SPEAKER_00 0:04

I'm always open to a traditional publishing deal. That's a great way to make a lot of money right away and get your books out there to big audiences. You get a big machine behind you that's promoting them. So I'm always open to a traditional publishing deal. That being said, the deal has to be right. Like I said, I've got a great job and a great career right now. I don't have to go get money from my books and use that to keep my lights on. I'd rather own my stories and control exactly what they look like because the last thing I'd want is to sell my stories to a publishing company.

Starting To Write During COVID

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Hi friends, this is Read and Write with Natasha Podcast. My name is Natasha Tines 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 journal. Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. I have with me today Harrison Stockland, who's an American author, and his take on the crime thriller genre is defined as twisted originality, incorporating real historical events and environments into his fiction novel. And it's his signature style. His debut crime thriller, Watch It Burn, is outperforming industry expectations at an exceptional rate. When you read Harrison's novel, you can expect to be challenged, shocked, and left clinging to the very last line, wondering how you never saw it coming. Wow. Harrison, thank you for joining me today. And I can't help but notice how young you are. So this is this is very inspiring, Harrison. So I would like to start by asking you about your writing journey. At what age you started, and how did you manage to have a book that uh did so well at a young age? So the floor is yours, Harrison. If you can tell us a bit about your writing journey.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Yeah, well, for sure. So I started writing when I was about 16. Well, I was 16. That was during COVID. So if you do the math, I'm 20 now, almost 21. So still very young. I think when I when I talk about being a young author, I'm definitely at the at the bottom of that barrel in terms of age. But yeah, I started when I was 16. It was really just a hobby. I ran out of things to do during, you know, the lockdowns that everybody experienced. And so I decided, you know, I wanted a new hobby. And at the time, the only things I was really doing was reading and uh working on a sailboat that I had. And so I just decided I was like, you know what? I've been reading a lot of books. Like, I might as well try and write one. So I wrote my first book when I was 16. It was 130,000 words, 128,000 words around there. So pretty long. And it was terrible. It was it was awful. Nobody's ever gonna read that. It's gonna, you know, it's it's I still have it. I'm keeping it, but it's staying in the bowels of my computer. It's not, it's not gonna ever get out and see the light of day. Um, and I think a lot of authors probably have similar stories and similar projects like that that nobody else is ever gonna see, you know, but it's good, it's good practice. And and after that one was done, I I was really kind of, you know, I finished it. I wrote the end at the at the end of it on the last page, and and then I think I just, you know, that same you know, sitting at my desk, I opened up a new Word document and started over with a different story. So I've always been a creative person and I've always had plenty of plenty of you know of stories to tell. I've always been a talker, I've always been a social person, and I've always enjoyed stories. Like since I was really young, I've loved movies, especially. I'm probably one of the few authors you'll run into that will that will tell you that I enjoy movies more than I enjoy books. Now, I absolutely love books. You know, obviously I'm a I'm an author. Reading is one of my favorite pastimes, but I love movies. And so um, I've always enjoyed stories, I've had respect for great storytellers, and that kind of just kicked off my my journey as an author. And you know, I haven't stopped writing since I I first started typing on that on that first story.

Discipline, Self-Respect, And Priorities

SPEAKER_01 4:27

So oh wow. So so Harrison, you're you know, young and and and active, and I'm I'm curious what kind of discipline do you have? You know, like 20-year-old men, let's say, you know, more like they want to party, they want to go out, and the discipline of sitting, especially now with like I see it with my kids, they're always on TikTok or whatever. How how did you develop this this discipline? How did you resist the temptation of just partying all the time and and do this?

