not announcing, and except for non-fiction books, it's not narration.  It's acting, pure and simple.  The late, great actor Peter O'Toole told TCM's Robert Osborne that acting is 80% speaking; all the rest is where to stand and move, etc.  For the most part, "extras" is what we call actors who have no lines to say.  Of course, there were great silent film actors, but they certainly wouldn't find any work in audiobooks!

I think every writer hears the characters speaking in his or her mind, as they get written on the page.  Auditions are the only way to find out if an audiobook reader can bring them to life, as imagined by the author.  There's no great science to it, just art. Finding a great voice artist is like finding a great visual artist, such as a painter.  Hopefully, the artistic ability will be clearly evident in the work.
 ______
I read somewhere that it takes approximately five to seven hours of work to record one hour of usable audio. Is that right? Obviously you can’t just read the book and call it a wrap. What all is involved in recording a successful audio book?
Chuck: Today, we must typically be our own producer/director/actor and audio engineer.  Yes, that "shooting ratio" of at least five hours for every finished hour is a pretty realistic number for character work...quite a bit less for straight narration, however.  Warning!  Don't sign up to produce an audiobook if you think you'll just read it in real time and send it out the door!  As a voiceover coach, I teach aspiring voice artists the many skill sets that are now a part of the job.  There are some good books about the subject, but this is like learning to drive a car:  at some point, you have to learn by doing.  There's no quick answer to "what's involved," other than "a lot."  It's a luxury to have an engineer/producer doing all the tech work.  I perform that aspect for some actors, for a fee.  But there's no getting around the need for a good home studio these days, so as a veteran audio engineer, I include that in my training.______
What do you look for when you’re sourcing projects to record? Is there a magic genre, or a certain type of book that’s a sure thing when you turn it into an audio book?
Chuck: I'm told by those who know that vampires and self-help books are big sellers.  No reason to doubt that.  At this point in my career, I've decided to veer away from the supernatural.  I've done enough of that, and I have a pretty up-beat personality.  I don't always want to venture into the dark side, which, as a person of Irish heritage, is pretty easy for me.  I looked for books that could be of benefit to readers recently...books that potentially can improve someone's life.  I want to be known for such titles as much as for my Goth stuff.  Like most actors, I want to play it all...not just one genre, but many types of roles.  Variety is the spice, as they say.______
Audible seems to be the big player in audio books right now. They sell books on their own site, on Amazon, and in the iStore. They have an audition system where authors post their project and a small sample for voice artists to record. There’s also a section for authors to give more details about their book. What should authors list here? Sales figures, information about the book, or what they’re looking for in a voice artist. What’s most important in helping you choose a project to work on?

Chuck: Sales figures, yes, absolutely.  Reviews are terribly important.  Plus, all the rest of the above.  Because one must invest so must time in a production, you really want to know that the author has an established, successful career, and a devoted following.  I think ACX should require the posting of sales figures.  Obviously, new authors are at a huge disadvantage, but there are new voice artists who may wish to just get a credit, and care very little about sales.  It's OK to be in the same "newbee" boat as the author.  Who knows?  That new author may be the next literary giant.  For example, I appeared in a Dayton Theater Guild production of a Christmas story by John Jakes, when he was still an advertising copywriter in Dayton.  He went on to be a huge success as a novelist, so I was proud to have his name in my credits later on.  After gathering what information I can glean about the author and the book, I look at the audition script.  Oh brother, is that where you really begin to say, "Ugh!  Not this one!"  There are some truly awful, illiterate, untalented writers out there. Since I'm going to want to do my part to promote the book, I have to feel comfortable saying, "This is great!  You should buy a copy!" The biggest reason why an author can't get a good audio actor?  He or she is a horrible writer! However, excellent writing can attract a voice actor who loves the written word as much as the almighty dollar.

Do be sure to tell the actor about the things that might present problems, like accents, foreign language inclusions, and any other potential landmines that might be a deal-breaker.  Best to know everything to expect before going to contract!  Get all the requirements out into the open so that there are no surprises.______
Final thing, you’re one of the few people I’ve talked with who has their own Wikipedia page. How cool is that? Did you have to go to Wikipedia and ask to be included, or was it a natural thing?

You can't upload your own Wikipedia page; someone else must suggest it.  A friend of mine who is a video producer wrote and submitted my page, and I'm very proud of it.  The Wiki editors will take down any bio they don't think is important, so a waitress at a Denny's can't get one for any amount of money, unless she has accomplished something rather noteworthy and out of the ordinary for a waitress.  We Americans pay a great deal of attention to actors, perhaps out of proportion to their true importance.  Why do so many people watch the Academy Awards?  Shouldn't we care more about great scientists, doctors, educators and such?  Perhaps they don't get as much public attention as actors because they don't show us ourselves as we are, or as we could aspire to be.  Drama illuminates our lives, warts and all.  We meet and get to understand the many characters that would otherwise remain a mystery to us.  When great acting and writing come together, you get The Godfather, and suddenly you're able to comprehend the inner lives and thoughts of people you would probably hope never to meet otherwise.  As Shakespeare said, we are all actors on a stage.  Perhaps that's why, since long before his time, there have always been plays, and actors, who have captured our minds and entered our lives as if they were a part of our own reality.


