Writers and Readers discussion

Please welcome author Jason Baldwin-Stephens to our Q and A discussions. He is a lifelong New Englander who, like most New Englanders, dreams of moving to Florida or California someday. For now however, he and his wife enjoy living in Connecticut with their two spoiled cats.

After spending his late twenties focusing on a day job, Jason re-enrolled in college in his thirties where he discovered that his desire to write hadn't died as he had thought, but instead had gone into hibernation.

Jason self-published his debut novel, Days Like These, in January 2012 and it can be purchased in eBook format through Barnes and Noble Nook, Amazon Kindle and Smashwords.

His Goodreads Profile: Jason Baldwin-Stephens

Hi Everyone!

I want to thank A.F. first and foremost for this opportunity and I want to thank all of you in advance for participating this weekend. I promise to answer all of your questions to the best of my ability.

As I'm relatively new on the scene I'm running a free promo with one of my short stories this weekend, Empty Shells, via Kindle and Kindle Apps. I hope you like it.
http://www.amazon.com/Empty-Shells-Sh...

-Jason

Jason wrote: "Hi Everyone!

I want to thank A.F. first and foremost for this opportunity and I want to thank all of you in advance for participating this weekend. I promise to answer all of your questions to the..."

Welcome Jason, and thank you for sharing your freebie with us.
Have you enjoyed your self-publishing experience so far?

Hi A.F.,

Have I enjoyed self-publishing? The answer would have to be yes.

I've definitely made some mistakes here and there in the last five months that I probably could have avoided were an agent or publisher helping me out along the way but just the fact that I was able to get Days Like These out there has been an amazingly rewarding experience.

-Jason

Hi Jason,
I haven't read your book "Days Like These" but it sounds like fun. Is it inspired by your college experience?
Sue

Hi Sue,

Great question!

Days Like These is not a memoir or biography but I did draw on certain emotions and one or two experiences from when I attended college back in the Nineties.

What really inspired the novel though was when I re-enrolled in school a few years back.

I hadn't written anything in a very long time at that point and just taking English classes, writing essays, discussing themes, etc, really reignited that desire to write in me.

I was able to take a playwriting class as well and after first walking in the door with the start of a really, really (I seriously cannot stress how terrible here) terrible play I walked in the second week of class with a play that was directly inspired by what my friends and I were like in our early twenties.

All the other kids in the class, who were more than a bit younger than me, really seemed to relate to it and that's when I noticed that the way kids talked, thought and acted hadn't changed all that much since I'd been their age. That's really where the idea for the novel started to germinate.

-Jason

Hi Jason,
I'm interested in your comment about noticing the way kids "talked, thought and acted" as it seems to me that writers must be good observers. Can you talk a bit more about the germination of the novel and how you developed it? What came first? Characters or plot? How did you take it from idea to m/s to published book? I know that's a big bunch of questions, but maybe you can pluck along at them this weekend! Thanks in advance for your time and answers.
Arleen

Hi Arleen!

That certainly is a big bunch of questions : )

As I mentioned above I initially had written a play that I'd set in the Nineties because I sort of assumed that I could only really write about people in their early twenties back when I was in my early twenties. When I realized that college students of today were relating to it I was a little shocked.

At the same time I was working full time so my daily schedule, when I had classes, was to work all day, grab a bite to eat and then head to campus which usually left me time before class to get caught up on reading and other assignments.

The joke I keep telling people (and it's only a joke because it's true) is that once the other students realized the thirty-something year old guy sitting in the common area wasn't a T.A. or an Adjunct they started to act like themselves around me. While some of the slang had changed and the music (though surprisingly not as much of the music as I would have thought)that's when it started to really sink in that I could still write some believable college age characters set in current times.

From there the idea for the novel started to surface. At first it was just an idea for this character of Dave who would be a little bit of a know it all jerk but still likeable and this mess of a relationship he'd gotten himself into. Then the character of John emerged who was going to serve as this sort of counter to Dave.