SPEAKER_00 4:57

I mean, I so I I give a lot of credit to my parents. I think without the two specific parents that I had, I still have them, uh the two specific parents that I have, I wouldn't be anywhere near as you know successful or driven as I am right now. I will always give credit to them because I think they they took what what had the potential to be a very difficult child and they turned me into something that was that was willing to work hard and and they turned me into a person that I, you know, I'm I'm learning to respect, which is something that I think a lot of people struggle with. I think that self-respect is a part, a part of the motivation thing. Um, I think if you don't respect yourself, there's no reason to better yourself, right? Because if if you have a really low opinion of yourself, I mean, you're not gonna invest in something you don't like. I mean, if you think about it, if you don't respect a person, they're most likely not gonna be your friend. You're not gonna care about them, and you're not gonna spend time trying to make them better. So, and the same goes for yourself. So they they really instilled that in me from a young age. At the same time, I was also a swimmer in high school, so I was always on the swim team, you know, since I was a little kid, and that's a year-round sport. It's not like a lot of other sports where, you know, you have your season and then you have maybe a couple camps in the summertime or whenever the off season is. Swimming is a cardio sport, so you're involved all year round, staying in shape, things like that. Um, and those are three-hour practices, thousands and thousands of yards, you're going miles a week. And so those things kind of contributed really strongly to my discipline, at least in the early, early stages. And then there's also the the kind of the cliche thing where they say, you know, if you love something, it's not really hard work to do it, and you know, it comes easy. And that is true with writing. Like, I've never, I don't think I've ever once sat down at my computer to write and and have thought, you know, like, oh, I wish I was doing something else, or I wish I could go do this or go do that. I've always loved it, and I think I always will love it, and I think that's the main reason. I mean, it is the main reason I do it. But Wayne Gretzky, you know, one of the greatest hockey players of all time, he always talked about, because people would always ask him, like, how how much do you practice and what do you do? And all these different things, and like, and he's like, I never really had to practice, like I was never forced to practice. I lost track of the hours because I enjoyed it so much. And that's something I really resonate with, especially with writing, because there are things in my life that I don't like doing, and I put them off and I procrastinate and all those things. But writing is one of my favorite things to do. I'd much rather do it than watch a TV show or play some video games. But like you said, I'm 20, so I do enjoy those things still. You know, I play games and I I watch movies and TV shows and I go out with my friends and things like that, but I do have priorities in my life, and writing is definitely at the top of that list.

Twisted Originality And Flipped Tropes

SPEAKER_01 7:39

So wow, good for you. So you mentioned that you have this, let's say, signature writing style, which is the twisted originality. What is that? Can you explain that to us?

Self-Publishing Versus Agents And Deals

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah, so when I say twisted originality, what I mean is is I like taking, you know, because you can go you can go out and you can look and you could grab a cart full of books, and most likely you're gonna find a few different versions. Maybe you're gonna find probably a hundred versions of the same four or five stories, right? So there's there's a few different story tropes that people really enjoy to tell, and some people tell them like really well. Like you have things like, you know, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, they're uh, you know, Chronicles of Narnia, they're all the a very, very similar story. Star Wars uh that that falls in that that you know pile. It's a very similar story about a about a hero who's the you know, the quote unquote chosen one, and then they have to rise up and defeat, you know, pretty much the biggest embodiment of evil in that universe. And so there's lots of tropes like that, and that doesn't mean they can't be done well, but I don't really enjoy using those in my in my storytelling. So what I like to do, and I've done it a few different times, some of it, some of it does involve spoilers, so I'm not gonna get too deep into it, but I like to take classic stories or thought patterns and kind of flip them on their heads. So, for example, if you have, like I'll use this as a good example. If you have two people that are really good characters in a book full of gray and bad characters, and you know, they're together, let's say they're in love, it's a it's a guy and a girl, and they seem perfect for each other, and they're really likable. Not really anyone else in the story is likable, and they seem like they're the main characters. You know, I would say probably by the seventh or eighth chapter, they're gonna die. And that's gonna kind of kick off the the rest of the story because and I and I think that grabs your attention because you you're thinking, well, these these two are gonna be together through through the the thick and the thin, and we don't have to care about these other people that don't have their act together and they're evil and they're this and that, they're not the moral authorities. And I think that's a much more accurate representation of how some of these stories would play out in real life. Like I think, I think sometimes in these stories, especially in the genres I've been writing in, which has been crime, the good people do finish last. If you if if if in these situations I put my characters in, you have moral qualms about doing something that would put you ahead, you're not gonna make it because the the bad guys and the gray characters, they don't have those same issues. So I like taking that that that twisted take on some of the the tropes. Another example I could give you for that is like if you're looking at that Harry Potter kind of Star Wars Messiah type storytelling. I've never written something like that, but if I did, I would most likely make that uh Messiah character, the the chosen one character. I'd I'd let them rise all the way to the top and defeat the evil, but then you know they would change, and I think they would start changing into what they were against, you know, since since their inception and kind of play with that journey a little bit to make it more more human, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

So um I want to talk about your first novel, Watch It Burn. First of all, if you can tell me about your publishing journey. Did you self-publish? Did you get an agent? How how you know how did the publishing journey was for you?