Chuck McKibben is a Philadelphia-based voice actor and coach with a 50+ year career that began in his teens.  He was Mel Blanc's personal audio engineer in Hollywood during the 70's; an award-winning producer/director and voice artist in New York for 30 years; the senior prom announcer for Time Warner Cable New York through most of the 90's; and, since the late 90's, has been an audiobook actor of note.  He teaches aspiring voice actors from his home-based studio at www.voiceoverisland.com

Interview with Author Norm Schriever

I recently caught up with Norm Schriever author of The Book Marketing Bible, Prayer Room in Paradise, and South of Normal. I want to thank Norm for sharing a few thoughts on his writing.
 I sort of compare your writing to a young Hunter Thompson without the drugs. Is that a fair comparison?
Norm: Haha that’s a generous comparison because Hunter was a hell of a writer, though I think he’s unfortunately known too much for the drug thing and not enough his words.  When I started out I had a little gonzo to my writing, but as I kept writing and my own personal style evolved, I think it’s gone away from that a lot.  By now my writing has nothing to do with partying or angst of youth, though there are loud tones of rebellion.  Charles Bukowski is my favorite writer but similarly, it’s not because of any romance to his bar-poet drinker’s lifestyle, but I love that he burns life down to its lowest common denominator and then sifts through the smoke and ashes to find anything that survived – usually hope or salvation or humanity in the most unexpected places.  I’m all about fighting for the underdog, too, but ultimately I’d like to be known for writing like Norm Schriever. ______In the forward to Prayer Room in Paradise your friend Shane starts out, “What would it be like to walk away from it all?” Can I ask you that same question? What demon crawled into Norm’s head that made you walk away from it all?
Norm: It’s interesting that the assumption is that there was some demon that made me walk away from it all, that the paradigm from U.S. thinking is that something was wrong.  Yet American’s get the least vacation, work some of the longest hours, and have one of the highest rates of depression and anxiety in the world.  Think about it – I chose to reject a conventional work-a-day life for the chance to explore this big beautiful amazing planet that we’ve been given the gift to exist on.  But for some reason, we don’t value that as right.  Exploration, challenging myself, shattering my comfort zone, experiencing everything I possibly can and connecting with people all over the world as brothers and sisters is just in my soul.  For a long time I rejected that, trying to do what society and everyone told me I should do – go to school, get a job, settle down, work hard to make money, buy a bunch of shit, get married, repeat for 50 years until I die.  I tried that I really did, but after a while my true nature just screams to be heard, and to be true to myself – and truly happy – I hit the road.  _____
Your descriptions are similar to your characterizations. What comes to mind here is from South of Normal when you visited Pistol Pete in the prison, the first time. So much detail. It was so well developed without being boring like so much descriptive writing you just want to skip over. Can you tell me a little bit about how you see things, or how you go about developing a scene like that one in the jail?
Good question.  Between the books, I dedicated myself to studying my craft by reading every book, article, and blog bout writing I could find, writing every single day to practice, and reading some of the greats.  The common thing I learned is that less is always more.  Young writers tend to over -describe (like I did) and that actually diminished the impact and makes it boring for the reader.  So I wanted the reader to see the prison through my eyes, of course, but also have to interpret what wasn’t said.  There is a lot of symbolism, foreshadowing, and emotional aspects of fear and confusion and desperation and hope they’ll get by reading between the lines, but I realized I needed to leave some space for that to happen.  Also, God is in the details, right?  So a mannerism, a look, a tone of voice, the shine on a prison guard’s boots, all of these little details add up to humanize the bigger story better than any grand exposition every could. _____
Travel is such an important part of your work. First around the world, then Costa Rica, now Southeast Asia, specifically Cambodia, I think. What are you working on now? Can we expect another book about your adventures there?