Then the character of Ben came about because I wanted someone that would be a bit of an in-between. At that point I realized that the story I was trying to tell was really about how lousy guys between the ages of 18-22ish are at relationships.

I can say the biggest surprise was when I went to sit down and start the first draft I started off with this sort of burnt out, deranged campus cop instead of any of the other characters I had and from there the novel just went off on its own for the most part. It was very much a, "I may never have the chance to write another novel again so I'm putting my all into this right now," approach.

It resulted in a pretty lengthy first manuscript and even once I got it edited down the novel was what many people kept telling me was too long for a first time novelist. That left me in a position where I could take just one of the plot threads and make a much shorter novel that don’t think I would have been happy with or proud of just so that I could possibly sell it to a publisher or I could go the self-published route, and book out the novel exactly the way I wanted.

-Jason

Hello Jason,

I ordered your book this morning so I will begin reading it. In the meantime, I want to say congradulations on living out your dreams of being a writer.

Thank you so much, Ann. I hope you enjoy it!

Thank you, W.F.

Hi, Jason,
Congratulations on your book! We all make mistakes when we publish our first book. My biggest mistake was in not hiring a really good editor to fine tune
the pages, getting rid of commas or adding them, checking for spelling errors.

That's a great point, Alice.

The editing/proofing/formatting is probably the hardest part of self-publishing.

Hi Jason~

Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. I just started reading Days Like These and also just downloaded your free short story; thank you for that. Now that you've had a taste of writing a novel and self-publishing, is there another work in the works? Will you write another novel and if you do, would you self-pub it or look for a trad publisher?

Mari

Mari wrote: "Hi Jason~

Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. I just started reading Days Like These and also just downloaded your free short story; thank you for that. Now that you've had a ta..."

Thank you so much, Mari!

There are a few things in the works at the moment actually; I'm just not sure where any of them are going just yet : )

After I put out Days Like These earlier this year I was overcome with this need to just focus on some short stories for awhile. Naturally, the first few things I set down to write ended up being a bit bigger than that. Both of those projects are moving along but over the last two weeks I keep getting distracted with short stories.

As to what direction I take next with either sticking with the self-publishing or going a more formal route, I think I'm going to have to see if the work(s) tell me which direction to take when they're finished.

-Jason

NYKen wrote: "Good evening Jason. I had New England Clam Chowder soup the other night at the diner. You are probably familiar with that type of soup, being that you are a life long New Englander.

I would like ..."

Hi Ken,

Here's a guilty confession that as a New Englander I shouldn't admit too....I hate Clam Chowder. Seafood in general doesn't appeal to me too much though my wife is determined to someday change my opinion on that. So far after ten years of being a couple she finally got me eating fish and chips. Baby steps, I guess.

Now onto your questions!

1) I don't know that I would say my protagonists do always reflect my world view though obviously there is some of me that bleeds into them. For instance the narrator of Empty Shells is very much NOT me and because of that it was a very easy story for me to write. Some of the characters in Days Like These though I emphasize with a bit more but I still wouldn't say it's a direct reflection of me.

Usually when I find my characters saying, thinking or doing the things that I would do then it feels a little forced to me. What I will do often though is try to see how I would react to the situation I've created in the narrative and then ask myself how the character would react.

2) How has experience shaped my outlook and beliefs? That's a tough question to answer and it's funny you ask because it ties into something that's been on my mind lately.

My grandmother passed away back in the fall and for the funeral my cousin asked all the grandkids to share memories of her that "defined" her for us. When it came time for me to share I remembered when I had to interview her for a middle school assignment I had when I was thirteen. One of the questions I had to ask her was what day changed her the most in her life and her response was, "That everyday changes and shapes one just a little bit."

That's something that's always stuck with me as an individual as well as with my writing.

-Jason

Thank you for the kind words, Ken.

