Our most recent guest is author and speaker, Adam Dreece. Adam Dreece is the best-selling author of The Yellow Hoods series, The Wizard Killer Episodes, and The Man of Cloud 9. He’s seen enormous success as a self-published author in just a few years.
Thanks for being with us here today Adam!
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I’m a run of the mill dyslexic, severe asthmatic, chronic pain ‘enjoying’, prolific author. There are few incentives more great that pain on one side, and knowing that you’re “not supposed to be doing this”, to get you writing and building your author career and every day.
What is your favorite movie, comic, or book?
There are two recent movies that I feel capture two sides of me: Mr. Right and John Wick. I’ve been a HUGE comic book fan ever since I was about 7 years old. My favorites would shift depending on the writing, though my first favorites were Spider-Man, Iron Man, Superman, and Batman.
What are you most grateful for?
Despite my health challenges, I’m able to enjoy my family and do something I’m deeply passionate about. Every book has a “HOLY CRAP, I DID IT! I DID IT!” moment.
What is your favorite food?
Dairy-free, egg-free, soy-free pizza. My wife makes the most amazing crust, and we turn it into a true marvel like few others.
What does storytelling mean to you?
Storytelling for me is about creating a world, tale, and characters that the reader can really experience. I’m told that I write video, that people feel like they are standing right there in the room with the characters, and that’s what I’m after. It’s the oldest of human traditions, and in my mind, one of the most sacred. Without our stories, we are lost. Stories bring hope, warning, sorrow, joy, and more. There’s nothing like being a weaver of all that. Nothing.
Why self-published?
It’s all carpe diem, seize the day. After twenty-five years of doing nothing with my writing, I had two medical events in 2009/2010 that flipped my life upside down. I decided that I would not dream of being an author, but I would start now. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was committed to trying to learn as I go and outrun my mistakes.
What are some of the challenges of self-publishing?
There are many, so let’s look at three:
1. You are the everything department. From selecting an editor and cover, formatting and production, never mind MARKETING MARKETING MARKETING of the book. You have to make all of the decisions and everything is reliant on you. When I started, I knew nothing and had a mammoth amount to learn.
2. Echo-chamber. It’s very easy to isolate yourself from getting real feedback about what you’re writing. In particular, this is dangerous when you’re writing something that’s very unclear in terms of its audience. I’ve seen some works that were intended for a blur between two audiences however it had natural turn offs for both audiences. The net result? A lot of effort went into putting out a book that couldn’t be appreciated and was hammered in reviews. Getting some real feedback or hiring a development editor could have avoided the issue.
3. Time. On top of the writing, there’s social media engagement, newsletters, and all of those tasks that I mentioned in #1. Where’s the time? You’ve got to become ruthless with your time as well as make sure that you don’t severe the tie with those that support you the most. What’s the point of “succeeding” if it means you scorched the soil from which you grew it?
Which of your books do you love the most? Why?
I had to stop and think about this question. Right now, I’d say it’s the fifth and final installment in The Yellow Hoods. There’s some much emotion and power in that book, so many gets wrapped up, all the while so much new fertile ground is laid for where things are going. In particular, what happens with Tee and Elly gets me emotional just thinking about it.
Which of your books do you feel the least affection towards? Why?
It’s one thing to say that all of my books are my children, and I love all of them, but honestly there’s not one that I love less. I put my heart and soul in each and every one of them. Take The Man of Cloud 9, for example. To date, it’s my book that has sold the least, however I know that as a sci-fi thriller novel I’m building a nearly entirely new audience and that’s going to have a longer burn to build up a level of audience like The Wizard Killer did quickly. However, there’s is so much me in that book on so many levels, as well as so much misunderstanding of me in that book, that it will forever have a special place in my heart. It’s also a goodbye to my software career in many ways.