Norm: The last 9 months I’ve lived in Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, and now Laos.  Day to day I write blogs for and handle online marketing for companies in the US, which I love, and that pays the bills.  I also blog personally about anything I see that fascinates me or is worthy of mention.  I just finished and published a marketing book for authors, and will do a follow up book about blogging by the end of the summer.  But yes, I will write a book about my experience SE Asia – from surviving the super typhoon to seeing people starving in the streets every day, but so much beauty and joy it’s crazy, too. I’ve been taking copious notes and putting it all together this whole time, but it will most likely be 6 months or more before even the first rough draft is done.  The working title is The Queens of Dragon Town ._____
What drew me into your writing was The Book Marketing Bible. Can you tell me a little about what motivated you to write it?
They say, “If you can’t find the book you want to read, then write it,” and I did just that with The Book Marketing Bible. When I started out as an inexperienced, self-published author I read so many books on marketing but none of them really provided the authentic, comprehensive, and practical info I desperately needed.  So three years later, as I’ve had a modicum of success and landed one (now two ) Amazon best sellers, I wanted to give back – to extend a hand to all of those talented, confused, overwhelmed writers who are in the same position I was a few years ago looking for help. _____
The Book Marking Bible offers a lot of unique tips for authors. A couple of them I really like are to celebrate your bad reviews, and to make a stupid bet with your followers about something you will do if you hit a certain goal. What’s the craziest or most humiliating thing you ever did to win a bet?
Norm: Hahaha well just being a writer is probably the most humiliating thing you can do in life if you’re honest!  But I really haven’t made too many bets with readers in the past (though I offer it as a technique.)  I guess I do enough stupid stuff that no one has to bet me anything! _____
Two other ideas I liked were your suggestions to get one of your words or sayings in the urban dictionary, and to finagle your way into a Wikipedia listing. What about you, has norm tried these or other crazy ideas to push the envelope and get included?
Norm: I haven’t undertaken Wikipedia yet but “South of Normal” is an official definition with the urban dictionary.   I definitely try different marketing and PR techniques all the time and some work, others don’t.  A lot of it is just time commitment and consistency – if you try to do everything you’ll end up half-assing it all and get nowhere, so I’m constantly juggling between my own writing projects, professional blogging every day, charity projects, the challenges of living life in third world countries, etc.  So I have a million creative ideas on tap, it’s just a matter of finding time to undertake them!  One that I do love that I think is WAY under used is to interview people that are authorities or well known in your topic or field.  That’s incredibly effective on many levels and pretty easy to do.  _____
You’re asking $8.99 for The Book Marketing Bible. It seems to be selling well. Pricing is such a sticking with Kindle books. So many authors find themselves bottled up in the 99 cent or $2.99 price range. Where the hell did $8.99 come from? Don’t get me wrong, I think it is well worth the $8.99, but where did that price come from?
Norm: Think about it like this – if someone is offering you advice how to sell books and make a fair profit as a writer and they give away their book for almost nothing, how helpful do you really think their advice will be?  It’s all about value and perception.  For books that offer entertainment, sure I price mine at .99 to $2.99, but when it comes to nuts and bolts that will make authors tens of thousands of dollars if they actually take the advice, they’re bound to take it way more seriously if it’s positioned where it’s not competing on price, but the value it offers.  Of course I didn’t want to price it abnormally (over $10) and be persona non grata on Amazon.com, so I thought 8.99 was more than fair.  _____
Last question, I promise.  What else do you want us to know about Norm Schriever, or his writing?
Norm: Every morning I wake up and think of this:  One day soon, whether its tomorrow or 50 years from now, I won’t be here anymore, and my writing is the only thing I’ll have left of me in this world.  I want to help us, to make this world a better place, to ease suffering and unite the human family.  I want someone to pick up one of my books 100 years from now and speak to that person – to give them hope, joy, to make them laugh, to make them realize there was someone else who cares for them, to allow them to feel more human.  That’s a damn powerful concept.  I’m honored to carry that responsibility and try to write up to that legacy every day. 