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Yeah, so I self-published my first novel. I did query several agents, I had some interest. I even got offered a deal. It wasn't the right deal for me, so I just decided I was gonna self-publish. And I've I've enjoyed that. You know, it's different than you know, vanity publishing. Like I'm I'm doing this as a business venture. I'm I'm putting these books out there because this is what I want to do for a living. You know, right now I do have a day job. I'm doing great in that, but I love writing, and that's something I want to dedicate all of my time to. So yeah, I self-published my first novel and my second novel. And really it was it was it was one of those things where you know the lie that that I was told was that it's not that simple. You can't just go out and do it like it's gonna be really tough and it's not gonna turn out. That's not true. It's it's actually very simple. Amazon makes it insanely easy to self-publish. It's free. You you know, the only things I pay for, I pay for an editor because I'm not a grammar guy. I was never good at grammar in school. So, you know, I have to I have a good buddy now. He's my editor, he's amazing. He's he worked on my second book, and he's gonna be working on this next one coming out later this summer. But so I have an editor and I have to pay him, and then I have a cover artist that I absolutely love and I have to pay him. And so those are the two people I pay, and you know, use some pay pay some money for some Amazon ads, and then I just publish the book and then and it starts selling copies. So it's really it really is that simple. I mean, I'm not dumbing it down at all. I think anyone could do it, but you know, having an editor and having a good cover artist are two very good investments. So I would recommend you spend the money on those. But yeah, self-publishing was was the the route I chose to go with. And you know, who knows? I may go traditional, especially in the next couple of years. But right now, I've I've been enjoying the self-publishing journey. It gives me a lot of freedom.

Finding A Cover Artist And Editor

SPEAKER_01 12:55

So you hired the cover designer and you hired an enter. Where did you find them? Uh I I like to ask technical questions for anyone who wants to do the same thing. Like, I know where to find them, but I want the people who are listening to to hear from you.

Formatting Books In Microsoft Word

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Yeah. Um, so I found my cover artist on Upwork. I don't know if you've ever heard of Upwork, but it's it's like uh you can get an app for it on your phone. It's also a website. But how Upwork works is you basically throw a project description, you know, with some photos out into the ether, and then you get all these applications. It's almost like, you know, like a job application site, but for for uh contract artists. So that's how I found my cover artist. And I got I'll tell you this, it it is a little bit of a task to sort through the people that are applying for that. It'll take you a few hours. Because, you know, I put I put something out there for contract work. I didn't put a price on it. I wanted to see what people would want for that kind of work because I didn't know the last cover artist I used was a friend of mine. So so I I got this guy for November's Whisper. So for November's Whisper, I had a different cover artist and a different editor than I did for my first book. So for my first book, both the cover artist and the editor were both friends or you know, acquaintances through other people that I met and paid to do this work. And then the second round, I just changed it up. But yeah, so I sorted through all these candidates, and there were some some weird applications, uh, people that didn't really seem to understand the project or what I was looking for. That's fine. I just passed over them, and then I found this guy. He sent me an example right off the bat, looked amazing, and uh we went from there. So, and then with my editor, really interesting story with him. I don't think anyone else will be able to copy this, but my uh my dad actually met him on an airplane. So we were riding on an airplane together, yeah. It's gonna be hard to copy and paste that one, but they were riding on an airplane together, and my dad was either reading one of my books right after it came out, or he was he was either reading the first book or he was talking to this guy about the first book, and this guy was like, Well, I'm actually an editor, like I he's been doing it his whole life. He's done all sorts of he's worked for all sorts of big magazine companies, you know, like Sports Illustrated, things like that. Now he works for a transportation magazine out on the uh West Coast. So he does it for a living, like that's his that's his big boy job. And then on the side, he he does projects for me, which is awesome. And I'm very lucky to have him. He's very talented, he knows exactly what I'm looking for, how deep I want him to go into the work, things I want him to pull out, things I want him to leave alone. And yeah, it's been a great working relationship ever since I started with those two.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

So oh wow. What about the formatting of of the book? It's it can be tricky. I like for me. I had to hire someone to do it. I just did not have the bandwidth to mess with it.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

What did what did you do with it?