So what about the first book of the Yellow Hoods, Along Came a Wolf? That was me not just taking down the dream of being a writer off the shelf, taking it apart, and doing something about it, but it has a tenderness and sophistication that I know if I try to touch it, I will dispel the most important part of what enchants so many readers. Never mind that it was my daughter’s nudge, and a silly bedtime story that I told her, that created a crack in the damn of excuses which was that book, and it caused a best-selling series to gush out.
At the end of the day, maybe it’s because I leave nothing emotionally, intellectually, or imaginatively on the table when I write a book. I truly love each out and could go into details as to why.
What are you working on right now?
I’ve drafted my first non-fiction book which is about hand-selling books. It’s based on a popular seminar I’ve given a number of times. I’m also writing my first fantasy space-opera, Tilruna. Season One will launch in September and I’m going to bringing a whole universe into people’s lives.
There’s an extra-special part to Tilruna for me, which was a world and tale that I created for Dungeons and Dragons eons ago. I still have the duo-tang of notes for it. While what I’m doing uses in a limited way, the essence and mythos I created, are there. I’m SO excited about it.
You ran into a bit of a stumbling block by going Amazon exclusive. Can you offer a bit about what happened and where people can learn more from your experience?
For those that would like to know the full story, here’s my blog post and the YouTube videos (One, Two).
But in brief, I put my Yellow Hoods books into the KDP Select program around December 9th. I thought I’d see if I could get more readers from Kindle Unlimited. I did a hard push on promotions, and one of those came back to bite me. Whether its because they are directly associated with scammers, or because scammers are looking for victims through those that advertise with this particular service, I saw an unbelievable spike in my page read count (Amazon pays per page read). One day I had an extra 25k, the next day 0, then day three had 10k. All of those page reads were accounted for by the time I got up in the morning.
I reported it to Amazon, and they told me that there was nothing weird or wrong. Around January 12th, I was informed that my account was being terminated. All of my books vanished.
They ended up restoring my books and apologizing. The department that had told me everything was fine was supposed to have shared my emails with the anti-fraud department as a matter of protocol, but didn’t. Well, the fraud folks detected bots reading my books.
Scammers will upload their fake books (i.e. nonsense books or books with the same page 1000 times or whatever) and will use bots to read them, generating money for them. However, to make those bots harder to detect, the scammers will make them read other peoples books. Amazon assumes that if someone is benefiting from it, i.e. the innocent author who would potentially get 5 cents from the reads, is in on it. Then wham, author gets shutdown hard. In Amazon’s defense, this is an extremely hard problem to resolve, and I believe they’re looking at ways to get better at determining those that are in on it versus those who are innocent victims.
You have developed significant success in such a short period of time. How did you do it? How do you feel about it?
One of the things that I’m notoriously bad at is recognizing what I’ve actually accomplished and appreciating it. I feel like I’m in a kayak looking at the rapids ahead and getting all tense, not realizing how far down the river I’ve gone. It’s by spending time helping out other authors, which I try to make sure I do each and every week, that helps me realize I have things to offer that I picked up along the way.
How did I do it? Sacrificing 90%+ of my TV time and all of my video game time was one of the things. Another was by giving myself deadlines that were hard but achievable, and sticking to them.
I had no idea what I was doing, but I wasn’t willing to let that stop me.
What advice would you give to authors just starting out?
Give yourself permission to make a mess. Also, if anyone’s discouraging you or trying to help you by telling you “the hard truth,” find a way to block them out.
What do you want to know from readers?
I love hearing what touched them, what moments or characters did they connect with.
Where can readers find out more about your books?
My books are available at Indigo, Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, GooglePlay, Barnes and Noble and elsewhere.
Also, you can get ISBNs and other details to order them from your favorite store here.
They can also find me on Instagram @AdamDreece, Twitter @AdamDreece, and on Facebook /AdamDreeceAuthor.
There’s also my blog.
AND lastly, if anyone would like an “Adam Dreece 3 book sampler”, go here.