Norm Schriever is the author of two books written about his personal experiences, Prayer Room in Paradise and South of Normal. He has recently released The Book Marketing Bible, his way of giving back to help new writers succeed. Norm is currently traveling in Southeast Asia gathering material for his new book, tentatively titled – The Queen of Dragon Town. To find out more about Norm you can visit his Amazon Author page.

Interview with Buck Flogging - Matt Stone & Rob Archangel

I have a special treat for readers today. I just completed an interview with Matt Stone and Rob Archangel, cofounders of Archangels, Inc. and they’ve graciously agreed to share some of their knowledge about Kindle publishing._____
Matt, you pulled the plug on blogging to write Kindle books. Do you have any regrets?
Matt: Dear lord no. I've added almost 100 new direct email subscribers daily since the blog went down. It's steady, too. In fact, yesterday I got exactly 100 new subscribers. It took me 7 years to get 3,500 subscribers. In the last 100 days I've gone from 3,500 to 12,600. I'm selling more books, writing much less, and everything worked out as planned. Plus, I've got way more time on my hands to do other things, which have included launching two new online ventures without hurting my first business at all._____
You talk about how easy it was to get started on Amazon. 1) Because you had a catalog of books, and 2) You had a ready audience.
I believe the way you put it was, “Having an established audience to use as rocket fuel for a book launch is, quite simply, everything when it comes to success on Kindle.”
What about the guy who doesn’t have a catalog of books, or an audience to drive to his book? What do you think he should concentrate on starting out?
Matt: If you do the work and keep at it, it's almost a mathematical certainty that you will achieve success with a decent strategy in today's modern publishing environment. The formula is simple, create a big loop that builds upon itself with each round. Write a book, get as many free downloads as possible, use your book to drive subscriptions back on your website, then price it low and let it sell some copies. Repeat this process again and again. With each round your mailing list will grow, each free promotion will sell other books in your collection, and the amount of download activity you generate at launch will steadily push each new book release higher and higher in the ranks (as that mailing list grows). By the time you have 13 books you can run a 5-day free promotion every week and subsist on that activity almost exclusively._____How important is your mailing list to your success? Do you think you’d be where you are now, if you had just published your book and hoped for the best?
Matt: I had huge success before I had a big mailing list, but that was mostly through the connections I had made with other influencers in my niche. If you can get someone with a big audience to promote your book, that's a lot more significant than even tapping into your very own mailing list. People who already have an audience built, if you can tap into those people with radical generosity and irresistible sincerity, can help you reach success almost overnight. I just built a business successful enough to be overwhelmed with clients by the third month primarily with three emails to the right people in my appropriate niche._____
Many authors look at social media as a major time suck. You take the opposite view. You say, “It’s really important to focus that time on doing the stuff that works.”
You suggest, “Posting good content, links to interesting stuff, great survey questions, funny pics and memes, short rants, and whatever is relevant to the subject matter you want to be known for – as well as intimately interacting with people (especially people of influence as we’ll discuss in the next chapter), is the best way to build a good social media following fast.”
Can you tell me one or two social media tactics that have worked best for you?
M: I communicate frequently with dozens of people with over 100,000 Facebook fans. I'm not a very gifted social media builder, because I've always been spread out so thin. But do those people have tremendous power and influence to turn everything around them to gold? Absolutely. They built their following by posting a dozen times a day with a mix of questions, pics, trending topics, videos, and other engaging content. Most of them used a virtual assistant to do this for them for $100 a week. I plan to take advantage of this soon for a new company of mine._____
Another thing you talk about is getting rid of all your fears and phobias and just reaching out to touch people you want to meet? That’s how you and Rob hooked up.
Say I want to shoot for the moon, and reach out to Stephen King and let him know I wish he’d go back to the days of writing short books, I could read in a few days. How should I contact him? What would you suggest saying?
Matt: Well, I wouldn't bother with big celebrities like ol' Steve K. There are literally hundreds of thousands of middle-class internet entrepreneurs out there that have the power to ignite your career, who are also totally approachable. You may not know them by name yet, but search around and always make a note of all the movers and shakers, big, medium, and small, in your area of expertise. You can get great tips from these people, do favors for them (not in a brown noser kind of way, but in a cool way that maintains your dignity), and build great relationships--and accelerate your success in the process. I know this sounds nebulous, but man does it ever work when done right. Help the right people, get reciprocation from powerful people, and use that to reach out to a bigger audience.
Rob: That’s actually how Matt and I connected years ago. I followed his work and was moved to email him just because I liked what he had to say and he seemed like a cool dude. We communicated over email and through his website for a couple years, had a chance to meet and connect in person, and then later when he needed some help on some outreach and communication projects, he had me in mind. We started collaborating and now almost a couple of years later we’re making some noise in the indie publishing world, having learned a lot together since we started. _____
Publishing my books to Create Space was a major turning point for me. I was struggling to get by until I made my catalog available in paperback. Why do you think so many authors think print is dead, and stubbornly cling to a Kindle only publishing policy?
Matt: It’s worth it to publish in paperback just to get the little price strikethrough shown on your kindle listing. It also makes you look more like a real, reputable author and not some indie-publishing hack putting out 20-page books with 50 typos and second-rate content. I make more in audiobooks than paperbacks now, but paperbacks are still worth it. They make up about 20% of my total author royalties, but it's different for each author. We're helping someone publish a cookbook soon, and that will probably do much better than that in terms of kindle to paperback sales proportions.  
