Author’s website: http://manuscriptsburn.blogspot.co.uk/
In the past year, I have discovered countless new books I would never have found without the help of Twitter. One of the best finds has got to be the audiobook of Braineater Jones, as read by Steve Rimpici.
I was still riding high from the release of Fallout 4 (shame on you if you haven’t played this game and fallen in love with Nick Valentine already) and this book was the ultimate follow on.
Audible – only available in the US
After listening to this book, I started ploughing my way through the rest of his work and have recently finished his latest novel Every Kingdom Divided. As a housewarming celebration for my new website, I thought I’d get him to answer a few questions about his books.
1) WHAT IS WITH THE JARS?!!
I assume you’re talking about my wife’s collection of antique sour cream jars. Well, prior to the ’60s dairy products were commonly kept in glass containers and farmers and the like took particular interest in decorating them. Then, when disposable plastic containers took over, all these sour cream jars were out there floating around in flea markets and such, so today they have a nice kitsch value. And hence why my kitchen and dining room are lined with them.
2) You’ve released a few books now and can be considered a seasoned professional, but how did the first book come about? (the idea, publishing, release etc)
hurrhurrhurr I’m a seasoned professional
My first published book, BRAINEATER JONES, was not the first book I wrote. I have around twenty or so “trunked” novels (that is, sitting in the metaphorical trunk with little hope of ever being published.) But let’s set that aside for now.
I wrote BJ in late 2009 and started trying to get it published in 2010. I spent four years trying to get a New York agent and a publishing deal with one of the Big Five (back then it was Big Six) publishers. There are about 300 active literary agents in the United States, and not all of them represent horror, so by the time I had queried about 150 of them I had basically exhausted all of my options and was seriously considering trunking BJ.
Then my friend John Waxler introduced me to Elizabeth Corrigan, the author of ORACLE OF PHILADELPHIA and its sequel RAISING CHAOS. Elizabeth turned me on to Red Adept Publishing, a micropress out of Raleigh, North Carolina, which at the time was brand new. I submitted to Red Adept, and they accepted within about three weeks.
The process of publishing with Red Adept started with three rounds of vigorous editing: content, line, and proofreading. I had a lot of input with my cover, which was produced by Streetlight Graphics. Basically I dictated everything you see on the original (comic book/penny dreadful style) cover with maybe my publisher reining me in on some of my wackier suggestions. The book was ready to go by July of ’13, but we pushed off the release date to October because we expected a horror novel would debut better closer to Halloween. For the release itself I had a lovely party where I sold a bunch of copies and one of my friends even made a brain-shaped cake.
Now, the story of EVERY KINGDOM DIVIDED is even more fascinating, but, then, I suppose you didn’t ask me about that…
3) Your books are very varied in atmosphere and content, did you enjoy creating one world more than any of the others?
That’s a tough one. My actual favorite world is the setting of my sci-fi novel THE HYENA, which remains unpublished at present. (Hint, hint, New York.) I’ve been dabbling with that universe since I was 12. But that’s not a very interesting answer because nobody’s read it.
I guess I really cut loose with the worldbuilding in EVERY KINGDOM DIVIDED. It wasn’t exactly a kitchen sink, but I was able to incorporate a lot of obscure trivia into creating that universe. Every working gear and sprocket in that world has some kind of basis in obscure Americana or U.S. political discourse. There was an actual brief-lived Mormon country called Deseret, for instance, and the “reconquista” of the American Southwest is a real concept in Mexican politics. It’s kind of fascinating to look at the invisible historical fault lines on a map that theoretically just shows one country.
4) You’re one of the most active authors I know on social media and the interwebz at large, do you think this has helped you reach more readers?
Am I? That’s very kind of you to say. I wonder what all the others authors are doing. Actually writing, presumably.
I’m usually down on myself about how small my readership is, but I suppose the fans I do have are loyal, and that’s not nothing. And I did meet most of them online. I met you on there. And Renee Conoulty, who introduced us. Yeah, actually, I guess social media has helped me reach more readers. At least, that’s the excuse I’ll keep telling myself.
5) TWITTER CHALLENGE (144 characters): When the zombie apocalypse arrives, what’s your strategy for the first 24 hours?