SPEAKER_00 15:43

I agree. It's very tricky, it is frustrating, but I've been doing the formatting myself. So uh for Watch It Burn and for November's Whisper, I formatted both of those books. So if your chapter looks a little weird kicking down the page, you know, you can blame me. But I think I did a pretty good job. I actually took a small course on how to do it. And so I've yeah, I'm just kind of taking off. And Word, Word is is very advanced. I think a lot of people don't understand, and I I didn't understand that right off the bat. You think it's just a typing document, and that's all I used it for, but it's similar to Microsoft Excel, where it's very, very advanced, and you can like with Excel, you can do all sorts of crazy formulas and things like that. Word is really similar with the formatting piece. You can do all sorts of really neat things and make it look, you know, super professional. So I did learn that myself, and I've been doing that myself.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Okay, so you're doing it yourself, which is great.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

What about Amazon ads? Again, Amazon ads is I I did it myself, but I did not get lots of uh good results. I think maybe I don't know the the the tricks to do it. So, how did you do Amazon ads? How did you learn how to do it? And how you tell us about your results, your ROI.

Amazon Ads Goals And Learning Curve

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Yeah. So I have kind of a different goal than a lot of people may have going into this. So my goal with a lot of different things, like the book events I go to, Amazon ads for sure. It's not to make money. I'm trying to get my books out there as much as possible. So, like I said, I have a career, I have a job that I do, you know, that keeps the lights on, keeps the house paid for, things like that. So the book, I'm really just trying to get it out there and get it to as many people as possible. So with Amazon ads, I'm not concerned about, you know, making a ton of money with it. What I mainly use it for is I really just want to break even with the ads based off of what I spend versus what I get back. And I've been pretty close. Recently, it hasn't been as good because I probably need to go in and change things up again. They they go and they update and change how different ads impact different folks. But again, it was the same thing as the formatting. I just found a course for that, like a short few hour course that I paid for, and I I did it myself. So because otherwise, most of these firms or companies they want you to spend money per month to use them. It's not like a one-time, like, we'll set up your ads and you're good to go. It's like you got to pay them every month plus the ads, and a lot of times they're more expensive than the actual ads. So I was like, well, if I learn it myself, I can spend double as as much money on the ads. So then, yeah, I've been doing that for the past couple of years, and it's been working out pretty well.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

So Ah, good. Okay, good to know. Any places you recommend where we can learn about ads or you know, if you don't want to hire someone?

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Yeah, I'd have to, I can't remember the name of that course off the top of my head. I'd been looking at YouTube videos and I found a guy who was selling a course, and and the way he did that was he'd make videos about ads and he'd be like, if you want the whole thing, you just buy my course. So I did that, but you know, maybe afterwards I can send you the link to that. I can go dig it up and find it. But yeah, I would just start looking online. I mean, it's a lot of stuff. It's the same way I I research for for my books, is the way I found out how to do a lot of these things. Starts with a simple Google search, and you kind of find the rabbit holes to go down from there, and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

So you mentioned you want to eventually be like a full-time writer. Do you think that is especially now where publishing is changing dramatically? You know, like in the past, you have to have an agent and a publishing house, and you used to send your manuscript in the mail, not even an email. Now, you know, with Amazon publishing, you know, everything is changing. Do you think really it's sustainable? Like you're, you know, you're still the beginning of your career, and you know, if if you want someday to start a family, all of that, you know, you need a lot of money. Do you think that is a sustainable career for you to do it of self-publishing and selling books on Amazon?

SPEAKER_00 20:33

I think so. I don't know necessarily just selling off of Amazon. It would depend, right? It all depends on the audience.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

And it depends on it depends on how loyal they are. So that's really the the the part of the journey I'm in right now is building a loyal audience. And it's going great. I'm gaining a lot of followers. I'm gaining like my email list is getting really big. And it's all and I release two books a year. So I I write for several hours every evening. Like that's kind of what I do. I get home from work and I write until I go to bed. And so I'm able to release two books a year.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

And that's not Netflix, you don't watch Netflix?