Rob: I think indie authors discount print also in part because they know how hard it is for most authors to get on the shelves of Barnes and Noble, unless they have one of the big publishing houses behind them, and even then, unless they’re one of the big shots they get behind.  There are plenty of Random House books you’ll never see on the end cap of bookstore aisles. 
Working on Kindle only also makes the self-publishing process easier to in-house. It’s more time and effort to format a paperback yourself.  You actually have to know a bit about typefaces and layout and be willing to go back and forth, making multiple proofs, to make sure everything looks the way it’s supposed to.  Formatting for the reflow-able text of e-readers has some of its own particularities, but in the end, I’d say it’s a good bit simpler than doing the actual layout of a print book, where every decision you make translates directly to the end-user experience._____
The last thing I want to talk about is audio books. Matt, you recorded “S. M. A. R. T. Goals Made Simple” for Steve Scott. What was it like working for Steve? I’ve been following both series of his books for years, and he seems to have it all together.
Matt: Steve is an efficiency machine, and he knows how to examine some numbers and make a quick, smart decision. I found out about Steve back in November while researching everything I could about publishing. I emailed him three days later and had a manuscript to record a few weeks later. He now routinely has us turn all of his manuscripts into paperback and audiobook (at least a book per month), and he just promoted us on his website, landing us seven audiobook projects in the last 48 hours of when I write this. So yeah, it's good to send emails to the right people. I spent two minutes locating his email address on his website, and crafted the email in 5 minutes. I've already gotten more than $1,000 per minute out of that email. Did I mention emailing people and offering a service to them helps?
Rob: Building the right connections is everything, as Matt says.  Steve is great to work with in part because, having established our thoroughness and the quality of our work, he lets us take the reigns and doesn’t micro-manage.  Knowing that we can make the little decisions that have to be made, rather than doing everything by committee, saves both him and us time, and makes each project simple and straightforward. If I had to wait on him for feedback on the preferred indentation pattern for lists, or pagination preferences, or ideas for numbered versus lettered lists, or the particular font size for a heading versus sub-heading within a paperback, and we had to do that for every project, we’d grind to a halt, and ultimately end up producing something that would likely be no better than us doing it ourselves. 
Likewise for audiobooks: did you want the emphasis on the second or third word of that sentence? How about a dramatic pause to let that idea sink in? Or maybe you want to build some momentum and speed up as you get closer to the end of the paragraph? How about some vocal variance? Where do you want that?  Those sorts of decisions are best left to us.______
What advice do you have for authors who want to publish their books on Audible? 
Matt: Get it done or have it done for you, and man up for upfront payment instead of the royalty split unless you have a book that doesn't sell well and is 400 pages long. Most poorly-selling eBooks will bring in over $1,000 per year through ACX (which lists on Audible, iTunes, and Amazon) and most indie authors are publishing a lot of 15,000-word books that can be produced from scratch for just $400. It will hurt to pay up front, but over the course of years, trading hundreds for thousands is better than the traditional 50:50 author/narrator split.  
Rob: And we say that as audiobook producers with more to gain from convincing you to split royalties with people like us.  We still will do royalty splits and may end up doing more in the long term.  But if we were committed to having your fiduciary interest at heart, flat-fee up front production would be the recommendation._____
What types of books sell best? Are their certain genres or types of books that don’t sell at all?
Matt: Fiction and self-help/motivational kind of stuff is what I'm seeing excel. One book we produced is making $1,500 per month on a book that is lucky to bring in $1,000/month on Kindle and Createspace combined. But I have publishing and health/nutrition books that I've done, and like I said, the audiobooks have ended up being more viable than paperbacks, with audiobook royalties increasing every month while paperbacks stay about the same. Don't wait to hear about how great audiobooks are selling in three years. Get in and get positioned and be on the plane as it takes off instead of diving for the wing as it taxis to the runway.  _____
I was amazed by the number of offers I received when I made my books available for publication on Audible. Many of my books had five to seven auditions the same day. Is that normal?
More to the point, if there are so many people looking to voice audio books, what should an author look for when he’s listening to auditions, and trying to select a voice actor?
Matt: We have no experience with that whatsoever, as we don't audition for books or get into that whole competitive madness, but get used to it. Voiceover people, especially those looking for a royalty split, are clamoring to join the party right now. The number of customers flooding Audible right now is creating a rapidly-increasing demand for audiobooks, and quick increases in sales figures.
Rob: Our niche is making audiobooks affordable for the small and mid-sized authors, who don’t have thousands and thousands to shell out for Neil Gaiman to read their work. And so we’ve pinched every penny to keep costs low.  Perhaps at some point our pricing will change to reflect our experience in the arena and to handle the increased demand. But right now, Archangel Ink is still on a rookie contract.  If you’re looking for someone not us, you’ll want to find the right balance of ‘knows what they’re doing and can do a great job’ and ‘not yet so established in their career that you’re priced out as a middle class author._______
Last question, I promise.  How important is it to have the same voice actor, especially for those books in a series? Will it piss listeners off if you change voices midway through?
Matt: I have no idea. Can't imagine that it would be that big of a deal for nonfiction authors, but I could see it being a little problematic for fiction when your characters voices suddenly sound totally different than in earlier books in the series!______
With all of that said, is there anything you want said about Rob or Matt, and is it ok to ask, which one of you is Buck Flogging anyway?
He is I and I am him, slim with the tilted brim, what's my flutherbucking name? Buck Floggy Flogg. The bomb._____
About
Matt Stone and Rob Archangel are co-founders of Archangel Ink ( archangelink.com ), an outfit established to help make self-publishing easy for authors. They’ve produced more than two dozen audiobooks and counting, design covers, format for Kindle and paperback print on demand, and serve as marketing consultants to help their authors maximize their current reach and leverage that into greater success and prominence. You can connect with them through the contact form at the main page of their website. Visit our books page at http://archangelink.com/books/.

