Speaker 1: 0:03

I've gotten very good at marketing over the years. With this particular book. I released it. It was doing okay but the sales weren't spectacular. I hired a friend of mine who used to do PR for bands out in California and we started talking about just different things surrounding the book and in the story I had to explain where the wife buys a journal. So just to get the book finished, the draft I wrote that she walked into Needful Things you know Stephen King's store from his book and then bought it there. Yes, I fully expected to have to change that, but ultimately we got Stephen King's permission to use it. So that was a big catalyst when people found out about that. You know that really lit up the sales about that.

Speaker 2: 0:44

You know that really lit up the sails. Hi, friends, this is Read and Write with Natasha podcast. My name is Natasha Tynes and I'm an author and a journalist. In this channel I talk about the writing life, review books and interview authors. Hope you enjoy the journey. Hi everyone. Review books and interview authors. Hope you enjoy the journey. Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. Today I have with me JD Barker. He was the New York Times and international best-selling author of numerous novels, including Draco and 4MK thriller series. His upcoming novel, something I Keep Upstairs, was inspired by the real-life haunted house on Wood Island. Jd is currently collaborating with author James Patterson. All right, so, jd, nice to meet you and welcome to the show. So excited to talk about ghosts. So, jd, you said that your novel, which is coming in May, it was inspired by your experience in a real life haunted house. So can you tell us about this experience?

Speaker 1: 2:04

Yeah. So I've done a couple of podcasts where I've tried talking about this and like I find that it's easier to read the backup book blurb so we all understand what the book is about. So let me, let me do that really quick. Um in in the sleepy coastal town of Newcastle, new Hampshire, 17 year old Billy Hassler's life is about to take a terrifying turn when his best friend, david Spivey, inherits a mysterious house on a nearby island. It seems the perfect place to spend their final summer before heading off to college no parents, no police, no responsibilities. As they dig into the island's dark past, they awaken an ancient evil that influenced generations. What begins as an innocent summer adventure quickly descends into a nightmare. The tagline for the book is for a haunted house to be born. Somebody has to die. So you essentially know where they're going. So the gist of the novel is this kid, 17 years old. He finds out that his grandmother just passed away and he knew nothing about her, his family, they weren't in contact with her. But she just passed away and she left him an island with a house on it, right off the coast of where he lives, and he does exactly what you would expect a 17 year old to do him and his friends turn it into a party house. You know they figure this is someplace we can go and have some fun. But you know that that gets old really quick. And then somebody raises the question you know what would it take to turn this into a haunted house? So then you get back to the tagline for a haunted house to be born, somebody has to die. Yeah, so they start off with Ouija boards and the things you would expect them to begin with, but things quickly escalate. It was a fun story for me to write and you had mentioned at the beginning the house itself is real.

Speaker 1: 3:33

I live on a tiny little island off the coast of Portsmouth in New England called Newcastle, which is where the book is based. I go for a run every day around the island. It's 4.2 miles and at one point I run across the beach and if I'm standing on the beach I can look out over the water and about a quarter mile out is Wood Island. It's a little tiny island. It's granite, it's about an acre and the only thing on it is a house and a shed and it's just far enough away. You can see it, but you can't tell what's happening. You know. So, as an author, you know that just inspired that what if? Gene to go off in me. You know, like what if this is going on? What if that's going on? And I started asking around the locals and started hearing some of the lore of this place. And it's been seen as a haunted house for a very, very long time.

Speaker 1: 4:24

Um, it was used as a quarantine facility during the yellow fever. Um, prior to that, it was a prison during the Spanish American war. Um, they used to dock ships out there. So if they captured a ship during the Spanish American war, they would dock it at wood Island and they'd literally just leave it there. They wouldn't feed the people on the ship, they wouldn't. You know, if anybody got sick, they wouldn't treat them. They would literally wait for everybody on that boat to die off and then they would take the boat because that's what they really wanted. So there's a lot of nasty things that have happened in this place. And it's funny because if you're standing on the beach and you're looking at it, it's picturesque. It looks like something out of a postcard. You know you've got beautiful house on it, but you know there's so much more going on out there.

Speaker 2: 5:05

Did you go inside the house?

Speaker 1: 5:07

I did, and this was before I decided I was going to write a book about it. A friend of mine put me in touch with a guy who was basically raising money in order to renovate it. The house had gone into complete disrepair, it was falling down and they were either going to demo it or try to bring it back. And he ended up raising enough money to renovate it and in today's world it's a museum. It's going to be opening this fall. So I went out there by boat. It's the only way to get there.