Zombocalypse Plan
Fly to Wales. Protect @Most_Sublime and precious Welsh cultural artifacts. Like, um…rarebit factory?
#moreresearchneeded
6) Assuming you’ve survived those crucial 24 hours, you now only have 3 books that you can keep with you. What are they?
This is hard because I own books with sentimental value, too, not just ones I want to read. I mean, I’d have to take my signed copy of THE RISING. But I guess I’d also want THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV. And I don’t think I want to live in a world without an extant HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY.
7) I’ve listened to the audiobook version of Braineater Jones (it was amazing), how did the audio version come about and precisely how awesome is it to hear your work read by Steve Rimpici?
Rimpici is a menace to society. The sunlight gleaming off his shiny, bald head has downed just…just countless aircraft at this point. I really consider it a public service to keep him off the streets and out of the path of low-flying planes. If that means he’s in the recording studio, so be it.
My publisher put BRAINEATER JONES up on ACX, which is Amazon’s site for connecting voiceover artists with authors. The first audition we received, the narrator was clearly from a rural area, and considering the book is in first person, it ended up with Braineater sounding like a cowpoke, and that just really didn’t work. After that I was convinced that this was going to be a long, painful process and that at some point we would just have to settle for someone not-so-terrible. In the very next audition, though, the narrator sounded like Humphrey Bogart, and then as part of his audition he skipped forward to the Dante poem on the gates of the Welcome Mat and started belting it out in this flawless, you know, late medieval Italian. So, basically, he made the hardest part of the book sound like child’s play. And that was Steve Rimpici. He went on to earn a Voiceover Arts Award nomination for his rendition of BJ, and deservedly so.
I’m not sure whatever happened to him. I think he may be in jail right now for illegally impersonating Patrick Stewart.
8) Every Kingdom Divided had a very strong message about the roles of individuals in war, alongside the wonderfully snarky dialogue. Where did the idea for this book come from?
In 2009 I was watching a lot of MSNBC. Like 3, 4 hours a night. I felt really informed! But I probably don’t have to tell you that cable news will rot anybody’s brain, and I was convinced we were right on the precipice of just falling apart as a nation. And this was right when the Tea Party was becoming a thing and Obamacare was this huge divisive issue and we were in the middle of this horrible global recession. It seemed like the revolution was right around the corner. I mean, part of this was real life, but I know part of it was watching too many talking heads on my part. (Don’t do that, kids. Just say “no” to cable news.)
Anyway, the rhetoric was so amped up! I thought it was ridiculous that Americans had no problem calling people who disagreed with them Nazis or Bolsheviks, so I thought it would be an interesting thought exercise to take the wildest claims of the opposing party and envision a world where they had all come true. And thus EVERY KINGDOM DIVIDED was born. The Blues (read: liberals) of the book are the wildest Paranoid Pete fantasies of what a current-day conservative would say liberals want (abortion clinics on every corner, welfare queens living high on the hog, everyone in a marijuana daze, everything politically incorrect banned.) The reverse is true for the Reds (read: conservatives) so in their nation medicine is replaced with faith healing, there is no government, non-Christians are thrown in concentration camps, and so forth.
9) You’ve mercilessly exploited my fear of the dentist: do you have any phobias that I can similarly exploit?
My main fear is obscurity, so, really, by featuring me on your blog at all, you’re doing me a mitzvah.
10) Bonus question: is there any question you wish someone would ask you about your books in an interview?
I suppose nobody’s ever asked me whether all of my books tie together, DARK TOWER-style.
So there we go! Following his responses to questions 2 and 10, there’s clearly going to have to be a follow up interview, not least to save him from the cold embrace of obscurity that he fears so much.
The Most Sublime 
very cool read- Interesting that you are surrounding yourself with people that have a connection to Oklahoma. . . just saying. . . =)
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s a good point…. Is Oklahoma writing country? 😄
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, since it seems both of us left there- I would say the inspiration comes from leaving it. . . But part of me will always be there.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very cool- have to check it out. Interesting how you are surrounding yourself with people that have connections to Oklahoma… just saying.
LikeLike