Interview with Buck Flogger - Matt Stone & Rob Archangel

I have a special treat for readers today. I just completed an interview with Matt Stone and Rob Archangel, cofounders of Archangels, Inc. and they’ve graciously agreed to share some of their knowledge about Kindle publishing._____
Matt, you pulled the plug on blogging to write Kindle books. Do you have any regrets?
Matt: Dear lord no. I've added almost 100 new direct email subscribers daily since the blog went down. It's steady, too. In fact, yesterday I got exactly 100 new subscribers. It took me 7 years to get 3,500 subscribers. In the last 100 days I've gone from 3,500 to 12,600. I'm selling more books, writing much less, and everything worked out as planned. Plus, I've got way more time on my hands to do other things, which have included launching two new online ventures without hurting my first business at all._____
You talk about how easy it was to get started on Amazon. 1) Because you had a catalog of books, and 2) You had a ready audience.
I believe the way you put it was, “Having an established audience to use as rocket fuel for a book launch is, quite simply, everything when it comes to success on Kindle.”
What about the guy who doesn’t have a catalog of books, or an audience to drive to his book? What do you think he should concentrate on starting out?
Matt: If you do the work and keep at it, it's almost a mathematical certainty that you will achieve success with a decent strategy in today's modern publishing environment. The formula is simple, create a big loop that builds upon itself with each round. Write a book, get as many free downloads as possible, use your book to drive subscriptions back on your website, then price it low and let it sell some copies. Repeat this process again and again. With each round your mailing list will grow, each free promotion will sell other books in your collection, and the amount of download activity you generate at launch will steadily push each new book release higher and higher in the ranks (as that mailing list grows). By the time you have 13 books you can run a 5-day free promotion every week and subsist on that activity almost exclusively._____How important is your mailing list to your success? Do you think you’d be where you are now, if you had just published your book and hoped for the best?
Matt: I had huge success before I had a big mailing list, but that was mostly through the connections I had made with other influencers in my niche. If you can get someone with a big audience to promote your book, that's a lot more significant than even tapping into your very own mailing list. People who already have an audience built, if you can tap into those people with radical generosity and irresistible sincerity, can help you reach success almost overnight. I just built a business successful enough to be overwhelmed with clients by the third month primarily with three emails to the right people in my appropriate niche._____
Many authors look at social media as a major time suck. You take the opposite view. You say, “It’s really important to focus that time on doing the stuff that works.”
You suggest, “Posting good content, links to interesting stuff, great survey questions, funny pics and memes, short rants, and whatever is relevant to the subject matter you want to be known for – as well as intimately interacting with people (especially people of influence as we’ll discuss in the next chapter), is the best way to build a good social media following fast.”
Can you tell me one or two social media tactics that have worked best for you?
M: I communicate frequently with dozens of people with over 100,000 Facebook fans. I'm not a very gifted social media builder, because I've always been spread out so thin. But do those people have tremendous power and influence to turn everything around them to gold? Absolutely. They built their following by posting a dozen times a day with a mix of questions, pics, trending topics, videos, and other engaging content. Most of them used a virtual assistant to do this for them for $100 a week. I plan to take advantage of this soon for a new company of mine._____
Another thing you talk about is getting rid of all your fears and phobias and just reaching out to touch people you want to meet? That’s how you and Rob hooked up.
Say I want to shoot for the moon, and reach out to Stephen King and let him know I wish he’d go back to the days of writing short books, I could read in a few days. How should I contact him? What would you suggest saying?
Matt: Well, I wouldn't bother with big celebrities like ol' Steve K. There are literally hundreds of thousands of middle-class internet entrepreneurs out there that have the power to ignite your career, who are also totally approachable. You may not know them by name yet, but search around and always make a note of all the movers and shakers, big, medium, and small, in your area of expertise. You can get great tips from these people, do favors for them (not in a brown noser kind of way, but in a cool way that maintains your dignity), and build great relationships--and accelerate your success in the process. I know this sounds nebulous, but man does it ever work when done right. Help the right people, get reciprocation from powerful people, and use that to reach out to a bigger audience.
Rob: That’s actually how Matt and I connected years ago. I followed his work and was moved to email him just because I liked what he had to say and he seemed like a cool dude. We communicated over email and through his website for a couple years, had a chance to meet and connect in person, and then later when he needed some help on some outreach and communication projects, he had me in mind. We started collaborating and now almost a couple of years later we’re making some noise in the indie publishing world, having learned a lot together since we started. _____
Publishing my books to Create Space was a major turning point for me. I was struggling to get by until I made my catalog available in paperback. Why do you think so many authors think print is dead, and stubbornly cling to a Kindle only publishing policy?
Matt: It’s worth it to publish in paperback just to get the little price strikethrough shown on your kindle listing. It also makes you look more like a real, reputable author and not some indie-publishing hack putting out 20-page books with 50 typos and second-rate content. I make more in audiobooks than paperbacks now, but paperbacks are still worth it. They make up about 20% of my total author royalties, but it's different for each author. We're helping someone publish a cookbook soon, and that will probably do much better than that in terms of kindle to paperback sales proportions.  
Rob: I think indie authors discount print also in part because they know how hard it is for most authors to get on the shelves of Barnes and Noble, unless they have one of the big publishing houses behind them, and even then, unless they’re one of the big shots they get behind.  There are plenty of Random House books you’ll never see on the end cap of bookstore aisles. 