Speaker 1: 5:32

He took us out there and went to the house and you know, I'm one of those people like I don't necessarily believe in ghosts, but I don't not believe in them. I'm smart enough to understand. There's a lot I don't understand. But while I was standing in that house, I felt something really eerie, something really weird. I just did not want to be in there, I wanted to get out, I wanted to get off the island and that's when I really started researching the island's history and some of the things that had happened out there. So yeah, I've been out there. I've been told that it's haunted. You know, every time I go out there I feel something, something strange.

Speaker 1: 6:17

You know there's tons of stories locally people seeing people on the beach. You know just people moving around in the house when there's not supposed to be went out there, they took a boat out and they decided to picnic on the beach and they found two bodies buried out in the sand. And the island is in a very weird place. It's right on the border of New Hampshire and Maine. So you know, when something happens out there, nobody really knows who's supposed to take responsibility for that from.

Speaker 1: 6:38

You know, from like the police standpoint, everybody just kind of played hot potato with it. Ultimately the FBI stepped in to investigate it and I found one newspaper article that basically explained all of this. And then there's nothing from 1970 until the present. I reached out to the local police departments and they had no record of it other than the FBI stepping in. I reached out to the local FBI office and they have no record of the case whatsoever. It just kind of vanished. So they've got two bodies out there that have never been identified to this day, which is again part of the lore of some of the stories that people tell out there.

Speaker 2: 7:13

Have you heard of anyone dying inside the house besides being on the beach?

Speaker 1: 7:19

Not necessarily in the house but the island. A lot of the stuff that we found it dates way back. I mean, this is like 15, 1600s, um, you know so before there was even a house there. Um it, it seems like the, the island itself has you know if, if, if you believe in the paranormal, like the island is, is really the real issue here. Um, the house was kind of built after the fact.

Speaker 2: 7:38

So you mentioned you felt something off. Can you elaborate on on the feeling Like, did you get tingling? Did your heart palpitation? You know describe it as an author. What did you feel?

Speaker 1: 7:49

Yeah, I've been trying to. You know it's funny. On paper I can explain this stuff perfectly. When I get put on the spot it's a little harder for me. I try to liken it to like if you're standing in a room and there's a cat next to you, you know, and some little sound or something happens in the corner of the room, that cat is going to bolt out and disappear somewhere else in the house. They, you know, they don't care what the sound was, they don't care what made it, they're just gone.

Speaker 1: 8:13

It's an instinctual reaction. We as people, the same thing happens and we look over into the corner. You know what made that sound? Let's go take a look. You know like we we start to investigate it. We, we don't. You know so I, I think over over.

Speaker 1: 8:24

You know years and years, you know hundreds of thousands of years, like we have basically evolved to the point where a lot of our instinctual reactions have gotten suppressed. You know we should react like the cat, but we don't anymore. So, like when I'm standing in that house, you know like I feel, like the hair on the back of my neck stand up. You know like I get goosebumps. You know like it just it feels like someplace I don't want to be. That's some instinctual reaction within me. You know something very similar to what that cat feels, telling me that I need to get out of there. But being a human, I'm dumb enough to not do it. I stay, I stand there. So yeah, it's tough to explain it. Just it feels like there's something just going on. I mean, it was, it was a Coast Guard life-saving station for a while, um, you know. So people were brought back there, uh, from shipwrecks, Um, and just so much stuff has happened.

Speaker 2: 9:13

How long did you stay inside?

Speaker 1: 9:21

Uh, I've been in and out of there a couple of times. Um, I don't spend a whole lot of time inside the house. If I'm, I try to go outside. You know, stay on the beach.

Speaker 2: 9:28

Do you think this experience changed your skepticism of ghosts, if you had any? Did it make you believe in the paranormal, or how did it influence your beliefs in the paranormal?

Speaker 1: 9:42

Well, you know like it feels like there is something out there. I'm not the only person who's ever felt that, you know, like the legends go back for many, many centuries. What I'm doing is I'm bringing in paranormal investigators. I've got people that are actually going to research this and try to prove one way or another from a scientific standpoint whether there's actually something out there. That's what I look forward to seeing, you know, some type of definitive proof of something.

Speaker 2: 10:06

So you mentioned paranormal investigators. So how hard do you find these paranormal investigators and what do they do exactly?

Speaker 1: 10:12

Well, with the book coming out, you know it's been getting a lot of press. A lot of them have reached out to us, you know, just wondering if there's a way for them to actually get into the house to take a look at it. It's a tricky thing because this time, you know we're in New England. This time of year you can't even go out there by boat. I mean you could, but it's dangerous. The waves are real sketchy. So we're trying to schedule everything for for springtime. But we've had a number of them that have reached out that want to go out there and you know, and film run, run some equipment and just see if they can actually find something.

