God’s of the Machines Virtual Book Tour

 

           

Gary Starta is a former journalist who studied English and Journalism at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.  He cites Stephen King and Dean Koontz as inspirations for his 2007 novel ‘Blood Web’ which is also reminiscent of the X-files television/movie series.  The follow up novel to ‘Blood Web’ –  2009’s ‘Extreme Liquidation’ – explores Caitlin Diggs’ supernatural gifts including the ability to see the future in dreams and to read a person’s character through emotions.  Latest sci fi novel, Gods of the Machines, and all other books now available via http://www.garystarta.net  or at Amazon.com

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INTERVIEW:

 

Q: Welcome to Beyond the Books, Gary.  Can we start out by telling us whether you are published for the first time or are you multi-published?

A: I have seven novels at present published, scattered between various publishers.

Q: What was the name of your very first book regardless of whether it was published or not and, if not published, why?

A: It was published and entitled: What are you Made Of?

Q: For your first published book, how many rejections did you go through before you either found a mainstream publisher, self-published it, or paid a vanity press to publish it?

A: I went through many agency rejections and then decided to publish with a small press so I could get my work out in the universe so to speak.

 

Q: How did the rejections make you feel and what did you do to overcome the blows?

A: It’s never fun but it eventually fuels me to continue my publishing quest. You have to realize almost anyone who ever wrote has gone through this at one time or another.

Q: When your first book was published, who published it and why did you choose them?

A: I consider my first book with a small, independent press to be Blood Web with Charles River Press. I had contacted the publisher via the Internet and continued the entire process including contracts, editing and publishing online. The publisher definitely seemed to get what I was trying to do, create a paranormal suspense story. I was pleased with the editing process, although it was rigorous, and the great cover art provided. Many small publishers are criticized about lack of editing and cover art but I think this is one example that shows those criticisms are part of a bias.

Q: How did it make you feel to become published for the first time and how did you celebrate?

A: I was ecstatic to say the least. To know that your idea, your characters are coming to life (in people’s imaginations of course) is electrifying. I usually celebrate by reading or watching more science fiction.

Q: What was the first thing you did as for as promotion when you were published for the first time?

A: I made some post cards with the cover art logo and where readers could find my website.

Q: If you had to do it over again, would you have chosen another route to be published?

A: I don’t think so. I think I would have appreciated the knowledge about promotion I seem to have recently acquired. I could have used it more effectively – hopefully – back then. So it’s not so much about the publisher as how are you going to make your title visible to readers.

Q: Have you been published since then and how have you grown as an author?

A: I have seven books now. Again, I must say learning the promotion process goes hand in hand with being an author and that it is just as important as writing if you want people to read your stories.

Q: Looking back since the early days when you were trying to get published, what do you think you could have done differently to speed things up?  What kind of mistakes could you have avoided?

A: I don’t think I could have rushed anything. Part of being an author is maintaining a bottomless reservoir of patience. It will always take time to create your book. After that, another time allotment must be made to send queries and samples to agents and publishers. That’s why you’ve really got to love your stories; they’re going to be around a while, not only in your mind, but throughout the submission, rejection and acceptance process.

Q: What has been the biggest accomplishment you have achieved since becoming published?

A: I recently gave a blog cast radio interview for Jennifer Chase, an acclaimed crime writer. It was great to speak, rather than just write lol, and have someone as accomplished as her give me her time.

 

Q: If you could have chosen another profession, what would that profession be?

A: I wish I could write full time. There definitely is no other choice.

Q: Would you give up being an author for that profession or have you combined the best of both worlds?

A: I have to write part time simply as a matter of economics. Again, my dream would be able to devote myself totally to the art.

 

Q: How do you see yourself in ten years?

A: I believe I may still be writing, just as long as the ideas keep flowing. Five years ago I might not have thought I would have written ten novels, but I have, with the eleventh in process. So I have three more completed novels to submit right now.

Q: Any final words for writers who dream of being published one day?

A: You must stick with your passion, make time for it, and above all, love it like it is an extension of yourself – which it often is!

Beyond the Books: Interview with Author DCS

DCS is the author of Synarchy Book 1: The Awakening and Synarchy Book 2: The Ascension.  When not writing you can listen to her radio show, In The Mind of DCS every Saturday evening at 7pm CST on the Paranormal Soup Network.  Currently sucking up the creative energy of New Orleans, she hard at work at the next book in the Synarchy Series, and an upcoming webisode series called The Fallen.  Visit her website at www.themindofdcs.com to learn more.

Q: Welcome to Beyond the Books, DCS.  Can we start out by telling us whether you are published for the first time or are you multi-published?

A: I am multi-published. That’s fun to say.

Q: What was the name of your very first book regardless of whether it was published or not and, if not published, why?

