Kobo Writing Life Podcast

Christine Munroe, US Manager for Kobo Writing Life, interviews Darcie Chan, author of the NYT and USA Today bestselling novel, The Mill River Recluse. Christine and Darcie discuss: Darcie's dedication to this novel, which she finished writing almost 10 years ago, and her unique experience from experimenting with self-publishing to signing a deal with a traditional publisher The exciting moments when in 2011 MILL RIVER RECLUSE sold 100 copies – and when it hit the NYT Bestseller List a few months later Why it's important for authors to read across different genres – and whether Darcie would ever write outside of what she describes as her "mainstream fiction comfort zone" What Darcie would do differently given the benefit of hindsight: hint, it involves making your book as professional as possible Collaboration with other writers – Darcie describes the group Backspace as "the most invaluable source of information" she found on her journey as an author Darcie's daily writing life, including a descr

Kobo Writing Life Director Mark Lefebvre interviews Terry Fallis, multi-award winning author of The Best Laid Plans, The High Road  and Up and Down.  Mark and Terry talk about: •    How they met when Mark was a bookseller at McMaster University’s bookstore, and Terry, a former McMaster student self-published The Best Laid Plans in 2007. •    Mark’s comparison of Terry’s writing to John Irving •    How Terry applied his knowledge of politics and engineering to create the characters of Daniel and Angus (the main characters from The Best Laid Plans and The High Road) •    Terry’s original nativity when venturing into the realm of self-publishing back in 2006/2007 •    How Terry used podcasting to gain a worldwide audience for The Best Laid Plans and was the first Canadian to follow in the footsteps of such podcasting pioneers as Scott Sigler •    Mark’s original reluctance as a bricks and mortar bookseller to carry The Best Laid Plans or even read this satirical novel of Canadian politics, but how, after a si

Kobo Writing Life Director Mark Lefebvre interviews Johnny B. Truant author of the Fat Vampire series, and co-author of The Beam and Unicorn Western.  The two discuss: How Johnny is continuing and concluding the Fat Vampire saga, which began as a joke during a discussion on the Self-Publishing Podcast, but became a series featuring a loveable, sympathetic and genuine hero (Reginald) rather than just a simple series of fat jokes. Johnny’s evolution as a writer – specifically, how Johnny’s first novel, The Bialy Pimps, described as “Clerks” in a bagel shop, took him twelve years to publish it; compared to the incredible weekly word count he is currently producing (ie, 270,000 words for the Fat Vampire series in a single year)  Giving oneself permission to simply write fast  Johnny’s first collaborative novel project (along with Sean Platt) entitled Unicorn Western, and the hilarious origin story of how the series stemmed from a research argument on the Self-Publishing Podcast that led Dave to crack a joke ab

  Kobo Writing Life Director Mark Lefebvre interviews Jacqueline Garlick, author of Lumière: A Fantasy Steampunk Romance Adventure (http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/lumiere-1). Mark and Jackie discuss: Jacqueline’s background in writing and experience working with SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators - http://www.scbwi.org/ ) under the mentorship of Ellen Hopkins (http://ellenhopkins.com/) How Ellen Hopkins helped promote and nurture a beginning writer, helping them to believe that they could do it The Niagara Retreat and Conference event (http://niagararetreatandconference.com/) that Jacqueline is a driving force behind The self-publishing approach that Jacqueline’s agent suggested and supports Taking the long-term approach as a writer, in both the indie and traditional publishing spaces, determining where a project best fits in an industry that is in flux How the X-Ray machine used to be seen as a cure for everything Themes in the novel, such as:  Science created for good bein

Diego Marano, UK Manager for Kobo Writing Life interviews Chele Cooke, author of Dead & Buryd. Diego is joined by KWL Director Mark Lefebvre. The trio discuss the following: Chele’s start of writing when she moved, at the age of 14, to San Francisco, where she began writing fan fiction in the Harry Potter universe How Chele’s degree in creative writing opened her up to different types and styles of fiction The effect of being short-listed for the Wicked Young Writers Award (http://www.wickedyoungwriters.com/) Some mistakes made early in a writing career and how that helps a writer to learn Chele’s previous challenge of piles of unfinished manuscripts and HOW she overcame that during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month – November) by investing some time in outlining rather than just sitting down and writing without planning OUTLINING was the key to Chele’s success in completing a novel Chele’s plans to write the sequel to Dead & Buryd during NaNoWriMo this year (and the fact that Kobo Writing Life