1) Developing the voice for each character was fairly organic for Days Like These. With all the characters, regardless as to how much of a role they have in the novel, I was meeting them for the first time as I was writing them. Which meant a little more work on subsequent drafts as I knew the characters better then.

2) I'm an only child so I did spend a lot of my childhood making up adventures with my action figures and what not so, storytelling has always been something I've just done.

It wasn't really until the end of high school that I started writing and it was mostly poetry at that point. (I say poetry but song lyrics is probably a little more apt description.)I would write a short story here and there at that time too and then I just called it Science Fiction but looking back Speculative Fiction is the better way to describe.

As I got further into my twenties I did focus more on the day job and stopped writing altogether. In truth I think it was a writer's block more than anything else.

3) Hope is love.

-Jason

Hi Jason,

I haven't gotten around to reading Days Like These, but I look forward to doing so. Questions:

1. I assume from the name that the name of the college in question is fictional. Why did you use a fictional college name instead of a real one? I have written several books that involve college life. In several I used a real college and real graduate schools. In another I simply refer to "The College." In yet another I made up a name, but it is close enough to a real one the reader will know the university I meant. I had my reasons in each case. I'd like to know yours.

2. You may have already answered this - how comfortable are you writing about the contemporary college experience when you have been out for years. I couldn't do it despite being very closely linked to a college (I'm a trustee) and talking to students regularly. In my books I write about college as it was many decades ago.

The best of luck to you.

Jason wrote: "Hi Arleen!

That certainly is a big bunch of questions : )

As I mentioned above I initially had written a play that I'd set in the Nineties because I sort of assumed that I could only really write..."


Hi Jason,
Good morning from Seattle and thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. I'm wondering...when you made the decision to self-publish, what routed did you take? What can you tell us about Amazon/CreateSpace? I noticed that your book in available on Kindle, but not paperback. Is that correct?
Arleen

Hi Lee!

1) I used a fictional college for a number of reasons but the main one was that I found it allowed me a little more freedom in the writing. Had I set the novel at say UCONN, a campus I know well, then I would have been limited to the geography of that campus.

Also, and this may tie into your second question some, but making it a fictional campus helped me to keep it grounded in the more present times. Initially I did set the novel at a real school here in Connecticut and around page fifty of the first draft I realized that I hadn't had any of my characters using their cell phones. That was a case of me letting my own college experience, Pagers/Beepers were still the norm when I lived on a college campus, affect the novel a bit too much. So going with a fictional campus also helped remind me that I needed to look into things more to keep it modern.

2) As to how I was able to relate, I touched on that a little a few answers back but I think I can elaborate a bit more.

Essentially when I re-enrolled in school a few years ago I had the opportunity to observe the students around me; to get a sense of how they talked, thought, etc. One of the other tricks I used was to read the Student Newspaper for the school I was enrolled at, because it was student run that helped to give me a sense of what many students were feeling.

Plus, and I always seems to forget to mention this, I was in class with these students and I would talk to them. Those that I got to know well I would also ask questions about things that may have changed since the mid-nineties. In most cases once they knew I was writing a novel they were more than happy to answer the questions.

-Jason

Arleen wrote: "Jason wrote: "Hi Arleen!

That certainly is a big bunch of questions : )

As I mentioned above I initially had written a play that I'd set in the Nineties because I sort of assumed that I could onl..."

Hi Arleen and Good Afternoon from Connecticut!

That is true, at this time I do only have Days Like These available as an ebook through Kindle, Nook and Smashwords (for those of you who prefer your ebooks through different delivery methods than Amazon or Barnes & Noble).

As to why it's not in print, this could be something that falls under one of those first time self-published mistakes that was mentioned earlier in the Q & A.