A: The very first full length novel that I wrote was called Charcot. It was about an ex FBI profiler that made a serial killer to see what could be learned from it. I never published it because I thought I could do better. I may come back to it one day.

Q: For your first published book, how many rejections did you go through before you either found a mainstream publisher, self-published it, or paid a vanity press to publish it?

A: I self-published it, so no rejection pile for me!

Q: When your first book was published, who published it and why did you choose them?

A: I started my own publishing company, SVT Publishing.

Q: How did it make you feel to become published for the first time and how did you celebrate?

A:  It was very surreal to hold my first published novel in my hands. There wasn’t a big celebration though, just a big smile on my face and then my brain started exploding with everything I needed to do next to tell the world about it.

Q: What was the first thing you did as for as promotion when you were published for the first time?

A: I’m pretty sure the first thing I did was put together a website for the book, and then wrote a few press releases.

Q: If you had to do it over again, would you have chosen another route to be published?

A: No. But I would have slowed down and learned more.

Q: Have you been published since then and how have you grown as an author?

A: I have, I’m on my second novel now, Synarchy Book 2: The Ascension. And I think I’ve grown by leaps and bounds. Not just with my writing, but also with learning about the business/marketing side of things.

Q: Looking back since the early days when you were trying to get published, what do you think you could have done differently to speed things up?  What kind of mistakes could you have avoided?

A: I don’t think I could have sped things up, more like slowed down a little. As authors we can be really, really excited to thrust our masterpieces out there, but especially if you’re self-published you really have to take the time to make sure your work is in the best condition it can possibly be.

Q: What has been the biggest accomplishment you have achieved since becoming published?

A: Just being published I think is an accomplishment. But I do have huge news on the horizon but I can’t share it with anyone just yet. Hopefully I’ll be able to let the cat out of the bag soon.

Q: If you could have chosen another profession, what would that profession be?

A: Something in relation to the business world. I like business.

Q: Would you give up being an author for that profession or have you combined the best of both worlds?

A: I’ve combined the best of both worlds. Writing is very creative, but it still is a business.

Q: How do you see yourself in ten years?

A: Busy! Writing more books, running an entertainment company, all kinds of things. I’m pretty ambitious.

Q: Any final words for writers who dream of being published one day?

A: Learn everything, and then do it your way.

Liberation, Book One of the Andrusian Chronicles – author interview – Maria Lucia

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Born in Havana, Cuba, and having immigrated to the United States in 1960, Maria possesses a true and in-depth understanding of the power and unlimited potential of evolving and beginning again. A University of Memphis education graduate and a professional musician and vocalist, Maria moved deeply into the study of music and launched a very successful musical career in 1984, which included experiencing music on the performance level with a world renown jazz assemble and on the educational level as well. Her experience includes programs for gifted children in the public school system and creativity seminars for musicians at the university level. She has been a musical director for church programs, composer of music, and a producer of concerts. In 1997, Maria launched her first school focused on spiritual heart studies and became a full time spiritual growth teacher. She has traveled nationally, performing and delivering seminars for more than twenty years.  She is the author of “The Heart’s Unraveling,” a guidebook for her current school and is working full-time on her writing and the launching of her new book, “Liberation: Book One of The Andrusian Chronicles.”

www.andrusianchronicles.com

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?email_confirmed=1#!/pages/Liberation-Book-One-of-the-Andrusian-Chronicles/103113219738367?ref=ts

INTERVIEW:

Q: Welcome to Beyond the Books, Maria.  Can we start out by telling us whether you are published for the first time or are you multi-published?

A: This is not my first book but it is my first novel. I published a hand book for my school a few years ago and plan on doing several more before all is done.

Q: What was the name of your very first book regardless of whether it was published or not and, if not published, why?

A: It’s called The Heart’s Unraveling and it was published and helped a lot of folks with the information it contains. It will be released again in the future.

Q: For your first published book, how many rejections did you go through before you either found a mainstream publisher, self-published it, or paid a vanity press to publish it?

A:I self published it right off the bat because I didn’t want to wait for someone to pick it up. It takes way too long for the process and I felt the information in it needed to be out there for folks. After I published it and agency did pick it up and shopped it and it was rejected five times because it was in a manual form.

Q: How did the rejections make you feel and what did you do to overcome the blows?

A: It confused me and almost made me shut down. I still don’t know how I’m going to deal with getting the school information out to the masses other than doing it myself. I have learned that no one takes better care of you than you! You are the one who is going to give yourself the promotion and attention you deserve. My experience has been that the huge corporations that make up the book world both traditional publishing and the vanity presses basically want your money and seldom if ever give you the attention and marketing you deserve unless you’re a big name. So for those of us that are new or starting at it, it really does pay to take yourself on and self publish and market yourself until you are recognized strongly enough by the readers to catch the attention of a major publisher or in my case a major distributor. If you go to the right places and set yourself up professionally then that can happen. I have found that there are many resources out there to help to do that.