Working on Kindle only also makes the self-publishing process easier to in-house. It’s more time and effort to format a paperback yourself.  You actually have to know a bit about typefaces and layout and be willing to go back and forth, making multiple proofs, to make sure everything looks the way it’s supposed to.  Formatting for the reflow-able text of e-readers has some of its own particularities, but in the end, I’d say it’s a good bit simpler than doing the actual layout of a print book, where every decision you make translates directly to the end-user experience._____
The last thing I want to talk about is audio books. Matt, you recorded “S. M. A. R. T. Goals Made Simple” for Steve Scott. What was it like working for Steve? I’ve been following both series of his books for years, and he seems to have it all together.
Matt: Steve is an efficiency machine, and he knows how to examine some numbers and make a quick, smart decision. I found out about Steve back in November while researching everything I could about publishing. I emailed him three days later and had a manuscript to record a few weeks later. He now routinely has us turn all of his manuscripts into paperback and audiobook (at least a book per month), and he just promoted us on his website, landing us seven audiobook projects in the last 48 hours of when I write this. So yeah, it's good to send emails to the right people. I spent two minutes locating his email address on his website, and crafted the email in 5 minutes. I've already gotten more than $1,000 per minute out of that email. Did I mention emailing people and offering a service to them helps?
Rob: Building the right connections is everything, as Matt says.  Steve is great to work with in part because, having established our thoroughness and the quality of our work, he lets us take the reigns and doesn’t micro-manage.  Knowing that we can make the little decisions that have to be made, rather than doing everything by committee, saves both him and us time, and makes each project simple and straightforward. If I had to wait on him for feedback on the preferred indentation pattern for lists, or pagination preferences, or ideas for numbered versus lettered lists, or the particular font size for a heading versus sub-heading within a paperback, and we had to do that for every project, we’d grind to a halt, and ultimately end up producing something that would likely be no better than us doing it ourselves. 
Likewise for audiobooks: did you want the emphasis on the second or third word of that sentence? How about a dramatic pause to let that idea sink in? Or maybe you want to build some momentum and speed up as you get closer to the end of the paragraph? How about some vocal variance? Where do you want that?  Those sorts of decisions are best left to us.______
What advice do you have for authors who want to publish their books on Audible? 
Matt: Get it done or have it done for you, and man up for upfront payment instead of the royalty split unless you have a book that doesn't sell well and is 400 pages long. Most poorly-selling eBooks will bring in over $1,000 per year through ACX (which lists on Audible, iTunes, and Amazon) and most indie authors are publishing a lot of 15,000-word books that can be produced from scratch for just $400. It will hurt to pay up front, but over the course of years, trading hundreds for thousands is better than the traditional 50:50 author/narrator split.  
Rob: And we say that as audiobook producers with more to gain from convincing you to split royalties with people like us.  We still will do royalty splits and may end up doing more in the long term.  But if we were committed to having your fiduciary interest at heart, flat-fee up front production would be the recommendation._____
What types of books sell best? Are their certain genres or types of books that don’t sell at all?
Matt: Fiction and self-help/motivational kind of stuff is what I'm seeing excel. One book we produced is making $1,500 per month on a book that is lucky to bring in $1,000/month on Kindle and Createspace combined. But I have publishing and health/nutrition books that I've done, and like I said, the audiobooks have ended up being more viable than paperbacks, with audiobook royalties increasing every month while paperbacks stay about the same. Don't wait to hear about how great audiobooks are selling in three years. Get in and get positioned and be on the plane as it takes off instead of diving for the wing as it taxis to the runway.  _____
I was amazed by the number of offers I received when I made my books available for publication on Audible. Many of my books had five to seven auditions the same day. Is that normal?
More to the point, if there are so many people looking to voice audio books, what should an author look for when he’s listening to auditions, and trying to select a voice actor?
Matt: We have no experience with that whatsoever, as we don't audition for books or get into that whole competitive madness, but get used to it. Voiceover people, especially those looking for a royalty split, are clamoring to join the party right now. The number of customers flooding Audible right now is creating a rapidly-increasing demand for audiobooks, and quick increases in sales figures.
Rob: Our niche is making audiobooks affordable for the small and mid-sized authors, who don’t have thousands and thousands to shell out for Neil Gaiman to read their work. And so we’ve pinched every penny to keep costs low.  Perhaps at some point our pricing will change to reflect our experience in the arena and to handle the increased demand. But right now, Archangel Ink is still on a rookie contract.  If you’re looking for someone not us, you’ll want to find the right balance of ‘knows what they’re doing and can do a great job’ and ‘not yet so established in their career that you’re priced out as a middle class author._______
Last question, I promise.  How important is it to have the same voice actor, especially for those books in a series? Will it piss listeners off if you change voices midway through?
Matt: I have no idea. Can't imagine that it would be that big of a deal for nonfiction authors, but I could see it being a little problematic for fiction when your characters voices suddenly sound totally different than in earlier books in the series!______
With all of that said, is there anything you want said about Rob or Matt, and is it ok to ask, which one of you is Buck Flogging anyway?
He is I and I am him, slim with the tilted brim, what's my flutherbucking name? Buck Floggy Flogg. The bomb._____
About
Matt Stone and Rob Archangel are co-founders of Archangel Ink ( archangelink.com ), an outfit established to help make self-publishing easy for authors. They’ve produced more than two dozen audiobooks and counting, design covers, format for Kindle and paperback print on demand, and serve as marketing consultants to help their authors maximize their current reach and leverage that into greater success and prominence. You can connect with them through the contact form at the main page of their website. 