Speaker 2: 10:41

Did they find anything?

Speaker 1: 10:43

It hasn't happened yet. It's going to be this spring.

Speaker 2: 10:47

So do you think that I think writing about this place and saying it's haunted would it deter people from visiting it if they're trying to turn it into like a tourist attraction, or would that make more people curious about it? How would that, how would you think your book would influence the actual island?

Speaker 1: 11:08

Well, see, this comes back to the cat again, like we should run away from things like this. But you know, people are dumb. We do the exact opposite. We want to see it. You know, because of these issues, you know, because of the lore around it, people want to visit the island. They want to see the house, you know, so it's, it's, it's unfortunately it's having the opposite reaction. And it's funny because if you review stuff like this through history, you know, like the Amityville house, you know a major tragedy happened there. People still drive by and take pictures like they will go out of their way to visit it. The Stanley Hotel out in Estes Park, you know where Stephen King based the Shining on, that hotel actually never turned a profit until the Shining came out and now now all of a sudden it's. It's a major tourist destination. You know people, people just want to see something like that.

Speaker 2: 11:54

So are you in touch with with the owner? How does he feel about you know the attention that this place is getting?

Speaker 1: 12:03

It's. You know they're there for the history. You know he restored it because he didn't want to see the history of this place disappear. You know the fact that it was a Coast Guard life-saving station for a while, you know was used through these wars. I mean it's just, it's a fixture out here. You know, being in New England, we've got a lot of these. I mean Paul Revere rode right down the street from me. There's a plaque on the road. We've got two forts on the island where I live, you know, left over from various wars. There's a Coast Guard station, you know, on our island, you know, for future wars, you know. So like these things are always there but like there's tons of history literally all around us in this area and you know nobody wants to see it forgotten. You know, and you know you take the good with the bad. You know that island was used for a lot of good but also some bad things happened out there. You can't hide one and focus on the other. You need to talk about all of it.

Speaker 2: 12:50

So you think New England is famous for its haunted houses or like kind of horror places, paranormal, you know, like Stephen King is there, you know? Do you think there's a relation between New England and the horror or paranormal genre?

Speaker 1: 13:07

I think in the US it literally comes down to the age Our country started.

Speaker 1: 13:12

Here I've got a cemetery in the backyard of my house with tombstones dated in the 1800s Even that's not considered necessarily new in this area because I can go down the street and I can find tombstones from the 1600s considered necessarily new in this area because I can go down the street and I can find tombstones from the 1600s. But you know, this area in general has been around for a very long time, from a US standpoint. You know, if you travel the world, like you know, a couple hundred years is nothing if you go to Italy or you go to someplace else, but in this part of the world, you know this is where you know everything started.

Speaker 2: 13:40

So the novel that you wrote, how did your actual visit to the house inspire the novel, and what is true and what is fiction?

Speaker 1: 13:48

Well, that's the funnest part about the book, and I included an author's note at the end where I basically tell you everything that's true in the story. And the funny thing is the stuff that's true is a lot of it is what you would think would be fiction. You know, as a reader, you're going through like that can't possibly happen. And you get to the end and I explained yeah, not only did it happen, but you know, here's some pictures. It's, it's, it's real. Um, when I was writing the book, you know, I, I, this is one it took me almost four years to write. Um, and I'm a fast writer. I can write a novel in aside for a little while, and I did sometimes for a couple months at a time, and then I would come back to it.

Speaker 2: 14:27

Can you elaborate on that? So what happened while you were writing? You were writing and you get an eerie feeling and you stop, or what happened? What happened to make you stop? This is going to sound hokey to anybody.

Speaker 1: 14:37

It's never like when I write a book. It's almost like watching a movie in my mind.

Speaker 1: 14:41

You know, like I'm watching the characters, the story is playing out and I'm writing it down as fast as I can. There were portions of the book that I wrote and then I later learned were true, like actually happened or based on something in reality. But I learned that after the fact I didn't research it and then learn and then write about it. I wrote it and then you know, when somebody read it, they said well, you know, that actually did happen. Here's some documentation, here's a website, here's this, here's that. That freaked me out a little bit, because you know, like I don't know where that movie in my head is coming from and when you're writing a book like this, that can be a little frightening.

Speaker 2: 15:14

Can you give us an example?

Speaker 1: 15:16

I don't want to give away. You know the things that are in the book. Yeah with.

Speaker 2: 15:23

How was so? My understanding was who's the publisher of this? Was this a hybrid publisher, or how did you get to publish this? What was your publishing journey?