Kobo Writing Life Director Mark Lefebvre interviews Douglas Smith, an award-winning Canadian author of fantasy, SF, horror and supernatural fiction with over 100 short story sales in 30 countries and two dozen languages. Doug and Mark discuss the following: •    Doug’s start to writing in 1995 stemming from a “mid-life” crisis •    How Doug’s new novel The Wolf at the End of the World ties back to the very first short story he wrote in 1995, Spirit Dance •    Doug’s prestigious career as a short-fiction writer (how he turned the sale of 40 short stories sold into re-selling them to 170 markets globally), the importance of taking advantage of reprint rights •    Doug’s outstanding foreign language rights sales of short fiction:  25 languages in 30 countries •    Ralon.com – online free short fiction market listings •    Doug’s strategy for hiring a cover artist, an ePub formatting conversion company to create a consistent professional look and feel to generate a catalog of eBook versions of his short story f

Check out the books we're discussing here! Kobo Writing Life Director Mark Lefebvre interviews Mitch Joel, author of the books Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT DELETE: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends on it. The conversation between Mitch and Mark involve the following: Mark’s riffing on Mitch’s regularly used consistent classic opening for interviews in his Six Pixels of Separation Podcast The importance of creating consistently delivered content (Mitch’s 6 times weekly blog content and his weekly podcast) and how that relates to author branding The nature of having an audience available BEFORE you have a book and providing value to the community that you are creating content for How publishing his first book Six Pixels of Separation was a bit of a social experiment Never making an ask unless there is something more to give/offer as part of that ask The reality that selling a book is really hard Mitch’s expression: “digital crickets and virtual tumbleweeds” Twitter perspecti

Check out the books we're discussing here!  Kobo Writing Life Director Mark Lefebvre interviews authors Sean Platt and David Wright about their Collective Inkwell properties which include the highly successful serial thrillers Yesterday’s Gone, White Space and Available Darkness. Mark chats with Sean and Dave about the following: Collaboration between writers – tools used, the logistics of how they do it and the importance of honesty with each other (ie, not pulling punches when something “sucks”) Writing a serialized story and Dave’s behind-the-scenes inspiration from the old TV series “Cliffhangers” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliffhangers_%28TV_series%29) Communication with readers, reader feedback & responding to fan email Budgeting writing time, email time and the Sanelater email filter (Sanebox - http://www.sanebox.com/) Sean’s 5 sentence email rule The importance of the duality of Mr. Sunshine and Mr. Cynical A mention of Unicorn Western (co-written by Sean and Johnny B. Truant) – Free First

Check out the books we're discussing here! Kobo Writing Life Director Mark Lefebvre interviews author Robert Levine, the author of Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back. Mark and Robert discuss the following:   The vision of the orderly process of interviewing subjects for a non-fiction book VS the actuality The hard part being stopping (research and interviews) when you feel that you have enough material Understanding copyright law when you’re not an attorney The stress of publishing deadlines even with a supportive editor behind you What it’s like traveling the globe for research and delivering the finished product The difference between writing for dailies/weeklies/monthlies and writing a book which relies more on the underlying ideas than current events & details The essence of what publishers do in terms of aggregating risk The concept of making it convenient to do the right thing and inconvenient to do the wrong thing The i

Check out the books we're discussing here! Kobo Writing Life Director Mark Lefebvre interviews author Steve Vernon, a writer and storyteller of both written and spoken words and they discuss the following: ·         Aspects of writing a serialized story (Steve’s Flash Virus Series), elements of humour in a thriller/horror story and the perspective of being able to laugh at life.  ·         Steve’s first published story in the mid 1980’s in a magazine that featured “Busoms, beards and big bellied bikers.” ·         Embracing both traditional publishing and self-publishing as a hybrid author and how that syncs beautifully with how Steve really “isn’t a writer, just a windbag who likes to spin yarns” ·         The importance of being able to adapt and continue to learn as a writer ·         A few of Steve’s titles:  Sinking Deeper, Maritime Murder, Tatterdemon Omnibus ·         Steve’s favourite advice for writers ·         Some book recommendations from Steve (The Scorpion Races & The Raven Boys by