Days Like These is just about 211,000 words and in print, depending on font and whatnot, that would work out to 570 to 600 pages. From the few people I had talked to (and please note these were other writers not people directly associated with small press/print on demand publishers) the book probably wouldn't be able to be set at a decent price for print on demand. No one said it couldn't be done just that to cover the associated costs it would probably be placed at an unmarketable price point.

In hindsight it's something that I need to look into a bit more.

-Jason

Hello, Jason. I look forward to reading your book. I think you're wise not to have gone for print-on-demand. The cost of such a long book would have been prohibitive, and you'll find better opportunities, as an indie author, in ebook.

A.F. mentioned that you'd like to move to a warmer clime, like Florida, where I live (my own book is the imagined history of my house here). Be careful what you wish for. It's so hot here already, I'd gladly change places with you (until the snow arrives, that is).

Best,
Anita

Anita wrote: "Hello, Jason. I look forward to reading your book. I think you're wise not to have gone for print-on-demand. The cost of such a long book would have been prohibitive, and you'll find better opportu..."

Hahaha, Anita. My in-laws live down in Fl and they like to call pretty frequently during the winter months to let my wife and I know what we're missing out on : )

-Jason

Hi Jason,

I noticed your short story isn't available from B&N. Was it a marketing decision to post it only on Amazon? What's the strategy behind where you sell your books?

Kevin

Great Question, Kevin.

The decision for the short story only being on Amazon is because of KDP Select.

I think the select program is great for first time authors to help promote themselves but because of the exclusivity there are obvious limitations.

To be perfectly honest it kills me a little that I made a few short stories exclusive to Amazon because I know more people that have Nooks than Kindles (maybe it's a Connecticut thing) and that by going exclusive with them I'm potentially alienating people who could otherwise enjoy my work.

That being said if Barnes and Noble developed a similar program I would take part in it with other short stories because there does seem to be a small corrolation between these free promos and sales boosts of the novel over on Amazon.

As far as an overall marketing plan? I really don't have one (another reason why going a more traditional route may not be a bad idea for me someday, haha). Aside from using shorts as promo material, I did a few other things here and there earlier in the year but I'm finding that for the most part less has been more for me and that really word of mouth has been the most effective thing for Days Like These.

-Jason

I have a Nook, but I wouldn't describe myself as alienated. :)

How did you decide on your price points?

Kevin wrote: "I have a Nook, but I wouldn't describe myself as alienated. :)

How did you decide on your price points?"

Haha!

Well for short stories that one was easy as I just can't see pricing something of their length at more than a buck.

As for the novel, well when I first put it out there I think I had priced it at $7.99. The thinking with that was I wanted to show people that I was taking the novel seriously and was confident in its worth. (Which I am)

It was quickly pointed out to me by other indies out there that I was pricing myself pretty high for the indie market. That prompted me to take a step back and do some better research and in the end $3.99 seemed to be the price I was most comfortable with.

-Jason

How much of the ebooking process did you do yourself? Formatting? Cover? What do you think of services like Smashwords and Bookbaby?

Jason wrote: "Arleen wrote: "Jason wrote: "Hi Arleen!

That certainly is a big bunch of questions : )

As I mentioned above I initially had written a play that I'd set in the Nineties because I sort of assumed t..."



Makes sense. Thanks, Jason.

Kevin wrote: "How much of the ebooking process did you do yourself? Formatting? Cover? What do you think of services like Smashwords and Bookbaby?"

Basically, all of it which meant that for formatting I had two different formats. one for Kindle and one for Smashwords and Barnes & Noble.

I haven't used bookbaby so I really don't have an opinion there but for Smashwords, PubIt and Kindle my experiences have been positive, overall, with all three.

-Jason

Thank you for the freebie. Are there any pitfalls to self-publishing that you wish you'd been warned of? Or to using Smashwords? Or to trying to market your own book?

NYKen wrote: "Good evening Jason. Thanks for the time here. I just wanted to ask the following questions tonight.

1] Are people born good writers?

2] I was going to ask about the setting, but you answered that..."