Speaker 1: 15:34

I've got my own imprint with Simon Schuster.

Speaker 2: 15:37

Your own imprint. Okay, can you tell us a bit about how did that happen and for anyone who's listening or watching, how did that happen? Did they approach you? Did you come up with the idea? If you can just tell us a bit about how you created your own imprint?

Speaker 1: 15:54

Sure. So my very first novel was called Forsaken. That came out in 2014 and I indie published it. So I basically got a taste for what that was like. But I sold a lot of copies enough to basically put me on the radar of the traditional publishers.

Speaker 2: 16:08

So when my second book was released, how did you sell a lot of copies?

Speaker 1: 16:12

as an indie publisher, I'm curious I've gotten very good at marketing over the years With this particular book. I released it. It was doing okay, but the sales weren't spectacular. I hired a friend of mine who used to do PR for bands out in California and we started talking about, you know, just different things surrounding the book and in the story I had to explain where the wife buys a journal. So just to get the book finished, the draft, I wrote that she walked into Needful Things. You know Stephen King's store. Yeah, I read the book. Yeah, yes, I fully expected to have to change that, but ultimately we got Stephen King's permission to use it. So that was a big catalyst when people found out about that. That really lit up the sales. So that one sold really well and if you've got an indie track record it's a lot easier to get with one of the traditional guys.

Speaker 1: 17:02

My second book was called the Fourth Monkey. I ended up getting a seven-figure deal on that with a film and a TV show attached. And my next couple of books I published through the traditional model. But because I had gotten a taste of publishing as an indie, I really missed a lot of the freedom that that gave me. I could create my own covers. I literally ran the entire show and when you're traditionally published you hand that book off and you've got no control over any of it. And I also look at the economics of it. As an indie author you make about 70 cents on the dollar. If you're a traditionally published author, you're lucky if you're getting 15 cents on the dollar. So they may give you a nice big advance check, but you've got to pay that back in these tiny little increments.

Speaker 1: 17:39

So after three or four books on the traditional side, I basically went to a hybrid approach. I went to my agent and said I'm going to go ahead and publish this next book. It was called A Caller's Game in English. In the English territories around the world. You can go ahead and sell the foreign rights, like you normally do, to the traditional publishers, and I'm in about 150 different countries, about 25 to 30 different languages, so that's still a pretty decent sized market. But then that kind of gave me the control that I was looking for.

Speaker 1: 18:04

But I ran into the same problem that all indie authors do and you can't get your book into a lot of places. You can't get it in bookstores, airports, costco, target, things like that. So I was trying to figure out how to solve that particular problem. About a year and a half ago I wrote a book called Behind a Closed Door. I sent it off to my agent. He started shopping it. It was about to go to auction and we sold the film rights.

Speaker 1: 18:24

And right before the publishing auction was supposed to happen, I got a phone call from a friend of mine that worked at Random House and she said listen, we're about to offer on your book. When that happens, you need to turn it down. And I asked her why. And she said well, we're about to lay off a number of people and the editor who wants your book is on that list. So that scared me a little bit, because if you've ever had a book with a publishing house where you lose your editor, that book can sit there in limbo forever, depending on your contract.

Speaker 1: 18:47

So my last real job I was a chief compliance officer for a brokerage firm. I worked in finance for 20 some years. So I reached out to some friends of mine. Simon and Schuster had recently gotten bought by a private equity firm, so I started conversations with them and then ultimately it became what it is today. I created my own imprint through Simon and Schuster. So I basically have my own publishing house but they handle all of my print sales and distribution. So I get all the benefits of being an indie author, but I have the backbone of a traditional publisher behind me.

Speaker 2: 19:17

And do they offer this deal to anyone, or do you have to have a certain credibility and credentials to be able to get your own imprint?

Speaker 1: 19:27

Yeah, it's not something they offer to anybody. I mean there was a lot of talk on. You know we had to go over sales track records, stuff like that. You know they've taken on like other publishing companies. I don't know of any other individual authors.

Speaker 2: 19:41

Ah, interesting, what's the name of your imprint?

Speaker 1: 19:43

Hampton Creek Press.

Speaker 2: 19:45

Do you publish other?

Speaker 1: 19:46

authors. I haven't yet, only because of the accounting on. That is a nightmare. You know to do a royalty split. You know like even with a marriage you may eventually get divorced and things end. But with publishing, if you've got a co-author, you know that royalty lasts forever. I do have a number of co-authored titles coming out which I've done on a work for hire basis, so I basically own the book in the end. Um, and those books are also coming out through Simon and Schuster.