So You Want to Write a Kindle Book

Have you ever kicked around the idea of writing a Kindle book?

It's ok. You can admit it. Let me share a secret with you. I didn't tell my wife, or kids, or anyone I'd written my first book until it had sold over 100 copies.  The day it hit number two in the eBay category on Amazon, I finally figured what the hell - no better time than now.

Can I share another secret with you? It's a year and a half later, and none have read one of my books yet. I'm beginning to think they never will. It doesn't really matter though. I've written twenty more short books since then and sold over 10,000 copies on Kindle, and another 2400 paperbacks. So I still get the last laugh, there are people out there reading them.

What I'm trying to tell you is that if you've got a book in you - let it come out.

Don't worry about what other people think.

If you're really worried about it, you can publish your book under another name while you're testing the waters. Amazon doesn't care whose name you put on your book.

I recently started two series under different pen names.

It's sort of exciting and even liberating in a way, because I can say whatever I want, because nobody is going to know it’s me. What I've got to hide, I'm not sure. One of my titles is Get Off Your Lazy Fucking Ass and Get a Job Already. Hard to believe, but one of my reviewers started off their review saying "...despite the cursing..."

Here's a thought. Write your book. If you only sell one copy, that's one more than you would have otherwise.

How to Get the Most from Your Amazon Author Central Page

Amazon created Author Central as an area for writer’s to showcase information about themselves and their works.

One thing we know: If people like your work, they’re going to want to know more about you; what you look like; how you got started writing; where you live; and what other books you’ve published.

To claim your Author Central page, visit the following link:

https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/home?ie=UTF8&pn=irid37437482

Upload an author biography to introduce yourself. Add a picture so readers can have a look at your bright and smiling face. Author Central also gives you a place to collect all of your books in one place so readers can browse through them. Each time you publish a new book, be sure to click on Add Book, to add you latest tile to your list of books.

Another interesting option Amazon offers is the ability to link your blog and Twitter account to your Author Central Account. When you do this your most recent tweet shows up, along with highlights from your three most recent blog posts. Talk about a great way to engage your readers, and get them to follow you.

You also have a spot to upload book trailers or promotional videos. If you’re photogenic, or good with video, you could create a whole series of videos to allow readers to learn more about you and your books.

A lot of people link their books to Facebook or their author website, but a link to Author Central might pay off better in the long run. Not only does it introduce readers to you, it gives you a great opportunity to sell more of your books.

Review: The Plot Skeleton by Angela Hunt

I've been reading a lot of books lately about writing. How to write. How to correct common writing mistakes, How to write better sentences. How to outline your book, so it almost writes itself.

You get the idea. 


Angela Hunt has written a great little series that addresses many of these issues. If you haven't come across them yet, here are a few of the titles in her series.The Plot SkeletonWeasel WordsEvoking EmotionsPoint of ViewPlans and ProcessesIt's actually a nifty little series. All of them are short, easy to read, and pack a lot of information in a short space. The Plot Skeleton explains how to structure your story so you are sure to include all of the elements you need to present a great story. Whether you need help with plotting, character development, or another area of your writing, all of the information is here.
Non-fiction writers, don't let the title throw you off, you can still use a lot of the information presented in this book.
My favorite book in the series is Weasel Words.
The title alone makes it worth reading. Again, it's short - only 40 pages, but its packed with useful information.

Is there an audiobook in your future?

What’s that you say? You never heard of Audible? They’re an Amazon company that makes your book available for readers to download and listen to.
After you’ve signed up with Audible, you can go to your dashboard and start adding projects (Books that you want to have audio versions made of).
I uploaded four titles last night, and received offers to record all four of them.
One of the parties who contacted me did an amazing job. He uploaded 10 minutes of spoken content overnight, included a great narrator bio, and called me to discuss the project. It was just amazing for having the project posted for less than twelve hours.
The other three offers, I’m not so sure of. They sent me a two minute audition, with no emotion in the voice, no pauses, just blah reading. I’ve read enough Audible reviews, and one thing I know is a bad narrator can hurt your rankings. That’s why I’m especially happy with the one offer I accepted. He did an amazing job, but what else could I expect. He has close to forty years in the business, trained under the great Mel Blanc (of Bugs Bunny fame), and has a knack for anticipating what readers expect. His name is Chuck McKibben, and I’m excited to have him on my team.
I’m not sure what to expect from Audible, but I’m really pumped up waiting to hear the final book.
Another great thing about Audible, it’s free to get started. When you request auditions for projects you have the option to pay the audio producer outright, or split royalties fifty-fifty with them. Being the cheap ass I am I chose the fifty-fifty split. That gives me the chance to try my first book out for the cost of a book cover.
How cool is that?
When I talked to Chuck about the project I told him this was entirely new territory for me. When I posted my first book on Kindle, I thought it might sell twenty-five copies the first year. My bad! It went on to sell thousands of copies on Kindle, and in paperback. I’m going into audio books the same way. I would be happy with any sales, but I can’t help hoping it will sell thousands of copies too.
How about you? Want to learn more about selling on Audible? Click this link.

****  Update 3/11/2014 ****

Four days after posting my first books on Audible I've signed contracts for nine of my books to be made into audio books. Most of the books received three to seven auditions, so there are plenty of voice artists waiting to record your next book. My suggestion - Give it a shot. See what audio books can do to improve your catalog of books.