Q: When your first book was published, who published it and why did you choose them?

A: Trafford and my school published it. I chose Trafford because my editor and later agent suggested it as a reputable place. Now it’s been bought by Author’s Solution a major self publishing firm that houses about five huge presses. It was a good experience. I chose to have the cover and layout done outside so I could have more control over how it looked but loved that Trafford took care of everything else. But I didn’t know how important my involvement in the marketing process was and I’ve learned since then. You have to take on your own marketing if you use a vanity press, a reputable one like Author’s Solutions, and you have to take on the professional look for your work. It has to be professionally edited several times and the cover and layout are extremely important to the success of your book. You have to save up and go the best for that, the best opinions and vendors to support you.

Q: How did it make you feel to become published for the first time and how did you celebrate?

A: I don’t think I’ve really celebrated yet. I feel like I’m waiting for my work to reach the masses in a successful way to do that. So when it does come I will have to celebrate for Liberation, Book One of the Andrusian Chronicles and The Heart’s Unraveling!

Q: What was the first thing you did as for as promotion when you were published for the first time?

A: I don’t remember exactly when it was. It was around 2005. But as I mentioned, I had an erroneous belief that Trafford was going to do it for me and that somehow their posting it on Amazon and Barnes and Nobles and sending the word out would do it. But it didn’t and I felt lost and bewildered by the misconception within myself. Even though the book looked good and was professionally edited it wasn’t enough and I really didn’t know which way to go until now. I have a much better sense of the truth about publishing a title and have surrounded myself with folks that are doing it. But they want to be paid and that is an important factor. The vendors have to make a living at what they do.

Q: If you had to do it over again, would you have chosen another route to be published?

A: Yes and no. I know now that publishing myself is a stronger way to do it. But the experience with Trafford was really helpful in that it taught me that I was way more serious about publishing my work and getting it out there than I realized then. I have all of me behind me this time.

Q: Have you been published since then and how have you grown as an author?

A: No I haven’t been published since then and I haven’t really tried to be. I have learned that my goal isn’t to get published but to tell the story as genuinely as I know how and to get down as correctly as possible, then to get it out to the masses. That’s my goal and I don’t need a publisher to do that necessarily, just a selective and powerful distributor at this point.

Q: Looking back since the early days when you were trying to get published, what do you think you could have done differently to speed things up?  What kind of mistakes could you have avoided?

A: I feel the biggest mistake that I wish I could of avoided was believing that someone else was going to give me the attention and promotion I wanted. These publishing houses have thousands of authors to deal with. I learned that I was just one among thousands. Sometimes I would call Trafford and not ever get the same person twice. It was like getting lost in a river of authors. They did a great job delivering the book but I was the only one who could have promoted it and I didn’t know it.  I was very naïve about big publishers and vanity presses.

Q: What has been the biggest accomplishment you have achieved since becoming published?

A: I feel my personal biggest accomplishment has been to believe in myself again and in the fact that I have the ability to do it successfully even though it’s my first novel. I have people investing in the future of this work. I have people offering to promote it without me asking. They love the story and how relevant it is to our times. Liberation is about the worlds of love called Andrusia and a race of love who have the blueprint for pulling earth out of destruction. It has deep American history within its pages and a powerful paranormal and spiritual bent. Its an amazing tale.  My biggest accomplishment is that I got the story down effectively and that its super relevant to what’s happening in our world today, but most of all I succeeded in presenting it in a way that the readers really feel that and get involved themselves. That feels great to me.

Q: If you could have chosen another profession, what would that profession be?

A: I have several professions rolled up in one. I can’t limit myself so I write, I teach and I still love music.

Q: Would you give up being an author for that profession or have you combined the best of both worlds?

A: I have combined it! And it feels really fulfilling. George Lucas did that with Star Wars and Tolkien did that with Lord of the Rings. Lots of writers combine their deepest desires and abilities into their writings.

Q: How do you see yourself in ten years?

A: Extremely successful in the art of bringing to form the beauty of the worlds of fantasy, and galactic spaces of harmony and depth through writing, teaching and composing for children of all ages. I’m a sucker for this and I know a lot of adults who are too. It enriches our souls somehow.

Q: Any final words for writers who dream of being published one day?

A: Don’t wait. Do it now. There are vehicles out there right now to help you make your writings a book. Do the research and find them. They may come in a form of free lance editors, stories about other authors and how they did it, vanity presses, friends of friends. Just do it. Get serious about your work and stand behind it and don’t wait to be published by someone else. Take the step and do it for you! If you are destined to be noticed you will be. But find out how to do it professionally and save your money to back yourself. There are folks out there who can help you design a cover that sells, a layout that’s professional and edited and a back cover that contains the right words. There are folks out there who can walk you through the process, step by step. They’ve done it for me. Look for the companies that do the entire thing and save your money. The smaller ones will have more time for you. And don’t forget that after you have produced your book you will have to promote it. The internet is the best and fastest way but not the entire gambit.  Get HELP. Find the experts and accept HELP. You are worth it.