Speaker 2: 20:09

So you're a full-time author now, so you stopped working in finance.

Speaker 1: 20:13

Yeah, I've been full-time for a little over 10 years now.

Speaker 2: 20:15

How did you make that decision and what gave you the confidence to give like to give up a lucrative career to be a full-time author?

Speaker 1: 20:23

Oh, that was. That was tricky business, um, you know. So, like I had worked in that field for for two decades, um, my salary was, was, was you know, pretty, pretty decent, um, and I had all the trappings of that. We had a big house, we had cars, we had a boat. We're living in Palm beach, um, but my wife knew that I wanted to be a full time author, um, so, you know, at one point she pulled me aside and she said let's figure out a way to make this happen.

Speaker 1: 20:45

And I couldn't just walk away from the day job. I was basically trapped. So we came up with this crazy plan we sold everything that we owned, we bought a tiny little duplex in Pittsburgh, rented out one side to some tenants, and we lived in the other side and basically got our expenses down to nothing. And then looked to the savings account and my wife I remember the day she sat me down at the table account. And my wife I remember the day she sat me down at the table she said you have about 18 months to make it as a writer before we run out of money. Go. And that's when I wrote Forsaken.

Speaker 2: 21:12

Oh wow, You're lucky. You have a very supportive wife, so wow, that's fascinating. Do you regret the decision?

Speaker 1: 21:21

Oh, not at all.

Speaker 2: 21:22

Not at all. Okay. So you're planning to continue. So if I want to tell you I'm a full-time writer and author and if somebody wants to do the same thing that you did, I know many people would say you're crazy. Why would you do this? You cannot make money from books.

Speaker 1: 21:43

You can make money from maybe speaking engagements, la la, la la, but making money from books is just not going to feed, only buy but tell their friends about. They're going to tell three to five other people. You need to buy this. You need to be able to do that, but that's only half the puzzle. Then you need to be able to take your writer hat off and put your business hat on and you need to fully understand the marketing side of this business, that everything related to it.

Speaker 1: 22:21

A lot of people think that you can just write a book, you throw it up on Amazon, hit the publish button and all of a sudden you're going to get rich. Those are the ones that fail. Typically, those people don't research it. They don't spend the time and the money getting professional editing done, professional covers, making sure the story itself is tight All these things you need to do before you actually hit that publish button. They don't do it.

Speaker 1: 22:43

So what ends up happening is their book comes out. You know they get 15 to 20 decent five-star reviews from their friends and family and then, all of a sudden, the real readers find that book and they start getting these two-star reviews and they point out all the problems with the story. And you know, before you know it, the book is done, it fizzles and dies. As an author, your career might go with it, because if you try to sell another book, people are going to see the track record on that first book and they may not pick up your second book. So you need a five star product straight out of the gate. I've been lucky enough. You know, like I've been working in this industry for a very long time, I know how to craft a good story. I know what people are looking for.

Speaker 2: 23:20

So what are your marketing tips, especially for for indie authors now? And do you think you can make it as an indie author Because you know you have the backing of a very prestigious publisher? But can indie authors now make it on their own and what do you think they should do in terms of marketing to make it as full-time authors?

Speaker 1: 23:44

Well, I tend to look at what everybody else is doing from a marketing standpoint and then I try to come up with something different. So, to give you an example, you know most indie authors they're running Amazon ads, they're running Facebook ads, you know, which is all fine and dandy, that works. But I'm also running television commercials. I run spots on Hulu. What I like about it is, you know, the cost to get in is a little bit higher. I've got to spend probably $3,000 to $5,000 to film a commercial. But you can target market just like you do with a Facebook ad. I can say that I want to put this commercial in front of women 45 and over watching Criminal Minds in this part of the country, that would be me, and they can do that for you.

Speaker 2: 24:19

Yeah, yeah, that's the thing, or whatever, yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:23

Yeah. So if you know, if you know your audience on Facebook from a targeting standpoint, you can do the same thing with. With Hulu, you can do that. There's several other companies that will facilitate that. You know for you, on cable television, you know that opens another whole door.

Speaker 1: 24:37

I'm always looking at something different, like when TikTok came out, you know I was trying to figure out. You know, like how do you sell books on TikTok? You know, nobody wants to see me standing on TikTok in my bathing suit dancing around holding up my book. That's not going to move copies. What I ended up doing is I created a list of BookTok influencers people that were on TikTok, that were reviewing books and pushing books and I started a company called Best of BookTok. So Best of BookTok.