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Sometimes on the weekends, you know. Uh, but I I do. I like I said, I love movies, so I always make time for movies, and I do have friends. A lot of people that watch these interviews always wonder if I have friends. I do. I have plenty of friends and I I enjoy time with them. I go on vacations and all that stuff, but it's really that day-to-day pattern of like I I get home and and I eat and I shower and I write for at least two or three hours, and then you know, if I have time left before I have to go to bed, I'll I'll figure something out. But but yeah, really, so so I release two books a year, and that is enough content to keep any loyal reader satisfied. So I think I think if someone reads one of my books and they really enjoy it and they find out that they can get two a year, they're gonna follow me pretty closely. And I've I've noticed that happening already, you know, since I released my first book a little bit over a year ago. Right. And so that's been great. But my main goal is, like I said, building an audience. And then also from there, I'm not gonna limit myself to just books. And like I said, I've always loved movies, and I could see myself doing some serious screenplay writing. Um, I've played with it as a hobby. I've never submitted one or published one or tried to sell one, but I definitely think in a very visual, very, you know, cinematic way. Like when I see my stories, it's all visuals. It's you know, I'm not seeing the words, you know, laid out across this across the paper. Um, I'm seeing this in terms of pictures, in terms of videos. And so I think that work would translate really well into film. And I could write, you know, I have endless stories. I was talking to somebody the other day, and I was like, look, I I'm I'm about 10 story ideas behind. So like I have a list on my whiteboard of of the next, you know, probably four books, which is two years worth of writing, you know, plus projects after that that I'm still working on in my head. So I've got plenty of stories to tell. I'm not gonna run out of content. So it to answer your question, I do think it is realistic. It's going to be hard and it's gonna take a lot of work, but I'm real I'm willing to work for it. And life is gonna pay, life is gonna pay me the wage I demand of it. So if I work hard as an author, it's gonna, especially starting as young, it's gonna be really hard to fail as an author. And that's kind of just the way I think about it. And yeah, just onward and upward.

Marketing Through Events And Newsletter

SPEAKER_01 23:28

I like the attitude, the mindset, actually. So you do you you write, you hire people, you self-publish, you put it out there, you sell it on Amazon. Okay, I wanna talk a bit about marketing. You mentioned you're getting a lot of followers. How did you do that when you started, you know, pretty much unknown, young? How how was your marketing journey? And what are your tips and tricks to get people to read your book when you started as an unknown author?

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Definitely starting with relationships. So I have a big sphere of people that I know. So already, like my first book, the day I released it, I sold like 180 copies just off of people I knew, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:09

And this is like who who are these people? I'm just curious. Well, it's it's like family friends, all these folks.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Yeah, I posted a few times, collected emails, so I had a list, you know, because people forget, and that's fine. Yeah. But like I had I, you know, I've I've grown up making friends, I know lots of families, like all these people. So that's how it started. And then from there, like local bookstores. I've done several book events, done signings. Sometimes, you know, four people show up, and then sometimes 85 or 100 people show up. So it it just depends on the place. I'm doing one in Florida in April, and that's gonna be a big, big one. It's probably gonna be my biggest of all time, which will be awesome. And and then we're gonna go from there. I plan on doing many, many more of those events because those are the best way to reach you know audiences. Not many people are doing book events these days, and it's funny because like I'm not a celebrity, I'm just a guy who writes books, but when you go to these book events, the readers are really excited to meet you as the author, not because they think you're a celebrity, but because they're they it's it's it's a special way to connect with the art. Because writing, especially writing stories, is is certainly an art. And so I think the readers kind of recognize that. And when they're able to connect with the artist a little bit, ask questions, especially if they've already read the book and they and they know the content, they really enjoy that. So I've been doing that and just growing through those channels, you know. But I don't do everything perfectly. Like I'm really bad with social media. I maybe have 700 followers on my Instagram, maybe like 1200 on Facebook. Like, I don't have a YouTube channel for my books, you know. So there's things like that that I could always improve on, but I'm doing what I'm good at and what seems to be working, and just hitting those hard, and it's been going well.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

So basically, you're saying your marketing success comes from book events and your newsletter?

SPEAKER_00 26:05

Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

How many subscribers do you have your newsletter?