Hello again, Ken.

Sorry for the delay in responding. Had one of those wild and crazy Saturday nights where Amy, my wife, and I sat down to watch some TV and both ended up asleep before well before ten o'clock. On the plus side I'm up nice and early now.

1) Are people born good writers? I don't know that anyone is born is good writer but I think maybe some are more likely to want to put in the time to learn how to become a writer.

For instance, one of my closest friends is a fantastic guitar player because it's something that he was willing to put in the time to learn back when he first picked up an acoustic at age eighteen. Now, I love music just as much as he does, but when I occasionally entertain the idea that I'm going to teach myself how to play guitar it means that I will practice for a few hours, tops, over the course of a week or two and then forget that I own a guitar for the rest of the year.

When it comes to writing though, I'll wake up at four in the morning just to get in an hour or two of writing before heading off to the day job. Depending on where I'm at with a project I will also write for a period of time at night as well. Then, there is also the value of asking more experienced writers than you for advice if you have the opportunity.

So in summary, I think good writing is learned through practice but the desire to write may be something that some are born with.

2) Advice for aspiring writers? Hmmmm, I don't know that I'm experienced enough myself to be giving out advice yet : )

I will say that I think one thing someone who is just learning the craft really should do is to develop great listening skills. I can't really think of any better way to learn how to write dialogue than to learn how to sit back and actually listen to how people talk.

Also, avoid using dialogue as a dumping ground for exposition. So many times these days I see people writing blocks of dialogue where a character spills out all sorts of information in a 200 word soliloquy and when that happens it really takes me out of the story because people just don't talk like that.

-Jason

Sheila wrote: "Thank you for the freebie. Are there any pitfalls to self-publishing that you wish you'd been warned of? Or to using Smashwords? Or to trying to market your own book?"

Hi Sheila and thank you. If you had a chance to read Empty Shells I hope you enjoyed it.

I don't know that there are too many specific pitfalls that I can share but I think I can recommend that people take the time to research self-publishing well before jumping in.

For me, Days Like These took over two years to write and edit. Once the copyright was set and I had formatted a copy for Kindle and a copy for Nook I just jumped in. It was a real "I need to do this now or else I may chicken out," kind of moment.

Because of that I've been learning on the go. :)


When it comes to marketing, I would say the soft sell is the better approach for online and face to face time. I'm the type of person where if I feel the slightest bit pressured by a salesperson to buy something, then that person has lost me on the sale. I think that when it comes to promoting your novel a lot of people that you will run into are the same way and I know here on Goodreads most groups will tell you right at the get go not to use their areas as a means to just promote yourself.

I've seen it a few times now where someone's first post in a discussion has nothing to do with the discussion on hand but is just something like, "Hi Everyone, check out my new book....." Now, as a fellow author I get why people do that. We are proud and excited for our work and want to let everyone know about it. I think for a lot of people on Goodreads though that approach is a huge turnoff. So that is probably my number one piece of advice regarding pitfalls to avoid, don't force your work on people.

-Jason

Actually I forgot to mention one other thing, Sheila.

If you are using Smashwords, take the time to read their Style Guide. Getting into their premium catalogue is really pretty easy if you do that first.

Hi Jason,
Congratulations on your book! You mentioned in your bio your desire to write had gone into hibernation. Did you find your ability to write had also gone into hibernation? If so, about how long did it take you to reclaim the craft.

Jason:
Congrats on your book. Could you elaborate more on the pitfalls you found in self-publishing (things you didn't know then) that you mention above.

Erma wrote: "Hi Jason,
Congratulations on your book! You mentioned in your bio your desire to write had gone into hibernation. Did you find your ability to write had also gone into hibernation? If so, about how..."

Hi Erma,

Great question. I don't think that the ability to write necessarily left. I would still find myself sending joke sort of emails to friends and co-workers that would be character conversation bits.