Speaker 1: 25:01

We negotiated a contract with all the major publishers and they provide ARC copies to us. So every Tuesday an email goes out, very similar to like BookBub, to all these influencers that we have on our mailing list and we offer them free copies of these ARCs that we're getting from the traditional publishers. So we're not spending any money really on any of this, but we put those ARC copies in the hands of influencers. Now what that allows me to do is every time I'm promoting a title, I can drop my own book onto that same mailing list for free and put it out in front of that exact same group. So now, all of a sudden, I'm not the one selling my book on TikTok, I'm sending it off to thousands of influencers who are now selling my book on TikTok. So I approach every situation like that If something new comes out, I look at it, try to try to come up with a way to utilize it, and you know something that nobody else is doing yet.

Speaker 2: 25:49

Do you pay the influencers?

Speaker 1: 25:50

No, they get. They get free copies of the books, that's. That's their payment. Okay, because most they're doing it anyway. You know, like you know, they were sourcing their own books before you know, and a lot of times they were buying those books, you know. So at least now they're getting a free book.

Speaker 2: 26:04

What worked the best for you in terms of you know, the ROI. What was the thing that you know moved the needle the most for your marketing efforts?

Speaker 1: 26:15

It's a lot of different things. You know I don't do any one thing. An example of something I think that you know gets misconstrued a lot A lot of people think if you get your book reviewed, let's say in the New York Times, that you're going to sell a lot of books. That's not necessarily the case, because what ends up happening is that review goes out on their mailing list, it lands in people's inboxes, People click on it and they get it thrown into a paywall. You can't read that review unless you actually pay for the New York Times. So a lot of people don't actually see it.

Speaker 1: 26:44

So I target bloggers. I target people that have an online presence, Because if I put a book in a blogger's hand, they're going to review that book. Then they're going to get out on social media and they're going to promote their blog. They're going to promote the review of the book and they tend to reach a lot more people than the traditional media does. So stuff that worked 10, 15 years ago is not going to work today. You have to be very forward thinking in this business?

Speaker 2: 27:05

True, who do you think your audience is? You mentioned middle-aged women. Who, but is? Yeah, who is your target audience? Who reads harder now? And the paranormal? Well, so my.

Speaker 1: 27:16

My audience was women, 45 and over, um, and when I was told that stat I I, you know basically tried to come up with a way to reach out and expand that. So I wrote a young adult book called she has something um, I can't remember the title, oh, it's been a while. She has a broken thing where her heart should be. It's a young adult book. So I basically reached out to that particular segment and then I lowered that reading age to probably 20s and 30s. At this point I purposely bounce back and forth in genre. I write something in horror, I'll write something in thriller, I'll go back to horror. I write another thing in thriller. I see it as almost being like a literary Pied Piper. You know, every time I see a hole and that you know the people buying my book I'll run out and I'll write something, create something to basically target this group that you know isn't currently reading me and then bring them into the fold.

Speaker 2: 28:03

Well, you mentioned the younger generation. Do you think the younger generation are reading now? I mean, I see that with my kids and my kids' friends and, for example, not even the younger generation. When I go to the doctor's office or anywhere, I'm the only DMV, or whatever. I'm the only person with a book, and that was not the case in the past. You know, like on the metro or now, everyone is like on their phone, scrolling, scrolling, and most of the time I'm the only person who's actually holding a book or a Kindle or whatever.

Speaker 1: 28:39

Yeah, there's a lot of competition out there. I always think of an airplane If you go back 15 years and you get on an airplane. Everybody's holding up a book or a magazine. In today's world, they're tapping on the screen built into the seat in front of them. So, yeah, you're competing for that same attention from you know, against a lot of, a lot of different things. That being said, there's still plenty of readers out there.

Speaker 1: 29:03

I think the younger generation is not only coming back to reading, but I'm finding that they're buying more physical copies of books, more printed copies. They're not even reading on their Kindle anymore. So there's you know that that pendulum, I think, has swung a little bit and starting to come back in the other direction. I think people are realizing that. You know, like being plugged in all the time, it's not relaxing. You know, even if you try to read a book on your phone, on your Kindle app, you know you've got notifications popping up in front of you while you're trying to read. So people are trying to move away from that and you know being able to sit down in a corner somewhere with a book and put all that stuff aside is relaxing and people are realizing that again.

Speaker 2: 29:38

Why do you think people are going back to physical books, especially the younger generation?

Speaker 1: 29:44

Well, for that very reason, they're looking for a way out of all the technology they're. You know we're getting bombarded everywhere you look. You know people find it difficult to sit down and watch a movie without picking up their phone. If I watch television, I would rather watch a news channel, only because it's got somebody talking, it's got a scrolling ticker, it's got this going on, it's got that going on. Our brains have been rewired to accept data from multiple places, so it's difficult to wind that back, but it's basically dialing us up. It's creating more anxiety, it's causing people to be more stressed and we're also realizing that if we do dial it back, if we do pick up a physical book instead of one of these other forms of entertainment, it does relax you, it does help you calm down. So I think people are getting back to that.