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Just under 300. So last time I checked, checked a couple weeks ago. So yeah, I mean it's not massive, but you know, if if you're able to get, you know, 70% of those people to buy your book on a pre-order, that's pretty awesome. So it's just, yeah, growing slowly. Like I said, I started with a little under 150, and that was a year ago. So doubled it in a year, and we're gonna see if we can do that again this year and and keep growing through these events and and through the newsletter. It's a great way to send reminders to. Like if you're starting out, you're gonna self-publish. I wouldn't rely solely on Amazon. I have a website, it costs like$35 a month, and it looks really nice. It'll help you process all your orders if people order through your website. And then also it comes with free email marketing, you know, included with the price to run the website. And it's really nice because there's a lot of automated reminders you can use for things like, you know, have you left a review? Have you, you know, have you purchased the book? You know, if they if they don't open the email, the the the website knows and it'll send them another email in three days. You know, so it'll it it's really intuitive, like that. That's super helpful.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

But one thing what what is the platform? Sorry, what is the platform that you uh square?

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Square is what I use. Yeah, not squarespace, they're different. It's it's just square. If you go to squareup.com, that's that's what I use. You can customize a website. I actually had a lady set up the website for me because I'm not I'm not a very tech savvy person. So I had her build the website, she has a website in a day program, and and it was it was awesome. So the one thing I really struggled with that I still struggle with, and maybe you can relate, is getting reviews. Getting getting people to buy the book is not that hard, especially if you throw in sales or you you know have like a discount or whatever. It's not hard to get people to buy the book, but getting to people to leave reviews is one of the hardest things. And it's not because they don't want to, it's just like they're like, really? I gotta click through five pages and and find the website and then click the stars and then write something. I don't know, I don't have time for that. Like it's not because they don't want to, it's just because it's it's it's a hassle. So that's one thing I'm working on getting a lot better at because like getting reviews is super tough. Like selling hundreds and hundreds of copies of books and then only having like 30 reviews is really really frustrating. So, but that's one thing you know we're working on and and getting better at.

Creative Control And Publishing Trends

SPEAKER_01 28:38

So oh wow. So you write for two hours a day. Well, that that's that's really impressive. So, okay, what is what do you have in plans for the future? Uh, story wise, and you know, and publishing plans.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Yeah, I mean, I'm always open to a traditional publishing deal. That's a great way to make a lot of money right away and get your books out there to big audiences. You get a big machine behind you that's promoting them. So I'm always open to a traditional publishing deal. That being said, the deal has to be right. Like I said, I've got a great job and a great career right now. I don't have to go get money from my books and use that to keep my lights on. I'd rather own my stories and control exactly what they look like because the last thing I'd want is to sell my stories to a publishing company who then goes through, changes the title, changes the plot, changes certain characters, changes dialogue. Like, I've got some pretty gritty, violent, crass stuff in my books. And I think it needs to stay that way. I think that's how the stories are meant to be. That's how it's impactful. Like there's nothing in there without a purpose, but I could see a lot of publishing houses having issues with it. In fact, that was one of my number one comments when I was submitting Watch It Burn was they were really upset that I killed two characters that were really likable pretty early in the book. Um, and I was like, that is the entire point of the story. And if you if you've read Watch It Burn, you understand how that works later on. And I'm 90% sure that most of these people I submitted the book to read to that point, were like, you killed my two favorite characters, and then just closed the book instead of reading another couple chapters and realizing how the div how the story was going to develop. So I run into issues like that. I really my my stories really thrive on violence, especially watch it burn. And so that's that's not really what a lot of these agents are looking for right now.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

They're looking for more, you know, heartwarming, you know romance, romance, stories, but romance, they want romance.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Exactly. Yeah, or like, you know, it just it's all about trendy authors.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Yeah, fantasy and romance.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