So, the ability to write was still there but ideas were not. Which in turn ended up making me think that the desire was gone. I still loved reading during this period though and I was reading at least one book a week though usually it was two a week.

As to how it came back I'm still not really sure exactly what it was that triggered the desire and ideas to start flowing again when I re-enrolled in school aside from the fact that I was completing a degree in English.

I can tell you the novel that did it was Kafka's The Trial. I'd read Kafka in the past and was mostly middle of the road about how I felt about his work, and actually found The Trial to be really frustrating, but something about it triggered an idea about an Artist whose artistic identity was purchased by a corporation just before he completes his masterpiece. It ended up being a fairly long short story but more importantly writing it felt very much like coming home for me.

(For the record that short story, The Masterpiece, is also available via Kindle.)

-Jason

Debra wrote: "Jason:
Congrats on your book. Could you elaborate more on the pitfalls you found in self-publishing (things you didn't know then) that you mention above."

Hi Debra,

Here's a pretty embarrassing one.

When I wrote my first book description for Days Like These I composed it on a word doc and then just copied and pasted it into my upload info on PubIt and KDP. Because I copied it from a file that I had already proofed I never double checked what I pasted into the upload info.

For Barnes and Noble I'm happy to say the description was typo and error free for Amazon......well, I'm not entirely sure what happened but I must have accidentally typed something into the entry after pasting it. It was days later that someone pointed out to me that my book description had a typo.

I've redone the description for Days Like These a number of times now and I can tell you that I have not copied and pasted any of those new descriptions again. : )

-Jason

Hi Jason~

I really like the gift of wisdom your Grandmother's words gave to you: "That everyday changes and shapes one just a little bit."

You mentioned Kafka as sparking an idea for you. My question would be on the subject of influences. What authors have influenced you as a writer overall and why. Also, do you find a preference on writing short stories or novel length stories?

I was happy to be able to place Empty Shells on my Kindle for PC. Because I have such a difficult time reading on a computer screen, a short story right now is just perfect!

Thanks~

Read your book, I loved it! Will write my review.

Best of luck to you

Thayer wrote: "Hi Jason~

I really like the gift of wisdom your Grandmother's words gave to you: "That everyday changes and shapes one just a little bit."

You mentioned Kafka as sparking an idea for you. My que..."

Hi Thayer!

Great to hear from you!

As to my influences I tend to gravitate towards writers like Hemingway, Steinbeck, Irving and Ray Bradbury for a lot of my prose. Kerouac is also something of an inspiration though I would not say my style is anywhere near his.

Stephen King, though I don't write horror, is one of my biggest inspirations. Salem's Lot was the book that, when I read it at age 12, made me realize that reading could be fun and without that I don't know that I ever would have thought to start expressing myself through language.

Other writers that I either greatly enjoy or feel have influenced my style are: Frank Herbert, Tom Wolfe and Anne Rice.

As to more contemporary writers I find myself gravitating more and more to those whose work can be hard to bottle into one style or genre like: Michael Chabon, Jennifer Egan, Jonathon Lethem. Hey while were on the topic of novels that blend genres I would like to point out to everyone here that Thayer wrote a novel, The Evangeline Heresy, that is a just fantastic!

-Jason

Ann wrote: "Read your book, I loved it! Will write my review.

Best of luck to you"

Ann,

I'm so glad that you loved the novel and thank you for the review!!

-Jason

Hi Everyone,

Sunday is quickly drawing to a close here in my Time Zone. I will still be up for a few more hours (I think) but I want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who participated. I had a blast getting to know all of you better and I will see all you around here on Goodreads.

-Jason

Thanks Jason! Please forgive that I am so late in acknowledging your response. Crazy May days...or daze, as might be better said of it. I always like to hear about a writer's favorite authors and inspirations. King's "Salem's Lot" was intense and the film, no less so. I like Ray Bradbury myself. Great Q & A session.

:)