Speaker 2: 30:33

So you're collaborating with one of the top authors now, James Patterson. How did that happen and if you can tell us a bit about the type of collaboration?

Speaker 1: 30:46

Yeah, so we're on book number five now, our very first one. He had read a copy of the Fourth Monkey, which was my serial killer series that I had written. It's based in Chicago. My publisher sent that to him, hoping that he would just give us a sentence to put on the back. You know you're always looking for that sentence from a big name author. But he liked the book enough where he reached out and asked me to meet him for lunch. We went out for lunch and then just decided to write a book together. The very first one was called the Coast to Coast Murders and, like I said, now we're on book number five. The next one is called the Writer, which comes out in March, which is probably my favorite book I think I've written with him.

Speaker 2: 31:21

So do you ghostwrite for him, or how does the collaboration work?

Speaker 1: 31:28

No, it's very much back and forth. In my contract it states my name has to be the same size as his on the covers, so it's no ghostwriting involved.

Speaker 2: 31:38

And how can you both work on the same novel when you have two different styles, two different, I guess, ideas? How do you streamline the process?

Speaker 1: 31:49

Well, I started in this business you had mentioned you were a journalist. I actually started by interviewing celebrities way back in the day in the 90s and from there I basically stumbled into a side hustle as a book doctor and a ghostwriter, which I was doing while I was in the corporate job. I would come home at night and I would basically work on these projects to kind of keep my head on straight. Writing was just always my fun activity activity. But most of my experience in the writing world had been collaborating, working with other people. So for me, when I actually sat down and wrote a book on my own, that felt different, that felt wrong. So I'm very comfortable working with other people.

Speaker 1: 32:25

It's very much like if you've got multiple cooks in the kitchen and you're making breakfast. If you're both trying to make eggs at the same time, things don't work. But if one person is making eggs and somebody else is making bacon, then everything is okay. So when I sit down with somebody like Patterson, you know we divide and conquer. You're going to write this part. I write the outline. I may create part of the outline. We just figure out who's going to do what. We don't do the same thing at the same time.

Speaker 2: 32:47

So all right. So I want to ask about the giveaway that you are giving to your readers and to our listeners. Can you tell us a bit about the giveaway and how are you going to pick the winner and what they're going to get and what do they need to do?

Speaker 1: 33:05

So the giveaway is for something I keep upstairs we had mentioned. The haunted house story is real. It's a real place. So we're going to draw one name on publication date. That person is going to be allowed to take three of their friends, come out here to New England. We're going to put them on a boat, take them out to the island where the house is, drop them off and we're going to leave them out there for 24 hours in a haunted house To enter the contest. There's a link I can send it to you if you want to put it in your show notes for your listeners. But yeah, we're drawing that name on May 13th.

Speaker 2: 33:35

Wow, what a neat idea. Are you going to pay for the flights?

Speaker 1: 33:39

I'm not sure what's covered in the contest. I know that the actual stay and everything here is covered. I'm not sure about the transportation to here.

Speaker 2: 33:45

Oh, okay, okay, Wow. So how did you come up with this idea? It's pretty unique. I've never, you know, seen it or heard it before.

Speaker 1: 33:55

Well, it comes back to what I mentioned earlier. You know, whenever I've got a new book coming out, I look at what everybody else is doing and then I try to come up with something that nobody's doing. Nobody has ever given away an overnight stay in a haunted house to support a haunted house book. So that's where we're at. You know, on social media people talk about that, you know. So I'm spending ads on Facebook for the book itself. Every book, every author does. But the word of mouth that's happening because of the contest and surrounding the book, like that's what's actually selling pre-orders.

Speaker 2: 34:22

Yes, that's very creative. I mean, I get a lot of pitches to my podcast, and that was the first thing that stood out for me is the giveaway. I thought it was brilliant. So I mean I, you know, uh, I salute you for, for, uh, thinking of that, so your your, so your new book is gonna come out in may. What are you working on these days?

Speaker 1: 34:48

um, do you remember a movie from the 90s called flat riders? It is so it had uh yeah, yeah crazy cast at a key for sutherland Julia Roberts, billy Baldwin, oliver Platt.