It's about who the trendy authors are. So like Colleen Hoover is, yeah. That's the kind of stuff she writes, and so great, but that's not what I write, and I'm never gonna write that. It's just not what I'm interested in. Um, and so, you know, I'll uh I'll uh you know smile and nod, but that's not what I'm gonna gonna end up writing. And so, you know, but I I have hope for these type of stories. I mean, you watch different things that are popular, like True Detective is one of the most popular shows of all time on HBO, and I just released a crime thriller November's Whisper back in November, and it's very, very true detective-esque, and then they released the new season of True Detective, and it was it got received with like great critical acclaim, and everybody enjoyed it. Um, so that gives me hope because it's it's one of those things where like people still enjoy these stories, even though the agents might not want to be representing them. But like you said, the publishing landscape is changing, and so approaching publishers directly is becoming a lot more common. And so I do have a lawyer in my back pocket, and we're gonna see about approaching some of these publishing companies directly and see what that looks like. So there's all sorts of routes to go to go down. But yeah, I think my type of story definitely like if you look at TV shows like The Boys that that's been out on Amazon, that's super gritty, over the top, buying, like way crazier than my stuff, is insanely popular and critically acclaimed, right? Or you look at, you know, the new Jack Carr books that are doing super, super well about the the Rogue Navy SEAL that's going around just killing people. Like, like they're doing really well. So, you know, somebody's reading these. And I would love to, I would love to be the person that writes books that guys get into. Not explicitly. I I love lady readers, but there's there most of the readers I know and most of the people I sell books to are ladies. I want to get some of these guys into reading, you know.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Yeah, guy guys don't read.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Exactly. And they're not gonna read as long as you know, they're not, you're net you'll never see a guy with a Colleen Hoover book. I read one just because it was popular and I wanted to see what it was all about. But yeah, so I'm trying to trying to kind of get into that space too where I can like extend an olive branch and be like, hey, you liked this, try this. It's gonna be fun, you'll enjoy it. You know, it all comes back to writing stuff that I want to read. So that's that's that's how I do it.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Yeah, like my book club is all women. Have you ever seen a book club for men?

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Like this is that the book events I do, it's all ladies. Yeah, the guys that come out to my book events are guys that I know personally. Like it's never some well, that's not true. I've had a couple that have found me on Instagram, read my book, and like, oh, this is great, which is awesome, but it's only been two or three.

Favorite Authors And Nonfiction Research

SPEAKER_01 33:34

So yeah, yeah. But yeah, interesting. So who who's your inspiration? Who do you like to read? Who influenced you? You say you read the lot. Tell me a bit of your man.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

I really, really love Dennis Lahane. Dennis Lahane's probably my favorite author. He wrote Mystic River, Shutter Island, Gone Baby Gone, those those really popular ones. Now, there's some of his stuff that I'm not a big fan of. Like, really, in my opinion, his stuff from the late 90s and early 2000s was his his best work. Um, I think now he's kind of he's kind of biding his time. I feel like he's got a story in his back pocket that he's working on, but like the last couple books he's released have been like subpar by his standard of what he's of what he's released before, in my opinion. Stephen King, of course, is amazing. I'm not super huge into his fantasy or horror stuff, but things like The Institute or The Outsider, things like that, I really, really enjoy his kind of crime thrillers. Those are great. And then as far as as far as nonfiction goes, I really have been reading a lot of nonfiction. So Killers of the Flower Moon, that movie just came out a while ago, but I read the book beforehand, and that author, his name is escaping me at the moment, but he's amazing. I read, I went through and read all of his books except for one or two, and they're all they're all amazing books. I I love nonfiction. Like I'm really into political history, especially not 20th century stuff. So, you know, I'll every once in a while I'll go out and get a like I read, you know, like the 600-page biography of Dick Cheney, like super random, but it was it was really interesting. Yeah. And so, you know, things like that where you're like, yeah, this is this is not a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

I would never read that. No, it'd be collected.