An Interview with Science Fiction Author Darrell Bain

Over the last several years, Darrell Bain has become one of the best selling authors in the world in the realm of electronic publishing, winning just about every honor available in that area of publishing. He has now moved actively into print publishing and is currently working on a collaboration with best selling science fiction author and scientist Travis S. “Doc Travis” Taylor. Most of Bain’s books are also in print or scheduled for print and all of them are available as e-books. He produces a very popular monthly newsletter, discoursing on various subjects brought up by fans or by his own voracious reading habit, written in an informal, narrative style. It is available around the first of each month from his web site at http://www.darrellbain.com/. 

Welcome to Beyond the Books, Darrell.  Can we start out by having you tell us whether you are published for the first time or are you multi-published? 

I am multipublished. 

What was the name of your very first book regardless of whether it was published or not and, if not published, why? 

The Pet Plague was my first, written after getting my first computer and learning how easy it was to write and correct mistakes with it. 

For your first published book, how many rejections did you go through before you either found a mainstream publisher, self-published it, or paid a vanity press to publish it? 

For the first seven years I was writing, I was the subject of a giant scam by a set of crooked “agents”. I wasn’t being rejected because they lied when they told me my manuscripts were being sent to publishers. My first published book was Medics Wild, with a crooked publisher in league with the crooked agents. Only a few hundred copies of the book were ever printed. 

How did the rejections make you feel and what did you do to overcome the blows? 

I very nearly stopped writing after I found out how badly I had been scammed. The E-book industry was my salvation. I’ve become one of the very best selling authors of E-books and that’s in competition with top names in the print industry who also have their books e-published. 

When your first book was published, who published it and why did you choose them? 

Commonwealth Publishing was the name of the now defunct crooked firm that published Medics Wild. I chose them on the recommendation of the crooked agents. 

How did it make you feel to become published for the first time and how did you celebrate? 

I felt wonderful at the time until I learned all the facts. I celebrated by setting up a lot of book signings, then found I couldn’t get books for them. 

What was the first thing you did as for as promotion when you were published for the first time? 

Book signings. 

If you had to do it over again, would you have chosen another route to be published? 

Of course! I was very naïve. Dealing with those crooked agents probably set my career back by ten years, and at my age it’s hard to spare that many! Having an agent is the best way to go, but NEVER pay an agent anything. 

Have you been published since then and how have you grown as an author? 

Yes, I’ve had at least three dozen books published now and as many short stories. I’ve become an icon of the E-book industry and have won every major award possible (Fictionwise Author of the Year, Knowbetter best Science Fiction novel 2002, double Eppie Award best young adult and best action/adventure novels of the year 2007, and Dream Realm Award, best Science fiction novel of the year 2007). Almost all of my books are also in print now. So far as growing, I’ve grown enough to be asked to collaborate with Travis S. Taylor on a science fiction novel. He is the co-author with John Ringo of the best selling Von Neumann’s War and has had a number of books published with Baen Books. Our book will be out in July 2008. Having him ask me to be a co-author was the finest compliment of my writing career. I might add that my writing has improved over the years as I learned some of the little tricks of the trade, but nothing can substitute for writing and more writing. 

Looking back since the early days when you were trying to get published, what do you think you could have done differently to speed things up?  What kind of mistakes could you have avoided? 

I doubt I could have speeded things up any faster than by finding a genuine agent, or simply trying to find a publisher without an agent. Same for mistakes. I should have done some research on agents rather than picking a name at random like I did. I had the incredible bad luck to pick the worst crooks in the business. 

What has been the biggest accomplishment you have achieved since becoming published? 

Being asked to collaborate with Travis and having my first hard cover published, Savage Survival.  All those awards haven’t been bad, either! 

If you could have chosen another profession, what would that profession be? 

Astronaut 

Would you give up being an author for that profession or have you combined the best of both worlds? 

Yes, at this stage of my life I would. My wife says I would accept a ride on the Space Shuttle even if I knew it would blow up 30 seconds after takeoff. 

How do you see yourself in ten years? 

Alive, I hope! Seriously, I see myself still writing books and short stories, but selling more than I do today. 

Any final words for writers who dream of being published one day? 

Yes. Writing is hard work. And writing fiction is a profession where the supply far outnumbers demand so be prepared for a long hard road. One more thing: the best way to improve your writing is to write. And write. And write. And…..

  

Tags: Beyond the Books, author interview, virtual book tour, online book promotion, Darrell Bain, Savage Survival, science fiction