Speaker 1: 34:58

Yeah, I saw All at the beginning of their career, so basically before anybody knew who they were. It's about medical students who basically decide to kill each other to figure out whether or not there's life after death. So they kill each other and they bring each other back to try and figure out what happens after we die. It's a fantastic movie. It's actually stood the test of time. One of the guys who wrote it his name is Peter Fulardi. He's on one of my other film projects. He actually called me when he received the rights back from the studio and I had conversations with him, basically telling him I've got an idea to reboot this franchise, if you ever want to do it. So when he received the rights back, he picked up the phone and called me. So we're currently writing a novel to reboot the Flat Finders franchise with a completely new twist. We're taking it in a very different direction.

Speaker 2: 35:42

Oh, that's very exciting. So how is your day like as a full-time author?

Speaker 1: 35:47

It's pretty boring, which I like. I get up at the crack of 7 am. I told myself when I left the corporate world I'd never set an alarm before 7 am anymore. So I get up at 7 am and go downstairs to grab my cup of coffee from the kitchen and head into my office. I just start writing. I turn off the internet first thing in the morning. I need to get the words done. I basically write about 2,000 to 3,000 words on whatever my current project is. I wrap that up about 10, 30 or 11. And then I flip on the internet. My emails start coming in and, like I start dealing with the business side of all of this and then, after that, interviews, things like this happen. My quitting bell rings at three o'clock. I go for a run around the island where I live.

Speaker 2: 36:32

I come home and I spend the rest of the night with my wife and daughter, nice, so it's just like the perfect writer life. You live on an island. I mean, this is like how would you imagine a writer lives, right, you know, on a secluded island, writing all day and running on the beach? You know like I think into this. To begin with, you know I was working a corporate job that I hated.

Speaker 1: 36:57

I was living someplace I didn't like, and you know, we completely pulled the rug out from under ourselves and restarted. It's a reset button in our entire lives. So we decided this is what we want. I want to become a full time author, I want to live here, you know. So that's you know.

Speaker 2: 37:13

Know, we made that happen so you basically designed your own life pretty much, and I wasn't.

Speaker 1: 37:19

I wasn't happy with the way people had done. You know, designed my previous life, so it was time to reset uh, yeah, that's uh, I, I love that.

Speaker 2: 37:28

All right. So, um, usually before before we conclude, I I always like to ask um things, I think. First one about who inspired you, I mean any specific authors that inspired you to focus at least on the genre of the horror and paranormal. The second one is what kind of tips do you give to people who want to specialize in this genre?

Speaker 1: 37:56

Yeah, I grew up reading at a very early age. I read all the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drews before I even got into kindergarten. Then I moved on to Charles Dickens and stuff like that. I love the classics. That's probably what initially got me hooked. My mom owns an antique store, or she used to. We used to go to a lot of yard sales. I remember when I was eight years old I found a copy of Dracula in a box for 25 cents and she let me buy it and she let me read it and that was what I consider to be the first adult book I ever read and I absolutely loved it because it actually scared me. You know I had to leave the lights on after reading that book and like the fact that a book could do that to me. You know that elicits that kind of an emotional reaction. I think that's what really grabbed me and drew me to the horror genre.

Speaker 2: 38:37

And what kind of tips would you give to someone who wants to specialize in that genre?

Speaker 1: 38:45

I think just writing in general. If you want to become an author, you need to do it every day. You need to try and get something done every day. When I was in the corporate world, I worked 60 to 80 hours a week but I still managed to get 200 to 300 words every day. If you can do 200 to 300 words, that's a full novel within a year. You'll eventually get to the finish line. If you don't take it seriously, it's like anything else. You need a lot of practice. It's almost like going to the gym. You need to work at it, work at it, and that writing muscle gets stronger and stronger.

Speaker 2: 39:11

That's true. Hmm, that's true. Well, any any final words for our listeners or viewers um where they can get your books. I know they're on Amazon. There's um how they can get in touch with you Um any final words.

Speaker 1: 39:25

Yeah, I mean just check out the new book. I'm at JD Barkercom. The book can be found pretty much anywhere. Um comes out May 13th. It's called something I keep upstairs.

Speaker 2: 39:43

Great. Well, thank you very much, jd. It's been amazing and horrifying at the same time. I appreciate your time and I wish you the best of luck. And just a reminder that there's a giveaway, and make sure to I'll put the link in the show notes, and you never know, you might want to stay at a haunted house on a secluded island. So, and for anyone who's listening or watching, thank you for joining us for another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. And until we meet again, thank you for tuning in to Read and Write with Natasha. I'm your host, natasha Tynes. If today's episode inspired you in any way, please take the time to review the podcast. Remember to subscribe and share this podcast with fellow book lovers. Until next time, happy reading, happy writing.