Top Tips For Aspiring Writers

SPEAKER_00 35:25

Yeah. Like I enjoy, I enjoy that stuff, and I get all of my ideas for stories from nonfiction. So, for example, November's Whisper is about an FBI profiler. And I came up with this idea after reading Mindhunter by John Douglas and Mark Oldshaker. John Douglas was the guy who kind of he didn't found the FBI profiling program, but he really got it off the ground and and kind of popular popularized it and proved the theories, right? Because before John Douglas kind of took over the program with his partner, it was kind of looked down upon, especially in Hoover's FBI back in the day, it was very like McCarthyist, straightforward, like you gotta polish your shoes and wear the right tie at work. And if you're a profiler, you're into voodoo and you're a weirdo. And you know, he kind of broke that mold and proved through science with the help of a psychologist, a university psychologist professor or something. And I think she practiced as well, but they they worked together and they basically built this crime almanac and and proved their theories, and then they used them to solve big, big, big cases in the late 70s and 80s. The probably the most famous being the Atlanta child murders in I think 1984. And then he was also heavily involved in the Green River murders and that investigation in in the you know the entirety of the 80s, though they didn't catch the Green River killer because of him. They caught him because of a DNA tool they came up with in 2003. But that being said, I I read his first book, and then I read his second, third, fourth, and I got really into it. I kind of read those for a period of three or four months, and I was like, there's a great story here. And I kind of worked on that in my mind, and and yeah, and I I was very mindful not to just copy and paste one of the many you know cases in there, or you know, you know, use him as a character, like my character's my own character, my case is my own case. I made all this stuff up, you know. And so, but yeah, like getting getting that information from nonfiction and being able to incorporate that is is I think it's invaluable and I think it brings back an originality that we've kind of lost in in fiction. I mean, Dennis Lahane still does it, which I love, but like a lot of folks will just kind of slap a story together and it just you know, just comes out like I said, like all the other kind of disjointed fiction, it just sort of comes out and it's like, and here's the new, you know, whatever. I don't want to get into names, but like it'll it'll just come out like that. And I meanwhile, I like to look at it as like, okay, well, here's my story. I'm gonna work to make it the best story that it can possibly be. So for this book, it involves a police investigation, takes place over four weeks. So I interviewed the former head of the state uh of a state police organization. I interviewed three or four detectives, and I also interviewed a former district attorney. So I spent a lot of time with these folks learning. I also read absurd things that nobody else would be reading, like police procedure almanacs, and like things like I'm in I'm reading these like textbooks trying to find answers to some of my questions, and I think all that research really shows. One of my favorite reviews I've gotten on my book was somebody who wrote that my research shines through, because I I mentioned it a little bit in the author's note, and that made me really proud because that's not something a lot of people are are doing these days, and you know it's it takes research to make a successful story, especially when it takes place in a period about 20 years before I was born. So trying to trying to understand the time period, like I wasn't around in the 1980s, I was born in 2003. So trying to understand those time periods and really make it as accurate as possible is definitely, definitely a huge part of my mission.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

Wow, this is great. Very inspiring. So, Harrison, what are the top tips you would give to aspiring authors, especially young authors like yourself?

SPEAKER_00 39:41

If you've got a great story, make it the best story possible. You're gonna, you're gonna wanna you're gonna wanna just go, go, go, and you're gonna wanna just whip that thing out, and maybe you you wanna publish and you got it all figured out, you're gonna publish it. Go over it a couple times before you send it off to the editor. Think about alternate ways it can end. Never lock anything in. Like I I don't write stuff down. It doesn't help me. It only hurts because you know the best way to immortalize a bad idea is to write it down. And so if I'm writing down exactly what's gonna happen in the story, I can't realize, you know, like well, I'm writing, oh hey, this isn't actually how this is gonna work out. I'm gonna change it, it's gonna go like this. So don't limit yourself like that. I also think this is something I struggle with, but I've kind of killed the bug. I think I'm I think I'm almost there, I've almost cured it. But when I'm writing and I get about 75% of the way through a story, I'm really just thinking about the next one. And I really just want to get this one done or or just quit it and start the next one. I've I've all I've never done it, but I've gotten really close a couple times. And you just you just can't do that. You gotta finish what you're working on because if you do that once, you're gonna do it twice, and then pretty soon you're never finishing anything, and you've got 12 manuscripts that are 70% done. So that's huge. And then just consistency. Like you don't have to write two to three to four hours a day, but if you can sit down and write a page, I mean a page is like 900 words on word, it's size 12 fonts. So, you know, if you can sit down and write 900 words a day and your book's gonna be 150 pages, you'll have you'll have a a book, you know, seven months into the year. So um that that is super huge. Consistency and then following through and finishing finishing what you started. I think those are the two big things.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

This is great, Harrison. So, how can people find you on your website? How can they buy your book how they can contact you?

SPEAKER_00 41:33

So you can find me on my website or on Amazon. I'm on Amazon. If you look up my name, Harrison Stockland, it should pop up. If not, you can search November's Whisper, it'll definitely pop up. And then online, if you Google search Harrison Stockland, my website will show right up. But if you want to go directly there, it's www.officialharrisonstockland.com.

Reviews, Subscribe, And Closing

SPEAKER_01 41:53

This is great. Thank you very much, Harrison. I'm I'm actually inspired now. And I yeah, so I I read I mean, you know, you're um I wish you the best of luck, and uh we'll stay in touch. And for anyone who's uh 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 Tines. 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.